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Internet Explorer Microsoft Windows Technology

Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS 473

Posted by kdawson from the this-time-stop-after-embrace dept.
suraj.sun sends this excerpt from CNET on Microsoft's preview of IE9 in Las Vegas just now. "At its Mix 10 conference Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it's calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype designed to show off the company's effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now. Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware. One big change in the JavaScript engine Hachamovitch is proud of is its multicore support. As soon as a Web page is loaded, Chakra assigns a processing core to the task of compiling JavaScript in the background into fast code written in the native language of the computer's processor." Microsoft didn't say what codec they were using for the HTML5 video demo, but the Technologizer says it's H.264.
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Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS More

Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS

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  • H.264 (Score:4, Funny)

    by bflong ( 107195 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:48PM (#31498582)

    Of course it's H.264. That's the superior standard! And by superior I mean it allows a superior level of control over the once free and open Internet.

    • Re:H.264 (Score:5, Informative)

      by sopssa ( 1498795 ) * <sopssa@email.com> on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:50PM (#31498608) Journal

      Once free and open Internet? What is Flash then? It's both proprietary closed platform and H.264.

      It's of course H.264 but for different reasons - Windows 7 has build-in support for H.264, and Theora kind of lost the war already.

      • Re:H.264 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bflong ( 107195 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:58PM (#31498760)

        Flash is an optional addon. There is no optional addon to play h.264. The support for the video is built into the browser, and once it's built in the browser cannot be redistributed due to patents. This is why Firefox can't play H.264, and the reason Theora doesn't have support from some key players. Without the patents, there is no control.

        • Re:H.264 (Score:4, Interesting)

          by sopssa ( 1498795 ) * <sopssa@email.com> on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:04PM (#31498858) Journal

          GIF is also patented format and had an uproar before as they required license fees from applications that output GIF.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement [wikipedia.org]

          In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500.[15] Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs. Nevertheless, Unisys was the subject of thousands of online attacks and abusive emails from users believing that they were going to be charged $5000 or sued for using GIFs on their websites.[16] Despite giving free licenses to hundreds of non-profit organizations, schools and governments, Unisys was completely unable to generate any good publicity and continued to be vilified by individuals and organizations such as the League for Programming Freedom who started the "Burn All GIFs" campaign.[17]

          The US LZW patent expired on June 20, 2003.[18] The counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expired on June 18, 2004, the Japanese counterpart patents expired on June 20, 2004 and the counterpart Canadian patent expired on July 7, 2004.[18] Consequently, while Unisys has further patents and patent applications relating to improvements to the LZW technique,[18] the GIF format may now be used freely.

          I don't think MPEG-LA is so stupid that it will try anything similar. In that case they also even didn't try to get licenses from 99% of websites. MPEG-LA has a long history in video formats and their usage on the Internet and other devices, it would be stupid of them to start charging individual websites and users.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by bflong ( 107195 )

            If they really felt this way then they would allow players and transmission without patent royalties. They would make it official and permanent. They have not. "I don't think", "99% of websites", and
            "It would be stupid of them" doesn't cut it. If you want to put faith in them, go ahead. I'd like to think we know better then that.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by mweather ( 1089505 )
            "GIF is also patented format and had an uproar before as they required license fees from applications that output GIF." And that's exactly why PNG was added to web standards.

        • Re:H.264 (Score:4, Informative)

          by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:12PM (#31498998) Journal

          Flash is an optional addon. There is no optional addon to play h.264. The support for the video is built into the browser, and once it's built in the browser cannot be redistributed due to patents.

          There's nothing precluding the browser from using the OS centralized codec repository, to which an H.264 codec can then be added (if not there already).

          In fact, Opera 10.50 does just that on Linux (it uses gstreamer). In fact, it also uses its own copy of gstreamer on Windows and OS X, to which you can add codecs if you want to.

        • >>>Flash is an optional addon.

          Yeah except not really. I'm on dialup with my laptop and sometimes block Flash to speedup the connection, but there are many sites that simply don't work. You need to either use Adobe's software or an open-source Flash Alternative.

          Also H.264/MPEG4 is really no different than the MPEG2 we used in our HDTV/DVDs or the MPEG4 in our HD Radios/Bluray players. These formats are "proprietary" but open standards which are maintained by a neutral non-profit organization. I

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Randle_Revar ( 229304 )

            >neutral non-profit organization.

            The MPEG WG and the MPEG IF may be non-profit (I don't see how they would qualify as neutral in any useful way), but that is irrelevant, as the MPEG LA is most definitely not nonprofit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Draek ( 916851 )

        Once free and open Internet? What is Flash then?

        Not part of the official standard.

        If you and a thousand idiots want to run their lolcat websites with h.264 videos, be my guest. Just keep your own goddamned patented technology *off* the official standard.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by westlake ( 615356 )

        It's of course H.264 but for different reasons - Windows 7 has build-in support for H.264, and Theora kind of lost the war already.

        Pretty much everyone is on board for H.264. AVC/H.264 Licensees [mpegla.com]

        773 of the biggest names in media and tech. Canonical is on the list. Lockheed Martin is on the list.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by poetmatt ( 793785 )

          just because people are licensees doesn't mean they're going to implement it. I think you fail to understand what the significance of that list is. Maybe you should read at the bottom when it says (my bold/italic)

          companies listed above may produce some or no products which are licensed under their respective agreement and, therefore, no conclusion may be drawn from this list that any particular products they manufacture are licensed.

          It's more likely that people have to be licensees to be able to read the i

        • No, everyone is NOT on board. For example, Wikipedia explicitly forbids MP3 and H.264, and only accepts Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis [wikipedia.org]. If you want to hear audio or see videos on Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular web services, then you MUST use Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. And as you know, Firefox (one of the most popular web browsers and growing) includes built-in support for Ogg and NOT for H.264. Many sites, and many operating systems (such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian, etc.) do NOT s

    • What a twat! Nuff said..

  • firefox is getting old (Score:5, Informative)

    by sopssa ( 1498795 ) * <sopssa@email.com> on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:48PM (#31498588) Journal

    It seems that even IE beat Firefox in Javascript performance [com.com] now. Firefox sure has been slacking recently. There's still road ahead though, Chrome and Opera are leading.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by orta ( 786013 )
      Firefox has a new javascript engine called Jagermonkey that will probably beat it, as it's in part the webkit engine.

    • Re:firefox is getting old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by weston ( 16146 ) <westonsd@@@canncentral...org> on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:55PM (#31498696) Homepage

      It seems that even IE beat Firefox in Javascript performance now. Firefox sure has been slacking recently.

      The chart you linked shows IE 9 and FF 3.7 more or less at a dead heat. So, even if this were an unfortunate turn of events, it's not as if IE 9 had a terrible lead.

      But I'm not sure it's unfortunate. High performance javascript in what will likely be the world's most highly used browser for a while? Sounds pretty good to me.

    • Re:firefox is getting old (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ircmaxell ( 1117387 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:55PM (#31498702) Homepage
      Show the results from more than one test, and I'll be happy. As the browser showdown that was posted last week, one test doesn't prove anything. And considering the numerous open source tests that are available, why not show us all of them?

      All that skepticism aside tho, if this is the truth (that IE9 will be standards based --and push the performance envelope--) then MS may be on the road to redeeming themselves... But the question remains, how tight will it be to the OS? Would a simple security flaw give a bit of JS access to the kernel? Or are they going to significantly sandbox the JS, and try to do everything right (as opposed to just the rendering)... Only time will tell if IE will become a browser friendly to geeks and developers (although something tells me it won't)...

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        IE has been pretty good with security with 7 and 8, IMHO. Coupled with DEP (which ships turned on in Windows 7), and the protected mode that the browser runs in (so if it does get hijacked, malicious software doesn't have access to the user's file or Registry, much less the system's) have given the browser a significant security boost.

        This isn't to say that IE is perfect, but because it is the focal point of almost every single intel agency, botnet client maker, malware writer, and blackhat on the surface

      • Re:firefox is getting old (Score:5, Informative)

        by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:18PM (#31499090) Journal

        But the question remains, how tight will it be to the OS? Would a simple security flaw give a bit of JS access to the kernel?

        This kind of thing isn't possible on NT family operating systems since inception. IE does not run in the kernel, and never did.

        Of course, it is possible to have a remote code execution vulnerability in JS engine, combined with a local elevation exploit, giving one root access - and from there patching OS files to get kernel access - but that is something that is possible on any OS, and not something you can fully mitigate by sandboxing (since sandbox can have its own vulnerabilities).

        Or are they going to significantly sandbox the JS, and try to do everything right (as opposed to just the rendering)

        IE has been sandboxing browser engine (including JS) to run in reduced elevation mode (so that it doesn't even have the privileges of user who runs the browser - so it can't access the files of that user, for example) since IE7/Vista.

    • Re:firefox is getting old (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jeff-reyy ( 1768222 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:01PM (#31498814)

      Recently? Firefox ceded the "lightweight alternative" throne to Opera years ago and it seems like ever since Chrome dropped they've just been rearranging deck chairs instead of trying to get out of the hole they're in.

      When did we decide it was a good idea for a browser to interrupt its own startup procedure to ask you about reopening tabs and updating extensions?

      When I clicked the icon, I wanted to go to a web page! Do all that other crap after you service my initial intent.

      I knew Firefox was on its way out when I got a nag screen on startup asking me to upgrade. When I declined, it didn't go away and launch the browser, no, it popped up a survey web page, inside a modal dialog which was way too small and could not be scrolled or resized.

      WAY TO GO, FIREFOX

      • When did we decide it was a good idea for a browser to interrupt its own startup procedure to ask you about reopening tabs [...] When I clicked the icon, I wanted to go to a web page!

        How does it know you didn't want to go to the last web page you were looking at when you closed the program?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Jeff-reyy ( 1768222 )

          Which is better default behavior?

          1. Open the browser as quickly as possible and let the user click the page they want from the history / most visited list (Safari, Chrome, Opera do this)

          2. Open the browser and check all the plugins for updates, check to see if pages were open when the browser was last closed, stop loading, present a dialog asking the user if they want to load the browser (which is going to happen anyway regardless) or load the browser _and_ try to open N tabs simultaneously.

          If you said

          • Re:Reopening tabs (Score:4, Insightful)

            by agbinfo ( 186523 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:54PM (#31499636) Journal

            What if there was an option to not check for updates and to not load the previously loaded tabs?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by anaesthetica ( 596507 )
        The folks at Firefox are aware of the problem and are working on it: Project: Eradicate Startup Dialogs [mozilla.org].

    • Firefox has suffered the problem of forgetting what their original goal was: create a lightweight and fast browser to replace Mozilla. Now Firefox is as feature laden and bloated with feature creep as Mozilla once was. Now Chrome and Opera are delivering that niche of a fast lightweight browser.

  • Uphill Battle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sparkycat ( 1703438 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:52PM (#31498642) Homepage

    That's great and all, but Microsoft isn't competing with other browsers for market share, it's competing with its own older browsers. Anyone who knows anything about browsers is already using Firefox or Chrome or Opera, and anyone who knows nothing about browsers is using whatever came pre-installed on their computers:

    IE6 if they're still on XP, Safari if they have a Mac, or IE 8 if they're running Windows 7.

    Unless this is a mandatory upgrade to IE 8, it's not going to gain any ground.

    And of course, the 30% of users still using IE6 will continue to do so until their computers die, or a techie relative replace it with Firefox.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by sopssa ( 1498795 ) *

      Users aren't using IE6 because they haven't been prompted to update (they are with Windows Update), they're using IE6 because it's a workplace and a lot of intranet web applications only work with it. Other than that, Firefox surpassed IE6 in market share already.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I follow the same philosophy - Except I probably wouldn't even offer to replace Photoshop with Gimp - if they shelled out the money for PS already, its worth having.

        Then I tell them about my "First Ones Free Policy". Which is exactly how it sounds. The first one I clear all their Malware off and set them up on more secure standards. If they somehow manage to catch something then - Thats when I start charging by the hour.

  • Now THAT is Inovation (Score:4, Funny)

    by MrTripps ( 1306469 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:54PM (#31498670)
    "The new software is only a framework, raw enough that it's still missing a "back" button." You can't say it isn't forward thinking if it won't let you go back.

    • You can't say it isn't forward thinking if it won't let you go back.

      Clearly the designers were familiar with the first rule of Italian racing.

    • Re:Now THAT is Inovation (Score:5, Funny)

      by kpainter ( 901021 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:19PM (#31499104)
      This is part of Microsoft's continuing initiative to clean up the menu bar by removing stuff. I bet in its final form, this baby won't have any buttons at all! The way you will navigate is open up notepad and type out the URL. Then, you will simply mark the text and drag and drop into the new streamlined interface. Pretty slick, huh?
  • Does it run on the Apple iPad? :P

  • plug-in-free video? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @01:59PM (#31498774) Homepage

    Meaning Microsoft controls the kinds of video IE can stream?

    This is a big opportunity for Microsoft to force the Internet media standards AND generate some meaningful license fees. Those fees would be paid to Microsoft to enable streaming your hot-new-VC-backed media format. Microsoft would never have to deal with those pesky media streaming competitors they used to call partners.

    If I made decisions at Microsoft, that's how I'd do it.

  • The demo looks good so far, but I know my MS, there is an angle. There always is. Some subtle way in which they screw it up. Royally. There must be. They have done it for over two decades. No ways after 8 major versions and several minor ones are they suddenly going to play nice.

    Paranoid? It ain't paranoia if they are out to get you.

    They seem to be really honest this time about following standards, admitting they are not there yet and that it is time they did... so where is the closed source proprietary c

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )

      I know the catch. The catch is obvious. I know people who use IE 6.

      IE 7 came out 4 years ago. IE 8 came out a year ago, not including the long public beta.

      No matter how good IE 9 is, we'll all have to continue to support IE 6/7/8 for the next 6+ years. It doesn't matter if IE 9 was FireFox with a skin, the curse of IE will continue to haunt anyone doing web development for years.

  • Holy shit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FlyingBishop ( 1293238 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:03PM (#31498832)

    I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Mad Merlin ( 837387 )

      I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.

      Oh don't worry, I'm sure by the time they release IE9 that we'll find the JS is slower than IE6, SVG support broken and HTML 5 support nonexistent.

    • I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.

      Next week: GPLed source code to linux drivers for all MS hardware in a GIT repository.

  • New Javascript Record (Score:5, Funny)

    by K-Man ( 4117 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:05PM (#31498886)

    This should be able to serve over 2000 popunder ads per second.

    • This should be able to serve over 2000 popunder ads per second.

      Blasphemy! It will be OVER 9000!

  • So with all of the nifty, new stuff they are finally compliant, right? I mean no more body {text-align: center;} instead of body { margin: 0px auto; } to center a fixed width layout, right?

    I'm sure anyone else who needs to output HTML would love it if MS would just fix their damned browser. Then they can look at adding new features. Or better yet, just drop Trident and replace it with WebKit.

    • Re:Standard compliance? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:31PM (#31499300)

      So with all of the nifty, new stuff they are finally compliant, right? I mean no more body {text-align: center;} instead of body { margin: 0px auto; } to center a fixed width layout, right?

      Those are two different things. text-align: center centers stuff in a div. the margin: 0 auto you set to a div to center that block (the div) in its container. Even IE6 works correctly with this, so I don't know what the issue is here.

      For those having box-model issues with IE6, you can easily fix this by using the HTML 4.01 Strict DTD, FYI.

  • Please tell MS to support Ogg Theora/Ogg Vorbis (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dwheeler ( 321049 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:42PM (#31499446) Homepage Journal
    Please go to http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/contact.aspx [msdn.com] and ask Microsoft to add support for Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. They could add it to the browser, or add support for it to the OS and then have the browser support it. They can support both H.264 and Ogg if they want to. For example, there are many sites like Wikipedia which *ONLY* permit Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis for multimedia; without built-in support, IE users have trouble hearing/viewing the content.

  • Slew of recent marketting... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nschubach ( 922175 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:44PM (#31499478) Journal

    I know this is going to sound trollish, but hear me out.

    I can't be the only one noticing that there is a recent upswing in what I'd call Microsoft "prototype news." All the blogs are full of Win Mobile 7 System Phone (or whatever they are calling it...), something called Courier that's probably vaporware, Natal, and now IE enhancements that aren't quite done yet. It feels to me like Microsoft shifted a good chunk of change into marketing for some reason.

    It kind of feels like they are saying "Oh, don't look at that, we'll have something soon..."

  • Increasing speed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @02:54PM (#31499638)

    MS also announced demos of IE10, IE11 and IE12.

    "A new release every month! That's our goal!" said sweaty, vaguely simian MS CEO Steve Ballmer. The new Hachamovitch Javascript engine will interface with the Millajovovich subsystem to spawn independent processes to more effectively deliver those animated ads everyone loves!"

    "Like that punch the monkey ad! I love that one!" Ballmer said and began his patented monkey dance. "C'mon everyone! Punch the monkey!"

    When asked about MS simply adopting WebKit and making everyone's life easier and even saving themselves piles of money, Ballmer pulled out a shotgun and killed the reporter.

    "Oops! Thought he was zombie," said Ballmer and shot the reporter's body again. "Double tap!"

  • Doesn't install on XP (Score:3, Informative)

    by youngec ( 239360 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @03:45PM (#31500382)

    This probably goes without saying, but the IE9 preview does not install on Windows XP.

  • You've got to give Microsoft some credit (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Tuesday March 16, 2010 @06:46PM (#31502556)
    IE is one of the few Microsoft products that is actually worth exactly what the customers pay for it!

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