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Browser Wars Mark II
Nigel McFarlane writes "I have no life (humour) other than to write articles about Web technology and open technologies, and the way they mediate, enable and transform our public places and our participation opportunities. Mostly I write about Mozilla and Linux, but my latest effort is an attempted wake-up call over Web standards and the future of the Web." Self-deprecation aside, it's a decent article that summarizes the stakes well.
K-Meleon for Windows. It is Gecko without the Mozilla GUI bloat. Kind of like Safari is to the Mac.
Just as good software should be modularized and decentralized, a web browser should be just that: a secure configurable and stable html viewer. What's wrong with external video and audio players? Even flash sites could be viewed that way.
They are mostly games and fancy bloated intros mostly anyway.
This is getting to be annoying, reading all of these browser wars articles. This one happens to be good, and just makes me think - how can we, the developers of the web, stp this from happening?
Simply by NOT USING new MS technology if it alienates anyone on any platform.
It's up to us.
Quote from article: "Beyond the Foundation are many other Mozilla-enabled browsers such as Konqueror and K-Meleon"
I was under the impression that Konqueror used KHTML and not gecko...
save the GNUs!
Microsoft is attempting to reinvent the Internet with it's .NET initiative. This initiative will include MS Specific code for web services, which will undoubtedly break interoperability between platforms, and between browsers.
Microsoft wants you to use the MS Internet(trademark pending), and will make certain that HTML and XML become irrelevant. Windows.Forms is the future, unfortunately, and because they control the specs, they will win the next round of browser wars.
Konqueror is Mozilla-enabled only in the sense that Konqueror implements the Netscape plugin architecture, as does Mozilla. Konqueror does not use the Mozilla rendering engine (Gecko), but rather uses its own engine (khtml).
http://reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.shtml
In summary, the main reason why VHS succeeded was that it was superior because it had longer recording times. Betamax was crippled because the original tapes could not hold a whole movie.
Maybe im missing something but it seems pretty simple that a good browser should:
a) Support 3WC standards to the max
b) Have a separate and intelligent module for rendering badly coded websites that dont follow specs
c) Use the philosphy that the user gets the final say in what happens on their computer - if they dont want extra windows opening etc then thats their choice.
oh and d) not be full of really stupid security holes.
but of course the general public dont want that..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Smoke, Mirrors and Silence: The Browser Wars Reignite
Jooleem. Get Addicted.
Show a non-geek firefox (no, not the movie, they'll never forgive you)
;)
So far every person I have shown firefox to has installed it and started to use it, even my cousin's kids. The older one even thinks that Linux is cool, which came as a bit of a shock to me
Even Copernicus only got it marginally better than Ptolemy but it was better ENOUGH to serve for those who ehanced it, like Kepler. The point is no one really cares how great it is, it has to be only good enough to be absorbed.
And on a practical level Mozilla is far slower on older machines which is a huge disadvantage.
The next disadvantage is that you have to DO SOMETHING, e.g install it - you geeks would be amazed what a huge problem that is for 99% of mankind.
This is as good an example of a non sequitur as I have ever seen. No doubt you would be appalled if I said that your comment was not worth discussing because you don't know the difference between "its" and "it's".
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
All we care about is which one works.
For some reason I don't seem to be able to get away from IE. Whatever the reason there are still many (important) sites out there that still just don't work (properly) with non-IE browsers.
In general though, I will use Opera on win32, Safari on OS X and Fire on Linux as my preferred browsers.
That does not not mean that I don't ALWAYS try and use IE (on OS X and win32) when I find that the others still don't quite make the grade in site compatibility.
Same as the silly Beta vs. VHS war. The one that wins is the one that has the most support, and is therefore the better (out of a consumer point of view) browser.
And I think that's all that really needs saying.
PS: In my opinion, the best browsers are:
1) Safari (much faster than Opera on any platform)
2) Opera
3) Mozilla
4) IE (If it had tabbed browsing, it would be better than Mozilla!)
The browser wars of the 90's are over. Nobody is "selling" their browsers for their proprietary features. This is why you don't see many (well, not that many) IE-only pages any more - people want to be compliant.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer is too old. Features that almost every other browser has, like tabbed browsing, skins, etc. are not included, and there are so many holes it's like Swiss cheese.
Microsoft isn't pursuing it because there's no money in the browser market. As the article says, Apache is free, HTTP is free, most browsers are free, PHP, Perl, HTML, MySQL, and almost everything Internet-related is completly free (not always as in speech, but free nonetheless). Microsoft has no motivation to make an amazing browser, because it doesn't get them anything but a name (which they already have).
Over the next few years, the only good browsers will be coming from groups like Mozilla who aren't in a money-making business at all and only want to have a great, stable, secure, fast, and standards-compliant browser. They don't want to necessarily dominate the browser market (though I'm sure they'd love that) - they just want to make a good product.
That is why the browser wars are over. The good browsers will rise, the bad ones will fall - and the good browsers will only come from developers who are in it for "the cause" and not the money.
-- If you can read this, you are too close to my signature.
Yeah, after the server starts to spew out smoke, you would want some mirrors, and I have no clue where the silence fits in here.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Ugh...another buzzword and acronym-filled article. For instance:
It's the presence of standardized data in web content--whether current standards such as XHTML or some yet-unknown future standards, perhaps based on XUL--guaranteeing that the web will remain a global commons, an information highway, and a free marketplace.
XHTML is a reformulation of HTML in XML; XUL is an XML-based language that describes a computer application's graphical user interface. Not the same thing. But anyway, onto the larger pointof hysteria:
Make no mistake: Microsoft really hates the web.
Microsoft doesn't hate the Web. The Web has created a huge market for Microsoft in personal computers. Tons of PC sales are rooted in people wanting a computer to examine the "Internet" and "Web" things they've been hearing so much about. PC sales = Windows sales = Office sales. Microsoft doesn't hate the Web.
When Microsoft tempts these organizations and communities to Longhorn, the web suffers the death of a thousand cuts. Over here will be the standards-based web, with a gradually shrinking set of web sites.
This statement assumes the basic workflow:
Step 1: Develop Longhorn with Web-tainting features
Step 2: Release Longhorn
Step 3: ??????
Step 4: Profit! (and dominate Web)
No. First, you have to ensure that people will upgrade. Longhorn will be coming off the longest active life cycle of a Windows product ever; Microsoft will have to demonstrate in spades that Longhorn is worth the upgrade price, elsewise it will take at least 3-4 years of OEMs shipping Longhorn on all new PCs before it starts to attain ubiquity. Given the current ~2006 release date for Longhorn, that's 2009-2010. A lot can happen technologically during that time. Second, this assumes that the Web won't adapt to Longhorn-specific features, which it almost certainly will (and has adapted to hostile technologies every time before, often by marginalizing them). Third, it assumes that the same disparity between IE and all other browsers will remain basically static. Macs continue to sell well. Mozilla/Firefox/Camino continue to grow in popularity. XML continues to grow in popularity (which IE has significant problems with). Etc. Oh, and likely Longhorn-specific Web stuff will require server-side support; not likely to be included in Apache, which is the majority web server by a significant margin.
So I really don't buy the author's arguments here. I have no doubt MS will continue to taint the Web with MS-specific features, and I have no doubt that the Web will shrug it off. That's okay - Microsoft has other businesses. They're not now (and never have) put all their eggs in one basket.
We shouldn't allow Microsoft to take over the net. When doctoring your none-geeks friends machine, simply remove all MS-conspiracy related trash you can find
Have you ever tried removing something from someone's machine? They complain enough if you get rid of their Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor, let alone their browser.
Seriously though, removing their programs is not the way to go, and will just make people annoyed. The reaction you get if you introduce them to Firefox or Opera as a 'cool new browser' is totally different to what you get for lecturing them with your tinfoil hat on. If you give people a better alternative, they will (probably) use it, but if you try to preach about W3C standards they'll just ignore you.
I run firebird and IE, and while i use firebird in some cases and it *does* have a number of neat features and IE *does* have a number of annoyances; i could just as easily reverse the terms "firebird" and "IE" in the beginning half of this sentence and I'd be just as accurate.
IE, by the way, is massively more sophisticated than firebird from a developer's perspective. I can embed IE inside of a windows program transparently. This provides a great many USEFUL features that mozilla can't even dream of as yet.
but no, what are mere facts compared to your baldfaced assertions.
Start digging.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Of course that is not a 'plain fact'. IE does a lot of things that Mozilla doesn't (form entry isn't broken, for example). On the other hand I'm sure everyone here can name plenty things Mozilla does that IE doesn't. Mozilla may be better in the opinion of the author, and it may be better at the things that matter more to the author, but to state it's superiority as fact is a perfect example of ignorance.
The fact that the author can't spot the difference between KHTML and Gecko shows he is no position to be comparing browsers.
I have to agree, although I did read to end out of morbid fascination. Most of the article is just cheerleading for Mozilla, I dont mind that, even if he is way off on some points, but I think it should be pointed out that while Mozilla is good it has taken an inordinate amount of time to get here and has not been a smooth ride. Mozilla is not the cure for cancer. It just lets me read pages on the web or send email, nothing groundbreaking there. I wont even start on the Betamax thing for delusional examples.
The author makes the usual MS are trying to take over the world but provides no proof or indication of how this will actually happen so I take it as (based on the article) a highly biased guess.
Lastly by harping on about current standards the author clearly shows he does not have the faintest idea about where the web and desktop applications are going.
He does inadvertently raise one interesting point though. A two tier web might not actually be a bad idea. A 'commercial' one tied into useful services with rich clients delivered by XUL/XAML and another 'information' (I think information is batter than his hippie description) type web where you can use the browser of your choice. But as for saying
the new browser war is a fight for the survival of the web itself
what a load of sensationalist bull.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Face it...who do we really have to blame for Microsoft's domination here? Back when the Web really started to get on its feet, we geeks and technical users were the early adopters and were the ones who showed everyone else the Internet. And we dumped Netscape like a cheating girlfriend when Microsoft came out with something a little better. We are the ones who made Internet Explorer popular. If you still used Netscape, or "Nutscrape" as it was dubbed, you were laughed at. And now, the number of casual Internet users far outweighs the techies and geeks; it's going to be almost impossible to reverse this trend.
Uh, I can embed Mozilla in the same number of Windows Apps as I can with IE. Furtermore, I can embed Mozilla inside of a Linux or Mac OS X program. This provides a great many USEFUL features that IE can only dream of. Oh wiat, thats right, they canceled IE on Mac OS X, so they don't care! Add to that that FIREFOX provides a consistent feature set across multiple operatating systems. I guess I really can't see your point.
I don't think that's quite true. I think there is still plenty of room for commercial PHP development apps - providing they are good ones. So if Microsoft developed a really great tool I might consider buying it - well that would depend on whether it was a truly exceptional tool or another abomination like Front Page.
There is room to make money based off of free languages - you just can't force people to pay money for your tools anymore!
I hate the statement: "Dvorak superiority is a myth." The ergonomics of the Dvorak keyboard are far superior to Qwerty. Economists are in no position to debate that superiority.
In terms of the cost of switching to Dvorak then Qwerty probably has the advantage. Replaceing all those keyboards and retraining typeists would be a huge expence for little economic gain. I am suspecious of any study that shows a huge productivity gain from switching to Dvorak. Dvorak users may type faster, but most keyboard users I know are not limited by their typeing speed.
Certain economists like those who wrote the Qwerty article above hate the Dvorak keyboard. Dvorak shows that the market does not always choose the most advanced (high tech) products. There are some theories of a free market economy that rely on the market always chooseing the best. Unfortunately the Dvorak keyboard delivers quite a blow to these theories. If these economists were scientists they would rework their theories.
The Dvorak and Qwerty keyboards can be added to a list of technologies that show that a partial solution that is out first will have an advantage over a perfect solution. It is an example of The Rise of "Worse is Better". Backwards compatibility is part of the same picture.
Unfortunately I can't read it, because the stylesheet specifies a foreground colour for the body text but no background colour, so I get black on black.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
A successful business is kept alive and grows, not through forces of conviction, but through the forces of convection.
...
1) Put up a site where people can "order" Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, et al
2) Charge a reasonable fee (e.g. $5-15 USD, not $50-150 USD and not $0)
3) Take the proceeds and pay for as many ads as you can afford, all clicks pointing back to the web site
4)
5) Do not profit -- put all proceeds towards more ads
With a machine like this, you will blow away all competition.
You may think you need to know, but you'd be wrong. Simply make use of open standards and you'll be fine.
e.g.
http://www.tigertrackgps.com/
Doesn't bloody work because half the site is written in javascript which attempts to detect my web browser, because the version number is below 4, I'm apparently not allowed to see their site and I've chosen one of their competitors instead.
Deleted
My mum and dad would like to know why on-line banking doesn't work any more, please. Apparently their bank's web site has turned into some sort of marriage counselling service and warned them that they were "incompatible clients" or something.
No, please don't. The word "preach" almost implies fanaticism, and you are clearly a fanatic, in the same way RMS is clearly a fanatic. I have nothing against you or your right to believe passionately in your cause, but please understand that ultimately you are doing more harm than good, because you are burying your head in the sand. Fanatics rarely convert people long term, and they alienate far more people than they bring in.
If you want to help, then don't preach, but educate. Install Firefox or whatever alongside IE, and explain that they can use either program to surf the web, but that Firefox is safer. Make sure they know how to find IE if they come across a site that's "broken" so it doesn't work with Mozilla. But be objective, and don't stop them doing what they want to do. Evangelism is the #1 way to make smart but uninformed people think you're talking crap, and those are exactly the people you need to convert first.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Might i be the first to say (now that we have gotten off on this tangent):
"Burninate the peasents. Burninate the village. Troooooooooogdor!!!"
Thank you
Sincerly,
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
I'm sure MS would love to be like AOL was, but they missed that boat. By the time Microsoft started to make inroads into the Internet, people had already realized that there was more to it than AOL.
Microsoft tried to lure people into their own private Internet called MSN, but eventually gave in and made MSN fully interoperable with the Real Internet.
Now that MS has established itself on the Internet and attracted a large number of both consumers (MSN Messenger, Hotmail) and providers (ASP, Windows Media), they can think about locking in again.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The author is probably right about Microsoft hating the web, and he might even be right in his assertion that Longhorn is their attempt to replace it with their own thing, but he's wrong in assuming they even have a chance.
There are two reasons.
Firstly, the web is about small voices. It's not a medium for selling stuff or issuing press releases (although some people have made money doing that), it's about ordinary people saying stuff.
Remember how the web used to be, before VCs with their carpet bags full of money turned great swaths of it into a cheap version of UHF TV? Doesn't the thought of all the weasels switching to MS-Internet and going away bring a smile to your face?
Alas, it will not be, for the second reason the Longhorn Strategy will fail. Because breaking web compatibility means turning away customers and that's just not good for businesses.
Notice that all the commercial websites still around will work, at least mostly, on all sorts of browsers? Coincidence? I think not! Amazon tests their sites using Netscape 1.x! (Or they used to for a long time anyway--I don't know what their baseline is now.) That way, they know that their site will work on practically every browser out there, right out of the box.
Of course, some of the bigger e-business folks may start supporting Longhorn, but they'll stay compatible with the established standards because they don't want to lose their customers.
At this point, everyone has W3C-compliant (more or less) browsers and servers. They can all talk to each other. As soon as someone switches, they can't talk to the rest anymore and their setup becomes useless. This is why, for example, nobody has been able to replace SMTP, despite the whole spam problem.
I predict that we'll remain stuck with HTML, CSS and HTTP for a long time. The MS extensions will be a kewl technological blip that nobody will use but, if it's good, may well be lamented by future web developers as something that could have been.