More details about Microsoft’s next version of its ailing browser have been released, in the build-up to the second beta release due next month. The first beta, released in March, was aimed at web developers. It brought much-needed improvements to standards compliance, along with negligible reliability and inconsistent performance.
Beta 2 is aimed at a general audience; not just web developers who need early access to IE8 to find out what breaks (and what finally works), but a broader audience including IT staff evaluating the next browser version so they know whether to deploy it as well as end-users who just have to run the latest version of everything even if it isn’t quite finished yet. As well as the all-important standards compliance, IE8 brings a raft of new security, reliability, and management features. The official IE blog has described some of these already, and on Monday gave more details about what to expect in beta 2.
With IE8, Microsoft is attempting to solve one of the most annoying problems with today’s multi-window, multi-tab browsers; namely, the disastrous effect that a browser crash has. It is an unfortunate feature of most browsers that a crash in one tab takes down the whole browser instance. Whether the cause is a bug in the browser itself, a malicious script, or a badly-written plug-in, the effect is the same; not only does the tab that caused the problem disappear, so does the tab with your half-composed forum post, the train timetable you need to get home, and the audio stream you’re listening to.
IE8 tackles this by separating each tab into its own process, a feature it calls “Loosely Coupled IE.” Starting IE8 actually creates two processes; one process for the window frame, address bar, toolbar, and tab bar, and a second process for the tab itself. Subsequent tabs may also open in new processes. Running a tab in its own process allows that tab to crash (for any reason) without disrupting any other tab. This feature was present in Beta 1; in Beta 2, Microsoft has worked to reduce the overhead it causes and improve its performance. For example, now the processes creating the window frames are merged, so starting IE several times will only create new tabs in the existing frame.
The ratio between tabs and processes is not exactly 1:1; although this provides the most isolation, the ratio of processes to tabs will depend on machine capabilities. This process separation also resolves a major annoyance in IE in Windows Vista. In Vista, sites in different zones cannot be open in the same IE window. A file opened from the hard disk cannot coexist with a file opened from the Internet; instead, two different IE processes are required, one for each security zone. Because IE8 uses different processes for each tab, this restriction is lifted; different security zones will still use different processes behind the scenes, but they will be able to share the same window.
The final piece of the puzzle is Automatic Crash Recovery. As with LCIE, this was present in Beta 1, but has been improved for Beta 2. ACR is designed to improve the experience when the the inevitable occurs and a tab crashes. Instead of losing everything you were doing in the tab, ACR restarts the process and restores the tab’s context—in Beta 1, this meant it opened the same URL and kept the back/forward browser history.
ACR had promise in Beta 1; however, it neglected to recover the most important things—text entered into forms, and session cookies. Without these, the experience is a little frustratring; the browser reopens the right page, but you find yourself logged out and with your half-written e-mail gone. Beta 2 fixes this by recovering both form data and session cookies. This means that Beta 2 will be able to put you right back where you were before the tab crashed, with virtually no interruption.
As well as being incomplete, ACR in Beta 1 was not itself particularly reliable; it was easy to make the browser get into a never-ending cycle of crashing, restarting, recovering, and then immediately crashing (because the URL being recovered caused the crash in the first place). Microsoft has not said anything about whether this will continue to be a problem.
Of course, while better handling of crashes is no bad thing, it would be even better for the browser not to crash in the first place. Microsoft has long had an (opt-in) system for reporting crashes and hangs back to the company—Windows Error Reporting (aka, Watson). This data allows the company to locate bugs and determine which are in need of the most attention. On the blog, the IE team stated that they have committed to fixing the top 50 percent of all the Watson errors they have; this should provide a significant boost to reliability.
When IE8 is released later this year it will undoubtably be the best version of Internet Explorer ever. IE’s competition is improving all the time, and gaining in popularity, and—at least when it comes to standards compliance—is already superior today to what IE8 will deliver later in the year. Microsoft’s uphill battle to stop the rot and turn IE around is far from over.
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Posted in Internet, Microsoft, Software | 1 Comment »
With 28 million Nintendo Wii consoles sold around the world it is no longer possible to declare its success a fad. But can Nintendo sustain its phenomenal momentum?
Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata is humble enough to admit that even he had been surprised by the epidemic-like success of the Wii console.
He told BBC News: “It was so fast. We knew the Wii was the right direction for the company. But the question was always how many years it would take to find success.”
The answer was two years. In that brief time Nintendo has dramatically altered its fortunes in the home console business, while at the same time maintaining, and even improving, its dominance in the handheld gaming space with the DS.
Play time
The change of fortunes began when Mr Iwata took over as president of Nintendo in 2002, only the fourth man to hold the position since the company was founded 109 years ago.
Speaking to BBC News at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) In Los Angeles, he said: “Five years ago when I was appointed I thought that if we didn’t do anything but took the same route there would be no bright future for the entire industry.
“So we decided we needed to increase the number of people gaming.
“We started thinking about people who weren’t playing games and asked ourselves why they were not interested. And why had some people stopped playing despite playing in their youth?”
The solution was not a rush towards a high definition games platform targeted at the hard core gamer but remembering the simple pleasures of playing with family and friends.
The Wii console introduced a mass market of gamers to motion-sensitive play, replacing the button-laden controller with a wand that could direct action with the flick of a wrist.
Within weeks of the Wii’s launch people were taking their new console around to the homes of friends and family, and word of mouth quickly spread.
“It was so fast because those who appreciated the new attractions of Wii must have been those who used to play video games. And these people were telling friends and family about the console.
“People who first started playing with the Wii were so excited that they had to spread the news.”
History lesson
The success came after the perceived disappointment of the GameCube, which finished its lifespan behind the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in terms of global sales, selling 22 million units over seven years.
Nintendo had tried to compete directly with Microsoft and Sony and failed.
Its resulting and ultimately successful move was to realise that the market of people who could play games but were not was much bigger than the market of those already playing games on a regular basis.
“It was somewhat out of the boundaries of common sense for the time,” said Mr Iwata.
“From the perspective of people from outside the industry it might have looked like a gamble. But I do not think it was a gamble at all.”
One of the original criticisms of the Wii at launch was that the underpowered machine would increasingly suffer in comparison to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as the machines went through their lifecycle.
But Mr Iwata dismissed talk of a console lifespan as nonsense and somewhat irrelevant.
“After all, the primary concern is not to let consumers purchase hardware but to enjoy software,” he said.
Future fun
But that did not mean Nintendo was not already thinking about life beyond the Wii.
“However hard our software developers try to create new and unprecedented titles with great ideas eventually there will be a day when devs will say they have no more means with that hardware.
“That’s exactly the time we need to introduce people to new hardware. We do want to be flexible about this,” he said.
“We just don’t want to decide upon a fixed lifecycle of any platform.”
Addressing another criticism of the Wii, Mr Iwata said it was a “misunderstanding and misconception” to say that the console was struggling to attract support from developers outside of Nintendo.
“The number of third-party titles for Wii is actually more than what is available for other platforms.
“And in the initial launch platform period for any platform, the third-party software titles for Wii are outselling any of the third-party titles for other platforms.”
Nintendo remains the home for some of gaming’s most enduring franchises and icons, from Mario to Zelda and the success of the Wii has ensured they will remain part of the landscape for some time to come.
But there were no details of any new Mario or Zelda titles given at the recent press conference held by Nintendo to highlight its plans for the months ahead.
“At this E3 we had to focus on software for the mass audience and software that will be sold in this year or next.
“This one of the rare opportunities to reach out to mass audiences around the world.
“In order for us to create a new Super Mario game or Legend of Zelda game that can cater to the strong demands of core gamers around the world it takes two to three years.”
While its competitors battle to become the multimedia hub for the digital living room Nintendo is determined to continue on its course of “putting smiles on people’s faces”.
He said: “All we have got to do is carry on. People are going to get tired of new proposals. We have to offer them new proposals before they do.
“We really want to keep surprising people,” he said, then added: “It’s not easy at all.”
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Posted in Gaming, Hardware | 1 Comment »
Yahoo is introducing new technology to its search engine which will warn users if they are about to click on a website that hosts viruses, spyware and spam.
SearchScan uses security firm McAfee’s SiteAdvisor technology to warn users about “potentially risky sites”.
The service, which is switched on by default, produces an on-screen alert.
“Our goal is to protect users by allowing them to make a more informed decision about the sites they visit,” said Yahoo’s Priyank Garg.
Rival firm Google introduced similar technology in 2006.
Yahoo’s service will warn users about three types of risk:
- Browser exploits: Sites that can harm a user’s computer or install malware simply by visiting the site. Any such sites or pages included in McAfee’s data will be removed from search results automatically.
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Dangerous downloads: SearchScan will display warnings next to search results for sites that offer potentially dangerous software, such as viruses, spyware or adware.
- Unsolicited e-mail: SearchScan will alert users to scanned sites that send unsolicited e-mails or inappropriately share e-mail addresses with third parties.
Viruses, spyware and adware programs are often “hidden” inside innocuous-looking programs such as screensavers and toolbars.
Industry analysts IDC estimate that 67% of all computers have some form of spyware installed without a user’s knowledge.
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Posted in Internet, Security, Yahoo | No Comments »
