5 ms·

New IE8 marketing materials

40 points by noodle 17y ago

johnnybgoode 17y ago
The assignment of check marks is just silly. What a worthless comparison.
- roam 17y ago
  It looks like the IE8 marketing team is completely losing it. I'm dumbfounded.
  - ideamonk 17y ago
    Yeah Completely !
- chanux 17y ago
  It's not a comparison. It's an advertisement.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    And it's so biased to the point of being illegal in many countries (mine included)
    - Jem 17y ago
      I won't disagree with its questionable legality, but it would be a bit silly to have an advert that wasn't biased towards the product it was advertising.
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        It's fair to be biased. The problem is the bias borders on lies.
- ideamonk 17y ago
  Experience and Numbers give you more clarity in comparison. Check marks is for cows.
SwellJoe 17y ago
Wow. You reckon they were tittering and sputtering as they wrote "Security" and put a check for IE? Because I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face making such a ridiculous suggestion. Somebodies having a little fun at the expense of the IE developers, methinks. This can't possibly be serious.
- trezor 17y ago
  On a scale of 1-10, how impressive was the Nils’ sweep of exploiting all three main browsers? I was surprised. For IE 8, I’d give him a 9 out of 10. For Safari, maybe a 2. It’s just too easy to pop Safari. For Firefox on Windows, I give him a 10. That was the most impressive of the three. It’s really hard to exploit Firefox on Windows. If you are using a Mac, or anything besides Firefox on Windows, I think Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough. Reference: Interview with the winner of pwn2own. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 Edit: Ofcourse at first it seems far fetched to claim better security than Chrome, but for stupid users falling for anything a malware/phishing filter is probably a very good security feature.
  - carbon8 17y ago
    "I think Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough." Their claim is that it's more secure than Firefox, so according to what you quoted their claims are unquestionably invalid.
    - trezor 17y ago
      My point was that in a world where users click anything blindy, including "yes please downloand and install malware", security involves more than just being proof to exploits. You may not fall for such silly tricks. I know I sure don't. However my mom & dad would do so in an instant.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    That's one guy at one event. And even he says Firefox (and Chrome) on Windows is more secure than IE. And, I'm not sure I understand how IE malware/phishing protection is better than that found in Firefox. I don't doubt that it's possible, but it does seem to work in Firefox, and the angry red warning screen seems likely enough to stop someone from going ahead.
tdavis 17y ago
Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you'd want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box. Oh, right. I forgot. Edit: no, wai
- ideamonk 17y ago
  and Sure, Microsoft didn't invent stuff like add-ons for their browser for they could not see - what a browser can be!
dotcoma 17y ago
in short, "we're better at everything". ridiculous.
knowtheory 17y ago
I notice that Safari is hilariously missing, especially since it would match IE8 on a number of the features they're claiming are exclusive to it. The whole endeavor is rather scurrilous, since they've clearly glommed separate features together for no real purpose other than to put a checkmark next to IE and not next to FF or Chrome (particularly the "reliability" item). What a joke. This is why people hate Microsoft. It's not that FF fanatics don't spread FUD too. It's just that Microsoft seems to think that we're too dumb to recognize their obvious machinations. If they only spent as much time and effort making their products not suck, as they spend trying to pretend that they don't suck, then maybe they'd get some respect.
- graemep 17y ago
  It is not aimed at people like you. It is aimed at people who know enough to install a browser, but not much more.
  - knowtheory 17y ago
    Sure, the marketing info isn't aimed at us. But our impression of Microsoft, and what their reputation is, is not just based on the things with which they deign to target us. And, even though it's not targeted at us, it's targeted at people we know. If you're anything like me or my co-workers, that means that our friends' and families' browser problems are also our problems :P So Microsoft is actually making the lives of tech savvy people harder via FUD like this.
  - pierrefar 17y ago
    The recommendation of people like us counts for a lot. We are the geeks that install and support friends' and families' computers, and if I know that if I get the family to use browser X, I'll have fewer tech support calls, then they're using browser X.
  - kl4m 17y ago
    "Web standards", "Developer tools" and "Manageability" are not exactly aimed at Joe Sixpack.
chanux 17y ago
The 'ties' are at where they lose. No comments on others.
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  Please, they lose on almost everything there including Dev Tools, Security and reliability
  - trezor 17y ago
    Security? Not compared to Safari. At least not according to the guy who won pwn2own who considers safari "too easy to pop". I'm not saying MSIE is the cornerstone of security, but saying security haven't improved the last few versions is just silly. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
    - carbon8 17y ago
      "Security? Not compared to Safari." Safari isn't being compared in the chart.
chaosmachine 17y ago
Note to Microsoft: Insulting people's intelligence is not a good way to get them to switch back to IE.
- kevbin 17y ago
  Seems to work for Windows.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    Nobody I know ever returned to Windows after experimenting with either Linux or MacOS X.
    - Jem 17y ago
      You don't know enough people, then.
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        I compensate quantity with quality ;-)
- vaksel 17y ago
  "intelligent" people wouldn't switch to microsoft to begin with. A non-techie on the other hand, would probably be convinced by this.
kuzux 17y ago
Customizability is a "tie" between ie, firefox and chrome? chrome(current stable version) is one of the least customizable browsers i've ever seen!
jpcx01 17y ago
Developers tools checkbox is a joke. In fact, its so outrageously bad, they need to formally apologize. IE8 dev tools are garbage compared for Firebug. They are better than that web dev toolbar crap, but not even in the same league as firebug or safari web inspector.
- jcromartie 17y ago
  Yes, I noticed yesterday that I still get line numbers from IE that have no correlation to my actual code whatsoever. Utterly useless.
sker 17y ago
This is almost funny. IE8 is the only one of the major browsers that I haven't installed yet. So I'm wondering, what if it's true? What if it's really better than the others? Has anyone here actually given it a try to confirm how good/bad it is?
- moe 17y ago
  The main feature of microsoft products is that you don't really need to try them to know how bad they are. If something earth shattering happens to their average product quality in the future then I'm sure I will read about it soon enough.
ahold 17y ago
stop that MS shit
zen53 17y ago
Disturbing Ad copy - Developer Tools - "Of course Internet Explorer 8 wins this one" Can someone please reconnect Microsoft's marketing department with planet Earth.
- eru 17y ago
  Yes. And of course they did not include Opera. That browser has quite nice developer tools out of the box.
raquo 17y ago
I wonder for whom are these marketing materials. No one chooses to use IE, and those who use it because it's a default browser do not need any justification.
- JVeinbergs 17y ago
  Probably because soon users will have to choose their browser. In Europe, Windows 7 won't ship with IE onboard. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8096701.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8096701.stm
  - raquo 17y ago
    Ah, sure, forgot about that.
cmkrnl 17y ago
Heh. What about portability?
ScottWhigham 17y ago
IE8 is a fair browser in all areas to me except in (a) performance, and (b) extensibility. There is no way IE8 is as fast as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. Let's ignore page load speeds and focus on application loading: IE8 takes much longer to load and it takes sometimes up to 2 seconds to open a new tab. #### off, MSFT.
aarongough 17y ago
Looking at this ad makes me wonder what the rules are surrounding unfounded claims in advertising in the US. I know that in Australia several companies have had to either stop using parts of their advertising materials or have been taken to court for stating 'facts' or 'statistics' which they simply couldn't provide any evidence for. Could the regulations around this be used to stop M$ from spreading such FUD around? The last thing we want is more IE zombie-users stumbling around the 'net and feeding the botnets. Input appreciated!
- aarongough 17y ago
  I just submitted this to the Federal Trade Commission complaints system: ----------- On this web-page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-f... Microsoft repeatedly make unfounded claims about the abilities of it's latest web-browser (Internet Explorer 8). These claims offer no statistical proof to back them up and are completely at odds with the considered opinions of most of the online community and many professional security experts. I personally believe that they are attacking browser providers without a reasonable basis in an effort to retain the custom of un-informed users. Evidence to support my claim is: http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-day-1---safari-internet-explorer-and-firefox-taken-down-by-four-zero-day-exploits http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-... "Today's first day of Pwn2Own contest is now officially over [...] Between two winning contestants, they were able to compromise Safari (twice), IE8, and Firefox." Microsoft claim that IE8 is more secure than Chrome and FireFox, yet the very same security community that discovered the IE8 exploit listed above failed to find any exploits in Google Chrome. In a seperate interview one of the winning hackers (Charlie Miller) said: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 "There are bugs in Chrome but they’re very hard to exploit. [...] The’ve got that sandbox model that’s hard to get out of. With Chrome, it’s a combination of things — you can’t execute on the heap, the OS protections in Windows and the Sandbox." Your attention to this matter is appreciated. ------------ If other people were to submit similar complaints I'm sure it would bring the matter to some attention!
jcromartie 17y ago
As soon as the dominant company in a market resorts to a "get the facts" campaign, you can be pretty certain that they are finally completely out of touch.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

40 points by noodle 17y ago

johnnybgoode 17y ago

The assignment of check marks is just silly. What a worthless comparison.

roam 17y ago
It looks like the IE8 marketing team is completely losing it. I'm dumbfounded.
- ideamonk 17y ago
  Yeah Completely !
chanux 17y ago
It's not a comparison. It's an advertisement.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  And it's so biased to the point of being illegal in many countries (mine included)
  - Jem 17y ago
    I won't disagree with its questionable legality, but it would be a bit silly to have an advert that wasn't biased towards the product it was advertising.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      It's fair to be biased. The problem is the bias borders on lies.
ideamonk 17y ago
Experience and Numbers give you more clarity in comparison. Check marks is for cows.

SwellJoe 17y ago

Wow. You reckon they were tittering and sputtering as they wrote "Security" and put a check for IE? Because I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face making such a ridiculous suggestion. Somebodies having a little fun at the expense of the IE developers, methinks. This can't possibly be serious.

trezor 17y ago
On a scale of 1-10, how impressive was the Nils’ sweep of exploiting all three main browsers? I was surprised. For IE 8, I’d give him a 9 out of 10. For Safari, maybe a 2. It’s just too easy to pop Safari. For Firefox on Windows, I give him a 10. That was the most impressive of the three. It’s really hard to exploit Firefox on Windows. If you are using a Mac, or anything besides Firefox on Windows, I think Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough. Reference: Interview with the winner of pwn2own. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 Edit: Ofcourse at first it seems far fetched to claim better security than Chrome, but for stupid users falling for anything a malware/phishing filter is probably a very good security feature.
- carbon8 17y ago
  "I think Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough." Their claim is that it's more secure than Firefox, so according to what you quoted their claims are unquestionably invalid.
  - trezor 17y ago
    My point was that in a world where users click anything blindy, including "yes please downloand and install malware", security involves more than just being proof to exploits. You may not fall for such silly tricks. I know I sure don't. However my mom & dad would do so in an instant.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  That's one guy at one event. And even he says Firefox (and Chrome) on Windows is more secure than IE. And, I'm not sure I understand how IE malware/phishing protection is better than that found in Firefox. I don't doubt that it's possible, but it does seem to work in Firefox, and the angry red warning screen seems likely enough to stop someone from going ahead.

tdavis 17y ago

Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you'd want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box. Oh, right. I forgot. Edit: no, wai

ideamonk 17y ago
and Sure, Microsoft didn't invent stuff like add-ons for their browser for they could not see - what a browser can be!

dotcoma 17y ago

in short, "we're better at everything". ridiculous.

knowtheory 17y ago

I notice that Safari is hilariously missing, especially since it would match IE8 on a number of the features they're claiming are exclusive to it. The whole endeavor is rather scurrilous, since they've clearly glommed separate features together for no real purpose other than to put a checkmark next to IE and not next to FF or Chrome (particularly the "reliability" item). What a joke. This is why people hate Microsoft. It's not that FF fanatics don't spread FUD too. It's just that Microsoft seems to think that we're too dumb to recognize their obvious machinations. If they only spent as much time and effort making their products not suck, as they spend trying to pretend that they don't suck, then maybe they'd get some respect.

graemep 17y ago
It is not aimed at people like you. It is aimed at people who know enough to install a browser, but not much more.
- knowtheory 17y ago
  Sure, the marketing info isn't aimed at us. But our impression of Microsoft, and what their reputation is, is not just based on the things with which they deign to target us. And, even though it's not targeted at us, it's targeted at people we know. If you're anything like me or my co-workers, that means that our friends' and families' browser problems are also our problems :P So Microsoft is actually making the lives of tech savvy people harder via FUD like this.
- pierrefar 17y ago
  The recommendation of people like us counts for a lot. We are the geeks that install and support friends' and families' computers, and if I know that if I get the family to use browser X, I'll have fewer tech support calls, then they're using browser X.
- kl4m 17y ago
  "Web standards", "Developer tools" and "Manageability" are not exactly aimed at Joe Sixpack.

chanux 17y ago

The 'ties' are at where they lose. No comments on others.

boundlessdreamz 17y ago
Please, they lose on almost everything there including Dev Tools, Security and reliability
- trezor 17y ago
  Security? Not compared to Safari. At least not according to the guy who won pwn2own who considers safari "too easy to pop". I'm not saying MSIE is the cornerstone of security, but saying security haven't improved the last few versions is just silly. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
  - carbon8 17y ago
    "Security? Not compared to Safari." Safari isn't being compared in the chart.

chaosmachine 17y ago

Note to Microsoft: Insulting people's intelligence is not a good way to get them to switch back to IE.

kevbin 17y ago
Seems to work for Windows.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Nobody I know ever returned to Windows after experimenting with either Linux or MacOS X.
  - Jem 17y ago
    You don't know enough people, then.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      I compensate quantity with quality ;-)
vaksel 17y ago
"intelligent" people wouldn't switch to microsoft to begin with. A non-techie on the other hand, would probably be convinced by this.

kuzux 17y ago

Customizability is a "tie" between ie, firefox and chrome? chrome(current stable version) is one of the least customizable browsers i've ever seen!

jpcx01 17y ago

Developers tools checkbox is a joke. In fact, its so outrageously bad, they need to formally apologize. IE8 dev tools are garbage compared for Firebug. They are better than that web dev toolbar crap, but not even in the same league as firebug or safari web inspector.

jcromartie 17y ago
Yes, I noticed yesterday that I still get line numbers from IE that have no correlation to my actual code whatsoever. Utterly useless.

sker 17y ago

This is almost funny. IE8 is the only one of the major browsers that I haven't installed yet. So I'm wondering, what if it's true? What if it's really better than the others? Has anyone here actually given it a try to confirm how good/bad it is?

moe 17y ago
The main feature of microsoft products is that you don't really need to try them to know how bad they are. If something earth shattering happens to their average product quality in the future then I'm sure I will read about it soon enough.

ahold 17y ago

stop that MS shit

zen53 17y ago

Disturbing Ad copy - Developer Tools - "Of course Internet Explorer 8 wins this one" Can someone please reconnect Microsoft's marketing department with planet Earth.

eru 17y ago
Yes. And of course they did not include Opera. That browser has quite nice developer tools out of the box.

raquo 17y ago

I wonder for whom are these marketing materials. No one chooses to use IE, and those who use it because it's a default browser do not need any justification.

JVeinbergs 17y ago
Probably because soon users will have to choose their browser. In Europe, Windows 7 won't ship with IE onboard. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8096701.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8096701.stm
- raquo 17y ago
  Ah, sure, forgot about that.

cmkrnl 17y ago

Heh. What about portability?

ScottWhigham 17y ago

IE8 is a fair browser in all areas to me except in (a) performance, and (b) extensibility. There is no way IE8 is as fast as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. Let's ignore page load speeds and focus on application loading: IE8 takes much longer to load and it takes sometimes up to 2 seconds to open a new tab. #### off, MSFT.

aarongough 17y ago

Looking at this ad makes me wonder what the rules are surrounding unfounded claims in advertising in the US. I know that in Australia several companies have had to either stop using parts of their advertising materials or have been taken to court for stating 'facts' or 'statistics' which they simply couldn't provide any evidence for. Could the regulations around this be used to stop M$ from spreading such FUD around? The last thing we want is more IE zombie-users stumbling around the 'net and feeding the botnets. Input appreciated!

aarongough 17y ago
I just submitted this to the Federal Trade Commission complaints system: ----------- On this web-page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-f... Microsoft repeatedly make unfounded claims about the abilities of it's latest web-browser (Internet Explorer 8). These claims offer no statistical proof to back them up and are completely at odds with the considered opinions of most of the online community and many professional security experts. I personally believe that they are attacking browser providers without a reasonable basis in an effort to retain the custom of un-informed users. Evidence to support my claim is: http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-day-1---safari-internet-explorer-and-firefox-taken-down-by-four-zero-day-exploits http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-... "Today's first day of Pwn2Own contest is now officially over [...] Between two winning contestants, they were able to compromise Safari (twice), IE8, and Firefox." Microsoft claim that IE8 is more secure than Chrome and FireFox, yet the very same security community that discovered the IE8 exploit listed above failed to find any exploits in Google Chrome. In a seperate interview one of the winning hackers (Charlie Miller) said: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941 "There are bugs in Chrome but they’re very hard to exploit. [...] The’ve got that sandbox model that’s hard to get out of. With Chrome, it’s a combination of things — you can’t execute on the heap, the OS protections in Windows and the Sandbox." Your attention to this matter is appreciated. ------------ If other people were to submit similar complaints I'm sure it would bring the matter to some attention!

jcromartie 17y ago

As soon as the dominant company in a market resorts to a "get the facts" campaign, you can be pretty certain that they are finally completely out of touch.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]