New IE8 marketing materials | Hacker News Reader

New IE8 marketing materials

microsoft.com

40 pointsnoodle50 comments

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.

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

Sure, the marketing info isn't aimed at us. But our impression of Microsoft, and what their reputation is, is not just based on the things with which they deign to target us.

And, even though it's not targeted at us, it's targeted at people we know. If you're anything like me or my co-workers, that means that our friends' and families' browser problems are also our problems :P So Microsoft is actually making the lives of tech savvy people harder via FUD like this.

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

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.

The recommendation of people like us counts for a lot. We are the geeks that install and support friends' and families' computers, and if I know that if I get the family to use browser X, I'll have fewer tech support calls, then they're using browser X.

life is too short to hate anyone.

Life's too short to use IE.

Life's too short to use Microsoft.

To be sincere, their keyboards and mice are top notch. Too bad they insist . Their hardware is excellent since the Z-80 SoftCard I used in my Apple II. And they had a 6 MHz one as well... With it, an Apple II was the fastest CP/M box around.

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.

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

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.

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.

That's one guy at one event. And even he says Firefox (and Chrome) on Windows is more secure than IE.

And, I'm not sure I understand how IE malware/phishing protection is better than that found in Firefox. I don't doubt that it's possible, but it does seem to work in Firefox, and the angry red warning screen seems likely enough to stop someone from going ahead.

"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.

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.

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

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

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

"intelligent" people wouldn't switch to microsoft to begin with. A non-techie on the other hand, would probably be convinced by this.

Seems to work for Windows.

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

You don't know enough people, then.

I compensate quantity with quality ;-)

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

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

Yeah Completely !

It's not a comparison. It's an advertisement.

And it's so biased to the point of being illegal in many countries (mine included)

I won't disagree with its questionable legality, but it would be a bit silly to have an advert that wasn't biased towards the product it was advertising.

It's fair to be biased. The problem is the bias borders on lies.

Experience and Numbers give you more clarity in comparison. Check marks is for cows.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

"Security? Not compared to Safari."

Safari isn't being compared in the chart.

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!

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...

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-...

"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!

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.

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

Ah, sure, forgot about that.

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

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.

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.

Heh. What about portability?

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

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

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