Lions and Tigers and IE 7! Oh my!

[_kill__bill]

It's nearing upgrade time at any captive organization. Microsoft released a beta of IE 7.0
 
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2019982,00.html
 
From what I can tell, the only major diffs are:
1: Finally supporting transparent PNGs
2: Tabbed Browsing
3: A list of known phishing sites
 
Why it is all bullshit:
1: PNG has been a W3C Recommendation since 1st October, 1996. About time IE does it right
2: No innovation.
3: This should belong in a filter, not the browser. More bundling, except they aren't even going to bother giving it a new name.
 
And why I think I'll actually get it:
1: A lot of pages are broken beyond belief, and I like tabs even when Firefox is confused
 
And why I'll still use Firefox when I can:
1: Built-in pop-up blocker
2: No ActiveX
3: Faster
4: Free both ways
5: Looks better
6: More customizable
7: XUL ROCKS!
8: Almost no security issues
9: Runs on everything :tux: :bsd: :macos:
10: It's not made by Microsoft

[piratePenguin]

They should just ship with Firefox or even Opera (would need permission from the Opera owners, and I've heard that they'd be willing to give them the right), but that would be a good i.e. bad thing for Windows as an OS (because Windows as an OS is supposed to be shit).

[Refalm]

I've noticed IE7 still hasn't fixed

or any other CSS 3 or XHTML 1.1 specification for that matter.

Also, a pop-up for phishing on every new website made me scream "FUCK OFF!" very loudly. Once I finished testing a website I made in IE 7 (corperate websites do need IE support) I quickly started Opera.

[worker201]

Have they fixed the XML declaration for pages marked as "transitional" bug yet?  That one gets filed under V for Vexing.

[_kill__bill]

Have they fixed the XML declaration for pages marked as "transitional" bug yet? That one gets filed under V for Vexing.

I've noticed IE7 still hasn't fixed

or any other CSS 3 or XHTML 1.1 specification for that matter.

No clue. I'm only getting it when they get some of the beta-level bugs out (they will never get them all out), and only then because Firefox doesn't work well with messed-up HTML.
 
Maybe the W3C should be given authority over web pages enough only to make sure all pages work under an ultra-loose definition. If only...

[worker201]

In order to really understand what bugs are truly fixed and what bugs are not fixed, you have to have CSS parsers, XML parsers, and code watches, which IE will probably never have.

Their decision to only randomly support certain bits of CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3 is just plain shitty.  If you look at what they choose not to support and the extras they use, it seems clear that they are either stupid and bitchy, or that they have something truly nasty hidden in their sleeves, like forcing the internet to use Microsoft GUI standards.

[Refalm]

illhostit.com - ie7_mes.png
The bug of the seperate bar that is the fault of Internet Explorer still hasn't been fixed. So HTML 4 support is still crap.

illhostit.com - ie7_qute.png
Quadrone.org uses XHTML and CSS 3 and doesn't give a shit about Internet Explorer. This website works in all the modern browsers, except for Internet Explorer.

While I've found out that they now do support

in an half-assed way, they still have a lot of work to do on the engine. I doubt that they will.

Also, the interface looks like it's made by some pre-teen who's uploading stuff to Theme-XP.org, and wonders why he's getting bad reviews all the time.

[Aloone_Jonez]

2: No innovation.

That one I can agree with.

 

1: Built-in pop-up blocker

IE has had that since SP2 for XP.

2: No ActiveX

I've heard that they're planning to block ActiveX by default apart from Windows update.

3: Faster

True, FireFox does render faster than IE but IE loads quicker as it's already partly loaded with Windows.

[mobrien_12]

IE doesn't have adblock.  I'll never go back, not with the way flash ads are going these days.  Adblock is freaking wonderful.  I can live with ads on my terms.  Ads that are reasonable, stay.  Ads that are obnoxious, GO.

Do you have a link about the ActiveX going away?  I find that suprising.  The whole IE plugin structure is based on ActiveX since they decided to drop the Netscape Plugin format (we all know why).  All sorts of IE only sites use ActiveX (stupid web coders).  MS freaking loves ActiveX and has been shoving it down the throats of the world for TEN YEARS.  Now they are going to disable it?

[Aloone_Jonez]

Yes, it's true MS finally admit that ActiveX is insecure ans is a pile of shit.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/featuretable.mspx

ActiveX

[cymon]

Holy shit! It's the Microsoft Firefox! And the worst thing is, is that people will say 'OMG TABZZZORZ W00T!!11', and credit MS as the company of the century, even though all halfway decent browsers have supported those for ages.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

actually it looks more like opera than firefox ... it's still shit tho

[Orethrius]

Did anybody else find the lack of "View Source" a tad disturbing?
I mean, suddenly the world's largest OS vendor takes away Joe Averageuser's ability to manually check standards compatibility?

EDIT: Not that there aren't a million ways around it, mind you, but just the fact that it was deemed high-enough priority to even make it to beta?

[RaZoR1394]

True, FireFox does render faster than IE but IE loads quicker as it's already partly loaded with Windows.

You can install a plugin which makes Windows load parts of Firefox in the memory during startup.

[mobrien_12]

Did anybody else find the lack of "View Source" a tad disturbing?
I mean, suddenly the world's largest OS vendor takes away Joe Averageuser's ability to manually check standards compatibility?

EDIT: Not that there aren't a million ways around it, mind you, but just the fact that it was deemed high-enough priority to even make it to beta?

They took "View Source" out?????????

Typical Microsoft.   Trying their best to turn the Web into a closed platform.