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February 15, 2005 12:46 PM PST
Reversal: Next IE divorced from new Windows
A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 here. The company had said that it would not ship a new IE version before the next major update to Windows, code-named Longhorn, arrives next year.
What's new:
In a reversal of policy, Microsoft will ship the next update of Internet Explorer separately from the next version of Windows.
Bottom line:
The move acknowledges that the browser has become the target of virus and spyware writers. As the security threats have increased, rival browser Firefox has gained fans.
In announcing the plan, Gates acknowledged something that many outside the company had been arguing for some time--that the browser itself has become a security risk.
"Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability," Gates said.
The new browser version will work on machines running on Windows XP Service Pack 2, a security-focused update to the operating system that the company launched last summer, Gates said.
Mike Nash, an executive in Microsoft's security business and technology unit, said in an interview that Microsoft has not determined how or when the final version of IE 7 will ship, but that it is planned ahead of Longhorn.
Nash said it has not been decided whether IE 7 will come with a different Windows update, such as a security revamp.
"We'll be updating Windows on a regular basis," he said. "How the browser gets packaged--whether it's with a service pack--has not been nailed down. There is going to be a Service Pack 3 (of Windows XP). That's not a surprise. How that relates to (IE 7's release), we haven't figured out yet."
As recently as August, Microsoft said that no new stand-alone version was planned before Longhorn, and the company reiterated back then that its plan was to make new IE features available with major Windows releases. "At this time, there are no plans to release a new stand-alone version of IE," a Microsoft representative said.
The Firefox factor
Analysts attributed Microsoft's change of heart to the progress of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, which has made incremental but steady market share gains against IE in recent months. In a survey conducted late last year, Firefox nudged IE below the 90 percent mark for the first time since the height of the browser wars in the 1990s.
"I think it's a response to both the delay of Longhorn and the challenge of Firefox," said NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin, who added that Firefox was probably the sharper spur. "Were there no Firefox, they'd have more leeway to sit on it until Longhorn."
Bart Decrem, a founding member of the Mozilla Foundation, former head of its marketing and business development and current volunteer, said that Microsoft clearly was responding to the group's work.
Nash would not say whether Microsoft hopes to stem defections or gain back share lost to Firefox.
Bitten by bugsMicrosoft's decision to announce plans for IE 7 at a security conference was no coincidence. IE 6's security reputation has suffered over the years, dogged by a long string of security bugs, phishing schemes and patches.
The company sought to allay security concerns last year by issuing the SP2 update for Windows XP, which included a number of changes to browser security. But critics complained that the update would
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Furthermore, as long as only XP gets the new version, people with other version of MS's OS will be turning to Firefox and other browsers, if anything more so since I'd guess MS will stop paying attention to IE 6 problems once they have 7 out and running.
Better security in IE.
Priority #1.1:
Decent CSS support! PLEASE!
If the new browser doesn't support tabs it may slow down the defection from IE to Firefox but it won't win any users back. Tabbed browsing is someing that people can't do without once they have it.
In any case, following the even versions suck (IE4, IE6) and odd versions not so much (IE3, IE5) rule it should be at least somewhat better
I know there are a lot of MS fanboys out there that would like to tout the latest non-existant MS product for their favorite company, but I'll believe IE 7 is so great when I actually see it.
If IE7 is anything like longhorn, it'll be delayed a few times, and arrive late with a lot of promised features missing. So come 2006, expect an improved IE with almost as many useful features as other browsers.
Some ideas to think about:
Will this reverse their declining reputation for quality products ?
Will the millions of users of Foxfire and other browsers switch back to IE or do they even care ?
How many patches will this version go through before it is solid ?
How long will it be before the virus and other scumware writers key in on this version ?
Will MS use the same tactics they used to kill Netscape the first time ?
Do you think it is a good thing for one company to control an entire industry, do you think this stiffles innovation and consumer choice ?
Will this product be offered free to a huge number of non XP users or is this just a way to force them to upgrade ?
Will the new browser be a Firefox knockoff ?
Sit back an relax, it ought to be great fun watching this unfold.
it's software.
Here's the policy as it appears upon reading this article: Scream
in agony for a long long time, and maybe...just maybe daddy will
decide to help you
I've played with many browsers over the years. OmniWeb 4.5 was my absolute favorite, but I've played with Opera, Safari (my new fav), Firefox, and even add-ons to Internet Exploiter like Avant Browser.
Honestly, how long can it take to make a decent browser when you have billions of dollars and millions of drones programming for you, all at your disposal?!
Wake up Bill. Your losing grip of the masses! Oh, wait, that's not such a bad thing.
MS doesn't innovate on the fly well at all, and they are being pushed well outside of their zone of comfort. There isn't anything they can buy off of the shelf this time, they have not serious internal solutions for most of their self-created problems, and the list goes on and on.
Even if they do get something on the market, they are simply harvesting what the planted. I won't use IE 7 because I don't trust MS to create anything right the first time through. The hackers will pounce on IE 7 like flies on rotting beef. It will be a year before they get it right.
If they play it safe and add not features people actually want, or force a lot of people to make upgrades that screw their system like SP2, they'll only compound the problem.
Besides, IE will never match the wonder of the Abe Vigoda extension for Firefox!
NWLB
****
http://www.nwlbnet.blogspot.com
Quote:
"In announcing the plan, Gates acknowledged something that many outside the company had been arguing for some time--that the browser itself has become a security risk.
"Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability," Gates said."
Gates isn't quoted saying that brows-ers themselves are security risks, but merely that the act of brows-ing creates a point of potential vulnerability for everyone who browses the Internet--regardless of brows-er used in the process.
Quote:
"As recently as August, Microsoft said that no new stand-alone version was planned before Longhorn, and the company reiterated back then that its plan was to make new IE features available with major Windows releases. "At this time, there are no plans to release a new stand-alone version of IE," a Microsoft representative said."
I cannot find a single quote from a Microsoft employee quoted in this article which indicates that IE7 will ship as a stand-alone product. Hint: is SP2 a "stand-alone" product? Therefore, shipping IE7 inside a WinXP update is not the same as to say it will be distributed independently of the OS, imo.
Quote:
"In November, Microsoft opened the door slightly to improving IE before Longhorn, though it indicated that improvements might come through add-ons to the browser, rather than through an updated version of IE."
Again we see alarming evidence that Ina Fried is unfamiliar with the Windows update site and oblivious to its function: IE6 has been "improved" and "updated" many, many times through the WinXP Update site since it shipped with XP in '01, and has also received updates since SP2 was made available, in fact--which are universally available and free of charge through the WinXP update site.
Quote:
"Analysts attributed Microsoft's change of heart to the progress of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, which has made incremental but steady market share gains against IE in recent months. In a survey conducted late last year, Firefox nudged IE below the 90 percent mark for the first time since the height of the browser wars in the 1990s."
I wish Ina Fried was also not oblivious to the fact that for years prior to IE version 5.x, Netscape browsers (which are the foundation of FireFox) owned the lion's share of the x86-Windows browser market, with percentages as high as 100% domination at times, IIRC. It would be nice not to constantly have slog through revisionist histories at CNet...;)
Quote:
""I think it's a response to both the delay of Longhorn and the challenge of Firefox," said NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin, who added that Firefox was probably the sharper spur. "Were there no Firefox, they'd have more leeway to sit on it until Longhorn."
Bart Decrem, a founding member of the Mozilla Foundation, former head of its marketing and business development and current volunteer, said that Microsoft clearly was responding to the group's work.
"I can't think of a better validation of the success of Firefox," said Decrem. "The success of Firefox is forcing Microsoft to improve IE. The only surprise is that it took them this long to make that announcement.""
But the reverse is also true, it seems to me--as in would there even be a FireFox today if not for the success of IE...? I imagine that much within the current FireFox browser is modeled on the success of IE. I rather think the equation is more two-sided than Ina Fried would like (but that's what's fun about looking at Fried's generally imbalanced editorial opinions...;))
As someone who is using FireFox as his default browser at the moment in preference to IE, because I think it's just as good in many respects and because I enjoy software variety, I have no trouble contrasting the two browsers in that way. I have often wondered what a Netscape browser would look like today had MS never bothered to do a browser of its own. I believe it would be quite different from FireFox today, without a doubt.
Quote:
"Nash would not say whether Microsoft hopes to stem defections or gain back share lost to Firefox."
Heh...;) Is this to say that Nash was actually asked this question and refused to answer, or to say that Nash was never asked this question in the first place--which of course would explain why he "would not" answer it...;) (I'm betting it was the latter.)
Quote:
"Bitten by bugs"
Heh-Heh...;) In Ina Fried's vernacular, a hole exploited by a hacker is only a "bug" when it occurs in a Microsoft browser; when it occurs in FireFox it is always whitewashed as something far less sinister--although it is exactly the same thing...;) And of course the notion that IE is targeted 90% of the time because it is used by 90% of the browsing populous--contrasted with 10% in both cases for FireFox--is a notion that Ina Fried has a great deal of difficulty wrapping his head around...;)
And it wouldn't very effective trying to poke fun at Microsoft by actually emphasizing that MS has filled in 95%+ of all such holes in the form of IE updates available through the WinXP update site, would it? Surely not, which is surely why Fried and friends love talking about IE "bugs" but really loathe talking about the freely available IE fixes for those very same "bugs"...;) It's so much more fun to just pretend that Microsoft never does anything--fun maybe, but it's certainly no favor to the CNet readership.
Quote:
"But critics complained that the update would benefit only those people who either already owned XP or who had paid for an operating system upgrade, leaving about half the Windows world out in the cold."
Shades of Apple "graybeards," if you know what I mean...;) Yes, how pertinent of the "critics" to point out that Microsoft has finally moved beyond support for 7-10-year-old versions of its Windows OS...;)
Of course, Fried and friends don't want to talk about the fact that MS has continuously updated and supported the version of WinXP I bought way back in '01 when it shipped. Or, that MS will undoubtedly continue to support it for at least the next 2-3 years beyond the present. Yep, such facts just sort of ruin the whole picture that Fried tries so hard to paint convincingly, right?...;)
Quote:
"Microsoft on Tuesday acknowledged that those complaints about XP exclusivity lingered, particularly among enterprise users of Windows 2000.
"Right now, we're focused on XP SP2," Dean Hachamovitch, who heads Microsoft's IE team, wrote in the company's IE blog, in a posting dated Tuesday. "We're actively listening to our major Windows 2000 customers about what they want and comparing that to the engineering and logistical complexity of that work. That's all I can say on that topic.""
Heh..;) Excuse me for not being able to find any connection whatever between what Fried says MS said, and the out-of-context *blog passage* by the MS employee as quoted...;) (I really like reading Fried because I think she missed a calling as a stand-up comic in the local Comedy House. Does she really think we are all so dumb, I wonder...?)
Quote:
"But IE 6 has earned enmity among developers, and not only for its security lapses. Web authors have long complained about Microsoft's spotty implementation of various Web standards including Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format, Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML)."
Perhaps a bit of common sense might suit Fried and friends here. I mean, if there is so much "enmity" out there on the part of web developers towards IE, then why do the great majority of them write to IE instead of to FireFox? Bears some thought, I think...
Quote:
"As the company reversed itself on issuing a standalone IE, Web authors wondered aloud whether version 7 would fix those bugs along with the security holes."
OK, I'm still searching for the quote in this article in which a MS employee states that MS is releasing a stand-alone version of IE which will be distributed independently of the OS...? Here's all I could find in Fried's article:
"Nash said it has not been decided whether IE 7 will come with a different Windows update, such as a security revamp.
"We'll be updating Windows on a regular basis," he said. "How the browser gets packaged--whether it's with a service pack--has not been nailed down. There is going to be a Service Pack 3 (of Windows XP). That's not a surprise. How that relates to (IE 7's release), we haven't figured out yet.""
I mean, what this says to me is that IE7's distribution hasn't been *decided* at MS--so what's the basis for Fried to keep saying "stand-alone" as if this is something MS has actually announced...?
It may indeed be a stand-alone release--the problem is that this article contains no proof of that assertion yet declares it nonetheless.
Quote:
"Apart from promising a test version by summer, Microsoft remained coy about its plans for releasing the final standalone IE 7.
"Yes, we have a date in mind," Hachamovitch wrote in the IE blog. "I'll talk about the date after we get feedback from customers and partners. We're going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We'll ship when the product is ready.""
So, ok, if MS is "coy" about the form of distribution it has in mind for IE7, then where is the basis for Fried to make her stand-alone assertion? I can't see it.
Final comment. This story, although published as a single story, actually comes from three separate and disparate sources. The first is snippets from Gates' RSA keynote address; the second is snippets from an interview given by Mike Nash (notable in that Fried does not tell us which interview or provide a link so that we can read it for ourselves); third is snippets from a *blog* by a MS employee. Fried and friends attempt to convey and merge selected commentary from all three sources as if they emerged from the same event--but of course they fail in that endeavor because it's so obvious that these are three separate, essentially non-related events, despite Fried's characterization otherwise.
One can only hope CNet will do better in the future as not all of us are conspiracy-theory buffs...:D
[Edited by: admin on Feb 16, 2005 9:49 AM]
Please note that ad hominem attacks violate CNET News.com's "Terms of Use" policy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have yet to experience these holes and quirks everyone talks about. I have yet to have my computer taken over by a hacker. I have yet to contract a virus of any kind. Everyone tells me I'm using a time bomb and have been saying it for months on end. Three times over the course of the past few months have I downloaded Firefox and three times have I uninstalled in a period of no more than two weeks because I found its capabilities to be grossly overstated by those who use it. Tabs are a nuisance. If your screen is 800x600, then you might need tabs. I run 1400x1050, so I'm hardly jonesin' for space. If I wanted tabs, I'd download Maxthon.
Spyware, Adware, Malware, and "annoying popups" are moot: I know my computer well and take very good care of it. Thus far, none have been able to give me a good reason to switch, but I remain open to any who would try.
My personal opinion is Microsoft should be forced to remove IE core and front end from Windows. They should be made to sell a version of windows without IE and Windows Media Player. For that matter I don't think they should be allowed to sell a version of windows with anti-Spyware or Antivirus software pre-installed.
Of course thats just my opinion and they will get away with doing it because people don't see the harm in letting microsoft control every aspect of there computer.
How come they now are proposing to ship a separate version?
- I swear your Honor, IE & WinOS cannot operate seperately...Citizen Gates
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by Llib Setag
February 17, 2005 3:03 PM PST
- Remember Citizen Gates tesifying in Federal Court during the
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See all 151 Comments >>DOJ Anti-Trust Lawsuit & the pending fines &/or breaking
Microsoft into smaller companies?
Didn't he swear under oath that because of the tight integration
of IE with WinOS which "benefits" the consumers, also make it
impossible to "divorce" them from one another?
Also, after a series of Prosecution expert witnesses testimonies,
Citizen Gates then swore under oath that IF in fact MS was
FORCED to "divorce" IE from WinOS, that is would cause great
havoc & expense to MS to the point of near bankruptcy?
It would also "stiffle innovation" & the consumers would suffer...
NOW all of a sudden when MS has some competiton from Open
Source/Mozilla/Firefox/Safari/Mozilla based Netscape/AOL/
Opera/etc. browsers & people are tired of all the security risks &
loss of business & waiting for six years for Redmond Jurassic
DOSasaurs to get off the fat behinds & DO some REAL
innovation, NOW MS IE can be "improved & security assured" yet
SEPARATE from the OS as a stand alone browser
software....HMMMM.....
Me thinks me smells a (Fire)Fox in the hen house.