Hello, 2015. Goodbye, Internet Explorer?

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s ubiquitous but infamous web browser, may be on its way out. According to a recent report, Microsoft may be preparing to say goodbye to Internet Explorer as part of its Windows 10 push, building a new browser that could compete with Chrome and Firefox.

Such a development would not only see Microsoft building a lightweight alternative to Internet Explorer, but enable it to start over without the years of negative perceptions that the company’s traditional browser has as its legacy.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that while there’s been word for some time now that Microsoft would make some big changes to Internet Explorer when it rolled out Windows 10, her sources say that Microsoft is actually building a new browser, codenamed “Spartan,” which is not Internet Explorer 12. Microsoft is reportedly building Spartan as a new, lightweight browser.

The desktop version of Windows 10 will ship with both Spartan and Internet Explorer 11, though Internet Explorer will be there just for the sake of back-compatibility. Foley’s sources say that Spartan will be available both for the desktop and mobile (phone and tablet) versions of Windows 10.

Spartan will feel more like Chrome or Mozilla Firefox than Internet Explorer, and will reportedly support extensions. Sources say that it will use Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine and its Trident rendering engine, not WebKit.

Foley notes that at this point, “Spartan” is simply a code name for the browser, and her sources don’t know what Microsoft intends to call the browser when it debuts. She explains that in a Reddit Ask Me Anything, the Internet Explorer team hinted it had contemplated the possibility of changing the name of Internet Explorer just to get users to realize that the current, more standards-compliant version of the browser has significantly changed since the older, proprietary versions.


Read more: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/technology/goodbye-internet-explorer.html/?a=viewall#ixzz3NmW9hX8e

 

[AWS]

Good move. IE, even though since v9 has been pretty good, it has a bad rep and suffers from not being very extensible. I hope that it grabs the eye of devs so that we see some of the good Firefox addons ported over.

 

[Rich-M]

I agree Bob. IE has always been to stiff and unbending and that's where the other browsers have always excelled with giving the public what they want so I am excited about the change.

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

I don't like the look or the feel of either Chrome or Firefox so I am thinking I probably won't care for "Spartan".

 

[Rich-M]

I think it is in your head as FF is very much like IE these days. Chrome I can un derstand anyone not liking as the interface is really spartan and I had to force myself to use it.