The most modern browser there is: Internet Explorer 9 reviewed | Hacker News Reader

The most modern browser there is: Internet Explorer 9 reviewed

arstechnica.com

16 pointsevo_929 comments

I really don't know how this is on HN - this is barely much more than a PR plant espousing how fantastic IE9 is. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad IE9 is more standards compliant than past IE versions, but this is basically a promo piece. This made me chuckle though, in the tradition of "it's not a bug, it's a feature":

"In contrast to the other browser developers, Microsoft's approach to standards support has been conservative. The company doesn't want to ever have to remove or fundamentally modify a feature that it has implemented due to changes in specifications. As such, it has taken a policy of only implementing those specifications that are unlikely to undergo any further changes. As a result, Internet Explorer 9 will compare unfavorably on sites like HTML5 Test, but Microsoft views this as far preferable to making developers have to alter their real-world applications just because a specification has changed. "

You obviously stopped reading after the first page.

The second page of this article points out a lot of features that Microsoft FINALLY got around to implementing and some of the short-comings that are still lingering. If I remember correct, the last couple paragraphs claim that Firefox 4 or Chrome will pass up IE on features in the near near future. Not exactly a PR plant at that point.

No I read the second page. They looked like "half-criticisms" that won't affect the IE userbase - "geeks won't like it", "the 64 bit version sucks" etc.

True, those aren't exactly the harshest critiques.

That’s a pretty hefty accusation you are making there. Any evidence?

I’m so fed up that it has become so common to call everything you disagree with a “PR plant” or the author a “shill”. That’s not the right way to argue. Say that if you have evidence, shut up if you don’t.

I didn't say it is a PR plant, I said it's barely much more than one. This is to say, I'm accusing the article of being low on content demonstrating its primary premise (IE9 is the most modern browser) and of being written in a tone comparable to marketing material for the IE browser.

No-one cares if the browser is modern right now. In 2 years, when Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, et.al. have moved on and are even more awesome, we will be stuck with the exact same IE 9 that was released today (sans security fixes).

Microsoft has taught me to dread Internet Explorer, and I see no reason not to feel the same way with this one.

Right, we're getting a nice snapshot of technology with IE9, and if that doesn't include Web Workers or some other feature, fine. But the key advantage of Chrome is that WebGL barely worked a few weeks ago, it's better now, and it will be much better a few weeks in the future. Without agressive updating, IE9 will be out of date in a very real way by September.

Seriously. In a few months when every other browser follows even more HTML5 standards, has a faster JS engine, etc - IE9 will still be the same as it is today.

They really need to get with the program and until they release a more public release timeline I'm going to continue to tell people to avoid using it.

That's a fairly inflamatory headline, and the reviewer's definition of "modern" is never explicitly given. I'd argue that the Chromium and WebKit nightlies I downloaded this morning are more "modern" than IE9.

Edit: Still, kudos to Microsoft on what appears to be a solid, modern web browser. I'm just taking issue with the review's angle.

The reviewer gives a hint at their definition of "modern" as "most recently released" when they state "It's arguably the most modern browser on the market—for a few weeks, at any rate."

IE9 runs on exactly 0 mobile devices. I don't think it's fair to call a browser "modern" when it's the only browser that doesn't run on at least one mobile device. Safari, Opera, Chrome [1], and Firefox all run on a variety of platforms including many mobile devices.

And given that most people see "mobile" as a defining element of modern tech, it's pretty awkward to call a Windows Vista/7-only web browser "modern". Microsoft even has their own, Windows-based mobile platform but it runs IE7/8. If IE9 is modern, why can't I hold it in my hand like every other web browser?

[1] While I suppose Chrome isn't branded as such on Android, the Android 3.0 browser is so close in both appearance and capability (and likely, code) that it seems silly to keep them apart.

That's kind of a silly criticism. The mobile versions of all the major browsers are basically only the rendering engine stuck into a mobile shell. At that point, Safari and Chrome are both based on Webkit, and as such they are practically the same browser.

And anyway, it probably won't be long until Windows Phone 7 gets a Trident refresh from IE9.

> The mobile versions of all the major browsers are basically only the rendering engine stuck into a mobile shell.

So why hasn't MS done that with IE9 then? Why can't we have IE9's rendering engine on a mobile platform? From what I hear, that would be a significant improvement over the IE7/8 combo that they're shipping right now.

> And anyway, it probably won't be long until Windows Phone 7 gets a Trident refresh from IE9.

I'll take a bet on that. $10 says it'll be 2012 before that happens.

They've already announced that IE9 will be available on WP7 later this year.

I'm still willing to bet. :)

I take the point but I don't think this is valid criticism of IE9's 'modern' pretentions.

(And anyway, Chrome doesn't run on mobile devices, neither does Safari. What you have are various implementations of Webkit, all different across the various OS versions.)

I do not associate the word "modern" with "mobile" at all (at least not in the Windows OS / desktop browser market).

Though, falling over backwards trying to post something negative whenever Microsoft is praised is associated with a few other things such as: zealotry, lack of confidence, ignorance.

I am pleased with IE's changes and Microsoft's dedication to bring a better web along. But I strongly disagree that this alone means that IE is now "modern" because is so many other ways it is stuck in the past. It may be an excellent browser (I don't know, my OS doesn't support it) and it may be the fastest out there and it may be very standards compliant. But that definitely doesn't automatically make it modern.

The IE blog is quite good and devoid of any marketing / bs: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/

Props to Microsoft for

  1. Breaking compatibility with WinXP for performance gains.
  2. Not supporting non-finalized web standards.

True, but lack of XP support combined with XP's 40-50% market share in early 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Usage_share) means that this great new browser might take a long time to gain traction.

Actually I disagree with point #2 because their definition of "finalized" is stuff that other browsers have done for 2 years.

Are we really going to have to wait another 2 years for cache.manifest, geolocation, web fonts, web sockets, web workers, drag and drop (and many other things that I can't think of off the top of my head)?

Why don't they just finalize these things and put MS's feet to the fire.

But Chrome, Firefox and now Opera are getting the same if not better performance gains without breaking XP compatibility.

I'm currently a big fan of Chrome, but it sounds like IE might be finally worth using. I can't wait to try it.

Also, it seems to me as though Microsoft, at their best, can do a really good job with a product (see also Kinect, Windows Phone 7[1], Bing[2]). But then there are the huge flops like Vista and Kin. It almost seems like what Microsoft really lacks is someone who understands quality and can kill bad projects before they are released. There are still great products being made at Microsoft, but it's sometimes hard to see them past all the crap.

[1] Too bad about the update situation though.

[2] I realize Bing is bleeding money, but I think Bing is a well-designed search engine in search of a sustainable business model.

Generally in agreement - albeit a GNU/Linux, Android, iOS and Google user as I still think those a superior to your respective examples.

The one product I'd point out your wrong about is Bing - its been proven very clearly that they literally steal their search result rankings from Google by crawling Google instead of running their own algorithms.

> Though Windows XP's market share is declining on the back of strong corporate uptake of Windows 7, it's still the most common version of Windows. And it can't be used with Internet Explorer 9.

> The performance improvements made by the use of DirectWrite and Direct2D allow a new class of Web application to be developed.

Sorry it does not allow anything, IE9 won't make IE8,IE7 and IE6 magically go away. Overall this whole article is pointless, it's just an IE9 praise completely out of touch with reality.

I've measured on large sites (millions of unique users) IE6 is less than 4% of traffic. So I don't understand why people still hold it up as a problem. No one cares about it anymore, even serious eCommerce sites have given up on that 4%.

IE9 being stable means a large number of users will upgrade. This allows creating web applications with far more capabilities than was possible previously with a large group receiving the best experience. IE7/8 can survive the same content with progressive enhancement, feature detects, shims and so forth.

The reality is IE9 greatly improves the browser landscape. Its a step forward. Sure it might not be as good as Chrome/Safari/Firefox/Opera by a web developers or power users standards and it may not be updated as often. But the average windows user does not care about your opinion. None of the available browsers are "modern" either. All have serious bugs and braindead behavior in some way or another.

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