6 ms·

Since the comments on Tim Sneath's original post are broken at best, I'll paste my original reply here: First, IE9 doesn't fully support mature HTML5 and CSS3

Since the comments on Tim Sneath's original post are broken at best, I'll paste my original reply here: First, IE9 doesn't fully support mature HTML5 and CSS3 standards. Congrats, the only tests you pass are the ones that your own department submitted to the W3C. Everyone else's show IE9's Release Candidate as having less support than other browsers released 1-2 years ago. Second, nice job cherry-picking a single paragraph out of one of the few comments in the Hacker News thread supporting your position. You also conveniently omitted the scalding final line of that paragraph: "It's just a shame they're not providing it on XP." This is typical of your response in general: you've responded to absolutely 0 of the actual criticisms of your product, and instead decide to praise the few improvements you happened to make over IE8. You're only providing your new browser to a small fraction of the OS market, it still doesn't support stable and mature spec features, the ones you do support are still wildly broken (canvas, ahem), and you remain silent through it all. I had high hopes when you initially announced your plans for IE9 all those months ago. It's a damn shame they turned out to be nothing more than marketing smoke and mirrors.

fname 16y ago
You're only providing your new browser to a small fraction of the OS market I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already.
- fleitz 16y ago
  The Chrome, Safari, and Firefox teams seem to be able to deliver a very good experience on XP. It's kind of lame that the Microsoft team can't deliver the same thing for an OS that they took part in building. If anyone knows XP inside out it should be the IE team. They even have access to the 'secret' APIs. And if the IE team doesn't know XP inside out they have excellent resources at Microsoft to speak to the people who do know, like Mark Russinovich, or the NT Kernel Team. IE9 not running on XP has everything to do with Microsoft internal politics and nothing to do with technical limitations of a 10 year old OS. The fact that people are still running a 10 year old OS is a testament to what the XP team has built.
  - fname 16y ago
    I think the limitation has more to do with trying to build a richer feature-set to get users to migrate from XP to 7 (and beyond); but on the other other hand, it's not fair to complain when your ten year old OS isn't getting those newer features -- hell, they should be lucky Microsoft still supports it!
    - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
      It's a 10 year old OS that still has 42% share of the market. It's still the most popular OS right now. Anyone with half a brain can see that their only reason behind not supporting IE9 on it is to try and force people to spend 100's of dollars upgrading their OS when they already have a perfectly fine and working one.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        Pewpewarrows 16y ago
        And... that makes it a valid complaint. You don't see Mozilla, Google, Apple, or Opera complaining about having to support XP. You're pulling at straws here. Microsoft's position is obvious, and it's not to make a better browser for the sake of a better browser.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        pushtheenvelope 16y ago
        Microsoft's position seems to be to make their newest OS run the web best. Nothing wrong with that; and they've ensured a vibrant application ecosystem for XP that has led to many browser vendors supporting that OS well. XP users aren't exactly left high and dry. Also, it's naive to think that everyone else's interests are merely to make a better browser: Google does it to get people spending more time on the internet under the assumption that they'll use Google to search and click on their ads.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Good enough for what? Good enough to be exploited by a script kiddie in 10 seconds? Mozilla and Google are doing no one any favors by support XP. It's like adding sweetener to poison. You may think you're doing good by making the poison taste good. But rather you should be encouraging people not to eat poison. XP is ten years old. I don't know anyone on any other platform, including my friends using Linux, who is still using a 10 year old build of the product.
    - fleitz 16y ago
      I think that says more about what the Linux and OS X teams were able to achieve 10 years ago than it does anything about XP. Yes, if the primary objective of your OS is to avoid exploits by script kiddies than you should probably choose something like OpenBSD, or Linux SE with a very hardened profile. XP probably isn't a good choice of OS if your primary objective is protection from script kiddies. As long as you aren't pissing people off on 4chan, or dealing in sensitive data you should be fine with XP. However, if your needs include surfing the web, email, using an Office productivity suite, and playing a triple A game title, and are willing to install something like Microsoft Security Essentials then you'll be reasonably protected from viruses, and have the ability to complete your day-to-day tasks and goof off at the end of the day. Personally, I find that Win7 + VMWare + Ubuntu 10 suite my needs best unless I'm doing iOS development in which case I use OS X + VMWare + Win7 + Ubuntu. I've had issues running OS X inside VMWare so I just use another machine for iOS dev. Could I do the same thing I use Win 7 for with XP? Definitely, I suspect it may be tight on RAM as I don't think VMWare supports PAE, but other than the 32-bit memory limitation it would work perfectly fine. I bet I could meet all my needs with XP 64-bit edition. Mozilla, Google and Apple are actually doing about 42% of computer users a favor by support the OS they have chosen to run. It's not up to you to dictate what people should prioritize in their choice of computer software and hardware. They could be more secure upgrading to Win 7 or Linux but I bet they feel it's not worth the trade off.
      - 16y ago
- juiceandjuice 16y ago
  Tell that to the DoD.
- taitems 16y ago
  I don't know, I kind of think of XP as the AK-47 of Windows operating systems. As a non gun owner I guess I could only compare Vista to a Howitzer.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  I have a huge number of clients that are still actively using XP. The fact is, XP, for many people, is good enough. The only reason they're upgrading at all is purely due to attrition -- their old computer dies and they replace it with something running W7. And this is ignoring my corporate clients, who are using software that is integral to their business, that hasn't been updated in years and does not run correctly on Windows 7. The "always be upgrading" mentality in the computer industry is a serious problem for end-users.
  - barista 16y ago
    Unlike Chrome that is automatically "always upgrading" itself. End users here seem to love that :p
    - dspillett 16y ago
      But unlike the Windows upgrade cycle, this costs nothing. Even though there are usually feature updates mixed in with the bug fixes and security issues, many people (especially non-techie people) lump the Chrome updates in with OS updates as a necessary part of maintenance like changing the oil in a car. Upgrading Windows beyond XP currently adds very little of significance to most people though, particularly corporates with many many desktops to upgrade (and people to support when they do) and home users with limited cash. From a designers point of view the "just upgrade already" argument can't wash. We can't force our users to upgrade there OS (we can only just get away with cajoling them into upgrading their browser or occasionally (but increasingly) choosing an alternative (though this is less of an option for corporates for the usual reasons). The accusation is that MS is trying to make IE9 one of the reasons to upgrade (and therefore pay for that upgrade). This is the same accusation levelled at them with DX10 and later, and it is equally correct (and equally understandable from their commercial PoV). In the case of the browser though this is seen as more onerous because your internet access method is more ingrained in your life and much more potentially damaging when there are security issues. A large client of hours (a major bank) is rolling out IE8 to their users (who are currently stuck on IE6) in a few months time. If IE9 had promised XP support they might have planned to roll that out instead, though a little delayed as they would need to wait for at least the RCs to start their main roll-out testing - so IE9 not being available on XP is definitely going to have an effect on the number of people still using the irritations that are IE6/7/8 in corporate environments.
- azakai 16y ago
  > I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already. Other browsers show that it is technically possible to support XP, without limiting your product on Vista/7. This would be even more true for Microsoft. So the reason Microsoft does not support IE9 on XP, is apparently to encourage upgrading from XP. In other words, Microsoft's IE roadmap is determined, in this case, more from Microsoft's overall agenda and interests, rather than what is good for IE and IE's users.
  - larsberg 16y ago
    > Other browsers show that it is technically possible to support XP, without limiting your product on Vista/7 I think that other browsers show it is possible to run using only the APIs that were available in Windows XP without using any of the new snazziness that is Vista/7. It's like the difference between saying, well, I can write my browser to use Carbon on OSX and it works fine even on OS9, but nobody inside of Apple would write a new product not using Cocoa. If I'm getting the metaphors correct -- apologies to Apple folks if I missed it. I'm an old MSFT developer at heart. In any case, it's exactly the same as asking modern Safari to run on OS9. But OS9 is considered so bad nobody should use it, whereas WinXP is still considered reasonable, relative to the other operating systems currently in use.
    - sid0 16y ago
      Firefox uses plenty of new Vista/7 APIs. If you abstract the implementations out suitably, you can easily support both the old XP APIs and the new Vista/7 ones.
- dspillett 16y ago
  > I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already. Trying telling that to our corporate clients. Or a home user on a limited budget, who doesn't want to switch to Linux because their games won't run and doesn't want to switch browser because they think they'll have to relearn stuff.
- rythie 16y ago
  The first replacement, Vista, is only 4 years old, that's what matters.
dfox 16y ago
First paragraph can be read as response to "not providing on XP". Microsoft tends to invent new (and ostensibly better, really just more unusable) API for 2D graphics acceleration with each version of Windows since 3.1. And IE9 seems to be their flagship application for current iteration of this 2D graphics API madness.

fname 16y ago

You're only providing your new browser to a small fraction of the OS market I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already.

fleitz 16y ago
The Chrome, Safari, and Firefox teams seem to be able to deliver a very good experience on XP. It's kind of lame that the Microsoft team can't deliver the same thing for an OS that they took part in building. If anyone knows XP inside out it should be the IE team. They even have access to the 'secret' APIs. And if the IE team doesn't know XP inside out they have excellent resources at Microsoft to speak to the people who do know, like Mark Russinovich, or the NT Kernel Team. IE9 not running on XP has everything to do with Microsoft internal politics and nothing to do with technical limitations of a 10 year old OS. The fact that people are still running a 10 year old OS is a testament to what the XP team has built.
- fname 16y ago
  I think the limitation has more to do with trying to build a richer feature-set to get users to migrate from XP to 7 (and beyond); but on the other other hand, it's not fair to complain when your ten year old OS isn't getting those newer features -- hell, they should be lucky Microsoft still supports it!
  - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
    It's a 10 year old OS that still has 42% share of the market. It's still the most popular OS right now. Anyone with half a brain can see that their only reason behind not supporting IE9 on it is to try and force people to spend 100's of dollars upgrading their OS when they already have a perfectly fine and working one.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
      - Pewpewarrows 16y ago
        And... that makes it a valid complaint. You don't see Mozilla, Google, Apple, or Opera complaining about having to support XP. You're pulling at straws here. Microsoft's position is obvious, and it's not to make a better browser for the sake of a better browser.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        pushtheenvelope 16y ago
        Microsoft's position seems to be to make their newest OS run the web best. Nothing wrong with that; and they've ensured a vibrant application ecosystem for XP that has led to many browser vendors supporting that OS well. XP users aren't exactly left high and dry. Also, it's naive to think that everyone else's interests are merely to make a better browser: Google does it to get people spending more time on the internet under the assumption that they'll use Google to search and click on their ads.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Good enough for what? Good enough to be exploited by a script kiddie in 10 seconds? Mozilla and Google are doing no one any favors by support XP. It's like adding sweetener to poison. You may think you're doing good by making the poison taste good. But rather you should be encouraging people not to eat poison. XP is ten years old. I don't know anyone on any other platform, including my friends using Linux, who is still using a 10 year old build of the product.
  - fleitz 16y ago
    I think that says more about what the Linux and OS X teams were able to achieve 10 years ago than it does anything about XP. Yes, if the primary objective of your OS is to avoid exploits by script kiddies than you should probably choose something like OpenBSD, or Linux SE with a very hardened profile. XP probably isn't a good choice of OS if your primary objective is protection from script kiddies. As long as you aren't pissing people off on 4chan, or dealing in sensitive data you should be fine with XP. However, if your needs include surfing the web, email, using an Office productivity suite, and playing a triple A game title, and are willing to install something like Microsoft Security Essentials then you'll be reasonably protected from viruses, and have the ability to complete your day-to-day tasks and goof off at the end of the day. Personally, I find that Win7 + VMWare + Ubuntu 10 suite my needs best unless I'm doing iOS development in which case I use OS X + VMWare + Win7 + Ubuntu. I've had issues running OS X inside VMWare so I just use another machine for iOS dev. Could I do the same thing I use Win 7 for with XP? Definitely, I suspect it may be tight on RAM as I don't think VMWare supports PAE, but other than the 32-bit memory limitation it would work perfectly fine. I bet I could meet all my needs with XP 64-bit edition. Mozilla, Google and Apple are actually doing about 42% of computer users a favor by support the OS they have chosen to run. It's not up to you to dictate what people should prioritize in their choice of computer software and hardware. They could be more secure upgrading to Win 7 or Linux but I bet they feel it's not worth the trade off.
    - 16y ago
juiceandjuice 16y ago
Tell that to the DoD.
taitems 16y ago
I don't know, I kind of think of XP as the AK-47 of Windows operating systems. As a non gun owner I guess I could only compare Vista to a Howitzer.
thaumaturgy 16y ago
I have a huge number of clients that are still actively using XP. The fact is, XP, for many people, is good enough. The only reason they're upgrading at all is purely due to attrition -- their old computer dies and they replace it with something running W7. And this is ignoring my corporate clients, who are using software that is integral to their business, that hasn't been updated in years and does not run correctly on Windows 7. The "always be upgrading" mentality in the computer industry is a serious problem for end-users.
- barista 16y ago
  Unlike Chrome that is automatically "always upgrading" itself. End users here seem to love that :p
  - dspillett 16y ago
    But unlike the Windows upgrade cycle, this costs nothing. Even though there are usually feature updates mixed in with the bug fixes and security issues, many people (especially non-techie people) lump the Chrome updates in with OS updates as a necessary part of maintenance like changing the oil in a car. Upgrading Windows beyond XP currently adds very little of significance to most people though, particularly corporates with many many desktops to upgrade (and people to support when they do) and home users with limited cash. From a designers point of view the "just upgrade already" argument can't wash. We can't force our users to upgrade there OS (we can only just get away with cajoling them into upgrading their browser or occasionally (but increasingly) choosing an alternative (though this is less of an option for corporates for the usual reasons). The accusation is that MS is trying to make IE9 one of the reasons to upgrade (and therefore pay for that upgrade). This is the same accusation levelled at them with DX10 and later, and it is equally correct (and equally understandable from their commercial PoV). In the case of the browser though this is seen as more onerous because your internet access method is more ingrained in your life and much more potentially damaging when there are security issues. A large client of hours (a major bank) is rolling out IE8 to their users (who are currently stuck on IE6) in a few months time. If IE9 had promised XP support they might have planned to roll that out instead, though a little delayed as they would need to wait for at least the RCs to start their main roll-out testing - so IE9 not being available on XP is definitely going to have an effect on the number of people still using the irritations that are IE6/7/8 in corporate environments.
azakai 16y ago
> I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already. Other browsers show that it is technically possible to support XP, without limiting your product on Vista/7. This would be even more true for Microsoft. So the reason Microsoft does not support IE9 on XP, is apparently to encourage upgrading from XP. In other words, Microsoft's IE roadmap is determined, in this case, more from Microsoft's overall agenda and interests, rather than what is good for IE and IE's users.
- larsberg 16y ago
  > Other browsers show that it is technically possible to support XP, without limiting your product on Vista/7 I think that other browsers show it is possible to run using only the APIs that were available in Windows XP without using any of the new snazziness that is Vista/7. It's like the difference between saying, well, I can write my browser to use Carbon on OSX and it works fine even on OS9, but nobody inside of Apple would write a new product not using Cocoa. If I'm getting the metaphors correct -- apologies to Apple folks if I missed it. I'm an old MSFT developer at heart. In any case, it's exactly the same as asking modern Safari to run on OS9. But OS9 is considered so bad nobody should use it, whereas WinXP is still considered reasonable, relative to the other operating systems currently in use.
  - sid0 16y ago
    Firefox uses plenty of new Vista/7 APIs. If you abstract the implementations out suitably, you can easily support both the old XP APIs and the new Vista/7 ones.
dspillett 16y ago
> I still fail to grasp the argument of IE9 not being released for XP. I mean, the OS is ten years old, upgrade already. Trying telling that to our corporate clients. Or a home user on a limited budget, who doesn't want to switch to Linux because their games won't run and doesn't want to switch browser because they think they'll have to relearn stuff.
rythie 16y ago
The first replacement, Vista, is only 4 years old, that's what matters.

dfox 16y ago

First paragraph can be read as response to "not providing on XP". Microsoft tends to invent new (and ostensibly better, really just more unusable) API for 2D graphics acceleration with each version of Windows since 3.1. And IE9 seems to be their flagship application for current iteration of this 2D graphics API madness.