Is that when IE7 is coming out? IE6 has been out ages now... my home PC came with IE5 and that was an ME PC at the end of 2000.
IE6 came out in October 2001 at the same time as Windows XP, Windows ME came with IE5.5. Despite the version numbers, both browsers are just updates to IE5.0 which came out way back in 1998.
From what I've heard, Microsoft are going to take the integration of IE and Windows to it's logical conclusion and thus IE will no longer exist as a discrete entity. Thus whilst you may be using a browser developed as 'IE7', and will probably still continue to click on an icon called 'Internet Explorer' to launch your browser, you won't consciously be aware of having a specific version of a specific program as you are now.
MS have allready started doing that with the existing IE6 - only users of Windows XP and Server 2003 will get upgrades to IE6, users of older Windows versions will only get security updates now. So allready, the current IE for Microsoft's latest and greatest is a different IE (with a different version number and copyright date and all) to the current IE for everything else.
The browser is ages old but it doesn't alter the fact that many sites break in non-Trident browsers.
Indeed, Trident is old, and Microsoft have let IE's development dwindle somewhat in recent years, but that said, I happen to think that Trident was the best engine going at the time and despite it's age I think it's lasting perfectly well and isn't crying out to be replaced - I certainly don't think it's obvious to the casual user of a bang up to date IE6 in Windows XP that they are using technology that's 7 years old.
Trident was the engine which made me ditch Netscape (something I never though I would ever do), it was the engine which made IE a decent web browser, and despite the existance of newer and more efficient engines, I don't think the continued use of Trident is particularly hampering, and even though it won't be retired until 2006 at the earliest, I still don't see that as a problem.
In Trident, Microsoft demonstrated that if you take the time to get something right, it will last. And it has.
that's not the point, it's holding back development of the web by having such a poor engine.
'Holding back development of the web?'. The web has changed beyond all recognition in the 7 years that Trident has been around, yet Trident is still fast, and there is still no website which Trident can't access (except some created by alternative browser diehards for no reason other than to prove that it can be done). Internet content is getting richer and richer, and the only thing I see holding back development of the web is the time it's taking to roll out fast connections to the masses - not the Trident engine.
Given that at present the majority of internet connections are still made through 56K modems, and that 'broadband' can only be assumed to be a still fairly paltry 512Kbps connection, surely you must concede that internet content can't evolve much more until the connections are to speed, and that it is the speed of connection holding back the web more than anything else?
I don't think MS can really afford to keep IE7 till Longhorn as they have already lost about 5% to Firefox alone since 1.0 came out. By the end of next year the alternatives may have eaten away a larger chunk than they can recover from.
You genuinely believe that Firefox has taken away 5% of IE's users - overall that would mean that 6/7% of internet access is done by Firefox! Have you seen the latest browser usage projections? The only meaningful competition to IE6 is older versions of IE! Microsoft is competing only with itself! All other browsers continue to hover at such negligable figures that there is no question of IE being toppled, and no reason why the present Trident-powered IE won't last until 2006.
