ChrisBunting.com

Of course, right after I submit a post with a mini-rant about Microsoft’s lack of certain abilities in their Internet Explorer web browser, I see this post on Microsoft’s official IE blog discussing the first beta of IE 7 that is expected to be released this summer. And, as you would expect, the first detail they mention fixing in the next version of their web browser is to:

Support the alpha channel in PNG images. We’ve actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature.

Also, and just as important, Microsoft will update their browser to address the inconsistencies in CSS support that have existed for a long time. Microsoft is now leaning back towards adhering to the standards, instead of requiring web developers to include hacks in their code to accomodate Microsoft’s way of doing things.

I do applaud Microsoft for their efforts, but a lot of this is too little, too late. It’s been close to 5 years since the web community started screaming about the problems with IE, and they’re NOW just getting around to fixing it? I honestly think that Microsoft is getting a little worried with the extremely warm reception Firefox has recieved, and now that they are losing market share, they’re trying to play catch-up.