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Mozilla The Internet

Yahoo Pledges Full Firefox Support 239

Posted by Zonk from the you-have-to-love-the-fox dept.
homerj79 writes "News.com.com is reporting that Yahoo! has pledged full support of Firefox across its entire site. Despite its search bar for Firefox, which was launched in February, users still had to revert back to IE for certain features of Yahoo, like customizing your Yahoo Messenger avatar via the web. A specific date has not been set, but the company did say it would not launch any new services until all existing one supported Firefox." Update: 03/18 18:24 GMT by Z : GraffitiKnight (among many others) wrote in to mention that the claim has been retracted by the Yahoo! central office.
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Yahoo Pledges Full Firefox Support More

Yahoo Pledges Full Firefox Support

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  • Support from an unlikely source? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:30AM (#11976302) Homepage Journal
    (Heard Wednesday at SDWest) Even ASP.NET 2.0/VS 2005 will have (better) support for Firefox. It sure perked up my ears. What's their plan?

  • So Yahoo Supports Standards (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:31AM (#11976312)
    So Yahoo now supports standards.

    Wow! News at 11.

  • launchcast (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jkc120 ( 104731 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:33AM (#11976339)
    What about launchcast [yahoo.com]? There's no mention of it in the article, but hopefully that's included. It's one of the few things keeping my wife from using firefox.

    • Re:launchcast (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Santos L. Halper ( 591801 )
      It did say *all* of their services. I am assuming Launchcast falls in that area.

      • Re:launchcast (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gorath99 ( 746654 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:48AM (#11976567)
        I agree it would be only logical to assume that it does. At the very least we'll have something to throw in their face if they don't make it firefox compatible. With a bit of luck this'll also mean that Launchcast will become useable from non-windows machines (if they stay away from writing plugins that require WMP or other such nonsense). Launchcast is one of the very few sites that I want to visit badly enough to occasionally start IE for. (The only other one being my online banking site.)

    • Re:launchcast (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lifebouy ( 115193 )
      And THAT is why the claim has been retracted, you can bet on it. They like their Lauch the way it is, to the point I think they'd rather lose it than change it.

      I've sent more than one email to yahoo about Launch being broken for Firefox, and have been told, basically, So what? It works fine in IE, and that's what everyone is using. Yahoo cares nothing about their users, IMHO.

  • Yahoo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:33AM (#11976340) Homepage Journal
    Well, this is certainly a cause for celebration.
    What word could we yell in exultation?
    Something short and perhaps cowboy-based?

    Yeeeha!

  • Yahoo and Firefox compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:35AM (#11976372) Journal
    Well, that is a great step but, I would like them to support games like Bejewelled 2 and other, that are ActiveX only...

    They should make all they games with Java. And, I experience some problems with the calendar also... well, they say, the devil is in the details
  • I bet they'll support it! They're gonna have to if they want to get their search bars integrated into Firefox.....Hello, adware.

  • Yahoo not supporting Firefox after all (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jim_Maryland ( 718224 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:35AM (#11976377)
    From ZD Net UK [zdnet.co.uk]:

    Yahoo said on Friday afternoon that a statement from the company's Australian office on Tuesday, which claimed that all future products would be compatible with both the Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) browsers, was inaccurate.

    In February, Yahoo launched a search toolbar for Firefox, but users of the open source browser were forced to switch back to IE when accessing some Yahoo services. Following communications between Yahoo and ZDNet UK sister site ZDNet Australia , Yahoo issued a statement saying the company would not launch any new products or services in the future without ensuring they work on both IE and Firefox.

    However, on Friday, a Yahoo representative from the US admitted that the original statement was 'factually incorrect' because, although Yahoo realises that Firefox-compatibility is important, it is not in a position to promise all future products would be both Internet Explorer and Firefox compatible.

    • Re:Yahoo not supporting Firefox after all (Score:5, Funny)

      by greyhoundpoe ( 802148 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:45AM (#11976525)
      Scanning online news sources: 30 minutes
      Typing up a quick summary: 10 minutes
      Rubberstamp by editors: 5 minutes

      Having your submission proven irrelevant within 7 minutes of being posted: priceless

    • Re:Yahoo not supporting Firefox after all (Score:5, Interesting)

      by prezninja ( 552043 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:50AM (#11976579) Homepage
      Is it just me or has there been way too much 'factually incorrect' information in front-page Slashdot articles lately? A very simple peer-review system for facts in Slashdot articles before they go on the main page would do wonders. Additional "+5 Informative" comments could potentially be appended to the article, such as the parent, and more factual and well-balanced news for the general reader would appear on the main page without the need to read all the "+5 Insightful" opinions and "+5 Funny" jokes to just get the facts. It's a humble opinion. What do you guys think?

      • Re:Yahoo not supporting Firefox after all (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ryantate ( 97606 ) <ryantate@ryantate.com> on Friday March 18, 2005 @01:06PM (#11977411) Homepage
        Yahoo can't decide what's it's doing -- it contradicted itself. Slashdot is supposed to stop this how? Hiring fact checkers?
    • Well and that is why Google will continue to be the dominant search engine and why I will continue recommending their products to my clients, friends, and family.

      And why Yahoo's product incompatibility will be irrelevant once Google takes over by doing it the right way.

      Bye Yahoo, unfortunately your 1998 mentality won't get you far nowadays.

  • Not Correct (Score:4, Informative)

    by phusikos ( 784802 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:35AM (#11976382)
    Sorry to spoil the fun, but the article is out-of-date an incorrect. (Gotta love the Information Age!) Today, a Yahoo! representative said that the "full support" statement was "factually inaccurate." [zdnet.co.uk]
    "In the grand scheme of things Firefox is still a new technology. I'm not saying we are not going to be developing and exploring other areas -- we are. But there are so many different products on the Yahoo network that there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser," the representative said.
    Hopefully, they'll still be able to expand Firefox support in the near future.
    • Yahoo is not what it once used to be but it is still a pretty big internet company. Basically it means that in a public statement a company has said that Firefox is big enough to warrant special attention. For a long time IE was the only browser for most companies. If you used anything else then that was just your problem if they even admitted that you could use another browser.

      Baby steps. Each company out there that realizes that windows/ie only doesn't make business sense makes the world a better place f

  • Well... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CarlinWithers ( 861335 )
    Support from yahoo is better than not having support from yahoo. But I think what firefox really needs is a major player to go out of their way and advertise and promote them. Can you imagine if yahoo made a statement like 'we reccomend firefox as a superior browsing experience...'. The major thing keeping them from this is fear of M$ to be sure. Too bad.

  • Competition Is Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:36AM (#11976397) Homepage Journal
    Once again, it looks like competition is good. I've been bugging Yahoo! for years about supporting non-IE browsers, but only getting automated replies. I guess Google, and its cozyness with the Firefox creators, is enough of a threat that they felt some real heat. I hope this announcement also means that maybe Google will start supporting Firefox and other non-IE browsers when they roll out new toys like desktop search. If Yahoo! and Google keep going at it like this, it can only mean good things for the end user!
  • Let's hope Yahoo finally decides to support Adblock ... right now, their adverts are only partially blocked by most filer sets.

  • Finally. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dimentox ( 678813 )
    It has always been a bother having firefox set as my default browser and using yahoo IM. Would have to copy and pase the url into IE to change my avatar or play games. Is this showing us that companys are finally embraceing alts to IE and its propritary ways? I wish more sites would follow suit and embrace a standard, its a win win situation if they do. While I am sure its nice to be able to use certain functionality of IE there are bound to be ways to do the same things in Firefox. Though it looks like th

  • You'd hope submitters would RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by X ( 1235 ) <x@xman.org> on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:37AM (#11976405) Homepage Journal
    "...but the company did say it would not launch any new services until all existing one supported Firefox"

    No, they didn't say that. They said they wouldn't launch any new services until making sure they worked with Firefox. They don't have a timeline for when they get all existing services supported on Firefox and, not surprisingly, don't want to hold off on launching new services for an arbitrary period of time.

  • Browser support (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 2k4u ( 805544 )
    I hope they add support for opera too. I use opera as my primary browser and I have all kinds of problems trying to use Yahoo mail. Is it really so hard to make sure your website works with all popular browsers?

  • Next thing you know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by suman28 ( 558822 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `82namus'> on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:40AM (#11976454)
    MSN is also going to pledge full support of Firefox :)

  • Ninjas (Score:2)

    by jbrw ( 520 )
    The article doesn't say all previous services will be made compliant before launching new services (they just announced Yahoo! Assassins [littleyell...ferent.com], remember? Do you think they're going to put that on hold until every obscure service they offer in every obscure market is up to scratch?).

    It says "[...]the company will not launch any new products or services in the future without ensuring that they work on both IE and Firefox" which is quite a different kettle of fish entirely. Indeed, it goes on to say that "[...] Yah

  • Finally!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by HerculesMO ( 693085 )
    Start with the goddamn Launchcast service which would REALLY ROCK with Firefox support. I have an IE window running in my background just to play music at work. It's annoying.

  • What timing... (Score:2, Funny)

    by iJames ( 846620 )
    I was just swearing at Yahoo! Movies last night, for promising to show me a movie trailer and then telling me at the last moment that I couldn't do it in Firefox. This was on a Mac, so I wasn't about to do it in IE.

  • LaunchCast also? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thirteenVA ( 759860 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:43AM (#11976491)
    I was very disappointed to find that LaunchCast does not work in Firefox(or any mac browser for that matter).

    The error message displayed is:
    'Sorry, we are unable to support Netscape 6.0+ at this time.'

  • A good thing. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EEPS ( 829675 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:43AM (#11976495)
    If this is true, It is a great step for Yahoo. I have tried to move everyone I know to firefox, including my mom. The only thing that was holding my mom back from completely using firefox was yahoo's online streaming music radio. Maby finally she can dump IE once and for all!

  • Wrong, but close. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Richthofen80 ( 412488 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:50AM (#11976585) Homepage
    I actually think this is a dumb statement by Yahoo, and I use firefox daily.

    Yahoo should not pledge firefox support, it should pledge STANDARDS support. If all their pages validate, and contain the proper doctypes, then Yahoo becomes stardards supporting, and all good browsers that obey standards will render them correctly. They'll also gracefully degrade per platform/browser.

    • Re:Wrong, but close. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:53AM (#11976621) Homepage
      Was going to post the exact same comment myself. :) I'd be MUCH happier if standards were adhered to, instead of focusing on support of specific browsers. It forces the browser coders out there to make sure their support of standards is solid, and in turn makes it a hell of a lot easier for those of us who code web pages to code it once and have it work the same everywhere.

  • LuanchCast (Score:2, Interesting)

    by PHanT0 ( 148738 )
    I wonder if this covers partnerships Yahoo! has with other companies.

    Being from Canada, Yahoo! has partenered with Rogers to incorporate features like LaunchCast into high speed internet service bundles. I know this is the only thing I currently use IE for as LaunchCast won't support anything but IE... boo-urns.

  • Type to Find Support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by slateX ( 755872 )
    I am most annoyed that the main search bar at yahoo.com grabs focus when you start typing no matter where you click on the page. This breaks type to find ("begin finding when you begin typing" in options) and I always have to do a find on their page since it is so busy.
  • At home, I tend to use my iMac to surf the web, and I always start at Yahoo.

    So now I can upgrade from IE4 to a real browser like Firefox, safe and secure in the knowledge that my fave portal will work with it.

    Kinda stomps on the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, doesn't it?
    • I've been using my.yahoo.com with Mozilla and Konqueror for ages - to my knowledge, I've never once accessed it with Internet Explorer. Is there something magical I've been missing by browsing it with something else all this time, or do you just consider official support to be more important than I ever bothered to?

  • Great. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by oliverthered ( 187439 )
    Now all they have to do is.

    Stop truncating my email at x chars.
    Support SSL for pop3 so my email isn't sent for everyone to see.
    Support message ID's in pop3 so kmail doesn't download my email 3 times.
    Stop putting plain text attachments in the message body or at least let me downlaod them, it really screws up patches.

  • All Business (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Headcase88 ( 828620 )
    Yahoo isn't doing this as a favour to anyone. Firefox has a sizeable share and Yahoo is squandering away business by not supporting Firefox. Like someone way above said, Yahoo should have supported standards in the first place.

    The way they do things now is a bit messy, and cleaning this up (which they might not even do) is just a first step to getting more business. It'll save 'em more money in the long run to adhere to standards. Firefox is the flavour of the day; it'll likely be replaced by something "b
  • Has anyone else noticed that Yahoo's homepage is no longer very "selectable"? I try searching for text within the page (-F in Mozilla), and can't get the "Find" dialog to appear. I can't drag-select other text. It's like they've got the page locked down, so only their UI (not the client SW) is effective. That's hardly "full" support, of Firefox or any other browser.
  • I was under the impression that all, or nearly all, of Yahoo!'s content was served up by FreeBSD machines. What kind of perversion went on that they decided to put IE-only content on these boxes? Maybe their press release confusion is an indicator of other weirdness in the company, too.

    • Re:FreeBSD (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Perhaps the thinking is that FreeBSD:server::Windows:desktop. You wouldn't run a server using a desktop OS, and in my conjecture of the opinion of these administrators, you wouldn't run a desktop using a server OS.

  • Now if they'd just upgrade the Messenger client for Linux so I could use the webcam feature without resorting to Windows.
  • While it looks this story is incorrect, it still should be pointed out that the problem is not designing websites to work with specific browsers, it is getting them to comply to existing standards. If major sites like Yahoo started coding for W3C [w3c.org] standards it would push developers of compliance-challenged browsers <cough>Microsoft</cough> to fix their software. Then, in the Utopia that would develop, web developers would know that their compliant code would display the same in whatever browser
  • Some sites won't accept mail from my yahoo account claiming it's not RFC compliant. Heck if I know but it'd be nice get on it if not...

    http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/

    Who are these guys anyway???
  • World wide web standards are going to benefit emensely from Firefox's popularity, since I assume it's a browser that uses real standards, so for people to make sites that work well with it, they will also be making a website that works well with other standards compliant browsers.

    In this way Firefox is trailblazing through the world wide web, and going to make things easier for other IE killers.
  • Basically, the new notice says "Hold on -- we're not going to sit on our hands until everything runs on firefox!" They're still committing to support Firefox, but it's not a "Stop the presses!" kind of issue.

    It's probably a competition issue for them because I'd expect that the people most likely to switch to Firefox probably make up a really juicy demographic that they don't want to lose out on.

  • Products "not appropriate" for Firefox? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by codemachine ( 245871 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:39PM (#11979868)
    "...there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser."

    Someone needs to tell Yahoo that if an application is not appropriate for one standards compliant browser, then it is not appropriate to be a web application. In fact, it really can't be called a web application anymore if it only runs in IE - it is a Windows application at that point.

    This whole retraction is just an excuse to cover the fact that they're too lazy to fix all of their buggy code.

  • even if it was true (Score:3, Insightful)

    by POds ( 241854 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @06:24PM (#11980767) Homepage Journal
    Why dont they try for full W3C compliance and Javascript standards compliance, rather then just supporting a set of browsers.

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