IE Standardization Fading Fast 176
alphadogg writes "Just as Internet users in general have defected in huge numbers from Microsoft Internet Explorer over the past several years, the business world, as well, is becoming less dependent on the venerable browser. Companies that used to mandate the use of IE for access to web resources are beginning to embrace a far more heterodox attitude toward web browsers. While it hasn't gone away, the experience of having to use IE 6 to access some legacy in-house web app is becoming less common. 'A lot of it has to do with the emergence of the modern web and the popularity of mobile. They have made it very different for companies to truly standardize on a browser,' says Gartner Research analyst David Mitchell Smith."
5 Browser Compatibility Projects in 3 years (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
And it was probably the only good Shockwave app ever - Snowcraft.
Mod parent up (Score:4, Interesting)
There is in fact legislation in Korea requiring the use of an ActiveX control as an anti-Phishing measure, and there has been since the 1990's, in order to implement the SEED encryption algorithm in a captive frame; here is a report on it: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south-korea-still-paying-price-embracing-internet-explorer-decade-ago.shtml [techdirt.com]
Similarly, Chinese banks implement an alternate ("software clipper chip") asymmetric key encryption, also in a captive browser frame.
The software that initially implemented this was developed in Germany, and there are a number of major banks all over the world which require ActiveX controls to implement secure banking. This is why if you search for "banking activex firefox" or "banking activex safari" or "banking activex opera", you will see lively discussioms with people bitching about not being able to do banking.
Now, there have been several researchers who have published exploits, which indicate, that it's possible to attck through the ActiveX control, and therefore this type of thing in reality provides no security any longer. But moving a bank or a government is like trying to move a mountain.
Before you fault them, realize that when you are logging into your Google account, you are also doing so in a captive browser frame -- which is why there aren't programmatic ways to log into Google accounts.
Re:shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever the cause this trend is great news indeed. After all these years of painfully adding exceptions to our websites to deal with Microsoft's stubborn refusal to follow standards, there are finally signs of improvement. We are not out of this mess yet and things may get worse, but for now let us just be happy with the news.
I propose all of us raise a glass of your favorite beverage to toast the beginning of the end of web's dominance by Microsoft!
Re:popularity of mobile (Score:4, Interesting)
I seriously doubt it. WinRT is a horrible mobile OS, maybe with WinRT +1, but it's current incarnation has enough loose ends to make Gnome 3 look polished.
Re:shit (Score:2, Interesting)
Hardware h.264 decoding is just code running on a DSP, it is quite possible for Apple to add support for HW decoding other codecs if they really wanted to.