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Explorer Destroyer 417

slayer99 writes "I came across Explorer Destroyer yesterday, which is a project that aims to increase the market share of Firefox in a slightly more proactive way than is usual. They provide some code which you add to your front page which presents a banner to IE users urging them to switch to using Firefox. As a bonus, you can potentially make some money via Google's Firefox referral program."
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Explorer Destroyer

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  • That's retarded (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:52AM (#15231864)
    Why bother with scripts and such? All you need is IE's own conditional html comments [microsoft.com].
    • Is this easy (Score:3, Informative)

      by Life700MB ( 930032 )

      As simple as this:

      <!--[if IE]>
      ...your firefox referral goes here...
      <![endif]-->

      To get a referral just talk to google [google.com].


      --
      Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
    • And that's exactly the reason why IE must die. If my site is W3C compliant I shouldn't have to use dirty hacks like that to make it render correctly in IE! I shouldn't have to spend 50% of my time developing workarounds for IE!
      • Re:That's retarded (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @12:05PM (#15232222)
        But isn't it poetic justice that we use IE's dirty little hacks to bring it down? Remember that evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction.
    • Re:That's retarded (Score:4, Informative)

      by sparkz ( 146432 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @05:04PM (#15233468) Homepage
      No, it's not retarded... for anyone who follows his advice, and clicks the Google Adsense advert and signs up to Google Adsense, then he (Holmes Wilson, according to whois) gets $100 from Google for a succesful referal. That's a pretty smart way of fooling people into clicking the link. Underhand, but smart.
  • Unbelievable. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:53AM (#15231869)
    Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bunratty ( 545641 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:56AM (#15231893)
      Can you give an example of what you're referring to? When has Microsoft or its friends encouraged downloading software, and the idea was condemned by open source advocates?
      • If you use the "Level 3" code, you effectively block IE users from your site, making it nonfunctional. Isn't that what IE-only sites are doing?
        • As far as I know, people say that's a dumb idea, and I agree. But the question is, do open source advocates condemn it? If so, can you show me where?
      • Not specifically Microsoft doing it directly, but rather ignorant web designers/developers forcing you to use Internet Explorer or whichever browser.

        But this time it's coming from aparently 'clued up' people, with the promise of a pot of gold just over the hill.

        At the end of the day the only thing it's doing is helping to create another mono-browser culture, rather than using standards based websites to provide information to older, future or crippled generations of browsers via graceful use of markup/style
        • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:44AM (#15232115)
          Uhm no it isn't. Every single browser except IE has superb support for W3C standards. As long as any non-IE browser gets more market share, webmasters who want to design a website according to the W3C standards will be able to do so, instead of holding themselves back and resorting to IE-specific hacks to make the website render correctly in IE, just because IE's the only one that doesn't render things properly.
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by larien ( 5608 )
      My thoughts, mainly on option 3, however... A banner "ad" suggesting Firefox is the most you should use, to be honest.
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pneuma ROCKS ( 906002 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:17AM (#15231992) Homepage
      Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

      Absolutely.

      I would like to point out that this "project" has been pushed (possibly by its creator) on SpreadFirefox.com for quite some time, but it has met with the appropriate response: NO. Link to the post [spreadfirefox.com]. I'm an active SFX member, and I can tell you that most members of the community realize how annoying and stupid this idea is. Browser-detection scripts and browser-specific behavior should be buried and forgotten. Firefox is about standards, and the community acknowledges that.

      I know the creator of those scripts is trying to help, but his/her aim is terrible.

      • by r00t ( 33219 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:58AM (#15232180) Journal
        Don't actually detect IE. Use an IE "bug" to display the message. Make sure that no standards-compliant browser would show the message.
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jgrahn ( 181062 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:18AM (#15231997)
      Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

      You seem to assume that because it's on Slashdot, Slashdot and its readers think it's a good idea. I don't believe that's the case.

      It's a stupid idea, and it's against ideas that are more important than open source. It's against the idea that the network protocols should be client-neutral, and that graceful degradation should take place when you use a client that (like IE) sucks.

      It's stupid, and it won't work.

    • But sometimes you do what you have too in order to fight the 500lb gorillas in the world.

    • Yes. And when Microsoft uses it, it's a monopoly with a billion dollar marketing budget using it to promote a monopoly. When Firefox uses it, it's a community project trying to get noticed against Microsoft's billion dollar ad budget. I'm sorry you don't understand the difference, but it's a big and important difference nonetheless.
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FooBarWidget ( 556006 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:41AM (#15232102)
      I expected a post like this to be modded up to +5 Insightful. But frankly, you people miss the damn point!

      Look at all the IE-only websites. Firefox has reached about 10% market share now, yet there are still people out there who develop for IE only, with no legitimate reason to do so. If you speak to those webmasters, you'll probably hear something like "I don't care about the minority". Why is this a problem? Because as long as IE has the most market share, it holds back the W3C standards!
      • For example, IE doesn't support PNG alpha channels. This is 2006, every single browser but IE supports alpha channels, there's absolutely no reason for IE to not support it! Yes yes I know about IE 7, but how many years will it take before it's out? IE 7 won't have a significant market share for a long long long long time, and during all that time we're stuck in the no-alpha-channel-dark-ages. And yes I know about the PNG hack, but I shouldn't have to use it! And the PNG hack doesn't work for background images (translucent background images can be very useful for rounded borders or shadows).
      • IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks. It has almost no XHTML support. XHTML is rendered as HTML 4, but a bigger problem is that IE doesn't even support the application/html+xml MIME type!! As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML. This makes XHTML almost useless.
      • CSS support. IE doesn't support the 'overflow' property, for example. IE's support for 'margin' and the 'em' unit is broken.
      • And numberous other things. When I design a website, I test it in Firefox and Konqueror, and validate the code with the W3C validator. If it's valid, and it works on Firefox and Konqueror, then it usually works on Opera too. But not IE. Almost every single time I have to use IE conditional statements to include a custom, IE-specific CSS to fix the layout.


      This has got to stop. As a webmaster, I'm sick of hacking my website to be IE-compatible while I'm already W3C-compliant, and I'm sure many webmasters are sick of it too. The only way to fight this is to ensure that IE loses more of it's market share. We cannot wait for IE7, that takes too long and who knows what else Microsoft refuses to fix. Yet Firefox still doesn't have more than 10% market share. It's time for more aggressive weaponry, because apparently you can't win by playing the nice guy. Plus I'm sick and tired of all the IE-specific sites. The only way to get rid of them is by decreasing IE's market share.

      I don't care what browser will have the most market share, as long as it's not IE (or IE shells). Every single modern browser out there has good support for W3C standards - except IE.
      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:4, Informative)

        by NutscrapeSucks ( 446616 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @12:02PM (#15232201)
        I have to say this is the classic example of someone trying to do things the right way "by the booK", and ends up doing everything wrong. A few points:

        + Sending a XHTML DOCTYPE to IE actually breaks it by putting IE in "legacy CSS" mode. Send a HTML4 DOCTYPE and it's not perfect, but margin and em will work at least.

        + No browser has any sort of XHTML support except for Mozilla Firefox. The rest just fake it as HTML4, except for IE which correctly doesn't accept a MIME type for a document it can't handle correctly. So IE & FF are correct, Safari and Opera are broken.

        But here's the fun part: even though Firefox correctly accepts XHTML, it disables progressive rendering and makes your site load much slower. Why would you want to do that?

        So, while making XHTML compliant pages is admirable, realistically you want to serve HTML4 to current browsers.
      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Informative)

        by MP3Chuck ( 652277 )
        "IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks."

        As will IE7's. They confirmed a while back (on the IEBlog, I believe) that there won't be any support for the application/xml+xhtml MIME type.
      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rdieter ( 112462 )

        For example, IE doesn't support PNG alpha channels.

        Hate rain on your parade, but neither does firefox/mozilla (for printing anyway):
        http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235097 [mozilla.org]

        -- Rex
      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by hankwang ( 413283 ) *
        As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML.

        That's not necessary, that's what the "Accept" HTTP header is for. Put this or something similar in your .htaccess:

        RewriteEngine on

        RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} application/xhtml\+xml
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.xhtml$
        RewriteRule .* - [T=application/xhtml+xml,L]

        RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} !application/xhtml\+xml
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.xht

      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jesus_666 ( 702802 )
        IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks. It has almost no XHTML support. XHTML is rendered as HTML 4, but a bigger problem is that IE doesn't even support the application/html+xml MIME type!! As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML. This makes XHTML almost useless.

        Almost? The IE dev team has Fucking Killed(TM) XHTML. XHTML is useless to the point where usually the only sen
      • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by edmulroy ( 912022 )
        "I'm sick of hacking my website to be IE-compatible...
        ...I don't care what browser will have the most market share,
        as long as it's not IE..."

        There is a name for those people who visit your site while using IE. They are called your customers. You sounds as if you do not care about your customers. We all know how well an attitude like that has worked for companies over the years.

        Some people don't use Firefox because they already have IE and it works. Others don't use Firefox because of how it works.

        They
    • Re:Unbelievable. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by the_womble ( 580291 )
      Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?
      1. Firefox does not have a monopoly
      2. It works - why not learn from the other side
      3. Give them a taste of their own medicine
      4. I doubt anyone is using this on revenue generating sites and inconveniencing paying customers
      5. Plenty of sites have "you need a modern browser" messages and few people object to that, so what is wrong with a "you need a standards compliant browser"?
      6. Assuming it is being used on otherwi
  • by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepplesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:54AM (#15231878) Homepage Journal

    The Web Standards Project (WaSP) ran a similar Browser Update Campaign [webstandards.org] a few years back.

  • by goofyheadedpunk ( 807517 ) <goofyheadedpunk@@@gmail...com> on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:55AM (#15231881)
    Is it just me or does annoying the people you're trying to attract sound like a poor idea? I know when I am annoyed by something I'm more likely to resist. For example, whenever I meet militant PETA people I really want to go kill baby bunnies, skin them, and wear their bloody firs as a coat... and I'm vegetarian!

    I think if I were an IE user I'd refuse to use Firefox on these grounds. Impress me on technical or philosophical merits, not by being a bully.
    • by kryten_nl ( 863119 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:00AM (#15231913)
      How many times have you come across a website which, in stead of giving you content, advised you to update your IE to 5.0 or higher?
      • That's the kind of website you usually lose interest in fairly quickly due to their lack of consideration for non-IE internet users.... I, for one, never go further than that advice and look for information or business elsewhere.
      • by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:59AM (#15232190)
        How many times have you come across a website which, in stead of giving you content, advised you to update your IE to 5.0 or higher?

        I come across this kind of thing all the time. Way to often. And while *I* turn away from such sites, regular blow joe users will stop using whatever non IE-browser they may be using and "just use IE because everything works in IE". And it is damn near impossible to convince these people to not use IE.

        It is high time to start fighting fire with fire (and Firefox!).

        I don't see why people are getting so uptight about this. People are free to use their own judgment as to how to inform, warn, or outright block IE users. If these people want to design sites so they work in Mosacic and Netscape 2.0 they are free to do that too, but the web is moving on with or without them.

    • Don't blame the bunnies! Eat the militant PETA people!

      Remember, membership in PETA is a strong indicator of vegitarianism, and we all know that the meat of herbivores tastes much better than the stringy, gamey meat of omnivores and carnivores. Yep, PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Activists!
    • Microsoft thinks it'll work with getting people to use so-called "genuine windows versions".
    • by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:17AM (#15231994)

      For example, whenever I meet militant PETA people I really want to go kill baby bunnies, skin them, and wear their bloody firs as a coat... and I'm vegetarian!

      My argument exactly . . . if we're not supposed to eat animals then why are they made of meat? ;-)

      • Please note that I never said anything about eating the bunnies, that's far too practical a death. I said I would skin the bunnies and wear their bloody firs as a coat, casually discarding the meat.

        The point being that when someone is particularly annoying I often feel the urge to do exactly the opposite of what they advocate. Mindlessly slaughtering bunnies for wasteful coats is pretty diametrically opposed to the stance an annoying PETA person would take.

        As an aside, not all PETA people are annoying, just
    • I really want to go kill baby bunnies, skin them, and wear their bloody firs as a coat... and I'm vegetarian!

      You didn't say you were going to eat them. Vegetarians can wear fur coats too.
      • That's very true. Really, though, how many people who object to eating meat on moral grounds (I'm implicitly assuming here that vegetarians are so on moral grounds, not for medical reasons.) will feel comfortable wearing a bunny fir coat that still drips with their blood?
  • Nice idea, but a lot of ignorant banks and such do not realize there is more to the world than microsoft and don't excersize compatibility in their coding. Most likely, people will be stuck witht 2 browsers eventually.
    • No, it isn't (Score:3, Insightful)

      by njdj ( 458173 )

      There are plenty of banks whose websites conform to W3C standards, and which consequently are usable with Firefox. I don't have any problem with my on-line banking (with Firefox, of course). Maybe you should change to a better bank? If your bank is backward in the way you describe, it probably has other problems which are not yet apparent to you.

      • Washington Mutual just "upgraded" their online system. They changed some, not all, of the pages to ASP.NET from ASP. The ones they upgraded (bill pay was one) are broken in Firefox - they look like crap. All I had to do to find this was log in, pay a bill, and hit "submit". This is something that I would have expected they test...

        Anyway, I emailed them to bitch about it. I imagine that others did too, as the site is currently down.

        My point is that even WaMu (the "better bank" in many regards) still

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:55AM (#15231885)
    function hasIE_phoneHome(image) {
      if (document.getElementById)
        {
          var img = document.getElementById(image);
        }
      else if (document.all)
        {
          var img = document.all[image];
        }
      else if (document.layers)
        {
          var img = document.layers[image];
        }
      img.setAttribute('src','http://getunder50.com/ping .php?host='+location.host);

    }
    • by orkysoft ( 93727 ) <orkysoft@m y r e a l b ox.com> on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:06AM (#15231938) Journal
      They're just collecting site - browser id pairs for statistics, because they want to know which of the participating sites have under 50% IE visitors.
      • And not only that, but web site owners can also opt out of this statistics collection. From the "Your Mission: Get Under 50" sidebar in The Article:

        Here's how it works: if you want to you can turn on code in those scripts that will pass stats to our site about the percentage of IE users who visit.
  • not keen (Score:5, Insightful)

    by icepick72 ( 834363 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @10:56AM (#15231889)
    Ya right, I want to explicitly drag the browser war straight into my commercial web sites. That should help business. What kind of web sites will you see with banners telling the user to switch? This is no better than the old "Designed for x Browser" buttons that were displayed in the past. In fact this is worse.
    • The right technique to use would in my view be to code standards-based web pages without a single IE bugfix, and perhaps display a little banner on top (similar to the "we blocked a popup" notifications, no larger) with the text "Experiencing problems? See here" and a link to a page explaining why the site might look like crap when using IE.

      That's what I will do on my site, at least.
      • However, I'm actually effectively blocking IE users since I haven't bothered to send a different header than "Content-type: application/xhtml+xml" to IE users... perhaps I should?
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:01AM (#15231916)
    As long as the IE has a dominant role in the browser world, trojan writers will concentrate on it. There are already the first trojans aiming for FF, and I'm not sure if I want them to become more.

    Also, it's not really a program I can support. Inform those that don't know about their options, but don't get on their nerves. Ever opened an IE (when your standard browser is something else) and noticed how it bugs you with "IE ain't your standard browser, do you want it to be?"?

    And how annoying this is?

    And how it doesn't want you to make IE your standard browser even MORE?

    Why would you think it makes someone use FF instead of IE if you keep bugging him just the same way IE pesters you?
    • by bunratty ( 545641 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:14AM (#15231982)
      As long as the IE has a dominant role in the browser world, trojan writers will concentrate on it.
      By your reasoning, hackers would concentrate on Apache instead of IIS because it runs more servers. Wrong, they still attack IIS more. Likewise, hackers will focus on IE because it has more known unpatched vulnerabilities than other browsers.
      • Do you have any proof that hackers attack IIS more? I was under the impression that recent versions of IIS have a far better track record than apache, security wise.
      • We're not talking about hackers trying to "prove" that ISS is insecure, or some people defacing some homepage. There's no money in that, and that's something done by people who do it for bragging rights, for street (or rather, IRC) credibility and for their ego.

        Trojans are a business. The amount of POCs and ego-boosters is dwarfed by the number of commercial trojans and worms. Hacking servers and taking down sites is no business. Trojans is.

        Now, to be profitable, trojans need a high penetration. And for thi
      • by Tim C ( 15259 )
        There are any number of possible reasons for hackers attacking IIS more than Apache:

        1) IIS only runs on Windows, and so the host is definitely Windows, and so your pre-packaged exploit has a greater chance of running if you manage to crak the server (not so a *nix, which you don't have a 'spolit for)
        2) *nix admins are more diligent/security aware than Windows ones
        3) the attackers do it because they hate M$
        4) IIS is a softer target than Apache (definitely true historically, not so much so now)
        5) Apache doesn
  • No, it's not the same behaviour as Microsoft uses. Microsoft are a monopoly with billions behind them.
    Anyway, my thought was, wouldn't it be better to just include all the common code in you page that crashes IE? If suddenly, IE started crashing on lots of sites, that might upset the users enough.
    Mind you, I have a friend (who used to be a Unix admin), and when I advised his girlfriend to use Firefox, he said, No, no point. Not sure what the motto is there.
  • by suv4x4 ( 956391 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:05AM (#15231934)
    Still need Firefox yourself?
    Grab it here: [GOOGLE BANNER PLUG]


    1. You need a Google AdSense account to make referral money for each user switched. If you don't already have an account, click this button to sign-up: [GOOGLE BANNER PLUG]

    Then he goes below down to wash his hands clean by explaining that Google won't go bankrupt from this campaign, so it's perfectly ok to be retarded and lock out 80% of your visitors.

    Oh and by the way this "script" shows the "you use IE" message on many builds of the original Mozilla Suite. Amateur.
  • Firefox Deterrent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gihan_ripper ( 785510 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:07AM (#15231943) Homepage

    Huh? This is the same type of bull that makes me hate IE only websites. At least most IE-only problems can be attributed to stupidity instead of malice. If someone tried to deliberately hinder my access to their site because I use Firefox, I'd likely never visit the site again.

    Worryingly, the wording of this site makes it sound as though Google is affiliated with ExplorerDestroyer, which is very far from the truth. In fact, I imagine that Google would be worried by this page as it detracts from their "do not evil" ethos.

  • I for one expect that the competition between IE and the Google-backed FF is only going to increase in the months to come. I am torn. I can't help but approve of this, simply because it will diminish the market share of IE further. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, being harassed leads to resistance; the project might backfire.

    Note: my anti-IE bias is based soley on being a web developer. MS has been fighting the interweb from day one, and IE is all the proof you'll ever need of this.

    Related:

  • Baad Idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pardasaniman ( 585320 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:09AM (#15231957) Journal
    What happens when microsoft retaliates? That would be bad.

    All the websites made by frontpage, and whatever servers running IIS, suddenly boot firefox..

    seriously, this is a terrible idea. Let's not stoop to their level!

    Also, Is it possible some users would think it's some kind of spyware? Users that were advised not to install stuff just because a website asks them too?

    How about older opera users who identify as internet explorer?
  • Hmmm.....I surprised they don't follow their own rules, I could view the site perfectly in ie without being asked to switch to firefox.
  • by Wuhao ( 471511 ) *
    What the fuck? You're talking about crippling consumer choice to force your ideas on them and make money for yourself? Are you sure you don't WORK at Microsoft?
  • Annoying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danimrich ( 584138 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:29AM (#15232042) Homepage Journal
    This is annoying for those who cannot switch browsers for one reason or the other. In my opinion, web developers should aim to make their sites usable for as many different browsers as is reasonably possible. Including Internet Explorer, Lynx, mobile phones and old Netscape versions. Usable does not imply that the site needs to look pretty in that browser, but people should be able to access the (text) content.

    Your users will have a reason why they use a particular browser, and often it's not because they're too lazy/dumb to install a "better" one.
    • Re:Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)

      by John Courtland ( 585609 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @03:10PM (#15232966)
      You must not realize how much of a son of a bitch it is to make something work in IE along with everything else. In a very short amount of time I can have a nice looking site with proper nav bar, menus, and content working on FireFox, Opera, Safari, Lynx, Links, and it will even degrade properly in Netscape 6... but then if I were to open it in IE, everything is hosed.

      I have a huge project I'm working on right now to upgrade my company's website design and functionality, and I would be lying if I said refactoring proper valid HTML into some mess of shit to get IE to render it properly wasn't taking up 25-30% of our development time. And by development time, I'm including not only totally new HTML/JSP pages, but new backend Java, new Javascript and new SQL tables, procedures, views and a new SQL database. Thirty percent. We cannot use any select controls because Microsoft managed to design IE in such a way that the select bar, out of all the controls on the page, is the lucky control to get its own HWND. This somehow precludes it from obeying z-ordering. So I had to write some javascript to emulate that behaviour. Let that sink in. I had to basically emulate a simple HTML form control because IE was designed by what I can only presume are retards.

      So your opinion about having web developers "aim to make their sites usable for as many different browsers as is reasonably possible", to me, is poorly thought out. Instead of forcing hordes of web developers to pour hundreds of extra hours into basically developing shit, why can't Microsoft write a browser that simply TRIES to not suck? Cut the infection off at the source instead of trying to force everyone else to deal with it. It doesn't even need to be too much better, but all these hacks are the epitome of poor design and they certainly don't promote best practices. What happens to my hacks when IE7 comes out? Am I going to have to refactor my fucking code? I should send a goddamn bill to Microsoft for the fucking coronary I'm going to experience from being so pissed at their incompetence. Sorry, I got a little hot headed there. Goddamnit I'm tired of IE.
  • This is definately not the way to attract new users to FF. However, if you want to do it, using a IE infobar [hishamrana.com] is way cooler.
  • Come on people, IE is obsolete (not to mention evil). It needs to be left in the digital dust where it belongs. There is really no good reason to continue developing for that ancient archaic bug infested dll murdering browser.

    Sure too many people are still using it. But if 90% of the world were still running Netscape 2.0 just because they didn't know any better, would you REALLY want to continue designing for that or just tell people that they need to get off their lazy butts and upgrade already?

    IE is holdi
  • Stupid, stupid... (Score:3, Informative)

    by holiggan ( 522846 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:50AM (#15232142)
    This is the kind of zealotism that each day drives me farther from Firefox and more into the arms of Opera...

    I've been using Opera for a long while but lately I've given Firefox a try... It's nice and all, but Opera has some neat details that Firefox lacks. A very simple and frivolous example: I can move my tabs from the top to any other the side! Yeah! Oh, Firefox has an extension for it? Is it the one that breaks with every new Firefox version? You get my drift...

    Anyways, I see less and less advantages in Firefox when compared to Opera. So Firefox is opensource... well, I couldn't care less. It's the same if someone said "hey, don't drink Coke, drink Shomke, because we know the recipy and we can all change it!". I don't give a flying rat's ass about code and source code, I, as a end user, just want things to work a certain way. And Opera does work that way, and does let me change things around out of the box. In Firefox, we need a stupid "extensions" just to clip a toenail in the interface.

    "Firefox can't do this" "Hey, here's an extension" "Firefox can't do that" "Here's another extension". Prety quickly you will have a handfull of extensions, that might or might not break with the next Firefox version...

    Heck, I'll give you another example! There is an extension to (gasp!) minimize Firefox to the system tray, right next to the clock. In one of the last Firefox updates, that extension stoped working at my computer at work. Yes, FF is updated to the latest version and so is that extension, but everytime I use both together, FF just displays a big, empty window, with *nothing* to click or any menus. And guess what! At my home computer, I have the *same* version of both and it runs fine! And don't go blaming it on Windows, because I'm using the same Windows XP in both computers. Oh and in Opera, the hotkey for that specific funtion is Ctrl-H. No extensions, no breakups...

    So, about this whole "holy-war" agains IE... I'm just sitting and watching, waiting for the inevitable moment when this will blow on the face of the zealots... remember folks, FUD works both ways, and if you spread FUD to suport your product of choice, sooner or later it will bite you in the ass.

    And heres a little site for you to read: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyt hs.html#Security [comcast.net]

    • by Khaed ( 544779 )
      Oh, Firefox has an extension for it? Is it the one that breaks with every new Firefox version?

      This is problem #1 for Firefox (with the memory leak being #2), and is very stupid: Say you have five or six extensions, they discover a huge security leak, and you lose those extensions, at least until the developer catches up. And some of them are part of the reason you use Firefox. You're between a rock and a hard place. (Way back when 0.9 came out, I didn't update to it until damn near the time 1.0 came out bec
  • Browse Happy (Score:5, Informative)

    by rathehun ( 818491 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @11:55AM (#15232166) Homepage
    Why create an annoying additional campaign. Use an existing one:

    http://browsehappy.com/ [browsehappy.com]

    R.
  • by squarooticus ( 5092 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @12:16PM (#15232271) Homepage
    I just don't have the time to see if my page looks good on every browser, so I simply code to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, tough nuts. I include a small but helpful link to Firefox on the front page.
  • by lancejjj ( 924211 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @12:31PM (#15232327) Homepage
    Those who only develop for IE are almost always working under contract.

    Imagine, for example, that you're a retailer called "The Void". Your internal IT department can't do much, as you decided long ago that it is best to outsource all development. You approach your IT services vendor and say:

        "I want a retail website where I can sell my goods".

    Your vendor says:
        "Great! That'll cost you $8 million, and we'll give you a pretty site"

    The vendor writes up a contract, you sign, and you get a web site.

    Then, once you go live, you get all these complaints from customers. WHAT is going on? You hire an expert to find out. It turns out that no one at "The Void" was smart enough to actually understand the ramifications of the contract. The site, as built, only works with IE.

    You open a discussion with the firm you contracted with:

    You: "Oh, you guys screwed up. Fix it."
    Them: "No, you signed off already. You even paid us. Sorry."
    You: "Fix it"
    Them: "It'll take another $1 million"
    You: "No budget."
    Them: "Bye!"

    It is easy and inexpensive to design and build for all modern browsers. It's just that many IT contractors like to milk money out of their customers. Building for IE alone is an easy way to milk money.
  • by ziplux ( 261840 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @01:58PM (#15232630) Homepage
    The button they advocate putting on your site links to the Google Toolbar page. From there, it is not clear at all how to download Firefox, although they make it very clear how you can download the Google Toolbar.

    If I were going to direct people to download Firefox, I would send them directly to getfirefox.com.
  • by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday April 30, 2006 @03:41PM (#15233111) Homepage Journal
    And tell you what: It works.

    My online game has 2 points where it tells people to switch. One is an occasional (once a week or so) friendly reminder to IE users that they should consider upgrading.
    The other is a page that simply doesn't work in IE. It's valid HTML 4, CSS 2 and IE breaks it horribly. So I catch IE users, tell them about the problem (i.e. IE doesn't properly support web standards) and then allow them to continue on and see the train wreck with their own eyes.

    For the past year or so, Firefox has been the #1 browser in my statistics (currently 51%, IE 37%). It works. It takes time, but it works.

    And before you cry - this isn't a personal "me and my dog" homepage, I have around 1500 players and 120,000 visits a month. And it's not a Linux site either, the OS statistics say 93% windows.
    • this isn't a personal "me and my dog" homepage"

      Perhaps not, but that's how you manage it. The studio producer used to say to the man with a cause: "If you have a message to deliver, take it to Western Union."

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