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4 Years Later, The Mozilla Tide Has Turned
dave writes "In 1999, I editorialized that the browser was the battleground that would win or lose us the whole thing. 4 years later, in light of the excellent Firefox 0.8 release it is time to update the article with a slightly more optimistic view."
"For the first time since Internet Explorer 3.0 was released, I am seeing people switching browsers in droves"
Droves you say?! is that future sight?! firefox comes up less than WEBTV in most of the webtrends reports I am seeing. I look at the statistics for a number of frequently used (100k visitors a day) sites and do not see firefox gaining users. (note - Ill happily eat my words if the statistics show a significant increase.) but still... droves?
Joe User does not give a fuck about standards... in fact - he is HAPPY to view websites that have broken table tags and still display in IE. Joe user wants to continue not thinking and have stuff given to him. for that reason alone, Internet Explorer will continue to be the most used windows browser, and until the tides turn on the desktop operating system situation, IE will stay in its comfy place.
Grudgingly, albeit, I must admit -- Netscape 7.1 is pretty snappy. Technically, it still doesn't offer a great deal of what IE does... but one wonders sometimes if Microsoft's browserworks elves have gotten a bit carried away, anyway -- as extraordinarily few websites ever actually *use* a great many of those bells and whistles. Anyone for an "IE Light"?
I always use firebird to check my exchange webmail for work.. The basic features seems to work better in firebird than IE.. Now if I could just figure out what the firebird setting for "Check for a new version of the page everytime" like there is in IE, so I'd stop getting cached versions of static pages from our proxy at work.
Tabbed browsing is addictive, standards support is wonderful, but the feature that makes people go "oh, this is SO much better than Internet Explorer!" is the automatic popup blocking. I don't have to sell any of the other features to the people I recommend FireFox to; they discover them on their own.
My only current quibble is the new way FireFox handles download in 0.8... I liked that "launch" button dammit!
Having a good browser for Linux was the point here. The fact that the SAME browser works on windows is a good thing since it means that no mater which os you run, you are not stuck with MS standards on the web.
Because the only phrase that should follow "Best viewed with " is "any browser".
I must say that the Mozilla project has breathed new life into the web, and as a side-effect, into the Linux desktop.
Indeed. I was laughing the other day about how I am excited to go browse a webpage again. I was tinkering with the features of firefox, and was just loving it. I had used Mozilla on my Linux box at home, but to be using firefox at work on my Win2k machine is absolutely refreshing. Keep up the good work guys.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
If 'programmers' adhered to well documented standards, and stopped trying to make eye candy by biting on the non-standard hooks in IE, then you'd find that the problem of choking would pretty much vanish.
It is a very clever strategy of microsoft to release a non-standard adhering browser, since as they currently control the vast majority on desktop machines, they puppet 'programmers' into doing their dirty work for them (keeping people on the MS platform).
The less tech-savvy of us will of course assume "this browser sucks, it can't render this page correctly", when it is the page itself that can't be rendered properly within standards guidelines.
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
IIRC they have suspended further development of MSIE and will only release security patches.
This is a far cry from the days when hundreds of developers worked on making MSIE one of the fastest and smartest browsers out there.
You really have to wonder whether it was worthwhile for Microsoft. What would have changed if Netscape had continued to sell their browser? Fewer people using Windows? Hardly. A less powerful browser platform? Not really: the browser never could be the operating system.
Personally I thought the whole browser war was part of the same hype that caused Oracle to invest so much in web terminals, or whatever they called them.
The browser is just one more applet, fundamentally. Comes in all shapes and sizes, and so long as it respects the rules, no-one cares what logo it shows in the top corner. I come here for Slashdot, not for the browser.
So, since development on Mozilla and its cousins continues unabated, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft start to play catch-up. Will they, I wonder? What can they gain?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Way back when, Microsoft poured tons of money into IE to kill of Netscape, Netscape was simply too entrenched. "Bundling" helped but people would have downloaded Netscape if it was indeed a significantly better product.
Fast forward to today. The only looming threats are Opera and Firefox. The problem with all Open Source is that they have absolutely no marketing. It solely relies on word of mouth. 1 person tells another, who tells his friends, etc. and the usage theoretically increases exponentially (subject to gross errors of course). But even exponential growth is tiny if the current user base is small.
Until the Firefox usage rates increases to a threatening rate MS will sit on its shoddy browser and milk it for all its worth.
I'm sure MS knows FireFox is better, but why spend money to update their browser when the competition can't effectively communicate to a target market? A great product is no good if no one knows about it. Eventually the 'diffusion' of FireFox will increase enough to cause MS to grudgingly update. Then you will see a TRUE browser war.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Firefox takes away the master password from the personal security manager, so it's just as much of a personal liability as IE if your machine's compromised. This makes it a spectacularly bad idea for the office if you deal with sensitive websites, and for casual home user who may not know security well.
Firefox takes dozens of basic features like animated GIF removal away from the configuration panel -- instead you have to know what undocumented value to insert in a hidden configuration screen. Even Internet Explorer offers this option in a mouse-accessible location!
Why are the Firefox folks hiding features? Why not add an "advanced options" chevron for the things you think only 2% of users use? Removing 50 options from the mainstream configurator altogether means that you've disappointed a different 2% of your users with each new annoyance.
...and MSIE is still dominating the market. Firefox (sigh) is an excellent product, but very few are using it all the same. If anything, it's the success of Linux that is their core - if there hadn't been a real need to get a good browser on the Linux platform, I don't think they'd be anywhere near where they are today.
But, as long as the standards are winning, I really don't care what browser is winning. Personally I prefer Opera, but it's yet another of those browsers that are "not MSIE". And as long as there's many enough of us, hopefully Microsoft can't embrace and extend.
Though I fear what will happen once the DRM shit comes. "This page requires Internet Explorer 7.0 with Enhanced Content Security Pack(TM) running on a Trusted Computing System(TM). Please upgrade to take full advantage of our site."
I only hope Linux will push through and become at the very least a minority they can't ignore before that window of opportunity closes. Once shut out of the market, there's no easy way coming back in.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I dare to disagree. IE is the most used browser, that I agree with. But not the most well known or commonly known one. Non-techie people I talk to don't have a clue what IE is and only once I mention it's the thing they use to go on the internet ( Remember, talking to a non-techie here... To most of them the web IS the net. ) I'll get an "Oh yeah..." as reply. People don't use IE because it's well known, they simply use it because it is there.
Hate me!
"Best viewed with..." ads are evil, even if the browser you're supporting is great. People should be coding according to the standard because the web exists to present information, not tell you what you should be running. I prefer the any browser and W3 logos.
What you might want to do instead, is to have a 'tested with' list somewhere on your page, which lists the browsers you tested your page with. It shows that you take your work seriously, and mentions a lot of browsers people might want to try.
I'm not trolling here, but if you are still getting pop-ups just because you use IE, well, you're an idiot. There are so many pop-up blocking apps out there that it should be a non-issue. The pop-up blocking feature that is built into the browser (soon to be added to IE) is nice, but this is hardly a feature to brag about for trying to convince someone to switch.
Is the reason it gets nowhere near the press Mozilla does that Opera is not open source?
Erm, yes. Opera isn't free beer or speech. Open source projects can't be bought by MS, can't be destroyed in the way MS did to Netscape.
Hence the article - the web browser is absolutely key to the desktop market, and this time we're wise to what a bad idea relying on a company (however well intentioned) to supply that key component is.
I've been ignoring Mozilla since the Mozilla project started. IE for Windows was great for me, and I didn't like Navigator. Having moved to OSX last year and having Safari to use, I never even bothered with IE. Then the other day I responded to the /. story for Firefox, and gave it a shot.
I thought "Wow this is just like Safari without the metal." I mean, common it's a web browser. What I dont like is that the scroll bars are screwed up on Firefox if you load anything other than the default theme (Under OSX anyway). So with nothing to add over Safari, I probably won't be switching. But if I was using Windows at home, I'd love to have the tabbed browsing that IE doesn't provide. Then again, in windows I have a task bar...
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
the tragedy is that real "average" users use whichever browser ships as the default on their operating system.
a not insignifcant chunk of computer users aren't even aware of the concept of "applications". they don't see "explorer" it's just "the internet".
2 1337 4 u!
The Convicted Monopolist, having supposedly wiped out opposing browsers, have been utterly negligent with Incompetent Exploder for years now. It has fallen way behind in useful features, and it never made any attempt at standards compliance. As for the security holes..... I know they claimed the other day that it was now the most secure because they had fixed so many problems, but anyone who has ever done any software QA will know the utter incompetence of statements like that, in fact the number of bugs discovered is more likely to correlate with th elack of quality of the underlying code, much of which still remains, so it is almost certainly still very bad indeed. IE was another case of "decommoditising the protocols", as described in the infamous Halloween Memos, delibarately breaking standards compliance and reducing everything to the lowest common denominator of quality and interoperability.
The big problem is that ignorant or indolent web designers have churned out buggy code that works (sort of) in Inept Eradicator, but will fail in any standards-compliant browser, the closest to that ideal of standards compliance being Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror (not in any order, and apologies to any I missed). Some designers have apparently used that other utterly useless M$ product, Frontpage, which AFAIK has never had a good review in any magazine. Standards compliance is absolutely essential, that is why the Web grew so quickly, but now growth is jeapordised by the ill-defined non-standard set by the Monopolist and the fact that incompetents have chosen to work to it.
The way forward is of course to make sites which are fully standards-compliant (relatively easy, there are lots of better tools than Frontpage, some of them free, and a free validation service at w3c.org.) The trash that went before such as IE is best forgotten, otherwise we will forever be infested with bugs, security holes and Billisms. (A Billism is a feature which is illogical, unwanted and ineptly implemented, which forces itself upon you because Sir Bill presumes to know better than you what you want to do. Word is particularly full of Billisms.)
Mozilla and its relatives, not forgetting Netscape is an excellent base from which to move forward once more, without deviating into the closed, unstable and constantly changing world of Illegal Monopolies and their badly deficient producta. (Point to ponder - a monopoly is only necessary when a company can not succeed on the strenghts of its products, therefore th eneed to create one is in fact an admission of abject failure.) I use Mozilla at home, as do all my friends, and we are all quite keen to recommend it to others. It has also been getting favourable reports in the press. Long may it continue.
Wow, that article brings back memories. Anyhow, the fact that the population doesn't use or know about mozilla or firefox right now isn't a big deal. They'll continue to use IE because that's what they know. They even do this on the Mac (which is really sick, given IE's crappy state on the Mac).
When Linux starts to move in to more and more corporate desktops, people won't be able to rely on their IE habit anymore, and will be forced to use a Linux browser. This is when you'll start to see it in greater force.
And even further down the line, when Linux starts to invade the home desktop space also, we'll be glad the Mozilla project (and the KDE/KHTML project) has been around for so long. These things will come, it's only a matter of time.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Short answer, Opera is closed source and payware. Nobody wants to see some small company in Norway get control over the browser market. We've been down that path and the result is a browser that is bug ridden and hasn't been updated in years. In case you don't know what I'm talking about its Internet Explorer. Who wants to see yet another commercial entity force its ever whim upon us just because they have a majority. With Mozilla if we don't like where the project is heading we just fork it. With Opera there is no out.
To borrow a phrase "The Future is Open". Nobody wants to root for something like Opera when a better Open Source alternative is out there. Opera is exactly what the IT world is heading away from where possible. Also you won't see a closed source browser like Opera riding on the coat tails of the Linux Desktop revolution, however slow that may be.
Lastly and to go back to my first statement Opera costs money. Its been ingrained in consumers heads since the 90's that browsers are Free. If Mozilla costs money you could bet that it never would have stood a chance and IT Press would not be rooting for it.
Frankly Opera just don't have much of a future for general Internet browsing.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
>IE is the most used browser, that I agree with. But not the most well known or commonly known one.
If the users of IE can't even notice the name of the product in the title bar, how will they the name of browsers they don't even use?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Creative Criticism: The DHTML or whatever is used to give the advanced editing features of Exchange 2000 web mail, msn hotmail, yahoo mail, and the geocities web site editor don't work in Firebird;
The IE-only way of doing this doesn't work. The standards-based way however does work. Most blogging tools support rich text in gecko browsers. That MS uses its own proprietary stuff instead of the standards is hardly surprising, and I suspect yahoo and geocities are just suffering from inertia (because admittedly, mozilla hasn't had this capability for more than a year).
Grandmother & family do not care about "open source" or otherwise - they just want stuff to work.
:)
Get them to use Mozilla, and explain open source later. Works well.
FireFox features I can't live without:
All that boils down to:
If you buy a piece of commercial software, you're making the assumption that you have a product that "does what it says on the box" that the vendor will support with fixes and future upgrades. As a user, you probably have very little input into the future development of that product because future enhancements will be dictated by what is commercially viable to implement.
If you use a piece of free software, then you must take an entirely different attitude. Firstly, the product may not be a finished one (as is the case with Firefox) but has been released early for anyone who wants to to have a go at using. The expectation from the developers is that you report problems with that software back to them and suggest enhancements. It might be that any enhancements you suggest are not deemed as good ideas by the development team but if enough people request an enhancement, and it's a good one, then it usually gets implemented.
No software can be "all things to all men" and many browsers users will actually think of Flash as being a pointless graphical exercise that simply consumes bandwidth - neither you or they are right or wrong, it's just a difference of perception of "usability".
The real point I am trying to make here is that if you're expecting to suddenly wake up one day and find a desktop Linux system that you deem to be ready "for the desktop", then that is the wrong attitude to take, I'm afraid.
The Open Source developer community does not have an agenda to displace Microsoft from the desktop, despite what many people seem to believe. The community's only agenda is to make good, free software and to listen to users of that software to make it better - remember that much of that free software is available to run on Windows as well as Linux or a BSD OS.
If you (and others) want to have a Linux OS that you consider is ready to displace Windows from your own machines, then it is your remit to let the Open Source developers know that you need "this feature" because "this commercial package" already has it.
The only important thing is that you have a choice, albeit that to use an Open Source alternative may require extra effort on your part or being more involved in the development of that alternative by giving feedback as to what you want out of it.
The so-called "revolution" in software is not just about free software but a change in the mindset of the people that use software. Although there has always been an "underground" Public Domain/Shareware/Free Software/Open Source movement, most people have gotten into the mindset of going into their local computer store and browsing the shelves of pre-packaged software products until they find something that fits their needs at a price they're prepared to pay, exactly as they would select food products at the local supermarket - perfectly fine if that's the way you want it.
However, you do now have a voice in getting the software you want if you care enough about it and speak up enough - that's the mindset change.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
That is not a tragety at all. It's proof that computers are serving their role well. As tools.
Just as you could probably care less about the thickness of the heating wire inside your toaster, most other people on this planet could care less about what browser they use. They just want to get their pr0n|warez|stock info|etc.
Can you blame them? NO. They have more important things to be doing.
Actually that is not true, Mozilla incorperates the W3C standards, and it tried to also incorperate as many of the non-standards as it can. BUT, it will not incorperate any IE standards that breaks W3C or in some way is incompatible with rendering a standard website correctly.
no, see, that's where the zealots are wrong.
Standards are being ignored and shoved to the wayside. Sure, make a website that conforms and blah blah blah, but does it matter? No, not really... People use IE. People will probably continue to use IE. If a website is "correct" and IE is "broken" because of ignoring standards and the webpage displays incorrectly the IE people are going to complain. The IE people will win, hands down.
It's unfortunate but it's true.
True, Microsoft have no interest in IE anymore because it fulfilled its job in destroying Netscape. Add to that the fact that IE is a free product, there's no commercial sense to them expending any effort into developing it further.
Also, in theory, Microsoft could take the source code to Firefox or the Gecko engine, develop it for a new Windows browser and as long as they released the modified source code, be perfectly within the remits of the GPL.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's own arrogance will stop this happening - with Ballmer having declared Open Source a "cancer", MS embracing Open Source code would mean a huge U-turn and loss of face in the eyes of the public.
My guess is that MS will just work harder towards proprietary lock-in and DRM to simply stop any other browsers working on their platforms for reasons of "security".
The future of the browser simply depends on getting the word out to "Joe Public" on the alternatives and hoping that IE eventually becomes the "minority" browser, even for Windows users.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For all the handwringing and then the grousing about the name change, if /. is any indication, it seems to be going over pretty well.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Except by doing this, you're casting your vote as "I am an IE user so no need to fix your website." instead of "I use a standards-based browser and my experience on your site sucked." Webmasters DO use logs to see what percentage of their visitors are using what browsers, and this information is used to decide whether revamping the site to standards is worth it. By faking your UA string, you're skewing the stats against yourself, and are actually hurting your cause instead of helping. It's better to leave the UA alone and work with the site in other ways... this way you're investing in a long-term fix, not a short-term one.
I work in a 100% Windows environment and frequetly have to tune systems to meet very strict security standards (yes, I realize the irony in that...).
I spend a significant amount of time digging through "half a dozen different" registry locations (pretty similar to browsing a filesystem in gui) "to edit esoteric" value names to activate/deactivate hidden or complely undocumented features in software and even the OS. Yeah, it's really annoying. Yeah, it's not necessarily user friendly. But, no, it's not limited to OSS apps.
Everyone knows why not to put a cat in the oven.
In Denmark we have a concept of an "average person" in our legal system. If you did things that the "average person" should know are stupid then you cannot sue. The average person should know not to put cats in microwaves, yet some people still do equally stupid things and get away with sueing companies for the damages these people do to themselves.
I have no clue how infrared communication works, nor do I care, but I know that when I push the buttons on my remote, the tv should come on.
Do you send angry letters to the company that made your remote when it stops working or do you know enough to change the batteries? what about when you cannot shoot the infrared signal though a wall? Knowing just a little bit about how things work make your life a lot easier.
Do you know exactly how the ignition system on your car works?
I am required by law to know, if I want to have a driver's license. Also I am required to know stuff about how quickly I can bring a car to a full stop at various speeds. I am required to know enough not to hurt myself and others.
Likewise, if a user double-clicks on the IE icon, they may not know that it's IE that opens up, but they know that "the interweb" should come up and their home page should load.
Again, I know enough not to hurt myself or my software. People should know that they are actually putting their software and data at risc when installing untrusted software. We teach our children not to talk to strangers, let's also teach them not to install strange software.
I remember reading somewhere that design is the art of making choices. Well designed apps (or products for that matter) make good choices. Apps that don't make choices are passing the buck, in a way. Many open source developers seem reluctant to make those design choices, and pass the responsibility on to the user. Sometimes they can forget who is their target audience. Note that I don't think the Mozilla folks are in this category - Firefox is remarkably easy to install and works great with the default settings.
The best approach IMHO is to make the hard choices and bury the option settings where the geeks can easily get at them, but where Grandma is not likely to Ctrl-Alt-(whatever) her font settings to Cyrillic by mistake. (Of course if Grandma is a geek who reads Cyrillic then by all means go for it...)
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Fireb^Hfox has a HUGE number of :config options, many of which rarely (if ever) need to be used. They can't make a GUI option for all of them. In addition, it's still beta, even though most people seem to forget. So if it really bothers you, file a feature request for that specific option, and/or wait for the final release.