Is Internet Explorer 8 a decent product?

I’m a web developer by trade. I spend my days in front of a computer screen typing away code that makes web applications work. One of the biggest gripes web developers have about this business is compatibility between browsers. Each browser manufacturer each has their own interpretation of HTML, CSS, Javascript and other technologies that go into making this page — and every page — work. When browsers don’t interpret things the same way, you find sites that break in some browsers but not in others.

Internet Explorer Logo

Internet Explorer 7, and especially 6, was notorious for breaking web standards compliant web sites because of how Microsoft interprets web technologies. Browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari aren’t perfect either, but they’re closer to that arguably unachievable mark. But what about IE8? Has it finally decided to adopt technology standards that are more consistent with the rest of the industry? Is the browser more convenient to use than major competitors like Firefox and Opera? I took a look around the Internet and here’s what I came up with.

Computer World

Computer World generally sings its praises by mentioning respectable improvements in the new version, like a superior tabbing feature compared to its earlier versions. For example, “When you open a new tab from an existing page, the new one opens directly to the right of the originating one, and both tabs are given the same color. That way, all related tabs are automatically grouped and color-coded,” the article states. Also, CW likes the new address bar, which now searches previously viewed web sites in a fashion that Firefox and Chrome already do.

IE8 has also introduced the concept of “accelerators”, which is a mechanism to pull in information from another page directly onto the page that you are viewing (or, depending on the accelerator used, a different tab). Highlight a date on a web page, for example, and quickly add a calendar event for that date through Windows’ calendar system. Or highlight a street address and dynamically view a map of that address right there on that page. This feature has been applied to the iPhone and other hand held devices for some time, now.

Web Slices are another technology that Microsoft has introduced in IE8 that provides a neat little interface to browse through updates to external pages directly from the IE interface. The classic example is monitoring eBay adds. Web Slices will allow the user to select auctions that they want to monitor, and IE will keep track of those auctions and make viewing the bidding price and other information easily accessible from a single interface. Web Slices, though, need to be supported by the web site that the user wishes to monitor.

CNET

CNET commented on how Microsoft has consolidated its activity providers firmly within the scope of the Microsoft experience. “Accepting Microsoft’s defaults puts you firmly within the Microsoft universe of Windows Live spaces: Blog with Windows Live Spaces, Define with Encarta, Translate with Windows Live, and send with Windows Live Hotmail,” writes CNET.

Safety filters are also introduced in the new IE, including antiphishing protection for web sites that attempt to mimic legitimate web sites in an effort to steal usernames, passwords and other personal information from online users. Firefox and other browsers already provide this protection.

CNET also opined about IE’s new threading feature, which effectively sets up each tab within a new operating thread in IE. Threads are essentially instances of some programming functionality that are independent from other threads. So, if you happen to visit a web site that would ordinarily have crashed the entire IE browser (which operated in a single thread), it will now only crash the tab that you’re working in. Other tabs will remain operational and will not be effected by the demise of the other tab.

But what about Web Standards?

As The Register reports, “For years, Microsoft has gone its own way online with its own IE rendering engine. That’s forced web developers to either build one version of their web sites for IE and another for all those other browsers that do implement HTML and CSS in a broadly consistent way or simply to target IE and get to the others later — or never. That’s distorted the market.”

But, support for web standards appear to have been improved in the new IE8. The Web Standards Project says the browser “is a giant leap forward for standards support at Microsoft”. Microsoft says that the browser is going to be “the most standards-compliant browser to date”, but honestlly, how can it not be? Earlier versions of IE weren’t exactly the bashion of support for the web standards movement. The browser passed the ACID 2 test.

Apparently, IE8 will offer full support for CSS version 2.1, but will not support particular CSS elements like border-radius, which is a mechanism to easily add rounded corners to page elements rather than using images. Microsoft claims that support for border-radius is being considered for support in subsequent versions of the browser.

“The outcry over the lack of Web standards compatibility in IE7 should still be very fresh in the minds of the IE dev team. As much as they want to release a beta of IE8 as soon as possible, maybe their bosses should give them a similar admonition to take the time to solve the standards compatibility conundrum. It’ll pay off in the long run,” writes IT Business Edge.

Pay attention to your users, Microsoft

Microsoft would be wise to remember the IE7 debacle that lead to angry users scrambling for a solution after an upgrade to IE7 caused many of their web sites to break that worked in the previous version, IE6. These things happen because new versions of browsers will interpret things differently than the older versions did and provide for no backwards compatibility. This means web sites can literally break overnight (or in a matter of just a few seconds) when upgrading to a browser that doesn’t support web technologies the right way (hence the need for a web standard). Heck, it doesn’t even have to be the right way. I just needs to be the same way.