4 ms·

Microsoft's new browser and the Windows 10 January preview build

42 points by asyncwords 12y ago

cpr 12y ago
It's interesting that they decided to start from scratch with a new rendering engine. (I imagine the UI itself could have been updated without a lot of trouble.) They probably looked at the thousands of special cases in the old spaghetti code, maybe took a gander at the Blink/Webkit sources ;-), and then decided, "Hang it, we can do this ourselves, and do it right." Likely a pretty fun project, betting against the "never start from scratch" common wisdom of the crowd.
- asyncwords 12y ago
  Curious that they're calling it a 'new' rendering engine at all. I could have sworn they said somewhere that it was still the same Trident engine, but without the legacy IE bits. Also, according to Paul Thurrott [1], the browser team was considering WebKit/Blink and ultimately decided to stick with Trident – apparently because of Google's control over Blink. [1]: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/470/maybe-windows-10s-spartan-isnt-going-suck#.VL5onjELVEw.reddit https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/470/maybe-window...
  - cpr 12y ago
    Thanks, that's a helpful link. 'Twould be delightful to know just how they treated the existing Trident sources...
  - bad_user 12y ago
    Well, I for one am glad that Microsoft decided against WebKit/Blink. Because of its popularity as a rendering engine, being used by Safari, Chrome and Opera, both on the desktop and on mobile phones, it is quickly becoming a monoculture. Even if we are talking about an open-source project, to me it smells too much like the lock-in that IExplorer once had on the market and people might not remember, but IExplorer was at some point very innovative and the best browser available. And many people also don't remember what happened after that. So even though I'm very grateful about WebKit/Blink, we really must avoid repeating mistakes of the past. Multiple implementations of a standard are very healthy, monocultures are not. However, I also think that given this overhaul, Microsoft should open-source this rendering engine. I really hope they do it and it would be in their interest to do so.
jbob2000 12y ago
Great, now I have to support IE 7 AND Spartan...
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  Your case is isolated, IE7 is pretty much dead.
- thunderbong 12y ago
  I don't think you read the article. You don't need to do anything extra for Spartan.
- McGlockenshire 12y ago
  Can you explain what circumstances require that you support IE7?
  - tehaugmenter 12y ago
    I work for a company that has a "managing" application that runs on windows. This application has a browser plugin that runs in an equivalent IE7 environment which must be supported. Unfortunately that is what you get with proprietary sometimes.
    - michaelbuddy 12y ago
      I always hear about these applications but I've never actually seen one.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    If he's a developer for a company that still has apps that require IE7, then he needs to support IE7. It doesn't need to be on the public Internet at all.
- melling 12y ago
  IE7 has had very little usage outside of enterprise for a few years now. If you're screwed by your job, sorry. Maybe all those well-paid people can come up with an upgrade plan.
johansch 12y ago
The bottom bars of the mobile IE10 look really awkward. That button distribution and mis-alignment...
frik 12y ago
Spartan is based on an improved version IE11's trident engine. The browser window is a WinRuntime app. It's still unclear if it will support WebGL 2, WebRTC, CSS 3D transformations.
- kiliancs 12y ago
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-edge-our-next-step-in-interoperability.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-... mentions CSS 3D transformations are included.
- cremno 12y ago
  https://status.modern.ie https://status.modern.ie says WebRTC is in development and CSS 3D transforms are part of a IE preview release.
  - frik 12y ago
    There are three incompatible proposed web real-time communication standards. Google, Mozilla and Opera - "WebRTC": http://caniuse.com/#search=WebRTC http://caniuse.com/#search=WebRTC and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC Microsoft proposed another draft "CU-RTC-WEB" based on Skype details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-RTC-WEB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-RTC-WEB and later "ORTC": http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/ortc-webrtc http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/ortc-webrtc Hangout vs. Skype vs. iOS messages is the deal breaker why WebRTC isn't suppored in Safari and IE. That's sad as it already works in ~1.7B devices.
    - gtjrossi 12y ago
      We're implementing ORTC (which actually gets its origins from outside Microsoft: http://ortc.org/history/ http://ortc.org/history/). ORTC is essentially WebRTC "1.1" and there's active standardization work going on (in both WebRTC 1.0 and ORTC specs) to make them have a high level of compatibility. ORTC enables more scalable video and simplifies the way the data is exchanged by using a vanilla JS object style (eliminates SCP Offer/Answer).
kethinov 12y ago
Really looking forward to this. Great new design. Trident without the legacy bits. And free upgrades to get people onto the latest software as quickly as possible. I'm liking this new Microsoft.
mhomde 12y ago
It feels like browsers in general has become to commoditized for people to even bother. How much does it really matter these days if you use chrome, firefox,opera etc. It used to be that it DID matter that you used IE because they were so hopefully after (after they were before netscape) but these days it more of a popularity contest. Every browser pretty much presents webpages correctly according to modern CSS standards. Every browser is fast enough that the difference is negligible Not many people use any major add-on features of browsers, except like adblocker and stuff like that. I really don't understand why this is an area that's worth competing in anymore, except providing an browser for your mobile ecosystem (chrome for android, spartan for windows phone, safari for apple, whatever). Webpages are still needed but apps are sweeping the field and providing better UX for the webpages that people use the most. And downvote me as you might but firefox days are sadly counted
- discordance 12y ago
  Keep the 1990s in mind when considering this. We all know how dangerous it can be when one organisation monopolizes usage, and then has control over the future of browser functionality. The tables might have turned, but Microsoft keeping competition up is necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
- pmelendez 12y ago
  MS has a couple of good reasons for a fresh start: #1 Spartan gets rid of all the legacy back-compatibility code that was holding them back. #2 They added very interesting features that I haven't seen in other browsers (i.e colaboration)
- asyncwords 12y ago
  I think Microsoft feels it needs to provide a better browser because the popular alternative is controlled by their competitor. Chrome itself does its best to make sure you get pulled into the Google ecosystem - you need a Google account just to use the sync feature. On top of that, when you switch Chrome to its full-screen Windows 8 app mode (for touch screen support, etc.) it basically turns into a clone of Chrome OS: http://i.imgur.com/YJ1OJqi.png http://i.imgur.com/YJ1OJqi.png
TheAceOfHearts 12y ago
An OS-bound browser is a non-starter for me. I like Safari too, but having to use a different browser between different OSs is too much of a hassle. That alone is enough to keep me from giving Spartan a real chance.

42 points by asyncwords 12y ago

cpr 12y ago

It's interesting that they decided to start from scratch with a new rendering engine. (I imagine the UI itself could have been updated without a lot of trouble.) They probably looked at the thousands of special cases in the old spaghetti code, maybe took a gander at the Blink/Webkit sources ;-), and then decided, "Hang it, we can do this ourselves, and do it right." Likely a pretty fun project, betting against the "never start from scratch" common wisdom of the crowd.

asyncwords 12y ago
Curious that they're calling it a 'new' rendering engine at all. I could have sworn they said somewhere that it was still the same Trident engine, but without the legacy IE bits. Also, according to Paul Thurrott [1], the browser team was considering WebKit/Blink and ultimately decided to stick with Trident – apparently because of Google's control over Blink. [1]: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/470/maybe-windows-10s-spartan-isnt-going-suck#.VL5onjELVEw.reddit https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/470/maybe-window...
- cpr 12y ago
  Thanks, that's a helpful link. 'Twould be delightful to know just how they treated the existing Trident sources...
- bad_user 12y ago
  Well, I for one am glad that Microsoft decided against WebKit/Blink. Because of its popularity as a rendering engine, being used by Safari, Chrome and Opera, both on the desktop and on mobile phones, it is quickly becoming a monoculture. Even if we are talking about an open-source project, to me it smells too much like the lock-in that IExplorer once had on the market and people might not remember, but IExplorer was at some point very innovative and the best browser available. And many people also don't remember what happened after that. So even though I'm very grateful about WebKit/Blink, we really must avoid repeating mistakes of the past. Multiple implementations of a standard are very healthy, monocultures are not. However, I also think that given this overhaul, Microsoft should open-source this rendering engine. I really hope they do it and it would be in their interest to do so.

jbob2000 12y ago

Great, now I have to support IE 7 AND Spartan...

Aldo_MX 12y ago
Your case is isolated, IE7 is pretty much dead.
thunderbong 12y ago
I don't think you read the article. You don't need to do anything extra for Spartan.
McGlockenshire 12y ago
Can you explain what circumstances require that you support IE7?
- tehaugmenter 12y ago
  I work for a company that has a "managing" application that runs on windows. This application has a browser plugin that runs in an equivalent IE7 environment which must be supported. Unfortunately that is what you get with proprietary sometimes.
  - michaelbuddy 12y ago
    I always hear about these applications but I've never actually seen one.
- freehunter 12y ago
  If he's a developer for a company that still has apps that require IE7, then he needs to support IE7. It doesn't need to be on the public Internet at all.
melling 12y ago
IE7 has had very little usage outside of enterprise for a few years now. If you're screwed by your job, sorry. Maybe all those well-paid people can come up with an upgrade plan.

johansch 12y ago

The bottom bars of the mobile IE10 look really awkward. That button distribution and mis-alignment...

frik 12y ago

Spartan is based on an improved version IE11's trident engine. The browser window is a WinRuntime app. It's still unclear if it will support WebGL 2, WebRTC, CSS 3D transformations.

kiliancs 12y ago
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-edge-our-next-step-in-interoperability.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/11/11/living-on-the-... mentions CSS 3D transformations are included.
cremno 12y ago
https://status.modern.ie https://status.modern.ie says WebRTC is in development and CSS 3D transforms are part of a IE preview release.
- frik 12y ago
  There are three incompatible proposed web real-time communication standards. Google, Mozilla and Opera - "WebRTC": http://caniuse.com/#search=WebRTC http://caniuse.com/#search=WebRTC and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC Microsoft proposed another draft "CU-RTC-WEB" based on Skype details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-RTC-WEB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-RTC-WEB and later "ORTC": http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/ortc-webrtc http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/ortc-webrtc Hangout vs. Skype vs. iOS messages is the deal breaker why WebRTC isn't suppored in Safari and IE. That's sad as it already works in ~1.7B devices.
  - gtjrossi 12y ago
    We're implementing ORTC (which actually gets its origins from outside Microsoft: http://ortc.org/history/ http://ortc.org/history/). ORTC is essentially WebRTC "1.1" and there's active standardization work going on (in both WebRTC 1.0 and ORTC specs) to make them have a high level of compatibility. ORTC enables more scalable video and simplifies the way the data is exchanged by using a vanilla JS object style (eliminates SCP Offer/Answer).

kethinov 12y ago

Really looking forward to this. Great new design. Trident without the legacy bits. And free upgrades to get people onto the latest software as quickly as possible. I'm liking this new Microsoft.

mhomde 12y ago

It feels like browsers in general has become to commoditized for people to even bother. How much does it really matter these days if you use chrome, firefox,opera etc. It used to be that it DID matter that you used IE because they were so hopefully after (after they were before netscape) but these days it more of a popularity contest. Every browser pretty much presents webpages correctly according to modern CSS standards. Every browser is fast enough that the difference is negligible Not many people use any major add-on features of browsers, except like adblocker and stuff like that. I really don't understand why this is an area that's worth competing in anymore, except providing an browser for your mobile ecosystem (chrome for android, spartan for windows phone, safari for apple, whatever). Webpages are still needed but apps are sweeping the field and providing better UX for the webpages that people use the most. And downvote me as you might but firefox days are sadly counted

discordance 12y ago
Keep the 1990s in mind when considering this. We all know how dangerous it can be when one organisation monopolizes usage, and then has control over the future of browser functionality. The tables might have turned, but Microsoft keeping competition up is necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
pmelendez 12y ago
MS has a couple of good reasons for a fresh start: #1 Spartan gets rid of all the legacy back-compatibility code that was holding them back. #2 They added very interesting features that I haven't seen in other browsers (i.e colaboration)
asyncwords 12y ago
I think Microsoft feels it needs to provide a better browser because the popular alternative is controlled by their competitor. Chrome itself does its best to make sure you get pulled into the Google ecosystem - you need a Google account just to use the sync feature. On top of that, when you switch Chrome to its full-screen Windows 8 app mode (for touch screen support, etc.) it basically turns into a clone of Chrome OS: http://i.imgur.com/YJ1OJqi.png http://i.imgur.com/YJ1OJqi.png

TheAceOfHearts 12y ago

An OS-bound browser is a non-starter for me. I like Safari too, but having to use a different browser between different OSs is too much of a hassle. That alone is enough to keep me from giving Spartan a real chance.