Archive for: IE
Yay! Browser market share numbers. This rather unexciting topic is oddly enough one of our favorite topics. On that note, Zdnet has released a new chart (above) that shows browser market share over the last year. Specifically, Chrome is up 6% along with Safari’s ~2.25%. Meanwhile Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s IE browsers continue to bleed users with the latter now falling to 53.7% overall. While IE still holds over half of the world’s browser share, we’ve seen it tank in the last couple of years thanks to faster updates from the likes of Chrome, Firefox and Opera as well as a continuing sub-par support of modern and upcoming web technologies. With that said, IE 9 has actually been rather relevant concerning new web technologies. Though Microsoft has always been extremely slow at updating IE, and unless things change, we’ll see competitors update their own browsers many times over before Microsoft can push out another worthwhile update.
Anyone care to share their browser of choice?
Web fiends and internet junkies might want to mark down March 14th (specifically 9pm PST) on their calendars — this is the day in which Microsoft will officially launch their most current Internet Explorer 9 after months of public beta testing. Should you the consumer really leave Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Opera 11, and/or Safari 5 browsers for IE9? After many weeks of IE9 testing in the GS labs, we’d say no. IE9 is great and all, but the latest versions of Firefox 4 and Chrome 10 are better.
Anyone looking forward to IE9?
- November 17, 2010 6:59 am
Love surfin’ the web on your new WP7 device but aren’t too keen on the new mobile version of IE? You’re in luck. A new WP7 browser by the name of “Browser+” was recently released. One special aspect of this 3rd party offering includes being able to see your tabs and search box in the same view, whereas the stock browser makes you hunt and peck a bit. Even more impressive however, is a “reader” feature similar to Apple’s own Safari browser — it strips out elements of the page and neatly display the text in an easy-to-read book/page-like view. The browser itself certainly isn’t all that earth shattering, especially considering Browser+ doesn’t even make use of it’s own unique framework (it’s built off of mobile IE). Nevertheless, options are options.
There are a few bugs here and there. But what new software/mobile app doesn’t have at least one or two these days? Still, that may turn some potential users off. Regardless, be sure to hop inside and check out the video.
You can find Browser+ in the Windows Marketplace for $1. Any WP7 users tried it out yet?
I have to admit, as Windows Phone 7 launch draws nearer, I find myself getting more and more excited. Part of it is the love I have for new, shiny gadgets. The other part is eager to see how well Microsoft managed to make Windows Phone 7. So far, we’ve seen plenty of promising features and hands on accounts. But the little things that we encounter day in and day out also play a big part in the success and/or failure of a platform. So today, we’re looking at the browser, Mobile IE, in Windows Phone 7.
Mind you, this is an pre-release build on hardware that probably won’t ever see the light of day. With that said, any negative performance issues cropping up now *should* hopefully be taken care of by the time launch day hits. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, hop inside to see Android, iOS, and WP7 square off in a mobile browser speed test…
Safe you think, safe we’re not. Leave it to the exceptionally daft minds at Pwn2own for revealing just how vulnerable we really are when navigating the online world. A rouge link here, a hidden background download there — it’s pretty treacherous. The point of Pwn2own is not to steal however, but instead inform and help browser devs to better code their products. Rewards help too. And let me tell ya, legally hacking and compromising various browsers can be quite the side business. So far this year four people have won $10,000 for cracking various browsers. The winners and their victims:
- Safari (Mac) — Charlie Miller
- iPhone (un-jailbroken) — Ralf Philipp Weinmann (via proxy compliments of Vincenzo Iozzo
Oddly enough, Chrome is absent from today’s fallen victims, though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time if it hasn’t fallen already.
All of the men above are $10k richer today after their hard work. What’s interesting to note is that while here at the event it took minutes — and in some cases, seconds — these hackers spend weeks on their exploits. I’m sure a fair share of these guys have day jobs. Just think what a team of hackers who eat and breathe this stuff are capable of…?
Enough filling your heads with horror stories. So I have to ask: Do you still feel as safe surfin’ the web now?
Cnet
Microsoft is certainly finding every last duck and throwing them into line aren’t they? I mean, WinPhone 7 is shaping up to be quite the mobile OS savior. Windows 7 is right up their with 10.6 as far as desktop OS’s go (subjective, I know). And now, one of the most criticized Microsoft products, Internet Explorer, is shaping up to be quite the looker even it’s extremely early preview stage. The biggest news on the IE 9 front is the move to a webkit-based rendering engine. This change will finally allow Redmond’s in-house browser to stay neck and neck with faster, “more modern” browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to name a few.
So Microsoft unveiled a boat load of information about their next browser. How does it stack up to the competition? In short: pretty darn good. HTML 5 support is the biggie of course with the video support via .h264 as well as hardware accelerated graphics being pegged as other reasons to get all excited. In regards to the embedded video support, at M’s demo today in Vegas, two 720p videos were shown off side by side, stutter free and smooth as warm butter. That’s something I can certainly appreciate even if several other browsers have featured the same features for months now.
Another bragging point can be seen above in the rendering performance with the new webkit roots. Granted, it’s still not as fast as several newer browsers such as the freshly-out-of-beta Opera 10.5 or Chrome 5 dev version. But IE 9 itself is in the extreme early stages. A notable and intriguing showing no less.
I’ve been a very outspoken critic of Microsoft for a while. Not because I loathe them, but because I honestly hope that someday an employee would stumble by here and think: “Hmmm, where can we improve?” Whether they heard my criticisms or not, across the board Microsoft is making some decent and noteworthy strides. I’d even go as far to say that I’d love to see Microsoft take the whole IE9, Windows 7, Xbox, Media Center ecosystems and mesh them altogether into some uber platform that truly fits together — every nook and cranny. Such cohesion is generally an Apple-only trait. But if Microsoft can pull it off, they’ll have something special.
Excited — if not for the shear awesomeness (I can’t believe I’m saying “awesome” — in a positive tone — and “IE” in the same sentence) of any particular Microsoft product of late but instead of the overall picture that finally looks to be coming together? Focusing more specifically on IE 9, is this the browser from Microsoft that will finally be worth using and even recommended?
The curious bunch can pick up a copy of the early IE 9 preview here+. Bear in mind however that it is extremely basic as of right now, lacking even a basic address bar. Let us know how it goes for you!
Gizmodo
- February 22, 2010 5:03 am
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time criticizing Internet Explorer 6′s continued lingering in the public sector. For consumers, IE6 is at the very bottom of the totem pole of relevance. The corporate sector however, is an entirely different story. My personal opinion was that the reason for the reliance on old software and technology was simply because of legacy hardware and software dependent on the outdated browser. Well, I was right — partially. There’s actually several good reasons as highlighted by Esther Schindler in her article: “Why You Can’t Pry IE6 Out of Their Cold Dead Hands”. Now before you start jumping on this as another anti-IE6 rant, take note that this is actually a well laid out explanation.
So why exactly do businesses stick with IE6?
- Companies simply don’t know, or don’t feel like upgrading.
- One or two company dependent programs hinder upgrades.
- “Why fix it if it isn’t broken?”
- “User control”: Most popular sites these days (ie: Facebook and YouTube) rely on modern web browsers to work properly. Why spend extra money upgrading software and paying for web filtering software on top of it when a broken, standards deficient browser does all of the work for you?
When you sit down and think about it, the reasons above make sense. Though at some point, relying on outdated IT equipment will come back to bite you. Whether it be in the form of greater upgrade costs when the company is finally doing a massive upgrade or a catastrophic hardware/software failure, staying complacent with old junk just isn’t a good idea.
So do I have more respect for the companies who do hold off for such reasons as highlighted above? No. Regardless if it’s a decision of the individual company or because of a 3rd party program developer that refuses to upgrade and support newer browsers, it all comes down to cheap and/or lazy people. Update or whither out of existence.
Read the full article at IT Expert Voice
Slashdot
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- February 19, 2010 9:33 am
Folks in Europe who have so far been plagued with the lack of browser options in Windows during setup can breathe a sigh of relief today, for the much talked about “browser ballot” will officially go live next week. But today, we get to actually look at it. The ballot isn’t anything special — just a random ordering of the five top browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari) with two basic options: “Install” or “More Info”. While I don’t see the big fuss with IE coming standard on Windows, having choices provided from the start seems beneficial on paper at least.
Then again, I keep thinking this entire fight picked by the EU is stupid. Is it me or does this mountain-over-a-molehill fight regarding browser choices on Win7 seem a bit excessive? I’m hardly a Microsoft fanboy (or any fanboy really), but forcing Microsoft to offer other browsers from the get go while the EU fails to say anything about Apple’s bundling of Safari seems a bit one-sided and ridiculous. The outcome of politics and politicians getting into areas they don’t understand I suppose.
Mashable
Oh geeze. This morning we have another example of government showing their gross incompetence when it comes to anything digital. After the big Google hack debacle, Google as well as several other large institutions and companies have come forward, speaking out against IE 6 in particular, warning of the massive risk you take when using such an old and security ridden browser. Some have even gone as far as to call out any version of IE as a “bad choice”. For this article anyway, we’re focusing on IE 6 — the old hag that somehow still continues to live on…
You see, while the rest of the civilized world is finally wising up to the problems associated with using a nearly 10-year old browser, the UK Parliament is perfectly fine in their own little land with Microsoft’s aging relic. To them, the outcries of various security warnings and other perils are overblown.
What’s even worse is that according to the person asking the questions — UK’s Lord Avebury — Parliament IT staff are “actively discouraging” the use of any other browsers. Now at this point I’m not sure if they’re actively discouraging users from anything other than IE 6 or simply “other” non-IE browsers. Either way, it’s pretty sad.
Kind of scary to think that out of all the people to fall in love with a bug ridden, standards deficient, security laden browser, your countries Government is the most blinded by this so called love.
Inquirer > ebrahim
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