Thursday, October 19, 2006
As The World Turns
Certain things in life are very, very certain. Things like death, taxes, and bad tuna are all things that we have to live with at some time in our lives. There are also things that are not so certain such as the weather, the stock market and little league scores, that help to balance out our lives of stoic certainty.
One thing that should be located in the list of "certains" is Microsoft's commitment to unreliability. They just have a really hard time making anything work like it really should. Specifically, I speak of the mighty Internet Explorer web browser. Today, Microsoft pushed out this behemoth of a browser to the millions of unsuspecting victims running Windows XP SP2. The release today was of special import because it was the release of the long-awaited, much ballyhooed Internet Explorer 7.
Up 'til now, most folks have been running IE version 6 if they've been keeping up with the "security" rollouts. This version was the last major revision of Internet Explorer, and even the term "major" is up for debate. It really is just more of a tweaked IE 5, which arguably, is just a tweaked IE4. Internet Explorer 4 came out with Windows 98, if that gives you a sense of how old this browser really is. The landscape of the Internet has changed a lot since August of 1998, but IE really hasn't been there to absorb those changes. It has suffered literally thousands of attacks, exposing Windows users to very serious threats. Why it ever became the dominant browser is based solely in marketing. Were it not for the fact that Microsoft bundles it, nay, inextricably binds it to the operating system is the only merit it has for the popularity it enjoys. Newer, more modern and more secure browsers have long since passed it as a leader in technology. Internet Explorer is also seriously lacking in the standards compliance department.
So, with today's release, what did the user get? How does it compare with other, more modern browsers? Permit me, if you will, to break it down:
It gets better... While looking at the Microsoft site, I noticed that my computer had become very sluggish. Curious, I opened the task manager and went to the processes tab. The CPU was pegged at 100% with iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer) taking the vast bulk of the CPU time. I couldn't actually do anything with IE7 in this state. Mouse clicks were unproductive. So, I had to manually kill the process using Task Manager. I really don't think that's correct behavior for a browser.
So, all in all, I'm very underwhelmed by Internet Explorer 7. Will I be switching back as Microsoft would hope? No. I've been down that road and I don't want to go back. Long live Open Source!
One thing that should be located in the list of "certains" is Microsoft's commitment to unreliability. They just have a really hard time making anything work like it really should. Specifically, I speak of the mighty Internet Explorer web browser. Today, Microsoft pushed out this behemoth of a browser to the millions of unsuspecting victims running Windows XP SP2. The release today was of special import because it was the release of the long-awaited, much ballyhooed Internet Explorer 7.
Up 'til now, most folks have been running IE version 6 if they've been keeping up with the "security" rollouts. This version was the last major revision of Internet Explorer, and even the term "major" is up for debate. It really is just more of a tweaked IE 5, which arguably, is just a tweaked IE4. Internet Explorer 4 came out with Windows 98, if that gives you a sense of how old this browser really is. The landscape of the Internet has changed a lot since August of 1998, but IE really hasn't been there to absorb those changes. It has suffered literally thousands of attacks, exposing Windows users to very serious threats. Why it ever became the dominant browser is based solely in marketing. Were it not for the fact that Microsoft bundles it, nay, inextricably binds it to the operating system is the only merit it has for the popularity it enjoys. Newer, more modern and more secure browsers have long since passed it as a leader in technology. Internet Explorer is also seriously lacking in the standards compliance department.
So, with today's release, what did the user get? How does it compare with other, more modern browsers? Permit me, if you will, to break it down:
- To start off, IE7 is a 14.80 megabyte download. What other browsers out there are that hefty of a download? Opera: 6.3MB. Firefox: 4.9MB. These are the two most popular browsers next to IE and even the larger of them is less than half the size of IE7.
- Hmmm. Fifteen minutes to install a browser. I can usually install Firefox in less than a minute.
- Two Windows reboots. Firefox requires no reboots.
- What the hell are Internet Explorer Core Components? Wouldn't that be "the browser?" This took up the bulk of the install time.
- Validation (Windows Genuine Advantage)? Why? It's a browser, folks. You use it to view web pages. Why do I need to validate to download a browser?
- Despite the marketing spin Microsoft puts on their browser, tabbed browsing and RSS are not new. Those of us using every other browser on the planet have been using them for years.
- Of course, to get the most out of your web browser, you need to enable the Phabulous Phishing Philter. Again, not a new thing.
- An oldie but goodie: With IE, increased security = decreased usability. Lock down your Internet Security settings and then try to use the browser. :)
- Standards still broken at no extra charge.
It gets better... While looking at the Microsoft site, I noticed that my computer had become very sluggish. Curious, I opened the task manager and went to the processes tab. The CPU was pegged at 100% with iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer) taking the vast bulk of the CPU time. I couldn't actually do anything with IE7 in this state. Mouse clicks were unproductive. So, I had to manually kill the process using Task Manager. I really don't think that's correct behavior for a browser.
So, all in all, I'm very underwhelmed by Internet Explorer 7. Will I be switching back as Microsoft would hope? No. I've been down that road and I don't want to go back. Long live Open Source!
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