Microsoft takes aim at Firefox and Google with IE8

The feature in Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft's latest browser upgrade, that has tech reviewers buzzing today is Microsoft's patent-pending "InPrivate Browsing" -- a way to surf anonymously without recording a search history. It also turns off the tracking of cookies or form data or any of the flotsam that gets cached on our computer as we hop from site to site. According to a lively back-and-forth debate among readers on The Wall Street Journal's Business Technology blog, the "InPrivate Browsing" feature also results in faster downloads. (This reporter cannot yet vouch for this. I'm on a Mac, and Microsoft is limiting downloads of the beta version of IE8 to Windows users.)

While the "InPrivate" feature appears ideal for those wanting to mask their browsing tracks -- hence the nickname "porn mode" -- it could also, some argue, sink the business of targeted advertising, Google's main revenue earner. There is some rationale for this. Despite steady defections, IE, depending on where you live, is still the dominant browser by at least a two-to-one margin. If web surfers get into the habit of browsing in stealth mode, ad-targeting data is bound to misfire, or, worse for Google, not turn up at all.

IE8 is also Microsoft's answer to the upstart Firefox, which has been steadily eating into IE's once-dominant market share for the past three years. In Europe, Microsoft IE's share of browser usage fell to 65 per cent in March, according to Xiti Monitor, the last month for which head-to-head figures are available. That same month, Firefox in Europe topped 28.8 per cent of the market.

Firefox's market share has since grown to more than 30 per cent, thanks to the successful launch of Firefox 3 in June, Xiti Monitor adds. Mind you, IE is faring much better in North America, where it has a 73 per cent share, Net Applications reports. Still, IE has fallen a long way from its 90 per cent dominance in 2004 and 2005.

There's a lot riding on IE8. After years of neglect, it's good to see Microsoft finally innovating in this vital area of software design. Even if it is meant just for Windows users.

Comments

[Scot Richards]

Sorry but can't see this being patentable since I'v been blocking Google for years. I've been running IE in a sandbox and using Ad Muncher to stop advertising coming in. I haven't seen an ad on the Internet for years - and my connection runs about 3 times faster.

The amount of productivity time that's wasted by 'served' advertising is far too much. Every time I want to open a webpage, Google needs to look up my profile, decide what type of ad they think I'd like to see today, look it up in a databse and then ship it off to me. Meanwhile my web page is sitting there waiting for Google. No more!

If Google wants to make money by selling my eyeballs to advertisers then they are going to have to share the revenue with me. Otherwise I won't have any advertising in my browser at all. It's all possible today and not at all difficult.

Thankfully, I think Google's days are numbered.

[George]

How can Microsoft patent something that's been in Apple's Safari web browser for years?

[Andrei]

Google doesn't track data this way.

They don't need access to your PC.

If a site is about "chairs", you will see ads for chairs.

If you search for "dogs", and visit a site that shows dogs, you will see ads for dogs.

In fact, inPrivate mode may even make search results worse - Google prefers basing your search results on your location. If your IP is giving them a different continent, you may end up with foreign language results, when all you want is the local movie schedule.

If Google says "the reason why your results are poor is because you have inPrivate mode switched on", then everyone will just switch it off. More people prefer getting the right results rather than fussing about their IP (which they probably don't understand).

[Rob Crowther]

> How can Microsoft patent something that's been in Apple's Safari web browser for years?

It's also been in Firefox and Opera for years, though in both you have to turn the individual settings on and off. What IE8 has added is a menu option which turns all the settings on and off with a single operation. Of course, there are several Firefox extensions that do this already too, so it's hard to see what they're going to patent, but it wouldn't be the first time a dumb patent got awarded.

A bit of a shame that all the press seems to be about this one feature when there's so much more stuff in IE8 which is far more important - like the improved standards support. In the second beta they've also made the 'Render like IE7' option a toggle which can be used at any time while browsing rather than requiring a restart of the whole browser. There's also a neat preference option to always use IE7 mode for intranet sites, for me set to on by default, which gets round the main objection for having 'standards mode' enabled by default for the browser.

I'll not be switching to it as an everyday browser - not least because I do a lot of my everyday browsing on Linux, but as a web developer I'll be much happier if IE8 can soak up all the IE6 and 7 users.

The line in the above post - "Microsoft is limiting downloads of the beta version of IE8 to Windows users" seems to imply there will be a Mac version down the line. This sounds very unlikely to me, and I've not heard anything else about a Mac version - does Bernhard know something about this or was this just a mistake?

[Stu]

If you're on a Mac, Safari already does Private Browsing - no history, cookies or caches stored, and downloads disappear from the downloads window once they've completed. Look for the option in the Safari menu, it's unimaginatively titled 'Private Browsing'. I don't see how Microsoft could jump to the bandwagon late and then manage to patent the idea - there's clearly prior work in at least one already-shipping product.

I'm sure there's Firefox extensions to do the same thing, too. There's a couple of ad-blocker extensions for both already, including PithHelmet for Safari which does a load of other stuff on top of blocking ads.

Regardless, Microsoft have a long history of 'taking aim' with products that haven't been released yet. The gulf between what they promise and what they actually release is traditionally expansive.

[david joots]

I think the real question is how 'tracked' data is used. If we want resources on the web to be largely 'free to use', then we have to accept that site owners need revenue to run their sites.

So what the likes of google needs to work on is 'targeting ads' that are applicable to me. Not just loads of random ads. I have no problem with ads being targeted at me for services/offers that might be useful for me.

But at the moment this seems like a pipedream. and i have to put up with annoying 'floating ads' + i can't remember the last time i purposely clicked on an ad on a site. So obviously something isn't working.

David
http://www.joot.co.uk

[Emily]

It seems Microsoft is trying to kill three birds with one stone with the latest release of their Internet Explorer browser. IE8, dubbed “Porn Mode”, boasts a wide array of unprecedented browser based privacy controls for internet surfers.