This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: Sure MS is working on IE Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

So Scoble says that the XP SP 2 rev will have IE mods. Will this fix the absolutely horrible thing that the last "fix" did to IE? Apparently, there's a security hole in IE involving the use of urls of the form: http://username:password@www.host.com. You would think MS would fix that, hmm? Why no - their solution in the last set of patches I grabbed from the Windows Update (read: downgrade) site just turned that feature off. You try to use it, and IE gives you a "Syntax Error page". Grrr - at least this explains why I've been getting mail from people trying to download CST NC via http. Here's what Scoble says about the fixes:

While we're on it, this page has one falsehood. It says that the next version of Internet Explorer won't come out until Longhorn. That is absolutely NOT true. The next version of Internet Explorer comes with a ton of security fixes, and a pop-up-ad blocker. It will be included in Windows XP, Service Pack 2. For free.

It darn well ought to be free, when it's a downgrade. There should have been a big warning on the last set of patches: "Warning - this update turns off useful features of IE, because we can't be bothered to fix the actual problem. Download at your own risk".