Internet Explorer 8
Microsoft sure stirred up some controversy with this browser comparison chart. Here is a picture, because I suspect they’ll take down that page fairly soon.
As several people mentioned on Twitter, the chart fails to include Opera or Safari. Plus, most of the items are highly subjective. This is obviously a marketing document, not a scientific comparison. We get it.
Lack of Trust
When IE first arrived, it had to compete with Netscape. Once they crushed the competition, Microsoft slept. For five years. They released IE 6 in 2001, and IE 7 in 2006.
Lack of competition hurt our industry and stifled innovation. Because of those five years, a lot of us simply do not trust Microsoft when it comes to browsers.
Competition
Thank goodness for the people behind Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and probably other browsers that I’m not thinking of. It is perfectly clear that Microsoft is now focused on improving Internet Explorer through better security, performance, and even standards compliance.
Good for them. IE 8 is their best effort yet.
Good for us. Web standards are good for us all.
But…I am skeptical.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Those five years cannot be swept under the rug with one new product release. Microsoft needs to earn back our trust. It will be hard, but not impossible.
What I Want
I want all of these browsers to compete, and to focus on web standards. Supporting today’s standards are an important first step for Microsoft, and I applaud their efforts.
To make up for the years lost with IE 6, Microsoft needs to do a lot more to win back my trust. I want Microsoft to boldly lead the way toward HTML 5, including support for embedded video, the canvas tag, native drag-and-drop to the browser, and more.
This means making standards-based browsers that will directly compete with proprietary plug-ins like Silverlight and Flash. Browser lock-in is old school. Proprietary plug-ins are old school. This video shows what I expect from my browser:
It would be wonderful if I could embed that video with a simple tag, but for now, that’s impossible. I eagerly await the day when that ugly <object …><embed… type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”> …</embed></object> crap is a distant memory.
Agreed. IE8 is a great first step for Microsoft after abandoning us with IE6 for so many years. That graphic is laughable, but I am genuinely pleased with the standards compliance build into IE8. Bring on HTML 5, I say!
I totally agree. Microsoft slept for far too long and even now their IE8 attempts are very half-hearted. They are just doing the bare minimum to try and stay remotely competitive. The developers on the IE8 team realize what a disaster their JavaScript engine is. What a nightmare their CSS parsers are. What a total frakup their render engine is. They understand how they should be supporting more standards, and more defacto standards like CANVAS.
But someone at Microsoft is preventing that from happening. Someone from Microsoft still ‘fears’ that if they develop a great browser that somehow Microsoft as a company will be hurt by that.
It’s probably the same IDIOT (or maybe a group of idiots) that was responsible for ensuring that for 5 years after IE6 no new versions or features were released.
By the way, I think you got that quote wrong. Isn’t it: “Fool me once… shame on… shame on you. You see if you get fooled you can’t get fooled again.”
Sorry man, but I’ve uninstalled IE8 not once, but twice. Too many lock-ups… and it’s only ‘compatible’ if you run it in compatiblity mode… and what’s the point if you have to do that? I’ve tried to like IE8 but it’s not letting me.