Why Upgrade?

The Microsoft Approach

When Microsoft gets caught with factual and independently verified flaws, they change the way they count the numbers of security flaws or redefine words in ways that no one else does. It is Microsoft's attitude that the consumer is the problem and that if you have problems with your computer, then it is your fault, because Microsoft can never admit they ever do anything wrong. With Microsoft, everything is a test of loyalty: you either use, only their products, all the time, for everything, or you are an enemy to crush, by any means, even illegal and unethical. Microsoft is run by salesmen and that is why they produce such inferior software: salesmen will sell you anything - there is no focus on product development and they have no standards. If anyone else produced a product, with as many flaws in it, as their software, they would have all the products recalled, but somehow people have accepted that it is ok for PCs to fail. If their microwave or their car worked like their PCs, they would return them and the government would make the company return their money. Think about it: why is the number one reason why you buy a PC vs. why you buy an iPod. You buy the PC because of compatibility (meaning you have no choice), but you buy the iPod because you want to.

PDF vs. HTML

Whereas the PDF specification was put together by one company (Adobe), who develops design software and makes money off of it, web browsers have to conform to standards, dictated by committees, which take decades to decide upon, and are often not realistic practically or technically. One of the things holding back web browsers is that when HTML was first introduced, basic formatting features were added, without regard to how hard it would be to develop web browsers, to interpret them or designers to update websites (mainly because of mixing presentation with organizational structure), and the decision to make the HTML language accept such sloppy syntax.

Legacy and Innovation

Because web sites designed 10 years ago need to be able to be viewed by current browsers, it has made it slower to add formatting features. Some formatting, like page breaks, were not added, due to philosophical decisions. And web browsers constantly have a chicken and egg problem of web designers needing browser support, before they try new features, while browser developers wait for demand to build, before implementing new features.

Microsoft Destroying Competition

Along the way, Microsoft has always been afraid, that if the web was easy enough to use, that it would break its monopoly and allow competitors, to effectively compete with them, based on product quality and features, and not be able to own the entire market, by making things incompatible, so that their customers had no choice in vendors. Flash was successful, because Microsoft bundled it with Windows XP to kill Java and made Quicktime incompatible with Windows, so that Flash got the critical mass install base, to allow designers, to do things, that were not possible, with the HTML of that era.

Origins of Internet Explorer

Microsoft also designed Internet Explorer, to not work properly with standard HTML and Javascript, and threatened to raise the price of Windows licenses for Compaq, if they bundled the then most popular browser, called Netscape. Once Netscape was killed off, as a company, and Microsoft took over the web browser market, by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, they stopped development of Internet Explorer. Then some developers began to clean up and make lean the rewritten next generation layout, for the successor to Netscape (Netscape open sourced its browser, before dying, as a company, so that its software lived on).

Origins of Firefox

This software is now known as Firefox and, as it got back the market share that Netscape had lost to Internet Explorer, web developers began to start writing websites, that worked correctly, so that non-Microsoft browsers could see the pages. Along the way, Apple has captured the future (mobile) computers market, with their mobile devices and Google has dominated the Internet, so that Microsoft is too busy extending itself, into new markets and being blocked and failing to make any money, or take serious market share and so has not had time, to continue to sabotage HTML and Javascript.

The Fight Continues

Currently Microsoft has released a number of copycat technologies in Windows Vista and 7, to destroy: JPEG, OpenOffice.org, Flash, and PDF; so that we can use incompatible Microsoft only versions and pay through the roof for them, once there are no viable alternatives. Internet Explorer seems to lose a percentage point, in market share, every month, even as they are releasing new versions of Internet Explorer. Most of this has happened by word of mouth. One of the reasons why users do not want to update Internet Explorer is because most sites have to do hacks, to get Internet Explorer to work, so that when a new version is released, it is not flawed in the same way, as the previous version, but still doesn't conform to standards, so new hacks have to be added, for each new release.

Microsoft Never Learns

One of the things that hasn't changed, with all these new web browser releases, from Microsoft is that they continue to have: terrible security records, continue to fail to offer competitive performance, and they still haven't fixed most of the incompatibilities and bugs, while introducing new ones. There is a very small Norwegian company that makes one of the best browsers and it is considered, by almost everyone knowledgeable in the field, to be many times better than Internet Explorer. By independently verified standards, that every other browser measures itself by, called Acid tests, Internet Explorer moved up from an F- to a higher F- over the last 3 versions. Microsoft can obviously afford to hire decent programmers, so there is no excuse for their failures, as they are obviously deliberate.

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft has just released version 9, of Internet Explorer, to the public, as it has made it through testing. I have been able to test it today, on my website, through a web browser testing service. The simple design, which is mostly yellow and one column works fine, with every version of Internet Explorer version 7 and higher. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, then you can upgrade Internet Explorer, to version 9.My website looks fine, in the advanced version, with Internet Explorer 9. It renders the fonts, layered backgrounds, transparency, angled backgrounds, rounded corners, and drop caps very well, but it does not support the text shadow, on the headings. I was unable to test the audio, that works, without requiring another program, on the virtual machine I used.

Another thing to check is the performance of Internet Explorer 9. If you can run Windows 7, with all its special effects, without any lag or slow downs, then it probably will work well, but if you bought a cheap laptop (or netbook), then it is likely that it will be slow (much slower than even the previous versions). One way to get it faster relatively cheaply is to add more RAM. I would recommend that you check the websites, that you frequent, to make sure they are compatible, as this browser has had a complete overhaul. Also the 64 bit version has much worse performance, to the point of being almost unusable, and should be avoided.

Security is improved greatly and the interface is now much more minimalistic - the controls are smaller, which gives you more space, for the web pages. If you use tabs, then you will likely have  trouble using more than a few of them at once, because of Microsoft wanting to give extra space, for web pages. Search is now built into the address bar, so that would make me concerned about how the web browser knows, if you are typing in an address, or a search term, without having to type in special commands. The fonts look much smoother, but some people with poor eyesight will find the text harder to read. Things have also been changed significantly, for accessibility features, used by those who are sight impaired, so they might need to update screen readers, for this new version of Internet Explorer.

New Developments: Don't Do Anything

I have learned some new things, after: finding some good design magazines online, having invested in some more software/services, and that some new techniques are now available, that have matured recently. The result of these new developments is, that I was able, to get the custom fonts and many of the special effects, on my website, to work, with Internet Explorer 6-8.

The performance appears fine software wise, bit I don't know how much RAM, or how fast a processor is necessary, for reasonable/usable performance. The custom fonts look much better, on Internet Explorer 7, or higher. I was able to come close, to making the ideal design available, similarly to how it appears, in most of the more popular new browser, in Internet Explorer 6-8, but the performance suffers noticeably, as well as there being 2 many layers, for all the background designs, to show up correctly.

I can now fully test, for every major version of Internet Explorer, from 6 on, and can now support most, of the modern features, on these versions. I still recommend upgrading your browser to a better one, because of the security and performance benefits alone.