Keeping kids safe on the internet these days is nothing short a chore. With literally millions of sites flooding the net with porn, violence, and BS calls to end piracy, traversing such a place as a small child can be daunting and frightening. Who doesn’t want to look out for the little one’s though?
That same feeling of helping the little ones is what no doubt drove Microsoft to team up with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and develop a special version of IE 8 with special features to further protect children from objectionable content online as well as making reporting said content several grades easier. So how good is it really?
If you really want to read past all the lines and cut through the crap, this new Kiddie edition of IE 8 isn’t anything too special at all as all of the filtering, searching, and other CEOP related features are nothing more than add-ons and shortcuts of some sort or another.
Regardless of how “separate” it really is, any preventative measures to keep those little eyes “little” a short while longer are more than welcome. Parents, curious readers, and those with nothing else better to do: care giving it a shot?
ArsTechnica
- November 17, 2009 3:14 pm
We’ll just start off this post asking one question: How do you like Internet Explorer? Hell, I’m feeling generous, all current versions are up for debate — 6, 7, and 8.
With that aside, today at the Professional Developers Conference, Chief Architect Ray Ozzie revealed a few concessions that the next gen Microsoft browser is in fact in the works. He didn’t however highlight any feature in particular. For that we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s keynote. Also, before you get all hot and bothered searching for a download, we must stress that test code of any kind is not being released today or tomorrow. So stop looking. It’s strictly an informational event. Bummer.
While today’s keynote was a bust, tomorrow is looking to be more fruitful with Ozzie going a little deeper into “focus areas” for IE 9. After IE 8, many started speculating that Microsoft was going to make the move to a web-kit based rendering engine. I for one would greatly appreciate such a move as their current platform as a whole is terrible. And I know I’m not alone. When a new browser can’t even muster a 25% on a web standards compliance test, it is dead, outdated, and crap in my book. Will IE 9 finally see Microsoft accepting the cold hard reality that they need to abandon their current ventures?
Unfortunate for many, Microsoft denounced rumors that they were moving to or even looking at a future move to a web-kit engine. Sad for us, all around bad for them. Still, I’m eager to know more about their next browser and what they will do to surpass the likes of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and several other smaller yet highly capable browsers.
What do you think is coming to IE 9? Share it below..
Cnet
When considering modern, worldclass browsers, IE doesn’t necessarily rank high on my list. A brand new browser that utterly chokes and dies on simple web standards tests is by no means modern no matter the shipping date. Many browsers and developers from Mozilla, Apple, Google, and many other smaller 3rd parties are gunning to dethrone IE and capture their own slice of the browser pie. While Microsoft still holds a commanding overall lead in the browser world with 64.64%, that dominance is faltering daily. Firefox recently enjoyed a pretty cool yet disgusting victory — Firefox has finally surpassed IE6. As of October, Firefox is sitting pretty at 24.07% while IE 6 continues it’s (much loved) downward spiral briefly pausing at the current 23.30% market share.
You may be already starting the party and then remember, IE 6 is hardly a contender to the latest Firefox. Even though Mozilla has finally toppled a flavor of IE, the fact that said browser is nearing a decade old is pathetic. Of course, IE 6 is hardly sticking around by choice. For that, blame stagnant (read: Lazy) IT departments that hold off on upgrading because of program incompatibilities that they fail to actually fix. So it is a bittersweet moment when this old giant falls. Still, one less IE in the front running the better. Hey, I don’t have anything personal with Microsoft or IE. If they’d actually develop IE to a level that is on par with the others mentioned above, then they might have something. Until then, Chrome and Firefox FTW!
Slashdot > Ars Technica
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- February 19, 2009 3:03 pm
So you are an IE loyalist who through fire and hell would stand by your trusty browser ’til the end. Besides, it’ the corporate standard. When was the last time you went into a big corporation, sat down and one of their computers and fired up Opera, Safari, FireFox? Chances are it would be never. One would assume that having a majority 67.55% would mean that your browser help up to the standards of the web. If you thought that, you would be wrong. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has long eschewed the web standards instead focusing on whatever it is they focus on. So it comes with some certain comedy that the list of incompatable websites on the latest RC1 build of IE 8 contains some pretty big name sites. What sites exactly? The list is right in side.
