While I was performing my standard Windows Update on my work virtual machine this morning, I wondered if the promised Internet Explorer 8.0 release to Windows Update had been dropped.

I switched to my test-bed, vanilla Windows XP virtual machine, ran Windows Update, and PING! Up it came. The masses of people who blindly do what Windows Update tells them to do will now be installing Internet Explorer 8 on their machines.

The interesting thing is that the only piece of software that Windows Update said was a critical Update was Internet Explorer 8.0. Given that it would be replacing Internet Explorer 7.0 on my virtual machine, how bad was Internet Explorer 7? Are they trying to push MSIE6 and MSIE7 out of the way ASAP?

Today should see a large number of new installs of Internet Explorer 8, either on purpose or inadvertently by those folks who install everything that Microsoft tells them to. I will be monitoring StatCounter’s GlobalStats over the next few days to see if there is a spike in, most notably, US installs of Internet Explorer 8.

Just as a sidebar, Internet Explorer 8, without the support of Windows Update, has increased from 3.5% to 6.28% of the browser share in the US (3.33% to 6.2% in North America; 2.65% to 4.4% Worldwide) in the April 1-28 2009 period. [Stats courtesy of StatCounter GlobalStats]

I can’t make a lot of comments about the quality of browsing experience in one version of Internet Explorer over another; I have been a dedicated Firefox user on Mac, and a Safari user on Windows (yes, that is weird) for a while. But the desire to move as many people as quickly as possible to a new browser speaks volumes to where Microsoft thinks the Web is going. And they realize that it is not going in the direction that its older browsers had been taking it.

Further Updates will follow.

UPDATE: A colleague forwarded me this article on the release of Internet Explorer 8 to Windows Update. Effectively, you still have to go through the Web interface and agree to download the new browser. It’s not being pushed down onto Windows users through the automatic update built into the OS, no doubt to placate the glacially-slow IT departments I mentioned here.

In the previous installment in this series, I looked at the browser share in North America. Across the water in Europe, the browser distribution metrics show the unique flavor that this continent brings to this fluid arena.

In Europe, MSIE7 and Firefox 3 are effectively tied for the lead as the most dominant browser, followed distantly by MSIE6. As in North America, MSIE8 has substantially increased it’s market share since its March 19 2009 release, but it has not caught up to Europe’s favorite son, Opera 9.6.

What is clear is that MSIE8’s gain is MSIE7’s loss. Comparing March 1-19 with April 1-19, the shift away from MSIE7 is almost equal to the shift to MSIE8, meaning that people that are upgrading to MSIE8 in Europe are doing so, in the most part, directly from MSIE7.

There is little or no change to the MSIE6 install base, indicating that this is an entrenched population, likely in large corporations or government agencies.

Like in North America, the big factor to watch is how quickly the MSIE6 population decreases. Europe already has an entrenched population of alternative browser users, mostly with Firefox 3. When Opera 10 and Firefox 3.1 are released, it is likely that these people will move directly to these browsers.

What remains to be seen is how the strong anti-Microsoft sentiment in Europe affects the adoption of MSIE8.

It’s official. According to the IE Dev Blog at MSDN, MSIE8 will be the direct upgrade path via Windows Update in the third week of April. [here]

I discussed the slow decrease in MSIE6 browser share earlier today, but it is not occurring fast enough for my liking. It is a browser from what seems like a generation ago.

To give you some idea of why MSIE6 should gently euthanized, when it was a shiny new browser:

• Facebook, MySpace, GMail, and YouTube did not exist
• You could count the number of bloggers (remember them?) on one hand
• UserLand was the primary blogging tool. Or a text editor.
• Scoble didn’t work for Microsoft
• Excite and AltaVista were still viable search engines

Is it too early to write a redirect rule to direct MSIE6 users to a page telling them to upgrade to view content?

[Image courtesy of CreativeBits]

Tracking browser penetration and market share has become a new obsession with me. With 2009 shaping up to be the year of the browser container, the choices that people make will affect the development of Web technologies for the next few years.

So far, the only new player to come out of the gate as a production release is MSIE8. Since March 19, MSIE8 has seen a slow and steady increase in market share, at least in North America. This has occurred, as I have noted previously, without the support of Windows Update, which will drive millions of users to automatically upgrade their systems.

What can be seen in this data from StatCounter is that MSIE8 is finally (Thank [insert deity or supernatural object here]!) taking market share away from MSIE6. As the corporate browser of choice (mainly because IT departments don’t have the resources or initiative to sign-off on MSIE7), MSIE6 is the default platform that all developers are forced to lower their standards to.

One can hope that IT departments will allow their customer base to make the leap directly to MSIE8 from MSIE6. We can all celebrate now, as the StatCounter data now shows that MSIE6 has dropped below 10% market share.

What is more interesting is that Firefox 3.0 made a serious encroachment into MSIE7 near the end of March. I am not aware of what may have caused this, and would be interested to hear if the StatCounter team has any insight into why this may have occurred.

In the 10 days since its public release, MSIE8 has made a run up the charts. Courtesy of the great folks at StatCounter and their public analytics data, this growing browser share for MSIE8 can be easily followed.

In the US, prior to its release, MSIE8 RC1 was in sixth position behind even the old battleship Firefox 2.0, but ahead of Chrome 1.0.

In the week following its release, MSIE has quickly surpassed Firefox 2.0 browser share in the US. I am not really sure who these Firefox 2.0 users are, but they and the MSIE6 users must be found and encouraged to immediately upgrade.

The values for the first week don’t tell the entire story. As it enters its second week of general availability, MSIE8 continues to increase its share of the browser market, moving into fourth place in StatCounters US stats, overtaking Safari 3.2.

What does t his mean? While it still has a long way to go before it comes close to approaching even the dinosaur, MSIE6, it has to be said that this growth in MSIE8 browser share has occurred without the use of Windows Update. People are making a conscious decision to switch to and use MSIE8.

Site and application designers will need to take heed – MSIE8 compatibility initiatives will have to be in place yesterday rather than some vague time in the future.

Tomorrow morning, at 09:00 PDT, Microsoft unleashes IE 8.0 on an unsuspecting Internet.

By 12:00 PDT, the number of Web sites having to put up IE 7.0 only stickers will be in the millions.

I haven’t done a lot of testing of the new monster (I mainly use Firefox on Mac OS 10.5.6), but it doesn’t seem any weirder than any of the other Microsoft browsers I have used.

Under the hood, it does amp up the number of connections that are used to download objects, but if your infrastructure is prepared, it should be no big deal.

The big concern lies in the rendering. If those users who can upgrade to the new browser (anyone not limited to IE 6 by a corporate IT policy written on parchment) do find there are problems, will they blame the site or the browser?

Have you tested your site to ensure that it actually works with IE 8? Or will you get burned?

What is the greatest benefit you see to your visitors having IE 8 instead of IE 6 or 7?

Is this a good thing?

Last fall it was Chrome. Now it’s Safari 4 Beta. Soon it will be Firefox 3.1 and IE 8.

Each browser has its harsh critics and fervent supporters. But in the end, does the browser really matter?

The answer to this question depends on who you speak to. Developers will say yes, because browsers make their lives hell, as none of them subscribe to the same set of standards for display, rendering, or code processing. I would bet that if you asked any developer, they would prefer that only one browser existed and was used by everyone.

The people at the end of the browser chain, you and I, don’t really care either. We only care when the browser drops an unexpected rendering surprise on us, or doesn’t work because the Javascript functions were designed with Browser A and B in mind and we use C and the submit button on our purchase doesn’t work.

The question isn’t Does the browser matter? but Why does the browser still matter?

There is no reason to have five large browsers out there. There is no reason why they should all behave differently, render pages in their own unique way.

And while people will say that having multiple versions of multiple generations of uniquely developed browsers drives innovation and prevent stagnation in Web development, I say enough is enough.

There is no reason to have yet another browser. The browser doesn’t matter.

The content matters.

And when you switch the perspective around to that view, you should easily realize that the browser, any browser, is simply a window into the content being created for and by us. It should not matter to anyone that I use Opera, Safari, Firefox, IE, Camino, Chrome, or Lynx.

What does matter is that the content can be delivered to me the way I want it. Not the way the browser wants it.

What we need to realize is that browsers no longer matter. They are software. They are portals into what we are trying to do and say.

The browser is not the application; the Web is the application.

So, Microsoft is releasing Internet Explorer 8 later this year, and a Beta is available now.

The question is, are you ready for it?

Internally, the tech savvy folks (myself included) have been tossing around the football of how to tackle it. The leap from 2 to 6 connections per host, on top of the basic rendering challenges that come with any new browser release are enough to make a Web team’s collective hive mind melt.

So, the bright team at Gomez are developing an IE 8 readiness kit.

Sounds like a great idea.

Why do you need to be concerned at a network level?

Let’s see…Well, while 6 simultaneous connections may be faster for clients, what happens to the TCP stacks of the devices that handle all of these connections, especially as more and more people start using IE 8?

Imagine that every Firefox user is using FasterFox, and then IE 8 comes along.

Do you have enough TCP sockets?

How quickly are sockets that are ready to be recycled actually recycled?

Are you really ready?