Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues 758
adamsmith_uk writes "For the first time in three years something has happened in browser land. In fact, major events have started happening at a breathtaking pace. Time for a long overview that tells the whole story. "
the future is now. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Project does so, it has a future. If it doesn't, it will sink further into obscurity and silly names.
Apparently this guys has been out of the loop. I agree the silly name changes, and change in directions hurt, (hell it confused me too), but now they are on a strict roadmap. The Firebird browser is on a strict diet, it's slicker, leaner and meaner than anything Microsoft has to offer. Even some of the biggest Windows advocates [joelonsoftware.com] have jumped on the bandwagon.
Hopefully enough eyes will be opened, and will see that the future is Firebird.
Mike
Fat ass browsers (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, that's like saying that if I went to fat camp I'd be the skinniest person there. IE ain't the poster child for a lithe browser, and Mozilla (not even 1.4) isn't either.
Re:Fat ass browsers (Score:5, Funny)
Mike
Re:Mozilla's not *fat*, it's *big boned* (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, that's the Win32 binary (zip) archive. Just decompress and go. Uncompressed, it runs about 18MB.
ZIP compressed, the archive runs about 7.4MB. BZ2 compressed, the archive runs about 6.5MB.
Please note that these figures are for the 20030101 nightly binary, not a milestone.
That still counts (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, but that's part of the problem. Because they use the same guts, let's say my mail portion is chugging - I bring up the browser and it doesn't refresh. Integrating things that tightly makes for some significant bulk. Admittedly, they seem to realize this, but it means that Mozilla, as of 1.4, is bulky as heck.
Point is, if you don't use Mozilla's mail and such, then it's effectively a browser to you. And you still get the bulk and such.
Re:the future is now. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla is an engine rather than a browser. This has led to projects like Galeon, just like KHtml has led to projects like Safari. "HTML views" (aka "browser windows") are already nearly as common as text editors in many apps (think HTML help, email,
If this scenario happens, there will be no option for any
Re:the future is now. (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to break this to you, but Netscape *is* Mozilla, with some branding added to it, and the odd feature to link in with AOL... but most of the development for Netscape is done by the Mozilla team (who incidently, has a sizable proportion of Netscape employees paid to work for them).
Re:the future is now. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, perhaps AOL is waiting for Firebird before deciding whether to completely do away with Netscape... They could give Firebird some fancy Netscape branding and call the whole affair Netscape 8 for its last shot, but really, the fact that they won't even bundle it with AOL should be telling of just how high they rate its chances of survival.
I think Firebird will probably emerge as the best contender. Packaging it with Netscape branding will at least take advantage of a familiar brand name for people! That might be its best hope. Of course, the one small problem still remains... though the author of the article squarely calls IE 6 Dead, it is still (and you better believe will continue to be until a court order pries it out of MS's hand) the default, pre-installed web browser on Windows.
Any browser that comes out without that kind of pull will, no matter how much better than IE 6, be just a contender (unless the courts allow competition...).
Re:the future is now. (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean in favour of Internet Explorer, right?
The only widespread violation of HTTP I can think of off the top of my head is when Internet Explorer ignores the MIME-type provided by a server. The big problems on the web are the bad HTML and CSS implementations.
Re:It's true, Firebird is the best. (Score:5, Funny)
IE typically causes problems with that many instances too. The simplest solution to the problem is to find porn sites that don't have so many popups.
Re:It's true, Firebird is the best. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's true, Firebird is the best. (Score:5, Funny)
Firebird crashes when there are maybe 40 instances, each with 3 to 5 tabs, and some tabs are closed.
Yeah, I had similar problems with my old '91 Sentra. When towing six elephants, there was serious buffetting at transonic speeds. They should really get some aero engineers to look at that.
Re:It's true, Firebird is the best. (Score:3, Informative)
I have about 20-30 windows with about 3-8 tabs each open normally and it rarely crashes, and if it does, only one window crashes.
Re:It's true, Firebird is the best. (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, if you are using Linux, remember that, when it is low on memory, it simply kills applications that are consuming lots of memory. And Mozilla tends to be only a process with several threads...
Yup it will be mozilla... (Score:5, Insightful)
Opera is doomed on the desktop. Very few people are willing to pay money for a browser. The other projects survive because they can be given to users for zero cost. Opera may continue to be a niche player in the future, but ultimately it can't grow because it's not something people will pay for.
Safari (Score:5, Interesting)
"If we really get down to it, who killed Explorer Mac? Safari did."
NO! WRONG!!
Microsoft killed IE for Mac. They were planning all along to add all kinds of exclusive proprietary functionality in the next Internet Explorer that will be integrated into the Windows Longhorn OS. This is part of their strategy for forcing you to buy their next OS. They want everyone running IE7 so as to marginalise Safari, Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, et al. They by doing this, the also marginalise Linux and Mac OS X which is something they very much want to do.
So instead of admitting that this was their plan, Microsoft just made up the line that they couldn't compete with Safari because dropping it fit with their business plan to begin with. It's just the same old monopolistic behaviour all over again, except this time they are using the browser to marginalise the OS market instead of the OS to marginalise the browser market.
Re:Yup it will be mozilla... (Score:3, Interesting)
it's hard to explain the concept to people these days, but I DID manage to get my girlfriend to register and pay for her copy of Bejeweled (I mean, she only plays it about 2 hours a day...) and she still thinks it's a bit much to have to PAY for stuff - I did explain to her that the people who wrote the software have t
What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take over the desktop. then worry about a browser.
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like the author says, however - truly this is a gripe by developers, not users. 9 out of 10 users are quite happy with IE, so much so that if there are any goofy problems with various sites, it's assumed that it's the site's fault, not IE (which, frankly, can often be true).
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
30 Million users is no joke... When an Internet commerce site starts getting complaints that AOL users can't navigate their site, or buy their wares, they're going to clean up that spaghetti web code quickly.
We tend to dismiss AOL users, and their chosen ISP, as being the Internet's tricycle set. Let's not overlook their potential as an economic engine for change.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my close friends related to me his situation with his mother. She's on AOL 3.0. three-point-oh. She's afraid upgrading will lose her bookmarks or settings or something. Wow.
So sure, 30 Million AOL subscribers. How many of those will be running AOL 8+? How many will revolt at the change and open IE instead?
In other news
Did anyone else feel this article was more like a really long blog entry or something? One big vomit of poorly contrived opinions?
Though what is said about IE7 is interesting. It looks like Microsoft will be doing a Mozilla with its browser. (Rewriting it from the ground up and taking an assload of time to do it.)
Which implies to me that right now is the hump-time for alternate browsers. In the gap between now and "MS Windows 2006" kicks off the newest "hey now we've integrated all the OSS features we found on the net!" version of IE that puts everyone back to the drawing board as far as "why we should continue" / "how can we improve" etc., browsers like Mozilla/Netscape and Opera will have a very good window for promoting their wares.
Anyway, wtf was up with all the *seriously* tedious browser "roles"? Can anyone that read that crap tell me which one was referred to as "Innocent Victim of Brutal Murder"? "Sympathetic Outsider"? or even "Tragically Misunderstood Prophet"?! Though "Senile Evil Dinosaur Usurper", while convoluted and missing appropriate hyphenation, fits. But damn that got old quick.
RE: No longer does IE have to be the best (Score:4, Insightful)
Thing is, users don't decide if it's good enough. We (the developers [and our employers]) are the ones that determine if it is good enough. If we use features that IE doesn't support in our websites, IE is not good enough.
If [phoenix|firebird|???] realizes it's potential quickly enough, it's unlikely that it will fail to gain market share, particularly since it's open source nature would make it ideally suited as a vehicle for OEMs to make a mark on the users desktop.
For example, I could see HP rebadging [phoenix|firebird|???] and making it the default browser for their systems, particularly if their experiments with Mandrake go well... they could support the same browser on Linux and Mac and reduce training costs in their call centers, a pretty good incentive if you ask me.
Besides all this, IE is likely to continue to be a vehicle for virii, and Microsoft are unlikely to take any steps against intrusive advertisers, which means those will remain two areas where another browser can offer real added value to the consumer and motivate them to switch on their own. Lets be realistic, installing another browser is not exactly rocket science, is it?
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take over the desktop. then worry about a browser.
But people will be less likely to switch OS's if their favorite applications won't work on anything but Windows. If someone is already used to Mozilla, then switching to Linux will be easier, since the interface and configuration are basically the same, and all the user's bookmarks, preferences, and email can be imported.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this may be the way that Linux can convince more people to move over. Show them they do not need MS and in fact can get better options from other sources. Then boom switch their desktop.
Now I just need to learn MySQL and then I will have no need for MS again.
Re:What major changes? (Score:4, Insightful)
As we didn't have OS/2, BeOS and some others to teach us that no OS can win without popular applications.
Climate of fear (Score:5, Informative)
To put it mildly we were howled down. People wanted to continue with IE and Outlook. They were happy to add absurd bits of additional software to stop duff information getting as far as IE and Outlook, but they weren't prepared to change them.
Re:Climate of fear (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many open source applications (Evolution, for example) that can interoperate with Outlook in a mixed-OS environment. However, it's naive at best to think that Mozilla Mail can replace Outlook all by itself.
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Take over the desktop. then worry about a browser. Are you kidding? Taking over the browser is too confusing, so they should try taking over the entire OS first? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but if people are scared of new browser, why the hell would they want to change their entire operating system? I say start small - once people see the benefits of open source apps, they might start opening their eyes to bigger things.
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Funny)
Yup, and it comes with mail and news reading too. Oh wait, that's Emacs.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I'm talking to someone about the internet and they mention how annoying popups are, I mention mozilla. I mention the popup killing and the fact that I find it renders things slightly faster than IE. People want it, instantly.
Its not a matter of getting people to change - they will WANT to change if the product is worth it. Its simply a matter of getting the word out there. Build it, and they will come, once you tell them how the hell to get there.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Interesting)
No pop-up has gotten through in 2 weeks of using the new Google toolbar and every site that relies on Javascript for navigation still works.
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll grow up knowing about computers just like kids in the sixties knew about cars.
This is one of the most brilliant comments I've seen all day. This is also why Linux itself gains ground, and why the article's story script requirement of a single good guy is flawed. It is because future generations will not be naturally afraid of computers. The monolithic ideal of the same software vendor for your OS, browser, etc. will lose value as time goes on, because Joe sixpack of tomorrow won't fear the com
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with both this post, and it's parent. Most of the kids I know who are "growing up" with computers know less than the regular users of yesterday (they not only know what a command line was, but what to do with it too). They don't know about Mozilla or Opera, they know about AIM and Yahoo messanger, and free blogs that don't require knowing anything.
They're not afraid of computers cause it is an everyday part of their life, not cause they know about them. The computer has been dumbed down to the level of the television for most of them. Being a computer nerd is not as bad a rap these days because it takes almost no commitment or learning to be obsessed with using the thing.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's worse is that they think they know what they're doing. 5 years ago, they were willing to admit they didn't know how to use a computer, while now they think that because they use hotmail, they're computer savvy.
Who cares about bloat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Download size is even sillier. I've got nearly a gig of MP3s, a web cache of over a gig, and you think I care about 60 Mb vs. 6 MB? Or even 100 MB to 1 MB? 60 MB is .05% of a new 120 GB drive.
And spare me the "Wait.... what if I'm running on my old 386SX-16 Mhz? "
Re:Who cares about bloat? (Score:4, Informative)
Good thing memory is as cheap as water. Too bad the company I work for will only spring for 256MB and doesn't allow us to modify the machines ourselves.
This is unsupported by reality. (Score:4, Interesting)
This has encouraged the vast majority to simply use what is placed in front of them. Just as we have had a number of generations immersed in a life with cars, the vast majority of these people are not able to tinker with their cars, to modify them, or even to properly understand them.
There are a small number of people who think critically, explore and challenge. There are a vast majority who go with the flow.
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll say this to start: Firebird
The good reason we can give for the IE tards out there that don't want to switch
The EASILY demonstrated value in Firebird/mozilla is the pop-up blocking feature. I bet that if Joe and Sally Q. Computeruser knew that there's an easier to use web browser that doesn't bombard them with POP-UPS, they'd download and install in an instant.
Installing firebird is a piece of cake by the way... download, click the icon, the browser starts to run. Can't really get much easier than that.
Re:What major changes? (Score:4, Insightful)
all we need is an anchor on CNN (they're AOLTIMEWARNER, RIGHT? They *could* easily push firebird/mozilla) to do a 1 minute piece about how IE sucks and Firebird is better.
If Microsoft did this, the whole Slashdot community would denounce the action as evil; ergo, it's just as evil for our guys to do it.
Besides, there's already enough propaganda on CNN! :-)
Re:What major changes? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
The one without a full, documented API that enables you to actually do things to the content, right?
The W3C DOM API compliant one, which is very well documented and implemented closer to the standard than IE.
The one that doesn't allow you to get actual rendered layout values?
Again, its W3C DOM compliant.
The one that doesn't support the ruby tag?
The "RUBY" tag was recommended to the W3C in 2001 and became part of XHTML 1.1. They're working on it
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's part of it, but IE is also the better browser. I've tried the assorted varieties of browsers and IE comes out on top for speed and usability. Opera is a close 2nd though, but it's not worth paying for (given that I use an ad-blocking proxy I don't want an ad built into my browser so the free version is out). IE passed NN/Mozilla/etc in quality around IE 3 which was...1997?
You are correct, though, that people don't
I disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a front-end web developer, so I usually have a range of browsers on my kit, and use them all on a regular basis.
Personally, my browser of choice is Opera, but I'm finding more and more that my second choice is becoming Netscape - and this from someone who remembers well the nightmare that was NS4.x (it still makes me shudder). Mozilla's pretty good too, I like it, I just have to use NS6 and 7 as part of my job (and cos I'll get bitch-slapped by
I'd agree that IE3 was probably better than NS3, and that IE4 kicked the crap out of NS4, but lately, I'm finding IE to be slow and buggy, and it's literally the last browser I start when nothing else will do (hotmail, anyone?).
Just my 2p, but imho the only reason IE's still the most commonly used browser is that it's what comes on most people's kits. It used to be the best browser out there - it's not any more. Gimme cookie controls, popup blocking, tabbed browsing every time...
Re:What major changes? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would liked to have believed that, but if it were really true, why is Windows the dominant OS?
The next time you're at a friend or relative's house and his computer crashes, watch his reaction carefully. Does he mutter about "damn Windows," or about "damn computers?" The sad fact is that most computer users have been dealing with BSODs, bugs, and freezes for so long that they have come to believe that such things
Excellent article. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Excellent article. (Score:4, Interesting)
I installed Mozilla an made it the default browser. I put the icon on the desktop for him, right next to the IE Icon. I even clicked through it once for him and told him it would keep those nasty pop-ups from bugging him (for which he constantly had a new combination of swear words).
Still, every time I see him browsing, it's with IE. Time to give up? Old habits die hard.
Ok, which alt browser do you prefer? (Score:3, Interesting)
What about Konqueror, Safari for the Macheads, Galeon, Opera or Firebird?
I have always liked Galeon myself. Still Epiphany is supposed to be good and there are a zillion reasons for using an alt browser. What are yours?
Re:Ok, which alt browser do you prefer? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, that would be Mozilla, IE and Mozilla which are big dogs.
And then kHTML, kHTML, Mozilla, Opera, and Mozilla.
And then the ever pressing decision of Mozilla against... oh. Mozilla. (They even have near identical interfaces, both being GTK2 based.)
Opera: now Mom-tested! (Score:5, Interesting)
But the best test came when my mother sat down to do a job search using IE. She was immediately assailed by popups, so I helpfully pointed out that you don't get popups with Opera unless you want them. I showed her where to click... and she's hooked. Score one more for the Norwegians!
On the other hand, my wife and 12-year-old daughter don't like Opera. In both cases, I think it's because Opera doesn't have enough security holes, and it interferes with their game downloads. I shudder to think what I might find if I were to install ZoneAlarm...
Web site stats (Score:5, Interesting)
Funnily enough I was just checking the stats for a client web site and for the first time both Mozilla (about 5%) and Linux (about 2%) got into my report to the client. The web site is for engineers and my prediction is that engineers are going to be the first significant user of linux on the desktop over the next couple of years.
I don't like this article (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. He even admits it. I can think of a couple ways of writing this article, transmitting the same information, and not come off as a bigot at the same time. It's rather interesting to read, but he is speaking for the browsers more than he needs to, let them speak for themselves!
He's also obsessed with CSS (but we won't talk about standards in this article, no not any), like that's the only point you consider when picking/develpoing for a browser. Sure it's important, I use it a ton don't get me wrong, but it is not the only thing with IE that I have trouble developing for.
Re:I don't like this article (Score:3, Interesting)
As a developer (including some web development), I can understand his obsession. Knowing which CSS properties are supported are essential to designing a good web site. If you use styles to highlight certain parts of your web page tehy won't be highlighted if the browser does not support the CSS properties you are using.
Personally, I will either a) develop a web page based on the standard PC configur
Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
The last update has been 2002 and it never got updated since.
Do people even know there are IE alternatives? (Score:5, Insightful)
IE MAC the best browser for a year (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IE MAC the best browser for a year (Score:3, Informative)
It's Safari not "Saffari."
It's the not "teh."
Kidding
IE was the best browser on the Mac probably since 4.5, and certainly since 5.0. There's no question about that. Was it the best browser period? I think it was, crashes notwithstanding. It lost what was left of it's lustre, though, when it came to OS X.
Mozilla is slow and ugly. Safari is clearly it's equal or it's better and six months time will see it clearly surpass all competitiors on the Mac.
The real question is, will the
Old thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's because I mostly focus on enterprise apps and not too much on client side stuff, but frankly, this guy downplays standards too much, which to me is bizarre because the whole non-standards thing is how we got into this whole mess of one browser no innovation crap. Yah sure, standards take long and companies innovate faster. But, look who you signed on the dotted line when all you web creators went strictly IE. Yes, the f-ing devil.
I probably live in the dreamy stratosphere demanding on most of my projects that we find ways around IE only stuff and make the application robust, secure, and stable, which to me and end users is far more important than js, layers and whatnot. Sure, I also know there are plenty of people who need jazzy sites and have to deal with these issues but you only have to be burned so many times to realize that you need to pull your hand away from the flame.
I guess though, I just feel like design on Moz based browsers and tweak for the rest. Because in time, these scales are going to tip out of IE's favor. I know, I'm in the minority, but I also want my stuff to work. I sacrafice a little zing for a better development experience. Cuz in the end, the users don't care.
there is hope (Score:4, Interesting)
The Biggest Point (Score:5, Insightful)
I think after all I've seen, that's the biggest point, and the biggest reason why using Windows really stuck in my craw (well, other than crashing, being less efficient than Unix, crashing, not letting me do what I wanted unlike Unix systems, etc).
It was that it usually didn't matter what you did - if Microsoft put it in your face, the people would use it.
People don't start their browser - they start the Internet. They'll tell you so - they click on the icon marked "Internet" and off they go. They don't use a document editor, they use Word, and if they use Wordperfect they'll usually say "Wordperfect", though in the back of their head they'll say "that thing I use for editing typed stuff".
Mac users (and I'm one of them - recent convert, thank you for asking) use Safari because it's there.
My fear for Google is that people will say "I'll just google that", and type in a search string into their little browser bar, and be taken right to MSN search.
Microsoft: Hey, what's the problem with that? We're not a monopoly, after all!
Me: Yes, you are. Just stop pretending otherwise, please. While there are millions who honestly don't give a flying fuck, I do. This is no different than in the old USSR when there were two telivision channels - Channel 1 was propoganda, Channel 2 was a guy telling you "Hey, go back to Channel 2. There's nothing else here."
That's the only reason why I wish OS X would come to the i386 platform.
(I'm going to pause here because I know the screams of people foaming at the mouth. "Apple will never do it! They're addicted to hardware!" "If they did, Microsoft would do to Apple what they did to BeOS and threaten computer manufacturers to never let it on their systems".
I know - it will never happen, and that's why I use the term "wish".)
Or my hopes that as more businesses turn to Linux based solutions for the business and start putting it on the desktops to save themselves hordes of money rather than paying another huge Microsoft Enterprise Licensing fee, that more businesses will start being able to say "Well, the cost of making Microsoft angry is now less than putting Dell Linux on a system - so let's do that." (Of course, that will mean that somebody will have to do for Linux what Apple did for it's BSD based subsystem - oh, and make it easier to play games on Linux than it was trying to get Quake II installed.
I'm going to pause here again for more foaming at the mouth people telling me it was easy to get Quake II running on a Red Hat system if only I remember to compile support for something somewhere. I know, I'm an idiot, I bask in your knowledge and lay be belly and bar it at you to acknowledge your greatness. Feel better? I never got Quake II to really run on Linux, so I gave up and installed it on a Windows machine. Thanks for playing.)
I'm waiting and watching the future, so we'll have to see what it does.
My point? Browsers don't matter. Office suites don't matter. OS doesn't matter. What matters is that the user can sit down and do their shit (whatever particular shit that happens to be), and not think about how they do their shit. Once that happens, businesses can just change out the parts that the users need to get the cheapest/most efficient/most effective shit making stuff.
When that day is truly, completly realized - then it will be Microsoft who is in the shit, because they'll have to truly, honestly compete. Not just put up whatever shit they want and expect me to swallow it.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
Re:The Biggest Point (Score:3, Insightful)
It just shows that you're clueless and have absolutely zero respect for the millions who did suffer under the USSR. What's the penalty for disagreeing with USSR politics when you were in the USSR? Imprisonment, confinement, exile to Siberia, "disappearance". What's the penalty for not liking Microsoft? Linux. MacOS. BeOS. (indeed, some people wouldn't even consider that to be "punishment") Whatever, t
Re:The Biggest Point (Score:4, Interesting)
The interesting thing is that in some ways, this is pointing to the fufillment of a long term dream of computer usage patterns. You're not concerned about your tools, you're just doing your tasks. In its ubiquity, the brand is getting more and more transparent.
I'm not saying it's good that this path of carefree electronic life is looking so propietary, but it could be worse.
Re:The Biggest Point (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you used Safari? If you have, you should know that we use Safari not because it's there, but rather because it's really, really good. Not perfect, sure - but it has a real future, and it's getting better all the time.
What about HTTP servers? (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as the Microsoft IIS server continues to favor IE, (can't find the older /. articles about IIS circumventing the standard HTTP protocol to serve pages faster to IE, and also display crappy pages on Mozilla) rather than serving pages fairly across all browsers, and continues to be as widely as Apache, IE will still remain in the game. Simply because general home users wont understand why some pages crap out with Mozilla/etc (not designed for any browser other than IE or due to discrimination by IIS).
It's a pity Apache doesn't start favoring Mozilla/Opera over IE, but I guess that wouldn't be fair play.
The review of the review (Score:5, Funny)
In the beginning was the review, and it was OK. It used Titles for Everything, and as such was a Trailblazer in some ways. It quickly became Old and strangely played the role of The Great Distractor.
The Players
This is Part 2
Part the Third
There is a great deal of discussion about browsers. Some of it makes Good Sense, but sadly much of it Does Not. There is a War. That much is certain, but
Who Will Reign Victorious
Will the Aged Dragon obtain the Dentures of Power and regain the Throne of Browser Supremacy or will his son the Flaming Sparrow recently renamed the Songbird of Fire throw down the Gauntlet of "Bring it on"? Only one thing is certain.
The Reviewer is unsure
Finis
I've switched back and forth a few times (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew that there were a lot of others that hated them, so I just sort of figured it was the cool thing to do, hate those bastards.
Then I started learning more econ and started thinking less as a college student and more rationally in terms of how MS got there, and I stopped hating MS.
That said, I did hate IE. It sucked nuts. Mosaic was total ass, and at the time Netscape was the bees knees.
I continued to use Netscape throughout college and was annoyed whenever I had to use IE.
Then I graduated and began to actually program - my particular projects were nearly all DHTML web applications that were large scale ports of existing legacy apps, moving to the web to allow easier use and upkeep... so they said.
DHTML on Netscape sucked the hugest and hairy nuts, so we told our clients that they would have to use IE (these were private applications, used in house at many large universities, we weren't designing storefronts that needed to be cross-browser).
I hadn't seen IE in a long time and was really enjoying working with it compared to the clunky and awkward Netscape.
As a result, up until about a week ago, I was all for IE. It was fast, worked well with DHTML, and most importantly in the past year or two - it has the Google Toolbar.
I have been trying out Mozilla for the past few years, but haven't been all that impressed by it - in fact I was really put off by it at first.
But I just installed 1.4 last week and was really impressed with it - and once I saw that I could get the same Google Toolbar functionality that I used all the time, I realized that I really had a reason to switch now.
I personally am still sticking with IE at work, b/c I do a lot of IT admin stuff on an MS network, and using IE makes it easier to do some of the MS updates.
At home I will likely make the switch over to Mozilla to keep track of many e-mail accounts, as well as for my personal web surfing.
I'm at the point now where I am starting up my own web venture, so I am actually going to have to test for cross browser look and feel, as well as functionality.
My first test at it showed that Mozilla 1.4 is better at dealing with png graphics than IE 6.something. Mozilla also renders a page faster.
I haven't used Opera in over two years, I suppose I will need to test that as well on the site. I don't have a Mac, so I can't test any of their browsers.
I think those should totally cover my target market (I actually think in terms of the business, it will be nearly 99% IE users).
What does this have to do with anything? Not a whole lot I guess.
The point of the article. (Score:5, Insightful)
The long-unanswered question (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing I can think of is an assumption that people would choose an OS based on its proprietary browser (Explorer7 or Safari) but I think everyone would agree that the decision would probably work the other way around (OS first, browser selection consequential).
If that's not it, what's the answer (the answer to a shareholder's question, perhaps) for pumping money into browser development? Is there a day of reckoning fast approaching when we'll all start paying for browsers and this long-running war is just for future market credibility and establishing a price point?
This article misses it's own point (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that the pretense of the article is wrong. When I reached the point of the article where it said "end users do not care about browsers" I felt like I should stop reading. You are the end user even if you are a developer. If no-one cares about it then why write about it? If no-one understands or cares about CSS then why mention it again and again?
Not only is the article poorly worded but it states all it's theories and conjectures as if they were facts! Where is the proof?
This guy thinks WAY too much about browsers (Score:3, Funny)
User: Browser? What's a browser?
Web guy: A browser is the application---er, software program---that you use to view web pages on the Internet.
User: Oh. How about them Mets?
Heck... (Score:5, Interesting)
I ask, "Do you use IE?" They all reply, "Yes!"
I install Ad-aware and 198 items removed later: "Wow! Thats fast!"
Using IE is like walking into a battlefield with a big bullseye painted on you.
Re:Heck... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heck... (Score:3, Informative)
(And check out the new sig I just stole
Explorer (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a different theory for you: Microsoft isn't fixing the IE6 css bugs because they don't care, and the "operating system" comment means that IE7 is going to try to move away from HTML and into web-based embedded windows ".Net" (or whatever) applications. Microsoft has from their perspective won the browser wars, and they are finally ready for their long-awaited "Make The Web = Microsoft" step that that whole "open standard" thing has prevented them from for so long.
Just a thought. But probably not all that paranoid.
What really interests me is, what happens now that IE has dumped the whole cross-platform-y ness thing? IE's big strength right now is that everyone targets it. IE HTML is standard HTML. What really interests me is the idea that at some point in the future, the idea of targeting Konqueror will begin to begin to look increasingly attractive. After all, there are a nontrivial amount of web designers who use the mac. I'm sure Microsoft is hoping that these web designers will be willing to switch to Windows just so that they can see what their web pages look like for 90% of the customers.
However, unless things reach the point where (say) Banks can afford to totally ignore all Macintosh and Linux customers (instead of just giving them substandard service), we may start to see the ubiquity of "optimized for IE only" disappear. Big sites like targeting only one browser. If someone comes up with a windows version of Konqueror in the near future (and preferably finds a way to make it muscle into the file browser in IE's place), that browser may well become Konqueror. Konqueror already has a pretty decent amount of mindshare in both Linux and Mac (I don't know any mac users at this point that don't use Safari over IE) and the potentiality that Konqueror could become the one browser that's actually *the same* across *all* platforms might start to look very attractive to web developers at some point-- the sort of thing that Mozilla/Gecko might have at some point fufilled if it had ever become, you know, not painful to use. (Galeon/Phoenix and similar projects may still someday allow Gecko to take on that role.)
At the least, which sounds more attractive; tell your windows base, some of which have a KHTML-based browser, "you have to have KHTML to view my site", or tell EVERYONE except those with the brand new IE8.NET2WINDOWS2007WEB "you can't use my site at all".
Re:Explorer (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that will happen for a long long time, if ever.
After all, there are a nontrivial amount of web designers who use the mac.
Don't kid yourself. Market areas vary, but not that much. Most web work is still carried out on a PC, in order to work with Internet Explorer, which is what the users use. The Mac market share is still only 2% or l
Stability or Innovation or What? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know as I can say what people really want more - stable browsers, or new [useful] features. I know I'm all for the stable/reliable/unified/etc. browser design, but then again, I'm not a M$-using consumer whore.
Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
But this guy does have one valid point when it comes to Mozilla - it needs BUSINESS WINS. Until companies start adopting Mozilla as their core browser technology it will likely be always relagated to the back room.
Does Mozilla have evangelists? If not, it needs some.
Techie Tuesday (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Techie Tuesday (Score:3, Funny)
slow down there (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be interesting if it was better written, I guess that is what I am trying to say.
Disagree with a premise (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe for a minute that the code base is so bloated that they can't change it. In the late 1990's, when they weren't dominant, new features and versions were released all the time.
The only reason MS spent money on IE in the first place was to keep people from viewing the operating system as a commodaty (gee, I can get everything I need through the web on any platform, why buy MS Windows). Once they established IE as the dominant web browser, they relaxed. People need to buy Windows cause it is the best (only for some sites) way to browse the web.
IE hasn't kept up with the times (CSS bugs, bad png support, no tabbed browsing, popup blocking, etc). But now that it is dominant, people write to its bugs. IE is the only browser that can view some websites. Even though I use Mozilla as my primary browser, I still fire up IE once or twice a week.
And Microsoft has no motivation to fix it. Why would they? When you have 95% of the desktop and 95% of the browser market, why spend a dime? Every version of IE they release costs them millions of dollars in development, testing and support. Why spend a lot of money to change a product that people are happy with?
Instead, Microsoft is concentrating its efforts on new ways to make money, like DRM and "safe computing" (which gives them a new profit center in code signing, validation, and security tools).
Recently been using Konquerer... (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW - my son is 2 1/2 years old. He calls my Debian installation "Penguin and Dragon" after the boot Logo and KDE splash screen. I actually installed Debian because I'd heard good things about the childrens program "gcompris". It has definately lived up to what I've heard about it.
I read the article, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but what are these "major events"? I read the article and only saw an overview of the past and some predictions about the future. But there is no mention (that I could find) of any "major events" that are happening "for the first time in three years."
Is the major event that these guys have concluded that IE isn't viable long-term? That would mean that the major event is that these guys came to a conclusion, which sounds fairly minor to me. Maybe it's KHTML being used for Safari. I guess that could be major to a Mac person, even if the rest of the planet never notices.
The time has come - physical browser distro (Score:4, Interesting)
How do do it? Firebird release, AOL style! You build a custom CD image with firebird set up in the most friendly way, perhaps with a quick tutorial explaining what tabs are and how popups are blocked. Then anyone can download the image, burn some CD's and make use of AOL kiosks in stores to distribute the browser images. Put a snazzy cover on the front explaining "Free browser! Blocks popups dead!! Tab support!! Better online bank support!!" and at least a few people would take them, and tell others about the browser as well.
Key is to make sure the windows login integration code is in place so the things will work at work, also the distro should have mozilla mimic IE ID strings close enough that detection sites will not block the browser.
Make sure the CD works OK on the Mac too, even though the Mac has Safari there are times when it's nice to have Mozilla around.
Fighting their own marketshare (Score:5, Insightful)
The key thing to notice is that for Windows 95 through Windows XP, IE 6 is effectively the last Microsoft browser those OS's will be able to run. This means that, in order to see any new features from IE 7+ users will need to replace their entire OS. This is where Microsoft's huge marketshare starts to work against them. Even now, there are large numbers of people who refuse to upgrade from Win9x because their current machine cannot handle the newest versions or because their happy with don't see the point in upgrading. Microsoft will have to fight there own installed user base.
Case in point: I have one machine with an Intel processor in it. It's an old Gateway laptop. It was running NetBSD for learning purposes. I needed to be able to run a few windows-only apps, so I broke down and decided to install Windows. This laptop can't really handle anything over Win98SE, so that's what I installed. In the process, I ran Windows Update and updated IE to version 6. But, according to Microsoft, after version 6, there will never be a higher version of IE available for this machine. So what am I to do? I'm not going to spend money on a new machine, at least not another x86 machine. Fortunately, Firebird is available, and is more than up to the task. My little laptop will be surfing the web for at the near future.
If websites start designing for features found in IE7, large groups of people will be left behind. Large groups of people will complain because sites don't display properly in their 'old' version of IE6; sort of like the situation Netscape 4 was in. In Netscape 4's case, when a better alternative came on the scene ( IE4 ), people dumped Netscape. People will now be faced with a new decision; do I shell out the cash to upgrade my OS and possibly my machine, or is there a way to view the latest and greatest websites on my current machine?
Since IE will cease to be an option in this case, people will be forced to look for alternatives. Hopefully, one of the alternative browsers will be there with open arms.
A New War Has Begun (Score:5, Insightful)
The browser wars are over. Pitting products against each other is now pointless, because the rules of engagement have changed.
The new conflict is the Standards War, where the features (or lack thereof) of the products stand toe to toe. The W3C now decrees the rules of war, not various marketing departments.
A side skirmish in this will be about user interface: tabs, popup blocking, etc.
The announcement about IE6 development being at an end is not news: a resourceful googler could put together the pieces months ago, as I did. The only thing not verified yet is a bit about IE7 only being useable on an MSN account, which seems like MS shooting themselves in the foot.
MacIE suffered its fate because MS is a poor loser, but a smart one. They know Apple is going to do the same thing on Mac that MS did on Windows.
Many people (the author of the article included) forget that Mozilla is not a commercial product, which is why there is still a Netscape branded browser.
Many forward thinking people are beginning to realize that over the next decade, the desktop based browser will become an ever shrinking peice of the browser market. PDA's, phones, kitchen appliances will all have browsers. The embedded browser is coming fast. Is IE6 capable of being embedded in anything? The correct question is: Is Windows capable of being embedded in anything? Probably not. Will IE7 be embeddable? Ask about Longhorn instead. Mozilla (Gecko) is capable of being embedded, so MS has already fallen behind once again.
I personally wouldn't even put Opera on the battlefield, they're like Switzerland: capable and organized, but too small to make a difference and not interested anyway.
What a load of rambling dribble... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't believe me? Read your EULA with Media Player 9. This program is the priming piece of their technology on the user end, and fundamentally changes all of your Microsoft software rights the moment you install it... and they've already trained a whole new generation of users to call MS everytime they want to activate their OS.
You'll also start to see this implemented in the next year or so when they start to offer limited productivy aps to next generation X-Box Live subscribers (eg, Longhorn web services).
Opera doomed to always be the 'outsider' (Score:4, Interesting)
1) It isn't free. People haven't been paying for browsers since the web first started. IE was always free, and Netscape had that 'evaluation' clause that didn't have any boundry. People aren't going to want PAY for a browser, and then download 6 meg, and have nothing tangible to show for it. Unless Opera finds a business model where it's free, it will always be 'niche'.
2) I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but, opera doesn't have a mail client.
IE has Outlook Express. Mozilla has Mail&News. If Joe Homepc doesn't want to buy a browser, you can BET they don't want to go out after that and buy a mail client. Email, after all these years, is STILL the killer app for the Internet. Mom's and Dad's aren't getting internet access because they like CSS. Email is the first reason, and then, MAYBE, the web after that.
Opera is a great browser for those who have very specific requirements for a web browser, but it is not the 'browser for the common man'.
Bang! Flash! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have not measured (time to do that, I think) but I suspect now that around three percent of web sites I visit are now flash only and probably about three times that have a signficant flash component.
Designers like flash - it gives them lots of power and lots of ways to restrict the user into seeing a web site the way the designer (or the marketroid who owns the designer) wants. Then too, its a standard. And finally it is certainly browser neutral (modulo the usual problems where it doesn't run on this machine or that - which is, of course, the users fault for choosing such non-standard platforms).
So, I think the article has it wrong. None of the current browsers will survive long. Someone will build a flash/shockwave platform that manages to display html and take over the world.
I have seen the future and it is unstoppable flash popups!
I've finally switched to Mozilla Firebird (Score:4, Informative)
But I've had it with popups, and the "last stand-alone" version of IE is the final straw. So I've switched to Firebird at home and as of today, at work. Pretty painless transition really, I can even drag and drop my Toolbar quick-links from IE to Firebird. So far so good.
The authors narrow view of the future (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the author has somewhat misunderstood Opera's role in the browser wars.
The next generation browser wars will not be fought on the desktop - it will be fought on mobile devices, and on embedded devices, a market where Opera doesn't have any competition from either Mozilla, IE or Konqueror/Safari.
Opera have partnerships with Sony Ericsson, which brings their phone to devices like SonyEricsson P800. Furthermore. Opera is also available, and by far the superior alternative for other mobile devices such as Nokia 3650/7650, effectively bringing a sixth-generation browser with full CSS/DOM-support to handhelds.
Unlike the Mozilla project, Konqueror or Apple, Opera has created partnerships and made deals with a lot of companies, as outlined here [opera.com].
As a desktop browser, Mozilla will remain what it is today: An outsider. The browser is too large, or bloated, if you will, with features noone hardly ever uses (And, yes, that goes for Mozilla Firebird as well) - for many desktop users it's just too complicated, and too slow.
Konqueror will remain a competitive alternative for which platforms it exists - it won't be any better or worse than other alternatives.
As for Safari, it may well become the dominant alternative for Mac users, but being what they are, a minority, Safari will remain a minority browser.
Opera is available for all major desktop platforms, and will compete on equal ground with the other browsers.
As for the behemoth of web-browsing, Internet Explorer; it's days are numbered. Following the statistics for a site like AWStats [sourceforge.net] is interesting reading: The percentage of MSIE users has been decreasing from month to month. Granted, AWStats is a specialty site, mostly interesting to web developers, so it's statistics may be somewhat skewed. Keep in mind though: Web developers are what has made the browser market what it is today, it's web developers that chose to develop for MSIE.
Finally, the author failed to mention the perhaps most important of the browsing competitors of the future: The Aggregator, enabling users to subscribe to XML feeds, instead of visiting a site by traditional means. The aggregator market is a highly diverse market, with products like NNTP//RSS, Amphetadesk, Radio, RssBandit, FeedReader, FeedDemon and a whole bunch of both commercial and homegrown readers. Many of these either utilise some common browser rendering engine, convert content to plaintext, or have a minimal HTML rendering engine.
Safari DID NOT kill IE X (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, that couldn't be anything further from the truth.
Microsoft hasn't legitimately updated Mac IE for -years-. Of course, they've released small fixes for critical bugs and security updates; however, that's it. Mac IE on OS X was littered with hundreds of horribly annoying, very obvious, bugs that have been present since it shipped with Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000. That's almost 3 years!
Just about every OS X user loathed IE X. It was slow, it crashed, it had UI problems, and it had rendering problems that it's OS 9 cousin didn't have.
Apple -had- to make Safari. Microsoft was going to let Mac IE rot until Mac users were forced to adopt a better default system browser. Yet, OmniWeb was not standards compliant, Mozilla was too slow with quartz and didn't have a Mac like UI, Opera was still full of bugs, etc.
But then Camino/Chimera came along.
If Microsoft really gave a damn about IE X they could've built an awesome cocoa browser within 6 to 8 months. Shess... they HAVE enough money. Or, at the very least, they could've fixed the hundreds of tiny bugs that IE X already has. If they did that, there would be no Safari.
MS is getting back to it's old dirty tactics with the Mac market. They're killing IE, they bought VPC, and they are suing the makers of Real PC. Soon, they only way to check your JavaScript with MS JScript or HTML in Tasman will be to have access to an x86 box. Moreover, soon IE exclusive web sites will be Windows exclusive.
This is really obnoxious.
Re:OK, I'll bite (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the features you mention were added more than a year ago, if I recall correctly. The comment was pointing out that Mozilla hasn't done anything groundbreaking in the last year or so.
Re:OK, I'll bite (Score:5, Informative)
- NTLM support
- open multiple home pages in tabs
- per-site popup blocking
- rich-edit control (Midas)
- image auto-sizing
- dynamic profile switching
- find as you type
- bookmark groups
- XML prettyprinting
- WSDL support
- composer has image and table resizing
- junk mail controls
- link prefetching
- more info on Page Info panel
- extra tab browsing options
- download manager improvements
- more intelligent autocomplete
- view selection source
Re:OK, I'll bite (Score:5, Interesting)
- Can the browser show me all the websites I go to like they're supposed to be seen ?
- How nice is it to use ?
- Will it run on my computer ?
I think you can see how the features you mentioned map onto these three points (except for XUL, that's just pointless), but one should always keep in mind that the users think in general terms, not specifics.This means that they won't be saying "I switched to Mozilla because it halves ping times !", they will be saying "Hey, my friend Bob showed me this trick I can use to stop popups from shwoing up... it's probably illegal but what the heck". Later on, they might say, "hey, Bob's trick works pretty well, but now I can't see movies in my browser for some reason... I guess I'll put up with the popups". (Note: that's just an example, Mozilla probably handles Flash anf WMV just fine).
In other words, only the user-visible features are important, and the margins are razor-thin. One missing feature, such as correct CSS support, DHTML implementation, or that "deny unrequested popups" button, can mean the difference between victory and oblivion.
This is why I believe that Mozilla is ultimately doomed. The people who make it think in terms of XML, XUL, ZYZ, not in terms of "how can we make the users like us". Opera has a shot, because they are actually trying to make money with their browser (as opposed to a political statement). However, paying money for browsers is a new idea that probably won't catch on. This leaves the Mac crowd (which will always be there), and IE as far as the eye can see (because it comes with the OS, and it's the path of least resistance). Sad, but that's the way things currently stand.
Tabbed browsing is not special! (Score:3, Interesting)
Tabbed browsing
Why in the hell is everyone so big on tabbed browsing? I tried it, and frankly it pissed me off. Why? Because it did the same thing that multiple window browsing does, but it did it while adding an extra line for the tabs at the top of my page, further reducing my screen real estate that can use for the actual web page I'm trying to read.
I multi window surf all the time. I frequently have 10+ browser windows open. But I detested
So in other words... (Score:4, Informative)
#4 is not quite what you propose, because that would be a serious and unnecessary drain on a Web site's bandwidth. A site can specify whether a link is allowed to be pre-cached (not by default), and Mozilla will pre-cache it for you if you've enabled this feature (also not by default).