Maybe they're trying to be different... except then they'd be copying Opera's layout instead and adding customary MS bloat.

HOLY CRAP! I dont want spyware toolbars watching everything I do in my tabs. No thanks. Sticking with the awesomeness of Firefox.

Why wont they just rewrite the entire code for IE, I mean correcting grammer and spelling errors just won't do it.

Compartmentalization is good security practice. Of course you would know that being such a great QA guy.

Oh wait, you didn't regression test a 7 year old security hole.

Maybe Microsoft will have budgeted for some UI experts for IE7?

Maybe MSN Toolbar tabs are just a hack to stop migrations until IE7?

I love Firefox, but without one or more of the tab extensions, the tab feature is still mostly useless, and apparently no improvements are planned for 1.1. Not really a good position to dis other tab implementations.

hey.. who said the IE Team developed this crappy tabbed toolbar ??
I think it's a whole different team!
Don't just throw with sh*t in IE untill you see the final version.
Nobody throws with craps in Firefox because of the looooooooong lasting bugs I've seen from years because it's a cult now, not just a software, but this doesn't give you the position to make unfair marketing.
MSN Toolbar it's a _TOOLBAR_ not a developer/preview/final/alpha/beta/rc release of the next IE7 !

"degaussssss,"

I don't know who are you, but you're obviously not a programmer. Duplicating third party toolbars into each tab is a tremendous waste of memory and a horrible implementation of tabbed browsing.

"degaussssss,"

I don't know who you are, but you're obviously not a programmer. Duplicating third party toolbars into each tab is a tremendous waste of memory and a horrible implementation of tabbed browsing.

Emil,

Are you paying any attention at all? This post has to do with IE7 itself.

@sire: Firefox's isn't perfect, but with the checkins (hidden pref) that went into 1.0 and the drag and drop goodness of 1.1... it sure is better than what IE *seems* to have planned.

@Emil: I don't think Asa is saying that. It's the same company, but yes, different dev teams... but he specifically points to article/comments written by the IE dev team. Sounds pretty sucky for those who like lots of viewing realestate like me.

> hey.. who said the IE Team developed this crappy tabbed toolbar ??

You're the first.

The implementation integrated into IE7 (which is on IEBlog, and linked to here for yourself to see) is just as bad.

Sire, Firefox 1.1 now includes the 'movable tab' functionality from miniT, so in fact there are improvements in the implementation. Some of the preferences concerning tabbed browsing mode have also been revealed via the normal preferences. So I wouldn't say that no work has been done, though more would always be nice.

"Not really a good position to dis other tab implementations."

I don't really get this statement. If a man is giving away a slightly leaky boat, and also giving away some glue to fix it, he can't talk about his neighbor who is giving away another boat that lacks a keel?

Gee, why wouldn't other tab bars be hosted? Do you want Microsoft to just decide to turn off any user installed toolbars just because they feel like it? People would scream "Monopoly" at people.

IE7 will obviously have its own tabs. Beyond that, whatever toolbars people install (like Google or whatever) are their own business, not that of Microsoft, right? Do you really think they should disable the software people have installed? If Yahoo adds tabs to its toolbar, should Microsoft suddenly disable the Yahoo toolbar on IE7?

"I dont want spyware toolbars watching everything I do in my tabs."

lol, I do believe Firefox is far better than IE, but why do you install spyware toolbars in the first place? Just don't do it. :-) For some reason, this issue has never arised with me and IE.

"IE7 will obviously have its own tabs. Beyond that, whatever toolbars people install (like Google or whatever) are their own business, not that of Microsoft, right? Do you really think they should disable the software people have installed? If Yahoo adds tabs to its toolbar, should Microsoft suddenly disable the Yahoo toolbar on IE7?"

What on earth are you on about?

Mmmm... It seems like recently there are a lot of IE defenders around... Maybe MS IE evangelist hiring policy has begun making effect?

Yeah - where do they all come from?

It seems fairly obvious from the IE developer comments that their primary concern was app compatibility. Because third-party toolbars and spyware... I mean... BHOs, sorry... are written to expect one (untabbed) window, putting them in at the "whole browser" level with tabs under them would break a lot of things. So instead they made toolbars hook in per-tab, with each tab appearing to the object as its own "window". A side effect of this was moving the toolbars below the tab controls.

I kind of side with Asa on this one. I think this is utterly bone-headed from a UI perspective, and I think doing good UI and breaking compatibility with third-party toolbars would be a better tradeoff than doing horrible UI and mostly maintaining compatibility. Obviously the folks on the IE team did not agree with my prioritization.

"All third party toolbars are going to reside inside of the tabs and have an entirely separate instance for each tab? WTF?"

Actually, this isn't such a bad idea. Our tab implementation actually isn't a model of good UI design. I might say: "At the moment, in the Firefox tab implementation, you change a tab and then some UI above the tab (the URL bar) changes. WTF?"

Good UI design says that tabs should be above all the content which changes when they change. So the links toolbar (if installed) should be inside the tabs, and the URL bar should be inside the tabs. The bookmarks bar should be outside the tabs. The navigation buttons could probably be either but, given that they are in the same toolbar as the URL bar, inside seems better.

So actually, neither tab implementation seems like very good UI to me. But the IE team should probably allow IE7-aware toolbars to appear above the tabs if they choose.

Everyone here, Gerv included, seems to be missing another key reason why this is awful: the non-trivial memory hit.

I really find it hard to swallow the anti-microsoft retoric thats flying around this blog. I too have recently moved to Firefox, mainly because of the tabbed browser functionality, but im sure ill be right back to IE when V7 is released. As far a standards are concerned, as a user, i find Firefox's standardised approach quite annoying. The fact that anyone can write a script to customize my browser makes me quite nervous. I have downloaded many extensions for firefox and many of them have been full of bugs, one of them actually crashed my browser. I gather microsoft will make available the same objects to developers allowing for full customisation of the interface without sacrificing stability and security.

SJC: If you are worried about people being able to customize your browser are you not also worried about the security difference between IE and Firefox? My understanding is that FF is more secure, for whatever reasons that may be. This is what leads me to use FF over IE.

"anti-microsoft retoric"

Actually, it was a specific comment on a specific issue of a specific upcoming piece of software.

"Oh wait, you didn't regression test a 7 year old security hole."

Yes, I too equate an honest mistake (and it's not as if Asa is the only person who tests regressions) with a hideous design decision.

To Ben Basson:

Sorry, but every single security bug should be part of the basic functional tests. A security regression is the ultimate no-no for a tester.

There should be different security tests for each class of bug too, to try to prevent variants of known issues sneaking in.

I agree that design and security have nothing (in the first instance) in common.

Don't forget each tab will be running in it's own thread/memory space-- something FireFox can't hold a candle to right now. Try opening 20 tabs and watch it slow to a crawl, while one tab loads a Flash animation, another tab loads 50+ images, etc... you can't work in a "fully loaded" tab while all these other tabs are loading in the background. That doesn't make sense, especially in modern times.

Fix FireFox's tab threading model, and maybe we'll talk.

Other than that, I don't understand what the big fuss over IE7's handling of toolbars is. The only other way to do it would be to dynamically swap out UI elements where they "used" to be (above the tabs bar.) This would most likely be slow, cause flickering, etc., as each object is rotated out. Multiple toolbars would be a nightmare.

Who really has more than one toolbar installed anyhow; or any toolbars in IE, for that matter?

I have to agree with Jim.

What is obvious, from the information presented/leaked thus far, is that the Tab Implementation (since it was an after thought to "catch up" with all the other browsers), is a kludge on top of the IE core browser.

The fact that the toolbars, are instanciated, per tab, indicates (as does the IE7 Blog), that the implementation, is a high level wrapper, of complete IE window objects, which is why toolbars (3rd party) are in each and every tab).

Memory is the issue here. 15 tabs open, with 15 instances of lets say the Yahoo! toolbar... is well, 14 too many. Multiply this by (n) for every toolbar installed, and things add up quick.

Now, in IE7, security is the focus... right? oh god please tell me this is actually for real... Well, the tab implementation seems to be good, in that there (by design) is no cross-tab communication (cudos)... but is bad, because *once* a spyware toolbar (BHO) is installed, lets say... 180deg search assistant, *killing* it will be fun... because you need to stop 15 instances of it (in this example case).

My bet is, the folks at MS, are kicking themselves silly, knowing now, that Tabs are a *requirement* for future success... but they are stuck, having to implement a lack-lusture feature, or start from the ground up... They obviously (time ticking), implemented the quick, hack version... and are hoping that it will work "well enough" that users won't complain.

Unfortunately (for MS), in the mean time, Mozilla snuck in, and wow'd the techies with what a browser should/could do... and MS is stuck to match it. The techies, won't switch back (cause you know MS isn't going to sanction an "AdBlock" extension, etc.) and the developer tools are better.

Long story short, MS killed Netscape, but they won't be able to kill Mozilla/Firefox,... they are simply... too little,... too late! ;-)

Ugh...toolbar per tab? For once I wish M$ would scrap backward compatibility and do something less unsightly, but who am I to complain...this is very good news for Firefox.

I don't care if it's cuz M$ has to support many more users. They brought it upon themselves.

Firefox freezes too when java plugin is loading in a tab the whole UI freezes till it's done loading

"Sorry, but every single security bug should be part of the basic functional tests. A security regression is the ultimate no-no for a tester."

Of course it is. I'm not saying that this slip-up is ok, I'm just tired of seeing everyone personally blame Asa, and furthermore, use it against his personal thoughts on other products. It's totally unnecessary... I'm sure Mozilla.org realise that they messed up on this.

Back on topic: Is it just me or is this another case of Microsoft's "two wrongs make a right" trend? If they're fundamentally worried about backwards compatibility, they should just write their own emulation code.

I fundamentally disagree with the comments by Bruce Morgan that they didn't do it this way to save time - of course they did, there's no other rational explanation. If MSIE has architectural limitations then they should be addressed instead of worked around and passed off as a design decision.