And so Microsoft have changed their mind…
They weren’t going to release a new version of Internet Explorer until
Longhorn, but now they’ve turned around and the first beta is expected
this summer.

So what will it contain?
My hope, as a developer, is of course that they implement better support for the W3C recommendations, especially when it comes to CSS.
Internet
Explorer has unfortunately held us back quite a lot, especially as of
lately when basically “every” other web browser on the market has got
better support for it.

Unfortunately I don’t think quite a lot will change in the upcoming version. Microsoft themselves have said
that they probably won’t do much about the CSS support: “We could
change the CSS support and many other standards elements within the
browser rendering platform. But in doing so, we would also potentially
break a lot of things.” Personally, I don’t find this to be a sound
attitude, kind of like “Everyone has been allowed to code the wrong way
so far, so let them keep on doing it forever.” Eric Meyer, the king of
CSS, has written an interesting post about this.

Then,
of course, I hope that they prove me wrong, but it seems that they will
“just” improve security and maybe add tabbed browsing.

I
would also like to point out that my opinions isn’t about acting
rebellious against the giant Microsoft, to me it doesn’t matter if the
name of the best web browser is Internet Explorer or Firefox (or, by
all means, Safari). I personally changed to Internet Explorer when the
lousy Netscape 4 hurt the market SO much, and then to Firefox when it
turned out that Internet Explorer was just stagnating.

The
ultimate situation would be if all web browser vendors made sure they
follow the existing recommendations, and then it would be up to the
user to choose the the web browser that offers the interface and extra
features that they prefer.
Basically, it’s like that right now, except for Internet Explorer that are lagging 3-4 years behind the others…

Of
course Microsoft’s decision is understandable from a business
perspective. Security flaws can make users to stop using Internet
Explorer out of fear, but better support for, for instance, CSS is
scarcely a motivator for the home user.

But the hope still lives that they fix EVERYTHING! 🙂