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Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues
adamsmith_uk writes "For the first time in three years something has happened in browser land. In fact, major events have started happening at a breathtaking pace. Time for a long overview that tells the whole story. "
The [Mozilla] Project needs to get its act together, though. No more rehearsing for the Navel Gazing Split Personality Idiot Savant role. No more antique cars stuffed with vague X-technologies nobody understands anyway. And no, not even one web standard. The Project should put Mozilla on a strict diet and star it as the Viable Alternative to the Senile Evil Dinosaur Usurper in the epic multimedial co-production "Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues".
If the Project does so, it has a future. If it doesn't, it will sink further into obscurity and silly names.
Apparently this guys has been out of the loop. I agree the silly name changes, and change in directions hurt, (hell it confused me too), but now they are on a strict roadmap. The Firebird browser is on a strict diet, it's slicker, leaner and meaner than anything Microsoft has to offer. Even some of the biggest Windows advocates have jumped on the bandwagon.
Hopefully enough eyes will be opened, and will see that the future is Firebird.
Mike
IE is still the dominant browser, because Windows is the dominant desktop platform. People generally don't want to change what comes with their system, especially if it works well enough for them, to say nothing of the confusinig open source strategem of nightly builds, stable releases, unstable releases, etc etc.
Take over the desktop. then worry about a browser.
I agree with it on all counts. Microsoft is evil, Explorer is old, and we should move away from it. Unfortunately, most people don't care, and most of the other web browsers aren't all that final. Still, the next "Browser Wars" will be very interesting indeed.
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
Come on, I know that Mozilla and IE and Netscape are the big dogs relatively speaking.
What about Konqueror, Safari for the Macheads, Galeon, Opera or Firebird?
I have always liked Galeon myself. Still Epiphany is supposed to be good and there are a zillion reasons for using an alt browser. What are yours?
ACK
Funnily enough I was just checking the stats for a client web site and for the first time both Mozilla (about 5%) and Linux (about 2%) got into my report to the client. The web site is for engineers and my prediction is that engineers are going to be the first significant user of linux on the desktop over the next couple of years.
On the one hand, I'm happy that my browser of choice is the best. On the other hand, I'm sad there's nothing better out there. :(
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Come on. He even admits it. I can think of a couple ways of writing this article, transmitting the same information, and not come off as a bigot at the same time. It's rather interesting to read, but he is speaking for the browsers more than he needs to, let them speak for themselves!
He's also obsessed with CSS (but we won't talk about standards in this article, no not any), like that's the only point you consider when picking/develpoing for a browser. Sure it's important, I use it a ton don't get me wrong, but it is not the only thing with IE that I have trouble developing for.
I really miss the "Software war" map which used to be at atai.org
The last update has been 2002 and it never got updated since.
The Mozilla Project is in serious trouble. It has been ready for prime time for over a year now, but except for an increasingly meaningless string of new releases nothing seems to happen.
Nothing seems to happen? Hello, what of all these features:
It's really funny that they'd over look this stuff, since they bitch and moan about how bad IE is (and will be for another 6 years). They clearly don't understand the power of Open Source.
Unless MS is forced to remove IE from Windows as default IE will remain in the dominant position regardless of which browser has the best features. Having AOL and MSN both using IE must help too. Chances are that casual PC owners who just do a bit of browsing, a bit of emailing and type the occasional letter will have not even considered that anything other than IE exsists. Like the way people look for the "Microsoft Word" link on Linux boxes to type a letter. MS has so ingrained the general user base with their apps and their names that it will be an uphill struggle to get people to even realise there are alternative browsers out there. :(
Was the guy that wrote that article paid by the word? It sure reads like it. And it claims to tell the whole story, but it didn't. Pile of poo.
I agree IE MAC was certainly moree css compliant then the windows version, but only slightly so. IE MAC is slow and slugish on most macs comapred to just about every other browser it also crashes frequently. The macs i use are top end, with lots of ram, lots of hd space and they are constamtly replaced and teh same problems persist with IE MAC. Saffari is not bad, but it's not that hot...i'm not a big mozilla fan, buty the mozilla family is tops in OS X land, it is the fastest most compliant browser i have used on a MAC.
Engineers = geeks with a job. Wonder why they're using Linux. :-)
Granted, a lot of web developers have had to deal with IE, but it seems to me with the only mention of Moz as being in trouble is, well, kinda stupid. I keep reading Moz keeps getting better and better and sure enough, with each release it does get better and better. And so do the browsers based on Gecko. If anything, Moz has crossed over that hump that IE is hitting now. And let's not forget all the neat stuff coming out in XUL. Sure, it needs to be faster, but the possibilities are interesting. Especially if you don't wanna be M$'s bitch.
Maybe it's because I mostly focus on enterprise apps and not too much on client side stuff, but frankly, this guy downplays standards too much, which to me is bizarre because the whole non-standards thing is how we got into this whole mess of one browser no innovation crap. Yah sure, standards take long and companies innovate faster. But, look who you signed on the dotted line when all you web creators went strictly IE. Yes, the f-ing devil.
I probably live in the dreamy stratosphere demanding on most of my projects that we find ways around IE only stuff and make the application robust, secure, and stable, which to me and end users is far more important than js, layers and whatnot. Sure, I also know there are plenty of people who need jazzy sites and have to deal with these issues but you only have to be burned so many times to realize that you need to pull your hand away from the flame.
I guess though, I just feel like design on Moz based browsers and tweak for the rest. Because in time, these scales are going to tip out of IE's favor. I know, I'm in the minority, but I also want my stuff to work. I sacrafice a little zing for a better development experience. Cuz in the end, the users don't care.
It was a somewhat believable troll when you were talking about .NET, but for browser? You should troll at the HTTP level, not TCP/IP level regarding browsers. :)
Agreed - at work we recently had a query about spam and popups. Two or three of us suggested using Mozilla or Netscape instead of IE. We pointed out the ability to suppress popups and minimise email spam within the Netscape mailer in addition to the lower chances of viruses.
To put it mildly we were howled down. People wanted to continue with IE and Outlook. They were happy to add absurd bits of additional software to stop duff information getting as far as IE and Outlook, but they weren't prepared to change them.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Although I'm happy with my current browser (opera) there are many ways in which it could be improved.
1. Improved support for windows. The Linux version of opera is quite stable but the windows version repeatedly crashes, especially when I got to pages that have perl in them.
2. popup supression. Popups have become one of my least favourite things about the internet. If the browser could suppress ANY pages that use java to create popups then the problem could be solved at a stroke.
3. Speed. Opera is far more usable than IE but it is much slower at rendering large pages. This can be speeded up if I remove java but this is more of a hack than a proper solution.
4. improved caching. The browser could cache all links on a page regardless of whether you visit them or not. This would make surfing a lot quicker even when you are using analogue.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
There is no browser.
I think after all I've seen, that's the biggest point, and the biggest reason why using Windows really stuck in my craw (well, other than crashing, being less efficient than Unix, crashing, not letting me do what I wanted unlike Unix systems, etc).
It was that it usually didn't matter what you did - if Microsoft put it in your face, the people would use it.
People don't start their browser - they start the Internet. They'll tell you so - they click on the icon marked "Internet" and off they go. They don't use a document editor, they use Word, and if they use Wordperfect they'll usually say "Wordperfect", though in the back of their head they'll say "that thing I use for editing typed stuff".
Mac users (and I'm one of them - recent convert, thank you for asking) use Safari because it's there.
My fear for Google is that people will say "I'll just google that", and type in a search string into their little browser bar, and be taken right to MSN search.
Microsoft: Hey, what's the problem with that? We're not a monopoly, after all!
Me: Yes, you are. Just stop pretending otherwise, please. While there are millions who honestly don't give a flying fuck, I do. This is no different than in the old USSR when there were two telivision channels - Channel 1 was propoganda, Channel 2 was a guy telling you "Hey, go back to Channel 2. There's nothing else here."
That's the only reason why I wish OS X would come to the i386 platform.
(I'm going to pause here because I know the screams of people foaming at the mouth. "Apple will never do it! They're addicted to hardware!" "If they did, Microsoft would do to Apple what they did to BeOS and threaten computer manufacturers to never let it on their systems".
I know - it will never happen, and that's why I use the term "wish".)
Or my hopes that as more businesses turn to Linux based solutions for the business and start putting it on the desktops to save themselves hordes of money rather than paying another huge Microsoft Enterprise Licensing fee, that more businesses will start being able to say "Well, the cost of making Microsoft angry is now less than putting Dell Linux on a system - so let's do that." (Of course, that will mean that somebody will have to do for Linux what Apple did for it's BSD based subsystem - oh, and make it easier to play games on Linux than it was trying to get Quake II installed.
I'm going to pause here again for more foaming at the mouth people telling me it was easy to get Quake II running on a Red Hat system if only I remember to compile support for something somewhere. I know, I'm an idiot, I bask in your knowledge and lay be belly and bar it at you to acknowledge your greatness. Feel better? I never got Quake II to really run on Linux, so I gave up and installed it on a Windows machine. Thanks for playing.)
I'm waiting and watching the future, so we'll have to see what it does.
My point? Browsers don't matter. Office suites don't matter. OS doesn't matter. What matters is that the user can sit down and do their shit (whatever particular shit that happens to be), and not think about how they do their shit. Once that happens, businesses can just change out the parts that the users need to get the cheapest/most efficient/most effective shit making stuff.
When that day is truly, completly realized - then it will be Microsoft who is in the shit, because they'll have to truly, honestly compete. Not just put up whatever shit they want and expect me to swallow it.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
but I'm using [insert slow browser here]. As an Opera/Firebird user, I have to say that Moz [firebird] has gotten a /lot/ faster....but OptiMoz still leaves something to be desired. Opera's gestures are far more responsive. I still find that optimoz "drops" gestures, or by and large, isnt as responsive to them as Opera is. If/when that catches up, I'm going straight for firebird. [And opera will still *own* the embedded market...]
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I work in the mostly-Mac design department of a large (otherwise PC) publishing company. We use a lot of MS authentication on various intranet sites. If IE never improves (safari is way better already) and Safari never gains the ability to authenticate (moz1.4.1/win does it with a common DLL) then we're screwed.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
There's one important point this guy is missing here. Big corporations often provide web applications that are based on the latest IE. To do my job I have to use one particular web app. provided by my firms supplier. It requires IE 6. If I wanted to use IE 5.5, I am SOL. When this supplier starts to require IE 7 we will have to upgrade our Windows.
So by tying IE 7 to the OS Microsoft can just about guarantee corporate acceptance of the upcoming windows. Even now, we can't switch completely to Linux because we would not be able to do business. Sucks if you ask me.
i don't like my old sig.
I didn't think it was possible for an article to get this cliche', when I first read the title I thought it would be great to send it to some of my IE using designer friends, but its so full of light side, dark side, Microsoft is evil propoganda it becomes useless.
Web browser wars are about 1. who can market the best and 2. Standards. Its not a good vs. evil thing. I don't like IE, but I don't think that it is 'evil', just incomplete.
The article talks about how we have to spread the word but tells us we can't argue point number 2, standards compliance. Sure Joe User doesn't care, but a lot of web designers do if you can give them good reasons why standards are a great thing. The article also says that its too hard for the end users to understand there are more choices besides Netscape and IE. Remember its all good vs evil, Netscape vs. Microsoft round #3.
In the end we're left with a ranting, cliche' filled article that basically says, IE sucks, tell everyone to use Netscape. Useless.
The Anti-Blog
As long as the Microsoft IIS server continues to favor IE, (can't find the older /. articles about IIS circumventing the standard HTTP protocol to serve pages faster to IE, and also display crappy pages on Mozilla) rather than serving pages fairly across all browsers, and continues to be as widely as Apache, IE will still remain in the game. Simply because general home users wont understand why some pages crap out with Mozilla/etc (not designed for any browser other than IE or due to discrimination by IIS).
It's a pity Apache doesn't start favoring Mozilla/Opera over IE, but I guess that wouldn't be fair play.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
As long as Windows is the dominant OS on x86 and the 64-bit variants thereof, IE will be the most used browser because, as a couple people have said, most people either don't care, or don't want to learn anything new. The biggest challenge I face as an IT person is teaching people new software, especially when they don't think there is anything wrong with the old app(which has made migration to OS X difficult in the labs that use Macs). How many people do you know still use Win 98, or even 95, because they are comfortable with it?
Speaking of Macs, I don't think Safari is quite ready to be the end all, be all Mac browser(though it is my primary browser). There are too many ecommerce, and other, sites that, unfortunately, depend on IE's flawed implementations to work correctly. IE will be on my machine, though not in my Dock, for quite some time until Apple gets everything working with these websites.
Although the market is very soft, going for installation on hand held devices (cell phone/PDA) devices is likely to give them a leading share. Since the vendors seemed gun shy of microsoft, I'd give the Opera folks a bigger chance if that market should materialize in a reasonable time frame. The big concern is if Microsoft can just buy their way in, they may squeeze the little guys out.
In the beginning...
In the beginning was the review, and it was OK. It used Titles for Everything, and as such was a Trailblazer in some ways. It quickly became Old and strangely played the role of The Great Distractor.
The Players
This is Part 2
Part the Third
There is a great deal of discussion about browsers. Some of it makes Good Sense, but sadly much of it Does Not. There is a War. That much is certain, but
Who Will Reign Victorious
Will the Aged Dragon obtain the Dentures of Power and regain the Throne of Browser Supremacy or will his son the Flaming Sparrow recently renamed the Songbird of Fire throw down the Gauntlet of "Bring it on"? Only one thing is certain.
The Reviewer is unsure
Finis
wanna hear something evil? it's no lie. if IE had tabs i would probably switch back. i'm one of those users in the article who just doesnt care about whats under the hood as long as it works, and i have the fidelity of a ugh.. something... that is low fidelity. i think we read about the browser wars online so often cause the people that know how to publish to the web are the people who care about web browsers, mainly. think of all the other things that the average joe never hears about simply cause it doesnt have a convenient vocal outlet. i bet those tounge depressors at the doctor's office cost 15 times more than they should, but nobody ever hears about the competitor getting trampled cause tounge depressor manufacturers can never get their message out- come on seriously, who would read the side of a tounge depressor? Well, think about it anyways. Truth be told I do really care about browser choice availability, but I had to say that as the average person on the street who doesnt work with the stuff. This is obvious enough as my words are encoded in html...
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I've been a daily Mozilla user for 2 years now. I love it and in my opinion, it's superior to IE6 in a lot of ways.
As good as Moz is, it won't unseat IE anytime soon. IE could degenerate to a festering piece of donkey dung and it will still remain the most widely used browser.
Have a look at that:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
For the majority of those IE6 users, IE is synonymous with "The Internet" Unless there is some radical new browser related technology that MS is unable to embrace and extend befofe the little guy's get their implementation out, IE will be around for a long long time.
I still think Browser Wars IV, V & VI are MUCH better than Browser Wars I and II. I and II seem to just be about special effects :P
-Jason
There is nothing new here. This article just gives me a history lesson on what has occured in the past few years. I feel like I wasted my time reading it. At this pace, I'll never be able to enjoy the History Channel's version!
Replace Galeon with Konqueror and you've got a winner.
Isn't the real issue that a given code base became moribund - so full of cruft and workarounds that it just couldn't keep up? Look behind when IE overtook Netscape, and might that be part of what happened? Netscape was old, brittle code, and IE was new, with lots of room to evolve.
Now we appear to be at the next generation of the same effect. IE is no longer new, shiny, and evolvable, but Mozilla, Opera, Safari, et al are.
The interesting question is how fast a codebase becomes moribund. I can believe that closed-source schedule-driven corporate code, where aesthetics are secondary or tertiary (if even that) will become brittle faster. But will how resistant will Open Source code be to that effect? I still hear of periodic 'rewrite from scratch' happening on Open Source code, for the exact same reasons.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
When I was in college from 95-99, it was easy for me to be anti-Microsoft. I didn't particularly know much about it, but I knew that my Win95 machine crashed and therefore those MS people must be morons.
I knew that there were a lot of others that hated them, so I just sort of figured it was the cool thing to do, hate those bastards.
Then I started learning more econ and started thinking less as a college student and more rationally in terms of how MS got there, and I stopped hating MS.
That said, I did hate IE. It sucked nuts. Mosaic was total ass, and at the time Netscape was the bees knees.
I continued to use Netscape throughout college and was annoyed whenever I had to use IE.
Then I graduated and began to actually program - my particular projects were nearly all DHTML web applications that were large scale ports of existing legacy apps, moving to the web to allow easier use and upkeep... so they said.
DHTML on Netscape sucked the hugest and hairy nuts, so we told our clients that they would have to use IE (these were private applications, used in house at many large universities, we weren't designing storefronts that needed to be cross-browser).
I hadn't seen IE in a long time and was really enjoying working with it compared to the clunky and awkward Netscape.
As a result, up until about a week ago, I was all for IE. It was fast, worked well with DHTML, and most importantly in the past year or two - it has the Google Toolbar.
I have been trying out Mozilla for the past few years, but haven't been all that impressed by it - in fact I was really put off by it at first.
But I just installed 1.4 last week and was really impressed with it - and once I saw that I could get the same Google Toolbar functionality that I used all the time, I realized that I really had a reason to switch now.
I personally am still sticking with IE at work, b/c I do a lot of IT admin stuff on an MS network, and using IE makes it easier to do some of the MS updates.
At home I will likely make the switch over to Mozilla to keep track of many e-mail accounts, as well as for my personal web surfing.
I'm at the point now where I am starting up my own web venture, so I am actually going to have to test for cross browser look and feel, as well as functionality.
My first test at it showed that Mozilla 1.4 is better at dealing with png graphics than IE 6.something. Mozilla also renders a page faster.
I haven't used Opera in over two years, I suppose I will need to test that as well on the site. I don't have a Mac, so I can't test any of their browsers.
I think those should totally cover my target market (I actually think in terms of the business, it will be nearly 99% IE users).
What does this have to do with anything? Not a whole lot I guess.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I've been using Opera (in "free with banner-ad" mode) for maybe a couple hundred years now -- don't know how long for real, because I cringe at the thought of using Explorer. I used to have to switch to IE for some work-required sites, but the new version (7.11, aka the "Slurpee" version) has whittled my IE requirements down to just one boneheaded site.
But the best test came when my mother sat down to do a job search using IE. She was immediately assailed by popups, so I helpfully pointed out that you don't get popups with Opera unless you want them. I showed her where to click... and she's hooked. Score one more for the Norwegians!
On the other hand, my wife and 12-year-old daughter don't like Opera. In both cases, I think it's because Opera doesn't have enough security holes, and it interferes with their game downloads. I shudder to think what I might find if I were to install ZoneAlarm...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The whole point of this long blabfest is that now is the time for a browser other than IE to emerge. MS has stated no further IE6 development will continue. No new features, no new standards compliance fixes, no nothing. Don't try to convince end-users about Mozilla's standards compliance. they don't care. Give them real reasons to switch, and they will.
With the arrival of IE 4.0 I became a serious supporter of the MS browser because they seemed to just get things right. The rendering speed was great, and they supported a richer base of standards for web technology particularly CSS. But here it is 2 major versions later and I am an avid supported of Phoenix, which some may understand to be the version re-named to firebird that will replace the older mozilla packages.
I use Phoenix because they care enough to innovate in an area that MS has all but ignored. It is almost unbearable for me to surf without tabbed browsing now, pop up blocking, and enhanced configuration for what attributes of the browser scripts are allowed to modify, as well as their built in download history add up to create a browser that I feel allows me to determine my own destiny while surfing.
Furthermore as a web developer, the community oriented plugins that allow me to dynamically alter the DOM to enhance things like page layout, validation tests, etc. add fuel to the fire.
I hope that MS will stop working so hard at getting media player integrated into the browser and go back and add the features like tabbed browsing, enhanced privacy, etc. But for now, the best browser out there IMO is Phoenix.
I mean, does anyone really need a new version of a .pdf viewer, or notepad, or any other user-level application that has reached a stable, relatively bug free condition that effectively does it's job?
In fact, this ties nicely with Microsoft's Liscensing V. 6 program, where they have a nice, stable revenue stream while not actually requiring any actual programming (I'll refrain from using the term 'innovation') on thier part.
This does also raise an interesting paradigm shift for the Gnu/Linux community. In essence, the programmers, in creating a sable, user friendly computing environment should be working themselves out of a job, since once they're done, there should be little to do, but periodic refinements (we may already be there in certain places.) Those programmers can then go out and focus on really improving (and innovating) the way we interact with our computers.
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
Was anyone else annoyed by the repeated use of the word "strategical"? I don't think we should be looking to incorporate Bush's mispronounciations into our vocabulary.
Hello?
doesn't this spell V.I.C.T.O.R.Y. for anyone who has had an interest in Netscape or Linux or just in f**cking MICROSOFT?
They went too far. Until Netscape it looked like they were going to be able to take control of ALL software on ALL home computers forever and ever amen.
Then with the 'browser wars' they had to build Explorer into reserved OS memory space etc. to keep looking competitive, and so on.
However, the "free" / "open source" / "whatever isn't microsoft" model prevailed and Bingo! not only is there no motivation for non-Windows users to go with substandard MS browsers, it isn't even worth it to Steve Ballmer to pretend there is.
I'm a bit confused as to what MS is trying to do by forcing IE7 to be confined to the next version of Windows.
The first thing I could think of is that Microsoft is trying to boost adoption of the newer version of the OS by limiting the browser to that OS, and then trying to push IE7-specific features in the web development community. Users would then need to buy the newest version of Windows to get the "full web experience."
However, this whole idea could easily backfire. It might be an incentive for people to switch away from IE to something else, especially if another browser manages to copy the IE7-like features, making it available to everyone.
Is it really true that IE needs to be completely rewritten, and said rewrite is only possible on a new version of Windows?
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
i wish apple would port safari for win, now THAT would be something.
I want 2D games back.
Poster is not actually a woman, despite account name. Just the last in a long list that have found that gender bending equals free karma from the pathetic moderating system.
...netscape versions 6 & 7 don't exist. The author of the article was too busy bashing Netscape 4.x that there was no mention of Netscape's new browsers.
This guy needs to do more reasearch. Maybe if he knew what he was talking about he'd know that feature for feature Netscape 7.1 beats the crap out of Explorer 6.1
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
this article isn't worth the bits or bandwidth it used to spread throughout the masses
You want to use Mozilla, which has all of these things right now.
#4 is not quite what you propose, because that would be a serious and unnecessary drain on a Web site's bandwidth. A site can specify whether a link is allowed to be pre-cached (not by default), and Mozilla will pre-cache it for you if you've enabled this feature (also not by default).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I confess I didn't finish it, but after I got the part about web standards being complicated I had to quit.
Firebird rocks the hell out of IE any dya.
This whole browser thing has been going on for so many years, and yet I don't think the question has ever been answered; if a company/group wins the browser wars, what does it get them? Microsoft, Apple, etc. pour how much money into development of software they give away - where's the reward/compensation for the investment?
The only thing I can think of is an assumption that people would choose an OS based on its proprietary browser (Explorer7 or Safari) but I think everyone would agree that the decision would probably work the other way around (OS first, browser selection consequential).
If that's not it, what's the answer (the answer to a shareholder's question, perhaps) for pumping money into browser development? Is there a day of reckoning fast approaching when we'll all start paying for browsers and this long-running war is just for future market credibility and establishing a price point?
RTFM; please, I beg you.
...but the article makes it sound like:
a) Opera is the obvious choice as best browser, and
b) Netscape hasn't released anything since 4.x
As for (a), clearly Mozilla and Netscape 7.1 (see below) win that race hands down. Tabbed browsing, junk mail and popup controls are THE features most of us really want in our NEXT browser.
With regard to (b), well Netscape 6.x was very good, and with the release of 7.1, Netscape is now in-sync with Mozilla.
Once word gets out--and it is--tabbed browsing will be the thing that puts Netscape and/or Mozilla on top.
Galeon runs only on Linux. You're wrong.
I think that the pretense of the article is wrong. When I reached the point of the article where it said "end users do not care about browsers" I felt like I should stop reading. You are the end user even if you are a developer. If no-one cares about it then why write about it? If no-one understands or cares about CSS then why mention it again and again?
Not only is the article poorly worded but it states all it's theories and conjectures as if they were facts! Where is the proof?
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
I agree he's been way out of the loop. I just assumed everyone was switching to Moz Firebird and I think they are. No problems with their product it ROX on every system I use it on. Fast, mean customizeable and I actually can stop all the annoying crap websites want to throw at me.
"[IE] will mutate into a Senile Evil Dinosaur Usurper within the next year or so..."
And procede to forgetfully destroy Tokyo.
User: Browser? What's a browser?
Web guy: A browser is the application---er, software program---that you use to view web pages on the Internet.
User: Oh. How about them Mets?
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Time for a long overview that tells the whole story.
I don't think I could have come up with a less enticing introduction. Kudos.
... I'm working my holiday away at a computer store. You know what? 90% of those who bring in their computers complain that their PCs are lagging.
I ask, "Do you use IE?" They all reply, "Yes!"
I install Ad-aware and 198 items removed later: "Wow! Thats fast!"
Using IE is like walking into a battlefield with a big bullseye painted on you.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Come on, that's like saying that if I went to fat camp I'd be the skinniest person there. IE ain't the poster child for a lithe browser, and Mozilla (not even 1.4) isn't either.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Firebird crashes when there are maybe 40 instances, each with 3 to 5 tabs, and some tabs are closed. The crash closes all tabs and all instances. (Mozilla has the same defect. I did the testing on a P4 that had no hard drive and was running an unchanged version of Knoppix.)
It's not perfect, but Firebird is the best browser I've ever seen.
This guy interprets Microsoft's "improving IE any more will require changes to the operating system" as meaning that the IE codebase is so bloated and stuffed that they can't fix bugs anymore without a major rewrite.
Here's a different theory for you: Microsoft isn't fixing the IE6 css bugs because they don't care, and the "operating system" comment means that IE7 is going to try to move away from HTML and into web-based embedded windows ".Net" (or whatever) applications. Microsoft has from their perspective won the browser wars, and they are finally ready for their long-awaited "Make The Web = Microsoft" step that that whole "open standard" thing has prevented them from for so long.
Just a thought. But probably not all that paranoid.
What really interests me is, what happens now that IE has dumped the whole cross-platform-y ness thing? IE's big strength right now is that everyone targets it. IE HTML is standard HTML. What really interests me is the idea that at some point in the future, the idea of targeting Konqueror will begin to begin to look increasingly attractive. After all, there are a nontrivial amount of web designers who use the mac. I'm sure Microsoft is hoping that these web designers will be willing to switch to Windows just so that they can see what their web pages look like for 90% of the customers.
However, unless things reach the point where (say) Banks can afford to totally ignore all Macintosh and Linux customers (instead of just giving them substandard service), we may start to see the ubiquity of "optimized for IE only" disappear. Big sites like targeting only one browser. If someone comes up with a windows version of Konqueror in the near future (and preferably finds a way to make it muscle into the file browser in IE's place), that browser may well become Konqueror. Konqueror already has a pretty decent amount of mindshare in both Linux and Mac (I don't know any mac users at this point that don't use Safari over IE) and the potentiality that Konqueror could become the one browser that's actually *the same* across *all* platforms might start to look very attractive to web developers at some point-- the sort of thing that Mozilla/Gecko might have at some point fufilled if it had ever become, you know, not painful to use. (Galeon/Phoenix and similar projects may still someday allow Gecko to take on that role.)
At the least, which sounds more attractive; tell your windows base, some of which have a KHTML-based browser, "you have to have KHTML to view my site", or tell EVERYONE except those with the brand new IE8.NET2WINDOWS2007WEB "you can't use my site at all".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This is an interesting article, in light of the one a couple of weeks ago about browser innovation being dead. That article almost seemsed to talk about the idea that in order for any browser to come out on top, a new interface for browsing would be necessary. This article, however, is more focussed on stability and standards conformity as the way to win the "Browser Wars."
:P
I don't know as I can say what people really want more - stable browsers, or new [useful] features. I know I'm all for the stable/reliable/unified/etc. browser design, but then again, I'm not a M$-using consumer whore.
I love Mozilla, have contributed to Mozilla, recommend Mozilla, and use it for my everyday browing. It's a great browser!
But this guy does have one valid point when it comes to Mozilla - it needs BUSINESS WINS. Until companies start adopting Mozilla as their core browser technology it will likely be always relagated to the back room.
Does Mozilla have evangelists? If not, it needs some.
A few years ago, in London, during the Internet silly season, somebody had the bright idea of gathering sysadmins and web developers together and plying them with free beer. This happened on the first Tuesday of each month for about a year or so. So I went to Techie Tuesday, as it was known, once. Of course the majority of the punters were recruiters who had rapidly changed into sweatshirts on their way up west from the city. There was the odd nerd, though. After some deeply unfulfilling chit-chat with one such low-life, I was asked the question 'So, what is your favourite browser'. I left and never went back.
It looks like someone took a crap or a dump on my screen.
First of all, it sucks. Second, it blows. Turd, it really doesn't follow a coherent structure or make any points. It just bounces around between conspiricy theory and common sense... yet often managing to contradict itself in the process. (How can Mozilla be both in danger of dying off, -AND- a major player that will make Opera the third wheel?)
The article doesn't even do a good job at bashing Microsoft, and that ain't computer science folks.
I think mozilla is too big and sluggish to actually take the cake. Their firebird-browser-only-application might do it, but since it still is a version 0.6 and lacks a decent installer, I think it will at least take a year until it's "man enough" to take on the likes of IE.
/not/ make it in the PC/Windows market, which happens to have by far the biggest slice of 'em all, unless it is ported. Same goes for konqueror. Porting a product to a different OS will take time. Probably as much time as it will take for Firebird to become fully mature.
Galeon is Linux Only, and therefore will
Opera is, but this is just an intuitive guess, destined to stay a niche player, even tough they have at the moment the most versatile and mature product in the race.
So if I have to put money on any of these browsers, I would have to doubt between Firebird on the one hand, and Galeon or Konqueror on the other, depending on which of the two is the first one to be ported to Windows. In that case, I guess I'd go for the Galeon/Konqueror side, for I believe their codebase is both newer and lighter than Firebird's.
Feel free to disagree...
so, what else is gnu?
it took over a decade to remove gotti from power, after his criminal activity was WELL known. oj's still playing golf.
lookout bullow. the phonIE payper liesense hostage ransom stock markup bullshipping industrIE, is WANing into coolapps. the georgewellian fuddites will use yOUR browser to limit yOUR access to accurate information (as opposed to the 'mainstream ?pr? execrable spewing forth daily from va.gov.msn.?net?working?).
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. vote with yOUR wallet. that's the spirit.
beware the corepirate nazi military/industrial complex. we didn't make that won up.
Firebird (Phoenix) is Mozilla:
Mozilla's roadmap
As long as Mozilla keep its stable release as stable as Mozilla 1.3 I will have no reason to use
anything else.. Now if we can just get plugins for all OS and ARCH
codeman
The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore.
True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking
large glasses of whiskey I don't know.
-P.J.O'Rourke(1989)
projects @ http://spectechnologies.net
But they're no more cognizant of them as browsers than they are of IE as a browser. As someone mentioned on another thread, "They're just using the Internet."
But they're on mobile devices - Palms, cell phones, even DinkyWindows, or whatever they call it.
But the essence is still there - people want to "Use the Internet," in non-trivial numbers from something that is not a desktop running Windows and IE. Maybe they're still not cognizant of "web standards," but they will know if stuff works on their mobile system, so some sort of standards have become important.
Fortunately Microsoft does not (yet?) dominate the handheld space, so can't keep IE entrenched as mobile use grows.
So rather than a replay of the browser wars breaking Microsoft's stranglehold on the web, it may well be a disruptive influence - the rise of handhelds - that does it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I am definitely a mac geek, but espn.com doesn't load sidebars on the homepage. It should, but it doesn't. Safari is definitely still a 1.0 browser. I like Camino, which uses Mozilla's Gecko Engine for rendering.
Is that all supposed to be true? I mean the facts seem ok but the structure of the piece resembles the ramblings of someone that is on waaaaay too much speed. Note for the future: Metaphors can only be stretched so far, at some point the facts need to stand on their own.
It would be interesting if it was better written, I guess that is what I am trying to say.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
It's almost time for my yearly 'has mozilla caught up to the point where I can actually chop and change and regenerate a document on the fly yet?' check... if they did that and implemented the tag I'd theoretically be able to use it.
Speaking of ruby, it's also almost time for my biennial 'has ruby started supporting proper strings and threads yet?' check. That's one of my favorites! I think I'll have to scale it back to one check every decade, though, to avoid disappointments.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The author sure loves to write.
Skip reading the article on this one, it can be summed up as follows; the state of the browser is bad, and He expects it to stay bad.
I don't think I can argue.
What was missed, and is still being missed is that the browser didn't evolve, it just changed.
It's grown a second tail, maybe a third eye, and possible an extra lung or two, but it's still pretty much Mosaic no matter what flavor you take.
What was originally intended was that browsers would eventually support the entire SGML suite not just HTML and XML.
For some reason XML for the most part crawled into the server side instead of the browser where it was supposed to live, and evolution stopped.
What should have happened, and I had expected to happen was for a new browser to evolve from the goo of gaming and replace the neanderthal Mosaic.
I expected something to come out of the Quake engine.
It didn't but who knows it still could.
Certainly something is going to have to happen, broadband doesn't make sense otherwise.
most people don't care
Exactly. That is why it's important for those of us that do care to make them care even less. Make browsers a commodity. Make browsers that are customizable but also standardizable. We need to develop a standard UI that every browser can morph itself into (OT, but I would suggest doing the same for desktops/window managers as well). That way, people that don't nit-pick about css support and html engine implementation won't know that you've switched their browser to the latest and greatest implementation. Meanwhile, those that do care can customize their browser how ever the hell they want. If someone comes up and needs to use your browser, just hit the button for generic mode and they're set.
The article seems to take Microsoft at face value when it says it can't change its browser. This is hogwash. It won't change its browser, because it is dominant.
I don't believe for a minute that the code base is so bloated that they can't change it. In the late 1990's, when they weren't dominant, new features and versions were released all the time.
The only reason MS spent money on IE in the first place was to keep people from viewing the operating system as a commodaty (gee, I can get everything I need through the web on any platform, why buy MS Windows). Once they established IE as the dominant web browser, they relaxed. People need to buy Windows cause it is the best (only for some sites) way to browse the web.
IE hasn't kept up with the times (CSS bugs, bad png support, no tabbed browsing, popup blocking, etc). But now that it is dominant, people write to its bugs. IE is the only browser that can view some websites. Even though I use Mozilla as my primary browser, I still fire up IE once or twice a week.
And Microsoft has no motivation to fix it. Why would they? When you have 95% of the desktop and 95% of the browser market, why spend a dime? Every version of IE they release costs them millions of dollars in development, testing and support. Why spend a lot of money to change a product that people are happy with?
Instead, Microsoft is concentrating its efforts on new ways to make money, like DRM and "safe computing" (which gives them a new profit center in code signing, validation, and security tools).
How about developing to standards? If you develope for IE, then there is no motivation for browser users to switch from IE or MS to improve IE.
If your superior intellect still hasn't fixed that spelling mistake - how do you expect people to take the rest of your post seriously?
What would your grade school teachers think if they could see that?
That was classic intercourse!
I agree. I was using IE for agws cos it was the fastest loading, and fastest to act browser. I then recently switched to Opera which was developing great advantages to IE at about the same speeds. In the last couple of week however I finally made the switch to Mozilla, and can't see myself turning back. Not onl am I using it as the only browser I use, but I have switched to Mozilla mail for it's excellent spam filtering. And, it's open source and has the best plugin collections of any browsers.
This is a serious problem that browser developers don't understand. How can the general public install their browser without internet access? Until they solve this problem I don't see these 'browsers' being very useful.
That's part of it, but IE is also the better browser... IE passed NN/Mozilla/etc in quality around IE 3 which was...1997?
/. for not testing my pages) so I'm more familiar with them.
I'm a front-end web developer, so I usually have a range of browsers on my kit, and use them all on a regular basis.
Personally, my browser of choice is Opera, but I'm finding more and more that my second choice is becoming Netscape - and this from someone who remembers well the nightmare that was NS4.x (it still makes me shudder). Mozilla's pretty good too, I like it, I just have to use NS6 and 7 as part of my job (and cos I'll get bitch-slapped by
I'd agree that IE3 was probably better than NS3, and that IE4 kicked the crap out of NS4, but lately, I'm finding IE to be slow and buggy, and it's literally the last browser I start when nothing else will do (hotmail, anyone?).
Just my 2p, but imho the only reason IE's still the most commonly used browser is that it's what comes on most people's kits. It used to be the best browser out there - it's not any more. Gimme cookie controls, popup blocking, tabbed browsing every time...
Warning: May contain nuts
IE Dominates. My server logs show 99% IE, 1% other.
firebird is mozilla. it's a separate project to build only the browser (probably a little more). it's only at 0.6 b/c they've got a few issues to work out i guess on building it as light as possible. it's going to be called "Mozilla the Browser" or some such in the future, firebird is just a temporary name. we'll be able to get Moz the browser, Moz the suite, or maybe Moz the Mail client.
so, yes, i'd say the most browser use in the future will be Moz the browser, followed by IE. Moz the suite will eventually be low on the pole, but remember, it's all from the same trunk using the same sources.
Get a keychain USB drive. You can get a 64MB drive for less than $15 these days: should be plenty.
Thank you captin obvious.
Kind of impressed with it. I'm a big fan of Mozilla (I kinda *like* the swiss-army-knife approach). However, when setting up my son's account on my home computer, I found that Playhouse Disney works better on Konquerer. I've also used Opera and I like it, but Java apps seem to crash it a lot in my experience. Were it not for that, I think I'd prefer it to Mozilla.
BTW - my son is 2 1/2 years old. He calls my Debian installation "Penguin and Dragon" after the boot Logo and KDE splash screen. I actually installed Debian because I'd heard good things about the childrens program "gcompris". It has definately lived up to what I've heard about it.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
funny how nobody complains about apple bundling safari with the mac os, yet when microsoft bundles IE with Windows, everyone gets their panties in a bunch...
Opera 7. It's fast, you get that nice warm feeling when you block an adserver cookie, and it's got the nice zoom in/zoom out texty rollover thing on the buttons.
;)
:)
And I keep getting the "What's that browser?" question and seeing it appear on other people's kits, so it's not just me (and RobertB-DC's mum
There's some pretty cool skins out there for it too
Warning: May contain nuts
My take on it is there there are no really excellent browsers. Mozilla comes the closest, and Firebird is coming along nicely, but there is no IE for linux (I actually like IE6 for the most part, except it doesn't have the ability to block popups. That's all I want. really.) and Opera is just plain ugly and klunky. Konqueror is nice, except you have to install KDE (well, at least the kde libraries) which I don't want to do. Galeon has the same story with Gnome. I really like Links (tight, fast), but it doesn't show pictures :-). I use mozilla and I'm mostly satisfied with it, but there's definitely room for competition.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Why is this guy keep talking about NS 4 when 6 came out what seems like an eternity ago, and Netscape 7 is what is current.
In a recent PC Magazine article by John Dvorak, He mentioned a irider. I haven't tried it yet, but he sure seemed to think it was cool. Apparently, it is loaded with features, and was developed by "some old XTree Hackers". I don't know if that means authors of XTree, or fans of XTree, but either way, it sounds like it's worth a look. Unfortunately, it sounds like it is only for Windows, and it costs $29.95.
But there is free 30 day trial..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
He was talking from a Web developpers point of view and talked to other Web developpers. As such he explained why IE is bad (because it already lags behind in implementing standards (CSS is an example) and that will only get worse over the next years) and why not (MS integrating IE with the OS doesn't mean everyone will buy a new OS because of the browser, but it means IE6 will be a liability even longer).
So IE should go, preferably fast, and that means end users should be talked into using alternative browsers to make it go. If Microsofts grip on the browsermarket and hence their leverage to push proprietary standards at the same time so all the better. It doesn't matter if end users switch their browsers for all the "right" reasons, the important thing is that they do.
To talk end users into using another browser propaganda is necessary. Confusing them with talk about web-standards won't do, their eyes glaze over, they say "yeah, whatever" and continue using IE. So it's necessary to tell them that IE is becoming senile and that it's bad without talking about the confusing stuff. Hence the nice little story about aging Kings, drawing parallels from IE to Netscape 4, the snide remarks about evil MS integrating IE with their OS again despite the antitrust and all the stuff.
One thing was his talking to other Web-developpers and explaining why they don't want IE, the other thing was the propaganda he was developping, and the missing ingredient for that propaganda to work: something neat and tidy that works to replace IE with.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
*Please* can we stop this "Microsoft is Evil" ranting, it's _SO_ last season.
Seriously, if people want to get a serious point across, please try to drop the "Militant Linux Activist" edge on your articles. People who matter will take them a lot more seriously.
Contribute to the online videogame encyclopedia: GamerWiki
Is that source? ;) Mozilla 1.4 comes in at between 12 and 20 MB for a zipfile, varying by platform. It's no Explorer, admittedly, but it ain't thin.
Firebird may be a different story.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Unfortunately for Opera, though, the Sympathetic Outsider role seems to have been scratched from the script.
The article seems to take the stance that Opera's future is bleak, because it doesn't have a feasible chance to overcome any of the King browsers. I agree that Opera doesn't have a shot at doing that, but does it *have* to overcome these guys to survive? Can their role as a company that survives by sales and ad revenue from their browser (their only product) perpetuate itself? I hope it is not just a matter of short time before Opera caves, but can it be avoided?
I'm sorry, but what are these "major events"? I read the article and only saw an overview of the past and some predictions about the future. But there is no mention (that I could find) of any "major events" that are happening "for the first time in three years."
Is the major event that these guys have concluded that IE isn't viable long-term? That would mean that the major event is that these guys came to a conclusion, which sounds fairly minor to me. Maybe it's KHTML being used for Safari. I guess that could be major to a Mac person, even if the rest of the planet never notices.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Want Firebird with a decent installer? Then take a few leaps and go for K-meleon (for windows).
Subject says it all. The Mozilla team should dump their codebase and port Safari to Win32. There's the silver bullet ...
-- Dossy
Dossy's Blog
I'd like to see a binary Konq distribution for Windows. I got it running from Cygwin, all of KDE3 actually, but I would love just a static binary distribution that my mom could install.
It's fast, it's compliant, and it would make a good Windows half-brother to Safari on Mac.
I like music
then errr you DO know your multiplication tables....some people's children...
The article author is correct - there is an opportunity now for lots of people to take on a new browser. Pop-up blocking alone is worthwhile.
How do do it? Firebird release, AOL style! You build a custom CD image with firebird set up in the most friendly way, perhaps with a quick tutorial explaining what tabs are and how popups are blocked. Then anyone can download the image, burn some CD's and make use of AOL kiosks in stores to distribute the browser images. Put a snazzy cover on the front explaining "Free browser! Blocks popups dead!! Tab support!! Better online bank support!!" and at least a few people would take them, and tell others about the browser as well.
Key is to make sure the windows login integration code is in place so the things will work at work, also the distro should have mozilla mimic IE ID strings close enough that detection sites will not block the browser.
Make sure the CD works OK on the Mac too, even though the Mac has Safari there are times when it's nice to have Mozilla around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't believe you missed this opportunity. Why didn't you just install Mozilla, make it their default browser, and say "See how much faster this is compared to IE?". Leave their crippled IE intact.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The thing that this article seemed to ignore was the business reality of things. Internet Explorer will survive because Microsoft has huge coffers and will make it so in the interests of controlling API's. Mozilla will continue to survive because it's open source and the *nixes will always need browsers. Safari will continue to survive because Apple will make it so.
Opera is doomed on the desktop. Very few people are willing to pay money for a browser. The other projects survive because they can be given to users for zero cost. Opera may continue to be a niche player in the future, but ultimately it can't grow because it's not something people will pay for.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
One fairly important point that the article didn't mention: There are now *two* open-source browsers/HTML libraries being backed by major industry players.
Download size is even sillier. I've got nearly a gig of MP3s, a web cache of over a gig, and you think I care about 60 Mb vs. 6 MB? Or even 100 MB to 1 MB? 60 MB is .05% of a new 120 GB drive.
And spare me the "Wait.... what if I'm running on my old 386SX-16 Mhz? "
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Opera has all those things already, except #4 whose explanation from the OP confirms that he's either trolling or doped up on crack.
Was that a troll? Behind every browser is a person... sometimes a few people. Capitalists prefer to call them "consumers". When you control the browser, you can mess with these consumers' access to information. So, you can give them your own definition of "terrorist" or "monopoly" or what have you. You can send them to *your" online store, coerce them into using *your* identity verification scheme. Et cetera.
You see, *information* has become increasingly important to society in the past hundred years or so. When all the technological means (from hydraulics to electronics to genetics) to do anything are already in place, the only thing preventing anyone from doing anything is information. Control over information is power. And when you have power, but appear powerless (people saying "I don't get it. Who cares?").... well, that's the best kind of power.
since it is so great, why hasn't Apple released a windows version? That would be silly you may say, but I ask you to find a home PC without Quicktime?
Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.
See subject
Microsoft's decision to move to a browser inseparable from the OS will become a major thorn in their own side, and possibly end up helping out the various alternative browsers out there.
The key thing to notice is that for Windows 95 through Windows XP, IE 6 is effectively the last Microsoft browser those OS's will be able to run. This means that, in order to see any new features from IE 7+ users will need to replace their entire OS. This is where Microsoft's huge marketshare starts to work against them. Even now, there are large numbers of people who refuse to upgrade from Win9x because their current machine cannot handle the newest versions or because their happy with don't see the point in upgrading. Microsoft will have to fight there own installed user base.
Case in point: I have one machine with an Intel processor in it. It's an old Gateway laptop. It was running NetBSD for learning purposes. I needed to be able to run a few windows-only apps, so I broke down and decided to install Windows. This laptop can't really handle anything over Win98SE, so that's what I installed. In the process, I ran Windows Update and updated IE to version 6. But, according to Microsoft, after version 6, there will never be a higher version of IE available for this machine. So what am I to do? I'm not going to spend money on a new machine, at least not another x86 machine. Fortunately, Firebird is available, and is more than up to the task. My little laptop will be surfing the web for at the near future.
If websites start designing for features found in IE7, large groups of people will be left behind. Large groups of people will complain because sites don't display properly in their 'old' version of IE6; sort of like the situation Netscape 4 was in. In Netscape 4's case, when a better alternative came on the scene ( IE4 ), people dumped Netscape. People will now be faced with a new decision; do I shell out the cash to upgrade my OS and possibly my machine, or is there a way to view the latest and greatest websites on my current machine?
Since IE will cease to be an option in this case, people will be forced to look for alternatives. Hopefully, one of the alternative browsers will be there with open arms.
I've heard that suggestion made a few times before on slashdot, but I've never thought AOL would be brave (or stupid) enough to try a browser swap on their customers. I think AOL's reasons for not making an all out switch boils down to one simple question:
Will we alienate/confuse/loose customers by making a change from IE to another browser?
It's a bet-the-company decision not to be taken lightly. Yes, I love Mozilla/Gecko. Yes, I'd love to see Mozilla get distributed to the masses. Yes, not being tied to IE would seem to ultimately benefit AOL. But, if I were in their shoes, I'd have to admit I'd be wary of making a sweeping change like that too - even given the major investment they already have in Mozilla. There are just too many unknowns in terms of customer satisfaction. And I'd be worried that since a browser is such a huge part of the overall internet experience, a browser swap would be a drastic change that could send customers elsewhere.
The browser wars are over. Pitting products against each other is now pointless, because the rules of engagement have changed.
The new conflict is the Standards War, where the features (or lack thereof) of the products stand toe to toe. The W3C now decrees the rules of war, not various marketing departments.
A side skirmish in this will be about user interface: tabs, popup blocking, etc.
The announcement about IE6 development being at an end is not news: a resourceful googler could put together the pieces months ago, as I did. The only thing not verified yet is a bit about IE7 only being useable on an MSN account, which seems like MS shooting themselves in the foot.
MacIE suffered its fate because MS is a poor loser, but a smart one. They know Apple is going to do the same thing on Mac that MS did on Windows.
Many people (the author of the article included) forget that Mozilla is not a commercial product, which is why there is still a Netscape branded browser.
Many forward thinking people are beginning to realize that over the next decade, the desktop based browser will become an ever shrinking peice of the browser market. PDA's, phones, kitchen appliances will all have browsers. The embedded browser is coming fast. Is IE6 capable of being embedded in anything? The correct question is: Is Windows capable of being embedded in anything? Probably not. Will IE7 be embeddable? Ask about Longhorn instead. Mozilla (Gecko) is capable of being embedded, so MS has already fallen behind once again.
I personally wouldn't even put Opera on the battlefield, they're like Switzerland: capable and organized, but too small to make a difference and not interested anyway.
In the future, friends won't let friends use proprietary browsers named after SUVs.
Easy-peasy guy:
* Rich text enabled text areas with built-in spell checking (halfway there)
* Full support for SGML (nearly halfway there)
Want more?
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
1. Make a non-compatible change to http or HTML.
2. Win browser wars
3. Sell web servers and web development toolchains that support your proprietary extensions.
4. Slowly jack up the prices as people get locked into your way of doing things.
5. Profit, or at least stay in business.
Javascript does. Yes, there is a difference.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The reason IE is getting the overhaul that it's receiving is so that it can be fully integrated into Microsofts DRM efforts. Microsoft is moving towards making it so that every single bit of data that moves across your PC has a digital signature. IIS is a part of this effort as well. The next major iteration of IIS will include server verified signatures with all of the files. Signatures that only IE will be able to process. This will go one step beyond the Key signatures that you know today in the web world... Then Microsoft will toute their platform as the only true one-to-one path of content control for publishers. ("Look, we can track every single file anywhere, and you can even put an 'end of life' on your file to make sure people don't retain a copy or mirror of the data! Isn't that great!")
...two years isn't all that much time people, and unless something radical happens in the OSS world **right now**, it will come and go and MS will be even deeper entrenched.
Don't believe me? Read your EULA with Media Player 9. This program is the priming piece of their technology on the user end, and fundamentally changes all of your Microsoft software rights the moment you install it... and they've already trained a whole new generation of users to call MS everytime they want to activate their OS.
You'll also start to see this implemented in the next year or so when they start to offer limited productivy aps to next generation X-Box Live subscribers (eg, Longhorn web services).
Attack of the Mozilla Clones!?!
Ok, ok, I'll go hide in a corner now...
-B
The article says nothing about the cell phone browser war soon that's brewing. As we throw out WAP for full website functionality on a mobile this war will increase.
IMHO Opera is the mobile browser king right now. They make an excellent product for both Symbian OS and Nokia.
No longer does IE have to be the best - it just has to be good enough.
Thing is, users don't decide if it's good enough. We (the developers [and our employers]) are the ones that determine if it is good enough. If we use features that IE doesn't support in our websites, IE is not good enough.
If [phoenix|firebird|???] realizes it's potential quickly enough, it's unlikely that it will fail to gain market share, particularly since it's open source nature would make it ideally suited as a vehicle for OEMs to make a mark on the users desktop.
For example, I could see HP rebadging [phoenix|firebird|???] and making it the default browser for their systems, particularly if their experiments with Mandrake go well... they could support the same browser on Linux and Mac and reduce training costs in their call centers, a pretty good incentive if you ask me.
Besides all this, IE is likely to continue to be a vehicle for virii, and Microsoft are unlikely to take any steps against intrusive advertisers, which means those will remain two areas where another browser can offer real added value to the consumer and motivate them to switch on their own. Lets be realistic, installing another browser is not exactly rocket science, is it?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Opera Ver 7.11 is without doubt the best browser there is for Windows.
But getting my wife off Netscape 4.76 and onto Opera took a lot of proof that it works well.
Even Opera 7.10 didn't work perfectly on some of the [weird] sites she'd regularly visit, but Opera 7.11 is not only faster, it is much more reliable than IE 6 or Netscape.
Mozilla runs exceptionally slow on her K6-2 400Mhz computer, while Opera flies.
She also has a laptop with a Pentium 133Mhz processor and Opera has no problems.
I personally use the "MacOSXVolter" skin for Opera in Windows and Linux on my computers and recommend people who love the MacOSX GUI have a look at this skin.
...is for project managers to grow some balls and simply not support IE at all. Replace your site with a "Site does not support IE" message for IE users, containing a list of links to standards compliant browser's download pages. Lets see Microsoft litigate their way out of this one.
If we were to show a little solidarity and everyone did this, IE would very quickly disappear as a problem and/or Microsoft would make a standards compliant browser.
l8,
AC
Given that AOL is tied to IE's render engine, I do wonder how they will cover two different versions of IE, once Longhorn comes out. I mean, not everyone will (even in Microsoft's wildest dreams) upgrade immediately, if at all. Given that case, I am sure that Longhorn IE will be a different to work with than IE 6.0. Would that mean that AOL has to have two different versions of their software? That would be costly.
But going to one code base with a cross-platform Gecko that has had *years* to evolve would become enticing at that point.
Comments?
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
Another paragraph in that faux-Aesop tone or another wacky capitalized description of a browser and my head was going to explode.
Journalism 101: Make it clear.
My mom and my relatively technophobic sister both use Mozilla and Opera Exclusively. I simply explained how you can disable pop-ups, banner ads, block M$ Outbreak viruses, and eliminate spyware. When I also poined out how you can access Google from the sidebar, they were sold.
The same goes for the friends who ask me to set up their computers for them.
My coworkers, that's another story, serious stupidity!
Right, but that's part of the problem. Because they use the same guts, let's say my mail portion is chugging - I bring up the browser and it doesn't refresh. Integrating things that tightly makes for some significant bulk. Admittedly, they seem to realize this, but it means that Mozilla, as of 1.4, is bulky as heck.
Point is, if you don't use Mozilla's mail and such, then it's effectively a browser to you. And you still get the bulk and such.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What a load of tripe that article was. Get to the point! It had nothing new of substance and was poorly constructed. It read like a high school paper that any self-respecting college grad would conveniently lose. Next time Slashdot posts a link to a sappy, content-free ramble such as that please use an icon of mommy's refridgerator, 'cause that's the only place it shoud be found.
It's not evil to say you would use IE if it had tabs. That's really the whole point - even someone like yourself who would prefer IE uses a browser other than IE, because it has tabs... if we can just get people to try out a browser with tab support (and especially popup blocking I think, though you did not mention that) than many would convert even if the liked IE to begin with.
That is the opportunity. That IE will not have features like this added for some time, and in the midterm we can start a wave of adoption now for something that does support advanced features users like, instead of just web developers. That's the key, that a browser to be adopted much have features the users, not web designers, want and need.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More seriously, the article completely misses the reasons why the browser wars were so important in the mid 90s and so irrelevant now. At the time, the impact of the web was still unclear (and open to influence), and Netscape proclaimed from the rooftops that by controlling the browser they effectively controlled a new operating system capable of challenging the Windows monopoly on the desktop. What's more, they were right. Microsoft took this hubris seriously enough to throw major-league resource behind the IE development effort. This, coupled with Netscape's inability to handle its hypergrowth, led to the status quo, where IE is the only browser that matters for 95% of all PC users.
If someone were to exploit the nefarious CSS bugs that lurk in the bowels of IE and somehow achieve dominance in the PC browser market, it still wouldn't matter. The browser no longer represents a threat to Windows' hegemony. HTML rendering is now a commodity, a feature in an array of widgets that people are accustomed to using on their PC desktop. In other words, MS was right: the browser is part of the operating system.
As a software developer I can affirm that it is a joy and pleasure to have widgets like CHtmlView and CHtmlEditView (sorry, I am a - gasp! - MFC developer) available for easy integration into apps. Personally I don't give a hoot whether IE or something else is powering that widget, and nor do my users. Value is now being added by building sophisticated structures around the HTML renderer: support for XML web services and RSS feeds, drag and drop with other apps, external navigators (like tree views) that customize the browsing experience to a particular use case. This is today's competitive landscape, and the good news is that there's still plenty of scope to complement and compete with Microsoft.
Peer Pressure
I hate to break this to you...
Why do people say this? You don't have any hesitation "breaking" this to the person, you're directly waving this thing in their face.
I know, I know, that's not what it really means. What it really is "Hey, dumbass! I'm about to point out something, and imply that you didn't know it. Furthermore, I am not going to address your original point!"
I wish people would just drop the flaming prefix entirely, and appear like far less of an ass.
I thought Gecko was the actual engine. Mozilla has always been known as a browser, as far as I know. I'm genuinely asking.
Unless something drastic happens and forces Apple's hand, OSX will not be on i386 any time soon.
What is more important in the short term is Safari for Windows.
Many web sites are still being designed for Intenet Explorer for Windows only. If you aren't using the most popular platform, your not admitted. Microsoft has been winning the browser battles but not the war. The OSS community and Apple have clearly shown that they can innovate in this space. However only Apple has the marketing muscle to try and battle IE.
IE for Windows accounts for 90-95% of the hits for most of the web sites that I am involved with. For some developers those #s justify developing for a single platform. If Apple can get 100% of Mac users to adopt Safari we may see a 1% shift. However if Apple can get 25% of IE for Windows users to switch to Safari for Windows, the playing field will quickly level.
As a Mac user it is still frustrating to not be able to visit or use certain site and not have plugins available for non IE browsers. Apple can help their long term position by leveling the internet playing field and thus making migration to a non Windows platform that much smoother.
WebCore will be ported to the PC for use in iTunes so most of the work has to be done anyway. Apple needs to bring more of it's software to the PC platform. Enough so that users get to experience how software should be done. But not so much that they have no reason to switch.
Opera, while a nice, lean, fast browser, has a couple of major flaws in it that would ever keep it from being the king of the heap:
1) It isn't free. People haven't been paying for browsers since the web first started. IE was always free, and Netscape had that 'evaluation' clause that didn't have any boundry. People aren't going to want PAY for a browser, and then download 6 meg, and have nothing tangible to show for it. Unless Opera finds a business model where it's free, it will always be 'niche'.
2) I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but, opera doesn't have a mail client.
IE has Outlook Express. Mozilla has Mail&News. If Joe Homepc doesn't want to buy a browser, you can BET they don't want to go out after that and buy a mail client. Email, after all these years, is STILL the killer app for the Internet. Mom's and Dad's aren't getting internet access because they like CSS. Email is the first reason, and then, MAYBE, the web after that.
Opera is a great browser for those who have very specific requirements for a web browser, but it is not the 'browser for the common man'.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I have problems with both IE and Mozilla with respect to font sizes. I am running Win2k in 1600x1200. Mozilla appears to ignore the logical dpi setting, and all fonts by default are too small to read. I have perfect vision. The zoom feature in Mozilla is very nice, but does not always work. Some sites don't zoom, and others don't layout correctly. It generally works though. IE seems to use the logical dpi setting. Some sites layout perfectly. Others suffer from micro-sized fonts though. IE allows you to turn off the font sizes specified by the web page, which then results in fonts that are readable, but a page that is layed out incorrectly. Thus I am forced to use both Mozilla and IE in order to read all web pages. What do people do that run in even higher resolutions? Doesn't anybody test applications in high resolution modes? I have used to IE to look at the web pages for the 3 major graphic card manufacturers (NVIDIA, ATI, and MATROX). Their web pages are all unreadable. wtf.
I have not measured (time to do that, I think) but I suspect now that around three percent of web sites I visit are now flash only and probably about three times that have a signficant flash component.
Designers like flash - it gives them lots of power and lots of ways to restrict the user into seeing a web site the way the designer (or the marketroid who owns the designer) wants. Then too, its a standard. And finally it is certainly browser neutral (modulo the usual problems where it doesn't run on this machine or that - which is, of course, the users fault for choosing such non-standard platforms).
So, I think the article has it wrong. None of the current browsers will survive long. Someone will build a flash/shockwave platform that manages to display html and take over the world.
I have seen the future and it is unstoppable flash popups!
I'm afraid this article seems to spin it's wheels in circles and never really seems to go anywhere past a hashing together of slashdot buzzwords and zeldman.com facts about different browsers.
I think the reality is that while a small minority of the planet may migrate to other browsers such as opera, mozilla, konqueror, etc - the majority of the world will stick with IE6.0 and not notice the difference - those upgrading to the new windows will get 7.0 but not care or notice the difference either.
As far as netscape goes - the author misses a key point . Sure 4.x is a terrible browser with rendering considered to be the bane of the ddevil to web developers - but you forget one critical fact. Many people still use it. Take for instance the nbr 1 contracting client entity in the free world[possibly the whole world] - still using netscape 4.78 as a default browser. Some of us don't have a choice but to follow bad practices, and that will continue years from now - 'browser war' or not [which ATM doesn't even exist contrary to this article].
>>>> The old king, once great and mighty but now becoming somewhat stiff of leg.....etc >>>>> ... =)
sounds like someone finished the new harry potter book before writing
Fear Breeds Knowledge
I like IE, it's fast and works great. I've used it ever since Asheron's call forced me to install IE5....
But I've had it with popups, and the "last stand-alone" version of IE is the final straw. So I've switched to Firebird at home and as of today, at work. Pretty painless transition really, I can even drag and drop my Toolbar quick-links from IE to Firebird. So far so good.
Seems like he missed the point. The point is WHY don't users care? The answer is because users care about filling out their forms, doing their work, making their sale, finding their information, buying things, etc.
I have been using Firebird - excellent browser, however, I know for a fact that multi-billion dollar corporations will be buying applications that are web-enabled (via Microsoft web servers) and will ONLY be compatible with Microsoft web browsers, i.e. IE. And so, by using an IE pre-installed configuration with their Monopoly OS, and by leveraging the familiarity angle (I learned it at and use it at work, so I will use it at home), MS will continue to dominate as the mainstream browser.
The browser is finally evolving from an information gathering/presenting tool, into an application client (a "web" front-end) for several if not all applications to be developed in the now and coming years...
If vendors continue to make deals with Microsoft, and they will $$$, and users continue to only care about making the sale, filling out forms, buying things, etc, (and they will), then users will continue to use IE - at the office and at home.
To swing any browser war leverage away from Microsoft, application vendors must start building applications that are not IE-only. This is why companies like IBM are supporting java (among other reasons). "You can run our applications using any standards compatible browser." Which includes IE, but DOES NOT REQUIRE it.
To not undertand or care about why users don't care about what browser they use is to not understand the browser war at all...
Ultimately there are only two things that matter: information and using information (potential information and kinetic information). The information store has become more and more a database of some kind. The informatin vehicle has become more and more a web browser. Control the vehicle and you have a chance at controlling the store. Microsoft controls the vehicle, and are mounting their assault on the store. You want to control the vehicle? Don't forget about the store. Understand why users do what they do (frightening), and you may see the bigger picture (more frightening) that shows MS attempting to control everything - from your mouse and keyboard to your OS, to your web browser, to your database, to your datacenter...
Loyal_Serf
No one is going to buy into a new browser, period, unless it is small, and there is a noticable benefit in using it. Ideally, it'd be integrated into a software update feature of the OS. If not, I suppose the time has come to re-enact the banners. Firebird, for Windows is the best bet. While, on the Mac, I'm betting on Omniweb (if only they'd make it free).
Unfortunately, the author has somewhat misunderstood Opera's role in the browser wars.
The next generation browser wars will not be fought on the desktop - it will be fought on mobile devices, and on embedded devices, a market where Opera doesn't have any competition from either Mozilla, IE or Konqueror/Safari.
Opera have partnerships with Sony Ericsson, which brings their phone to devices like SonyEricsson P800. Furthermore. Opera is also available, and by far the superior alternative for other mobile devices such as Nokia 3650/7650, effectively bringing a sixth-generation browser with full CSS/DOM-support to handhelds.
Unlike the Mozilla project, Konqueror or Apple, Opera has created partnerships and made deals with a lot of companies, as outlined here.
As a desktop browser, Mozilla will remain what it is today: An outsider. The browser is too large, or bloated, if you will, with features noone hardly ever uses (And, yes, that goes for Mozilla Firebird as well) - for many desktop users it's just too complicated, and too slow.
Konqueror will remain a competitive alternative for which platforms it exists - it won't be any better or worse than other alternatives.
As for Safari, it may well become the dominant alternative for Mac users, but being what they are, a minority, Safari will remain a minority browser.
Opera is available for all major desktop platforms, and will compete on equal ground with the other browsers.
As for the behemoth of web-browsing, Internet Explorer; it's days are numbered. Following the statistics for a site like AWStats is interesting reading: The percentage of MSIE users has been decreasing from month to month. Granted, AWStats is a specialty site, mostly interesting to web developers, so it's statistics may be somewhat skewed. Keep in mind though: Web developers are what has made the browser market what it is today, it's web developers that chose to develop for MSIE.
Finally, the author failed to mention the perhaps most important of the browsing competitors of the future: The Aggregator, enabling users to subscribe to XML feeds, instead of visiting a site by traditional means. The aggregator market is a highly diverse market, with products like NNTP//RSS, Amphetadesk, Radio, RssBandit, FeedReader, FeedDemon and a whole bunch of both commercial and homegrown readers. Many of these either utilise some common browser rendering engine, convert content to plaintext, or have a minimal HTML rendering engine.
http://virtuelvis.com/
People are always talking about IE vs Netscape/Mozilla/Firebird/Opera/etc., but there is also another route that, for one reason or another, often seems to be ignored or forgotten: Browsers based on IE's rendering engine. For the average desktop user who wants more than what IE offers but doesn't want to switch to a browser/OS they're not familiar with, they can be a very enticing option. The one I happen to use is NetCaptor
It has all the "advantages" of regular IE... namely, compatibility with the great majority of web sites and software out there. Now, it simply adds a ton of features, including most of what Mozilla/Netscape/whatever offers, on top of that IE engine.
What can it do?
-Highly-configurable tabbed browsing
-Pop-up blocking that blocks either unrequested popups (quite reliable) or URL (unnecessary, but there if you need it)
-Ad=blocking (based on configurable URLs, with wildcard support, exclusions, and more)
-Grouped favorites (meaning you can open a series of sites together, and they'll load as seperate tabs)
-Cookie management
-Built-in mouse gestures
-Built-in history/search/cookie/whatever data wipe upon browser close, including up to 35x data overwrite.
-User-configurable address bar-based search/bookmark functions (i.e. instead of typing "www.google.com", I can just type "g" to go there... or I can type "g search term" to be brought directly to the result page for that search term. Or type "d strangeword" for a fast dictionary definition."
-Easy-to-access dropdown buttons/menus that allow you to do to the current site: Translate (BabelFish), Whois info, Waybackmachine, Google cached pages, similar sites, site information, anonymizer, and more.
-Fast menu toggling of various media loading (images, sounds, animations, javascript, activex, etc.)
It does all of that, and more, while maintaining IE's familiar interface and rendering engine. With 90% of Mozilla's advantages gone, I don't have much incentive to switch anymore.
Of course, it's not perfect. It costs $30 (shareware). It is not open-source (although the developer does listen and respond to feedback). But in the end, I found that it's much easier than using Mozilla. I never have to worry about incompatible webpages, plugins, or web programs. I can stick with the shortcut keys and interface that I've grown so familiar with.
I know I don't speak for all types of users -- for example, anyone running Linux will be excluded, since there's only a Windows version, and anyone who insists on OSS will not be happy with it -- but for other users who, like me, either don't want to or cannot switch to Linux, I think software like this is actually better than Mozilla.
And before anyone shouts "wannabe", I believe NetCaptor had a lot of those features (tabbed browsing, popup blocking) before Mozilla did, and in some cases, implemented them better too.
I don't work for the Netcaptor company, and I do respect the work the Mozilla/Firebird/etc. teams do. I simply think there is an alternative out there that is very rarely mentioned, one that makes it more unncessary to switch from IE, and it wouldn't hurt to give it a little attention. Perhaps some people will even find it useful, as I did.
>>Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Thanks for the morning giggle!
1. Install Mozilla.
2. Use IE theme.
3. Replace all IE icons with links to Mozilla instead.
4. Joe User doesn't know anything has changed, yet they're using a much better browser.
5. ????
6. Profit!
Nothing seems to happen? Hello, what of all these features:
Tabbed browsing
Why in the hell is everyone so big on tabbed browsing? I tried it, and frankly it pissed me off. Why? Because it did the same thing that multiple window browsing does, but it did it while adding an extra line for the tabs at the top of my page, further reducing my screen real estate that can use for the actual web page I'm trying to read.
I multi window surf all the time. I frequently have 10+ browser windows open. But I detested tabbed browsing when I tried it, and removed Mozilla yet again (since it's still slow and bloated and the only reason I installed it again was to see what the tabbed fuss was all about).
I mean, how, exactly, is giving me a clickable list of browser pages at the top of the screen any better than giving me a clickable list of browser pages at the bottom of the screen (in the toolbar, where my windows are listed)? Be detailed, mind you. It's still one process either way, I'm not loading multiple copies of the browser into memory (check the task manager). It's just as fast to switch windows as it is to switch tabs. And the window bar takes up space on the screen already, giving it that slight edge over tabbed browsing, in my view.
I just fail to see the benefits, but there's a very good downside. I use my browser maximized, with most menus and toolbars off. Why? So I can see what I'm reading. Anything that reduces my screen space is an instant loser.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Doesn't have subpixel font placement like IE.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Opera is exactly what you might need. When you "resize" the page, Opera resizes all the graphics along with the text (the only intelligent way to do it if you ask me).
And since you're running in 1600x1200, you'll be able to zoom at 200%, getting pixel-perfect resizing of images and twice as sharp text rendering. That'll work for all websites requiring 800x600 or lower (of course if a website requires ~1024x768, you can use 150 or 120% zooming... it's up to you. It's just that graphics resized at 150% aren't as sharp/correct as 200% ones).
That article, and a million others like it (written by folks who don't know much about the Mac's browser market), claim that Safari came along and was sooo awesome that IE's development on the Mac platform had no choice but to fizzle out.
:) Apple began to look at hiring Dave Hyatt and possibly adopting Camino since they were the only glimmer of hope we had to browse the web with any dignity. The only problem with Camino was, as Dave himself has mentioned, that it didn't have a native rendering engine. A gecko browser has less speed potential (among other things) then a native browser. So, what did Apple do? They hired Dave, took a bunch of the great concepts that Camino had, ported KHTML over to X (since it could run natively unlike gecko), got some additional Apple developers, started building in Cocoa, and had Safari beta 1 out in only a few months.
...well, at least not now.
Honestly, that couldn't be anything further from the truth.
Microsoft hasn't legitimately updated Mac IE for -years-. Of course, they've released small fixes for critical bugs and security updates; however, that's it. Mac IE on OS X was littered with hundreds of horribly annoying, very obvious, bugs that have been present since it shipped with Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000. That's almost 3 years!
Just about every OS X user loathed IE X. It was slow, it crashed, it had UI problems, and it had rendering problems that it's OS 9 cousin didn't have.
Apple -had- to make Safari. Microsoft was going to let Mac IE rot until Mac users were forced to adopt a better default system browser. Yet, OmniWeb was not standards compliant, Mozilla was too slow with quartz and didn't have a Mac like UI, Opera was still full of bugs, etc.
But then Camino/Chimera came along.
If Microsoft really gave a damn about IE X they could've built an awesome cocoa browser within 6 to 8 months. Shess... they HAVE enough money. Or, at the very least, they could've fixed the hundreds of tiny bugs that IE X already has. If they did that, there would be no Safari.
MS is getting back to it's old dirty tactics with the Mac market. They're killing IE, they bought VPC, and they are suing the makers of Real PC. Soon, they only way to check your JavaScript with MS JScript or HTML in Tasman will be to have access to an x86 box. Moreover, soon IE exclusive web sites will be Windows exclusive.
This is really obnoxious.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Forget browser war. We must stop M$ media player/ Support Real and avoid stuff with DRM. The next war is over moving content. Do not create content for M$.
So she paid for all the other stuff on the desktop (Office, OS, etc.) right?
I think the issue is it irks people to have to make a transaction, period.
It sticks out there on your credit card bill, reminding you that you paid money too, esp. if you are afraid you won't like it.
There should be some way to pay a low yearly fee to enter a software subscription service, sort of like what Lindows is offering. How much software does the average person really need (and to pay for) on their system yearly anyway? I'm sure it could be evened out somehow.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
"If we really get down to it, who killed Explorer Mac? Safari did."
NO! WRONG!!
Microsoft killed IE for Mac. They were planning all along to add all kinds of exclusive proprietary functionality in the next Internet Explorer that will be integrated into the Windows Longhorn OS. This is part of their strategy for forcing you to buy their next OS. They want everyone running IE7 so as to marginalise Safari, Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, et al. They by doing this, the also marginalise Linux and Mac OS X which is something they very much want to do.
So instead of admitting that this was their plan, Microsoft just made up the line that they couldn't compete with Safari because dropping it fit with their business plan to begin with. It's just the same old monopolistic behaviour all over again, except this time they are using the browser to marginalise the OS market instead of the OS to marginalise the browser market.
Hotmail seems to work just fine with Opera 7.11, heck it doesn't even give me that annoying "Please update your browser to IE6 to fully access the features on this site" anymore.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
A Duck Says....
QUACK!
Jesus Christ. I realize this is slashdot, where many people are into RPG's that I can't get into, idle their time away on building up vast fortunes in Everquest or Warcraft III or whatever the latest addiction is, but did we have to read an entire article written in middle dork? What is so hard about writing an article in simple english? (yes, I understand the poster is from .nl, but I assume he can speak normal english as well as LOTR-dork-talk).
I'm as big a geek as the next guy with my distaste for MS, my Linux box, my OS X laptop, my tech job, all my electronic toys, and spending way too much time on the internet or taking systems apart, but dear god, I don't need my own language to express my dorkiness.
This article by PPK is a piece of trash. If I didn't know a little about the evolution of browsers, I might have believed it was informative and based on facts. But it is mostly a viewpoint of the writer, who presents his own beliefs as facts, kind of like Jon Katz.
End-users, there is no single group known as end-users. Today there are several groups of end-users, has been for years. Some care about what browser they use, and some are just excited by the fact they can turn a computer on and open a browser, any browser. There are the mac-users, geeks, developers, newbies, daytime/nightime surfers, business users and many more. Having seen the browsers stats of two similar sites, aimed at different demographics, I know that different people use different browsers, for different reasons.
Explorer was succesful, because it was always there, on windows. Even developers use it for that very reason sometimes. Other browsers have failed or succeeded mostly because of this. Developers, no matter what their preference is, must develop for the majority. The preference of developers is relevant only when they become end-users.
Their are no more browser wars, there are just distribution wars and returns on investment. The browser with the best distribution will dominate the market. And companies paying for website development will only support browsers that have a significant percentage of hits to their site.
"My point? Browsers don't matter. Office suites don't matter. OS doesn't matter. What matters is that the user can sit down and do their shit (whatever particular shit that happens to be), and not think about how they do their shit."
You have to first realize why this guy is proposing all this propaganda in the article Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues. He's a *web developer*. He's not asking for Microsoft to go away because they are propietary or evil or anything like that. He has problems with their CSS support. I suspect that if Microsoft corrects their compliance to web standards, he would be happy and IE would be the Good Guy again. Web developers, as I understand them, are ultimately practical folks.
The only reason he cares about users is because they are who pays his bills, in a round about way.
But what about us non-developers? We shouldn't care about users. We, ourselves are users, but no one says that we have to be like other users. We don't care about the popularity contest. We don't care how easy to use the software is for a majority of users since we ourselves are only a minority of users. We care only what works best for us, from our perspective: the only perspective that matters.
For a person like me, with a technological edge and an interest in technology in itself, I may choose to flirt with alternative operating systems, programming languages, browsers---I may create my own technological utopia, if I have the skill.
No kidding, really. This made me grin and chuckle uncontrollably. Way to go.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I'll beleive this is happening when I see IE (on PC and Mac) go below 95% on counters for websites. IE may be a dinosaur, but this "Browser War" idea is becoming a relic along with it.
This is totally laughable. Konqueror is a steaming pile of Krap. Nobody but nobody who has a brain cell uses it whatsoever.
...self indulgent crap that article is... I know the argument has been argued a million zillion times before but who really gives two hoots what browser and OS you prefer. I remember using IE3 on my Windows for Workgroups 3.11 box. I hated it with a passion and (believe it or not) I was able to uninstall it! Fancy that an IE I can uninstall.... maybe everyone should revert back to IE3 and W311 and sod the consequences, now that would be c00l...
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
I can't believe the editors allowed this tripe to be posted as an article...they obviously didn't even read it. Mind you it's so long winded and boring I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
I am the "tech guy" for many of my friends, and their families as well. I have had now 3 mothers come to me and say "could you please make these damned pop-ups go away". I install Mozilla, set their homepage to hotmail again, and set it to the default browser. Sure they didn't do it themselves, but put on the "modern" look and feel to it (vs. the netscape default one) and they don't find it that intimidating.
The key is not to introduce them to any of the features. They are scared enough using this new thing let alone trying to say "oh and look at all this whizbang" (tabs, the advanced popup blocking, search features, etc). Thats now 3 computers which have passed the mom test. Not to mention the friends and the girlfriend test, all of them have passed, and have passed since 1.1. If this browser isn't ready for mainstream I don't know what is, or ever will be. Bugs are a part of life, it's why we all have jobs, if this stuff all worked out of the box geeks would be out of a job.
..the one reason I use Opera over anything else is specifically for it's new mail client.
M2 (as they're calling it) is considerably different from your standard mail client in that it doesn't use folders.
All your mail goes into one big box, and you can set up permanent filters/sort fields to pull out sets of the mail into views. The fun thing with views is that you can do all your standard set operations on them (includes, excludes, intersections and unions) and you can have the same mail visible in multiple views.
So I can put together all the mail on a specific project from developers and management that mentions deadlines. I set that as a view. Then I make a second view that gathers all the developer or Q/A mail on that project. I leave those in place, and any mail that comes in is automatically shown in both of those views if it fits, without having to do anything funky or wasteful like making a second copy of the mail.
Add to that specific searches and orderings (including properly threaded) within the views and it makes high volumes of email simple to handle.
It's a bit of a learning curve to get used to the idea that the mail doesn't actually go into the views and that it can show up in more than one place at once, but once you've got that, it's beautiful.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Me? I'm a small-time web designer working out of my house. I do web sites for bands (1,a href="http://itsbeerthirty.tripod.com">2), fire halls, and also maintain my own little network of sites, flagshipped by my blog. My sites aren't anything flashy, rarely including Shockwave/Flash, JavaScript, or even Frames. As any web developer should, I keep multiple browsers around for testing sites and making small fixes in the code.
/. users, I'm fairly anti-Microsoft. The only reason I use it is because, while Linux solutions are good and getting better, what I want to do still lives only in MS's domain. Anyway, I use IE 5 to debug for the IE family. If it works in 5, it'll most likely work in 6, too, and ultimately 7 (whenever that decides to get here).
The first browser I always check in is Opera. Opera is my broser of choice when I'm surfing, so I always make sure that Opera likes my sites at sever different resolutions. It kills pop-ups totally (which is good since I use Tripod as a quick hosting solution), and allows me to test different browser identities at once as well. In the Windows environment, Opera is my King browser.
Then I move on to IE. Like alot of other
Then it's off to the latest Mozilla release. Every time a new release is put out, I'm on it. Mozilla is used to test for Netscape compatability as well (like IE, if it works in M, it should work in N) since I haven't the desire to try and download it on my measly 56K connection.
My final destination is Linux, where I check it in Mozilla and Konqueror (I'm a big KDE nut), and have a buddy check them in other Linux solutions.
In the end, this article goes on at length about the IE problem. That problem doesn't really bother me. Chances are that by the time MS gets IE7 on the shelves with Longhorn, I'll be well into Linux land using development solutions that, within the three years it will most likely take Longhorn to arrive, will most likely have improved quite a bit given the current rate of open source development.
Meanwhile, my work will most likely remain simple, to the point, and still able to work in any browser it needs to. In the end, I really don't care if there's another 'Browser War' or whatever. I'll be happy if enough people can see my work and say "Hey, that looks good. Easy on the eyes, and simple to use." That is the goal of any good website, no matter what the size.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
This guy is a stupid retard. Microsoft can fix any bug they want you idiot. It's all about control: Spyware and Palladium. They want their garbag eto have exploits so that they can tap into people's computers. That's what the future of Microsoft is... BIG BROTHER... spyware... Palladium... then the pigs start to burn for eternity and complain... sheesh.
This guy is a stupid retard. Microsoft can fix any bug they want you idiot. It's all about control: Spyware and Palladium. They want their garbage to have exploits so that they can tap into people's computers. That's what the future of Microsoft is... BIG BROTHER... spyware... Palladium... You're right. The future is now... then the pigs will burn for eternity and complain... sheesh...
Remember when Netscape was king of the browsers and they said if MS used their dominance to shut them out the the days of browser innovation would end? Well this has materialized in a big way. MS and Netscape used to battle it out with their staggered releases, one-upping each other and the benefit was all our's. Now MS has the browser monopoly and has been slowly exploitiing it ever since.
What kind of shit is having an I.E. site only? Owning the browser market then having sites that will only render in that engine. Bullshit. I was a loyal Netscape user until AOL bought them up. AOL introduced their newest feature...the crach at will mode and I had no other choice than to use I.E. Opera is cool but I'm not paying for a browser even though I've never like MS's tactics. There have been others but I'm stuck using I.E.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Of course you're right, so it's a bit of a dead horse. I must disclose that I use Mozilla exclusively for mail and browsing, so that should say a bit about how "unhappy" I am with them. I think they're moving largely in the right direction.
The original article said this is exactly what the Mozilla Project needs to do. How unfortunate for the author that he was out of the loop and didn't know that we've already been there and done that.
I wouldn't say completely - he seemed to be using sort of a split argument. They're too bloated now, and by the time they "get it," they're going to rename everything and kill their branding. I do think it's a terrible idea to rename everything.
I suppose his "bottom line" point is that the Mozilla team isn't doing a lot to make themeselves accessible to the general public. That's OK if they don't care about the general public, but I think they do. Therefore, a consistent name and a streamlined configuration interface (even as an option) might be a good idea. I think the next version of mozilla will be great for my needs, but I don't know how generally accessible it will be.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I've had similar thoughts about an OpenOffice CD.
However, the key is targeting. You don't want a bunch of stuff there to confuse the user - it should be 100% focused on getting the user to want and acceppt the new browser. I was thinking even some video showing what cool features the browser had so users could take a look before they installed - that's where a lot of the extra space would go. The great thing is users have already had a little targeted advertising mentioning that pop-ups are bad (from Earthlink and the like), so another good point would be "Keep your ISP!!".
Now a seperate CD's around OpenOffice, that's a seperate issue but a very good idea.
I think there already is an "OS on Wiindows" collection that bundles a lot fo that stuff together, but again I don't think that's as effective as it is overwhelming.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... is an option off of the right-click menu on an image with the following options:
-Block images/popups from this directory
-Block images/popups from this server
-Add this server->0.0.0.0 to hosts file
This story has made me feel dirty, soiled, and manipulated.
If the site didn't say writers weren't paid I'd swear he was trying to pad his word count!
I've never seen so many words do so little work before.
What thinking he does do is bogus. Weak writer, weak mind, strong typer.
Unfortunately, I often have numerous subjects being researched on my screen when someone calls me and brings up several others.
Regarding your old Sentra, I suggest covering the elephants with carpet padding to make them more aerodynamic.
I like Opera because the mail client can be docked alongside your webviewer so I can see if I have mail, also download manager and viewing email are put in their own tabs (tabs rock). Less windows the better I say. But I don't like the way it manages links, saves passwords, can't open tabs with middle mouse btn and certain webpages don't display right. Of course that ad stinks too.
Mozilla is good all around but I miss opera's tab integrated mail and download manager.
I.E. sucks it in all features except viewing that rare website that doesn't work right in the other two.
So I stumbled uppon a little known browser called *flinch* crazy browser http://crazybrowser.com . Check it out, aside from its awful name it functions as it's basically IE with tabs. It's only a 600k download. Bring CB into the brower war!
-- It's a floor wax.
-- It's a dessert topping.
-- It's a floor wax!
-- It's a dessert topping!
(third voice)
-- It's a floor wax, a dessert topping, a web browser, and an application platform!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
The subjects of the browsing are organized, with one subject for each instance.
how long until
Lots of comments above suggest faking the browser id to mimic IE when using Firebird (etc.). This is a terrible idea because when companies look at there server logs they get a disproportionate idea of the market-share of IE. This will increase the proliferation of IE-specific sites.
Open source browsers need to be detecting this trend and taking steps to workaround it perhaps by warning the user that they have found a website with certain 'incompatibilites' and offering a list of different ways to browse it - but certainly not by changing the software id to mimic MSIE. It's counter-productive and it admits defeat.
Just my ha'pennys worth,
Stem
It's like a Breezes vacation. Do you want the all inclusive plan where you pay one price, then leave your wallet at home, or do you like to save the initial dollar and get nickle and dimed to death at the bar?
One thing I hate about today's economy and the modern American mentallity is that everything takes that nickle and dime approach....it's annoying as hell. So much so, that I tend to look the other way on piracy these days.
Internet Explorer is loaded with the rest of Windows whenever you start your PC. So that "less than a second" load time is actually much higher. When Linus throws Mozilla into the 2.6 kernel as a module, then your comment might have some merit....
-------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I couldn't finish it. Half way through I got sick of the same statement over and over again. I'm usually a pretty good reader too.
The saga is ended. However, we enjoy the browser jousts to keep the Knights in shape. Cast MS as the dark night and all the others trying to take them down by making themselves small so they don't impale themselves on MS's titanium lance.
I have IE 6 and Mozilla on my system because, as a web developer I need to. Java isn't fast nor stable no matter what version. I wish it was because I'd rather use it than the embedded ActiveX Rich Text editor I need to use for my current site. It's faster than some of the java applets and it's free.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
You don't need any money by any one group (except possibly to house the ISO for distribution).
The whole point is anyone could download the ISO, burn 10 CD's, print some covers, and drop them off at the local grocery store (or wherever). You could of course also have more organized groups of course that could get funding and try more organized attempts, like real official kiosks in public places instead of hijacking AOL stands. The funny thing about hijacking AOL stands though is that it would be distributed the fruits of their labor, in some ways doing what they are too fearful to do themselves!
By AOL-style, I really meant "available anywhere", not so much in terms of mailing anything (which I don't think works as well as physical placement) as an army of casual volunteers could help place the browser where more normal people would be able to see it - and then pass it along if they liked it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I really don't care what a bunch of idiots posting on Slashdot have to say about the article; however, if someone would be kind enough to mirror the page (it's slashdotted), I would appreciate it.
In the First Era of browser history Mosaic and the other early browsers ruled. The Second Era was that of Netscape dominance. Microsoft's challenge to Netscape marked the beginning of the Third Era, the Heroic Age of the Browser Wars. Netscape's bleeding to death marked the start of the Fourth Era of Explorer dominance.
The recent news about Explorer shows that this Era has come to an end, too. We stand at the beginning of the Fifth Era of browser history. What will it bring?
This article gives an overview of recent events and tries to predict what will come. It tells the whole story, not just bits and pieces of it. Furthermore it answers some questions that other commentators ignore. Why doesn't Explorer Windows fix its CSS support? Who really killed Explorer Mac?
Throughout, the emphasis is on the story, not on the history. Therefore it focuses on the broad overview and leaves out many technical details. The article is meant as a tutorial on creating and spreading browser stories in terms our prospective audience will understand.
Before studying the new stories, a summary of the old ones.
What has gone before
After the smoke of the Browser Wars had driven away, Explorer reigned supreme. It had thoroughly trounced its rival and could rest on its laurels, reaping the rewards of forethoughtful investment. It rested and reaped for three years, growing fat and sluggish in the process.
In the pro-Microsoft view, Explorer took the role of Tragically Misunderstood Prophet. Somehow this role has never caught hold of popular imagination, though. Therefore the Windows version is generally seen as the Evil Usurper, and the Mac version as its Good Cousin that was crowned King of Mac by the machinations of the Usurper but turned out to be a pretty decent one.
Netscape 4 abdicated and took the role of Senile Dinosaur. It retired to its own little corner of browser land, where it still spends its days in happy oblivion. Its health is declining, but its health has been declining continually since its birth two Eras ago, so there's no need to worry.
The Mozilla Project inherited the role of Legitimate Exile, once to return to its rightful domains. The Project slowly plodded forward, while a solid kernel of supporters waited and hoped, waited and hoped, then waited and hoped a little bit more, after which the Project was said to be nearly ready. Mozilla 1.0 came, but by then the world had changed and didn't care quite as much as expected.
Opera was the Sympathetic Outsider. People liked it but didn't really expect it to make significant gains. Nonetheless it showed a slight but consistent growth.
The big surprise of the Fourth Era was Konqueror, which came unexpectedly and stunned the web development community by its general excellency. Its very existence proved that you don't need a huge Project to make a good browser. It didn't really get a role because it didn't fit into the overall scheme of things inherited from the Browser Wars. Besides it was confined to the Linux side of things.
That's how it was, one quiet Era long. But now something has happened in browser land. In fact, major events have started happening at a breathtaking pace.
The real story
"When will there be the next version of IE?"
"As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation".
"Why is this? the anti-trust?"
"Although this is off topic, I will answer briefly: Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
These fabled lines are hidden in a transcript of a talk show, a communication channel curious even for Microsoft's exacting standards. We learn Explorer 7 will be tied to the new Microsoft operating system and we are left to imply that it'll take its own sweet time before actually appearing on the scene.
Criticism immediately reached boiling po
Lets look at this from the far simpler Microsoft perspective shall we?
Now that that pesky Justice Department has been anesthetized Microsoft can get back to integrating everything. Browser, office automation, everything, integrated into one big, err gigantic, program. This program will work with all web servers, but it will work a LOT BETTER with IIS web servers. Oracle, Semantec, and any other third party provider of Windows compatible software had better be prepared because MICROSOFT NEEDS YOUR CASHFLOW IN ORDER TO GROW!
Face it, they have won in all other areas, so the only way they can grow (which is required these days to impress the stock market) is to take over other market segments.
Microsoft still wants to take over the server room, and they are mad as hell that events beyond their control have slowed them down.
Why does this guy think it is going to take MS from 2 to 6 years (his estimates were all over the map!) to re-integrate IE. They have probably been working on this all along while the Justice Department were wringing their hands and cowering before the mighty Bill Gates.
While I think that the ultimate triumph of Open Source will occur for operating systems and other basic systems software, the battle ain't gonna be pretty because Microsoft would rather hold ground it has already won than give up and move to new conflict points.
If you have no stomach for such things, slink back into the Microsoft fold and get your MCSE so that you can utter the proper incantations at the next meeting with your sales rep.
If you want to keep your freedom and dignity, then avoid Windows-only features like the plaque. Don't tell me that you just HAVE to have some spinning doo-dad that can only be done with asp or you will lose your customer base. Thats total BS, and if you believe it you are halfway to having your MCSE certificate already. Congratulations.
The future of the Internet is CONTENT, not format, not color schemes. Provide a service, provide information, and users will come. Look at Drudge, Slashdot, and the many blogs that use a three color scheme and text and very little else.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to help these processes along:
PC Hardware = commodity
Browsers = commodity
Development Software = almost commodity
OS = almost commodity
Office Products = almost
Servers = Just now moving toward commodity
Things that are not even on the trail yet are 3D-VR, artificial intelligence, speech and handwriting recognition, and some of these are going to take YEARS to shake out. Microsoft will of course take an interest in these things once some other company has shown that it can be done. For now they are fighting a losing battle over their own home turf.
In the end, Microsoft's unwillingness to concede this old ground will be their downfall. But like I said, it won't be pretty.
Certainly this guy, Peter, has some very good points about the "so-called" Browser Wars II, such as:
- Users do not know (or even want to know) about browsers.
- Do not talk about stardards at all
- Microsoft will leave a "4 to 6" years gap, so there is a good chance to get some considerable piece of the maket share.
But he forgot about the new Mozilla roadmap and Firebird, the lightweigth stand-alone browser. This is our "hero" against the Senile Monter (IE)
By the way, Those fairtale analogy sucks.
I personally think (despite what Microsoft publicly says) we will see a standalone Internet Explorer 7.0 browser, but unlike earlier versions of IE, it will only work under Windows 2000, Windows XP and the upcoming Windows Longhorn (where IE 7.0 will be part of the OS).
By limiting it to a true WIN32 API environment, it means the potential for substantial speed increases in terms of web page rendering. IE 7.0 will likely implement a full Sidebar function (which was actually in the betas for IE 6.0 but was removed in the final version).
It's all under the presumption that in the next 2/3 years windoze will still rule the desktop.
I find mozilla just fine. I don't know where this guy gets the idea that mozilla has problems. I find it perfectly acceptable that a browser is at 20 megs installed with mail, news, and chat with it. Personally I don't care much about bloat, just as long as its fast, and stable. And its plenty fast and stable for me. Doesn't take up too much ram when ran. And works with the majority of the websites out there.
It really annoys me that there are standards for almost everything around us, yet as of July 2003, Web Browsing remains a mess of incompatibility and pointless fragmentation.
Pick up a telephone and one can call others all over the world. Fire up (Mozilla,Safari,Opera) and sooner or later, one is bound to run into serious (read: major incompatibility/security/crashing) problems with at least one site.
I'd like to know what's stopping the IEEE from getting their act together and ironing out THE Web Browsing standard. Don't point at the W3C and say "the IEEE's involvement would be redundant. We already have a web standards body... bla bla bla." Microsoft doesn't care about the W3C, which is glaringly obvious now, and that is the group's fatal shortcoming. Only a small group of web-savvy individuals see their recommendations as The Bible of web standards, and I can't see this ever changing.
I wish people from the IEEE, Macromedia, Adobe, Apple, AOL/Mozillla and Microsoft got together and came up with a spec that eliminated the fragmentation. Unfortunately, it seems that day will never happen. And that's a pity.
So, imagine some updates on your own:
* Storm "DOJ" moves, now stalling Linux advancement
* IBM makes major advances on second front
* MS moves forces to counter IBM threat
* Amiga not gaining any ground
* Apple begins rolling out better hardware, khtml to support failing lines
* Old Apple ally Adobe turns coat, joins MS
* HP overrun by MS fifth column
* Other Unixes fall into anarchy; IBM, Sun, Linux, and Microsoft fight over territory
* SGI surrenders patentlands to Microsoft
* SCO sneak-attacks Linux from behind the front lines
* Sun losing ground to Microsoft, Linux encroachments
* Netware slowly losing ground to Microsoft, inviting Linux assistance
* Corel surrenders to Microsoft
* Open Office advancement stalls
* Mozilla forms defensive lines, halts MS advancement
* Oracle loses ground to Microsoft, accepts Linux assistance
* Microsoft's "Exchange", "Access", mercenary "ArcGIS" and "Asshole Web Designer" brigades halt Linux advancement
* Coordinated attack by Microsoft's "XML", "VB", "IIS", and "SOAP" brigades rolls over Linux's "libXML2" brigade
* GTK/Win32 fifth column project stalled
* Palm losing ground to coordinated WinCE, Outlook, mercenary ArcGIS advances; Sharp Zaurus in retreat
Wow, when was the last time something didn't take place for a whopping 3 years!
I love these guys who use exaggerative words without realize how silly they sound.
Kids have been growing up with computers for a long time already. We have a generation through school that has been exposed to computers throughout their school life. This has encouraged some of them to think and feel confident enough to challenge the status quo.
This has encouraged the vast majority to simply use what is placed in front of them. Just as we have had a number of generations immersed in a life with cars, the vast majority of these people are not able to tinker with their cars, to modify them, or even to properly understand them.
There are a small number of people who think critically, explore and challenge. There are a vast majority who go with the flow.
Will we alienate/confuse/loose customers by making a change from IE to another browser?
1. Given how heavily modified IE's look and layout was the last time I saw AOL
2. Given how a lot of AOLers don't even know that they are running IE when they log-in to AOL.
3. Given how much AOL is spending to develope add-on's to IE that duplicate stuff that's already inside Mozilla, which they've already paid for;
I'm amazed that they are still using IE. Considering that most of the basic browser activities are all the same, and that most people never change their preferences, unless tech support is holding their hand, I don't think anybody is going to be alienated/confused or lost.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You never see what other cars look like on the road, though you might get a glimpse at another car in someone else's garage
People don't "drive" or "go to the store", they "use the road" by opening "the road"'s driver side door, sitting down in "the road", and putting their key into "the road"'s steering wheel
Firestone pays schools to teach engineers to design their roads in a special way so that only cars with Firestone's tires can drive on them, and Firestone's tires can only be installed on Firestone's cars
I run Lynx you insensitive clod!!!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
"a browser is not something people are willing to pay for"
Self-contradictions are fun, aren't they? :) You've just proven your own claim wrong!
Seriously, if no one was willing to pay for a browser, Opera wouldn't be around today. It only recently entered the embedded market remember, and they sold the desktop version exclusively before that.
Clever signature text goes here.
I almost wish everyone had those black boxes.
Then the idiots with bad records who speed will get slammed on insurance rates, while I get to cruise around speed lim + 10 without worry. I'd say that's fair, and probably safer, wouldn't you?
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Wow, you bash Star Wars (even jokingly) and apparently people get all up in arms...
I don't personally feel it was "off-topic" as that's how the name "Browser Wars" got to be. Also, I don't feel it was flame-bait as I was poking fun at many people's opinions of the current state of the Star Wars franchise...
geez...
I really think the site sucks for getting newbies to install Mozilla. Really, really suck - and this was my comment to the webmaster ...
... and I spent 2-3 minutes looking for an easy way to do it and heard all sorts about "enhancement bugs" and "guided forms" and finally gave up when I had to register - just to give a bit of feedback about my first week with Mozilla. I might be tired since it's almost midnight here, nut still ...
... this is just not for average people. Hell, it's not even for a lot of tech people who are used to the smoothness of sites like www.download.com - it just downloads the damn thing. And if it doesn't - it gives you mirrors. First of all - quit all the talkback shit - I just want a browser - later I might get a talkback. This has to be in an advanced option or something. No simplified chinese - nothing. A lot of people can probably guess what Win32 is - but please just write Windows (and at least try to detect OS and put the other ones under "If you want Mozilla for Mac, Linux etc ... click here". Finally - you might actually have a page where people can just download Mozilla from - and now give up in an attempt to comprehend what talkback is - if they get past simplified chinese, sun and release notes.
I just wanted to give some feedback on Mozilla
That has got to get easier - you really have to give more thought to the site - remember it has to serve at least 3 purposes.
1) Getting new users to try Mozilla
This has to get better, too - I'm not stupid at computers, I program rather professional websites and I'm good at it - still Mozilla.org is a bit daunting when you really just want to try something; not get involved, not take all sorts of - at a glance - pointless decisions. Is Mozilla 1.4 not ready for everyone to download? No? If it is supposed to be for the public - then "Releases" just won't cut it. People - even tech-savvy ones - just want to "Download" the damn browser. After researching an overcrowded menu you get to this page : http://www.mozilla.org/releases/ . The first thing there is a lot about "TalkBack", "Release Notes" - even "Sun" and "Localization" projects are mentioned before actually get to download anything. And I just wanted to try the browser
2) Catering to all the hardcore supporters
Please, please, please : seperate all this into a new site. If Mozilla.org is to the main entrance for new users - it has to be for the new users - and only for new users. The hardcore supports can get their own new site that doesn't have to include any babytalk at all but can focus entirely on them - which the current site seems to do a good job at - but at the expense of newcomers.
3) Getting new people involved
Again - this copuld by having an easy to understand introduction that shows the basics about getting involved, using the hardcore-only site with bug-submittals etc. Not a tutorial - just a quick and short How-to - as soon as the first bug-report has been filed the user is probably much more easily hooked by the hardcoresite - since now at least some of it is familiar ground.
So - to summarize : Pleas make a smooth, professional-looking main site with a big : Download now - it's free - it's Open Source (with a quick explanation). Then some help to new users, contact information, other general information - maybe a support forum - and not a whole lot more : except a "Get involved" link or something like it. Then you would have a real chance of getting new users. The only reason why I came to Mozilla was that Avant Browser (an add-on to Internet Explorer that has a lot of good ideas and a great interface) chewed up way too much RAM. And the only reason why I (for the second time) didn't give up on all the release notes etc. Now you've got a new user - but I'm sure that I'm not among very many average computer users - even if they have visited the Mozilla site by some chance it would be too much trouble if Internet Explorer is worked alright. For exa
The idea that Mozilla is somehow not a major player is ridiculous to me. The word where I work is good - people like the dumping of popups, and the skinning.
The guy that wrote that 'article' is an ass.
I was actually unaware of that as well - I thought those were ship names; If not, then no worries certainly. Branding Mozilla as much as possible is a good thing.
If the author's bottom line is indeed that "the Mozilla team isn't doing a lot to make themselves accessible to the general public," that's way offbase too. It's quite easy to access members of the Mozilla team through any of a number of methods, including newsgroups, Bugzilla, and Mozillazine. I've had a few conversations with Mozilla developers via private email, too. So short of phone calls and face-to-face meetings, I can't imagine how to make the Mozilla team more accessible to the general public.
I don't know - I think that depends what your definition of the general public. Mine is "The idiots populating NASCAR chat rooms." Yours seems to be more tailored to "People who frequent sourceforge, slashdot, and the like." Two very different crowds, really. I might contest that the goals of the mozilla project haven't made it a candidate for mass acceptance. Not that that's a bad thing.
Mozilla as a suite has always been a showcase of technology. It's never been meant for mass consumption. This was always a mistake in my mind, and one that has (I hope) been fixed with the new direction the project has taken.
I (and I believe the author) would agree with the first statement - Mozilla certainly hasn't (in the past) been ready for wide consumption. It has always been a "bleeding edge" browser, being quick to add all the modern bells and whistles (tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, Bayesian mail filtering, etc). Personally, I love that, but it just adds more confusion to the preference section for a newbie. I am certainly interested in seeing where they go from here. Honestly, I hope it doesn't compromise the ideals they've had in the past, though. Can they be accessible to computer idiots without being too dumbed down for power users?
Basically what I'd like to see is a browser that let you decide exactly what features to compile in, sort of like a simplified version of the linux kernel. Make it small and light, but contain all the features you like.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What dream world are you living in? A surfer visits your site, and it breaks. He goes to a competitor's site and it doesn't break. He goes to a dozen other sites, and it still doesn't break. Who is he going to blame - Microsoft, for screwing up some acronym he's never even heard of, or the single website that doesn't work for him?
Now, multiply that by the number of visitors coming to your website who use Internet Explorer. Virtually all of them will just think that you have a broken website. Will your boss/client/bank manager really care if your code is technically correct?
Yes, I know that it's excruciatingly painful to have to deal with such a backwards browser every day, but you can't just decide to ignore a browser with that kind of market share.
Both rocket science and installing a new browser are out of reach for the average end-user, both in terms of actually doing it, and in terms of motivation. Sure, if they wanted to sit down and spend an evening figuring it out, they could probably do it, but you have to convince them that there's something in it for them.
If you're only using your browser at any given time, I'd be inclined to agree with you.
Unfortunately, here's a rundown of my taskbar contents circa 2 years ago:
- 3 or 4 mIRC entries
- 2 to 10 IE entries (average say about 6)
- 1 Outlook Express entry
- 1 Explorer (file, not web) entry
- 1 binary newsgroup leecher
- 1 Winamp
That's 14 taskbar entries alone, assuming I'm doing *nothing else at the time*. Unless you run in some insane screen resolution, don't use the systray or quicklaunch bar, or have a double-high taskbar, it's impossible to distinguish what you're looking at, other than "well, I have 6 IE icons, with a couple of characters of text each. Let's have fun clicking on each of them to find what I want".
Today, I usually have 6 things in my taskbar. Maybe 7 or 8 tops. And I'm still connected to 3 or 4 IRC servers, and often have a dozen or more webpages open at a time. Yes, tabbed browsing/IRC has reduced my clutter that much.
Know why?
Because when I'm in one application, I don't clutter up my screen detailing every last window/instance of every other application I'm running.
YMMV, but I'm all for making every application under the sun tab-able. As someone who runs his applications maximized, I'm surprised you don't appreciate tabs more. Taskbar hunt-and-peck is evil.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Can someone please say "YOU'RE TALKING OUT OF YOUR ARSE!"? Oh wait I already did.
Would you care to back up those statements, even just one would be cool.
What would your grade school teachers think if they could see that?
They would probably say exactly the same thing as your kindergarten humor teacher...
There's this cutting-edge new hardware that work with some high-end PCs that might be able to solve this problem, although it's still pretty expensive.
It's called a Cee Dee.
a) Opera *is* free with an ad-banner.
Want the ad-banner to go away? then you pay your $29
b) Opera most certianly has a mail client(M2), and a good one too...
Personally- I've been around every browser on most platforms for a LONG LONG time- and I'm telling you- Opera7 is *the* reason I was finally able to switch to Linux on my weak Crusoe-powered laptop.
Mozilla DRAGGED.
Phoenix DRAGGED.
Opera7 responds as quickly as IE- I shit you not.
Also- I've been using it at work as my primary browser for ~6months now- and I LOVE it.
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
I've been accessing Hotmail from Mozilla 1.3.1 and Mozilla 1.4 with no issues whatsoever, including sending attachments, receiving attachments, etc etc.
And before you get all wierd on me, I use Hotmail as the email address for spam-likely webforms (including the ones that swear they will never spam you). It's interesting to see how often they spam you anyways...
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Because multiple levels of tabbing are actually useful in most situations.
Most people do not just run the web browser and nothing else. Most people run multiple programs like word processors, spreadsheets, IM clients, IRC, remote login windows, and other stuff at the same time as they run the web browser.
When you are running lots of programs at once, a row of browser tabs at the top of the screen is vastly more efficient than twenty browser tabs mixed in the taskbar interspersed with other unrelated applications.
Even if you only use the web browser and nothing else, there are still at least two major advantages of application level tabbing.
The first is that you can group related sites into one window. For instance, when I am simultaneously browsing through slashdot and nytimes and TV listings and weather reports, I can open one window for each group of pages and use tabs in each window to get multiple pages within each group. This two-level organization is impossible with a single taskbar.
The second reason is sheer numbers: at this moment I have open on my desktop right now 8 slashdot pages, 7 nytimes pages, four TV channel listings, and three weather pages (satellite photo, radar, forecast), for a total of 22 pages. This number of pages is very easy to manage with four windows and a bunch of tabs, but very difficult to manage with a single OS-level taskbar.
The author of article is illiterate and needs medical attention.
First of all, I wonder who you are, Mr. Anonymous Coward, that you know my sex so well to post such lies. Second of all, as I have already explained, I do not really care a lot about that "Karma." I am actually quite surprised that all of you people take this Slashdot "Karma" so seriously, like it was an IQ or something.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Soon enough we should see Gecko (Mozilla, Netscape, K-Meleon, Galeon, Chimera,
Some stats samples: thecounter.com May 2003, upsdell.com gathered stats, sharereactor.com current stats (Gecko had 2.19% 2002 Aug 12).
My own sites ~4 day distinct user stats with ~500 hits per day (not 100% accurate):
What makes this an even better decision is that Explorer 6 (and updates) is available for free to anyone using Windows 95 or later. (Okay, Windows ME and Windows XP include Explorer 6 on install...). The point is that Microsoft would not lose any money by freeing up (free as in free speech, not free beer) software that is available at no cost anyway.
Good idea? Bad idea?
Bill?
Surak is hard.
NOW!!! NOW!!! NOW!!!
Mozilla (at home - here at work, I am stuck with IE)
I was in a similar situation to you until a friendly slashdotter told me that that Firebird can be run on Windows from the executable. If you have sufficient permissions to copy something from a CD onto your desktop, you can run Moz at work -- just run MozillaFirebird.exe It automatically copies over all your IE bookmarks as well : )
Give it a try, you'll be pleasntly surprised.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Someone wake me up when Firebird 0.7 is out ... there's been no releases in 2 months.
http://www.avantbrowser.com/
Shines up IE's dull spots.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that "Explorer" is a synonym for "Navigator", and "Safari" is in the same vein? We owe Netscape an awful lot - not quite enough to forgive them Communicator 4.7, but a lot.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
There is no way in hell you are gonna tow 6 elephants behind a sentra. That would be pushing a 1-ton dually gooseneck. You would also be running into legal width or length limits (3x2 or 6 in a row). Also a sentra is not capable of much over 100mph with a near empty tank and 100lb driver.
WIth IE I have Windows all around the place.
With Mozilla I have tabbed browsing (right now I have 10 different web pages on the same window).
I am blocking pop-ups in Mozilla. In IE good luck.
The only feature that was a bit better in IE was the handling of bookmarks (that MS against tradition renamed as "favourites", talk about usability) but Mozilla is fast improving on that by allowing you to move them around on the menu itself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not so. Please check out WIndows XP Embedded (which supports IE) and Windows CE (which supports IE and pocket IE). In fact, my employer selected CE for use by the passengers on airlines in our next generation IFE system primarilly because IE is available and is the dominant browser. When your users spend only 8 hours using your product (long haul flights), you can't spend any time teaching them how to use it. They have to know before they even sit down.
Now, I don't wish to start an argument about Microsoft's commitment to CE, or its likelyhood of dominating other embedded RTOS'es, or the wisodom of tying ourselves to IE (if, indeed, it's days are numbered as you suggest). I merely wanted to point out that Opera does have competition in embedded market. I'd also be surprised (actually, stunned) if other browsers are not being considered for the embedded market.
Again, just a nit. You've still written a very informative post.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Meaning that they must adapt to continue, as of course they are all too keenly aware. They must figure out a way to make themselves useful to those with broadband. This has already been done with their ads for "AOL Broadband".
Unfortunately, AFAIK, you have to pay your $40 to the cable company and then pay your $20 to AOL for an AOL subscription, so they would need to justify that added cost to new customers, which won't be easy since $40 is a rediculous cost in my mind to begin with. Battle the "I'm already online, what do I need AOL for?" mentality.
Ideally they would use their Time/Warner connection to become the default connection to Time/Warner-owned cable companies (which presumably exist). AOL isn't going anywhere any time soon. If AOL has 30M customers, I'm willing to bet that 28M of them are casual internet users happy with dial-up and not interested in losing their @aol.com email accounts ("no one will be able to find me again! oh dear!").
The author seems to be incredibly ignorant about Opera's merits. Opera has not only proved to be in extremely healthy state with huge advances in technology in the past 12 months, but it has been leading (yes, leading!) all other browsers with its truly innovative features.
Those who say they don't like it because of the ads are extremely narrow minded. Why don't you just buy the thing, rather than unrealistically discredit the browser?
It's not open source, but seriously, who cares? It's made by a good-natured company that's actually staying alive.
Those who say it's not good because it has three competitors are just too lazy to admit the facts.
what do they need a browser for if they don't have internet access ?
That's a federal offense. Quick, somebody call the cops!