IE9

[justsomeguy]

The moderators have been aware of this for a few weeks, but Microsoft has shown a preview of IE9 at MIX10 and it includes a lot of needed updates and new features:http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/03/16/1719250http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

[real_illusions]

Looks promising with the support of HTML5 and CSS3, but its still lacks behind the current versions of their rivals. I fear although its a significant improvement, its not going to be enough to catch up with Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.They've yet to mention a release date, but i can only hope its sooner rather than later and they force people to upgrade from ie7 definately, if not then ie8 too.

[justsomeguy]

IE6 is still at over 20%. If there's anything that needs to be destroyed without mercy, it's IE6. Man, kids these days, lamenting about IE7, in my day we used Netscape 4.76 because it was the least-buggy browser, and we liked it!This is catching up to Firefox in a big way though. Believe it or not, but Firefox is not the best-performing browser. The new version of Chrome takes that title, followed by Opera, then Safari, then Firefox, then IE. Firefox and IE are fighting for last place. The preview version of IE9 beats Firefox 3.7 in Javascript performance (look at where IE8 scores, then imagine where IE7 would be. now realize that IE6 is way, way worse than that). This is a "platform preview" of IE, it's not even an alpha version. It doesn't even have an address bar or back button, it's just a technology demo at this point.They're proudly displaying on their demo page that IE9 scores a 55/100 on the Acid3 test. That might seem like something to snort at, but considering that my installed version of IE8 scores a 20, it's obvious that they are focused on improving support. HTML5 support is obviously a major benefit, and support for SVG and h.264 means that we can start to move away from using plugins for playing video online.See, the thing is, Microsoft is this huge company with a lot of cash. And, as you know, Firefox is the only child of the major browser which Microsoft personally slew. So, the IE team will send cakes to Firefox's launch parties, but they know that secretly Firefox is out to get revenge for the death of its father, Netscape. Microsoft knows that the only way to stop that is to make itself stronger than their rival, so off they go..This sounds like the intro for Final Fantasy XVII.

[real_illusions]

That is true about FF been overtaken by Chrome, Safari and Opera.But I think Microsoft need to aim higher and not just beat Firefox.However, their new browser is still a step forward, it shows they are at least trying and we can hope they can improve vastly on it. And they really do need to kill off ie6 and ie7.

[boen_robot]

Even in this preview, they have SVG, XHTML as application/xhtml+xml, DOM 2 Events, Style, Range, CSS 3 selectors, CSS 3 colors, opacity, border-radius... and all these to be complete.This seems "on par" with other browsers in my book. Let's see... I'm missing SVG 1.1 as background-image in this list, but if that's not implemented already, I'm sure it's in the pipeline (and even if it isn't - Opera is the only other browser to implement it). I also miss multiple background images, but again - that's not something everyone else supports. I think Opera and Firefox miss it. Besides, if SVG in background-image is implemented, you can emulate multiple backgrounds by using the SVG as a container.What else are you missing?[edit]OK... found a sample and verified it. SVG as background-image is not supported yet.[/edit]

[justsomeguy]

What else are you missing?

A final version.I'm probably interested in Javascript the most, since virtually all of my applications these days use Javascript heavily, it's cool to see new browsers get released and all of a sudden my applications just run faster, without changing any code. IE9 has support for multiple cores with Javascript, and it will use one core to compile the Javascript code in the background into assembly (I assume, they described it as the native language of the processor), and then that's what gets executed. That's one of the areas where Firefox has been lagging, they used to have one of the fastest Javascript engines but they don't seem to have the same focus there that Chrome and Opera have.

But I think Microsoft need to aim higher and not just beat Firefox.

Well sure, but in their path to go higher, Firefox is the first one to beat. Firefox is just a mini boss. The final boss is Google.

[boen_robot]

A final version.

I meant in standards support . But yeah, I'd hope for a final version soon... after they do better with their SVG test suite passing, and hopefully after implementing SVG in background-image.

Well sure, but in their path to go higher, Firefox is the first one to beat. Firefox is just a mini boss. The final boss is Google.

How is ~24.23% browser share a "mini boss" in comparrison to the ~5.61% of Google Chrome? Or do you mean in standards support? If that's the case, I'd think Opera are the final boss, with Google Chrome being just the "second last" boss (you know, the one which is so hard to beat that after it the final boss looks easy).

[justsomeguy]

Google has the bucks and willpower to continue with their browser. They may have small market share now, but they're the best-performing browser. That makes them the final boss, they're the most difficult to beat. Firefox is slowly becoming as bloated as the Mozilla suite, which is ironic when you realize that the entire purpose of Firefox was a lightweight alternative to the Mozilla suite. Opera is definitely a contender, and in fact they're the vendor I'm most impressed with, but they don't have the funding of Microsoft, Google, Apple, or the Mozilla foundation.

[boen_robot]

Platform Preview 3 is out, and I must say, WOW! They had already surpassed my expectations, but with this one, they're really kicking it:1. Multiple backgrounds!!! And I thought I'd have to wait for IE10 for that, and use SVG as a container in the meantime...2. SVG as background image!!! I knew they were planning it... it's nice to finally have it.3. Canvas!?!?!?! And you'd think legal issues and all that crap would be holding them...4. HSL(A) colors. Expected, but somewhat overlooked until now.5. box-shadow - The third reason anyone would need to use SVG as a background image (the first two being rounded corners and multiple backgrounds), now available. Yay!6. WOFF support. Despite their release notes, direct OTF fonts appear not to be working... at least not on the CSS3.info sample page. I'll try to do this on my own page, and if it isn't already reported, I'd probably report it as a bug.7. MSXML 6.0, and support for XSLT from SVG and XHTML - that one is just a personal favorite of mine...The only things I'm missing now are border-image and background-size, but as with multiple backgrounds and box-shadow - those can be achieved with SVG as a background image, so I'm not holding my breath for it. If I was the MSIE team, I'd now start on finishing up the started things and fix any reported bugs (including ones from IE8...).

[real_illusions]

1. Multiple backgrounds!!! And I thought I'd have to wait for IE10 for that, and use SVG as a container in the meantime...2. SVG as background image!!! I knew they were planning it... it's nice to finally have it.3. Canvas!?!?!?! And you'd think legal issues and all that crap would be holding them...4. HSL(A) colors. Expected, but somewhat overlooked until now.5. box-shadow - The third reason anyone would need to use SVG as a background image (the first two being rounded corners and multiple backgrounds), now available. Yay!6. WOFF support. Despite their release notes, direct OTF fonts appear not to be working... at least not on the CSS3.info sample page. I'll try to do this on my own page, and if it isn't already reported, I'd probably report it as a bug.7. MSXML 6.0, and support for XSLT from SVG and XHTML - that one is just a personal favorite of mine...

Sounds almost too good to be trueBut all that is indeed excellent news, now we can hope that users on ie 6, 7 and 8 will upgrade - for the future of the internet.

[End User]

IE6 is still at over 20%. If there's anything that needs to be destroyed without mercy, it's IE6. Man, kids these days, lamenting about IE7, in my day we used Netscape 4.76 because it was the least-buggy browser, and we liked it!

Sheesh, you kids with your "browsers". Back in my day there were no browsers, we had to call up the webmaster and ask him what was on the screen. We wrote our programs with nothing but ones and zeroes, and sometimes we ran out of ones so we had to use lower-case "L"s. And we didn't have any of these fancy "languages", we wrote our programs in binary using a magnetized needle and a steady hand, directly onto the mag tape. And we did it while walking 10 miles to school in a snowstorm, on our knees in the dark. And it was uphill both ways!

[thescientist]

And we did it while walking 10 miles to school in a snowstorm, on our knees in the dark. And it was uphill both ways!

how come they never think of building schools in more reasonable locations?

[jeffman]

At least you had a webmaster. I remember setting up my first Gopher server and thinking that was the coolest thing on earth. Further back than that, I worked on a PDP that we talked to via teletype machine. Programs were stored on paper tape about an inch wide. A well-used program was probably stained, wrinkled, and spliced with Scotch tape in a dozen places. There wasn't much memory, but in some ways paper was more robust than a DVD or jump drive.

[End User]

Programs were stored on paper tape about an inch wide.

Paper? Why you lucky youngster, ours were stored on clay tablets, written in Sumerian hieroglyphics by blind amputee monks with poor handwriting. And that was after the upgrade!

[real_illusions]

Paper? Why you lucky youngster, ours were stored on clay tablets, written in Sumerian hieroglyphics by blind amputee monks with poor handwriting. And that was after the upgrade!

Luxury.We had to get up each day half hour before we went to bed, working 43 hours a day we had to carve the code into titanium rock with our finger nails, each character took upto 6 hours to do and we had to write 4,000 lines of code per hour. If not, then we were crucified till we were 99% dead, brought back to life by a giant humming bird, and we had no help from monks (blind or not), we had fire breathing dragons, breathing down the back of our trousers (or pants for you yanks) for 42.5 hours a day. We had no coffee, biscuits, lunch breaks, 0's or 1's, clothes, wages (we had to pay our dragon lords 12 dead sheep a day for the privilage of going to work), and we were still forced to restart the cave windows everytime someone fell over.

[jeffman]

Still, the shelf-life of code like that sounds pretty good!

[End User]

We had to get up each day half hour before we went to bed, working 43 hours a day we had to carve the code into titanium rock with our finger nails, each character took upto 6 hours to do and we had to write 4,000 lines of code per hour. If not, then we were crucified till we were 99% dead, brought back to life by a giant humming bird, and we had no help from monks (blind or not), we had fire breathing dragons, breathing down the back of our trousers (or pants for you yanks) for 42.5 hours a day. We had no coffee, biscuits, lunch breaks, 0's or 1's, clothes, wages (we had to pay our dragon lords 12 dead sheep a day for the privilage of going to work), and we were still forced to restart the cave windows everytime someone fell over.

Lol, Monty would be proud!

[real_illusions]

Still, the shelf-life of code like that sounds pretty good!

It better be after all that effort

Lol, Monty would be proud!

What gave away the monty python inspiration?

[CanadianGuy]

I can only add one thing to this conversation...

[ApocalypeX]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/interne...p;browser=otherFinally a decent browser by Microsoft. Has CSS3 and HTML5 in it. I noticed text-shadow doesn't work but it's a beta so hopefully it will be added in. But overall its a good direction for IE as they are trying a Opera feel which is a mix of functionality and beauty.

[thescientist]

doh, forgot it didn't include XP. Oh well, looks like my virtual machine will have to wait.

[jeffman]

Looks like I'm buying another used computer! Buying a new OS will probably be the biggest expense.

[thescientist]

Windows 7 Home is only $150. I'd be looking at gettingWin7 Pro as it is 64-bit. That's about $100 more, however.

[trollger]

Ill stick with fire-fox, IE won't support full HTML 5 features, and we are still going to have to wait a few years to use HTML 5 because half of Microsoft users are still on XP!

[aspnetguy]

XP still has a 60% install base so it will still be a while before we see HTML5 and CSS3 go mainstream but at least MS is finally taking their browser seriously again. They actually are not a complete joke when it comes to JavaScript performance.