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I wrote a couple of posts for work last week:

• On our company tech blog, I examined a few different options for testing multiple versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox.
• And on the main company blog, I’ve summed up the current state of HTML5.

Hopefully those will be of interest to you if you’re into techie web stuff.

This week’s post for this blog is a bit more opinionated than usual, and is taking longer as a result. It probably won’t be up until tomorrow. But it’s going to be my first post (ever!) about copyright, which is something I can get a bit touchy about, so you don’t want to miss it.

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I have a few of thoughts I’ve been meaning to jot down since watching Microsoft’s MIX presentation about Internet Explorer 9. It’s a pretty in-depth video, and a touch long (~1 hour), but if you’re at all interested in browser technology it’s absolutely a must-watch.

Internet Explorer is no long playing catch up.

The resounding vibe I get from the video is that the Internet Explorer team is finally starting to get really serious about modern browser technologies. I’ve made my position on IE8 clear in the past — namely that it nailed CSS 2.1 but still wasn’t a competitive browser overall — and IE9 looks to be where that second clause will change. For the first time in about 10 years, Internet Explorer is innovating. For the skeptics out there, here’s a list of the features promised in IE9 that I’m excited about:

• Proper JS/DOM programmability.
• Standards-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 support.
• GPU usage for more complicated UI effects.
• Inline SVG support.

Now those first two aren’t exactly revolutionary, but it’s clear after the CSS 2.1 push in IE8 that the Internet Explorer team isn’t ignoring the standards anymore; they’re dedicated to promoting cross-browser mark-up, and they have the technical capacity to make it happen. This is great news for users and especially great news for developers, and hopefully it will push other browser-makers to fulfill their obligations to HTML5 and CSS3 as well.

What is new are those last two points. Using the GPU for rendering complicated UI effects such as the <video> tag is a welcome innovation to balance increasingly client-heavy rich internet applications. I can see this being a major reason for users to stick with IE9 (the first one in a while, in fact). And what is there to say about inline SVG other than finally? As long as the implementation isn’t falling apart at the seams I can see developers jumping all over this; I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Firefox et al follow suit with similar support in the near future.

This is going to be huge.

IE9 is going to be the best version of Internet Explorer since IE4. It’s not going to be a standards-scoffing, security-lacking, feature-stealing deviant like its distant predecessors, and it’s not going to be that browser that we all hate rewriting our mark-up for. As a web developer who has lamented the existence of Internet Explorer for the majority of my career, I’m as surprised as I am pleased to say that for the first time in my life I’m looking forward to the next version of Internet Explorer.

This week’s entry is a double feature about Internet Explorer. Part 1 examined why IE4 was awesome. Read on for part 2, where I’ll admit that I’m grateful for IE8.

Let me start by saying that in general, I find Internet Explorer appalling. The fact that so many people have been supporting an insecure, slow, feature-weak, standards-deviant browser with serious rendering problems and an awful user interface for so many years afflicts my soul with such utter disdain for Microsoft’s line of browsers that I automatically regard every new incantation thereof as an affront to both the web and mankind as a species.

Now that that’s out of my system, I don’t entirely hate Internet Explorer 8. I wouldn’t use it, not with so many better alternatives just waiting to be explored*, but it does offer one massive improvement over its predecessors that I’m very pleased with: IE8 has fantastic CSS 2.1 support.

I’m not making this up.

Check out the standards support table on this page, specifically the secion about CSS 2.1. Look at the massive difference between IE6/IE7 and IE8. Even Firefox 3 and Opera 10 can’t claim the same level of compliance. IE8 isn’t just a competitor when it comes to supporting CSS 2.1, it’s a role model.

This is a big deal.

For the first time ever, web developers can finally count on using standardized CSS to create a modern web experience without having to worry about “how to handle Internet Explorer”. Granted there is still the matter of older versions of IE, but with Windows 7 repairing a lot of the damage done by Vista, more and more users are upgrading to a new OS, and with that, a new browser. Writing cross-browser CSS is becoming easier than ever before.

Of course, many people will argue that simply supporting CSS 2.1 isn’t good enough (and they’re right). Internet Explorer is still way behind its competitors when it comes to newer standards such as HTML 5 and CSS 3. But what if this is just the beginning? Internet Explorer 9 is already well into development, and if Microsoft can turn the hobbled CSS implementations found in IE6 and IE7 into what is now in IE8, who’s to say they won’t be able to step up support for CSS 3 and/or HTML 5 in IE9? In as little as a year or two from now, Internet Explorer may be a legitimate browser for cutting-edge web experiences.

Share some thoughts!

What do you think of IE8? What about Internet Explorer in general?

* For the curious, the browsers linked in that phrase are the ones that were selected to show up in Windows 7′s “browser ballot” in Europe due to antitrust charges brought by the EU against Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Computer World offers a great summary and FAQ on the matter.

This week’s entry is a double feature about Internet Explorer. Read on for part 1, which examines why IE4 was awesome, then check out part 2, where I’ll admit that I’m grateful for IE8.

I found an old CD at work the other day; it was an install disk for Internet Explorer 4 SP1 for Windows NT and 95, still in its original packaging. I was quick to grab it, thinking about how great it will be to make fun of what an awful browser it must’ve been (I actually never used Windows NT or 95 or even 98.. I was raised Apple until 2000). So I pulled up Wikipedia and started reading, expecting to find plenty of things to laugh at, only to realize that what I was holding in my hand was actually a remarkable software artifact. IE4 wasn’t just great, it was legendary.

IE4 was the first wildly successful version of Internet Explorer. When it was released in fall of 1997, Netscape Navigator was the default “everyone uses it” browser. Internet Explorer, as a franchise, was the underdog. In merely a year and a half, IE4 had attained over 60% market share — it was the first version of IE to capture the majority of browser users, starting the first-ever browser war and a dynasty of sheer dominance for the Internet Explorer brand that peaked at just over 95% market share and is still running today, 11 years later.

IE4 pioneered the Trident rendering engine, which has been used in every version of IE since (and a few other places). It was bundled with the first official version of Outlook Express, and also included a chat client, a VoIP client (which supported video chat), a stripped-down web development platform, and RealPlayer (which was actually popular back then). There was even an optional download package that added an Active Desktop feature, which was essentially a precursor to the widgets found in Windows Vista/7.

IE4 also made significant UI improvements to the Internet Explorer line, moving from the bevelled-button motif that was popular at the time to the toolbar we still see in browsers today (see this pre-IE4 screenshot, then this one of IE4 — both courtesy of this wonderful IE archive site — and note the difference in the toolbar).

In short, this was one kick-ass cut of software. Can you imagine what it would be like if all of Microsoft’s output was this revolutionary? Where would browsing be today if every version of IE raised the bar this high?

2009 was an exciting year for the web browser crowd:

• Google released Chrome.
• Apple ported Safari to Windows.
• Firefox picked up a lot of market share.
• Microsoft actually produced a half-decent version of Internet Explorer.
• The iPhone and Android finally made mobile browsing popular.
• Support for HTML5 and CSS3 was way up across the board.

The term crowd is especially appropriate here because it really is starting to get very crowded. For a long time the browser war has been fought largely between two major players at a time (IE/Netscape, IE/Firefox) and all of a sudden we have four major companies with fantastic browsers available to the vast majority of users. Oh, and then there’s Opera.

Here’s the thing about Opera

Opera is in serious trouble because it doesn’t have a “thing”:

• Internet Explorer’s thing is its existing market share. It has a lot more users than everyone else, so its going to be a major player for the foreseeable future.
• Firefox’s thing is its community. Not just its core developers, but the people who create addons or personas or rally everyone they know to go download the latest version on launch day. It’s easily the most passionate user group of the bunch.
• Chrome’s thing is its brand. When people think web, they think Google. Google has the best search, a fantastic email client, why not a great browser? Users rely on Google for a great online experience, and Google has a lot of high-traffic areas where it can push Chrome.
• Apple’s thing is its loyalty. Apple fanboys are a loyal bunch — most of them will stick with Safari on their Mac and many will consider getting Safari for any Windows computers they’re forced to use. Apple also has the iPhone, which gives it a growing space where it has the only browser (not that any iPhone users mind — loyalty, remember?).

Opera has nothing. It used to be the most advanced browser for HTML5 support, then everyone else caught up. It used to be a major player in the mobile space, then Apple and Google obliterated it. It used to be a fun browser for geeks to talk about, but now the buzz is all Chrome. It’s not enough to be an alternative to IE anymore; users are demanding more from their browsing experience, and they’re flush with places to find it.

What’s even worse is that there isn’t really anything you or I can do to help. Opera’s engine isn’t open source like Gecko (Firefox) or Webkit (Chrome/Safari) and they don’t have the extensibility of Firefox or Chrome. It doesn’t have the de-facto standard advantage in Windows (IE), OSX (Safari) or linux (Firefox), and even if I wanted to rally some Opera enthusiasts together, where would I start? How many people do you know that have even heard of Opera?

I don’t have anything against Opera (it’s a fine browser), it’s just that it’s no longer relevant — there are too many better options around preventing Opera from picking up new users, and I can’t think of a single significant reason for its existing users to stick with it.

Any Opera fans out there?

Do you use Opera? Do you have any thoughts on Opera’s future? Be sure to leave a comment.