Ilya Kozhevnikov

Browser Newsletter #10

February 28, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 Enters Private Beta

Get set for the next round of the browser wars, folks. With Firefox 3 already in the third iteration of its beta, it makes sense that Microsoft would be readying Internet Explorer 8. Action Network has reprinted a private beta invite email that went out to select people sometime today.

Adobe Announces Full Releases of AIR, Flex 3, and Blaze DS

Adobe today will bolster its “Platform for Rich Internet Apps” with the full release of a trio of developer tools. Each of the tools Adobe is releasing is either free or open source.

Flex, Flash, and AIR form the cornerstone of Adobe’s “Platform for Rich Internet Apps,” a complete end-to-end solution for creating and deploying RIAs to the web and desktop. This has been a big year for the RIA platform at Adobe, according to Adrian Ludwig, the group manager in the company’s platform and development unit.

Adobe AIR v1.0 & Flex 3.0 Released; New Adobe Open Source Site Launched

The new Adobe AIR runtime enables Ajax developers to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) that deploy on the desktop. AIR applications run across operating systems on the WebKit HTML engine and are easily delivered using a single installer file. With Adobe AIR, Ajax developers can use their existing skills and code to build responsive, highly engaging applications that combine the power of local resources and data with the reach of the web.

The Mobile Browser Wars Start (1/2)

Ever since the Apple iPhone was announced with it’s Safari browser, people have been bad-mouthing the Windows Mobile version of Internet Explorer. It’s slow rendering pages, it doesn’t render pages like they look on your desktop, and everything is zoomed in so close you can’t see the whole thing all at once. Skyfire is here to try to make the browsing experience on Windows Mobile much more user friendly. It is one among several new Windows Mobile browsers that have recently been announced. Let’s see how the Skyfire beta performs!

IE8 Beta 1 is focused on the developer community

“IE8 Beta 1 is focused on the developer community”. That is from an email on the private beta of IE 8 that some folk have been getting. This is meant to ramp up for a public beta, and something will be seen at MIX in a few weeks. The unveiling is coming.

Adobe gives web, desktop development a breath of fresh AIR

There’s something in the air, and this time, it’s not from Apple. Adobe announced today the official 1.0 release of Adobe AIR, its technology for merging web and desktop application development, along with Flex 3, its open source application development framework. With AIR and Flex, the company says that it is staying on top of the development of rich Internet applications (RIA) while enabling developers to create apps for both the web and the desktop without having to create entirely new code for each. And of course, the company is using AIR to help port its own applications over to the web—such as Premiere and Photoshop—while maintaining a desktop userbase. Once the a migration is finished, it will be easier for Adobe to maintain its software both online and off while using the same codebase.

With Adobe AIR out, Microsoft readies Silverlight 2

Adobe on Monday released the long-awaited AIR download for running Web applications offline, but Microsoft is readying an update to its Silverlight platform that it hopes will keep Web developers in its camp.

Microsoft will release the first beta of Silverlight 2 “shortly,” said Scott Guthrie, a general manager in Microsoft’s developer division in charge of Web development, in his blog on Friday. Next week, the company is hosting its Mix08 Web development and design conference in Las Vegas.

In addition to Adobe AIR, there is Google Gears for offline access as well as JavaFX and the Mozilla Foundation’s Prism project.

Camino 1.5

If Firefox is the fully loaded SUV of the browser world, rumbling along laden with bells and whistles, Camino—based on the same rendering engine, but customized specifically for the Mac—is the stylish yet stripped-down sports coupe. It won’t give you the plush features or thorough customization that Firefox offers, but it compensates with speed.

Microsoft Quietly Launches Private Internet Explorer 8 Beta

Microsoft has sent out invitations to a select number of testers allowing them to participate in a “limited technical beta program” for the upcoming Internet Explorer 8. The announcement also says that there will be a public beta as well, once the invitation version is complete.

So far we know that Microsoft claims that IE 8 will pass the ACID 2 compatibility test and include support for a controversial “version tag,” which will allow web developers to force the browser into “super-standards” mode — enabling the browser to correctly render webpages that adhere to the W3C’s standards.

We’ve written before about the contentious debate surrounding the so-called version tag, but the basic idea is that website developers will be able to add a meta tag to their pages telling IE how it should render the page — in traditional mode (non-standard IE 6-style rendering), standards mode (IE 7’s half-baked concept of standards) and super standards mode (where IE will render similar to the way Firefox, Opera and Safari have been doing for the last five years).

about:mozilla - Half a billion served, T-shirt design contest, award news, and more

The Mozilla Add-ons site (addons.mozilla.org, or “AMO”) is being given a new look and the team needs your help to polish it off in time for the Firefox 3 launch. To check out the site go to preview.addons.mozilla.org, and play with the site for a while. To give feedback, you can just tell the AMO team what you think or file a bug for more serious problems. You can also join the #amo channel on irc.mozilla.org, and keep an eye on progress by following along at the Webdev weblog. For more information, including details about what’s new and different, check out the Webdev blog post.

Mozilla Messaging launched last week and they’re looking for help. There are lots of ways to get involved with the Mozilla Messaging project, by spreading the word, helping with development, working on testing, or lending your time to translation work. More information about getting involved is available on the Mozilla Messaging website, so if you love Thunderbird and would like to help make email great, check out the site and get involved today.

Window Snyder, Mozilla’s “Chief security something or other”, has been named as one of the 15 most influential people in security today by eWeek.com. “A former Microsoft security strategist, Window Snyder borrowed a page from Redmond’s playbook and introduced a comprehensive-threat modeling and penetration testing routine to Mozilla. Snyder’s behind-the-scenes security efforts — which include outside hacker teams conducting simulated attacks on Firefox 3 — are sure to pay off for the open-source alternative Web browser.” For more information, and to see who else made the list, check out the eWeek article.

WaSP IE8 Round Table Discussion

The Microsoft proposal for browser version targeting in Internet Explorer 8 to default to IE7 behavior for all current DOCTYPEs has divided the web developer community. What implications would this have for web standards adoption? Would the web be in a state of damage if IE8 defaulted to standards mode? Some members of the Web Standards Project got together on a Saturday afternoon to discuss their concerns and possible solutions with Chris Wilson, the Platform Architect for IE8.

The transcript is available, and a lot of detailed questions and answers for Chris Wilson, Aaron Gustafson, Faruk Ates, Porter Glendinning, and others.

Firefox 3 final beta to be released in March

Firefox 3 edges closer to release, with the fourth and final beta of the web browser out “in a couple of weeks”, according to Mozilla’s vice president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer.

The final Firefox 3 beta release will address issues including memory usage and cross-site XML HTTP requests. Memory usage has been improved in the final release version of Firefox 3 by rewriting “big chunks of the core Firefox code” and tuning the core scripting engine, according to Schroepfer.

Confirmation: Internet Explorer 8 beta testing has begun

As selected testers first received invitations from Microsoft yesterday, numerous reports speculated as to the nature of the IE 8 Beta 1 test. Late last night, Microsoft sorted out those reports for BetaNews.

In a response to a BetaNews inquiry, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that the Beta 1 testing process for Internet Explorer 8 has begun. To help distinguish it from the public preview process, in which prospective customers are given peeks at how the finished product might work, Microsoft officially calls this a “Techbeta.”

Microsoft Readies Internet Explorer 8 Beta

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) plans to launch a test version of the next major edition of its Internet Explorer Web browser by the end of June at the very latest, a company official said on a blog post Tuesday.

“A beta version of Internet Explorer 8 will be released in the first half of 2008,” said a developer writing on Microsoft’s Explorer blog.

Currently in development, Explorer 8 hit a major milestone in December when it passed the “Acid2 Face” test, which measures the extent to which a browser conforms to a series of widely used Web standards. Among the enhancements planned for IE 8 are improved support for Ajax programming and better security, Microsoft has said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Browser Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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