Home Forums Internet Explorer 9

First the good news:

While I.E. 6 and 7 were embarrassments to Microsoft and I.E. 8 a vast improvement, I.E. 9 is a state of the art browser ahead of Mozilla and Chrome, although with the release of 4.0, Firefox has likely caught up.

The bad:

It isn't compatible with XP, while Firefox is.

I've been a beta user of FireFox 4, and I can tell you that it is Tight. The fully sandboxed execution space of Chrome is desirable at times, but I couldn't work without my stable of FireFox plugins.

I can't complain about IE - between that and Microsoft patches, they the most consistent part of our managed services revenue the last 6 years. We have also gotten several new clients through eradicating network infections over the years. Most of it tracks back to poor security practices, IE [has been] the attackers tool of choice.

Regardless of your browser choice, I'll repeat my suggestion from ACUC last year, download and use XMarks - a wonderful way to have your bookmarks available to you anywhere, even accessing the list of open tabs on another machine so that you can continue reading/researching.

And yes, a few times I have looked up a bookmark on my Droid X to share a link without having to dig my laptop out. Almost *priceless*.

The frustration about Firefox is that there are still things that MAKE you use I.E. Our hospital database can only be accessed via Citrix via I.E. And, of course, many Microsoft sites have to use I.E.

Firefox, at least 3.0, has a difficult time opening PDFs in its browser unless you are reading black text on a black background.

Indy, wouldn't you say the vast majority of users, especially newer ones, use I.E. therefore the attack of choice, much like Windows OS vs Mac OS?

Is this classic Microsoft or what...they know millions of machines are still running XP. Yet they release a new version of I.E. that isn't compatible!
So the choice is buying a new copy of Win7 and installing it on all of the XP machines OR just using Firefox or Chrome. And they think we will buy Win7? What marketing genius!


Yeah, ain't Microsoft great! Indy loves them like gastroenterologists love the nonsteroidal makers, and cardiologists love McDonalds. Great for business, but unfortunately at the expense of the public.

Bert, Chrome is where I used to have trouble opening pdf's. Now both Chrome and Firefox seem to open them fine.

Same here. My default setup is running flashblock and scriptblocker, so I have to go thru 2-3 steps of approval to actually view the content, but otherwise no problems. Along with adblocker, the upside is that it is very rare that my AV ever goes off, and sites are ALOT less distracting [and often load faster].

The biggest problem, and the biggest risk, faced by Internet Explorer 9 is that of compatibility. Not with websites?it does a great job there?but with operating systems. Because of its use of Direct2D and DirectWrite, which are only available on Windows Vista and Windows 7, it does not run, at all, on Windows XP. Though Windows XP's market share is declining on the back of strong corporate uptake of Windows 7, it's still the most common version of Windows. And it can't be used with Internet Explorer 9.

This wasn't a bad decision. The performance improvements made by the use of DirectWrite and Direct2D allow a new class of Web application to be developed. They greatly extend the range of what is possible and practical to do on a website. Platform security features that Internet Explorer 9 leverages also make the switch to more modern operating systems desirable. Some of the things that make IE9 a better browser are things that simply do not exist on Windows XP.

Nonetheless, it's plain that this will hamper adoption of the new browser. Firefox 4 includes Direct2D (and, optionally, DirectWrite) on platforms that support it, but it will still run on Windows XP; on that operating system it falls back to software rendering. This makes it slower, certainly, on that operating system. But it will still work. Windows XP is declining, and it's understandable that Microsoft has chosen not to target a system that will be a decade old this October. But it does mean that Microsoft may struggle to win over users.

YOU THINK!

If Firefox can make a browser with Direct2 that runs on XP, why the hell can't Microsoft's own browser? I don't plan on switching to WIN7 for at least a year, which means I use Firefox for at least another year. How in the hell did Netscape lose out to Internet Explorer?

Well, I will printscreen my Firefox PDF issue. And, Indy, you just hit one of my three pet peeve misspellings:

Alot. Aarrgghh!

Some people will follow where the herd is being driven, but given the options, more will choose otherwise. Given new hardware, running XP in a VM [virtual machine container] is very doable, and gives new life to your XP license on fresh hardware.

We have given up on strong words and a hardline about the dangers of IE; I suspect similar to a PCP harping on McDonalds to someone who eat there every day. Instead, we ask the client what level of protection they want, and then we implement managed services based on our best practices. It is easier to get buy-in for what they want than the individual elements.

An example of that is install AV(with central monitoring), scan machine, [clear infections], setup limited user accounts, change admin passwords, remove IE shortcut, install FireFox, install plugins. We have methods for how we allow selective IE usage of certain retro sites.

Unless Chrome has changed a lot, I still like Opera, I.E. and Firefox best. Firefox can't be beat, IMO.

Chrome, for a Google product, just sort of let me down.

I still find it interesting that Netscape was the only competitor and lost and now three others have some marketshare.

Apologies Bert. Spelling has never been my thing, and now that most good dev environments auto-highlight syntax issues, I probably pay even less attention to it.

Chrome is by far the fastest.


Indy, what percent of your income did you just give away for free with that line...if people listen and do what you say?

Indy, my question is multiple choice:
a. Not much
b. Alot
c. A lot

Doubtful that we gave much away - someone regularly going to McDs is going to keep going until they get a wake-up call.

Having met some of you folks @ ACUC, my perspective is to give back to a specific community that is worth the time invested. On those days where I am on a machine where I can pop in and opine, I choose to 'steal' some time from development because I am confident that the folks who understand preventative actions will take things to heart.

For other folks, they will reach out after their wake-up call. Some folks will take detours through the local "nerd-herd" first, and they learn that you get what you pay for - sometimes. One of the tings that I have learned in the last year here is that rather than advising individuals on an hourly basis, we need to take on research projects, then communicate the results back to the community in a productive fashion.

Nice try.
e. None that we'll miss.

Not much, good; A lot, good; Alot, notsomuch

This was so funny when I got this tweet yesterday, I stopped what I was doing and re-tweeted it. From a developer ....
------------------------

IE9 love. RT @grantges ?@adrianinsf: I heard the new #IE9 can download Firefox even faster than the last one.? - and Chrome

JBS,

I'm afraid I must disagree with you. Microsoft's support polices are well documented. Windows XP will enjoy basic support all the way until April 2014. Microsoft made it well known in advanced that IE 9 would not be for XP and that is consistant with MS's support policy regarding making new features for existing platforms. For more information about MS's support polices, please see the MS Lifecycle Support Blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/lifecycle/default.aspx?PageIndex=2

Considering the number of years XP has enjoyed support - and considering the fact that XP enjoyed two browser upgrades (it came with IE6), I would say that for a $30 purchase (assuming you got XP OEM) I would say that is a pretty good deal. I would love to see you get that kind of support out of even Amazing Charts or any other software you use.

JamesNT

I think IE9 will be the big comeback for MS in the browser space. MS made a big mistake disbanding the IE team after the release of IE6. IE6 was a solid browser - for 2002. But by the time 2005 rolled around, the bad guys were out there and IE6 just couldn't hold up.

JamesNT

James, that is an interesting perspective on IE9 leading the comeback; it's possible, but I think that is a low percentage play.

My reasoning is thus:
<>MS is having trouble getting people onboard their new mobile platform, and is loosing market-share, mind-share, and momentum to Google.
<>MS has had years to dominate tablets, and they have missed badly in the past.
<>At the same time Google is turning circles (development cycle times) inside of Microsoft, doing things like releasing a free tool that enables office tools upload to the Google cloud
<>HP has made their choice, and having bought Palm, the Palm/Hp webOS will soon be on all HP hardware.
<>Shortform, there are lots of options available, and more coming that give people MS alternatives.
<>With persistent (to increasing) financial challenges in the larger market, SMBs in particular are price sensitive, and passing on MS Office, or upgrading hardware.

James we should come up with a friendly wager, and pick a time to compare this month browser market-share stats with 6 or 12 months from now.

My prognostication is that IE marketsahre will continue errode.

FYI - you can always run XP inside of a VM on an Ubu desktop.

Indy,

You're on.

While you are certainly correct that Google - and don't forget Apple - are making serious headway into the Tablet market, it's important to remember that they are not regulated like MS is by the government. And now that they are expanding, their time is coming. The govn't is already investigating iTunes for possible anti-trust violations.

Furthermore, right now Apple and Google are promoting their tablets to the young crowd, not to businesses. In order to promote to business, Google and Apple are going to have to offer the same assurances of warranty, support, backwards compatiblity, and so forth that MS does now. I must say, I don't think Google or Apple are counting on the idea that a version of their respective operating systems must be supported for 10 nice long years or that older applications must run on even newer versions of their tablets.

FYI - you can always run XP in XP Mode on Windows 7.

JamesNT

Bear in mind that UpDox strongly suggests Chrome as its browser.

What did I say that that you disagree with? Are you saying that it was a smart marketing move? If Indy and you formalize a bet, I might be interested in a little side action.

David,
I have generally been using Firefox with Updox without any noticeable problem.