Evaluating Internet Explorer 8

Posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 3:04pm by Rob Wilkerson

I spent last Thursday at Web 2.0 Expo in New York and, though I was disappointed in the show as a whole, I did go to one interesting session. I went to see Pete LePage, an Internet Explorer product manager, speak about Internet Explorer 8. Though I’ve long since given up on IE as my primary browser (even before moving away from Windows as anything more than an occasional-use operating system), it’s still an animal that I have to deal with as part of my daily life and I was looking forward to hearing about what to expect in the next version.

The presentation didn’t disappoint. Pete did a nice job of presenting a lot of features in very limited time and I found myself surprised, pleased and impressed at the effort the team has made to catch up in some areas and to innovate in others. I have to admit that I liked what I saw and, being a trained professional, I was looking forward to trying it at home. Today I finally got around to doing so and I wanted to write about my impressions.

I have none. In spite of all of the good things that IE 8 seems to offer, it still doesn’t offer the ability to install alongside IE 7. Full stop.

That’s it. That’s the only impression I have. I still need to access IE 7 on a regular basis for testing and I don’t have (or want) 12 separate licenses for Windows XP on which to test each browser version. IE 8 has to go. If it’s worth mentioning, maybe I’ll provide my impressions of the uninstall process. But I doubt it.

internet explorer, annoyances, browsers, windows 0 Comments

The Mixed Blessing of Google Chrome

Posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 10:05am by Rob Wilkerson

Having been on vacation, I just read that Google is planning to release their own browser, Google Chrome, into the already crowded market. Although I’m a huge fan of Google’s existing products, I have to admit to some mixed emotions about this one.

On the one hand, Chrome offers multiple processes. Each tab would be anchored by its own process so no single tab would be able to crash the entire browser application. The benefits of this are obvious and huge in today’s world of increasingly complex, resource consuming web applications.

On the other hand, it’s yet another browser.

On the one hand, Chrome is based on the WebKit engine, the engine that powers Safari. WebKit is a very capable engine that, judging from my limited experience with Safari, seems very fast. It’s also open and standards-compliant.

On the other hand, it’s yet another browser.

On the one hand, Chrome includes some significant Javascript innovations including isolation through a virtual machine, performance and precision garbage collection. This, of course, in addition to the multi-process capability mentioned above.

On the other hand, it’s yet another browser.

On the one hand, it borrows some of the best of what others have to offer. Tabs (of course) – now as the primary metaphor rather than the secondary, an intelligent address bar, etc.

On the other hand, it’s yet another browser.

If their online book is to be believed (and I have no reason to think it shouldn’t), they’ll be introducing some very welcome innovations on both the back- and front-ends, but at the same time it’s another browser in a market that’s already too crowded and, more accurately, too diverse. I can’t decide whether I’m excited about the innovations or dreading the additional testing I may have to do as a developer of web applications.

browsers, google 4 Comments