Comments on: Internet Explorer 7 ‘Coming Soon’

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 17:39:42 +0000

As for the win2k support, I wouldn’t hold my breath :) In the post that I linked to the developer says, “I’ve also gotten questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re focused on XP SP2.”.

Anytime MS says they’re ‘focused’ on something, it really means they’re not going to support anything else. It’s a nice try by the developer who said that to deflect the question though.

The reason you probably won’t seen win2k support is because they’re going to hook the IE 7 upgrade into their new ‘anti-piracy’ check, which AFAIK is only supported on XP SP2. They’ll tell everyone that the ‘anti-piracy’ check isn’t required for anyone of course, but I have a feeling it will be required for this IE upgrade.

By shutting out illegal copies of windows from IE7, they’ll be shutting down the upgrade option for those using the illegal copy, which is good for them, but in the long run it’s bad for security since millions of ‘pirated’ versions of windows will be running old, insecure, and hole ridden versions of IE.

This is the first best step they have into forcing their digital rights management (DRM) technology on people. After they’ve done that, expect a lot of the MS website and things like Windows Update to only work with IE7.

The other reason not to support win2k is so they can force people to upgrade to XP or Longhorn whenever that ships (two years late and counting).

And ya, I expect many of the ‘innovations’ in IE7 to be ripped off ideas from Firefox and Opera.

By: Yeah Boy

Yeah Boy — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:38:22 +0000

IE 7 for XP SP2. How many people are actually using XP SP2? What about most corps who are still on Win2000? What about XP w/o service packs?

I find it funny that people are wanted tabbed browsing and pop up blocking in IE. If people wanted it that badly, why not use a browser that already has it?!

If you are a web devloper and not using Moz or FF to view pages during development I pity you. The great tools it has are invaluable!

CSS support will still be lacking in IE 7. I find it excruciatingly frustrating that IE does not understand class definitions such as: input[disabled="true"]

If people use FF for a week, they get hooked on it and wonder why they have been using such a lame browser (ie IE) for the past few years. It’s funny though, IE is geared toward the stupid masses - if you didn’t know, that’s why it makes a clicking noise when you click on a link. It lets the idiot user know they don’t have to click it again.

As for the release date, I think we should have a pool on your weblog for the release date. Anybody who wants to participate guesses a date and the winner gets … em … um … well … nothing. :)

We should also take a guess at how many features will be ripped off from Firefox.

By: chuck

chuck — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 05:40:57 +0000

Dan, everytime that I come to your site, I think “Shouldn’t those lego men be holding maces?”.

By: mwarden

mwarden — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:09:04 +0000

They did an okay job with SP2. The bottom line is that Firefox needs to keep innovating or IE7 and its integration with the next version of Windows (whatever the hell that is) is going to kill Firefox. Microsoft might have a shitty track record with security when it comes to browsers (and other areas, obviously), but they have some tricks up their sleave for the next version that could shut out non-IE browsers (assuming the technologies will be adopted and non-IE browsers can’t support it — both of which seem like they will be true).

You know, MS pullin the same ol’ BS.