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The first preview of Windows 10 has arrived. Microsoft has been busy trying to explain the meaning of a "universal" app and why you should care. In fact, there's been so much news about what's coming in Windows 10 you'd be forgiven for missing one piece of news that will have a huge impact of the web -- a new version of Internet Explorer.
The current development version of Windows 10 does not ship with IE 12, but it does have the latest version of IE 11, including some of the improvements that were previewed in Microsoft's IE Developer Channel back in June.
Note that Microsoft says the best way to stay up to date with IE developments remains that Preview Channel. So even if you install the Windows 10 Preview, be sure to also install the Preview Channel version of IE (fear not, it can be run alongside your normal IE 11 so there will be no conflict in having both installed).
Unlike the Windows 10 Preview, which is aimed at Microsoft's "enterprise" customers, the IE Preview Channel is aimed squarely at developers. In fact its very existence is part of Microsoft's effort to create a more open dialog between IE and the web development community.
The first IE 12 builds were released back in June and there have been some bug fixes and new features since then, most of which have been rolled back into IE 11. As of today there is little difference between the IE preview channel and the version of IE that ships with the Windows 10 Preview, but it's likely that will change as the Developer Channel continues to update.
The first thing you'll notice if you install the Windows 10 Preview is that there's only one version of IE, and it's the desktop version.
The Windows 8 "Modern" UI will be undergoing some changes, unifying apps across touch and mouse interfaces. In the mean time it <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/10/01/internet-explorer-and-the-windows-10-technical-preview.aspx#10561889">sounds like</a> IE is going to stick with developing the traditional desktop interface.
The big news in the builds of IE that ship with Windows 10 Preview is support for HTTP/2, an <a href="http://http2.github.io/">update to the HTTP protocol</a>, which includes support for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY">SPDY protocol</a> (pronounced speedy).
SPDY itself does not replace HTTP, rather it changes the way HTTP requests and responses are sent to and from your browser. The goal of the SPDY protocol is to reduce page load times and make connections more secure.
SPDY's speed bump comes from several new things that help reduce latency, including more compression, multiplexing, and smarter prioritization of traffic. It also uses TLS encryption to protect transfers from third-party eavesdroppers.
SPDY support first popped up in IE 11 where you'll find SPDY/3 working for multiplexing, header compression and Server Push.
The version of IE 11 in the Windows 10 Preview also features an improved version of IE's Chakra JavaScript engine. Microsoft says that Chakra's Just-in-Time compiler has been optimized and the garbage collection subsystem revamped for "better UI responsiveness."
Along side the Windows 10 Preview and IE Preview Channels, another part of Microsoft's effort to reach out to web developers is the new Internet Explorer Platform suggestion box.
While IE 11 is, for all intents and purposes, a standards compliant browser on par with Chrome, Opera, and Firefox, it isn't constantly pushing out updates with the latest and sometimes even half-baked web standards like some of its browser peers.
There are quite a few of those half- to three-quarter baked standards out there and the IE team wants to know which ones are most relevant to web developers.
The IE team <a href="https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/257854-internet-explorer-platform">set up a site</a> where web developers could make suggestions and vote on them. What could go wrong?
The web development community promptly turned around and proposed that the team "stop development of IE". It would seem that the community still harbors some resentment for IE 6, 7 and 8. For now at least, no good deed from Microsoft goes unpunished.
Still, once the trolls were dispatched, the voting site has actually turned up some interesting requests. Currently the top feature web developers would like to see in IE 12 is a way to "Auto Update Older IE Versions". In other words, get people off the aforementioned offenses committed earlier in IE's career and on to something modern like, at the very least, IE 10.
The other top suggestions include adding support for the Shadow DOM, the new Picture element, service workers, and WebRTC.
The latter is particularly interesting since one of the things WebRTC enables is real-time communication in the browser, making it possible to build web-based competitors to Microsoft-owned Skype. WebRTC support is already part of Chrome, Opera and Firefox development builds. Getting the same support in IE 12 would make web-based chat, voice and video apps much more widespread and could end up signaling the beginning of the end for Skype.
For now WebRTC remains very experimental and probably won't have the Skype team sweating any time soon. And there are uses for WebRTC that have nothing to do with building Skype competitors, but the suggestion is worth keeping an eye on, especially given the IE team's desire to embrace the web developer community. It's easy to support something like the new Picture element in HTML, where pretty much everyone wins, it will be more telling to see how the IE team handles something that potentially threatens another Microsoft property.
For now it seems that Microsoft really does want feedback from the web developer community and it really is putting considerable effort into doing so. Now that the childish pranks are out of the way, hopefully the developer community can help steer internet Explorer in a direction that makes the web better for everyone.
The success of the web after all is because it's an incredibly forgiving platform. The web isn't just for those privileged enough to get their hands on the latest cool toys. The web accepts anyone, even those using old versions of IE.
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