IEBlog

Not funny, really.

It NEEDS to be IE 1000!  Go for it!

Superb.  Its good to hear something!

Who cares about the name? Unless you want to confuse people again, just stick to IE8...

Hope it is more stable, faster and enables js debugging (until there is some built-in decent solution - read *not VS* -) FF/firebug will stay th only good options for developers.

Hope it does not beak the IE Developer toolbar...

Dean, you missed the obvious

IE 2^3

otherwise brilliant.

In the pattern of some Linux versions and OSS otherwise, not to mention NN6, maybe IE9 would be fitting. :)

This remains me a post about the difference between google and microsoft products, this name: IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet is a Microsoft like name, and off course I hate it ..jeje

Just like this post:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-11-20-n35.html

Anyway, I just want to be standard

I'm begging you, please make this thing support clean CSS.

How about IE Infinite or Unlimited? (If we flip number 8, it looks like infinity sign)

I love the injoke on your own marketing people. Personally I would name it IE 7.5 - just to piss off the people who want IE 8.

"IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet" - you know, I wouldn't really be all that surprised.  Would it come in N and K editions too?

Two quick notes that I wanted to get out there. IE8.  Yep, it officially has a name now.  Check

>> please don’t mistake silence for inaction <<

Presumably this is a synopsis of your personal strategic management of the IE team over the last 12 months? Because if so, you couldn't have got it any more wrong.

You have really screwed this up, Dean. In twelve months your policy of silence has attracted more negative perception for the product that you manage than for any other product at any time in Microsoft's history (and I'm including Bob here).

However good IE8 may or may not be, for the first time in the browser's history the result of your use of 'omerta' will mean that most developers won't really care. Gaining acceptance will now be a great deal harder than it might otherwise have been, and MUCH harder than should ever have been necessary.

And it's all your fault.

Well...everybody knew that. What about the features it will carry? MS said they'll try to work with the community and get more feedback, but as far as I can see, it was just marketing speak...

Two quick notes that I wanted to get out there. IE8.&#160; Yep, it officially has a name now.&#160; Check

Maybe you should name it:

"IE: The way it should have been"

AT LEAST IF IT FOLLOWS THE WEB STANDARDS. If not, IE8 will do just fine.

Wow, *that* was poorly calculated. For months, interested parties (including former colleagues) have begged and pleaded Microsoft for information about IE8. Now, with everyone's attention and an opportunity to impress the web development community with substance, this blog instead opens with a substance-free post about product's upcoming name. Did I miss the joke, or was the joke on me?

Dean, over at the IEBlog introduces the world to the name of the next IE release, "Internet Explorer 8" and not much else. He closes with "please don’t mistake silence for inaction." I don't think people were mistaking silence for inaction, Dean, and

I would really love to see a new JS Engine. The performance of the current one is just xxxxxxxxx ... So please please!!!

SVG ! SVG ! please dear IE people, please include support for SVG ?

The 'softies were silent for *years* about Internet Explorer 7, and that silence *did* mean inaction.

Has anything changed?

I know you guys are walking on egg-shells to support sites that basically were developed to work with the older IE browsers, and that you don't want to break them -- but enough is enough, it should be up to the developers of the site to make due, ignore them and make IE fully CSS 2.1 compliant, and update proactively when CSS3 comes down the pipe.

You are on the right track. IE7 has several good things. I use IE7, FF nd Opera. Flock is a hobby

"In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction." Too late... while MS might not be keen to adapt to the culture of the web, the internet as a whole generally values openness, transparency and communication. For such an important tool that holds huge influence on the web, the pain caused to web developers and users alike by the MS's silence is magnified.

CSS 2.1 compliance is the big one for me. I am a new web designer only around for a few years and I am just amazed at how difficult IE makes the process of designing with CSS. How can it be that the biggest web company has the worst support for standards. It just boggles the mind!

Digg this:

http://digg.com/microsoft/Internet_Explorer_8_3

A suggestion for IE8: put your efforts into making Trident better. I'm quite certain most web developers would be more than happy if you supported ECMAScript instead of JScript. And an overhaul of the CSS support would also be beneficial.

I clearly remember your CEO shouting "developers, developers, developers". And I've noticed your recent move towards standardization (OOXML, CLI, C#, etc). So for the upcoming IE8, think "developers" and think standards (but existing, this time). Trident is not as good as it could be today, but you have the power to change that for the upcoming release!

I reckon you're already focusing on end-user experience. Therefore, I think I don't need to mention that.

The ieblog finally talks about IE8 . No real information yet, just a confirmation that they&#39;re working

how about IE 8.2 saves a few upgrades

"please don’t mistake silence for inaction."

If you guys were in action, you'd have a beta.

Even if they do implement HTML 5 into IE 8, whilst there are still a few people using IE 7 and Firefox 2.0.0.11, we'll be stuck with HTML 4.01. Grr!

You know most of those titles are not nearly as funny as your continued lack of compliance with standards.  

In all seriousness, silence isn't exactly the best communication policy.  Its only done out of a motivation of fear.  Fear that someone will copy your ideas or use them against you (state/company secrets, etc...) .  Fear that someone won't like your ideas (bad news).  Fear that you can't communicate your ideas with the proper spin (politicians).

Generally when someone else sees someone being silent they create their own reasons for the silence.

But in this case, you have your chief architect who said we would have new versions every 9 to 12 months.  Which hasn't happened.  The last post you made had some rather spun stats.  

So most people are drawing the conculsions that you don't want to communicate with people becuase you are developing a way to control the story and figure out a way to spin your way out of making the richest man in the world, your boss, look like a liar to the rest of the world.  You are focusing on the good instead of the bad, and now you are waiting for marketing to tell you the story you need to communicate to regain the control that was lost on the last blog post.  Lets be honest, you are not being silent becuase you are developing something that consists of company secrets, it's a browser, a comodity piece of software, not a stealth bomber or something custom.

While all of this might not be the case, I do present a reasonable story that fills the gap of silence.  

Silence isn't exactly the way you develope a platform and engage developers (isn't that what MS does.)

Silence isn't exactly the way you interact with customers and collect their pain points and desires to create a feature list for the next release.

In the end, silence is a good way to create false expectations and alienate your developers and customers who care enough to follow this blog.  People who follow this blog are not exactly your casual users.  We are your power users.  We are your core developers.  We are your fans.  

Now granted most of us coming here are deep into this relationship and you have the coin to spend to piss us off without us running away into the arms of your competitors.  But really, only organizations and people who have relationship problems beat up the people they are closest too.  

The worst case scenario for you is to have people from around the web who are not firmly in your camp come by and see this blog.  They might be moved by your pithy jokes about the marketing department.  But in the end, they will see your last post about silence and they will think:  What are they afraid of, what are they planning on lying about.

Then again, perhaps I'm wrong, but the only way you can prove it is by not being silent.  

How about auto updating Japan with IE7 first?  It has been over a year since the release of IE7 and the entire country is still using IE6.  Talk about pissing people off.  Even when you do something right (Like finally replacing the antiquated IE6) You still only do half the job.  

What are the chances IE8 will be standards compliant?  I'm a web developer and I'm sick of making two versions of every website. Making a separate non-compliant website that only works in IE is ridiculous.

You can't even properly parse HTML special chars on your blog.

Dean:

I'd like to point out that the web development community hasn't been confusing silence with inaction, but has been (correctly) equating silence with *uncertainty*. That uncertainty continues as you have not yet answered these basic questions:

* When will your next beta or alpha be available?

* What about the version after that?

* Is your organization standardizing the new stuff you added in the last stable release? Where?

Since nothing new was added to in IE7, we can peddle that last question back to IE 6 (or 5) (CSS expressions, VML, and HTC's come to mind).

Regards

I used to defend you guys when it came to web browsers, but now I can't. Opera, Safari and FireFox are kicking your rears, because they're totally open with developers on what works, what doesn't, what's being improved, and what's new. And they're delivering new releases every few months (instead of years!)

To save IE, you need to:

1) Rewrite the entire parsing and rendering engine. Take full advantage of WPF, etc. for optimal speeds. Make it truly multi-threaded. Etc.

2) Rewrite the entire Javascript engine. FireFox is going to have that super-mega-efficient engine in a few versions-- what are you guys planning?

3) Comply fully with established and agreed-upon standards.

Good to hear.  IE7 was a *massive* improvement and I look forward to seeing some screenshots or a feature list for IE8.  I'd like to see a larger toolbar back, more CSS compliance, and better MSDN documentation on extending IE (while we're on it, how do I access the in-memory cookie store as a BHO?).

I've blogged about this on my own blog at http://www.arcanology.com/2007/12/05/big-internet-explorer-news/, but the excerpt from Bill Gates yesterday is pretty telling:

   MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: So, I have a little bit of an infrastructure question, as related to MIX and the open conversation and transparency. A few years ago, MIX was a big information and conversation about the opening of ideas, it was about when in the specific we talked about the browser, IE 7, a lot of interest in that, a lot of (inaudible) talking about it. So, for the last year or so, I’ve been working, I’ve been a consultant here with the IE and (inaudible) team to try and help get standards implementation to be strong, and we see some really great advances.

   But very recently there seems to be a shift in infrastructure, and I don’t really know exactly what happened, but what I understand, my understanding is that IE sits on the Web platform rather than in the — excuse me, on the platform, on the Windows platform rather than the Web, and something seems to have changed where there is no messaging now for the last six months to a year going out on the IE team. We seem to have had — they seem to have lost the transparency that they had been able to get some momentum going on in the IE 7 phase, in the year and a half (off mike) at MIX.

   So, I’m very concerned about this, because being the person here that’s supposed to be the liaison between designers and developers for the Web and the browser conversation, this conversation seems to have been pretty much shut down, and I’m very concerned as to why that is, and how we can correct it.

   BILL GATES: I’ll have to ask Dean what the hell is going on. I mean, we’re not — there’s not like some deep secret about what we’re doing with IE.

   MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: But they’re not letting — like you know how people (inaudible) going around talking (inaudible), but I do realize that there is a new engine, there is some information, and this information is not — we are being asked not to talk about it. So, I’m concerned about that.

   BILL GATES: I’ll ask Dean what’s going on.

   […]

   BILL GATES: There’s a paradox about disclosure, which is when you’re far away from doing something you’re super open; when you’re very close to doing something you’re open; when you’re making your cut list of what you can do and not do, then particularly because — well –

   PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) expectations and that causes trouble.

   BILL GATES: Yeah, and so I don’t know where Dean is in terms of if he’s willing to commit what’s in IE 8 and what’s not in IE 8. In terms of standards support, he’ll see that it’s a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn’t have before, it doesn’t add everything that everybody wants us to do.

   MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: I mean, really IE 7 (off mike).

   BILL GATES: No, and believe me, Dean gets this stuff.

   MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: Oh, Dean totally gets it, and that’s why I’m concerned, because they have always been so forward facing. So, my –

   BILL GATES: I’ll look into it.

   MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG: Yeah, do. (Off mike).

   BILL GATES: I mean, I will look into it.

Come on you people.. I have enough trouble developing for 2 of your IE versions, now we're gonna have another version to develop SPECIALLY for...

You're gonna earn a lot of points if you start admitting FF Extensions... think about it ;)

Greets

I'm begging you, add tons of features that comply with no standards, but would be great for users and IE developers. Like a file upload control that could be used within an update panel. In fact, a native update panel would be a nice addition too. I'm sooooo tired of hearing jokers complaining about lack of compliance with standards when IE is the standard. Microsoft created the foundation for AJAX, just imagine where we'd be if you guys waited for a standards body to come up with xmlhttp. If I worked for you guys, I'd be trying to find proprietary stuff to add to IE every day just to piss off "Firefox/Mozilla/My browser has .00001% market share" developers.

Good to hear IE isn't decomposing but then again unlike a lot of folks I actually have read about IE8 from several sources (including a video of Chris doing a presentation) and about the new rendering engine you guys have been working on.

The new engine will no doubt follow standards much better, will the current standards become a semi-quirks mode and the original quirks mode left in place? I don't expect an answer now and would prefer you folks to squash more bugs then  Starship Troopers while we wait.

Since you guys are working on a new engine I'll sit back and relax, take all the time you want to get things set straight, just don't pull a decade long Duke Nukem Forever on us. ;-) After all we have conditional comments so only amateurs are still "hacking" their main stylesheet.

IE8 - The Empire Strikes Back!

IE8 - Huh huh, hey Beavis, we're like old!

I think Ie^2.0794415417 would be a bit more accurate :)

China, Japan, Korea...still waiting for IE7 auto update.  Seems it is going on about a year overdue in Asia.  Whats up with that?  

Can't people discuss how IE sucks so badly etc. etc. in that other blog post from some days ago?

What needs to be commented on here is the response one get. A thousand posts complaining about IE7 in the previous post, and the answer one get is sarcasm?

Well, yes I laughed :-). But - you know - I also get frustrated because Dean (in a sarcastic, patronizing way) ignores the issue and almost pretends he didn't catch what it is all about (which he of course must do, I trust his intelligence that much).

I simply can't believe why Microsoft thinks it is in their interest to handle this in this way. Give it five years and all the good developers will have been brought up on non-MS technology. (The bad ones won't drive the technology so it doesn't matter...)

IE7 is nearly as lame as IE6. If you're not going to make IE8 standards compliant can you please just save us all the hassle and use webkit?

@jackbond:  sigh...you just don't get it, do you?  Microsoft is not the only browser manufacturer, it just happens to have the biggest market share because it's FORCED DOWN PEOPLES' THROATS when they buy a PC.  The average user just uses it because it came on their computer.  

As far as Microsoft not enabling full standards-compliance because of all the sites that were designed for IE that would break...screw 'em.  You're not a *professional* developer if you willingly alienate segments your potential audience.  Nothing is worse than a developer that develops only for IE.  That's so amateur it's not even funny.

Just stop making IE. Build a new browser from the ground up that is standards compliant (and gets the box model right).

You're faced with a dilemma. Lots of websites were written for IE, so if you make the next version standards-compliant they'll be peeved with you. On the other hand, if you don't make the next version standards-compliant, alpha geeks are going to lose interest in MS-centric technologies for the web and move over to Google tools, products and API's.

Suggestion: Keep IE7 as is. Don't add features; just fix bugs. Then create a new product with a new brand that's ahead of the curve on standards-compliance and commit to that as a on-going priority. For older sites, people can use IE. But moving forward you can promote "Renders For Sure" and get all the love and adulation that would otherwise go to Google.

Instead of being the constant target of caustic criticism for the alpha geeks in the web-generation, you can present yourselves as being the ones who created a "better web" with a more consistent, predictable experience for users and a huge increase in productivity for developers.

Wouldn't it feel good, for once, to be the cool guy? Most people I know associate MS with an older generation. Sooner or later you've got to turn that around.

Or not. It's up to you.

Wow.. you guys are as clueless as they get. You are just poking the tiger. IE7 is garbage. It trades one set of mess (IE6) for a new set without enough improvements in between.

Now you think it's the right move to be coy and play games like "hey we're calling it IE8". That's a sign of arrogance mixed with stupidity.

You have zero credibility with developers. You need to be upfront, honest, and open. It's not like it makes monetary difference (they're FREE).

If you're not planning to be truly standards compliant, just say so now -- stop wasting everyone's time.

Full 2.1 and CSS 3 'box-sizing' would be great.

Full 2.1 and CSS 3 'box-sizing' would be great.

a good name for this version of MS Browser is 'SilverLight Client' !!!

Who wants to put money on whether MS gets it right this time?

IE7 is 10 years behind web standards now.  How far behind web standards will IE8 be?  Bill Gates told Molly: "In terms of standards support, (Dean will) see that it’s a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn’t have before, it doesn’t add everything that everybody wants us to do."

Doesn't sound too hopeful.  What if they had a browser war and Microsoft didn't show up?  They haven't so far.

Great to hear about IE 8. I am curious what is in your top priority list for the newest version, what you think going into this new product cycle, and I am curious what you think about the direction the html 5 working draft is heading in?

No Man, not one more IE to take care off !!!!

Please, be standard compliant.

>IE7 is 10 years behind web standards now.  How far

> behind web standards will IE8 be?  Bill Gates told

> Molly: "In terms of standards support, (Dean will) see

> that it’s a glass half full. It adds a bunch of new

> stuff we didn’t have before, it doesn’t add everything

> that everybody wants us to do."

>

> Doesn't sound too hopeful.  What if they had a browser

> war and Microsoft didn't show up?  They haven't so far.

I agree with this totally. It was 5 years between version 6 and 7, now that firefox has is gaining ground, will probably see IE 8 come out in 2008 (2 years since the last). I just home you guys can conform to at least some of the standard.

Should I least the things that they need to fix?

Fully Standards Compliant. That's all I ask please. The cost to me and my company, and my clients, in terms of time, frustration, and customization is staggering.

Please save the day and make a platform that's consistent for us developers to make incredible things with!

Not a single mention of IE7++.  Greatly disappointed.  Remember not to break Chris Wilson' s Mom's bank's site.

I do not care what you call the end product.

"In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction."

I'm sure the IE has been active. However, what is (completely) lacking is a public dialog about those actions and progress.

If you only do one thing with IE8, make that be improved standards compliance. Full would be ideal, but even a significant improvement would be beneficial to all.

That's the whole point of this post? To announce that the successor to IE6 and IE5 and IE4, etc., will be called IE8? Seriously?

You don't take web developers seriously, do you? Because at this point, I'm beginning to think that this is all some kind of big joke, this whole IE thing. What other conclusion is there to draw from this mess?

"What are the chances IE8 will be standards compliant?"

Umm, zero to none. Come on, when has M$ ever been about standards? IE 8 isn't gonna be any better than any other version of IE, it'll just look different.

It ought to be called IE98 after the level of Internet standards that it will probably (hopefully) support.

IE will never be able to properly support the standards until they replace the rendering engine with one that allows them to do so.

i'm surprised that you didnt call it IE vista

or ie2008

how about ie.2k8 - that's tight!

Great news! Glad to hear there's some activity around IE, and I have a request: could you please make it not suck? At least, please do not leave known bugs (I think that Chris Wilson calls that "backward compatibility"?)

I don't care what you call it. Just make sure that CSS implementation if done correctly this time. Lets hope the IE developers take some time out and read about CSS bug in IE, start here <a href="http://www.positioniseverything.net/">www.positioniseverything.net/</a>

Thanks.

Just take the hard decision and "break" the web once. Then it'll be alright later. Firefox meanwhile is there to "support" broken websites. Otherwise you just can't bring IE up the current standards.

Although it is frustrating to me too, the lack of information from the IE team isn't really their fault.  What other development team in the Windows division is also being that open?  I don't see Windows 7 blog posts, Media Player 12 blog posts (the WMP team doesn't even have a blog), Media Center "Fiji" blog posts, etc.

It's quite likely that the silence is mandated by Windows VP Steven Sinofsky.  I bet the IE team is aching to talk but being held back by upper management.

Contrast with "DevDiv" -- the majority of blogs here are by for developer products, which makes sense because this is "blogs.MSDN.com" after all.  Unfortunately, Microsoft's web developer platform (MSHTML) is not part of DevDiv but (along with IE user interface stuff) part of the Windows division.  That seems to be a big part of the problem.

Between IE6 and IE7 there was all silence and not much action in terms of standards support at all. Since IE7 came out there has only been silence.

I get your joke, but this is still inaction, looking at the way it has gone down with IE in the past.

I really don't care about IE8 unless it has ...

* inline XHTML extensions (as per the spec!!)

* flawless CSS 2 support

* CSS 3 support per drafted specs

* HTML 5 per WHATG/W3C draft, including [canvas]

* script debugging registry hooks that are no so easily corrupted

* coordination with Silverlight team to facilitate full W3C DOM automation (and window.eval()-esque interopability from Silverlight to browser script runtime) from Silverlight runtime

 ... so that we can do full-blown IE-DHTML using JScript / C# / Ruby / Python !!

* optional browser-based script debugging

PatriotB, then they should close this blog if they aren't going to use it to actually communicate, just like they did with the bug database.

Oh, and please, please, PLEASE support XHTML internally.

IE exposes itself as a COM object that internally uses a proprietary flavor of HTML 4, not XHTML. There's no way around this.

W3C's HTML Tidy lack a decent API to code against. There's no good reaon why Internet Explorer, when used as an HTML generator, parser, fetcher, etc., can't generate XHTML without requiring the use of HTML Tidy or some other wacky under-supported component. This is very much a web browser's role.

XHTML is kind of a has been standard at this point with the work being done on HTML5 that heads in a different direction.

"In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction."

In the meantime Tony Chor just took a month off for vacation (just read his blog http://www.tonychang.com/). I wonder what the rest of the team is doing.

You got the whole world talking about IEblog right now and joking about IE's name is the best you can come up with right now?

Very lame!

How about:

IE8 - "We 8nt listening to you."

You should understand that silence is inaction.

The beauty of a browser like the Firefox is the update system that ensures that users are very current with the latest incremental release. Windows update could offer the same assurance and should take place ASAP. Eliminating the IE6 versions and spreading the latest IE.Current is paramount to moving the web platform forward. Anything less will force serious web developers to question IE as a real web environment.

It is tonychor.com (like his name)...

Ok for joking. Thanks for the news, at least we got something now.

"Windows update could offer the same assurance and should take place ASAP. Eliminating the IE6 versions and spreading the latest IE.Current is paramount to moving the web platform forward."

bws, they're doing that. My last Windows Update has been trying to get me to upgrade to IE7 on one of our systems. (I refuse it so that I can have an old system to test with.)

Hahaha. Nice name choices :D

Can't wait for IE8. I'm hoping for improved and easier RSS support. That's the one thing that pushed me to Opera.

Thank you.

http://blogs.dotnethell.it/vincent/Il-nome-del-prossimo-Internet-Explorer-sara-IE8.__12390.aspx

Pure genius.

Dean you make me quiver in awe of the sheer grandiose intellect you must have used to author this post.

Truly ground-breaking stuff.

How about pulling your fingers out and supporting ES4?

Why wasn't IE 2008 suggested? Can't deliver a product that 'soon'?

I've got it ...

"Inertia Experience 2,00x"

No better name for a browser that will only see three releases in a decade.

Is it possible that you could abandon the IE platform altogether and start supporting Firefox? Its just a thought, but seen as though previous editions of IE have been so poorly built, dont you think its time to support one open source window on the web for everyone?

IE is a piece of crap. Its standards support is crap, its CSS is crap, its javascript is buggy. Every time you release a new version and force it down on every windows user out there you create a trail of destruction for web developers around the world who have to try and figure out all of its latest quirks and bugs.

Ok so maybe I am asking too much when I think you might support something like Firefox. But please for the love of God don't release another version of IE. Just let it die out gracefully with IE7 and we will confine it to the history books.

FireFox will continue to gain momentum because it is 1000 times better.

Viva la FireFox revolution!

IEBlog : Internet Explorer 8 Just as he was the first to talk about IE7, Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at the Mix &#8216;n Mash event here on campus yesterday. Bill was talking to some bloggers...

You might aswell just call it Internet Devolver 8

Will IE8's CSS & JS support finally, like, WORK? If not, just kill your crappy browser already.

If your apparently *ehm* skilled team can't understand w3c specs, maybe you guys should buy consulting from Mozilla Foundation or Opera.

-- Frustrated Webdeveloper

you should just grab firefox an skin it IE style.. heh, that would be nice :)

Funny how you refer to your malware browser actually working as "Feature X".

Actually not so funny. Are you guys aware of the fact that your screw ups take up probably about 15% of all front-end development work in the world? There is hundreds of thousands of people that really, truly, HATE you every day.

Guys! We have a name!

...now all we need is a product and we're golden...

Good, glad to finally hear something. I recently viewed a movie on Channel 9 about quality control in the Visual Studio 2008 project, it meant faster releases and less bugs. I hope you will consider that process for IE8.

Silence may not mean inaction, but for people that rely on your products, silence means uncertainty, and prolonged silence means frustration.

Nice work. Only one year to choose the name (and what a superb name!), so I really look around the 2010 alpha release of IE8 ! Maybe golden in 2011 and stable in 2012 ?

All-in-all, great news. I wonder how it will compete with Firefox 7...

I've been a web developer since 1996 and can tell you that IE's non-standard approach has cost the whole community BILLIONS of pounds (and even more dollars) in unnecessary work.  The arrogance and short sightedness of MS is staggering.

I still use VS but only as a colour coded text editor as I don't trust MS to generate proper HTML. I'm not  anti-MS, I just need to build standards compliant web sites. So, Mr. Gates, PLEASE just forget about building a browser, you can't do it, you've had enough goes at it, how thick are you if you haven't twigged this yet.  A browser is only there to view web sites, it doesn't need to do other stuff. Just let us all settle down with Firefox or our standards compliant browser of choice.

I'm with Lenny!

Wow, did I get a lot of useful information out of this post. You're having great fun baiting people with empty words, don't you?

What a monopoly can do to people, amazing...

Ok must admit IE7 is better than IE6 but who cares! you will just copy someone's ideas just as you did in IE7. the fact is you still support BHO in IE7 (Although security is tight), it is still vulnerable. M$ will never get thier security right just because security development requires passion and innovation that lacks in your team. btw I am Ex M$ from Windows OS Team so I know what I am saying!

The post is fun somehow, but please give us the features... at least a quick hint.

Like someone said "developers, developers, developers": well, start caring for us!

And please realize that IE8 cannot fail. IE7 is fine feature-wise, has a sleek interface and is certainly more secure than IE6. Now, you've got to fix the layout engine once and for all.

Give us full CSS 2.1 compliance, pass Acid2, even implement some modules of CSS 3 (many of them are already candidate recomandations), fix the DOM, give us a Firebug-style debug tool.

Do what Opera 7 did with the Presto engine: turn black into white from one day to the other! Surprise us!

If Trident can't be patched to finally work, that ditch the da** thing and get an engine that just works. MSFT has the potential to do great if it really wants (see Visual Studio and .NET).

Please fix CSS 2.1 and make the DOM closer to the W3C specs.

How many websites are actually broken on a standards compliant browser these days? If you really need backwards compatibility, use a different rendering engine. E.g. for transitional doctypes use Trident from IE6/7 and for strict doctypes use your new fully standards-compliant IE8. Even if you can't do that, add a proprietry META tag or something such as IE8PleaseRenderMyPageInStandardsModeImBeggingYou=true.

When you're inline with the competition on http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support, then (and only then) add new features to the browser.

Please?

I need js debugging support....

As a professional web developer I spend an inordinate amount of time writing "hack" CSS and JS to fix IE 6 and 7 bugs.  If IE 8 isn't going to be *truely* standard compliant -- in other words equally compliant with FF, Opera 9, and Safari -- then I really don't see the point.  Either wait until you've really got it right, or don't release anything.  Releasing slightly less broken versions of IE doesn't make developers lives easier, because we still have to write hack code for the new version... plus support the old versions.  Probably the most useful thing MS could do for web developers is update *ALL* IE6 installs to IE7 immediately as a critical security update.  Having to continue to support ancient, broken browsers slows innovation and makes web development much less enjoyable than it could be.

Great... At this rate, there would an IE8000 before year 9999 ushers in a new "millennium" bug.

A company will do what it wants. If they want to cater to the alpha geeks they will. If, as developers, we say we write for standards based browsers, our sites might look different and not work in IE and the user will say "what a crappy website. It doesn't work." who looks bad now? The user wants to do something. So if IE does what it wants to do and you can make websites work in compliant and non compliant browsers ask your boss/clients for more money.

I say bring the naming convention in line with the xbox brand, and call it IE 360. It'll probably be fairly apt for the usual standards turnaround

Here's a plan for the IE dev team: Just spend a month or so making a handful of IE skins for firefox, give a bunch of money to the mozilla foundation and spend the rest of the year in the bahamas.

Seriously.

I promise I'll download and use the IE skins and everything. Hell, I'll even PRETEND you guys wrote it all from scratch if it'll make you all happy, just stop hitting us with new browsers to try and fix errors for.

Who cares - everyone in the know uses Firefox!

Can you kill IE6 entirely pls? Sites work just fine on everything besides IE6. It's just like the bad guy in the browsers family. It's quite old anyway. Could we have a "developer" mode for the new IE where script debugging will be enabled automatically and explicitly enable plug-ins? Its annoying to have script debugging enabled during browsing since you have to hit "No" countless times - even at msn.com!

the developers of IE should try using it for website development. the improvements needed in IE would become very apparent!

Kill it and kill yourselves. Douse yourselves in gasoline and set yourselves on fire.

To cheer all up:

http://www.xitimonitor.com/en-us/browsers-barometer/firefox-september-2007/index-1-2-3-110.html

If it'll go like that we won't have to bother about IE8 when ff3 will come anyway.

How about

IE7.99999999999999999999999999998163875

Says it all doesn't it?

For the nitpickers: them digits are random from my fingers on the keyboard.

For the rest: FF+extensions is where it's at. I work in a fortune 500, and I develop web applications in IT.

E' ufficiale: Internet Explorer 8 si chiamer

aaron said" What are the chances IE8 will be standards compliant?  I'm a web developer and I'm sick of making two versions of every website. Making a separate non-compliant website that only works in IE is ridiculous."

Ridiculous, yes. Because it sounds like you're building your sites the wrong way to me, if you think you need a separate version for IE!  Much as I dislike the hassle of having to check things in several browsers, I've never built two versions of any site.

Anyway, back to topic, when will the beta be available? Will it be released the same way as the IE7 betas were?

that's a joke! right guys?

:S

After a long silence, the Microsoft IE team finally announce some long awaited news on IE8, it&#8217;s going to be called Internet Explorer 8. After months of silence I&#8217;m glad they cleared that one up! No news on features, bugfixes, etc. Ex-Micro..

I want IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet!

And I want to see the ribbon in it! (ribbon from Office)

How about doing the next one right for a change and call it IEFADWV.. Internet Explorer.. FINALLY A decent Working Version.

they still can't seem to grasp the concept of stacking something....... *mumbles something about z-index*

Wow. Can't people take a joke? :\

Now all I wonder is what exactly the new engine is like… An Opera-esque change?

World class CSS support please? If a bunch of volunteers can do it for Firefox surely a multibillion dollar corporation like Microsoft can do it? Developing good-will amongst consumer has worked wonders for Google ;-)

@David Eldridge: May I point out that the Mozilla 5 codebase (or what's left of it. I believe it has probably been completely rewritten over time) is what still powers the OSS Mozilla projects and later versions of Netscape?

When will details of this prog and its interface with Popfly be available?

IE8 must support in-line SVG, XHTML, and CSS3. It must also support the WHATWG/W3C HTML5 and XHTML5 specification. [1]

It's been 8 years since the W3C introduced XHTML and yet no version of Internet Explorer has ever supported it. XHTML must be sent with a XML media type, preferably application/xhtml+xml, Internet Explorer has never supported this media type (mime type).

Internet Explorer has never supported SVG either. Instead, Microsoft has gone and turned it's back on the W3C's SVG technology and brought out their proprietary vector graphics format Silverlight to compete with SVG.

And of course there's the total botched-up-partial-implementation of CSS that hinders and restricts Web Developers on a daily basis.

The World needs Open Web Standards Mr Gates and Mr Wilson, and the world needs them now.

It's about time Microsoft showed some integrity  and started supporting the W3C's Web standards. Up until now, all we have seen from you guys is; stall tactics, broken promises, dirty tricks and the general MSBS that Microsoft has become famous for.

These tactics are preventing the web from reaching it's full potential.

I look forward to seeing a better effort from Microsoft in the future. Perhaps Chris Wilson and the guys in the Internet Explorer team can turn things around with IE8 and show the world that Microsoft is genuine about ensuring that the web be free, open, interoperable, and accessible to every person in the world.

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/

Mind you, but don't give yourself promises. IE7 is being excluded from Windows XP SP3 so IE8 will probably not run on Windows Vista at all.

Is IE finally gonna be re-written? and change that dodgy old rendering engine. Oooh! see how the text expands into long vertical lines, Pretty Ugly! dude!

i think IEnG ( Internet Explorer Next Generation) is suitable for this product , like IPnG(IPv6) . just for WEB2

+100 points for a post about IE8!

-10 points for humor on a non-funny subject

-50 points for NO INFO on IE8

-25 points for only talking about it after the boss lets the cat out of the bag

"please don’t mistake silence for inaction" - kind of hard not to... because "we don't mistake silence as a lack of respect for the community"

We would now like the following please:

1.) Operating System supported list

 1a.) If it doesn't include XP, don't bother releasing it

2.) Fixed Bug List

3.) List of now supported technologies (e.g. XHTML, SVG, HTML5, CSS2.1, CSS3?)

4.) UI Fixes for IE:

 4a.) Can we drag toolbars yet?

 4b.) Have all the chrome issues been fixed?

5.) Have BUTTONS finally been fixed?

 5a.) Stretching/pixelation

 5b.) submiting the right value

6.) JavaScript Console?

7.) Download Manager?

8.) Draggable Links/Tabs?

9.) Favorite limitations fixed?

10.) DOM fixed yet?

If I still can't do simple stuff like .setAttribute('name', 'bustedInInternetExplorer');

or

.getElementById('anIdNotANameAndYesTheCaseCounts');

Then please for the sake of the developer masses, please do not release until this is resolved.

This is announcement probably the most arrogant response to criticism ever.

Congrats.

@pd: should be Inertia Expedience 20xx, shouldn't it? Will it really ship by 31 December 2009? Not if they keep going at their current blistering pace - a year to pick an obvious name, and the lamest blog post in World Wide Web history to brag about it.

@Dean: You guys should change your names, move to Kazakhstan, and pursue exciting careers as junior deputy assistant street sweepers. I was going to suggest JDA ditch diggers, but a) I wouldn't trust anybody who had anything to do with IE 7 near a sharp edge and 2) that job has fortunately been automated sufficiently by now.

SteveB ought to throw chairs at the entire Incoherent Exploder "team" and license Opera. It's not like you haven't done it before. Is the Spyglass copyright notice still in IE7?

IE7 is the nail that finally slammed shut the MS coffin for three of my clients. Both I and the other developer they use have started quoting our work for "standards compliant", "works in any one version of IE" and "works in two versions of IE" separately. When customer squawked, we each, separately (only finding out about this later) pointed them to historic internal metrics and external articles pointing out the grossly negligent defect that is IE.

IE8 would have to improve by multiple orders of magnitude over IE7 to even reach the "eats bovine offal for breakfast" quality level. I want the Web that most of us saw coming back in the mid-1990s, and the only serious obstacle between us and it is (at the risk of being doubly redundant) Microsoft intransigent incompetence (technically). If your technology was 1% of f1% of 1% of 1% as good as you think your marketing is, you would own the world and we'd be applauding you. Now, some teenager in East Slobodnia pwns the IE world instead, and we're not happy about it.

I can't believe all the negativity. I can't remember the last time *any* product was released that pleased everyone. It's a shame that individuals can't just keep their whining to themselves.

On another note, congrats on getting closer. I would have went down the marketing path since those names always get Scoble and Mary Jo going.

Can't wait to here more!

Prediction Time:

No cash offered here, but I'm betting on the following... hope to be proved wrong.

1.) No JS Console

2.) No CSS3

3.) Limited CSS2.1 improvements

4.) z-index bugs not fixed

5.) Chrome issues not fixed

6.) HTML5... nope!

7.) XHTML... mimetype properly recognized, all other aspects still broken

8.) Counter Intuitive Conditional Comment required to get certain rendering fixes to occur

9.) Javascript DOM changes:

a) lowercase attribute names supported

b) W3C event listeners - not added

c) DOM mutation events - not added

10.) PNG Alpha - not fixed

11.) SVG support - 3rd party only (which is zero, because Adobe dropped it, thinking MS was going to step up to the plate)

12.) whitespace issues in the DOM - not fixed

13.) fullscreen addressbar redisplay - not fixed

14.) UI issues

a) Refresh/Stop buttons still not in the correct location (left of the address bar)

b) Drag to new tab - not fixed

c) Bookmark security warning on JS links - not fixed

d) Horrible Inet Options dialog arrangement/usability - not fixed

e) Security Bar issues - not fixed

15.) Loading about:blank - still painfully slow

...............

16.) Useless shiny new features added? - you bet!

...so, so who cares about it any more...?

how about "IE IE IE IE IE IE IE IE"?

Or IE8 should be avoided.  My child told me this one....

  I am afraid of IE becuase IE 8 9.

for those who cannot translate my child actually meant..

  I am afraid of IE becuase IE ATE 9.

bah, i hope that version dont delay about 4 ou 3 years, like IE7.

just hope some full implementation of CSS2 and 3.

Those names were not funny...

As a webdeveloper I think you should have more alpha and beta releases so we can make our websites IE ready and get out all the css bugs...

GRR IE

Let's hope its web-standards compliant too.

Why is it that I do not see any responses from the IEBlog team to any of the comments/questions/concerns that has been left?  

I guess we shouldn't confuse silence with apathy either.

I personally thing IE7 is fine, I only use firefox when I need firebug, apart from that I fin IE7 way faster and more stable compared to FF

I think half the people going on about standards probably have no idea what they are talking about and just want to jump on the "I hate MS" band wagon

Just throw out this garbage called Internet Explorer, buy up Opera and change the red O to a blue E. And thanks for being funny, really.

Just throw out this garbage called Internet Explorer, buy up Opera and change the red O to a blue E. And thanks for being funny, really.

How about IE 7 Web Standards edition. One that will adhere to the web standards everyone else uses. Then you can add as a plugin to IE the ActiveX stuff and all the other non-standard code. That way we turn them off and it works like the other browsers.

peaking of which, how about a nice plugin system of some type? Go ahead and tie it to .NET or VB or whatever to get the income, but let the developers extend your browser. You can then come back and steal the ideas and put them in as standard features which will run faster. Everyone wins right?

That isn't far from the way it has been in the past.

I cannot believe that 1 year after the release of IE7 that the first "news" about the next version is that you have FINALLY decided on a name?  As Microsoft proved with with IE6, it would totally be irresponsible of anyone to mistake silence with inactivity - oh wait - that is exactly what silence meant.  Given Microsoft's recent track record with IE, why should anyone assume otherwise?

@Jason - What you hear is not whining, but rather the sound of a community trying to hold a company accountable.  When Microsoft started working on IE7, they promised that after IE7 was released that they were not going to sit on their laurels like they did with IE6.  If Microsoft doesn't wake up soon, then next sound you hear will be the pitter-patter of little feet as the other 75% of the browser users following the first 25% who have long since moved to FF.

IE 1000 pretty much rules :)

Kudos for this post - the comments are a proof that webdevs have even less sense of humour than server admins.

i'm not sure if anyone said this before (there are quite a few comments) but ie could really use a download manager, like real browsers (opera) have.

How about IE Sucks or IE Really Sucks, or "IE, but GetFirefox NOW!" ¬¬

Maybe IE 8 will have standards-based support for the latest cutting edge technologies, like HTTP 1.1 (1999) (perhaps building a client for a protocol that has 8 methods could support more than 2), HTML 4.01 (1999), CSS2 (1998), and even the first edition of XHTML 1.1 (2001) (Is it too much to dream in application/xhtml+xml? IE9 maybe?).

Woohoo! go microsoft!

@Kris - As a Microsoft MVP I am definitely not jumping on the "I Hate MS" bandwagon.  Microsoft is a big company.  Some divisions/product teams are better at keeping customers happy, and some still have a lot of work to do.  Scott Guthrie and his team in the DevTools division do a great job of continuing to innovate and keep their customers informed.  The IE team needs to take some lessons.   Do not mistake customer frustration with some blind hatred for the company.

I really enjoy IE7 and look forward to the new IE8.  

Keep up the good work guys!

from thye series: why should I get an interesring life when I can excell in boring people

Can they GET any more creative with the name? I can imagine the announcement: "Everyone, I have a big announcement to make!!! We're going ahead with our new web browser development. And after much deliberation, it is called, 'Internet... Explorer... 8!!!' Please, hold your questions. The main goal is to add functionality for html rendering, completely remove menu bars, more security, more warnings, more activex blocking, and css/html headaches. Thank you"

"I think half the people going on about standards probably have no idea what they are talking about and just want to jump on the "I hate MS" band wagon"

@Kris Do you even know what standards are?  Let me explain what standards do for you just in case you really don't know.  They cut down development time, allow users a choice on browser client. I like my sites to be viewable by as many users as possible, even those not running Windows/IE.

At my work, I am the cross-browser expert so I have to write the majority the JS, and my day usually consists of spending 20 minutes writing something that works in standards browsers (FF, Opera, and sometimes even Safari) and the rest of my day making the same functionality work in IE.  I'm not a MS hater, but I dislike their attitude towards the developer community and abiding by standards.  Next time Kris, try getting your facts straight before embarrassing yourself with your ignorance.

IE: The standart Browser for OUR WEB

It blows me away that a company that can make products like Exchange and SQL Server have such a hard time making a web-browser. Seriously. IE is losing market share left and right, which is a shame becuase it started out as a good browser. IE7 was a step in the right direction, but it's still unacceptably quirky. If IE8 comes out and has all the same quirks that it has had in the past with CSS and JS, then it will continue to lose. Come on guys, give deveopers and consumers something worth while.

Oh no, hopefully not another browser which needs lots of CSS-Hacks to render HTML&CSS correctly.

Internet Explorer 8 Bill Gates discussed IE8 at the Mix ‘n Mash event on the Microsoft campus yesterday....

I'd like the feature where I can place RSS feed straight on the links toolbar that would drop down a menu listing the content of those RSS feeds.  Only missing feature that FireFox has that IE doesn't.

@Kris:

"I think half the people going on about standards probably have no idea what they are talking about and just want to jump on the "I hate MS" band wagon"

Maybe half of them are? But that still leaves thousands of developers tearing their hair out because IE doesn't follow the specs!

Best case in point.

If you were the one implementing a method on the Document object... and the method was called:

document.getElementById( String id )

Do you think you could handle it? Its a tricky one! you have to return null if you can't find a match, and return the element, if it has the exact same id.

Well, this is why we're are making such a fuss!  It wasn't implemented correctly, in fact it is full on *botched!* The element returned doesn't have to have an exact match on the id, in fact, it doesn't even need to have an id attribute whatsoever!

How much worse could a method be implemented?!

If you seriously don't care about web standards Kris, then Web Development is not for you.

It seems like a lot of you are asking IE8 to just become Firefox (or Opera), when they already exist.

I think the perfect is the enemy of the good.  I think IE7 is a great improvement on IE6, and I think IE8 will continue the trend.

soo...

this is the name...

Internet Empire 2008

abb...

I.E.2008

You stupids.

Microsoft said that IE8 will be released 8 months after the release of IE7. When is it coming now? 2015?

Is anybody else completely impressed with how many comments are on this page since yesterday?  Talk about wow!

I too would like ie8 to be more standards compliant.  W3C exists for a reason, to bring some kind of conformity to the web.  Any time I talk to non-web developers about developing on the web all I hear is how they can't handle having to account for how things work on x number of browsers.

Its not about making ie8 more like firefox, its about making it more standards compliant so that everyone's life is easier.  At least thats my take.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx

I could care less about any new shiny buttons or features, just get the CSS rendering correctly and DOM support.  In fact, don't waste your time on anything else until this is up to par with every other rendering engine in existence (WebKit, Gecko, Opera...).

As a web developer, nothing is more frustrating than constantly trying to write various different hacks to make pages appear *close* to as intended just for IE, when every other browser in existence renders the page just fine without any hacks.

You are single-handedly responsible for delaying major advancements in web development and frankly as a professional, I think you should simply be ashamed of current state of IE's rendering engine.

FIX IT, or I'm going to keep telling every single person I know to download a different browser and encouraging the use of alternatives on my web sites.

It's time for the browser to move beyond just the internet and into the broader world of desktop applications, tv, electronics, etc.

We need a rebranding.

Here are 2 new names to pick from:

Microsoft Explorer 1.0

Live Explorer 1.0

Just name all future versions as the drink "7up" and save your time :-)))

IE 6 Sucks a Lot

IE 7 sucker than IE 6 becuase * html bug fixed and not CSS strict Full compliant mading clomplicated develop a web site for your version

i remember when IE blog guys post about the "new" IE 7 and the rewrite of the their rendering engine ...and the danm words ... "we are hearing your customers blah, blah blah ..." danm it ..

The result of that was: The danm same danm rendering engine partially bug-fixed, partially feature-improved, you guys are in the mediocrity... because you guys millions of peolples are wasting a lot of time trying to resolve your fialures.

hearing your customers .... thats is really good joke (you are not oppened, you are still using a 90's software developing model (it's a shame, really)) , not like  your new branding browser name that was a pathetic joke ... really ...

What we can expect for IE8: i think in 1 word "NOTHING". i'm pretty sure that IE 8 Will make the things worse making more incopatible the web standarts with your browser ... i really hate that but we can't do anything (you guys are really in the last place in innovations, but the worse is your product are saying bad things about your company and the related products)

well i know that this place is full of MS-zealots and IE-fanboys. i'm not doing this to get a flamewars only to express my opinion ...

if you guys really want to do the things rigth (tath i think that aren't the MS way) rewrite the danm all browser from scratch and change the name because your product is infamous

For Windows XP:

Internet Explorer eXPedition 8

[img]http://img.pixs.ru/images/_4096491_20719.jpg[/img]

For Windows Vista:

Internet Explorer Ultimate Edition 8

[img]http://img.pixs.ru/images/ie8mockupf_5111484_20718.jpg

[/img]

Is it too hard for multibillionare company like Microsoft to produce a browser that adheres to standard?

Please, just go ahead and close this blog.  I'm serious: there's NO ACTUAL DISCUSSION HERE -- it's just a series of proclamations by the IE team member unlucky enough to pull the short straw this month, followed by reactions by web developers which apparently are ignored.

Hey, if my blog posts received as much hateful feedback as this one, I wouldn't be too eager to respond...but then again, I'm not developing a product that millions will use and thousands will be responsible for compatibility with it.

If this is a joke, it's a pretty poor one.  If it isn't, then it simply illustrates the complete lack of respect Microsoft has for the web development community.  Sure, you guys SAY you respect us, but your actions tell a different story altogether.

Be open and be honest...or don't bother.  Right now this blog is a self-licking ice cream cone, with absolutely no value beyond the IE team being able to say "we have a blog!"  I'm surprised comments have not yet been turned off, but I suppose it's only a matter of time.

Please, just go ahead and close this blog.  I'm serious: there's NO ACTUAL DISCUSSION HERE -- it's just a series of proclamations by the IE team member unlucky enough to pull the short straw this month, followed by reactions by web developers which apparently are ignored.

Hey, if my blog posts received as much hateful feedback as this one, I wouldn't be too eager to respond...but then again, I'm not developing a product that millions will use and thousands will be responsible for compatibility with it.

If this is a joke, it's a pretty poor one.  If it isn't, then it simply illustrates the complete lack of respect Microsoft has for the web development community.  Sure, you guys SAY you respect us, but your actions tell a different story altogether.

Be open and be honest...or don't bother.  Right now this blog is a self-licking ice cream cone, with absolutely no value beyond the IE team being able to say "we have a blog!"  I'm surprised comments have not yet been turned off, but I suppose it's only a matter of time.

It should be Ie^2.079 or IE1000 (why not IE10 in octal?)

Awesome to finally get some news!  Keep up the sharing of information, and I'm sure I'll hear all about everything I want to hear about.

i just hope is a fast as firefox... IE7 is slow... as hell

Well, I don't want to be mean, but here's a piece of advice:

While developing IE8, think about why IE7 and less are considered the worst browsers ever (being the most used can NOT excuse this).

Or more precisely, why does it gives a such intense headache to most web developers I know, including me...  

It just don't want to follow the standards; Well, it does follow one, the Microsoft's standards, which can only be considered as such "because it IS MS...." ... and in the world we live in, I doubt this is a reason at all...

All in all, do something about this, and CONFORM to what's being used for once, instead of trying to lead everyone with nonsense...

My 2¢, sorry if I appear a bit rude

Yes, but--will it suck?  The foregone conclusion is...  "Yes!"

Hi,

I am a developer, and I really find the latest IE incarnation to be quite a payne. You know, let me give you a quick example, just for fun. We have a div, and I want to make it have a 100% height. This is really simple in IE6, due to a bug, it isn't 100% of the current viewport, its 100% of it's parent. In the other browsers we solve this by making the div act as a table, using display: table. Well, in the other browsers, except for IE7 that doesn't support this css 2.1 property. But it's ok, the client understands.

I know global statistics still show IE7 only taking up 25%&#8211;35% of overall Internet Explorer usage, but stats on this site show a slightly different story (usually skewed toward the crowd more likely to install/upgrade a browser). For the first t..

@visez.trance: what is that div's parent's computed height?  Is it auto?  If so, CSS 2.1 says there is nothing to take a percentage of, so the div must ignore the height:100% and be height:auto instead.  I don't know if that's what IE7 does, but it sounds like what you want to do isn't possible according to CSS.

Lenny wrote, "Is it possible that you could abandon the IE platform altogether and start supporting Firefox?"

Can I get an "AMEN!"

Dear Dean, Stop fighting with the marketing department and focus on getting the basics right once-and-for-all (CSS & HMTL).

Just give him the knowledge to use CSS 2.1 and following correct! :D

Then you can call the next IE how ever you want. For example: Roger :D

"don’t mistake silence for inaction"

Nor will we mistake action for progress

All .net developers use vs.net because it is the best product out there.  This sounds like an opinion, but it is fact, especially now that 2008 is out.  The part where Microsoft is failing their development community is with IE.  I bet if you did a serious study of professional web developers to ask them which browser they use for regular web browsing, most of them would say Firefox.  I happen to love the progress made for IE 7, but we all want more.  I'm sure even the people trashing IE on here would absolutely love it if Microsoft would release their "dream IE".  You did it for MS Office (at least most of it in my opinion).  We all know the talent at Redmond can still do it for IE.  If you could just build a really kick-ass rendering engine (standards-compliant, etc.), then make it so we could build anything else we want easily through add-ins, it would be a great day.  Oh...and we want it by next Summer.  Good luck! :)

Please give priority to existing standards: especially XHTML, CSS 2+ and SVG plus interoperable JavaScript.

I have no immediate need for Silverfish, or any desire to spend my time writing workarounds for IE's shortcomings when there are non-proprietary standards available.

Well isn't this exciting. Never anticipated a browser release before. I need to get my act together and write some more IE bug test cases. You will find them here.

http://css-class.com/test/bugs/ie/

Please change the behavior of floats, please allow an element floated right clear an element floated left and visa versa and please get rid of hasLayout.

"...I mean, we're not -- there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE." That's what

the name choice are funny, but more information is needed.

"...I mean, we're not -- there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE." That's what

I have one question, Will Microsoft do it right? I live by Microsoft technologies, however, IE is one thing that I don't use and that is a shame!

You came close with "iIE".

Names I've previously considered for your browser:

* "!IE" [i.e. "anything but IE"]

* "$%^$@#%^&IE" [i.e. "blankety-blank, blank, blank, blank IE"]

Internet Explorer has cost me enough time over the last eight years or so that I have seriously considered calling a press conference in front of Microsoft's corporate offices, during which I urinate on the building, and then hold a question and answer session for the press.

Was that supposed to be funny? And it's written by someone who's supposed to be "General Manager"? Wow... This lack of professionalism, or just good ol' respect, is both baffling and revealing...

Maybe for you it's just a game, but for us developers, who have to spend %20-%30 of our front-end dev time implementing workarounds for your browsers' bugs and lack of standards support, it hurts to even try to smile at that post.

You really don't get it... This post makes it blatantly obvious. And it also makes it clear that IE8, whatever its name might be, will suck just as bad as all its previous incarnations. But you know that and you don't care. That's why you have time to litter this blog with nonsensical posts...

Ο Bill Gates κράτησε την παράδοση και έγινε ο νονός του επόμενου Ιnternet Εxplorer. Από τα πολλά ονόματα

Nobody here really said what this blog post means:

This blog post is an insult to all Web developers who want to see the Web evolve.

Thank you Microsoft for insulting the world at large.

@Ben asked:

Q: "how do I access the in-memory cookie store as a BHO?"

A: Use InternetGetCookie from the BHO in the same process.

@Joe P: What HTTP/1.1 methods do you think WinINET/IE doesn't support?

@Ronnie: You can view RSS on your Favorites bar with FeedFolder add-on.  See http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/FeedFolder.asp

The is just completely worthless.  Congrats, you guys figured out the most important part of a product in a series...the next name.

You know what'd be cool? Having IE not completely mess up the way websites work so that every page out there has to be rebuilt.

IE Eight My Baby

I really hope it doesn't suck as much as 8-n...

Really?  IE 8?

Why should you even continue after IE 7?  Ask yourself that, you have a tool that does the job better already, for free, and with more functionality.

Nobody would hate you for just dropping IE.  Have some developers work on a mare useful web browser (you know the one) and do your part for the first time in 9 years to help develop what the web could be.

Everyone already knows that whatever effort you put into IE 8, won't even match up to what other web browsers already have. It's a terrible waste of time and resources.

You try to reinvent the wheel, but you come up with a triangle.  Yes, it's *that* bad.

*sigh*

And we are an internet-based company and we are still using IE6.

What I wouldn't give to use tabbed browsing.

Same us devs a headache using the friggin standards.  It would be much easier to just use WebKit or Gecko and tweak it for your ActiveX needs (or obsessions).

I hope the next version (what ever you call it) have better (hopefully full) support on web standards!

Specially in CSS, which it suck at current state.

I hope the next version (what ever you call it) have better (hopefully full) support on web standards!

Specially in CSS, which it suck at current state.

I would love to see Clean CSS and non-MSified JavaScript -- That would make me the happiest little camper alive! GOOO Team!

@James: If you get Avant Browser you can do that ... www.avantbrowser.com -- atleast until IE 6.0 is not mandatory at your company

MSIE 5 was best, MSIE 7 is fake and MSIE8 ???

How about you fix this first:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/30/the-first-year-of-ie7.aspx

Please, I beg of you. Don't make me create another CSS branch. I already have 3 just for IE (yes, I need to support IE5 at work too).

fix the goddamn box model /css  , I'm tired of spending 90% of my time writing hacks for ie. Thanks!

Honestly, should the branding be consistent with other Microsoft products such as Office 2003, 2007; Server 2003, SQL 2005, etc.  Adopting that naming convention would really make things a lot clearer eh?

Internet Explorer 1.0 = IE 1995

Internet Explorer 2.0 = IE 1995B

Internet Explorer 3.0 = IE 1996

Internet Explorer 4.0 = IE 1997

Internet Explorer 5.0 = IE 1999

Internet Explorer 6.0 = IE 2001

Internet Explorer 7.0 = IE 2006

Internet Explorer 8.0 = IE 2???

How about IE 1 since hopefully this one will be the one that actually works and supports dated standards.

I'm far from being a fan of IE, but really these comments are a bit pointless. The IE team surely have a *very clear idea* of what people want them to do.

Wouldn't people rather they knuckled down and concentrated on with the enormous pile of fixes and new feature requests, rather than making pointless blog postings resulting in the same huge lists of things they already know about?

I see the present post as reassurance that something really is in progress.

*****yawn*****

wake me when you have something i'll ever use... in that sense i've been sleeping on you guys for years now.

So IE8 is going to be called ... IE8? Big deal.

This is the only blog I can think of whose commenters regularly slam the posters. Funny.

How bout you fix the inconsistencies between IE6 and IE7 first before you talk about IE8.

We who make websites still have to test on both of those and they each work very differently. Try to make the next incarnation less tedious.

Hey man, if you aren't aware - ALL the web developers in the world hate your browser. We have had enough. Your browser is the terrorist of the WWW. Right now, you may have a greater market share but we'll fight back, and we are - one user at a time, we'll bury your browser. The WWW will be a happier place for developers and users - without IE.

We don't need no IE8. Thanks.

IE8n't worth this many comments

IE8 is good.

Will it use the WebKit or Gecko engines, and be standards compliant. 'Cos that'd be nice and I might even use it.

Please, please, please comprehend that backwards compatibility for IE has no value any more.  Many (I'd wager most) web developers build to web standards and hack their code to support IE.  As such, there are very few things attempted on the web anymore that are IE specific.  If it can't be done using standards, it's generally a no go from the outset.  When it is tried, it's rarely successful.  As long as IE8 supports standards, there's no need for it to support old IE hacks: it will simply fall nicely in line with all of the standards driven browsers simply because it's not old IE.  Make it backwards compatible and you can rest assured it will be just as flakey and reviled as previous IE browsers were/are.

Good luck.

Please, I beg you, for the sanity of web developers, improve css, javascript and SVG support!

You can call it "Internet Explorer Breakthrough Edition" if it's truly Standards Compliant...

God Save Firefox!!!

IE7 = 2006

IE8 = 2012???

Angelo

Hmmph, I'm still using IE6 and uninstalled IE7 last time I tried it.  I'm liking Safari 3 on Windows.  

The name is the least important part of the browser.  If IE7, er 8, was fully standard compliant, I might listen.  

Call it IElive.  

Wow, what an incredibly condescending post. Good work guys.

just build a browser which supports w3c and I don't care about the name, as long as I don't need to use it

I think its time to convince the business division that IE really doesn't make you any money, bite the bullet and switch to another browser core for IE -- webkit seems reasonable, or even Gecko. All you then have to do is port some of the MS extensions for backwards compatibility to the new base. Since MS seems bent on Silverlight as the future of the web anyway, what does it matter if Silverlight is running within Gecko or IE?

Or maybe you could convince MS to buy Opera.

I'm officially dropping support for IE in our company's products and I won't add it again unless and until modern web standards are *completely* supported.

Give the guy a break...he can't help being arrogant, after living so long in an insular universe of denial that We Lead The Way and Everyone Else Must Follow.

Guess what MS...no matter how big you are, how much money and influence you have, no matter... us lowly human beings will have our way despite you. Sooner or later you will dig your own grave with your misguided refusal to follow open standards. You don't have to own everything forever, do you? Why can't you face up to your past misjudgements and just play nice with the rest of the world?

Congrats. This name is completely bug free. After more then 2 decades its a miracle - bug free.

Now I am waiting for this kid to come into this world and bring some smile on our faces.

Till then keep on trying and do conceive some ideas. You may have to work in nights also to make this a great product.

I am suggesting some ideas so that you "Don't take our blasphemy for inaction" ;-)

1. Remove bugs and put some debuggers - learn from your junior Firefox they have these. You can easily borrow these. Don't be shy.

2. Give a weekend fun activity to your colleges - how to display PNG (especially transparent) image in IE.

When you are done with these two activities shout on this blog....BY GOD's GRACE KID IS IN GOOD HEALTH....and finally then give us the features of this kid.

Till then Sayonara.

Can you guess what my request is...

    ||||||         ||||||         ||||||

  |||    |||     |||    |||     |||    |||

 |||            |||            |||

|||              ||||||||       ||||||||

 |||                    |||            |||

  |||    |||    ||||   |||     ||||   |||

    ||||||        |||||||        |||||||

I would think that marketing would name it. Browser.Net claiming all browsers as their own, like ajax.net

IE Eight it's OK. Much appreciated :)

failed attempt at being funny

wow.

From a Group of Pro Web Designers in London, UK:

It's not hard, keep it simple, and make it standards compliant. It's impossible to believe that a company as big as Microsoft failed to make their browser parse CSS properly. How hard can it be?

If there is a next IE I hope it pass Acid2. And please drop IE6 as it bring major problems.

Hurry up and adopt web standards you idiots.

If it's not standards compliant you needn't bother.

I now make one version of a site that is correct (read: standards compliant and works on everything recent except IE) and then multiple borked versions with CSS hacks and the like for the various IE nightmares.

I wasn't impressed by the whole slew of new and interesting bugs IE7 introduced and that fact that these bugs were not the same as the bugs I had learnt to work around in IE6.  I fear yet another nightmare of incompatibility is headed our way.

@EricLaw, I'm pretty sure he is refering to HTTP PUT, HTTP DELETE, HTTP HEAD, HTTP TRACE, HTTP CONNECT.  The 2 supported being GET/POST.

I can't verify at the moment that IE does or does not support the w3c methods above, but I do recall the last time I thought about using them, I hit roadblocks when it came to support levels.

Just last week Microsoft’s Tony Chor was roundly chastised in the comments to his rather self congratulatory posting on the IE Team Blog about the first anniversary of Internet Explorer 7. So yesterday at a Mix n’ Mash event for bloggers, Molly Ho...

I hope any improvements and/or added features warrants the jump of an entire whole number in the versioning.  But, since this entire blog post was just about the name, this is just a marketing scheme.

Yipee! http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx Ok, we all new it existed

In the end, it will just be called "Internet Explorer 8".

...and most of the public will wait until they see "Internet Explorer 8.1"

I want to be finished with requiring multiple stylesheets called through conditional if statements for IE alone. Please, oh please get it right this time.

Thank you.

ps. While you're at it, maybe make it available to everyone so developers don't have to worry about IE6, and eventually IE7.

To be honest, as a web developer, I don't really care about how the new version is going to be called, I just have one single wish:

-> Make it standards compliant!

And by that I mean: make a page, displaying 100% the same on all other major browsers, finally look the same on IE8, too. That'd be really welcome as you'd save us all a ton of time.

Greetings to you guys!

- miguy2k

Just wait for Firefox 3 to go GA and then copy it.  That strategy's worked OK so far.

Right. The next version of a worthless browser. One big bug as far as standards compliance is concerned. Built by people that appearently even find counting hard, judging from IE even being unable to display the correct line location of errors.

Your multi-billion company is completely unable to build something that is even remotely in the same league as open-source firefox or opera. And you think that finding a bloody *name* is an important issue!?

Pathetic.

And if you find this important I hold little hope of getting IE's real problems fixed. It'll just be a different IE, not a better one. Just another case in the IE "switch of hell".. Business as usual I guess.

IE "Ate" -> IE Fat -> IE Slow

IE needs to diet.

"Diet IE" will be a more customer focused name.

Microsoft, Please fire managers like these and invest your resources in improving CSS support for next version of IE.

Before thinking to much of ie8, why not be serious about rolling out ie7!? Still half of your users use the old ie6 version witch makes web developing a pain in the ass!

looking forward to IE8, hope we dont lose more control over toolbars etc as we did with the upgrade to IE7.  I love the way the tabs work so please don't change them, and whatever you do alter please add the option to revert to the old style of IE7, just in case :)

Don't worry, I usually equate your silence with incompetence.

So what, another worthless web browser that is developed by a mutli billion dollar company which can't even get its operating system right, let alone a web browser.

IE7 is so behind on standards it should have been called "IE7: 'Good ol' days edition, before standards existed'".

Seriously, make IE a decent web browser, even if it's by doing what you do best and stealing intellectual property, but make an effort.

How about this as a name: "IE continuing to lose marketshare to Firefox because Microsoft has a myopic vision of the software industry"

The name doesn't matter. Just make it following W3C's and all the other standards outthere, please! Support for CSS 2.1 and full compatibility with ECMAScript, are must haves. SVG support would be nice.

And yes, please kill MSIE 6. Nowadays up to 60%-70% of my customers (average Joes) still use it, because it's too easy to click on the "Internet" icon and launch it, and they don't care of updating or trying other browsers. You should push the updates with more energy.

Wie schon bei der letzten Version des Microsoftschen Browsers hat Bill Gates das neue bzw. aktualisierte Produkt vor kurzem beim Namen genannt. �berraschenderweise wird die n�chste Version &#8222;Internet Explorer 8&#8221; hei�en. Die Entwickler verrate

A co-worker of mine suggested the following:

IE 8 All My Available Memory

@Randy: IE supports all of these HTTP methods, and others.  I don't understand why you believe that only two are supported?

Probably it's out in 2012 when Firefox version 5 and Opera 11 is already launched.

I don't want IE8 to ever come out.  I am a professional web developer and there is a huge productivity bottleneck when it comes to debugging sites for TWO broken versions of a browser that all my clients use. A third one would probably cripple my work process, since it would be at least a year until IE7 and IE8 leveled out in users (and there will of course be a significant percentage still using IE6 I bet). Can anyone imagine having to debug for 3 versions of broken IE?

The problem with IE is that the people who make it don't give a damn about the developer, they are only interested in adding features for your basic end-user.  I think this is a huge mistake, because if you lose the trust of the developers (already lost, i think) we will stop making sites that play well with old broken browsers.  

It is sad that I have to use non-standard code and "tricks" to make sites render in IE, when they render perfectly on every other browser.  Where's the disconnect here?  Why doesn't the IE Team care about developers?  Why didn't IE7 address the already long-standing problem of CSS rendering?  It was happening for a looong time, well before IE6.  

Is it really all about pleasing the basic end-user?  Is it about getting a product out-the-door with a fancy new GUI to essentially trick people into thinking you've updated your browser?  I am not fooled.

This post makes me feel sad for MS, because they have been getting flak lately for not saying anything about IE8, and now they make this joke of a post disclosing the new name for the browser!  This isn't what anyone wants, and your footnote about silence only shows the entire companies incompetence and ignorance when it comes to real users needs.  

In conclusion:

You need to fix Internet Explorer, because people WILL be using IE8 (because they don't know that there are other web browsers) and you're only going to further alienate web developers.  

Of course, I doubt MS cares that they have become the butt of all web developers' jokes.  As long as they can load up their broken software on every computer everyone buys, why should they worry about it?

I've got $100 on IE8 being just as broken. Any takers?

"IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet." This name is very long?!  

IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet... Wow

Microsoft will probably put more effort into coming up with IE's name than they will into fixing it's problems.

This is exactly how IBM began their downhill slide.

Those that do not learn from history......

@EricLaw As mentioned, I wasn't sure if IE supported those methods or not (I don't use them, because I recalled issues (not sure in which browser(s))

Glad to hear IE supports all of them, I'll have to re-investigate which ones work in which browser again.

@Joe P. If Eric is correct (I'm guessing he is... he's a little close on the subject at IE ;-) , what exactly were you (Joe P.) complaining about?

@EricLaw, you'll have to excuse the significant bashing on this blog at the moment, there is a LOT of frustration in the dev community at the moment, and 90% is based on IE, and the lack of info we receive.  We understand that the IE team may have been told to keep mum about much of IE8, but it doesn't make it the "smart" move in the industry, and I think a lot of people here just want management to understand that this is the *wrong* approach.  MS doesn't need to spill ALL the beans, but they need to spill 2 or 3... None doesn't cut it.

It is important for MS to realize, that many of us are building applications on the web browser platform... Its stability is key to our success, and its coherence to the standards, is very important when we deliver across multiple browsers, and even multiple OS's

The simple fact that in a few months our applications, are going to ride on top of a platform that we haven't got ANY info on, is terribly un-nerving!

We worry about the new features being added, breaking stuff.

We worry about the bugs being fixed, not being fixed properly.

We worry about implementations being fixed (WITHOUT BEING NOTIFIED)

We worry about yet another version of IE still not supported much needed technologies.

Thus, please forgive our tone... "Please don't mistaken our tone, for content with the status quo"

"IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet"

Oh, puh-leeze! Enough "Windows Live" already.

How about the name "Internet Explorer Forever"? ;)

“Does it have feature X?”

That's my question ...

where X = HTML (all of it, even the Q element)

"the comments are a proof that webdevs have even less sense of humour than server admins" --pingpong

LOL. And yes, IE 1000 is pretty awesome. Looking forward to the "lot more soon" promised, Dean.

I think it should be called "iEX" - better yet, just "X" although its far from that and losing more users daily.

Everyone who said "how hard is it to build a standards compliant HTML rendering engine" should go try to do it.  The spec itself isn't even internally consistant.

That said, I'm of the opinion IE needs a complete re-write: the frame, the engine, everything.  There needs to be less emphasis on being a platform and more emphasis on being an application.

Make the name simple like "Internet Explorer 8". Lot of people using Non-IT people using internet using IE. So never let them think about it...  Simple name it as "IE-8". But really the security, performance, reliability and stability matters in the browser war.

It should be IE Last or IE Never. IE team does not care about their product quality much enough. Please dont release it when IE is not mature. IE7 is not mature, buggy. Don't break the web anymore.

it costs our nonprofit 30% of its budget for web development to make the site work with ie7 (trying to set the name property on an input element via javascript was the last thing). please just make it work like everybody else's browser.  

Well, the IE Team has now been fully chastised by every blogger on the planet, and anyone in the software space.

Glad to see Bill Gates finally let it out, I'm still baffled as to why it took this damn long!

Thanks Molly for getting MS to face the fact that they are abusing the community.

I only hope, that now that this is out, that there will be a DAILY posting for at least the next 2 weeks about what is going on!

To Molly, Well done!

Please your marketing member team, if they want the long name, the will get it --> Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Service Pack 1 64 bit for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 64 bit. :D

Please for the love of god implement SVG kthx.

@EricLaw [MSFT], your regular and helpful activity in the comments is noticed by those of us paying attention.

@Dean Hachamovitch, I appreciate how you are trying to lighten the tone.

I'm glad you are staying above the negativity of the comments on this blog. Staying above it more frequently would be appreciated, though. :-)

Blog entries capture a moment in history. Often things turn out different from what was predicted. Don't be afraid to tell us what you are thinking and doing. I'd like to know, even if it doesn't make the product eventually shipped as IE8.

Is following Windows XP interface conventions something you are interested in for the IE8/WinXP build?

I'd like to file a bug report.

With your parents.

The next version of Internet Explorer will likely have hundreds of millions of users during its life-cycle. By ignoring the developer community you once had, and now making light of your horrendous business strategy, you've done nothing but destroy what credibility you once had <em>and</em> you've earned the animosity and contempt of people who will eventually work with your product on a daily basis.

Also, you hurt my feelings.

Option Of The Unthinkable: Ban Internet Explorer

Have you thought about coding the GUI in .NET 3.5 so you can code all the features twice as fast with no loss of speed and then you can have most of the time to code the C++ HTML renderer and make it so perfect that it passes the ACID2 test and more (such as ACID3 and ACID4 :P)?

Oh, and please add "HTTP 1.1 pipelining" with up to 8 simultaneous connections!  Users are dying for this killer feature.

IE チームのブログのエントリ &quot;Internet Explorer ...

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

Microsoft Vista Internet Explorer.NEXT

Eu sugiro um nome que já deveria ter sido desde o início... Windows Internet Explorer

Option Of The Unthinkable: Boycott Internet Explorer

They may as well call it IE6 and just rerelease the old code, especially with the adoption rate IE7 has... it would be like an instant 40%+ marketshare!

* better CSS compliance

-- preferably with CSS 2.1 rather than CSS3 because of the fact that some things will change in CSS3, not to mention the pick-and-choose method will give developers more headaches than ever

* XHTML support

-- preferably parsed using an XML parser instead of an HTML/tag-soup parser

* ditch JScript in favor of ECMAScript

-- you still have VBScript, after all

* native SVG implementation

-- this is not quite vital, but it would be a nice addition due to the fact that Firefox already has a lot of SVG implemented whereas you have none of it implemented

* relatively similar release dates for various locales

-- how long should some countries have to wait for IE7 (I'm not even considering IE8 in this point; I simply included this because it annoys me, despite being a (hobbyist) developer in the US)

At the very least, could you please provide a compliant box model and XHTML support? That bit alone would make many developers happy.

See this post for some nice suggestions => http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/12/06/next-version-of-ie-is-ie8

Everyone who said "how hard is it to build a standards compliant HTML rendering engine" should go try to do it.  The spec itself isn't even internally consistant.

jorfdavf said:

Everyone who said "how hard is it to build a standards compliant HTML rendering engine" should go try to do it.  The spec itself isn't even internally consistant.

I would if I was getting the same money as the IE development team are.

Dean announced yesterday on the IE blog that Internet Explorer vNext will be named Internet Explorer

For once, do some work for developers rather than end users. Look at what Apple has done. Once upon a time when there was Mac OS X, IE for the Mac shipped as part of OS X!!!! and Tasman although better than Trident was nowhere near complete standards support. You are a whole generation behind and yet you keep on deciding standards support is not the no.1 priority?

So if whether you really HAVE been working behind the scenes or not started IE8 development at all, this blog should be the turning point in your decisions. Please break it once and bring the rendering engine at par with modern web standards. Please give us back our web.

IE 8? Way more people are still using IE6 than IE 7. Need to find a way to dispose of this baggage before there is any point in moving forward.

Dean announced yesterday on the IE blog that Internet Explorer vNext will be named Internet Explorer

@Kris - seriously please read and get yourselves up-to-date on how much IE's standards support is compared to other competitive layout engines.

fixing css issues to be standards-compliant is a far better idea than announcing 8 possible names for ie8.

You guys should move under Somasegar's developer division, as looking at the current state of the web, IE's more of a developer platform and more work needs to be done on the developer side.

Just another sugestion. (maybe already posted...)

Try IE 9-1

Work on IE 9 already and give us a real Internet browser !

basically user with standard account in Vista can change phishing filter setting and pop-up blocker setting on and off without getting a UAC notification i hope this change. I say UAC for Phishing Filter setting and UAC for pop-up blocker setting. This is to prevent other user from changing the settings.  

Why does Microsoft even try to push a dead browser through time? They should seriously utilize the Gecko engine or WebKit engine to make a browser actually render things correctly.

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers on the IE project use Firefox themselves.

IE has killed the future for the web. It should be blocked and abolished.

Why does Microsoft even try to push a dead browser through time? They should seriously utilize the Gecko engine or WebKit engine to make a browser actually render things correctly.

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers on the IE project use Firefox themselves.

IE has killed the future for the web. It should be blocked and abolished.

I agree with some people here that this amount of comments _must_ be answered. If not, might as well close the blog. If the next post is as lame as this one (and the previous) then you can mark December 2007 as the month where Microsoft lost all touch with the world of web developers.

Maybe Steve Ballmer can post about how this relates to his famous "developers developers developers" speech?

jorfdavf wrote:

"""

Everyone who said "how hard is it to build a standards compliant HTML rendering engine" should go try to do it.  The spec itself isn't even internally consistant.

"""

I've actually gave it some serious thought over the past couple days.  You know, challenge the IE team to see if they can get full standards support before me... working alone... starting from scratch.  Quite frankly, even though I'm a nuts'n'bolts programmer, and (currently) haven't much of a clue with regards to graphics programming, etc, I think I'd actually have a chance at beating them.  That is if past is any indication of there future efforts.

But, of course I have better things to do than produce another OSS browser that no-one will use.  One of them being a web based project, that, I might add, won't include any support for non-standards compliant browsers.  So, I, like many companies and programmers that have posted here (and have yet to comment), have decided to tell IE where to go until it can get it's act together i.e. I refuse to allow IE to ruin my fun.

I honestly hope that others follow suit.  It's time to nip this problem in the bud.  Quite frankly, if people just showed how much extra IE cost them on each and every bill, I doubt that IE will last much longer.  Supporting it certainly isn't fiscally responsible.

Oh, and thanks Dean for the most arrogant insulting post possible.  Are you even aware what a horrid, unprofessional prat you're being by even thinking of posting what you did?  Never mind that you actually did it?!?!?

I mean seriously.  Given what you did here after the last blog post (and what when on there), not to mention being the GM of a failed project (to put it mildly), you should be lucky to still be employed come Monday.

But, if you were fired, you probably still wouldn't understand why.  Hell, if you were tossed from the top of the clue tree, and hit every branch on the way down, you'd probably still be lacking.

But, if you're still employed after this, you really *really* need to reflect on all the issues listed above (and on the last blog).  Because, if you don't, quite soon, there won't be any developers to not talk to anymore.

Because, and you really need to listen to this one, it is NOT M$ against some company like last time.  It's the developer community v.s. there respective employers.  And if the developers start to show there bosses just how burnt-out they get from "working" on IE v.s. other browsers, if they start showing just how much time (read: money) is wasted "working" on IE, if those bosses are any good at all, things will start to change in a very fundamental way on the web.  You may take that to mean that sites will no longer support IE en masse.

Don't think it can't happen.  All that these companies have to do is what you guys are doing right now; ignore there users.  And after all that complaining is over, guess what?  It'll be an Opera, Safari, FF, etc dream web.  You know, where things actually work; where standards rule.

Care to join the party?  Or are you going to be the one who isn't invited?

What's the big deal about name? Give us some thoughts on what you're going to do for non-PhD users, so that they can manage their IE (whatever) to work properly on every W3C compatible web page.

One upon a time, I could manage my users via phone. Than I had to switch on e-mail instructions. Now I mostly have to visit them.

Make it simple. That _should_ be possible to acieve.

I have to vote with the crowd, here.

Get standards-compliant. Is there anything else to say, really?

"# re: Internet Explorer 8

Wednesday, December 05, 2007 8:35 PM by Paul

You can't even properly parse HTML special chars on your blog."

He gotcha there, your own blog doesn't seem to work with even the simplest of characters. If this is where IE8 is coming from, all I have to say is:

LUL.

Let's forget about versions of Exploder prior to 6 as these were the trail-blazers.  

IE6 = bug-ridden piece of junk.  Immutable fact.

IE7 = bug-ridden piece of junk.  This too is a fact.  Anyone who builds a website knows this.  Sure,  most of the bugs are different to IE6, but many still continue.

IE8 = ........ you fill in the rest

If this isn't a new browser that supports standards and drops that useless ActiveX virus spreading mecanism,  quite frankly it won't be just Firefox you should be worried about.  It should be the people who have finally had enough of your lies and deceipt and move to a Mac or Linux.

The only good thing that comes out of IE is the fact that we have to charge our clients double to develop their websites.  It's also useful as experience in spotting the myriad bugs in IE requires a lot of experience which keeps our skills at a premium.

But this is unprofessional to say the least.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.

If they still can't make IE standards-compliant, then they should make it open source now.

They don't a bit feel embarrassed while taking about IE? Go on guys, the more version you'll release, the more you will loose grip over internet.

Although this doesn't give us any deeper details, but absolutely good to know that IE8 is planned and under development.

Haha good joke! just like your standards support track record! Keep'em going IE Team.

Maybe IE8 will be the version where you stop trying to switch the accept-language of English versions to English(US) from the current UK / Canada / Australia / Ireland etc version when the runonce dialog appears...

Microsoft, you have fixed some things for IE7, but until you will start listening developers and try to build standards compilant browser you won't have any support from developers and continue to loose market share to other browsers.

I believe the costs of implementing full web-standards support on Trident would be greater than implementing a completely new Layout Engine:

The whole thing is already a HUGE workaround, and you guys need to worry about everything the browser will break at the operating system and application level (Since a lot of programs use the IE ActiveX control).

You could just leave IE7 hidden on the system, for compatibility, and create a new engine based on the WPF, using C#. Or even better, you could just stick some Open Source layout engine right into your product! (Like Apple did).

A new version of IE will have the same problems Vista is having. *No one* will upgrade. I mean, most people haven't upgraded to IE7 yet, have they?

Please use WebKit. Please? Just use WebKit.

First of all:

Support full web standards:

-CSS3 for starters

-position:fixed css for thead

-same standards for margin and padding that Firefox has

Name: IE Live (it fits with everything else y'all are doing).

I think it's great you don't say anything. That's exactly what Microsoft should do.

Remember Longhorn? I do.

I don't want another Longhorn ever again. If you need time to get a good product, then by all means, take it as much as you need.

I don't like Microsoft, but IE7 is very good and i'm using it again, that's worth something to me.

We are tech people, of course we want IE8 yesterday, but that doesn't mean we should have it, with all the bugs. I'm gonna wait, I like IE7 for the time being.

While I'm sure there are lots of important things mentioned in all these comments, what I really want is a UI that is more like what IE6 was.

With IE7 on my laptop, I've been using Firefox lately. It is less of a UI change from IE6 than IE7 is.

Here's an idea - they could show how important they feel developers are by putting that right in the name: "IE8 Developers".  Read it fast.

I vote for IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE or IE 7.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999.

Or maybe IE8 Red and IE 8 Blue, each version comes with its exclusive functions and bugs you can capture

new window/pop-up window session mix up fix?

drop down z-order fix?

general parsing & rendering fix?

jscript performance?

jscript debug tool?

It's too much to do isn't it?

Just create an active x plugin for firefox instead, that will damage firefox so you might get some users back!

On more serious note, save the web developers,

don't release IE-whatever-the-name-will-be, and also release a IE remover as an automatic windows update. That will make 99.9% of the dev's happy.

Пятничный позитив. Хотите знать, как назвали IE7.Next?

Yay .. another IE .. just when I thought Safari3 was crap to support .. now this...u guys better stick to standards this time.

Will IE8 be W3C compliant? The web developers community is shouting it!

Windows Internet Explorer 8 is very good...

Problem with Microsoft is that whenever they release a new version of their products there is always controversy as to whether the new version is in fact better than the old. It is hard to get excited and rally around a new product if you know things about it are inferior, or if you know using it is going to cause problems.

I know the new version of Firefox is going to be an improvement over the previous version. That it will let me develop more, be more stable etc.

IE 8 on the other hand may be better may be worse. Will probably cause a number of difficulties. Will probably have to boot IE6 & IE7 in Virtual PC for testing as migration will  be slow.

BTW, I never get tired of hearing that obnoxious click sound every time I press a link. Keep that up!

i asked on this blog 2 years ago (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/01/12/512232.aspx) for a "Privacy Mode" feature to make it into ie7.  Perhaps ie8.

i'd also love a search box in the favorites/rss/history pane - since Vista was all about the searching.

Make it go better with the standards rather than making your own

I'll believe IE8 when I see it, otherwise all this is just kid talk for "Hey Hey I want to be cool too". So until we hear about some features or something at least remotely related to IE8 that would be interesting then IE no matter how many numbers are on the end of it will still be IE, broken, crap and just a headache.

What on earth makes Microsoft think the world needs IE? Fire the IE team and include Firefox or Safari and make life better for everyone.

what about IE2007 errr 2008 errr 2009 errr 2012 bêta ?

@Melba Grunion re:annoying navigation sounds

a.k.a. "why on earth would I want to hear a click for every single link I click on!"

Go into:  Start > Control Panel > (switch to classic view, if it isn't already set) > Sounds and Audio Devices:

Sounds Tab > in the Program Events section, scroll to and click on "Windows Explorer -> Complete Navigation" and set the sound to NONE.

Ditto for "Feed Discovered", and "Search Provider Discovered", and "Start Navigation"

Now sit back and enjoy surfing again (or like it is in every other browser)

;-)

@Ed: In fact, we developers do want to see the Yellow orb more often, but it is IE which kills out time writing hacks and workarounds and multiple coding. Probably, you don't earn your living by writing code, or you would be knowing WHAT and WHY exactly people are on a rampage here and you wouldn't be writing this.

Ed, you need to shut your mouth, chop your fingers off so you can't type anymore nonsense, and think about why none of us have a sense of humor for something like this.

Anyone who develops websites wastes a countless number of hours using hacks and bug fixes for the IE 6 and IE 7 browsers. It is absolutely ridiculous. There is nothing funny about this, and we're all sick of it.

@Ed, If I look at my JavaScript Library functions, for every 10 functions, at least 5 of them have specific hacks included to fix/workaround issues with IE (6 or 7) [[My support for IE 5.x was dropped years ago]]

That's a pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me.  Effectively over 50% of my code involves/requires IE workarounds... that's why we are so frustrated with IE, and the IE Team.

Don't get me wrong, I praise the IE Team for all of their efforts, I just want to see more of them, and more importantly, I want them to BLOG about it, so that I get that "warm and fuzzy" feeling that there actually is someone at the other end listening to our complaints!

If you want to understand how to talk to developers, read Scott Gu's blog, or watch some video's of him on Channel 9.

In fact, get that guy to run your department. Seriously. I mean it. Pick up your stuff and move the Trident guys to the famous 'devdiv', last I heard they have excellent quality control and bug tracking as well.

When the move is done, open up the Team System work items to the world, we'll get you your bugs and testcases, all you have to is fix and iterate.

You can do it! And we can help, you just need to be open and stop posting weasel words and marketing crap.

Thanks! Looking forward to the follow up.

This post is probably less help than a year of silence.  As a web developer I'm appalled at how little Microsoft values us, or their own customers.

This post, more than anything else, shows the sheer hubris that comes with being a monopolist.  Microsoft has never understood standards, and has always bent them to further its own needs.  All the talk about customers and backward compatibility is just smoke and mirrors.

The lesson to take from it is:  the time to fight OOXML is now, when we still have a choice.

You should just give this whole project back to NCSA so they can fix your mistakes.

All of you at the IE team are overpaid - and for what?  TO BREAK THE INTERNET'S WEB INFRASTRUCTURE.

Nice going.  You're giving it the good ol' college try and guess what?  You're succeeding.

If IE8 doesn't support XHTML properly (and that includes recognizing the correct mime type) don't bother shipping it; nobody wants it.  Same for real CSS support.  Support the freaking standard or keep your garbage software to yourself.

a option to warn user about software adding url links in the trusted sites. I installed a software and it added links automatically without warning me. I did not

notice this until I check today. By default trusted site has the protected mode off right.

<p>

1.  Turn everything <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_(CSS)">on this page</a> that is red to green for the Trident engine.

</p>

<p>

2. Fix everything on <a href="http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html">this</a> page.

</p>

<p>

3. Support Scalable Vector Graphics (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/">SVG</a>)

</p>

IE 8?? One more upgrade and all new errors to take care of...

pls pls take care of standards.

anyways,I hate IE dev team, not even close to firefox.

Bill replied: "I'll have to ask [IE general manager] Dean [Hachamovitch] what the hell is going on, I mean, we're not, there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9051538

Do you mean to tell me that Bill Gates didn't know that the IE Team was being silent?

I don't believe that for a second, but sure, whatever.

If that is the "official" word from Bill, that the IE Team will now follow, I welcome the info with open eyes and ears!  It's 12 months late, but better than never.

If the 300+ comments above are not clear enough, we want info on:

Bugs Fixed

DOM/JavaScript stuff implemented

Technologies implemented

Beta/Final ETA Dates

etc.

Anything but the silent treatment we have received for the last 12 months!

1.  Turn everything on this page that is red to green for the Trident engine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_(CSS)

2. Fix everything on this page:

http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

3. Support Scalable Vector Graphics:

http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/

This blog is mainly read by developers, many of whom are by now extremely frustrated with this horribly outdated product (me included). If humor was intended in your bit with the next version number, it didn't work. You're just pissed some more people off.

I spent 50-60% of my time dealing with Microsoft IE bugs and lack of standards support when working on the current version of our website (granted we had to work with IE for mac at the time). I will do everything in my power to not bend backwards for crappy Microsoft products anymore. I've had enough, really.

Here's oms food for thought: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=380943&cid=21592471

If they make IE8 standards complaint, they'll lose market share in 1 year. FF is faster, cooler and better.

THEY ARE AFRAID!!!!!

IE supports onbeforedeactivate, the only method for proper (html) control validation (till now).

Where is it in w3c's dom event specification?

Why is it missing there(or equivalent)?

At least that's one good thing about ie.

And for IE strict mode:

please implement CSS 3 box-sizing (since 100% heights/widths is useless for CSS 2.1 box-sizing),

And do normal/useable 100% tr-heights on tables.

Seriously, i hate IE, IE6 was a mess with css support etc. Then came IE7 and i thought it would have been much better, i mean seriously, and it suprised me that it was more screwed in anyways.

Now IE8? WTF? Will this release be more screwed, people would only like it because of the eye-candy (Like Vista For Christ sake).

All i want is for microsoft to leave the internet alone! Please! I hate every IE release that there has been made! Stick to FF or Opera!

Best Regards,

Balista.

My URL: http://www.evolutionfx.net/forum

"Thursday, December 06, 2007 3:04 AM by Lenny

Is it possible that you could abandon the IE platform altogether and start supporting Firefox? Its just a thought, but seen as though previous editions of IE have been so poorly built, dont you think its time to support one open source window on the web for everyone?

IE is a piece of crap. Its standards support is crap, its CSS is crap, its javascript is buggy. Every time you release a new version and force it down on every windows user out there you create a trail of destruction for web developers around the world who have to try and figure out all of its latest quirks and bugs.

Ok so maybe I am asking too much when I think you might support something like Firefox. But please for the love of God don't release another version of IE. Just let it die out gracefully with IE7 and we will confine it to the history books.

FireFox will continue to gain momentum because it is 1000 times better.

Viva la FireFox revolution!"

I agree, just abandon your old crappy code that is as tolerant to standerds as ice is tolerent to fire.

Create standerds compliant code or go OSS and support Firefox as the default installed browser.

Honestly if people who use IE heard about Firefox or Opera, or (insert name of any other browser), not one person would use it.

I must say I'm carefully optimistic about IE8. No thanks to this blog though.

At the moment, the most *informational* information about IE8 is to be found at molly.com:

In the transcript of Molly H's discussion with Billy G there is mention of "a new engine". However, I doubt that the IE team could have built a new rendering engine from scratch in just over a year. Or is that why they've been so quiet - they just haven't have the time to post because they've been too busy rewriting Trident from scratch? We can always hope.

The fact that Molly just said "what I’ve heard so far is to my liking" about IE8 also adds to my optimism.

Thanfully though, I won't need to care much either way:

If IE8 gets it right, I won't need to care because it will render my websites like all the other browsers.

If IE8 gets it wrong, I'll be too fed up with IE to even think about caring.

Oh, and did I say Molly is my heroine?

Hey guys, I can sympathize with you. In the corp world, it's hard if ever possible, to give any information to the world outside. On the other hand, I think that the "developers, developers, developers, developers" really need some hint as to what to expect in the near to mid-term future. We all want HTML 5, CSS 3, SVG, MathML, ECMAScript 4, plus a complete DOM implementation, but we also know that it's not doable in 1-2 year(s). On the other hand, knowing what to expect is doable. And that helps the "developers, developers, developers, developers" develop in preparation for the near future. The web, by design, thus by nature, has nothing to do with Linux, Apple, Microsoft, Sun, IBM, HP, Dell or anyone else, it only has to do with developers, PMs, l18n and clients. That being said, without any importance given to the name of the product that is going to be forcefully installed on everyone's computer 12 months from now, and that is going to be the de-facto entry to the web for most of the poor souls out there, we all need to know what you are going to do with IE.

I have nothing against Silverlight, I just

choose to use SVG. Being enough of a developer to understand this, I know that you can easily (in Microsoft scale), create an XSLT+code that can convert from SVG to your native implementation of Silverlight. If that is the case, why not do it? A browser that can support the W3 recommendation (SVG) as well as Microsoft's own Silverlight, is definitely better than a browser that can only support Silverlight, or none.

Currently, I can only curse IE for lacking and requiring me to do so many small, but _MANY_, hacks, that make our code so hard to maintain. A few hacks are required for each browser, but IE requires 3 times more than all the other browsers counted together (including eLinks). From where I'm standing that's not OK.

I know that the IE team really wants to create the best browser out there, but as with any corporate team, they have to listen to other internal departments first. Try doing this when another department asks for a "Microsoft only" feature: tell them to ask first how the users and especially the developers feel about in, and only when you get a straight answer, consider that feature for inclusion. Tell them to consult the W3 about that feature, and tell them that your users and developers are more important that that feature. It only takes cojones to stand up to them and give the ones who can really appreciate your work what they want. The only department at Microsoft that counts is the one that gives replies to your public blogs, and that department is: "cn=Clients\ Department, ou=Global ,ou=Corp, dc=msft".

Cheers,

Razvan

Please make IE8 support the 9 year old data url standard: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2397

Firefox, Opera and Safari all support this.

Without out IE support, the way is blocked towards wide deployment of single file web applications (a very convenient mechanism for deployment).

See http://tiddlywiki.com/ for an example of an application that could benefit from this very much.

IE7 was a huge improvement over IE6. I can easily create advanced web2.0 sites with no hacks that support IE7 and FF (and sometimes Safari). IE6 still requires a seperate style sheet to override layout and fix PNGs.

For me the issues with css hacks etc is over once IE6 becomes unsupported.

I hope that IE8 improves on IE7 and fixes the current set of browser issues with web2.0 (AJAX) websites. Concentrate on making javascript run with some performance, garbage collection and the end of memory leaks. Give us better ways to draw content from many different domains, SSL or not and truely innovate forward. If your just after a few fixes to css then make it IE7 SPx.

John.

Even better yet, why don't you make a shortcut called IE and make it point to firefox.exe.  Then you'll have a real browser that works!

Microsoft is losing marketshare in the browser platform and I am glad.  I am sick of corporations screwing up the Internet with their proprietary garbage.  IE sucks!  IE has always sucked.  Why waste your time?  Firefox and Opera are far better browsers and are soon going to eliminate IE.

Finally Microsoft your facing competition you can't buy out or take over!  Good riddance IE!

IE RIP!

Regarding the comments about IE being ditched and supporting Firefox, I think it is an excellent idea. The reason why I think that is because there could be an IE based on Firefox. Debian's Iceweasel did basically the same thing - the team took Firefox code and made a different browser. The same was done to the Seamonkey browser (Iceape), the Thunderbird mail client (Icedove) and, somewhat recently, the Sunbird calendar application (Iceowl).

GNU did the same with GNU IceCat (Firefox-based; previously GNU IceWeasel, but changed due to confusion with Debian's Iceweasel browser) and Gnuzilla (Mozilla Suite).

I'd say the IE team should be able to do the same if the work to meet the requirements is unimaginable.

If you can fully implement the CSS Spec for CSS 1.0 & 2.1 and some of 3.0, I will be thoroughly impressed, otherwise, why bother.

Just call it "Aieeeeeeee!". For each successive version, add an additional "e".

Obviously many angry replies along these lines. I can agree with some.

Just curious, if there will be any new UI designers who did not participated in horrible Office 2007 project.

Just curious, if IE team will actually investigate methods of "fastening their own engines" such other browser modifications like Maxthon 2.x or usabilities of IE7plus applications.

Just curious if IE8 will pass Acid-test finally?

They are joking.

At least let some thing to be matured and widely accepted then move to the next version.

But what can we say

1) make it standards compliant

2) make a Mac version again, so that webdesigners can easily test their sites for IE compatibility

3) implement a proper OPEN plugin framework, and include it in a free edition of Visual Studio. you will loose the browser battle without a proper ad blocker (and plugins like GreaseMonkey). the plugins currently available for IE7 are nothing but a bad joke.

this is great news.

i was really happy with IE7 "still i am".

looking forward for the 8 :D

how about

Windows Live Browser?

i mean

they namin everythin WL anyways

....

btw i.e. sux

FF FTW

@John O'Brien:

Unless you mean website like one would fine in the mid-nineties, I'm going to have to call you on that one.

How's it feel to work for the most monopolistic company in the history of the planet? Moreover, how's it feel to be losing market share, little by little, by pimple-wielding teenagers in their parents' basement via Linux? Go ahead and release IE8, the only people still using IE are those too unintelligent to realizes there's alternatives. Your job security is lessening, eventually governments around the world will begin to shun your monopolistic bullshit. You have a lot more to worry about them a browser that isn't even making M$ any money.

My IE8 Wishlist:

1) Consistent, standards compliant CSS (call it firefox mode, whatever)

2) URL Moniker enumeration (without forced instantiation, or creation of an activeX control, like a plugins collection - with version detection)

3) E4X

4) Browser consolidation (drag a tab from one browser to another, if it's the last one, just close the browser with no tabs)

5) Native Silverlight 1.1 support

6) Built in script/real time dom debugging

Get these things going and we'll start talking to your developer community (as was promised in Mix 06 and 07) and we'll show up again to Mix 08 :)

comply with web standards microsoft.

please.

PLEASE.

PLEEEEEEEEEASSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

The name is not important.

Standards compliant is the important.

Try this page with IE and with FF :

http://www.w3schools.com/css/tryit.asp?filename=trycss_outline

Try this with IE and with FF:

input {

   font-size: 7pt;

   border: 1px solid Gray;

   font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

   margin: 0px;

   padding : 0px;

}

input[type="radio"] { border: 0px; }

Is more impotant to add more css, xhtml, etc, compliant standard, that say what name the product will have.

Add a javascript debugger whithin the ie, to help developers in the work.

And bugs fix, like the select html tag that not

get the css style apllied to it.

This is a great example why i hate IE so much, i mean i can fix the bugs and stuff on the websites i make to work with IE, but it waists so much time, which i don't really have much of.

I created a site, with different CSS and JS dropdowns, and they all didn't work correctly in IE6 or IE7! I just wish that IE would die!

My url: http://www.evolutionfx.net/forum

Are you guys reading all these comments? It's pretty amazing... It's really funny how much time is spent on a name of a product that has so much money invested in it. I think Microsoft's move to make IE7 available without WGA speaks volumes about how afraid they are of losing the advantage to a browser like Firefox.

If you want my opinion about a proper name for the next version of IE, call it IE 99. As in 99% standards compliant. And PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THAT CERTAIN FEATURES ARE NOT STANDARDS YET. YOU ARE MICROSOFT!!! YOU ENFORCED IE (full of features, documented and undocumented; read BUGS) ON THIS WORLD AND MADE IT A STANDARD. Just because you didn't invent the feature, doesn't mean you shouldn't support it when EVERYONE in the world is asking you. Stand behind your statement "you spoke, we listened".

Peace.

IE8 will be in Beta to you people just before Christmas!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

IE8? omg buy me a ticket to the Pluto!

Why don't you get firefox source code?

At least, CSS, XHTML, Javascript issue would be fixed.

If product matters, don't play with names, give us some solid functionality and not another reason to build another version of a page just to support IE idiosyncrasies.

Will it support the gecko engine?

I really hope that IE8 has considerably less bugs than IE7, and that it is released soon.

IE7 has been the worst IE by far and for a company, ANY COMPANY, let alone the largest software company in the world to release such a poor product is a complete disgrace.

IE7 crashes on my machine several times a day for no apparent reason. It is totally unusable. Yet I have to use it to test my web designs for those that will not be moved.

MS had better get this right.

So, what reasons do you have to keep things secret? And please, finally fix the CSS. It's a shame an organisation with all those resources is soooo slow fixing this thing. IE7 only does part of the job...

Oh my God this is incredible guys... you have all your software now with the added LIVE... If you made Messenger 8 --> Messenger Live

You make --> IE Live !!(IE 8) but with LIVE !!!

XD!!

@Sox: IE is crashing for you due to a buggy add-on.  See www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp for help in finding the problematic one.  Most add-ons have new versions that fix such problems.

@Mike Simon: What do you mean by "URL Moniker enumeration"?  (All URIs are tracked via URL Monikers.)  Are you asking for pluggable protocol detection via script?

@Edelweiss: FWIW, IE7Pro offers ad-blocking and a greasemonkey-style engine.  

@Michael Clark: DataURI never was standardized.  The partial draft was never ratified, which is likely the reason you see different behaviors (e.g. maxlength) between browsers that do support it.

I know this will come out as a redundant comment, there's just too many to read :P

With all the embracing, extending and extinguishing Microsoft is used to do, I don't see why it doesn't apply that to developing a standard compliant browser with proper CSS support, among other things.

Don't you see that you would get a lot more REAL, CURRENT customers which will get you A LOT MORE TASTY CASH instead of having to #ifdef a shitload of code to please old legacy monsters from the past?

MS, forget about those damn spreadsheets, analysis, predictions, countless managers and start acting with your guts!!

this is weird there has only just been ie7 i leave about 1-1.50 years befor making a new 1.

this is weird there has only just been ie7 i leave about 1-1.50 years befor making a new 1.

Phew! That was easy!

Now, thank goodness IE8 isn't shrink wrap software. You would have to take all that time now to design the packaging!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEmZuieb7TM

P.S. Did you consider "Internet Exploiter Ate?"

It's funny because it's so true. I actually believed it until I got to the second-to-last one.

Look, I have nothing against Microsoft. But I no longer code for IE. Why? Because it BREAKS WEB STANDARDS. Why is Microsoft doing this? Everyone is in favour of a free and open web. Why does Microsoft force me to have to choose between the Web Standard way and the Microswoft way? I'm going to choose the Standards way.

Look, I have nothing against Microsoft. But I no longer code for IE. Why? Because it BREAKS WEB STANDARDS. Why is Microsoft doing this? Everyone is in favour of a free and open web. Why does Microsoft force me to have to choose between the Web Standard way and the Microswoft way? I'm going to choose the Standards way.

How can the most powerful, richest  software company not have the ability to make the best web browser?

Call it IE:FireFox edition.

Just like Microsoft to not worry about enough precision. Why not Ie^2.079441542?

"IE ate" as in:

"IE ate my email composition when it crashed"

"IE ate my preferences"

"IE ate the Internet"

Just kidding guys. All in good fun. Here, how about "IE ate Firefox"?

I'd love to give FireFox 400 million dollars for advertising, i bet they would gain amazing market share

IE ate my HDD

IE ate too much and got bloated, again.

Frustrating thing about IE primarily is that older versions with broken compatibility are abandoned instead of fixed, given their huge installed base. Now I know you'd rather everyone use IE 6, then 7, and someday 8, but if there were a baseline 6 and 7 with correct CSS models, the Web would work better overall.

I guess this has been said a million times, and it seems unimportant to Microsoft to provide full CSS 2.1 compatibility in a correct manner.

How about Internet Live8? You would follow the company policy... plus, Bono would be happy.

How about:

IEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

?

]:^)>

IE 8 ("The Ocho")

Only makes sense if you've seen Dodgeball.

There is only one feature I want in IE8.

An uninstaller.

Why do you so try to force everyone to use the worst browser the market has to offer?

This was essentially a self-deprecating post about a light-hearted subject yet nearly all of the comments are rude and mean-spirited. And I say this as a Mac user who browses mainly with Firefox and Safari so I'm not an MS fan boy just someone who longs for a little more civility in online discourse.

I'm sure working on this thing is good for your personal cash flow, but really at this point the plain truth is that most people who know anything at all about browsers don't give a damn.

Bill:  The barbarians are at the gates.  Post something about IE8 today, or you're fired.

Dean:  But...there's nothing to say...what shall I post?

Bill:  Talk about what the barbarians are interested in, genius.

Dean:  But they want support for standards

Bill:  Ok, just acknowledge that we know they're asking questions.

Dean:  ...questions about standards...

Bill:  God, no...be vague...use a metasynactic variable...Feature X...

Dean:  Ok,  I think I can get a paragraph out of that, and I'll fluff it up with some self-deprecating humor about agonizing over a name for the product.

Bill:  Good boy...now keep in line.  You don't want me calling you again, do you?

Dean:  No sir.

How about making something secure, that supports web standards, and is even in striking distance of Firefox and Safari? Or maybe Microsoft should just buy...er, license Opera- hell it worked with Spyglass....

Of course I'm a Mac user, so what the hell. Keep IE unsafe and keep up the terrible standards support. Just one more reason to not use Windows.

IE not conforming to standards is what MS wants, so that's what it does.

The way to advancement is to get rid of IE. Either by making it unnecessary or by disallowing MS to produce or bundle a web browser with its OS.

Perhaps a name derived from a frustrated audience.  IE Infuri8

IE8 is great and all but frankly I'd be happy if you just did something to get people off of IE6. Do something to convince them to use IE7. While, I'd prefer more used FireFox or Safari -- I'd don't care which new browser their on as long as it's not that 6 year old lumbering ball of bugs IE6.

I don't have much more to add, just another vote for CSS fixes.  

How about getting over the name, supporting web standards and delivering for other platforms?

If IE8 returns innerHTML like the following, we WILL NOT BE PLEASED!

'<INPUT TYPE=radio VALUE=noquotes ONCLICK="doSomething(this);" NAME="foo">'

If I created the tag as all lower case, then I expect it back the same way!

I want double quotes on EVERY attribute.

I expect my self closing tags to be returned that way.

IE8 is all about fixing the mistakes of IE in the past.

Fixing the DOM, fixing the CSS, fixing the Event Model, fixing the UI, fixing the missing JavaScript console, fixing the JavaScript, and we can only hope, ditching VBScript forever.

Please advise ASAP on this blog what the story is!

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

You can't tell us that you don't hear us yelling for information.  If Bill gave you the green light to spread the news, get on it please.

Since the news was coming "soon", and there is an obvious need for it, we'll take it in trickles rather than wait for the full report.

WEDNESDAY you said news was forthcoming, we were quite surprised there wasn't a "try and sneak it under the radar FRIDAY post that we normally get"

400 Comments all asking the same thing... spit it out please, we've been made to wait like children long enough!

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY

thanks you.  www.turgutyalci.com

Just wait for Firefox 3 to go GA and then copy it.  That strategy's worked OK so far.

What are the chances IE8 will finally be standards compliant?  

I'm sick of writing separate, wrong-headed, non-compliant CSS for every site I work on just so it will work in IE.

Please drop the number one layout quirk of Trident (IE's rendering engine): hasLayout.

It is responsible for direct violations of the CSS spec. A floated item is *supposed* to escape its container, but that's impossible if any number of CSS properties are set on the parent that give it hasLayout in Trident's "special" little world.

While you're at it, please finally support generated content off of pseudo classes (just like EVERY other modern browser) so authors can *choose* when to have the parent element contain or wrap a float.

How about discontinuing the whole Internet Explorer line and actually start making better software instead of all the crapware now?

Hello,

Thanks for the information!  I'm very pleased to learn that MS will soon be releasing another version of its browser.  I think IE7 is just terrrific -- how surprised I was to see the improvements over v6, which itself was a superb browser!  I love the current version and use it every day -- I don't understand why other people even care to use other browsers, as far as I can tell they are just bitter hippie liberals who are ungrateful to Microsoft's continued and deserved dominance over the computing market.  

Thank you again!  You've got an amazing product, it could only get better!  

Yes I know that a piece on Internet Explorer is hardly in keeping with the political nature of ThatPoliticalBlog but being an MCSE I do have to stay in touch with the Microsoftian universe. Some people call them The Borg but hey, MS has been berry berry

Could someone tell me if it's good for XP Professional?????? And how can I download it free???

I think IE8 best suits.

It will follow the traditionname like IE5..IE6..IE7 ..and now IE8.

IE8 is simple to speak,..and will be easy for common poeple to know that it is nest version of Microsoft IE.

It doesn't matter what you call it, it will still be miserablely useless when compared to other browsers.

Not only that, but IE obviously suffers major architectural defects that leave you standing still while the competition is sprinting over the horizon.

You're never going to catch up.  Microsoft sat on its hands too long.

Do not worry about deadlines, DO NOT SHIP IE8 UNTIL YOU AT LEAST MATCH THE STANDARDS COMPLIANCE OF WEBKIT AND MOZILLA.

The last thing any web developer needs is to be forced to start developing for 4 different rendering engines instead of 3 (IE6, IE7, IE8, and standards compliant).

The uptake of IE7 is slow, but if you really do care anything about developers, start supporting standards so that at least in 3,4,5 years time from now we'll eventually be able to simply write code once instead of 3 or 4 times.

Please do not release IE8, until you match the standards compliance. But do it asap :)

IE 0.8, as in "still in beta"?

For the rest: agreed with all the standards requests. It would be bliss (and a sign of collective wisdom) if all developers refused to code for IE anymore, and if MS did the proper thing, which is to abandon IE altogether. What use is yet another brower if there are plenty of better browsers to choose from? I really, genuinely don't see the point. There's no financial gain for MS or any other obvious positive spinoff from having their own browser. Ergo, it must all be about the collective MS-ego. Sad, sad, sad.

Why doesn't MicroSoft license Safari from Apple while it works on IEx?

Why not just make IE8 conform to WWW standards so any conforming browser will work the same -- you know, the way it's supposed to be over the platform agnostic web.

I'm begging you. Please just stop. For the sake of every web developer out there, adopt a webkit engine and just focus your abilities on trying not to screw up the chrome. From the evidence, this should be a big enough challenge for you.

Wait, what am I worried about. This won't ship until the next Olympics anyway.

Please, please, please kill that abomination already! I don't want yet another standards-recalcitrant iteration of IE to support. I want more time with friends and family!

And if you're really inclined to bless us with yet another version of IE, please squash all the widely documented bugs, bring full CSS2 support (pseudo-classes, etc.), make it pass the Acid2 test... Just make it suck less.

It would also be a good idea to listen to the web design community - those guys really know what they're talking about.

That sounds like a lot of work. Are you sure you don't want to pass on that and make Firefox or Safari the official browser for Windows? It would make everyone happy.

Please Microsoft, support standards! Is it really too much to ask for?

Please Microsoft, support standards! Is it really too much to ask for?

Use WebKit as the rendering engine in your next browser effort.

If nothing else, add support for a conditional-comment-style instruction: DoNotUseQuirksModeEvenIfItLooksAppropriate

I can't figure out why FF doesn't have a larger market share? Quit your whinny blogging and stop using IE. Promote alternatives.

Only then will you get the attention of MS. Only when they lose market share will developers be treated with any integrity.

Why are you worrying about the name, for heaven's sake?

Just get it to support CSS properly and we'll all be a lot happier.

DK

oh good, have got a screen pictures?

how about trow it in to the toilet, and start a new browser from zero? cool eh?

So with great fanfare*cough*, Microsoft have announced the next version of their web browser , which

<<add support for a conditional-comment-style instruction: DoNotUseQuirksModeEvenIfItLooksAppropriate>>

Now there's a silly idea.  If you write proper HTML with a proper DocType, you won't end up in quirks mode.

As an aside...

400 whiners here, and 399,999,600+ or so actual *users* who seem to think IE is just fine.  Hmmmm....

With 85% of the marketshare, it's sorta funny to call the bit players out there "standards compliant" when they don't act like IE does.  Sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to me.

Internet Explorer sucks, and is a pain in the neck for web developers abound...

WHY DON'T YOU GUYS JUST LEAVE YOUR EGOS AT THE DOOR AND START FROM SCRATCH?!!

 ||||||         ||||||         ||||||

NOT FUNNY !!!! we bleed while you laugh !

 |||    |||     |||    |||     |||    |||

|||            |||            |||

|||              ||||||||       ||||||||

|||                    |||            |||

 |||    |||    ||||   |||     ||||   |||

   ||||||        |||||||        |||||||

Time and time again... IE is the past. Internet is OURS, Microsoft won't make me believe the opposite.

Love Firefox when the memory issues will be fixed, and Opera when the UI will be customisable.

JonD: "With 85% of the marketshare, it's sorta funny to call the bit players out there "standards compliant" when they don't act like IE does."

Only if you don't understand what "standards" actually are.

@John Oh dear.  You are a moron.  Here is why:

1) 400 "whiners": more like 398 developers (that's to say people to have to deal with coding for IE) versus you and one other asshat who doesn't know what they're talking about.

2) Doublespeak: If you're going to try and appear more intelligent than you are (I can see why you'd want  to) by quoting Orwell, then try quoting Orwell.  Newspeak yes, Doublespeak no.  If you're going to try and ridicule people for talking about things too complicated for you to grasp by talking about doublespeak, then at least learn how to spell it correctly (hint: no hyphen).

3) 'It's sorta funny to call the bit players out there "standards compliant" when they don't act like IE does'.  Not nearly as funny as you trying to do sarcasm.  If you haven't heard that the W3C determines web standards, and are fuzzy on what IE does wrong then this is not the forum for you my friend: you neither understand nor care about the issues.

Think binary a ten mega název pro marketing mne opravdu dostává do kolen :-)

Personally, I'm not interested in SVG, xHTML with a proper MIME type, <canvas>, or anything like that for Internet Explorer 8 - all I'd like to see is HTML 4.01, JavaScript and CSS's 1 & 2 fully implemented and bug free - and maybe some CSS 3, so that I don't have to concern myself with learning any new quirkiness. IE's 6 and 7 I can handle, have done for months now, but please, don't make me have to factor in any more bugs in a third edition.

I can't get excited about this unless there is some reason to believe that IE 8 will finally get with the interoperable standards program.  If you don't care about consistent and good user experiences and you don't care about development efficiency and achievement, I see no reason why anybody should care about anything you ever release—not users and not developers.

If you still refuse to release a browser with decent standards support—if you insist upon wasting the time of developers who to this day cannot rely on standards-compliant Web content appearing properly in Internet Explorer without browser-specific work-arounds—please don't even bother.  When Steve Ballmer jumped around on stage yelling "Developers! Developers! Developers!", he sure as heck wasn't talking about Web developers, was he?  Until Microsoft is willing to show that level of enthusiasm in supporting Web developers through greater standards compliance in Internet Explorer, any new version of IE will be common through bundling, but it won't actually be good.

We just released a simple website a week ago. We needed *just* three CSS files - one for IE6, one for IE7 and one for everything else out there. We tripled our testing time because we had to support IE6 & 7.

Attention Dean, Chris, Tony, John, Pete, Dave, Terry, Steve, Eric, Markellos, Sharath, Jeremy, Will, Geoffrey, Kristen, Mike, Molly, Jeff and Domita! My apologies to anyone I've left out. Sorry but our frustration is very real and we actually have to stay back several hours each day just to debug IE6 & 7.

Also during development we just needed Firebug, DOM Inspector and the FF Error Console for debugging. I was considering using IE plugins for testing but it was completely unnecessary. I think more thought is needed to address the Firefox development community in order to truly embrace the IEx platform.

Now IE7 has been a good product with lots of hard work behind it; we're not going to rubbish that. We'd like to say thanks in advance for listening, planning, coding, compiling and testing with people like us in mind for IE.Next.

JonD wrote:

<

<<add support for a conditional-comment-style instruction: DoNotUseQuirksModeEvenIfItLooksAppropriate>>

Now there's a silly idea.  If you write proper HTML with a proper DocType, you won't end up in quirks mode.

As an aside...

400 whiners here, and 399,999,600+ or so actual *users* who seem to think IE is just fine.  Hmmmm....

>

Normal users, barely know how to use a computer let alone download a web browser from the internet, install it, then run it. The market share that Microsoft has, has nothing to do with the quality of its software (just look at windows).

Microsoft (or should it be M$) uses marketing to make you think that there products are the best thing since sliced bread. Moreover, take the name Internet Explorer for example. Now if you had heard this for the first time, you would be under the impression that it's an application that explores the internet (which is what it does), not would you think that, you would also think that it's the only web browser out there (as this is the only one that came with your computer).

<

With 85% of the marketshare, it's sorta funny to call the bit players out there "standards compliant" when they don't act like IE does.  Sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to me.

>

Ok, Now lets talk about the so called whiners, these people are developers and have the knowledge of the standards (I mean standards as in, the documents published by W3C), and have worked with developing applications that uses these standards. Most of these people have found the alternative and are using it every day (simply because they know all bugs associated with IE). Also your market share figure is incorrect, it's more like 77.35. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer#_ref-0 )

i hope its streaming fast.all right!

It really doesn't matter what you call a piece of turd, because at the end of the day, it's still a piece of turd. There's a better use of your time than to think of names for a pile of excrement or to write quasi witty blog posts: it's called developing a CSS compliant browser. What an idea! Designers are fed up with having to work around IE rendering bugs and CSS hacks.

Please!!!! For the love of god, fix the CSS problems and that horrible lag that occurs when you open a new tab.  I've pledged to stick with FF until the next version of IE.  In just about every way, IE 7 seems to be inferior to FF 2.0.  I had been a long time Microsoft fan, but lately I've had a lot of reasons to be very much disappointed (IE 7, Vista,...)

Here are my weekly notes: I'm back from London. I think I have text messaging withdrawal. Your...

The only thing that makes me NOT want to use Fx is the memory leak issue. Other than that, I prefer it over any browser, even in Linux. Oops - I don't think mentioning Linux is allowed here, even if there was a bargain, err..., "agreement," with Novell.

I think we are thinking backwards here..... microsoft should not have to meet the standards of the rest of the internet, we should meet the standards of microsoft....so lets all start coding in just HTML 1.0! CMON GUYS!!!!

In Japan, just now. Cool version number is "7X" ! :-p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraseven_X

You guys should focus much on functionality rather than name and look and feel.

Name should be:

Explorer for teh internets

Well of ALL of the comments above, maybe they could just call it IE7 !important?  After all, this whole time we just use the !important tag on CSS-compliant browsers and put the IE7 tag right below it that's "supposed" to be ignored.

Sassafras - that was a joke, right? If it was, it was teh funny! If not, you're seriously funny anyway.

As a user, there are elements of IE 7.0 I quite like. As a developer there are several things that IE needs to bring it up to date:

CSS 2.1

Better RSS support

Better Box model

Removal of MS Only HTML

Up to date ECMAscript support.

A WYSIWYG component that produces solid good HTML or even better XHTML.

If IE were to get ahead of the game by introducing the following, a lot of people would flock back:

CSS 3.0

Native SVG - I realise you're pushing Silverlight, so it probably won't happen, but I can dream, can't I?

HTML/XHTML 5

@Sassafras - Do you want a breath mint there buddy?

@JonD - You are incredibly naive.  If you are not aware of how far off IE is from the standards, then you shouldn't be adding your $0.02 to the conversation.  IE isn't a little off, IE wasn't released so late that the standards weren't ready, IE purposefully shipped, knowing full well they were deviating from the standards significantly!

Specs and APIs are written for a reason, so that developers know what they have to work with, and have a consistent, reliable *Interface* with the application (in this case a web browser) to build against.

The Spec clearly states things like the <button> element submits (like *ALL* form fields do) the contents of its value attribute.

For reasons beyond the comprehension of all web programmers out there, IE decided that no, they would deviate from the spec, and submit the .innerHTML of the <button> element instead!

Because surely this makes much more sense.....

?doaction=&lt;span class="eraseicon"/&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;color: #990000;"&gt;Erase Item&lt;span&gt;

than:

?doaction=erase

I can't even imagine how insane it would be to write a backend to handle that.  Do you re-write your backend every time you want to change a font color or a CSS class? That's nuts!

IE may have a dominant share of the market, due to their monopolistic approach to software distribution, but when every other browser, for all Operating Systems including Windows, Mac and Linux manage to build a browser that follows the specs, and actually makes the Web a OS independent platform, IE is no longer the majority... it is now the minority browser, that has fallen years behind the other browsers, and (we hope) is desperately trying to catch up.

We would all like to help IE catch up, but MS won't even reopen their bug tracking system, respond to comments or criticism, or communicate their intentions to the developer community.

Between IE and the whole Open Document Format War, it is becoming more and more apparent that MS has no intention of following a public standard, being transparent with the community, and helping build the future of tomorrow.

Whats that term I keep hearing about?

800 lb Gorilla?

Finding it harder and harder to deny this is the reality!

Well firstly, I'm glad that Microsoft has started developing new browsers again. I would say that I can't believe it took so long to go from IE6 to IE7, but in fairness, Microsoft make no money out of IE, and so why would they bother developing it?

The only real reason is because of developers like us pressuring them to do so. Of course, they're only doing it to win over the Microsoft-haters and boost their PR, but at the end of the day who cares? It means we get the largest software manufacturer in the world listening to our needs, which is a win-win situation.

The fact of the matter is, if Windows is the most popular OS, and IE ships with Windows, then IE will be the most popular browser out there, which also means it's the most important one. Sure, it might make us developer's lives a nightmare trying to code for it, but that's just tough luck.

Until the everyday user finds out what's going on underneath the websites they use (and the browsers they use, for that matter) then we, as developers, are going to have to put up with it. We're lucky Microsoft think that all the nay-sayers are enough to cause them some bad rep, or else they wouldn't be doing a thing about it, and IE7 (and IE8) wouldn't have even been dreamt of. So then what? Well nobody would be listening to the developers, and our complaints would go unheard.

So, everyone, stop bitching that Microsft hasn't fixed everything first time (with IE7). Let's just be glad they're taking on board the things we complain about in IE, and are trying to fix them. Because at the end of the day, they dont have to bother, and nobody but us will be complaining about it. And what could we do about it in that situation? Nothing.

So, even though I've been an avid Firefox user from version 1.0, I applaud Microsoft for at least trying, and I encourage them to keep trying. And every other developer out there who actually wants things to change, I urge you to do the same.

Thanks for reading.

;)

Please for the life of me just steal a OOS engine and figure out how they did it and then do it the microsoft way but for the life of all the developers out there PLEASE USE THE STANDARDS, I'm sick of having to have HACKS for IE on my pages. Is it to much to ask for STANDARDS TO BE FOLLOWED??? There are standards for reasons so people know what to except when they code. PLEASE MICROSOFT USE STANDARDS you would see a boom in usage of your browser if you USED THE DAM STANDARDS.

@Glenn Carter: Implementing unfinished an underspecified Features won't lead us anywhere.

IE 8 has to focus on proper HTML 4.01 and maybe starting XHTML support. As well as fixing a lot of bugs concerning CSS 2.1.

Of course the DOM needs a big Update as well.

If that happend, Webauthors would be very happy. Then, and only then, browsers are on an equal level and can compete with the newer features of HTML5 and CSS3.

I mean, of what use is a canvas-, video- or audio-element when the underlying architecture isn't properly supported. The root has to be cleaned up first.

Well, my 2ct...

idiots...

is the microsoft IE office like when Bart Simpsons went to visit the MadTV office.

How about calling it Non Standards Compliant Browser V1.0?

Will it be good for rendering web pages?

John O'Brien: I couldn't agree more about garbage collection.  "Helpful" tips about changing dom-insertion order, or manually clearing event handlers on dom objects is a plain admission that MS has released a lousy product and are off-loading the burden of working around the bugs to developers.

Simple fix: make the javascript "delete" operator actually free the memory of an object, regardless of what references you think exist to it.  If the browser crashes, then it's OUR fault.  As it stands, the browser already crashes on long-lived, DHTML-heavy pages, because it runs out of memory, and making developers fix that is like handing us a sieve and telling us to clean up after a diarrheal elephant.

CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS CSS

and while I'm at it, outlook 2007 sucks eggs as well.

Honestly, why not give up on trying to make a good browser?

@Darius: Slowness when opening a new tab is most often caused by either a slow add-on, or running a large number of add-ons.

If you start IE in No Add-ons mode (www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp) do you observe better performance when creating new tabs?

In all honesty, I just don't care any more. Do want you want, ya will anyway ...

Will it standards compliant like FireFox, Opera, Safari?

JonD

First, your numbers are wrong, as they include all the pre-installs forced upon anyone using a windows machine and all the auto-updates that end users don't actively block. Plus you make the assumption that not only every install means a user, but that every user is so f******g happy with IE. I've met far too many end users who were pissed off with IE but didn't know there was anything else to use to get online. You can feel free to parade numbers around, but without real facts to back up what you say you only make a fool of yourself. Personally it's rare for me to see an IE user hit any of my sites and they average around 15% of my views, and I don't even have any technical sites (as in the kind that would attract smart users that shun IE). It's probably also worth mentioning that using xhtml and the proper mime type will cause IE to revert from standards mode to quirks mode, so something to force IE to use standards mode no matter what it wants to do is worth having.

To the sock puppets and trolls, you gotta be smarter than the people you're trying to fool and actually show that intelligence through your words and actions to actually succeed at fooling your audience. Pity for you that this audience is obviously smarter than you.

It seems a little odd that the natural assumption for IE problems my MSFT people is buggy add-ons. It's been kept up for so long that non MSFT people have picked up on it too, but IE runs like crap on my work machine, was auto installed my a company wide auto update, and doesn't have a single add-on. I do my development in FF where real add-ons add real value to using the browser, so there isn't a single buggy add-on in my version of IE. The way I see it from here either IE still doesn't work right, or somehow trained and certified techs who have been doing this type of stuff for years suddenly managed to completely botch the IE7 install. Course with the common posting about buggy add-ons one can also question why is it so hard to make a functional add-on for IE unless MS managed to completely screw up the way to make them.

While commenting on broken things, one thing that ticks me off a lot is MS always saying "we don't want to break the web with IE". I say it's already to d**n broken and getting worse every time a site has to support your crap browser. FIX YOUR BROWSER NOW so that we can actually fix the web, as is we have to break the web more every day we work all because of you and your completely wrong and f****d up thinking.

call it for what it is IE.08

Actually you would do web designers around the world a great big favour by withdrawing this app from the marketplace.

Internet Explorer 8 has been announced. Along with the announcement came a funny blog post by the general manager listing some of the names that didn't quite make it. It's always nice to see a large company like Microsoft poke...

Man, two blog posts in a row getting hammered for your product. I'd be looking for a new line of work, interpretive dance maybe...

I'll start by stating that I understand that coding can be hard, especially on a monstrosity like IE, and recognize that IE7 is better than IE6.

However, the better was still far from good enough, and now there's silence followed by this post... Unprofessional at best, and insulting to us at worst. I do believe that I've figured out the reason for the silence though. If you don't post then

A) we don't get the chance to give feedback/let you know how horrible you are/etc...

B) you can then do whatever you want since you can claim we got no feedback about XYZ feature/bug

C) you can hope that we assume that you really are working on making IE8(or whatever version) something good

D) you can hide away the signs of ignoring all the standards advocates you added to the team to placate us developers and keep us willing to program for/use IE7

I figure A and C are given, and seriously hope nothing shows up from B or D. I'd lead an open online revolt against IE if I find that D is at all true. I've found though that my hope against a greedy monopoly is usually worthless when hoping for good things, so I'll be spending my free time preparing a campaign to end IE until I see proof that D is completely false.

"please don’t mistake silence for inaction"

Well, it's kind of hard not to!

@EricLaw[MSFT]

You indicate that "buggy" addons are the prime suspect for performance issues.

Is there a site that list which addon's are performing poorly?

There should be such a site that helps users find out what toolbars they should/should not install.

I find it hard to handle that with one hand, you tell us to install addons to fix IE (e.g. Inline find-as-you-type addons, Address Bar fixers, etc.) and with the other you blindly indicate that some toolbars have issues!

Obviously any of the spyware toolbars will do horrible things for performance:

Hello: Alexa, AllTheWeb, BonziBuddy, MySearch, MyWebSearch, AnythingWithAnimatedCursors_Bar, ?DashBar?, ZToolbar, UCmore XP - The Search Accelerator, YourSiteBar, etc.

but how are we to know which other ones have issues?

Very nice Dean! Glad to see the next version of the browser is still in the works!

Nice to see that Microsoft is at least able to choose next version name, irrespective of its uselessness. I am pretty sure, next IE8 will be more junk, even more than IE7, as they don't care about their users. It is their passion.

If Irritated senior manager is for real, and has any real cojones he will tell Dean that to his face as opposed to posting anonymously.

Ha.. my to umiemy mieszać nazwami, numerami wersji. Oczywiście wymieniona w tytule wersja to nie następca

Great! Will we be seeing SVG support in IE8?

@Anti-add-on: "the natural assumption for IE problems my MSFT people is buggy add-ons"

We base this assessment on the crash reports submitted by users, and thus far, everyone I've sent to www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp has reported that running in No Add-ons Mode has resolved their problem.

The Add-ons I know, use, and trust are listed here: http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/essentials.asp.  

Hopefully full SVG support is implemented then in the IE8, lets wait and see.

IEight  ???

or simply   iQuit

@ EricLaw [MSFT]

"The Add-ons I know, use, and trust are listed here: http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/essentials.asp."

Eric... something that caught my attention on that site

http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/bugs.asp = 13 bugs.. but you provide the following link... http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE7Bugs/

Oh.. surprise (I don't think so really) there are much more that those 13 bugs...

I know how Jeff Jones can say IE is more secure than FF.. "fewer security vulnerabilities needed fixing in Internet Explorer than in the competition"...

You cannot fix what you don't know or recognize as a bug to fix.

BTW... I see that EnhanceIE is a personal effort... It would be really nice to see this kind of bug tracking and  dev feedback in the hands of MSFT.

PS: Check http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enhanceie.com%2Fie%2Fessentials.asp&warning=1&profile=css21&usermedium=all and http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enhanceie.com%2Fie%2Fessentials.asp&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

Give it any stupid features you want to, and feel free to ignore standards compliance - you will anyway.  And I couldn't be happier.  Every time you guys release another browser version it guarantees me at least a year's worth of small contract jobs fixing all my previous clients websites which suddenly start "breaking".

Now That's Job Security!

Could the guys who posted here(http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6673113) and here (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6691008) talk with the guy who posted here (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6698008)? Either this "dev div" group knows what it's doing on the internet or it doesn't...

that last link should have been... http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6675302

Does anyone else see the irony in this comment?

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6709631

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY (repeat 5 times)

<...>

we've been made to wait like children long enough!

WE ARE EXPECTING A POST ON MONDAY (repeat 5 more times)

aren't you going to ask if we're there yet, or threaten to hold your breath until you turn blue, or say you'll close your eyes until the someone disappears and then we'll all be sorry?

EVERYTIME I use IE7 to load a website an error is raised.

EVERYTIME I use IE7 to load a page in a new Windows an error is raised.

EVERYTIME I use IE7 to load a page in a new tab an error is raised.

Half the time IE7 then closes and takes all other instances down with it.

Is IE8 going to be FUBAR too? This browser has become the worst software in the history of the Internet.

my contribution to the name suggestions: Internet Exploer Eight My Homework

IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one :-D, funny:)

Dr. Spock wrote:

"""

Does anyone else see the irony in this comment?

"""

There may be irony in that comment, but do you see the point made that you've made even more clear by quoting it?  I'll help you: it's been a week and a  half since the last blog and almost a week since this one was posted.  We've been continually asking pointed questions and pointing out what is NEEDED by the developer community.  But, what was the answer?  There's the rub though, eh.  There hasn't been any answer at all.  Well, there was if you call this insult of a blog posting a reply.

Here's the point that MS should really try to understand.  Though they have the bulk of the market-share, it IS dwindling.  This is no accident.  Developers around the world have found alternatives and have been moving themselves, and everyone they can to move to an alternative as well.

(Point of fact, I just got my parents - who are scared to download things - to start using an alternative.)

But, the point is that it doesn't have to be this way.  Quite frankly, I don't really care what browser people use as long as it doesn't hurt things.  And non-standards compliant browser hurt not only the developers, but the bottom-lines of companies that have to pay too much for a website to be developed.  All because IE doesn't support standards.

(That is another reason why support is waning, btw.)

Chris Wilson said at Browser Wars: Episode II Attack of the DOMs, that because of how wide-spread IE was, that they had to be careful of how they proceeded.  That they didn't want to change how pages were rendered too quickly for the users sake.

Well, if MS would just make a standards compliant browser, then the web-devs could just include it as such in there conditionals.  That way the user wouldn't actually notice one iota that anything has changed.  But, the devs sure as hell will.  Things might be broken for a bit with regards to some thing that need to be fixed, but how is that different after any other release of IE?  The only difference this time would be that it would be the last time this would happen (at least in a major way).

Wow, I just solved how MS can fix all the bugs and get standards compliance in one move without effecting customers.  At least not too much.  All without the user noticing.

Now, who thinks that the IE Team going to spout some nonsense that they don't have enough time/resources?  That it will adversely effect

other products that are just a poorly built?

PLEASE MS, surprise me/us!

Why not call it firefox? At least then I may use it by mistake...

As for features, will it leak memory and be insecure or are you dropping backward compatibility?

@Dr. Spock

Aren't you even slightly curious as to why a post last Wednesday asking for clemency and the exercise of faith that efforts are being made, *still* hasn't been followed up despite 6 days of developers railing against the lack of any real communication?

Maybe your Vulcan sang froid makes you impervious to the frustration and aggravation such pronouncements provoke in humans.

@Dean

You might want to fix the nasty rendering bug that's stopping you from seeing this feedback.  I mean, if you could see it you'd post something about what you're doing apart from deciding what to call the next version, right?

Just call it Firefox and outsource the development to Mozilla.  Problem solved.

If there are substantial, corrective fixes that make IE8 easier on developers, please make IE8 available to users everywhere irrespective of whether their version of Windows passes as "Genuine" Windows. I am working in China where virtually no one uses a Genuine version of XP. This means millions of people--Han, Muslim, Tibetan-- continue to use IE6 or below because they are not permitted to update to IE7. Some people are migrating to Vista though I've had a hard time finding the official price reduced version of it; anyone who has Vista (at least in areas of Sichuan where I live) use a pirated version that they get for less than a dollar. If you really want to help ease the pain of doing cross-browser web development, release IE8 with fixes for clean CSS and push it onto every Windows computer in existence, irrespective of whether it is pirated or not.

Firefox Is the king! i don't care if it is 7,8 or 1000. i think the age of ie is out of date! Just call it Firefox like borg he sad or maybe interfox? explofox? interfire yes enter the fire of the fox!

Anyone thought of calling it, "Imnotasgoodasfirefox. V8"

Just how long do we have to wait for MS to respond to the "Bombardment"(1) of comments on this (and the last) post?

You've heard everything on the last 2 weeks worth of comments before, except for the new level of disgust with the complete lack of transparency.

Full Opacity doesn't translate into happy developers... where is Steve Balmer to tell us that it is all about the DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!

(for anyone that might possibly have missed it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftsByyqazF0

I don't think that any reader of this blog is out of order to expect information.  Stop keeping us in the dark!

Even something that can't possibly be a "secret", like the prompt dialog being fixed!

http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/2007/10/bug-109-javascript-prompt-in-ie-how-did.html

Please tell me that this hideous thing has been fixed!

Un-patiently waiting for _any_ information!

morgan

(1) credit to Dave Massy for summing up the status on this.

> Full Opacity doesn't translate into happy

> developers...

Try CSS:

 opacity: 0

.... wait IE does not support that, of course.

i know it's already been said...but hopefully if it gets said enough MS might finally listen.

give us a fully standards compliant browser, PLEASE!  and by standards compliant, i don't mean microsoft standards.  those obviously don't work....ever

Offtopic:

Virtual PC images for IE6 and IE7 just expired! Please generate new ones!

The feature set seems to match that year.

What about iIE or iExplorer (Think Different) ?

:-p

@psz,

If you'd bother to check before just posting a complaint, you'd see that they had already posted new images.

Just because they didn't post a blog about it, doesn't mean that the new images haven't been released.

IE 10. Oops, sorry, did the math in Excel. ;-)

@Jeff, when psz posted the images were not there.

Then again, just because MS doesn't post about IE8, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!

Or, maybe, it was only getting some attention for the last 12 months... then when Bill Gates came out and indicated that it was on the horizon, the IE team dove into action trying to decide what is going on with IE now.

I can only presume that this is the case, or they would have posted some info after such a backlash from the online community about how the statements made about transparency, and commitment to regular releases and involving the dev community with bug tracking etc.

To say I'm disappointed with the IE Teams delivery of ANY information about IE8 and all the above mentioned items would be a severe understatement.

Not pleased in the slightest.

I love that the IE team has a sense of humour about it all - most of these commenters obviously don't.

Though I am constantly "doing battle" with IE6 and CSS, I concede that for a company that hadn't released a browser in six years, the IE team did a pretty decent clean-up with IE7. I eagerly await the release and eventual adoption of IE8 for compatibility issues, but I'm happy with IE7.

How about IE Mobius. Like the mobius strip upright.

Will it be as standard compliant as Opera or Firefox?

Will it help clean the world of HTML mess?

Stop it. Just stop. You're killing the Web with Internet Explorer by wasting every developer's time and money. Please replace Trident (MSHTML) with the rendering engine used by Microsoft Expression Web.

In case you don't get it, IE dev team, we absolutely _WANT_ you to break the Internet in order to help achieve future compatibility with other browsers. This has the advantage of saving companies money. While IE is responsible for a fair bit of job security, as someone mentioned many comments ago, it is also taking away from company profits because some of the profits are used solely to fix IE problems. As a result, some businesses that want to go global cannot do so because of the sheer amount of profit lost each time their Web site needs to be updated.

So I ask you: could you please break the Internet to help EVERYONE in the future? If you don't, you'll keep the end-users happy while frustrating developers and taking away from other companies' profits, even those not in the same industry as Microsoft.

Those are my 2&#x00A2;.

By the way, in terms of standards compliance,...

http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html#top

Open the above link with the following browsers:

- Microsoft Internet Explorer

- Mozilla Firefox

- Opera

- Maxthon

- Apple Safari

Now see for yourself which browser renders the page correctly. It should look like this...

http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/reference.html

be it IE8 or IE++ , i just hope it can support the proper CSS. And try not make your own. There are sets of standards to be followed.

I only hope that it will be web standards compliant. Then I will use again IE or whatever you are planning to call it.

Why contribute to W3C and the like when your development goes the opposite direction of your "advocations". Is your role with the W3C and "web standards" just a marketing ploy?

This is probably going to be another "excellent" app that will continue Microsoft's well thought strategy to use Office's html engine.

Internet Explore is too old fashion. Why not come up with a total different name? So much bad press about IE, it's time for a fresh new name!

Decent support for CSS2/CSS3 would be good - help lead the way rather than hinder web design

Decent support for CSS2/CSS3 would be good - help lead the way rather than hinder web design

I am a freelance web developer and I have been using Safari for the past few months exclusively, just to see if I could do what I wanted with it, and I have to say, it's pretty amazing.

It's noticeably faster than IE and even FF.

It has some killer and unparalleled developer tools (which I love).

Its style is minimalist and highly functional.

The developer tools are truly amazing and they blow anything else I have seen out of the water (including all the FF developer extensions).

Webkit Site - http://webkit.org (be sure to check out the blog. It has some great news... unlike this one)

A thread discussion of Safari and how to enable developer tools - http://www.typolight.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3119

Those developer tools totally rock. As you said, they blow anything else out of the water, including all of the FF developer extensions. It can show the metrics for an element (border, margin, etc.), the computed styles for an element, and is also a DOM inspector. Then the Debug menu is useful too - now I can switch my user agent! I should note that the DOM inspector along with the other tools may appear to make Safari stay open after you close it (hint: I use RocketDock on Windows, with indicators to show that an app is running), so if it refuses to close, <taskkill /f /im:safari.exe> should take care of it.

Man, those are some awesome tools...

Er, why on earth would MS be interested in making a standard compliant browser? It's better for them to use internet transport, but propriatory software to browse. THat way, everyone still has to buy MS... See Silverlight - it doesn't need a browser to run, and to develop for it, you'll need to... buy a MS product!

Don't think that Adobe haven't got the same plan though!

Stick with firefox it's our last best hope...

Really cool idea (honesty):

Internet ExploDer !!

my 2 cents.

There's probably no chance that anyone will ever see my comment, because there is just too much of them, but anyway... I would call it "IE ∞" :-)

I'm surprised you didn't think of the obvious:

IE Vista

Will it finally be W3C compliant and leave all the funny stuff to the children??

Cade o Brasil Aki?

õ/

Mas : IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet

Foi Engraçado!

Hehehe

"IE ate" my development schedule.

Seriously, IE 7 is a great improvement over its predecessors. Fixing IE is a thankless job, so thanks, guys. I'm glad to hear that you're continuing to improve IE. I've been an anti-MS bigot from way back, but I know you guys are doing your best. IE7 is a great improvement. Now keep on hacking on that code base, and see if you can catch up with the people who are doing it for fun in their basements at night!

My wish list:

* Please PLEASE give us fast XPath on the document DOM.

* ACID CSS3. Just Do It.

* Ecmascript yes, JScript--please.

* Implement all DOM Level 3 event functions, including capture. Deprecate addEvent, window.event, etc.

ASIDE TO: "irritated senior manager" above:

Reason number 743 that I'm glad I don't work at Microsoft: That you keep your job by letting a serious problem fester for a year, and then  bitch-slap the development manager in public, instead of addressing the problem early and in person.

Worried about omerta at Microsoft? Then speak up publicly and denounce your "superiors" when your spinmiesters announce vaporware to kill off potential competitors; when Ballmer starts hooting about "patent violations" in Linux and then refuses to say what he's talking about; when your marketing dweebs come up with still more ways to present lock-in as customer value.

But don't pick on development teams who are busy fixing your broken crap software, instead of using their blogs to manage public opinion.

Maybe silence on the IE blog does make it look like MS has dumped IE7 on beleaguered developers and then wandered off. Perhaps the development team should keep the community involved. Good feedback.

But focus on fixing the software and alleviating the pain IE's history has created for all of us. Not on kvetching that it makes you look bad.

So, ISM, maybe you're right. But that doesn't mean you're not a prick.

If you won't deliver a real standards-compliant browser, then please, don't even bother. The development community is still trying to find all the workarounds necessary to make IE7 behave like its saner competitors, and we don't need the added burden of another version of the rendering engine with all-new bugs.

Forget CSS3. If you can't deliver full CSS1 and most of CSS2, just declare victory, pack your things and go work on Silverlight. Please.

Internet Explorer 8 - Cool name.

Now I have a new curse word to add to my development vocabulary. :)

Please people, can you stop requesting standards compliance with IE. They can't even get their own proprietary code right(even when all major oss browsers do), what makes you think they are ever going to support W3C standards?

"In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction."

- We don't. We know its all part of the shame cycle for being a M$ employee. Must be a career ending job working for M$? Would you put it on your resume?

Btw, I saw that "developers developers developers" speech on video last year. Funniest thing I've seen in a long long time. Then I went home and thought about it. IE has turned web design into a highly skilled profession. Knowing IE hacks adds at least 50% to your take home salary. God forbid we go back to a time where just any 'ol person could make a website viewable across any browser.

Of course, to my fellow web developers I say just stick a little FF download link onto the footer of your clients websites. Maybe with a goog old fashioned "Site best not viewed in Internet Explorer" tag. And if your client questions it, just show them the cost breakdown in development resources allocated to making their website viewable on IE. After that I'm sure they will be happy to participate in the phasing out of IE.

Will it have SYNC installed? I saw that on tv for cars. I want to talk to the browser and tell it what to do. Please?

B

@KillBillv8.0:

We keep requesting it because each time someone says it, it's another vote for them to do it.  No-one is going to spend significant resources if only a couple people want a feature (set).  Obviously, the masses have spoken, but it still doesn't hurt for more to add there name in case it's still not enough.

I am stopping to develop for any browser out there. The only thing I develop for is Standard compliance. To test it I use WebKit with its really cool developer tools. If IE can´t make standard compliance work website will look ugly. If a person A (IE user) goes sees the site and it looks ugly and then goes to person B (using standard conform browser) and sees the same site beeing pretty he might ask himself if he is using the wrong browser and might switch. Maybe one day Microsofts market share drops to a point where they start to notice.

Also I think webdevelopers must be one of the most vocal bunch of netcitizens out there. If they all start pushing standard compliance this way IEs demise might be even sooner.

In my view IE8 is the last chance they have - no standard compliance there and the market share drops to <10% at which point they better make it standard conform as noone will even think about making a special hack.

There is a standard and EVERYONE should follow it - webdevlopers and browser developers.

Until then watch WebKits market share rise and put 3 browsers in the same playing field (and maybe if Opera wakes up and makes their browser standard compliant then there might be even 4  on the same level at which point its only about standards)

The sooner everyone bitching here starts to make non hack webcode the sooner the net will be an easier place to program for.

I'm not sure I even care anymore.

In the unlikely event that you guys actually man up and start caring about your users (devs included), I'd like to put my vote in for CSS compliance up to 2.1, decent JS engine and then, only when you have managed the aforementioned two, maybe SVG support or CSS3.

Then again, judging by the not-so-reassuring commentary from billg it'll probably turn out to be IE Weaksauce.  Again.

IE6 has gathered dust and shown people the worst of browsers. IE7 was another disappointing, not supporting web development standards.

Let's hope that IE8 is a drastic improvement. It might take several years for people to update from IE6 and IE7 still, but they'll get there.

For now Safari is taking us on a new path!!!

considering the fact that IE is quite the opposite of FireFox, I suggest:

Ice Elephant

"and maybe if Opera wakes up and makes their browser standard compliant" (~fALk)

... What ? O_o

From what I'm seeing here, the IE dev team has split the users and the developers from each other. The developers don't want to code for IE anymore (and some, in fact, don't). Then there is the issue of the user end, where an IE user goes to a page that is broken, but sees it looking good in another browser (whether he/she knows it is another browser or not) and curses the author of the page because it doesn't work in his/her browser.

In other words, there are two choices - keep developers happy and make users angry or keep users happy and make developers (and sometimes companies if they are well-informed) angry. Obviously keeping compatibility for users and trying to make the browser more standards-compliant for developers won't work. You already attempted it in IE7, and that introduced NEW bugs.

And when we say "break" the Web, it won't actually break it. Otherwise, alternative browsers wouldn't be very popular would they?

My idea for a plan:

You should keep a tag-soup parser, but also make sure that you keep a separate strict parser as well. Then choose a CSS standard to adhere to (I'd personally go with CSS 2.1 since it is at the CR stage), and create a CSS engine based on that. You might also optionally support some CSS3 things, though they really shouldn't be a top priority.

Oh yeah... Can you vote twice in this? I really would like standards-compliance! ^_^

The reason developers dont want to code for IE is because we all have to make fixes to make it work....it works perfectly in ALL browsers, except IE. Take a look at my site (linked above)...its messed up in IE7 but is perfect in all others. Go figure!

So, 500+ comments, 1 week, no official post. Thanks for not listening guys, keep it up, it's very effective judging by these comments.

Getting sued by Opera over non-standards compliance means something, eh?

@fALk:

Do your homework.  Opera IS standards compliant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_browser#Standards_support

@Rob:

Opera isn't suing.  They're asking the EU Commission to tack something on to what they are already doing because it is very related to what's currently happening.  Hopefully, the EU Commission will listen.

@Reid:

Opera is failing in the marketplace (Firefox, Safari, AND IE are *crushing* them) and hence they're back to trying anything they can to get coverage in the media.  

It's not the first time that they've done something stupid just to get *any* press... Their CEO promised to swim the Atlantic a while back... http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12100B4AGUD7

Maybe if they should work harder on getting 9.5 out the door?

@Dan:

Opera's "stunt", if you prefer to call it that, in no way detracts from the truth of the matter.

@Dan:

FALk said that Opera was /not/ standards compliant which it bloody well *is* and I corrected him on that.  What I'd like to know from you is: what does that have to do with any real or perceived loss in market share?  Furthermore, what does that have to do with any stunt that thir CEO may or may not have done (or promised to do)?

But, I'll save you the trouble of replying.  The answer to both questions is that neither has anything to do with whether Opera is standards compliant or not, which it certainly is.

Yes, yes - point taken. So you're alive or at least claim to be.

I don't envy any of the IE developers, for not being allowed to talk and for probably being under a lot of pressure but Microsoft's policy as a company is

just ridiculous.

If you can't get IE8 to the level of Firefox/Webkit/Opera (you know the list CSS2, some CSS3, SVG, DOM, Javascript, Canvas) then IE8 will have simply failed and MS as a company will have failed again in this field (which doesn't mean that the IE developers will necessarily have failed because I don't know the restrictions that they are working under). Even if it means that IE8 takes more time - don't do a half-assed job on standards.

Yes, everybody wants IE8. But what this means is that people want a version of IE that *works* with *that* version being deployed as much as possible. Please, please, please work on IE8 until it has progressed to the level of other major browsers before doing a new release. And please make the necessary resources available so that at least it won't take five years again.

With all the responders joining together like this, it wouldn't seem too difficult to form a developers union of some kind.  Hmm.

Never mind IE8, I am still waiting for the version of IE6 that is worth the name.

please, please please, for the love of pete, support css 3 and png transparencies.  transparent gif's are way too ugly.  and if possible, through in support for safari's webkit.

Microsoft - пидоры злоебучие, тяжело что-ли следовать стандартам? из за вас корячиться приходится...

The talk about IE8 makes me hope that IE6 will disappear sooner. I wish Microsoft would market IE7 in a stronger manner, and abandon the non-standard IE6.

I'll add something else to the big wish list: proper PNG display (less dark than they currently are in IE).

Stifu: Just remove the GAMA chunks.  Your images will be smaller, download faster, and will render the same way across all browsers.

Option Of The Unthinkable: Boycott Internet Explorer

How about IE Ate (my hard drive)?

As a hobby level personal site coder, is there any chance IE6 will be patched to handle 24 bit PNG alpha transparency? I don;t know where else to ask. :-(

Fred: thanks for the tip !

Quiet Desperation: I guess your best bet is: http://www.twinhelix.com/css/iepngfix/

IE 7+1 IE VIII IE 1000 (think binary) IE Eight! iIE IE for Web 2.0 (Service Pack 2) IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet (the marketing team really pushed for this one ;-) Ie2.079 (we might still use this fo

I'm afraid I haven't read the 500 posts above, so I'm not sure if any/all of these have been pre-recommended. But I can't say how important the following are to me:

1. Find-as-you-type, so hit Ctrl+F and a search bar appears which finds the thing you want as you type it. I know there are extensions, but this REALLY should be built into IE7.

2. Related to 1 - Keyboard-only browsing. So I can hit Ctrl+F and type a link name, and it will already be focussed and ready for me to hit Enter to navigate to it and hide the FAYT box.

3. Simple download manager - please spare me that infernal dialog box!

4. Make popup blocking work - loads of sites have some annoying workaround where you click on the page and IE lets it open a popup.

Thank you!

IE8 Should Not Consitrate on the New Look, They should consitrate on Better Support like CSS and HTML. Why not having that on 7.5.

One thing IE really should achieve. Is to be completely seperated from Windows code.

Because if there is vulnerability in IE, it leads to windows exploits. IMO, it should be installed seperatley.

Also when at last will you start to compile with all of web standarts?

You know that it is pain in the ass to create homepage layouts with CSS, just because IE displays stuff differently

Being in the same room with Bill Gates, while it wasn&#39;t breathtakingly nerve-wracking (he is, after

Of course they know that. Why else would Silverlight have been created? Have you seen the preview for the new Microsoft Downloads site[1] that utilizes Silverlight? The entire page was created using Silverlight! Just alternate-click anywhere on the page inside the box on that page. It is all powered by Silverlight. You can't alternate-click on a link and choose "Open in New Tab" or anything. It just says "Silverlight Configuration."

I'm guessing that Silverlight is also Microsoft's answer to the piracy issue as far as downloading from their site goes. If you don't have IE and Silverlight then you can't download software from Microsoft's site. I wonder if they'll do something similar with their update services (Windows/Office/Microsoft Update)... Flash is bad enough, but Silverlight seems to be completely inaccessible at this point.

Both Flash and Silverlight are technologies that completely defeat the purpose of the Web.

The way to go is improving standards and it could be faster if only MS did not hold back the Internet with inexistend support for standards.

Why dont you tery and get IE7 working properly with CSS first, before you make IE V1000034950456077800

Because we dont like it :)

It seems that self-deprecating humour is not appreciated.

The IE team should adopt a really awkward code name so that they can get a cool product name just like WPF/e Silverlight.

This Internet thing could get really big some day.

Not funny..  IE sucks so bad it's hard to laugh at it.

I realize that "soon" can mean many things, but I understood it to mean:

"We know you have been waiting for details for over a year now, so we are glad to tell you that as soon as I/We type up the next post with all the details, you'll be in the loop for IE8"

Guess it really meant:

"We're going to string you along even further, but since Molly's chat with Bill forced us to admit that we had been avoiding the community, we had to save face and write up a quick blog post so that it looks like we are just about to give you the goods"

Well I feel like everyone else here. Shafted.

Where's the DETAILS?

What's been FIXED?

ETA's please!

What's the new trigger for DOM/Script/CSS/HTML/XHTML Spec Compliance?

Waiting as patiently as we possibly can.

Get on with it, please!

Wow .. the follow-up to IE7 is called IE8. Earth-shattering news

Please comply with web standards, that is the only feature ie8 needs....

Please, please please please please. Do the decent thing and take IE out of the operating system. When it gets hacked, you can't easily fix it like you could with an installable browser. Also, its completely unfair of you to use your OS monopoly to force people to use your substandard browser.

Yes, separating IE from the OS would be very nice...

There is some problem with my IE6 (I mean, an extra issue on top of the other known ones), which makes it so I can't update to IE7 at all on my Windows XP SP2 - the installation just fails every time. I read all the related troubleshooting pages on the Microsoft site, but nothing worked.

Actually, now my IE6 won't even load any page anymore (but even back when it worked, IE7 still couldn't be installed). Whenever I try to open an URL with it, it opens Firefox and loads the site in it, while IE6 just stays blank... But I can still use IE6 through Maxthon.

I'm sure I'm missing something enormously obvious, but why does MS need to develop its own brand of browser any more? The days when MSIE was the only game in town are gone. The argument always put forward is that MS must cater for legacy old-school sites that were built in a non-standards way, and therefore any browser development must embrace that. Well, the solution (at least, IMHO, from the point of view of web developers) would seem obvious: Retire IE and license one of the others (Firefox, Opera, or Safari I guess). Keep IE7 as an install(ed) option in Windows so that users can, if they really need to, continue to see old, badly built sites as the designers intended, but make it clear that it is now a legacy product, and that MS recommend going forward using a newer, more standards-compliant browser.

Surely the license costs would be offset by no longer having to fund a development team for IE. The licensed browser, in turn, would benefit from the licensing funds and developers would be able to tell clients "We no longer code for IE6/7 because it is now considered a legacy product and MS no longer recommend its use for on-going web use."

No doubt there are enormous political business reasons why MS would never adopt this solution, but it makes sense to me. In short, they'd be keeping one 'old' product available to support the 'broken' web, yet also be making a clean break that would allow forward progress in a standards compliant way.

2¢.

please make IE8 w3c dom compilant

I've noticed some of the extreme frustration by IE developers here.  Instead of embarrassing yourselves by pleading with the IE Team, you should start coding to rocket-fast Acid2-compliant browsers like Opera v9.5 beta.

That would get Dean's attention fast.  The only thing any MS product manager ever paid attention to is obvious: market share trends.  Period.

Note that the only reason for IE7 was market share drop.

Not sure where one requests features for the next release, but I want to make the case for allowing client script to open a new,tabbed, browser window (which it can do in ie7) and then open and populate additional tabs in it.  I would be satisfied with being able to read a good explanation of why not to do it. All I have read so far is "user should control where to open new tabs" which does not make sense. If I can open a new tab in a new window, why not an additional tab in a new window that you let me open.  I don't care if the user vetos my ability to do that, but I do care when ie vetos it and there is no way for the user to override the veto and allow it.

Not sure new comments will be seen at this point, but...

Support for embedded ICC profiles in images would be a great help. Obviously professional photographers have noticed this problem for years (Google "embedded ICC profile" "Internet Explorer" and you'll see what I mean.) However, we are starting to see interesting web applications that could be enabled by support for embedded ICC profiles in images. Firefox has started development on this feature.

best regards,

Matt

How about a customizable UI much like IE6... they just forced IE7 on us at work (use FF at home) and I'm about a year too late on this bandwagon.

I hope that some day you will support all standard  features because i'm getting tired to use workarounds just to get a page to show up properly in IE.

After all i want to use HTML, not Microsoft HTML.

I hope IE8 has something to get excited about, like supporting most of the subset of new features that have been implemented in all 3 main competitors Firefox/Safari/Opera.

I think what I dislike most about IE7 is its user interface. It's too bulky, with no way to slim it down. In Firefox I have everything on a single bar. The menus, small navigation buttons, address bar, and search bar all fit nicely on a single row.

@Ted Cohen:

"Not sure where one requests features for the next release"

Please do NOT post them to this blog, all comments on this blog are ignored.

There is a site called IE Feedback where you can submit your bugs or feature requests to.

http://ohWaitWeToreItDownBecauseTheNumber.ofBugsFarOutNumberedTheFixesInIE7.com/

I should re-phrase. IE used to have a mechanism for this however MS decided lowering their Public Image in the Dev Community was a better approach rather than fixing issues or admitting that they exist.

gill

Come on, guys & gals. The IE team know how much we all want information and (more urgently) standards compliance. It should be obvious why they wrote this: while they don't feel quite ready to make a fuller disclosure, they want us (developers) to know that they are working on it, and that they take us seriously. To throw in some humour, and even irony, was a smart move, and I wish that we had rewarded their communicativeness and affability with a little grace.

As for the few who appear to think that this was a serious post, perhaps I could suggest a swift education in deadpan humour? :)

IE Team, we look forward to hearing good news, so throw some this way as soon as you can! Code tight, hope the bugs don't bite.

Guys SVG support Please!!. IE already has vml support which is fairly ismorphic with svg. So why not just support SVG and make everyone happy?. A lot of people are using flash today only because there's no cross browser drawing alternative. If IE supported SVG, it will make a real flash redundant for a large set of use cases. Think about it...

Intially in 1998-2002 I sed to used different Internet Browser; and used to write code looking through

"Don't misinterpret silence for inaction." That's what Dean Hachamovitch, GM of the IE Team, said in

Microsoft is currently in the middle of the process of creating the next generation Microsoft web browser, with the fantastic name - Internet Explorer 8. A few days ago, the IE team reports, the inter...

I like IE8.

Can't wait for it to come out!

Video Die erste sinnvolle Information über den Internet Explorer 8 hat das Licht der Welt erblickt: Er besteht den akademischen 'Acid 2' Test. (No compliance test, it's a test of present features). Im Video wird ausdrücklich darauf hingewiesen, d

Video Die erste sinnvolle Information über den Internet Explorer 8 hat das Licht der Welt erblickt: Er besteht den akademischen 'Acid 2' Test. (No compliance test, it's a test of present features). Im Video wird ausdrücklich darauf hingewiesen, d

Okay... I know it&#39;s definitely slower than most folks would like it to be, but the curtain is slowly

Its finally over... Netscape pulled the plug yesterday on its browsers. Announced on a post on its official

Как известно, восьмая версия IE названа IE8, что в полне предсказуемо. А вот названия, которые были в

Last night, Ron presented to the Memphis .NET Users Group .&#160; The talk began with the improved administrative

Last night, Ron presented to the Memphis .NET Users Group .&#160; The talk began with the improved administrative

So did you get an invite already? http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx

So did you get an invite already? http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx

Sorry for the lack of updates on my blog lately. But in the famous words of Dean Hachamovitch : “please

The Good: Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 to render content in its most standards-compliant

Mozilla, Firefox 3 ile bomba gibi geliyorum diye dursun...

Internet Explorer 8, Acid2 testini bile geçiyorum desin... Windows ortamında bir rakip, sessizce kalpleri feth etmeye başlıyor. Kim mi? Safari! Çoğu kişinin tepkisini tahmin edebiliyorum. Taht

We are not really selling any links here but letting you OWN a piece of our Zedomax Network. Right now, we have a special for 10K to get you on number 1 for your“ TARGET KEYWORD OR KEYWORDS”. We will do all the deep linking and the good stuff and you