Internet Explorer 8 - Wiping The Floor With The Competition

[grab_grab_the_haddock]

Microsoft released the results of browser tests yesterday which show their "internet explorer" browser beating the pants off such lesser browsers as firefox and chrome. Internet explorer has always been two steps ahead of the competition, and this latest release will help keep it in front.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/week-in-microsoft-is-ie8-a-fast-browser.ars

[mountain_rage]

Whats this, a company run test shows that its faster than the competition. HOW SHOCKIN! Common give me a break.

[wapazoid]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Grab is 113.5% correct. This video proves it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/videos.aspx?vindex=14

It's only a matter of months before Microsoft converts every single non-believer.

[mountain_rage]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Grab is 113.5% correct. This video proves it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/videos.aspx?vindex=14

It's only a matter of months before Microsoft converts every single non-believer.

So a video by Microsoft, that restates what Grab posted is supposed to convince me? All the video told me is that the difference in speed is not detectable by humans, meaning a non issue. I'll stick to Firefox, Microsoft has been over designing their interfaces lately.

[wapazoid]

Yes. It's supposed to convince you. At some point you will come to realize that Microsoft is king.

[Drew Wilson]

Yes. It's supposed to convince you. At some point you will come to realize that Microsoft is king.

Yeah, Opera is done for now!

[wapazoid]

You see?! Wilson gets it. Let's all goose step to the Empire theme on our Zune players.

[shawners]

If firefox was implemented into windows. It would blow them off.. But MS IE 8 has websites that arent suitable for viewing or have trouble.. Such as MICROSOFT.COM that has errors in loading the pages or not 100 percent compatible with the new browser. Would IE 8 be great as you or anyone claims if their wasnt competition or no one picked up on coding a browser that could be very well the best thing? Firefox is still top dog in my book. I switch many years ago because of popup ads that were displaying everywhere and that toolbars would get installed, and homepages was changed to others.

[Blix]

Seems somewhat ironic that according to Microsoft's own video/testing Firefox loads microsoft.com quicker than their own browser is able to!!!

[freeloader105]

If firefox was implemented into windows. It would blow them off.. But MS IE 8 has websites that arent suitable for viewing or have trouble.. Such as MICROSOFT.COM that has errors in loading the pages or not 100 percent compatible with the new browser. Would IE 8 be great as you or anyone claims if their wasnt competition or no one picked up on coding a browser that could be very well the best thing? Firefox is still top dog in my book. I switch many years ago because of popup ads that were displaying everywhere and that toolbars would get installed, and homepages was changed to others.

no no no no no no no no..

*IE8 adheres to web standards much more effectively than IE7. Probably just as well as Firefox and Chrome. What this also has meant is that MS has even had to redo some of its own website because it had not been up to standards.

*IE8 will be optional. It will not be a required part of Windows. My guess is that FF and Chrome and IE will all be on a level playing in field, in terms of 'pre-loading'.

Would IE 8 be great as you or anyone claims if their wasnt competition or no one picked up on coding a browser that could be very well the best thing?

No, it wouldn't. Why do you have to ask something so pointless? Does MS doing an excellent job with IE8 somehow diminish the impact FF (and, to a lesser extent, Chrome) had on browsers? Just be glad that Mozilla, Google, and now Microsoft all step up to bring out something better from time to time.

Just for the record, I'm a Firefox user and have been since like 2005, but I'm getting rather disappointed with the worsening performance. FF3 is considerably slower than FF2 in some respects, especially when starting up or when it tries to remember all the websites you've already visited when you type something in the address bar. Not cool, considering how much faster Java rendering, among other things, has become.

Sure I could tweak it.. but why should I? Chrome is a billion times faster than FF and the idea of tweaking never even comes to mind.

The one and ONLY thing Firefox has got going is extensions. To me the main extension, just as for most, is AdBlock. However, that's also coming to Chrome.

Yes, competition is a good thing. Even from Microsoft.

[grab_grab_the_haddock]

Whats this, a company run test shows that its faster than the competition. HOW SHOCKIN! Common give me a break.

Yeah, it was a company run test, but they did make the test procedures public. If you have a criticism of those procedures be sure to state it.

[rainbowdemon]

@Freeloader.



This tweak works wonders!!





1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

[freeloader105]

@Freeloader.



This tweak works wonders!!





1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

I've done these tweaks before, and as far as I remember, they do help the loading of webpages, but I'm not in favor of needing to tweak something (I'm not a noob - this is just out of principle) and that was not my problem to begin with. The problem was it trying to remember all the pages I've already visited. This is also a tweakable value and I did tweak it. Performance increased but now my browser remembers fewer total pages I've visited. And once again, this is NOT something I should need to do.

[1cooldude]

Microsoft released the results of browser tests yesterday which show their "internet explorer" browser beating the pants off such lesser browsers as firefox and chrome. Internet explorer has always been two steps ahead of the competition, and this latest release will help keep it in front.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/week-in-microsoft-is-ie8-a-fast-browser.ars



By Richard Adhikari: TechNewsWorld

Microsoft introduced its new version of Internet Explorer on Thursday, touting its new security features such as the SmartScreen phishing filter. However, the new features weren't enough to keep a the browser from being hacked at the CanSecWest conference.

Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) More about Microsoft unveiling of Internet 10th Annual Online Fraud Report. Online Payment Fraud Trends, Merchant Practices and Benchmarks. Get your copy today. Explorer 8 on Thursday was marred by news that the browser, touted to be its most secure ever, already has been hacked.

The launch has also kicked off a new round of browser wars, with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google unveiling a new beta of its Chrome browser, and Mozilla More about Mozilla Foundation releasing Fennec, the mobile version of its Firefox browser, in beta.

IE8 was cracked at the 10th annual CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, Wednesday by a hacker who identified himself only as "Nils." To be fair, the first browser to go down at the hacking contest at CanSecWest was Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) More about Apple Safari.

"Microsoft is investigating reports of a possible vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "While we're not aware of any actual attacks using this possible vulnerability or of any customers affected, if the vulnerability is confirmed, we'll take action to help protect our customers."
Security and IE8

This is not the first time a security vulnerability has been discovered in IE8 --in February, Microsoft released a security bulletin for IE8.

Announcing IE8's release Thursday, Microsoft said it "offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people's increasing concerns about online safety," and quoted CEO Steve Ballmer as saying that IE8 "provides protection that no other browser can match."

Does that square with the facts? Probably, Jason Miller, security and data team manager at network security and patch management vendor Shavlik Technologies, told TechNewsWorld. "They have SmartScreen Filter, which they haven't had before, and there are reports that it's catching a lot of malware," he explained.

SmartScreen Filter is an extension of IE7's phishing filter. When a user visits a site that has been labeled harmful, IE8 will put up a warning and suggest the user not visit the site.

Still, all software has vulnerabilities and is prone to hacking, Miller said.
Browser Wars Reignite

IE8 has lots of nice new stuff. These include accelerators, a version of selection-based search that lets users invoke an online service from any other page using just the mouse. IE8 also has Web Slices, which are snippets of a page that a user subscribes to. The browser will automatically update the snippets, which users can view directly from the Favorites bar.

This could kick off a new round of browser wars, as other firms offering Web browsers have revved up their efforts recently.

Google has just unveiled a new beta of Google Chrome, which it claims in a blog is almost twice as fast as the original beta. It also has several new features, including form autofill, full page zoom and autoscroll, and lets the user drag tabs out to get a side-by-side view of Web pages.

Meanwhile, Mozilla rolled out the mobile version of its Firefox browser, called "Fennec." This has impressed reviewers at first sight because of the variety of features it offers.
More Trouble Coming?

The browser wars could lead to more security issues, Shavlik's Miller warns. "As you add new features, there will be new areas for vulnerabilities to exist," he said. "The more bloated these browsers get, the more areas there are to attack."

Miller predicts that hackers will unleash a torrent of attacks on IE8 over the next few weeks. "There's a lot of money in this for the hackers, and they'll want to find a way in."

The situation won't be helped by the fact that hackers are now targeting browsers more heavily. "Over the past couple of years, browsers have overtaken e-mail as the area where users spend the most time, and attackers are putting out traps on Web sites," Paul Judge, chief technology officer at Web security application vendor Purewire, told TechNewsWorld.

"There's no shortage of vulnerabilities out there," Judge added


LMAO:icon_chee

yup, M$ quality all the way..:icon_thum

[freeloader105]

By Richard Adhikari: TechNewsWorld



LMAO:icon_chee

yup, M$ quality all the way..:icon_thum

afaik, Chrome was the only that wasn't hacked in that convention.

[napho]

I use FF, just testing IE8. It's faster than Firefox. Almost everything is. It has some good add-ons. Not enough to make me change. Blazingly fast Chrome+ add-ons= change.

[Mels_Smileys45]

I am back trying Chrome again. I would use it all the time but it doesn't display ZP right. Is there any way to make ZP fill the entire screen like in FF? I love how fast Chrome is and if I could get it tweaked right it would be my only browser.

[grab_grab_the_haddock]

By Richard Adhikari: TechNewsWorld



LMAO:icon_chee

yup, M$ quality all the way..:icon_thum


This only proves that hackers target IE because it has way more users than these second rate browsers. No-one writes malware for these lesser browsers because no-one uses them on account of the fact that they suck.

[napho]

I am back trying Chrome again. I would use it all the time but it doesn't display ZP right. Is there any way to make ZP fill the entire screen like in FF? I love how fast Chrome is and if I could get it tweaked right it would be my only browser.


By full screen do you mean F11 full screen? Newer versions of Chrome have that. :icon_scra

[Mels_Smileys45]

F11 doesnt work. On my screen ZP has two huge black strips that take up about 40% of the screen which leaves a very small space right down the middle. Its hard to read the tiny font and I have even bumped that up to no avail.

[wapazoid]

This only proves that hackers target IE because it has way more users than these second rate browsers. No-one writes malware for these lesser browsers because no-one uses them on account of the fact that they suck.

This reminds of how some Apple users boast about never stressing over viruses. No consumer based code is fort knox l337. It's just that nobody gives enough of a shit to exploit it on a regular basis. :icon_cycl

[freeloader105]

This only proves that hackers target IE because it has way more users than these second rate browsers.
True.
No-one writes malware for these lesser browsers because no-one uses them on account of the fact that they suck.

Doesn't this contradict your first statement?

[Hath]

I use Firefox, and have no desire to change. I would never go back back to IE, no matter how much it is improved. For me, only bad things have come from my using IE (I stopped in 2005) Chrome isn't bad, I just don't like it for no particular reason. The only thing FF lacks is a porn mode, which it will have when version 3.1 comes out. :P

[napho]

F11 doesnt work. On my screen ZP has two huge black strips that take up about 40% of the screen which leaves a very small space right down the middle. Its hard to read the tiny font and I have even bumped that up to no avail.


Never heard of such a thing. Could be some heinous corruption similar to the US financial sector. Maybe uninstall Chrome and delete the huge Chromium folder, then install it again.

[Signa]

Hold CTRL and scroll with the mouse wheel. ZP has the black borders for me too if it's not resized.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Thanks. Ive been using CTRL++ but the wheel is quicker.

[El Comandante]

afaik, Chrome was the only that wasn't hacked in that convention.

Yeah. Last I heard Chrome was the last browser standing at the Pwn2Own hacking competition.

[w31n3r]

I am back trying Chrome again. I would use it all the time but it doesn't display ZP right. Is there any way to make ZP fill the entire screen like in FF? I love how fast Chrome is and if I could get it tweaked right it would be my only browser.

i think ZP's designed to work best in a 1024x768 resolution. the black bands on either side irritate the hell out of me too, but i don't like zooming in cause then the font looks weird (to me at least). but this isn't as bad as some other sites who have the main content body aligned to one side instead of the middle, leaving a large open empty space on the other side.

it's high time websites start accommodating wide screen monitors, they're so cheap i can't imagine anyone not using one in a few years time.

[napho]

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