Microsoft to Drop Internet Exploder

[CapTon 592]

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/03/17/microsoft-to-axe-internet-explorer/?intcmp=latestnews

 

Microsoft is working on a new browser for Windows 10, but thank God they're dropping IE.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If they had any brains ...

 

they'd get out of the browser business altogether and leave it to the specialized bunch that do the job right.  They could just supply one of the existing ones under license and stay out of the fray.

[Alejandro24 575]

What are we going to do with all our jokes against IE?

 

 

 

They'll be displaced to Spartan .

 

But anyway, in good way, we will miss you Internet Explorer. You were a popular web browser among us... for download another web browsers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It will be interesting to see if MS has learned any lessons when they start promoting their new toys.  Windows 10 is starting to look like a whole new box of bugs.

[hym 358]

Microsoft has claimed that Project Spartan runs IE code under the user interface. Microsoft is ditching the IE name, but not the code.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Good, I can't wait until that becomes mainstream knowledge and the world has a field day with it.  Apparently the Windows 8.1 fiasco satisfied their need for apologizing for lousy software for...forever.  I do love seeing that company continuing their agonizingly slow run into eventual oblivion...with so many simple, blown chances to turn it around as if on a dime.

 

I had to use IE on my new work laptop...  I don't want to say I had a bad experience with it, it just - wasn't good.  Bookmark handling is cumbersome, it really is slower, and of course its the only browser on which our company intranet and database software is supported.

 

Had to use it, that is, until I discovered Firefox was also available on the software distribution client.  Dropped it faster than IE drops a connection.  The best part is I didn't even need IE to download it.  And thanks to IETab, I don't need it at all for anything.

[Duke87 1,070]

Enterprise use of Windows is most likely what keeps Internet Explorer afloat. I have Firefox on my work laptop and use it when I can, but a lot of important online tools I need to use (such as the expense reporting system) only work in Internet Explorer or run more smoothly in Internet Explorer. From what I've discussed with a couple of the IT folks, due to different browsers working differently it requires more time and effort (and therefore money) to make something work in all of them, so in the interest of not wasting resources they design things to work in Internet Explorer and if it works in any other browser that's just by chance. Why Internet Explorer? Why, because it is the only browser that every employee has on their computer, of course.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Microsoft just loves lock-ins.  They will never abandon code that make the user dependent on their garbage until everyone finally wakes up and starts creating code that is platform independent.  Independence is one of the goals of the GNU project, and software outfits should not be taking themselves into the Visual Studio trap when the GNU tools are available.

[mrsmartman 200]

IE is the product of the vision of Gates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Gates used to be a pretty good old bus, but lately some of his wheels have been going clunka, clunka.  Either the company has forgotten that quality is conformance to requirements or someone has urinated in the requirements.  What does Microsoft need?  Well ...

 

1. How about a new kernel that runs on any machine, and retire the remains of NT?
2. How about not supplying a browser written by the marching morons of Redmond, but simply supplying Firefox (under license)?
3. How about getting out of the applications business altogether and concentrating on making the hardware work?  The Office apps game can be spun off into a separate company that isn't allowed to talk to MS software engineers.
4. How about not trying to supply all the software in the world with little lock-ins to force people to use MS libraries?  Get rid of DirectX, for instance.  Competing graphics standards just makes a mess.  Use OpenGL everywhere.  Make life easier for the GPU suppliers.
5. Kick Intel out of bed.  We don't need any more mongrels.

[APSMS 1,892]

While I agree that IE was a lousy browser (only got worse as things like Firefox and Chrome became more prevalent; never had a problem with it on Windows 98, but on my current PC? It's horrible), why all the MS hate?

 

It's not like Apple doesn't do all the same stuff, and while Safari works good on Mac, it still sucks on Windows.

 

I for one, am not willing to (completely) switch to Linux (and have 80% of all my applications be useless), and I'm certainly not paying the outrageous prices Apple charges for non-upgradable hardware.

 

Sure MS is a nasty devil, but are the other alternatives viable or less evil?

 

Still, RIP IE. I'm not sad to see you go, but I will be if MS doesn't get something better in your place.

[hym 358]

Considering Office is worth more to Microsoft than even Windows, there is no chance Microsoft is going to be spinning that off.

Microsoft would sooner make Windows open-source freeware before giving up Office.

[Sabretooth78 808]

While I agree that IE was a lousy browser (only got worse as things like Firefox and Chrome became more prevalent; never had a problem with it on Windows 98, but on my current PC? It's horrible), why all the MS hate?

 

It's not like Apple doesn't do all the same stuff, and while Safari works good on Mac, it still sucks on Windows.

 

I for one, am not willing to (completely) switch to Linux (and have 80% of all my applications be useless), and I'm certainly not paying the outrageous prices Apple charges for non-upgradable hardware.

 

Sure MS is a nasty devil, but are the other alternatives viable or less evil?

 

Still, RIP IE. I'm not sad to see you go, but I will be if MS doesn't get something better in your place.

 

I see no compelling reason not to hate them (or let's tone down the rhetoric and just say no reason to like them) for their practices that have been discussed ad nauseam both here and elsewhere on these here interwebs.  I've pretty much always felt that way about them, sometimes for varying reasons but the net amount of dislike has always been pretty constant.  Starting with when I first used Windows (95) and thought it was just a cheap looking soulless version of Mac OS.  I guess my biggest issue is the constant stream of low quality software and apparently no motivation to ever fix it and just generally being the Walmart of the software business.  I think the only product of theirs that I ever really enjoyed was Flight Simulator.  I realize most of this is based on perception, but perception is reality.

 

I'm not an Apple fanboy, either.  I switched back to them a little over 6 years ago because, frankly, they work[ed] out of the box and didn't require a bunch of fiddling around with to get things running smoothly without the inexplicable crashes and BS.  For instance, [Windows] Explorer on my Win7 work laptop will fart out sometimes a few times a day.  If you can't write a file explorer, what can you write?  I'm not the least bit of a programmer but it seems to me that would be one of the simpler things to get done, or at least something so vital that you're motivated to do it right.  I don't have the time or patience to do that any more (and when I do feel like it, OS X isn't as closed-box as people seem to like to think).  Cost-wise, I've found the lifecycle costs of owning Mac products to be about on par if not even cheaper than a Windows box.  That said, I don't like what I've seen out of them in the last few years.  They've lost their direction and their soul.  They're not the underdog anymore and it's showing.  I also consider myself fortunate that the Macs I do own were bought shortly before they went on this can't upgrade/planned obsolescence kick that started about the time they introduced the retina displays.  Where that puts me in the future, I haven't decided yet - I'm not about to just passively accept it just like I'm apparently supposed for every decline in anything as an American.  As for software, don't get me started on Yosemite.  I didn't experience major problems with it (though I did migrate back to 10.9 because frankly it's better), but how is it that you write a new OS and break wi-fi, and everything else that was a step backwards?  I have little faith in their ability to write decent software.

 

tl;dr, Apple is becoming Microsoft.  Steve is probably beginning to roll around.

 

I know, complain, complain; but if everybody was happy with everything, nothing would ever improve.  Faults will always get magnified and thank God for that.

It is funny that Safari runs so well on OS X but the Windows version does suck.  In fact, I don't think it has even been updated in several years.  Similarly, Chrome is awful on OS X.  Talk about resource hogs.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It is not a matter of hate with MS.  It is more like a sad shaking of the head as what used to be a keen technical outfit becomes yet another corporate giant with the usual board room inertia.

 

@Hym: Well, Office has its points, but there are lots of replacements that look and smell just like it.  I use Libre Office, which is without fees of any kind.  It may not do some of the arcane things that Office does, but it does what I want when it comes to this sort of thing.  Maybe you didn't notice but the previous contender, Open Office, was purchased by Oracle.  Oracle is positioning itself to take on MS, but have yet to produce an operating system (I don't blame them, it's a mugs game.)

 

I prefer Linux because it is a UNIX clone and I am an old Multics guy.  I don't know if you are aware of the genealogy here but UNIX is a direct descendent of Multics.  As an operating system Linux is very simple and effective, source published, and without the complication of trade secrets that, theoretically, are an advantage to MS.  They really have come a long way from DOS, after battling it out with CPM.

[Duke87 1,070]

Sometimes the learning curve is the lock in. I have primarily used Windows my entire life. I know how it works and how to do things with it.

Recently my girlfriend needed some technical assistance because she needed to format and partition an SD card. To which I said "oh, that's easy, no big deal". Problem is, my girlfriend's computer is a mac and when I went to help her I found myself aimlessly fumbling around, starting blankly, and then saying "um... okay, well I can do this on my computer later, but I can't do it here and now. Sorry honey."

In other words I don't know jack about how to do any nontrivial task with a Mac. They are strange foreign machines to me. Different enough to be counterintuitive and confusing to someone who grew up speaking Windows. I honestly feel like Ubuntu was easier to start to learn as a native Windows speaker than OSX is. Ubuntu may be different but it doesn't do weird things like not have a right click. And if you're comfortable working with command lines you will find the Linux terminal friendly and familiar.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

True, but you don't need command lines with Linux (Ubuntu) most of the time.  With the Unity desk top you can use the Dash, and it will usually find what you want to run if you don't have an icon for it in your launcher or on your desktop.

 

Of course, as you become more advanced with Ubuntu, you might find you like using scripts to enhance your experience.  For example, I start SimCity 4 Deluxe from a script because I want to capture the wine console which otherwise goes to the bit bucket (NULL), and I want to know how long I've played.  Basically, the command line that actually starts the game is a clone of the generated line in the short cut that was created on install.  Here's the script command prompts and all:

 

john@john-12-10:~$ cat bin/sc4
#!/bin/bash
date
env WINEPREFIX="/home/john/.wine" \
wine "C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis/SimCity 4 Deluxe/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" \
 -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:directx \
 -CPUCount:1 -f &>~/sc4.log
wine --version &>>~/sc4.log
date
john@john-12-10:~$

 

So what do you need to know about this (BASH):

 

The first line says what shell to use

 

The two date commands print the date and time so I can calculate how long I've run the game

 

The third line (continued with \) is the line from the shortcut with the options added.  The only peculiar thing here is the little shell redirection of STDOUT from wine to the file /home/john/sc4.log in case there is a reportable wine error (&>~/sc4.log).  The shell symbols here are '&>' redirect STDOUT to; '~' short form for home directory and then the filel name.

The next line uses STDOUT append to add the version of wine.

 

This is not sophisticated shell scripting.  BASH can be used as a programming language if you want to go into it far enough.  It allows the user to string together commands, make tests on the results, and branch to other areas in the script conditionally.  Very powerful, and rarely used by the ordinary guy.

 

A mom and pop user might not ever write or even see a script.

 

For the ultra-curious, here is the last wine console log from sc4.log

 

john@john-12-10:~$ cat sc4.log

fixme:thread:start_thread Started native thread 00000022
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32eea8,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32edf8,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32f4a8,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32f1d8,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:d3d_surface:wined3d_surface_blt Can't handle WINEDDBLT_ASYNC flag.
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32f418,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32f418,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:imm:ImmGetOpenStatus (0x78246d8): semi-stub
fixme:imm:ImmReleaseContext (0x10050, 0x78246d8): stub
wine-1.7.38
john@john-12-10:~$

[APSMS 1,892]

Ironically, all Macs of the modern era (read: any one you will use nowadays) has a right-click menu. It's just that they've never bothered to tell anyone about it.

 

By default a two-finger click on an Apple touchpad is a right-click. Ctrl-click will do the same thing. The amount of Mac users I've met that don't know this boggles the mind.

[Sabretooth78 808]

With BetterTouchTool we also have a center click as well.

 

While many aspects of it are locked down (themes and colors in particular), Mac OS is definitely far more versatile than most people seem to realize.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It is amazing how little most people know about their operating systems.  When home computing got a real kick off in 1980 most computer owners (it was an expensive hobby then) were fairly geekish.  Here we are 30+ years later (several generations by Moore's Law), and most users don't even know how their file systems work and that they can run out of disk space.

[Sabretooth78 808]

I still remember when my father bought our first computer, a Macintosh LC, back in '91 I believe.  Most of the software at the time still ran off floppy disks, so it wasn't until a little while after using the thing that I "discovered" the hard drive.  And its massive 40 MB size!  That's over 40 floppies (the 800 kb ones, not the 1.38/1.44 MB ones)!  Yeah, it filled up in no time.  I remember some manual, maybe it was talking about drive expansion, talking about how some graphics files can easily be 1 MB in size or larger - ye Gods!  How quaint.

 

Fast forward to today where I have 126,874x that amount between the 3 household computers.  Not counting another 2.5 TB I have just sitting around (replaced 500 MB laptop HDD and a 2 TB external for backups that I think is dying).  Too lazy to do the math to see if I've beaten Moore's law in the intervening 24 years.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

But the underlying question is do you understand the way the file system (NTFS) stores data on the disk?  Are you aware of the idea of overflow of a file into more than one extent and the tools available to fix this up?

[Alejandro24 575]

Non-stop IE jokes:

[Wiimeiser 444]

Is there a translation?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Is there a translation?

You could copy this into google translate.  esta cargando = It's loading.

[Alejandro24 575]

Is never enough of this :

 

"I see you like IE; tell me how [good] is it?"
"X"

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is nothing wrong with IE that lack of complacency couldn't have fixed.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The new browser to replace it would be great if it could work even better than the current version (which works pretty good already) and functions well with Cortana.

 

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Marco, did you read the article that stated outright that IE will be the same code under the hood of the "new" browser?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

The new browser to replace it would be great if it could work even better than the current version (which works pretty good already) and functions well with Cortana.

 

--Ocram

 

"The browser would be better if it was better."

 

I think that's what they plan on doing, no info leaks yet though.  

[jmsepe 2,039]

That is why switch to Opera folks!  

 

Really though, I don't see why it has to be such a big deal. Meanwhile in Microsoft: it is just another normal business day.