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Overview of Platform Improvements in IE8 RC1

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This is one of my favorite times in the product cycle. IE8 is platform complete and as we get closer to releasing the final product, more and more web developers and designers will take advantage of the browser’s features to enable scenarios we haven’t even imagined!

Since the release of IE8 Beta 2 we’ve listened to feedback from many channels including IE8 Beta Feedback, standards working groups and this blog. We’ve made thousands of platform improvements in response to both feedback, and from running the test cases that Jason Upton blogged about on Tuesday. The platform is ready to be built on. I want to give you an overview of web platform improvements since Beta 2, some of which we’ve already talked about and some of which will be covered in more detail in the coming weeks.

Compatibility

It takes time for web developers, designers, and IT professionals to migrate a site to an updated browser. Yet our mutual customers expect the web to look and feel the same after they install the latest IE version. We’ve built Compat View and IE7 Standards Mode to ease migration and allow web developers and designers to opt-in to IE7’s behavior while they upgrade their site. Since Beta 2 we’ve improved IE7 Standards Mode fit-and-finish such that RC1 is very close to the real IE7 web platform.

Interoperability and Standards

  • CSS 2.1. Layout interoperability with other browsers through the CSS2.1 standard has always been a top goal for IE8. Beta 2 supported all properties in the CSS 2.1 specification and passed over 3,200 test cases. We’ve made significant improvements since Beta 2 and this week’s RC1 passes well over twice as many test cases as Beta 2. For example, one of our favorite new features is IE8’s new support for High-Res layout, which we’ll blog about in more detail later. We expect very few changes between this RC and the full CSS2.1 support in the final product, which web developers and designers can use to write their pages once and have them rendered the same across browsers.
  • HTML, Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. Throughout Beta 1 and Beta 2 we’ve talked about how IE8 is much more interoperable with other browsers in core areas including attribute handling and element lookups like those through getElementById(). To help ensure future interoperability with other browsers and standards compliance, the Release Candidate includes the following updates, which we recently blogged about:
    • Mutable DOM Prototype includes the new ECMAScript 3.1 conformant getter/setter syntax.
    • ARIA supports the dash syntax “aria-checked” across all IE8 document modes. This means web developers can write code once that works across IE8 modes and with other browsers.
    • Cross-Domain Requests (XDR) now checks Access-Control-Allow-Origin header for a match to the origin URL as well as wildcards. As a result, data is only shared with sites whose origin the server specifies.
  • Performance. Similar to interoperability, better performance helps improve developer productivity. To this end, we investigated core performance scenarios and focused on optimizing common AJAX design patterns. Web developers and end users alike will experience performance improvements since Beta2.

Development environment

  • Developer tools. Beta 2 introduced more power with the JavaScript profiler, save to file, and console.log support. RC1 has dramatically improved stability and a much more accurate view of the HTML tree and CSS tracing. It also offers more flexibility by adding a menu option for viewing source with Notepad, the built-in viewer, or any other choice of viewer.
  • Documentation. We think good documentation and communication is an important part of the development environment. To this end, we have updated our Internet Explorer Readiness Toolkit and MSDN IE Development Center for web developers and designers to use as references. Stay tuned to the blog for much more detail on improvements we’ve made since Beta 2 and tips for upgrading to IE8 Standards Mode.

We take your feedback on critical issues very seriously and we know that behavior changes to the platform have the potential for broad impact. We intend to make few platform changes between now and the final product. We’ll be very deliberate about what changes we make and diligent about documenting and communicating them.

Please download the RC1 and test with confidence if you haven’t already. We’re very excited about the improvements we’ve made to IE8’s web platform and developer tools and even more excited to see how web developers and designers build on them to enable new, incredible scenarios! If you’ve already enabled a new scenario using IE8 features, leave a comment and let us know about it.

Marc Silbey
Program Manager

Update 10:15 pm: fixing getElementById() reference.  Thanks Gérard!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.clickandsolve.com/?p=1960

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    Now speaking of interoperability... RC 1 appears to score one less than Beta 2 on Acid3 (20 versus 21). What gives?

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    And by the way. I tried to post this in reply to "Upgrading to RC1" but then all comments were rejected and I don't know if anybody looks there now. It appears that IE installer is incompatible with Adobe Reader 9; see the discussion at http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?mid=5d8d0b83-d54b-4f9c-945e-66d83df66ffa&dg=microsoft.public.internetexplorer.beta. I can confirm this issue still persists for RC1. I think it's probably an Adobe bug, but I'd expect a mention of it in the release notes.

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    And by the way. I tried to post this in reply to "Upgrading to RC1" but apparently there was a temporal issue with posting then, and I'm not sure if anybody looks there anymore. Apparently IE installer is incompatible with Adobe Reader 9. See the discussion at http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?mid=5d8d0b83-d54b-4f9c-945e-66d83df66ffa&dg=microsoft.public.internetexplorer.beta. I can confirm this issue applies to RC1 as well. It's probably an Adobe bug, but I'd expect a mention in the release notes.

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    is there any news on whats after ie8 is microsoft working on ie9 or whatever post ie8 is called is there any idea on what it will include will it include any css3 or xhtml or anything

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    also from what ive heard microsoft has another layout engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Expression_Web why doesnt microsoft make ie9 use the expression web engine or a combination of it and trident

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    @ Marc Silbey > element lookups like those through getElementByID(). It is not getElementByID() It is getElementById() "Lower case 'd'!!" www.quirksmode.org/dom/w3c_core.html#t10 Regards, Gérard

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    Margins are not collapsed correctly in some cases: http://moneyshop.perso.cegetel.net/moneyshop/testcases.html Test case 3

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    Hi, it is definitely better and better. Ctrl+T however still opens a tab very slowly, which is very disturbing - I'm used to the instant Ctrl+T # Ctrl+V combo, but now I have to open the new tab, wait two secdonds, and paste whatever I want to open/search for. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2009
    Too slow too slow ! I don't understand why IE became so slow...Chrome & Safari Rocks... You should use V8 for the javascript engine. I think a lot of users will use IE if it were faster than Firefox....you should considere this (2 sec for tab opening...you kidding?) I don't use IE anymore since Chrome.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    I really hope that performance of IE8 will be much better since the only authorized browser at my work is IE.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Installed IE8 RC1 and subsequent Live goodies...  all working well.  On our systems, it is faster than FireFox 3.1 b2. I have one request, we need a password revocery/editor for IE. Since its wise to change page passwords, a method of recovering/editing/exporting the passwards saved would be extremely useful and wonderful.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Installed IE8 RC1 and subsequent Live goodies...  all working well.  On our systems, it is faster than FireFox 3.1 b2. I have one request, we need a password recovery/editor for IE. Since its wise to change page passwords, a method of recovering/editing/exporting the passwards saved would be extremely useful and wonderful.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Update: Uninstalled ie8 RC1 and now back at ie7 - all GUI delays gone. Fairwell, for now ie8; I REALLY look forward to your return as I'm already missing the address bar enhancements!

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    For those of you seeing slow tab open times, click Tools, Manage Add-ons. If you don't use an Add-on, disable it. The far right column of the Add-on manager will show load times. The worst offenders I've seen so far are the following: Research - unknown, but slows new tabs down for sure Java - about 1 second Norton NCO BHO - .77 seconds Norton Intrusion Prevention - .38 seconds

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Also, IE8 RC1 completely breaks the following website: http://www.byu.tv/

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Nice that there is a possibility to DISABLE add-ons. But how can I DELETE them.. Maybe something for the next version IE8.5. It would be great anyhow to release a IE8.5, only to update functionality, not related to the trident engine.. like UI changes and things like removing add-ons..

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Why does IE not respect the "Open links from other programs:  open new tab in current window" when clicking the email button in Windows Live Messenger?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    I have to access some sites that do not support anything beyond IE6.0  For those I use the User Agent String Utility v2.0.  Unfortunatly, that utility does not support IE8.  Will there be new version of the User Agent String Utility?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    @Jason: There are some cases (specifically, cases where IE is instantiated via COM) where opening new windows in tabs is not possible. @Jeff: The UAPick plugin here (http://www.enhanceie.com/ietoys/uapick.asp) can be used in IE8 RC1 to emulate any other browser or version.  I'm curious: are these sites on the public internet?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    For everybody who is having a slow new tab opening problem, disable the Java SSV Helper under add-ons. The Java console can stay, but the Java SSV helper is known to make tab opening extremely laggy. If you don't have Java installed, try running IE in no-addons mode, and see if it works faster - if it does, you'll just have to find out which addon is causing the problem.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    @Mitch 74: At 100% zoom, the "margin collapse" test passes in the current internal builds. Are you using a non-100% zoom?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    EricLaw: On the public IE8 RC1 build, test case 3 on that page will not pass on the first opening. You have to resize the browser window for it to pass. Tested in fullscreen mode, no zooming. Are you saying that this been fixed in later internal builds?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    I would definitly focus on tab opening speed. Beta 2 sometimes took 10+ seconds to open a new tab. RC 1 seems to take up to 5 seconds which is better but still irritates me to wait just to open a blank tab (and considering other browsers do it in 1 second or less).

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    @Jim: You almost certainly have one or more buggy addons installed.  How long do new tabs take if you start IE without addons?  www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp#crash On my computers, new tabs open in well under 1 second.   @Arieta: yes, the case passes on current internal builds at 100% zoom.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Webslices stopped working when I upgraded beta2 to rc1. Connection problem: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage. Not a firewall problem, cause I tried that already. Any ideas?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Hi I think IE8 is really great and I don't have any problems with it. It is definitely the best IE ever! Off course it would be nice if you would add CSS3 in it but still it is much better than IE7. I know that you don't plan a RC1 for Windows7 but I really hope that you would reconsider that decision because RC1 is MUCH better than Beta2 or whatever is included in Windows7 :-)

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Another thing: The WYSIWYG Html editor in IE (also in IE8) is producing very bad HTML. Wouldn't it be a good idea to borrow some from one of your other tools like Visual Studio or Microsoft Expression Web which makes really nice HTML? :-)

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Not that I'm complaining, but why are all browsers adding support for ARIA at this time? I'm aware of what it is and how helpful it is to those that need accessibility tools, but is the assistive technologies lobby (best term I can think for them) stronger with browsers than say, those pushing for SVG? Is it very little work on your part to add support for something like this (relatively speaking), compared to adding W3C DOM event handling? Again, I'm not digging Microsoft on their choice here because it is an admirable one, it just seems highly an odd one to me. Shameless request for IE9: W3C Range/Selection support! The differences between the W3C Range and the MS TextRange objects are much more difficult to work around compared to the difference in the event models (which are well documented and solutions for most cases already found).

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    I have a site: http://www.SilverlightCity.com That comes up with compatiblities issues and is forced to IE7.  The site validates on HTML, CSS and the Feed, so I have no clue what IE8 is having a problem with. It there any tool coming or perhaps a validation script that can give us developers feedback as to "what" is incompatible with IE8 mode? Rocky

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Thanks for a nice upgrade to the browser. I have one feature request for you: Allow the user to decide which side the scrollbar should appear on. With more and more touch and tablet devices and the growing number of left-handed individuals, it only makes sense to support those of us who prefer using the left hand. This is a major annoyance when surfing the web with a slate tablet PC.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    IE8 RC1 crashes on these simple little lines: http://thinkweb2.com/projects/prototype/misbehaving-ie8/ and IE8 RC1 is not ready for primetime yet according to Ajaxian (and anyone I've talked to): http://ajaxian.com/archives/push-back-digital-tv-or-ie-8 so the question is, when will RC2 be out?

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The slow tab opening (whether you claim it is a bug or by design) is unacceptable. The problem is not with add-ons either.  In every other browser, opening a tab is immediate.  In IE8 there is always a lag.  This better be fixed by the final release, otherwise you will continue losing market share because it makes IE8 feel extremely slow and clunky.  That is the reality of the situation.  Opening a new tab should be immediate.  Any lag at all is unacceptable.  

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Please consider adding extensive tests for your VML support. It's a shame (an embarrassing) to see that VML is still broken in RC1, and only works for the very simplest of cases with VML. Especially working with VML programmatically is buggy to say the least. Also annoying is that if you enter a URL in the address field right when IE has started up (but still not fully loaded because of the long startup time), IE will tell you that it can't complete the request.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    JP: my tabs open almost faster than I can click the stopwatch (200 milliseconds?).  How long do yours take with no plugins? As for specific plugins that are slow the following three [Java SSV, Windows Live Toolbar, Office Research] have all been mentioned as culprits.  IE8 has a cool "Load time" column in the Addon manager that tells you how long each takes.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    >In fact every user except EricLaw[MSFT] experiences painfully slow tab loading in IE New tabs open instantly on my end. Like I said, the only thing affecting them is the Java SSV Helper, which I've disabled. Have you just disabled all plugins, or did you run IE in it's no-addons mode? It's not the same thing.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    I took the advice Arieta gave about disabling that Java SSV Helper add on, and sure enough IE loads much faster and tabs open much quicker, less than a second. I just only wish I had known about that sooner.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Please make it so you can slipstream the final version of IE 8 with nlite. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=b4c79a08571a25e7c89f9765b7c92b5c&showtopic=127583

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Please make the browser opening time faster and the beta version on windows 7 causes a flicker on the taskbar when chaning windows. While competing browsers can work fast why not IE.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    @ windowsfanboy microsoft does not support nlite

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    element.addEventListener() stil not implemented :/

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Since the release of IE8 Beta 2 we’ve listened to feedback from many channels Apparently heard nothing about users wanting svg, canvas, css opacity, MathML, proper event handling. Need I go on, IE8 is a step in the right direction and people like me would probably stop moaning if the team could announce that they will continue to work at a similar pace on IE9 start adding requested features. This browser is not going to stop the continued decline of IE market share because it is still so far behind the rest.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Orl: it has been mentioned on this blog for many months, I think I first heard about it back in october.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    Orl: it has been mentioned on this blog for many months, I think I first heard about it back in october.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    IE8 RC1 performance / application locking. When IE8 RC1 is executing a long running Javascript loop there is a complete lock up of IE8.  You can't view the IE console/dev tool window if it is under the current IE window (which is always if it is detached for readability). In addition the statusbar says: "waiting for about:blank" which is obviously incorrect. Performance goes in the toilet with logging to the console in IE8 RC1... setting innerHTML in the current web page is much, much faster!

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2009
    oh one last thing... scrolling performance in the console log is dreadful. I'm not sure how it was developed but it needs to have some better off screen buffering/loading of content.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    I have noteced that with the latest version of the Skype beta having the IE add on turned add makes tabs open slowly. If I diasable the skype ie add on tabs open extremly fast.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    I have one simple wish.IE8 RC1 for Windows 7.(included beta has a lot of regressions and I cannot install obviously RC1 for older systems)

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    @Glen Fingerholz: Invoking console.log() generates a JS error in IE8 RC1. I read that link, but it's simply not true, unless of course I need to enable the console object. But, I've found no reference to that. Also, that link refers to JScript, which is NOT JavaScript, but rather Microsoft's implementation of JavaScript. I can only hope that's just an old reference and IE8 is not actually using JScript. IE8 is ramping up to be an EPIC FAIL.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    Apparently the console object only works after you open up the development tools and click on the Script tab, which doesn't make sense to me. What if a developer left some console commands in the code for the live site on accident? It'll generate an error, when there really isn't one.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    @ajaxwiz You are correct in that it does not work like the Firebug one. For some reason you have to open the developer toolbar or you get errors. It probably doesn't create the console object until the dev. toolbar is loaded. As for JScript, I can assure you that IE 8 uses JScript. They have not changed their JavaScript engine out /w JScript.NET or anything like that. IE 8 is a mixed bag for developers. We have better tools, and a better rendering engine /w IE 8 (and Fiddler was great /w IE 6 and IE 7 - much more powerful than what Firebug comes with), new DOM APIs (and corrections for old ones). We still don't have XHTML, the W3C JavaScript event model, a more compliant JavaScript engine (and "for each" would really be nice), SVG and/or Canvas. That said, fairly compliant rendering should be a huge time-saver.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    @Glen Fingerholz I agree. The debugger is a step in the right direction, but there is still a HUGE gap in standards/speed/features between IE8 and Gecko/Webkit. It's simply too little, too late. Microsoft is not catering to the developers, but rather the average internet user who can't tell the difference, users who will just use what Windows comes with and not really care. This leaves the developers out in the cold, as is usual for Microsoft. Although I'm sure all .NET programmers will be fine as usual. With the way things are going now, IE's market share will continue to decrease in favor of better products. If only the US would impose some of the EU restrictions on Microsoft so that IE becomes completely independent of Windows. But, I'm pretty sure Microsoft dumps a lot of money into preventing that from happening.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    About the speed of opening a new tab.  In my opinion, it should be instantaneous (like it is in firefox, opera, and chrome).  Even 0.2sec is too slow because it is a noticable lag and makes the browser feel unresponsive.   When I hit ctrl-T a new tab should come to the front immediately, and my cursor should immediately move to the address bar.  When I say immediately, I don't mean in under one second, I mean with no perceptible time lag.   In my opinion, this is the worst flaw in the user experience in ie8.  

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    Why does clicking "Delete Browser History" (select all) take Sooooooooooooo long to delete everything? I can do a full delete of my history, etc. in Firefox in less than 2 seconds. steve

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    @Those who complained about the developer tools: First of all, at least they are there to help a little bit.  It's a new feature, so it probably will have bugs.  In addition, the looks don't matter.  It seems to fit well with the browser's default theme, so does it really matter what it looks like?  The IE team is restricted in what they can do with it anyway because of Windows itself, unless you want them to use a bunch of custom images and everything to slow the browser down more (yes, I'm aiming this at those that complained about new tabs being too slow despite the fact that they are slow here, too). @Gérard Talbot: The documentation isn't there because it isn't needed for authors.  Authors should know how to fix these things.  After all, stylesheets, doctypes, etc. aren't a part of IE's problems.  They're the authors' problems.  The only standard that IE seems to want to follow is ECMAScript, aside from some RFCs regarding internationalization and the Unicode standard.  The W3C follows standards, and they also make use of their own recommendations.  Notice that I said "recommendations".  That's all they are; they are not standards.  None of them actually need to be followed.  IE implements some of them because they're useful (like CSS for example) and because they'd be dead already if they didn't. @IE Team: Great job with the new IE thus far.  Keep up the good work, and you might regain the share you lost to alternative browsers like Mozilla Firefox.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    Gotta concur with the other people complaining about tab performance. Browsers that are virtually instant in creating new tabs: Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5 (latest, /w around 18 extensions enabled), Safari for Windows 3.2.1 (latest). Still faster than IE 8: Google Chrome 1.0.154.46. 2 year old laptop with XP MCE, SP3. Intel Core Duo T2050 (1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB), 504 MB of usable RAM. No known malware infection. Not ideal (more RAM would be desirable), but fast enough (except for Visual Studio 2008, which is a DOG even on the fairly new, powerful machines we have at work - an unrelated rant). I would be more forgiving if I had the security enhancements that Vista and Windows 7 people get (and that it appears Chrome was able to implement in XP).

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2009
    <blockquote>No matter which or how many add-ons are enabled.</blockquote> New tab opening seems fast enough. Less than or close to a second and I have an AVG plugin enabled that takes about 0.5 of a second to start.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @EricLaw: Daniel's report does the trick. I can't test under Vista, so it may be a platform-specific (XP-only) bug.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
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    February 01, 2009
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    February 01, 2009
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    February 01, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @ajaxwiz > Also, that link refers to JScript, which is > NOT JavaScript, but rather Microsoft's > implementation of JavaScript. I can only > hope that's just an old reference and IE8 is > not actually using JScript. JScript is IE8's implementation of ECMAScript, not JavaScript. I can only hope that you also take issue with all of Mozilla's non-standard extensions to JavaScript, their implementation of ECMAScript.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @DT Yes, you're right. I only take issue with Microsoft's implementation because it's so slow.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    After disabling Research, Java (sorry Applet developers), and Acrobat-related plug-ins (leaving only "Diagnose Connection Problems" and "Report a Webpage Problem" enabled), creatings tabs was much faster. Most users aren't going to have that setup. In fact, most users are probably going to have more toolbars and BHOs installed (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Alexa, Ask!, McAfee, Symantec, MyWebSearch, etc) and enabled. Why doesn't Firefox have this issue? Or really... any other "major" browser?

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @EricLaw [MSFT] Re: 1> Either list the "naughty" addons that cause IE7 and moreso IE8 to open new tabs slowly, or refrain from trying to blame someone else s software. We've all tried IE7 and IE8 with EVERY addon disabled and the performance of IE opening a new tab vs. ANY other browser PROVES that IE is significantly slower. Then when you do enable the addons that you NEED to use on a daily basis to make IE a usable browser, the performance gets worse. Re: 2> If Microsoft really is working on fixing this issue with IE, then (cough, cough you've just acknowledged this issue again) please post an article here on the blog, indicating that it is slow and that you are working on it, and that it will be fixed before IE8 RTM ships.  If not this banter about rouge addons is just hearsay and a bunch of FUD to try and pull the wool over on us before the IE8 RTM launch. Only hAl, Dan & Ted the EPIC FAIL have stated that they think new tab opening speed is fine.  Considering their reputation (ms fanboys) I don't think the evidence from everyone else that there is a serious performance issue can be dismissed by blaming 3rd party software.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @jesse > Only hAl, Dan & Ted the EPIC FAIL have > stated that they think new tab opening speed > is fine. What about Arieta? And tabs open fine on my end as well.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    Hi everyone, Regarding the console object... The console object is only added when the tools are opened.  The best practice here is to check for existence of console and then provide a custom object (possibly just a no-op) if it doesn't exist.  This also accounts for any browser that doesn't support console.  I believe some libraries already do this. And hopefully the script errors generated will prevent unwanted console statements from accidentally ending up in live code. John [MSFT]

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    @hAL: Daniel basically took the test I created, isolated it on a single page and made it simpler (replaced unordedered list with multiple list elements with a single paragraph, replaced generated content with a thick border). His test is correct, and if anything "more correct" than mine because it's simpler and doesn't rely upon features added (generated content) or fixed (ghost spacing between unordered list elements) in Trident in this major revision. If it fails on your Vista machine too, then it's not platform-specific. I should mention that my IE 8 install is raw: there's no Java, no .Net, no toolbars, nothing installed on this machine apart from stock Windows XP Pro SP3, security updates and stock IE. Heck, there's not even third-party hardware drivers! It runs in a VM emulating either a Cirrus 5446 video card, or a plain VESA-compatible card (using Bosch's open VGA BIOS), and all drivers are Microsoft's. I'll try and create a new, fresh, no options install, and see if I can still reproduce this bug.

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    Not sure whether this would fall under "critical issues" (probably not :)) but here's a very simple bug:

<span id="s1" style="border:10px solid red;padding:5px;background:#bbb;">Incorrect offsetWidth returned for inline elements with border/padding set</span> alert(document.getElementById('s1').offsetWidth)

IE8 will not take into account the border/padding. Sorry for posting this here but, unfortunately, as far as I know, you still don't have a public bug tracking system ala Bugzilla..

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2009
    Addendum: just tested on a clean XP sp3 install (fresh off an Windows XP Pro+sp3 CD) + IE8 RC1, with no accelerator, no filters, no nothing (in fact, all UI improvements added over IE6/7 and asked for in the startup wizard have been deactivated).

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    @ vasko_dinkov Bug 389825: Inconsistent offsetHeight for inline elements connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=389825 Regards, Gérard

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    February 02, 2009
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    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    @Eric Law[MSFT] As I and many others can assure you, the performance of opening a new tab in IE8 is slow regardless of how many addons you have installed, or if you have any addons installed. However, if you insist that it is buggy addons that slow things down, then for pete's sake point the finger so we know which addons to remove. Likewise, when running IE8 in no addons mode, the link in the Tools menu to go and find addons that are causing trouble (e.g. to go delete them) is grayed out. You need to go into Tools > Options > Addons > Manage Addons in order to see them. Finally, please fix whatever is BLOCKING the DELETE button from being displayed beside ANY addon. I don't want to "disable" the "Research" addon, I want to throw it off a volcano into a pit of boiling lava.  It serves me no purpose other than to clutter my system and slow down my IE browser. Believe it or not, but in terms of IE development priorities I would put the IE Tab opening speed WELL above SVG, W3C event listeners and CSS rounded corner support... Well above. This is a performance issue that EVERY SINGLE IE User will encounter almost every day and in many cases several times an hour.

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    from the help tips at: http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp #5 Once you've found a broken extension, contact the manufacturer and ask for an update. Dear Microsoft, please make haste with Windows Update to completely remove the Research addon from Internet Explorer.  Feel free to do so with our without informing the MS Office team that you are fixing their code by removing it completely. Thankyou

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    Well it seems I've uncovered a rather large failure in IE8 RC1. The "Delete" button that was grayed out for extensions was actually on an IE7 install. In IE8, NO SUCH BUTTON EVEN EXISTS! so there is NO WAY TO REMOVE an extension (Good or Bad) =========================================== I see this as a monumentally major issue. =========================================== How do I ever remove a spyware toolbar if it gets installed? Even if I open IE with extensions turned off, I have no way to delete them. What about extensions that I need one month, but not the next? (Citrix anyone?) Adding and removing addons should be JUST as easy as it is in Firefox. At any time I can pick an extension and disable it, customize it, or uninstall it. steve

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    Steve, if you spent more time looking into things and less time ranting, you might get more respect. The "Delete" button was renamed "Remove" and it's now behind the "More Information" link for each addon inside Manage Addons.  It's not always enabled because sometimes you must run an uninstall program. A spyware toolbar isn't going to support standard unregistration with the Delete command anyway.  You use anti-spyware programs to remove malicious software.  Of course, you should probably try to avoid installing malware in the first place. You can almost always uninstall legitimate IE plugins using the Add/Remove Programs control panel. It's true that Firefox has a much different, less powerful, non-COM extensibility model.  They have to, because they run on platforms other than Windows.

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    @Daniel - a few notes: 1.) I've submitted a bug in connect for this: https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=410121 2.) Yes you are right, there is a "Remove" button burried deep inside the the addons dialog interface.  However there is no non-grayed "Remove" button available for any IE addon in my list (maybe yours is different?) 3.) Case in point, there is no item in the Add/Remove programs list for "Research" nor "Microsoft Research"... I have to "know" that it is burried deep into the Microsoft Office Tools application and that I need to "Change" my MS Office install to find and remove the "Microsoft Office Research toolbar" in order to fix this. 4.) I don't expect a spyware toolbar to provide a "delete" option, but I DO expect IE to provide one for me. IMHO the install should unconditionally fail, if an un-install is not provided. 5.) I don't believe that anyone is claiming that Firefox's extensions are "less powerful" (nice try).  I have many extensions for Firefox that IMHO provide more power to me as an end user than any addons I have for IE. 6.) I'm pretty tech-savvy compared to most windows users... if I had a hard time trying to find out where to delete extensions... how will the average joe user find it? steve

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    @EricLaw [MSFT]: I agree with steve_web, IE tab opening speed should be top priority.   Tabs opening in under 1 second is not good enough.  They should open instantaneously with or without add-ons (just like every other browser).  

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    vasko_dinkov, You're correct, our offsetWidth is right for blocks but wrong for inline elements. Good catch, thank you !

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    For people with slow tabs: You have something wrong on your end,because tabs slowly opening are only in two discreet cases: 1)computre is overloaded with applications.Not MS fault. 2)there is big bad javascript running in multiple tabs. I have never seen otherwise problem you describe.Tabs are loading (in numbers when instructed to) in a matter of miliseconds,there is no room for improvement.(Yes the only addons are orbit downloader,Sun Java and Adobe Acrobat reader plugin) First look for problems on your side,not in IE.Maybe you managed to damage XP or Vista.(Like manual fixing of problem going wrong) But I need IE8 RC1 for Win7.Thats the only thing missing...

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    Thank you for posting information about the platform improvements. However, I was hoping to find some information about about any changes to HTML+TIME (XHTML+SMIL) in IE8. Perhaps somebody from Microsoft could blog about this topic. I have not seen the animateMotion or transitionFilter elements work in IE8 RC1 regardless of which compatibility mode I try. I'd like to see some assurance from Microsoft that these will be working when IE8 is released. I'd also like to know whether IE8 will still support SMIL 2.0 or a more recent SMIL specification. After reading the Improved Namespace Support document, it sounds like developers will not have to use <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:t="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:time"> and <?import namespace="t" implementation="#default#time2"?> in web pages ... they should be able to replace these with <html xmlns:t="http://www.w3.org/2001/SMIL20/"> and IE8 would then use the preinstalled time2 behavior. It would be helpful if somebody could confirm whether that will be the case. Thank you for your time.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    @Gerard, re: bug 389825. You are right, this bug was not fixed in the RC build. The issue will be fixed in the final release. Our apologies.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    About tabs opening slowly, it is not something wrong on our end.  It seems to be the implementation in IE.   When I hit ctrl-T, I first see a tab opened in the background that says "connecting".  Only after time lag (sometimes slow and sometimes fast, but never instantaneous as in other browsers) does that tab come to the front and the cursor move to the address bar.   I would be perfectly happy with the following solution.  When I hit ctrl-T, IE should instantaneously bring the new tab to the front and move my cursor to the address bar so that I can type.  I don't care if something is connecting in the background, I just want to see the new tab immediately and I want to be able to type immediately.   Showing a tab "connecting" in the background, as IE does now, is pointless and annoying (yet that seems to be able to appear almost instantaneously).  That visual step should be removed.  All I want is for the new tab to be the focus and my cursor to appear in the address bar and I want that to happen as fast the background tab "connecting" appears now.  I don't understand why that is not possible and why it hasn't been implemented that way.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    JP, I don't know why you have such a hard time understanding this.   Poorly-performing addons get loaded on every new tab and result in the problem you're seeing.  When you don't run the bad addons, you don't have the performance problem. The IE guys made a special mode that fixes this problem, called No Addons mode.  Run IE with -extoff, and watch your problem go away. Of course, you could just disable or uninstall the bad addons and get the same effect, but for some reason you don't seem to be getting that message.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    Too many fanboy can't see the truth. Run Firefox and Safari and you'll see that IE runs pathetically slow. Safari opens tabs instantly but there's always a delay with IE. IE is so slow that opening a new window in Safari is faster than opening a tab in IE. NO excuses. All other browsers do not have this problem. Blaming add-ons is just smokescreen. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if this never gets fixed. Microsoft has a habit of keeping minor, but annoying bugs unfixed for a very long time. But don't lose hope. Maybe this will get fixed in IE9.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    Tabs in IE are opened in separate processes as a security measure. It might explain why it takes longer than in other browsers.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2009
    @Marc Silbey, EricLaw [MSFT] and others > We take your feedback on critical issues very seriously Here's one which is rather serious, I'd say. Load www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/col-can-make-webpage-blank.html and test thorough the page: move the mouse in and out of <body> height (or from chrome, say, status bar to window viewport and vice versa) after zooming in or out, after clicking Back or Forward buttons. Depending on your setting "Automatically recover page layout errors with Compatibility View", RC1 build 18372 will indicate that it is struggling with the page... or the whole page will become blank. Developer tools will also show some troubling issues with original code: <col></col> becomes in dev. tool <col/></col/> which is unusual and unexpected. More on all this in bug 409478 Regards, Gérard

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    I agree with Gérard bug 409478 https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=409478 is a fairly major rendering glitch. That and the bugs with offsetHeight, offsetWidth, iframes not firing resize events for Vertical size changes, new tab opening speed, the ability to delete addons and various chrome and zoom issues. Has there been confirmation on an RC2 release yet? or is Microsoft just going to "hope" that they've fixed everything and go RTM to let developers start testing/porting their code to work in IE8. Yes, start. There are too many bugs in RC1 that us developers are expecting to be fixed for us to start coding workarounds for. (where even possible)

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    @MAx Chrome launches tabs in separate processes as well, and it does so instantaneously. IE is the only browser that can't create tabs with consistent speed.

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    Alahmnat, funny, Chrome is the only browser that doesn't support extensions.  Coincidence?  No.

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    i realy see no reason for being excited about IE8, fact is that dev team or doesn't get enough resources (coders and/or time) or MS itself doesn't realy put much attention to its browser since users will get it no matter what kind of garbage it is... since IE 5.5 i dont see any improvement put in IE and worst thing is, you guys put new numbers on it, change the GUI and some little things under the hood and VOILA its NEW and BETTER... no it is not... you "solved" security in IE7 (and updated 6) on easiest and lazziest way possible: just block any possible script... im just saddened that users will NOT see or "experience" good IE untill maybe version 15, but by then i guess it will again be passed by other browsers...

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    Steps: Load www.gtalbot.org/BugzillaSection/DocumentAllDHTMLproperties.html 1- scrollWidth must always be greater or equal to clientWidth: that's by definition (MSDN and CSSOM: www.w3.org/TR/cssom-view/#scroll-attributes ). So here, RC1 build 18372 has an implementation bug and a regression in comparison to IE 7 and IE 6 2- Clicking the [right to left] radio button makes scrollLeft becomes -28 . That was not so in IE 7 and IE 6. Regression. 3- Clicking the right to left radio button should increase clientLeft of the width of the vertical scrollbar (eg from 24 to 41; if I have Display/Appareance tab/Font size: Large Fonts, then from 24 to 43) That was not so in IE 7 and IE 6. Regression. Regards, Gérard

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    Jeffrey I too get the maxed out CPU when dragging windows even if IE8 isn't running at the time. This suggests that some core GUI-related Windows core files do get updated with IE8 which explains the reboot. Interestingly, examining Task Manager, the extra CPU cycles are being used by: a: The application whose window is being dragged b: Any applications that the dragged window is being dragged over This suggests to me that video hardware acceleration has been turned off much like in Safe Mode and the applications are having to continually report to the GUI what it should be displaying during each rendering frame of the desktop.

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    Re earlier comments I notice a pile of dlls which have been updated in the System32 directory with the IE8 install , including some related to DirectX eg dxtrans.dll. I also noticed while in system32 that scrolling through the directory maxes out CPU and the scrolling freezes. Going to roll back and see if it fixes

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2009
    IE8 incredibly slow executing Javascript.

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2009
    Rolling back had no effect so I'm guessing it is standard behaviour, it is the same on another PC running IE7 which has never been upgraded to IE8 RC1. Apart from the slow tabs (probably due to all the toolbars loading in a new process, I added up the time of all of mine in the manager and it was more than 10s) the main annoyances are slow screen-rendering when scrolling and occasional "Diagnose connection" pages coming up when IE7 or Firefox have no problems. Also it kills off my auto-updating Active Desktop.

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2009
    James,you really seem to discount possiblity I mentioned.I do not see that you have really investigated it.(I did,since I saw performance before and after and behaviour after was same as you and others described) I suggest to use Proccess Monitor or similar tool to capture activity in IE processes. And btw. there is some probability that some update or change to affected part of registry(or dll) will solve it.Since all dlls are loaded on per-tab basis such corruption or badly behaved dll can cause it.It solved it self before I was able to do full investigation,but PM showed some problems,start by those.And that is indicated by IE NoAddons behaviour(same). And last be sure to disable ANY process/services which are interacting with IE.(AV,monitoring tools when not needed and such including services!) -Thats why I say IE team cannot do with it anything.

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2009
    @Klimax - As several people have noted IE8 is slow opening tabs with or without extensions, under condition x or y, etc. I've started a bug report in connect with some real data from environments I have with and without extensions loaded etc. (once I find somewhere to host them, I'll share the tools I used to track each browsers performance also) I've shared these with some developers I associate with, and they all return similar results. See the bug report for details. 411584 https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=411584 As for the "better" performance with no addons loaded - that may (or may not be true) but the Reality is that we are all going to have them loaded, and/or need them, so a no-addons mode for daily browsing just simply is not an option.

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2009
    I'd like to express my thanks to the team for the CSS improvements, particularly the page-break code. It has been a life saver!

  • Anonymous
    February 07, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    February 07, 2009
    Time taken for blog comment to be submitted: () Very Fast () Pretty Fast () Average (*) Slow () Very Slow

  • Anonymous
    February 07, 2009
    Please, please, please ditch your terrible trident rendering engine and just use Gecko or Webkit.  You have made web developers' lives a nightmare for so long.

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2009
    @steve_web: OK.Only for comparsion(I forgot to include last info) it was measured on compaq nx7300.(Core2 duo with 1,5GB RAM) Your report has interesting results.Few details are however missing.What addons in each cases were,if any other software likely to interact with any browser was running(AV,Spybot and such) and specs of computers. I will test out my main PC with your EXE.(IE7,Core2 E4600?,1GB RAM,XP SP3,PATA HDD 250GB) And BTW this was missing in other reports pon this blogs. Thank you.

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2009
    Tool referenced in the link by steve_web is done against english version and does not work on IE with other languages.(regardless of version.) Will try to correct at least for czech version.

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2009
    Tool referenced in the link by steve_web is done against english version and does not work on IE with other languages.(regardless of version.) Will try to correct at least for czech version. (So far max was 269ms and median 109ms in row of 10 tabs,in already loaded browser on Win7,Lenovo R500 - core2)

  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2009
    Without addons (X) Very Fast With addons (X) Average

  • Anonymous
    February 09, 2009
    @Klimax - hey, sorry about the language thing (one forgets sometimes about the other lang installs) In particular I noticed that the VERY FIRST tab created after the browser is opened takes quite a while. (e.g. not the homepage that is loaded, but the new tab created right after that) I'm not at my normal office so I can't post any hardware specs ATM.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2009
    When I enable the acellerators, I get an error on every website of "The instruction at "0x..." referenced memory at "0x...". The memory could not be written. Click on OK to terminate the program. Click on Cancel to Debug the program. No matter what you do, you end up in a circle that requires "ctrl alt delete" "terminate program"

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2009
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  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2009
    The comment has been removed