10 ms·

A new Microsoft browser?

155 points by cleverjake 12y ago

ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
At this point, Microsoft has pulled the plug on so many of its products & services over the years that developers and users are cautiously avoiding everything it puts out. Even if it's good. From Zune (iPod competitor), to Kin, to Origami (small touchscreen laptop), to Games for Windows Live (steam competitor), to Live.com (google competitor v1), Bing.com (google compeititor v2), Expo (craigslist competitor), whats-it-called? (twitter competitor for natural disasters), Expression, Silverlight (flash competitor), Windows Live Spaces (wordpress competitor), Windows Phone... Microsoft loves to start things, then leaves them to rot. The Micro-Cycle: 1) See someone make money. Get starry eyed. 2) Rush into industry with product. 3) Let product/service rot. 4) Sunset product/service.
- frozenport 12y ago
  >>Windows Phone Hey! When did Windows Phone die?
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Probably referring to Windows Mobile. The platform that came out of nowhere, killed Palm and got total PDA/smartphone dominance... then suffered the IE fate because terrible management decided to remove resources since they had "won". Not everyone remembers, but it was viewed as near-impossible to dethrone Palm, but inside of what, 5 years?, MS had Palm selling WM devices.
- quesera 12y ago
  See also: Yahoo, but with #2 as "Acquire at large premium". Any company with more cash than cultural relevance will do the same. I don't think bing belongs on your list though. It's not making headway in the market, but it's not dead yet either.
  - ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
    Yeah, Bing and Windows Phone are still going but Bing is losing $3 billion a year, and Windows phone is losing market share despite sales increasing. It's only a matter of time before their plugs are pulled.
    - toyg 12y ago
      Chances are that Bing and Windows Phone will never be pulled. They are there because Microsoft has to be in certain markets, regardless of actual performance, in order to sell its technology stack as fully-featured and comprehensive. In the same way, Xbox will never be pulled. Microsoft can drop the occasional service, but they rarely run from big platform bets. Most above-mentioned products were small fish or even just websites -- with the exception of Silverlight (but that's because in-browser media plugins as a category have been basically obsoleted across the whole market) and Zune (again, mp3 players have been basically obsoleted), they don't really sit on the same shelf as Office, Windows, Xbox, Windows Phone, Bing, VisualStudio or SQLServer.
    - quesera 12y ago
      I'll disagree on that. Search and mobile are way too strategic to be dropped. There's no "there" anywhere else for a company as big as Microsoft! They can lose $3B/yr for a long, long time!
    - dummyfellow 12y ago
      Current funding, recruitment trajectories don't support your claim.
    - bztzt 12y ago
      Bing isn't losing money anymore, they're finally breaking even as of last year.
      - rgbrenner 12y ago
        Where did you hear that? This is from June 2014 [0]: Unfortunately Microsoft does not break out its Bing revenue separately (and a Microsoft spokesperson referred us back to the earnings release when asked) so exactly how much Bing rakes in is anyone's guess, but the company did note Bing managed a 40% ad revenue increase in its recent fourth quarter ended June. CEO Satya Nadella, one-time leader of the division, also noted Bing would reach breakeven within two years. So Nadella thinks it'll break even in 2016. 0. http://www.thestreet.com/story/12821420/1/microsoft-is-using-bing-as-a-trojan-horse-to-rival-google.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/12821420/1/microsoft-is-using...
- joenathan 12y ago
  Google abandons projects swiftly when they think that don't make sense; Wave, iGoogle, Reader, Glass?, Buzz, Plus?, Answers, Google Video, Google Checkout/Wallet, Orkut, Picasa, Gears, etc... When you are a large company you need to focus your resources into areas where you can be effective and not stretch yourself too thin.
  - frozenport 12y ago
    Yeah, but these aren't software platforms.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Wave, reader and glass not software platforms?
  - TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
    Did I miss something? When did Google give up on glass?
    - joenathan 12y ago
      They haven't yet, but with Android Wear replicating its functionality while being much less expensive and more socially acceptable, it's not hard to see that Glass doesn't have much of a future.
    - bobbykjack 12y ago
      Since Sergey stopped wearing it [1]. [1] http://beta.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/other-devices/sergey-brin-picked-a-bad-time-to-leave-his-google-glass-in-the-car-1273274 http://beta.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/other-device...
  - imron 12y ago
    Google doing it too doesn't somehow absolve Microsoft's transgressions. People are also weary of Google doing this and you see comments on it in almost every discussion on HN of a Google product.
- dummyfellow 12y ago
  Microsoft also has tons of product they supported for years. From Windows, to SQL server, to Sharepoint, to dynamics, to Office, to Visual Studio, to xbox, to ... Also live.com rebranded and bing,WP are still alive and well funded. If you look for a company to never shutdown a product which isn't getting traction, you are living in a dreamspace and need to wakeup.
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    To be fair, the original Xbox was quietly removed from store shelves and software development halted immediately after the 360 was announced. Contrast this with the average console support cycle of several years into the new generation.
- stinos 12y ago
  Microsoft loves to start things, then leaves them to rot. The Micro-Cycle... You seem to be claiming this is going to happen to IE as well? Seems a bit far fetched, given it is still used by millions of people and something like 20% of all desktop browsers used is IE.
s_extra_s 12y ago
It's a good idea to create a new browser that updates automatically every few weeks like chrome rather than IE, which normally can't update automatically because of corporate policies.
- Encosia 12y ago
  IE has been automatically updating for a while now.
  - sharkweek 12y ago
    Yes but... I used to work for a large financial institution that wouldn't let any of us do anything to our computers so we were all stuck with outdated IE that didn't update itself automatically
    - kylegordon 12y ago
      That's a policy problem rather than a technical or provider problem. I bet if your employer used Chrome they'd just lock down the version of that as well, courtesy of https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164?hl=en https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164?hl=en
      - DougWebb 12y ago
        As a web developer, the reason for the problem is irrelevant. If your users are using an older browser, it doesn't matter why; you still have to support it. You and they probably have little influence over changing the policy.
    - detaro 12y ago
      And if they used Firefox they wouldn't have disabled the update functionality?
- kijin 12y ago
  But then corporations will simply disable automatic updates for PCs under their control. Don't underestimate the stubbornness of corporate IT departments!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- cleverjake 12y ago
  sortof depends on what "fail", means, no?
nawazdhandala 12y ago
I actually think Microsoft is re-branding IE rather than completely rewriting it.
- cleverjake 12y ago
  why not both?
- keeperofdakeys 12y ago
  This is what the author of the article suspects, a fork of IE that will remove compatibility modes. Did you read the article, or just skim it?
- gosukiwi 12y ago
  Rumors say it's the same rendering and javascript engine but the UI will get more similar to Chrome and FF and there'll be extensions. Also yeah no backwards compatibility it seems, and more regular updates. Sounds good to me.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    but the UI will get more similar to Chrome and FF I don't think this is a good thing at all. People choose to use different browsers partly because they have different UIs, and UI changes are particularly jarring as evidenced by all the "I'll use browser Y" complaints when browser X changes something about their UI... only to be followed later by "I'll use browser X" when Y changes. There's no longer any real choice, it's just an illusion of choosing between narrowing alternatives. Especially to see browsers' UI turning into clones of Chrome is sad, since I personally hate the "hide everything away that could possibly confuse users" and the associated "treat users like idiots" mentality that's particularly prevalent in browsers today. IE is one of the few browsers remaining that had relatively more UI, but I'm not surprised to see it disappearing... the trend seems to be to turn browsers into glorified televisions, with UIs like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8670503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8670503
wideroots 12y ago
I will give it a try if the new browser no longer supports ActiveX and has better extension supports similar to Chrome.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  ActiveX isn't a major concern, in current IE if you look in the security tab in the Internet context, it is pretty locked down and damn near depreciated. Intranet is more liberal. But a lot of enterprises add their internal portals to the trusted list if they still depend on ActiveX (as a depressingly large number do). Chrome and Firefox's extensions are better. Although Firefox's extension model is a little clunky due to how old it is (or at least it was last time I used it).
  - parag_c_mehta 12y ago
    Yes but a good browser with Chrome's features will be a great alternative. Right now Chrome has become a big memory hog and is slowly going to competition with old IE.
    - benaiah 12y ago
      If you're having memory problems with Chrome, check to see if you have AdBlock Pro installed - it often results in vast amounts of additional memory required for Chrome[0]. I recommend µBlock[1] if you're using Chrome - it works quite well in my experience. [0]: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-iframes-adblock-plus-is-probably-the-reason-firefox-and-chrome-are-such-memory-hogs http://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-iframes-a... [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalh...
  - Animats 12y ago
    Chrome and Firefox's extensions are better. Although Firefox's extension model is a little clunky due to how old it is. New-style "Jetpack" add-ons in Firefox and add-ons in Chrome are very similar. I have the same add-on for both platforms, and there's about 80% code commonality. If Microsoft does something reasonably similar, that would be convenient for add-on developers.
ynniv 12y ago
Recently the news broke that Microsoft may be working on another browser instead of IE. After reviewing the available evidence I’ve come to the conclusion that, although Microsoft is making a few adjustments, and a name change for IE might be a good idea, the new browser will essentially be IE12. Still, I think we web developers should support the “new browser” narrative. This is how you start an article. I didn't read any farther, but my already high opinion of quirksmode.org is even higher.
- beaner 12y ago
  Why? I don't get anything particularly insightful at all from this snippet.
  - brink 12y ago
    I think that he means that there's no storytelling cruft that just fills paragraphs and wastes time. It's short, concise and rich in information.
    - rictic 12y ago
      Yeah, the first paragraph summarized the entire article, which is incredibly respectful of the reader's time. Presumably many sites intentionally leave this out in order to maximize revenue and "engagement."
      - nailer 12y ago
        It would save more time and avoid the appearance of impropriety if they declared their Microsoft sponsorship in the second paragraph, rather than after the article. Edit: if it's unclear, this is not accusing anyone of bias: good writing should make any involvement in the subject matter explicit. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety The article is sponsored by modern.ie which is a Microsoft initative. I happen to agree with the article, however being forthright about these matters would strengthen its point.
brickmort 12y ago
I don't mean to be so disparaging, but Microsoft really should just take IE out back and shoot it.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  That's not really helpful. IE is no longer a shitty browser; why should it be killed off?
  - nailer 12y ago
    It really is. Even in IE11 there's a bunch of busted basics. The CustomEvent constructor is broken out of the box. Edit: see details in post below.
    - demallien 12y ago
      I don't mean this to be a personal attack, so please don't take it that way, but comments like this read to me as being written by a young, inexperienced programmer. I happen to know that this is not your case, but without checking the username, I would immediately classify this comment as such. The people over at Microsoft are not idiots - even though Microsoft is no longer the new hotness, they still pay developers well, and have some pretty tight engineering going on. So when you say "The Event constructor is broken out of the box", my first instinct is to assume that the Microsoft engineers have implemented the constructor in their way for reasons that you're not smart enough to have grasped. But, as I said, I know that you aren't a young inexperienced programmer, so you probably have some good reasons to make the claim, which leads me to the point of this rambling post - why is the Event constructor broken in IE? I'm curious to know what specific problems you have with it.
      - nailer 12y ago
        Sorry, I didn't provide details because I probably just assume everyone here is a JS developer, which is probably a bad idea. IE11 has no CustomEvent constructor. You have to polyfill it with https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/API/CustomEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/API/CustomEvent. Microsoft's official Twitter account @iedevchat has pointed people to the same one: note the article article says for IE10, but the issue and fix is required for IE11. It's a simple fix, but CustomEvent is ancient, and it's surprising what didn't make it into IE11.
venomsnake 12y ago
Does anyone have idea if the idiocy of integrating the IE browser so deep inside the os is finally solved, that version updates are possible? And will spartan be stand alone binary, like IE should have been at launch?
- lostlogin 12y ago
  I don't have a good understanding of the history of IE but thought it was embedded as a way of breaking Netscape - if that was ever true the time has obviously passed for it to remain deeply embedded. However if this was the reason, isn't that a good argument for the way MS constructed IE (which isn't to say I agree with the strategy)?
  - berkut 12y ago
    "Breaking" Netscape? A stand-alone application? Really? Anticompetitive maybe, but Microsoft embedding IE into Windows didn't break Netscape or other browsers in any functional way from my recollection (and I was using NN 2/3/4, Opera, IE 3/4/5/6 on 28.8 and 56k modems at the time).
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    IE was deeply embedded because it was created in the bubble of "web all the things!" so they went so far as using IE the renderer for the desktop wallpapers and the file browser (IIRC you could even set a custom index.html for a folder on your harddisk)
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    It was the fact that it came with windows and free that broke netscape. That the rendering engine is so embedded in the OS that the question is "will we be able to bring IE X to platform windows Y at all" is just stupid.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      MS prevented vendors from bundling Netscape in Windows. MS used the fact that IE was tied so deeply into the OS as a reason for not being able to unbundle it. MS used APIs to favour IE over other software - MS made their OS work better with their browser than with other competitor browsers.
Havoc 12y ago
Sounds good. Let's hope Spartan is the mindset the devs are operating with.
thomasfoster96 12y ago
One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. IE still has a major slice of the browser market share and this probably ain't going to change soon. IE>9 have all been decent browsers for the time that they were released, although they do seem a bit out of date 6 months later. At the moment, if both Firefox and Chrome implement a new web platform feature, it's often available to ~60% of web users within three months because of the release cycle and auto updates. IE going to a 6-week major release cycle could probably push this up to 80%-90% of users getting a feature within three months, which would be awesome. (IE mobile is pretty small for market share, so I'll ignore it at the objection of my Windows Phone using friends.) Safari pretty much now works on a yearly major release cycle - which is better than waiting two or three years, but it still sucks. Switching on Mac OS X to Chrome or Firefox (or Opera) is simple enough. iOS, however, is pretty much limited to whatever mobile Safari happened to have when WWDC rolled around (save for minor updates whenever iOS 8 becomes 8.1, for example). I sort of hope Apple uncouples core app versioning and updates from iOS and Mac OS X updates soon, because that's mean they could move Safari to a much shorter release cycle. iOS Safari is probably the most widely used mobile browser, and keeping it at the bleeding edge would do wonders for the mobile web.
- cmiller1 12y ago
  What about Safari's Webkit nightly releases?
  - thomasfoster96 12y ago
    They're not exactly for Joe Bloke the Safari user.
  - Flow 12y ago
    AFAIK, it has no iCloud integration.
  - madeofpalk 12y ago
    Nightly WebKit release !== Safari release
- 12y ago
mrbig4545 12y ago
lets hope they make it windows version agnostic, that way we can all start supporting ie12, instead of being shackled to ie9
- ben336 12y ago
  Eh? IE9 isn't the latest version available for any version of Windows. 8 is the latest for XP/Vista 11 is the latest for 7/8/8.1 9 is still popular because not everybody upgrades browsers, but giving users who don't upgrade browsers a new option is unlikely to be helpful. Communicating to them that IE is going away and that they should upgrade to a modern browser, "Spartan" or otherwise, would possibly help this situation, as the author suggests.
  - mrbig4545 12y ago
    ie9 is available for vista. although in practice, ie8 is the minimum we have to support
nercury 12y ago
For some reason, I immediately pictured a product rewrite gone wrong and causing two versions of the same product appear, because the new one can never catch up to the legacy quirks of first.
sunasra 12y ago
It would be really great if they do more work on compatibility and memory management(Currently chrome kills the system)
spdustin 12y ago
They should go full-circle with FrontPage (which inspired many folks to get into web apps back in the day) and call it Vermeer. (From Vermeer Technologies, Inc., the original FrontPage server extensions folks - fun random fact: it's why SharePoint service URLs have "_vti_bin" in their path)
ourmandave 12y ago
My initial thought was it will be a stand alone version that you can download and run next to IE6+ instead of Chrome, FF, et. al. So instead of replacing IE6 with the competition, replace it with Spartan and MS gets to keep their browser market share and Corp IT can keep running IE6 apps.

155 points by cleverjake 12y ago

At this point, Microsoft has pulled the plug on so many of its products & services over the years that developers and users are cautiously avoiding everything it puts out. Even if it's good. From Zune (iPod competitor), to Kin, to Origami (small touchscreen laptop), to Games for Windows Live (steam competitor), to Live.com (google competitor v1), Bing.com (google compeititor v2), Expo (craigslist competitor), whats-it-called? (twitter competitor for natural disasters), Expression, Silverlight (flash competitor), Windows Live Spaces (wordpress competitor), Windows Phone... Microsoft loves to start things, then leaves them to rot. The Micro-Cycle: 1) See someone make money. Get starry eyed. 2) Rush into industry with product. 3) Let product/service rot. 4) Sunset product/service.

frozenport 12y ago
>>Windows Phone Hey! When did Windows Phone die?
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Probably referring to Windows Mobile. The platform that came out of nowhere, killed Palm and got total PDA/smartphone dominance... then suffered the IE fate because terrible management decided to remove resources since they had "won". Not everyone remembers, but it was viewed as near-impossible to dethrone Palm, but inside of what, 5 years?, MS had Palm selling WM devices.
quesera 12y ago
See also: Yahoo, but with #2 as "Acquire at large premium". Any company with more cash than cultural relevance will do the same. I don't think bing belongs on your list though. It's not making headway in the market, but it's not dead yet either.
- ChrisNorstrom 12y ago
  Yeah, Bing and Windows Phone are still going but Bing is losing $3 billion a year, and Windows phone is losing market share despite sales increasing. It's only a matter of time before their plugs are pulled.
  - toyg 12y ago
    Chances are that Bing and Windows Phone will never be pulled. They are there because Microsoft has to be in certain markets, regardless of actual performance, in order to sell its technology stack as fully-featured and comprehensive. In the same way, Xbox will never be pulled. Microsoft can drop the occasional service, but they rarely run from big platform bets. Most above-mentioned products were small fish or even just websites -- with the exception of Silverlight (but that's because in-browser media plugins as a category have been basically obsoleted across the whole market) and Zune (again, mp3 players have been basically obsoleted), they don't really sit on the same shelf as Office, Windows, Xbox, Windows Phone, Bing, VisualStudio or SQLServer.
  - quesera 12y ago
    I'll disagree on that. Search and mobile are way too strategic to be dropped. There's no "there" anywhere else for a company as big as Microsoft! They can lose $3B/yr for a long, long time!
  - dummyfellow 12y ago
    Current funding, recruitment trajectories don't support your claim.
  - bztzt 12y ago
    Bing isn't losing money anymore, they're finally breaking even as of last year.
    - rgbrenner 12y ago
      Where did you hear that? This is from June 2014 [0]: Unfortunately Microsoft does not break out its Bing revenue separately (and a Microsoft spokesperson referred us back to the earnings release when asked) so exactly how much Bing rakes in is anyone's guess, but the company did note Bing managed a 40% ad revenue increase in its recent fourth quarter ended June. CEO Satya Nadella, one-time leader of the division, also noted Bing would reach breakeven within two years. So Nadella thinks it'll break even in 2016. 0. http://www.thestreet.com/story/12821420/1/microsoft-is-using-bing-as-a-trojan-horse-to-rival-google.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/12821420/1/microsoft-is-using...
joenathan 12y ago
Google abandons projects swiftly when they think that don't make sense; Wave, iGoogle, Reader, Glass?, Buzz, Plus?, Answers, Google Video, Google Checkout/Wallet, Orkut, Picasa, Gears, etc... When you are a large company you need to focus your resources into areas where you can be effective and not stretch yourself too thin.
- frozenport 12y ago
  Yeah, but these aren't software platforms.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Wave, reader and glass not software platforms?
- TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
  Did I miss something? When did Google give up on glass?
  - joenathan 12y ago
    They haven't yet, but with Android Wear replicating its functionality while being much less expensive and more socially acceptable, it's not hard to see that Glass doesn't have much of a future.
  - bobbykjack 12y ago
    Since Sergey stopped wearing it [1]. [1] http://beta.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/other-devices/sergey-brin-picked-a-bad-time-to-leave-his-google-glass-in-the-car-1273274 http://beta.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/other-device...
- imron 12y ago
  Google doing it too doesn't somehow absolve Microsoft's transgressions. People are also weary of Google doing this and you see comments on it in almost every discussion on HN of a Google product.
dummyfellow 12y ago
Microsoft also has tons of product they supported for years. From Windows, to SQL server, to Sharepoint, to dynamics, to Office, to Visual Studio, to xbox, to ... Also live.com rebranded and bing,WP are still alive and well funded. If you look for a company to never shutdown a product which isn't getting traction, you are living in a dreamspace and need to wakeup.
- yzzxy 12y ago
  To be fair, the original Xbox was quietly removed from store shelves and software development halted immediately after the 360 was announced. Contrast this with the average console support cycle of several years into the new generation.
stinos 12y ago
Microsoft loves to start things, then leaves them to rot. The Micro-Cycle... You seem to be claiming this is going to happen to IE as well? Seems a bit far fetched, given it is still used by millions of people and something like 20% of all desktop browsers used is IE.

s_extra_s 12y ago

It's a good idea to create a new browser that updates automatically every few weeks like chrome rather than IE, which normally can't update automatically because of corporate policies.

Encosia 12y ago
IE has been automatically updating for a while now.
- sharkweek 12y ago
  Yes but... I used to work for a large financial institution that wouldn't let any of us do anything to our computers so we were all stuck with outdated IE that didn't update itself automatically
  - kylegordon 12y ago
    That's a policy problem rather than a technical or provider problem. I bet if your employer used Chrome they'd just lock down the version of that as well, courtesy of https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164?hl=en https://support.google.com/installer/answer/146164?hl=en
    - DougWebb 12y ago
      As a web developer, the reason for the problem is irrelevant. If your users are using an older browser, it doesn't matter why; you still have to support it. You and they probably have little influence over changing the policy.
  - detaro 12y ago
    And if they used Firefox they wouldn't have disabled the update functionality?
kijin 12y ago
But then corporations will simply disable automatic updates for PCs under their control. Don't underestimate the stubbornness of corporate IT departments!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cleverjake 12y ago
sortof depends on what "fail", means, no?

nawazdhandala 12y ago

I actually think Microsoft is re-branding IE rather than completely rewriting it.

cleverjake 12y ago
why not both?
keeperofdakeys 12y ago
This is what the author of the article suspects, a fork of IE that will remove compatibility modes. Did you read the article, or just skim it?
gosukiwi 12y ago
Rumors say it's the same rendering and javascript engine but the UI will get more similar to Chrome and FF and there'll be extensions. Also yeah no backwards compatibility it seems, and more regular updates. Sounds good to me.
- userbinator 12y ago
  but the UI will get more similar to Chrome and FF I don't think this is a good thing at all. People choose to use different browsers partly because they have different UIs, and UI changes are particularly jarring as evidenced by all the "I'll use browser Y" complaints when browser X changes something about their UI... only to be followed later by "I'll use browser X" when Y changes. There's no longer any real choice, it's just an illusion of choosing between narrowing alternatives. Especially to see browsers' UI turning into clones of Chrome is sad, since I personally hate the "hide everything away that could possibly confuse users" and the associated "treat users like idiots" mentality that's particularly prevalent in browsers today. IE is one of the few browsers remaining that had relatively more UI, but I'm not surprised to see it disappearing... the trend seems to be to turn browsers into glorified televisions, with UIs like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8670503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8670503

wideroots 12y ago

I will give it a try if the new browser no longer supports ActiveX and has better extension supports similar to Chrome.

UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
ActiveX isn't a major concern, in current IE if you look in the security tab in the Internet context, it is pretty locked down and damn near depreciated. Intranet is more liberal. But a lot of enterprises add their internal portals to the trusted list if they still depend on ActiveX (as a depressingly large number do). Chrome and Firefox's extensions are better. Although Firefox's extension model is a little clunky due to how old it is (or at least it was last time I used it).
- parag_c_mehta 12y ago
  Yes but a good browser with Chrome's features will be a great alternative. Right now Chrome has become a big memory hog and is slowly going to competition with old IE.
  - benaiah 12y ago
    If you're having memory problems with Chrome, check to see if you have AdBlock Pro installed - it often results in vast amounts of additional memory required for Chrome[0]. I recommend µBlock[1] if you're using Chrome - it works quite well in my experience. [0]: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-iframes-adblock-plus-is-probably-the-reason-firefox-and-chrome-are-such-memory-hogs http://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-iframes-a... [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalh...
- Animats 12y ago
  Chrome and Firefox's extensions are better. Although Firefox's extension model is a little clunky due to how old it is. New-style "Jetpack" add-ons in Firefox and add-ons in Chrome are very similar. I have the same add-on for both platforms, and there's about 80% code commonality. If Microsoft does something reasonably similar, that would be convenient for add-on developers.

ynniv 12y ago

Recently the news broke that Microsoft may be working on another browser instead of IE. After reviewing the available evidence I’ve come to the conclusion that, although Microsoft is making a few adjustments, and a name change for IE might be a good idea, the new browser will essentially be IE12. Still, I think we web developers should support the “new browser” narrative. This is how you start an article. I didn't read any farther, but my already high opinion of quirksmode.org is even higher.

beaner 12y ago
Why? I don't get anything particularly insightful at all from this snippet.
- brink 12y ago
  I think that he means that there's no storytelling cruft that just fills paragraphs and wastes time. It's short, concise and rich in information.
  - rictic 12y ago
    Yeah, the first paragraph summarized the entire article, which is incredibly respectful of the reader's time. Presumably many sites intentionally leave this out in order to maximize revenue and "engagement."
    - nailer 12y ago
      It would save more time and avoid the appearance of impropriety if they declared their Microsoft sponsorship in the second paragraph, rather than after the article. Edit: if it's unclear, this is not accusing anyone of bias: good writing should make any involvement in the subject matter explicit. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety The article is sponsored by modern.ie which is a Microsoft initative. I happen to agree with the article, however being forthright about these matters would strengthen its point.

brickmort 12y ago

I don't mean to be so disparaging, but Microsoft really should just take IE out back and shoot it.

matthewmacleod 12y ago
That's not really helpful. IE is no longer a shitty browser; why should it be killed off?
- nailer 12y ago
  It really is. Even in IE11 there's a bunch of busted basics. The CustomEvent constructor is broken out of the box. Edit: see details in post below.
  - demallien 12y ago
    I don't mean this to be a personal attack, so please don't take it that way, but comments like this read to me as being written by a young, inexperienced programmer. I happen to know that this is not your case, but without checking the username, I would immediately classify this comment as such. The people over at Microsoft are not idiots - even though Microsoft is no longer the new hotness, they still pay developers well, and have some pretty tight engineering going on. So when you say "The Event constructor is broken out of the box", my first instinct is to assume that the Microsoft engineers have implemented the constructor in their way for reasons that you're not smart enough to have grasped. But, as I said, I know that you aren't a young inexperienced programmer, so you probably have some good reasons to make the claim, which leads me to the point of this rambling post - why is the Event constructor broken in IE? I'm curious to know what specific problems you have with it.
    - nailer 12y ago
      Sorry, I didn't provide details because I probably just assume everyone here is a JS developer, which is probably a bad idea. IE11 has no CustomEvent constructor. You have to polyfill it with https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/API/CustomEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/API/CustomEvent. Microsoft's official Twitter account @iedevchat has pointed people to the same one: note the article article says for IE10, but the issue and fix is required for IE11. It's a simple fix, but CustomEvent is ancient, and it's surprising what didn't make it into IE11.

venomsnake 12y ago

Does anyone have idea if the idiocy of integrating the IE browser so deep inside the os is finally solved, that version updates are possible? And will spartan be stand alone binary, like IE should have been at launch?

lostlogin 12y ago
I don't have a good understanding of the history of IE but thought it was embedded as a way of breaking Netscape - if that was ever true the time has obviously passed for it to remain deeply embedded. However if this was the reason, isn't that a good argument for the way MS constructed IE (which isn't to say I agree with the strategy)?
- berkut 12y ago
  "Breaking" Netscape? A stand-alone application? Really? Anticompetitive maybe, but Microsoft embedding IE into Windows didn't break Netscape or other browsers in any functional way from my recollection (and I was using NN 2/3/4, Opera, IE 3/4/5/6 on 28.8 and 56k modems at the time).
- kalleboo 12y ago
  IE was deeply embedded because it was created in the bubble of "web all the things!" so they went so far as using IE the renderer for the desktop wallpapers and the file browser (IIRC you could even set a custom index.html for a folder on your harddisk)
- venomsnake 12y ago
  It was the fact that it came with windows and free that broke netscape. That the rendering engine is so embedded in the OS that the question is "will we be able to bring IE X to platform windows Y at all" is just stupid.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    MS prevented vendors from bundling Netscape in Windows. MS used the fact that IE was tied so deeply into the OS as a reason for not being able to unbundle it. MS used APIs to favour IE over other software - MS made their OS work better with their browser than with other competitor browsers.

Havoc 12y ago

Sounds good. Let's hope Spartan is the mindset the devs are operating with.

thomasfoster96 12y ago

One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. IE still has a major slice of the browser market share and this probably ain't going to change soon. IE>9 have all been decent browsers for the time that they were released, although they do seem a bit out of date 6 months later. At the moment, if both Firefox and Chrome implement a new web platform feature, it's often available to ~60% of web users within three months because of the release cycle and auto updates. IE going to a 6-week major release cycle could probably push this up to 80%-90% of users getting a feature within three months, which would be awesome. (IE mobile is pretty small for market share, so I'll ignore it at the objection of my Windows Phone using friends.) Safari pretty much now works on a yearly major release cycle - which is better than waiting two or three years, but it still sucks. Switching on Mac OS X to Chrome or Firefox (or Opera) is simple enough. iOS, however, is pretty much limited to whatever mobile Safari happened to have when WWDC rolled around (save for minor updates whenever iOS 8 becomes 8.1, for example). I sort of hope Apple uncouples core app versioning and updates from iOS and Mac OS X updates soon, because that's mean they could move Safari to a much shorter release cycle. iOS Safari is probably the most widely used mobile browser, and keeping it at the bleeding edge would do wonders for the mobile web.

cmiller1 12y ago
What about Safari's Webkit nightly releases?
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  They're not exactly for Joe Bloke the Safari user.
- Flow 12y ago
  AFAIK, it has no iCloud integration.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  Nightly WebKit release !== Safari release
12y ago

mrbig4545 12y ago

lets hope they make it windows version agnostic, that way we can all start supporting ie12, instead of being shackled to ie9

ben336 12y ago
Eh? IE9 isn't the latest version available for any version of Windows. 8 is the latest for XP/Vista 11 is the latest for 7/8/8.1 9 is still popular because not everybody upgrades browsers, but giving users who don't upgrade browsers a new option is unlikely to be helpful. Communicating to them that IE is going away and that they should upgrade to a modern browser, "Spartan" or otherwise, would possibly help this situation, as the author suggests.
- mrbig4545 12y ago
  ie9 is available for vista. although in practice, ie8 is the minimum we have to support

nercury 12y ago

For some reason, I immediately pictured a product rewrite gone wrong and causing two versions of the same product appear, because the new one can never catch up to the legacy quirks of first.

sunasra 12y ago

It would be really great if they do more work on compatibility and memory management(Currently chrome kills the system)

spdustin 12y ago

They should go full-circle with FrontPage (which inspired many folks to get into web apps back in the day) and call it Vermeer. (From Vermeer Technologies, Inc., the original FrontPage server extensions folks - fun random fact: it's why SharePoint service URLs have "_vti_bin" in their path)

ourmandave 12y ago

My initial thought was it will be a stand alone version that you can download and run next to IE6+ instead of Chrome, FF, et. al. So instead of replacing IE6 with the competition, replace it with Spartan and MS gets to keep their browser market share and Corp IT can keep running IE6 apps.