Ilya Kozhevnikov

Browser Newsletter #17

March 19, 2008

Will IE 8 break the Web?

“In the past with IE 7, developers weren’t as proactive (about adhering to standards) as they could have been,” Hachamovitch said. “We took that as a strong data point, regarding how quickly devs will respond to anything that we change in IE.”

He continued: “But this time, the community seems to have shifted. They say they will be more responsive. We are giving developers a much easier way to choose their own timeline (for moving to the fully-standardized IE 8)…. Long term, we know this is the right thing for the Web.”

Apple iPhone SDK upends mobile market

I can’t do the iPhone SDK justice in one post, but I can hit a couple of the high notes that earn Apple props for taking the SDK further than it had to. For openers, application developers don’t need to use Objective-C, C, or C++ to write software for iPhone. Apple added the one thing I was sure it wouldn’t add — data persistence — to iPhone’s Safari browser, paving the way for applications crafted in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS that run even when the network is unavailable. What’s more, iPhone’s JavaScript persistence doesn’t force programmers to deal with flat text files or XML. It uses SQL, complete with transactions. Apple also put some flash (ahem) in Safari’s GUI with built-in support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and both automatic and explicit animation. Apple supplies Web app code snippets that mimic iPhone’s native GUI, and a Web application can take over the whole screen, leaving no trace that it’s running in the browser. iPhone’s offline Web app support is so strong that I’m looking forward to seeing it ported to Safari for the desktop.

Installing IE8

When you install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 there are a few important things to do before you start. First, I recommend you review the system requirements to make sure IE8 is supported on your computer. Second, take a look at the IE8 Release notes to find known issues and workarounds, so you’ll know what to expect during installation. Third, if the installation fails, we have a knowledge base article on Troubleshooting IE8 installation that guides you through a few workarounds.

IE aims to embrace the web again

Deep in the bowels of a Las Vegas hotel, a smiley face and the words “Hello World” display on a web page. Applause breaks out. The page is called the Acid2 Browser Test, and the web browser is a preview of Internet Explorer 8, presented by its platform architect, Chris Wilson. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” says a member of the audience. More applause.

Eric Meyer, an independent CSS expert, told the Guardian: “CSS support in IE8 looks thus far to be very, very promising. It’s very important, because the level of CSS support in IE7 and IE6 has served as a brake on advanced CSS adoption by authors, limiting them to less advanced techniques and capabilities.”

Forget Facebook. The Web’s platform is Firefox

I spent an hour Thursday with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, and Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of Engineering, and learned a few things. For one thing, I once argued that Mozilla should hire more “capitalist pigs.” John’s riposte Thursday was, “We have more capitalist pigs than you think.”

John argues that the Firefox platform is actually more robust and easier to use than “rival” platforms like Facebook, iPhone, etc. Unlike these others, Firefox is a true community platform, reflecting the tastes, requirements, and whims of a broad array of users. It plays host to a wide array of third-party plug-ins.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3 Beta 4

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition is available packaged with Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 4, allowing you to test all the latest features in the upcoming version without disrupting your current Firefox installation. Please note that Firefox 3 Beta 4 is a developer preview release of Mozilla’s next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

InfoGin finding success in crowded mobile browser market

While Opera Software ASA continues to attract attention with its mobile browsers and a host of startups go directly to consumers with their transcoding technology, InfoGin is quietly making headway by cozying up to carriers.

The 8-year-old Israel-based startup notched its first big win in 2005, inking a deal to power AOL L.L.C.’s mobile search offering and forging a relationship that a year later saw InfoGin win the right to format Web pages for the Time Warner subsidiary. And InfoGin has continued to find an audience for its transcoding technology, winning deals to format Internet content for Mapquest and others, as well as offering a Google Inc.-like transcoding service for consumers through its mobile Web site.

Microsoft Lights A Fire Under Internet Explorer 8

Something’s gotten into Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) lately. Their developers are singing like canaries about their plans for Internet Explorer 8. Earlier this month, Microsoft released IE8 Beta 1, which is intended mainly as an early look for web developers. It’s quite a change for a product that seemed to have gone dark in the days after Vista’s release.

All during 2007, Microsoft said basically nothing about what they were doing for the next version of their flagship browser. The paucity of substantial blog entries on the IE Blog left some doubt whether Microsoft was doing anything at all, besides IE7 security patches. The blog hit bottom in early December 2007, with a content-free post that announced the successor to IE7 would be called IE8. That same day, Molly Holschlag got a chance to interview Bill Gates about the lack of IE8 information coming out of Microsoft. Gates’ response: “I’ll have to ask Dean [Hachamovitch, General Manager of the IE8 project] what the hell is going on.”

Updated web browsers JavaScript benchmarks

So, I ran again the tests with the most recent versions I could find: * For Opera, build 9815 released on late February. * For Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 released last week * For Firefox, the latest trunk nightly (to become Firefox 3 Beta 5) * For Safari, I went to its roots with the current WebKit nightly.

The results are shown below. Numbers show milliseconds it took the browser to complete the tests. Shorter bars are better.

Microsoft to license Adobe’s Flash Lite

Even though it has plans to release a competing technology, Microsoft has agreed to license Adobe’s Flash Lite technology for its Windows Mobile operating system and browser.

The two companies are expected to announce Monday that Microsoft has signed a license to use Flash Lite and Reader LE in future Windows Mobile handsets as plug-ins for Internet Explorer Mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, such as what the companies plan to do when Microsoft releases Silverlight for Mobile, a competing technology.

Flash Lite is a stripped-down version of the ubiquitous Flash video player that allows mobile handsets to view Web sites created with the Flash technology. Think of Flash Lite as a slightly older version of Flash; the most current version of Flash Lite can’t properly display Web sites created with the newest version of Flash, Flash 9, but it works with sites created using older versions of the technology.

Browser Newsletter #17

Will IE 8 break the Web?

Apple iPhone SDK upends mobile market

Installing IE8

IE aims to embrace the web again

Forget Facebook. The Web’s platform is Firefox

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3 Beta 4

InfoGin finding success in crowded mobile browser market

Microsoft Lights A Fire Under Internet Explorer 8

Updated web browsers JavaScript benchmarks

Microsoft to license Adobe’s Flash Lite

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