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68% of UK Universities and Colleges Use Firefox 215

Posted by Zonk from the british-insight dept.
An anonymous reader writes "mozillaZine is reporting that over two-thirds of British universities and colleges have installed Mozilla or Firefox on their campus computers. They cite an open source survey by OSS Watch that also shows rising support for Mozilla Thunderbird, Moodle and Octave, though a decline for OpenOffice and LaTeX. Predictably, all open source offerings are blown away by Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office's 100% deployment rates."
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68% of UK Universities and Colleges Use Firefox More

68% of UK Universities and Colleges Use Firefox

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  • What's the big deal...? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:30PM (#15905560)
    Mozilla/Camino/Firefox is standards compliant, free and safe. I don't think IE7 can touch that.
    • IE7 is standards compliant; It even improves on the standards with all new features!
      It is free for Windows, everyone runs windows.
      It is safe, provided you run the anti-spy ware, anti-virus, anti-add ware, and a good firewall.

      See IE7 can touch it and improve on it!

      Man I am glad I run Linux!
    • Mozilla/Camino/Firefox is standards compliant, free and safe. I don't think IE7 can touch that.

      Internet Explorer if bundled with every copy of Windows. Seriously, you can't touch that. As long as the IE browser remains "a part of the operating system", and and as long as Microsoft continues to dominate the OS market, no other browser will be any better than second place, regardless of how wonderful it is.

      TW
    • Mozilla and Firefox are not standards compliant. They're just a lot closer than IE, and standards compliance is a priority for them.

      I'm still waiting for them to fix a bug I filed five years ago reguarding forms, which happens to be a compliance issue in HTML.

      There's other browsers that say they're more compliant than gecko, although I haven't tried any of them (or, in the case of Opera, I haven't tried it in many years).

      Still, IE doesn't even come close, at least as far as standards compliance goes. It i
      • > I'm still waiting for them to fix a bug I filed five years ago reguarding forms

        Do you happen to have the bug number? "spauldo" doesn't seem to match any bug reports...
        • I didn't submit the bug, although I voted for it. It was preexisting whenever I encountered it.

          This was way back in the early days, when mozilla still crashed like crazy. This was back when they were relasing milestones.

          I'd have to look up the HTML standard for the exact item, but it has to do with the tag - there's a way to specify the actual value passed via the form (other than the content of ) and mozilla didn't do it.

          It's been years, and the project I was working on at the time is long since dust, a

    • Mozilla/Camino/Firefox is standards compliant, free and safe. I don't think IE7 can touch that.

      It doesn't need to.

      With websites which are built to work on IE using Active X, Flash, and people's indifference to standards and the like you get people using IE by default.

      Once you're the de facto standard, other things get measured by how well they conform to your behaviour. You can be compliant with all of the standards in the world, but if you don't do the things people can do in IE, in the same manner, you'r

      • Flash is wonderfully cross-platform. Even OS/2 Warp had an up to date version for quite a while. I'm not sure if they still do, but I'd trust it on more platforms than I would Java for web stuff.

        • Flash is wonderfully cross-platform. Even OS/2 Warp had an up to date version for quite a while. I'm not sure if they still do, but I'd trust it on more platforms than I would Java for web stuff.

          Flash works well on Mac and Windows, but sucks on everything else. The Linux port is two versions behind (7, versus 9 for Mac and Windows) and has a nasty audio syncing bug. No other OS is officially supported, though some have gotten it to work. Last I heard Flash 6 was running pretty stable on BSD. It's unders

      • Exactly. IE 7 is standards compliant, it is 100% IE 7 standards compliant.

        Of course, it still sucks, and I hate it when they force me to use ie 6 at many cafes and libraries, so I count this use of Firefox as good.

        I wonder why UK is so much better at this sort of thing that US, AUS, NZ, and other countries.

  • If OSS can conquer Universities... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sweetnjguy29 ( 880256 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:30PM (#15905563) Journal
    ...then the rest of the world shall follow! These numbers are deceiving though, because although more than two thirds of UK universities and colleges have it installed, it is only installed on "some" of their hardware. It is depressing that the open source model and philosophy hasn't caught on with more force in universities, especially since it fits so well with many universities mission statements, to bring education and enlightenment to the masses.

    • Re:If OSS can conquer Universities... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Right on. It's depressing to hear that LaTeX use is declining. I wrote my thesis using LaTeX and it was such an easy process once I learned the syntax. It was so nice not to have autoformat screwing things up all the time. Equations looked really good, too!

      • I wrote my thesis using LaTeX and it was such an easy process once I learned the syntax.

        And that's the problem right there. You have to learn, and read, the syntax yourself. That's a lot of work for just marking up documents, especially since Word or WordPerfect can do a decent job with a lot less of a learning curve.

        LaTeX makes some sense if you are doing lots of documents professionally, but for someone who's likely to only write a handful of papers it's overkill. And if you are laying out lots of

        • but for someone who's likely to only write a handful of papers it's overkill

          Every conference and journal I have submitted to provides a LaTeX style which can be used to correctly typeset a paper with little effort. Some also provide word templates, although you can generally spot papers written in Word because the typsetting is inferior.

          No one I have seen provides Quark templates.

        • Re:If OSS can conquer Universities... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @06:26PM (#15906595) Homepage
          And that's the problem right there. You have to learn, and read, the syntax yourself.
          There are "WYSIWYM" editors for LaTeX, as well as programs which help you write it. I agree that the learning curve is what prevents adoption, but it isn't an insurmountable barrier. Another barrier is the added time of processing the document
          That's a lot of work for just marking up documents, especially since Word or WordPerfect can do a decent job with a lot less of a learning curve.
          WYSIWYG line optimization doesn't look as good as page optimization. These formats are quite fragile & don't look the same when rendered by other installations of the software & sometimes other installations won't even be able to open them. Furthermore, there is a learning curve involved in using these "properly" (with styles & contents generation). This might be fine for short documents, but these don't scale well.
          LaTeX makes some sense if you are doing lots of documents professionally
          Or even a single, complex document (such as a thesis).
          but for someone who's likely to only write a handful of papers it's overkill.
          Depends on what is happening with those papers. Many journals now strip away all formatting & so it doesn't matter if you give them a Word Doc or a LaTeX article--the two should look nearly the same in print. Sometimes, the author is burdened with making sure everything looks fantastic & a minimal amount of time can be spent to make a document that DOES look better. Some journals will only take DOC or only take LaTeX, which decides the format you should use. LaTeX still has a place in academia.
          • LaTeX still has a place in academia.

            Myself (and a number of my fellow students) love the 'track changes' features in Word. When writing academic papers in LaTeX, I had a tough time understanding how the edits my advisors made improved the paper. The visual nature of track changes made it much easier to emulate their writing style (if nothing else so that they'd sign off on the dissertation, which was written entirely in Word).

            • Track changes in LaTeX (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Noksagt ( 69097 )

              Myself (and a number of my fellow students) love the 'track changes' features in Word.

              In collaborating with many authors, I've found that this is often accidentally left off, so it is really of marginal benefit.

              When writing academic papers in LaTeX, I had a tough time understanding how the edits my advisors made improved the paper.

              Not only can you use 'diff' on .tex files, but you can store them in version control repositories (such as cvs or subversion). This kind of change control really can't be matched

              • Try latexdiff. The visual markup works quite well.


                i'm currently writing my theses and tried latexdiff.

                unfortunately the resulting .tex files just wont compile without manually editing them. its really annoying, but the bugs seems to be limited to \section's and other headers.
            • Hand in paper versions for editing. Or ask them to use % to make comments of the editing.
    • I think you fail to grasp how stubborn the older lecturers can become, set it their ways, don't want to change and do want to learn a new programs.

      They can also seriously suffer from the temptation of free software for their own personal use, regardless of the cost to the students or the community.

      There are also the personal power plays that take over from rational decision making.

      The long term view, what is best in the interests of the greater community or teaching for the future, unfortunately often

  • At the Junior College I go to all, the computers in the labs have Firefox installed on them, and that includes the Macs. Though most people who use the Macs just use Safari instead.

  • about:mozilla (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Petskull ( 650178 )
    about:mozilla "And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror." --Mozilla, 7:15
  • Concidering we are talking school owned computers and the academic community is supposed to be all about GPL, Open Source, etc...68% sounds to me like something isnt quite working out the way it should.
    • If you think the UK's 68% is disappointing, take a look at US universities and colleges.

      Within our supposedly academic institutions, Firefox appears on only a small fraction of computers. We defiantly have a long way to go to catch up to their European counterparts.

      • Re:disappointing numbers (Score:4, Funny)

        by LindseyJ ( 983603 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:54PM (#15905770)
        We defiantly have a long way to go to catch up to their European counterparts.

        Indeed...

      • "Within our supposedly academic institutions, Firefox appears on only a small fraction of computers."

        RTFA. That number is the percentage of universities that have installed it on some computers, not the percentage of computers that have it installed. You could have just as easily said that 32% of UK universities surveyed do not have firefox on any campus computer.

        Furthermore, I don't see what being 'academic' has to do with what kind of software is installed on campus computers. Why would a small li

    • As I mentioned to the other poster (I didn't notice that the idea originated here)...

      "...and the academic community is supposed to be all about GPL, Open Source, etc..."

      Really? How so? I thought the academica community was supposed to be about learning new things and preparing oneself for work in the real world. How does the GPL relate to a pre-med student? How does open source software relate to a history major studying ancient greece? Even among the very limited discipline of computer science (be

  • Installed != Used (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EnsilZah ( 575600 ) <.moc.liamG. .ta. .haZlisnE.> on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:35PM (#15905604)
    We have Firefox on all PCs where i study (not on the Macs though, for some reason (Art academy...)).
    But alot of people probably don't know what Firefox is, and if they do, some of them probably don't want to change old habbits.
    So, Installed != Used.

    • Re:Installed != Used (Score:4, Insightful)

      by arachnoprobe ( 945081 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:39PM (#15905628)
      but: installed = usable = choice = better
      • but: installed = usable = choice = better


        That's not the point. The title is misleading if the program is not actually actively used.
        • When I was at school, I couldn't get Firefox to work correctly by installing it myself, partly because we were all Limited Users, partly because of the bizarre way our home directories were named. If Firefox wasn't installed, I'd've had to use IE instead.

          Installed = better

          • When I was at school, I couldn't get Firefox to work correctly by installing it myself, partly because we were all Limited Users, partly because of the bizarre way our home directories were named. If Firefox wasn't installed, I'd've had to use IE instead.
            Installed = better

            Sure, it's better to have it already available for potential use, but you miss the point. The title says they're actually using it. When in reality, they're only saying it's installed.

            Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still installed on e

          • Portable Firefox (Score:3, Informative)

            by Noksagt ( 69097 )
            You might try Portable Firefox [portableapps.com]. This doesn't require installation & is set to keep all needed files in a subdirectory. You could keep it on a USB stick, your roaming profile, some other network drive, or individual workstations.

            Installed is better, but there is a work-around for some users (though certain workstations may be configured such to not allow unknown apps to be executed or allowed network access).

    • people probably don't know what Firefox is, and if they do, some of them probably don't want to change old habbits.

      Nuts. People are learning and those that know show a marked preference to a browser that's actually been improved over the last five years. FF installed on a computer is going to be used because it's going to be the default browser. In every instance, it's there because the machine's owner thinks IE sucks and that FF will reduce maintenance of their machines. Why else would they bother?

  • Missed Advertising Opportunities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashdotOgre ( 739181 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:37PM (#15905610) Journal
    It's good to hear Firefox use is increasing, but it has always frustrated me how many people have never even heard of OpenOffice.org. While I was working at a university last year a few times I had to pick up some cables from the bookstore, and on two occasions the person behind me in line was planning to buy MS Office. In both cases I suggested OO.o -- something the person had never heard of -- and in both cases the person decided to post pone purchasing MS Office until after they try Open Office. Since it's free, I've found most people are willing to at least give it a shot; however it amazed me that I've never seen OO.o advertised in a campus bookstore. You would think that a university campus, full of students who could use that extra hundreds of dollars saved from not buying MSO more than most people, would be a perfect place to push Open Office.
    • When it comes to research, be it physics or chemistry or chemical engineering or fluid mechanics or medicine, there are kinds of people doing it. Vast majority of them are working for commercial companies and their work is owned by private corporations. But there is a significant number of them working for academic institutions, and their pay is low compared to their private sector counterparts but they work for the prestige they get by publishing their research and being recognized as leading researchers
      • However, researchers for academic institutions don't usually make peanuts either. They may make less than the would if they worked in private sector, but they still get paid pretty decently. Also, they get quite a few perks beyond doing what they are interested in. The also get a lot of holidays and get to go on sabbatical every once in a while. They can also get some pretty interesting research grants. I know a psych prof at my alma mater who got a grant to sail around the world so he could study the
        • Yes, Profs dont make peanuts and some profs make tons of money. And they have convinced the universities and other research institutes to fund their tenure. Some of their research is top class and some are completely useless. But the main thing is that these academics have traded a part (may be a small part) of what they would have earned in private sector to name recognition and publications and citations in peer reviewed journals. Prestige is the coin in their realm.

          Why cant/wont/shouldnt the newly mi

    • Re:Missed Advertising Opportunities (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @04:59PM (#15905825)
      The university book store is a business just like any other. Their only interest is in making money. Most of the time it isn't run by the school, or the student union, but rather by some company who has been given an exclusive contract to sell books on campus. Where I went to school the student union had opened their own book store, because students were tired of high priced books, and no competition. However, the books were usually only 1 or 2 dollars cheaper, and they didn't carry all the books. This may be something you want to have your student union pushing to inform the students.

      • The university book store is a business just like any other. Their only interest is in making money.

        Yes, but the bookshop isn't earning all the money students are paying for Microsoft Office, their markup is relatively small. I expect it would be more profitable to sell OpenOffice CDs at half the price of Microsoft Office because it only costs the price of a blank CD to restock.

    • At my school, and I suspect at many others, you can get university (i.e. tuition) subsidized student-copies of Windows and Office for under $10 each. So while I still (generally) use OpenOffice.org myself, for the vast vast majority of students at my school the $10 is worth the nonhassle of not needing to relearn to use their word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs.
    • it amazed me that I've never seen OO.o advertised in a campus bookstore.

      The purpose of the bookstore is to make money. Every time you convert someone to OO.o, they lose a sale of Office. Therefore, not only will you never see OO.o advertised in a bookstore, but you'll probably get dirty looks from the manager whenever you tell anyone about it.

    • I work at a University and I think the main reason they don't push Open Office is that it's not running on their computers.

      I had a student who did a paper at home on Open Office, e-mailed it to himself, and then came to school to print it. He downloaded the file at school, but was unable to open it on our computers there. The school prohibited him from downloading Open Office (or any software) so he could not open it to print it or save it as a RTF to be later used in MS Word. Sure it was partially his f
    • And at most large public universities, MS offers a significant discount for a volume license of XP and Office. At Texas A&M, for example, it was $15 for XP and $5 for Office.

      $20 gets you all the (legit!) operating system software you need in college. And presumably locks you in to MS for their goodwill and good software.

      I won't argue about the last point, but MS already offers their software cheap enough that most kids just tack it on to their $500 book tab and don't think twice about it.

  • Say what you will about Microsoft, but... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can say this pretty emphatically that MS Office is exponentially better than the OSS equivalent, OpenOffice.

    I migrated to OpenOffice in an attempt to make my PC software more legit, and man is it horrible. The interface is like the MS Office of 1994. They made the most innocuous things, like printing a standard A4 envelop, an effort in futility. After days of futzing with the built-in envelope template, altering my printer paper settings, and manually adjusting margins, I just gave up and googled for an a
    • "exponentially better " - wtf does that mean? "exponential" is a function. Your sentence doesn't make any sense.

    • According to this site [inter.net], A4 envelopes are either C4 (folded in half) or DL (folded in thirds).

      To print to an envelope, method 1:

      1. Open a new Writer document
      2. Format->Page
      3. Click on the "Page" tab
      4. Change the "Format" to "C4" or "DL" (if you want A4; #10 if you want US letter folded in thirds; there are other paper/envelope sizes available
      5. You probably also want to set the page to "Landscape" mode
      6. Click the "OK" button
      7. Your envelope is now ready; type on it as you wish.

      To print to an envel

  • In other news... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In other news... widespread use of communist software [mithgol.ru] leads students to piracy, joblessness, and anti-Americanism.
  • Am I the only one that feels like he's reading a website from another time or aprallel universe? I mean, OO.o and Firefox have sufficient market penetration and recongizability (hmm, is that a word?) to reference them without any background, but WTH are Moodle and Octave? And seriously, Moodle? Software names are getting worse and worse...

    • Seriously, when you see a word like "Moodle" that you don't know, why don't you just Omgili for it [omgili.com]?

      --MarkusQ

      • That does it. (Score:3, Funny)

        by jd ( 1658 )
        I am going to create a search engine called glappershnoodlifrica, which will index only projects with utterly stupid names.
      • That site is such a google rip off that it's not even funny.
        • That site is such a google rip off that it's not even funny.

          That's odd.

          My thought when I found it (and I specifically googled for such a site to use in the joke above) was "How funny! This site is a complete google rip off!" Exactly what I need for this joke!

          I hope our senses of humour never shake hands!

          --MarkusQ

    • Re:WTH? Moodle and Octave? (Score:4, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Monday August 14, 2006 @05:24PM (#15906060) Homepage Journal
      Octave [gnu.org] is an Open Source program for maths and mathematical graphics. It is comparable to Matlab or Mathematica. It has been out for almost two decades. I wouldn't be surprised if early versions were scrawled on the walls of caves by stone-age cultures. As a result, it has a very strong following, albeit of mathematicians in strange flowing robes. The programming language is a mix of C, LISP and medieval Latin. Having said that, it is very, very good.


      Moodle [moodle.org] is a course management system. What a University would want with one of those, I don't know. Half of my lecturers never turned up on time and one simply photocopied the course textbook as notes and read from it during lectures. Even those I had some respect for (one was a Dr. Who fan) were hopelessly disorganized and seemed to prefer it that way.


      Now, I am a little surprised they said more about LaTeX (which is in decline because the friggin' developers aren't developing! I've never seen people drag their feet so much) than they did about Open Groupware (an Open Source Exchange replacement that is very respectable), Beowulf/Mosix/OpenMosix/Kerrighn (which turns a barely-used lab into a giant supercomputer wihout stupid license modifications), or ReLaTe (an Open Source videoconferencing + whiteboard suite developed by the University College of London for remote teaching).


      There is a LOT of aspects to Open Source I would love to know if/how the Universities are aware of. I happen to think LaTeX is superb and wish Firefox would parse the markup, but I don't think it's an area of Open Source that schools, colleges or Universities need to focus on. What I do want to know is what they ARE focussing on and what they DAMN WELL SHOULD focus on.

      • Now, I am a little surprised they said more about LaTeX (which is in decline because the friggin' developers aren't developing!

        Quite the reverse, as you would have seen if you were at last week's Practical TeX conference.

        I was surprised at their comment because I have installed more copies of LaTeX in the last year than ever before, especially in the Humanities, and my summer courses in LaTeX were oversubscribed by 10x, with almost every attendee reporting they were sick and tired of wordprocessors messin

  • What?! Firefox is becoming popular? Oh man now I am going to have to use Opera in order to sneer down my superior nose at what browser people are using.
  • Come on now...really. So at least one computer at each of these universities has Firefox installed on it. Look, there's little doubt that Firefox usage is up. But, isn't this really non-news?
  • What's wrong with those Brits? Why, at MY college, NONE of the lab computers had Internet Explorer OR Office installed on them! They all ran Unix (still do, AFAIK, this was ~5 years ago), and we LIKED it!
    • At my university (the University of the West of England, UWE), we have labs running Windows 2000, Windows XP, Debian, Solaris, and Mac OS X. All have Firefox installed alongside another browser (IE on the Windows boxes, Konquerer on Linux, Safari on OS X and -ick- Netscape 4 on Solaris).

  • Predictably, all open source offerings are blown away by Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office's 100% deployment rates.

    Okay, it was back in the 90s, but when I was at uni, there were plenty of UNIX workstations that didn't have either of those installed. I can't imagine things have changed so drastically in the last few years or that I went to the only university that used UNIX.

  • I doubt that. Unless you mean "100% of those polled have at least one license deployed". That would make sense, what with MSO being the accepted standard world wide and OOo / StarOffice not being 100% compatible with it.

    Most schools I am familiar with (quite a few, as I work for one) use far more free office software--we use Star Office 8--than they use MSO. But everyone has to have MSO to communicate with other organizations that have MSO.

  • Why is Windows 100%? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by olddotter ( 638430 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @05:22PM (#15906041) Homepage
    I think that at engineering schools, at least half the PC's would be running Linux or other x86 Unix varient. At my old school that was the case the last time I walked through a lab.

    When I was in school there was near 0 support for anything PC related. Everything was Unix or Mac. Last time I went back (2 years ago) it was pretty much all Linux as far as I could see.

    • My university-college is about 40% windows, 40% linux, 10% other unix, 10% mac. And I think that's around normal, since the nearest other university is similiar.

      I think the 100% deployment thing meant that 100% of universities have at least 1 windows license and at least 1 MSoffice license, which seems obviously true.
    • It's not that 100% of the computers in universities are running Windows. The statistic is that 100% of universities have at least some computers running Windows.

      Given that it's included in most Linux distros, it's maybe surprising that 32% of universities have no computers with Firefox.
  • The UK universities that I've known have firefox installed, but often it's not the default.

    What is usually the case is that general machines (and library machines) use internet explorer, and specific departmental lab boxes have a choice of several browsers, but again internet explorer is the default. At least this is the case in the uni's I've studied/worked at or visited, in so far as I've noticed.

    A saving grace is that I've never seen one that uses outlook or outlook express as a default email client. Odd
  • on pretty much all the computers. Does that mean we are cooler than these places?

  • Ray Of Hope (Score:3, Informative)

    by buckhead_buddy ( 186384 ) on Monday August 14, 2006 @05:51PM (#15906306)

    The anonymous reader wrote:

    "Predictably, all open source offerings are blown away by Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office's 100% deployment rates."

    But that isn't quite what the survey said. The OSS survery reads

    "Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer are deployed by all institutions on most desktops."

    One notable exception to this would be Internet Explorer deployment on any Macs. Internet Explorer was insecure and underdeveloped after the Puma version in Mac OS X v 10.1 went live. It was no longer bundled on new Macs or OS X install discs when Tiger shipped.

    • Sept 2001 - IE 5.1 bundled with Mac OS X v 10.1 was first non-preview OS X version.
    • June 2002 - IE 5.2 dropped support for non-OS X users.
    • Jan 2003 - Safari released (for Macs OS X v 10.2+)
    • June 2003 - IE 5 new feature development ceased.
    • April 2005 - IE dropped from the OS X Tiger bundle.
    • Dec 2005 - All "IE 5 for Mac" development ceased.

    While a number of Microsoft products are obscenely widespread despite its quality and security flaws, it isn't 100% in use out there. I know it's not a really big deal, but perhaps a small ray of hope may keep some developers and users from pulling the trigger on a dark an lonely night.

  • I happen to be an admin at a UK university and the thing that bugs me is how to keep Firefox up to date on Windows (on Linux this is a non issue). Because of this sole point, I am unlikely to roll it out across our Windows labs. What are folks doing when the people using the machines don't have the rights to install software globally? More explicitly, what are people doing when they don't have Zenworks or Active Directory for software distribution? Do you just reimage/ghost all your machines?

    The answer is d
    • Frontmotion produce an msi file that ca be roled out using active directory. File available here [frontmotion.com] Features: * Active Directory deployable and upgradeable. * Desktop Icon and Shell integration similar to IE. * Set Default browser as an option (INSTALLLEVEL=1000) * Macromedia Flash plug-in preinstalled * Detect and upgrades non-MSI installs. * Can upgrade 3rd party MSI's from patpaul/MIT, Webheat.co.uk, and ZettaServe. * Able to properly perform uninstalls and restores system as
    • Perhaps this [frontmotion.com] is of some use to you?

      .haeger

  • How disheartening it is that MSOffice is 100%. That piece of crap. Even more disheartening is that LaTeX is declining. I'd understand why openoffice is down, I abandoned it, but LaTeX? Lyx is easier to use than MSOffice.
    • I'm a teacher and professional writer. I write everything (except textbook manuscripts that publishers ask me to write in collaboration with other authors) in LaTeX. I never use Lyx. TexShop all the way, baby.
  • I teach out of town usually, but am in my local high school to teach summer school. They do not have Firefox anywhere on their computers. Bummer. On our school computers we use nothing but. That's mostly because I get to choose which way we go at my school.
  • the real question is how many can uninstall IE?
  • ...despite several promises throughout the whole of last year that we'd at least get to use Firefox.

    You don't realise how painful MS software is until you're forced to actually use it. For an entire year. MSVC 6 doesn't even have line numbers.
  • I would very much doubt if most of the people who were asked to respond to the survey are really aware of the use of software within their institution.
    Before I retired I was a senior member of computer services within a UK University. A survey like this would be considered low priority by the typical director and it would be passed-on to a (typically) random (almost certainly) low-level member of staff to complete.
    Now some of these will have quite a good "grapevine" knowledge of what is going-on within thei
  • If the campus contains even a single PC running a relatively modern version of Windows, then it'll have IE installed and will count towards that 100% installation base figure. When I was last at Imperial College (about 8 years ago), it had at least 1000 NT workstations (as well as a large number of VAX machines, alphas, sparcs, etc).

    Might as well report that 100% of campuses featured running water and indoor toilets.

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