Burying Windows XP with IE11 Enterprise Mode

Screen shot from Microsoft's presentation on IE11 Enterprise Mode, showing what browsers are available on what versions of Windows. Note that the Venn-ish diagram has no IE11 intersection for Windows 8.

As of today, Windows XP has effectively reached its end of life. What I mean by that is that Microsoft will no longer be releasing security patches for Windows XP. Those of you waiting to deploy those XP exploits can run at the platform unopposed.

While this may be a nuisance for the home user (and the family who acts as his/her tech support), this has larger implications in the business world. For example, if you work in the healthcare world you may very well be in violation of HIPAA / HITECH laws if you're still running Windows XP tomorrow.

What's really annoying about this is that so many web-based applications were built to support the dominant browser(s) at the time — Internet Explorer 6 through 8. What that means is users on Internet Explorer 11 are being locked out of these online tools, making the transition away from Windows XP (which cannot have a version of IE greater than 8) a tough proposition for organizations.

Simply put, poor web development practices have created an environment where upgrading to the latest version of IE is directly at odds with keeping your productivity up (if it requires you to stay on an old version of IE). Complicate that by now making that old version of IE a vector for security breaches and compliance penalties/lawsuits.

But fear not! As long you have the hardware and licenses to run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (notice, not Windows 8), you can still use those Internet Explorer 8 web sites without being locked out (you're SOL if you need IE6).

With a week before Windows XP turns into a zombie, Microsoft released Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer 11. After all, you only needed a week to get all that hardware in place and configured, right?

Enterprise Mode doesn't just emulate IE8, it masquerades as it. Some of the benefits of Enterprise Mode:

• Enterprise Mode sends the IE8 user agent string to defeat misguided browser sniffers;
• it mimics the responses IE8 sends to ActiveX controls, ideally allowing them to keep working;
• it supports features removed from later versions of IE (CSS Expressions, woo hoo!);
• pre-caching and pre-rendering are disabled to keep from confusing older applications;
• IE8's Compatibility View is supported, so odds are many applications designed for IE7 will work.

Some web developers have panicked that now they'll have to support another browser or browser mode, but so far the evidence doesn't bear that out.

Enterprise Mode will be controlled by a central source, most likely corporate IT departments, and will only be enabled for sites that have been manually identified. Intranets and custom-built un-maintained web-based applications are an easy fit here. If an IT department deems it appropriate, it can also allows end users to decide to enable Enterprise Mode on a site-by-site basis.

Microsoft has been testing this in many industries and countries (though not China, the biggest culprit for old, and illegal, versions of Windows). Hopefully this will help speed users to upgrade to IE11, even if it doesn't provide motivation for organizations to upgrade their legacy IE8 applications.

In addition to the links above, you can get more information from the video of Microsoft's Enterprise Mode presentation, or you can just view the presentation slides alone.

In short, this is a great band-aid for organizations that already have Windows 7 or 8.1, but won't be helping to push IE8 out of the way (despite the best efforts of some). In short, as web developers, we can expect to support IE8 for a while still.

Related

With the demise of Windows XP (even though we know it's not suddenly gone today), Internet Explorer 6 is also at its end of life (because no supported platform can run it). We know that it won't go away completely, but it's still being celebrated at sites like IE6death.com.

Update: April 11, 2014

I mentioned HIPAA above and linked to a post that argues for the presence of Windows XP as an automatic HIPAA violation. A more balanced and, and well-cited, post is over at the Algonquin Studios blog: So You’re Stuck with Windows XP but Still Need to be HIPAA Compliant

Screen Shots of Win8/IE10 Media Query Values

There is a nifty tool at MQtest.io which gives you a breakdown of how your device reports features you might use for media queries. To use the tool's own explanation:

This test isn’t about what media que­ries your device can or cannot see (but it does show an 'unsupported' label if a device doesn‘t support something). In­stead it shows you which dimen­sions your de­vice will res­pond to when using ‘width=device-width,initial-scale=1.’

As one of the seemingly few owners of a Windows 8 tablet (specifically the Asus Vivo), I sometimes get asked to check sites to make sure that a developer's media queries work properly. It was testing my own site that led me to discover the prefixed styles that IE10 needs in Metro view (which lead to my surprisingly popular post, IE10, Metro, and Media Queries).

Armed with the features that MQtest.io can help identify along with a Win8 tablet, I figured perhaps others without a Win8 tablet could benefit from some screen shots showing the MQTest.io results in various configurations of Internet Explorer 10. Please bear in mind that the numbers are for my device, and probably will not match those you would get from a Microsoft Surface or another Win8 device. At the very least, however, these will show you what tests will run in Win8/IE10 and the types of values you can expect to see.

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in desktop mode, with the tablet turned horizontally (wider than it is tall).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in desktop mode, with the tablet turned vertically (taller than it is wide).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Metro mode, with the tablet turned horizontally (wider than it is tall).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Metro mode, with the tablet turned vertically (taller than it is wide).

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Snap Mode, with the browser in the narrow view.

Screen shot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 in Snap Mode, with the browser in the wide view.

App Store Meta Tags

Why yes, Dominos, I'd love to tap again to get your real home page to order a pizza when I could have done it right here, below your over-sized app pitch that could be done in a tiny ribbon.

This may be old news to some of you, but I haven't found a place that collects this in one spot.

One of the most offensive experience I have when surfing a site on my mobile devices is being forced to click through an advertisement for the site's app in the iTunes store (even moreso when I am surfing on a non-iOS device). There is a fair number of sites I have tapped away from because of this (I also don't expect to be served the page I came to see, but instead shunted to the mobile home page).

If yours is one of those sites, whether promoting your entire user experience or just a product, there is a less offensive way to present your pitch to users on iOS and Windows Phone.

iOS 6

Safari on iOS 6 and later devices can promote your app with a standardized banner. Essentially you stuff a custom meta tag into your page that references your App Store ID. If the user already has the app installed, then the ad becomes a launcher instead.

The code is pretty simple:

<meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=myAppStoreID, affiliate-data=myAffiliateData, app-argument=myURL">

• app-id is required and references your app's identifier.
• affiliate-data is optional and uses your iTunes affiliate string.
• app-argument is also optional and can allow users who have your app installed to jump to a specific place in your app.

More details at Apple's developer site: Promoting Apps with Smart App Banners

Windows 8

Microsoft offers a similar feature for users of Windows 8 in non-desktop mode who are also using Internet Explorer. I have not tried it, so I cannot explain how this works as the user changes modes nor how it works with the "charms" feature of Windows 8.

This code is relatively simple as well, though it requires two meta tags and supports up to five:

<meta name="msApplication-ID"content="microsoft.build.App"/>
<meta name="msApplication-PackageFamilyName"content="microsoft.build_8wekyb3d8bbwe"/>

• msApplication-ID is required and references your app's identifier.
• msApplication-PackageFamilyName is required and contains the package family name created by Visual Studio.
• msApplication-Arguments is optional and lets you pass arguments to your app.
• msApplication-MinVersion is optional and can direct users with an old version to the Windows Store.
• msApplication-OptOut< is optional and allows pages to opt out of installing the app, switching to the app, or both./li>

More details at Microsoft Developer Network: Connect your website to your Windows Store app (Windows)

Google Play, BlackBerry App World, Etc.

In addition to Google Play, BlackBerry App World, I looked for similar features for the Firefox OS and Ubuntu Mobile stores. I know there are other mobile platforms out there for which I did not look.

If you know of other apps tores that offer similar features, please let me know so I can update this post.

Related

There are other places where custom meta tags are used to display targeted content. One example is used for Twitter Cards and another example is used with Google News. While you can build support for them, neither Twitter nor Google is going to use them unless you have been vetted in advance.

Updated: January 29, 2013

I wrote a version of this post with an example at the Algonquin Studios blog. I'm pasting the example in here...

Real-World Example

One of our spin-off companies, SWRemote, has an app available for iPads. There is value in promoting the app to visitors of the site but not in blocking their access to the site content with a splash page or an extra click, especially if they are not on iPads. The SWRemote web site is powered by QuantumCMS (yes, I am promoting our web content management system), which makes it about 30 seconds of effort to add the necessary meta tag to the site.

Screen shot of the QuantumCMS custom meta tag screen.

If you are already a client of ours on QuantumCMS, all you have to do is choose Site Configuration from the Settings menu and pop into the Marketing tab. This is the screen that allows you to add custom meta tags. Press the Advanced button and you are off to the races. In the Name field, for this example, I just entered “apple-itunes-app” and in the Content field I provided the custom ID for the app appended to “app-id=.” As soon as I hit Save the web site was showing the app bar to visitors:

Screen shots of the SWRemote site on an iPad3 both with the app installed and without it installed, showing how the bar changes its message.

Oddly, even though the app runs on the iPad Mini, which is running iOS6, the app bar never appeared on the site when viewed on the iPad Mini. On an iPhone 5, the app bar started to appear and then disappeared — probably as the device recognized that there is no iPhone version of the app.

If/when there is an app available for Windows Phone, the process to add this feature will be the same, allowing the site to promote both apps dependent on the audience. QuantumCMS helps make the process easier, with no need to code any changes to your site templates.

Update, March 8, 2013

What he said:

I think "Download our app!" is the new "Skip intro…"

— Jeffrey Veen (@veen) March 8, 2013

Update, April 24, 2013

There is a recap of recent rants over at .net Magazine in the article "Devs rally against mobile web doorslams."

Update: June 12, 2013

Google has just announced that it may penalize sites that promote apps with those awful interstitials. Yet Google offers no solution (as you see above) for Android apps through the Google Play store. You can get more detail in my post "Google Needs to Provide Android App Interstitial Alternative."

Update: March 11, 2014

I told you above that you needed to get the app identifier and package family name to make the Windows app banner, but I neglected to tell you where to get that information. Some kind soul over at Adobe's forums provided instructions.

Update: August 31, 2014

I keep forgetting to link this: jQuery Smart Banner, which uses jQuery to stuff a Smart-Banner-like feature into your site for old iOS versions, Android and Windows. I have not tried, so I can offer no feedback on whether it works well (or at all).

Google Maps: Misbehaving with UA Sniffing

Here's the TL;DR: Google Maps sniffs a browser's user agent string. If it finds Internet Explorer on Windows Phone, then it kicks it over to the m.google.com mobile home page.

So let's be clear. It's 2013 and one of the biggest companies on the internet is using a sniffer to redirect users on a browser and platform that it sees as competition.

Google's general claim is that the mobile version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers (such as Google Chrome) and therefore Google doesn't support non-WebKit browsers. Even though Google Maps works fine on Firefox mobile (which supports panning, but not pinch-to-zoom) and Opera Mobile (which sometimes supports panning, but not pinch-to-zoom), neither of which uses the Webkit engine. It even renders using Opera Mini, although I can't get it do anything. I can't test Internet Explorer on Windows Phone because I don't have it.

I can, however, test Google's browser sniffer by changing the user agent string in my browser to report itself as Windows Phone and watch my request for maps.google.com get redirected to m.google.com, the Google mobile home page. This tells me that Google isn't performing feature detection (such as touch events or multi-touch support), but is instead damning the browser by name alone.

This is the lesson Google is teaching young web developers who don't understand how flawed this approach is (contrary to its own instructions on best practices from less than a month ago). Google Maps happily lets me have a sub-par experience in Opera Mobile or Firefox mobile. It even lets me have a broken experience in Opera Mini. But Internet Explorer on Windows Phone? Google Maps just boots those users.

Reports I have read (and watched) on assorted articles online suggest that Google Maps works reasonably well on IE on Windows Phone (supporting panning and pinch-to-zoom). As such, I don't buy Google's argument that it wants to prevent users from having a poor experience—there is already evidence that a large number of users (more than use Windows Phone) are having a poor experience.

From Google:

The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web.

…Because we actively block them, should be how that quote ended.

So why is Google really doing this? Is it because it's fun to pick on Microsoft? Is it because Google thought it could get away with it? Is it to make the Windows Phone experience less appealing than Android's? Is it because Google doesn't like Microsoft's touch events specification (and how well it's been received) at the W3C? Is it because of recent court cases between Google and Microsoft?

In this case I don't much care. I care instead about the terrible example Google is setting for web developers.

Background

• Google Maps Has Never Been Accessible On Internet Explorer Mobile Now Blocked on Windows Phone (Updated), January 4, 2013.
• Now Google is blocking Windows Phones from accessing maps.google.com, January 4, 2013.
• Many Windows Phone users report being cut off from Google Maps (update), January 4, 2013.
• Google Maps never supported Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 8, and it likely never will, January 5, 2013.
• Shenanigans: Google Maps redirect issue on Windows Phones is a matter of competition, not compatibility, January 5, 2013.
• This is Why You Can't Access Google Maps on Windows Phone, January 5, 2013.
• Google Admits It Was Deliberately Blocking Windows Phone Users From Google Maps, January 6, 2013.
• Google says Maps redirect on Windows Phone was a product decision, and will be removed, January 6, 2013.
• Windows Phone Doesn't Support Google Maps Because Google Doesn't Want It To, January 6, 2013.
• Google Maps, Windows Phone, and an avoidable mess, January 7, 2013.

My Related Posts

• Let's Treat Old Browser Users Better, July 5, 2012.
• Another Anti-IE Gimmick, June 14, 2012.
• Exclusion Is a Feature Now, May 10, 2012.
• The Return of “Best Viewed in…”, March 4, 2012.
• Detecting Mobile Devices — Don't Bother, October 11, 2011.

Don't Expect Microsoft's Auto-Update to Kill IE6

Last week Microsoft announced that it is planning to start upgrading users to the latest version of Internet Explorer that their computers can run (IE to Start Automatic Upgrades across Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7). Web developers for the most part were overjoyed with the notion that IE6, the bane of their existence, might finally be brushed aside.

But that's not what's going to happen.

Corporate

IE6 users in a corporate environment generally don't have a say in the browser they use. Typically if they have not been upgraded to a more recent version of Internet Explorer, it's for a reason. This reason can include anything from a customized version of the browser (yes, those exist) to an intranet/extranet application that was built to lean on the features of IE6 itself. When faced with the option of re-writing an entire application or just holding off on an upgrade, imagine which one is likely to win out (especially when weighed between the effort of the full rebuild or the effort of doing nothing). Back in March, ReadWriteWeb ran a poll with results showing that 29% of corporate users are still on IE6 with "no end in sight."

Microsoft makes Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits (for IE8 and for IE9) which allow enterprise environments to skip automatic installation recent upgrades. Since IE6 and IE7 aren't given their own opt-out toolkits and the process is still in the planning stages, it's hard to say how those two older versions will be addressed. It is likely, however, that corporate IT departments will err on the side of caution. It's already common practice for enterprises to decline to install updates and service packs because it may affect existing systems. These systems aren't necessarily built in-house, but are from vendors who themselves have not made any efforts to modify them in the years since IE7 came out (or have simply gone out of business). When an organization will not install Windows XP Service Pack 2 (late 2004), it is unlikely it is going to allow a browser upgrade.

Non-Corporate

There are other cases besides corporate environments where you may want to opt out — some assistive technology must be upgraded if the browser is upgraded. For example, upgrading to IE9 requires an upgrade to JAWS, Window-Eyes, Dragon Naturally Speaking and possibly other applications (Remarks on Internet Explorer 9 Accessibility and Compatibility with Assistive Technology). While this doesn't address IE6 specifically, each upgrade of IE has typically required other software updates for anything that relies on IE. These collateral effects sometimes make it cost prohibitive for an organization to upgrade even a free browser.

Microsoft's plan will affect users on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users aren't running IE6, so they're not going to contribute to any more IE6 market share drop. Some non-corporate users of Internet Explorer 6 are on genuinely old computers and aren't regularly updating their systems as it is. You may not see much of a drop there, if any. Couple this with the fact that Microsoft is not releasing recent versions of Internet Explorer for Windows XP, and those users will continue to languish on a permanently old browser, even if not IE6.

Asia

Microsoft's plan is also unlikely to address the Asian market, where China still sees IE6 running at a 28% installation base (versus 1.8% for Australia and 1.4% for Brazil, where Microsoft is rolling this plan out first). So many of those computers are running unlicensed copies of Windows XP, or are just older computers, that it is unlikely anyone will opt in for the automatic upgrades. While this may not affect most Western companies who don't do business in Asia, it is certainly inflating the numbers for IE6's installation base, and making international dreams for some companies seem a bit more daunting.

Conclusions

I feel like all I do is kill everyone's buzz whenever the coming demise of IE6 is promised. However, I've been killing that buzz for a decade now, so the odds are in my favor.

Microsoft's plan is a good one, and is no more than jumping on the bandwagon pulled by nearly all the other current browser makers. However, because Microsoft has a special place in the enterprise world and with its operating system dominance, I don't see this plan doing much to hasten the demise of IE6.

Related

• Internet Explorer to auto-update at .net Magazine.
• Web Developers Rejoice! Microsoft is Killing IE 6 and 7. at Reddit.
• Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone | Hacker News

Not really related, but this handy diagram shows where IE6 fits into the current world of the web:

Patent Wars Sorta-Infographic

I'm giving in to the cool hip trend of infographics that has been popping up like pinkeye across blogging and tech sites lately. These infographics are typically nothing more than data points (sometimes just narrative) strewn about with mathematically suspect charts or somewhat-related design elements. But they seem to draw traffic, even when there isn't even data to graph (Browsers as Wrestlers "Infographic"). So I am using my lack of shame to power through this long weekend with three posts of three infographics from other sites.

In today's installment I am posting an infographic that has some (imprecise) charts and a couple process maps outlining the current state of patents called Patent Wars: A New Age of Competition. You can find the original image at Business Insurance Quotes site, where it has no accompanying explanation or background.

Related

• Frivolous Patents on the Web
• WebM, H.264 Debate Still Going
• More Frivolous Patents
• A Patent Trolling Primer
• Are Patents Killing HTML5 Video?

Testing IE Versions via IE Compatibility Modes

This past week I have encountered people asking about testing for Internet Explorer browser versions in real life, on Twitter, via email, and spray-painted under a bridge (along with the phrase I don't want the world, I just want your half). I have seen response after response directing web developers to simply use the different browser modes in Internet Explorer 9 for browser testing, in particular addressing those who are using Macs and do not want to install multiple versions of Windows for each browser instance.

I whipped up some HTML and CSS of the most basic (and invalid) sort to run my installations of Internet Explorer through the paces. Historically I have found subtle differences between the emulation modes and how the original version of a browser (specifically IE) might render a page. This time out I simply found the emulation mode testing process so confusing that I suspect many developers who rely on this method are doing it incorrectly.

Four Versions of Internet Explorer

These images represent screen shots from Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, 8 and 9 — the full install version of each, using default settings, no emulators. For the most part we can see differences between IE6, IE7 and IE8, while the differences between IE8 and IE9 are negligible.

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 9

You can see that IE6 has trouble with the 24-bit transparent PNG files, and both IE6 and IE7 apply the padding to the wrapper element differently than IE8 and IE9 do. IE6 is also not setting the height of the element that is the green box, but from IE7 onward the height declaration is honored.

Internet Explorer 9 as an Emulator

The problem is that once you install IE9 you are kind of stuck. Unless you are willing to spin up a virtual machine for the last few versions of IE you want to test (and I still recommend you at least see how IE6 will munge your pages), you have to rely on emulators. Many developers think that IE9 will allow them to see how older versions of the browser saw pages, and to some extent it will. The confusing part is that not only is there a Browser Mode setting, there is also a Document Mode setting. Using combinations of those two settings, I generated the following screen shots:

Internet Explorer 9. Browser Mode: IE7. Document Mode: IE7.

Internet Explorer 9. Browser Mode: IE8. Document Mode: IE7.

Internet Explorer 9. Browser Mode: IE8. Document Mode: IE8.

But those aren't all the modes. You can also run the browser in the following slightly confusing modes. You might notice that "Quirks Mode" most closely resembles the rendering in IE6 above, without the issues displaying PNG files. This is as close as you can get to testing IE6, and even that doesn't do justice to some of the rendering issues of that rather old browser.

Internet Explorer 9: Quirks Mode.

Internet Explorer 9: IE9 Standards Document Mode

Assuming you simply toggle the "Compatibility Mode" in IE9, which of all the above combinations do you think you'll get? Or better yet, how do you think your page will render? This experiment shows that it most closely resembles the rendering used for its IE7 browser and document modes. I would have expected it to use IE8, or at least some clear indication of which browser version it is trying to emulate. This example alone shows that even a quick cross-browser test in IE9 to test older versions of IE may provide unexpected results.

Internet Explorer 9: Compatibility Mode.

Even if you understand all the document and browser modes available in the IE developer tools, that doesn't mean your web staff, client, or random web savvy user will. The best way to truly test how a site renders in older versions of a browser is not by running emulators, but by running the versions of those browsers themselves.

If you still insist on going down the path of testing using emulators, you should take a few minutes to read the Microsoft article, Testing sites with Browser Mode vs. Doc Mode. The article outlines what each of those settings means and how it adjusts the rendering of the page.

The article makes an assumption, however, that as a developer you will want to serve up different doctypes and meta tags based on how the browser reports itself in the user agent string as defined by the Browser Mode. This image illustrates that:

If you do have a site that adjusts itself based on the browser, given the extra steps to configure the browser, test and compare differences, it's still probably easier and definitely fool-proof to use the specific version of IE that you want to test. This way you don't have to worry about incorrectly read UA strings or mis-selected settings in your browser emulator.

Conclusion

Suck it up and install some virtual machines to get each version of Internet Explorer for testing.

Update: February 4, 2013

Microsoft has made virtual machines with old IE versions available to developers at its Modern.IE site. There really is no excuse now to claim you can't test in older versions of Internet Explorer.

Update: March 14, 2013

Typekit points out the dangers of cross-browser testing with IE9′s Browser Modes when it comes to font rendering. Typekit comes to the same conclusion as I do: Instead, you should test with real installed copies of IE7 and IE8[.]

Update: March 15, 2013

Found this post on Stack Overflow, dated just a couple months before I wrote this post: How well does IE7/8 mode in IE9 compare to actually running IE7/8? Many specific issues there.

Microsoft Promoting the Death of IE6

That map above shows, as of February 28, 2011, the level of Internet Explorer 6 usage around the world. What's interesting is that this map was produced by Microsoft. This map is also (stolen by me) from a Microsoft site that is trying to move people off Internet Explorer 6, ostensibly on to Internet Explorer 8 or 9.

The site ie6countdown.com was unknown to me until today when I discovered it thanks to a tweet from @IE (Microsoft's Internet Explorer account) promoting it:

Interestingly, perhaps only to me, this tweet is exactly one year later than the surprisingly highly-publicized IE6 funeral (it supposedly died on March 1): RIP IE6 (Not Really, But Here's to Hoping). That people want to see IE6 go away is hardly news. You can read some of the history of companies and applications dropping support for IE6 by following the "IE6 must die" tag on Mashable articles. Sites like the obviously-named ie6nomore.com and ie6death.com have been pushing for these even longer. In fact, you can trace the history of the call for the demise of IE6 to the first breaths of IE7, sooner if you were a web developer.

While Microsoft is certainly hoping people will stop using IE6, and while the rest of us hope that people will also stop using IE7 (at least), there are still many users who have little or no choice in the matter. So many organizations built internal applications that rely on IE6 that upgrading the browser company-wide has a huge cost impact in everything from re-writing their applications to spikes in help desk requests. That employees cannot surf their local community not-for-profit site that inexplicably blocks IE6/7 is of little concern to IT managers.

What offends me about th ie6countdown site is how it promotes the use of an IE conditional comment to tell IE6 users to upgrade, something that may validate the existing terrible practice many developers have of trying to push users to the developer's favorite browser. However, since it only affects IE6 users and may help them take the necessary steps to upgrade, it has merit. Whether it makes their IT departments do so is another story.

Before you get too self-congratulatory about how much you used to despise IE6, take a look at this contextual view of IE6 back when it first launched, written by a Microsoft staffer: Presenting IE6 with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The title may seem a little too much like he's freebasing the Kool-Aid, but there is some good content presented in the context of 2001, including a screen shot of Netscape 6, my preferred browser at the time. If you want more history, go read Microsoft's history of Internet Explorer (I wish they would include the add-on to Microsoft Word that let you surf from the comfort of your word processor).

Much as I'd love to segue into the upcoming IE9 and where it stands, I'd rather this post solely be yet another (and hopefully last) memorial for IE6. That and I have to get to a meeting...

Update: 2:51pm

I came back from my meeting to find that Microsoft has a blog post about this very topic (announcements put it 2 minutes after my blog post): Counting Down Internet Explorer 6 Usage Share. In the post Microsoft acknowledges the IE6 funeral, talks about the olden days of IE6, and promotes the demise of IE6 — at least down to 1% market share. There is one statement for which I wish they had provided a link:

We know that many IE6 users are on the older browser because it's at their workplace. We've put together some resources for IT pros to help understand the business value of moving off IE6 and are delivering to them the tools to help them navigate the process.

A link to those resources would have been handy. Microsoft should take advantage of anyone reading its post who might need those links by allowing them to get to those resources immediately.

Later in the same post is a link to theie6countdown.com. Note the addition of "the" to the address. Apparently both work and answer separately at each address. Microsoft is costing its plan for the end of IE6 some valuable link juice.

Update: March 5, 2011

Bruce Lawson asks a very good question in the post The mystery of Microsoft IE6countdown.com — why can't Microsoft just make IE9 run on Windows XP, the most used OS in the world, instead of requiring users to upgrade to Windows 7 or Vista? Bruce points out that his employer, Opera, can do it. However, IE9 leans on features baked into the OS and Microsoft would much rather have you upgrade to the new OS anyway. My understanding is that Safari is the same on Mac. I know I have been unable to upgrade to the latest Safari on our older OSX machine without first upgrading to the latest feline version.

WebM, H.264 Debate Still Going

On February 2, Microsoft released a plug-in for Chrome on Windows 7 to allow users to play H.264 video directly in Chrome. In addition, Microsoft has said that it will support WebM (VP8) when a user has the codec installed. And so began the fragmentation of the HTML video model, back to relying on plug-ins to support what was otherwise intended to be supported natively within browsers.

Microsoft went on to ask three broad questions in a separate post (HTML5 and Web Video: Questions for the Industry from the Community), taking Google to task for what Microsoft considers inconsistent application of its own patent concerns and openness (emphasis Microsoft's):

1. Who bears the liability and risk for consumers, businesses, and developers until the legal system resolves the intellectual property issues;
2. When and how does Google make room for the Open Web Standards community to engage genuinely;
3. What is the plan for restoring consistency across devices, Web services, and the PC.

The same day Microsoft was announcing its plug-in approach to addressing the WebM and H.264 battle, the post On WebM again: freedom, quality, patents came out addressing what it felt were the five most common issues raised with WebM (which I have paraphrased):

1. Quality: the argument here is that it's a function of the encoder and the WebM can match H.264;
2. Patent Risk: comparing the 164 unexpired U.S. patents used in a single encoder, he finds that 126 of them are there for the encoder's H.264 support, the remaining (used by WebM) are in a library released by Google.
3. Not open enough: there is little argument here, given that it's currently in Google's hands to manage and develop.
4. H.264 is not so encumbered: but only for non-commercial use for freely-distributed web video.
5. Google provides no protection from infringing patents: nor does MPEG-LA.

Changing the Nature of the Battle

On February 11, the post MPEG LA puts Google's WebM video format VP8 under patent scrutiny outlines how MPEG-LA, the licensing entity for multimedia codecs such as H.264, has put out a call for patents related to VP8, the underlying technology in WebM. That deadline for submissions is March 18, or less than a month away as of this writing. From there, MPEG-LA will create a patent pool of contributing patent holders for any items that are deemed essential to the codec. This patent pool can then be used to negotiate licensing. In short, VP8/WebM could soon be more patent encumbered than it has been. This puts Google on the defensive as it will have to show that none of the patents in use are valid and/or infringed.

The same author of that last post posted on the 14th at The Guardian, Royalty-free MPEG video codec ups the ante for Google's WebM/VP8. In case that title isn't clear enough, a new royalty-free video standard may be in the pipes. MPEG, a standards body separate from MPEG-LA (the licensing body) has called for proposals toward a royalty-free MPEG video coding standard. One of the goals is to make this new standard comparable to the baseline used in H.264.

If this pans out, it puts another barrier in front of the WebM offering from Google, namely that for WebM to be adopted it will have to best any new royalty-free MPEG codec. The three items that can bring WebM (VP8) down:

1. If the MPEG-LA call for for patents and resulting patent pool for VP8 nets some patents, MPEG-LA will now form a patent pool to push for licensing agreements, which Google will have to fight at each step.
2. If MPEG can genuinely develop a royalty-free video coding standard, it can beat WebM either from the patent perspective or by forcing WebM to be technically superior.
3. Assuming WebM can get past the first two items, it's still back where it started — in a battle for adoption and endorsement against the already entrenched H.264 standard.

Real-World Needs

Considering Google is the company that delivers so much of the video viewed on the web via YouTube, it makes sense that Google presumes it can take the lead on video codec standards. Netflix, however, has its entire business model built around video, which is now moving inexorably to the web. Netflix commented back in December (HTML5 and Video Streaming) that it needs some things sorted out before it can even rely on HTML5 and video to deliver its content (the first 6 of which it has resolved through its own proprietary technology):

1. The acceptable A/V container formats (e.g. Fragmented MP4, WebM, etc.);
2. The acceptable audio and video codecs (e.g. H.264, VP8, AAC, etc.);
3. The streaming protocol (e.g. HTTP, RTP, etc.);
4. A way for the streaming protocol to adapt to available bandwidth;
5. A way of conveying information about available streams and other parameters to the streaming player module;
6. A way of supporting protected content (e.g. with DRM systems);
7. A way of exposing all this functionality into HTML5.

It's clear that the web video debate extends far beyond the academics of HTML5. As long as issues related to patents and licensing are unresolved, or perceived as unresolved, we will see more proprietary solutions gain more ground, further balkanizing the future of video on the web.

If you think this doesn't affect the end user, all that time and effort put into creating proprietary solutions ultimately costs you as the consumer in the form of increased fees for your content. Granted, it will be some time for browsers to catch up with the selected codec, and yet more time for users to catch up with the supporting browsers, but the more this debate continues, the longer before we can even start that long road of user adoption.

Possibly the best outcome we can hope for is that this battle results in a royalty-free MPEG standard, nullifying many of the arguments against both H.264 and WebM.

Related

• H.264 Getting Dropped from Chrome, January 11, 2011.
• Simple HTML5 video player with Flash fallback and custom controls, February 17, 2011.

Browsers to Add Tracking Blockers

This may be somewhat old news by now, but given the hubbub last night that Apple and some makers of apps for the iPhone are getting sued over tracking users without consent, it seems that the struggle between privacy and features will never be old news.

Back at the dawn of the web, the notion of surfing anonymously was pretty compelling. Users in the early days had enough technical know-how to understand that privacy could not be guaranteed and at the very least a combination of IP logging and old-fashioned real-world tracking could often get an interested party the identity of someone engaging in nefarious activity. The key benefit to that process (for users) is that for most organizations it wasn't worth the bother (either time or money). Privacy was maintained simply for lack of effort.

Fast forward to today's world where online ads can track your habits and preferences, where Facebook is regularly lambasted for sharing too much information, where mobile devices can track where you are at any time, where people use social media with the curious expectation that they are guaranteed some privacy, and so on...

Microsoft sees this as an opportunity to push its coming web browser, Internet Explorer 9, to the fore by offering a new feature called Tracking Protection. Microsoft will be rolling this feature out in the next beta release due early in 2011. In Microsoft's words, the feature will do the following:

1. IE9 will offer consumers a new opt-in mechanism ("Tracking Protection") to identify and block many forms of undesired tracking.
2. "Tracking Protection Lists" will enable consumers to control what third-party site content can track them when they're online.

This is a little different from the Federal Trade Commission's request that browser makers implement a "do not track" feature. In the FTC's world, this feature sets a flag for all sites you visit asking the web site and/or ad service not to track you. The FTC cannot force anyone to honor that, however, so it's a mostly empty request. This is where the IE9 feature is so compelling — it's intended to just block the tracking outright.

Mozilla isn't missing the boat on this. Even though a similar feature was in development in June, it was pulled (for conflicting reasons) but made its reappearance just a few days ago. Mozilla's chief executive stated in an interview that [t]echnology that supports something like a 'Do Not Track' button is needed and we will deliver in the first part of next year. He was speaking about Firefox 4, which is still in beta. This puts Firefox's offering out there around the same time as IE9's.

Now that two major browsers will be developing a feature in parallel with a similar name and set of functionality, it will be interesting to see how it is implemented. While the features both Microsoft and Mozilla are discussing have mostly been in both browsers in some form since the last full release, activating those features isn't exactly intuitive for the novice user. Now comes the struggle of creating a user interface that is simple, still provides enough detail and control, and isn't so far removed from the other browser's interface that users who use both aren't horribly confused.

Whether these features are enough to satisfy the FTC, consumers, or even the ad networks is still up in the air. Whether these features will be easy to use, however, seems unlikely given browser configuration options over the years. If that happens, it may end up protecting ad networks for now.

Related

• Apple, App Makers Sued Over User-Tracking at Wired, December 27, 2010.
• 'Do Not Track' Coming to Firefox 4 at PCWorld, December 21, 2010.
• Firefox backs "Do Not Track" with online stealth at Google News, December 18, 2010.
• Privacy and the Web's 'signal-to-noise ratio' at CNN, December 15, 2010.
• Microsoft Builds Online Tracking Blocking Feature Into IE9 at Wired, December 7, 2010
• IE9 and Privacy: Introducing Tracking Protection at Microsoft's IE9 blog, December 7, 2010.
• IE9 "Do Not Track" Feature Prone to User Error at PCWorld, December 7, 2010.
• FTC Staff Issues Privacy Report Offers Framework for Consumers, Businesses, and Policymakers at FTC.gov, December 1, 2010.
• Hiding Online Footprints at Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2010.
• Question of the Day: Would you use an Internet “do-not-track” tool if it were included in your Web browser? at Wall Street Journal.

Related on this blog

• Google Analytics Opt-Out Add-On Is Out, May 26, 2010.
• Google to Let Users Opt Out of Analytics Tracking, March 19, 2010.
• Google Dashboard: What Google Knows about You, November 5, 2009.

Updated: January 24, 2011

• Firefox and Chrome Add "Do Not Track" Tools To Their Browsers

You Get What You Pay For

First off, let me apologize for ending the title of this post with a preposition. I am playing off an idiom, so I think I have some leeway. Besides, "You get that for which you pay" just doesn't roll off the tongue.

In the last week I have watched two free web services I use announce (in some fashion) that they are going away. This has caused a good deal of frustration and anger on behalf of users. And it's all just a repeat of things I have seen on the web for 15 years now.

I have watched the Brightkite blog, Facebook page and Brightkite/Twitter accounts get hammered with angry and abusive comments from users (Brightkite Yields to Foursquare, Gowalla, Etc.).

I have watched on Twitter as people have derided Yahoo's decision to shut down del.icio.us, the place where they have shared and stored bookmarks for years (Leaked Slide Shows Yahoo Is Killing Delicious & Other Web Apps at Mashable).

I felt vindicated when Google decided to pull the plug on Google Wave, partly owing to the fact that nobody could quite figure out how to wield something that was a floor wax and a dessert topping all in one (Google Wave is Dead at ReadWriteWeb).

I have watched as some of the URL shorteners on which we have come to rely for services like Twitter have announced that they are going away, or have just disappeared (List of URL Shorteners Grows Shortener).

I, and perhaps the entire web, breathed a sigh of relief when Geocities announced it was going to take a dirt nap — and finally did (Wait - GeoCities Still Exists?).

I remember when both Hotmail and Yahoo decided it was time to start charging for access to some of the more enhanced features of the free email they offered users (Say Goodbye to Free Email).

I saw people panic when they might lose access to all sorts of free video, photos, and even text content from CNN, Salon, and others (End of the Free Content Ride?).

We Get It; You've Been There, What's Your Point?

These services all have a couple key things in common:

1. Users have put a lot of time, energy, and apparently emotion into these services.
2. They are free.

The second point, in my opinion, should mitigate the first point. If you as a user are not paying to use a service, then is it a wise decision to build your social life or your business around it? Do you as a user not realize that these organizations owe you nothing?

As Brightkite announced the shuttering of its core service with only a week heads-up, they were kind enough to allow users to grab their data via RSS feeds. Yahoo hasn't even formalized the future of del.icio.us, but already fans have found a way to grab the data. But in both of these cases, if you as a user aren't backing up your data, keeping an archive, or storing it elsewhere, whose fault is it really that you might lose it all?

Is it wise to build a social media marketing campaign on Facebook, a platform notorious for changing the rules (features, privacy controls, layout, etc.) on a whim? Is relying on a free URL shortener service a good idea as the only method to present links to your highly developed web marketing campaigns? Should you really run your entire business on the features offered by Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc? If you have to alert staff/friends/partners to something important in a timely fashion, can you really trust Twitter to do what you need?

The culture of the web (nee Internet) has always been one of an open and sharing environment, where people and organizations post information that they understand will be shared/borrowed/stolen/derided. Somehow users of the web have come to expect that everything is, or should be, free. Look at the proliferation of sites to steal movies and music as an example on one end of the spectrum. On the other end is the reliance on Wikipedia by every school kid across the country instead of a purchased encyclopedia.

Let's all take some time to evaluate our plans and what we are doing. When that vendor who builds Facebook campaigns comes back to tell you that what he/she built last year won't work this year due to a Facebook change, there is your cost. When you have to take time from your real work to download all your bookmarks just so you can try to find a way to share them again or even get them into your browser, there is your cost. When you build a business on the back of a Twitter API and have to retool your entire platform due to an arbitrary change in how you call the service, there is your cost. When your Google Doc is sitting in "the cloud" and you're sitting in a meeting without wifi just before you have to present it, there is your cost.

This cost, however, ignores something that can't be measured on your end with dollars. The cost of sharing your personal information, your activities, your habits, are all your daily cost for using many of these services.

You may be under the impression that I have something against these free services. The use of this very blog should tell you otherwise. Instead I have something against users who have an expectation of free, top-notch service from organizations who are really only around as far as their cash flow can sustain them.

I keep my bookmarks on my local machine and just share the files between computers. I have been archiving my Brightkite photos since I started using the service, and archiving the posts to Twitter and Facebook, all the while backing up my Twitter stream. I use locally-installed software (MS Word, OpenOffice) writing to generic formats (RTF, etc.) and keep the files I need where I can access them (file vault on my site). I pay for a personal email service in addition to maintaining a free one. Other than Twitter, with its character limits, I avoid URL shorteners (and have no interest in rolling my own). I signed up for Diaspora in the hopes that I can funnel all my social media chaos to the one place I can take it with me. I keep a landline in my house so when the power goes out I can still make a phone call to 911.

I don't tweet my disgust when Facebook changes its layout. I don't post angry comments on Brightkite's wall when they kill a service. I don't try to organize people to take their time to rebuild Google Wave when I cannot. I don't punch my co-worker when he buys me a sandwich and the deli failed to exclude the mayo.

Let's all take some personal responsibility and stop relying solely on something simply because it's free. Your favorite free thing is different or gone (or will be). Suck it up and move on.

Update: January 10, 2011

Alex Williams at ReadWriteWeb echoes the general theme of expecting free stuff in the post "Dimdim: The Risk of Using A Free Service."

Update: January 12, 2011

Free sometimes means "full of malware and viruses," even when you are just installing free themes for your blog: Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else

Update: January 2, 2014

Jeffrey Zeldman explains the process in a narrative: The Black Hole of The Valley

IE Below 50%, But Not Universally

Perhaps you've seen the news, read the tweets, heard web developers shouting from rooftops (which is a heck of climb from the caves in which they are usually kept) — Microsoft Internet Explorer, the browser that has caused developers so much strife, has dropped below 50% market share. It's looking like 1998 all over again.

Catch up on the headlines:

• Internet Explorer Drops Below 50% Market Share Worldwide at ReadWriteWeb.
• Microsoft IE browser share dips below 50%; Google Chrome rises at Network World.
• Internet Explorer usage falls below 50% at CNN.
• With Less than 50% Market Share, IE Is Now Losing the Browser Wars at Mashable.

There has been some good that has come out of this. Internet Explorer 9 (beta) has been pushing hard to speed up its scripting engine and better support existing and emerging web standards. This has been primarily due to the competition (and shaming) from Chrome, Safari and Opera. As we see the features, speed, and even interfaces of each new generation of browser start to match one another, developers and users will have a far more level playing field. This is assuming, of course, that trend continues and we don't see the Balkanization of the web again.

Despite all this, I am writing this post as a caution to developers. Already, many have been commenting on how great it will be to dump support for Internet Explorer altogether. Many developers seem to think that we are at that point now. Except we aren't. 50% isn't some magic number to drop support, especially not when developers often build features for the browsers that have far less market share (Safari, Chrome).

This blog only sees 14% of its traffic come from Internet Explorer, which doesn't surprise me given the subject matter. My professional site, which is at the primary domain used by this blog, has double that at 29%. In a vacuum, the much-publicized numbers seem quite real. However, as I review the logs of client sites, I can see a pretty simple trend. Clients whose primary business is B2B are trending between 60% and 80%, with some outliers in the 90% range, for Internet Explorer use. B2C sites enjoy lower IE numbers, hovering around 50-60%.

Remember that the B2B sites are probably visited by users in closed corporate environments where Internet Explorer is mandated. For many very valid reasons, IE has just stuck in that world and will probably continue to do so. Those same users may very well use another browser at home. We need to be careful that we are not excluding those users who either have no choice but to use IE or who aren't techs that can just swap browsers as it suits them.

To be clear: Don't drop your support for Internet Explorer. Make sure you still include it in your testing plan and have provisions for users who visit with IE — even if the experience isn't ideal.

Related

• IE9 Beta Coming, But Microsoft Just Wants You to Dump IE6

IE9 Beta Getting High(er than Expected) Marks

It's kind of hard to avoid all the coverage of IE9 this week. There are some rather in-depth reviews and analyses out there that take it apart and try to outdo each other with intricate detail in coverage. I don't care so much about that. I'm interested in the general mood of the developers who will build for it, and the general user who just wants to surf. And that will take time to suss out.

If you are looking for a review of the browser as a whole, including its new interface (Google Chrome, anyone?) and features for users, then you should spend some time reading through ZDNet's article, Internet Explorer 9 beta review: Microsoft reinvents the browser. Take some time to scroll through the screen shot gallery, too (A closer look at the Internet Explorer 9 beta). You'll see an interface that is borrowing from Chrome for messages, Firefox for download management, and even Windows for its ability to turn web site bookmarks into desktop icons reminiscent of applications. In short, there's a lot that's familiar.

IE9 has the benefit of coming to the market well after other browsers have been wrangling with how to deal with CSS3 and the incomplete HTML5 spec. IE9 only scores 96/300 at HTML5test.com, though that's up from 37/300 for IE8. Chrome 5 scores 217/200, Firefox 3.6 scores 139/300, and Opera 10.6 scores 159/300. IE9 does score an impressive 92/100 (or 95/100 if you believe the screen shot on the IE9 Test Drive site) on the Acid3 test (IE8 got a 20/100). Read up on more of the results at SitePoint, The IE9 Beta Review.

During An Event Apart in DC this week, there were multiple unsolicted (and seemingly surprised) tweets from the crowd that the audience was applauding IE9's CSS support. That's a huge leap forward from how IE has been treated in the past, and is certainly a better reception than most had expected.

That's not to say that Microsoft is off the hook yet. People will be paying close attention to every aspect of the browser and its progress as it nears a final release. In Microsoft, Please Stop This Madness, Kroc Camen takes IE9 to task for the HTML it generates for a jump list. While it's not a big issue, it's the kind of thing people will be trying to find. Given that this is only a beta, at least there's a chance these things can be cleaned up before final release.

Related

• How do we test a Web browser? (one year after) at W3C

IE9 Beta Coming, But Microsoft Just Wants You to Dump IE6

We're a week away from Microsoft's beta release of Internet Explorer 9 (public beta, not just a preview release aimed at developers). This release promises extensive support for another "beta" standard, the incomplete HTML5 specification. IE9 is also supposed to come with broader CSS3 support, SVG support, and even embedded audio and video support. All of these are to be expected, however, given how long it has been since the browser was updated and how long we typically wait for new versions. You may want to visit the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive page to see see how it fares in the Acid3 and CSS3 tests.

Within the last two weeks Microsoft has been posting and updating content in its guide explaining how to take sites that support primarily IE6 and convert them to support IE8: Addressing Application Compatibility When Migrating to Internet Explorer 8 at MSDN (build date: 9/2/2010) and at Technet (updated August 25, 2010). This is driven by the push to get business users and IT shops to upgrade to Windows 7, something many organizations resist because of the forced upgrade to IE8 from IE6. Given how many organizations built IE6-only proprietary support into their intranets and internal applications, their reluctance to rebuild those applications makes sense. Microsoft's browser-specific features from 10 years ago are holding up adoption of its latest operating system.

Let's quickly recap the timeline of Internet Explorer's release dates, and perhaps you can marvel at IE6's staying power, or probably just recognize that this geriatric browser exists in the wild solely because of Microsoft's push to get people to code specifically for it a decade ago (I lump IE4 and up into that push).

Internet Explorer version	Release Date
IE4	September 1997
IE5	March 1999
IE5.5	July 2000
IE6	August 27, 2001
IE7	October 18, 2006
IE8	March 19, 2009
IE9 beta	September 15, 2010

I am wondering how long before we get an IE8 to IE9 conversion support guide from Microsoft, and how long before the key message in that document is to just use web standards.

"Real World Hyperlinks" Article at evolt.org

You may be wondering what this graphic means. Perhaps it's your first time seeing it, but perhaps you've seen it here and there and not understood its significance. It is called a Quick Response Code, or QR code. If you've got a cell phone camera and a reader (many already do), then you can use this little guy as a hyperlink in the real world.

I've got more history, examples, suggestions, and even a glimpse at the competing code Microsoft is pushing all in my new article over at evolt.org: Real World Hyperlinks

RIP IE6 (Not Really, But Here's to Hoping)

CNN is reporting on a funeral today for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. The funeral is in Denver, Colorado, so I will not be attending.

That the mainstream press is covering this is good news — somebody out there in the non-tech world understands that is newsworthy, even if only to a niche audience. Not that the funeral is newsworthy, but that causes pushing for the demise of IE6 is newsworthy. Granted, this is not tied to any official campaign to kill off IE6, but it is a fun way to draw attention to an annoyance many of us face.

Many people (web sites, developers, forums, etc.) have been calling for the demise of IE6 in some way for quite a while now. Google joined the fray (Modern browsers for modern applications, from the Google blog) when they announced that they would phase out support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites as of March 1 (just a few days ago, the date on the grave stone). You can see other sites (far smaller, for the most part) who are trying to push IE6 out to pasture, just visit ie6nomore.com. Whether or not this will speed the end of IE6's reign is to be seen. Catch up on some anti-IE6 articles at Mashable using their IE6 Must Die tag. My post showing January 2010 browser stats broke down the IE versions thusly (what a fun and odd word):

Internet Explorer is the troubling one in the mix. IE8 is now up to 22.31% of the market, but IE6 still beats out IE7 (20.07% and 14.58%, respectively). That equates to 1 in 5 users is still surfing on IE6, known for its security holes and buggy rendering.

That I haven't seen this event fly through my regular flurry of tweets and RSS updates from web developers and developer sites is a bit startling, but this is a small, very local affair after all.

If you are interested in attending (and are in Denver), or just want to enjoy the humor, go visit the IE6 Funeral site. There is a Twitter feed (@ie6funeral) in case you are interested what I can only hope are live tweets throughout.

IE9 First Details

Microsoft revealed some first details of Internet Explorer 9 at the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference, as reported by Mashable today. Only in development for three weeks, there's still quite a lot of time before it gets to market. According to Mashable, Microsoft did have the following to say:

• On HTML 5: Microsoft was coy about whether it would support all of the HTML 5 standards, the next generation of HTML. The company doesn’t seem willing to commit to the standard until it is set in stone, but “wants to be responsible” about supporting it.
• On Javscript: They admit that their previous browsers don’t match the speed of Firefox or Chrome. However, it appears that IE9 looks to narrow this gap. From some of the data they presented, it looks like they’re getting closer to matching the other browsers (though they don’t beat them).
• On CSS Support: It looks like IE9 will finally get better CSS support, especially for rounded corners. It’s a disappointment though, when you consider the other browsers have supported these things for years.
• On Hardware Acceleration: IE9 will utilize DirectX hardware acceleration to improve graphic and AJAX rendering. It will push more work towards the GPU. This is actually looks pretty slick from first appearances.

While I can understand Microsoft's position that HTML5 is not set and therefore may not support everything in the barely-draft spec, some of the elements seem pretty well locked in with only minor syntax and rendering issues left to suss out. To that point, I hope Microsoft can at least work in that support. The CSS support is a whole different story. Given how long the CSS2 spec has been out there (since 1996), it would be nice if they'd commit to fully supporting it, even if they aren't yet sure about CSS3 support.

As Internet Explorer's market share is slowly eroded by Firefox, Safari and Chrome (on a trend that, if projected as a simple linear graph, would see IE go away by 2021), Microsoft is motivated to increase the overall performance of its next browser. Unfortunately, given the slow pace at which IE version 8 is being adopted over older versions (still at 34.1% of all IE installations after release March 19, 2009, versus IE7 at 37.6% after release October 2006 and IE6 at 28.3% from way back in August 2001), it is quite likely that even after IE9 is released it may be years before developers can rely on its features on public-facing web sites.