Making IE Better

January 14, 2004 9:40 PM

Microsoft's IE team is calling for input into the future of their browser. Over lunch with Robert Scoble they communicated that they're working hard on security patches. So where do you come in?

"The team is looking to work with community members to improve Internet Explorer. That means blogs. That means taking harsh feedback. That means having a dialog about the future that's frank and as open as possible."

With an opportunity like this we should forgo mere whining and name calling, and participate.
posted by will (46 comments total)

With an opportunity like this we should forgo mere whining and name calling, and participate.

How? Please tell me how?

Now, about the darn security fixes. These are tough. Tougher than it might seem on the outside. Why? Because Internet Explorer's engine is used in several different OS's. Dozens of different languages. Thousands of different applications. Changing one line of code in the inards of Windows means potentially breaking a large number of applications. That's unacceptable to the team. So, when they change things, they need to do it in a way that doesn't break things for customers.

The rendering engine, I can understand. But the URL decoding? Embedded everywhere?
posted by namespan at 9:56 PM on January 14, 2004

You can follow the link to the post and provide comments there. Scoble's got another post on the front page asking for more.
posted by will at 10:02 PM on January 14, 2004

heh. we drug this here festering flyblown carcass into yer yard, and now we wuz a-wonderin' if y'd'all help us clean it up?
posted by quonsar at 10:13 PM on January 14, 2004

So Microsoft essentially wants all of us to volunteer to be unpaid marketing strategists and development consultants to help them take market share away from projects that have been doing it the right way all along?

No thanks. I'd do MS's bidding if they paid me $90k a year. Maybe.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:29 PM on January 14, 2004

They need my help. Right. Because they can't look at Mozilla, Opera, and Safari and see the huge, obvious, mission-critical features that their old maid browser is missing.

The Force is weak with these ones.
posted by Ptrin at 11:01 PM on January 14, 2004

Dear MS,

Save yourselves a lot of time and greif and license Mozilla. Thanks.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:15 PM on January 14, 2004

Now that they've backed away from the go-go 90's idea of making it a core operating system component (at least it appears that they have), I can't see that it would be that hard to fix. It's not that badly broken, really. Just make sure the HTML renderer is standards-compliant, make it extensible, and keep it lightweight.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:22 PM on January 14, 2004

"With an opportunity like this we should forgo mere whining and name calling, and participate."

I know Scoble, and he is primarily concerned with marketing to netizens and early adopters. He's fairly good at it, and he's a nice, amenable person...

That being said, why would you possibly want to give Microsoft -- a company who has a history of being anti-competitive -- anything of value for absolutely nothing?

To me, this plan seems less about providing Microsoft with valuable feedback, and more about providing them with something even more valuable. Your attention span.

Scoble knows that if he asks people for ideas, they will likely be somewhat general, and will also likely be the same kind of innovations that we have seen with open source browser applications. He knows that early adopters and webloggers are talking about open source web browsers with excitement and expectation, and talking about Internet Explorer with derision... but the moment you start making "suggestions", you become emotionally invested in Microsoft.

Coming from a radio background myself, this to me is the equivalent of "all request" days on commercial radio stations. Ninety-five percent of the requests fall within the standard format, and those are the ninety-five percent which are played... and yet it seems like they're doing you a favor.

"Hey, cool, they played Madonna! I love this station!"

Of course you do, you jackass. You (and a few dozen others like you) asked for something obvious, and they gave it to you.

If you really want to help make a better browser, why not provide that same feedback to an open source project. Even better yet, why not donate money to such a project? It will go to create open source code which nobody will lord over you in the future, and it will give you one thing which Microsoft will never give you. Choice.
posted by insomnia_lj at 11:38 PM on January 14, 2004

I don't mind giving them the free advice. Please fix all of IE's CSS rendering bugs. Also, make a box model that works.

Sincerely,
Every Web Developer that has to make their valid CSS layouts work in your lame-ass browser

Also, I thought last summer news came out there would be no IE 7 and people would have to buy Longhorn to get a new browser? Did they flip-flop on that too?
posted by mathowie at 12:30 AM on January 15, 2004

I doubt if Microsoft will ever make their browser fully standards compliant. If they did, then the few sites which fail to render properly with Opera, Mozilla or Konqueror would work properly. Microsoft has never knowingly helped a competitor before.

It seems to me that if fixing all the problems in IE is such a big task, then this is indicitive of poor design, both in the browser and in it's integration into the underlying operating system.
posted by salmacis at 1:19 AM on January 15, 2004

"Microsoft has never knowingly helped a competitor before.
"

Who has?
posted by bz at 1:35 AM on January 15, 2004

I'm no MS fan, but it seems that people here are trying to have their cake and eat it to. I'm as willing to bitch about MS's monopolistic practices as anyone else, and how they don't listen to the web dev community.. but now they want to listen, everyone's saying "we won't talk to you".

If they fix IE, then everyone benefits. Mozilla et al are great, but who cares except for we geeks?
posted by Pericles at 2:00 AM on January 15, 2004

May the festering hegemony of Internet Explorer liquify in the putrescence of its foul, bloated corpse.

No I will not bloody help you, Microsoft, in your attempts to secure a diseased monocultural monopoly in the browser market. Fie on you for asking. A curse on your monopolistic software house.

And furthermore: I declare anyone who helps them, a traitor, and a fink, to internet users everywhere: like the Native Americans who assisted in their own race's subjugation, no less!

... and relax.
posted by Blue Stone at 2:02 AM on January 15, 2004

Pericles: many non-geeks who know me now use Firebird, and they absolutely adore it. Just like words such as "Trillian" and "Bittorrent" are starting to be conspiratorially whispered from non-nerd to non-nerd.

The Normals are adopting the best of what we like at a faster pace than we would imagine. They may not fully understand what they're getting, but they do know a good thing when they see it.

I think as far as 3rd-party browsers are concerned, Microsoft can see that although there's no immediate threat, in a year or two it'll have to compete again - so this is its way of doing some market research about which features to steal, which to improve and which to ignore. You can hardly blame them.
posted by cell at 2:22 AM on January 15, 2004

I know...

What we should all do is not communicate with Microsoft on how to make their browser better. If there are any features that we think it would be beneficial to see in the product we should certainly not tell them what they are.

That way we can complain about all the features that should have been added but weren't when the next version of their (free) browser comes out.

Perhaps we should all head over to slashdot and talk about this.
posted by ed\26h at 2:37 AM on January 15, 2004

"Microsoft has never knowingly helped a competitor before."

ummmm...
posted by lotsofno at 3:36 AM on January 15, 2004

If they did, then the few sites which fail to render properly with Opera, Mozilla or Konqueror would work properly.

Exactly. Currently, IE6 is "it". 95% of net users use it, or a close relative, for good or bad. The fact that IE6 is "frozen" and we aren't going to see any changes in it apart from the bi-monthly critical security patch means that all the rendering bugs people are calling to get patched simply aren't going to be until Longhorn. When's that due? 2015?

The downside is, that by freezing IE, they've frozen everyone elses efforts to make the most of the "standards compliant" tools that the W3 people have spent years developing and the Mozilla/Opera people have spent years supporting. We know PNGs wipe the floor with GIFs, but who's going to switch to them when IE can't even display them properly? And that box-model "hack" is going to become a box-model "permanent fixture". With a 95% hold on the market, failing to progress with the IE code results in a failure to innovate in the whole HTML business. It doesn't matter what new whizz-bang new features Mozilla and Opera come up with, it doesn't matter how perfectly tuned their rendering engines are, there's no point taking advantage of their up-to-date features until IE7 is ready.

However, Microsoft have really slipped up by making public their decision to leave IE6 where it is - it really does give the competitors a chance to go for gold and win the browser war in a pincer movement, if they try hard enough. I think they've made a similar mistake in delaying Longhorn so long. Linux has improved more in 3 years than Windows did from 3.1 to XP. Imagine how good it's going to be by the time Longhorn is ready for the public? What is MS doing with all this free time, anyway?
posted by Jimbob at 3:48 AM on January 15, 2004

That way we can complain about all the features that should have been added but weren't when the next version of their (free) browser comes out.

No, we can move to a (free) browser whose designers have a clue, and genuinely care about browser innovation and development, rather than domination of a software niche, growing fat and indolent in their monopoly.

95% of internet users use IE? So let them become disatisfied with it, and migrate.

Let Internet Explorer consign itself to the graveyard, replaced by browsers that are eager to develop and serve their users.
posted by Blue Stone at 4:27 AM on January 15, 2004

Dear MICROSOFT Exec looking for help:

Get IE running on FreeBSD and GNU/Linux. Then I'll have to start caring about your product.

Otherwise I'll keep loading up Mozilla so that customers have a consistant web experience across all the platforms they own.

Just trying to make sure you can get world domination right, M'Kay?
posted by rough ashlar at 5:09 AM on January 15, 2004

Making IE Better, My Shiny Metal Ass.
posted by Blue Stone at 5:15 AM on January 15, 2004

If there are any features that we think it would be beneficial to see in the product we should certainly not tell them what they are.

There's a fabulous new invention that will tell Microsoft in seconds what's wrong with Internet Explorer. It's called Google.

Also, IE isn't (free). You have to pay to license their fucking operating system to use it.
posted by jpoulos at 5:16 AM on January 15, 2004

(Much like the toy in a box of Cracker Jack isn't really 'free'.)
posted by jpoulos at 5:26 AM on January 15, 2004

95% of internet users use IE? So let them become disatisfied with it, and migrate.

Are you serious? They are only using IE in the first place, like most of their other (non-gaming) software, because it came with their computer. To many non-sophisticated computer users, IE isn't a browser, it's "the internet." To them, pop-ups and strange redirects are the internet's fault, not the browser's fault. They will never know that there are better alternatives, let alone bother to install or learn how to use Mozilla.
posted by PrinceValium at 5:27 AM on January 15, 2004

Dear MS,

Lose all the junk that's only used by 10% of the audience. Don't make anything automatic by default. Rip IE out of Outlook/Outlook Express (and drop all the HTML email crap -- I don't need 72point hot pink text). Unbundle IE from Windows. Lose the "view as webpage" stuff in Windows Explorer. Sync your Javascript DOM with Mozilla. Get PNG alpha channels working properly.

Or better yet, switch to Mozilla and donate your development hours to making it better as part of an open community. You give away IE anyway, why not just work with Mozilla as the base and give back to the community for a change.
posted by krisjohn at 5:37 AM on January 15, 2004

posted by jpoulos at 5:39 AM on January 15, 2004

Come on almost everyone uses IE, and even if you hate it, the people browsing your sites are using it. Getting the browser fixed, even if you hate MS, is still a good thing and bitching about MS asking for free help isn't going to help anything.

Wishing or asking MS would use Mozilla is naive. It is the way it is, at least lets do what we can to improve the situation.
posted by cmicali at 6:06 AM on January 15, 2004

Also, IE isn't (free). You have to pay to license their fucking operating system to use it.

Yeah!

So, if a petrol station gave away free petrol, it wouldn't be free because you'd need to pay for a car to use it.

Good argument, you utter sack.
posted by ed\26h at 6:08 AM on January 15, 2004

"Help us to co-opt your ideas and crush any competition - for free!"
posted by hadashi at 6:12 AM on January 15, 2004

MS will never use Mozilla, but they could start being a bit more lenient toward PC makers who want to put another browser on the desktop. As PrinceValium pointed out, people use what's put in front of them. When Apple came out with Safari, it instantly eclipsed Mac IE because they bundled it with new Macs.

Aside from that, MS is perfectly aware of just how broken their browser is. It's not like any of the bugs brought up here are rare, isolated problems known and experienced by a select few. They just want the illusion of a "developer community" behind them.

Here's a thought- want IE fixed? Open up the source code.
posted by mkultra at 6:19 AM on January 15, 2004

Good argument, you utter sack.

Um, Apple pays to license IE. You pay to license Mac. Ass.
posted by jpoulos at 7:02 AM on January 15, 2004

And the equivalent isn't free petrol. It's free tires when you buy a car.
posted by jpoulos at 7:03 AM on January 15, 2004

Apart from what Tantek says in his comment on that page, I really want better bookmarks management.
posted by riffola at 7:08 AM on January 15, 2004

I think insomnia_lj's comments are dead on. Making suggestions makes you feel invested in the project's success ... and when they do "what you asked for" (stuff they were already planning to do), then hey, they must have listened to you! Wow!

No thanks, MS.
posted by pmurray63 at 7:37 AM on January 15, 2004

Um, Apple pays to license IE. You pay to license Mac.

Is that a lie?

And the equivalent isn't free petrol. It's free tires when you buy a car.

Well, try as you might to suppress evidence...

Yes, it is free tires when you buy a car, and free tires after you've bought it, and free tires for other cars. If I were to install Redhat, then install Internet Explorer on it using WINE, where exactly have I paid for a licence or anything during that procedure, exactly?
posted by ed\26h at 7:43 AM on January 15, 2004

My friend jeff would be one of those evil MS bloggers. He's not too bad a guy for a total sellout =p.

He's the guy who created the porn-saver-bar, and works on the as-yet-to-be-released pop-up blocker...
posted by nomisxid at 8:00 AM on January 15, 2004

"When Apple came out with Safari, it instantly eclipsed Mac IE because they bundled it with new Macs."

Actually, until after Safari came out (and the Mac BU admitted no more IE for MAc development) IE *was* bundled with Macs. IIRC no other browser was. I know it was the only one on the dock by default.

Why did users switch to Safari? Partly because it wasn't MS and partly because IE hadn't seen any significant updates since OS9 days. Laziness is certainly any aspect, but to suggest that IE on Mac didn't make it because it wasn't bundled is not the whole story.

Perhaps MS wouldn't be having these issues if they hadn't licensed Mosaic and then turned it into an MS hybrid by cramming it into the OS. Perhaps a modular design with the HTML renderer being selected would be the way to go?

The fixes to IE are simple. As somebody else pointed out use, Google, look at your competitors and grab what you want. It's what MS does with all their products they don't buy outright.
posted by infowar at 8:26 AM on January 15, 2004

We should recommend that MS make IE suck much, much harder than it does already. I mean have lime-green text on a purple background as the default, and require hacking the binary to change that (which is, of course, illegal). Slow down page-loading to a crawl. Require that every page pass the engine's broken internal validator in order to render at all. Make the viewport round.

This will drive people away from the browser in droves. They'll have no choice but to use something else.
posted by adamrice at 8:36 AM on January 15, 2004

What surprises me about this is that the developers of MSIE are apparently so out of touch with the web development community that they have to solicit advice about how to fix their browser.

I mean, really.
posted by moonbiter at 8:49 AM on January 15, 2004

Bring back the blink tag! Man, that was some good tag.
posted by toothgnip at 8:57 AM on January 15, 2004

Actually, until after Safari came out (and the Mac BU admitted no more IE for MAc development) IE *was* bundled with Macs. IIRC no other browser was. I know it was the only one on the dock by default.

Yes, this is true.

Why did users switch to Safari? Partly because it wasn't MS and partly because IE hadn't seen any significant updates since OS9 days. Laziness is certainly any aspect, but to suggest that IE on Mac didn't make it because it wasn't bundled is not the whole story.

I never said IE wasn't bundled. My point is that most computer users are dumb and just use whatever is stuck in front of them, regardless of how good it is.

As soon as Apple put Safari in a more prominent position than IE (or, at the very least, equal footing- I can't remember how the stock OS X build shakes out), people started using it. Microsoft rightly fears the exact same thing from Mozilla.
posted by mkultra at 9:11 AM on January 15, 2004

Linux has improved more in 3 years than Windows did from 3.1 to XP.

Jesus Christ what kind of statement is that? The leap from 3.1 to Win95 is more than the Linux GUIs have ever achieved (keeping in mind that Gnome and KDE are nothing more than badly made copies of Win95)
posted by falameufilho at 9:47 AM on January 15, 2004

When was the last time you used Linux?
posted by salmacis at 11:19 AM on January 15, 2004

Internet Explorer's engine is used in several different OS's. Dozens of different languages. Thousands of different applications. Changing one line of code in the inards of Windows means potentially breaking a large number of applications

Boy oh boy did someone make a rod for their own back.

Programmer Karma!
posted by inpHilltr8r at 4:20 PM on January 15, 2004

My point is that most computer users are dumb and just use whatever is stuck in front of them, regardless of how good it is.


Well, I guess really the truth is most computer users are, well, computer users. Not obsessed geeks who will spend hours reading about css compatibility issues and then seek out obscure alternate browser programs to download.
posted by glenwood at 7:58 PM on January 15, 2004

Given how much time many people spend browsing, it really is quite ridiculous not to research which browser would best suit your needs. The productivity gains tabbed browsing offers are no less real just because they're free.
posted by Ptrin at 8:55 PM on January 15, 2004

Boy oh boy did someone make a rod for their own back.

Your suppressed premises seem to imply that you are saying "If something is difficult to fix, you shouldn't make it"... Hmmm.
posted by ed\26h at 1:46 AM on January 16, 2004