You know how much damage they (MS) could do if they fixed a couple of real bugs instead of adding on features that other products already provide. It's beginning to feel like netscape all over again. "Netscape: CSS compliance, yeah yeah that's great... did you see the new Shopping button AOL had us put on. That's worth a lot more than your fancy CSS compliance". Now MS-IE is following suit with pop-up blocking when there are several small CSS "features" that they could be correcting as well as dropdown rendering issues, caching problems, and cookie management issues.

In reality, you do not have any idea of what is SP2 is going to update. Making changes to the rendering engine is a MUCH bigger task than doing something like adding a pop-up blocker is simply a matter of an addon to iexplore.exe

Yeah, it's a lot more involved than that, IExplore.exe is only about *89KB*.

89KB executable. There are many other files which contribute to IE. iexplorer.exe is NOT internet explorer persay, only a program that utilizes the files needed to do what it does. But back on topic.. The new IE update will be known for it's popup blocking feature, thus that is what Microsoft will describe it as. There are many other features that will be tinked with as well, but none as big as popup blocking in IE. Four versions from now, will you look back and say "Hmm.. 6.05 is where they fixed those minute CSS errors." Or, "Hmm.. 6.05 is when they incorporated popup blocking".

"iexplorer.exe is NOT internet explorer persay"

Right, which is what I was implying.

Interesting things are going on in the browser front. Slashdot has discovered an off-the-cuff remark in a chatroom by a Microsoft employee claiming that “IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.”...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20030601.html

I would like to know if this upcoming Internet Explorer and Windows Update applies to Windows ME version too.

If you are running ME. you really need to change your OS. ME is rated one of the worse operating systems ever. Its ranted #2 behind windows First Operating system...

I have a version of Windows Millenium that loads in 18 seconds is compatible with every piece of software I've handed it and hasnt lost data in five years.

I have Win95 also that supports USB and 32bit.
that loads in 8 seconds and takes up 75mb of space.

An operating system is only as good as the user.

Now all they need is to add a tabbed browsing interface for IE and they are set, then mozilla and opera have NOTHING over ie :)

i don't think that even if they added a tabbed interface that they would get even come close to getting it right, they'd "microsoft it" (read "screw it up") somehow. I would probably just stick with avantbrowser, or something similar.

sinesolis, that is funny you say to use avant browser, since microsoft screws things up. When in all reality, Avant browser, as well with many others, do in fact use the Mirosoft Internet Explorer engine to run upon.

::::dcyndesign::::

hey goofball i wasn't reffering to the rendering engine...I am well aware that avantbrowser is an IE shell...if you re-read my previous post you will see that i was PLAINY refering to the tabbed "INTERFACE"...that is what i fear thay would muck up...

How could they screw up the interface, it consists of a "tab" bar. Get real, you didn't know Avant Browser used the IE engine. It's ok everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes I notice that people do not use MS products, not because they are flawed or whatnot, but because they are made by MS. Usually those people are called mac users *shudders*, or even Linux fanboys (Which is fine if you use linux because of it's stability and advanced operating core) but the sad fact is that most people use non MS programs because they are not made by MS and that is there sole basis for their choices in coomputer programs.

Yes they do. Opera is just as fast as IE, also opera is far more secure then IE. THere is also a but load of other features: Mouse Gestures, extreme customizing, skins, sleek and small e-mail client. I could go on. Opera has the best implementation of MDI I have seen ever.

As far as I remember IE did have tabbed browsing, was it in version 3.x? Personally I don't understand why everybody loves it so much, it makes keyboard navigation very difficult - if you're working in a different program first you have to Alt+Tab to the browser and then you have to switch to the right tab. Without tabs you go directly to the browser window you're interested in. And that it clutters the taskbar? Who cares, except for people who only use mouse to work with their OS (funny that most *nix supporters love tabbed browsing at the same time they love doing everything through the keyboard).

whatever

Sure it does...

Lets start with "standards support", throw in "proper rendering of PNG files", dust lightly with "Cookie management", sprinkle on a bit of "security", and end with "Non-windows compatability".

And that's just the browser portion.

If you're talking the entire suite of tools, lets throw in "Spam filtering" in the e-mail client, and yEnc support into the news reader.

Being a *nix supporter (and developer, and user, and.....), let me say that tabbed browsing when done properly is very easy to navigate with the keyboard. Also, it's not about not using a mouse that makes OSes like Linux and FreeBSD so appealing, it's the shell prompt, and the power/flexability that it gives you.

I couldn't use my system with out a mouse. I admit that. But likewise I couldn't use it with out a keyboard either. And I just happen to use it more than a windows user. Doesn't mean my mouse is any less important. (Note this specifically applies to workstations running X, not a server, as having/needing a mouse on a server is what I consider pathetically lame).

Just my 2 cents.

umm yea, Mozilla/Firebird works perfectly fine with complete keyboard navigation. Instead of Alt-Tab to navigate through a bloated sea of Windows you use Ctl-Tab to flip through the tabs.

Get informed before you start defending something you otherwise wouldnt be. IE is (in its current state) a terribley outdated web browser. By the way, ive never seen tabs, popup blocking ,or decent security in IE, but i could be wrong, i dont use it.

I use Firebird 0.7 in both Linux (90% of the time) and Windows (10%)

Last I checked, opera isnt 100% w3c compliant either, yes its more compliant than IE, but it also wont display half the sites the way they are meant to be displayed. Yes this is because most sites are designed for IE. As for security, if opera ever became the browser of choice for 90% of the web, you would see just how secure it is, people dont exploit it because it wouldnt be worth it as not many people actually use it. Its just like any product, once it becomes used by the mainstream, you will start to see security holes. Opera also doesnt support activex which is another reason its secure but opera is also limited in its functionality as it doesnt allow easy integration of 3rd party apps, you have to use whats built in or dont use it at all.

I know you can flip through tabs with Ctrl+Tab. If you actually read my comment I was talking about having to go through two sets of switching when you're in a program other than the browser. Let's say you're writing code and you need to lookup some documentation. Without tabs you use Alt+Tab to go directly to the browser window you want. With tabs you first have to switch to the browser and then use a different key combination to switch to the right tab.

In a sense, its already been done. Ever heard of 'MyIE 2'? Its got some really neat features along with your suggestion for Tabbed Browsing and along with that you can save sets of tabs called 'Groups' and also supports the keyword feature that is fully customizable to open up a site by typing just a word.

check it out, its definitely worth it if you want to get a tweaked IE engine-based browser.

http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm

:) Enjoy!

>>best implementation of MDI I have seen ever

And how come no one seems to get that the MDI model was outdated almost 10 years ago?

When Microsoft changed the UI model of windows in Win95, the necessity for things like 'tabbed' browser pages became superfluous.

Why have tabs inside a single browser window, when you already have the 'tabs/buttons' on the Taskbar on the screen already.

IE is a tabbed browser interface, it just seems that no one seems to get the button the taskbar for each open IE windows is the equivalent of a tabbed page.

Windows uses a Document-centric Object Model, and yet people still complain that it doesn't work like a Windows 3.1 program and implement things like MDI or tabbed pages that were necessary in a non-document based UI model.

Please for the love of god, please have someone get this, or inspire them to read about UI design and why things are done different and easier today than they were 10 years ago.

Or is everyone just dying for the day the Windows Shell looks exactly like Unix 1980 or CPM?

losers

grow up and get a life

Then perhaps you should just have multiply windows open, tabs are designed for uses which call for less clutter and the like. For example, when searching Google for something I often like to open different results into tabs in the background, then go through quickly and see what's useful, and what not. Tabs work great for that, it's just an option, not a requirement, if it's not useful for you ... don't use it. I personally really like Firebird because it's lean and fast, has popup blocking and tabs ... I use Linux at home, and Windows at work and I love having the same browser both places. I do however wish Firebird had a better Google bar, I know there is a small built-in one, and there is an extension, but I don't like it as much as the IE one that Google makes.

reason why things are made to be simpler today, especially by microsoft for the end user is so that you can be as dumb as a fence post and still move around and do what you want to do without having a clue of what it is that is happening.

creating more monetary influx in general for computer technicians and customer support in all pc venues since more people have no clue they absolutely have to take thier system to a 'professional' to get it repaired even for a simple virus fix in todays world.

and ie is becoming the same as the rest of microsoft.. user stupidity / ease of use compatibility...

none of what microsoft puts out anymore is for those that 'know' what they are doing or what the computer actually does or what commands the programs execute.

and all those task bar 'tabs' crash machines when you get so many of them btw, several sites use popup windows that get lots of use out of that feature in ie to bombard your internet session with floods of porn and spam, and half the time the only way to get breathing room on the system is to reboot.

Why do I want to take 2 steps backward and learn the commands when I can start right off the bat? Microsoft has made their software to be productive. I don't want to spend 3 hours of my time trying to figure out how to do one task. I've used linux and I can honestly say that it's not for me. I'm not computer savy enough or have enough time to learn or follow the HOWTOS with so much excruciating details. I'm not interested in how things work I just want to click and be done with it so I can move on to the next thing. If that's what you call dumb user then so be it I am a dumb user but I'm not dumb enough to waste my time trying to figure out how to use it.

sure no problem makes it easier to use, faster to use.. productivity is one thing, people spending out hundreds, even thousands of dollars however to get their systems fixed because all they can do is point and click is a huge money grab for the techs... but hey if you have the hundreds to thousands to dish out all the power to you.. not everyone makes that amount of money... and thats why they want technically 'uneducated ' (self taught or otherwise) users... a lot of people i know have a computer know how to turn it on, run the programs and then call me cause they don't even know what they have for hardware besides it says windows something when they turn it on and have no idea what programs require what files etc.. those are the money makers for microsoft... they will listen to 'this piece of software has no security issues', and oops we missed one, but this patch will fix it, and this piece of software is much better than the last one, and so on and so forth

Well, Opera tried complete standards compliance, but you guys just complained. So they added some code for common quirks. It's still very very standards compliant, though.

About security, yes, the mainstream is usually most exploited; this is not always the case. Take for example Apache vs IIS. Apache is much more common yet IIS is exploited much more often. How many security problems have been found in Opera 7? 5. It's a young product, so seeing a few security problems isn't uncommon. How long has IE6 been around? A long time. And it's really not that different from IE4. And yet we hear about more and more security exploits each and every day. As you speak, your IE probably still has exploits that haven't been patched because no patch has been created.

Actually, IE6 is quite different, though not as big a difference from IE3 to IE4.

IE6 fixed pretty much all of those lists of 'unpatched' security holes.

You don't hear about security exploits, you hear about patches before the exploit has been found outside of Microsoft's lab. There is a BIG difference.

IIS6 has no known vulnerabilities at this point, and it's been out for some time now.

Then why don't you just set, in the registry, to have Windows group your applications on the taskbar when more than one window is open?

It's there, you just have to look for it.

Not really. What about these two flaws that are still open?
http://greymagic.com/adv/gm014-ie/
http://greymagic.com/adv/gm013-ie/

They were found by Grey Magic, outside of MS labs. Also, there are still many other flaws that have been patched but still existed not long ago. Grey Magic alone discovered a ton of them, and many others have been discovered by other independant security firms.

Because using the windows task bar group option is clunky and not as user friendly as using the tabbed feature in either firebird or Moz. Also you can define the middle mouse button to open new windows (or tabs) in Firebird. Something I don't believe IE does??

[grow up and get a life....]

u never tested it dumb.. and u know nothing.

ive tried all browsers.. even linux Mozila..

all 1998 brosers have Tabings Options

IE just need a secondary firewall tool.. (eg. zonealarm put on IE)

netavenger:

yes, the taskbar is a "tabbed" interface. it's great for a couple applications running at the same time.

however when you deal with web browsing where multiple website are displayed (e.g. pop-ups), the reality is that the taskbar is outdated.

in fact, microsoft tried to deal with the issue by grouping similar windows due to space constraints of the taskbar. IMO, this solution is of limited value.

we need applications to tab within themselves with our current UI