Comment of the Day: IE8 As Much About Google as Firefox
The comment of the day for yesterday was from our post Internet Explorer 8 Has Arrived. Sarah Perez noted that IE8 "showcases many new features and improvements, like Facebook and eBay integration, standards compliance, and the ability to work with AJAX web pages." Sarah wrote that "this launch shows that Microsoft is not taking Firefox's creep into browser market share lightly." However commenter theharmonyguy thinks that IE8 is as much a challenge to Google, because "some of the new features seem similar to things like gadgets in iGoogle."
Congratulations theharmonyguy, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue Widget.
Here is his comment:
"Good news: Passes Acid2 (translation: great CSS 2.1 support, including things like display:table), defaults to standards mode (both previously announced).
Bad news: Still no support for application/xhtml+xml, not even close on Acid3 (Opera 9.5 9755 passes 61), not good support for CSS3 selectors (granted that's not officially a final spec, but Opera 9.5 9755 gets 100%).
I'm dubious about some of the new features... interesting how Microsoft seems to continually rely on tying together their spectrum of offerings. IE8 includes convenient shortcuts to other web sites for various info... and many of those sites just happen to be Microsoft sites. I don't blame them for linking to their own services, but ironic that Microsoft is essentially "bundling" again.
Some of the new features seem similar to things like gadgets in iGoogle... this release is as much about Google as Firefox. Very happy to see that the WebSlices setup does not introduce proprietary tags and even uses the hAtom microformat.
I'm sure many users will find things like activites and WebSlices handy, but it still seems to me that Microsoft is way behind the curve on features innovation with web browsers. Many of these features have long been available via plug-ins. However, I'm glad to finally see features like session recovery.
All in all, this release is good news. It definitely demonstrates the IE team is serious about web standards now, and it signals we'll be seeing IE updates more frequently. IE8 is still behind other browsers in many ways, but kudos to the IE team for the progress they've made - it's going to help developers and users a bunch."
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Well this is a pleasant surprise. :) Thanks RWW!
And before anyone starts tearing into my logic, I'll add a follow-up point: Several of these new features help tie IE in with various online services, and while Microsoft gives the option of choosing your own, many users will probably let the defaults go. And the defaults are from... Microsoft! This browser should help send at least some users towards Live Search, Live Maps, etc.
Again, Opera leading the way.
Opera Desktop deserves to have a MUCH larger marketshare, as it really is the best browser out there, by a long mile, in both speed, stability, secutiry and standards compliance.
Hello
First time here.
I think it's a good thing to know.
Before writing I tried IE8, and although it's not the best browser I saw, It's really much better than IE7.
I've been using Opera and Firefox, and the last one is the best for me. Personal work and other features I do need.
But I will look deeper IE8
Seems a good browser, and good news to know about there's no one big guy only.
As i know, IE is the most used browser. almost 85% in my stats average in different websites.
So, if it gets better, welcome.
Thanks
I like the new IE8 beta which works better than IE7. However, Firefox is far better than IE when you have to open many pages a day. IE8 interface is better than Firefox.
I hope that IE and FF they are 100% Web Standars now... I spent lot of time to try to make our projects compatible...