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Looks like MIX10 will bring information on Internet Explorer 9.
From the MIX10 website:" As General Manager of the team, Dean Hachamovitch is responsible for the design, development, and release of Internet Explorer. We welcome Dean back to the stage as one of our MIX10 keynoters in Las Vegas next month. After all, what would our premier web conference be without a browser update!? Dean will talk about changes and improvements that have been made to Internet Explorer 9 since PDC09, and his talk is sure to include a couple of surprises. "
Continue At Source http://live.visitmix.com/News/Internet-Explorer-9-at-MIX10
This week, Net Applications released their January browser market share report. Their report shows that Internet Explorer 8 is not only the most popular browser on Windows with 27.9% usage share, but that it now has 25.6% of market share across all OS’s on a worldwide-weighted usage share basis (data provided by Net Applications). We launched just less than a year ago, so it’s both humbling and thrilling to see so many people choose our product so quickly – making it the most popular browser of choice worldwide.
There are many reasons people choose which browser to use. Most people want to know and trust the company behind their browser. And people are looking a browser that protects them – and their privacy online. In an August 13th, 2009 post on the IEBlog, we announced Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter had hit over 80 million malware blocks. But that was back in August. As of today, Internet Explorer 8 has done over 350 million malware blocks. You can see Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter in action in this blog post. Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter blocks malware over 2 million times a day.
Continue: Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World’s Most-Used Browser - Windows Experience Blog - The
In what is becoming an increasingly common move, Microsoft this week caved to more demands from browser maker Opera by agreeing to further change the proposed browser-ballot screen it will provide in European versions of Windows. Now, the order in which the alternative browsers are presented will be randomized so that the most popular browsers won't always be listed first.
This development provides Opera—which controlled just 1.5 percent of the web browser market in October, well behind all other browsers—with an artificially prominent spot on a list that, quite frankly, it shouldn't even be included in. But Opera, of course, was the company that first complained to the European Union (EU) about Microsoft's allegedly anti-competitive behavior, and Opera now is treated as an equal to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, companies that make browsers that are actually used by a measurably large audience.
Continue: Microsoft Makes Further Concessions to Opera in EU Case -RSS
Windows Internet Explorer 8 offers features to enhance the online holiday shopping experience.
Microsoft Corp. and eBay Inc. today announced they are partnering to offer eBay Daily Deals through a new Internet Explorer 8 Web Slice for the holidays. With most holiday shoppers looking to save money, Microsoft and eBay will present online Daily Deals through a new Windows Internet Explorer 8 Web Slice that will showcase popular products selling at deep discounts. Customers will receive continuing updates and detailed information about these Daily Deals for eBay, all within the Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8.
“With almost 200 million live listings, the eBay Marketplace is second to none when it comes to holiday gift options,” said Rob Chesney, vice president of buyer and seller experience, eBay. “This season we are making it even easier for Internet Explorer 8 users to find amazing products at deep discounts with the eBay Daily Deals Web Slice.”
With online shopping expected to increase this season, Internet security is a key concern for consumers. In direct response to customers’ needs, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 with built-in security protection. A study by NSS Labs shows that Internet Explorer is the leading modern browser in malware and phishing protection.
“Our customers tell us they want a browser that puts them in control of their security and privacy, and those are key ingredients to a positive online experience,” said Amy Barzdukas, general manager of Internet Explorer and Consumer Safety, Microsoft. “The eBay Daily Deals Web Slice is just one more great reason to upgrade to and use Internet Explorer 8 for all your online holiday shopping.”
The holidays are a fun time to surprise friends and family with gifts from the heart. The InPrivate Browsing feature in Internet Explorer 8 allows consumers to shop online without leaving information behind for others to find on shared computers. InPrivate Browsing allows the user to control whether or not Internet Explorer 8 saves the browsing history, cookies, temporary Internet files and other data.
For enhanced holiday shopping online, eBay and Microsoft offer customers the opportunity to find the best Daily Deals through the innovative use of Internet Explorer 8 Web Slice. Internet Explorer 8 delivers the features that Internet users want, making the browser faster and easier, while increasing security and privacy — for online holiday shopping and beyond. eBay will also launch a “12 Days of Deals” promotion along with an exclusive Mystery Deal featured each day of the Daily Deal from Nov. 27 through Dec. 8.
More information on Internet Explorer 8 and the eBay Daily Deals Web Slice can be found at http://ie8.ebay.com.
Channel9:
The IE team is busy working on the next version of the world's most popular browser. IE 8 is the most widely used browser on Windows. IE 9 is currently in the oven and the IE team is ready to talk about what they're working on. Here, IE GM Dean Hachamovitch leads us through the halls of IE (literarally) and takes us to meet graphics developer Christian Fortini and test lead Anjali Parikh. They're taking IE to a new level with all graphic rendering taking place on the GPU via the DirectX technology D2D.
So, IE 9 will take advantage of the power of the GPU for all page rendering and, further, enable web developers to exploit this power in ways they already understand (CSS, DHTML, JavaScript). The increase in performance and smooth rendering is stunning as you will see in the demos that are part of this conversation. This is incredible news for web developers and web surfers. IE 9, surfing the GPU!
During a minute-long video, Parton says she "wouldn't know a gigabyte from a snake bite. But the folks over at Microsoft sure know their computers." She goes on to say Microsoft checked out her "new" Web site and "turned us on to a little thing they call Web Slices."
According to a Microsoft representative, the software giant showed Parton's Web team "the new features in IE 8 and Silverlight, and they liked it so much, they wanted to implement it on their site."
Parton's site now features a three-tab Web Slice that includes her video diary, news on her career, and the option to buy some of her music. The Microsoft representative said in an e-mail that the software company "wasn't involved in the production or scripting" of Parton's Internet Explorer 8 endorsement
Application security vendor Cenzic today released its security trends report for the first half of 2009 application. In it, Cenzic claims that the Mozilla's Firefox browser led the field of Web browsers in terms of total vulnerabilities.
According to Cenzic, Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities reported in the first half of 2009. In contrast, Apple's Safari had 35 percent of all reported browser vulnerability, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was third at 15 percent and Opera had just six percent share.
The 2009 figures stand in contrast to Cenzic's Q3/Q4 2008 report, where IE accounted for 43 percent of all reported Web browser vulnerabilities and Firefox followed closely at 39 percent.
As to why Firefox's numbers were so high, Cenzic has a few ideas.
"It's a combination of different things," Lars Ewe, CTO of Cenzic, told InternetNews.com. "They've gotten more traction as a browser, which is good for them and the more you get used the more exposure you have. As well a fair amount of the vulnerabilities have come by way of plug-ins."
One key area that Ewe said was responsible for a number of reported Firefox vulnerabilities is with how the browser handles plug-ins.
"The plug-in architecture that they have is a selling fact for the browser and one of the reasons why I love using it," Ewe said. "They can't control security aspects of all the plug-ins and the vulnerabilities are a side effect of that."
Full story: Firefox Tops Vulnerability List - InternetNews.com
This update resolves issues introduced in a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer, (KB974455) which was announced in security bulletin MS09-054.
Download at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=976749
From The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) Update released for MS09-054:
Today we released an update 976749 that addresses two issues with MS09-054 that a limited number customers reported to us through our Customer Service and Support (CSS) group. These two issues can affect the proper display of web pages. For additional details, please refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 976749.
Security update MS09-054 was released as part of the October Security Bulletin Release cycle and protects against the vulnerabilities outlined in the bulletin. Also, we’re not currently aware of any attempts to attack the vulnerabilities.
While the number of customers affected by these two issues is limited, after working both with affected customers and our CSS group, we feel the best thing for all customers is to proactively provide this update as widely as possible to help prevent other customers from encountering the issues outlined in the KB.
Because of this, we plan to release this update through the same broad release channels as the original security update, MS09-054. Customers will see 976749 offered by default through Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and Automatic Updates.
Customers who have applied MS09-054 should go ahead and apply 976749. Customers who have not yet applied MS09-054 should apply both MS09-054 and 976749.
There’s more information on the update and the issues it addresses in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 976749.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 is more effective at blocking both phishing sites and socially engineered malware than Firefox, Safari and other browsers, say two new reports from NSS Labs. Microsoft is pushing its community to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 and 7 to the new browser, which it says can offer better security and features, even as users continue to use the older applications. Once the dominant browser, the Internet Explorer franchise has lost ground in recent months to open-source Firefox.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 Web browser is effective at blocking both phishing sites and socially engineered malware, according to two new NSS Labs reports. In turn, this has led Microsoft to push for its users to upgrade to the new browser from IE 6 and IE 7, which a significant portion of the community continues to use.
During a 14-day test period, NSS Labs, an independent online security-testing organization, found that the mean block rate for phishing for Internet Explorer 8 stood at 83 percent, versus 80 percent for Firefox 3, 54 percent for Opera 10, 26 percent for Chrome 2, and 2 percent for Safari 4. In the final report issued by the group, Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 were in a virtual dead heat when it came to blocking phishing URLs, given that NSS Labs’ margin of error was 3.96 percent.
It should be noted that the NSS Labs testing was sponsored by Microsoft. In comments posted online, NSS Labs president Rick Moy suggested that Microsoft's security engineering team had originally commissioned the study, whose results were then picked up by Redmond's marketing department for use. However, a number of sources online, including Ars Technica and The Tech Herald, feel that Microsoft's sponsorship could have introduced a biased element into the study.
The testing also found that Internet Explorer 8 needed an average of 4.96 hours to add a requested phishing URL to its block list, while Firefox 3 took 5.24 hours and Opera 10 Beta needed 6.19 hours. The mean time for a browser to block a site was 16.43 hours, a number exceeded in testing only by Safari 4, which needed an average of 54.67 hours to put a site on its block list. Full Story at eweek
Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web. If this proposal is ultimately accepted, Microsoft will ship Windows in Europe with the full functionality available in the rest of the world. As requested by the Commission, we will be publishing our proposal in full here on our website as soon as possible.
While the Commission solicits public comment and considers this proposal, we are committed to ensuring that we are in full compliance with European law and our obligations under the 2007 Court of First Instance ruling.
As we said June 11th, we currently are providing PC manufacturers in Europe with E versions of Windows 7, which we believe are fully compliant with European law. PCs manufacturers building machines for the European market will continue to be required to ship E versions of Windows 7 until such time that the Commission fully reviews our proposals and determines whether they satisfy our obligations under European law. If the Commission approves this new proposal, Microsoft will begin work at that time to begin implementation of it with PC manufacturers.
Continue At Source
For those of you who manage your organization’s desktops using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Internet Explorer 8 will be made available via this technology starting August 25, 2009. Internet Explorer 8 will be made available as an “Update rollup” and will be applicable to all supported languages.
Is my organization affected?
If your organization uses WSUS and has it configured to auto-approve Update rollup packages, upon acceptance of the Internet Explorer 8 End User License Agreement (EULA) by the WSUS administrator, Internet Explorer 8 will install automatically on computers running Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on supported operating systems.
What should I do if I auto-approve Update rollups but want to control when I deploy Internet Explorer 8?
To give you control over how and when Internet Explorer 8 is deployed in your environment, perform the following steps:
Before August 25, 2009:
After August 25, 2009:
Microsoft will offer European customers an "Internet Pack" that includes IE8 when they buy a retail copy of Windows 7, which will be sold sans browser, the company said late last week.
Although Microsoft announced last week that it will ship Windows 7 minus Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) -- the move was prompted by accusations from antitrust regulators that the company's bundling stifles competition -- it will essentially give retail customers the browser, albeit separately.
"There will be a [Windows 7 ] Internet Pack available to consumers who buy [the full packaged product], a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed, talking about the various upgrade editions that will be sold to XP and Vista users.
The Windows 7 Internet Pack will also include Windows Live Essentials, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft who was briefed by Microsoft on its plans. "There'll be some sort of display at retail," said Rosoff, who added that retailers would either give away the Pack or charge a nominal fee to cover the cost of the media.
Full Story At Source
Today, the Internet Explorer Team took over New York City’s Time Warner Center and San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza where local artists used food cans to create sculptures of the Empire State Building in New York and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. After the sculptures are completed, the cans will be donated.
It’s all part of our Browser for the Better campaign. Turns out that during the school year over 17 million U.S. children receive free or reduced-price breakfast and lunches at their schools. But once the school year is ends and summer begins, these children longer receive this benefit as they are no longer in school until the fall. In response, we are joining forces with Feeding America to help these children this summer.
For every completed download of Internet Explorer 8 through the Browser for the Better website, we will donate the financial equivalent of 8 meals to Feeding America’s network of 206 local food banks. These food banks supply food to more than 25 million Americans each year! The Browser for the Better campaign starts today and will run through Aug. 8, 2009.
To also help kick off the campaign, the Browser for the Better website is hosting a series of new viral videos staring Dean Cain and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait which highlight features of Internet Explorer 8. Here is one of the 2 videos available today with 2 more coming soon!
As we described on Monday, the IE8 in Windows 7 RC includes additional tab “hang” reporting functionality. This functionality relies on a timer threshold to determine when a tab might be unresponsive. This threshold was calibrated based on data from internal Microsoft users.
As we began to look at data coming in from real-world Win7 RC users, we noticed that some users are being prompted to recover from hung tabs more frequently than some would like. We stated on Monday that if the data suggests that too many users are being prompted too frequently that we would publish an update to resolve the issue.
Based on the data we’ve seen so far, today we are publishing an update that turns off the additional tab hang reporting in Win7.
The upside here is that we now have a wealth of data about the real issues that users encounter every day, and we are going to continue to work hard to address responsiveness issues up until and after Win7 RTM.
More information about this update can be found here.