IEBlog

> we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer.

That's FANTASTIC news! Thank you!

Any hints as to what will be updated?

Any released information stating your commitment to modern coding practices -- meaning XHTML, CSS, XML... not to mention full PNG support? Aside from security, this has been the reason why we've dropped IE's usage company wide -- I have the choice of building one internet application for all users; or one for IE users. We don't want to waste money doing both anymore.

Here's the press release of Bill Gates' announcement this morning:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/feb05/02-15RSA05KeynotePR.asp

Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.

VERY glad to hear we're looking at a new IE!

Got a question, though:

It's clear you have been listening to those parties (customers, analysts, and partners) who directly or indirectly most affect your *monetary* bottom line, and that's understandable for any business.

However, for content creators, web developers, and related "creative" types trying to make things work across platforms, are there as yet any plans in place/in progress to more fully support not only MS-specific technologies, but open standards such as:

- CSS
- XHTML
- PNG
- SVG
- MathML
- etc.
??

It's truly great that MS has "heard" and is "committed"--I do hope that enhancing the support of such open standards (developed by W3C-type bodies of which MS is a part) is part of that "listening" and "commitment". The folks at Mozilla.org and Opera, to name just two, have been able to do this to a much greater extent to date, but I *have* to believe it's possible for MS to do this (even in addition to more proprietary solutions contained within the same browser).

Please comment on this for the benefit of all concerned. Thanks.

Fantastic news! Now, you know what people want... go out and build the best damn browser you can.

The IE blog is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing an IE 7 this summer. It appears that their plans to use Longhorn as the delivery vehicle for browser upgrades has been reversed. The only question I have is will they actually improve their rendering capabilities, or will this be a UI hackjob to bring their five year old app up to a contemporary featureset. Actually, I have one more question. Why are they leaving out over hundreds of millions of users by not offering this to users of Windows pre-XPSP2? Scoble's posted too. I expect Cnet to have something up today....

Amazing guys :)

This is great news, but I can't help but think to myself, 'Geez, they've had 3 years already. Where have these guys been?' I eagerly await the new IE, but I doubt I will switch from my current browser...

> Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.

How so? Consider also that competition is very healthy. Without all those "firefox users" it's unlikely you would even be seeing this IE7 build at this time.

A few things id like to see are the ability to turn tabbed browsing off (i dont like it - assuming this will be included) and the ability to write managed plugins.

I'm with Patrick, FF and a bunch of Microsoft customers complaining are responsible for the upcoming IE 7.0, but whatever the motivation, I, too, am glad it's coming!

I am down to about 60/35 (Safari for the other 5%) usage with IE barely being used more than FF . Looking forward to seeing integrated RSS in IE7 (I'm sure this will be just one of many features).

Excellent news!

Great news !

Features like Tabbed Browsing wood be just nice !
But let to you time for working on the security of the Internet Explorer.

As above my priority is code compatibility. If IE's rendering engine can't much Firefox's I still won't use it.

windows2000supportrequest++;

Please just fix the rendering! Do the web a favour!

You've got a great opportunity here; you can still get back a lot of those people who have switched from IE, I'm sure. Please understand that it is more than just security as our concern; the rendering engine is something we, the 'creative' people all want to be better.

In fact, if you implement the CSS3 draft, you will have a VERY MAJOR advantage over FF, which does not yet support it.

Oh good to hear it!

But how long do you have to hear people scream and scream and scream that they need and want an updated IE? You play it as if you guys are doing your customers a favor! Get real! You're only doing it because FF is gaining popularity.

Stick to standards and don't add any MS proprietary bs to it and I'm sure you'll win back a lot of the fans you've lost.

Wicked news!!!
Is yous givin da beta to us or do me has to be beta tester in da house?
IE is wicked. Respect to ya.
Me and ma julie is waiting for it! FF and OP is no alternatives 2 IE but lots of da homies outside ain't believe that!

It would be really nice to see IE support CSS2, alpha PNG, etc.
If Microsoft wants to give IE users a full experience, they should really implement this. I currently develop sites for standards-compliant browsers: IE will be able to view the site but not with all fancy things like transparency.
If it will be fixed, I'd be really thankful to Microsoft and I'm sure many others will be too.

sound good! It's sure to succeed!!
good luck!
rock

>A few things id like to see are the ability to turn tabbed browsing off

What do you mean? If you don't choose to open links in a new tab, you might not notice that tabbed browsing is supported at all. Why would you want to turn it off?

IE8?

Originally they weren't going to update Internet Explorer until the next version of Windows came out (Longhorn... longtooth... long-in-coming), but Gates just announced that they will be coming out with v7 sometime this summer. Funny how all those people running to download Firefox made enough noise to cause M$ to reconsider....

torresburriel.com » ?Ya viene Internet Explorer 7?

What about Server 2003? I'd like to have a more secure verison of IE to put on my terminal servers :)

“Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”

Then reading the actual blog entry and press release it seems that MS is not listening. The comments here mention CSS and PNG support yet there is no mention in any of the "official" statements that these will ever be improved.

OSX ... OSX ... OSX . . . wherefore art thou?

Scoble mirrors a statement on the IE blog: Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.First, some basics: we're committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers....

OSX..OSX... I think this move is primarily designed to get MS's userbase back. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I think they're going to try and get it out as quick as possible and unfortunately OSX (and maybe 2000/2003) support just can't be included in that. I'm sure support for it will follow ASAP.

OSX ... OSX ... OSX . . . wherefore art thou?

Keep looking theres about 3% of the population using it, so you may find one if your lucky.

Will it work on linux and beos?

TABBED BROWSING - Please!

Considering MS had 3 years to fix simple things like PNG support and CSS support, I say forget about IE7. It's Firefox all the way, and W3C web standards > MS proprietary standards.

Firefox > IE any day/month/year/decade/millennium

That is some really great news, thanks for the info!

Hmm... Why can't I help thinking, we're all going to be so disappointed?

Excellent news, most excellent. As a developer, some improvement in both the standards adhered to and the usability would be nice, but most important is improving security. Got to get rid of that phishing, and have to shut down ActiveX's misuse as an enabling mechanism for Spyware.

I use both Firefox and IE, and I think the increased development activity in both camps will only improve the web experience for everyone.

Don't bother, just give up and go home. Microsoft is on the way out and Gates is getting desperate, even threatening Danish politicians now if they don't back his Euro policies - disgusting. Good riddance to your lame software.

I strongly reccomend you ignore the negative comments above. I hate Firefox, and I'm not the only one. You make it, and we will listen.

Excellent news. As someone who develops apps that embed the web browser and MSHTML, I can't wait to find out what additional features are going to be added.

Interesting timing too, because just last week I had a dream where I got a preview CD of IE7.

great news, but my webserver blocks msie agents :P

Well, this announcement would be good news. Only a few problems:

1) Our shop still uses Win2k, not XP, so a browser version which is not backward-compatible with previous OS versions is going to go over about as well as a lead balloon around here.

2) Even if the new browser is good enough to make us upgrade our operating system (unlikely, but I will grant the possibility) our clients will NOT follow suit. They are understandably reticent about requiring their users to spend more money than necessary to use their product, and requiring them all to upgrade to XP is going to be a significant expense.

3) This strikes me as the same mentality of Best Buy and other retailers who offer to "match any lower price." This has always annoyed me. Why should I let you MATCH the lowest price? Why not reward the retailer who came out with the lowest price ORIGINALLY? By the same token, I see no reason to switch back to IE, just because they have finally caught up with Firefox!

It makes me realise that IE7 is not going to be written ground up and also its not stripped out of the underlying windows security mechanism(*fiasco*). I would wait to see what it can offer, I keep my expectations really low though.

It would be great if IE7 will fully support at least 1998's W3C specifications. Let's hope so.

hi yes me two glad ie7 is coming i hope that ie7 shuts of close ad pop up in there pop up blocker to abilities to take off ads on websites so the page is freash clean with out ads that would be nice and to like yahoo toolbar they have anti spy cleanner that scan your system for ads and deletes them off your computer hope it is possible that ie7 has it in there broswer built in button on the toolbar that customers can scan clean there system from ie pop ups

This sounds very much like a 'hang-in-there' message to all the corporations out there thinking about switching to Firefox... After all the betas and delays, I would expect a final IE7 to be out no earlier than spring 2006.

Reading the description of what is to come, IE7 sounds like little more than a glorified XP SP3...

Also, I believe maintaining compatibility = not touching the rendering engine. So, don't hold your breath for real CSS or PNG support...

Scoble and Dean reports: "...we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2...

@GodaiNoBaka
"By the same token, I see no reason to switch back to IE, just because they have finally caught up with Firefox!"

"Caught up" is maybe a little strong for what they have done so far ... ;-)

please please please let is support web standards and a proper DOM.

I think it's fantastic the the most insecure, noncompliant browser since at least 1995 is getting an update. Any idea on who cares?

Veerle's blog

The CNET article on the IE7 beta quotes Bill Gates as saying "Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability."

Yes, browsing is a point of vulnerability. Those of us who are concerned about security have already switched to Opera, Firefox or another operating system.

... and I say this as an ASP / ASP.NET developer.

@nobby

This is just good business sense. Microsoft's first duties aren't to its customers, but its shareholders. Telling politicians that European companies can't compete (even if they can still patent their stuff in America!) is just good business.

Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You're always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give 'genetic' diversity, different standards give memetic diversity.

It is rarely in Microsoft's business interests to interoperate with software made by others, except to ease migration TO (and certainly not FROM) MS software.

As Richard Stallman is fond of saying, there are two types of competition, and I agree:

1 - the competition to have the best features
2 - slagging off and otherwise squeezing your competitors - which he calls combat.

Microsoft can't win type 1, because as soon as it innovates open sourcers will copy. It must therefore win type 2.

Announcing this on the same day that FF was downloaded 25 million times is an excellent example of this. Patents are another excellent example. Financial leverage - ie buying out companies and then threatening to fire the employees - is another good example. Pretending for so long that IE was only going to come out in Longhorn encouraged the competition to become lazy and not release new features - yet another example. Microsoft has handled the whole affair skilfully, and the move away from developer skill to legal skill with considerable aplomb.

MS developers may not be as friendly or approachable as the Firefox crew, but they handle themselves more professionally, and I certainly accord them all due respect for their business savvy.

I hope that the new version be more compatible with web standards...

regnskygge.net » The lathe of heaven?

Competition will be interesting. If IE7 isn't released for previous Operating systems (2000, XP minimum), then I don't see how many will care.

Most IE users with any technical knowledge have already duck-taped it with enough addon popup blocking, anti this, anti that, etc. that it's buldging at the seams.

If it isn't built secure from the ground up and ripped away from the framework of the OS, it will be a dud.

For now, and the conceivable furture, Firefox/Safari/Opera remain the viable options for secure web browsing.

If it supports recent web standards however, it may stand a chance. Web development today requires using standards, and so do users of their browsers.

Last but not least, quit taking months to get a n issue fixed.


Here are a few examples:
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/netsec/2001-11/msg00012.html
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115664,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118172,00.asp

Here is an exerpt from the last cited source:

########################################################################
################
Slow on the Update?

eEye Digital Security criticized Microsoft for taking its time on some
of the patches, with a patch for the Zip issue taking 71 days from when
Microsoft was notified of the problem. A less serious
privilege-escalation issue took Microsoft 408 days to patch, eEye said.
Both were fixed in the August release of SP2 before being released this
week as stand-alone patches.

Sophos' Cluley responded that speed isn't always the most important
concern with patching. "As long as information about how to exploit the
problem doesn't get out, it's probably better for them to take the time
to make sure the patch works properly," he said.

He noted that in the past some of Microsoft patches have required
patches of their own because they haven't worked or have created new
problems.
########################################################################
################

Yeah, fantastic news. Another version to get kicked in the ass by Firefox.

Please add support for the currently used major technologies:

* Real PNG Support
* CSS 2 Support
* DOM 2 Support (Event Handling, ...)
* XHTML Support

..sooner than one might have expected? Although I doubted for long that anything good would ever come out of Microsoft's Internet Explorer department, and Tom Sommer still doubts (see this chat transcript on Microsoft TechNet saying there would not be any

I would like IE7 to perform the way my monitor performs. And by that I mean that a web page should only be able to control what is drawn on the canvas and not the browser UI. Things like changing the status bar text, making it full screen, changing scroll bar appearance, etc should not be allowed period.

Ensight - Jeremy C. Wright » IE 7 Announced

We need TABBED BROWSING please!

Here's an idea for how Microsoft can fix IE. Replace it with Firefox.

quote_____
If it isn't built secure from the ground up and ripped away from the framework of the OS, it will be a dud.

For now, and the conceivable furture, Firefox/Safari/Opera remain the viable options for secure web browsing.
_____/quote
Actually, I find IE incredibly secure as it is. SP2 WAS a big improvement. In fact, I didn't get any viruses or spyware pre-SP2, due to the steps I took to secure it. I use IE because Firefox does not conform to the Win32 GUI Defaults; to me, those defaults are just as important as web standards.

Glad to hear users will finally be getting an update! Whatever some of us may think of IE personally, a lot of our users use it, and if improvements to IE make their use of our sites and applications better and more secure I'm very happy to see it happen.

The announcement mentions security as a strong focus; it would be great news if this means that IE will start respecting the Content-type header to help close some cross-site scripting and other attack vectors through misidentified file types. This was added for XP SP2 but disabled by default, leaving the vast majority of users on the vulnerable setting.

If that's not going to happen, we web developers could really use better documentation on the content-type autodetection to protect our users against maliciously created files which exploit the detection heuristics.

For the first time, last week, I made firefox part of the default disk images, and the default browser, for our company. If Win2k isn't supported by IE7, then it looks like Firefox won't be coming off the image for a long time.

I would much rather not have to deal with multiple browsers, but right now MS hasn't made it possible to do that with it's own product. But Firefox doesn't render some things as nicely as IE (OWA, in particular). So, we're stuck with 2 products, which together make a pretty good whole unit.

Please, please, please add Alpha PNG support to IE7. Us web developers are severely limited by IE's inability to properly render .png's. In my mind this issue is second only to security.

Additionally, proper CSS2 support would be very nice.

...in terms of setting standards...we need a browser that can read images that are tagged with ICC profiles!...and of course intergrated spell chck,chk...check:)!!

Why the Web Needs Color Management

http://www.color.org/wpaper2.html

First, all you IE7 fans have to thank mozilla.org for this gift from Redmont. There would be no standalone IE7 if Firefox was't available and popular.

Second, if Microsoft does not want to support older OS versions, it's their problem. As I do not plan upgrading to XP, I don't care about this vaporware. Not at all. Especially as I already moved to Mozilla camp.

Third, with a beta in summer dont't expect a final IE7 before Christmas. By the time Mozilla & Firefox will implement the rest of CSS3 (at least the parts published so far) and as lot of other goodies. Remember that Firefox is not a sitting duck but a moving target.

I've betaed every version of IE since I grabbed IE 4 on a 14.4 modem, so of course I'll be getting the IE 7 beta when it comes out.

Don't bet on me using it as my primary browser, though. Previous versions only had to fight their predecessor for a place on my Quick Links bar, which was always easy. But this time, it'll have to beat Firefox in usability, tweakability, security, and standards compliance--all places where Firefox is currently killing IE.

Good luck, guys--I expect this will be an interesting battle.

Also wanted to stress STANDARDS COMPLIANCE, better css and dom support, PNG support, along with everyone else.

If the opportunity is missed yet again to finally properly implement these features properly, and to finally engineer a standards compliant browser, IE will officially be dead to me.

With IE 6 and WinXP SP2, if I print most webpages to an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, the right side of the webpage will almost always get cut off.

I can print these pages fine in Firefox.

Will IE7 fix these printing problems?

I wonder If there is a Roadmap or a plann about the changes / Releases or something that let us know what's comming? I'm almost sure IE7 won't Include Tabbed browsing and maybe not IDN implementations, si, But what will It be? Full support for PNG? JPG2000?
I need to develop a site (Long Term development) and I would like to know what to spect for.
Thanks In advance

I think one thing can be said here; 'Microsoft, this is your last chance. Get it right. Please.'

I believe that you can do it.

Maybe now my CSS and XHTML valid web page will display properly in some version of IE.

Is microsoft going to get into the infinte beta software world? As you wrote "We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is ready..."
I'm starting to see Google (beta) this (beta) that and never get enything working production quality. Sounds like you guys are trying to imitate others which is odd considering your (MS) past history.

Too late... already switched to Firefox.

Please Microsoft. Add PNG support!

Good to hear...

Just remember while working on v7 that its STANDARDS and CONSISTENCY that are important. I don't mean to pull out the soapbox here but if we are going to make any strides towards a semantic web we have all got to start playing on the same page. It won't happen if site designers consistently need to invent and deploy browser hacks to make things work.

Oh, since the ASP.Net team is planning to have xhtml 1.1 set as the default rendering you might want to consider having IE 7 support "application/xhtml+xml" without gaging and cleaning up the CSS implementation (borders on outside, (min|max)-(height|width)support, etc) before worrying about things like tabbed browsing and integrated RSS support.

I do honestly like you guys but sometimes I have to wonder how much of the grey in my beard is from dealing with my brother and how much is from dealing with quirky MS implementations :)

Microsoft should just fund FireFox development instead of spending more money on IE.

I forgot to say complete the support for css2 and all those thinks you already know (Including the Xforms W3C recomentation).
Best Regards.

If that involves making Firefox a decent browser, sure. But since it isn't, I'd rather they crush it.

Opposite of Sequitur
[log]
= IE7, for realz? // Seth Thomas Rasmussen

If they're going to call it "IE 7" there better be more than just security upgrades. There better be new features, full support for PNG, CSS, and other technologies, and much more. Otherwise, it really is just IE6 SP3.

As for me, I'm eternally thankful I'm using Firefox on a Mac.

Good to hear that the stable door is going to be firmly closed in a few months time.

What horse?

(My previous post was targeted @bob).

NorthPole, there is no need to repeat yourself.

Freedreams » Inmenso Excremento 7

> I think of today’s announcement as a clear
> statement back to our customers: “Hey,
> Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”

Hmm, I think you can beter formulate this sentence like: "Due to the unexpected, rapid, growth of alternative browsers, MS is forced to .."

Please Please add tab browsing!

Forgive my cynicism, but somehow I think this will just make my life as a web developer harder than easier. I'm truly fed up of making sites support the outdated, buggy IE - please take this opportunity to embrace standards as well as security issues.

Since it will not support W2k in our corporate environment we will continue our conversion of all computers to Firefox.

I'm a longtime Microsoft web developer who finally switched to Firefox for most of my browsing. Though it seems to spawn itself a little slower, and there's a couple of bugs that I found slightly annoying, the convenience of the browser won me over. I enjoy being able to resize text to any size, even if it is specified in pixels with CSS. Tabbed browsing makes managing intense browsing sessions so much easier. All kinds of cool developer add-ons make my life easier.
I still use IE for testing site appearances of course, and I have to use it for certain Microsoft/MSDN "IE only" only web applications. It's going to be hard to switch me back to IE as my default browser unless they lift wholesale all of the cool and convenient features of FireFox. If only IE7 had come a little earlier...

Yes, security may be the announced reason for this new release of IE, but I think Firefox is one of the major reasons...I suspect Microsoft is a little worried.

IE7 developers -- not sure how much motivation you have to do this, but if you do one thing, please make sure that IE7 can handle CSS/XHTML standards correctly. IE6 already does a fairly good job, but just make extra sure that IE7 implements standards correctly. (This is also your chance to fix the few things that are not handled yet by FireFox). That way if IE maintains it's domination over the browser market, fellow developers everywhere will be grateful and respectful to you! ;) If you can't get your managers to agree, maybe you can sneak it in! We developers have to maintain some sort of integrity besides what the managers and marketers say.

Thanks

IE7

So we're going to get an Internet Explorer version 7 this year (in beta). That should theoretically be good news but we'll see what features it will support. I doubt they're going to do any kind of tabbed browsing (which is what makes Firefox ...

Good, because IE 6 really stinks. IE needs to be improved really badly.

<p><img src="http://online.tu-graz.ac.at/prod/img/ie.gif" />So, it comes...</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx" class="bb-url" target="_blank">IE Blog</a> Internet Explorer 7 will be out for testing in

This announcement is just lip service. It's a feeble attempt at damage control because IE has been slammed for legitimate reasons all over the press lately.

A beta release this summer? Give me a break. This is too little too late. The damage is done, the marketshare is being lost, and there is not a lot that an update targeted at XP SP2 exclusively will do to fix anything.

Yes, I wish I could be more optimistic about this, but MS's track record to this point has been anything but stellar. Optimism will have to be earned.

Yes this is excellent news.

A few preliminary words...

My experience with IE 6 since its release has been fine as paint - all I have to do is not browse like a moron and weird crud stays off my system. It has serviced me very well, and there has never been any chance of me switching to a second-rate browser with a tortoiselike development process. As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it.

That said, I look forward to IE 7. I expect the same take-my-breath-away innovation that Microsoft has repeatedly demonstrated over the years in the full breadth of its products. I won't pretend to know what's in store, because no matter what I guess, I will be pleasantly surprised. I always am.

My theory is that MS is downloading the source code for FireFox and slapping a big ol' lowercase E on it. Haha.

Seriously, MS never responds to anything unless they are desperately trying to keep market share...or gain it. Don't let Billy fool you. This is about market share, not security.

In all honesty... I'm seriously disappointed that neither this blog entry, nor the press release put to paper any firm decisions. I've seen a lot of people whining about how their sites don't work in IE and this and that. Those people aren't good web developers, and coding a site that works in only one browser is bad no matter how you slice it.

IE has had plenty of time to get its crap together and hopefully they do it right with IE7. Beyond that, I do not see proprietary standards as such a problem because, first and foremost, IE is aimed at delivering the best end user experience, even if the code is non-standard. So, say some person didn't write perfect code. Do you want some garbled unreadable mess? Or do you want a managable web page? I've had to use and come up with tons of work arounds for both browsers, and the fact of the matter is that FireFox, while a decent piece of 1.0 software, is exactly that. It's 1.0, and I will contest that it does not deliver a better end user experience on a site coded by someone who has no idea what W3C-standards are.

All I really want, out of any browser, is a good end user experience. That, to me, means PNG alpha tranparency, full and proper CSS support, and a good end user experience.

Moreover, IE7 is long overdue, and I hope to all hell that if they plan to spend another three years with the same piece of software, that they will at least look far enough forward to cover possible forthcoming technologies.

Please include better support for CSS. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE support alpha PNGs... WHY is it that hard?

Firefox is still going to be better, one main reason. As more people use IE the more attackers will write code for IE, its that simple. Firefox is vulnerable and so is Mozilla

Webfroot &raquo; Internet Explorer 7 on the horizon

I'm sorry, but this announcement is useless. Microsoft has continued security enhancements and still haven't committed to any new features. I've switched to Firefox until MS gives me a good reason to switch back.

MS has a history of ignoring other systems; will I be able to import my Firefox bookmarks? Will I have tabbed browsing, even if the answer is "yes" Microsoft needs to come out with a faster more feature rich browser, bringing them up to par still won't be enough as most hackers target IE and any bugs will rapidly have exploits written to take advantage of them.

So while this is good marketing, it’s empty marketing until they tell us what they plan to add.

Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows...

N.N. Thayer said:

"My experience with IE 6...has serviced me very well, and there has never been any chance of me switching to a second-rate browser with a tortoiselike development process. As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it."

You misunderstand - the development process becomes tortoise-like because of the IE bugs one must work around when using standard development techniques (CSS, XHTML, eg). Why code for other browsers using standard development techniques? Because with the popularity of other browser on the rise, it makes no sense to code for one browser, unless you *like* to pigeonhole yourself and potentially kill everything you have done. Thusly, developers get frustrated with IE for not playing well with others.

Sounds great! (sorry to hear it is only for XP)

So, BY DEFAULT, JScript, VBScript, and Active-X will be turned off!, correct?

Can't wait till it will be safe to use IE, at companies that won't allow software upgrades.

Best part is, all my DOM/ECMAScript/XUL Applications will work without changing a line of code! (or will they?)

Wow, who would have thought that IE would almost be able to catch up to Firefox.

Please fix web standards (CSS, PNG, etc.) and remove IE from Windows. That would be a significant improvement.

NOTE: the blog is running slowly right now and it may take a while for your post to show up.

Please avoid double posting - if it didn't error out when you posted, then trust that the post will (eventually) show up. Give it a while.

Thanks
Bruce

I like Firefox a lot, but I'll be the first to admit that some FF zealots sound a lot like -- well, Mac zealots, or sports team zealots, or TV...

This is only good news because the dumb users who bother with IE will be more protected. Less business for me, but fixing computers after users screwed them up with IE is not something I like to do anyway.

Webstandards please!...
CSS!

http://secunia.com/product/11/

Lovely isn't it? MS can't even fix the security bugs that still plagues IE.

I've been working on a standards-based conversion of a major retail site, and we have run into a number of IE anomalies, the most painful of which has been issues with the float attribute.

These two pages list most of the issues we encountered:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/dup-characters.html
http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/common.html

And of course, proper .png support would be cool, too.

I don't understand how everybody is demanding these features in IE7 when every other browser supports these features?

If Microsoft's idea of innovation is to rip off ideas already in practice for three years, why bother...

Every user demanding PNG support and Tabbed browsing should have already switched to a browser that *does* support it...

GodaiNoBaka, http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx#373230 has said it best with his third point...

BestBuy and other retailers which offer to beat the lowest price are simply followers in the retail market... don't support this kind of business and move to the companies that offer the best price fair and square...

IE7 is nothing but a follower... don't get your hopes up...

Haha, this is actually quite ridiculous. Still no word on such a simple issue as PNG-alpha support (http://www.petitiononline.com/msiepng/petition.html).

/Vidar

I'm not thrilled on any kind about this news.. What Bill Gates will screw up this time? I'm sure this is not just an upgrade, it will probbably block other programs/companies that came up with these new ideas to monopolize browsing. Thank god for firefox!

Please license Presto from Opera. It is a lot faster and more compliant than Trident.

The support for standards (most importantly CSS, PNG, XHTML) ranks right up there with security. Please take the time to do this right and don't release IE7 without proper standards compliance.

It would be very nice for MS to fix the inability to float elements over select drop-downs and to fix printer output positioning. These two bite me constantly as a IE-only developer.

(quote)Firefox is still going to be better, one main reason. As more people use IE the more attackers will write code for IE, its that simple. Firefox is vulnerable and so is Mozilla
(/quote)

It's not the sole factor that makes it an expected target, IE is the default browser on the most mainstream, user-friendly operating system. The least savvy users are there, not even knowing alternatives are available. They are those who are susceptible to answer "yes" to any question they are asked, and not notice something's going wrong afterwards.

Mozilla does and will have vulnerabilities, still I believe IE will be less secure as long as it does embed ActiveX.

What about standards comliant to W3C.
Enough already with snubbing of other browsers and not allowing proper rendering... time to come on board if you wnat to start winning back some of the share that ahve been lsot to Opera and Mozilla et al.
It's getting a mess developing sites for multiple browsers.

CNET is reporting from the RSA conference that there is going to be a new version of Internet Explorer out before Longhorn. Unfortunatly it will only run on Windows XP SP2 according to the article. The article also notes the...

<em>"As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it."</em>

Huh? That's exactly what it doesn't do.

Driving force in WWW capabilities? Interact securely? Where have you been the last 5 years?

Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.

People have already written this, but it's so important, that I will state it once more.

Please fix CSS 2 support. IE 6 has some bugs in this area (for example, invalid positioning of boxes with borders), other things are left unsupported (fixed background on other elements than body). Please add proper support for XHTML - application/xhtml+xml mimetype should be properly recognized. Please support PNG alpha transparency.

Please. Internet Explorer is famous among developers for its bugs. With IE 7, that fame could become thing of the past.

Isn't IE7 already out? I think it's called Maxthon:) yeah I know just a shell, but love the features it has.

Anyway security is first, but if doesn't have:
tabbed browsing,
mouse gestures,
Plus the ability to easily disable or enable Java, ActiveX, Scripts and flash from the browser window, then FF will continue to eat away.

I think it's going to need a real wow factor to keep people from migrating to FF.

Good luck, and get to work! lol,

Will, I was referring to the development process for Firefox itself, not for websites. In my opinion, IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing. And by "technologies," I do not refer to such trivial things as tabbed browsing or transparent-PNG-blah-blah. I am referring to under-the-hood capabilities that facilitate websites of amazing sophistication, such as what you will find in companies that use .NET-based Web applications. IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent. Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about), with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE). I have no respect for Firefox or its sorry excuse for a development "process."

Who cares, FireFox suits me just fine.

Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.

Heh...its strange what a little competition does to monopolies. How about removing non-standard junk and adding full support for CSS, PNG etc too MS? I am sure your customers want that too.

>>In fact, if you implement the CSS3 draft, you will have a VERY MAJOR advantage over FF, which does not yet support it.

Firefox supports alot more of the CSS3 draft than you think. They simply use -moz-* in CSS (http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/propindex/extensions.htm).

Frankly, supporting a draft out-right is a BAD idea. Wait until it's finalized and save some of us from viewing your included markup as as "prorpietary" like Netscape 4's layers. I like that Moz can already do it, but it's not "turned on" and in use by the public. Drafts aren't standards yet...

My main gripe about IE (esp. as I've found a great deal of the spyware problem stems from user stupidity) is that it half-ass supports current CSS standards, is full of proprietary css "filters", and has horrid PNG support.

Clean that up, patch the security holes, and figure out how to make stupid users understand that they don't have to click YES to everything that pops up, and IE would be a decen browser again...

Unless I'm mistaken XUL isn't a W3C standard.
My only issue with FF users is that they don't shut up about it.

Moonshadow &raquo; IE7 para el verano

I guess you're right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won't be named -moz-*, so I think it's 'support' of CSS3 is questionable. As for it being a draft, that is true, but the time is running out for MS - they NEED to get IE7 out quickly, and if they want to put in CSS3 they'll have to take a leap of faith which I don't think will backfire in any major way.

Don't delude yourselves. IE7 will probably be available through Windows Update. If this release doesn't kill Firefox on Windows, the next rev of the OS will.

Popup blocking is the only reason a non-tech user would take the time to download, install, and get used to Firefox. SP2's popup blocking feature probably stopped a number of potential converts. When the new version of IE ships with the next rev of Windows, Firefox will probably lose a lot of marketshare on Windows.

When something ships with the OS, it has a huge advantage over the competition. IE sucked *so* hard that Firefox was able to get a foothold. As long as they don't screw up too bad, IE dominate again.

And Firefox wont be the only victim. Longhorn'll probably make "deskop search" more visible (A primitive form is already present in Win 2000, it's just not obvious). I don't know if even the great Google (the company everyone loves to love publicly) can withstand it. Sure, the download is tiny, but it's still a separate download.

Of course, Microsoft still doesn't own the *entire* computing stack. If Dell installs Firefox, I suppose it has a chance. I wonder if an OEM is allowed to do that... (Didn't MS used to restrict OEMs from selling dual-boots?) Even if they were allowed to, I suppose it might unofficially sour the business relationship. Then again, doesn't Dell have enough clout to not have to be afraid of that crap?

Feb 15th 2005 - Delivering a keynote address at the RSA Conference in San Francisco today, Bill Gates announced the next version of Internet Explorer. Version 7's main feature appears to be improved security adding to an already ongoing drive...

BIG FLAMING YAWN!!!!

I refuse to downgrade from Win ME to Win XP. So I guess I'll just have to keep using Firefox as my favorite browser.

I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don't you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.

cheers,
kisps

???IE 7 Code!!!!!!!??? &lt;Anne's Weblog about Markup &amp; Style&gt;

I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don't you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.

cheers,
kisps

IE Users, wake up, Microsoft doesn´t care about you. If not for FF, they would have left you out in the dark until the devisionized Longhorn finally makes into life.
"We listen, we commit", this is the usual blogging-is-the-new-kind-of-marketing-building-communities-crap thats crawling all over the web. And some are already close to climax with an ANNOUNCEMENT of an update. Incredible. Are you all starved ? Even talking of IE and "good end-user experience" will make anyone who´s seen any other browser laugh. Yep, 90% of users still use IE to browse. But close to 100% of them don´t know what a browser is, or don´t know that aternatives exist. IE is just sad, and this rescue action is not going to save it.

As if M$ could come up with anything that could match Firefox. As long as Internet Exploder is integrated with the OS, the user is still bound and gagged and tied to the railroad tracks. In this analogy the oncoming train is every hacker, spammer and malware propagator on the planet.

M$ might retain what is left of its market share, but those of us who are using Opera or Firefox will never go back. We tired of crappy M$ software a decade ago and we're disinclined to give the company another chance after >20,000 reboots.

The company has lost the ability to innovate - or even effectively steal other peoples' ideas. M$ is circling the drain. Can you smell the smell of something smelly? I do. It's called "defeat."

It sounds like people are getting excitied, way too excited. You guys are going to have the problem of the product not living up to the hype and excitement.

"FF zealots sound a lot like -- well, Mac zealots, or sports team zealots, or TV..."
That's what make them zealots. Or rather, that's what makes you realize that they're zealots.

I can't stress this enough; PLEASE implement standards, and get it right. I know Joe user doesn't care about them, but nor did he care about whether or not those adware-programs ran in the background until he found out about the disadvantages they had.

If you deliver another substandard (literally) browser, then I, as a web developer, will be forced to hack around your coding mistakes. As it is now, sloppy coders have an easier experience than those who try to follow standardized methods.

I know W3C standards aren't perfect, but they're secure, they're well thought out, and they have a common goal in mind: usability for every single Joe User out there, as well as improving the experience for the "normal" Joe Users who have no clue about what they're talking about and just complain about how their browsers don't have nicer colours.

Accessibility and semantic adherence. That's the future of the web, and that's what developers have been prevented from making, because whenever they try, they test in Firefox ... it works. They test in Opera ... it works. They test in Lynx, and Amaya ... it works. They test it in Internet Explorer 6.0, and it breaks, and they remove their XML-declaration, they add non-semantic DIVs, and they move the menus to the top of the document.

This will continue to be the reality for millions of web developers if Microsoft doesn't improve their browser, and I know you're aware of it. You're developers, aren't you?

Good. Then develop a browser that makes other developers proud of you, and gain back the acceptance that Internet Explorer got when it first supported HTML 4.01 and XML.

Best of luck to you all.

IE6 has some major problems with something called "closures". See http://www.bazon.net/mishoo/articles.epl?art_id=824 for more information.

I hope you guys get around fixing that, because it gives us serious issues, and I know it is an issue with things like www.CommunityServer.com (the old ASP.Net Forums) and www.DotNetNuke.org (the primary portal solution for Windows Servers).

Feel free to fix HTTP level stuff as well. For example I publish a .zip file on my website. When IE accesses, it says it accepts gzip and deflate as a transfer encoding. The web server does just that. But IE doesn't then decode the transfer encoding. That leaves it claiming the zip is corrupt.

And every time a user complains, I tell them use a standards compliant browser that won't do stupid things like request particular transfer encodings and then not understand them. In fact *any* other browser will work.

And every day those people try new browsers, are very happy and thank me.

As you can see, a lot of users want you to add XHTML, CSS, PNG, etc. support. Maybe it is time to talk to Mozilla, and go use the Gecko engine (extended to your own needs).

And more important: make it (or make several) for all versions of Windows. This way, we webdevelopers, can stat making kick ass websites, and 80% of the visitors can see it too.

MSFT Guys,

C'mon, people who come here are not so much interested in security announcements (TechNet is the right place for them). Any commitment in terms of improving web standards and finishing what you started with CSS, and improving support of DOM, XML content types, PNG, XHTML, etc?

Can you for once say, "Yes, there's commitment" or "No, we're not committing?" Pleeeease?

Begging, pleading, yelling doesn't help. What does?

N.N. Thayer:

Anything IE does 'under the hood' that doesn't comply with W3C standards is nonsense. This proprietary attitude is exactly what led to the uprising of superior browsers and the stagnant, domineering attitude of MS regarding updates to IE (until today, anyway).

Yes, there are cool things that can be done with .NET and IE specifically. But to limit yourself by developing with proprietary technologies of one company that target one browser is simply shortsighted and self-centered. It puts you at the mercy of that company to decide what is right and wrong, rather than an entire body of people representing many companies, attitudes, research, facts, opinions, and walks of life.

Again, why pigeonhole yourself into your own demise?

This better have:

Tabbed Browsing
-with stored 'sets' of tabs
RSS Reading Capabilities
*I'll throw in PNG support too
*Hey how about something really neat like shared browsing with MSN Messenger contacts...you'll get some traffic to your little IM proggie, an innovative, new-not-catching-up-feature and a happy J Dogg on your side.

Microsoft, I can't believe that it took you this long to update your browser. I can't believe that were it not for some FF hype frenzy that you would have left us in the cold. Shame on you...look yourself in the mirror and ask "WHY?".

I don't care that much about the engine changes...except any speed increase is AWESOME. All of the whining 'creative types' will NEVER be pleased. (Hey...whiners...try designing to the REAL standard and go bug FF and Opera to render those pages.)

The sites that I design work just fine in all browsers with very little effort in 'compatability management'. Get over yourselves and admit that you are Microsoft hating trolls who will never use their product no matter what. Seriously, you're really annoying and your geeky envy is just bellowing out of you.

If I've spoken the truth and equally pissed off both sides...then my work here is done.


Bring your massive legions of nerd trolls to flame thee. I shall be shielded in the reality of life and thus immune to your torments.


J Dogg In Tha Bank...represent

Thanks Slashdot for all the insightful comments! I know I lend a lot of creedence to people who punctuate their arguments with 'M$'. :}

http://img116.exs.cx/img116/9551/20020722l1hh.gif

Anyway, should be interesting to see what they come up with. Till them I'm sticking to firefox. Cheers!

(quote)
I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don't you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.

cheers,
kisps
(end quote)

I did not come here to "show appreciation for FF". I came here to criticize the decision to release IE 7 for XP and not for ME.

If there is ever an IE 7 release for Win ME I will try it with an open mind. If there isn't then I will happily use FF.

Sorry I did not make that clear the first time.

How can you do this? M$ has said all along that the OS and the browser were inseparable... At least that's what Alchin said...

"Hey...whiners...try designing to the REAL standard and go bug FF and Opera to render those pages."
You obviously have no clue as to what you're talking about.

Microsoft will finally release a new Internet Explorer browser this summer. Originally, the browser was to be introduced with the new longhorn operating system but Microsoft changed their plans. Firefox certainly played a key role in this decision. This...

I came across this post on the Internet Explorer blog on MSDN this afternoon. In it Dean talks about Microsofts committment to IE7 on XPSP2, but says virtually nothing else about features or functionality. IMO it's about time Microsoft talked about about features and not just committment.
<blockquote>Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.
First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2 and (among other things) go further to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software.
Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”
I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”
<a title="IE7" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx">IE7</a></blockquote>

Snuffkin, where exactly did I repeat myself?

I had three distinct points (the reason why IE7 will see daylight; the lack of its versions for older Windows; the problem IE will have chasing a moving target). I do not see any repetition.

As a geek, who often gets called for various tech problems, I can tell that converting people to firefox is an easy task once they understand how they got into trouble. It's not even a matter of how good IE7 might become, those people have lost faith in IE. Restauring that faith would be no easy task, and they just won't bother looking back, for that they are the kind who wants something that works and just forget about it. Those users are probably lost for good to IE.

Reading this post about IE7 beta, without discussing any possible features has just convinced me to switch to FireFox.

I would have been happy to stick with IE for another few years, but seeing the lack of support for pre-XP/SP2 (which I'm running); I can't foresee people actually wanting to stick with IE: those without the latest OS will just move to FF in absence of a new IE, everyone else will realize that the standard has moved away from IE and will also move.

I see this announcement as the end of IE's 'monopoly' on the Windows platform.

Reading this post about IE7 beta, without discussing any possible features has just convinced me to switch to FireFox.

I would have been happy to stick with IE for another few years, but seeing the lack of support for pre-XP/SP2 (which I'm running); I can't foresee people actually wanting to stick with IE: those without the latest OS will just move to FF in absence of a new IE, everyone else will realize that the standard has moved away from IE and will also move.

I see this announcement as the end of IE's 'monopoly' on the Windows platform.

TOO BAD XP SP 2 DOESN'T WORK THAT GOOD TO BEGIN WITH.

THANK GOODNESS FOR LINUX, APACHE AND FIREFOX.

"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."

Shut them up why?
Are you honestly cheerleading for a company's web browser? The question you have to ask yourself is: Why?

Great news!

How many security probmes can we expect?
100's?

"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."

Shut them up why?
Are you honestly cheerleading for a company's web browser? The question you have to ask yourself is: Why?

>>I guess you're right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won't be named -moz-*,

I imagine the -moz-* attributes will be renamed to the CSS3 Draft specs in the Mozilla code when CSS is finalized and accepted by the W3C. Until then, Mozilla hides them so they won't be used "in the wild" and / or adopted as proprietary like IE's css filter.

>>I think it's 'support' of CSS3 is questionable

CSS3 isn't a standard yet... it's a draft. So, their support is about as existant as the CSS3 standard. That is, there is a "draft" support of CSS3 in Mozilla. If IE implements a similar / the same draft support of CSS3 in IE7 (assuming CSS3 isn't out by then), I won't complain. But full support of a draft isn't standards compliance, just like reading the first draft of a novel doesn't mean that you read the final printed draft of a novel.

No, Mozilla doesn't support CSS3 in so far as it uses the same tags the draft suggests, but the ability to do things in the CSS3 draft is already in Mozilla. But CSS3 isn't a standard yet, and we are all clamouring (well, most of us :) for standards support, not draft support.

Dean,

Is this the accountants decision or have you _finally_ started listening to developers.

IE 6 is a discrace in its current form and I have a feeling IE7 is going to be another awful product simply being used to try and grapple back the small proportion of your monopoly you have lost to FF.

Wacko

IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.

Wait till I come! &raquo; Internet Explorer 7 ante portas?

@BOSCO
Get a grip. You're embarrassing the open source community.

IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.

"Anything IE does 'under the hood' that doesn't comply with W3C standards is nonsense."

Tell that to all the companies that base, successfully, their core operations around the capabilities of .NET, IE, and other Microsoft products. Sure doesn't seem like nonsense to them. They, and the public, couldn't care LESS about W3C standards; the W3C (and IETF) do not keep pace anymore with emerging technologies. Any standards org that doesn't keep pace risks becoming irrelevant. With IE holding 90% of the market, it *is* the standard, no matter now much OSS advocates whine about Microsoft (and end users) ignoring the W3C.

"This proprietary attitude is exactly what led to the uprising of superior browsers"

All the alternative browsers put together hold a paltry 10% of the market, and IE continues to set standards and drive the Web. I'd hardly call that an uprising.

"But to limit yourself by developing with proprietary technologies of one company that target one browser is simply shortsighted and self-centered."

To limit yourself to the slow-moving technologies of standards organizations that have ceased to stay on top of new technologies, capabilities, potential, is simlpy shortsighted and self-centered. Microsoft moves forward, sets standards, stays on top, defines things - no matter how much anti-MS zealots want to believe otherwise.

IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.

I don't think it's going to only be for XPSP2. They're FOCUSED on getting it to that platform, but I think when it goes final they'll get it to the others ASAP.

N.N. Thayer:

Ahhh the sounds of an fat, bloated, egomaniacal aristocracy on the cusp of crumbling are music to my ears.

:)

Keep up the good work.

As you might have guessed by most of the posts here, people want IE7 to be standards compliant. Perhaps you will listen?

It's really disheartening to write a 100% standards compliant website which renders fine in every browser EXCEPT IE. Seriously.

Also, why do the IE fans posting here hate Firefox so much? I mean, there's lots not to like about the current IE, but Firefox seems like a really solid browser to me. I can't really see too much to hate there. Perhaps they can explain what they don't like about it? Perhaps it's reverse zealotry? :)

"To limit yourself to the slow-moving technologies of standards"
Excuse me? Hasn't Microsoft's standards been idle since IE6 was released in 2001? Am I wrong? Haven't W3C published several new recommendations in those FOUR YEARS? Isn't .NET a server-side technology which has nothing to do with web standards?

Doesn't Microsoft's standards prevent the kind of competition that has, in the end, resulted in Linux, Mac OS X, Firefox and various other products that have been pushing Microsoft forwards for years now, and that has eventually resulted in this new version of Internet Explorer?

Prove me wrong.

Please, please, please save all us web developers days and days of extra work and *properly* and *correctly* support CSS and alpha PNGs.

The only reason I hate Firefox is because all the FF users seriously headbang me to use it. It's really annoying the hundreds of people trying to get me to switch, when I made a decision and I think they should respect it. Other than that, I think, well, Firefox is decent, and I respect people's decisions to use it.

Nice to hear that you have "listened" and are "committed", but that is only with respect to *business* partners and customers. What about the rest of us? why is it so difficult to submit bugs and enhancements requests for ie? when will you use a public bug tracking system (read bugzilla)?

I can't wait to download the beta IE 7 and be impressed by your wonderful coding wizardry. I look forward to having to rewrite all my websites to display properly, as well as going back to simple table-based layouts and font tags.

I'm so glad we can finally get rid of the whole cludge that is "css" and go back to good old html with formatting markup embedded.

Oh, and ignore the users asking for tabbed browsing and security fixes. Those are things the end-users have no interest in. Provide the ability to download and install any applications automatically with no user intervention, because those pesky end-users have a tendency to not understand you need all those nifty programs to get the full eXPerience.

I'll will stay with Firefox but as a webdevelopper, I hope that it will have full XHTML/CSS2 (even CSS3) + PNG support and that it will follow the W3C recommendations...

who needs ie any longer, firefox is the future =)

Dear Department of Justice,

The company that said that Internet Explorer was tied to the OS, and therefore couldn't be separated, is now releasing said browser, without an OS. Or, when we download the Beta, is it going to come with Longhorn Beta too?

Please re-open this case, as the biggest argument the defence used, is obviously a lie.

Thank you,
Signed, the Windows users that never wanted IE to begin with.

As a web developer I stick with Opera, but also as a web developer I would like to have an easier job of working with designs in IE.

Having better CSS support would be the good along with proper PNG support. These are number ones that I would suggest to anyone for a good web browser.

Unlikely IE 6 has none of these, more than IE 5, but yet doesn't match up to Opera or Firefox.

"Ahhh the sounds of an fat, bloated, egomaniacal aristocracy on the cusp of crumbling"

See you in a few years.

"in the end, resulted in Linux, Mac OS X, Firefox and various other products that have been pushing Microsoft forwards for years now ... Prove me wrong."

I'd like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward." Seems more to me like OSS is always playing catchup. How about that Linux e-mail client that looks so much like Outlook? All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done.

We won't shutup until Microsoft becomes more compatable, interoperable, and has less of a monopoly on the market.

:-|

In the name of webdesign, make it pink and fluffy, I dont care. but make it CSS2 and PNG competible, PLEEEEEEASE.
Please.
Please.

"So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."

You're so right. Now if Linux could just figure out a way to get all those wonderful Windows viruses to run, then it wouldn't be a pale imitation anymore. Sweet! I'm gonna get right on that.

**********************************************************************
Every user demanding PNG support and Tabbed browsing should have already switched to a browser that *does* support it...
**********************************************************************

The PNG support is for the developers not the users. I can't rely on PNG alpha transparency in my designs because anyone who uses IE Win (funny, as IE Mac supports it....) will see a grey box instead of the intended transparency.

How about being able to resize text set in pixels? Or at the very least a text zoom tool. (Again...IE Mac has it, not IE Win...)

@Snuffkin

"My only issue with FF users is that they don't shut up about it."

You seem to really wear this on your sleeve. How can "Firefox user" be synonymous with "vocal"? The last thing we need is people making sweeping generalizations about others.

You can put MS on my personal Linux/Firefox pc when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

I'd like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward."
It's called competition. Especially Firefox offers this. It doesn't matter whether or not they're playing catchup in terms of features. They're offering free competition, and a small shift in marketshare can result in what's just happened here.
Be thankful there are pale imitations. :-)

**PLEASE**: CSS2.1 is elegant and neat - please think hard and try and get a good implementation (Opera currently has the best implementation around; generated content is very useful). And support serving XHTML as it is supposed to be...

**PLEASE**: PNG Alpha - pretty please?

**PLEASE:** DOM2 support.

Funny noone else mentioned these... ;)

Woot I cant wate for the beta?

I'm with everyone else on the tabbed browsing and those sorts of things, and it sure is great to have a nice bulletable list of all the new bells and whistles that consumers love to consume. As a developer, however, I prefer to use firefox (web developer tool bar anyone?). I will have to beg this of the development team. Please make IE compatible. http://people.brownco.k12.in.us is a prime example of the problems web developers face. Everything that comprises that site is compliant. I tested it in firefox and opera. Since I don't run windows on my devel box I couldn't test it on my machine. Imagine how embarassed I was when upon demonstrating the site to my boss and his bosses when the page showed up in correctly in IE.

We *NEED* IE to be standards compliant. CSS 2 and 3. XHTML and all the other yada yada everyone before me has listed. Alpha transparency for png files is especially important.

Please don't just rush this out the door. Please don't just hack up IE6.

Also, about this "Firefox users should shut up and let the IE people worry about IE" mentallity, you should realize that people who use firefox are the people microsoft NEEDS to target. They're actually the people that need to be listened to the most. That's common sense I think.

I don't see why all of you guys are pushing your alternate browser agenda. Even when IE7 comes out, unless Microsoft makes it a mandatory update (read: impossible.) You will still be developing for IE6 and coding work-arounds related to it for the next couple years until it is long enough forgotten to be ignored as a browser.

So, in the end, IE7 working right won't make much a difference to most devs for a pretty good while to come. Might as well settle in for a long lot of bitching.

Oh, and this is a simple and neat way to maintain backwards compatibility:

http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/06/standard-compliant-ie

Well yes, that's really a lot of information coming from MS. I hoped for some info about features and innovation that I could expect from a new IE. But there is nobody to tell, how come?

In recent years I have been quite happy to find out, how much usability can be integrated into a widely spread software product. Those coming from MS almost always had some new ideas in it to make me stick to MS. But - again - I think this time around, we will have to wait and see, wont we?

I've been faithfully keeping track of every improper standards interpretation and browser bug in IE6 with the intention of creating a test gauntlet through which to run IE7 to see whether and how the various CSS, (X)HTML and DOM errors have been fixed.

Yes, other browsers have errors from time to time, but they fix them and release better versions. They do not abandon their software for five years, or in the case of IE for Mac, abandon it entirely. Let me tell you, there's nothing more frustrating than to code up a simple page using a single positioning element only to find IEMac pushes it halfway off the screen, and that I have to wrap the page in a table to get the desired effect.

I suppose I wouldn't care so much about IE supporting standards (there's no legal obligation to do so), except they released IE6 in 2001 with much fanfare and trumpeting about how well standards were going to be supported, how the box model was fixed (wow, what a statement there!), etc. This is necessary now. What I'm really concerned about more than anything is that the complex (but valid) solutions developers have had to resort to in order to get around IE6 bugs may break in IE7, when MS developers fail in whole new ways to interpret standards properly.

It's quite possible they will not fail this time, but history shows the likelihood to be probable.

For a little balance, here are a couple rants we've had published on IWDN:

Pro FireFox - http://www.iwdn.net/articles/rants/anti_firefox.php - Dave Scott extolls upon the virtues of the latest browser to hit the mainstream.
Pro IE - http://www.iwdn.net/articles/rants/pro_ie.php - Eric Bowman discusses the finer points of IE and the purposes it best serves.

Regards,

Paul

>> I'd like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward."

"Avalon" is a clone of OS X's GL rendering system.
I came up with that example in about 20 seconds. I (and others) could come up with many, many more if you're willing to take the public humiliation.

I find it hilarious that there won't be a version for Windows 2000, and it will only be for XP and Longhorn. Microsoft can't even make their products be easily compatible with versions of their OS that are still being used by a large part of their customer base.

I work for one of the biggest companies in the planet, and we still use Win2K because we refuse to extra for the absurd XP corporate licenses. And our company is hardly anti MS as we have several partnerships with them. (big ones)

Yet the biggest security hole, IE, won't be updated with the more "secure" version.

Meanwhile, people working for free have a browser today that is much better than the current IE and it works on almost all Windows versions!

Incredible.

"You will still be developing for IE6"
Don't count on it.

@b1: Excellent comment. I disagree about CSS3 as that isn't technically a standard, but otherwise excellent.

I think unfortunately the case is going to be that you are doing too little, too late. Firefox has a far superior, more innovative browser then you that is more usable. You are just now starting to work on IE7? Uh, Firefox 1.1 will be out before this beta is out, and probably 2.0 before this goes final.

I actually personally know Ali G, and he uses Firefox to whoever made that previous comment.

The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 20 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.

There's a serious question to be asked here, namely, does Microsoft understand the problems they have? It's clear they don't care about full standards compliance. I've used ASP.NET for a few pages, and while it's a great technology, it's not the slickest thing on the planet. That means they either had a bad implementation of the idea, or the idea itself was flawed.

So which is it, Microsoft? Are you bad programmers, or bad software designers?

That said, I have to give some props to Microsoft, if only for the good old days. Microsft made some pretty great programs in their day. That day, unfortunately, was about eight years ago. Seriously, I remember DOS more fondly than Windows 95.

If Microsoft was really committed to a better browsing experience, they'd start from scratch. Seriously, just totally rebuild it. Tanenbaum says to "Build one to throw away." I say that one is IE6. Chuck it and start over, Microsoft.

oerdec.com &raquo; Internet Explorer 7 diesen Sommer

I'm blown away! IE's ok. I don't have anything against it. But the over the top jubilation posted here smacks of a legion of MS employees put to work paising their god on high.

Good lord. Anyone who had real points to bring up were lost in the halleluias.

IMHO

This is welcome news!

As a developer, I'm not so much interested in the security improvements than I am hopeful that MS will FINALLY update the rendering engine of IE and include FULL and NON-QUIRKY support for the W3C recommendations mentioned on previous posts here.

HOWEVER, I do have another suggestion. Users should be given some kind of incentive to stop using IE6 (and earlier) without delay, perhaps as part of a mandatory "critical" Windows update, a built-in "expiration" for older versions of IE, and a version of IE 7 for users of versions of Windows other than XP (at least Win2k). Assuming MS delivers on up-to-date standards support, I would like to see IE6 and older removed from the stage in short order- something like 18 months or less.

This could be a very good thing, even for those of us who do not use IE as our personal browser.

And please, after IE7, do not make the web wait another 6 years for a significant update to the rendering engine. Try to keep pace with the competing browsers. MS certainly has the resources to do this.

I hope they also include the IE Speech Add-in so that pages running MS's SALT code will work. If so, we can finally have websites that are fully controlled and navigated by voice. Now, that would be fun and handy!

Please relax, people. It's just a web browser.

@@N.N. Thayer

Are you suggesting that because something is the most used, it is the best? The market system doesn't work as well in software, because the gap between users and developers is so wide. A user will use a program without knowing about alternatives. It's something akin to only going to the largest chain of stores to shop. Someone else may have a better price, but since this shop is "the biggest" (that is, the most widely used and distributed), it MUST be the best.

That's a flawed assumption. Microsoft is definitely the biggest. Coming from government work, I know just how much MS is used. But I defy you to say it's the best. OSX and Linux are more stable, more secure, and more flexible.

To my mind, it's now MS's chance to get me away from FireFox as opposed to vice versa.

Suggest the team nuke IE from their system and use FireFox in combination with AdBlock until they understand how superior it is.

I haven't gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using FireFox, any neither has anyone I know who I convinced to switch.

Does this mean you guys might actually consider moving your CSS support past the year 1999?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/

But it'll run in Linux?

I do hate QT and Gecko engine, i'm using Opera just because is the bettest browser, but anyway i don't like QT.

IE 7 + .NET + MONO Windows.Forms + Linux, i would love it

Microsoft may not be innovators, but they're usually quite quick to follow others' work. They just have to be careful not to get too far behind, as they have with their pathetic old browser.

http://www.switch2firefox.com/whyswitch/

http://www.google.fr/search?q=why+switch+to+mozilla&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

We sure seem to be quiet. :p

A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 here. The company had said that it would not ship a...

Woot! It's about time. I hate Firefox. Clunky POS imo. It doesn't even work with StyleXP! :) But, watch out for compelling plug-ins like this: http://www.annodex.net.

DoomChild:

As I mentioned in my first post. it's about end-user experience. And Microsoft is far beyond Linux in that realm. I wouldn't say it's beating Mac, because for the average Joe, a Mac is pretty damn simple. Windows is easy to use, and churns out the best user experience for intelligence required. The average Joe doesn't care about standards or flexibility. He or she just wants the thing to do what they expect of it with relatively little work on their part, if any. All of my code is standards compliant and works fine in IE. If it doesn't meet standards you run the risk of it looking like crap in FF. That is not of any concern to the end user. The odds of the end user having heard the words "standards compliance" are somewhere between slim and nil. Windows, as an operating system, offers the most range, from neophyte to expert as far as knowledge is concerned. You can be an idiot and use it, or you can be a power user and find it a fruitful system.

On a side note, might I mention how much I LOVE the fact that everyone is bitching about things not working cross-browser to FF, but often seem to love the idea of not worrying about IE at all. ALL BROWSERS DESERVE EQUAL CONSIDERATION FROM DEVELOPERS.

It's a fact of the system. Stop whining and code smarter.

"Right now, we’re focused on XP SP2."

So your leaving the rest of us out in the dark?!? Doesn't really seem like your listening to your customers. Sounds like your listening to "certain" customers. I'll be sure to stick to my Windows 2000 box running FireFox, Sunbird, and Thunderbird. At least the Mozilla Organization develops software that will run on more then XP.

I have been reading alot about not running as admin or running IE in a protected process. Can this be a default, running in a restricted mode with the option to temporalily turn on install mode?

Where's the mention of CSS standards, PNG support, and full w3c compliance?

How come IE can't even render a "border: 1px dotted" correctly? It still comes out looking like a dash!

Get on the CSS3 spec and maybe we'll care. Otherwise everyone will see this for what it is - an attempt to snatch back your dwindling market share and push your agenda and proprietary extensions to the browser once again.

Just want to reiterate that we need Windows 2000 support, its the right thing to do. Im not asking for the firewall, Im not asking for the security center, Im not even asking for improved wireless networking. Im just asking for a version of IE thats not going to infect my system with the heebie jeebies (malware) every other web page.

Oh God, here comes another IE release with no PNG Alpha support.

Please, PLEASE make it stop!

The solution to the rendering problems is simple: splice in the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine. Would it really be that hard to make it work with ActiveX (assuming that you have to keep ActiveX in IE7)?

with the release of Firefox 1.0 I finally switched from my IE which was fine but a little disappointing - a large part of this was that, mozilla and firefox supported all the extensions and standards that made web development fun and helped with debugging. IE is a good browser whatever people say, it's just too old now that's all. Security is a major concern on the internet these days but I would also say that standards support is too - if you ask most companies about standards they wont care hugely, they just want security, however if they fully understood what standards support can provide then they would be pushing for it too - I love my firefox and wouldn't change back to IE unless it equalled the standards support and functionality of firefox with a better interface - I don't see it happening, but I love competition, IE has dominated the web unfairly for too long, I'm hoping this will be a chance for Microsoft to justify their browser, I'm not looking to moan anymore about rendering bugs and incorrect css support. This is my plea to you, do this upgrade and do it right and you will appease a revolution from web developers, do it wrong and you will breed yet more contempt. I am very pro microsoft - it is clear when you use macs or linux for any length of time that microsoft has paid much more attention on little usability tweaks and enhancements over the years - tny things that make it a better experience. Yes it crashes, but when it comes back it's nice to use for anyone comfortable with computers.

" Please relax, people. It's just a web browser. "

This is true, but considering the internet is the largest, most diverse, and complex body of information in the human world I think that browsers are incredibly vital.

Please please please avoid fancy 'surface enhancements' until you have the core of IE working according to w3c specs and the needs of web developers and web users. Bugs in IE are well reported on the net now so you have no excuse for not fixing them.

to "bryce schaufelberger": a popup blocker seems to be already available in IE6 SP2, one year after absolutely all other browser vendors on the planet implemented one. But of course, Microsoft probably claims they invented the popup blocker and you're free and encouraged to believe that.

I just read on the IEBlog that Microsoft will indeed go forward with IE7 for Longhorn and XP SP2. Let's hope that they try to make some standards actually work this time. Read more here...

what a beautiful day for the cyberspace ;)

Blog de Jaime Olmo: Print &#038; Web Design &raquo; IE7

I'm doing my best to be enthusiastic about this, but the complete lack of any mention toward better support of ANY web standards goes quite some way to making me think that IE7 will be a frustration for all web developers.

Fixing your shoddy security is not something to trumpet, it shouldn't be as bad as it is in the first place. Fixed security certainly isn't reason for a full blown version incrimentation.

Put it this way - I don't go out and buy a new Corvette because they fixed a few of the safety fcuk-up's from the last model. I buy the new corvette because the new version is faster, better handeling and more economical. The saftey updates are a base expectation, not a selling point.

In the mean time I'm enjoying the meteoric rise in popularity of web browsers that actually obey the standards set out by the W3C (and the added security is kinda nice when you notice it).

Very interesting that Microsoft, aka the home of the brave tickets IE7 as a new "commitment to making the situation better." About time!

" Please relax, people. It's just a web browser. "

Yeah, it is.. but I'm a web developer 8 hours of the day which is 33% of my day. Lets say IE holds 80% of the market share... and it doesn't render pages properly still... so 80% of 33% of my 5 days a week at work... and let's just forget about the weekend worrying for now... that actually comprises a large portion of my life.

Please consider releasing an updated version of IE for the MacOS X platform.

The latest version of IE available, IE 5 for Mac, is worse than useless, it requires by far the most hackery to support over any other "current" browser on any platform. It's still used by a fairly large number of people in academic settings. For completeness, we try to support Safari on MacOS X, IE 5 on MacOS, IE 6+ on Windows, and Mozilla/Gecko browsers on MacOS/Un*x/Windows. Out of all of these, IE on Mac is almost the most painful to support.

It's frankly an embarassing product when compared against current alternatives, and a clear indication that Microsoft have abandoned the Mac platform with the exception of the lucrative MS Office suite.

I really don't understand this fuss about IE security. I've always used IE as my default browser, have ActiveX, JavaScript and VBScript enabled, go to all kinds of web sites, and have never had a single IE related security problem ever (or any other security/virus issue ever, for that matter). That is because I do what any intelligent computer user or professional does–I have a hardware firewall in my router, use a software firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro), antivirus software (Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition and AVG), antispyware software (Pest Patrol) and install Windows and IE updates religiously. Btw, lest any of you anti-MS bigots think my experience is merely that of an ignorant, uninformed end user, I build PCs and maintain Windows systems for a living (WS2K3/XP/SBS/Win2K). Yes, using MS software does require that you use other add-on tools and do your Windows updates, but so what? That's just part of this business and goes with the territory.

Yes, I would love for IE7 to have tabbed browsing and more standards support. But I have tried Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera and always find myself going back to IE. The one feature that IE has which is unmatched over the competition is font display. I absolutely hate the fonts that most web sites use as they are not designed to be readable. IE gives my the option of ignoring web sites fonts and using my own choice of font, which I love. I have yet to see any other browser do that. I am very happy to hear that IE7 is coming out and am glad for the additional security features it will have. But I am so sick and tired of hearing all this garbage about IE being so insecure. If you have half a brain and are not lazy, you can make IE as secure as any browser out there.

I also feel it necessicary to add this: "More Secure" shouldn't be a feature.. in fact it shouldn't NEED to be mentioned at all.. it shouldn't have been a problem to begin with.

"In yet another example of innovation, Microsoft has invented a feature called Tabbed Web Surfing (tm) (r). Tabbed Web Surfing is a revolutionary user interface for web browsing that Microsoft as its inventor has received over 7,000 patents on."

Following on the heels of <a href="http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/jayoung/site/pages/-9bd56ff988d229e61073e713ee50be12">my commentary</a> and everyone else's in the known Universe for the last several, um, <strong>YEARS</strong>...

Microsoft announced ...

"In yet another example of innovation, Microsoft has invented a feature called Tabbed Web Surfing (tm) (r). Tabbed Web Surfing is a revolutionary user interface for web browsing that Microsoft as its inventor has received over 7,000 patents on."

Good luck! MS is quickly becoming a dinosaur.

Andrew Ebbatson's Blog Roll &raquo; IE7 - Big yawn

You said, "Why? Because we listened..."

Right...

Its ONLY AFTER Firefox has taken 5% of the browser market away from IE, that MS decides to do something.

ONLY when MS faces losing revenue $$ does Microsoft do something.

NEVERMIND the revenue companies all around the world have to LOSE because we have to waste our man-hours on supporting MS's half-completed, half-secure, just-done-enough-to-get-the-next-version-out-to-keep-adding-to-the -40-billion, bloated, resource hogging software.

Screw you Microsoft.

We won't be upgrading... WHY?

Firefox works great. I've already moved the whole corporation to it.

Next thing to get rid of, Microsoft Office...

And guess what? THIS INCREASES my corporation's REVENUE, because I get RID of the ENDLESS BANAL OF UPGRADES just to allow our employees to be able to do the SAME WORK securely.

Goodbye.

Please, as lots of people are asking...

Make it Web Standards Compliant.

CSS
XHTML (Standards Mode)
PNG
DOM

Forget about your Box Model and use the standard, also fix the overflow behavoir, as well as the display:block "peek-a-boo" bug, and everything else that is causing CORRECT web site to display wrong in your browser.

Please Microsoft, we are so close of making the standards compliant web a reality! It would be a real shame if IE7 fails to deliver in web standards support. I would like to add support for the public request to have the W3C standards fully supported.

Considering the myriad of web-enabled gadgets we have today like phones, PDAas, TVs and so on, I think this is a critical moment to finally get a fully interoprable web.

Microsoft listening to consumers. The day that happens is when hell freezes over.

I have used Firefox to reset fonts on every web page to my defaults.... "Dan" that is officially the WORST complaint I have EVER seen. On the same note, IE is the worst browser I have ever used... Fight the power, long live the GPL...

Et fa una Volldamm? &raquo; Tremolem&#8230; ja arriba IE7!

Microsoft is a marketing company first and foremost. They are not listening to their customers, they are scared to death of the marketplace.

Firefox is a real and free competitor. Mac OS X is alive and well with a headstart over Longhorn. Spyware is rampant on the Windows platform.

All of the sudden Microsoft buys an anti-virus product, anti-spyware product, and offers an update to IE. All of this is the equivalent of laying blacktop over a road full of potholes. The potholes will come back since the foundation isn't repaired.

I want to personally thank Bill Gates for giving me a reason to look at alternatives. We are very happy with them and our reliance on Windows and IE is rapidly declining.

IE 7 will be a joke, more features built on the same leaky code base.

As a web designer, if IE just rolled over and died, life would be a hell of a lot easier.

Press releases are all good and fine, but most users want TECHNICAL release info. What will IE7 support?
People will want to start looking into migrating to IE7 compatible code for their sites- I know I will be if there's basics like PNG Alpha support, proper open standards support... until we get a tech release, the Firefox logo stays on my site.

Blake, I'm sorry, but FireFox does not let me choose the fonts I want as IE does.

Also, your comment "Fight the power, long live the GPL" shows that you are an anti-MS bigot. Just admit that you don't like Microsoft and Bill Gates and that your animus towards MS and Gates is the source of your complaints. What the hell does "fight the power" have to do with anything? Is the GPL the solution to all software problems in the world, the solution that is going to lead us all into computing nirvana and bliss and bring about world peace? These are computers we're talking about, not world revolution.

Will IE7 conform to W3C standards ?
What is Microsoft's commitment towards conforming these standards ?

Randall Fitzgerald:
"ALL BROWSERS DESERVE EQUAL CONSIDERATION FROM DEVELOPERS. "

... while the customers end up footing the bill for the required "quirk testing" phase of web design instead of using those budgeted resources to implement site enhancements.

TABBED BROWSING!! PLEASE!

You can't "get rid of phishing". You can make things harder for phishers -- but eliminating the problem is impossible.

Wow, Dan. Somehow you managed to get multiple firewalls spyware detectors and whatnot running on your machine, and yet you couldn't figure out how to override font selection in Firefox. That's funny because I'm nowhere near as computer savy as you, but I managed to find that setting in 60 seconds...

Select Options from the Tools menu (like in IE), select the Fonts and Colors from the General section of the dialog. And click on the bottom checkboxes where it says "Always use my: [x]Fonts [x]Colors"...

I would also like to echo what all these other developers are saying regarding rendering and CSS. Security updates are great and all but you're really holding up the potential of the web by the horrible support for CSS and alpha-transparency with PNG's.

Please please please please PLEASE.... I will love MS forever if you do this with IE7. :)

Dan,

> IE gives my the option of ignoring web sites fonts and using my own choice of font, which I love. I have yet to see any other browser do that.

Firefox: Edit | Preferences | General | Fonts & Colours

Opera: Tools | Preferences | Page Style | Configure Modes

Konqueror: Settings | Configure Konqueror | Stylesheets | Customise

If you have used practically any browser other than Internet Explorer, then what you say is simply not true whatsoever.

About b!@@&¥ time! That's how Netscape died, waiting for 2 years to come out with an already obsolete Navigator 6. Granted, IE isn't as far behind Firfox as Navigator was behind IE 6, but you are starting a bit late.

And if history teaches anything, it won't be enough just to fix security.

So, today Microsoft reversed their plan-of-record and announced that there will after all be another standalone version of Internet Explorer independent of Longhorn, the next slated version of Windows. You can read the details for yourself on the IE Blog....

Hello there.

Thank you for the announcment. I am very please that Microsoft is willing to communicate to its potential customers about the development of IE7. As a web designer, I want to have some way of communicating with Microsoft about CSS rendering bugs.

As it stand right now, when desigining a pagem I design it on Firefox. I then verify it on Opera (it almost always looks fine there), and then proceed to find workarounds for IE's bugs. Let me give you just one example.

This honors borders in Firefox 1.0 and Opera 7.5/8:

<table id=main><tr><td width=630>
Here I put a lot of content.
</td></tr></table>

Where the style for main is:

#main {
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000;
}

However, MSIE doesn't honor that. What I had to do was this:

<table id=main><tr><td width=630>
<div id=msie-bug>
Here I put a lot of content.
</div>
</td></tr></table>

Where the style msie-bug is:

#msie-bug {
padding: 5px;
}

Another issue with MSIE is that I like to be able to
run multiple versions of MSIE on the same computer, so I can more easily do cross-brwoser testing. Right now, one computer is used for IE5 testing, and another is used for IE6 testing.

- Sam

I think there's no possible way to have a standards compliant rendering engine in IE. If we would, the browser should identify itself as Firefox or Opera--anything but MSIE. Otherwise, most pages on the Internet won't work with it. :)) (that's the other edge of the blade).

On a different note, I consider Microsoft did a good thing by discontinuing IE/Mac. It was a buggy piece of crap (although it properly supported PNG!)--why bothering with it? I think Microsoft's best option would be to drop development of IE/Win too--this way they won't be criticised anymore for deploying the most buggy and unsecure "browser" in the world, nor will the be criticised for deploying a "browser" that makes it so damn hard to develop Websites, nor that IE, in 2005, still doesn't have tabs (!), PNG or CSS "position: fixed" support. (And the list GOES ON.)

I wonder how can one say that "the IE team is working hard"--folks, have you done _anything_ in the last 5 years!?

Sometimes I can't help thinking that it's too hard for a company like Microsoft to get proper PNG support--I mean, dammit, it's something like 5 years and hundreds of thousands of people who have cried for it, and Microsoft did nothing. Instead, IE5.5+ _can_ display PNG-s with proper aplha transparency, using an awkward "feature" (an IE filter) that doesn't work on any other browser.

It's clear to me that Microsoft can't deploy a good Web browser; they might have business reasons, but they obviously don't care about end users and/or developers--which is the reason so many turned against IE.

What Microsoft can do is promote a browser. Please, quit "working" on IE; we saw what that means and nobody really needs it. Instead of innovating, we spend countless hours working around IE bugs. Please promote Gecko instead, and the damage you've done to the IT industry will be almost forgiven.

Oh, assuming Microsoft doesn't take my advice and still decides to keep working on the piece of crap version 7, one thing--security is less important... security should be there, period. End users shouldn't even have to worry about it; meanwhile, if Microsoft manages to drive more and more developers unhappy, they might face the situation of having a Web that doesn't work with Internet Explorer. Because we--DEVELOPERS--are who make the Web. You don't do anything to make our lives less hard--why would we do anything to keep IE on top?

http://www.dropie.com/

Better security - good!
Listening to your users - great!
...but when will you start listening to web designers and support CSS, XHTML, XML, PNG and all that other stuff that didn't exist in 1995 (which aproximately was the last time IEs rendering engine was updated)?

Firefox is dead, long life IE. IE is dead, long life Firefox. BEOS rulez, OS/2 suckz.

GET ALIFE!

Just make IE standards compliant and more idiot-proof, get rid of this ActiveX-crap, add some nice features as tabbed browsing and a secure plugin-Interface, so you can say you've build a good piece of software. The Microsoft-fans will use a better browser (without knowing what a browser is probably) after all, having less problems, and be happy.

Microsoft announces Internet Explorer 7, in beta by summer. Why? According to the IE blog:Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner....

I refuse to use FF for reasons I reserve from this discussion.

quote____
I haven't gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using FireFox, any neither has anyone I know who I convinced to switch.
____/quote
I haven't gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using IE, any neither has anyone I know who has brains.

from the weblog comments you can deduce that the majority of slashdot readers have a mental age of 12, and enjoy anonymous e-arguments with their imaginary rivals at Microsoft, who, unlike Firefox, have to pay people to work.

This press release must be a joke becuase about the same time that you are giving out IE7, Firefox is releasing a new browser too and won't be a BETA so in other world you are pretty pretty screwed guys! The history repeats itself: exactly the same happened to navigator 6 so I, for one, say goodbye to IE and wish him good luck in after world.

IE7 could be interesting. This announcement is clearly a spoiler for the competition given that we're likely to wait 6-12 months for release. No reason to get excited though, that's normal corporate hype and BS.

...and when it finally does come out?

Well, I can't fully switch back to IE, I use a Linux desktop much of the time (I'm making the none-too-risky assumption that a Linux version isn't in the pipeline).

As for work, I have Firefox on all the servers because I associate clicking the blue IE icon with danger (and Windows Update). Especially as these are Windows 2000 servers so IE is effectively "abandonware".

On the Windows XP sp2 desktop IE could be a consideration... but... I really, truly, can't bear to surf the web without AdBlock installed. As this is a Firefox extension, again I see a barrier to switching back.

I wonder how many people have got used to some Firefox extension now, not necessarily FF itself, and therefore will be slow to switch back.

Finally, like many people, I have my doubts about IE 7 and standards compliance. If MS screw this up they may find IE 7 adoption to be painfully slow (it'll be bad enough if it's Win XP only). It's one thing to make an IE6-only site with a 90% userbase, but if IE 7 is still non-standard and (initially) only has 10% users, it's not so compelling.

Thanks to Firefox for forcing MS to do the right thing, but I still remain hopeful that IE will sink to below 80% market share because competition benefits all.

This page was posted at Slashdot, so the irrational M$-sux people there have invaded this web board. It will take a while for the signal to noise ratio to come back to normal.

Personally, I use Linux + Firefox to browse the web; I also understand that over 80% of the people going to my web sites will be using IE (usually IE6.0). My desire, as a web master, is to see IE do CSS right so I don't have to do as much coding around IE bugs.

- Sam

Please! please! please! support as much of w3c standards as you can!

XHTML 2, XFORMS, MathML, DOM, CSS2, CSS3 etc.

Assuming you do this - Well Done!!

Given the recent Bill Gates comments about interoperability I hope you will use IE7 as the opportunity to make a fantastic step forward.

Other features: Pluggin/Extenmsion support improvements.

BTW: Tabbed browsing would be cool as well ;-)

Kym

> Sometimes I can't help thinking that it's too hard for a company like Microsoft to get proper PNG support--I mean, dammit, it's something like 5 years

5 years? The PNG 1.0 specification was published in 1996. That's almost NINE YEARS we've had to wait for Microsoft to implement it properly.

My guess is, with typical Microsoft release date slippage, the ten year anniversary of PNG 1.0 will come and go before we have a version of Internet Explorer that can handle it. It will certainly be a decade before web developers can use it.

Snuffkin wrote:

> I haven't gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using IE, any neither has anyone I know who has brains.

The problem is that MS says that evryone can/should use a computer. I agree with that. Having this in mind u can't give an unsecure browser that gets hijacked at the first pr0nsite to a highly non-technical, unexperienced user.

Yeah, I heard the news that Microsoft is going to move forward with Internet Explorer 7. My initial reaction? Wow, that&#8217;s pretty cool, maybe we can move this whole Web thing a bit farther forward! But then, on a long...

Glad to hear MS finally "heard" their custommers and has a "commitment" to improve their ~3yo browser.

However if that IE7 does not support properly XHTML, CSS, PNG and SVG, I'll use it just like IE5.01, IE5.5 and IE6.0 ... that is to hack my standard compliant work to "gracefully" degrade it for the people stuck with crappy browsers.

Oh, great. More platform headaches for web developers. Now we'll have to test on IE6/XP and IE7/XP2 in addtion to IE5.0 and IE5.1. Someone tell me why I don't for a moment believe IE's CSS/XHTML/DOM woes will be fixed? Why, because M$ profit from the chaos they've caused. It benefits M$ every time an "IE-only" site dies in Firefox. In a way I'll be happy if IE7 doesn't fix the CSS/XHTML issues because at least users will know where they stand and choose Firefox. Any pretence by M$ at implementing CSS is bound to half-assed so I say better nothing at all.

IE already had support for PNG :
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;294714

I'm just wondering why the support isn't enabled by default whenever it encounters a PNG file... ?

One thing the success of Firefox has done is woken up Microsoft, originally they had planned no updates to IE until the release of their next generation operating system codenamed Longhorn. However, the amazing success of Firefox has meant that Microsoft

Good news, any chance of a list of intended features?

"Yes, using MS software does require that you use other add-on tools and do your Windows updates, but so what? That's just part of this business and goes with the territory."

But it doesn't _have_ to go with the territory, you've just accepted that it's a necessary evil.

"I build PCs and maintain Windows systems for a living (WS2K3/XP/SBS/Win2K)."

And here's why you've accepted that necessary evil. All the issues that pop up with Windows and IE keep you employed. If there wasn't the need to use a myriad of add-on tools, software and hardware firewalls, update regularly, and consistently scan for viruses, adware, spyware etc, you wouldn't have a job.

So what is happening is like you'll put a ad-blocker, tabbed browsing and some new check boxes in tools->options in yet another atempt to confuse already dead-confuse users then you call it IE7? Do I see any W3C standard you finally want to support? Do I see ActiveX out of IE? No! All I see is just marketing buz, and you propably get surprised when you see no one is believing your lies anymore. You have to write IE again, this time from scratch , with a bit of security in mind or expect the annihilation of your lovely IE in the True World of Open Source.

Ohhh yes! I really like Internet Explorer, and I can´t wait the new release...

I'd like to point out at the outset that I'm not bashing IE. Yes, I'm disgusted that MS basically let it wither away, and I've felt ActiveX was dubious from the outset. But I was also one of the first to download IE6 and the previous versions when they first came out. What I'm trying to do correct some faulty thinking amongst some.

@Snuffkin:

"Unless I'm mistaken XUL isn't a W3C standard."

Yes, it's an interface language that's used internally on the various bits of software built as part of the Mozilla project. It is *not* for use in websites. In fact, it doesn't even impact on people developing websites even slightly. All it does is make interface development easier for the Moz developers.

Its one thing in arguing in favour of IE. But your arguments need to be real ones rather than just picking things and saying "ha! so there!" It sounds childish.

BTW, XUL is just like XAML, except it existed before XAML was a twinkle in its originator's eye.

"I guess you're right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won't be named -moz-*, so I think it's 'support' of CSS3 is questionable."

The -moz-* bit means that its experimental and isn't to be depended upon. That's because CSS3 is still a draft rather than a recommendation. When it becomes a recommendation, it's trivial to removed the prefixes. So it's not questionable: it's there, they've just have it properly marked as part of the draft.

"The only reason I hate Firefox is because all the FF users seriously headbang me to use it. It's really annoying the hundreds of people trying to get me to switch, when I made a decision and I think they should respect it. Other than that, I think, well, Firefox is decent, and I respect people's decisions to use it."

That's better. But you're your own person. I use Firefox and I'm enthusiastic about it, but I'd never headbang somebody about it.

Still, what they're doing is grassroots marketing. It's what Coke and Pepsi do, except at another level. However, bashing Firefox because of that rather than on its merits as a browser isn't right.

@N.N. Thayer:

"Will, I was referring to the development process for Firefox itself, not for websites."

Glacial though Mozilla's initial development was, that's never been so with Firefox. If anything they've made blazing progress.

"In my opinion, IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing."

This is a baseless argument. You need examples. You also need to take into account that in the last five years, they (the Mozilla project) have managed to build what took MS ten years to from scratch.

And they've produced a lot of useful technologies that can be applied outside of their original sphere while they were at it.

Featurewise, the only thing that gecko-based browsers lack, if that's the word, is support for ActiveX, and that's no bad thing quite frankly. And in a lot of areas it outstrips IE.

"And by 'technologies,' I do not refer to such trivial things as tabbed browsing or transparent-PNG-blah-blah. I am referring to under-the-hood capabilities that facilitate websites of amazing sophistication, ..."

Like decent CSS support? Like near-perfect DOM compliance? These are things that Firefox has and IE doesn't because they've been working on them while IE has been left, unfortunately, to fester.

"such as what you will find in companies that use .NET-based Web applications."

Now stop there. You're spouting rubbish there. .NET is server-based. It doesn't matter what browser you're using. This is not an argument against anything.

Now, if you're thinking of the likes of ActiveX controls, stop there. Whether ActiveX support is a feature or a misfeature is quite debatable.

"IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent."

I repeat: .NET has nothing to do with Firefox. Firefox, as it stands, is a more powerful browser than IE6. Maybe IE7 will change this, maybe it won't. We'll see.

However, how you can say that they're in "an advanced league of their own" is quite beyond me.

"Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about),"

For now, it's caught up and is currently outpacing IE, which isn't surprising seeing as IE's been moribund for so long.

"with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE)."

The sense of security isn't false. It comes from the fact that everything in the browser is properly sandboxed. This is not so with IE, which depends on trust.

"I have no respect for Firefox or its sorry excuse for a development 'process.'"

Less bile and more reason, please.

@kisps:

"Why don't you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here."

You're indeed correct. The IE users ought not be flaming other browsers too.

@anonymous coward:

"I think Microsoft's best option would be to drop development of IE/Win too"

Not an option: the GUI depends on it too much.

Ludovic, that KB talks about a workaround to get alpha blending (partial transparency) to work and is very IE specific.

People are asking for IE to natively support alpha blend transparent PNGs, not that kind of workaround.

Hey, maybe you guys can get a new version of the Yugo out, too!

Put in full and automatic PNG transparency support! I'm sure others have said this, but I want to emphasize it again:

*Put in and automatic PNG transparency support!!!!*

Full XHTML and CSS support, obviously, are important too. Otherwise? I will stick to using Firefox.

And how about actually releasing IE7 for W2K users instead of keeping it for WXP and above?

Don't tell me it's not doable, everyone managed to do it but Microsoft until now

First of all, thank you for IE7, it's about time !

And I'd like to ask you guys NOT to support JPEG2000, that bloated, unnecessarily complicated, not-better-than-JPEG-for-most-uses, bureaucratic committee standard.

Thanks !
Please add full web standards compliances, webmasters really feel handicaped by IE6. You are responsible for the future of the WWW, and you know you prevent creation and great designs with IE6.

Please decouple the browser from the task bar and run it in a sandbox; no access to any user or system files (just the sandbox files) and give it a button to restore the sandbox to initial state. Yes, it makes downloading and installing things difficult; provide a wizard to move things from the sandbox to the rest of the system thus making the barrier to getting cide very high.

The nicest part about this announcement is that it means virtually nothing to me. It's nice to be able to say that. For years, we've been stuck in browser-limbo, forced to use Internet Explorer. Now, my entire enterprise has fixed our web applications so they work outside of IE, we've mostly migrated to FireFox, and IE is only an afterthought.

I remember my excitement downloading IE 4, 5 and 6, to see what new gifts I'd find. Now I just don't care. When I sit down to Firefox, with its perfect cookie management, mouse gestures, tabbed browsing (with an amazing Tabbrowing Preferences extension), integrated BugMeNot, integrated web searching and dictionary plugins, integrated RSS, none of IE's annoying quirks, and so much more, I'm still amazed at how much more enjoyable my browsing experience is. It actually pains me to use IE.

For the sake of the web and expediency, I hope Microsoft improves IE in 7.0. But I honestly don't care much if they do. Barring an incredible effort in IE7, Internet Explorer has reached its apex. I'm convinced of that. Firefox -- with all its many extensions -- is just insurmountably better than IE at this point. It's only a matter of 18-24 months before Firefox wins Browser War 2.0.

Microsoft doesn't believe users are ready for things like mouse gestures. They would never build that feature for Internet Explorer. But when I show it to my non-techie friends and co-workers, they demand I install it, and they use it religiously. When I visit my mom, I'll catch her making mouse gestures in My Computer, or Word, cursing the fact that they don't work there. You don't need to be a techie to dig on these types of features, but Microsoft will never implement them.

Thus, Firefox will win.

IE7 "Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.” Predictions?...

Amazing, Microsoft is finally going to release an update for Internet Explorer after what, 5 years now? (counting the service pack update in XPSP2). I remember the days of the browser wars when we anxiously awaited each new release beceause each time they brought forth compelling new features that actually made using the web more interesting. Microsoft is always really good at that when someone gets out ahead of them and does it better, sooner (ala Netscape). IE was for some time THE best game in town but like far too many MS technologies, as soon as they became king of the browser hill, they got lazy, IE grew long in the tooth and it too a slew of compelling browsers (and web standards) to get MS to finally declare that they would indeed launch another version of IE.

I'm happy that MS is updating IE for all of you who still choose to use it, hopefully you'll be getting some modern conveniences and above all, I pray you get full web standards compliance.

The IEBlog is great - definately a step in the right direction. Learn from Scoble! MS - not only listen to your customers but actually act on what they tell you - it really is ok to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do (ala web standards).

Congrats - I look forward to seeing it. God only knows how much further the other browsers will be by the time it finally ships but at least it's progress.

In other news:
3DRealms director is qouted saying that long awaited Duke Nukem Forever (Beta) is finally out this summer, stating "If Microsoft can do it, Why can't we!"

Amazing, Microsoft is finally going to release an update for Internet Explorer after what, 5 years now? (counting the service pack update in XPSP2). I remember the days of the browser wars when we anxiously awaited each new release beceause each time they brought forth compelling new features that actually made using the web more interesting. Microsoft is always really good at that when someone gets out ahead of them and does it better, sooner (ala Netscape). IE was for some time THE best game in town but like far too many MS technologies, as soon as they became king of the browser hill, they got lazy, IE grew long in the tooth and it too a slew of compelling browsers (and web standards) to get MS to finally declare that they would indeed launch another version of IE.

I'm happy that MS is updating IE for all of you who still choose to use it, hopefully you'll be getting some modern conveniences and above all, I pray you get full web standards compliance.

The IEBlog is great - definately a step in the right direction. Learn from Scoble! MS - not only listen to your customers but actually act on what they tell you - it really is ok to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do (ala web standards).

Congrats - I look forward to seeing it. God only knows how much further the other browsers will be by the time it finally ships but at least it's progress.

i agree with the desire to have improved standards support but i consider that a given. youd have to be as lame as the typical /.er claim you are to think an ie7 without improved standards support is going to fly.

i have a few things i'd like to see that haven't been mentioned yet:

1. when prompting to run/script an activex control, don't ask me if i want to run/script an activex control. ask me by name the same way you do when downloading/installing it.

2. a mechanism to always allow/deny use of certain ontrols. this wouldve been nice for the recent help control vulnerability. you already do this with bhos, id like it for all controls.

3. temporary cookies. i dont want to have to accept a cookie to make a site to work properly then have go manage cookies to delete it 10 minutes later. adding a 'allow temporary' button to the accept cookie dialog that would use the cookie until the broswer window closed, or until a user configured expiry has passed.

4. better descriptions for security related configuration options. when you click the dialog item help button dont tell me i can enable/disable the option. i can see that i can do that. tell me what enabling/disabling the option actually does. i shouldnt have to search the web or wade through msdn to find the answer. the infrastructure is there its just that the current information provided is completely and absolutely useless.

Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it's absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain't easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"... I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno - and it should not be, isn't it?
Let's see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us...

Only it tastes better.

>> You are responsible for the future of the WWW

Saying that is basically saying you believe MS constols the internet. This couldn't be further from the truth. They only have an iron grip over the internet because web developers LET THEM, a grip which is now being weakened by 25 million+ people who've had enough.

How did you harden your servers and bandwidth and bridging infrastructure, knowing that this news was going to prompt the mother of all slashdottings to this blog?

(lowercase s, i recognize there will be loads of traffic from other sites too)

Just like to reiterate the desire for better standards compliance with XHTML 1.1 ( application/xhtml+xml mime type ), CSS2, CSS pseudo class selectors ( :hover, :focus, etc on all elements ), PNG, Dom, etc.

This is great news! Just in time too.

When will be find out what exact features will be in IE7?

It will be integrated into the operating system so it will suck like it has always done. For the Hard Core IE user: I hope you finally get the toys you don't like in Firefox so you can use them after all. Don't trust this version either. It will contain spyware after a clean install (like all previous versions) and will get infected and exploited in no time to. Get a real browser. Get Firefox.

Love Firefox, but need IE at work. Why? ActiveX on key apps' browser interfaces. Good work locking out other platfroms MS! Without ActiveX, IE would be dying much faster.

The problem is that I don't see any light in this dark tunnel for Microsoft to make a better version of IE. It's easier to drop the whole IE and start with developing a new browser than trying to patch IE becuase it will never end.

Why do I care?

I run Linux and Firefox and haven't sold my soul to a convicted monopolist.

I'm happy and free whatever happens...

Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it's absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain't easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"... I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno - and it should not be, isn't it?
Let's see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us...

Standards support is, right now, the most important thing for IE, as far as I'm concerned. Although admittedly, since I don't actually use IE, I don't care for usage enhancements, I only care that the pages I create work.

Steve Ballmer said it best: "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"

@Dan: That's just the point, isn't it? You are a highly experienced computer user and, with the help of *an additional piece of hardware* and no less than *4 different software products running locally*, you managed to make your IE secure.
For comparison, I have no antivirus software, no software firewall, no pest hunter. I rely solely on my Linux router and its firewall to protect me from direct attacks, and I use Mozilla/Firefox for browsing. And guess what: I never had any bad stuff either!
Face it: Mozilla is about as secure as IE + 4 supporting applications. And that's not a good sign for IE. And most of the web users, even though in possession of half a brain and not being lazy, simply do not understand enough about computers to secure IE. In fact, I find your insinuation offensive. Not to me, but to people like my sister, my mother, and various other people I know, who are definitely intelligent and not lazy, but simply lack technical knowledge and interest. What would you do? Deny them access to the web? Tell them to RTFM and secure the computer?

As for fonts: Mozilla has an easy to use option in its font configuration to disallow pages setting fonts. Exactly what you claim it lacks. And if memory serves me right, it had this functionality since pre-1.0 days.

/This is great news! Just in time too. /

HAHAHAAAA!! Almost four years behind all the others and you call it just in time. Whahahahaaa!! Wake up buddy. Behind the shiny icons is the same crap they made five years ago. Just use it, be safe for a week or two and get a clean install. Again.

Standards support is, right now, the most important thing for IE, as far as I'm concerned. Although admittedly, since I don't actually use IE, I don't care for usage enhancements, I only care that the pages I create work.

Steve Ballmer said it best: "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"

@Dan: That's just the point, isn't it? You are a highly experienced computer user and, with the help of *an additional piece of hardware* and no less than *4 different software products running locally*, you managed to make your IE secure.
For comparison, I have no antivirus software, no software firewall, no pest hunter. I rely solely on my Linux router and its firewall to protect me from direct attacks, and I use Mozilla/Firefox for browsing. And guess what: I never had any bad stuff either!
Face it: Mozilla is about as secure as IE + 4 supporting applications. And that's not a good sign for IE. And most of the web users, even though in possession of half a brain and not being lazy, simply do not understand enough about computers to secure IE. In fact, I find your insinuation offensive. Not to me, but to people like my sister, my mother, and various other people I know, who are definitely intelligent and not lazy, but simply lack technical knowledge and interest. What would you do? Deny them access to the web? Tell them to RTFM and secure the computer?

As for fonts: Mozilla has an easy to use option in its font configuration to disallow pages setting fonts. Exactly what you claim it lacks. And if memory serves me right, it had this functionality since pre-1.0 days.

Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it's absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain't easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"... I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno - and it should not be, isn't it?
Let's see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us...

Why are transparent PNGs such a big deal? I had no idea they were that prevalent. I join everyone else on my hopes that IE7 fully complies to web standards.

I think a new version of IE is especially usefull for the ones who are very loyal to MS products and haven't made a browser switch yet. I don't think Mozilla or Opera users will switch back.

Any readers of Gladwell's tipping point here? This is a classic tipping point situation. Mozilla was for the enthusiasts. Firefox killed one of the main complaints about Mozilla -- it's perceived slowness -- and with the spread of that meme came the early adopters. With Firefox 1.0, the Early Majority is building.

Firefox Mavens and Salesmen are out there proselytizing to their friends. Firefox users are so pleased by the product they insist others try it whenever they have the opportunity to show it.

It's going to take a lot more than IE7.0 to stop Firefox from tipping.

>>we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners

Shouldn't that read 'we listened to customers, analysts, business partners AND DEVELOPERS'.

Oh, I've got that 'cold blood' thing going on.

PNG alpha, css2, SVG, guys! Let someone else do the design for you. It's called 'standards' for a reason.

You need a licence to use GIF's. You can sell the viewing of GIF's. PNG is much more advanced but is free. Billy don't like that. And then we are were we allways end up. THEY make more money and YOU get the old stuff, the malware, the spyware etc. IE had a very bad reputation and it's not going to change because 7 is a lucky number.

More security is nice, but please: Work on standard support. CSS2 and stuff like that. And do it right, for once. Just brand a FireFox build for all i care.

Microsoft, You crappy browser is pissing me off in a day to day basis. Please, please make the hurting stop.

Also wanting better standards compliance. I'd get my work done far quicker if I didn't have to keep adding in hacks for PNG transparency, multiple ways of add events and suchlike. CSS likewise. Why on earth I can't :hover over text or images?!

Obviously better security and protection from spyware/malware is welcome. But since we can get those things outside the browser, we still need to run stand-alone spyware/malware apps.

I want to echo every sentiment here about improved web standards support and better graphics standards support.

I also want substantial user interface improvements. You can do all you want with standards or security, but I'll never go back to using a browser without tabs.

While I am a personal and not a business user I am picky about what goes on my systems. As just a regular user I have some complaints and have found most PC owners I talk to have the same complaint. The complaint is that most developers weather it be OS, Game or other type of program are in to much of a rush to supply the demanding public we are. Yes we complain when something seems to take forever to be released but most of us are willing to wait for a BUG FREE product. It seems to me with a lot of the programs I have purchased I spend more time installing updates than I do actually enjoying the product. Yes I realize that the large companies are there to make money but it makes more sence to me to have a bug free product and happy customers than it does to release a product with a mess of bugs that have to fixed by continual free download patches and a complaining comsumer. I run a low end older system and I also have a mid range newer system as well as a laptop all with the XP Upgrade installed. In the last year I have spent approximately $8000.00 on PC products in the software category for my 3 systems and will spend thsat and more again this year. I would really like to see my money go for a more quality oriented product then a quanity oriented product. I am not that tech oriented or understand a lot about some of the PC related issues but know enough for hardware upgrades and for the most part how to find the culprit to a problem and sometimes able to fix it myself. I know new software undergoes a teating phase as it should but would like to see the systems used for testing more low end out of the box type systems so the testers can locate and experience a lot of the bugs us endusers seem to find after a product has been released and that way the developers can repair these bugs so a more bug free product can be released to us high demand consumers. Whatever wait we experience and complain about would be worth it in my honest opinion. I play a lot of Microsofts Zoo Tycoon and we have a saying " Happy Animals = Happy Guests " well here's one for developers and companies to consider " Happy consumers = Rise in Sales and Profits"

Just a simple everyday endusers comments

lol, IE has 90% of the browser market, Fire fox has a few percent and people think microsoft are in trouble. Very funny reading these posts.

looking forward to your new browser. Hope that you will make the beta's avaible to the public like other browsers do, it allows for the most complete feedback.

Good luck and thanks for all your continued hard work.

ok, standard "XHTML, CSS, Etc support" requests aside, the biggest thing i'd like to see out of IE7 is ECMAScript4 support. Microsoft did a good thing in basing large bits of JScript.Net off it. I say you should beat Mozilla.org at its own game & get full support out. For those of you who dont know, ECMAScript4 / JavaScript 2.0 is a major update to the language. it introduces a large number of features including true class based inheritence, namespaces, real types, and a strict mode. anyone who's tried to do anything heavy-duty in javascript knows these things would make life significantly more sane.

Why would anyone bother with IE if the only enhancements are security related? There are plenty of secure alternatives which also have much more standards support. If you had really listened to what people are saying, you would be greatly improving the rendering engine as well. Until then, IE will be inferior to every other modern browser in existence.

Very funny reading about Fire fox.
IE - rulezzzzz!

MS needs to make standards compliance priority #1. If IE7 doesn't have DOM2, CSS2 and at least some part of CSS3, XMLHTTPRequest as a NON-ACTIVEX object that is syntax compatible with every other browser out there (how hard can this be for a company that practically oozes billions of dollars??), and Javascript 1.5 (hello, try/catch?! good lord IE6 is out of date!)... Tabbed browsing is a distant, distant second to standards compliance.

The sad thing is, we're likely just going to see some sad security update and probably the introduction of some new Active-X or XAML-related vendor lock-in nonsense. I'm not holding my breath.

I would like to see the browser not so integrated into the OS. I'm sure the idea is to keep us all from using firefox, opera, or whatever, but it doesn't work and is therefore useless to "force" us.

Also thanks for giving the firefox developers more incentive to further kick your ass :)

why MS bother to make IE7 when there is Firefox??!?!?!:)
better make something windows works fast, stable and secure.
oooh i see IE7 is somthing like by way of an apology that longhorn i delayed another year:)
blah ...
:)))

<p><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx">Word is</a> Internet Explorer 7 is coming this year.</p>
<p>*Yawn*</p>
<p>So far no one has given a reason to use it. Plus, since it's from Microsoft, you know it's going to be buggy.</p

I hope you guys read all this.

Hello, I have a question about IE 7: Is it going to support any platforms other than WinXP and Longhorn? I currently use IE 6 with Linux (using Crossover Office wine 4.1) and it works quite well. Will MS be supporting Linux users with this release also?

And the other question is about PNGs. When are we going to get correct PNG support? This should be an almost-trivial fix and it is years overdue.

OMG, Microsoft forces us to use IE? How silly can you be. Yes it is part of the OS to ... drum roll ... allow other MS products and 3rd party products to not have to reinvent the wheel.

Being an avid Firefox user on Windows, I find the idea that MS prevents us from using another broser silly just due to the fact that so many of us ARE using another browser.

IE's days are over. The browser would have to be rebuilt from the ground up in a component, open source manner in order for it to beat Firefox. This will of course never happen as Microsoft doesn't create software that way.

Sounds like Microsoft was not hearing complaints from users before firefox stepped on the stage.

Why Microsoft has always been unctuous like this?

Internet Explorer 7 Announced! Glory! - Elliott Back

Main thing standards! 4 as webmaster always must check site both in IE and in Opera and Firefox. If all are make standard to me will more simply develop sites.

My only concern is that you provide REAL standards support.

Try REAL support for PNG. PNG supports alpha tarnsparency. There is no need, nor even desire, to add any nonsense "filters" for such a feature. The image itself supports it and clearly IE is capable of using alpha transparency...you guys just opted to cripple it so that the use of alpha transparency would require special IE only code which will not work with other browsers...basically you've made things a pain in the ass for developers and many of us are sick of it. Please follow what your company had said it believed in the past, "embrace and extend." All you've done thus far is extend...not embrace which ultimately limits the ability of developers to offer creative solutions. Give us strict standards support. Definately give us alpha PNG support. After all, it works in Explorer - why not Internet Explorer...especially since the two are supposedly integrated. Maybe one day I'll consider using your browser again. Until I see that happen, I'll keep using Firefox (which incidentally has multiple pages open using tabs which keeps the clutter on my taskbar down).

A single rendering engine based on web standards will be a good start (senior web developer talking here). Complete, 100% compliance with W3C standards for CSS, XHTML etc. Full CSS2.1 and as much 3.0 as you can cram in. Make the box model work they way it should without me forcing it to using doctypes. Make it so that as I write a CSS style sheet for my sites (25,000+ pages) that if I see it work correctly in Firefox/Mozilla/Safari etc I won't even have to look at IE's version ... it'll look EXACTLY the same. Proper PNG support you silly folks! Standards, it's all about standards. secuiry too. IE usage might rise above 70% again if you make this happen.

The ignorance about standards here seems to be because some people are wrongly associating standards as being anti-Microsoft and pro open source/apple. This is only the situation at the moment because IE has not had its archaic rendering engine updated in any significant way for around seven years.

It's about one thing, seeing Microsoft support the standards they agreed to support years ago and allowing web designers to use the newer standards to create attractive sites without trying to hack our way through a million and one inconsistencies.
IEs proprietary technologies were arguably once innovative but for the last 5-7 years IE has been completely stagnant. It's therefore laughable to talk about the W3 being out of step. IE6 is a mess and nothing to be respected now, IE7 is MSs chance to keep pace with everyone else or perhaps even show everyone who's boss.

It's either that or browser wars #2 which would be a sad devolution from where we currently are.

Today, in his keynote for the 2005 RSA conference, Bill Gates announced, among other things, that Microsoft would be releasing a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) for the XP SP2 platform.

This blog post provides nice humor... You say, "Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message..". I ask, where the hell were you for last half a decade?

Anyway... entertainig to read this diplomatic bluberbs and all nicey feel good "we care" things.

"a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you"

lol.

Security 360

royalrodent.com &raquo; Internet Explorer 7 Beta Arrives This Summer

perhaps IE7 will use the gecko engine....
With a IE-esque interface.

And sites that use ActiveX will need to be registered with some Microsoft depository, by paying an exhorbitant sum of money. So, all ActiveX codes must be downloaded from microsoft.com or local machine only. This service can be called OnlyOne.NET :D
That'll curb some security concerns.... and extra revenue for MS :D

Das Thomas Promny Blog &raquo; Internet Explorer 7 kommt

I'm not sure I see the urgency. Dean Edwards has already released IE7 - see http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/ for details. It's simple code that you can insert into your web pages that makes IE standards compliant.

Now that IE is "standards compliant" (not that it wanted to be), an IE7 release (for Windows XP and Longhorn) just to add tabbed browsing doesn't seem compelling compared against Mozilla Firefox on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Oh nooo, another version to be compatible with...

@N.N. Thayer:

"How about that Linux e-mail client that looks so much like Outlook? All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."

Someone forgot that MS ripped off the whole window-based GUI thing from Mac! Doooop! Embarassed!

The web design community's chorus of support for Firefox will only increase if IE7 continues the relativistic approach to web standards displayed by all previous versions of MSIE, the web designer's bane.

"...can't we all get along?"
Having standards and complying
with them is the best way.

This isn't an excuse for
some of the heated comments above
- a bit forgiveable if you've
ever made a web page using IE, only
to discover what it looks like later in
a real browser like Firefox -
but a standards compliant IE7, available
on any platform, would go along way to
reducing their number.

Yet another good thing about Firefox--it's apparently forcing MSFT to give people a slightly less horrible browser.

This is such a illusion that MS is trying to make with IE being any good for intranet/web apps.

IE is too slow to make responsive web interface, has its bugs and quirks and bunch of custom extensions that aren't anything extraordinary these days.

Alternatively you can write standard code that works everywhere with no hassle (except IE). It's easy (cheap) to deploy. No need to upgrade Windows and download patches/upgrades. Just 4mb Firefox/Opera download and you've got your workstation set!

Even if W3C standards cannot handle some areas, you can write Firefox extension that has more power than ActiveX control (works with browser, not with page instance), but is still easy to deploy and is portable across platforms!

IE has lost its market here.

MS has lots to catch up. You won't get CSS2 working in 6 months unless you plan to embed Gecko engine ;)

Why not make this a real blog and respond to directly in a post some some of the repeated comments in this thread?

"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."

Well, I'm running Firefox on FreeBSD. Is MS planning on making a version for *BSD or *nix at all?

This is good news, I think.

Will you work with the other browser vendors to standardize on... standards? Whomever ends up driving a standardization of browsers will be a hero, in my mind. In some cases it might mean bringing the "other guy" up to your technology, if you've got the goods, and the other guy does not. Sharing or standardizing on the current standard.

It is a crying shame that implementations of standards and language (e.g. ECMA script) vary to the extent that one needs to write different pages/code for the different browsers (particularly IE v.s. others).

Can you imagine how many thousand... perhaps million man-hours have been wasted due to the lack of a standard? The impac of these decisions boggle the mind.

If you standardize and the 'Net and the world's economies will leap forward.

Push one-off browser technology and you've hurt everyone, and held the world back - its not esoteric, we're talking bread and butter, and less of it for the world.

Imagine the current IT world without standard x86 architecture.

Might we still be watching Big Blue install software on mainframes?

Happy developing,


Songzilla guy

I hope Microsoft will make my privacy and security a higher priority than the interests of its big businesses customers. When will they realize that my privacy and security are more important to me than interoperability? I can find a way to do just about anything without a computer, but once companies are watching and tracking my every mouse click and key entry, I can't recover my privacy!

nobody trusts microsoft for security, so why would they use an MS browser ever again? I know many people that use firefox find the extensions to be incredible.

pleeease include IDN support ...

I remember those many years ago when 6.0 came out and I was so excited because it had a ton of "features" that 5.5 didn't... Then I started to develop for the web and HATED Netscape and programmed only for IE... Now... like Netscape lost me so long ago... IE has done the same... Firefox came out and provides me exactly what I need... without all the spyware and the years of waiting for the new version... I hate spending hours upon hours cleaning the spyware caused by IE off my friend's and family's computer... so much so that I make them all use Firefox if they are going to get tech support from me...


I'm even starting to migrate to Linux because my needs are changing and Longhorn is taking forever to come out... I have had XP since the original beta... it's getting old... Hopefully Longhorn will fufill the needs of it's customers... it shouldn't takes me days to hack Windows so it doesn't have all the crap like Messenger, MSN Explorer, Outlook Express, etc... etc... etc... I don't hate Microsoft, I just am tired of waiting...

Yes, it&#8217;s true! Microsoft announced that they would release IE7 beta this summer. Microsoft says that due to the pressure of the customers and competators, namely Mozilla Foundation&#8217;s Firefox, they will release a version of IE7 for Windows XP. Microsoft&#8217;s...

I hear the death bells ringing for IE. I can hear the march to the cemetery beginning... Bill and Ballmer leading the pack weeping and wondering why they failed to keep ahold of the browser market.

Face it.. Firefox is a much more fantastic browser. It sticks to the standards and doesn't make up its own. Firefox is better constructed and more solid than IE has ever been. (and will ever be)

For whom the bell tolls... I smell rotting MSIE. :-)

Why not release IE 7 with an up to date Java VM?
-Programmer

"Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You're always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give 'genetic' diversity, different standards give memetic diversity."

Yes, why, that's the answer! The ISO doesn't know what they're doing, right? I mean, why write code that will work in all browsers, rather than rewrite the site so that it will work in IE? Redundant work is so efficient!

see dean hachamovitch in this channel 9 video
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=17498

what a joke IE is

This is great news, so is this new version based on behind the scenes stuff? i.e. stuff that won't be apparent to the end user but will be working in the background to enhance and imrpove their browsing experience?

Are there going to be the much demanded features which third party browsers have supported for a while? i.e. tab browsing, a simple built in download manager supporting pause/resume? Great news nonetheless.

Hope to hear more from you guys, keep it up!

...
folks ... hold on ....

tabbed browsing? DL-Manager? Paste-here-top-this-swap-out?

I hope Microsoft will keep their word,leaves
additional utility for IE to third parties
production and will concentrate on a improved
rendering and code interpretation instead of getting stuck with the actual engine adding "only" some hot, new features ... like tabbed browsing.

those who miss these features could choose browser additions like MyIE2 etc ...

BUT INDEED !!!!

YOUR BROWSER_WAR IS BURNING OUR MONEY

Nowadays technology and making IE understand not only open but, too, actual standarts could help decreasing our financial output for
web-development.


hands up for:

>>>>> XML, CSS 2.0, PNG ALPHA CHANNEL ....

Listen carefully ... !

grtz

No tabbed browsing, me stay with Firefox. Period.

This summer?! In the meantime I'll be migrating my company to Firefox.

Ryan Parr Portfolio | Eugene, OR | Web Design, Professional Web Contractor and Web Design Developer.

I can't believe people are thinking MS is really trying to listen to end-users comments.
MS never ever in his history listened to any of his end-usrs. If they did, they weren't where they are now in the first place.

Unfortunately, IE7 will be nothing more than MS' answer to the invasion of Firefox. Rushing tabbed browsing and pop-up blocker to another version of IE, only to give developers another reason to add IE7 logo to their "compatible with...." list.

Unless MS admits to his past mistakes and come forward as a honest party by grouping with open source community to develope a standard browser, even releasing IE 9 and 10 will have no effect on rising the end-users' need to have a decent and safe browser.

Well how about that? It looks like Microsoft is actually going to release Internet Explorer 7 before Longhorn hits the...

I use Maxthon, so everything in there plus whats in Firefox is good.

Full PNG support
CSS2&3
Faster page rendering
Fix the boxmodel (screw everyone else who's site breaks, it will help the economy to force people to hire a webmaster to fix it :) )

You'll have to work uber hard to make me switch back from opera. I hope you succeed.

And please fix the box model at least...

Instead of IE7, maybe Microsoft should call it YAIE ( Yet Another IE ) Why anyone would even bother? Show them something Firefox doesn't have and maybe they believe. So why not just come up with the real truth?

_______________________________________________
.
ahhhh yeah ... i forgot ....

for those who are interessted what's the
discussion about ....

this students site explains the technical
handicaps IE users have to cope with, compared
to using an alternative browser ...
besides the
omnipotent security issue.

'why IE sucks!' ;0)
>>> http://www.nefkom.net/g.piesche/ie/

please remember: more neccessary than "features" is the compability to open standarts. there are quite good tools for
improved functionality yet.

this will give www-users the oportunity to
have a richer, more informational and more
comfortable web experiance than today.

it also will stop the industry programming their sites for 3 different kinds of browsers/users/clients ...

the IE-Story turned out be a VERY expensive image campaign by microsoft ... on our and your costs.

grtz

by the way i'm a firefox user and work as a web-designer crying for all the wasted time develping for IE ...

.
_______________________________________________

Not to sound like everyone else who just dumps on IE out of hatred, I can't imagine any customer in their right mind praising Internet Explorer for its compatibility or extensibility. What they're probably saying is more like "Fix it now, or take it out of Windows."

"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."

Yes, we wouldn't want competition that's already got security down pat, a foundation that can be worked -with- and not -around-, and useful features. I'm hopeful that IE7 will bring new stuff, and it's about damn time, but there's no reason to declare the death (or temporary silencing) of users of other - and *in many cases* better - browsers just because you've seen a very vague checklist and roadmap.

Sorry, this is too late, I'm tired of dealing with Microsoft products, I'm not a linux zealot but if you don't pull some magic out of your nether regions then it's good bye.

You toppled netscape, you left us to rot with IE.

Who's to say you won't do the same again. It's the way you've been working business for a long time, I don't think you will change your ways unfortunately.

I like windows, IE however I hate with a passion, support standards? What?

You'd better cut bloat, up security, add custom ui, add the ability of ui plugins etc, add png correctly and actually TRY (yes, how about some effort) to support some web standards so we the developers of websites don't have to bend over backwards to make our customers happy AND secure.

Cynically,

Will

waffle

tgecho &raquo; IE7

Good news to hear! Fully CSS2 support is really called for as well as security-related issues. And Doctype switching bug (<?xml ...?> works in quirks mode) also should be fixed.

MS must be scared be scared of Firefox

FINNISH IE FIRST, then add features!

As long as you finish support for HTML4, CSS2, and PNG I'll be happy. Each of these specs are over 5 years old!

Web standards should be the MAIN focus of of the upgrade.

I'm an Opera lover myself - would love to see IE 7 incorporate many of the great features Opera and many other alternative browsers have. Tabbed browsers, low resource use etc.....

Look forward to seeing the Beta this summer - perhaps in time for my July 7th birthday? LOL

<p>As everyone has probably this morning, <a href="http://news.com.com/Reversal+Next+IE+update+divorced+from+Windows/2100-1032_3-5577263.html">the browser wars are back</a>. Our biggest opponent has <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/37

darn those typos -- I want a finished version of IE, not one for Finland (sorry Finland)

Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine.

Yeah, tabs are fun. ...But make sure you fix the rendering engine.

Security's a great giggle. ...As long as it draws pages properly.

The only way you can win friends is by making it draw pages properly and abolishing all your proprietary crap.

It won't "break the web"; if it does, 25 million people prefer a "broken" web anyway.

Ping Back来自：blog.csdn.net

I'd have to say that while this is some vindication for those of us Windows users who have been on the defensive recently due to the growing Firefox trend (which is good software, too, mind you), I'm concerned that this new version of Internet Explorer might come off as a bit spartan.

What I mean is, sure, it's good that security-related capabilities have a good chance of getting fixed in Version 7, but how about open standards like CSS, XML, MathML, and the like? Over the years of my writing web sites and using IE, I have been hoping that IE move more and more towards compatibility with these specifications. I'm pretty impressed with how IE handles cascading style sheets right now; it's an integral part of any web project I start (both IE and the style sheets, I mean). But what about the others? HTML 4?

Historically, I observe that I have strong brand loyalty, and I have been an MS-DOS and Windows user for a long long time. Here's to hoping that my browser finally deals with the standards. Good luck. ^_^

Standards, standards, standards.

People who don't create websites won't understand, but it will benefit everyone who uses the web if IE creates a standards-compliant browser - CSS, CSS2, XML, XHTML, PNG, etc. Leave out support for proprietary coding - if necessary, you can release an enterprise version with proprietary support, which is only necessary and useful in that sort of situation. Home users do not need ActiveX in their browser, and it only makes it less secure by being there. If you can stick to standards and include updates to them, websites will get better due to improvements in the standard since IE was last updated, layout will improve, less work will have to be done to create sites. Everyone will benefit.

It was very funny reading the comment by the guy that prides himself on never getting malware from IE browsing because he has anti-spyware this and anti-virus that, firewalls gallore etc etc installed. Dude, you wouldn't need all those bandages if you used a browser that wasn't gushing blood and attracting infection to start with...

Since I've been installing mozilla and more recently, firefox after cleaning up malware infested machines (by formatting them), I've noticed the time before that user rings me back with problems has increased in some cases to YEARS.

I'm not saying you should not be using virus-scanners and anti-malware products (unless you're using something other than windows that is...), but it's uncanny how little malware a mozilla-browser-based average, household pc gets.

I wonder If the improvements list will come out Or will not? Witout It the IE7 Beta will be only a try to stop the IE Share fall.
I think (and I'm almost sure) IE7 Will not Include better support for CSS, PNG or any other new standar. If they haven't been able to do It in some years, will be almost Imposible in some months, Right Dean? The development required to make IE get all those features Is Huge, Development Is slow, and In order to change lot of things you would need to do what Netscape did, rewrite the entire engine. That will result In the same history: the browser In Beta stage, with more /* TODO: ...*/ in the code will lose the war.
I love Firefox, that's right; But I write html to people use IE I only would love to not to work twice for these people, for this browser, that makes my CSS a waste of time. I want to be optimistic about IE's future, But I'm sorry, I can't.

Great.

Some suggestions that you've already heard:
-openSource extensions like FireFox promotes
-XUL support
-tabbed browsing
-faster rendering
-better standards support of XHTML, CSS 1/2/3
-fix the box-model hack
-do not add anything proprietary
-add a measuring tool and object debugger

Thanks. Hurry up. Can't wait.

By the way, I still use a Win 2K machine all the time.

Good news, I think after release of IE 7, share of IE is gonna increase for sure.. (provided they have common thing like tabbed browsing & FAST browsing)

cheers
Deep

FYI:

My day job involves working in a Windows environment using a mix of Microsoft and other proprietary software. I am not vehemently anti-MS, but I'm realistic enough to understand that some of MS's software is best-of-breed or close to it for particular purposes, and other MS software, well, isn't.

I am also a firefox user at home, which is a little surprising, as I spend enough time on my computer at work that I generally leave well enough alone at home in terms of my overall computer setup. I originally switched to Firefox because IE started freezing when it was run about 50% of the time on my main desktop machine (which is a pentum 533 box running Win98, which serves me well enough for non-work and non-game purposes.) I still don't know why IE on my Win98 box does this, and I no longer care; I just never use IE on that box except to visit windowsupdate. My parents (who aren't tech-savvy) have asked about Firefox and the only reason I haven't installed it on their machine yet is laziness. As I've moved more of my day-to-day computing to my Win XP laptop, I've also installed Firefox on it for my browsing there as well.

Features that I like in Firefox that MS should consider knocking off (because we all know that IE7 is going to be at least partly about knocking Firefox back down to about 8% of users):

- Tabbed browsing. This is especially imprtant on my fixed-resolution laptop as I have much less room for window bars on my taskbar there (and Win XP's taskbar stacking drives me batty)
- Firefox's single download window is so much better engineered than IE's multiple download dialogs are.
- I like having my repeat-browsing favorite sites reside in the address bar dropdown and sing my bookmarks mire for historical archiving. The Firefox "Paste and Go" add-in allows me to navigate to sites from a text-based address without typing them in, meaning that sites that aren't linked to that I only want to visit once can still be visited without me haveing to type them in my address bar and temporarily displace one of my repeated-surf sites.

I also use the Sage RSS/Atom feed reader on a daily basis, but that probably won't make it into a store-brand generic browser. It'll also probably be enough for me to shrug and say "who cares?" about IE7, unless IE7 makes two important changes that I can't see happening:

1. Uncoupling ActiveX (and other proprietary MS stuff, as applicable) from the browser

Most home users never use ActiveX. Most home-oriented web sites never use this either, except for Windows update and or the online antivrius checkers that some vendors have. Most anything else I've seen that is outside company intranets uses flash or java. Nonetheless, the IE-based intranet thin clients that are deployed in many places will probably leave IE and ActiveX intertwined.

2. Uncoupling IE from the operating system and sandboxing it effectively from the same.

It's bad enough that proprietary MS browsing/browser extensions, poorly coded, have made a mess of IE security. It's even worse that IE is so integrated with the OS that IE security holes can wreak total havoc with a person's system.

I think if MS is really serious about security, they're going to need to remove existing functionality in IE7 to the extent of doing either 1 or 2 above. I also think that the MS marketing department and Pointy-Haired Bosses will resist any action of this sort with every ounce of their being.

This is definitely going to be interesting to follow over the next year or so.

(craigkas)at(myway)dot(com)

And the IE7 will then have all the features an Opera oder Firefox have today? Has it transparent PNG support?
Do make again your own SPECS and not the real ones from the webconsortium?

Wow!...And what a fast and hard development for an supposed desktop lader.

@N.N. Thayer:

"IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent. Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup"

But right now it's pretty obviously MSIE that's playing catch-up with Firefox. And while .NET is a server technology that has nothing to do with Firefox, it's easily bested by the open source server technology Zope. .NET still has a long way to go to catch up with Zope.

"All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."

It seems that in all of those cases the technologies were on the Mac and/or the Amiga before they made it into MS-Windows.

"All the alternative browsers put together hold a paltry 10% of the market, and IE continues to set standards and drive the Web. I'd hardly call that an uprising."

Firefox by itself holds around 10% of the market (possibly more, possibly less; it depends upon whom you ask). From what I've personally seen on web server logs I'd say that Firefox currently has a little over 9% of the market and Safari has about half of that. Opera, Konqueror, and others combine for another few percentage points. This leaves all the different versions of MSIE (including the abandoned ones for the Mac and UNIX) pulling in around 83%. Consider that Firefox hasn't been around that long. Consider that Safari hasn't been around that long and is available only on the Mac. MSIE is currently bleeding market share, and if that oft-quoted 3% Mac market ever had any truth, then Mac market share is growing, too.

If a new standards-compliant version of MSIE isn't released for Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2K, and Mac OS X as well as WinXP, it's not going to be gaining back more than it's losing.

Hey,

don't forget to include in ie7 all the nice security holes for the kids in school! :-)

Please PLEASE do not support the CSS 3 Draft. There're nothing worse than a major browser with the market share like IE to support an unfinalized draft of a web standard. Guys, we have been suffered before. Netscape, IE all tried to "support" technology that was still in their draft state, and the result is a series of non-standard implementations that affect us for a long long time. Please don't repeat the same mistakes.

But it would be great to fully support CSS 1/2, XHTML, PNG, etc.

XUL support? I really don't have any interest in it. NOTE: Yes, it's an open standard, but it's a very Mozilla centric technology. IMO, instead of supporting XUL, it would be a better idea to develop an open source implementation of Avalon to the Mozilla project!

Speaking as an old VB/C programmer and former user of Microsoft Windows/Office products I'm not going to hold my breath. Too many times Microsoft has promised but not delivered. Their gawd-awful security and standards crippled browser has caused more problems for me and nearly everyone I know. I switched to Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox long ago due to spyware concerns.

Q: Why should a company/person buy a antispyware program when Microsoft should just fix the security problems that SHOULD be fixed for free?

A: Because Microsoft knows there is money to be made off the antispyware software that will soon be sold by them. (i.e. recent purchase of the company, Giant, seems to support my theory)

Anyway...If IE7 were to properly implement CSS, etc I might be impressed but alas I'm afraid that the only people that Microsoft is trying to impress right now are it's shareholders.

Well, good luck Microsoft... When you have something impressive, standards based AND secure I "might" come back. Otherwise I'll continue to use my Linux/BSD based OSes and spyware free Firefox browser.

In short until there are solid details on IE7 from Microsoft there is nothing for us users, administrators, programmers or web developers to see here...move along...

@jojo

All these market share of for trash! They are unreal.

The 10% of the market are only, because nobody knows about an Firefox or Opera. Do you really believe all users are installing their browser own? Or can it install self?
In most firms are old IEs installed, which are unpatched 5.0 version under nt2k with more holes as an switzerland cheese.

what a newbie you are?...

I don't know which is worse. Fireox or IE. I can't stand firefox. I think its more of a parasite feeding off of the back of a good browser (Mozilla Seamonkey Suite 1.7.5).

I am not at all impressed with neither firefox nor IE6.

If Microsoft truly "cares", "listens" and "commits" as we always hear them say, they should, at a BARE MINIMUM have those features in IE7

1.) Tabbed Browsing. For those of you who don't like it, no one is forcing you to use tabbed browsing!

2.) NO POP UPS. One of the critical flaws of pre-XPSP2 versions of IE is no built-in functionality to kill pop ups. Using a 3rd party program is ust ridiculous when other browsers do it natively.

3.) Windows 2000 Support. Hello MS, not everyone uses the over bloated XP for a good reason. Its the win2k crows u should look after, especially since XP is "supposedly" built on top of 2000.

4.) Stick to standards. God knows IE has a reputation of not following standards.

Now, lets truly see if Microsoft will "listen" and "commit"

I used to be a fan of IE until I tried Mozilla Firefox and Netscape. Since then I was using them. Then came SP2 and the improved IE6. Tried it and it did add some features paticularly the one that I like is the pop up blocker. But to my dismay, the tabbed browsing is still missing. One of the things I like with the other browsers is that they have this option. So there is a lot more space on the taskbar (and its neat to see since its clean). Im hoping that IE7 would add this feature. If so would be great and will be gladly going back as an IE fan.

Yes, definitely do a version for Windows 2000. I'm afraid that corporate isn't prepared to foot the bill to upgrade all our workstations to XP.

Would IE7 be as fast as Mozilla Firefox or Opera? That's one of the reasons as well why I shifted from IE to these browsers because they are VERY FAST in opening webpages and but of course my personal favorite, TABBED BROWSING

Would IE7 be as fast as Mozilla Firefox or Opera? That's one of the reasons as well why I shifted from IE to these browsers because they are VERY FAST in opening webpages and but of course my personal favorite, TABBED BROWSING

I have finally understood what Microsoft is.

Internet Explorer ver 7???

So MS has finally taken note of the new browsers taking their browser business away from them! I didn't think they cared though Dean?!

It's a bit late in my opinion, how many years has it been since the last major release (and not just security patches, I've had enough of those to last a lifetime!).

I'm sorry but quite why anyone get's their hopes up about IE7 being any improvement at all is beyond me, I concur with numerous people on this, it'll just be more bug fixes and no rival for Firefox.

Better luck next time MS!

Please make it compatible with Windows 2000 so that IE7 will not necessarily require XP SP2.

"Shut Firefox users up"? Please. When you completely remove the tight integration of IE from Windows, and allow more features and capabilities such as the use of extensions, then you might shut a Firefox user or two up. Not gonna happen if IE stays "inside the box".

Well, i doubt that i'll stop using the magnificent FF. You must respect this open source browser for its innovation! all that microsoft do right now is PARTLY imitate the capabilities of the FF, but i hardly believe they will include everything in FF. example - supporting IDN is done in ALL the browsers but the IE. think they will be able to include it this time?
i don't think so...

As a web developer I'm really exited about this, and since you already heard it a thousand times I'm gonna say it again. Because you need to hear it. Make it compatible with open standards. You know if IE actually got more safe and compatible with the open standards, webmasters aroud the world would recomend IE instead of firefox.
Do yourself a favor....

Just to add to the pleading.

If IE 7 fails to support common web standards it will continue to be absolutely useless to me. CSS/ XHTML/ XML/ PNG/ a proper, standards compliant DOM. Without these things I see no place for IE anymore. Tabbed browsing, well integrated search and security are just bonuses to a firefox that plays nicely with theses standards.

oh, and when I say "properly implements", I don't mean "embrace and extend" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_and_extend) I mean I want to be able to author once for all browsers! Please!

After 6 years of sitting around and blocking the web as much as possible in order to keep up its dominance in the client software market, microsoft announces vaporware that will ship 2 years late and be behind anything else that has been out there for years. And all of you M$ junkies rejoice - "finally, no more Firefox!". How stupid can you get?

I hope IE7 will contain a complete integration of the new technologie (WINFX) such as Indigo and Avalon!

Greetings from Austria

　IEBlog | IE7 Maxthonの開発者など加わって夏にテストリリース。 NeoWinのTom Warrenは確かコードは完了しているのでWinBET...

This is Great. I have been expecting this product for so long.

Maybe MS guys should think about IE 8 later on. Maybe another team should start developing a new browser from ground up with current technologies, with perfect rendering, standards compliance and security in mind. How about writing it with .Net?

In few posts, I have read that, Tabbed Browsing won't be on IE 7 because of the IE's structure. If this is true, don't try to add that feature.

I believe that Microsoft has enough power and knowledge to make the best (of the best of the best...) Browser.

PS: I have never been a fan of FireFox. But I also thank FireFox guys for pushing Microsoft.

I'm thrilled to hear that IE7 will enter beta cycles in the summer of 2005. That said, I'm more than a little put off by this public statement: Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard...

well, the code for this news should look something like this:

/* uncomment this and recompile around sommer 05,
Bill */
//InternetExplorer ie7 = (InternetExplorer)firefox.clone();

I can't wait to see IE7. I think a refresh is exactly what Microsoft needs to *attempt* to regain the little share they lost of the browser market. I am one that personally made the switch to Firefox after a long haul and series of arguments with friends and geeks alike. I use it now mainly because of the better support it has for web standards, the expandibility through extensions that it offers, and TABS!! I saw one gentleman post saying he would not ever again use a browser that did not support multiple tabs (or at least the ability to switch the feature on and off). I stand with that gentleman.

I think the MAIN things the IE team should focus on are:

- Returning to Web Standards (XHTML, CSS, XML, PNG, etc.) Note that this would also require a refresh in page rendering.
- Tabbrowsing Support (even if the feature is defautled off)
- Extension support (so geeks like me can modify the browser in any way we see fit).

Complying with these 3 requirements for me would be Microsoft's best chance at getting a core of people that I know back on Internet Explorer. Even if they did add all of these things, there's no garuntee I'd change back to IE. We'd have to see how the extentions compete with Firefox and if the browser start time is faster.

Now, given, this post has in mind that Microsoft probably doesn't care what *I* think... and that's fine. Those are just some of the main reasons I switched to Firefox in the first place. I think the first question Microsoft should be asking themselves is "why did you switch from IE (or another browser) to Firefox?" that question would lead you next to "what does Firefox do or support that IE doesnt?" If they can answer these questions for themselves, and answer the industry through a version refresh by supplying the things IE is missing, maybe.... just maybe... we'll see another turn around. The worst thing about this whole ordeal is.... now the majority of people know there's something more out there than Internet Explorer. Yes, I still know some people that are unfamiliar with any other way to use the internet... but for the most part, that is no longer the general consensus. That's going to be tough ground for Microsoft to recover from.

Team IE.. you've got some work to do. Enjoy.

you people talking about how 'secure' firefox is make me laugh. It's secure because it has a 5% market share. If firefox had a 75% market share you can bet your ass virus writers would find as many flaws as they do with IE.

If you idiots spent as much time delivering compelling and innovative ideas as you do bashing Microsoft you might just beat them at thier game.

I'm an avid firefox user, and I love Microsoft. Most of us that use Firefox use it for the featureset AND the security. If you're going to comment on how terrible we are about bashing it -- that's fine. I can't stop that. Keep in mind though, that most of us don't care that Firefox would be hit as hard if it was as big. We care that it isn't being hit right now. When its hit later, maybe we'll talk. And don't get me started on features and control. Firefox wins. End of story.

"you people talking about how 'secure' firefox is make me laugh. It's secure because it has a 5% market share. If firefox had a 75% market share you can bet your ass virus writers would find as many flaws as they do with IE."

That's funny. If IE weren't integrated into the OS, and if it didn't include proprietary capabilities with hooks into stuff like ActiveX, many of the security problems inherent in IE would disappear. If MS enforced their user model more vigorously with their users and 3rd party vendors, maybe people wouldn't run as admin (root) all the time, which would solve another big part of the problem. It's not simply that MS is popular that's the problem.

I see all you people begging for all these features like you can't get them anywhere else.

Have you heard of Firefox?

The numbers don't lie, more people are switching, and I'll tell my clients that I do web design for to make the switch. IE is crap and forever will be. I will NEVER design for IE browsers until they join the 21st century.

So genius, find flaws in Firefox or don't write checks with your mouth that your brain can't cash. Innovative ideas? Tabbed browsing, extensions for developers, skins that don't attract the bloatware, spyware, adware...

For someone that uses a blog template and kisses Microsoft's ass, you look more like an idiot, Paul.

IE = crappy
mozilla/firefox = less crappy

Browsers suck. I want that virtual reality internet like in Futurama.

Why on earth would Microsoft embrace a technology that lets developers create sites that render and operate perfectly well in any browser? Then their customers could choose any vendor they wish. That's not very smart when you have a market to protect. Microsoft's business is built on leveraging competitive advantage from their market position. When they are not dominant, they join standards bodies and attempt to infect them with encumbered MS specific protocols. See their attempt with SPF, the terms of their RAND licenses for Windows protocols, so on. When they are dominant, they seek to use that dominance to push technologies which are, surprise, also MS specific. Microsoft is being dragged kicking and screaming into creating an update to IE. Their goal was to not touch IE ever again, except in Longhorn and its progeny. The new IE would provide an XUL-like rich client language (Avalon and such), MS specific, which would seek to leverage market dominance into client lock-in. Why would Microsoft spend any time developing a product that correctly implements standards? Understand, the actions of a company seeking to expand market share are quite different from those of one seeking to protect existing market share. Microsoft no longer has to win the browser war, it just has to build in obstacles to users defecting to other products. Keyword: obstacles. A web site that displays correctly only in IE but not other browsers, whether due to an incorrect standards implementation, or a MS proprietary technology, means the same thing: the customer will use IE. Whether this is wrong is a moral question. Microsoft is a business that simply wants to make money, and helping others (competitor browers, operating systems, etc.) make money isn't in their interest, and will not be willingly aided.

Larry

LBW Said:
"Microsoft is a business that simply wants to make money, and helping others (competitor browers, operating systems, etc.) make money isn't in their interest, and will not be willingly aided."

Yes, but if Microsoft had ever charged for IE, then you might have a bit of a point. The fact is they haven't.. it was part of something that was included for free in Windows. If you didn't have it, the download was free. They don't make a whole lot of money on IE at the present moment. At least not much that drops straight to the bottom line in profit (unless there's something secret IE underground that I know nothing of.) Allowing non-MS-proprietary sites to be made just enpower the end user to make a choice of their own. If Microsoft lacks the confidence in themselves to be able to produce a product everyone will use for exceptional innovation and ideal of features and security, then I can see why they'd be proprietary sticklers, but it doesn't say much for Microsoft morale to me (keep in mind that just a few posts ago I commented that even though I use Firefox at the present momemt, I am a Microsoft supporter).

I also wanted to add to my list of 3 things IE7 would need to regain a bit of what was lost. I think integrated searching (more control, much like firefox) is also a must. Search engines are becoming more and more dependable these days. We need something more than a home page.

"Shut the firefox users up"...

What a childish comment. Does that include those firefox users on Mac and Linux? We all know the problems associated with a monoculture. Loosen up.

Seriously, too little too late. 3-4 years without development. It's a bit like leaving the front door open then wondering where your stereo has gone.

The benefits of having a lightweight cross platform client that has updates regularly are obvious here...

Good luck, though. Two simple things I hope you get right:

position : fixed. not static or absolute or relative. fixed.

border : 1px solid dotted - not dashed, dotted.
Dotted looks like this .....
dashed looks like this -----

All browsers bar one get those right.

BTW Opera 8 is in beta and it supports CSS3


best o luck.

"We’re eager to improve and better secure the web experience for the hundreds of millions of IE users around the world"

So this means you're finally getting rid of ActiveX?

Hi! Please consider upgrading rendering support of:
* PNG transparency
* CSS stylesheets
* SVG http://svg.org/

I'm just an user, not a webmaster. But I've gone from IE due to this. And tabs. And security (but you said you'll fix that).

Forget about Win2K. What will happen to the flaky web browser in Win2003?

Microsoft was not touching IE for 4 years because IE seniour developers were allocated to Avalon/WinFX development. That's all.

Avalon/WinFX is a TOP priority for Microsoft. Those messy HTML/CSS soup for Microsoft is not a long term platform.

Can you help remove all the crap scumware that has infected my version of XP? PLEASE???

Damm ActiveX controls may get filled but who is going to replace the damage already done...?

At our organisation (www.wycliffe.org.uk) we are nearly finished getting everyone on Windows 2000. Only in the last week have we started rolling out XP on the desktop. Please, please make IE7 work on 2000.

implement full CSS 3 , not 2;

ManuelBieh.de - xhtml, css, webdesign ??? &raquo; Is nich wahr! Microsoft IE7

Do you plan to realise a cross-platform IE ?
I mean will you also change IE Mac and port IE to linux binaries ?

Meanwhile please support CSS3 and PNG.
Or at least got an excellent support of CSS2 as firefox does. that would really be a MINIMUM.

"Do you plan to realise a cross-platform IE ?
I mean will you also change IE Mac and port IE to linux binaries ?"

IE/Win and IE/Mac use a different rendering engine (Trident/Tasman), which suggests the IE engine is not portable (probably a result of bad software design).

Thank you, we look forward to helping test the beta with you.

So, it is only gonna be available for WinXP SP2? hmm... I use linux at home and find it too be annoying that i cannot run some MS software on it (some that i do run works fine with WINE), but now, not only am i not going to be able to use the 'latest and greatest' MS browser at home but i can't even use it on my work machine (Win 2k). Dear god, how do MS expect to win users in the browser area if they not only dont support non-MS operating systems, but will also not support it's own latest operating system (win XP) unless it is upgraded with a security update that seems to cause most users more problems than it solves. When you release the Linux beta, let me know, i'd be very interested in testing it.

It would be great if they included support for jpeg2000 standard

I use Firefox for two reasons.
First because I like a purple coloured tool bar with green tabs at the bottom of the browser window. Only the W3C XUL open standard and Firefox open implementation allow that.
Second, because of security. Firefox only allows spyware to be installed via buffer overflows. Buffer overflows are difficult to implement for spyware developers. IE allows developers to trick users into installing spyware by asking for their permission to install the ActiveX factor RPMs(often really tricking them by asking for permission several times!)

IE6 is looking about as bad now as NS4 did 4 years ago.

IF they don´t touch the rendering engine and focus on security only, IE7 will be the greatest waste of time.

To all FF lovers: I think FF is but a bad copy of Opera. Opera is the way to go for fast browsing (and I don´t mean: fast rendering, but fast browsing).

Please give us:
CSS 2.1 (especially selectors)
Standard-compliant rendering
PNG Support

That aside, I think "the core" should be the main target: RSS should go to OE, if at all.

I use Firefox for two reasons.
First because I like a purple coloured tool bar with green tabs at the bottom of the browser window. Only the W3C XUL open standard and Firefox open implementation allow that.
Second, because of security. Firefox only allows spyware to be installed via buffer overflows. Buffer overflows are difficult to implement for spyware developers. IE allows developers to trick users into installing spyware by asking for their permission to install the ActiveX factor RPMs(often really tricking them by asking for permission several times!)

"We heard a clear message"

I think the message was loud and clear for a long time. It has to be said that Microsoft have been very slow to react to the message, though.

Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.
Please read W3C Recommendations.
Please use W3C validator for your tests.

Thanks.

I don't see how MS tacking on some extra "features" and bug fixes can improve the situation.

The current IE code tree is old, stop flogging a dead horse guys! You're walking into the same trap that Netscape did.

Just concentrating on building a new browser with a new rendering engine from scratch, it's the only way to go.

Being based on the same codebase, IE7 will still suffer the same inherent security issues as IE6.

I'll continue to using, and migrating people away from IE, until there's some significant changes.

And I warn you - do not break the CSS hacks in IE6 without fixing the CSS bugs they are used to workaround!

"IE/Win and IE/Mac use a different rendering engine (Trident/Tasman), which suggests the IE engine is not portable (probably a result of bad software design). "
Or, alternatively, a result of supporting two entirely different OSes with entirely different graphics support. Never let that get in the way of a good "M$" bash, though.

Polskaya

"Or, alternatively, a result of supporting two entirely different OSes with entirely different graphics support."
Funny how the Gecko engine compiles on nearly every architecture/OS out there.

"The current IE code tree is old, stop flogging a dead horse guys! You're walking into the same trap that Netscape did."
The current IE code tree still supports 90% of the market compared with less than 30% for Netscape at the time you're talking about.
As well, you'll find many people blaming Netscape's funeral for the "dead horse" for its demise - it set them back many more years. See "Joel on Software" for a well respected article.

If you plan releasing IE7 for XP-SP2 users only, don't expect much people to use it. And what about Linux/Mac/UNIX users ??? Come on, open up to the world !!!

"Funny how the Gecko engine compiles on nearly every architecture/OS out there."
Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports

Mozilla FireFox is far more secure and secure and secure than the rubbish iexploder

"If you plan releasing IE7 for XP-SP2 users only, don't expect much people to use it. And what about Linux/Mac/UNIX users ?"
XP SP 2: 170 million
Linux/Mac : lucky to have 30 million between them
I'm glad I'm not living in your bizarre little world if that's a recipe for failure

"Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports"
You know IE, Office, and a lot of other MS applications do exactly the same ? (they just look the same as the OS-supplied versions)

A render engine should have no ties to the underlying OS.

Standards. Please implement standards! This is very important for the WWW.

hi,

as a lot of people, i'm wondering when IE will be available on linux? :-D no sorry it's a bad joke. as a firefox 'happy' customer, i'm wondering if IE could change that way to be more efficience, faster than today on of course included the REAL standard to manage webpages ...

oh, just one other think that didn't part of IE ... except in microsoft ofice where did you really heard that “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better." ? didn't you heard about all software that stop running well after XP2 installation? even system crash for my part ...

well, maybe one day microsoft will be open mind ...

"You know IE, Office, and a lot of other MS applications do exactly the same ? (they just look the same as the OS-supplied versions)
A render engine should have no ties to the underlying OS. "
IE still uses the Windows select control on web pages - and its dialogs use Windows' controls unlike Firefox.
If you reckon a rendering engine should have no ties with the underlying OS, I'm extraordinarily interested on your suggestions for rendering pixels or graphics to screens and for loading and displaying fonts

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/

Good read for those that still don't think IE is terrible. Welcome to the real world.

Hi,

please implements features as the alpha channel for pngs, css1 and css2 complete and with no horrofying bugs as today in your three years old last major revision of IE.

so you mentioned Hakon's rant (CTO, Opera Software) but didn't even refer to it ??
**dont** shoot the messenger!
the message is all about interopability, CSS, XML, W3C standards that M$ does not use, hotmail fiddling, documentation, and please fix WinIE!! (yes, he did say that!!)

**note to FF users: we're in this together! :) and hey, if IE gets as 'good & safe' as FF & opera, I might even try it! :O :O

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/

If there will be NO support for current web-standards like XHTML, CSS, SVG and full support of PNG (including animated PNGs), then You can slow down and forgot about IE7 - it will be worthless.

I think that the point has been made that IE's support for web standards needs to be spiced up. However, I still encourage every to add more useful comments. I just think the IE-team understands what we want now.

Now, my main question. Will the IE-team be working on web standards support in IE7, yes or no? I know that you might not be willing to answer, but just give a signal that you are actually reading this. I don't care if the answer is "we have not yet decided", just tell me. It will help others and me tremendously.

Please, IE-team, tell us what you are planning on doing with web standards. We are all eager to hear and it makes a bad impression not to respond at all.

Peter
www.code-kilroy.com

New version of Opera 8 is out today. In the past 2-3 Opera has made some major leaps and bounds and in my opinion is the best little browser out there. Im sticking with it.

so you mentioned Hakon's rant (CTO, Opera Software) but didn't even refer to it ??
**dont** shoot the messenger!
the message is all about interopability, CSS, XML, W3C standards that M$ does not use, hotmail fiddling, documentation, and please fix WinIE!! (yes, he did say that!!)

**note to FF users: we're in this together! :) and hey, if IE gets as 'good & safe' as FF & opera, I might even try it! :O :O

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/

Microsoft was not touching IE for 4 years because IE seniour developers were allocated to Avalon/WinFX development. That's all.

that fears me a bit

but i dont think that they dont include anything like css2 dom2 png alpha

i hope they will support css1 fully that where great ;)

What I'd like to see from IE:

1) Uncoupled from the OS - why should a web browser be able to compromise the whole system?

2) Get rid of ActiveX - probably the most annoying, insecure, incompatible technology I've ever seen

3) Drop propriety technologies and implement full standards support with correct rendering - CSS1/2 at the least

4) Alpha PNG support

5) Tabbed interface

6) Open, fully extendable plugin system - the customisation abilites in FireFox are truly outstanding.

7) Proper popup blocker - even with the supposed improvements in SP2 I still get 10x as many popups when compared to competing browsers

These are just a few of the absolutely essential things I would need to see in IE to make me switch back. Anything less and it will still only be second best, if that.

I find it laughable that you say you are listening to the people - I've seen a huge proportion of the web development (as well as clued-in users) crying out for decent standards support for the last 5 years. Now you say you are releasing a new version but then don't even have a passing reference to anything which has been asked for.

Remember that as long as the people who make the www are offered a better alternative they will be preaching about that alternative to the masses.

Kev

"IE still uses the Windows select control on web pages"

That's the only one they use, all others are re-implementations

"and its dialogs use Windows' controls unlike Firefox."

Dialogs are not part of the render engine.

"If you reckon a rendering engine should have no ties with the underlying OS, I'm extraordinarily interested on your suggestions for rendering pixels or graphics to screens and for loading and displaying fonts"

Simple, create an object, let's call it Painter, that knows how to render pixels, draw graphics and load fonts on a specific platform. The render engine uses the Painter to draw the pages it renders. Then, for each platform you support you just have to supply an implementation of the Painter.

As a web developer: If you're going to feck up your CSS / XHTML / rendering / whatever, please give us a DOM inspector like firefox's to help us find out what your browser does different, so we can more easily design sites that work in your browser.

Updated web standards support will be most welcome. Why not give your users something to brag about for once and give your browser BETTER support than firefox for current and upcoming w3c standards - this way your browser won't feel so dated and crappy to us developers once the IE team has dissipated again.

Oh, and if you could work with the Codeweavers team to try and maintain maximum functionality in Crossover Office, the would be a good move.

It's incredible how many people are still so fanatic that they cannot see the reality. (Sorry, guys the renderer and the standard compliance of the IE just sucks ...not to talk about usability aspects) Please finally come at least *near* to standard compliance with IE7. People are really sick of working around all this IE issues. Expecting to get a safe browsing experience is probably out of scope for only the next version.

Matt,

You say:

"Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports"

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007537.html

As listed in the link above it shows that IE doesn't use native widgets either.

In fact a lot of MS products don't use standard widgets:
Office always seems to reinvent the file selection (Open, Save) dialog with each release.
IE and Windows Explorer have a different behaviour when dragging the icon in the titlebar compared to other apps.
etc

It's be nice to say goodbye to having to use CSS for IE, let's hope IE7 has an improved CSS rendering engine.

It may be the cynical side of me but I do have to wonder how tightly integrated IE7 will be with MSN search, the new search engine that Microsoft are running.

In any event it surely has to be good news that IE is getting an update and better news that Firefox will have some competition. Choice can only make the browser experience better for all consumers and the firefox teams almost single handedly deserve the credit for pushing the MS team forward in delivering this "ahead of schedule" IE update

I'd just be happy with a version of IE that I never had to patch ever again.

Parece que o Billy decidiu que afinal sempre vai sair uma nova verso do IE7 antes do "to" esperado LongHorn. Pelo que pode "ouvir" por a, a Microsoft vai concentrar-se em melhorar as questes de segurana e vai possivelmente deixar...

CephaliPod: "Your iPod's glaring whiteness is relaying signals back to the humans. Protect yourself from harmful rays in style with this hand-crafted hip cozy made of (possibly) organic felt. ...and don't forget to dress it up with a Welcome Squid Overlords shirt." Ur.... Okay, anything you say. How to Make a Cheap Portable Espresso Machine: "A caulk gun?  Hey, if it’s good enough for Taco Bell guacamole and sour cream, it’s good enough for a fine and delicate espresso, right?"...

I will be really surprise if any of the requested essential features or present bugs mentioned in all these comments actually gets added or fixed. IE is getting as old as the dinos in Jurassic Park. People are asking for big big changes but none of these will ever come out so in other words, we are beating a dead horse here.

The Closed Circle &raquo; Microsoft to Produce IE 7

Microsoft is driven by what customers say they want today, not by what is right from a technical, engineering point of view; nor what would be really cool and useful tomorrow.

This is why Microsoft is so far behind.

It's also the reason that caused many successful companies to go out of business.

However, I think it will be terribly easy for microsoft to catch up, and the strength of the windows platform is still enough to give them a buffer, so that they will be given the chance to catch up.

But that buffer is getting thinner and thinner... Soon, microsoft will lose everything, if it doesn't become more visionary.

Microsoft has proven to me that their primary mandate is to take new emerging technology. and SMUSH it.

It's not just about browsers. It's about OS's, Media players, Web based Email, Instant Messaging.

Microsoft over and over again has shown a total loathing for competition or innovation. Why? because that costs money.

Why are we so anxious for MS to catch up to the standards? Why don't we use Alpha channels in our PNG's, Why don't we use css2, Why do we use ActiveX controls and complain about them? The reason - our employers insist that we cater to the majority of our clients who don't realize what they are missing. Because we lack the courage to say - I'm sick of MS telling us what we can and can't do. Because we all cater to the least common denominator. Developers are still hoping their websites look good in Netscape 4. It's time to move on. It's time to stop complaining and start innovating.

It's not up to Microsoft to support standards, or anything else. It's up to developers to develop new and exciting applications and show our visitors what can be done using the technology that is available to them. Firefox can do a lot of great things, and computer users will try it, if it gives them want they want. The reason Gamers all want PC's is because it's on the PC where all the innovation happens. Surfers will flock to the browser that supports the applications that they want. It's time to start giving that to them.

As long as we stay in the dark ages, Microsoft will happily release expensive update after expensive update. Longhorn will offer us 1992 technology at 2006 prices. And we'll all merrily complain away and ponder what could have been if any of us were innovative.

To all those who have adopted standards, created websites that embrace PNG with Alpha support, CSS2 and XHTML and said "I will not be a slave to Microsoft" I salute you!

For more: http://www.justken.net/microsoft.html

ken.
Systems Analyst.
www.justken.net

Firefox - For a world beyond the Gates.

ついに！！！ 米Microsoftのビル・ゲイツ会長兼チーフソフトウェアアーキテクトが15日、サンフランシスコで開催中の「RSA Conference」の基調講演の中で、Internet Explorer（IE）7.0の公開予定やスパイウェア対策ソフトなど同社のセキュリティに対する取り組みについて発表した。 ▼ Microsoftが方針変更、Longhornを待たずにIEの新バージョン 米Microsoftのビル・ゲイツ会長兼チーフソフトウェアアーキテクトゲイツ会長は講演の中で、IE 7.0のベータ版を夏頃にリリースする計画を明らかにした。IE 6.0の新バージョンはこれまで、次期WindowsであるLonghornに搭載される予定とされていただけに、今回の発表は同社に方針の変更があったことを示している。 IE 7.0では、ユーザーが期待する拡張性と互換性を維持しながら次のレベルのセキュリティを提供するものだとしている。フィッシング詐欺や悪意のあるコード、スパイウェアに対してより強力な防御策を提供するものとなる。 この点についてはMicrosoftが開設しているIEの公式ブログにおいてIE開発担当者も触れており、IE 7.0のベータ版がWindows XP SP2に対してのみ提供されることを明らかにした。 Windows 2000についてはユーザーからの要望を聞いている段階だという。最終的な出荷時期については、予定日が決まっていることを認めながらも公表することを避けている。 ベータ版を公開した後にユーザーからのフィードバックをもとに何度かのベータ版提供を経て、正式版を公開する予定だとしている。 ▼ 「Windows AntiSpyware」のパーソナルバージョンを無償提供 ゲイツ会長は、1月6日にベータ版が公開された「Windows AntiSpyware」の今後の計画にも触れた。Windowsの正規ユーザーに対して、Windows AntiSpywareのパーソナルバージョンを無償で提供する計画だという。スパイウェアを探知・除去する機能に加えて、スパイウェアを侵入させようとする50種類以上の方法からユーザーを守り、SpynetコミュニティとMicrosoftの研究者による最新情報を継続して提供することになるという。 企業の顧客に対してはより複雑なインフラストラクチャーのサポートや管理などが生じるため、有料のソリューションとしてスパイウェア対策ソリューションを提供する計画だ。 さらにゲイツ会長は、2003年に買収したルーマニアのセキュリティベンダーGeCADの技術に基づ...

Hey Micro$oft... why bother? It's a matter of months 'till the scale turns favor to Mozilla. Haven't you heard? Mozilla Firefox is one of the best browsers available... and because of the Community that it's backing them up, the only way is up, as for you, won't stand a chance when Google releases their Internet Browser based on Mozilla.
Think about it!? Save your BILLION DOLLARS for fishing or hicking... maybe it won't sound so bad in a couple of years.

I think that Microsoft should just pay Firefox to add the ability todo updates. Why continue to support IE, when there is already a product out there that does it so much better?

Microsoft should spend more time bringing us into the 22nd century rather then tidying up a dying browser.

Just hand it off MS... Be done with it.. Work on something new..

Could I use IE7 Beta works on(Support) Winodws 98 SE or Windows ME?

Thank you I am learning of new things all day! And it is good to know of my RSS already work. I think I need add button of RSS to make this thing clear.
But more work to do!

看英文是寫今年夏天,只是不知道Win98能不能用?
有誰能tell me?

So Microsoft has finally realised something - that their web browser...sucks. What other reason could be behind the decision to speed up the development of the next generation of Internet Explorer. As Dean says on the IEBlog: Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a...