Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Microsoft has updated its modern.IE website with some new tools for testing sites in IE 10 and earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

Launched earlier this year, modern.IE aims to simplify the sometimes arduous process of getting websites to work in older versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. The site also serves to promote web standards and help developers avoid mistakes like only supporting WebKit browsers — roughly the modern equivalent of the regrettable “works best in IE6″ websites of 2001.

Today’s updates for modern.IE address the most common user suggestions and include some new virtual machines for testing IE10 on Windows 7 and IE8 on Windows XP, better results from the site scanner (which now handles URLs behind a firewall) and some more translations.

The big news for Mac developers though is that Microsoft is offering a limited number of “Windows QuickStart kits” for Mac — which consist of Parallels Desktop 8 and Windows 8 on a USB stick — in exchange for a $25 donation to charity (plus $8 shipping). That’s a pretty awesome deal and as of this writing the site has slowed to a crawl, presumably under the heavy load of interested developers.

Microsoft has also announced a new partnership with the Webby Awards to create the new Webby Award Winners Gallery and Archive. The site showcases Webby nominees and winners all the way back to 1997. The design is responsive and takes advantage of some IE 10-only features, like touch events, but it works in all modern browsers as well.

Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey.

Modern.IE consists of three main tools — a site scanner that will look at your code and detect potential problems for older versions of IE, a cross-browser testing tool (part of a partnership with BrowserStack) and a set of guidelines for building sites with web standards.

The most useful of the bunch is the first, the site scanner. Plug your URL into the scanner and it will come back with a list of possible compatibility problems, some unique to older versions of IE, some more general, like outdated JavaScript libraries. Like other tools of this sort — think Yahoo’s YSlow, but here the emphasis is cross-browser compatibility rather than speed — Modern.IE then offers suggestions for fixing the problem.

Or at least usually it does. In some cases it will apparently tell you to get in touch with Microsoft engineers instead for what Microsoft’s Ryan Gavin calls “security and privacy reasons.” It’s also worth noting that Modern.IE still suggests running your site through Compat Inspector, and of course, while Modern.IE is handy for catching larger issues it’s no substitute for actual cross-browser testing.

Microsoft has also included two suggestions that may irritate some developers — adding two snippets of Microsoft-specific code. The first is pretty innocuous, it’s just a bit of code to set an image so users can add your site to the new Windows 8 home screen with a “tile.” Yes, it’s Microsoft-specific code, but the Win 8 home screen images are no different than the Apple-specific apple-touch-icon code that’s probably on your site right now. The second suggestion is to add a bit of CSS to support Microsoft’s proposed MSPointers API. The MSPointers API actually looks quite useful, but suggesting developers use it now smacks of hypocrisy given that elsewhere on the site Microsoft suggests that developers stick to “stable standards.” The MSPointers API isn’t a standard at all, let alone stable.

The second major part of Modern.IE is Microsoft’s partnership with BrowserStack, a service that offers live, web-based browser testing through virtual machines. As part of the partnership you can use BrowserStack free for three months. After that BrowserStack’s regular pricing starts at $20/month for individuals.

Microsoft has also put together “back level versions of Windows and Internet Explorer” as virtual machine images so you can do your more thorough testing locally if you prefer. That means Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems with their companion browser versions IE6, 7, 8 and 9. At the moment there are only images available for Windows Server, but a Microsoft representative tells Webmonkey that VMs for Mac And Linux will be available later today.

The last part of Modern.IE is the “code with standards” section which offers an article on “20 tips for building modern sites while supporting old versions of IE.” Most of the advice is sound, though it does advocate for a conservative approach to web standards that’s not necessarily in keeping with the pace of the web.

That last aspect may put some developers off, though it’s worth noting that the Modern.IE site does not adhere to its own conservative approach. Instead the site does exactly what most savvy developers are already doing — using HTML5 and CSS 3, but including Modernizer to help make the site work in older versions of IE.

While the site is obviously geared specifically to toward developers that need to get their sites working in older versions of IE, most of the advice — particularly the emphasis on progressive enhancement — is sound advice for anyone building websites today.

Windows 8. Photo: Microsoft

If you’ve been testing the built-in version of Internet Explorer in Microsoft’s coming Windows 8, you may be vulnerable to security flaws in Adobe’s Flash plugin.

Like Google Chrome, IE 10 on Windows 8 bundles the Flash Player directly into the browser. Unlike Google Chrome, IE 10 isn’t yet getting Flash updates on time. Because the plugin is bundled Adobe’s auto-update tools don’t work, nor can users manually download and install updates.

The only way to update Flash in Windows 8 is through Windows Update. That means the job of making sure those updates get to users falls to Microsoft, which so far has not delivered.

A Microsoft spokesperson tells Webmonkey that the company is “working closely with Adobe to release an update for Adobe Flash in IE 10 to protect our mutual customers.” However, Adobe’s latest round of patches was released August 21 and there’s still been no update for IE 10 users. Microsoft says that the update will be available “shortly.”

The company also assures Webmonkey that this issue will be worked out before Windows 8 actually ships.

Part of the problem appears to simply be scheduling. Microsoft’s updates are generally released on the second Tuesday of each month, while Adobe typically patches Flash a week or two later. That window between updates is what currently leaves those testing Windows 8 vulnerable.

Microsoft tells Webmonkey that a plan is in the works to address the scheduling conflict and ensure that Windows 8 users don’t have a vulnerable version of Flash for two weeks every patch cycle. Microsoft didn’t offered any details beyond saying the company plans to “align our release schedule as closely to Adobe’s as possible.”

Photo: Only Sequel/Flickr

Microsoft is doubling down on its support for the Do Not Track (DNT) tools in its coming Internet Explorer 10. Despite some criticism the company plans to go ahead with its decision to turn on the DNT setting by default, though Microsoft says there will be an option to disable it during the initial IE setup process.

While Firefox, Safari and Opera also support the Do Not Track header, which tells websites and their advertising partners not to track your movements around the web, IE 10 will be the first to enable it by default.

Brendon Lynch, Microsoft’s Chief Privacy Officer, says that “DNT will be enabled in the ‘Express Settings’ portion of the Windows 8 set-up experience…. There, customers will also be given a ‘Customize’ option, allowing them to easily switch DNT off if they’d like.”

Turning DNT on by default in Internet Explorer 10 means that for the first time a significant number of users will be opting out of ad tracking.

Behavioral tracking, as such practices are often called, is common on the web. Advertisers use cookies to track your clicks, watching which sites you visit, what you buy and even, in the case of mobile browsers, where you go. Often the sites tracking you are not just the sites you’ve actually visited, but third-party sites running ads on those pages.

Privacy advocates at Mozilla created DNT as a way for users to tell advertisers to stop the tracking. The W3C is in the process of turning DNT into a web standard.

Of course for DNT to work it requires advertisers to respect it. Despite the fact that DNT is counter to their interests, several of the major ad groups on the web have pledged to respect it. But thus far, because DNT is off by default in all the web browsers that support it, use is not widespread. Advertisers know that very few users change the default settings, so most people are unlikely to ever enable DNT, making support a less threatening proposition for advertisers.

IE 10 will be the first real test of whether or not ad groups will continue to support DNT. Microsoft took quite a bit of heat from ad groups back when it first announced that DNT would be on by default. Microsoft has defended its choice, arguing that DNT is good for users. As Lynch writes, “our approach to DNT in IE10 is part of our commitment to privacy by design and putting people first. We believe consumers should have more control over how data about their online behavior is tracked, shared, and used.”

If you’d like to do more than rely on the good faith of advertisers to respect your privacy, see our earlier article, Secure Your Browser: Add-Ons to Stop Web Tracking.

Kogan's new Internet Explorer tax. Image: Kogan.

Kogan, an Australian online electronics dealer, has started imposing a “tax” on customers visiting its site using Internet Explorer 7 (and presumably below, though the announcement doesn’t mention IE6). Yes, that’s right, IE7 users visiting Kogan will pay more than those using a modern web browser. Or, more likely, they’ll just shop elsewhere.

Here’s how the tax will work according the Kogan’s blog: “From today, anyone buying from the site who uses IE7 will be lumped with a 6.8% surcharge — that’s 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market.” The post goes on to claim that the move will help Kogan “keep prices for all smart shoppers down.” Sure it’s a cheap, attention-getting gimmick, but who hasn’t wanted to ban IE?

Even Microsoft is frustrated with older versions of Internet Explorer that still hang around. The company already has a site dedicated to tracking the demise of IE6, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that it will soon be extending that death wish to IE7.

That said, browsing through Kogan’s site it’s hard to see what about it is causing IE7 headaches for Kogan. We’re no fans of IE 7, but building websites following best practices like progressive enhancement means your site will work even in older browsers. It may not always look exactly the same as more capable browsers, but it will at least function. In my brief testing it appears that Kogan’s site does indeed work in IE7, though the company might need a few lines of IE7-only CSS to clean things up.

Contrary to what Kogan says, starting with the foundations layering on extras as you go means supporting IE7 isn’t a cost of doing business, it’s just a nice by-product of the process of building successful websites — like supporting older mobile browsers, feature phones, televisions, gaming consoles and dozens of other web-connected devices that aren’t always going to function as well as a desktop browser.

Microsoft’s new version of Internet Explorer has barred browser plugins in the Metro environment. But Microsoft has revealed a method that plugin-dependent websites can use to leap over Metro’s walls and reach the green fields of the conventional Windows desktop, where Flash is still allowed to roam free.

The relevance of proprietary browser plugins is declining as standards-based web technologies mature. Native web technologies don’t yet supply complete functional equivalence with the capabilities of plugins, but the open web has the advantage of greater ubiquity.

The ubiquity of native web standards over proprietary plugins is set to get a major boost from Microsoft with the launch of Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10. As we have previously reported, the next major version of Microsoft’s web browser will not display plugins in the Metro environment, which will be the default shell in Windows 8.

A plugin-dependent website prompting the user for permission to run on the desktop. Image courtesy of Microsoft

Microsoft has published a series of posts in its official IE development blog that discuss the implications of this change and what it means for users and web developers. In a new post published this week, IE program manager lead John Hrvatin highlighted the advantages of plugin-free browsing and emphasized the need for web developers to start supporting users who browse in environments that don’t have plugins enabled.

“The transition to a plug-in free web is happening today. Any site that uses plugins needs to understand what their customers experience when browsing plugin free. Lots of web browsing today happens on devices that simply don’t support plugins,” he wrote. “Metro style IE runs plug-in free to improve battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers.”

A growing number of websites that rely on browser plugins already offer a standards-based fallback for users who are browsing on popular plugin-free devices such as as the iPhone or iPad. Microsoft has previously discussed some of the steps it is taking to ensure that those websites serve their plugin-free content to Metro users.

There will still likely be many Flash-heavy websites, however, that can’t accommodate users who are browsing without plugins. In the blog post, Hrvatin explained that such websites can ask the user for permission to jump to the conventional Windows desktop and launch the windowed version of Internet Explorer, which will have full support for plugins.

Web developers can get the browser to display the prompt by including the special requiresActiveX=true property in an X-UA-Compatible meta tag or HTTP header. Hrvatin cautions that this feature is included for transitional purposes and is intended to serve as a last resort. The preferred behavior is still for web developers to display a plugin-free version of their site to users who are browsing in the Metro environment.

This article originally appeared on Ars Technica, Wired’s sister site for in-depth technology news.

Chances are your web browser is open all day, every day. Whether it’s Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari, the browser is the single most important piece of software most of us use. Given its central place in our lives, some history seems in order. If you’ve ever stopped browsing long enough to wonder why Safari is named Safari or where in the world the word “Mozilla” comes from, we have some answers for you.

Martin Beeby, a developer evangelist at Microsoft, has put together a nice little history of web browser names. Some are obvious — Internet Explorer came about because it was “a name that gave people a clear idea of what the product did” — some are less so, like Opera, which was apparently chosen because, among other things, “the Opera is fun.”

With the exception of Opera and IE, none of Beeby’s name origin stories come directly from the companies behind the browsers, so take all of these with a grain of salt. For instance, no one seems to know the exact origins of “Safari”, though the Beach Boys’ album seems like a reasonable guess — surfing the web, Surfin’ Safari… get it? The WebKit blog is named Surfin’ Safari, which might lend some credence to that story, but the name also nicely ties in with the notion of exploring the wild and connotes some of the same images as “explorer” and “navigator”.

Perhaps the least obvious name in the bunch is Firefox’s parent company Mozilla. Beeby cites a well-known story that the name that was derived by combining the words that were its original goal — “Mosaic Killer.” Webmonkey has heard another version of that story that claims the word “Godzilla” was the inspiration for “Mozilla,” a Godzilla-like force that would destroy Mosaic.

Beeby doesn’t offer any stories for less well-known browsers, like Konqueror, which, as the story goes, was going to “conquer” what IE and Netscape had “explored” and “navigated” respectively. The allusion didn’t really pan out, but, when Apple came along and ported KHTML to form WebKit, the developers did name their early efforts after a famous conqueror — Alexander.

For more details, and to learn where the names Firefox and Chrome come from, be sure to read through Beeby’s post.