'Net Features : internet explorer

TheFind and IE Launch New Shopping Platform

Allison Howen — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Could this be the future of online shopping?

A new partnership between TheFind and Internet Explorer has brought social discovery to print catalogs – resulting in Glimpse, an HTML5 Web site that is a combination of two popular apps from TheFind.

Glimpse combines the social sharing and shopping capabilities of TheFind’s Facebook app (also called Glimpse) with Catalogue, the company’s popular paper catalog tablet app. The site’s layout is similar to Pinterest, but it also displays and enables users to interact with catalogs from big name retailers like Lands’ End, Alloy and Moosejaw.

Each catalog is equipped with items that users can click on to find out prices and descriptions. Users sign into Glimpse with Facebook, and have the ability to see what items their friends have liked and products from brands that they have previously liked on Facebook. Additional social aspects of Glimpse include the ability for users to like or comment on an entire catalog or individual items, as well as save items into their personal collections or share items across their social networks.

“Working with Internet Explorer has been a great collaboration. Together, we have been focused on changing online shopping to deliver to consumers a rich and compelling experience that is driven by social discovery and curation,” says Ramneek Bhasin, VP and GM of Mobile at TheFind. “By bringing store catalogs to Glimpse, we have done just that. Glimpse will run seamlessly across all tablet and desktop platforms. This is just the beginning of what true ‘social discovery’ is all about.”

IE and TheFind also released a free, open-source framework for HTML5 page-flip, in order to give developers the code to create more online catalogs.

Check out some screenshots of Glimpse below:

Why Did Web Builder Wix Drop IE8 Support?

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:30:00 GMT

In what I consider a rather bold move, HTML5 Web publishing platform Wix announced that it will no longer support Internet Explorer 8, citing a general lack of support for its emerging HTML5 product.

While IE commands approximately 20-percent share of the browser market globally (according to StatCounter), Wix analyzed its 20 million-strong userbase and found that only 12 percent were using IE8. Couple that metric with IE8's widely known inability to handle HTML5's interactive elements, and the decision was likely not a difficult one to make for Wix.

But how do Wix clients feel about the decision?

Apparently, 89 percent of Wix users support the addition of HTML5 features to the website builder over the continued support of IE8. Enough said.

"By freeing the Wix platform from the constraints IE8 places on its users, Wix will continue to lead the advancement of HTML5 Web design features that aren't supported by outdated browsers today," says Avishai Abrahami, Wix CEO and Co-founder. "The Wix user demands more variety and a consistent stream of new features which will benefit their website in the long run. Advanced HTML5 Web design and IE8 support cannot co-exist."

IE Users Aren’t So Dumb After All

Allison Howen — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:00:00 GMT

The “study” that claimed Internet Explorer users are not as intelligent as other browser users seems to have been a hoax.

The company that supposedly performed the study, AptiQuant most likely isn’t even real.

This conclusion came after the discovery that AptiQuant’s website hasn’t even been around for a month and is very similar to Central Test, a French psychometric testing company. The staff pictures on both sites are even the same, just with different names.

Central Test has released a statement saying they are aware of AptiQuant’s fraudulent activity and reserve the right to take legal action.

The hoax managed to fool many news organizations— including us, the BBC and CNN.

While the unknowns behind the scam are still at large, at least Internet Explorer users can hold their heads high again.

How Smart Does Your Browser Say You Are?

Allison Howen — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Hopefully, you aren’t using Internet Explorer while reading this. If you are, it may be time for a change.

A new study from AptiQuant, a psychometric consulting company, suggests that users of Internet Explorer aren’t as intelligent as their peers that use other browsers. The study offered free online IQ tests to over 100,000 people and plotted the average IQ scores based on the browsers with which the tests were taken.

Internet Explorer users’ IQ scores were below the average while Chrome, Firefox and Safari scored a little better than average. Camino, Opera and IE with Chrome Frame had the highest IQ levels.

The study appears to indicate what many Web professionals already think – Internet Explorer is a pain to work with. For years, IE’s reputation with IT companies has been tagged with a lack of innovation and the most current Web standards, especially with older IE versions— which makes developers’ and designers' jobs all the more difficult.

It’s just one study, but with the increasing emphasis on website speed and usability, online businesses and professionals may want to rethink how much time they put into supporting older browsers.

End May Finally Be Near for Internet Explorer 6

Linc Wonham — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:38:00 GMT

The most recent data from analytics firm StatCounter indicates that Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft’s outdated but resilient Web browser, may finally be on the way out. StatCounter’s Global Stats division reports that usage of IE6 in the U.S. and Europe fell below the five percent mark for the first time ever in the month of May 2010. The 4.7-percent usage was based on 15 billion page views and was down from 11.5 percent at this time last year.

IE6 has avoided extinction despite the subsequent releases of Internet Explorer 7 — third in the U.S. with a market share of 16.64 percent; and Internet Explorer 8 — first with a 30.49-percent share. Firefox 3.6 is the second most-used browser in the U.S. with 19.8 percent of the share, according to StatCounter’s data, while Google Chrome 4.0 held a 6.5-percent share.

IE6 was the dominant browser with a 90-percent market share in 2002 and 2003, and it has maintained an unusually long lifespan as some large global corporations continue to use it. But support for IE6 has been dropped by YouTube and other major Internet services, further indicating that the end is officially near.

January '09 Browser Market Share

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:50:00 GMT

NetApplications released browser market share numbers for January 2009. As you might expect, Internet Explorer still has a hefty lead with 67.55% total market share, followed by Firefox (21.53%), Safari (8.29%), Chrome (1.12%) and Opera (0.70%).

The real story in all this, as others have mentioned, is the substantial growth seen by Firefox over the past year and the general decline in usage of Internet Explorer. Back in March 2008, IE had a nearly 75% maket share while Firefox had nearly 18%. Compare that to the information presented above and you'll see the dramatic nature of the shift. While the September release of Google's Chrome has made a slight dent in the total browser share, Safari has grown nearly 70% since March 2008,