Tag Archives: Internet explorer

First Look: Microsoft’s new Spartan browser for Windows 10

Here’s what sets Spartan apart from Internet Explorer.

Spartan
The most recent Windows 10 Technical Preview comes with Spartan, a web browser that will eventually replace Internet Explorer. It’s not an updated version of IE under a different name; it’s a new browser that Microsoft built from scratch. Here’s what sets Spartan apart from Internet Explorer.

New name
For the time being, the browser is officially referred to as Project Spartan, and “Spartan” may or may not be its final name when it’s released with Windows 10. Sure, unlike “Internet Explorer,” the name doesn’t strongly imply that this program is for browsing the Internet, but neither do the names Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari. So we think “Spartan” sounds like it would fit in perfectly among its competitors.

Internet Explorer lives on
Microsoft’s previous, and not much-loved browser will still be included in Windows 10, in case you need to visit sites or use web services that absolutely require it. This will probably apply mostly to enterprise users. The current Windows 10 Technical Preview doesn’t list Internet Explorer on the desktop or taskbar. It’s hidden under Windows Accessories in the Start Menu.

Spartan is the default
Spartan will be set as the default browser in Windows 10. This status can be changed by another browser, like Chrome or Firefox, to take over the role as the default. There isn’t a way to set Spartan back to default within its own settings. To do this you have to go to the new Windows 10 Settings app.

Spartan features Edge
rendering engine
Not only will Windows 10 come with two web browsers, each browser will use a different rendering engine. IE will still use Trident, while Spartan comes with the faster and more technologically up-to-date successor Edge. Originally, Microsoft considered stuffing both engines into their new browser, but elected not to, in order to better clarify the separation between the two browsers: IE would be sticking around for backward compatibility.

Spartan becomes Windows app
Is Microsoft’s new browser a Windows app or desktop application? It appears to be the former. In Windows 10, users will interact with Windows apps on the desktop environment in resizable windows; the overall feel from using Spartan suggests it is such an app. It also shares the same design language as the other new, resizable Windows apps coming to Windows 10, such as the Store and Maps apps, as seen in its title bar and borderless frame.

Spartan has cleaner, simpler look
As its name implies, compared to IE, Spartan sports a cleaner looking UI with a borderless viewing pane and simpler graphical elements in the toolbar. This minimalism is also evident under its settings menu, which displays things in large text and isn’t cluttered with several options. In a side-by-side matchup, Spartan’s GUI initially looks similar — the main differences are that Spartan’s has fewer colors and slightly larger toolbar icons, but its tabs are set over the toolbar, as opposed to the way IE does it by setting tabs within the toolbar. Spartan’s arrangement of tabs looks less confusing.

Spartan has link sharing feature
This is a minor feature, but one that isn’t in the latest IE. In Spartan, you can send a link directly to another Windows app, such as OneNote or the Reading List.

Cortana is integrated into Spartan
Microsoft’s personal digital assistant Cortana will come with Windows 10. It’s similar to Apple’s Siri or Google’s Google Now, where, basically, you speak aloud a command or question and the technology will scour the Internet for your requested information, sometimes speaking out what it finds in a digital voice. Cortana’s features are integrated into Spartan but, as of this writing, can be accessed only in the US versions of the latest Windows 10 Technical Preview, but Microsoft plans to expand its availability to other countries soon.

Spartan will likely support extensions
Firefox has add-on functionality, while Chrome refers to its equivalent feature as extensions. Under Spartan, add-ons appear to refer to plugins for running multimedia technologies, like Flash. It’s been reported that Spartan’s final release will have extension support similar to Chrome, so developers will be able to write tools to enhance the usability of the browser.

Spartan has ‘reading view’ for smaller screens
Spartan can re-render certain pages to display only the main body of text and a related image, stripping out extraneous graphics and text from the original layout. This is meant to make an online article more legible and visually comfortable to read, especially on a tablet. To do this, you click the open-book icon to the right of the URL address bar. This function isn’t available when this icon is grayed-out: Not every page is able to be stripped down to its essentials. Spartan’s reading view tends to be available when you visit a page showing an article or blog entry, but not always.

Spartan integrates with Web Note drawing tool
This ballyhooed feature lets you draw right onto a page, doodling over it or jotting handwritten notes (if you are using a digital pen on a Windows 10 tablet). But technically what Web Note does is capture an image of a page, and then give you basic drawing and highlighting tools. You can also annotate the image with notes you type in, and copy the image of the page, or portions of it, so that you can paste it into a document or image that you’re editing in another program. Pages can be saved as a favorite (bookmark), added to the browser’s reading list, or forwarded to other Windows apps through Share.


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Sneak Peek: New features coming to Internet Explorer

Microsoft’s new Developer Channel offers glimpse into upcoming features of IE.
Microsoft recently released a “Developer Channel” edition of Internet Explorer, launching a new way in which upcoming features will be previewed, and laying the groundwork for a business strategy focusing on web services. Here’s what you need to know about the future of Internet Explorer.

Developer Channel version offers sneak peek at new features
Though it’s available for the public to freely download and install, Internet Explorer Developer Channel is not meant for everyday use, whether business or casual. As its label implies, IE DC is primarily geared toward developers with which to play around. But anyone can try out the browser to see what new features are being worked on by the IE development team.

No more betas
Instead of releasing betas, the IE development team will update IE DC with the latest features, fixes and optimizations. Throughout this process, you’ll be able to keep up with the work-in-progress of IE by downloading the most current release of IE DC. When the IE team determines this code is ready for public consumption, it will then be rolled out as the next version of IE.

Compatibility is limited to Win 7/8.1
IE DC is available for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 only. Either OS also must have Internet Explorer 11 installed on it. You should probably also ensure your Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 system has the latest official updates for the OS installed, as recommended by Windows Update, prior to installing IE DC.

Caveats
IE DC runs within a virtualization system, which keeps the browser in a “sandbox” operating separately from the rest of your Windows environment. This is for reasons of security. The consequences are that IE DC cannot share add-ons or settings that you already have in place with your installation of IE 11; IE DC may run slower than IE 11; and it cannot be used as the default browser.

Tracking features in development
The IE development team set up a web page where you can follow the latest features they’re working on to possibly add to future versions of IE. It also lists features that are already in the most recent final releases of the browser, and ones they are considering, but not officially developing yet. You can easily set this list to show only features that are in development, under consideration, under which version number of IE they first appeared, or their interoperability with the other major web browsers.

New features in IE DC
As of this writing, release of IE DC includes only a few new technologies being actively worked on. Two are interesting for the average user: GamePad and WebGL Instancing. They obviously tell that the IE development team is expanding the capabilities of the browser for gaming. (WebGL Instancing utilizes a system’s GPU, graphics processing unit, to more efficiently draw copies of an object without hitting up the system CPU for this task.) These technologies could alternately be integral for less leisurely pursuits, like using a controller to interact with a productivity web app.

Features in development
Other technologies listed as “In Development” (which also means they are not yet implemented into the actual IE DC browser) include Media Capture and Streams, and Web Audio. The first indicates a web app in IE would be able to access audio or video from your computer’s or device’s mic or webcam. Web Audio would enable a web app to produce audio through JavaScript.

Features that are being considered
Listed as “Under Consideration” are features that point to granting web apps even more access to control or receive feedback from the hardware of a computer or device (Ambient Light Events, Battery Status, Vibration). Web apps could also be allowed to encode audio or video from within the browser (MediaRecorder), incorporate speech recognition and synthesis (Web Speech), and manipulate the local files on a Windows system (Drag and Drop Directories, FileWriter).

End of numbered versions?
This new system of providing early looks at IE under a continuous development cycle could suggest Microsoft may de-emphasize version numbering. If this happens, then, as far as the general public is concerned, the upcoming 12th release of IE could be referred to by Microsoft as simply “Internet Explorer.” As for new features, IE appears to be becoming a more technologically capable browser for using with sophisticated web apps. The IE development team isn’t just looking to make a better browser; they’re aiming to make Internet Explorer a better web app platform.

 

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Microsoft slates critical IE, Windows patches for Tuesday

One month left for businesses to migrate from Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Update

Microsoft today said it will ship six security updates to customers next week, patching all versions of Internet Explorer (IE) and nearly all supported editions of Windows.

The IE update, one of two classified as “critical” — Microsoft’s most serious threat ranking — will patch IE6 on Windows Server 2003, IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10 and the newest, IE11.

It’s unlikely that July’s IE update will match June’s in size: Microsoft fixed a record 60 flaws in the browser on June 10. (Originally, Microsoft said it had patched 59 IE bugs last month, but a week later acknowledged it had forgotten to add one to the list, and so upped the count to an even 60.)

Windows 7 users who have not freshened IE11 with a mandatory April update will not receive next week’s browser fixes.

According to Thursday’s advanced notice, which briefly described the July updates, the second critical bulletin will patch all client editions of Windows — from Vista to Windows 8.1 — and all server versions except for those running on systems powered by Intel’s Itanium processors. Windows Server 2008 and Server 2012 systems provisioned by installing only the Server Core — a minimal install with many features and services omitted to lock down the machine — are also exempt from Bulletin 2, Microsoft said.

Of the remaining four updates, three were labeled “important” by Microsoft — the threat step below critical — while the fourth was pegged “moderate.” All will offer patches for some or all Windows editions, both on the desktop and in the data center.

Security researchers pointed to the two critical bulletins as the obvious first-to-deploy for most Microsoft customers.

They also remarked on Bulletin 6, the single moderate update, which will patch Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server. The bus is a messaging and communications service that third-party developers can use to tie their code to Windows Server and Microsoft Azure, the Redmond, Wash. company’s cloud service.

“The odd one out this month is the Moderate Denial of Service in ‘Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server,'” said Ross Barrett, senior manager of security engineering at Rapid7, in an email. “It’s part of the Microsoft Web Platform package and is not installed by default with any OS version.”

Although Microsoft did not mention it in today’s advance notice, or in the blog post by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), enterprises have one more month to deploy April’s Windows 8.1 Update and Server 2012 R2 Update before losing patch privileges for devices running Windows 8.1 or servers running 2012 R2.

Hardware powered by Windows 8.1 or Server 2012 R2 must be updated before Aug. 12, the next scheduled Patch Tuesday, to receive that month’s updates, as well as any future security fixes.

Or in some cases, even present patches, said Chris Goettl, a program product manager at Shavlik, in an email.

“One thing to watch out for [next week] will be [something similar to] the many exceptions we saw last month,” Goettl cautioned. “Many of the updates we saw in June required other updates to be in place, depending on the platform. For those running Windows 8.1 or Server 2012 R2, they need to be prepared for more of these updates to require Update 1 before they can apply them. Microsoft has stated they would delay a hard enforcement until August, but more and more of the patches [have] had variations that required Update 1. So look out for that cut over — it’s coming quick.

 


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Buggy Microsoft update hamstrings Outlook 2013

Folder pane goes blank after stability and performance update Tuesday; Microsoft pulls update from Windows Update and WSUS

An Office 2013 non-security update, part of yesterday’s massive Patch Tuesday, blanks the folder pane in Outlook 2013, the suite’s email client, drawing complaints from customers on Microsoft’s support forum.

The update, identified as KB2817630, was meant to quash a several stability and performance bugs in a number of the suite’s components, including Excel, SharePoint Server and Lync; fix a problem that caused Office to freeze when a document was opened in the “Protected Mode” sandbox; and more.

Instead, it emptied Outlook 2013’s folder pane.

“I can’t view my list of e-mail accounts, folders, favorites, etc.,” said Trevor Sullivan in a message Tuesday that kicked off a long support thread.

Scores of others quickly chimed in to say the same had happened to them after applying the update on PCs running Windows 7 or Windows 8.

“Same problem on multiple fully-updated Windows 7 Enterprise Edition, Windows 8 Enterprise Edition and Windows 8.1 Enterprise Edition workstations … all with Office 2013 32-bit,” said “MiToZ” on the same thread.

Within minutes of Sullivan’s post, users reported that they’d gotten the folder pane view back after uninstalling KB2817630.

Microsoft was not available for comment late Tuesday, and it has not posted any information about the glitch on its various Office-related blogs. Nor have company representatives weighed in on the support discussion thread, as they sometimes do.

However, users said that the original update had been pulled from both Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). The former is the patch service aimed at consumers and very small businesses, while the latter is the Microsoft-provided patch delivery and management service used by most businesses. Others reported that they’d contacted their Premier Support representatives — a support plan available only to Microsoft’s largest customers — but had not been told when a fix would be available.

The gaffe is the latest in a series of embarrassments for Microsoft stemming from flawed updates. In August, the Redmond, Wash. company yanked an Exchange security update, saying it had not properly tested the patches. In April, Microsoft urged Windows 7 users to uninstall an update that crippled PCs with the notorious “Blue Screen of Death”; it re-released the update two weeks later.

A few users dealing with the empty folder pane bemoaned the trend.

“Yeah, another Microsoft Update Tuesday Blunder,” said “Triple Helix” on the long thread.

“Someone on [Microsoft’s] update testing team needs to get fired,” added “The Computer Butler.”

The flawed Office 2013 stability and performance update was issued yesterday alongside a 13-bulletin, 47-patch collection of security fixes that closed vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, Word, Excel and Outlook.


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Internet Explorer only? IE doubt it

Fewer businesses standardizing browser use on Internet Explorer, but the practice isn’t gone yet.

Just as Internet users in general have defected in huge numbers from Microsoft Internet Explorer over the past several years, the business world, as well, is becoming less dependent on the venerable browser.

Companies that used to mandate the use of IE for access to web resources are beginning to embrace a far more heterodox attitude toward web browsers. While it hasn’t gone away, the experience of having to use IE 6 to access some legacy in-house web app is becoming less common.

“Things have changed a lot in the last three years, and I think a lot of it has to do with the emergence of the modern web and the popularity of mobile. They have made it very different for companies to truly standardize on a browser,” says Gartner Research analyst David Mitchell Smith.

One example of the changing face of business browser use is SquareTwo Financial, a Denver-based financial services company that works primarily in distressed asset management. The firm’s 280 employees handle both consumer and commercial business, buying and selling debt, and a franchise program means that there are upwards of 1,500 more people working at SquareTwo affiliates. According to CTO Chris Reigrut, the company takes in roughly $280 million in annual revenue.

“In addition to buying and selling debt, we also provide a software-as-a-service platform that our franchises (and we) use to actually negotiate and litigate the debt,” he tells Network World.

Square Two hasn’t needed to standardize, he says, because keeping their offerings diverse is part of the idea – the company’s various online resources all have differing requirements.

“We do distribute Firefox on Windows systems – however, Safari and IE are both frequently used. Our internal wiki is only officially supported on Firefox and Safari. Our SaaS ‘client’ is a pre-packaged Firefox install so that it looks more like a traditional thick-client application. Most of our employees use their browser for a couple of internal systems, as well as several external services (i.e. HR, training, etc),” says Reigrut (who, like the other IT pros quoted in this story is a member of the CIO Executive Council Pathways program for leadership development).

The Microsoft faithful, however, are still out there. Many businesses have chosen to remain standardized on IE, for several reasons. SickKids, a children’s research hospital in Toronto, sticks with Microsoft’s browser mostly for the ease of applying updates.

“We have more than 7,000 end-point devices. Most of those devices are Windows workstations and Internet Explorer is included as part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. As such, this makes it easier and integrates well with our solution to manage and deploy upgrades, patches and hotfixes to the OS including IE,” says implementations director Peter Parsan.

“Internet Explorer is more than a browser, it is the foundation for Internet functionality in Windows,” he adds.

The complexity of managing an ecosystem with more than 100 types of software – running the gamut from productivity applications to clinical programs – requires a heavily controlled approach, according to Parsan.

Smith agrees that IE still has its advantages for business users that want just such a strictly regimented technology infrastructure.

“If you want a managed, traditional IT environment … really, your only option is Internet Explorer,” he says, adding that both Firefox and Chrome lag behind IE in terms of effective centralized management tools.

Some companies, however, have gone a different way – standardizing not on IE, but on a competing browser.

Elliot Tally, senior director of enterprise apps for electronics manufacturer Sanmina, says his company’s employees are highly dependent on browsers for business-critical activities. Everything from ERP to document control (which he notes is “big for a manufacturing company”) to the supply chain is run from a web app.

Tally says Sanmina made the move to standardize on Chrome in 2009, in part because of a simultaneous switch to Gmail and Google Apps from IE and Microsoft products.

“It made sense to go with the browser created and supported by the company that created the apps we rely on. Also, Chrome installs in user space so it doesn’t require admin privileges to auto-update,” he says. “It also silently auto-updates, as opposed to Firefox, which requires a fresh install to update versions, or IE, which is similar. Chrome, over the last year or so, has supported web standards better than any other browser, and (until recently) has offered significantly better performance.”

Plainly, broad diversity exists both in the actual browsers used by workers and the approaches businesses have taken in managing their use.

That diversity, says Smith, is the reason Gartner has been advising clients against standardization from the outset.

“Standardize on standards, not browsers,” he urges. “That was a controversial position for 10 years. People really didn’t agree with it, they didn’t listen to it, and they paid the price.”

Microsoft, as well, has had to pay a price.

“[Standardization] hurts Microsoft’s reputation as an innovator; as a forward-thinker,” he says. “When people’s impression of using Microsoft technology – whether it’s a browser, whether it’s an operating system – is something that is two or three versions old, because they’re dealing with it through what enterprises want.”


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Ad industry calls IE10’s ‘Do Not Track’ setting ‘unacceptable’

Ad industry calls IE10’s ‘Do Not Track’ setting ‘unacceptable’
Privacy advocates hit back, call demands ‘bizarre’

Many of the country’s largest companies lashed out at Microsoft this week, claiming that its decision to turn on the “Do Not Track” privacy feature in Internet Explorer 10 would “harm consumers, hurt competition, and undermine American innovation.”

In a letter addressed to three top Microsoft executives, including CEO Steve Ballmer and the company’s top lawyer, Brad Smith, companies ranging from McDonalds and General Motors to Intel and Visa demanded a sit-down with Microsoft to discuss Internet Explorer 10 (IE10).

IE10 is slated to ship alongside the Windows 8 operating system on Oct. 26. Although Microsoft has promised to also release a version of the browser suitable for Windows 7, it has consistently refused to give a timetable.

 

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“ANA’s Board of Directors is very upset that the choice being made by Microsoft is one that will ultimately threaten to reduce the vast array of free content and services available to consumers,” the advertisers claimed. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is an industry lobbying group.

Microsoft drew the ire of online advertisers — and praise from many privacy advocates — when in late May it announced that IE10 would have the “Do Not Track” (DNT) option switched on by default. Later, it backed away slightly, saying users could turn it off when they were first told of the feature as Windows went through its setup paces.

Do Not Track is a browser feature that signals whether a user wants online advertisers and websites to track his or her movements. Four of the five major browsers — Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari — can send a DNT signal. Google has pledged that Chrome will support DNT by year’s end.

“When presented as a default ‘on,’ by design Microsoft is no longer creating a choice of whether or not data about consumers will be tracked,” the ANA’s letter continued. “Rather, Microsoft appears determined to stop the collection of Web viewing data. That is unacceptable.”

The letter was the harshest criticism yet by the advertising industry of Do Not Track in general and Microsoft’s position with IE10 specifically. The ANA used phrases like “fundamentally bad for consumers,” “undermines consumer interest” and “cheat society” in its missive.

Essentially, the ANA argued that if advertisers could not track users on the Web — and then use that information to deliver targeted online ads to them — the Internet as it’s now known would vanish. IE10’s on-by-default stance threatened that tracking.

“Microsoft’s decision to block collection and use of information by default will significantly reduce the diversity of Internet offerings and potentially cheat society of the robust offerings that are currently available,” the ANA said.

Privacy proponents hit back.

“The online advertising industry has dropped its facade of negotiating Do Not Track in good faith,” said Jonathan Mayer, one of two Stanford researchers who devised the https: header concept used by browsers to signal a user’s DNT decision. “This week’s letters to Microsoft and W3C leadership are part of that.”

The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) is a standards-setting group that is trying to finalize DNT’s implementation. The group is meeting this week in Amsterdam to continue discussions. Mayer is active in the W3C discussions.

Other privacy advocates were even tougher on the ANA and its demand that Microsoft reverse course.

“In recent days, we have suddenly seen an all-out blitz of attacks on Do Not Track, both in Washington and Silicon Valley, decrying Do Not Track as a disaster that would destroy the advertising-supported Web,” said Leslie Harris and Justin Brookman of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in a Wednesday blog post.

Harris is the CDT’s president and CEO, while Brookman is the advocacy group’s director of consumer privacy.

Mayer noticed the uptick in rhetoric, too. “In recent weeks industry trade groups have turned to obstructionism and vitriol within the W3C multi-stakeholder process,” Mayer said in an email reply to questions. “Outside the W3C, they’ve placed negative coverage, penned misleading op-eds and lobbied Republicans in Congress to challenge the FTC.”

The ANA’s blast against IE10 made some suspect it had been the tipping point. “It is possible that this uproar stems entirely from Microsoft’s decision in June to aggressively steer its users to turn on Do Not Track during install,” said Harris and Brookman.

Not so, countered an online ad executive.

Steve Minichini, who leads the interactive marketing group at the advertising agency TargetCast, disagreed that IE10 had been a trigger for any recent anti-DNT blitz on the part of advertisers. “We’ve been talking about this for years,” Minichini said in a Wednesday interview.

He acknowledged that the debate had heated up, but blamed Microsoft. “The main reason there’s so much conversation is the principle of it,” said Minichini, referring to IE10’s on-by-default setting. “IE10 will not have a big foothold in the market at first, but as the years roll on, year after year, it will grow. [Microsoft’s move] is just a marketing strategy to grab headlines.”

Some would agree with Minichini’s point: Many Microsoft watchers and analysts have interpreted Microsoft’s decision to push users to DNT as a way for it to differentiate the browser from competitors.

Microsoft is on somewhat shaky ground with IE; the browser has lost share for years, although that decline has slowed during 2012, according to California-based Net Applications, which on Monday said all versions of IE accounted for 53.6% of those used in September. (Irish metrics firm StatCounter, however, says that IE has shrunk to just 32.7%, second behind Google’s Chrome.)

IE10 has a negligible share: Neither Net Applications nor StatCounter have begun tracking it.

It’s unclear how the W3C will, or even if it will, resolve its differences on IE10 to, for instance, either demand that websites honor its DNT signal or allow them to ignore it.

Harris and Brookman of the CDT wondered where it would end, too. But one possibility would kick off what they called a “privacy arms race” pitted with tit-for-tat responses by advertisers and Microsoft to block, unblock and re-block DNT.

“The result would be turning the online ecosystem into an ever-escalating war between privacy interests and advertisers, precisely the war that a negotiated Do Not Track setting was designed to avoid,” said Harris and Brookman.

Others have noticed a change in advertisers’ tone in the most recent DNT discussions. Last week, Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz told the Wall Street Journal that the industry “appears to be backing off from its commitments” made last February.

The FTC backs Do Not Track, but Leibowitz has not expressly thrown his weight behind Microsoft and IE10.

Microsoft on Wednesday declined to address the ANA’s allegations, instead repeating a previous statement that said, “Our approach to DNT in Internet Explorer 10 is part of our commitment to privacy by design and putting people first.”

In an op-ed piece in Adweek last month, however, Rik van der Kooi, Microsoft’s top ad executive, said critics were losing perspective. “Instead of debating whether DNT is ‘on’ or ‘off,’ we should redouble our efforts as an industry and educate consumers about how advertising pays for the free Web experience we all now enjoy,” van der Kooi wrote.

It may be difficult to get the two sides — the ad industry and privacy-first advocates — to agree when words like “outrage,” “bizarre” and “unacceptable” are bandied by the parties.

The ANA, which did not reply to a Computerworld request to make someone available for an interview, asked Microsoft for a face-to-face meeting between executives. “We respectfully suggest an immediate dialogue with key Microsoft executives prior to the anticipated release of Internet Explorer 10,” the trade group said in its letter.

Harris and Brookman had hope for a resolution. “At the end of the day, privacy advocates will have to settle for something less than they would like in an ideal world [and] advertisers must honor their commitment to comply with users’ Do Not Track instructions,” they said.

The debate isn’t limited to the U.S., as European regulators have also weighed in on DNT, and expressed support for Microsoft’s position on IE10.

“[The advertising industry] now stands in open defiance of policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic and, more importantly, the tens of millions of users who have enabled Do Not Track in their browser,” said Mayer. “[But] the primary effect of their efforts has been to call more attention to Do Not Track.”

“We’re going to continue to do what we do, which is to put privacy at the top of mind,” countered ad exec Minichini, who clearly would like users to run any browser but IE10. “Consumers are empowered by the browsers they choose. But Microsoft is forcing DNT on the consumer population, something we’re strongly against, and something we think consumers will be strongly against.” mcts online training and mcitp online training