This is a story/review told in pictures of the new IE10 for Windows 7.
Here is the major reason for switching out of IE9 -its abysmal HTML5 compliance:
IE9 scores 138 while the leading browsers score well over 400 points
For example, Google Chrome is at 468 out of 500 on the HTML5test.com benchmark. As well IE 9 has proven to have the persistent case of the IE Curse when using advanced JavaScript and CSS3. That IE Curse means though the HTML app works fine in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and even the upstart Maxthon browser about 30% of the time an app does not work in IE9. And given IE9’s very poor score on HTML5 compliance as seen above [ditto for CSS3], the percent of nonworking HTML apps has been slowing inching up for IE9. So time to switch. Here is that story.
The download of IE10 from Microsoft was uneventful until the following:
I did not pass the loyalty test – and will be subject to future discipline despite this.
The road got rocky again after download and start of install:
But holding my tongue and stomach were the marching orders for the day.
And I seemed to be rewarded – IE10 on Windows 7 did not lose any HTML5Test.com points over the Windows 8 version of IE10:
Still well behind Chrome’s 468 score on the same test on the same PC. The CSS3 tests were less conclusive with IE10 showing average performance as did the other browsers.
But on the JavaScript tests the new IE JavaScript engine appeared to score well:
Clearly IE 10 bests by a fair margin Chrome’s JavaScript engine in many of the Webkit-based tests.
But Google’s Octane test of “real world” JavaScript seemed to tell another story:
Here the results for IE10 are less than 1/3 the Chrome performance. I took this with a grain of salt, because tests various complex EXTjs, jQuery and mootool based routines showed Firefox and Opera to be ahead of the pack and in some cases by a wide margin.
And in fact these HTML app tests proved once again, that IE10 is subject to the Curse. Simply stated, about 20-40% of a Web developers time is spent discovering errors in HTML+JavaScript+CSS apps that work fine in all of the other major browsers but NOT in IE. Here is just one of 4 examples in the 12 apps tested with IE10 for Windows:
IE10 fails to run a jQuery based app.
that Chrome [and Safari and Opera and Firefox and Maxthon and … run right]:
As a web developer I am sick and tired of this guff. For over 10 years Dean Hachamovitch and the IE Team have been cheerfully telling Web Developers what wonderful improvements they have in store for users in the next version or update of IE. And year after year, steadfastly with every IE version, the browser falls dismally short. There are now experts in applying hacks to get around IE shortcomings and still IE falls short.
Is this a deliberate Microsoft strategy to sabotage Web tools coming from the top or does Steve Ballmer need to call in a no-nonsense top executive like Steve Sinofsky or Bob Muglia to straighten the IE Team out? Ooops no Steve or Bob available.
This is like negotiating with the Chinese over controlling the North Korean nuclear and long range missile programs. Since China supplies nearly 70% of North Korea’s energy and nearly half of the North Korea’s food supplies, they have the negotiating power to severely curtail if not stop outright North Korea’s illicit programs. But the Chinese see a greater advantage in having North Korea soak up US and Allied military resources while preventing the South Korean super capitalism [think Samsung, Hyundai, Kia, LG, …] from spreading to North Korea and putting key Chinese industries out of business.
So I have to believe the IE curse is deliberate because it defends the Windows core just as the fiercely proprietary iOS development tools [Java and Flash and other cross platform tools are prohibited] do for Apple and its mobile iDevices. What a way to ruin a brand! Microsoft’s only excuse may be that other side does nasties too.
So until the following table of browser market share changes drastically:
| Source | Chrome | Internet Explorer |
Firefox | Safari | Opera | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StatCounter | 36.52% | 30.71% | 21.42% | 8.29% | 1.19% | 1.87% |
| Wikimedia | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| W3Counter | 30.0% | 27.5% | 20.0% | 14.8% | 2.3% | 5.4% |
| NetApplications | 17.49% | 55.14% | 19.94% | 5.24% | 1.75% | 0.20% |
| Source: Wikipedia | ||||||
– like IE market share falling under 10%, Web Developers and their corporate employers will be victims of this damnable IE Curse.