June, 2011

IE10 Platform Preview 2, the same HTML5 engine seen in the recent public “Windows 8” demos, is now available for download . With this update, IE10 continues to deliver support for site-ready HTML5 technologies as well as improving performance: This video shows some of the HTML5 technologies in the second IE10 Platform Preview in action. With the second Platform Preview, developers can start working with several site-ready HTML5 technologies for building beautiful, interactive Web...

Mixed content on a Web page puts consumers at risk of man-in-the-middle attacks, especially as consumers spend more time browsing from untrusted public networks (like free WiFi in coffee shops and airports). An attacker can view page content that a consumer expected to be delivered securely, and even modify the contents of the page without the consumer knowing it. This happens when Web sites void the security promise of HTTPS by including content delivered by HTTP into their otherwise secure HTTPS...

This is a great week for the Web, in particular JavaScript developers. Standards bodies have ratified the latest version of JavaScript, ECMA-262 edition 5.1 , and have published the test262 test suite for JavaScript. Now, anyone can run the test suite at http://test262.ecmascript.org/ and compare how well different browsers support the standard. The suite already has over 10,000 tests contributed by members of JavaScript technical committee as well as all the JavaScript tests that we have posted...

The June 2011 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer is now available via Windows Update . This security update resolves seven vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer that were disclosed in coordination with Microsoft. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user visits a malicious, specially crafted Web page using IE. Users who run without administrative rights are more secure in general and should be less impacted than other users; you can read more about this security...

The topic of what some customers need from a browser saw a lot of attention in headlines (e.g. Mozilla to enterprise customers: "Drop dead" ) last week. Both Google employees and Mozilla community members alike ( link ) explained that to support consumers, their browsers cannot fulfill the needs of large organizations. At Microsoft, we believe that all Windows customers should have a great browsing experience, whether they stay at home, go to school, or work in a large organization with managed IT...

Web technologies across the board can make faster and better progress now that the CSS 2.1 specification is a final, completed standard and published as a Recommendation. First, finishing CSS 2.1 unblocks faster progress moving the Web forward with the rest of CSS and other important technologies in the broader W3C HTML5 family. Even more important, the lessons from CSS 2.1 raise expectations for measuring and improving the actual interoperability of Web standards. Because CSS 2.1 has been “mostly...

Internet Explorer now gives you more control over the data that Web sites store on your computer. This includes Flash Player’s Local Shared Objects (LSOs). We’ve worked closely with Adobe to integrate Flash LSO deletion directly into Internet Explorer, making it easier for you to manage your online privacy with the latest version of Adobe Flash and IE9 (as well as IE8): IE will delete your Flash Cookies as well as your Web cookies If you want to try this out, please visit our Test...

Join us this September 13-16 in Anaheim, California for Microsoft’s first BUILD conference . What’s special about BUILD? It will be the first broad hands-on unveiling of the next version of Windows and its new app model featuring HTML5 and JavaScript. In short, building Web-connected apps for the next Windows is as easy as building for the modern Web. You will also learn how to work with the all-new touch-centric user experience to create fast, fluid, and dynamic applications that leverage...

Adobe Flash Player 10.3 delivers super-fast graphics by plugging into the Internet Explorer 9 hardware-accelerated rendering pipeline using IE9’s ISurfacePresenter interface. Recently, some of you may have seen this rendering issue with Flash content on some pages: Screen shots of a Web page with Flash content displayed incorrectly in its upper left corner (left) and correctly (right) Adobe addressed the problem illustrated above (Flash content displaying in the upper...

Velocity 2011: The Performance Impact of Modernizing Internet Explorer Browsers need amazing performance to deliver on the promise of HTML5 applications. Modernizing Internet Explorer 9 has changed what’s possible with Web sites, and dramatically improved the performance of the HTML4 sites consumers use today. To demonstrate the real world performance gains in IE9 at the recent Velocity 2011 conference, we presented our talk on Modernizing Internet Explorer as an interactive HTML4 Web application...

Any site can offer Tracking Protection Lists ( TPLs ) to help consumers protect their privacy. This post shows you how to make a TPL available from your site. For example, clicking here in IE9 will add the list from the EasyPrivacy . A word about Tracking Protection Lists Tracking Protection Lists are similar in concept to the lists behind the AdBlockPlus add-in for Firefox. The main differences are that TPLs are built in to IE, the W3C is working through the standardization process of their format...