
Microsoft announces Project Spartan, its new web browser for Windows 10 - sz4kerto
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7863331/microsoft-project-spartan-new-web-browser
======
quakkels
So, it will take a 'snapshot' of the page that you can markup. This snapshot
will disable dynamic features of the webpage but still allow links to work. I
wonder if they are talking about halting DOM manipulation, or JavaScript
execution. Seems this will definitely create new classes of QA test paths.

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vesinisa
Pretty surprising that it's coming with a new rendering engine given the good
progress Microsoft has been making in bringing Trident in line with the
competition.

~~~
wmf
Is "new rendering engine" marketing-speak for "Trident with backwards
compatibility ripped out"?

~~~
Alupis
I can't be the only person that was really hoping they'd just use Web-kit and
help "standardize" how websites render...

really tired of having:

<!--[if IE x]><html class="please-dont-make-my-site-look-awful"><![endif]-->

Now instead we'll have:

<!--[if SPARTAN x]><html class="please-dont-make-my-site-look-
awful"><![endif]-->

~~~
mordocai
Instead? Surely you mean, as well. You'll have to support both IE and SPARTAN.
It is just another browser we have to deal with.

~~~
wolf550e
Every person with SPARTAN will have IE installed too. A site can say "works
only in SPARTAN/Chrome/Firefox/Safari" or "Works only in IE" (for different
markets).

------
Alupis
Now when you install Windows, you will get no less than two pre-installed
browsers (at least for the next several versions of Windows). You will get IE
and Spartan... neither of-which you can fully remove since they'll be baked
into Windows like IE is now (things depend on IE specifically and don't just
rely on the default-set browser)

~~~
taf2
which may actually be a good thing because it will further reduce the total
number of IE/Spartan marketshare driving fewer developers to care. A real win
for the web.

~~~
millstone
Fewer supported browsers is not a win for the web.

~~~
Alupis
Fewer rendering engines might be though. So long as it's an Open Source and
freely-contributable engine (like Webkit is today). Or maybe a better defined
specification for how things should render.

Today it's a wild west, your site may look great in one browser but terrible
in another, etc.

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wolf550e
Peter-Paul Koch (ppk) about this, and why developers should call it MSIE12
internally but call it a new browser to non-technical people:

[http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2014/12/a_new_micros...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2014/12/a_new_microsoft.html)

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makepanic
I would love to know what this browser is using as a user agent string.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
If it's like every single web browser for it, an insanely long amalgam of the
user agent strings of every competing browser, every browser that came before
it, and the word Spartan.

~~~
Mahn
Or even worse, the UA of another browser verbatim, for "compability purposes".

------
ddod
I wonder how they can reconcile the name "Spartan" with built in note taking,
social sharing, Cortana, and webpage overlay drawing.

~~~
cwyers
It's just a codename, and like all Microsoft codenames the past few years,
it's taken from the Halo games. It doesn't really mean anything, and it
probably won't be the final name, but who knows.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Cortana made it from code name to product name, as did Windows 7.

~~~
Someone1234
XBox too.

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hokkos
Not a new rendering engine, reading view/list already exist in Safari or with
plugins, annotation doesn't seem that usefull. I would have expected more
tools to handle tab overload, password management, plugins.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Personally I'm happy to have functionality that previously required a plugin
to be built-in. As it is I've sworn off all plugins except adblock for
potential security compromises. It's just not worth it.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Great, another bloody rendering engine.

~~~
sp332
Web content is supposed to render properly on multiple engines. We shouldn't
be encouraging a monoculture of webkit.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
"supposed to"

------
wanda

        Naturally, Cortana will be integrated into Project Spartan
        It'll pop up on relevant pages where Cortana can be useful
    

Another Internet Explorer I won't be using. Block pop-ups only to have one
natively installed.

~~~
bhhaskin
It reminds me of clippy...

~~~
Someone1234
I was hoping they'd reference clipping in the presentation today. After they
talked about "Cortana" appearing randomly on your desktop and in IE, all I
could think of was "it looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like
help? Get help typing the letter. Just type the letter without help." every...
single... time...

I really hope this isn't another Clippy. If "Cortana" gets annoying I'm
totally figuring out how to add the Clippy graphic to the UI and rename her
"Clippy" (I bet you can personalise the name). Which, after thinking about it,
I might try to do anyway just because it would be amusing...

------
praeivis
Spartan looks more like small OS built over bigger OS. Oh, wait, it's trend
for years now. Nothing new then? :)

~~~
wmf
Spartan will reduce Windows to a set of signed device drivers.

(Context:
[http://www.wired.com/2012/04/ff_andreessen/2/](http://www.wired.com/2012/04/ff_andreessen/2/)
)

------
freshyill
I really wish they would just base IE (or whatever this ends up being called)
on WebKit or Blink and call it a day. They could immediately solve 90% of the
actual problems people have with their browser, instead of tacking on crap
that nobody's asking for.

Once the real problems are fixed, feel free to tack on crap because IE is
basically only exists as a way for people to download Chrome anyway.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Build a browser on Webkit or Blink, just like everyone else? There's already
dozens of those. You can download Chrome just as well in any browser.

It's great that MS is improving IE, because having a Webkit/Blink dominated
monoculture is bad. Didn't we learn this with IE6?

~~~
benaston
But this software is vapor.

If you are running forwards slower than a treadmill is taking you back, are
you advancing?

~~~
cwyers
How is this vapor? Vapor is something that doesn't exist, not something that
hasn't been released yet.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Perhaps "vaporware" was meant, but this browser has only been known for two
months (I think), and is presumably in heavy development.

------
na85
Will Project Spartan continue Microsoft's trademarked aversion to standards-
compliant DOM rendering?

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tw04
If it's not cross-platform, I'm not sure why they're bothering. They seem to
think that the turn-off is simply standards compliance. While that's a big
deal, a bigger deal is having to learn a whole new workflow when switching
between operating systems... at least in my world.

~~~
blumkvist
And how big is your world?

~~~
tw04
Roughly 40,000 employees and customers. But apparently hacker news doesn't
approve so I guess we're the minority.

------
benaston
So... they are trying to make the Web more shareable with a proprietary
annotation feature, thereby introducing a new category of UX issues, bugs and
incompatibilities.

I suppose that would be kind of neat if the Web wasn't already the most
shareable medium in the world (you've heard of URLs?).

MS is way behind in standards implementation (yes still, even in IE11). Yes
this software is pure vapor, but has their browser project office heard of
feature prioritization?

MS has not, cannot and will never change. They are onto a losing strategy
long-term (just review your GA logs). And for that I am glad because as a
developer for the Web, I hate them with a passion.

~~~
theandrewbailey
While the web is the most sharable thing ever, it's not the most annotatable
or drawable medium. This annotation feature will let corporate office monkeys
communicate changes to their intranet sites easier than using vague text
descriptions or printouts (or, kill me, scanned printouts).

And guess who the primary target audience is for MS browsers? Corporate office
monkeys.

~~~
benaston
But as most corporate monkeys know, Windows includes a snipping tool already
with an annotation feature.

------
Animats
_" Chief among those new features is new inking support that lets users
annotate web pages and sync all of those notes to OneDrive and share them with
collaborators"_

In other words, your web browsing is reported to Microsoft so this markup will
be in sync. Will that information be made available to advertisers? Will
Microsoft backdoor HTTPS to make this work?

~~~
devindotcom
So all cloud services are inherently suspect? Then why call one in particular
out at all?

This is no different than saving a web page for reading later on instapaper or
the like.

~~~
bsilvereagle
With a service like instapaper you select what is being reported. If it not
possible to turn off the Spartan Annotation, all of your web activities are
reported.

~~~
cwyers
If you don't annotate anything, there's no annotation to be reported to
Microsoft. (And if Microsoft wanted a log of your browser activity, they could
just put a back door in your browser.)

~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
That back door for sending browser activity to Microsoft exists, it is called
the Bing bar.

