Internet Explorer and the XP SP2 RC2
How about that title, huh?
Microsoft issued Release Candidate 2 for the upcoming Windows XP Service Pack 2 last week. What makes this significant to some Web developers and designers is that it contains the updated Internet Explorer, with security in mind, and pop-up blocking included.
This morning I decided to install the SP2RC2 on my XP test machine and give the new browser a whirl. To download the RC, I had to first download an update to the Windows Update utility. After that was complete, it took about an hour (maybe a little less) to download and install the 110MB package.
Internet Explorer was the first thing I opened. Nothing really out of the oridinary as far as CSS and such goes. The IE 3-pixel gap is still there, as well as other things. Then again, improvements in support of standards wasn’t really the goal of this update. The big deal was improving security and adding some new functionality. The security updates will probably take time to shake out. I can’t really “test” those myself, nor would I want to.
The new pop-up blocker seems to work well. I have visited a few sites that are know for launching popups and it blocked them easily. It even passed the PopUpCheck.com test with flying colors. In fact, it even blocks the pop-up windows envoked by flash that Jeremy mentioned last week.
The only downfall to the pop-up blocker in my opinion is the way it notifies you that it has blocked a pop-up. It drops in what is known as the Information Bar. From the Information Bar Help panel:
If Internet Explorer default settings are on, you’ll see the Information Bar when a Web site tries to:
- Install an ActiveX control on your computer.
- Open a pop-up window.
- Download a file to your computer.
- Run active content on your computer.
- Run an ActiveX control on your computer in an unsafe manner.
If the Information Bar came down over the page you are browsing, I would maybe not mind it as much. Instead, it comes in at the top as if another toolbar as been added, bushing the page content down. For some reason, I have an aversion to browsers that shift the page around on the fly like that. Sure, Firefox shifts the page when the scroll bar dissapears, but that is while the page is loading and it doesn’t seem to bother me as much.
The Manage Add-ons panel smells of the Extensions panel in Firefox, but not as beefy. It basically lists any add-ons that you have installed, and gives you an option to disable them if you like. I guess this could come in handy if you wanted to disable Flash to test a detection script or something. The main drawback I see to the Add-On panel is that it does not give any descriptions of what the add-on does. The only two listed in my Manager were Flash and something called Windows Messenger, which I can only assume has something to do with MSN Messenger.
This updated version of IE seems like it will be worth getting. It will most likely tighten up security risks for users of XP and Internet Explorer. However, what will be done about IE6 users on Windows 2000, ME, and other Microsoft operating systems? I guess they can either upgrade to XP now or wait til 2006 and upgrade to Longhorn.
For more information and feedback, you can check out the sites of Jeff Davis and Tony Schreiner.
One last note: The only thing I have found that does not work with this release of IE is a calendar on our intranet that is used to select dates that work was done on. I think it was written using Drumbeat 2000, so I know it is extremely out of date. We are probably going to replace it with a Javascript-based calendar soon so that it will also work in Firefox/Mozilla.
I am sticking with Firefox.
