I like it IE8, it has a special ring about it. You what!!! They're calling it IE8, I'd never have guessed that, thanks for the insight.

There is an IE7? I never use IE and just checked mine is still version 6.0.2900.2189.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254

I use IE7 as my primary browser - its safe and there is something about the feel of IE - it doesn't feel cheap or free!

If they are sketchy with details, at least we won't be disappointed when they drop features etc that we didn't even know about, because they never told us about them. Anyone remember Vista?

Microsoft can never make IE like firefox because of enterprises.

Having addons like FF would be a nightmare with group polices etc. I think this is what they mean.

IE is for the home/corp users. I don't think the two browsers are even in the same boat since IE is tied to the os.

Myself, I use both FF as I cannot live without the addons, but IE still has its place.

"Now That's What I Call IE8". Is this for real - IE8? Give it up Microsoft and develop a truly real standalone browser that can kick ass. IE sucked, still sucks and will continue to suck - forever!

WHO is stupid enough to use IE at all these days???

Every single person who uses Windows and the Internet who doesn't know enough to download and install another web browser is going to be using IE. Don't attribute to stupidity what ignorance will account for. :)

Actually, I find your comment very insulting. IE is designed for people that know how to use a computer. It is designed for people that know what to click and what not to click, people that are brave. Most of the people that are stuck in the Firefox world are just plain jealous and are Microsoft haters and think they are extremely advanced and/or superior to everyone else - except for the ones that really have no choice and have to use FF due to ignorance. For these people that get spyware and viruses by using IE, I agree should stick with FF or Opera but I can assure you they will get it either way. They would click the free boobies link no matter what, they would click the "your PC is too slow, click here to tune Windows" no matter what and they would open "naked_boobies.jpg.exe" regardless what they use just because they are ignorant morons that blame you the IT guy if they get a virus but for people like me that know and that can't be fooled, would choose IE anytime. I am an extremely advanced user and I would choose IE anytime over FF. I like the way it renders web pages, I like the way it feels and I am used to it. It's funny how when I use Linux, I get the link in web pages "Your PC is too slow, it needs a tune up, click here to tune your OS, detecting OS - Linux, your performance could be..blah blah blah"

I also use IE7, plus Opera, Firefox and K-meleon. I also run the latest Opera beta and tried but failed to run the Firefox beta. I find IE7 the best,on my machine it is as fast if not faster than all, and that includes K-meleon. If you know what you're doing it's every bit as safe if not safer than any other browser. So assuming that all who don't follow you are stupid is arrogant and wrong, so leave it out or I'll get my mum to tell your mum on you, so there. Just a thought, will Foxy be patching again this week, it must be all of three days since their last batch ?

Read my comment again. I was replying to mdotwills' post wondering why someone would be stupid enough to use IE. I was pointing out that if a person didn't know enough to download and install another web browser, they wouldn't be using anything else. They couldn't, unless someone else installed it. It wasn't a comment on stupidity. If you have an issue, take it up with mdotwills.

If you feel insulted, tough. If you have an issue, take it up with mdotwills. You misread what I posted. I was pointing that there was no chance of a person using any other web browser unless they knew how to download and install one (or someone else did it for them).

Not only am I a tech, I've also been a web developer and webmaster who did web standards. Due to IE's integration with Windows, a security hole in it can be used to take over the computer. Firefox is less dangerous in that aspect. IE also has poor support for web standards. I know this from personal experience. It has cost me work.

IE7 (on my computer at least) has trouble with say a couple dozen tabs. Windows starts acting weird and sometimes IE just closes. I've had over 100 tabs open in FF.

I've seen a lot of stupidity when it comes to the Internet and computers. Yes, including the cup holder.

"Due to IE's integration with Windows, a security hole in it can be used to take over the computer. Firefox is less dangerous in that aspect. IE also has poor support for web standards. I know this from personal experience. It has cost me work."

Yes, I have to give you credit on this one. There is no denial about it no matter what anyone says. Remember that stupid comment made by a MS employee saying that IE is more secure because there are less updates? I laughed my pents off. What I wanted to say with my comment above is, an ignorant user will always be the victim as they can't protect themselves from themselves but because many of the FF community are very mean (not all) I tried to use it as an adventage to defend IE :)

People who are able to make an intelligent post.People who know that knowledge is power. People who accept that fellows like yourself who think that as you use an alternative browser, you are somehow better than the rest. Well I'm here to tell you, you're not. People who don't give a rats.... , it's only a browser fella, chill out man. I'm 65 and the "chill out man" bit is from my youth, happy days and no bloody computers, but we did have record players and the radio.

There are some parallels between some Firefox users and many Linux/Mac users. The main one being that by not using what most people do, that one is not a sheeple (sheep people). It is an elitism feeling.

Yeah, I can't believe he said that. I'm guessing that you already read my comments on the matter. A shame I wasn't there to ask him some questions. I can be quite sarcastic. Microsoft has practiced deceit and doublespeak so many times that it's hard to trust them.

And most of the population seems to be ignorant users. After 13 and a half years on the Internet, I've seen so many acts of stupidity and ignorance and apathy that I've become sorta jaded. And these people (sheeple?) expect me to take them seriously.

There are good things about all browsers.
Firefox is awesome because of the extensions.
Opera is a very fast browser for people with older/slower computers that can't update to IE7.
Internet Explorer is widely accepted because you are stuck with it in the first place. If people had Firefox pre-installed on their systems instead of IE, then the market share would be more favoring FF in my opinion ... same thing with Opera.
I couldn't live without Adblock Plus for Firefox, so if someone could get that to work on IE, then I might consider using IE instead of Firefox. Ads SUCK and that's the reason why I use Firefox.

People still use/care about IE?

not really

MS has already stated that they'll never do the kind of addons support like Firefox because it'll be "hell for troubleshooting" in enterprises. When I read that, I switched to Firefox forever.

Who cares? If they are able just to copy paste whats already out there, id be surprised.

I've heard in 4 years MS isn't going to release IE8, but a new version of IE7 called IE7 ME. They'll begin working on it 3 weeks before launch.

They missed the boat for IE4 ME.

Microsoft don't know what's in IE8, because they've not yet had the time to trawl through Firefox 3.0 to find out what they need to copy.

Precisely!

And im sure firefox didn't start exactly with a pencil and empty sheet of paper either.

yeah, they started from netscape source ;)

"Apart from Trident, Microsoft also has several other layout engines. One of them, known as Tasman, was used in Internet Explorer for Mac. Tasman is known for its better standards support. Although development of Internet Explorer for Mac has halted, development of Tasman continues, with its most recent release as part of Office 2004 for Mac. Microsoft's new web design product, Expression Web does not use Internet Explorer's Trident engine, but rather its own engine which Microsoft claims is the most standards-compliant on the market today."

http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Trident_(layout_engine)

If you have something better, break with the broken IE cleanly and use it. Kill trident already. It's garbage and you're just pissing everyone off. EVERYONE. Just stop already.

Seems to be another case of Microsoft telling lies. Any competent web developer (and I've been making websites since 1995) who has tried to do web standards knows that any version of IE doesn't do web standards that well, especially when it comes to layout. I lost 3 days (and the client) one time when I was trying to get a webpage to center in both IE6 and Firefox. IE7 is a lot better, yet it still has lots of issues. Firefox does also have issues; however, it's better than IE.

On a side note, some of the web standards are a bit vague and that makes it hard for web browser developers to comply.

they dont use the engine thats standards compliant in their browser. it would "break" too many pages is their claim. they could, they're the richest software company on the planet and yet every other browser builds off of standards. opera, omni, safari, firefox, camino, galleon, konqueror, etc, etc. there are OPEN examples of how to do so for both webkit and gecko. There is no reason a developer couldnt look at those and use or reproduce working examples from them.

Microsoft is stifling the growth of a market to hold on to their share in every way they can at the end users and business owners expense. Go linux. Go mac. Go BSD. Go solaris. Go anything, but Microsoft. I left the MS universe when Tiger came out and I've been so much happier since. There isn't a single product for windows I would give up my mac experience for.

Nulledge,
Your comments well & truly noted. However were it not for MS deficiencies, I would not know anywhere near as much about OS's as I do now.
Indeed! 'Tis a real treat doing a reformat on any one of my 3 notebooks on a weekly basis!
Laugh though you may, there is always something going wrong (1 Vista Ultimate, 1 Vista Business & lastly XP Pro, sometimes run Server 2003 RC1 on the latter).
Somewhat sadly cannot get Ubuntu 7.10 to run on any of them, much to my chagrin.

Well I certainly hope that MS gets their act together. IE7 certainly has not inspired me at all. I dislike the tool bar. Quite frankly Firefox with all it's faults works faster and is more logical.

that's because ff for all its faults is a logical evolution and IE7 is just a half assed attempt at reclaiming market share in response to the gushing wound they've been dealt over the last few years by nearly every other browser on the market, all standards based and good web citizens.

So the lack of news is news? I think we could have done without this article. I'm sure everyone could've guessed that there will be a future version of IE, and it would most likely be called IE.

I think you missed the plot, the lack of pictures im sure didnt help helped.

By dkratter said:

"So the lack of news is news? I think we could have done without this article. I'm sure everyone could've guessed that there will be a future version of IE, and it would most likely be called IE."
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I'd say the lack of news doesn't apply here with 20 posts on this article so far, not including this one.

I don't have any firm confirmation on this, because I wasn't there personally, but you might want to look at Maxthon 2.0 for an idea as to where IE8 is going. I say this because at a recent major trade show Maxthon was the ONLY browser company that actually had a table/booth INSIDE the gigantic Microsoft pavillion. That should speak volumes right there about who Microsoft thinks is leading the pack in this area from a technology/design standpoint. Expect to see a lot of similarity between IE8 and the latest version of Maxthon 2.0

does maxthon have a good debugging mechanism which could even remotely compare with firebug or web inspector or the debug plugins for opera, or is it the same broken buggy plugins and solutions that crash ie7 suggested by the official IE blog? debugging IE code is tougher than trying to herd cats

Agreed ... Its on a par to opera for the security concious.

LOL. It is based on the totally insecure IE component. A brand new Lexus parked over night in Camden, NJ, is more secure than a IE based browser.

I've got money on it down the bookies on the next Microsoft web browser being called IE7/Warp. Guess I've lost a tenner then.

Beating a dead horse...

its not dead until its DEAD.