Firefox 4 beta arrives, HTML5 browser war heats up

Don’t look now, but the next wave of browsers is starting to roll-out. Just five days ago Opera shipped version 10.6 of their “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” web browser, and today Mozilla has followed with the first beta release of Firefox 4. Google continues to spin the versions on Chrome with v5 in beta and now rocking “native” Flash support, while Microsoft slowly works on churning out their return-to-standards IE 9 (begging for attention with their impressive hardware acceleration). And let’s not forget Apple, which released Safari 5 about a month ago at WWDC.

It has been about 6 months since browsers really stole headlines, but the entire arena of browser excitement has been gaining steam during the first half of 2010. Individual milestones from the browser makers have marked the road:

• Microsoft made (and continues to make) waves with IE9’s hardware acceleration, pushing the idea of browser performance reaching new levels by using more hardware.
• Google has arguably done the most to refocus the browser industry on performance, but it was the introduction of the open Web M video format that really surprised at Google IO.
• Apple has not done much to make Safari on the desktop more popular, but they have elevated the awareness (and power) of HTML5 by popularizing rich mobile browsers on the iPhone and iPad (and defiantly refusing to support Flash).

The world’s second most popular browser, Firefox, has not had much to say in the mean time, so the introduction of Firefox 4 beta finally rounds-out the browser conversation. Firefox 4 beta ships with a radically re-imagined (or quickly “borrowed”) tab experience, support for the new WebM video format, and the requisite improvements in support for HTML5 and CSS3.

Ultimately, the current wave of browsers is coalescing around competing on a few key “web battlegrounds:”

1. Performance – Chrome redefined the browser performance standard 2 years ago, and everyone (including Google) has been working ever since to go faster. The current wave of browsers is intently focused on faster JavaScript processing, faster HTML/CSS rendering, and faster browser startup speed.
2. HTML5 – The new wave of browsers won’t have 100% uniform support for the collection of standards that define “HTML5,” but there will be broad support for the core features that move the standards-based, rich web in to the future. Even Microsoft has set the bar high for delivering complete standards support in IE9.
3. Video – Yes, video. While a relatively small feature in the grand scheme, it is a contentious feature since it quickly derails “HTML5 is the future” conversations in to talking about the need for rich plug-ins (like Silverlight). The new wave of browsers is aiming to make video delivery on the web as familiar and uniform as static images.

For web developers and consumers this is a win-win situation. Browser makers are finally competing on meaningful features that will help reenergize web development in the same way Ajax did in 2005. If the makers can ship browsers that live-up to the promises, we’ll all be browsing the web faster and interacting with rich applications, previously the exclusive realm of plug-ins and client development.

The only challenge to this utopian future: legacy browsers. So why not do the future a favor and help an IE6 user move in to the “pre-future” today?

Telerik, of course, continues to test and commit to supporting the latest browsers as they emerge, both with our RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and our open source UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. I’ll provide more details on how we’re embracing HTML5 and the new browsers in future blogs posts. For now, give some of the latest HTML5, speed-demon browsers a test:

Download Firefox 4 Beta 1
Download Chrome 5 Beta
Download IE9 Platform Preview
Download Safari 5 (actually, not a beta!)
Download Opera 10.6 (if you just love being unique)

Google ending support for IE6 in 2010, Telerik support continues

If you develop for the web, you know IE6. The default browser that ships with Windows XP is the bane of any "standards-based" developer. For public web site developers, it adds days- if not weeks- to development cycles for testing and tweaking site functions to work in the ancient "broken" browser. If you work in a company still running XP and IE6, you may not notice the problem today, but eventually your sites will have to say goodbye to IE6, and with that transition will come your introduction to the pain the rest of the world has suffered.

There have been public initiatives for years trying to get companies (almost all "home" computers auto-upgraded via Windows Update to IE7 years ago) to ditch IE6. Sites like IE6Update.com and BringDownIE6.com try to educate and provide an easy upgrade path for users stuck on 6. But after more 9 years, IE6 still holds a 22% global market share (to IE7's 17% and IE8's 19% in Q409).

Many famous sites have already reduced support for IE6, calling it "unsupported" and providing a reduced or "non-guaranteed" experience. Apple, Facebook, and YouTube are some of the higher profile examples to-date. Now Google is turning-up the heat.

I received an email as an administrator of a Google Apps for Domains (Google's business-oriented service platform for its apps) account that included the following message:

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

In short, Google is ending support of IE6 for it's major business apps, like Gmail and Google Docs, this year.

This will clearly help accelerate the end of IE6's relevant market share, but it also opens some critical questions. Why doesn't Microsoft adopt the same aggressive stance for its own web apps? For Silverlight? Do you need to support IE6 in your own public web apps?

While we can all hope for a day when web standards will unify to a level that we can really embrace the power of HTML5, Telerik will in the mean time continue to support IE6, as we recognize that some of you may be "trapped" in IE6 organizations. This obviously adds a fair amount of overhead to our own development process since it makes adding new features more difficult, but we are committed to supporting the needs of our customers. While the rest of the world calls IE6 unsupported, Telerik continues to work hard to help you support it if you must.

But what do you think? Is IE6 still relevant to your development? Or can we all agree to join Google and make 2010 the year we say goodbye to IE6? Let me know. I'm always listening.

Keeping up with the browsers: Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4, IE 9

Want something to play with over the holidays? If you are a web developer- and I know many of you reading Telerik Watch are- then there is a new wave of web browsers just waiting for you to kick the tires. In fact, the next wave of web browsers may be here faster than you think. Firefox's next major release, version 3.6 (codenamed Namoroka), is already in Beta 4 and it is scheduled to ship in "late 2009" (a schedule that, if it is to be met, means RTW is imminent). Google's rapidly evolving Chrome browser is currently available in its 4th major revision on Google's beta channel. And at PDC last month, we started to get some early details about Microsoft's IE 9. As a web developer, it's critical to stay at the bleeding-edge of browsers, not only to ensure your applications remain compatible, but also to start exploring the technologies of tomorrow that will enable you to do more than ever with standards-based sites. Remember, if you build a standards-based website, the browser is your application delivery platform. Changes to browsers have a BIG impact on your application. As your resident beta tester, I've been running all of the latest browser betas full-time. What follows are some early impressions and highlights so that you can confidently jump start your own exploration of the future of the web. Continue reading to learn more about the future of web browsers

Firefox 3.6 (currently Beta 4 Beta 5) Arriving roughly 6 months after FF 3.5, Firefox 3.6 is primarily aiming at continuing what its predecessor started. That means faster browser performance; increased support for HTML5 and CSS3; and more "chrome" features for users. Mozilla explicitly states that goals for FF 3.6 include improving browser start-up time and time to complete actions at significant enough level that users notice the improvement (by Mozilla standards, that means > 50ms improvement).

Firefox 3.6 is now in Beta 5 (as of today), and should be shipping RC then RTW very soon. I've been using FF 3.6 full-time since Beta 3 and I have no complaints. In general, the browser does feel a bit "snappier" and I have not had any issue with instability in the beta. And the one critical hurdle for any new version of Firefox? Does FireBug support it. Fortunately for FF 3.6, it does. Other plug-ins, like the Web Developer Toolbar and Window Resizer, do not (yet), but with Firebug, I'm okay. (On latest check, it seems even WDT is ready for 3.6, so it looks like most plug-ins are getting ready for the big release.) Verdict: FF 3.6 is a good step forward for a browser known to be slow and it further helps make HTML5 a viable standard for web development. No reason not to upgrade now. Chrome 4 (currently Beta) If it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now. Google is versioning Chrome at pace designed to mock Gmail's 5-year beta. The fourth version (!) of the just-turned one-year old browser is now available as beta, and the biggest news for this release is that the browser is now available on the Mac and Linux platforms. In addition to new platform support, Chrome 4 is adding the much needed extension support (sorry, no Firebug for Chrome yet...only Firebug lite), built-in bookmark syncing support, and improved support for CSS (proven by passing the Acid3 test). For developers, Chrome 4- like FF 3.6 and the already release Safari 4- is continuing to push support for CSS3 and HTML5. This aggressive adoption of the "next generation" standards web gives hope that 2022 will just be bad joke from the W3C. We may be able to be plugin-less RIAs after all! The extensions support is nice, too, since it opens the door to putting Chrome on par with FF for developer productivity. Verdict: Chrome 4 seems more stable than previous versions, as fast as ever, and is shaping-up to be a more "developer-friendly" browser. The OS X experience is on par with Windows, though as a OS X Safari user, Chrome seems less necessary due to Safari's already fast performance. IE 9 (currently unavailable) Ah, Internet Explorer. How I used to love thee. Really. I was a hold-out back when Firefox started sweeping the globe, insisting that tabs were for A.D.D. and that IE was all I needed for browsing the web. All it took was a few months of doing hardcore CSS development against IE6 and then viewing those results in other "standards-based" browsers for me to change my mind. IE has been playing catch-up with the other browsers for years now, trying to break from the past and better support standards rendering in a fast, secure browser. At PDC 2009, Microsoft revealed some limited details about their next attempt to catch-up. They openly acknowledged in side-by-side comparisons that IE has room for improvement next to its competitors, and they suggested that IE9 will finally put Microsoft on par for both performance and support for handling standards like CSS3. They were less clear about their plans for HTML5, but we can only assume they'll be following the lead of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to provide as much support as possible. It's impossible to say much more about IE9 at this point since we only have a description of Microsoft's intent, but let's hope the bits rise to the challenge and do continue to right the wrongs of the past. I also hope Microsoft can find a way to develop versions of IE faster. Firefox and Chrome are showing how much faster we can adopt standards when we get used to auto-updating browsers every 6-months. If Microsoft could join that schedule, I think we'd see the evolution of web standards radically accelerate. Verdict: IE9 has a lot of promise, but so far that's all it's got. Wrap-up (There are other browsers...) On a parting note, I think it's worth at least mentioning the other two "major" browsers: Safari and Opera. Both of these browsers are a bit ahead of the curve at this point, with major releases already in production that support CSS3 and many HTML5 features. In fact, broadly speaking, WebKit (and thus Safari) is one of the leading engines for accurately processing these next-gen standards. Opera does have a Alpha preview of it's next major version (10.2), and as Opera tends to do, they are breaking new ground for a "browser." Instead of doing more refinement to their chrome (which arguably has been ahead of the game forever), they are now taking browser "applications" to the desktop with "Opera Widgets." It's cool, but it's Opera. History says- for whatever reason- that they just don't know how to find mass appeal on the desktop. Whichever browser you look at, the future is clearly headed in the same direction. All browsers are acknowledging the role they play in many daily computing activities and they are driving for maximum performance. All browsers are working hard to better support standards like CSS3 and HTML5. And all browsers are continuing to try to differentiate by building unique "chrome" features aimed at end users instead of trying to build proprietary rendering engines. The Browser War II is in full-swing. Isn't it fun?!

IE8 starting to roll-out via Windows Update

You've known it's coming. You've seen countless posts about its official arrival at MIX09. And now you can expect to see many of your "average users" adopt Microsoft's latest browser via the magic little tool known as Windows Update. On Friday, the IE Team (via their blog) announced that IE8 would start rolling-out as an update for the Windows user base starting sometime next week. As the IE Team so plainly put it:

"Starting on or about the third week of April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 will get will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over time to the entire user base. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the update will be High-Priority. On Windows Vista and Server 2008 it will be Important."

The IE Team goes on to say that IE8 will not be installed automatically. Users won't wake-up one morning and find their version of IE changed. They will have to opt-in to the install, but we all know many users "blindly" opt-in and say "yes" to dialogs from Microsoft. So, expect IE8 to rapidly replace IE7 and (hopefully) IE6 browsers around the world starting next week. You have made sure you site works in IE8, haven't you?

As a reminder, the Q1 2009 Sp1 release of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX fully supports IE8, so make sure you grab, test, and install that update if you need to gurantee IE8 support and you don't want to use the Compatability Meta Tag.