Winextra » browsers

It’s Time For A Second Browser Microsoft. Stop Treating Us Like Corporate Users.

Paul — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:27:43 +0000

In my last WinExtra post I put forward some ideas for Microsoft in order to regain ground in the browser wars. I am adamant, that in order to regain ground, Microsoft not only has to revamp Internet Explorer on the desktop, but also needs to turn out a killer mobile browser and enable a synchronous experience across all platforms.

Steven sees many of Microsofts IE woes resulting from them being in a perpetual state of catch up and is among the legions who would like to see IE shuffled off the mortal coil of computing.

One of IEs (and Microsofts) biggest hindrances in terms of innovation is their need to ensure that changes to IE won’t break the legacy software and web applications of slow to upgrade corporations. They just can’t cut off the people holding the strings to one of their main purses.

The other problem that haunts Microsoft is a mindset of develop once use everywhere. By that I mean, they develop software and try to port it or use it on all platforms. Take “Menlo” as an example.

Menlo is a rumored project to replace Windows CE (Windows Embedded Compact) with Windows NT inside of mobile devices. Yes, this would allow them to promote a write once, run everywhere environment but I fear that Microsoft still doesn’t quite understand that just like a tank is not a suitable vehicle for driving around town, software developed for the desktop should not always be ported to the mobile environment.

To continue the analogy, software that is developed with the corporate environment in mind should not necessarily be ported, or modified for the home user.

Sometimes you should just release a separate product, designed with the home user in mind specifically and that brings us back to Internet Explorer.

The corporate world has different needs for IE and the support of legacy technologies, but home users neither need nor want that support.

It’s time for Microsoft to cut the umbilical cord that is choking the throat of the home user market and release us from the bonds of IE. It’s time to win back market share and the key to it is to release a completely new browser just for home users.

What I’m talking about here is Microsoft releasing their own competitor to Googles Chrome. A fast, light weight browser, with a rapid development cycle that is hogging the news cycle for all the right reasons.

Leave, or rename IE (IE Corporate) to the corporate users. It will make the development cycle easier not to have to keep it up to date with all the features home users require and reduce the surface area for attacks.

Give home users what we want, a fast, up to date, feature rich browser that doesn’t have a geological update cycle.

It might appear better to have one code base for each user base, but you are loosing market share because of it.

It’s Time For A Second Browser Microsoft. Stop Treating Us Like Corporate Users. is a post from: winextra
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What Does Microsoft Need To Do To Regain Ground In The Browser Wars?

Paul — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:42:10 +0000

Internet Explorers Market Share has fallen to below 60% for the first time since the 90′s, since IE4 actually and everybody is wondering where is the market share going?

Is it going to Firefox, Opera, Safari or the trail blazing Chrome? Why is it slipping now? Is there suddenly an upsurge in the numbers of people peeved enough at the worlds most dominant browser that previous slow trickle of people jumping ship has switched to a torrent like rats deserting a sinking, burning ship?

The rats aren’t abandoning ship, they’re just learning new tricks and have a seriously short attention span.

Mobile is on the rise.

Sean P. Aune linked to browser market share statistics on TechnoBuffalo today which show that Safari has 4.72% of the market. What the stats don’t tell us is what percentage of that is from iPhone OS.

Of course, it’s indisputable that people are abandoning IE, as the always have for browsers such as Chrome but that’s not all of it. Chrome is not just stealing share from IE, I happen to know a large number of people who have converted from Firefox to Chrome.

It’s a fact, the more mobile browsers are used the larger a percentage of the market share they’ll acquire and it’s not from Firefox, Safari or Chrome that they’ll eat market share. It’s from Internet Explorer.

IE is a piss poor performer on mobile devices. Everybody I know with a Win mobile smartphone has swapped to Opera mini because of it’s performance, so Microsoft won’t make up any ground there. Android and iPhone (iPod Touch / iPad) have their own default browser and I doubt anybody would change to IE (even if they could).

The people who are leading the charge in mobile use are the people who, for the most part,are tech savvy. They are the people who already abandoned IE on other platforms but now are eroding IEs market share even further by accounting for additional browser usage in both the mobile and desktop environments.

Between the mobile users using multiple browsers, at home and now on the move as well, the countless hordes preaching conversion from IE, and the real activists who actively install other browsers on the machines of friends and family, the only thing that will keep Microsoft in it’s dominant position is it being the de facto browser on so many corporate machines and those of the less tech savvy.

There are two ways that Microsoft can start to regain market share which, in tandem, may have the desired effect.

Make IE killer on mobile devices. Buy Opera if they have to and rebrand it, but do something. Opera is already on the iPhone, where is IE? Then make IE sync with the desktop environment and everywhere else you run a browser. Make it seamless to go from IE on the iPhone, laptop, PC or Win Mobile phone.

By making it the best browser (mobile and desktop) it can be and syncing between all of a users internet enabled devices you create a lock in and familiarity that people won’t be inclined to move away from and will stay with if the browser is good.

Now, I do see the flaw in my logic, it’s all well and good to say build a killer browser and create an environment that users will not want to move from, but that’s not so easy to do when people already actively avoid IE and wouldn’t use it if you told them it would save their dying granny.

In order to get people to want to use it, Microsoft needs to dominate the news cycle and IE needs to appear fresh.

Microsoft need to shift the pace with IE development. It can’t be this slow monolithic drag that exists at the moment with infrequent betas and releases. There are times I’d swear I’ve seen continental drift move quicker.

It needs to be snappy. There needs to be an announcement of a new developer preview every week. Every new feature worked in should be a reason to hog the news cycle.

Google Chrome has been burning up the browser charts and not just because of how good it is. They’ve been rapidly adding new features and announcing every one of them as they get it into the beta. There is constant buzz about beta release after beta release (there was some today). It doesn’t matter if the news is as minor as a tiny speed increase in benchmarking, it’s being talked about.

IE needs to be in the spotlight (on all platforms) and not because of another security problem. IE needs to be seen to be vibrant and development fast paced.

As I said above, the rats have seriously short attentions span and are constantly been drawn towards the shiny pendants of Google and Mozilla’s news cycle as it constantly flickers in the sunlight.

What Does Microsoft Need To Do To Regain Ground In The Browser Wars? is a post from: winextra
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Talk about bring back memories

Steven — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:10:26 +0000

Here’s a screen that will bring back memories for those of us old enough to remember DOS and VGA monitors.

The only problem is that this is a fake online scanner virus warning notice being displayed in a browser window. According to the guys over at Sunbelt Software this is one called BlockScanner and is a variation of the Winisoft family.

Thanks for the memories Alex – I think

Talk about bring back memories is a post from: winextra
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IETester – web developer tool for site testing

Steven — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:24:18 +0000

One of the trickiest parts of the job for web developers is testing their work in all the different browsers. It is especially tricky when it comes to Internet Explorer given that to be able to run all the different version (if you can find their install packages) can mean jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to get them working.

Enter IETester.

With this handy program you can test your work in all the different version of IE from 5.5 up to 8 from within one program. As you can see in the graphic below WinExtra definitely doesn’t play nice in older versions of IE (click on image for larger view).

You can grab your copy of IETester at their site.

hat tip to Addictive Tips

IETester – web developer tool for site testing is a post from: winextra
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The most secure browser? Not who you think.

Steven — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:51:44 +0000

According to two reports out from NSS Labs that tested the latest browsers: Safari 4, Firefox 3, Opera 10, Google Chrome 2, and Internet Explorer 8, there are some surprises as to which of them is the most secure. While I am sure many will rush in and say it has to be Firefox or Chrome the fact is they would be wrong. The winner in this case – IE8.

All the tests for the Malware Report and the Phishing Report were conducted on plain jane installs of the browsers – no add-on, plugins, or other such fancy stuff. The malware testing was done over 12 days (24 x 7) against fresh live malicious sites. For the phishing test it was conducted 24/7 for 14 days against active sites.

The comparative tests against malware broke down as such

The use of reputation systems to assist browsers in the fight against socially engineered malware is a strong use of cloud technologies. But, not all vendor implementations and daily operations yield the same results.
Internet Explorer 8 “was by far the best”, thanks to the SmartScreen® Filtertechnology
Firefox 3 “comes in a distant second”
Safari 4 presented a declined compared to the previous tests, with two short periods of sever security dips
Chrome 2 performed very consistently, albeit very poorly
Although Firefox, Safari and Chrome are using the same security API, the results are different. From the report:
“The SafeBrowsing products’ protection rates were showing signs of converging just under 25%. This supports the notion that there are operational differences between the implementations of the API, but that the block lists are the same (or very similar)”
Source: Giorgio Sardo Blog ::Most Secure Browser: Internet Explorer 8

When it came to the phishing tests the results came out as such

Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 are clearly responding quickly to block new phishing sites
Opera had a period during the tests where the protection dropped off significantly
Chrome was below average
From the report:
“We expected better results given the fanfare about Google’s SafeBrowsing initiative. Additionally, a third-party (Firefox) was able to utilize Google’s API to achieve significantly better protection that Google’s own browser.”
Source: Giorgio Sardo Blog ::Most Secure Browser: Internet Explorer 8

Let the chest beating and name calling commence

The most secure browser? Not who you think. is a post from: winextra
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Microsoft changes mind over browserless Windows 7 release

Steven — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:21:10 +0000

As a result of the European Union’s incessant treatment of Microsoft as their personal ATM machine Microsoft had originally agreed to ship a European version of Windows 7 with a browser ballot screen. The idea being that Windows 7 wouldn’t use Internet Explorer as its default web browser but rather would let the consumer select the browser they want to use.

It appears though that European OEM’s really didn’t like this idea and started raising a fuss so Microsoft had to think of other options to make the OEMs and the European Union regulators happy. What they have decided to do is to ship the full Windows 7 version with Internet Explorer installed but will have it display the ballot screen when IE is run for the first time, and I imagine as a Start Menu item.

Apparently this is good enough to satisfy the regulators

The commission had said it "welcomed" Microsoft’s move, also giving the software maker some confidence that it could ship Windows 7 with the browser included. If the commission accepts Microsoft’s proposal, it will fully implement that proposed ballot screen to Windows 7 buyers in Europe.
Source: c|net News :: Microsoft: No browserless Windows 7 after all

IT also makes it easier for Microsoft to market Windows 7 in Europe both as an upgrade from previous Windows versions and as a stand-alone product.

Microsoft changes mind over browserless Windows 7 release is a post from: winextra
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