Internet Explorer 8 hasn’t long been on the market but Microsoft are working hard to make Internet Explorer 9 their best browser yet.
IE8 was released in March 2009 and was a big step forward and a welcome addition to the browser market for most web developers due to its better support of web standards and CSS2.1 support. However, there was also a lot of frustration that Microsoft were launching a browser that even on its day of release was still some way behind Firefox, Opera and Safari browsers.
CSS3 is the next big thing for front end designers and developers as it will make simple things like rounded corners and multiple background images much easier to accomplish without additional HTML or JavaScript workarounds. But despite Firefox and Safari showing initiative and creating support for these CSS3 features, in reality they’re unusable until the market leader (Internet Explorer) decides to implement them.
So it’s welcome news that Internet Explorer 9 will finally support CSS3.
For more information please have a read over on the Blogs.MSDN website.
Summary
Once again, it’s good to see that Microsoft are developing their browser and focusing on what the web development community want but the Internet Explorer browser seems to be falling further and further behind the other browsers with every release. What Internet Explorer are working on now is already available in Firefox and Safari so by the time IE9 finally hits the shelves (which I wouldn’t expect to be any time soon), the other browsers could be a couple of years ahead in terms of development.
How long will we have to wait for HTML5 video and audio support? CSS3 transformations? Instead of trying to catch up with the other browsers, has the time come where Microsoft should simply use the Webkit engine used by Safari and Google Chrome? What do you think?
God damn this browser race. It seems my FF is constantly updating and getting slower and slower as a result!
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Even when IE 9 is released, there will be quite some time before you can really start using CSS3 on your site. Usually it takes a long time for some users to upgrade to the newest version of IE. Even today only about half of the visitors to my site that use IE have upgraded to IE 8 — and that’s with help from Windows 7.
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I will be implementing all the CSS3 in my web design and they will degrade in IE. When users of IE see that sites look so much better with modern, compliant browsers then they will start to notice how antiquated the IE experience is. I for one hope Microsoft’s IE development team take a really long time to introduce CSS3 thereby nailing down the coffin lid on this backward, antiquated piece of software.