Obvious Diversion

Why Internet Explorer Sucks

Internet Explorer 6 sucks and there’s a clear reason why. They simply stopped working on it. After IE6 came out, Microsoft disbanded the product team. Let me repeat that. Having released Internet Explorer 6, they shut down the team and distributed it’s programmers to other parts of the company.

What Were They Thinking?

Did they think they had finally, once and for all won this whole ‘Internet thing’ and didn’t need to work on a browser anymore? Were they aware that the center-point of that whole anti-trust lawsuit that they lost was about their integration of Internet Explorer into Windows. After spending all that money defending their choice to develop Internet Explorer as a part of Windows (and losing), why in the world did they then just abandon the software and let it rot? What sort of bonehead made that choice?

Regardless, once they realized that Firefox was gaining steam, they brought together a new IE team including some past team members and got working on it again. That brings us to today and the release of Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2.

Let’s review the results of their restarted labor.

Internet Explorer 7 is Still a UI Nightmare

Microsoft claims IE7 has a “streamlined” interface. Lets compare the three major browsers out there with their default toolbars. Keep in mind that all three of these browsers are designed to fulfill the same need of browsing the internet.

Screenshots are linked so you can do your own comparisons.

Safari 2: 7 buttons on 2 rows (including bookmarks bar)
Firefox 1.5: 11 buttons on 2 rows (no buttons on bookmarks bar)
IE7 Beta 2: 23 buttons on 2 rows

IE7 was clearly designed by studying Firefox and Safari. Couldn’t they study the UI too and somehow not add more than double the amount of choices it takes to do the job?

Actually, now that I think of it, let’s compare IE6 and IE7 to see which is more “streamlined”.
IE6: 17 buttons on 2 rows
IE7 Beta 2: 23 buttons on 2 rows

Yes, IE7 has more features than IE6, but both Safari and Firefox have learned how to add features without adding UI complication.

I wonder how many more buttons there will be once you add the ‘recommended MSN toolbar’. I guess in the case of IE7 “streamlined” means “pretty colors”.

Feature Additions

• Tabbed browsing (which Opera had in 2000 and Mozilla in 2001)
• Tab Expose (inspired by Foxspose which is itself inspired by Apple’s Expose from 2003)
• RSS Support (Supported by Firefox, Safari and an insane number of dedicated feed readers)
• Improved web standards support (The truth is they’ve spent most of their time fixes all the things that were seriously screwed up with IE6’s standards support rather than actually expanding support outward and managing to do things like pass the Acid 2 browser test.)
• Security Improvements (I’m not even going to knock this one apart. Internet Explorer’s track record on security is abysmal and security alerts and patches in the days ahead will be criticism enough.)

Strange Deficits

Pictures in PNG format are described by Wired as “slightly desaturated and washed out” and “crunchy”. (The PNG format was approved in 1996 and recommended by the W3C in 2003.)

Will Internet Explorer Ever Catch Up?

Good software takes time and while the other browser folks were hard at work, Microsoft took a nap. So, can Microsoft meet or beat the competition on features in future releases of Internet Explorer? They certainly aren’t going to do it with IE7, but does it even matter since it’ll always be the default browser in Windows? The truth is, I can’t really see a situation where Microsoft catches up in features and standards support as development of Firefox and Safari are certainly not going to give up their lead as superior pieces of software.

The Verdict

Even once IE7 makes it’s way to a final release, it will still be a substandard browser when compared to the competition.

If you know of anyone still suffering with IE6, please help them download Firefox so they can browse happy.