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Why Browser Innovation Matters
dvanatta was one of a several people who noted a new article by Mitchell Baker on Mozilla.org about why browser innovation matters - especially Gecko, and why it will survive things like Safari Whoops - got the name wrong. Updated.
Browsers are mature. IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Konqueror, Opera, etc. are all mature pieces of software now.
What "innovations" can you put in mature software, other than small details?
If big innovations are possible in mature software, then people wouldn't stick to MS all the time. Remember that a lot of MS software won because they were "good enough", not because they were "the best".
...Because everytime it occurs, geeks everywhere complain about the new way, and how good it was in the ol' days.
(Remember Arpanet and Gopher? I remember when we used to complain about the world wide web, and how it was going to ruin the internet.)
Flash popups anyone? That's innovation for ya.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
The killer app for the web browser is browsing.
Is it? I mean, probably a lot of us do online banking. That's not just browsing anymore, is it? Posting to slashdot is not 'just browsing' as well.
The point is, the browser is an UI for a lot of things these days. Web banks, forums, groupware or whathaveyou use the browser. Why is improvements etc. a bad thing for these?
And (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view) these web applications will get bigger and have a lot more functionality. Maybe this is not a good thing, but anyway the browser is a key point in these things.
I don't think this is just egomania on the browser peoples side, but the web browser, as simple as it seems to be, is an important app these days. Why people shell out to buy Opera, if it's 'just browsing'?
I'll tell you one thing, the world doesn't deserve a browser as good as Opera. I had the pleasure of using a computer that had Windows installed the other day, and the new Opera 7 is simply amazing. Not only can you do anything by using exclusively the mouse (or the keyboard), but the small screen rendering works perfectly. And I thought that was just going to be a crap marketing feature that mutilated the page. It's got integrated e-mail with spam filtering and PIM features, button themes for skins, and renders stuff that Internet Explorer chokes on. And that was just what I found in one night. I know I sound like a corporate shill, but it's not advertising if they didn't pay you for it. This is one thing I would GLADLY pay for if it came out on Linux (and think it was a small price to pay, too). If I browsed the web a lot, I think I might consider booting into windows just to browse, for this reason.
As a web developer, I am more interested in seeing all browser being 100% compliant with the w3c standards than anything else.
As a surfer, though, I want my browser to be fast on loading, handle bookmarks properly, and to start quickly. That is why I almost exclusively use Phoenix, despite it being only version 0.5 (at least, that's the one I am using). It starts up on my windows machine much faster than IE, Mozilla or Opera. I don't use Netscape itself, because the difference between that and Mozilla is negligible (yep, I know it's blasphemy to say it, but there it is.)
But to me, the most important part of the whole equation is this: give me WEBSITES that comply to standards as set by w3c. No, you don't HAVE to use CSS, or even a particular scripting method (php vs asp? who cares. If you know one, design with it, but be ready to learn the other if a company wants it).
Part of the problem is that a lot of people making websites are not programmers, or even really that informed about standards. A lot of sites are done by graphic designers, who only want it to be pretty.
Thats great, but pretty doesn't mean a thing to the people surfing with an alternate browser that doesn't display pictures. People who are blind come to mind. But if you come from an art background, its hard to think about that. It's worse than you think, though. I know a man who teaches at a University here locally. He teaches graphic design, holds a Ph.D. from a presitigious university (I think Texas A&M), and regularly requires his students to create web pages as part of the course. He uses almost nothing but Adobe products (GoLive in particular), and Macs. He doesn't worry about accessibility that much though, and he is COLOR BLIND! Standards don't seem to matter, as long as it looks good.
With that kind of situation being common, it is going to take a long time to make the community aware of the need for standard compliance.
Now that I am off my soap box, any one who needs it is free to borrow it.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
1) Because in some ways, the browser is the most important piece of software we use. Modern computers are valuable not so much for computation, but for communication.
2) Because if the browser is done well (like Mozilla or Opera) it can handle other tasks as well, like email and usenet, thus improving the whole user experience (yes, I know some versions of Opera don't do email anymore, but some do, or at least did).
3) Because if the browser is done well (like Mozilla) it can become a platform for running new classes of application, which brings all sorts of interesting things to light.
4) BUT, MOST IMPORTANTLY, if the browser is done badly (IE), it becomes a ready-made backdoor into your system, a virus and worm propagator, a stumbling block in the way of people trying to innovate in other areas, and in general, a royal pain in the ass. If there weren't alternatives to IE, there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth (cats and dogs, living together, etc).
To sum up:
Browser innovation is what saves us from having to use crappy proprietary tools like the rest of the rubes, and what allows us to actually get some use out of our computers (instead of being hacked ten times a day by bored script kiddies).
Or is that too cynical a take on this?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
It's not subtext-- the author plainly states, "We would have preferred to have Apple use Gecko or collaborate with us on the development of the Camino browser...", but goes on to say that the larger goal of providing alternative, standards-compliant browser platforms is still being met.
I read the whole thing as, "we would love to have Apple as part of our team, but are still happy that there is another team out there doing The Right Thing."
While the Aqua user interface elements necessitate a binary end product for the time being, it is reasonable to expect two-way traffic between the Apple folks and the folks responsible for the care and feeding of the KHTML widget. As I understand it, some of this has already happened. Apple's decision to base Safari on KHTML is good for both Apple and KDE, and represents a departure in the right direction from a completely closed development model.
It may even be ideal-- all the standards based parts are out in the open for access by the community, and Apple is free to add their own proprietary icing on top of that foundation.
It does take a leap of faith that Apple will release their changes to the KHTML base, but it is most likely in their best interest to do this.
Gee. I really wish only 0.0001% of sites used ECMAScript :3
I take by your comment that you run your own website. If you code it right and stick to standard HTML 4.01 Transitional (Strict is cleaner IMO, but hey) and CSS 1, everybody will see your site the same way. Literally everybody. I think it's safe to say that even IE 6 has gotten to that point. If you can't code to W3C standards, I'll be less sympathetic for your position.
Frankly, Gecko has a lot of code built in to it to do just what you say. You know how most people don't care about correct HTML these days? Gecko has a rendering mode it hits a lot that's designed to deal exactly with that. So have you had problems with recent versions of Mozilla? (Not Netscape - Mozilla. They're similar, but different.) What are these problems? I'm curious.
Seriously. Code to standards. IE is not a standard just because Microsoft wants it to be. IE understands CSS. Stick to correct HTML and CSS 1 and I guarantee everyone will see your page the way you want to. If they don't, don't whine because you won't write correct markup.