Busting IE8’s Mythbusting

by: Brian on: June 18th, 2009

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myth

Over the last 12 months or so I was starting to like Microsoft a bit because of their efforts in trying to connect to the users by opening up IE and Windows7 developers blog and taking inputs from everyone on what features and improvements they want to see on future versions. That takes some balls considering the fact that many people were furious with IE & Vista in general. They took a lot of these user suggestions and implemented on Windows 7 and IE8 (not enough). So, lets give them credit where its due: Windows 7 is the best Windows yet (unlike Vista) and IE8 is the best IE yet (unlike IE6-7). They are not better than the alternatives but its their best effort yet.

Recently they doubled up on their efforts on IE8 promotion. First the Browsing For the Better promotion where MS will donate 8 meals for each IE8 download (partnering with Feeding America). Even though its a bit shady, I am not going to sit in the comforts of my home and criticize something that will help those in need. Their second effort is in the form of an online competition dubbed “Ten Grand is Buried Here”, where you download and install IE8 and follow their twitter account to play a treasure hunting game. You get hints to look for the location of $10k somewhere hidden online, apparently it only works with IE8. Another shady move, but even on this one I am prepared to give them a pass, a lot of companies use this kind of promotions to get users.

But, then came the LIES.

Microsoft recently (few months?) started IE8 mythbusting on their IE8 ‘Get The Facts’ campaign. But lets take a closer look at them:

Myth #1:

The Lie: Internet Explorer is much slower than Firefox and Chrome.

The Truth: IE8 IS slower than every other browser worth mentioning. In fact its the slowest in every factor of a browser performance you can think of. Whether its Cold Startup, Warm Startup, JavaScript performance or page load performance in general. Apparently IE8 teams thinks page load time is not important. Their definition of browser speed, in the form of accelerometer, is more important than the performance of actually loading the website. Accelerometer is a “feature” that is available on Firefox, Opera long before IE8 implemented it. This is nothing to do with browser performance. They want to define whats important for users and design accordingly, instead of designing based on whats important to the users. No wonder they are so out of loop.

Myth #2:

The Lie: Internet Explorer is less secure than Firefox.

The Truth: First, the NSS Labs Study IE8 is referring to is sponsored by Microsoft. Second, IE8 may be more secure than previous IE browsers its a bit too early to come to any conclusion specially since IE8 market share is ~5%. The same “tainted” report by NSS labs mentions (pdf) IE7, which is the leading among IE browser share, (exact quote) “Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 provided practically no protection against malware”. Third, Opera blog points out (among many things) that the NSS lab tested Opera 9.64 even before it was released. Huh?

Myth #3:

The Lie: Firefox is a richer, more adaptable browser than Internet Explorer.

The Truth: Can anyone in their right mind dispute Firefox on adaptability? Firefox has more than 1900 add-ons just on the “other” category. Not to mention the fact that Firefox is open Source and you can rip it apart and “adapt” it to do whatever the hell you want with it.

Myth #4:

The Lie: Internet Explorer doesn’t play well with Web standards.

The Truth: Internet explorer REALLY doesn’t play well with web standards. The ‘myth’ refers to IE not IE8 which hold ~5% market share. However it is true that IE8 is the most standard compliant IE release yet. Not the most standard compliant web browser in any stretch of imagination. The test suite IE8 team is referring to is not approved or recommended by W3C. Basically, IE8 team cherry picked 7000 tests (which is yet to be peer reviewed) from CSS 2.1 test suite and declared IE8 the winner.

Conclusion:

Just when you think you can finally start to trust Microsoft because of their recent commitment in trying to improve both Windows 7 (which I think is very impressive) and IE8, they start resorting to lies and shady tactics. When will they learn that quality product triumphs outright lies? Hopefully soon, for their own good. When you have quality product you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to promote it, your users will gladly promote it for you. Just learn from Mozilla Firefox.

Filed under: Browser

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Comments:

Vikram
06/18/2009

Interesting article.

I would like to point out that nowhere in the scientific method does it state that the results are dependent upon who is paying. A scientifically valid test holds up to scrutiny of the facts. Regardless of funding.

However, since several Microsoft haters have been unable to criticize the actual test methodology or the results from a scientific perspective, they have managed to twist the fact that NSS Labs is a highly credible, professional organization into a negative by implying impropriety since NSS Labs was paid.

One example is Automobile State Inspection. Just because you are paying for the inspection does not mean you will pass the test. Same goes for independent financial audits. Just because the company is paying does not mean they get a pass. So the smear logic does not hold if you think about it.
Pavs
06/18/2009

Vikram,

Paying couple of hundred dollars for Automotive Inspection from millions of users is not the same as paying (hundreds) of thousands of dollars from one company.

Automotive inspection can afford to fail individual inspection tests because there are millions of people who needs inspection. They will have to get a paid inspection whether they pass or fail, whether they like it or not. there is no ’second’ option.

How many thousands of companies approach NSS labs to test their browsers? One?

If NSS labs test results shows that IE8 miserably failed security tests, will Microsoft ever come back to NSS labs for tests. Are you that naive?

MS has a product that needs a favorable review from a somewhat reputable security company. MS pays NSS labs to conduct a test. NSS labs gives IE8 “outstanding grades”. How convenient!

Anywhere in your white paper does it mention that the test was sponsored by Microsoft, in BOLD letters?
Tyler
06/19/2009

Do I even need to say it?

Apple.Is.Better.
Russell
06/19/2009

As far as automobile inspections go, sometimes paying DOES mean you pass the test. It’s the tester’s responsibility to be honest and sometimes money persuades.
fred
06/19/2009

“IE8 IS slower than every other browser worth mentioning.”

It depends, if your Firefox has started eating every byte of your memory, than IE can be faster than Firefox :D

(Once a Firefox user, but switched to Konqueror on Linux and Chrome on Windows because of this problem)
James
06/19/2009

Vikram’s right in that MS’s paying NSS doesn’t necessarily imply their results are invalid. On the other hand, one might well be suspicious of their results because MS paid them, and because of that more closely examine NSS’s methods or compare with tests others have done.
John
06/19/2009

Care? They all view webpages. Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway. Don’t hate the people that got us to where we are now. So what if other people can do it slightly better nowadays, they did it best, first.
Mike
06/19/2009

IE7 and IE8 under Windows Vista and 7 run under a low process integrity level. Google Chrome does the same thing. Firefox, Safari, and Opera do not.

As far as vulnerabilities go:

IE7 – http://secunia.com/advisories/product/12366/ 36 Advisories. With only 42% marked as highly critical, and 33% marked as a very low critical flaw.

FF3.x – http://secunia.com/advisories/product/19089/?task=statistics – 15 advisories, 80% of which were highly critical.

Chrome 2.x – 1 Advisory, already patched and fixed. The advisory was released 9 days ago. It was highly critical.

Now, you have to factor in the UAC functionality here. A vulnerability on Firefox 3 will do more damage than a vulnerability on either IE7 (Vista) or Chrome (Vista/7). In my mind, because of this, IE7 is more secure than FF3.

There are other security-related functions that are unrelated to vulnerabilities, however. And IE ranks up there amongst them.
Jeff
06/19/2009

Myth #1:. While I do not dispute.. please provide facts and numbers and not just heated opinion. Right off the bat your arguments sound like a bunch of hot air.
Greg
06/19/2009

In MA, automobile inspections are carried out by regular garages, licensed and issued the state computer bundle. Oddly, I’ve found that different garages will find different things “wrong” with your car that need repair before you’ll pass inspection.

So, yes, money is an incentive, and he who buys the testing has an edge.

Aside from the question of the objectivity of the tests, what could we really expect Microsoft to do? “Our browser is slower and less secure, but give it a try anyway!” Don’t be surprised when a puppy piddles on the floor, and don’t be surprised when the ad campaign is full of lies. That’s just the way it works.
Kevin
06/19/2009

@John,

IE did it first? In what alternate timeline did Netscape come after Internet Explorer?
Michael Landis
06/19/2009

You’ll know when Microsoft has a gem on their hands when they are comfortable letting the facts speak for themselves. Apple doesn’t scream about Safari 4, even though it rocks the shiz off everyone else. They don’t have to.

Methinks they doth protest too much.
James
06/19/2009

Not bad info though the format of answers is wrong.

The “LIE’ would be what Microsoft is claiming not what the article seeks to prove.

The Lie: Internet Explorer is much slower than Firefox and Chrome.

should be…

The Lie: Internet Explorer is faster than Firefox and Chrome.

The the truth would be “Internet Explorer is much slower than Firefox and Chrome…..”
Peter
06/19/2009

Mike said: “IE7 – 36 Advisories. With only 42% marked as highly critical” 36*0.42 = 15. So, IE7 has 15 “highly critical” advisories. FF3.x only has 15 advisories TOTAL, 12 highly critical. 15 > 12. IE = less secure.
Blake Chambers
06/19/2009

Myth #4:Web Standards(Not necessarily)

IE8 passes acid tests better than FF2, and in some cases better than FF3. However, all the other browsers have limited support for html5. IE’s weakness is NOT looking to the future of web. FF/Chrome are.
JD
06/19/2009

@ Peter, thanks for figuring that out because I was thinking that same thing about that comment.

The only reason IE ever had any market share was because it came as the default browser for Windows PCs and the majority of users are too ignorant or don’t care enough to get a decent web browser. Not because they chose it for being the best.

I’m sure IE8 is a vast improvement on a faulty formula, but it still has a ways to go before it can even get into the ring and compete. That said, Firefox (for Mac) still has some bugginess and issues that irk me. And don’t get me started on the fact that IE8 isn’t compatible with Macs. Don’t they say somewhere up there that IE8 has the best compatibility of anything ever?

Lies, I say. Lies!
techSage
06/19/2009

The author gets sidetracked a couple of times into the defense that IE in general (not IE8) is what is being talked about in the myths, but the whole point of the campaign is that Microsoft has seen where there weaknesses were in IE6-7 and made great improvements so that IE8 could break free from the preconceptions that people have about IE, hopefully bringing an end to many of them.
Rick
06/19/2009

John IE did it best first ? You too young to remember Netscape and what Windows did to that company. Did lead to a rather massive suit against microsoft that altered windows forever.
Gargantuan
06/19/2009

@Peter: I can’t believe it took six comments before someone pointed that out. Mike is obviously mentally retarded and in my expert medical opinion, he poses a significant threat to himself and others.

But anyway, people need to remember just how shitty Microsoft’s tactics to own the internet have been. This is the company that celebrated it’s victory over Netscape by shutting down the IE development team with the firm intention of never releasing another browser again, because there was no competition… until Firefox came along and upset that apple cart.

Microsoft has demonstrated that it does not want to deliver a superior product for the benefit of all. It wants market dominance so it can dictate how the web should work and crush its competition. Not compete, not outperform, but crush, until Microsoft is the only choice.

With regard to internet explorer and browsers in general, Microsoft have proven themselves to be utter scum-bags, and the internet would be a much better place without IE. I wish them all the worst luck in the world with IE8. It’s nothing less than they deserve.
Gautam Beri
06/19/2009

Tyler,
Seems like its a browser war not OS.
and Safari falls under the same shed coz FF i better than Safari 4 also.
And Safari 4 got its looks and feel from chrome.
devolved
06/19/2009

Well I’ve had a go with IE8, incredibly slow to start, dubious css, webslice is a proprietary joke etc.

It’s an MS browser, it’s going to be laden with all the MS baggage and stubbornness … after IE6 I don’t think they deserve any credit for making something that’s not unusably poor.

It’s still going to cause headaches, but I’d turn a blind eye if it gets people away from ie6 (which I have np working with css wise, it’s just crap).
Weed
06/19/2009

@Vikram – there is a wealth of data showing that mistakes made in the course of experimental research and data analysis are not random but are skewed in the direction of the experimenter’s attitudes and beliefs — therefore research funded by those profiting from its results can not be considered impartial without an independent peer review
Chris Pratt
06/19/2009

What gets me is that the whole reason IE has dominate market share is (undisputably) because it comes with Windows and Windows has dominate market share.

Given that, and taking the assumption that IE8 is as great as Microsoft is making it out to be, why, then, are they marketing it so hard and publishing these weak and thinly veiled comparison charts, myths, etc.

Sorry, Microsoft, but wake up and smell the coffee. People who know enough to consider a different browser, don’t use IE, and you’re not going to change that. Be happy with your grandmas and other clueless users, and leave the rest of us alone.
Jack
06/19/2009

MS is so full of it but they reach a non-tech audience they can totally lie to. EVIL.
Stephen
06/19/2009

Vikram:

“I would like to point out that nowhere in the scientific method does it state that the results are dependent upon who is paying. A scientifically valid test holds up to scrutiny of the facts. Regardless of funding.”

That’s true for peer-reviewed implementations of the scientific method. Where is the peer review here?

An independent review is supposed to be just that, independent. That means there can be no influence on the results, direct or indirect. When I was reviewing products for magazines, the industry *expected* me to have no financial ties to either the company or the company’s competition . No stock, no contracts, no ANYTHING involving money or “in kind”. (This got a little interesting when I started selling modem testing systems and still writing modem reviews for publication.)

Things would be different if NSS did the evaluation on its own dime, and Microsoft — AFTER publication — requested permission to use the results of the report. As a counter-example, Maxstor liked my disk-drive product comparison so much that they reprinted the article and distributed it widely. (I never saw any money from the reprints, by the way.)

By the way, a quick Google on the report shows some peer review that exposes some significant weaknesses in the testing methodology. I wanted to verify some of the weaknesses. Microsoft IE8 is not listed in the “Individual Tests” section of nsslabs.com’s web site. I did find the report in the “News and Announcements” section, however, dated 3/19 (today).

The cover page is particular interesting, paraphrasing: (1) “subject to change without notice” (2) “is not guaranteed. All use and reliance on this report are at your sole risk” (3) “NO WARRANTIES” (4) “does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or guarantee” (5) [no section] (6) trademark disclaimer.

The executive summary makes it clear that this test was very, very narrow in scope: “socially engineered malware”. The term is never concretely defined in the report. From the second paragraph: “And increasingly, social engineering techniques are being applied to the web to quickly distribute malware and evade traditional security programs.” That does not explain the difference between “socially engineered malware” and other forms of malware. See the last paragraph of this contribution for a more telling restriction in scope for this report.

As for “fairness”, I would have preferred to see the test run on Internet Explorer 8 in its release version, as opposed to using a Release Candidate. That one item, in my view, significantly taints the report because the other browsers tested are release versions. Alternatively, NSS could have contacted each of the vendors and obtained copies of their release candidates. If NSS had done that, they would have said so in their report. They didn’t. “Generally available software releases were used in all cases.”

Also missing: how the URLs were selected. What criteria was used at each level of winnowing? 60,000 to 5,149 to 1,779 to 492. Specifically, what was “our validation criteria”? For that matter, what method was used to collect the initial 60,000 URLs? This omission is very serious when you see this sentence in the first paragraph of the report: “Antivirus researchers estimate between 15,000 and 50,000 new malware samples per day.”

There are significant gaps in the report, however, that in my mind undermine the conclusions expressed by NSS Labs. In the footnotes, NSS Labs admits to further narrowing the focus of the report: “Phishing protection was not included in this study, but will be addressed in a companion report which will be published within a few weeks.”

Oops.
Rob
06/19/2009

Apparently some people think passing an Acid test means you are standards compliant. But the Acid tests do not test full compliance and they only test CSS. You can pass the Acid tests yet still miss full compliance with any CSS standard.

In addition, CSS alone is not web standards compliance. You would be ignoring all the other things that go with it such as the DOM. IE8 is 11 years behind current DOM support and all other browsers. Also, IE8 has NO support for XHTML served as XHTML or SVG.

And on and on.

I’m glad someone pointed out the misreading of the Secunia vulnerability reports. IE7 has as many open vulnerabilities as all other web browsers combined! As said, the votes are still being counted on IE8.

As the web moves forward with the modern browsers, IE8 is “feature complete” until IE9 comes out, whenever that will be, but Microsoft’s “wish list” on the IEBlog does not even contain elements that all other browsers support now, such as canvas, SVG (again), XHTML (again).

Microsoft doesn’t even show up for HTML5 committee meetings. And they chair the group! Another example of how Internet Explorer holds back the web.
fb182900895
06/19/2009

“Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway.”

Well, except for Mac and Linux users.
Yordan
06/19/2009

‘I would like to point out that nowhere in the scientific method does it state that the results are dependent upon who is paying. A scientifically valid test holds up to scrutiny of the facts. Regardless of funding.

One example is Automobile State Inspection. Just because you are paying for the inspection does not mean you will pass the test.’

Paying the company that reviews your product is a conflict of interest. Remember Leo Laporte blowing up because he was accused of giving a better review to the Palm Pre because he got to keep the device? It’s a conflict of interest for a tech company to give away their product to the company that reviews it. This is the same principle between NSS and Microsoft. In their case however, how can you give a bad review to the company that is directly funding you?

You example of the automobile state inspection is a bad example. They will inspect your car regardless of what you pay. They inspect it to ensure that it’s road ready, and it only matters to the gov’t and the environment, not the entire public how close or far from specs the car is.

I know from firsthand that these myths aren’t actually myths. I can tell how long it takes google chrome to load up compared to IE8. I can see the web standards failing on web pages made between browsers. I can see the special .css files made specifically for IE. I don’t need a cheatsheet telling me the facts. I see them daily, and I’m not happy.
Steve
06/19/2009

While I agree on most points I don’t think you can say Firefox is the fastest browser especially on Cold Startup (and even worse when it decides to install plugin upgrades of it’s own volition).

When developing and constantly refreshing the page Firefox is so much slower than Chrome, Safari, IE8 and Opera that I’ve had to stop using it for development.
Gonzobot
06/19/2009

Every site should implement a browser check, and if necessary, redirect the user to a page that warns them of the dangers of using IE. Seriously, for the class of people who wouldn’t even KNOW that there are alternatives, there really is no other way – these people are inadvertently dropping trou and bending over for any passing ‘bot trojan. And Microsoft isn’t going to do a thing to stop this from happening – why would they willingly give up the glorious market share they already have (nevermind they only got it ‘by default’, and are relying on lack of better sense in their ‘target audience’)
Ryan Roberts
06/19/2009

> John – “Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway.”

You consider that a good thing!?

> John – “Don’t hate the people that got us to where we are now.”

You really think that?

> John – “they did it best, first.

Actually no, they did not.
tom
06/19/2009

IE7 and IE8 under Windows Vista and 7 run under a low process integrity level. Google Chrome does the same thing. Firefox, Safari, and Opera do not.

Actually this was a major change in FF3. Firefox 3 follows the same global account security policy set up under gpedit.msc as IE would. In other words, you saying that FF is less secure because of this is true of Firefox 2 but not Firefox 3+.

Also, as Peter pointed out, 15 is > 12 so IE has more security exploits AND more critical security exploits.
deziner
06/19/2009

I agree with all the debunking you’ve done of MS PR. That being said, if MS was able to convince the world to upgrade from IE6 to IE8, the internet would be a much nicer place.
Gah!
06/19/2009

It’s utterly astounding that we have “Mythbusters” editions of IE, yet Apple gets a pass on nearly every lie they tell. Their 11 million Safari downloads assertion (most were unwitting users who didn’t uncheck the auto-update all Apple software and don’t even know what Safari is) and their 75 million OS X users claim (40 million are iPhone users) and in the recent P0wn20wn competition, Safari was hacked in 20 seconds yet IE8 is horrible and we have to whine endlessly about it and make silly statements like:

apple.is.better

This is a pretty useless, incredibly biased low-hanging-fruit story.
Of course MS wrote a biased piece on IE8. Apple does the same all the freaking time and I don’t see anyone questioning it.

The recent keynote at WWDC had the “Win7 is just Vista upgrades – more of the same” and then followed that by saying “Snow Leopard is Leopard upgrades – more of the same” yet one is fantastic and the other is crap because we’re all so superior in Apple world.

Boring.
blah
06/19/2009

this whole article sounds like a fanboyish bash
Kevin Quillen
06/19/2009

You guys slug it out, I have no reason to use anything other than Chrome 2.
Sir Lox Elroy
06/19/2009

@John and some of the others. IE was the THIRD browser, Netscape the Second (after the head of the NCSA team started Netscape), and for you kids out there, NCSA Mosaic, was the first graphical Browser.
968362
06/19/2009

How is donating meals or creating a hunt for $10k online shady in any sense of the word?I stopped reading the article after those comments.
Acer
06/19/2009

15 is more than 12, I get that. But when was IE7 released, and when was FF3.x released?

Extrapolate out the numbers:

IE7 released October 2006
FF3 released June 2007

Which means that FF has been out a year, and had 12, and IE7 has been out 2.75 and had 15, about 5.5 per year.

If you want to play with those numbers, IE7 is more secure by those standards.

So quit with your fancy math, because you’re not doing it properly. Can’t believe it took this many posts for someone to figure this out.
Puerto Rico
06/19/2009

Mmmmmmm,

You forget to mention that IE8 copy all this features from firefox or chrome, well this is something unusual for microsoft
george
06/19/2009

‘“Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway.”

Well, except for Mac and Linux users.’

efff-teee-peee?

Silly whipper-snappers, don’t you understand there’s more to the Internet then just the Web?
James
06/19/2009

@Sir Lox Elroy

Ah the good ol’ days of Mosaic. Back when Compuserve was king. lol
fb182900895
06/19/2009

“efff-teee-peee?”

You mean the robust FTP software native to Windows? Silly me.
blah
06/19/2009

epic burn Kim Siever, epic burn
Acer
06/19/2009

date fail, sorry. Release of FF3 was June 2008, not 2007. Math should still be valid.

Oh, and for the record, I use Safari for Windows, so I don’t care about any of those numbers :p
george
06/19/2009

Robust or not, you don’t need a web browser to download a web browser, assuming you can find it on an FTP site. Microsoft’s crappy command line FTP client is good enough in a pinch.
FP
06/19/2009

@Acer:

“IE7 released October 2006
FF3 released June 2007

Which means that FF has been out a year, and had 12, and IE7 has been out 2.75 and had 15, about 5.5 per year.”

Okay, if you say so!

“So quit with your fancy math, because you’re not doing it properly. Can’t believe it took this many posts for someone to figure this out.”

Gee, I can’t either! Huh.
fb182900895
06/19/2009

And where do you propose finding FTP addresses without a browser? Usenet?
sarah
06/19/2009

i don;t get it. i use IE8 and it works. i have tried firefox on a friends computer and it works too. i didn’t notice a speed difference. it seems that only geeks care about this debate.
JP
06/19/2009

Who cares what came first. Netscrape sucked, back in the day, I did support for both IE5 and netscrape and as far as working well, ie won hands down. IE4 stunk though and 6 did as well. Seven works good except when it first came out, it broke a lot of things. That said, I have not had ie8 barely even work. half the time, it just sits and does nothing.
Dave
06/19/2009

before people make these articles, they should seriously consider the fact that they are highly biased and writing it as defence to their favourite browser.

Couple things. First, most of your accusations are of your own opinion and are not backed by research of any kind.

http://secunia.com/gfx/Secunia2008Report.pdf

Research paper put out. Look at page 11. Two things to note. Firefox is not the most secure browser. And neither is IE, but It’s a hell of a lot better than Firefox!

In actual fact, Opera is the most secure of the group. We can’t know the details about Chrome until this year’s research papers come out.

The reason why everyone believes that Firefox is the most secure is because of the mean-time-before-fix. That’s because it’s open source based and fixes aren’t scheduled and planned out nearly as much as they are at Microsoft. Needless to say, any critical problems with IE are resolved very quickly.

Now on to some of your comments: Cold start up time for Firefox is significantly longer for FF than IE. Warm start, FF wins.

You complain when IE 8 is compared to FF 2.x, and yet you compare IE 7 to FF 3.

Addons are significantly better for FF than any other browser. But this also introduces something else. 3rd party apps by nature have much less rigerous testing and therefore make the browser less stable even though a separate process or thread governs the add-ons.

On to standards. Acid 3 is not a standard. When you have a large organization such as Microsoft, there is a lot of planning and preparation and time and money put into the development of such applications. Again, CSS is only one part of standards as above comments have mentioned. No browser is 100% compliant.

I love the comments about Apple and how they can tell outright lies and everyone cheers and doesn’t call bull-shit on it. Everyone hates MS and when they put out a good product, everyone loves to bash it. When the put out a poorer product, they never let MS forget.

I am an appliation developer for Windows. I am so a Web developer for IE, FF, Safari and Opera. I am familiar with all their different quirks, problems and what not. IE 6 is horrible. IE7 is ok. IE 8 is better. Firefox doesn’t render some things right. When a kid makes a webpage that renders correctly in FF, but not for IE, they instantly blame MS that it’s not standards compliant. But from my experience, if you write a website designed for IE, you will have fewer problems with rendering in Opera and Safari than if you did it for Firefox.

I used Chrome for a while then switched back to IE. I hate google for two reasons – their dominance in the search engine industry yet they whine and complain about IE being installed for Windows. Second is their privacy policies. Some of you who think Google is the shit should read them. They’re not. While I believe their search engine is superior to any others including bing, I will not use any other product from them.

My opinion is that if anyone wants the actual best browser on the planet as of right now, use Opera. Not IE, not FF, not Chrome (maybe close second for some of you) and not Safari (though I do believe it is a very solid browser).

Each browser has its problems. Why are people involved with firefox such strong believers that it is the best when clearly if they actually paid attention and did their own research or even read papers from actual organizations designed to do those sort of things they would realize that it is actually on the low end of the spectrum.

For your information, I had FF, and switched back to IE for two reasons. IE8 is familiar and I can access everything that I need to. Second is that FF is horribly unstable on my home machine.

Mozilla makes just as many ‘lies’ or false claims about their product. Everyone does. Live with it. You’re acting like one of those people who’s religion is based on what their preacher says over the pulpit not based on their own experience/research.
SkeedR
06/19/2009

When it all comes down to it, Linux is by far the best OS to go for along with Firefox as they are both Open Source. Thus neither are tainted by management who just want monies.
Television Spy
06/19/2009

Some good points made but in terms of memory consumption, Firefox can’t hold a candle to IE. I really like Firefox (I love Opera), but IE still uses less than 1/2 the memory Firefox uses with the same number of tabs (same sites) opened.

IE also handles flash and active x components better at least in a Windows environment, which I admit is somewhat biased since they have the upperhand when working on a windows environment. But in terms of speed in handling media addons and active x components, IE really is the better choice.

Of course IE is really insecure, they’ve made giant strides with IE8 but it’s not my browser of choice.
BOYCOTT
06/19/2009

“Third, Opera blog points out (among many things) that the NSS lab tested Opera 9.64 even before it was released.”

That’s just the normal whining from Opera about Microsoft.

BOYCOTT OPERA!
JjH
06/19/2009

@gah!

“more of the same” for mac os leopard is a good thing. “more of the same” for vista is an awful thing.

In terms of overall quality, in the opinions of knowledgeable users, apple has been notably better recently. Yes, their download claims for Safari don’t mean much, and the same is true for their OS numbers. But those statements aren’t technically false, just misleading. You can’t compare Safari dls to FF dls, simply because so many safari dls are inadvertent by mac users doing automatic software updates (as you said), whereas you have to intentionally download firefox. However, I have yet to see any public claim made by Apple (officially, as a company line) proved to be blatantly false like so many of those put forth by microsoft.
Ian
06/19/2009

The adaptable myth is the most laughable. How could you even try to compete with Firefox on that level. I use Firefox because it has a great bunch of addons for developers, but in all honesty I think Safari is faster and has a smoother experience. IE has a terrible reputation, MS is desperate to fix it. I don’t understand why they don’t just skin and brand Webkit as IE and be done with it. The masses would never know the difference, it would be cheaper, and a lot of people web designers and developers would be happier.
AvangionQ
06/19/2009

There are several references here to Acid Test, but no link within the comments on the page … Google: Acid Test , returns this page: http://acid3.acidtests.org … running Acid Test 3 with Firefox 3.0.11 returns 72/100; with Safari 3.2.3 returns 75/100; with Chrome 2.0.172.31 returns 100/100; with Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702 returns 20/100 …
D
06/19/2009

I use mostly Chrome but IE8 is by far the fastest browser at loading large websites that have thousands of lines of text. In this case IE8 is loading pages at least twice as fast as FF or Chrome. Let’s not write it off completely.
Brian
06/19/2009

If IE 8 is so behind on security why did it outlast EVERY BROWSER in the pwn to own browser hacking competition. IE 8 took the longest to fall by a repsectable margin. Keep in mind these were some of the world’s top browser hackers and exploiters and even they say IE 8 was the toughest.

People refuse to admit that most of the time open source products are crap. If they were indeed so wonderful they would have a larger market share, I mean come on, they can’t gain significant market share and they are FREE.

LEt’s also talk about the fact that most of the time open source is by definition NOT secure. You cannot call any software that does not have code production controls secure. Learn your CISSP stuff.
Svafar
06/19/2009

@ sarah

Thank you for posting your thoughts. The insight you have brought to this discussion is invaluable. I only wish more people would state that they both do not get and/or care about the subject they are vocalizing their opinions on. You are truly an inspiration to all.
Kudos.
John Doe
06/19/2009

Personally, I have not used any version of IE that I have found to be faster than Firefox or Safari. In fact, about 1 out of every 2 PC’s I have used have had IE crash before I could even open a web page. Admittedly this may be because I try to do things too quickly, but either way I have never had that problem with any other browser.

For those of you questioning whether or not the fact that Microsoft sponsors NSS has any role in the conclusion of the studies, it does. It’s called “bias”. Large companies will pay statisticians large ammounts of money not to run specific tests, but to find a way to get the desired result without lying. All large companies in heavy competition will do this.

IE is strait up not as adaptable as Firefox. That’s not even a question. The mere fact that Firefox is open source and works over multiple operating systems is enough to prove that.

The malware and security claim is pretty bogus as well. IE only runs on PC’s (with very rare exceptions). PC’s have a significantly larger chance of being attacked by malware, spyware, etc. than Macs and therefore can make the claim that they successfully ward off more attacks too.

As far as web standards go, IE is notoriously awful. I have been developing websites for years and have to struggle to make changes in code in order to support IE when the site works fine on all other browsers (literally all of them).

People are entitled to their opinion. Mine is that firefox is best followed by safari and IE. This is not a post looking to bad-mouth IE because my favorite browser is firefox. It is my favorite for a reason. I mean seriously, who didn’t use IE as their first browser? The reason we favor others is because IE forced us away. If anything, people supporting IE are more likely to have a bad point-of-view because they are less likely to have used another browser (I am not saying this is the case for everyone, just more likely).

Overall, I agree that IE is not as good as firefox, but getting angry that Microsoft is being sneaky about their advertising is like getting mad at a toddler for sneaking a cookie while you weren’t looking. I don’t know about you, but I love cookies!
Matt
06/19/2009

How can anyone justify using IE? Yea IE8 is better than the rest of the I’s but thats like comparing a bowl of crap with a mug of crap. IE 8 scored 25/100 on the CSS test and has no support for HTML 5. It took them this long to get even in the ballpark with standards compliancy so how long is it going to take them to get with it on HTML 5 standards? They may have been the first, after destroying netscape through nefarious activities, but they are still holding back the web. It is mind blowing how many people still use IE 6 these days so yea for those yahoos IE 8 will be at least a step in the right direction. FF 3, Chrome, Safari 4 and Opera all are way better browsers.
bstm300
06/19/2009

As usual, the conclusion bloggsters and tech experts reach is as biased as the Microsoft commercial strategies themselves; seeing as they are quick to criticize Microsoft products, though they may be as reliable and secure as their competitors. I hope people understand the conclusion I quote below is merely opinion, as is mine and should not be considered authoritative in any way. At the same time, let me point out geektechnica’s efforts at mythbusting just go towards creating other myths and really fail any fairness test they are trying to submit tech companies to. Why not subject Opera’s recent internet advertising campaign showcasing the new “Opera Unite” service to a similar sort of “bs” litmus test? It is just as skewed and intent on manipulating the internet’s citizens as any other similar Microsoft, firefox, or chrome commercial might be.

I think the most ridiculous line from the conclusion geektechnica reaches is
“When you have quality product you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to promote it, your users will gladly promote it for you. ” Did they fail business 101. I’m going to make a huge logical assumption here, but I thought any successful product needed to have a successful advertising campaign, as well. Isn’t that a basic business and marketing principle? You might have a great product, but if one doesn’t have the logistical, technical, economical, etc. capacity to market it, they have to sell the idea to a more capable company or start one themselves.

My conclusion about Geektechnica’s conclusion: This tech reporting site needs to go back to business school to learn the basics about manufacturing, advertising, and start-ups. Second of all, please keep your biased anti-microsoft drivel to yourselves, unless your willing to submit opera, google, and other companies to the same criticisms. Last of all, the way the author of this mythbusting article spurns Microsoft in his conclusion is downright shameful and indicative of the typical anti-corporate grassroots whining that occurs on all levels towards large companies that can and do make great and reliable products. The end.

Please, what a joke:
“Just when you think you can finally start to trust Microsoft because of their recent commitment in trying to improve both Windows 7 (which I think is very impressive) and IE8, they start resorting to lies and shady tactics. When will they learn that quality product triumphs outright lies? Hopefully soon, for their own good. When you have quality product you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to promote it, your users will gladly promote it for you. Just learn from Mozilla Firefox.” I think most criticism thrown at Microsoft stems out of the same envy, jealousy, and liberal whining over Microsoft’s % of market share. Such one-sided criticism is blatantly evident in the tech press and so cleverly woven into the above article.
UserFriendly Reader
06/19/2009

I suspect some of the criticial bias towards NSS has to do with MS’ past history of such shenanigans. I believe the following UserFriendly cartoon perfectly illustrates a famous precedent with Windows NT being scientifically “proven” the most stable server OS by Mindcraft: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19991001
Mind you the study that is poking fun at is likely just one of the many cherries on that tree.
For that matter the entire article we are all commenting on takes MS’ [scientifically] claimed facts and exposes them as falsities.
There is also the fact that MSIE has a long history of shoddy security to overcome. Odds are not in favor of IE8 being more secure than competing programs such as FF and Chrome. Only time will tell if the NSS report is accurate, but if I were a betting man, I would certainly bet against it.
Andrew J
06/19/2009

First of all, the FF security team has a much lower threshold for declaring a flaw as critically vulnerable to exploitation. Unlike the others, they treat any flaw that shows the slightest evidence of memory corruption as critical and act accordingly. They don’t wait for someone to demonstrate a way to exploit the flaw before patching it. If they used the same reporting protocols as MS, their list of fixed vulnerabilities would have been much, much smaller. That unwillingness to take chances with any potential flaw gives me added confidence in their product. The only downside is that IE fanboys will always try to spin the vulnerability count data to make it seem as if FF’s higher patch rate indicates that the browser is less secure when, in fact, it’s a result of greater precaution.

Secondly, FF has a far better track record than IE when it comes to the time taken to patch newly discovered flaws. Also, FF has a much higher rate for getting patches out to users, thanks to their silent update feature. Together, that makes FF very hard to target because the window of opportunity for zero day attacks is significantly reduced. The other day, the FF team silently patched over 150 million copies of FF in a single day. Those sort of patching numbers aren’t going to encourage any hacker to try to target old vulnerabilities in the browser.

There’s one major reason why I don’t use IE – It’s got a huge bullseye on its back and MS is not going to be able to change that, no matter what they do. It’s the only browser that’s guaranteed to be installed on every Windows PC out there. And it’s the only browser that’s guaranteed to have millions of unpatched users ripe for the picking. And because there’s a lot of code still being shared between IE6, IE7 and IE8, hackers can still hack all 3 browsers with one vulnerability. Because of its overwhelming presence both in enterprise and on the home desktop, zero day attacks are far more likely to occur than with any other browser. And that’s the real issue – IE will always be the chief target for zero day attacks as long as it comes installed on Windows by default. Zero day attacks are a certainty with IE. Think about it. Would you buy a car if you knew it was, by far, the most targeted by car thieves and that it was a virtual certainty that someone was going to try to take it at some point in its operational life? I wouldn’t.
Dan
06/19/2009

People should write to Microsoft! Show them how much they disapprove with their tactics. They are a big company that seem heartless but they do listen when the voices are to many to bear.
Joe
06/19/2009

I’ve been a professional web developer for 12 years and a software developer for 15 years before that. And at this point in time, if it weren’t for IE6, the red-headed stepchild, the majority of my HTML/CSS ire would be directed at FF2 & FF3. (e.g. “ContentText”?? Seriously?)

As an occupational hazard, I am forced to use and test code against all recent versions of most browsers on the market and the fastest page loads in my experience are Chrome and Safari. Depending on the structure, size, and external resources for a given page, IE8 can in some cases come out the winner. For start-up time, Firefox is a pig and for most page loads, it’s average.

IE was definitely not the first in the browser game. But IE has created very positive changes for the web world. Case and point: IE5 introduced the XMLHttpRequest object that was the catalyst for the AJAX revolution. Once every browser decided to add support for XMLHttpRequest, other browsers (because they didn’t have ActiveX support) decided to make it intrinsic to the DOM environment. This meant that we had to suffer through the “why isn’t Microsoft’s XMLHttpRequest like everyone else’s” crap until IE7 when Microsoft finally caved on the issue. Seriously, people?!? Microsoft created the object and IE introduced it to the world. Just because everyone else came along and did it slightly different does NOT mean that IE was not following a standard. Get a life.

Lies? I don’t think Apple needs to tell lies. They can simply do the same things that MS does and they’ll be praised for it. Another case and point: Leopard’s built-in system backup, Time Machine. “It’s built into Leopard so it’s really easy to setup”. Can you imagine how many times Microsoft’s engineers and Product Managers have salivated at the thought of building-in functionality only to have it declined due to the inevitable anti-trust lawsuits that would follow? Apple blatantly boasted in their ads about doing something in their OS that Microsoft would be sued for. In fact, when IE7 came out Google cried foul that changing the default search engine from Live Search was too difficult and arcane. When I changed my IE7 to Google Search, I found it very easy. By contrast, changing Firefox from Google Search to Live Search was much more difficult–at least Google was on IE7’s list of search engines to switch to… Live Search was not on FF’s.

Hmmmm, security. Let’s talk economics for a minute… If you’re a malware developer whose goal it is to infiltrate the greatest number of connected systems in the least amount of time, would you write malware for Mac? Of course not. Go for the the big money, write it for Windows!! And because most businesses run Windows systems, the majority of the security vulnerability research is also performed in the Windows environment. So, naturally, more vulnerabilities are discovered in the browser that (depending on your source) 3 out of 4 users are using. And don’t be so naive to think that Safari on Mac doesn’t have vulnerabilities. It does. There’s just not enough people who care.

Another aspect of security is attack surface. Another commenter made the point that adding Firefox add-ons decreases stability. It’s the same with security. Add more functionalities and you are creating a larger attack surface. Considering the richness of the IE browser environment and the widespread distribution, it holds up pretty well.

IE doesn’t support HTML5? It’s holding the internet back? There are so many capabilities that are addressed in HTML5 that IE has supported since IE4 and the standards are just now getting around to including. How about drag-drop and editable content? IE’s been supporting this stuff for over a decade! IE6 is a CSS stinker, yes, but considering that it’s been supporting the constant ebb and flow of web application change since 2001 (much longer than any other leading browser version)… I think it deserves the respectful funeral of an old soldier. My old pickup is ugly and gets terrible gas mileage, but until my other cars can claim to have taken me as many miles, I have to give respect to the old beast.

What do I use for a web browser? I use Chrome most of the time; it’s fast and intuitive. I’m not a Microsoft stooge. But I am willing to call BS when I hear it. And most of what I’m hearing is ignorant rantings.
bellevegasj
06/19/2009

Addblocker plus

/thread
bellevegasj
06/19/2009

make that Adblocker, can’t spell.

same conclusion.

=)
Mike O.
06/19/2009

Wow, Joe, thanks for taking the time, your response was by far the most revealing and insightful I’ve seen. I’ve been a (mainframe) programmer for over 30 years and am definitely a “best-tool-available” devotee, I use IE8 mainly because I presume the developers know the innards of Windows better than any competitor does.

I did take a shot at using all the others at different points in time. My single test was whether or not they would let me immediately enter and play interactive (multiplayer Java) card games on Yahoo (I played Hearts until I hit the top rating (3500) and got bored). None did, and I didn’t have the curiousity to find out why (see first paragraph).
johnnycakes
06/19/2009

“IE8 IS slower than every other browser worth mentioning.”

A lot of people have had success dramatically speeding up IE8 by installing the DelDomains package as described here:

http://windowsfixup.com/2009/03/speeding-up-internet-explorer-8/
someone
06/19/2009

> Just when you think you can finally start to trust Microsoft because of their recent commitment

Look, Microsoft is, and has always been, full of shit. You _can’t_ trust them. Ever.

It’s amazing how they can just keep on doing evil shit over and over again, and people will just forget all about it every time.

Remember that thing where they had bribed companies/countries to vote in favour of their OOXML becoming an ISO standard? No? Well, you should. Here’s one report: http://www.blog.arun-prabha.com/2007/08/30/microsoft-admits-bribing-partners-to-vote-for-ooxml/

Seriously. Please try to keep in mind that Microsoft is rotten to the core, and full of shit, and will never change. Don’t get distracted by their marketing bullshit (such as the “commitment” you mentioned).
Jimmy Happy
06/20/2009

IE8 is going somewhere, but isn’t ready for the real world.

I went to many offices, including government and major businesses, for meetings.
They had Chrome and/or Firefox installed.

A simple question for many people I met- “What browser do you use?”

They replied, “Oh, I use Firefox!” or “Oh, I use Chrome!”.

NONE, I repeat, NONE, replied IE8.

Now – for those who love IE8 so much that they would sacrifice their lives to save
dead IE8, I will say this – ALL the people I’ve asked ARE NOT TECH GEEKS.

They are average users. They aren’t tech geeks.

There you have it. Non-geeks enjoying Firefox and/or Chrome.
By the way, this was a survey of 979 people. Yup – 979 people.

No need to cry in defeat for those IE8 supporters – your browser will die,
along with your patriotism, very soon.

As for Chrome and Firefox –

Firefox is a hand written browser. Chrome is just a copy of WebKit (Apple…)
with some edits.

I like both browsers. Although Firefox has issues with memory,
it is original, and not a copy.

There you have it – IE8 is dead, 2+ browsers live.
What is there to argue about?
Milosz
06/20/2009

I have a few points on the matter.

1) Regardless of the shadiness of the ad campaigns of either one of the main browser producers, it’s good to keep in mind that their browsers are free. I have all 5 and use them all about equally. If it displays webpages and doesn’t cost me a penny, I’m getting [rant.c:3: warning: division by zero] bang for my buck.

2) It’s noteworthy that Spybot finds significantly more spyware (albeit mostly tracking cookies) after a month of IE7 than it does after a month of Firefox with NoScript. On the other hand, IE8 gives the same results as Firefox with NoScript. It’s an ongoing race to security. No developers, be it paid or unpaid, are able to see to it that every little hole is clogged. This kind of competition is what keeps the engine running. As long as Microsoft has its current market share, or even less, the market will be healthy and products will continue to improve.

3) I am not only a web surfer. I am also a developer. I understand how much of a pain in the butt Internet Explorer can be. However, I assure you that save for certain JScript vs. JavaScript incompatibilities, IE8 has brought these issues to a minimum.

In conclusion, I more than encourage the introduction of IE8! Besides, lets face it – the ad campaign won’t affect Open Source / Web Standards enthusiasts (so why get offended?). In fact, it seems to be targeted at people who don’t have a clue. I would much rather that the average Joe had IE8, not IE7 or IE6. IE6 is the scourge of the Web. IE7 is a slight improvement. IE8 actually makes the place livable. If the consequence of people creaming their pants over a column of green checkmarks is the introduction of better clients to the web, then by all means, Microsoft, campaign!
F Szcz
06/20/2009

I wonder how young/naive the person who wrote this blog is… first of all, it’s a blog, so I didn’t expect too many facts. I saw things like this:

“The Truth: IE8 IS slower than every other browser worth mentioning. In fact its the slowest in every factor of a browser performance you can think of… No wonder they are so out of the loop.”

Where are the facts? Stats? Even a reference to personal experience would’ve been nice… I’ll tell you my personal experience. Loading one tab in Firefox uses 150 MB of my memory. IE uses about 25 MB. IE loads sick fast (IE8, anyway) compared to the speed that Firefox now loads up (cold or warm)… Mark my words, FF will be slower than IE over time. Just because something is mainstream doesn’t mean it sucks. I didn’t bother reading the rest of your blog because the first point had absolutely no facts or experience listed… which made it useless. I have no clue who you are. Just you saying something doesn’t mean anyone will respect your opinion, because opinions are like (among nicer things) noses, and everyone’s got one…

It would’ve been nice if this stood out, or if it had humor, or pure facts… but instead it was just a whiny blog that sounded like a high school kid wrote it.

I used to use FireFox ever since version 1.5, and loved it. v2 sorta hurt, and then v3 was incredibly painful… nice features, but it came at a price. Even on a brand-new laptop priced at $2,000 (under a business contract purchase price, no less) with 4 gigs of RAM, Firefox runs like molasses. Even in the middle of page loads, it will freeze up, and goodness, it crashes MORE and MORE each month. It’s really sad. I got tired of typing some sort of comment/notes in the explanation box each time it crashes… Now I just type insults.

I will miss Firefox’s impressive specs, but this blog will be made fun of more and more, and others like it, as time goes on.

Why do people produce one-sided, whiny blogs like this? What’s the value, dude? I ask you that in a genuinely caring manner. Do you want to feel like you made a difference? If so, then act like a real editor/contributor. Act like you have a degree in something that makes you at last seem remotely qualified. You remind me of one of my co-workers who acts like he knows everything, and even though I have 5% of the experience in years he does, I already know more than him.

Why don’t you learn something, and instead of jumping around to random points (Opera? Who gives a crap, dude?) and just… whining, why not come up with an unbiased blog article? I think people would have taken you a LOT more seriously than after reading this nonsense.
fb500843310
06/20/2009

I have to contest #1. While IE8 is certainly slower than Chrome, and suffers a long start process when launching, I’ve found that it’s still quicker and more responsive than Firefox 3.5. That’s even after I disable all the add-ons sappin’ mah browser.

As for #3, IE8 does indeed come with much more out of the box. But beyond that, there seems to be little besides a couple of developer toys, and a whole lot of spyware-wielding “search” bars. Firefox is infinitely more adaptable, at least in practise. But you can’t call out MS on the claim that IE8 is more rich at the start.
Justin Binks
06/20/2009

“Why don’t you learn something, and instead of jumping around to random points (Opera? Who gives a crap, dude?) and just… whining, why not come up with an unbiased blog article? I think people would have taken you a LOT more seriously than after reading this nonsense.”

YOU sound like a whiner. (And maybe you are that young person.)

The simple thing to do? Don’t reply.
This will be my last reply to this blog, and many others.

Au revoir.
Liam Dilley
06/20/2009

Do not get me started on IE8 And web standards. Until the patch comes it does appalling on the Acid 3 test for a start.
Simple point is, why would there be a meta tag you can include in your code that makes IE8 Render as IE7, why would this feature be a click away in the address bar if IE8 was all singing and all dancing. Why do the sites I build look fine in everything but IE8 (ignoring 7 and 6 for the moment) which are CSS and XHTML 1.0 Strict (100% Correct code) ?

MS are liars, simple as that.
Windows 7 – BRILLIANT!
Office – Latest one is not bad, cant complain (just a little chunky tbh though)
IE – Just crap, IE has always been bad, only really new it properly when others started to churn out much more viable and better browsers.
Xbox live – Best out there
Xbox 360 – Good console.

MS certanly do good stuff, but they also do terrible stuff and I hate it when they do not admit to it. Windows 7 being rushed out and with a number name and everything about it screams (yeah Vista was shite) but they never will admit to it, even with yet another extension of life for XP!

Leaks of products come out, MS deny it. They do not do the “no comment” approach, they out right say it aint true. Yet time and time again, a little time later, there is that product, just as you heard in the leak.
j.d.
06/20/2009

I’m reading this article in firefox. nuff said.
Jach
06/20/2009

968362 said:
“How is donating meals or creating a hunt for $10k online shady in any sense of the word?I stopped reading the article after those comments.”

The donating meals is a means to guilt you into downloading, and a means to let people feel like they’re moral citizens who care about the hungry. But, as with all such programs, it neglects a very old piece of advice that goes something like “Give a man a fish, and he’ll be satisfied for a day; teach a man to fish, and he’ll be satisfied for a lifetime.” If MS said they were going to offer sums of money to go toward 2 years in a community college I might have downloaded it. (I’d have to see they were serious.)

As for $10k crap, it’s not shady so much as stupid. (Is it even real?) Couldn’t that $10k go toward the above plan of paying for the education of the uneducated? (I’m not saying the above plan should be implemented by anyone, least of all MS (who would probably screw it up somehow), nor do I think that’s the solution to the homeless et al. problems.)
Frijj
06/20/2009

John Doe

“As far as web standards go, IE is notoriously awful. I have been developing websites for years and have to struggle to make changes in code in order to support IE when the site works fine on all other browsers (literally all of them).”

I too have had similar experiences, reading some of the pro-compatibility comments about Internet Explorer makes me chuckle to myself sadistically. This is the kind of stuff thats important to developers and I believe most of the evidence against IE compatibility problems is discovered by developers who don’t have time to write them all down or publish them, they’re too busy getting on with their jobs. MS have recently done a very good job at acknowledging and looking after the average developer but in this area they’re still very much behind.

I also believe that a majority of in-experienced users will settle for IE, which becomes problematic when developing web applications, which quite frankly is an engineering nightmare. Down on the ground I am constantly faced with browser related issues and usually at the end of the diagnosis the problem it’s related to how IE behaves differently when compared the majority of other web browsers. This repeated conclusion tends to get embarrassing when trying to explain it to a client, over and over again. (I dunno maybe some of you will think, oh noes, its your crappy engineering skills to blame)

This raises another issue, in my mind having such compatibility issues between browsers stunts the progress of the web somewhat, if developers are constantly pandering to the in-experienced minority using “non-compliant” (different to non-standard) IE, they’re never going to get on with the important work of “actual development” rather than bug fixes that shouldn’t really exist (in an ideal world), if a big influential player in the software world cannot fall into line (even after many versions) what are the rest of us suppose to do apart from scurry around picking up the pieces?

I read somewhere in this comments section about the acid3 test not being a “standards” test in any way, well that quite frankly doesn’t invalidate the fact that it is a good test for web browsers, in fact if all you’re competition are getting excellent results from this test, and you’re still failing to acknowledge that it exists, what does that say? Some of the reports about IE8 have put strong emphasis on the differences between IE8 and the competition, and yet have completely ignored trying to get right something the competition are very strong at; it doesn’t matter if its not a standard, what should matter is that the competition can do it, why can’t you? This is such an ironic business stance I’m not even sure I can express it properly in words.

maybe the IE web browser failings have got more to do with the MS business model thats been poorly adapted to the Internet than it has to do with good software design and implementation. I know how it works, the emphasis isn’t so much on getting it right first time, but instead to bundle something with features features features, even if those features don’t work correctly, we’ll sell the next version based on the promise that we’ll fix the broken features, meanwhile somebody is working on a whole set of new broken features for version n+1.
heh
06/20/2009

“F Szcz” and “Justin Binks” both have IP addresses in Redmond. Wonder why…
Ezza
06/20/2009

What a load of anti M$ bollocks, Firesux and Chrome etal are a bit gash if the truth be known.
leef
06/20/2009

Just noticed a few interesting phenomena in these comments:

1. Appeals to the fact that IE has the largest market share.

First of all, IE 8 does not have the largest market share. Second of all, it is abundantly clear to anyone who doesn’t work for the company that Microsoft uses their monopoly in the OS market to impose unrelated software on novice users. They already lost this suit once, and they are about to lose it again. Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are objectively inferior to other modern browsers in every conceivable way, yet they still hold the largest market share because IE is the the only browser packaged with Windows. If you do not consider this an astoundingly clear-cut example of monopolistic behavior, then you either don’t know what a monopoly is or you don’t understand why it’s a bad thing. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to that.

2. Claims that this article is unfair because the NSS *might* have been unbiased.

They received money from Microsoft. Please look up the term “conflict of interest” if you don’t understand why this clearly invalidates the study. That brings us to:

3. Ignoring the fact that, no matter how you cut it, Microsoft is obviously willing to lie about this stuff.

I don’t care if you think the NSS study is valid. I don’t care that you can argue about how much memory IE costs. This doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft has claimed that:

-IE8 has the best development tools. [Firebug.]
-IE8 is the most adaptable, customizable, etc. [Firefox is more customizable, and it runs on any operating system.]

If they are willing to lie about these points, then their entire analysis is suspect. So no, we should not give Microsoft the benefit of a doubt regarding the NSS study, their commitment to web standards, or the benchmarks they have used.

4. Claims that this article is whiny because it’s “one-sided.”

Microsoft has created a quasi-technical document intended to “debunk” “myths” about which browser is better. This article’s stated purpose is to refute these claims. Both articles are one-sided. If you see a problem with this, then you are an idiot.

5. “Microsoft Hate” ™

OK, drone$, let me spell this out for you:

Pointing out the fact that somebody has been critical of your company is not a refutation of said criticism. It is stating the obvious. The term “Microsoft Hate” is not only dismissive and infuriating, but it’s absolutely meaningless. It’s the equivalent of that bitch at your high school calling all of the other girls jealous for disliking her crappy attitude. You don’t want to ask yourselves why people have a problem with your company or its business practices. You don’t want to ask yourselves why you’re hemorrhaging market share in mobile technology, netbooks, media players, browsers, email, and search.

You just want to sit around, pretend it’s still the year 2001, and say “everyone uses Microsoft for a reason.” Well guess what, that reason is that you have a monopoly. And it’s no coincidence that the more people think past desktop applications, the less they use your products. Unnecessarily bundling all of your crap together made sense when it provided an actual convenience to the end user. These days, all anybody can see is the lock-in of which you are secretly so proud. Well, I’ve got news for you. Lock-in only works when you have a quality product to begin with. The needs of the average user haven’t changed much in the past 10 years. The availability of alternatives to your software, however, has. You took a strategy for retaining individual users and tried to apply to the software market in general, and where has that gotten you? Innovation has prevailed by growing *around* Microsoft. So now, if I want to use a Windows machine, IE is now a permanent part of my life even though I will use Firefox anyway. Do you think this instills good feelings towards Microsoft? Do you think it’s a *good* thing that every web developer spends a significant portion of his/her time hacking around the fact that Microsoft has spent the last 10 years trying to implement their own de facto standards?

Is it really “Microsoft Hate” for me to wonder why your company even *cares* what browser I use? And is it really “Microsoft Hate” if I already know *exactly* why?

Because the only Microsoft hate I can see is Microsoft’s hatred towards the web and the fact that it allows people to do things for free that are allegedly worth hundreds of dollars. So please excuse me if it doesn’t take much of a leap to conclude that, historically, your flouting of standards was an attempt to subvert any potential innovation outside of your company (getting back to the entire reason monopolies are bad).

Excuse me for being suspicious of the fact that you will lie in order to get people using software that generates no direct revenue for you. Software that you frequently suggest is bundled with your OS only as a convenience (after all, how would I download Firefox if Windows didn’t come with IE).

…

We’ll see how IE8 competes against Firefox in the coming years. I think some of you ’softies are in for a big effing surprise, and evidently so does your employer.
graphicartist2k5
06/20/2009

and this is PRECISELY the reason why i don’t use internet explorer. before i started using firefox, i used to use crazybrowser, which has tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking, but it was still based on the internet explorer engine. i think microsoft just needs to give it up already and realize the truth that they cannot mess with firefox. just stick with making operating systems, and leave the whole “browser wars” to mozilla.
uh-nuh
06/20/2009

“Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway. ”

Not all of us use only Windows.
exfirefoxguy
06/20/2009

FireFox is slower then Internet Explorer. Evaeryone know that.
JD
06/20/2009

Alright it depends on RAM. I think IE8 has more security than Firefox due to the pop ups while firefox just scans downloads. If you have a virus protector you wouldn’t have to worry. So what’s the difference? I got to agree it is a bit slow. But if you get it up and running like mine it should be quite fast…
cwink
06/21/2009

you say IE is slow at startup (both cold and warm)? This is horse sh*t. In no way do I like IE, but because it is built in so closely with Windows its startup is the fastest of any major browser. However, by the time you browse 3 sites the other browsers make up this time. Firefox is by far the slowest browser I’ve ever seen at startup, while Opera is much faster, at both startup and browsing. Opera comes close to IE startup time. This makes me trust microsoft at least as much as you.

Also, you make it seem that the average user could just open up the Firefox source code and add some stuff and make the browser act as they want. I guess someone _could_ do this, but the average user (1) doesnt know how to read code or program and (2) has the time to read through MBs of plain text to figure out how it all works together to make the proper changes, let alone the 30min-1hr it takes just to build the code to see if it worked. (*cough* it won’t the first time for sure). Oh, and I would also say that the _vast_ majority of users don’t even get the source code, and just say “oh here’s the .exe, lets get that.”

You also don’t address the myth that it is more fully featured OUT OF THE BOX. Sure, you can add on to Firefox, but out of the box it is pretty bare if you were to ask me. Although Opera doesn’t have all these external add-ons, it comes with all the features I need out of the box. Yes, it is closed source, but I have never browsed Firefox code, so that is not a problem for me. And Opera was the first browser to obtain 100% on acid3.

In conclusion: your article is very misleading, and IE is not awful as you clearly believe, but at the same time I would use Firefox over IE if that didnt mean installing a third browser. Oh and f*ck safari, I can’t stand Apple. Linux FTW.
bundog
06/21/2009

IE should be included in windows, until ms gets with the game and gets a package management system out of the box. This is one of the major advantages most Linux distros have over windows, a one stop place to get a majority of the Apps they need. Once this is included get rid of IE (by default) and allow users to install software (both FOSS and proprietary) without the need to browse the interblag (xkcd anyone?) to get the software they want.
Rob
06/21/2009

There is no question…
IE can never compare to Firefox!
How can IE Work properly, if the programers who design the windows programs (vista), Cant even design that right.
Firefox did it right the first time! Hands down. You would have to pay me to use IE EVER again!
BaVinic
06/21/2009

In all honesty, it really does not matter which is better, you have your die hard MS fans who will swear by IE8, and you have your Firefox fans who will swear by Firefox. personally, I don’t even care which is faster or more secure. I take steps out side of either browser to make sure my computer / network is protected, i would never rely on a browser to do that for me. As to Windows 7, I too find that it is impressive, but then again, I have been happy with the performance of Vista, as long as I am not doing anything really important. I have supported MS for a very long time ( I started with 3.0) and will more than likely continue to have at least one computer with some form of windows on it. but all my others systems will run Linux, and I will keep it that way. IE8, Firefox, chrome Opera , they all do the same thing, some better than others, but really, isn’t this more like a car -vs- car thing? everyone has their own tastes.
wheelnut53
06/21/2009

My only problem with Firefox is that I have way too much fun, hours go by without me realizing it. I only use Chrome for viewing HULU and IE for viewing MSN news and Yahoo’s TV schedule.
Dan "JuDgEn" Edin
06/21/2009

@Sir Lox Elroy
There were plenty of browsers before netscape. WorldWideWeb on the NeXT cube and quite a few more was released by far earlier.
LULZHAIGUISE
06/21/2009

Just sayin’ – I never use IE. Ever.

Fresh install of windows? OH. Let me pull out my flash drive that I keep good software on. First three steps after a fresh install – Install browsers (Opera/Firefox/Chrome), Install Avast!, install Open Office.

Now you are good to browse the web.
heh
06/21/2009

Ezza is a paid Microsoft shill as well.
5xo
06/21/2009

What about user’s point of view?

IE8 – convoluted interface
Chrome – fast but barebone browser
Firefox – lots of customizability with slow start, gets even worse with addons
Safari – never used Mac in my lifetime, can’t tell
Opera – why would anyone bother with it?
Konqueror and other 0.0005 market share browsers – almost laughable

That’s why it boils down to Chrome and Firefox. Since Chrome still lacks meaningful addons, Firefox is natural option. How could anyone do without Stumble bar and wheel gestures for tab switching? (And zillion other convenient things.)
guy
06/21/2009

You don’t need IE to get Firefox, for the last time.

Start->Run->”cmd”

>ftp -A releases.mozilla.org

Viola.
Craigslist Search
06/21/2009

Truth is: if you want to be successful web site owner – you have to make your site work with all major browsers.

With Firefox it never was a problem. With IE8 it’s a big step forward comparing to IE6/7
Asskickerfairy
06/22/2009

Tyler:

Apple is better? We aren’t discussing OS here, and safari is teh sux. besides who wanna have a baby’s tri-cycle when you could have a thoroughbread performance racer for less money… makes perfectly sense…. Apple is even more money whores than micrsoft (if possible) so save your lame arguments for an audience who actually is paying attention to your whiny-ass comments.
dhapli
06/22/2009

hey i heard that M$ is delivering Win7 without IE :D.
I hope this might lead more people towards FF which i m using since i started browsing. only problem will be that IE will stop doing what it is best used for – downloading FF :)

BTW i think there is no use explaining why FF is better than IE8. those who know, know. those who don’t, won’t be reading this most probably. those who don’t want to, will never do so.
gbattle
06/22/2009

It’s a bit of a moot point for linux users like myself: IE8 and Safari aren’t released for the linux platform, Opera uses Qt for it’s interface (and i’m running gnome, which makes Qt look horrible and slow), chrome is still in the experimental stage for linux.

This leaves FF as my only real option. That said, when Chrome moves out of the experimental alpha stage on Linux it will become my primary browser. I am mainly choosing this for the V8 Javascript engine, and the sandboxed browser instances. All i use on my Windows 7 RC boot is chrome.

That said, i was never a Addon fanatic, and although i imagine they are very useful for some people, i never really found a FF addon i truly needed to complete my browsing experience. I originally switched to Firefox because i was developing Javascript applications, and IE ran them like a dog. FF had a standardised Javascript engine which ran easily 3-4 times as fast as IE7 (This was in the days of FF2 even).

This may change when Firefox release version 3.5, but as i said, at the moment i am happy with Chrome, and think it is extremely effective at what it does.
Matt Davis
06/23/2009

John said this:
“Care? They all view webpages. Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway. Don’t hate the people that got us to where we are now. So what if other people can do it slightly better nowadays, they did it best, first.”

here is the public ftp address in where you can download mozilla firefox and all of its releases
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

you don’t need just one protocol to download firefox, sir.
dacree
06/26/2009

@ John:
“Without IE no-one would be able to DL firefox/chrome anyway…they did it best, first.”
I used procomm to connect to my local Wildcat BBS and downloaded DosLynx. At the time Windows 3x was out but was so slow, no one I knew used it. Mosaic was cool. It even showed pictures inline. Netscape came along and blew away everyone. Of course MS killed Netscape, got sued, and still want’s everyone to use their product.
MS certainly didn’t do it first and they never did it best.
To paraphrase Linus – MS isn’t evil, they just make really crappy browsers.
To all the apple folks – safari is the easiest to hack browser out right now. The critical flaws aren’t explored or discussed because the world does not care enough to bother with you.
ejes
07/03/2009

so much stupidity so little time:
1) Vickram
- no of course not paying is not part of the scientific method, but it doesn’t help. all other unpaied tests show the opposite, but MS refuses to release all these tests.

2) Tyler
-apple didn’t write safari, it’s the same browser libraries as Conquerer

3) John
-No, you can download firefox without a browser: http://ftp.mozilla.org
-Also, they didn’t invent the browser, they never did it better, or first.

4) Mike
-they run under this integrity level because of problems with the OS it has nothing to do with the browser.

5) Mike
-as far as vulnerabilities, yeah, i can search secuina too – try doing some reading next time. IE7 may have fewer critical flaws, but they’re easier to explit than ff3’s. ff3 does have MORE critical flaws but most of them are theoretical, and harder to exploit than IE’s. the other thing about that is that FF patch cycle is whenever a new patch is required, microsoft? no, once a month – no matter how critical.
your mind is wrong.

6) Blake
-web standards are not Acid Tests.
Read the related RFC’s – IE doesn’t follow most of them (off hand look at the AJAX interface in IE), but FF always follows them.

7) Tyler
-safari got it’s look and feel from Conquerer, the same place that chrome got their interface from

8) Kim Siever
-anyone can download it without ie

9) Steve
-read a little bit about memory management and how to work with ff’s memory management

10) Kim Siever
-You can use ftp in the command prompt in ANY windows, type ftp at the c:\> prompt

11) Dave
-you’re so full of yourself, i can’t even comment here – email me and i’ll tell you what the world is really like

12) TV Spy
-ActiveX components are a vital security flaw – they aren’t done in any other browser.
-flash is no problem in ff at all, or in safari, so either you must be an idiot or didn’t try.

13) Brian
-ie8 is behind, and who are theese “top browser hackers” you’re talking about, at defcon ie8 was hacked in <11 seconds.
-yes i have cissp and btw the most secure os on the entire planent right now is open source (look up OpenBSD) and learn how to code douchebag

14) Mike O
-actually microsoft DOES know the innards better than most, but they don't care to stick to standards
Surfer
07/03/2009

Here’s my completely biased browser comparison.

Note1: Chrome and Safari are just Webkit. Konqueror4 can use Webkit, too.
Note2: There is no IE. There is IE6, IE7, and IE8, which are all very different.

Here goes:

IE6/7/8: HTML+CSS
Webkit: HTML+CSS+SVG
Firefox: HTML+CSS+SVG+MathML+Video
Opera: HTML+CSS+SVG+MathML+Video+SMIL+VoiceXML

Then there are special features. Webkit has kerning, which makes pages look very legible. Firefox has a plugin for everything and is the dominant browser in Germany. Opera is the dominant browser in Eastern Europe. It has a very fast coldstart and the most complete SVG implementation. (You can do declarative SVG animation which is easier to design than JavaScript animation.) JavaScript speed may have improved in FF35, but there is still way to go, especially when manipulating the DOM in SVG. This should be as fast as Flash, but it is not.

I am trying to think of something nice to say about IE, because I believe its developers put a lot of effort into it, but they failed to catch up with any of the other browsers. Moreover, IE’s complete lack of SVG and MathML is really holding back the web in a big way.

It gets really annoying with other Microsoft products that are deliberately designed not to work with any browser besides IE. For example, Outlook Web Access switches into dumb mode when recognizing Firefox. Sharepoint is a pain to use with any other browser (or Office product, for that matter). Microsoft still seems to believe they can exclude competition by making their products incompatible with anything Non-Microsoft: If you want to use Project Server, you have to use Sharepoint, and Microsoft SQL, and Exchange, and Office, and IE.

This is called vendor lock-in and we hate it. It’s not innovative and it’s not competitive.

Farewell, sleepy giant from Redmond. We don’t want your stuff.
Glenn
07/06/2009

Actually Microsoft did release a truly competitive free web browser before Netscape did they may have caused Netscape demise but at least now you don’t have to pay for a good browser.

Oh and it is just a damn piece of software it does not matter what you use you worthless douche bags I cannot stand the douche bags who take what software you use as some kind of ideological statement its just asinine next time I encounter a fan boy of Windows XP, Linux, Apple I will take my Vista laptop and I will beat them to death with it.
Priya
07/08/2009

Nice read… I am struggling with the Operation aborted errors on my site on IE. All of a sudden all my site pages have started giving operation aborted error and the reason is some buggy XML parsing code which is not fixed since IE6.

I can’t stop hating this browser.
odin
07/11/2009

the lie , the myth , the content they are all the same!
Snozz
07/13/2009

@Vikram:
Conflict of interest: when individuals involved with the conduct.. of research also have financial interests, from which they can benefit, depending on the results of the research.

i.e. if Microsoft pays NSS, then *any* NSS research involving Microsoft is, at best, suspect and lacks any credibility. If Microsoft pays NSS to produce a report evaluating Microsoft product(s), NSS is a common street whore.

@BOYCOTT:
NSS produced a report claiming that in 12 days of testing IE 8 outperformed a web browser – Opera 9.64 – that had not yet been released.
How? How did NSS use something that was not yet available? At best NSS was sloppy and inaccurate regarding version numbers; at worst they attributed test results to a browser they did not have… or that could have been a well-skinned IE 7 dressed up like Opera 9.64.

As always in their marketing, Microsoft relies on semantics and smoke and mirrors to make claims that might be technically accurate but definitely are irrelevant and misleading.

You know, like that actress walking past a competitor’s store then pretending in a commercial to have actually shopped in it? Yeah, like that.
gabriel
07/20/2009

MS bashing is so 90’s. The reality is IE8 is a decent browser, far far better than prior releases. And truth be told, much less resource intense on the OS than Firefox or Chrome. Sorry, but that’s the truth.

Yes, Firefox definitely has the adaptability thing down. But I think Firefox still has a ways to go with system resources.

As far as I have seen, IE8, Firefox 3+, and Chrome do fairly well with normal ‘day-to-day’ standard semantic web development. I would even say that IE8 trumps them…

Seriously though, MS bashing is childish, it makes you look adolescent…. if that’s the look your going for, cool, otherwise get over it.
agillator
07/21/2009

In reading through these comments I found several said much about the writer of the comment (surprise, surprise). I especially enjoyed the comments about FTP. For those who don’t know, FTP (file transfer protocol) predates the web and browsers (differentiated from the internet) by a bit. You did not/do not need a browser for FTP or to get an FTP address. And I especially loved the comments showing how you don’t need a browser for FTP by giving an address as an example – http://. . . . Modern browsers do, of course, understand and use the FTP, directly (ftp://. . . .) or indirectly. That is one reason so few users (apparently) know FTP is a separate and distinct protocol used by, among others, ftp programs. By the way you can also use http addresses with most of the ftp programs I have seen lately, but the program still uses the File Transfer Protocol to transfer files.

I also enjoy reading all the arguments about ’speed’ and the like. Some people obviously don’t know the difference between apples, oranges, pomegranates, and fence posts. If you want to compare things, they need to be comparable. For example one comment accused Firefox of being slow because it checked for updates (to extensions, I believe was the complaint) . Now that may very well be true; checking for updates does slow it down due to, among other things, speed of the ‘net at the moment, ISP issues, etc., etc. However, if you are going to compare two browsers for speed at start up you need to be sure both are using no options or the same options. Checking for updates is optional, therefore the comparison is critically flawed unless the other browsers also check for updates to extensions and they are both timed at the same time or close enough to the same time that variables may be legitimately ignored.

So folks, if you want to comment on something be careful that your comment doesn’t say more about you than your topic.

As for this article, I found it interesting. I agree with parts, disagree with parts, but neither passionately. Personally I use Firefox because I am used to it, I don’t have the problems others seem to, I can use it on both Linux and Windows (i.e. it is cross platform) and can in fact use the same profile (e.g. bookmarks) for whichever system I happen to be using, and other reasons. I have not gone back to IE since I first used Firefox. I used Opera for a while but did not care for several things. I understand those things are no longer an issue, but I am happy with Firefox and have no need to change. However, I do not design web pages for a living so cannot comment on those issues. Other things are important to other people and should rightly be used by them in their decisions.

I thank the author of this article for his time, effort, and thoughts. And in considering his opinions, I will take into account any bias I may think I see in his views.
steevn
07/21/2009

INTERNET EXPLORER SUCKS. anyone who says it doesn’t and anyone who defends them – works for them.

Period.
Ben
07/23/2009

Working for IT over 13 year, I have yet to ever see anything as a standard on a computer besides IE. Currently I work for a company that is very market oriented and nothing except for IE8 will allow for all vendor pages (media rich) to be viewed. Some people will install safari, chrome, firefox, but they all inform me that not one of them except for IE will work on every page. I am a proponent of microsoft and its patching, maybe it fails sometimes and maybe things need fixed or cleaned sometimes. But I am a PC and I can handle these problems, unlike MAC fans that think everything should just work…and if it doesn;t…there’s not many ways to fix it.
IE 8 can run slow, there is a couple good fixes you can find easily.
More than likely if its slow, you need memory or you are already infected with some Microsoft haters childish revenge to make these problems so he can critisize them after he has used his inteligance to cripple the machine.

GOOD LUCK to all you Microsoft haters, I will forever be a microsft fan for it makes companies run, and run very well I might add.

I’ve seen UNIX companies….very complex and not friendly, I’ve never seen a MAC only company.
agillator
07/24/2009

Ben,

May I suggest you review your recent post and soften your stance a bit. You like Microsoft and Internet Explorer and that is fine. However, do check your logic. You speak of IE viewing every page and therefore being the ’standard’. I suggest to you, sir, the reason IE views every page is because MS has chosen to include functions which the rest of the industry has not accepted. This may be good, it may be bad, it may be neutral, but it does NOT make IE a standard. It makes them non-standard, in fact. If you have been in IT for thirteen years you know that some years ago every browser written had its own set of functions and it was a nightmare. That is why the industry developed ’standards’ in the first place. One of the supposed problems with MS’ additional functions is that some open gaping security holes. Perhaps that is why something is NOT a standard? You prefer IE8? That’s fine, that’s your decision based upon your experience.

As to the number of ways to fix something that doesn’t work, I know little or nothing about a MAC. You may be right there. However, please don’t tout MS products too strongly. In my experience MS products are no better. From what I have seen, Microsoft goes to great lengths to obfuscate things to keep the user from fixing problems. Perhaps this comes from the fact that MS products are commercial products to be sold, I don’t know. However, compared to a system such as Linux and Open Source software, if the user perceives a problem and wants to fix it (and has the skill) the tools and possibilities are there, not purposely hidden. This does not make one better than the other, just different, a different approach for different reasons. To each his own.

If you prefer IE and other MS products, more power to you. However, if you are going to tout your preference please be a little careful of your logic. There is much to be said on your side of the discussion if said carefully. There is also much to be said on the other side(s), again if said carefully. If not said carefully both become useless rants.
Doesntreallymatter
08/10/2009

Sigh.

A double face palm is in order.

To put a long story short… As a former Windows user, now switched over to a few flavors of nix (and some history with various OS’, including Mac OS X), it is very difficult to test a browser and have truly precise results.

API, Comm stacks, and protocols, oh my! Where to begin?

People seem to overlook the Telecomm side of the matter. How well did Netscape handle with the TCP/IP stack, when a packet was needed to be sent out but a flag was set wrong for a TCP handshake? A slightly embarrassing moment I am sure, but it did not last long. For the moment that it happened the browser seemed to be simply ‘broken’. Funny stuff. System calls and improper documentation get to be messy.

Firefox for many reasons I think holds the holy grail right now, and rightfully so. They have earned it. Their browser is solid, and although is not impervious- holds up in terms of security. Loading times it is efficient, sure….

But lets take a look at the matter macroscopically. Should we really care about loading times? We’re talking within the vicinity of microseconds up to maybe 2-3 seconds for an average page, even if flash heavy. Have we become so impatient that this should actually become an issue? It’s like a penis contest between monoliths and the one guy that’s shy 1/8″ is in the corner crying.

I grew to dislike IE for many reasons. It was inefficient and it’s security was reminiscent of nothing short of swiss cheese. The running joke between many of the folks I knew in IT was that porn on IE is an invitation to disaster- and I’m sure there’s someone reading this that wouldn’t dare veto that.

Google’s chrome is incredibly promising, but still in it’s infancy. I mean their concept is simply brilliant. To contain what is in a tab within a tab and have it not affect the whole browser is nothing short of fantastic. Efficient resource management, garbage collection for objects and a plethora of other mentioned ingredients make it quite a delicious meal to chew into, but the chef has yet to perfect the balance and make the spices work.

Opera. Well. There’s not much to be said. They deserve applause. I’ll leave it at that.

IE8? In particular? I do have to give applause to MS. They really tried this time. It’s nowhere near as half-baked as IE6/7. It still has issues, and I’ve laughed enough times when a website would be summoned as a twisted evil-twin to what one would see with any other browser.

This article is excellent for one reason. MS has taken many cheap shots (too many to list, and I won’t fuel the fire- too tired for that), and they deserve to be called out on them. Over the years as I continued using XP (And it was a great OS for what I needed) MS’ gestures and decisions simply left me feeling dirty using it.

These sorts of claims are just the butt end of the cancer stick that the industry is smoking.

But for shirts and jiggles: Does anyone remember IE4? Hahaha… Ha. Oh dear. /tear
Jake
09/29/2009

HEY! IE is awesome! you know why? Because it can go to getfirefox.com. Isnt that an ability worth noting?
Tekshek
10/21/2009

you are little bit wrong.I think IE is really slower than firefox
Chris
12/08/2009

Ignorance fuels M$ success. IE, with it’s lackluster support for various standards and the crap they did to Netscape is never to be forgiven. Sadly, most of the consumers using M$ products are either to ignorant/lazy to switch or is forced in one way or another to use it due to market share, which again go back to ignorant/lazy, fueling the moneytrain M$ is on, trying to run over every competition out there, and being quite successful at it even.
Zyka
02/11/2010

It’s interesting how the Secunia reports that get cited by M$ fan-boys are used as ‘evidence’ that IE is supposedly ‘better’ than Firefox or any other browser.

These reports are accurate, but are completely taken out of context.

Sure Firefox has more ‘reported vulnerabilities’, but have you looked at the actual report?! Of the reported vulnerabilities, Firefox patches most of them within a week or so, whereas Microsoft will let stuff go unpatched for months.

Don’t believe me? Look it up for yourself on Secunia’s advisories website!

As for why Mozilla has so many ‘critical’ vulnerabilities, maybe it has something to do with how errors get reported, and just how responsive the community is to find and fix bugs. They actually LOOK for bugs. Microsoft won’t fix something unless they are forced to.

For example, Google ‘17 year old bug in windows’

In fact, they will most likely try to hide it if they can. Why? Because it costs them money to fix it, since they insist on supporting older versions of IE (ie6 is just now getting fazed out). Firefox gets new versions rather quickly. That and Firefox isn’t EMBEDDED into the O/S, whereas IE is (Active desktop, etc.)

This whole ‘get the facts about ie8′ campaign is nothing but one-sided, propaganda.

Of course, as bad as IE is, Safari is much much worse…
Carrie
02/18/2010

This post made me want to use FF more. Unlike IE though FF is getting worse and worse with every new version. My url bar always hanging for a few seconds everytime I type something in it, its annoying
CALHOUN31Miranda
03/06/2010

I think that to get the personal loans from creditors you ought to present a great reason. Nevertheless, one time I’ve received a commercial loan, just because I was willing to buy a building.

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