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In a Microsoft blog, IE product unit manager Dean Hachamovitch told consumers not to expect too much from tabbed browsing in IE's beta offering.
"The tabbed browsing experience in the upcoming IE 7 beta is pretty basic," he said. "The main goal for tabs in our beta release is to make sure our implementation delivers on compatibility and security. The variety of IE configurations and add-ins across the Internet is tremendous."
Hachamovitch said his team would seek feedback to help iron out bugs in the feature. "We've also looked closely at reported vulnerabilities in other implementations of tabbed browsing," he said.
The IE executive also explained the motivation behind keeping the feature--which has been available for some years in competing products--out of IE until now.
"Some people have asked why we didn't put tabs in IE sooner," he said. "Initially, we had some concerns around complexity and consistency--will it confuse users more than it benefits them? Is it confusing if IE has tabs, but other core parts of the Windows experience, like Windows Media Player or the shell, don't have tabs?"
Hachamovitch admitted he thinks his company made the wrong decision on tabs--a decision he is happy to reverse.
But the reversal is not good enough for at least one Firefox developer. The open-source browser's release manager and quality assurance lead, Asa Dotzler, posted a response on his own blog to the IE 7 update.
"I suspect that this announcement could be translated to 'we decided late in the game that we needed tabs and they're nowhere near done, so don't flame us when you see them,'" Dotzler wrote.
The Firefox developer contended that Microsoft's motivation in adding the tabbed browsing feature was more related to preserving its software monopoly than providing services to its users.
"Does this mean that the IE 7 user won't benefit? No, not at all. Just because their motivation is lame doesn't mean that the resulting software will suck. But I do think that all software bears the mark of the motivation behind its creation."
"With Firefox, I think our motives are obvious to our users. People understand that we're working to make the Web better for them," he added.
Hachamovitch, however, pointed out that people have been able to use tabbed browsing with the existing version of IE for some time by using freely downloadable third-party solutions like the one provided by Maxthon.
"I think all of these are great," he said. "They demonstrate how extensible the IE platform is. They also provide tabbed browsing in IE on top of Windows versions (like Windows 98) that IE 7 will not support."
Renai LeMay of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
See more CNET content tagged:
motivation, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft Internet Explorer, tab, Firefox
Bottomline, Tabbed browsing saves time for me and improves my experience.
I honestly love the skins, not having MS add back the links I don't want every week, tabbed browsing is quicker and easier than having a dozen IE windows on the screen, and I rest at-ease knowing if Abe Vigoda is alive or not. It runs faster thanks to a few tweaks I made. It runs much quicker "getting me where I want to go" than IE.
I've enjoyed seeing all the dumb software and such install links and such for IE but not Firefox.
In all, it is in every way a better experience for me than IE. I don't think anything will bring me back to IE. Besides I don't think they are going to be smart enough to create a way to import my FF bookmarks.
NWLB
****
http://www.bloggercist.com
You are complaisant with mediocrity - most people want things to progress and technology to be more innovative.
No one cares what you use. If it was up to you, the Internet would not have progressed past Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape 4.
Get lost.
Reason 1: Tab browsing. In Firefox, when you center click on a link the page opens in a new tab. The key here is that the program doesn't put the new tab in the foreground (unlike opening in a new window in IE). This is extremely convinient when you're going through a list of search results. It lets you pick out pages potentially of interest while continuing to scan through the list. You can also close a tab without having to bring it into the foreground by center clicking.
Reason 2: The find bar. In IE you're stuck with the clunky find dialog box. Firefox has a slick tool bar on the bottom of the screen that searches the page as you type. It also stays put when you navigate to another page. That, again, is very convinient when you're going through search results.
I prefer a browser that works, plain and simple. So I use IE, which isn't even a browser by any standard, but compensate by downloading antispyware crap from MS. Unfortunately, all the viruses still get through, but I have a virus scanner to take up my RAM and CPU.
I could download Firefox and replace all this, but I don't have 5MB HD space and 20MB of RAM to spare...
Also, if you have ever actually used Firefox alongside IE when checking news sites and such, you'll note that IE is not the fastest browser out there, it just caches everything in RAM and displays it all at once.
Bottomline, Tabbed browsing saves time for me and improves my experience.
I honestly love the skins, not having MS add back the links I don't want every week, tabbed browsing is quicker and easier than having a dozen IE windows on the screen, and I rest at-ease knowing if Abe Vigoda is alive or not. It runs faster thanks to a few tweaks I made. It runs much quicker "getting me where I want to go" than IE.
I've enjoyed seeing all the dumb software and such install links and such for IE but not Firefox.
In all, it is in every way a better experience for me than IE. I don't think anything will bring me back to IE. Besides I don't think they are going to be smart enough to create a way to import my FF bookmarks.
NWLB
****
http://www.bloggercist.com
You are complaisant with mediocrity - most people want things to progress and technology to be more innovative.
No one cares what you use. If it was up to you, the Internet would not have progressed past Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape 4.
Get lost.
Reason 1: Tab browsing. In Firefox, when you center click on a link the page opens in a new tab. The key here is that the program doesn't put the new tab in the foreground (unlike opening in a new window in IE). This is extremely convinient when you're going through a list of search results. It lets you pick out pages potentially of interest while continuing to scan through the list. You can also close a tab without having to bring it into the foreground by center clicking.
Reason 2: The find bar. In IE you're stuck with the clunky find dialog box. Firefox has a slick tool bar on the bottom of the screen that searches the page as you type. It also stays put when you navigate to another page. That, again, is very convinient when you're going through search results.
I prefer a browser that works, plain and simple. So I use IE, which isn't even a browser by any standard, but compensate by downloading antispyware crap from MS. Unfortunately, all the viruses still get through, but I have a virus scanner to take up my RAM and CPU.
I could download Firefox and replace all this, but I don't have 5MB HD space and 20MB of RAM to spare...
Also, if you have ever actually used Firefox alongside IE when checking news sites and such, you'll note that IE is not the fastest browser out there, it just caches everything in RAM and displays it all at once.
well firefox pretty much does all that..
Sooner or later, dispite what others will say, all OS's will need that protection.
That said, I find I use Mozilla almost exclusively for browsing and email except when I run Windows update.
well firefox pretty much does all that..
Sooner or later, dispite what others will say, all OS's will need that protection.
That said, I find I use Mozilla almost exclusively for browsing and email except when I run Windows update.
Gee, Netscape,Safari,Firefox,Opera, etc. ALL have tabbed browsing features & have had them for quite awhile Uncle Bill.
The Internet is the Great Democracy of flowing information for the Public, not the "tollGATE" IE wants to be. Use what ever browser you wish, but don't start a new million dollar MS campaign about "GOT IE?"
Jurassic Park in Redmond...been there,done that,no thanks Citizen Gates.
Gee, Netscape,Safari,Firefox,Opera, etc. ALL have tabbed browsing features & have had them for quite awhile Uncle Bill.
The Internet is the Great Democracy of flowing information for the Public, not the "tollGATE" IE wants to be. Use what ever browser you wish, but don't start a new million dollar MS campaign about "GOT IE?"
Jurassic Park in Redmond...been there,done that,no thanks Citizen Gates.
IE 7 is supposed to have better standards or "recomendation" support.
IE 7 is supposed to have tab browsing.
IE 7 is basically copying Firefox and Opera.
You know what though... I don't care. I am happy to see that IE is going to get features it needs. People can say what they want, but I have no doubt that these improvements are because of Firefox and Developers request.
Web developers are no doubt tired of trying to rewrite webpages to match every browser. I personally won't. I write my webpages based on standards that work across at least three browsers. Opera, Firefox/Mozilla, Safari, or Netscape. If it won't work in IE thats too bad.
I have people who don't like it, but I try to explain why it doesn't work and show them an alternitive. Some are ok with it. Some are not. Although I don't care for Microsoft as a whole I don't try to write code that is purposely incompatable with IE. However, I am not going to spend an extra week rewriting good code to make it work with one browser.
You can take this how you want, but even Microsoft is admiting that IE 6 isn't up to par. They are now making efforts to match the other browsers. If you can't see that then you are blind. Period.
IE 7 is supposed to have better standards or "recomendation" support.
IE 7 is supposed to have tab browsing.
IE 7 is basically copying Firefox and Opera.
You know what though... I don't care. I am happy to see that IE is going to get features it needs. People can say what they want, but I have no doubt that these improvements are because of Firefox and Developers request.
Web developers are no doubt tired of trying to rewrite webpages to match every browser. I personally won't. I write my webpages based on standards that work across at least three browsers. Opera, Firefox/Mozilla, Safari, or Netscape. If it won't work in IE thats too bad.
I have people who don't like it, but I try to explain why it doesn't work and show them an alternitive. Some are ok with it. Some are not. Although I don't care for Microsoft as a whole I don't try to write code that is purposely incompatable with IE. However, I am not going to spend an extra week rewriting good code to make it work with one browser.
You can take this how you want, but even Microsoft is admiting that IE 6 isn't up to par. They are now making efforts to match the other browsers. If you can't see that then you are blind. Period.
If something is a good feature, why not make your software with features that users enjoy in another app.
I'd have to rewrite all my apps to not copy features of another app.
If something is a good feature, why not make your software with features that users enjoy in another app.
I'd have to rewrite all my apps to not copy features of another app.
(and they spent no money on R&D to do it)
- Is this innovation??
- by technewsjunkie May 17, 2005 8:31 PM PDT
- Did you hear? Microsoft "invented" tabbed browsing. Really.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (146 Comments)(and they spent no money on R&D to do it)