Comments for Internet Explorer 7: Good Solid Browser, Or Ford Pinto?

Internet Explorer 7: Good Solid Browser, Or Ford Pinto?

2006-08-30T12:32:44Z

I recently had the pleasure of talking to Opera's Chief Technology Officer Håkon Wium Lie. We spoke about Microsoft's latest web browser IE7 and Håkon was harshly critical of it, as well as Microsoft's past history with CSS and web standards. Bear in mind that Opera competes with IE and also that Håkon has a distinguished career in CSS, dating back to his days in the W3C. I've posted the discussion onto ZDNet, but here's a summary...

Håkon told me that Microsoft is "doing a paint job on their Pinto", referring to Microsoft's renewed development and bug-fixing efforts in IE7. The Ford Pinto is a car from the 70's that has become a symbol for a 'cheap economy car' or 'cheapness'. It also has a reputation for being unsafe! Which tells you all you need to know about what Håkon thinks of IE.

Håkon's reaction to my interview with Microsoft's Chris Wilson, Group Program Manager for IE, was also scathing. Chris' position was that IE7 will increasingly support CSS standards over time. Håkon acknowledges Microsoft's current efforts in fixing bugs, but his real beef with IE7 is that it's not adding many features:

"The new functionality that they've put in, which was specified [in CSS] in the 90's, is still not there. We can't do generated content, for example. We can't do CSS tables. We can't do counters. And these are features that other browsers put in years ago."

He also doesn't think "the underlying machinery" of IE is worth all the effort. In particular their formatting engine "isn't up to speed", according to him.

There are more details of my discussion with Håkon in my ZDNet blog.

Also on the flip side, check out my review and accompanying Image Gallery of the latest version of IE7 - Release Candidate 1. I concluded that IE7, with its focus on security and fixing rendering issues, is "a safe and sound browser, with solid if unspectacular features". My guess is that Håkon disagrees with that assessment! And I have to add that Opera has a fantastic set of features, which I will be exploring soon.

What do you think about IE7? Is it a good enough browser for Mom and Pop? Or is it a Ford Pinto?

Pinto pic

Comment from Conor O'Neill on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T13:57:15Z

I've been using Mozilla since around M7 (about 7 years) and have avoided IE unless totally necessary. But I have to say that I like IE7 and for most people it will be more than sufficient.

I dumped Maxthon for non-Firefox browsing when Beta 3 came out and RC1 is shaping up very nicely. Sure, for a geek like me, Firefox will be the main browser as I love my extensions but everyone else will be happy with the new features, particularly tabs and RSS feeds.

One of the most positive aspects of IE7 is that I am seeing lots of breakage on sites with it. Those sites will have to fix their problems or go out of business. In all likelihood they'll be fixing them implicitly for Firefox too. So all of the badness created by IE4/5/6 will bit by bit get undone.

On the downside, it is still way too slow to open tabs and I can regularly crash it if the number of tabs goes into double digits.

Comment from Tim H on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T14:15:01Z

Based on the responses I've had over the past year (of people trying the various betas) - I'd say it's not so flash.

Tim

Comment from TimH on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T14:16:44Z

Whoops - I mean this link: http://geekswithblogs.net/timh/archive/2005/09/16/54068.aspx

Comment from Michael Christensen on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T14:48:09Z

I have been developing websites since 1994. I'M a Microsoft fan - but they are making it VERY hard with IE7. It renders SO insanly slow - hope there are a lot of debug running in the background of the beta - otherwise it's very sad.

Comment from Tyrax on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T16:06:02Z

It sounds to me like Opera's Chief Technology Officer is playing marketing by kicking Microsoft when they are trying to pick themselves up. It clearly takes time to bring web rendering engines up to current standards. So what would you rather have?, a fully CSS 2.1 compliant browser released in 20xx, or something that atleast fixes the foundation of broken code in the mean time.

Personally, I think they made the right devision by trying to release more often.

Comment from Frothy on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T17:37:09Z

Takes time? IE6 was released in 2001. FIVE years isn't enough time to get your act together?

Personally, I think they made the right devision by trying to release more often.

I wouldn't exactly call what they're doing "releasing more often". The only reason they're doing anything is Firefox and Opera are finally making some headway (not much, I'll admit, but even a collective 10-20% marketshare is better than nothing). And even then, all MS are doing is playing feature-catch-up.

Comment from Paul Watson on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T17:46:36Z

It's a Pinto and sadly will sell like a Pinto.

Comment from Juha on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T21:51:13Z

It really depends on how you look at things. The simple truth is, there's no way to avoid IE with Windows because it's so embedded into the OS. From that point of view, anything Microsoft does to make IE secure and more standards compliant is a Good Thing.

RC1 seems much better than Beta 2 and 3. I don't see any reason why people shouldn't update to the final reason of IE7 from IE6 but where's the compelling reason to switch away from Firefox or Opera 9? I can't see that there is one.

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2006-08-30

2006-08-30T23:03:43Z

Excellent comments here. Juha, I agree with you - IE7 is 'good enough' for a lot of existing Windows users. For those of us who use other browsers, there's nothing really new to draw us away. But then Microsoft has got to such a position of dominance with IE that they won't be at all concerned with that.

Comment from BigMac on 2006-08-31

2006-08-31T10:06:04Z

Because of the sandbox, I think IE7 will be the savest browser ever (on Vista). So Opera is just jealous of it. (like Symantec)

Comment from Fred on 2006-08-31

2006-08-31T12:27:53Z

From a standards perspective, IE7 is nowhere close where it needs to be. In all honesty, web developers and web standards evangelists have been in the same fight against microsoft and its clear disregard for web standards for so long, that the new effort on IE7 will be in vain for most.

Now I'm not saying IE7 is a bad thing. Its definitely a step forward, because (most) hacks will finally go away. Still, it doesn't get anywhere close to the standards compliance we can get from other browsers. Moreover, they've made some really odd choices when trying to implement some of the browsing and UI paterns (tab location, menus, etc).

I like their effort, and I like the people working on the IE team, but unfortunately, it doesn't cut it for me. Or for the web in general - we definitely need much more than what we're getting.

Comment from dave on 2006-08-31

2006-08-31T16:32:28Z

Well, I tried it on xp professional 64 bit and it immediately went belly up..couldnt get it to work and like to never got rid of it to where I could use my computer online again. Guess that is why its called testing and evaluating. Will use it only when absolutely forced to do so. Long live open source! its our only hope.

Comment from Abby on 2006-08-31

2006-08-31T21:29:35Z

Standards? Rendering? Why do I'll bother about them?

When I develop, I test my pages in all three- Opera, Firefox, IE7... but when I'm surfing, what would draw me away from IE? Nothing.

Hail IE7!

Comment from zooplah on 2006-08-31

2006-09-01T02:15:38Z

It's a Pinto. But at least Pinto 7 is better than Pinto 6. Sorry, I had to follow up on the metaphor.

@BigMac: What on Earth are you talking about?
@Abby: It sounds like you could use some meds.