It Couldn’t Last

Microsoft is re-constituting the Windows IE team. Bill’s woken up to the danger.

In one way, this is bad. IE 6 is easy to compete with. It’s a buggy, insecure piece of junk. Just show people the pop-up blocker and tabbed browsing, and they are sold.

In another way, this is good. We (and the other browser vendors) have been recognised implicitly as having a better product – we are serious competition. And Microsoft is playing catch-up.

When Firefox gets stable and hits 1.0, there’ll be a massive publicity explosion. Our product is too good not to get converts. Then, when the new IE is released, the browser wars will return. Hopefully, this time, we’ll be competing on usability, not on how well we can balkanise the web…

22 thoughts on “It Couldn’t Last

  1. “Hopefully, this time, we’ll be competing on usability, not on how well we can balkanise the web”

    Heh – that may be a nice sentiment, but given that we’re in a position of trying to convert people from something that they have already, we won’t be. Also, the popup blocking advantage will be going out of the window probably before Firefox even gets to 1.0.

  2. The popup blocking advantage will still hold for all the people on Windows 98, ME, NT and 2000 and those people who have pirated copies of Windows XP. Sure this userbase is declining but it is still huge. I guess we’re talking about dozens of million users here.

  3. I find extremely amusing the name of the Standards section on the Internet Explorer wiki : “InternetExplorerStandards – requests for and discussion of standards support”. Yeah, that’s the problem : MSIE should implement Standards but it really implements InternetExplorerStandards :-)

  4. Return of the IE development team?

    I know I said I wasn’t going to blog much today, but oh well ;)

    Several blogs and now Slashdot are starting to buzz around the Internet about the possible resurrection of the Internet Explorer development team.

    Are the “Browser Wars” truly bac…

  5. A couple of comments:

    Just show people the pop-up blocker

    The most modern version of IE (the one included on the SP2 of Windows XP) already has a pop-up blocker… it’s a beta, but they already have this feature (Firefox it’s still something like a beta…).

    “, this time, we’ll be competing on usability, not on how well we can balkanise the web…

    As far as I remember, the first company that tried to balkanise the web in order to show the excellences of their browser was Netscape, not Microsoft.

  6. As far as I remember, the first company that tried to balkanise the web in order to show the excellences of their browser was Netscape, not Microsoft.

    Yes, and Netscape was roundly criticised by developers all over. And look what happened to them. But that was years ago and is irrelevent to today.

    How about MSN restricting access to content based on USER AGENT. Or causing content served to Opera users to break and Opera’s brilliant response (the Bork edition). Active-X.

  7. IE awakened, libProcNotification and why coding can be a hassle

    MS has decided to keep on developing Internet Explorer, and not freezing it ’till Longhorn gets ready to ship (if it ever will ;))
    The author mentions some reasons why this is AGT (A Good Thing). I see one more (ok, probably I’m not the first one, but…

  8. All I can say is, ABOUT TIME! IE is the most outdated when it comes to supporting the most current web standards. I find it incredible that they would even think of stopping developement, as they did. Thankfully there are people out there(Mozilla) who keep pushing onward.

    Microsoft says it’s ‘monopoly’ is a benefit to the end user. But we see, when they think they have no reason to persevere, they sit on their lazy behinds until competition finally forces them to do so.

    Well now look what you’ve done to me.I’m gettin all worked up ;-)

  9. If you are a Mozilla developer, Mozilla is doomed. You sound more like a Slashdot user, rather than a developer. Nobody recognized you, you are masturbating to yourself here. Let me remind you the IE’s market share, the worst I heard is 93%. And that’s mostly because on Macs, Safari become the default browser. If you guys continue to have this slashdotter attitude, you would become irrelevant for Windows in the near future. Oh, yeah I use Firefox, but I am not an idiot. I use it because its tabbed browsing and rendering makes me more productive. That’s why I use it, I didn’t switch to mozilla until Firefox. Instead of masturbating like slashdotters, go there and fix the mozilla bugs that has been there for years.

  10. Nobody recognized you, you are masturbating to yourself here… Instead of masturbating like slashdotters

    Wow- you sure have a thing for wanking, dontcha

  11. ok, you guys are taking this stuff a bit too serious… I don’t know if you have noticed, but no one really cares what browser they are using; *that’s* why MS won the battle. IE is not secure because Windows is not secure.. and because IE and windows are so deeply tied. Mozilla is not and OS so you can’t exactly compare it to IE.

    True innovation wont come until HTML goes out the door. For the time being, there’s nothing browser makers could do that would make users switch browsers.

    “Tabbed-Browsing”? IE provides the same, only that you switch windows with ALT-TAB instead of Ctrl-Tab.

  12. In pure /. fashion (just cause I know it will piss him off) I give Daniel a -5 shithead.

    Read his other posts on the other blogs mentioned in the (ahem) slashdot article.

    He has said nothing construtive, and has resorted to name calling and attacks on OSS developers in all his posts on this topic. Not one constructive thing about IE at all. (All attack, no defense? — Hi SCO!)

    Now.. Having said all that. Daniel DOES seem to be focusing on IE from a purely “build the IE business” perspective. And he may have a valid point or two. But they are buried in the curse words and generalized attacks he seems to favor.

    A few less vitrolic exclamations, and a reasoned arguement or two, and Daniel might get a modicum of repsect for his opinions.

    Just a thought.

  13. Tabbed browsing can be implemented in 10 minutes using IE as ActiveX control. Is tabbed browsing is really an innovation? IE has GREAT extensibility features, and plugins written to IE4 are working now. Mozilla’s plugin need to be recompiled every time new version is released. THIS is an innovation. IE4 was written in 1997 and it beats Mozilla in terms of extensibility and object model.

    IE definitely will really hit again in Longhorn timeframe, when all rendering will be aero-powerered and will have GREAT visual quality.

    THIS is an innovation. When all pages will be compiled in native code at run-time in IE7 and will be executed with a very high performance, it is an innovation. When HTML with 100000 of active elements will be rendered and animated with 100fps and, this is an innovation. Tabbed browsing and popup-blockers is marketing bullshit. If you are developer, you understand me.

  14. Said lexp:

    “IE has GREAT extensibility features, and plugins written to IE4 are working now.”

    Well, at least until WinXP SP2’s security enhancement break them. :-)

    Seriously though, it’s extensible to the point that you can get people to install your ActiveX controls. Mozilla does that too (see: http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/ ). The trouble is that those controls (or extensions, or plugins, or whatever you want to call them) take a while to download (most users are still on dial-up) and users tend to be gun-shy about installing unknown software–as well they should be, what with all the mal/ad/spyware floating about.

    Even putting aside the those issues, you write ActiveX controls with what, VB? C++? Mozilla extensions are JavaScript + CSS + markup, offering a much flatter learning curve especially for people who already know the Web. More, if I write a Moz extension I can deploy it on a wide range of OSes. That’s not true of ActiveX; my two Macs would be left out in the cold, and I expect I’d have more than a bit of trouble getting some controls settled down on both the Win2K and Win98 machines.

    “IE definitely will really hit again in Longhorn timeframe, when all rendering will be aero-powerered and will have GREAT visual quality.”

    Meh. I’ve already got a browser with GREAT visual quality. It’s called Safari. It uses Quartz on OS X.

    Speaking of, IE on OS X doesn’t look too shabby either, and it’s been EOLed.

    “When all pages will be compiled in native code at run-time in IE7”

    Why in [deity]’s name would I want static web pages to be compiled to native code?

    “and will be executed with a very high performance”

    I’m not having a lot of performance issues with most pages as-is. For serious animations and/or heavy-duty UIs, you may have a point.

    Or not, given the advances in computing hardware. Frankly, I’m smelling the old ‘XML sucks because it’s bloated text–binary is where it’s at, dood’ argument again.

    “When HTML with 100000 of active elements will be rendered and animated with 100fps”

    Which I need for what? Games, certainly. Cartoon/film type animation, probably. What else? I’m having trouble here….

    What I really need is a good, solid *basic* UI/layout toolkit that works reasonably consistently across multiple platforms. Something I can deploy with relative simplicity across Windows, Mac, Linux, etc., and ideally Palm, Symbian and WinCE/PocketPC/Stinger/whatever with minimal redevelopment.

  15. Internet Explorer not dead after all?

    Slashdot had this tidbit: Mozilla developer Gervase Markham blogged that Microsoft is putting their IE team back together after first telling everyone IE6 would be the last one to comeout in the infamous (hehe) Internet Explorer software line. David

  16. To address the “Why bother, you’ll only loose since MS as such a huge market share…” attitude, I would like to point back to Linux. Over and over again, people have said that about Linux and next year it is expected to be on 30% of the new servers shipped! It is only matter of time before it has a noticable share of the desktop. Of course, everyone knows this but… with Mozilla, I can have a uniform brower on both my Linux and Windows desktops.

    Personally, I think that whatever is used in the office is what will eventually be used at home. Most [non-geek] people get their computer training at the office. If they learn Mozilla at the office, they’ll use Mozilla at home. If I tell them to use Mozillla, they will. Just like I usually do what I am told by my mechanic (eventhough I used to work on cars myself). Yes, this is an over simplification, but overall, it is true. I’ve been converting people from Outlook to Thunderbird and they LOVE IT!

    So IE is back, big deal. Of course, MS will try to fight back but remember what it is trying to protect. MS has proven that the browser that is shipped with the OS will be the one that is used. I doubt that MS will be encouraging IE to be shipped with Linux.

    For now, geeks will be early abopters, on our computers, our networks and our friends computers. When Linux moves into that market, we’ll be saying “Sure, Mozilla runs on Linux, go ahead and switch.”

  17. “When HTML with 100000 of active elements will be rendered and animated with 100fps”

    I will appreciate to have my eyes burned by hundreds of animations telling me that I have 10% off on the last marketing product.

  18. If new development for IE includes improving support for webstandards, then this is a positive thing.

    It doesn’t matter if it is harder to convert IE users to Firebird or other browsers. Don’t forget about what is really important. It isn’t which browser has the biggest market share. It’s the open standards. They are the great equalizer. If every web browser supports the standards then everyone can be happy and use whatever browser they want.

    The big question is: how committed is MS to improving their standards support? At this point I don’t believe that they are seriously committed to it. They are just doing damage control so they don’t lose any significant browser market share. I believe their focus will be more on bells and whistles than web standards. They will improve their standards support just enough to calm the angry web developers and prevent a mass exodus to other browsers. Forget about serious additions like XForms. Then, when the clamor over Firefox dies down and people become content with using IE again, Microsoft will suddenly stop caring.

    But I could be wrong. In fact I hope that I am wrong. Please, Microsoft, prove me wrong.

  19. THIS is an innovation. When all pages will be compiled in native code at run-time in IE7 and will be executed with a very high performance, it is an innovation.

    Can the virus’s come and compile too? CAN THEY!?

  20. If IE7 supports standards, then well done Microsoft, if it doesn’t then they should take notice that I will be disappointed…very disappointed. They could make ‘standards’ into a marketing gimmick or something, just bring ’em in!

    Nobody talks about Opera because nobody likes paying even a small price [to get rid of the ad] if there are very ‘similar’ alternatives.