Microsoft are surely still commited to IE, and there certainly werent any browser wars, per se. There's only so much focus the developers can get from the company I think, and
their main objective recently has been security - to get people trusting the products
since that trust seemed in jeopardy perhaps .... now the focus has perhaps
moved too tightly (though strategically) to security and the browser
'evolution'* is slowed as a result (There may actually be a wider lesson in
that).
It can't actually be all that hard to program a browser to be
secure in terms of the nuts and bolts, things like AMD's new stop
executing code instruction (at the x86 level, close to the metal) will help no doubt, but basic programmatical
rules (about memory heaps and so on) can't have changed all that much
even if development tools have. Security would involve compiler
design issues, development environment issues, and code design issues. I think that Internet Explorer ought still to be supporting the evolution of the internet with support for standards including CSS... and working support at that.
When so many people use a browser, one can't just stop developing it whilst disaffecting many of the developers who are encouraging people to use that
program, with mistakes like broken CSS support.
It might be interesting to note that if a netscape model of sharing the development with volunteers was
taken up, people would i think happily fix the browser so others could
use it and develop for it with less trouble.
Work-arounds such as having to serve a different
version of a particular site to different browsers have been around a
long time now and I dont think developers will be getting any fonder of
them, as at the end of the day making them is not a good use of time.
I also want to make a general point about security with regard to the
internet. It seems to me that the problem of encryption has basically
been cracked, with the use of highly encrypted deployments of the HTTPS protocol,
and certification of sites. That means as of now well implemented
e-commerce solutions, perhaps using 2 PCs to physically seperate
sensitive data from publicly accessible systems, are as trustworthy as
the people at the company which utilises such an ordering system.
The problems that can lead to people trying to exploit security holes
in software are the self same problems, i think, that cause
difficulties of social exclusion and lack of understanding of and
empathy for people. Sites like this certainly help since through this
medium it's clear that everyone is applying themselves and there's
really no need to be malicious towards others. In this context browser
security might be seen as in fact a transient problem, while the
internet presents a great opportunity (thoroughly utilised, so far) to
increase understanding between people(s).
For example, before watching a video on this website I might have
absent-mindedly underlined that word, while now i'm sure that wouldn't
be as easy to absorb that way. The medium remains quite extraordinary!
Just bear in mind that the developers are making the medium.
*I always find it hard to talk of evolution of something that when
it comes down to it is a very functional tool. Many people probably
have but the word is simply incorrect and misleading in the context of
software applications, in my opinion, as those are actually developed
by brainpower rather then, say, heredity. I meant it's not keeping up
with the changing uses of comparable tools.
Naveen
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