
New IE8 marketing materials - noodle
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx
======
knowtheory
I notice that Safari is hilariously missing, especially since it would match
IE8 on a number of the features they're claiming are exclusive to it.

The whole endeavor is rather scurrilous, since they've clearly glommed
separate features together for no real purpose other than to put a checkmark
next to IE and not next to FF or Chrome (particularly the "reliability" item).

What a joke.

This is why people hate Microsoft. It's not that FF fanatics don't spread FUD
too. It's just that Microsoft seems to think that we're too dumb to recognize
their obvious machinations.

If they only spent as much time and effort making their products not suck, as
they spend trying to pretend that they don't suck, then maybe they'd get some
respect.

~~~
graemep
It is not aimed at people like you. It is aimed at people who know enough to
install a browser, but not much more.

~~~
kl4m
"Web standards", "Developer tools" and "Manageability" are not exactly aimed
at Joe Sixpack.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yes they are, in the same way that cleaning agents talk about molecular bonds
and other things customers don't understand. Making something sound overly
professional scientific is a great sales tactic.

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jpcx01
Developers tools checkbox is a joke. In fact, its so outrageously bad, they
need to formally apologize. IE8 dev tools are garbage compared for Firebug.
They are better than that web dev toolbar crap, but not even in the same
league as firebug or safari web inspector.

~~~
jcromartie
Yes, I noticed yesterday that I _still_ get line numbers from IE that have no
correlation to my actual code whatsoever. Utterly useless.

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SwellJoe
Wow. You reckon they were tittering and sputtering as they wrote "Security"
and put a check for IE? Because I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face
making such a ridiculous suggestion. Somebodies having a little fun at the
expense of the IE developers, methinks. This can't possibly be serious.

~~~
trezor
_On a scale of 1-10, how impressive was the Nils’ sweep of exploiting all
three main browsers?_

 _I was surprised. For IE 8, I’d give him a 9 out of 10. For Safari, maybe a
2. It’s just too easy to pop Safari. For Firefox on Windows, I give him a 10.
That was the most impressive of the three. It’s really hard to exploit Firefox
on Windows._

If you are using a Mac, or anything besides Firefox on Windows, I think
Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough.

Reference: Interview with the winner of pwn2own.
<http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941>

Edit: Ofcourse at first it seems far fetched to claim better security than
Chrome, but for stupid users falling for anything a malware/phishing filter is
probably a very good security feature.

~~~
carbon8
_"I think Microsoft's claims about security seems valid enough."_

Their claim is that it's more secure than Firefox, so according to what you
quoted their claims are unquestionably invalid.

~~~
trezor
My point was that in a world where users click anything blindy, including "yes
please downloand and install malware", security involves more than just being
proof to exploits.

You may not fall for such silly tricks. I know I sure don't. However my mom &
dad would do so in an instant.

------
tdavis
_Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the
customizations you'd want to download for Firefox are already a part of
Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box._

Oh, right. _I forgot_.

Edit: no, wai

~~~
ideamonk
and Sure, Microsoft didn't invent stuff like add-ons for their browser for
they could not see - what a browser can be!

------
chaosmachine
Note to Microsoft: Insulting people's intelligence is not a good way to get
them to switch back to IE.

~~~
kevbin
Seems to work for Windows.

~~~
rbanffy
Nobody I know ever returned to Windows after experimenting with either Linux
or MacOS X.

~~~
Jem
You don't know enough people, then.

~~~
rbanffy
I compensate quantity with quality ;-)

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johnnybgoode
The assignment of check marks is just silly. What a worthless comparison.

~~~
roam
It looks like the IE8 marketing team is completely losing it. I'm dumbfounded.

~~~
ideamonk
Yeah Completely !

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kuzux
Customizability is a "tie" between ie, firefox and chrome? chrome(current
stable version) is one of the least customizable browsers i've ever seen!

------
sker
This is almost funny. IE8 is the only one of the major browsers that I haven't
installed yet. So I'm wondering, what if it's true? What if it's really better
than the others?

Has anyone here actually given it a try to confirm how good/bad it is?

~~~
moe
The main feature of microsoft products is that you don't really need to try
them to know how bad they are. _If_ something earth shattering happens to
their average product quality in the future then I'm sure I will read about it
soon enough.

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chanux
The 'ties' are at where they lose. No comments on others.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Please, they lose on almost everything there including Dev Tools, Security and
reliability

~~~
trezor
Security? Not compared to Safari. At least not according to the guy who won
pwn2own who considers safari "too easy to pop".

I'm not saying MSIE is the cornerstone of security, but saying security
haven't improved the last few versions is just silly.

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941>

~~~
carbon8
_"Security? Not compared to Safari."_

Safari isn't being compared in the chart.

------
aarongough
Looking at this ad makes me wonder what the rules are surrounding unfounded
claims in advertising in the US.

I know that in Australia several companies have had to either stop using parts
of their advertising materials or have been taken to court for stating 'facts'
or 'statistics' which they simply couldn't provide any evidence for.

Could the regulations around this be used to stop M$ from spreading such FUD
around? The last thing we want is more IE zombie-users stumbling around the
'net and feeding the botnets.

Input appreciated!

~~~
aarongough
I just submitted this to the Federal Trade Commission complaints system:

\-----------

On this web-page:

[http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-
the-f...](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-
facts/browser-comparison.aspx)

Microsoft repeatedly make unfounded claims about the abilities of it's latest
web-browser (Internet Explorer 8). These claims offer no statistical proof to
back them up and are completely at odds with the considered opinions of most
of the online community and many professional security experts. I personally
believe that they are attacking browser providers without a reasonable basis
in an effort to retain the custom of un-informed users.

Evidence to support my claim is:

[http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-...](http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2009/03/18/pwn2own-2009-day-1
---safari-internet-explorer-and-firefox-taken-down-by-four-zero-day-exploits)

"Today's first day of Pwn2Own contest is now officially over [...] Between two
winning contestants, they were able to compromise Safari (twice), IE8, and
Firefox."

Microsoft claim that IE8 is more secure than Chrome and FireFox, yet the very
same security community that discovered the IE8 exploit listed above failed to
find any exploits in Google Chrome. In a seperate interview one of the winning
hackers (Charlie Miller) said:

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941>

"There are bugs in Chrome but they’re very hard to exploit. [...] The’ve got
that sandbox model that’s hard to get out of. With Chrome, it’s a combination
of things — you can’t execute on the heap, the OS protections in Windows and
the Sandbox."

Your attention to this matter is appreciated.

\------------

If other people were to submit similar complaints I'm sure it would bring the
matter to some attention!

------
raquo
I wonder for whom are these marketing materials. No one chooses to use IE, and
those who use it because it's a default browser do not need any justification.

~~~
JVeinbergs
Probably because soon users will have to choose their browser. In Europe,
Windows 7 won't ship with IE onboard.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8096701.stm>

~~~
raquo
Ah, sure, forgot about that.

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dotcoma
in short, "we're better at everything". ridiculous.

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jcromartie
As soon as _the dominant company_ in a market resorts to a "get the facts"
campaign, you can be pretty certain that they are finally _completely_ out of
touch.

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ScottWhigham
IE8 is a fair browser in all areas to me except in (a) performance, and (b)
extensibility. There is no way IE8 is as fast as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome.
Let's ignore page load speeds and focus on application loading: IE8 takes much
longer to load and it takes sometimes up to 2 seconds to open a new tab. ####
off, MSFT.

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cmkrnl
Heh. What about portability?

------
zen53
Disturbing Ad copy - Developer Tools - "Of course Internet Explorer 8 wins
this one" Can someone please reconnect Microsoft's marketing department with
planet Earth.

~~~
eru
Yes. And of course they did not include Opera. That browser has quite nice
developer tools out of the box.

