Browsers Fighting to Keep up with the Web 542
An anonymous reader writes "With the continued evolution of the internet and more tools being developed or migrated online browsers are fighting to keep up. Wired has a quick look at the current status of the browser war and what different browsers are doing to try to stay ahead. From the article: 'Already, IE has seen its U.S. market share on Windows computers drop to 90 percent from 97 percent two years ago, according to tracking by WebSideStory. Firefox's share has steadily increased to 9 percent, with Opera's negligible despite its innovations. WebSideStory analyst Geoff Johnston said Firefox must continue to improve just to maintain its share. Because IE automatically ships with Windows, he said, users satisfied with IE7 may not find enough reasons to download and install Firefox when they buy a new computer.'"
Here's an idea.... (Score:5, Funny)
When a decline to 90% market share is newsworthy, (Score:5, Insightful)
When the big news is that, in some country, some leader only got 90% of the vote instead of the 97% expected, it may be significant, but you know that country is no democracy.
When the big news is that IE's market share has dropped from 97% to 90%, it may be significant, but you know that the product did not get its market share on the basis of open competition on a level playing field.
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Insightful)
We regularly re-elect approximately 99% of incumbent representatives in the US. What does that say about us?
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Informative)
He said 'representatives', as in House of Representatives.
They do have an incumbent election rate of 98+%
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQRe:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't know, in his younger days Ted Kennedy did kill someone. In a drunken stupor, he drove off a pier with a young lady in the car. He got out, and instead of going to the police or trying to get help, left her to die in the car. If his ass were black he'd be doing life. If he didn't have a rich family, he'd have done at least twenty years. Instead, coming from a priviledged background, he gets to be a Senator.
It's not like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Fighting Microsoft gains nothing. They have nothing we want to take. Users themselves have the keys to their chains. We need to teach them.
Re:It's not like that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not like that (Score:3, Interesting)
If an OEM wants to actually advertise and push pre-installed Linux so that people could try it without having to install themselves then that OEM would have it's windows license rebate cut to the point they can't compete.
In the unlikely event a user knows what an Operating System is and wants to try a different one then he has to do the install and sort out any driver problem
Re:It's not like that (Score:3, Interesting)
OpenOffice on Linux does a damn good job for me, most of the time. More importantly...
That's assuming that this particular OEM carries Windows at all. I think a purely Linux computer s
Re:It's not like that (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, wait...
There is a monopoly, but it does not arise from unfair manipulation
Several courts of law, chambers of commerce, anti-trust offices and other experts, both in the US and in Europe, beg to differ. MS was not convicted for being a monopoly, it was convicted for unfair manipulation (i.e. levering their monopoly into other markets).
The people are not opressed, users are free to use what they like
Tell that to the 80% or so who bought "a computer" - which, of course, came with windos. I've met people who believed that Linux must be a windos program, because they couldn't contemplate the concept of an "Operating System". Windos is what runs on computers, isn't it? Every computer runs windos, doesn't it?
Check with the real world, then come back and you'll laugh at your sentence as hard as I did.
nor does Microsoft brainwash them.
Aside from convincing people that windos is computing, using every trick in the book to contain them to their own small world (MSN comes to mind, a huge failure in the market that would certainly be dead if IE wouldn't force you there every chance it gets), aside from the fact that before (win)dos, a computer crash was a serious problem that required attention and an immediate bug fix, aside from the fact that MS stalemated HCI for years by forcing some arbitrary and obnoxious interface on everyone, and aside from their constant attempts to embed their own products as "the product" (IE is still called "Internet" on the default desktop, isn't it? Outlook was called "Mail". Word has become a synonym for word processing through aggressive marketing, etc.)
No, absolutely no brainwashing going on. Why would a marketing driven company ever want to do something like manipulating its customers?
Fighting Microsoft gains nothing. They have nothing we want to take.
They have about $50 billion, much of it gained illegally as monopoly rent. If you don't want your share, I'll gladly take it.
Re:It's not like that (Score:5, Informative)
I told a taxi driver once that I don't use any Microsoft products and he said "I have to use it, I need MSN to stay in contact with my friends".
Most people I've talked to have no interest in learning Linux and I don't think that it has anything to do with the relative merits of Windows or Linux. It has more to do with saturation. It's not like you can go to your local computer store and check out Majesty Gold or whatever for Linux (at least not around where I live). Microsoft is in the schools, it's in the stores and it's on TV.
Think about it... most people who go to the store and buy a computer are going to get Windows on their computer. They might download firefox. One people in Staples actually said "I use Microsoft everything to make sure it's all compatible". With this kind of mindset I don't think much is going to change. The masses will continue to use Windows and the techies will continue to use Linux or BSD.
I'd even go as far to say the lock-in is getting worse. In the 80's I could go to a local computer store and buy a Tandy, Amiga or a Macintosh. Sure, it's all proprietary but at least people had choices.
Getting back to browsers for a moment, I think firefox is great (adblock is very nice) and I do see people using it. There's a good firefox community who help each other and it is catching on. To take the online census in Canada I did have to use IE on a Windows computer. Some script they used did not work, but the government did say they were working on making their online service more compatible. I did write them an email to complain about it. It's things like that which pull people back into using IE.
I'm not going to argue the point about IE, I avoid using it 99.9% of the time. In fact I did my income tax for the first time using a web-based service via firefox. The only time I used IE this year was for the census.
I will not fix your computer. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:3, Insightful)
I prefer Firefox also, but I guess I don't see this the same way as you do. Business is not a democracy. There are other companies that have a 90% market share too and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. This doesn't mean that you aren't free to use a different product. They do exist. If you don't like the current choice of
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Insightful)
1) It was bundled with Windows, starting from (iirc) Windows 95 SR2 (or whatever it was called)
2) Netscape 4 was shit
On point 2), before you write me off as a troll, understand this - I have never used IE as my browser, and never will. I only use it when I absolutely have to. However, IE4 wiped the floor with Netscape 4 in terms of speed and stability. It didn't stop me using Netscape, but even at the time I admitted it was shit, but "at least it's not IE".
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:5, Insightful)
But this is exactly the opposite mentality of today. You were using a worse product because of personal beliefs, users do it because it's what they're used to.
IMHO this is hypocrisy. If one product is better, why not use it?? I use Linux, OSX and Windows, each have their good things and bad ones, but saying I'll use one only regardless of what everyone else is doing doesn't make much sense.
We blame users for using MS products although they're inferior, but when they're better we still refuse to use them because of ideologies...
Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth (Score:3, Informative)
Well, "better" is very subjective. Would you always choose the product you think is better, regardless of other factors? Personally I look at more factors than just the performance/features/etc of the product. For example, I won't buy Nike shoes because they layoff American workers to replace them with poorly paid shop workers in horrid conditions. There are a lot of products I won't buy because of the corporate greed behind the product and how that greed has
Is it 90 pct with IE or 10 pct wihout IE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say you were to look at my house - you'd find most machines have IE.
What it wouldn't tell you is none of us use IE. The first thing my son did with his new Mac mini, for example, was download Firefox, Adblock, and NoScript and train the latter two in how to permit his fave gaming and flash sites to work properly.
My WinXP laptop, has IE. But, other than downloading patches to the extremely buggy Microsoft OS, I don't use it unless I'm forced to. I normally use Firefox or Opera.
So, my household could be counted as 100 percent IE. But, like most MSFT statistics, that would be an inaccurate measure. In fact, it should be counted as 100 percent Other Than IE.
Re:Is it 90 pct with IE or 10 pct wihout IE? (Score:3, Informative)
No, these stats are not based on computers sold and firefox downloads made, but what the user-agent string is. So unless you changed your firefox/opera (btw the default is IE) to show up as IE, you will not be counted as IE.
The only inaccuracy is the dynamism of this: I have more than one machine, more than one OS, each having a different browser. On my Mac for example, I switched from Safari to Firefox to Camino back to Safari to Opera back to Firefox.
As
Re:Is it 90 pct with IE or 10 pct wihout IE? (Score:4, Informative)
Seeing a 7%+ decrease in IE usage from WebSideStory is huge IMO. WebSideStory tracks a lot of average Joe-User type sites. If I read about a 7%+ decrease in IE usage from mostly tech-oriented sites, it wouldn't be that big of a surprise. However seeing that big of a drop from WebSideStory is pretty cool IMO. I wonder why Google and Yahoo! do not post their browser stats? Heck, what about slashdot? Why would slashdot not post browsers stats? Did slashdot make a deal with the devil to not show stats for ad dollars?
Re:Here's an idea.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And which of the *nix distros would be considered a monopoly?
Re:Here's an idea.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's part, but not the whole, of the difference here. They also aren't distributing their own browser. Apple is, so I'm not sure how to treat them, but the linux distros are a completely different kettle of fish than M$.
Re:Here's an idea.... (Score:3, Funny)
Try again, sucker!
I'm looking to see (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm looking to see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm looking to see (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't think of any other software abou
Lack of Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of Change (Score:5, Interesting)
Blame the lazy web designers of the sites your hitting, there are very few things that completely aren't shared between the two browsers, and any savy web designer knows how to hack his code to work with IE (yes that's what it requires).
~ Anders
Re:Lack of Change MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)
Commingling IE with Windows... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla should continue to grow, and advanced users should continue to push to make sure that it is implemented, so long as it remains a better tool for the job than the default (Internet Explorer).
Re:Commingling IE with Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Commingling IE with Windows... (Score:4, Informative)
I think maybe you need to improve your understanding of exactly what a monopoly is, and what anti-trust legislation is intended to do. There isn't a double-standard going on for two reasons:
Re:Commingling IE with Windows... (Score:3, Informative)
And now come the predictable personal attacks. I know what a monopoly is, and I've no problem with MS being slapped down for abusing theirs. I was cheering for Stac Industries when most of the people here were in diapers, and happily using clone 286 chips (25Mhz! W00t!) from Harris back when 640k really *was* enough for everyone.
What I'm trying (and obviously, failing...) to point out is that the hard-line distinction mad
Poor Browser (Score:4, Funny)
Open Source is still more flexible (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Open Source is still more flexible (Score:3, Insightful)
Firefox on older Windows (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Firefox on older Windows (Score:3, Informative)
for windows before Win2000.
Assuming there aren't any horrible security flaws in Firefox 2.0, there's
no reason that you'll have to stop using Firefox on Win9x once Firefox 3.0
comes out.
Re:Firefox on older Windows (Score:3, Informative)
However, if anybody is interested in taking over the work, they can maintain a Windows 9x branch under the same terms as the Solaris, Be
No 9x will be supported as well. (Score:5, Informative)
New versions of Firefox 2.x will run on windows 9x. (2007?)
Not until firefox 3.x will support for windows 9x be dropped. (2008?)
Microsoft's last browser that supported windows 9x was released 5 years ago, while firefox is still planning on supporting it in new releases for at least another year.
OpenSource anyone ? (Score:3, Insightful)
FireFox is an opensource project.
When Microsoft dropped support in IE for old windows, users were only left with the choices of sticking with outdated IE or upgrade the whole OS+IE combo.
When support for old windows is dropped from official branches in FireFox
- if there is a large enough community of people who want to keep their OS & FireFox, chance are that community will back port bug-/security- fixes to the 2.x branch.
- if there is an even bigger critical mass of Win98 users, maybe a s
Actually ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who found enough reasons to download Firefox before (Adblock? Mouse gestures?) is certainly going to find enough reasons after IE7's release. I downloaded the beta several weeks ago; after a few days of casual usage, I was underwhelmed, annoyed at the intrusive and bloated UI, and unsatisfied as to the permanence and functionality of the new security features. If all you want is tabbed browsing, I suppose IE7 might work, but that's far from being Firefox's only worthwhile feature.
Obviously, I'll be getting IE7 along with everyone else -- it's a security update, after all -- but that doesn't mean the blue 'E' will ever get clicked. And if my father and sister value their free tech support, they won't be clicking it, either.
Re:Actually ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who found enough reasons to download Firefox before (Adblock? Mouse gestures?) is certainly going to find enough reasons after IE7's release.
I disagree. I believe the vast majority of people downloaded Firefox for one reason -- it was more resistent to spyware. Hell, that's the only reason *I* downloaded it. And that's the reason I've downloaded it for some of my family, pretty much to avoid having to fix their computer. I was perfectly happy with IE. I've learned to like tabs, so that'd be anoth
Re:Actually ... (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance when I bought a new car I searched out a good forum for owners of that particular model and found that the banner advertisers were good reasonable places from which to purchase the accessories which others on the forums were recomending. Also, banner advertisers who recieved bad feedback from forums members were quick to either change their policies/practices or they were removed from the banner rotation.
It truly is/was a "one hand washing the other" sort of dynamic where users provide revenue for the site admins by clickinbg through to their "sponsors" and the sponsors who provide good service/product recieved more revenue. And I as an end user recieved the benefits provided by both the forums and it's retail partners...
The basic flaw in your argument is that it is based on the premise that banner ads are spread scattershot throughout the web and that they have little relevence to the enduser OR are primarily directing people to less than savory establishments. This simply is not true and even less true if you combine some reasonable adblocking rules to your browser to allow banner ads only on sites which you frequent or where the ads are often useful to you (which requires some level of paying attention in the first place)...
Re:Actually ... (Score:3, Interesting)
they actually do something about it.
Perhaps someone who make a list of sites that don't support
different browsers so that peope could organize webmaster
emailing campaigns to raise webmaster awareness of non-IE
browsers.
Has someone already done this?
Re:Actually ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Internet Explorer isn't a bad browser in that it's only somewhat more bloated and slightly slower than Firefox for most of Firefox's features (it's still an improvement over IE6 one has to admit)... And it's pre-bundled. The trade-offs aren't that bad.
However, the fact that if you're a "power user" or if you want to do more current and innovative thin
Re:Actually ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If IE Worked well, it wouldn't be an issue (Score:5, Insightful)
As a web designer / developer I'd be happy enough if people who stuck with IE would at least get a good representation of standards compliant rendering of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. That's the *first* step that is *required* of Internet Explorer.
Re:If IE Worked well, it wouldn't be an issue (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why Firefox has to keep trying in order to maintain share. Because the number of people on the web is increasing, and it's not the smart ones who are just now coming online. Complacency is the route to obsolescence.
Re:An honest question (Score:3, Insightful)
Standards (Score:5, Interesting)
What they produced was an absolute mess. CSS boxes were built to IE handling, and rendered incorrectly on Mozilla, which they consistently referred to as "Mozarella". They believed all problems seen on Mozilla were Mozilla bugs, and they added browser detection and workarounds.
Of course it still failed on Opera and Konqueror.
They used an awful piece of Javascript to make dropdown menus.
When they were done, maintenance was handed over to me and I gradually changed all their work to make a standards-conformant site that still rendered the same way. It was a lot of work, starting from the dire state it was in.
But finally, it renders OK and the menus work on most browsers without using javascript.
Exceptions:
- CSS menu only works in IE by including csshover.htc (conditional inclusion using !--[if IE]...). maybe IE7 will support:hover on list items?
- IE4 and below don't quite cut it, fallback to javascript code using serverside UA string detect. these are dying anyway, probably I will remove this support when IE7 appears.
- bug 234788 in GECKO means the menu disappears when mouse moves over scrollable text area. this bug has been fixed in GECKO but Mozilla and Firefox keep releasing new versions based on the broken GECKO for over a year.... We want Firefox 1.1 and Mozilla 1.8!!!
What I learnt: use a website design bureau only to make a site design. Don't allow them anywhere near HTML coding. They just use successive approximation towards the "browsers they test with", and try to impress managers with "browser utilisation percentages" instead of standards compliance.
As someone who recently did the same thing.. (Score:5, Informative)
IE 7 requires the htc file to implement the HTC hover menu. IE 7 still has the bug with apply text-align to block elements. IE 7 still has weird overlap issues.
IE 7 is basically IE 6 with a tab bar and some more annoying anti-phishing code. The website layout I designed recently works like this: one path is for Mozilla/FireFox/Camino/Safari/Konqueror/Opera (tested and working), and the other is IE 5/6/7. One uniform path works consistently in everything except IE, and the smarter Gecko-based browsers even get a little CSS3 magic thrown in.
IE 7 doesn't implement all of CSS 1, a standard that's pushing 10 years old.
(This was me testing IE 7 inside VMWare on Windows Server 2003)
Re:As someone who recently did the same thing.. (Score:5, Informative)
It does, however, implement a hell of a lot more of CSS [msdn.com] than IE6, and has fixed quite a few CSS bugs. It's a lot more than "IE 6 with a tab bar."
(While we're at it, does *any* browser implement all of CSS1? The main reference [webdevout.net] I know of only deals with CSS2 and CSS3.)
While I'm disappointed that IE7 doesn't catch up with Opera, Firefox and Safari, I also have to admit that IE7 represents a huge improvement over the previous version.
Re:Standards (Score:3, Informative)
Been a browser of slashdot for years. Just joined to help you out.
Check out : http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdow ns/example/ [htmldog.com]
for an example of a cross browser clean list menu with no
details of how it work can be found:
http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdow ns/ [htmldog.com]
I modified the code and made a version for my employer that worked on all IE5's including mac, IE6, Firefox, Opera. Its very nice menu. It uses javascript to allow hover in IE.
Re:Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
What they produced was an absolute mess.
You should have put it into the contract that the final product must pass W3C validation [w3.org]. No validation, no payment.
Re:Standards (Score:3, Informative)
constant spyware? (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep up? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does it matter if Microsoft keeps up? Most of their target audience are computer users who will never want a Firefox extension or an RSS feed.
Most people login to read the news, get the weather, and send an email or 2. What Microsoft offers fulfills that.
Slashdot crowd doesn't realize they are the extreme minority, and a big business doesn't make big money targeting small minorities.
FDU (Score:5, Funny)
*Firefox Download Utility
And Windows/Microsoft update (Score:3, Interesting)
-steve
Re:FDU (Score:3, Insightful)
And so it goes (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that there's no real, new, revolutionary development in browsers. They're all following each other's leads and copying each other's successes, not looking beyong the narrow confines of their little war for market share.
With applications migrating from static desktop to web driven versions and web sites creating useful functionality, the web browser has to evolve. Even the word "browser" is really not fitting anymore, since they do so much more than serve up static content. They are becoming control interfaces, transaction screens, and data transfer mechanisms; the browser is going to have to become "heftier" (do not read as larger) to deal not just with interacting with these new applications, but to provide a new layer of security.
As the number of browsers increases (Score:3, Interesting)
plus, anyone who is running a Win2K3 server knows there are already security issues, the IE7 patch already came out.
Re:As the number of browsers increases (Score:5, Insightful)
As the number of browsers increases, my development time remains static. The lower boundary is defined by Internet Explorer and other browsers don't raise it significantly.
In my experience, the people who complain about the number of different browsers are the people who design for Internet Explorer first and fix things for browsers that attempt to follow the W3C specifications. The people who design for compliant browsers first and then fix things for Internet Explorer don't tend to worry about the number of different browsers, because they all tend to work pretty much alike, apart from Internet Explorer.
So give them a few (Score:3, Informative)
If they are tech savvy enough, start with the IE7 blog [msdn.com] at MSDN.
If they don't know the difference between a USB and a Firewire cable, just tell them how much you charge to burn down a machine and rebuild it after their teenage son picks up a dozen worms while searching for pr0n.
IE holding back the web (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently converted some physics books to html, and I would have loved to be able to use svg for line art and mathml for the equations. Firefox supports them, but IE doesn't. Sure, I could have made two versions, or done content negotiation, or something complicated like that, but it would have significantly increased the level of complexity of the project. I just wasn't willing to go to that much effort for for an incremental improvement that would only benefit 10% of my audience. MS is clearly in a situation where they have an effective monopoly, and absolutely no motivation to support any new standard, much less to carry out their own innovation. Heck, they don't even support transparent pngs yet.
There are lots of other ways that MS has had a negative effect on the internet as well, including their behavior about java, and Windows' lousy default security settings, without which botnets wouldn't have happened.
I don't normally feel any compulsion to bash MS. If other people want to use Windows and Office, that's their business. But what they've done to the internet and open standards really hurts everyone else. If it hadn't have been for them, we'd probably have already moved beyond java applets and ajax, to a web 3.0 that would really deliver what web 2.0 is currently struggling to accomplish.
XForms (Score:3, Interesting)
Now For Something Completely Different (Score:3, Informative)
Do You Think the Measurements are Accurate? (Score:5, Interesting)
I administer roughly 100 websites, ranging from downright soccer-mom commercial, to those oriented to the more tech savvy, and everything in between.
Last month I saw 37% of our users arrive via Firefox or other Mozilla project.
We also go up to .8% from Windows CE (mobile) web browsers.
I don't know how much stock I put in these various metrics. They always grossly underestimate non-IE browser from my experiences.
I guess it all depends on what site you measure. AOL.com probably gets 99% IE, while Slashdot probably gets 50% IE.
Unless you can measure the whole web, which is impossible, cherrypicking sites is always going to produce unreliable numbers.
I imagine that they poll mostly "mainstream" websites, but the fact is that such sites really account for an overwhleming minority of internet traffic.
Re:Do You Think the Measurements are Accurate? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do You Think the Measurements are Accurate? (Score:4, Interesting)
WSS has one big issue: they depend on cookies. If your browser doesn't accept their cookies, they don't track browser stats on your hits. If your browser only accepts their cookie for a session and then discards it, it skews their stats. And I'd bet that the majority of people who use FireFox have it set to not accept third-party cookies (cookies from outside the domain of the page being viewed). They're also most likely to have blocked the first-party cookies WSS uses with some customers. And of course as you noted WSS monitors mostly mainstream sites so their numbers tend to reflect the population of those sites (you wouldn't believe the traffic volume associated with Disney or ESPN).
Then again, I'd say WSS's stats are about as good as it's possible to get without some way to hook into the browser itself. With NAT and proxies and such you need some sort of persistent identifier in the browser itself to distinguish 10 different people behind a proxy each hitting one page from 1 person hitting 10 pages, and cookies are the least intrusive way of doing a persistent identifier.
Re:Do You Think the Measurements are Accurate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Firefox needs manufacturers more than features (Score:4, Insightful)
A different view on security... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you have Firefox. Does Firefox compete for code time with other Mozilla products. Yes, a few, but Firefox has quickly become a flagship product. There are people within and without the organization that maintain the code. This creates inherent security because there are positive contributors constantly refining and securing the code.
It's that simple. Will I ever download IE 7? I'll eventually have it in a few years when I buy a computer that has Vista on it, but I won't download it because of IE 6's lack of MS support. With Firefox I simply feel secure that SOMEONE will continue to develop it and make it more secure. Ironically, I can't say the same for a corporate developed piece of software.
The IE Thang... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is serious...
Re:The IE Thang... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The IE Thang... (Score:3, Interesting)
But even if they removed Internet Explorer and provided Firefox instead, you would still have to download Internet Explorer anyway to use Windows Update. You are pretty much forced to use Internet Explorer even if you don't want to. That's why it's an abuse of their monopoly.
Re:The IE Thang... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they are forcing you to install it, no matter how much you don't want it. That's completely different than "providing it" on the install disc... That would actually make it an OPTION.
Not to mention that software still works the old fashioned way... Before IE took over the world, you could walk into a store and buy a low-priced CD with a web browser on it, and every CD (and floppy) you got from companies li
New features (Score:4, Funny)
There are some changes in IE7 that should be noted:
A search box in the corner!(OMG, revolutionary!)
Tabs(This is like 720 degrees revolutionary!)
But... wait... the tabs will be quick tabs with little thumbnails of the web pages(This is amazing, someone should integrate this into an OS)
And finally,
(Note, the following satirical conversation assumes that Vista will actually ship at some point.)
IE7 *Now entering protected mode*
IE7 You are attempting to contact host 'www.google.com' are you sure you wish to continue? The internet is a scary place. Non-microsoft web pages can harm your computer.
USER Yes.
IE7 Honestly, wouldn't you rather look at MSN pages instead of risk compromising your computer? Are you definitely sure that you wish to continue?
USER Yes.
IE7 Is that your final answer?
USER Yes.
IE7 Just to check, it's not opposite day is it?
USER It isn't opposite day.
IE7 But, if it is opposite day, and you say it isn't then it really is. Are you sure it's not opposite day?
USER Fine, it is opposite day.
**Segmentation Fault. Paradox buffer overflow**
At this point, the user restarts IE.
IE7 *Now entering protected mode*
USER MSN Search: google
IE7 No search results found
USER Disable content filter
IE7 1,224,671,930,542 results found.
USER Go to first result: www.google.com
IE7 WARNING! WARNING! The host attempted to send data of the unknown descriptor "HTML." This data most likely contains severe security exploits. In response, your internet connection has been severed.
User opens Firefox.
Now that I'm done IE bashing for the hell of it. The protected mode sounds like it could be a nice sandboxy type thing that could potentially make IE a lot more secure. Of course, it will probably break favorite flashy webpages or block downloads of "OMG you have to see this video.exe" sent to you by sexylola@zombiefarm.net, so users will disable it.
Personally, I will stick with Firefox, or maybe this Opera thingy everyone talks about. Is it like a Firefox extenstion or something? *ducks*
Re:New features (Score:3, Informative)
Case in point: MSN Messenger. Have a friend send you an mp3.
It asks you "Do you want to accept this file?", to which you click yes.
It then downloads the file and offers you a nice and simple, clickable link to open the file. You click on it. A window pops up.
Something along the lines of "This file could be dangerous. Windows has prevented your computer from opening it".
It doesn't mention it, but it also deletes the damned file you just d
The Red Fox + bookmarks (Score:3, Interesting)
I think a lot of Firefox users will still want to get Firefox because for a long time they've been clicking the Red Fox instead of the Blue E to get on the Internet. My friends, I know, will notice this at least, and most likely, when wondering how to transfer all their old bookmarks to their new computer, will look into downloading Firefox because that's what their old bookmarks are in.
I think that interest in Firefox is not going to decrease with the release of Vista with IE7. A lot of FF users are people who would never switch, and the rest are probably too used to it to go back to IE. MS will have to make IE7 a lot like Firefox if they want to keep casual users from noticing the difference.
What is the goal of FireFox? (Score:5, Interesting)
But what are they trying to achieve? 100% market dominance? Do they need that? Can they sustain themselves just by providing a solid browser to the core 10% of the market that cares? If they are going out of business because they don't have 90% of the market, well then they have work to do. I would think they are just a tool for a niche market of serious computer users, and not the drooling masses.
Re:What is the goal of FireFox? (Score:3, Informative)
Once upon a time.... (Score:4, Insightful)
and where are we now? Every website has dynamic pages; half of them require a session ID even for dowloading a manual. Three quarters of them require Javascript to read use otherwise static links. Only one fifth of the website seems to afford programmers who can in this complicated world deliver the experience of the early web (=it works), the rest has a vast mixture of flash, javascript and other Stuff - most of the time requireing the newest version of some obscure plugin to be installed.
Web 2.0 will help (no really) (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the whole Web 2.0 trend (using heavy JavaScript DOM, XmlHttpRequest, and CSS) will probably boost innovation in browsers. As these apps (and "mashups" thereof) get more complicated, it becomes easier for developers to just say "use a standards-compliant browser". This will result in larger and larger groups of people downloading Firefox, Opera, or other standards-compliant browsers, because their friends told them about a site that needs it.
Web browser innovation is fueled by web site innovation, and vice-versa. If we want "cooler" features in our browsers, we need to develop sites and services that fully utilize the existing features, and push the envelope, while still accomodating enough of the user base to make them useful.
Where's the abuse, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
How horrible!
microsoft really has abused its monopoly in all this
Yup, they're really raking in the dough by selling their browser... wait. I mean, they're really squashing Mozilla and preventing them from selling their browser... er, hold on. Ah... I get it... you're secretly arguing about who makes money off of the ads in search engines, MSN or Google, right? So MS's "monopoly" is crushing poor Google. Not! They've g
Re:Where's the abuse, exactly? (Score:3, Informative)
There would be, and would not have been an issue except that the contracts MS was making OEMs sign said you WILL include IE on the desktop or you WILL NOT sell Windows. At one point they also penalized OEMs for including competitive browsers - IE get the liscense at $50
Re:Where's the abuse, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their abuse is in the f
Think of the kittens.... (Score:4, Funny)
No, it wouldn't be nice if the war ended. (Score:4, Interesting)
For 4 years, Internet Explorer went without a significant upgrade to its capabilities. It couldn't even finish support for the specs that had been defined years earlier, never mind adding new stuff.
With 97% of web surfers using IE6 on Windows, the target was obvious for malware writers: viruses, spyware, and worms burst onto the scene and have gotten so bad that even Microsoft says the best way to get rid of them is to wipe your system and reinstall it from scratch.
I'd much rather deal with slight differences in standards support (like trying to manage the differences between Firefox, Opera, and Safari today) than deal with huge chunks of missing features and major bugs the way we have to when developing something for IE6 and F/O/S.
Having more than one browser out there with viable market share puts pressure on the leaders to keep improving their products. Having more than one major target will make it harder for malware writers to hit the entire web at once, and will slow down the spread of malware.
So yes, we're better off with the competition than without it.
Re:Bullshit statistics (Score:3, Informative)
The statistics in the article specifically reference Windows.
Re:Bullshit statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that the global market share for Apple's systems is ~2% (maybe 2 - 3% today?), I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that a very small percentage of users out there are using Safari. Why?
I have a Mac Mini at home. One of the first things I did when I brought it home
Re:Hey, just realized. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uses of Internet Explorer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IE7 (Score:4, Funny)
Your Pro Microsoft posts are giving us, the other Pat's, a bad name on
Please discontinue.
Rogue Pat
-=-=-=
Dear
We the other Pat's still think that IE7 has a terrible interface and broken rendering.
Rogue Pat
Re:Hidden (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a common mistake made by both me and an awful lot of technologically-savvy people. That statement is completely false. There are plenty of people who are aware, but simply don't care. There are even more people who aren't aware, but if they were, they still wouldn't care.
The things that seem like monumentally important issues to enthusiasts often are all but completely irrelevant to non-enthusiasts.
This is hardly limited to computers, of course. For example, I could talk your ear off about the obvious advantages of JHP vs. FMJ in 9mm, but you probably don't care.
Re:Hidden (Score:4, Insightful)
For most people, it just doesn't seem worth it. I made the switch and think it was worth it -- but I have a very hard time convincing most geeks to actually do it. They just nod their heads and say, "yeah, I've heard Dvorak is better" and talk about how they wouldn't mind switching, and then never do.
The probable reason they don't is because during the switch period there is a substantial loss in productivity. Now in actuality, if you limit yourself to just Dvorak it doesn't take very long to learn to type at a reasonable 40wpm -- I learned it in less than a week with a typing tutor. From there, your speed accelerates rapidly. But the change, however fast, is frustrating, and it proves to be too big an obstacle to overcome for most people.
What many geeks don't realize is that despite our insistance that Firefox, OpenOffice, and whatever other MS-replacement we push have similar interfaces to the programs they aim to replace, for many non-technically savvy users even small superficial changes represent a big challenge to overcome. Consider how many people on Slashdot post about their inability to get their parents or friends to switch without resorting to the (extremely popular) IE skin for Firefox.
Unfortunately, just like Dvorak vs. QWERTY, for the vast majority of people it is not arguments about technical merit that convince, but rather arguments about lost productivity, security, and compatibility. In the case of the first, the incumbent always wins -- there is no productivity loss associated with staying with IE in the minds of most people. Security is the main place Firefox constantly thrashes IE and it should come as no surprise that the press (especially the non-technical press) focus most on this when discussing Firefox. For compatibility, again, IE wins, by virtue of being the dominant browser.
It is therefore important from an evangelism perspective that Firefox actually be more secure than IE and remain so, that it be easy enough to use that people who actually try it are not put off (I think this has been achieved rather well), and that it strive to be compatible with as many sites as possible (this also has been done remarkably well in the west at least, largely due to standards-adherence evangelism -- good work guys. In Asia it's a no go.)
Realistically I think that Firefox really, really needs to push security from a marketing standpoint -- and importantly it has to actually be more secure. This is the avenue by which it can conquer. Most people will not begin using Firefox on their own, and if you install it on their computer and tell them to try it they'll still click on the little blue e. But if it is far more secure (which is currently the case), more and more corporate networks will mandate it for security reasons, and what people use at work they'll use at home, too.
Not to mention that security has classically been a Microsoft weak point, which with their slow release cycle will probably remain a weak point.