Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 has been released, and it certainly makes for better browsing than the rough-around-the-edges beta 1 build. Rather than recommend the code only to web designers and developers of stout courage, Microsoft is throwing open the door for end-users one and all. The build adds some notable security and …
Strange that I decided to download this and give it a try..... The download page just hangs, and if i click "Start Download" manually, it displayes the "Cannot be displayed" page.....
Way to go MS. I might try to download in firefox instead......Nope, that's broken too. Oh well, FF3 for the win.
... they will always limp on step behind, calling stolen ideas "innovation", trying to give things their own "twist", and f*cking them up while doing so...
A few other of their "victims":
VMWare => Virtual PC
CItrix => Terminal Server
Visio...
...well, that whole OS (Overbloated System), actually!
No thanks. Why wouldn't I stick to the 'alternatives', especially when they are the originals?
Mine is the one with the 'Hoogo Bozz' label inside!
Internet Explorer offers central configuration & enforcement of settings and preferences using Group Policy. The "competition": sorry, you're at the mercy of your users. Want to lock out a particular browser add-on RIGHT NOW due to the emergence of a major security risk? With IE and Group Policy, that's possible.
IE offers central patching using WSUS (among other methods). The "competition": your team gets to go visit every desktop in person, unless you want to leave the work to your users.
IE is easy to audit, fleet-wide, using Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer to identify systems with insecure browser settings or unpatched browsers. Competition... "uh, no, who do you think we are, Microsoft or someone?"
If this weren't The Reg, maybe the overwhelming home-user perspective would be more understandable. When it comes to the I.T. arena, I think efficient manageability and auditing is extremely important, and I see no viable competitors to Internet Explorer in that realm, even after all these years. If the competition wants to be taken seriously in the I.T. space, waking up to the need for efficient manageability would really help their case.
Each Website was able to identify my location city customizing their responses. How private is that?"
The websites in question are probably doing that based on some convoluted lookups on your IP address (we wrote something similar to customise the home page of a store based on the visitor's country at my last company). Can't really blame MS for that, as it's kinda difficult to surf a site without it knowing your IP address - although if you find a way, I'm sure the folks at TPB would be interested in adding it to their new P2P protocol. ;)
(oh, and don't start quoting any of that TOR rubbish at me, and saying it obfuscates your IP)
over Microsofts brilliant and innovative browsing product. I'm sure in most cases here it was downloaded just to ridicule.
My experiences of IE stopped at IE5. I see no reason to confirm my suspicions and waste my time and bandwidth downloading this truly wonderful and exceptional window on the web just for a laugh. I leave that to the Reg faithful, thank you for providing some amusement with my morning coffee.
"Each Website was able to identify my location city customizing their responses. How private is that?"
Because the code to do this has absolutely nothing to do with whatever web browser you happen to be using.
This code just checks the originating IP address of the HTTP request (which you can mask only by using a proxy) and cross references it against a lookup database that lists the likely location.
So not a problem with IE8's "Privacy Mode" at all.
Netscape was a steaming pile of fail and the main reason I favour IE today is due to habits learned by using it to avoid dealing with netscape at all, if I could help it. If it wasn't for that I'd probably be a firefox or opera user, but now I'm just too comfortable with the way IE does things.
(Yes, I'm one of the people who uses IE by choice. Unless I'm using elinks.)
Looking at it objectively, I think its very good (and lets remember its STILL ONLY A BETA.
Its faster than FF3. Its kinder to the system, and its not a memory leach like Firefox is. FF3 is crap. I'll probably switch back to IE when this goes final, and I've used Firefox since 1.5.
I notice that there's no mention of them fixing (or even attempting to fix) their HOPELESS rendering engine?
Why is it that a software company with more financial resources than some governments can't manage to scrape together enough programming talent to build a better browser tha Firefox? Its laughable, frankly.
The usual MS approach. Stick on some more chrome, add a few minor "features", somehow use another 35% of your system resources, and release it a major version release.
When IE 7 hit, I joked to my work colleague that it would be funny if they fixed the CSS rendering bugs that made IE hacks work, but not fix the actual rendering bugs they addressed.
"Of course they won't do that. Only an IDIOT would do that"
OF course, I'll still have to install so I can see what a mess it makes of my CSS.
Where's the horned Ballmer icon?
Since IE8 is supposed to be "standards compliant", here are the ACID3 Test Scores of all current mainstream Browsers (all on WinXP SP3 if that matters):
83 - Opera 9.52
75 - Safari 3.1.2
71 - Firefox 3.0.1
21 - IE8 Beta2
12 - IE6 and IE7
Hardly impressive. At least it passes ACID2 now..
I've had no probelems with speed, the only thing which is slightly slugish is the new address bar features.
At 12 Mb its hardly bloaty.
The suggested sites seems a bit naff and compatibilty mode seems to get disabled on all of the MS websites how ever.
Why do we still have Bill icons he stepped down a while ago.
Ignoring the common Interweb usage of the word as a noun, we have Chambers:
fail (noun):
a failure, especially in an exam.
Wiktionary says:
fail (noun).
a failure, especially of a financial transaction; a failing grade in an academic examination; : To not achieve a particular goal.
I mark your comment a FAIL.
Actually, as a general rule I tend to be against the idea of tabs: you already have a 'tab bar' of sorts with the Windows Task Bar, and it seems logical to continue to use that as a single place to find things rather than creating another one. For that reason I prefer Word and Excel to use separate Task Bar entries for docs. However when Windows starts stacking them into one that can get annoying!
Have to admit though the tabbed browsing first in Opera, and more recently Firefox, is weaning me off this way of thinking. Whether I'll bother with IE8 though after the mess of IE7 pushed me to FF we'll have to see.
Still an all our yesterdays browser, falls well short of the performance offered by Opera, Firefox and Safari. Bloated, overweight, big footprint comparatively speaking, sluggish, page load delay on occasion.
If this is the best microsoft can do it will be yet another resounding failure!
WinXP Pro SP3 and Vista Ultimate x86 x64 Quad Core 8GB RAM
Good point. Hadn't considered large environments and their needs. Then again, you shouldn't be allowing direct external net access from within a company, it should all be squeezed through a proxy (for blacklisting, logging etc) which gives you a convenient choke point if you suddenly need to stop everything.
That doesn't address the versioning & general software control (FF addons etc) problems though.
"Well I'll just have to fix those stupid online dictionaries without fail then won't we?"
You can have a crack at the dictionary but don't write any online WIKIs on grammar mate.
Otherwise I'll have to fix them, wont' we?
arf arf
(Unless you were overloading that comment with irony.)
P.S. All your fail are hours!
@Beezer
As said above, ip address.... nub..... please engage brain before slating. Had the site tried to set a cookie with your location data, that would probably have been blocked. :)
@mechBgon
I agree totally. There are so many companies out there that totally fail torecognise that some guy somewhere has to deploy thier two bit software across potentially a huge userbase. Thankfully I only manage 150odd desktops but that's still above 'manual touch'. If I had to visit every desktop in a software rollout I'd never get anything else done ever but rolling out software.
Why more companies do not ship predefined admx templates for thier products is beyond me, especially for software that's pretty much everywhere (Adobe Reader/WinZip/Flash/Java) - yes I know I can write my own, and people have for some of those but that's just not the point. I don't want to mess around with the Adobe Customisation Wizard for ages repackaging thier bloat, I just want t deploy it and disable bits.
A little off topic, but you get the point. I expect IE8 will ship with admx templates, there might even be some already. Half the features at least will be covered by the existing one's.
I've installed the beta and so far I like it, it's an improvement on IE7, faster, lighter and at last tab recovery (why was it omitted from ie7?!?!?).
Posted on IE8 Beta 2 :)
I agree IE is very good with Group Policy software package management, down to very granular settings control.
I also agree these comments seem to bias to the home market usage, while my company machine base is tiny compared to the big players I find Group Policy and other central management systems provide essential time savings.
However there are various ways of supporting Firefox, albeit hacky by comparison. Some info at http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=873 Which I had to do to support some users on my network.
I have found most unsupported apps can be wrapped in a .msi calling the setup program with switches, as long as it supports switches that is.
Or the reverse of unwrapping the installer and accessing the msi's directly.
As far as I recall you can also manage Firefox extensions in the same way, calling Firefox to install the xpi file.
I am pretty sure you can also patch manage for firefox by rolling a new updated package marking it as a upgrade package. Though I had just added a script to uninstall the existing Firefox first as part of the installer. Which if setup correctly should uninstall and replace the existing one, while maintaining bookmarks etc.
Though I don’t know how System Center Essentials and Co alter the playing field for less natively supported application
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/essentials/en/us/default.aspx
Anyway, just my 2 pence
omglolbbq all ur FAIL are belong to ... proper gamatical usage?
Anyhew - much as IE7 was better than IE6, IE8 (the 'final' release) will be better than 7. No it won't be perfect, it'll probably still use ActiveX to achieve XMLHTTPRequest functionality and while it'll probably do fine for (X)HTML, the CSS and JS will, no doubt, still be borked to some degree... but, and I think this is important, they will be borked to a _lesser_ degree than they are now. This is a good thing.
Hell, I'll be happy if they've fixed the CSS box model so that they pad out rather than in.
Mind, I'll still use FF and Opera anyway - kthnxbye
A quick google revealed that there are at least two customised builds of Firefox that already support lock down via Active Directory. One is a by a company called Frontmotion and another is called FirefoxADM (though this looks like its been abandoned). I can't say I've ever used them as its not something that interests me, but it seems Firefox can be managed in a similar way to IE8.
Well, I can't argue about the benefits of being able to enforce group policies, but has anyone actually tried this with IE8 before heaping on the praise? The management apps we use allow us to view whatever version of pretty much ANY software installed, as well as letting us push out whatever updates we wish for most software, whether MS or not.
Centralized updates are great... if any are being released in a timely fashion. Firefox always checks for updates, and no waiting for "patch Tuesday" to get them, with a new exploit out on Wednesday. Microsoft's decision to ignore standards and create their own version of them is aggravating to say the least. And sadly, while we try to keep our company off of Firefox and other non-IE browsers for the reasons you state, we've had to install Firefox for many users to get both legacy and current web-based business apps to work right. (including ironically, parts of our helpdesk application) And don't get me started about ActiveX.
</rant>
Do we work for the same company??? We've had to do that too - specifically for our helpdesk app!!
A way to manage FF3 via Group Policy would be amazing; and as we use SMS to deploy packages, we could easily fit FF3 into a package and send it out. Patching is managed by the app - and if we had a GPO to do it with, we could simply ensure that all updates were downloaded and installed instantly.
Mine's the one with the orange canine on it.
Well, I have to ask if you really know what you are talking about. In real world, update is not an issue with any browser for large network for very simple reason:
1. the upgrade/update is very very slow comparing to "home users". Often, there will be no update at all. In large network, every upgrade/update should be tested, to ensure it doesn't break existing function/software. The most important thing would be keep business systems/environment running. The company Intranet, any web based applications, are not likely to change. So does the browser, once it is set, no change will be made to it.
2. Users are not accessing the Internet directly, they will all go through proxy and firewall. Certain sites or type of files will be blocked, users have no option any way.
At work, we stuck with IE6. The crap web application we must use is heavy activeX controlled. We don't have any "update". IE7 or 8 might work with our existing environment, but no one will risk it. This is the real world.
I'd very much like to use FF, however it is not an option for most users. Some from other sections can use FF for everything else, and IE6 for activeX controlled apps.
Sounds like your admin might've died, or just stopped caring. I'm an admin too. I use IE6 to punish people. Extremely large networks aren't all that different-- one just updates by department, and has a couple test machines. Methinks you might want to hire a couple consultants to scare your admin out of his complacency.
"Why is it that a software company with more financial resources than some governments can't manage to scrape together enough programming talent to build a better browser tha Firefox?"
OSS engine = many developers = innovation + security
Closed engine = only those you can find and hire = not so much innovation or security
@mechBgon et al.
Why are you still letting users run their own systems? You owe it to your companies and to yourselves as admins to give thin clients a try. And don't forget your common firewall/point of egress can be an exceptional place to manage surfing permissions.
@It's like this... AC
Yeah ... but Ford's market share is decreasing every year, losing it to Toyota and Honda, who are doing the innovating that Ford is trying to keep up with. Same with General Motors. Not innovating is called "stagnating". Playing catch-up is called .. er .. "playing catch-up". In any case, not innovating will eventually result in lost market share. Just ask Microsoft.
A valid point, and beyond a certain size of enterprise I'd consider central management an essential feature. Something which other browsers do need to address officially (not through third-party hack-jobs).
Sadly your potential FAIL is the poor bloody admins will still be rushing around like stressed out little ants dealing with individual cases of malware on separate machines if Microsoft do their usual stellar job of securing the browser.
Overall it sounds like progress for IE. I don't use it for my own browsing, but I do websites that have to work in it and any improvement to how it works will make my life a little more pleasant.
Also, competition is good, it keeps Mozilla/Apple/Opera from getting lazy and complacent like Microsoft were after IE6. Which means better browsers for everyone! Yay! :)
What you say is all very well, but unless I'm mistaken only applies to MICROSOFT shops. So sure, improved an IE is definitely a good thing there.
Much of the rest of the world would rather it rendered HTML, CSS and javaScript according to the standards. Fingers crossed, eh?
You're missing the point. Privacy mode isn't intended to make you unknown on the internet, it's to make it so session information is private on your computer (and removed on session close)
It's not that hard to read the IP you're connecting from, and geoIP it back to a city. No browser mode is going to change that.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fail
It's not a noun, people, it's a verb. The noun is "failure".
FAILURE. FaIlUrE. FAiluRE. fAiLuRe.
"... - now with 35 % less failure."
We may be used to not knowing correct English here in America, but I'd figured that English people should know their English language for some stupid reason.
Wrooooooooong, do it again...wrooooooooong, do it again...
"OSS engine = many developers = innovation + security
Closed engine = only those you can find and hire = not so much innovation or security"
Opera disproves your point: small company, closed-source, still creating one of the most secure and innovative browsers.
Moreover, I think "those you can find and hire" still equals "many developers" when you're talking about Microsoft's IE department. Just out of curiosity, are there any numbers available on how many people actively contribute to FF and IE development?
"Sounds like your admin might've died, or just stopped caring. I'm an admin too. I use IE6 to punish people. Extremely large networks aren't all that different-- one just updates by department, and has a couple test machines. Methinks you might want to hire a couple consultants to scare your admin out of his complacency."
We out sourced most of networking/admin ages ago, that's what big company/department/agency do. That's real world.
Do they care, hell no, the two current out source companies managing our networks got to be the worst of worst.
However, back to your point:
1. Couple of test machine is not enough, that's part of the problems we have had. Some of the special software/applications we use, don't like changing anything. I think our Intranet is pretty much locked with IE6. Matter of fact, changes are more likely to break our software/applications.
2. Don't you dare to use the word "consultant". Those blood suckers are the worst of IT world. Currently one of the biggest IT form is doing what they do best - charging us sky high amount of money for their consultants, while producing "products" worse than piece of shit.
I don't bother to compare FF + numerous plugins with IE8, as it's more applicable to compare with IE7 sans plugins - and in that respect it's an improvement.
And judging a product by its virtual resource consumption, especially when it is BETA, is somewhat silly.
And one thing I think MS do better than most is the UI, for pretty much all their products - open source products remind me of cheap knockoffs and always look dated to me.
--------------------------------
"http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fail
It's not a noun, people, it's a verb. The noun is "failure".
FAILURE. FaIlUrE. FAiluRE. fAiLuRe.
"... - now with 35 % less failure."
We may be used to not knowing correct English here in America, but I'd figured that English people should know their English language for some stupid reason."
--------------------------------------
NEVER use Webster to criticise the English Language.It's a Merkin abridged version of the OED that couldn't even get simple words correct, such as colour and favourite.
No one can compete with IE's features listed below. No one!
Internet Explorer offers central configuration & enforcement of settings and preferences using Group Policy. The "competition": sorry, you're at the mercy of your users. Want to lock out a particular browser add-on RIGHT NOW due to the emergence of a major security risk? With IE and Group Policy, that's possible.
IE offers central patching using WSUS (among other methods). The "competition": your team gets to go visit every desktop in person, unless you want to leave the work to your users.
IE is easy to audit, fleet-wide, using Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer to identify systems with insecure browser settings or unpatched browsers. Competition... "uh, no, who do you think we are, Microsoft or someone?"
If this weren't The Reg, maybe the overwhelming home-user perspective would be more understandable. When it comes to the I.T. arena, I think efficient manageability and auditing is extremely important, and I see no viable competitors to Internet Explorer in that realm, even after all these years. If the competition wants to be taken seriously in the I.T. space, waking up to the need for efficient manageability would really help their case.
Thanks to mechBgon for pointing out why FF, Opera, Safari and others will never win
I only use FF on Ubuntu at home, and have to use IE on XP at work for these reasons, because look after this market
Just the normal Microsoft bashing bullshite
Why do poeple still do this: M$, Microshit, Exploder... what a load of stupid giggling school boys, my browsers better than yours bullshite
Anyone who can't write Microsoft, or Explorer without reverting to childish terms is just a childish tw@
Without Microsoft using peoples innovations and selling it to the masses, there wouldn't be a need for hundreds of thousands of people to work in the IT business, whether they use Microsoft products themselves or at work or not
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