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WWW Inventor On Microsoft's Browser Tricks
Unipuma writes: "Tim Berners-Lee gives his views in an interview with Silicon Valley about the latests blocking of the MSN website for most other than Internet Explorer browsers. 'I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. This is what makes the Web itself. This is the environment into which so many people have invested so much energy and creativity. When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe - they are pining for the bad old days when each piece of information need a different program to access it.'"
Agreed wholeheartedly. M$ isn't the only one guilty of this type of action, as sites all over the damn place either won't display or won't display right depending on what browser you use, but they're the first ones (that I'm aware of) to try to do it on a wholesale, large-scale basis. Glad they took the pressure hit and backed off; now if other sites will just take the example...
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
Didn't Netscape force eveyone to use thir browser to see Netscape.com?
Of course it failed miserably, just as I hope MS does for this...
It would probably be a good thing if browsers followed the HTML standard. I can't tell you how annoying it is to make a decent looking website only to find out that your Netscape 4.7 users see garbage.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
-ERROR-
This comment is not supported by your browser.
Granted, it's the freshest big outrage in our mind, but if you can hop in the Way Back Machine and head back a couple of years to when Netscape was still a viable contender, there most certainly were "Best Viewed With Netscape" sites to go with the "Best Viewed With Internet Explorer" ones. I remember this well because IE had a hard time working with JS 1.1 and I railed for us to make our site a Netscape-only one then much as I rail for my company to make our site an Internet Explorer-only site now. IE may extend the standards, but at least it supports them.
The dream of a fully open web is a beautiful one, but as long as people use GIFs, PDFs, Flash/Shockwave/Real Player/etc., don't bullshit yourself into believing that Microsoft is the company committing the most egregious offenses when it comes to balkanizing the web.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
It says 'www Inventor' in the headline... yet I don't see Al Gore's name anywhere...
Besides... everyone knows thats where the word 'AlGore'rythm comes from..
Dont hurt me!
What does this have to do with anybody's rights? If MSN shuts out other browsers, well that sucks I guess, but I have no inalienable right to read MSN with Opera. And there wasn't much in the article about anybody's "rights", just a discussion of the meaning of W3C standards.
I wonder what his opinion is on needing a plug-in to view some content--it basically amounts to the same thing.
The problem is that in order for all browsers to see everything, a web site would probably have to use HTML 1.0, resulting in a very boring web. More current technologies aren't standards based since they are so new. Where does it stop? Everything must be compatible with Mosaic 1.0?
I don't agree with the MSN lockout, but there are instances on the web where a program is required to view certain content, and I don't see any sites getting rid of Flash just because Lynx doesn't support it.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
But based on what Mr. Berners-Lee says I feel kinda awkward now. Indeed, the web should be accessible by everyone and everything. There's more reasons why TBL is right, and Microsoft is at fault there as well (MS extended HTML tags anyone?). But that's probably another story and that's offtopic.
I will remove the ban on MSIE from my site when I have the time... What the hell was I thinking?
What does this mean ? Is he comparing the "bad old days" with supposed "good recent days", the latter when every piece of information can be accessed by a single program ? Schlepping up numbers or words on a webpage does not constitute real 'access' any more than does providing printouts or plain text files - you still need a program (or human) to parse the output, and this is usually trivial compared to the work involved in using that information.
And what does this have to do anyways with MS trying to block access to websites when using anything but Explorer ? This is an attempt to make ALL their information accessible by a SINGLE program, and NOT an attempt to make every piece of information accessible by a DIFFERENT program.
We owe him a debt of gratitude for inventing the web but as far as I am concerned his invention does not make Berners-Lee's opinions on these subjects any more or less valuable than any other reasonably astute person, and his opinions are even less valuable to me when they range to social commentary. Most of his writings I have found to be incoherent or self-contradictory.
Isn't the main problem that everyone wants the web to be 'cool', not just deliver information. When the internet was invented, it was a way to share information without requiring seperate programs to access information from seperate sources.
As a web developer, managers mostly care about how it looks, not how it works. They care about what their managers think, not what site visitors think. Everywhere I've worked sees between 90% to 98% M$ browsers, so the managers wisely decide not to spend time/money on developing for other browsers.
As for Microsoft's claims that other browsers don't work as closely to the standards as theirs does, thats obviously hogwash. Embrace and Extend is their true scam.
there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
Many sites on the web are designed toward some goal. Many are designed to be most useful in IE, because most users are using IE (depending on who you ask, the numbers will vary, but nobody denies that IE has the stranglehold now). The only reason this makes Slashdot is because the anti-Microsoft bias of the editors itches to report something like this. It's done every hour of every day on some web site somewhere.
Does that mean IE is the best browser? Not necessarily. It is the most standards compliant browser? Not necessarily. Should people be designing their sites to be HTML 4.0/XHTML compatible instead of IE compatible? Probably. But I think the inventor of the web has a slight blind side to the fact that de-facto standards (namely, that the vast majority of users who browse the web use IE) are at least as powerful as bodies-based standards.
Funny. My ancient Netscape for Irix works just fine. I believed this story completely for a time because I had no real interest in msn.com. I'm sure they're locking out some browsers, but why not all?
[kidding]
Hey, this is just a trick to get us to try it- and thereby up their hitcount!
[/kidding]
Windows X-Con is ready for you!
I don't think that Microsoft ever really planned on blocking browsers. At least not yet, and at least not for the long haul. Oh, I think eventually they will block other browsers for real, but just not yet.
/. even posted this story...?
So, why did Microsoft block some folks from MSN? What were they so "foolish" you ask?
The answer is obvious. Microsoft are great at marketing. This was free publicity. Tons and tons and tons of free press....
After an Online Ruckus, Microsoft Opens MSN Site to All
What a total win! They have the NY Times giving them a great headline. Oooh, Microsoft the kind, the gentle, the good. Microsoft, so good for people. So willing to bend over for people.
What a crock. Wake up. It is sad that even Berners-Lee was suckered into this whole thing. People are always taking their eye off the ball. Microsoft knew they couldn't keep people out very long, but they knew it would stir things up. Free publicity.
Microsoft = marketing wizards.
By the way, given what I have said, isn't it a shame that we'll spend more time talking about Microsoft? And, isn't it a shame that
How to Download YouTube Videos
The ideal model for MS is one where not only do you need different programs for different information (managed "seamlessly" of course by Windows) but also where MS gets to ding your credit card every time you access that information.
It pains me to see Mr. Berners-Lee's accomplishment being twisted by MS's greed.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
I just connected to www.msn.com with netscape 6.0 what browsers are they talking about? Or what part of the MSN site in particular won't display with anything other than IE? Or is this just a shoot first ask questions later type of article where nobody botherd to check the accuracy of the story?
May be all webpages should implement a blocking mechanism for IE and offer an `upgrade' to a w3c compliant browser like mozilla.
Tim has a good point about MS. They just try to make money and they employ the power they have.
;)
So, rest assured, they don't do all this to limit our freedom or give us bugged software, they just try to survive and make money
Marijn
I'm now able to access www.msn.com with my Mozilla browser version 0.9.5.
Did Microsoft give access to all the browsers now?
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
I am saddened that they cannot allow their products to compete on their merits alone. I mean, IE6 is a good browser, it stands on its merits, why did microsoft think it was insightful to block out other browsers ? It will have a negative effect on Microsoft in the long run, as people start to realise their unethical methods are hurting innocent consumers.
MS blocking browsers is not new and they still do it. Try playing any game on the Zone with anything other then IE.
I have to keep IE as I can't play Asherons call if I use Opera.
But the question still remains, who really wants to visit the MSN site anyway? I'm one in the opinion that the MSN site is already simply pro-microsoft messaging, so what's the big deal. Sure, other sites do block certain browsers, but I'm in the opinion that web developers should try their best to make it look good in all (I sure do; still design on Netscape 4.7, but add features that work in one browser (by way of the navigator.appname function.) Yeah, that discriminates against non-JS users, but there are ways around that, too, you just have to accept not having a snazzy front end.)
The thing you have to ask is is it worth it. If you don't care what MS does with their pages, use Mozilla (or Konqueror, if that turns your crank) and read something else. If the hits go down they might reconsider.
But maybe I'm just ranting.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
This is just another example of how Micro$oft is taking over the market to its entirety. I can't understand why it is taking so much time for the courts in the states to do something about micro$oft considering almost every few days I come on Slashdot I see another thing such as this that shows micro$soft as being monopolistic
And another ting, to be honest I never use MSN (besides a old hotmail account that is about to go) so if they do make it completely IE only, then I will not be hit. Just as long as SlashDot here stays free to all web browsers then I am happy
my 2 cents plus 2 more
The question is if it is possible to have freedom while allow a single company control. Or is it a matter of the golden handcuffs, and an S&M relationship between the marketer and the customer?
Even in an S&M type of relationship, there is the matter of trust. And the problem is that in a large company, there will be people you can not trust. It becomes a fight between people who want to improve the product vs people who wish to get head by destroying their competitors. MS seems to have segregated these tyeps somewhat, pushing the destructive types into marketing.
I do not want an S&M relationship with my software provider. I want a meritocracy of software, not a meritocracy of marketing and propanga. By the actions of marketing , and the silly games they play in system design to lock out other companies, Microsoft lost me long ago. They could not trust the quality and craftmanship of their own product to win the customer over. They had to use dis-honest means. Which meant that I started dis-trusting what the system was telling me. Their very tactics taught me to distrust them. I think that any thinking person tends to resent this kind of thing after awhile. After all, these efforts to take control are not even with your own best interest at heart, not matter how misguided. It is with their own best interest at heart, without regard for the benefits to others. Most people do not like being used in this way.
The example of MS behavior regarding the Web is only more of the same.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
'I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. '
but i still can't get into my aol keyword wtf? page...
Runnin' On Empty
Isn't this basically what the DCMA effectively forces one to do- that is, if you follow it to the letter?
Look, I can't use MY pencil because the RIAA hasn't licensed it to write an opinion about song X from artist, erm label Y. (Yeah, exaggeration, but what the hey..)
The "bad old days" is precisely what large copyright-holders want- It makes control so much easier when it is illegal to create, copy, or use information (which I might point out is the lifeblood of any culture..) without using their hardware or software.
Just imagine what it will (could) be like if we followed the DCMA to the letter =) What fun.
Right.
Did anybody else find it mildly ironic that the author of article added hyperlinks to the text? Admittedly, in this case, they were useful, but wasn't the addition of hyperlinks to the page without the author's knowledge one of the features that was widely critizied in the upcoming version of Internet Explorer?
The code in question was only up for a day or so, they changed it when so many negative news stories came out. I can personally conferm that it didn't work with Mozilla 0.9.5 or Konqueror for that day. MS really has a knack for creating bad publicity, you'd think that they'd work on that.
Sorry, but if MSN page authors aren't smart enough to read standards documents, then too bad for them. I'm still waiting to see anything worth reading on MSN anyway.
DG: What has Microsoft learned from its antitrust experiences?
TBL: I can't answer that one.
Let me try:
1. They are above the law.
2. There are so many more opportunities to use their monopoly against the best wishes of consumers.
3. Bad software doesn't really hurt their ability to leverage their monopoly.
If their is any hope out there, we need to educate the general public in concern to the evils of Passport and single software browsing.
We are just preaching to the choir here.
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
I personally don't pay much attention to the MSN site. I used to glance at Slate, because some of the stuff is interesting and, well, it's free as in beer.
I sometimes even enjoy the fancier sites on the Web -- providing they are well done.
But there is one thing that really annoys me -- to the point that I personally cross such sites off my list of ones to visit. Tiny fonts. What is the point of forcing people to look at Slate in tiny fonts? Slate is mostly about using words to communicate. Not sounds, not visuals (although there is a bit of both). I want to read sites with fonts that are comfortable for my eyes. Is that too much to ask?
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Ceci n'est pas une sig
The actual quote has Gore saying, "when I was in congress, I took the initiative in creating the world wide web." Which is actually a fairly accurate thing to say, since it was legislation he supported that opened up the internet for people to change.
Go Lakers!
Yes, it it sad when companies or individuals "optimize" their website for one or the other browser; yes, it goes against the principle of sharing information with as many as possible. But it is not an infringement of your very rights. You can let them know what you think of their policies by simply not visiting the website in question.
let me see if I got it right: am I wrong, or that happened in the same period of time that XP was launched?
No, I'm not thinking what I'm thinking, right?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
What do you expect Microsoft to do? The important thing to remember here is that this is that this is a free market. This isn't anticompetitive (that would be Microsoft forcing /. to only display for IE). Microsoft has the right to make their site viewable by only their browser, and I have the right to never visit their site (IE or not). Most people using MSN probably use IE anyway. If /. or Yahoo or Google tried it, they would probably see a significant drop in business, and change their mind. That's how a free market *should* work. There is plenty of competition on the web to make sure that it works out...
Now every time you use mozilla and the word "Microsoft" appears on a web page. It will automatically make a link to Microsoftsucks.com
Maybe that will be someones attention!
Linuxrunner
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I believe that todays web-pages have become far too complex to fulfill the purpose they were originally intended for; originally HTML was a simplistic markup-language, which focused more on the content-structure of the document instead of the layout, using tags like H1, B, A, P etc. When sticking to these very simple tags, it is up to the user agent to render the page as best it can for its particular medium. A HTML-page should be as easily viewable in a browser on a 16,7m colour modern computer system as on a cellular phone, text-mode browser (lynx etc), news-ticker, blind-terminals or whatever. These different environments requires highly different methods for formatting the data, but the main concern is that it is still easily viewable, and has a logical structure (ie you can distinguish a headline from a footnote).
Today, however, HTML has become very layout-centric, as opposed to content-centric, with emphasis on tables and invisible GIFs for arranging the data. This is most probably a consequence of larger commercial companies moving content onto the web, and using a mindset from magazine and newspaper production in this entirely new medium; and that's where the problems start. When you try to develop a web-page as you would a page in a magazine you have to use alot of tricks to get the desired result, and these tricks corrupt the basic meaning of an html-page. For example, it is not uncommon to have ten nested tables to take care of a basic page layout. However, the purpose of tables is not to take care of layout and design, it is to present data matrixes. And it is this kind of widespread abuse that has messed up the web to the point where it is only properly viewable by a handful of browsers, of which maybe only one or two display it as was intended by the page creator. Luckily we have new standards like XML and XHTML (I have no experience with XHTML whatsoever - so apoligies in advance if this should be wrong) which allows us to separate content-structure from layout and design. But people will most probably abuse these new standards as well... I just think that something's VERY wrong when a browser contains more source code than a complete operating system.
As commented above, MSIE is the current standard for browsers. Why do you think they force people to use Internet Explorer to view MSN and other sites?
.NET MyServices - MSN is MS's web venture and will surely want to portray the array of leading technologies.. They'd be stupid not to..
One possible answer to this relates to the reasons why IE is the most popular browser:
Functionality.
MSIE supports a lot more (yes, call it MS breaking the rules as you please) features and functionality. Sure, W3 would go bananas - and probably have - but ultimately the company which created these new standards would surely want to use these extra features (some dhtml/layers - not sure on specifics) on their own site.
Remember, MSN is going to be the main gateway for
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
One of my client's sites was written with just IE in mind. It makes heavy use of CSS, and Netscape's CSS bugs just cough on it.
.5% and 1.5% of this website? They probably aren't worth spending resources on beyond testing on the Mac, but you have to evaluate your costs.
However, the logs indicate that currently 8.5% of our users are Netscape 4.x.
The operations guy at the client broke out his calculator, saw the costs of my fixing the system for Netscape, saw the revenue/profit increase, and saw that B>A and said, do it.
I was hoping to just change the style sheet, but Netscape is totally busted, so it looks like separate scripts. Sure the IE version will be the priority, but when you can increase profits 8-10% of more (in fact, increasing revenue by 8% should increase profits 10%-12% based upon some fixed costs, etc.) it becomes really hard to justify ignoring.
Unless technology costs are a rediculously high percentage of your budget, you can't ignore 8% of the market.
Now WebTV and Mac, that are
What about non-commercial sites? Code to HTML standards, and use minimal CSS. While we have sites that need heavy CSS to look amazing, the site could work without them. Limit yourself to fonts, sizes, etc., and you'll be fine. Don't worry about it looking right tot he pixel and you'll be fine on multiple browsers.
Alex
I was trying to download the latest Intellipoint mouse drivers from Microsoft's website using Mozilla. I drilled down to a page that listed the latest (or so I thought) ver. 3.x drivers for my mouse.
I clicked the link to download and was taken to a custom 404 page that offered links to other pages where I might find what I was looking for, those pages took me to even more 404 pages and so forth and so on.
Out of curiousity, I tried downloading the drivers using IE 5.5, this time I was taken to a different page that listed the (real) latest drivers for the Intellipoint mouse, version 4.x.
It seems like a whole lot of effort to go through to make it difficult for people that haven't been assimiliated by the M$ borg.
And besides, drivers should be freely available to anyone, regardless of what browser/platform they are using. What if I was downloading it from my Solaris machine to use on a Win9x machine that didn't have a fast connection?
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
I think I'll be saving a copy of this interview to show to people who insist on using the most obscure plugins to do their web work. Maybe I am strange, but I really like it when I can look at web pages from any computer anywhere and have them look essentially the same. Thus, I tend to use simple HTML with well-supported graphics and non-browser specific tags. That doesn't seem like all that difficult of a thing to do. Trying to take over the computing world with a bad product just doesn't seem nice to me...
Posted from the wireless couch.
The problem is that people in companys
get into believing that their company
is more worth than people.
But it is not. Companys shall think about making
profit and gaining power but not at the cost of
anything.
You profit when the company has problems
and there are friends who help the company
and not only vultures ripping it apart.
Don't let your yourself be imprisoned in
the corporate religion as you wouldn't
with any other religion.
Always reminds me of Raistlin Majere
when he had killed all the people in the world
of DragonLance sitting in his tower and crying
because he realized what he did.
Microsoft surely does know how to garner attention through what initially seems to be a poor decision.
I was glad to see Mozilla and Oprah mentioned, however. Sort of like everytime MS downplays Linux, they mention their name. Good or bad I'm not sure. I'm actually more angry about their stupid search redirect.
The right which is being abrogated is the right of other browser publishers to compete with IE. Since Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly, special rules apply to them which don't apply generally in the marketplace. Monopolies cannot use their monopoly power to exclude competitors. Some of the licensing issues such as excluding Netscape from the Windows desktop might be permitted if MS were not a monopoly, but as a monopoly they cannot use this power.
Initially it was espn.starwave.com. Then Disney bought it, and the "go" network was born, thus: espn.go.com. Somehow, MSN has now partnered with Disney, and it has become espn.msn.com, complete with an MSN banner at the top (much like Slashdot's OSDN banner, but much larger).
What happens when sites like ESPN block users, because MSN told them to? On Friday, I visited ESPN site and found a pop-up window stating that my browser (Mozilla0.9.5/Solaris) would not display the page correctly, even though it obviously displayed it perfectly. The worry is that Microsoft will section off a part of the web and make it Microsoft-only, just as it tried to separate Java into running only on Microsoft browsers/OSes.
The solution is to stop visiting these sites (after 5 years of daily ESPN visits, I now visit CNNSI instead), but the word must get out, or the future of the web will indeed be bleak as Berners-Lee mentioned.
Right now they are able to avoid some criticism because you can reconfigure IE. You don't have to use their search sites, and you don't have to use the home page they so thoughtfully provide for you. But, what if they took the ability to set your own home page away? What if they took away the ability to choose your own search engine? What then? Why, you say, you'd just figure out how to modify the registry or hack the program or something like that. But you can't. You just violated the DMCA by doing that. You tampered with a security system, and you're going to jail.
This isn't paranoia. It's a logical extension of what we're seeing right now. Not only will it be difficult to NOT use Microsoft's chosen service providers, it'll actually be illegal.
Ultimately, it's about freedom. Do I have the right to do as I wish with a general computation device that I own? The DMCA says no. Hollings say s no. Microsoft says no.
I think the industry has done just fine without massive regulation so far. We are entering an age where "the little guy" can do something equally as interesting as a large corporation. Clearly, they can't have that. Campaign contributions are dangerously close to ensuring that "they" succeed.
Who is "they"?
It is the RIAA. It is Microsoft. These companies believe their right to control the ultimate use of their products is more important than YOUR right to live and think in freedom.
TBL is absolutely right. The foundation for a free Internet is standard compliance. But where are we when not even Slashdot is W3C HTML compliant???
I tried to validate it at validator.w3c.org, but I got more than 600 errors!
Try for yourself
No Goat is hidden here
I just added www.msn.com to my firewall's filter list, now all my browsers work exactly the same on that site.
Agreed. I truly believe that if terrorists attacked MicroSoft Headquarters (they attacked an MS office in Nevada), and vaporized all the source code to all MS Software, that the Marketing Department would still turn a profit. Then, Bill Gates would set his lawyers on bin Laden, and the whole mess would be over. (I can dream, can't I?)
Grumble, Grumble
I know clever and talented web designers for whom "standards compliance" is at best a vague abstraction. They hardly ever visit the W3C site, and probably never run their pages through the validator (it hurts). There's a kind of pisoner's dilemma at work here: why should I be the first one to comply, when no one else is, not even the big guys?
The solution is the same as it is for lots of things - get to them when they're young, and help them understand and value openness and robustness. The key to making openness work is a strong community-developed standards process, which only works if you comply.
This is going to take at least a generation.
Helium balloons want to be free.
"Best Viewed with _" is inevitable if businesses are going to use it and they are going to let their marketing groups have any say. You think they are going to like it when Foo Browser renders their page in to ass? No, they are going to say that it should be used with "Monopoly Browser" and if they're really serious they'll put javascript or some kind of filter on their http server to block the others out. To make matters worse, they probably paid some 22 year old "programmer" $200,000 to build the page and make it hip in the first place.
Ironic how the beauty of it initially was that you didn't need to pay artists to produce content because it was so simple and software figured it out for you but that's life, we'll complicate things if were given a chance to.
You're right. But it's not a problem. It's just that the initial view of HTML and the web was very shortsighted.
You can do a lot of stuff with just words and numbers, especially with server side code to back it up.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hate to join The Army of the Damned(tm), but is this really so news-worthy? Last time I looked, there were 'members only' sites all over the internet. NY Times has free registration. Since IE is a free download, isn't this just more of the same? I tried to help my girlfriend with her cable modem, and when I went to their tech support website, it wouldn't let me in because I didn't have a Rogers @Home browser. Are they evil too? The fact is, you can get your news from any other 'free' news site. If you really need your MSN, which is a free service, then they have every right to ask you to do something for them. We register for free at NY Times to use the service. We get ad banners from damn near every site on the web. So if MS says 'do this for us and we'll give you free content', either download the free browser, or go elsewhere. It's not anti-competitive behaviour. They're not telling you that you have to use IE for ALL websites, just theirs.
do not read this line twice.
The web has never and will never be a place where anyone can use any browser to view any web site. Ever heard of browsers that doesn't support all standards? Even if you don't WANT to block people out, you still are, if you use the latest WWW standards. If you want any web site to be viewable by any browser, you will need to use nothing more than HTML 1.0. No HTML 4.0, no frames, no CSS...
Will work for bandwidth
Cheers...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Sigh - it's really a shame ppl lose sight of the real issue - Sure, other companies play vendor lock in games. But very few of them enjoy a virtual 90% monopoly power position to leverage. Some pissant startup tries to lockin customers may just lose it, ala netscape. Other's are handed a monopoly on a silver platter from IBM which they can use that to push their products, regardless of quality, and certainly overriding 'consumer choice'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I thought Al Gore invented the internet.
I am Slad.
Has anyone else noted that even MS products are being frozen out of MSN? The Pocket PC people are all over the fact that WinCE's IE won't work with MSN, and I've heard that IE 5.5- is also affected. MS isn't doing anticompetitive activities, they're doing crack!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Sending the user away from the page means that they aren't generating revenue for my client. We're not interested in improving the web, we're interested in improving their bottom line.
If it works in my Mozilla browser, terrific, if not, oh well. If and when Mozilla/Netscape 6.x provide enough of a reason to make the site compliant, we'll work through their bugs.
It's annoying, but IE/Netscape 6 conversions should be easier. I don't mind (too much) writing two stylesheets. They don't take that long. It's making two versions of the site (a legacy one for Netscape) that is annoying me.
I test in IE because thats what the users are using. I'll develop for Netscape 6 when the platform is available.
The central codebase is the same, I just need to write different HTML renderers...
Sigh, one of our projects is to write our own XML language that was a content/display combo that wasn't HTML. Then we'll just write three renderers, IE/Netscape/Mozilla. Oh well, one day.
Alex
Not to be rude or anything, but the owner of a website can decide at ANY TIME who will get access to which data, not Tim. If a certain company wants to lock out parts of its websites for certain individuals, that's their choice and their responsibility. If you don't have a contract of some sort (like you've paid money to get access to that website) you're out of luck. Tim can jump high and low, but that's reality and he can't do anything about that, nor should he be able to.
If a company wants to exclude certain individuals from its websites for some reason, less visitors will visit the website. In the case of MSN, that can be a disadvantage at best, since competing sites like Yahoo offer the same information.
On a personal note: Tim invented a nice hypertext system, but that's about it. For the rest his views are rather 'unpragmatic' to say the least.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Perhaps, but what if I want to view AOL content without having AOL installed? Same tatics? I think so.
I'm surprised that nobody seems to remember this. It was a couple of months ago, when the British government had the misfortune of commissioning MS to design their web portal. The result, a public site paid for by UK taxpayers, it denied access to non-IE browsers. The explanation was a supposed immaturity of SSL support in these browsers, IIRC. Sorry, I'm too lazy right now to dig up any links on this, but there was something about it on LT and ZDNET.
The URL is www.gateway.gov.uk, and if one clicks on "What do I need before I can register" one sees that this has been fixed; a reasonable palette of browsers is now supported.
Maybe it's just me, but isn't what they tried to pull there a bit more serious than barring people from their own corporate wesite?
I'm at school using a computer with Netscape Navigator 4.08 and I still can't access the MSN site. As well, using different browsers (kinds, versions) I haven't been able to access the MSN site at different times since they first started blocking out other browsers. The funny thing is that I used the OffByOne web browser that I found at TinyApps.org that is only HTML 3.2 compliant and only 1100k in size, and the MSN site was displayed perfectly fine. This helps evidence that this whole shenanigan from M$ is completely BS.
I'm not in favor of IE bigots taking over the web. In fact, sometimes it really annoys me because it often results in pages that look like crap/features that don't work. That having been said, it's really difficult for me to get upset about MSN being blocked for non-IE users. Tons of free publicity--something that MS has got to be loving around the time of XP. "Hey, MSN must have some really great stuff if everyone's so upset, right?" Oh yes, MSN is so much better now that it's an "exclusive" destination for the 85% of people that use IE. Let's not mince words here--MSN is a piece of shit. On to other news: does anyone remember when Microsoft's HCL was blocked to non-IE users? Now that really pissed me off. It interfered with my job because I can't use IE at work. Not being able to access the boring pap on MSN is one thing, but denying me access to support (or the lack of it) is what really gets my goat.
As of last night, I could get into msn.com with Mozilla 0.9.4 (after being blocked on Friday).
But when I tried with an old Mac PowerBook running IE 4.5, I still received the "upgrade your browser message", rendered as plain text, not HTML. Unbelievable!
Same with frames, or even pictures. Mosaic first couldn't display background pictures. Frames was another netscape invention that was accepted by almost everyone, but was left out the HTML standard for YEARS.
Blocking out people with IE just because you can't stand the fact that the maker of that browser blocks some crappy browser that is used by 1% of the internet population is not really making a statement other than saying "I'm stupid and by doing this I again show that to you all".
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
What micros*ft are doing is unscrupulous, but legal. Perhaps we need some form of 'right of access' law involving the internet. However you look at it, it's bad karma on the part of micros*ft, but will hopefully come back to haunt them some day. Imagine if the telephone companies all got together and said 'right, your communications protocol sucks. We have a better one, we've devised new standards which you can emulate, but you still can't send data across phone lines unless you're using our hardware and back end software' People would go apeshit. It caused enough trouble when BT tried enforcing it to a lesser extent with the BABT standard in this country. At least you could still use a modem that wasn't BABT approved. Maybe try using microsofts ideas against them. Issue W3C compliancy certificates to web sites which could then be searched upon. Set your search engine to ignore anything that isn't. Maybe I'm covering stuff that's already been done. If so, I apologise. I'm still fairly new to this side of I.T.
-Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-
This is another demonstration of M$ using that monopoly to embrace, extend and extinguish yet another area. The target is the web. They are distributing a crummy browser with lots of "extended" features that only their OSs users are privalidged to see. They are also putting that kind of code into their own web servers and turning them on by default so that those who use them must turn them off to avoid upsetting their customers. That they were willing to do this on their own site makes you think they will turn such a switch on for all IIS in the future. It's an old game, make everything non M$ a pain on an M$ OS. Their administrators, who already say ignorant things about other browsers, will have more work to do and harbor more hate about free or alternate software.
This also furthers SSSCA type legislation. The more hate they can generate, the less likely people are to really care when the time comes. "Why should we care about those dumb wierdos that use that perverted non M$ standards complient software?", they will ask. "Freedom? You are free to write anything you want on an M$ system, what's wrong with you?" Ahhhhh! The ignorance compounds itself.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'd understand if people were upset about Microsoft blocking Expedia or something useful from other browsers. But I could care less if they block MSN.com from other browsers. The site is a useless ad-portal. Mostly its there for the homepage for IE. So does it really matter if its blocked? Yes I understand the openness of the web issue and I'm afraid of what MS plans with passport and other silly proprietary technologies and yes I use Mozilla and Linux, but I think people are jumping the gun on this one. Who cares about MSN? Microsoft.
The most ironic part of this message is that you spent the whole post talking about how presentation is so important, and yet you presented the whole thing in a single typeface without HTML tags of any kind, and the only formatting you used is positioning.
More importantly, the post made your point well, and in so doing, it refuted your point nicely.
Virg
I just tried out MSN on NS 4.77, IE 6, Opera 5 and NS 6.1. It looks acceptable on Konqueror, as well. All work just fine -- passport even works.
As a Web developer, I can tell you from experience that Netscape 4.x series browsers have chapped my ass far more than any version of IE ever has.
I agree that if everyone used Lynx and only geeks used the Internet we might have Nirvana. Unfortunately, the medium of the World Wide Web has gone through the same evolution every other mass medium has -- from a tool for hobbyists to a mass (and therefore commercial) medium. Just like radio, however, if you pine for the days of vacuum tubes and cloth-covered wiring, you can always roll your own...
I disagree about Flash. I really wish web developers would have the courtesy of not using things like this. The web protocol and most browsers with them, is really slow. It's also not innovative except in allowing people to pass whole words in the form of tags when they could pass symbols and save bandwidth. We don't need to make it any slower. So if using a standard such as Mosaic 1.0 saves bandwidth by cutting out the fancy crap, I'm all for it. I don't use the web for pretty pictures. I use it for research, and people who insist on developing software for the the absolute slowest GUI available.
While I'll probably won't do such a thing, you _did_ give me an idea for an extra theme for my site though :)
The values of whether or not the useragent should do additional processing, vs whether or not pages should be created according to standards, are totally orthogonal. They are completely independant variables. Thus, there is no irony at all. A person can be smartlinks-tolerant and MSN-hating, smartlinks-hating and MSN-hating, smartlinks-tolerant and MSN tolerant, or smartlinks-hating and MSD tolerant. None of the four possible positions contains any inconsistency. (Of course, three of the positions are still wrong, though. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The stateless, text-oriented, forms-supported model had its day but that day has passed. The only way Microsoft, AOL, and other comapnies can offer vastly richer experiences is to either turn their entire site into a Flash sequence, or to develop proprietary protocols.
Seeing how Microsoft would be insane to factor out the most interactive aspect of the online experience to a third party vendor like Macromedia, I am not surprised at all to see them making the moves they are making.
The W3 could have done something about this though - once upon a time they understood that HTTP needed to be overhauled, but the HTTP-NG spec was never refined. More or less they just decided that HTTP 1.1 was the last HTTP spec. Well, guess what happens in an innovation vaccum at the open, standards-based end? Yup, closed proprietary extensions.
Within five years the "open" web will be a second-class network and AOL and Microsoft will own 95% of online traffic on their closed, enhanced networks.
Uhm, I like Opera, but not because of the 'gestures' thing. It might be nice if you use it for a laptop with one of those glidepoint thingeys, but otherwise it's just another vehicle towards the dreaded RSI (IMHO). Gestures won't work on anything else than a PDA or some other handheld device.
Major web sites work from server logs, useage stats, competitive metrics and other metrics to devise their site design.
And frankly the interest group you represent is so infinitesimally small that they would be idiots to listen to you in the first place (and they know it).
Amaya is NOT blocked by MSN.com - at least the 5.1 version isn't.
I was able to load MSN.com...
Only problem - it didn't interpret it correctly, probably because as he pointed out, they do not use proper XHTML formatting. Screenshot here.
What is REALLY funny is you get something different every time you reload :).
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
Yes. Yes. Yes. Do get angry at these web people. I used to be able to dial directly into my bank and download my transactions, and pay bills, all without a web browser. And it was faster. I don't care what you web people say. Life is faster when you don't spell everything out in plain text and use pretty graphics and javascript and such.
Yes. Get rid of the excessive javascript, or even better, don't use it at all! Get rid of the excessive pictures. Don't put a back picture when I could use my back key! Don't create popup menus, just use links. Don't put up ads on bank account pages, especially after the customer has paid you $6.95 per month.
And give the information! Don't make us email you for it. Don't make us call some 800 number and talk to a salesperson. If you have prices, put them up! Don't hide them unless you're ashamed of them.
Have honest links. If you have a download link for an application, for instance, don't make us go through 10,000 slow, image laden web pages just to download the thing. A download link should take us to a downloadable file! (Or a page with the OS selection and such). Forget the mirrors crap. Just ask us a location and direct us to it.
To the web developers: Make life simpler, and faster. Not slow and annoying!
My my my... so many misconceptions! So much ignorance! Where to begin? Perhaps the beginning...
;cD
...And because of Microsoft's HARD WORK making a better browser, they get to decide what HTML, DHTML, Javascript, VBSCript, and XML are...
> Microsoft paid the price to control the dice.
Wrong... Microsoft was handed the dice by IBM -- a matter of *pure luck*. From there Microsoft has taken its initial shaky DOS monopoly and parlayed it into an air-tight Windows monopoly, which in turn has given it a word processing/office/web browser/etc. monopolies... Right now they are trying to turn that into a messaging and even *web* monopoly...
> That's capitalism people -- and as a result we get better products, a better web, better standards of living
The web is better if only Unkie Microsoft can tell you what you can and can't see? I've seen people who have to use the Windows craptacular operating system, and let me tell you, that's about the lowest standard of living there is...
> and a better return on MSFT investment
Ahhhh... where it all comes together! So if there was a business that was taking America by storm that made ricketty, unsafe, bad-mileage cars and used monopolistic practices to keep you from buying a BMW or even a Toyota, you would get into that rattle-trap and change the oil every 10.23 miles just so you could see your stock go up? I guess you would practically shit in your pants with glee if this self-same company shut down the railroads and airline industry and then put toll-booths on the highways every 12.578 miles!
> than those who obsess over unimportant things like having NCSA Mosaic, Netscape 2.0, and Chimera still work and access web pages. Who cares? Noone uses that crap anymore!
No one is obsessing over old browsers... just the fact that web-sites can be made to work with most *all* browsers if you take the time. The REAL problem people are having is the fact that *even MODERN* browsers are being shut out by M$'s monopoly power and we are not getting better products this way!
> This is just another instance of a bitter inventor soured by seeing others take his crude invention and make something successful and marketable and impressive. They did the REAL work, not him!
This is just wrong on so many different levels. The people who did the "REAL" work were EVERYONE who worked on the web -- not just MicroSoft and IE! Hell, Internet Explorer wasn't even created by Microsoft! They screwed Spyglass out of the original source code! How did they do this, you may ask... easy, they made a deal where Microsoft would distribute Spyglass as Internet Explorer and Spyglass would get a percentage of the sales... Guess what? M$ never sold IE! They gave it away for free and coasted on thier OS monopoly while Spyglass went out of business because that was their only source of revenue!
> MSIE is where it is today because it beat the stuffing out of Netscape and every other competing browser, hands down, in a free capitalist marketplace. Just accept it and move on.
Pure unadulterated ignorance. This guy must have learned everything he knows about computers from Microsoft's advertising. M$IE is where it is today because M$ illegally leveraged their OS monopoly to give themselves a browser monopoly. Ever wonder why in almost ten years of "Windows," M$ hasn't made it easier to install/uninstall programs on its OS? Because THEY want the control. The fact that you could not "uninstall" M$IE from Windows '98 and the fact that installing Nestcape on a Microsoft OS produced uneven results (due to hidden/obscure code/protocols) made IE the defacto standard for all new Windows PCs after 1998.
> MSIE is the gold standard now. Thanks to Microsoft's hard work, we now have a single standard, with a single reference implementation (which is also the worlds most popular).
If M$ really WAS so much better than its competitors, why would it need to always give away copies of its competing products along with its OS? Wouldn't M$ make *MORE* money if it just SOLD its browser/word processor/etc? That would mean more money for M$ and higher stock prices, right? That would be good for our Sainted-Company, right?
>
Ahhhh... M$'s hard work again. It's almost as if the writer is having a hard time believing it himself and is trying hard to be convince through repitition. In other words: "We have the power, now even though you invented it and did most of the development work, we'll take it from here because we're smarter and better than you -- we have a monopoly and we know how to use it! Ohhh, and don't forget, if you try to innovate and make some money, don't bother, we'll just give away something just like it after a year or two anyway!"
Does the writer REALLY believe we would even HAVE "HTML, DHTML, Javascript, VBSCript, and XML" if it were all up to M$? Well -- maybe that Fisher-Price scripting language, VBSCRipt, but not PERL or Python or Java, etc... I mean, if M$ hasn't significantly carried the introduction/evolution of these standards to this point, what make him think they are going to come up with and maintain *BETTER* standards in the future? This is M$'s perfect customer, the kind that would move to French Geyana and participate in an M$-sponsored Kool-Aid party if need be.
> not a bunch of academic weenies at the W3C who've never worked in a high-pressure competitive corporate software development workplace.
Yeah, not the PEOPLE WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE for other people to work in a high-pressure competitive corporate software development workplace!
> The people who DO the hard work, and those who spend the bucks to develop a better WWW get to make those choices.
Yeah, it's so easy to come up with web-standards that the "hard working/high-pressure/competitive corporate developers" at Microsoft were ONLY 10-15 years behind the times until the past 3-5 years! "Web standards and consumer choice -- for sale to the highest bidder!" -- Microsoft
> This is how it SHOULD be.
Did you have to work to become this dumb, or does it come naturally?
Edward
Remember also that a lot of sites, especially the big corporate ones, like to program things down to the pixel, instead of relying on browsers to render the theoretical page layout tags. That raises the difficulty quite a lot on rendering.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
In reading about the latest stupid move MS has taken to try & turn the the internet into their own proprietary .NET I find myself hoping that the new judge is watching. OK, sure, breaking up the company doesn't look feasible any longer, though it would have been nice to separate their OS from their Office Productivity from their .NET/MSN ventures. Not gonna happen though. SO, what structural remedies can be taken?
I think our best chance lies in a judically mandated opening of all IE & .NET software & protocols to allow anyone & everyone to use it. This directly prevents an MS takeover of the net, let's them keep their precious OS monopoly, and adequately punishes them for the underhanded methods used to gain browser superiority in the first place. It also makes sure that this major piece of software most people use to surf the net is out in the open, without any hidden dirty little secrets.
It'd be nice to make them open up the OS too, but it won't happen. Outside of /. too many people like Windows & are mystified by Linux to want it in anyone else's hands. Maybe we could try for opening up the MFCs, a long time wish of WinX programmers everywhere, which would go a long way toward making all programs better. For any lasting remedy though, something has to be done to thwart the development of proprietary internet protocols. Each individual has a part to play too. Do NOT use Passport / Hotmail. Do NOT patronize any .NET-using service. I now run XP, and despite the hype, it's completely possible to use this OS without involving yourself in any of that crap. Long term, write your congresspeople to demand laws mandating all internet communications protocols be open and available for even the individual user to make use of.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
You're all overlooking something very important, something absolutely critical to the game:
Microsoft is not interested in playing nice. Everything they do is geared towards locking in more customers to gain more control and thereby more money. They pay lip service to standards and open-ness when it doesn't hurt them, but they have absolutely no hesitations about violating standards, breaking the law, or otherwise Not Being Nice when it suits them to be.
The sole and entire purpose of Windows XP is to lock people into using the msn.com web site for all their needs, and to force them into using Windows Media Player for video and audio files. Their goal is divisiveness and incompatibility from anything that's not Microsoft-made. They want to leverage the Windows market share to make their standards and their services so necessary that people will have to be able to access the msn.com web site, and so therefore it'll just be too much trouble to bother using any browser other than IE, or any media player other than WMP. MP3's will be too much of a hassle because Windows XP doesn't support them nearly as nicely as it supports WMA files. (XP's media player has crippled MP3 features, including limiting the bit rate at which the MP3 codecs can record music.)
Stop trying to make sense of Microsoft's actions in terms of what's best for competition or for the web. Microsoft doesn't care. They will play nice when it benefits them; they'll play dirty when it suits them; and there's nothing anybody can do about it, because they've shown they're capable of tying court cases in knots for years until long after they've won the battles in question and crushed their opponents into oblivion.
Notice, by the way, that they're doing their best to make absolutely certain that they own all the file formats they're using; they only push for open formats when they don't own the market in question. You can bet it'll be a cold day in hell before Linux users ever get to use Windows audio and video file formats without getting sued by Microsoft, and the formats which Linux supports will continue to be deprecated in Windows -- thereby relegating Linux to become an 'incompatible' operating system which even fewer users will have an incentive to use.
Microsoft's actions are extremely bad for the industry and for the future of computing. They have far too much power and there's no clear way to stop them.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Thats fine if you are detailing lab study results...but this approach is inane if you are designing a site for consumers.
Everyone should remember that loveable Netscape used to block foreign browsers from their site as well. This was back in the days when Netscape had 90% market share and thought it could bully everyone from AT&T to AOL. How times have changed...
Every time there's a thread about the anti-trust trial against Microsoft, I am astonished to read posts on Slashdot by people rushing to their defense. One of the common claims is that the efforts to destroy Netscape have created no disadvantage to consumers.
Well, here you are: an Internet based on open standards is a benefit to consumers, because the browser vendors have to compete by delivering better quality against a common standard, but can't drive anyone out by introducing incompatibilities (which are completely superfluous to any consumers' needs). The more competition, the better the software, and hence greater quality at consumers' disposal.
Now that Microsoft has gotten away with their crime and have succeeded at demolishing Netscape, leaving no meaningful competition in the browser market, it was only a matter of time before things like this would begin. With dominant market share, they can seek to eviscerate standards and leave behind an Internet that only operates on M$'s rules. Great benefit to Redmond, nothing but disadvantages for consumers.
But even in this thread, people are claiming there's no problem! This is a sign of people completely locked into libertarian ideology, which simply cannot countenance the existence of a monopoly like M$ doing the things that they do. Evidently, denial is their only way out.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Until the terrorist threat has passed, the government is totally preoccupied and won't touch MS significantly at this point.
funny?
No they even said it was supposed to coincide with the release. They "redid" their msn.site spficially timed with the release of XP. The new look of XP with the new look of MSN I guess.
-jay
Notwithstanding the point about the web being open and cross platform/browser, The only way anyone gets to go to a MS site is usually by being re-directed there by another MS site (Hotmail Passport sign-out for instance). If I want to hear the latest propaganda, I'll visit. It's just another portal when all said and done. Sad that a lot of sheep don't know the difference, but that only makes me look smarter.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Of course, /. rejected it.
2001-10-26 20:39:35 Microsoft blocks Mac email clients, cites "sec (articles,microsoft) (rejected)
They're still blocking Mac email clients (Entourage, Outlook Express... their own bloody products) from connecting to Hotmail, citing "security upgrades" on the Hotmail mail servers.
But the Windows clients (OE) can still connect just fine.
Try checking your mail with Opera or Knoqueror. As some who have posted here suggested, this story is just news because it's MS.
Me, I want it all: I want to be able to browse to any website using a good, standards-compliant web browser and see the content. I have done corporate web development before too. Yup, it's tricky supporting all of the new browsers while maintaining compatibility with the dinosaurs like NS4.x. Such is life. Get over it.
Oh, and MS and Netscape are not the only offenders. I sent a polite letter to ATI a few months back when I was trying to decide on my next video card and found out that ATI shut Mozilla/NS6 out. They left Konqueror though, so I was able to browse the site. Man was it broken..
My bank, PC Financial, has had on and off support for alternate browsers. It had always worked with Mozilla/NS6 and they that stopped for a while. It seems to be working again, and now works under Konqueror too, so at least they aren't all bad...
Finally, I went to www.ea.com a while ago. As usual, I tried with both Mozilla and Konqueror. Again, no good. They blocked them out, and suggested "upgrading" to IE.
I can understand wanting to let NS4 go, as it really is showing its age, but that some major sites don't support NS6/Mozilla is baffling to me. It's not _that_ hard to get right.
Oh yeah, one more thing: msn.com is a _very_ popular domain. Don't forget that it is set as the default start page for IE users. Back in its day home.netscape.com had over 40million hits a day for this reason. Now msn.com has this going for it. (But yeah, the content isn't too hot..)
Well, there's my rambling..
This is classic FUD!
The main problem here is that Joe Newbie will take it at face value. He won't realize that Mozilla, for instance, is more standards compliant than IE and that MS is breaking their web pages by using MSHTML and blocking the better browsers on purpose. He won't realize that you can change the browser string by just one letter and view the web pages with no problems. He will instead think that these other browsers are inferior -- the opposite of the truth.
Whomever claims that "95% of the clients are using IE", how sure are you that they aren't simply setting their mozilla or lynx USER_AGENT string to "ie blah blah" in order to ignore those sites lame enought to try to target specific browsers?
:)
If I've ever visited your site you'd better ie_count--
Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1
I believe the title tag in an img tag is supposed to be the tooltip displayed. (think I saw this in a Mozilla rant about not using ALT for tooltips...)
crap. i wasn't sure how to spell that, and i clearly should have looked it up. now i've learned. :)
I don't think you need to bother with detecting browsers and setting up alternate versions of each of your major pages. That kind of thing is terribly labor-intensive and not practical for most organizations.
:-)
What you can do, though, is ensure that your pages "gracefully degrade" to lower HTML versions. For instance, if you use CSS for formatting, make sure that your page will still display without CSS turned on. Also, ensure you have text-only links for every graphic link on your page.
Fortunately, there are good resources available online for you to use: the WWW Consortium has an HTML validator, and CAST has the Bobby accessibility test. If you run your pages through those two tools, you'd be surprised how easy it can be to make your pages work with almost any browser, while still allowing fancy effects for the high-end browsers.
I heartily defend the idea of allowing dialup users to opt-out of the graphics-laden site to a low-bandwidth version, if you use too much Flash and crap instead of just putting out information, though.
Illegitimi non carborundum
"We are going to support the latest versions of Opera and Mozilla so people will be able to get the MSN experience," said Bob Visse, MSN's director of marketing.
But, Visse warned, "the experience may be slightly degraded simply because they don't support the standards we support closely, as far as the HTML standard in those browsers."
...
Visse said earlier Thursday that the message would be shown to people using "browsers that we know don't support (W3C) standards or that we can't insure will get a great experience for the customer." W3C refers to the World Wide Web Consortium, which is developing industry standards for Web technologies.
Wow! They've left the door wide open with that last statement, especially. They can't "insure" (ensure) the performance of any software not directly under their control! Sooo, they are really saying that "we don't recommend using any software but ours." Well, of course!
What really irks me is that internet-savvy folks will realize this FUD tactic for what it is, and hate MS even more for it (which isn't even possible, so no damage done). But 95% of the public will take the message at face value, think that non-MS browsers are flaky, and that people like us who disagree are self-deluded fanatics. So MS "wins."
This site is almost entirely a one-hit wonder. You hit the site, sign up, and leave on your way. We're trying to focus on the users hitting our site. The standard site is CSS/HTML compliant (some IE additions, but it should gracefully degrade).
We're looking into cleanup options to make it cleaner and therefore run on Mozilla, but Netscape needs a custom solution. Maybe I should get a WebTV system and try it out, we'll see.
...Celebrity Deathmatch
BillG vs. TimB
"The Battle for the Web"
I know who's getting my money...
There is a war going on for your mind.
Hey, I learn something new everyday :) Yup, OBJECT is pretty neat.
We got tons of mail from people saying that they can't (usefully) get at our website. However, when we look at our logs, we see almost noone on these platforms viewing our website, so they're statistically insignificant.
Has it really not occurred to you that if you require IE, you're not going to get many page requests from netscape?
On a similar note, it's really amusing how crappy the overwhelming majority of sites that require IE are. Generaly stupid, ugly, slow, and often prone to problems.
And it's the bit bucket, not the bin bucket.
Of course, most major web designers seem to be unimaginably stupid, so I can't say that what you're saying is a surprise. Still, you might want to try thinking a bit. At least theoretically it does help to make money, if nothing else.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
So I'm not sure I get it. If Tim Berners-Lee is all about a free and open Web can be viewed by any software running on any hardware, then why start a company based around a proprietary language where the business model is to charge companies for the amount of content they serve? To quote Pamela Hart, Curl Corporation's controller:
"Curl is in a strong financial position. The company has prominent investors who believe Curl has the ability to change the way people use the Internet. I am committed to expanding and strengthening the company's financial position and long term success."
Hmmmm.... that doesn't sound a lot like a philosophy of "openness." And as far as running on any software and any hardware, let's see what the Curl press releases have to say, circa July 2001:
"The Surge(TM) 1.1 software environment, which includes the Surge(TM) browser plug-in and the Curl(TM) content language, is available immediately for Microsoft® Windows® operating systems (Windows® 95/98, Windows NT®, Windows® ME and Windows® 2000). Support for other platforms will be announced later this year."
Whatever Berners-Lee says, I think his company's statements speak for themselves.
Breakfast served all day!
Microsoft does this because they are afraid they can only remain a powerful company through these closed minded tactics and not by being open and fair.
Actually, while netscape 4.x is a really PITA and a waste of time by abstract (read: impractical) standards, there are some tricks for it. For example, tables can replace divs most of the time. Also, since netscape 4.x doesn't support (I think that it's) @import in a style sheet, but all good browsers do, you can put the main part of your style sheet in the @import'd style sheet, and put the 4.x friendly stuff in the main style sheet. Not perfect, but from what I understand it gets the job done to a large degree.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
I am not saying that whizbangery will make your message more meaningful. However, well applied whizbangery will make the message easier to receive.
There are lots of articles and websites that are truly informative, but that i still have a hard time getting through. These snippets of information are so dull and drab that I just yawn and develop an immediate urge for Stile.
Folks - use those css to make your site more readable and more enjoyable. Increase the line spacing to 120%, adjust the margins and work the colors. Pick a nice font, but make sure it looks ok in the fallback that you naturally supplied. Subtle mouse-over effects are also nice. Experiment. Have some fun. Be creative - I know you really are, for coding is also an act of creativity.
Feel free to use Flash and java applets and whatnot. Howver, make sure the fallback is acceptable. The web should not be a static technology. It can, it will and it should continue to improve.
Oh - and don't forget to have a message to deliver. Empty whizbangery is Hollywood's specialty, not ours.
Stop the brainwash
The post was serious, and the lack of vast multimedia features only goes further to prove my point. His point was that we need these snazzy features to get a point across well, but got that very point across well without them, hence the irony.
Virg
And the problem is?
The problem is that Windows XP redirects users to MSN is all sorts of situations. I guess that's why MSN was 'relooked' on the very day Win XP was released.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
The W3C has links to many validators here. Go test your website(s) with them.
Just my $0.04 (adjusted for inflation)
Glad to see I am not the only one who stopped visiting espn.com after it was Borgified in MSN. Who knows how many users that PHB decision cost ESPN.
Well, ok, there is a problem with some browsers.
Many websites are broken because they were designed for a specific browser, when viewed using another.
But it's not the browser here, it's still the web-owner/designer's fault...
--------
* Sigh *
TBL: It's fair to note that no browser implements all W3C standards perfectly.
That's because the W3C standards today are nothing more than an attempt to document the stupid proprietary browser tricks invented by Netscape and Microsoft during the "browser wars". No wonder no one browser complies with the whole standard. The W3C rubber stamp means nothing anymore.
Microsoft has only themselves to blame for not being able to "guarantee a good experience".
Edith Keeler Must Die
I totatly agree with you, but the people creating the sites are not the ones that are making those design decisions. "The customer is always right" is a phrase that comes to mind when I think about this subject. The people paying the web developers to make the sites make the decisions about how the site looks. As a web developer, I get to push people to the 'low bandwith/faster/easier' direction, but if a customer wants that 500k background picture, then there is nothing I can do to stop them. Same goes for any 'feature' of a website, be it flash, applet, javascript, or movies.
Why haven't there been more research into interlaced style images, so that you could say... download half the image if you wanted to. Get an IDEA of what the image looked like, then download the rest if you really wanted. What happened to all those fractal image comression techniques that were supposed to make downloading images a joy instead of a pain. Some of them were really cool, letting you zoom in on the picts and stuff, with very, very small file sizes. Alas, no browser uses them.
If I can't read it on lynx, I don't want to read it at all...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/whiskeyjuvenile/
Web designers have a standard it's called HTML 4.0
if the webpage does not conform to that simple standard then the person writing the code is a shoddy programmer (Strike that, HTML is NOT programming it's typesetting) and is a sloppy or half assed attempt at writing a webpage.
The problems with the webpages out there lies soley in the hands of the writers. You web writers! quit baing lazy and sloppy.. write html Compliant code!
and people wonder why cross platform languages fail, it's because the programmers are too lazy to write the software correctly.
(Moderate -4 Flamebait)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> use those css to make your site more readable and more enjoyable
Why do you use css to make the sites more readable? You know your reading situation; your monitor size, your vision, your favorite fonts.
Do you not read books? So many times I've curled up with a several hundred page book (with a drawing per chapter, if that) for several hours. I can't ever have remember saying that having things suddenly change while I was looking at them (mouse-over effects) would be nice. Nor can I remember wishing for more animation or even art.
I am creative, but I'm not an art student. If I had a problem with pages of pure text, I wouldn't be in compsci.
<applet etc...>
Sorry, your browser doesn't support Java. Click here to go to the less-enhanced version.
</applet>
But few people did this. Some people were left staring at blank screens because their browser wasn't cutting edge enough and because developers didn't feel like worrying about those browsers enough to provide alternatives.
HTML works in the sense that if all the HTML creation tools and people writing raw HTML decided to consider the case of the two-versions-behind browser, the content would at least display. Maybe not perfectly, but the content would display. Of course, this assumes that the format of the content is secondary -- and this is increasingly not true. For cases in which perfect formatting is crucial, use PDF, etc, not HTML
BEN
I don't know whether it is, still, because I have not been updating my MCSE status since more than 2 years, BUT I clearly remember what I had to do in order to access my MCSE information. I had to use IE, but NOT because of some important CSS or javascript or whatever special feature that Netscape didn't support. No, dear friends, this was just a dirty MS trick. In fact, I could access it with Netscape, too, with a little trick: when I would clikc on certain links, and the page looks as if it is loaded, quickly click on ESC (or click on the "stop" button) to stop loading. That way I was fine, even with Netscape. I could update all my info, get all my exam status and certification information, everything was working fine, if only I was careful to press ESC quick enough. No functionality was missing, except for the fact that if I left the page to load completely, in Netscape it would disappear!
Funny, isn't it? Of corse, MS was stating that you MUST use IE, nad with IE realy it was easier (not anymore better looking or functional) but I was too much of a stubborn bastard, at that time. I was young...
Sigged!
If only Tim B.-Lee (and later W3C) had made it against the standard to have a user-agent string identifying the browser, having instead a "capabilities" array, (eg. HTTP5.2;HTML6.1)
Then the only "qualification" would be support of the HTTP/HTML version.
That way Microsoft would have to explicitely break the standard to make exceptions for its own browser.
This remembers ones of my first attemps to enter a big popular discoteque full of snob people... i remembered u can't enter if you don't have the appareance of a snob guy... and i was rebel and skater... so i couln't enter... so fuck it... i never entered them i really forgot that place.. people should do the same with websites that never support estandars... and more if that sites blocks the entrance cause u use whatever browser... i think this is what zeldman wanted that people should upgrade browsers... go head buy the xp... that is what they want to do with your wallet this month...
You might wish to keep in mind, while parsing those logs, that Opera advertises itself as IE by default (whether under Linux or Win, can't speak for other OSs). You can bet any IE log entry that has "Linux" as it's OS isn't running IE.
An intranet isn't the same environment as the web. You said yourself that 92% of clients were IE, and on a corporate intranet you can get that number close to 100% just by mandating the use of a particular client.
But then you don't really need HTML. May as well go whole hog and use Lotus Notes, which has far more functionality for both the client and developer than any web browser currently available.
-- Welcome to nowhere fast / nothing here ever lasts.
Microsoft is just hurting itself, its as if MS wanted to make themself viewed as "the evil empire" and cutting off people from going to their site. Think about it this way, MS wants more users of IE, and its supporting their "passport" system. How do you get that passport, sites like MSN or Hotmail. See the connection? The monopoly isn't that ovious but its there. With XP out be prepared to see more of the same in the future (new XP only file types, ect).
Carpe meam simiam!
It's been said before and I'm sure it'll be said again: let's fork the web. Drop out any and all support for the crap used to sell commercial web sites (e.g., Flash).
People will say "but the masses won't go to an alternate web!" and I say "but isn't that what you want? you bitch and moan about the vapid, overcommercial, shallow Joe Sixpack nature of the original web; wouldn't a fork be just what you're looking for?"
It sure as hell would be something I'd be interested in. A web with only a few million people on it, most of those technically oriented or academics looking for a noise-free environment for common publishing. Throw in all the usual minority cranks and you've got a web with no commercials, no businesses, no glut of two-bit one page home sites abandoned a few hours after the new owner got bored, and yet just enough color to be wacky and interesting.
Imagine a web where you could easily track down the information you want or need from academic and technical sources (less likely to be talking out of their ass, at least in their field of expertise), hold a semi-intelligent conversation that doesn't involve mixing letters with numbers (D00D), and go post on a forum with your favorite band of wackos with a much smaller chance of having to deal with noise from trolling assholes.
Christ, gimme that web. I don't need the other unless I'm looking for pics of Natalie Portman, and with any luck some of the wackos that move to the new web will start Natalie fan sites.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Reminds me of something that happened about two years ago: one of our suppliers dumped Apache in favor of IIS and for whatever reason, we just couldn't get his order page to work under Netscape. For security reasons, IE is banned inhouse. We had a long-term relationship with the supplier and spent a lot of time trying to iron out the incompatibilities with his new system. We continued placing orders by phone for a while, but it was a hassle compared with his old system which the owner refused to put back in place.
The majority of users visiting his site used IE. However, we found out after he went out of business that we provided him about 8% of his business and among his other Netscape clients who wouldn't or couldn't switch to IE he lost nearly a third of his regular customer base revenue. According to the former employee, the switch to IIS and the resulting collapse of his revenue stream was the major factor in the demise of his business.
The point? If a site is sufficiently unfriendly to non-IE users, the users may simply be ditching and the site's owners thus have no realistic idea of what the site's possibilities would be if the coding were more universal. In the case of the abovementioned supplier, he was getting lots of nibbles from IE users but a significant amount of revenue was being generated from government offices which were not allowed to use IE and therefore his analysis of the potential negative impact of the conversion was fatally flawed.
we create a new internet and not allow microsoft to use it!
Utopia does exist.
It never changes, does it. Someone lifts a stick and hits a tree to make some noise. Someone else lifts that same stick and hits his friend on the head killing him. Another could just as well as use that same stick for killing a pig for food or digging in the ground for roots. /. exists too!
No matter what the original intended use is for something, people will always find another use for it.
And so it is for browser identification. Intended to allow for the recognition of the browser and it's capabilities and then used for targetting individuals for access, identifying possible chances for promoting a better, in some eyes, browser product or selling a new OS.
When will it end?
Never!
If it did, then so would our uniqueness, the ability to create and see things differently, make friends/enemies, form alliances and above all innovate!
Remember that this is why
... end of rant
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
>>One possible answer to this relates to the reasons why IE is the most popular browser:
Functionality.
Don't be silly. IE's popularity has almost nothing to do with functionality. The principal reason it's popular is that it was bundled with the operating system which most PC manufacturers are locked in to selling by secret contracts with a convicted monopolist.
MS didn't just block Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, and all its other browser competitors. It also blocked its own version of Internet Explorer for Pocket PC 2002. That is the brand-new version of the Pocket PC operating system which it just released last month. The lack of internal co-ordination at Microsoft on this is stunning... I thought they were a better organized company than this. Read the story here
who's this guy? I've never heard of him!
EVERYONE knows that Al Gore invented the WWW!!!
HE said it himself!!!
What, am I not supposed to trust politicians anymore?
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
I have seen plenty of websites telling me that I cannot access their pages because I was using IE.
Of course, when Microsoft makes the weak excuse about W3C compliance, I really had no way to try to look at in a pro-Microsoft view. I like to try to keep an open mind and not bash Microsoft just because, but in this case, it was really stupid.
If it was a marketing ploy, it is bad publicity in terms of the tech world, but Windows doesn't seem geared to techies and geeks. If anything, it is the new computer people that this was directed to. In that case, it has to be decided whether or not this was a violation of the Sherman Act.
New computer=new user=happy with working product
New user finds that working product direct him/her to MSN.COM.
If this new user has some other browser installed, then this new user will find that the program isn't working as it should. IE? Sounds like it will work. It DOES!!
New user is an IE fan for life.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
No, that site does not REQUIRE IE, it suggests it. I got through just fine with out any of the settings set that way.
I guess I don't know what you mean about an advert that kicks out Opera. I click on their adverts all the time, they open in opera, and everything's good.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Finally, I went to www.ea.com a while ago. As usual, I tried with both Mozilla and Konqueror. Again, no good. They blocked them out, and suggested "upgrading" to IE.
They're being assholes. I set Opera to identify as IE and it handles the site just fine. I didn't bother to try with Mozilla, because I'd have to edit the config by hand. In a way, I'm glad to see that Mozilla makes it somewhat of a pain in the butt to spoof the identify, I want ea to know they're driving away traffic and why.
I seriously doubt Mozilla will have any problem with the site.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
First, they aren't exactly. .NET, Microsoft worms are all territory for fresh investigations.
For normal companies there is a presumption of innocence or a presumption that market forces will take care of the situation.
Whatever specific remedies do or do not come from the current case, that's not going to be the end of it. XP,
They have far too much power and there's no clear way to stop them.
Microsoft does have too much power, but I think we can stop them. Here's how.
When an organization monopolizes a commodity or service, government should not reinforce that monopoly with patent and copyright protection. It is simply wrong for a government to grant Microsoft a copyright on an operating system until they no longer monopolize that commodity.
When a monopolist abuses their monopoly, then they should be punished. An easy way to do that is simply to refuse to grant any patent or copyright protection at all to that organization, for some period of time.
Any government could easily use these simple controls to prevent and reverse economic damage by aggressive monopolists. Every country should integrate these controls into their laws.
------DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE------
And give the information! Don't make us email you for it.
That reminds me: The statistics for "Yahoo!" hosted web pages doesn't read the strings from some browsers correctly. Try to email them about it. You can't! (Or can you? I looked for quite a while...)
I suppose many large companies have found that if there's a webmaster link at the bottom of every page, people will email them about all their problems. The solution is not to remove that, but to add more. Maybe have a link that goes to a contact page with many specific and clear email addresses, but having no email contact addresses is like ripping your corporate eyeballs out.
So, if you actually want or need anything IE-specific (I don't), run a late Konqueror with the WINE-assisted ActiveX-running code and tell it to impersonate IE.
So Microsoft want people to put IE-specific code on their sites? No worries! Can do! If the browser ID says Exploder, add a banner warning them about their vulnerable browser. If it says Windows, do the same for their OS. Piece of the proverbial in PHP...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Eh? The typical M$ EULA is a Sales and Marketing contract!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Whaddaya on about? They can't ensure performance or ``a great experience'' on software which is totally under their control, after over a decade of effort, so obviously either their aim is not to ensure a great experience, or they're completely incompetent. Take your pick.
My personal take is that their aim is to line their own pockets and win some prizes rather than to discover and deliver what people actually want. MCS is a bit of an anomaly, and makes me wonder.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Or simply not allow them to enforce any patent or copyright which applies to a technology in which they have a majority market share, including a grandfather clause to protect competing software created during that window of opportunity.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
<OBJECT type="image/ppm" src="tux.ppm">
(o-
//\
V_/_
</OBJECT>
[These extra words were added to satisfy that never to be sufficiently condemned lameness filter.]
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Well in Netscape 6.1 (haven't moved to the recently released 6.2 yet) it all appears to render correctly - and quickly.
Reload does not change anything.
So some bugs are fixed....
-- Join us in Chicago May 1-4th for MeshForum -- writer, historian, tech geek, entrepreneur, internet junky since '91 --
If you want such-and-such a paragraph to appear in such-and-such a place, should you have to use funky kludges such as "invisible GIFs" to get the thing to line up properly? You shouldn't HAVE to use invisible GIFs. Or tables in tables in tables in...
And you don't have to, if you use CSS.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Now WebTV and Mac, that are .5% and 1.5% of this website? They probably aren't worth spending resources on beyond testing on the Mac, but you have to evaluate your costs.
MacIE5 was the first shipping browser to completely support CSS1, and has equivalent or better CSS1 support than any version of WinIE.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
By default, Opera identifies itself as MSIE, so some of those MSIE users may have been using Opera. I've been using it for quite some time now and slowly it has become my main browser. IMO, its strongest point is that it's made to serve the user, not the websites. You can always break out of frames, see the URLs, the windows don't clutter your taskbar, you can zoom in and out of pages, there's a separate window with all active transfers, you can control it with mouse gestures, etc. Now if only they'd add an option to block onClose and onLoad pop-ups... RMN ~~~
Do we _really_ have to let astroturfer ACs with IE post to "NS vs IE" discussions?
'Cuz this is the level of crap that we get from it.
And we should NOT give IE lusers moderator points, either.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.