

One more Internet Explorer to worry about - ttjervaag
http://thedailyt.com/2009/11/one-more-internet-explorer-to-worry-about/

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daeken
Is it just me, or was there absolutely no content here?

Frankly, I'm glad to see MS stepping up to the plate and working towards a
better browser. If you don't like IE9, don't use it, but more competition is
never a bad thing.

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dazzawazza
More competition is never a bad thing, true. But IE is so far behind it's
genuinely slowing the development of the internet and it really looks like
IE9.x will continue this trend.

Forget the rendering differences (for which you can argue there are legacy
issues that MS should care about) the pure speed of JS in the various IE's
REALLY hurts the internet. Even a moderately complex Google maps mash up
requires serious thought on IE as it's just SO slow.

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Tichy
JS has only recently picked up speed, with vastly improved implementations in
recent browser versions. It is not surprising that the one or other vendor is
lagging behind, but why shouldn't they be able to catch up? So what is bad
about a new IE with faster JS?

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dazzawazza
My worry is that the leading (most popular) browser is the slowest. On the web
you need to work to the lowest common browser.

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JamieEi
The least common denominator is going to be IE6 for the foreseable future
whether MS releases a new version or not. Maybe by the time IE9 comes out it
will be IE7.

There is always going to be a large base of people who don't update their OS
until they buy a new computer and who don't replace the stock browser. IE has
most of those users because it is the stock browser on the leading OS, not
because it hasn't made progress. As Macs become more popular I bet you will
have to start supporting obsolete versions of Safari too. Fun! :)

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dkasper
_but it feels so incredibly late in the game to improve their font rendering
to acceptable, never mind pushing the limits a little._

Late in the game compared to what? The browser wars are really heating up
again! Plus, it's not like the internet is going anywhere sometime soon, so it
seems kind of odd to call it "late" in the game.

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sid0
I have no idea what he's talking about there. Firefox supports ligatures, but
ultimately relies on the OS to do the font rendering, just like IE does.
DirectWrite's support for Y-directional subpixel antialiasing and subpixel
positioning is what IE9 will benefit from. (A DirectWrite backend is in the
works for Firefox, too.)

DirectWrite rendering is better than the next best Windows rendering, which
has so far been the best rendering across OSes -- yes, this is a personal
opinion, and no, I'm not interested in debating the relative merits of Windows
and OS X rendering. Unless Firefox gets its DirectWrite backend first, IE9
will have the best rendering available on any desktop platform.

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nickpp
He lost ANY credibility when he started bashing IE's font rendering. Not only
that is the same OS rendering used by Firefox, but with Cleartype is one of
the best font rendering out there. Some think of it as better than OS X's.

As the parent comment said, the future is even better: DirectWrite.

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m_eiman
So he's complaining about both a) IE is bad and b) Microsoft is trying to make
it better. I suppose he'd like them to just discontinue the whole thing, then?
Not the most likely, or even desirable, outcome.

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kilps
No he is saying fix it properly or just don't bother - if this was released
tomorrow we'd have 3 different versions of IE to worry about.

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artpop
You mean 4 right?

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kilps
yes...

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rbanffy
There is a simpler solution: not worrying about IE.

Make your business model in such a way you don't need users who don't know
better than not to use IE.

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natch
Perfect headline.

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motters
I stopped worrying about Internet Explorer in 2004.

