Browsers Fighting to Keep up with the Web

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....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey maybe someone should file an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft for bundling their browser with their operating sys.... oh wait, nevermind.

Poor Browser

[Anonymous Coward]

After duking it out with Mario all those years, and now with the threat of the Web, poor browser may not have that much fight left in him...oh crap

Re:Lack of Change

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep going back to IE. I try Firefox, but get frustrated because the programmers can't bother to get it to display pages correctly. Then I go back to MSIE, which is a lot better at page display...and noticably faster, too.

FDU

[dwandy]

Well, I for one still have a use for IE: It is my Win32 FDU* of choice.

*Firefox Download Utility

New features

[Kesch]

The article basically lists the new features that are being incorporated into the latest web browsers.

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,

A version shipping with Vista computers, due out for consumers early next year, will come with parental controls and a "protected mode" so hackers can't easily to gain access to the rest of the machine even if the browser is hit.

(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 [e-mail], 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:The IE Thang...

[dourk]

Hyperterminal does Zmodem. Google for a local warez BBS you can dial up.

Think of the kittens....

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Is there any way to stop these browsers from fighting?

Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth

[gEvil (beta)]

Ummm, that we're rational people who learn from our mistakes?

Re:Here's an idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can. My copy of Windows 3.1 did not include IE.

Try again, sucker!

Re:When a decline to 90% market share is newsworth

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

Throw me in with the young "doesn't have much knowledge of history" group... Here I've been thinking the four you mentioned were presidents, not representatives.

Re:IE7

[Rogue Pat]

Dear Pat The Great,

Your Pro Microsoft posts are giving us, the other Pat's, a bad name on /.
Please discontinue.

Rogue Pat

-=-=-=

Dear /. community,

We the other Pat's still think that IE7 has a terrible interface and broken rendering.

Rogue Pat