5 ms·

Mozilla's "modern browser" attack on IE overlooks Firefox shortcomings

30 points by abraham 16y ago

dspillett 16y ago
Not only do MS's figures show their tests they they created (so that 100% means they met a self-defined project goal not that they match 100% of any externally defined/agreed standard), they don't entirely compare like for like. While they show how bad IE8 is compared to the other currently released competition, they list there own "won't be released for a couple of months yet" version but don't include other people's alpha/beta/RC versions. It would be interesting to see how well FF4 and the current Opera and Chrome pre-releases manage against this set of tests (probably not 100% as the tests have a built-in bias, but I'm sure they'd do better.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  All the tests have been given to the W3C. Once they've been added to the test suite, you'll be able to compare them to whatever browser you like, whever you like. The current W3C suite is here: http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm More tests need to be added. If you have some tests, please submit. Please help to make this suite robust. Otherwise its just inactive complaining.
  - dspillett 16y ago
    There are already other tests though, but MS didn't use them in this analysis. Hence it is a good test to see if they've reached there project goal but not a good test of general compatibility with the standards. If they are just using their own tests and not the others, then raising more test cases is not going to make any difference.
barista 16y ago
The "standards" that you are referring to here that IE does not comply with yet are not really "standards" yet. With the specifications clearly in debate, I don't know why anybody would expect them in the production version of a browser. In supporting these standards the other browsers are getting ahead of themselves. Here's a quote from the article: "Along those lines, some of the weak areas in IE9 relate to standards that are still basically in flux and are implemented with vendor-prefixed flags in other browsers" "On that note, Doug Schepers of the W3C SVG working group recently dismissed critics of Microsoft's SVG support in IE9 and lauded the company for implementing a "very large, functional subset" of the standard" - Mozilla didn't have this for quite some time.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  In the future, with HTML becoming unversioned, this will be SOP. Every other browser vendor seems to have no problems implementing standards as they emerge, yet one of the largest companies mankind has ever seen can't spare the resources? Give me a break, this is all about power struggles. Also, the fact that browsers actually implement emerging standards means that when the standard is eventually finalized (again, talking mostly in the past here), it's less likely to be the 'ivory tower' sort of standard, and more likely to be what a standard is supposed to be: a codification of what everyone is already doing. This is far more useful than some sort of proclamation from upon high.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    In the future, with HTML becoming unversioned, this will be SOP I find it odd that no one seems to realize how broken this is. Every other browser vendor seems to have no problems implementing standards as they emerge That's just wrong. Take FF4, for example, there is a lot of stuff that it doesn't implement still. It only looks good in comparison to IE9. It looks a lot less good if you compare it to every draft that's out there. more likely to be what a standard is supposed to be: a codification of what everyone is already doing. This is far more useful than some sort of proclamation from upon high. This is contradictory. The way standards for HTML5 have generally worked is that a smaller set of web vendors have made a proclamation from upon high that this is the now the web (albeit in flux). "What everyone is already doing" apparently is Opera (who appears to be the furthest out front), and not IE. That's like WebOS defining the new appstore standard and telling Apple to get in line. I so hope IE10 comes out with a whole bunch of new features that no one else has and then pushes those into the standard. Just to hear everyone whine about how they're now rushing to market with features that haven't been fully ratified.
    - mburns 16y ago
      The alternative, that we have tried, is for standards bodies to dictate a standard and hope that browser implement it (which they often don't). Waiting for the code to actually ship before calling it standardized lets you get actual results.
beej71 16y ago
Challenge to Microsoft and FF: swap and merge test sets!
- kenjackson 16y ago
  MS has submitted theirs to the W3C. Mozilla (and everyone else) should do the same.
  - beej71 16y ago
    Agreed. And there's no reason why FF shouldn't ace the IE test, and vice-versa.
u48998 16y ago
No browser in the market are smart and there's not doubt about it. Browsers don't grow with the users, they don't remember well, cannot spit the information back on demand. Until and unless browser reacts or come close to reacting like a human brain, they cannot claim to be smart or modern.
bryanlarsen 16y ago
AFAICT, his only attack against FF4 being a modern browser is that FF4 doesn't do process isolation on tabs, which I would argue is unnecessary. FF4 has process isolation for plugins, which is super important. Process isolation for tabs protects against runaway Javascript, but you don't need process isolation to do that since the javascript engine is part of Firefox.
- daeken 16y ago
  Process isolation on tabs, when combined with a solid sandbox, also prevents a browser exploit in one tab from compromising others.
  - tyree732 16y ago
    It does not prevent it, it makes it more difficult. There is still communication between processes which could be exploitable. That being said, it certainly helps.
    - daeken 16y ago
      In theory, the sandbox should prevent it. In practice, of course, this is not the case.
- wvenable 16y ago
  Process isolation is a great feature but it has nothing do with page rendering. As a web developer, I'm concerned about how people will view and interact with my sites. If their browser does that correctly and quickly, that's what matters here. If your browser has process isolation, a crazy bookmark system, skins, or an extension system those are just features for the end user and don't affect web applications running under it.
  - tolmasky 16y ago
    This is not necessarily 100% true. Process isolation affects your user's experience in an indirect way. As web apps become heavier and heavier they adversely affect each other more and more. Many times your sites perceived lack of performance is due to another misbehaving tab. Its true that standards support improves the singular experience of your site, but process isolation improves the combined experience of the web as a whole and allows everyone to do more impressive things.
sagarun 16y ago
I will call IE a modern browser when both IE8 and IE9 don't crash on http://crashie8.com/ http://crashie8.com/
brudgers 16y ago
Mozilla is accusing IE9 of not being a true Scotsman. It gains them some press coverage for what would otherwise be of interest mainly to the faithful.
frsandstone 16y ago
Wait what? An attack on another company didn't involve finding faults in your own company? Impossible.
DjDarkman 16y ago
Process isolation: Run Chrome Open a lot of tabs Open one with a HTTP auth that brings up the native browser login dialog Switch to another tab Close the one with the dialog Result: whole browser crashes. Moral: process isolation does not mean better user experience. Like I said a lot of times: IE 6 is still officially supported IE 9 is not available on XP This is why Microsoft is still crippling the web.
- julian37 16y ago
  Moral: process isolation does not mean better user experience. No, the moral is that process isolation isn't a magic bullet that somehow prevents all types of browser crashes. But that doesn't mean it's not a useful technique for reducing the impact of things like a buggy plugin.
  - DjDarkman 16y ago
    Like I said, it doesn't magically make all nuances go away all by itself, it may make the programmer's job a lot easier but it does not directly impact user experience. That's why it's not appropriate to compare browsers based on whether they implement this or not. Last time I checked if I crashed one instance of Flash player in one tab, all instances crashed in all tabs.

30 points by abraham 16y ago

Not only do MS's figures show their tests they they created (so that 100% means they met a self-defined project goal not that they match 100% of any externally defined/agreed standard), they don't entirely compare like for like. While they show how bad IE8 is compared to the other currently released competition, they list there own "won't be released for a couple of months yet" version but don't include other people's alpha/beta/RC versions. It would be interesting to see how well FF4 and the current Opera and Chrome pre-releases manage against this set of tests (probably not 100% as the tests have a built-in bias, but I'm sure they'd do better.

kenjackson 16y ago
All the tests have been given to the W3C. Once they've been added to the test suite, you'll be able to compare them to whatever browser you like, whever you like. The current W3C suite is here: http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm More tests need to be added. If you have some tests, please submit. Please help to make this suite robust. Otherwise its just inactive complaining.
- dspillett 16y ago
  There are already other tests though, but MS didn't use them in this analysis. Hence it is a good test to see if they've reached there project goal but not a good test of general compatibility with the standards. If they are just using their own tests and not the others, then raising more test cases is not going to make any difference.

barista 16y ago

The "standards" that you are referring to here that IE does not comply with yet are not really "standards" yet. With the specifications clearly in debate, I don't know why anybody would expect them in the production version of a browser. In supporting these standards the other browsers are getting ahead of themselves. Here's a quote from the article: "Along those lines, some of the weak areas in IE9 relate to standards that are still basically in flux and are implemented with vendor-prefixed flags in other browsers" "On that note, Doug Schepers of the W3C SVG working group recently dismissed critics of Microsoft's SVG support in IE9 and lauded the company for implementing a "very large, functional subset" of the standard" - Mozilla didn't have this for quite some time.

steveklabnik 16y ago
In the future, with HTML becoming unversioned, this will be SOP. Every other browser vendor seems to have no problems implementing standards as they emerge, yet one of the largest companies mankind has ever seen can't spare the resources? Give me a break, this is all about power struggles. Also, the fact that browsers actually implement emerging standards means that when the standard is eventually finalized (again, talking mostly in the past here), it's less likely to be the 'ivory tower' sort of standard, and more likely to be what a standard is supposed to be: a codification of what everyone is already doing. This is far more useful than some sort of proclamation from upon high.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  In the future, with HTML becoming unversioned, this will be SOP I find it odd that no one seems to realize how broken this is. Every other browser vendor seems to have no problems implementing standards as they emerge That's just wrong. Take FF4, for example, there is a lot of stuff that it doesn't implement still. It only looks good in comparison to IE9. It looks a lot less good if you compare it to every draft that's out there. more likely to be what a standard is supposed to be: a codification of what everyone is already doing. This is far more useful than some sort of proclamation from upon high. This is contradictory. The way standards for HTML5 have generally worked is that a smaller set of web vendors have made a proclamation from upon high that this is the now the web (albeit in flux). "What everyone is already doing" apparently is Opera (who appears to be the furthest out front), and not IE. That's like WebOS defining the new appstore standard and telling Apple to get in line. I so hope IE10 comes out with a whole bunch of new features that no one else has and then pushes those into the standard. Just to hear everyone whine about how they're now rushing to market with features that haven't been fully ratified.
  - mburns 16y ago
    The alternative, that we have tried, is for standards bodies to dictate a standard and hope that browser implement it (which they often don't). Waiting for the code to actually ship before calling it standardized lets you get actual results.

beej71 16y ago

Challenge to Microsoft and FF: swap and merge test sets!

kenjackson 16y ago
MS has submitted theirs to the W3C. Mozilla (and everyone else) should do the same.
- beej71 16y ago
  Agreed. And there's no reason why FF shouldn't ace the IE test, and vice-versa.

u48998 16y ago

No browser in the market are smart and there's not doubt about it. Browsers don't grow with the users, they don't remember well, cannot spit the information back on demand. Until and unless browser reacts or come close to reacting like a human brain, they cannot claim to be smart or modern.

bryanlarsen 16y ago

AFAICT, his only attack against FF4 being a modern browser is that FF4 doesn't do process isolation on tabs, which I would argue is unnecessary. FF4 has process isolation for plugins, which is super important. Process isolation for tabs protects against runaway Javascript, but you don't need process isolation to do that since the javascript engine is part of Firefox.

daeken 16y ago
Process isolation on tabs, when combined with a solid sandbox, also prevents a browser exploit in one tab from compromising others.
- tyree732 16y ago
  It does not prevent it, it makes it more difficult. There is still communication between processes which could be exploitable. That being said, it certainly helps.
  - daeken 16y ago
    In theory, the sandbox should prevent it. In practice, of course, this is not the case.
wvenable 16y ago
Process isolation is a great feature but it has nothing do with page rendering. As a web developer, I'm concerned about how people will view and interact with my sites. If their browser does that correctly and quickly, that's what matters here. If your browser has process isolation, a crazy bookmark system, skins, or an extension system those are just features for the end user and don't affect web applications running under it.
- tolmasky 16y ago
  This is not necessarily 100% true. Process isolation affects your user's experience in an indirect way. As web apps become heavier and heavier they adversely affect each other more and more. Many times your sites perceived lack of performance is due to another misbehaving tab. Its true that standards support improves the singular experience of your site, but process isolation improves the combined experience of the web as a whole and allows everyone to do more impressive things.

sagarun 16y ago

I will call IE a modern browser when both IE8 and IE9 don't crash on http://crashie8.com/ http://crashie8.com/

brudgers 16y ago

Mozilla is accusing IE9 of not being a true Scotsman. It gains them some press coverage for what would otherwise be of interest mainly to the faithful.

frsandstone 16y ago

Wait what? An attack on another company didn't involve finding faults in your own company? Impossible.

DjDarkman 16y ago

Process isolation: Run Chrome Open a lot of tabs Open one with a HTTP auth that brings up the native browser login dialog Switch to another tab Close the one with the dialog Result: whole browser crashes. Moral: process isolation does not mean better user experience. Like I said a lot of times: IE 6 is still officially supported IE 9 is not available on XP This is why Microsoft is still crippling the web.

julian37 16y ago
Moral: process isolation does not mean better user experience. No, the moral is that process isolation isn't a magic bullet that somehow prevents all types of browser crashes. But that doesn't mean it's not a useful technique for reducing the impact of things like a buggy plugin.
- DjDarkman 16y ago
  Like I said, it doesn't magically make all nuances go away all by itself, it may make the programmer's job a lot easier but it does not directly impact user experience. That's why it's not appropriate to compare browsers based on whether they implement this or not. Last time I checked if I crashed one instance of Flash player in one tab, all instances crashed in all tabs.