Internet Explorer 7 - The Inexplicable Ectype
Posted by on May 03, 2006 at 08:30 AM
Recently Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 so that developers could get a taste of the next great web browser.
I could cover features and such, but I'll leave that to the marketing geniuses at Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx
"We Heard You"? Please. I'll keep this brief: Internet Explorer 7 is terrible.
But why such criticism? Because in true Microsoft style they stole feature-sets from OSS (Open-Source Software) and released them as their own. When the final version of IE7 rolls out, their user base isn't likely to know about Firefox, Mozilla or Opera. They're not going to know about tabbed browsing. They're not going to know about phishing and online security, web standards, CSS, XHTML, RSS...that is, they're not going to know until Microsoft tells them.
The bottom line is this: don't believe a word Microsoft says. Nothing about IE7 is new -- except for the glossy coating of design-gelly they put on the user interface. The browser still does not handle CSS/Javascript the way it should, and is going to continue to be a detriment to the standards-movement and web development in general.
I leave you with this simple illustration:
Tags
ie7
internet explorer 7
Category
Technology
Comments (3)
Posted on May 4, 2006 09:30 PM
A pointless rant at Microsoft, neglecting the genuinely useful new features, and concentrating on some ridiculous tirade about who thought up the features first.
People with your narrow-minded view will criticise IE for having features, or for lacking those same features. You're simply biased against MS and it's clear for all to see.
Posted on May 5, 2006 09:08 AM
You're right -- bias and all.
I'll drop my bias when Microsoft starts innovating again. I believe that Bill would be doing things differently were he in the trenches, but when you're the general and your only source of combat information comes from foreign press and your own military heirarchy (Balmer, et al) -- you tend to get a skewed view of the war.
Posted on May 3, 2006 01:07 PM
If a picture's worth a 1,000 words, a cartoon must be worth 1,000 chuckles. I think I've overheard this conversation in our office. Certainly, I've heard some head banging about having to rewrite the CSS to undo the IE fixes from previous versions. Let's hope someone shows your cartoon to Bill Gates personally.