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Microsoft Responds to IE Criticism
darthcamaro writes "Looks like there was an online free-for-all on Microsoft's chat servers yesterday with Internet Explorer engineers. Several interesting things come out in the story including the fact that the IE big wig thinks that all of his engineers should have other browsers installed to see what they can do and, catch this...he thinks they're the underdog. 'I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog,' said Hachamovitch. 'Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't. I welcome the feedback today. Getting informed is the only way I know to get better. The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.'" Reader nkodengar notes that "Microsoft has posted an article on MSDN listing everything that will be affected by the the updates to Internet Explorer in Service Pack 2. This will be particularly important to developers who use ActiveX controls, pop-up windows and file download counters in their websites..."
"People choose," replied Hachamovitch (IE lead engineer). "Hundreds of millions of people actively use Windows and they get to choose. Nothing in Windows as it ships keeps them from downloading other software that extends their browsing experience (e.g. the Google or Ebay toolbars) or changes it (e.g. an alternative browser)."
No they don't. Maybe I do, but I'm a computer expert.
My mom certainly has no clue that there even IS anything other than IE to use. Most of our mothers probably don't even realize that IE is not "the Internet".
There's a reason AOL is still popular with 20+ million people -- because it's easy and most computer users are idiots when it comes to technical knowledge/know-how.
I find Microsoft guility of contempt -- contempt of not upgrading their browser. They kept quoting x-million users but then saying they had a choice. No they didn't. They used what popped up when they clicked on a Web address somewhere on their computer, and they've used that default browser from Day fucking One.
Microsoft is going to be looking at major lawsuits if they don't immediately push this RC-2/SP-2 patch series out immediately. They owe it to the world and they owe it to those of us who write proprietary software that DOESN'T suck.
(P.S. GMAIL invites! I woke up this morning and saw that my other gmail account got 2 new invites, so if you reply with a funny joke about sex and befriend me, I'll give em out to my two favorite ones.)
If you liked my post,
We've seen what they said about it, now all thats left is to see what they DO about it...
It simply isn't fair to blame Microsoft for the ignorance of their users.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Perhaps MS has finally looked at themselves and figured they were behind the times with their browser technology. Sure, they might still be #1, but word spreads quick about the underlying problems and that there is actually another browser choice out there... And it's better! The security problems right now are just the icing on the cake.
Why can't you comment on them? Why wouldn't you implement the CSS3 standard? Am I missing something here?
Hmmm.
Over the years I've read several books and opinion pieces on Microsoft and their success. "Microsoft as the underdog" was a theme in many of them. I guess it's their strategy for motivating their workforce.
As a peon, what would influence you to work harder? Being told that you're the underdog and you're going to get stomped on by Sun, Apple and probably now Linux, or being told that you have a world wide monopoly in the desktop computing space and companies are throwing buckets of money at you every year despite the fact that your software is mediocre at best.
It seems like a logical thing to tell your employees. I guess they leave out the specifics of exactly where they would be classified as the underdog.
How can I tell if Internet Explorer has blocked my pop-up window?
Functions that return a window object will return null if the window is blocked. Always check the return value of window.open() before using it to avoid script errors when pop-ups are blocked.
By allowing a script to determine if the popup was blocked, it opens the floodgates for even more annoying and intrusive advertising.
Now whenever the page detects it's popup was blocked, it will force the user to view a full-screen advertising page for a pre-determined time, or other annoyances.
When will advertisers get the message. If people block pop-up windows, they do so for a reason - they are not interested in you're stupid special offers. They should spare themselves the bandwidth and everyone else the annoyance.
The default setting in IE will be to block popups.
This pretty much means that the popup window will be officially dead in a year's time.
tcd004
tabbed browsing
popup blocking
mouse gestures
Incorporate stuff like that and get a jump on the competition...
Oh, wait....nevermind.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Let's remember, while Mozilla was still on unstable milestones MS had a much more advanced and working browser. It's barely changed since then. They're dragging their asses. It must have been a decision within microsoft, there's no way they could fuck up THIS BADLY with IE development.
IE stills sucks at CSS support. The bottom line is, when I design something and test it in mozilla, it also looks fine in Opera and Safari. When I look at it in IE there's a very good chance something looks wrong due to some missing feature or weird implementation.
They just hack everything together. You can't even use css like tr:hover although a:hover works because of their shitty implementation.
Photos.
Looks like MS has now gone for secure by-default way:
1. The modal installation prompt for ActiveX controls will be initially suppressed using the Information Bar.
2. Changes would have to be made to the way some pages automatically redirect or behave differently when refreshed after a control is not installed
3. If the dialog does not provide an option to install the ActiveX control, the file might not be correctly signed. - Phew! No more hidden installs then, hopefully!
4. In SP2, the Information Bar will suppress file download prompts that are launched automatically
5. Enforcement of file-extensions to match the content-type.
6. SP2 will have the pop-up blocker that is turned on by default
7. And, finally, there are some browser window restrictions
I still don't think SP2 will be a panacea, but for corporations with a large number of users, or naive end-users, SP2 should bring a sigh of relief...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Getting informed is the only way I know to get better. The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.
Every time you complain to any software company about a bug, a misfeature, or a problem, you are giving them something pretty valuable, something they would otherwise have to pay a lot of money to find through testing. But all your investment in time and bug reporting is repaid by--having to pay for the next upgrade.
It's like sending the company a $50 donation and then still paying $200 for the next upgrade.
That's one of the reasons why it is so important to use open source alternatives when available: when you report bugs in OSS, you don't pay for the resulting improvements over and over again.
Users, not programmers or lines of code, are the most valuable asset any software project has.
The point is that it a user can't expect to just sit on their ass and have someone else inform them about all their choices.
It's called personal responsibility. If there is a Ford dealership close to my house and all I ever do is buy Fords, should Ford be held liable when all my cars fall apart?
Get informed. Use your brain. Own up to the fact that you have to actually make your own choices.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I think there is a common misconception that non computer experts are completely clueless. Now before you give me cupholder stories, peep this. A while ago I visited my mother who is in no way a computer expert. To my surprise, I saw a Mozilla icon on the desktop. I asked her if she used it and she said yes. She had downloaded it after hearing on the news how insecure IE was. She did the install (next, next, next, finish) and started using it no problem.
Now she doesn't do all the power user stuff but the point is that with a basic understanding of computer usage she was able to kick the IE habit.
Don't underestimate the ability of the average user to see the problems that IE has and to move away from it. Apathy however can be powerful and I think that's the main culprit.
Blaze a trail to the New World
One thing that Slashdotters tend to forget in their eagerness to hold Microsoft in contempt is that they are not stupid.
They may not have much respect for the typical consumer, be slow to respond, and ship buggy software, but they are anything but stupid.
From their standpoint, there really is not much imperative need to respond to complaints until they become critical enough to convince a common user to switch to a competing product.
But when it becomes apparant that such a thing is happening, they can and will respond.
END COMMUNICATION
am willing to take the responsibility of repeatedly kicking them in the nuts if it'll make them develop better code.
I didn't know they welcome the 'heated feedback'. Poor things...all they had to do was ask.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Which, frankly, sucks because there are so many features on Firefox that I like, but it's so slow that I can't use it for everyday browsing.
My question is this: Are we so anti-Microsoft that we'll settle for clunkier software without complaint, just because it's not made by Microsoft? Where is the hue and cry for a faster, more responsive Firefox? Why do we accept things without complaint just because we admire the politics of the developers?
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Oh great, they're looking at possibly, maybe doing more to support CSS3.
WTF? I don't want them to add more CSS, I want them to get what they have working like it should.
All the designers I have worked with are mad as hell. The amount of hacks they have to use to produce CSS that is cross-browser compatible and doesn't look like shit on IE is absurd, and the extra time spent on that is killing my budgets.
In other words, I'm mad as hell with IE and Microsoft. I don't really give a damn that IE doesn't have tabbed browsing, or that it ships with insecure defaults. Couldn't give a rat's ass about the lack of pop-up blocking. I care that every f'ing simple web design project's budget has to account for a few extra hours getting their shit working properly.
When FF hits 1.0, I'll go on a mission to convert as many people from IE. I hope others do the same; maybe this will help M$ wake up and smell the standards.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
What's so special about file download counters that will cause them to break in the new version of IE? I thought they were server-side anyway?
Since it's more difficult to configure a web server to count downloads of all file types, people often use a PHP script which redirects to the target file.
For example http://server.com/getfile.php?file=test.exe
The PHP script updates the server-side counter and then redirects the user to the real file they wanted.
Ever seen those "Your download should start in 5 seconds..." messages?
The new behaviour will make it impossible to automatically pop up a file download dialog, rendering this type of download counter/anti-leech script usless.
No. All of the IE engineers should have a twelve-year-old kid use their computer at night while they're out of the office. Maybe after uninstalling a few thousand pieces of spyware they'll reconsider some of their basic design choices.
"People choose," replied Hachamovitch (IE lead engineer). "Hundreds of millions of people actively use Windows and they get to choose. Nothing in Windows as it ships keeps them from downloading other software that extends their browsing experience (e.g. the Google or Ebay toolbars) or changes it (e.g. an alternative browser)."
What a load of shit. I spent 8 hourts on line with MS tech support trying to disable IE entirely from my system. You see, when you remove it, the system recreates it. And even when it isn't there, it uses a default installed version which is integrated into the system.
Microsoft tech support has NO CLUE on how to remove it so I messaed around and came up with a way to have all Microsoft apps default to using Firefox instead
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
If you buy a Ford and the radio only plays The Ford Station and you need to get a gas tank adapter to use anything but Ford Gas do you think Ford might be held responsible when someone plays a song on The Ford Station that makes Ford Gas explode?
What have the IE engineers been doing for the last three years? Handing out towels in the rest rooms?
Before you folks even THINK about implementing outrageous and curiously new features like... Tabbed Browsing or ActiveX, why don't you seriously think about the fact that the core part of IE is a load of junk. How about making the render engine RENDER XHTML and CSS2 properly?! IMPLEMENT THE STANDARDS *COMPLETELY.*
... what a concept ... have it render properly in IE!
I, along with so many other developers are sick and tired of hacking our otherwise perfectly valid and conforming CSS and markup to make it display properly in the hack you call a browser, which has remained virtually unchanged since the *conception* of Mozilla's Gecko engine. Before you start implementing *parts* of CSS3, why don't you fully and *PROPERLY* implement CSS2? Have you seen the numerous sites dedicated to Internet Explorer specific CSS hacks? You are the most HATED browser. Developers are outraged. It's ridiculous. No one CHOOSES to use IE.
I feel guilty about flaming you on CSS support. I'd much rather see the browser and company just collapse under the power and superior quality of Free and Open Source software. But since that's not going to happen any time soon, and since you're not going to be shipping Firefox or an alternative with your POS software you call an Operating System, and since it's unfortunate that somewhere like 90% of the population uses that abomination you call Internet Explorer... my head would stop spinning so fast if I could just write valid XHTML markup and valid CSS and
Just stop trying and give up, for the good of the common man. Really. Your days are numbered, so why not take some time to think about the good old days, and just let natural progression drag you under.
Thank you.
FireFox has been faster (and I mean FASTER) for some time than IE.
And for features, how does IE have more features when you get tabbed browsing and popup blocking in Mozila or FireFox?
What "features" does IE have that FireFox is lacking?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ford would be held liable. Remember the Firestone/Ford deal with the bad tires? If a company 's product causes you physical harm because they're negligent, they'll get sued. So why not the same if a company's product causes all your personal information/identity to get stolen?
Check back to the Netscape trial and read Microsoft's rational for "integrating" the browser with the OS.
Also, check the comments of people who said that doing so would INCREASE the security risks.
Now, read the comments TODAY about the security holes attributed to IE and how difficult it is for Microsoft to fix them.
This is NOT a problem of "the ignorance of their users".
This is a problem that stems from an IDIOTIC approach to security that was motivated by the desire to destroy Netscape as a company.
The sound of the world's smallest violin.
Awwww poor, MS!
People don't choose IE. It's a default icon on their desktop and the default broswer in the file associations. Most Joe Sixpack users just don't know any better or are afraid to change or too lazy to change. If they do happen to know that they *can* change, they probably don't know *how* and are too lazy to find out or afraid because computers intimidate the average user.
If the Browser-Fairy were to suddenly change the target of the desktop icon on every computer all over the world from iexplorer.exe to firefox.exe, the market share for IE would go to something like 10% or less. Very few users would make the effort to switch it back. IE is a virtual monopoly because Windows is a desktop monopoly. There is no conscience choice involved.
I'd say that the problem MS has (other than a tendency to unfairly dominate the market) is that they are *too* reliant on the end-user. All too often with MS, it really *is* a feature and not a bug.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
My point is that it's not Ford's problem if someone keeps buying their lower-quality vehicles. They could easily walk further down the street to the Toyota dealership and get a better-made car. But they don't bother taking the personal responsibility to get informed.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Actually, returning null when window.open() is blocked is the usual behavior for Firefox, and I assume for most other popup-blockers, as well. If memory serves, window.open() returns the window it creates so that you can further manipulate it from your code. Thus, no windows created --> null return value. Those of you with popup blockers can test the functionality here.
The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.
Funnny, I thought having the Department Of Homeland Security recommending other browsers because of the abysmal security was plenty of reason for concern.
One can say that of Windows and IE. But Office, where Microsoft makes its money, won out in a crowded field. Gates once said, of how Office began, "We asked developers to develop for Windows, and they said no. So we asked Microsoft's Application Division, and they didn't have that option." Many of Microsoft's competitors in office-type programs stayed with DOS too long. Lotus (of Lotus 1-2-3, not Notes) was bigger than Microsoft until the early 1990s.
Today, Office is where Microsoft makes its big money. Windows makes some money, and everything else (XBox, MSN, tools. etc. loses money). The real threat to Microsoft is not Linux. It's OpenOffice.
I agree that they are taking advantage of their ill informed users, but the fact that the users remain ill-informed is not all Microsoft's fault. It just so happens that users are lazy, and microsoft pretends that they are trying to spoon feed them. They, of course, aren't, becuase they can profit from lazy users. Being a support guy, I know how people intentionally don't learn how to use computers effectively becuase they can always just bug someone like me when I come over for dinner about those annoying popups. I've stopped helping people fix their machines over dinner, but that won't make them look any harder, the kid next door who 'knows all about computers' is just as likely to embolden their laziness in attempt to make himself look smart. He'll learn someday, but there's always another one to pick it up later...
Speak for yourself.
If you buy a Ford and the radio only plays The Ford Station and you need to get a gas tank adapter to use anything but Ford Gas do you think Ford might be held responsible when someone plays a song on The Ford Station that makes Ford Gas explode?
That is not a fair comparison. Windows doesn't force you to use any of Microsoft's products (with the exception of IE for WindowsUpdate).
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
MS does not try to create innovate products for customers. All MS does is look at where it is losing market share, then quickly hack a barely functional product that will keep customers from leaving. The world went GUI, a year later MS had a GUI. The Internet happened, a year later MS had a browser. Customer started putting servers on commodity hardware, much later MS had server software. This has been the case with media players, music services, nearly everything. Even the wonderful Excel was based on other popular products.
MS needs to give up the browser. It was a ill thought out reaction to the fear of losing market share, and all the problems result from the bad engineering that occurs when people are in a hurry. IE makes a fine application frontend, and they should concentrate on promoting it for that use. Data servers on the back end, the local IE rendering the GUI.
This will not happen because MS quality cannot compete in the open marketplace, and though many will continue to use IE due to the tight integration with other MS products, others will use the change as an opportunity to move to more reliable solutions.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Of course!
This is a fundamental part of the culture at MS. They nuture the "underdog feeling" there in order to remain so fiercely competitive -- even when the product is a near-monopoly.
I saw this when I was an intern on the Excel team some 10 years ago -- the team leaders took pride in obsessing over what the competition was doing, and acting almost as if the company were going to go out of business in 3 months if they didn't.
If this applies to the marketing/legal departments too, that would explain a lot of MS's behavior.
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
Microsoft *are* that car manufacturer, but they're just continually saying that it's the fault of the owner, for not reading the tiny warning label printed at the back of the battery tray, only visible when you get under the bonnet with a torch.
Maybe, if Ford was the only car manufacturer you knew about.
Maybe if when you drove car you didn't see any other cars.
Maybe if almost all your friends and neighbors drove Fords, except for the graphic designer down the street who drives a deisel BMW.
Maybe if the other person you know who doesn't drive a Ford is one guy from your IT department... and he drives a Chevy that runs off of used vegetable oil.
Maybe if schools provided their students with Fords and your work provides you with a Ford.
Maybe if switching to a Mercury requires that you tow it home with your Ford, and you have to keep the Ford around, not only because you cannot get rid of it, but also in case there is a road the Mercury can't drive on.
What would we ever do without these wonderful features?
What the crap have they been doing for the last THREE years? Playing Halo?
Check out some of these release dates:
6.0 --> 31-Dec-2001
6.0 SP1 --> 28-Aug-2002
I thought IE on the Mac was dead... judging by their release schedule, IE on the PC has been dead for years. Any other software company that waited *years* to release their next version of internet software (or an operating system, no less) would be dead in the water.
What really makes me mad is they drove other browsers into the ground during the war, only to sit on their haunches and enjoy the elimination of their competition. Thank goodness for Mozilla, or we'd all be in real trouble.
Get to work MS.
--J
I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog
"..but they paid me too much for doing too little which is why I have stayed here 14 years."
Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't.
"It's going to be just as difficult in future."
I welcome the feedback today.
"...but I'm going to do nothing about it."
Getting informed is the only way I know to get better.
"I've really messed up in the past."
The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.
"..because that means our products work as they should and I'll be out of a job."
To defend Microsoft a little, they are not the only purveyors of corporate bullsh*t. But I get so annoyed that they think we, as the general public, cannot immediately see through this coverage of facts.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
notice how they kept side-stepping the questions about being W3C compliant!
Obviously if they were 100% compliant then web developers would stick to the standards, and any compliant browser would work and IE would start to lose market share.
Notice that his responses kept repeating the "needing to support current customer configs". What he really means is "ensuring continued customer lock-in to IE and Windows".
I bet they had PR coaches sitting right next to them the whole time the chat was going on.
Hilarious!
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
I think it's a good development. For one, it means that not everyone will go over to firefox. I wouldn't want everyone on firefox, just as I don't want everyone on internet explorer. I want there to be some sort of balance.
I'm fine with a vast majority of people using IE once this service pack comes through for XP. If it does what they want it to, and they aren't putting themselves at risk, then I'm all for it.
My concern is for the users on legacy operating systems, who will never get an internet explorer update. They will still be vulnerable to exploitation. As they still comprise a surprising amount of internet users, this is some cause for concern. Any news on if Microsoft will be releasing the updates to IE as a standalone upgrade? Or are these things specific to the operating system?
The conspiratorial part of me wonders if Microsoft was planning this all along. To leave the browser abandoned so people get scared about security issues, and then release the fix for many security issues as a Windows XP only service pack.
"If the Content-type ProgID for a given file does not match the file extension ProgID, Internet Explorer in XP SP2 may take the following actions: 1) the user may be prompted to download the file and 2) the file will not be executed in the extension-handler if it fails to execute in the mime-handler."
I'm not so sure I like or agree with that one.
MIME types are there for a reason, so I can serve anyfile.anyext as text/html or image/jpeg. Or name.hubba as a Quicktime movie. I'd expect both to work, since that's what MIME types are for...
Extensions are a bad hack, and a relic from the DOS era. They should get rid of them instead of enforcing them (yeah, I know Mac OS X partially fell for extensions also, poor sods).
aint life cool?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Part of the reason MS thinks of itself as an underdog is their inability to really innovate. They've never been first in any software category - they're good enough to be the last man standing, but that requires competence and persistence, not innovation.
Their marketing and sales force has the general public convinced they're brilliant innovators, but among their technical peers, they're behind the curve. We know it, they know it, and it gives them an inferiority complex a mile wide.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
The metaphorical Ford isn't forcing me to buy their radio. I can go down to Mobile One and install a Concord in an even exchange. Ford isn't forcing me to use Ford Gas, they even provide a free adapter via the mail. They still don't tell me that I can replace the radio and I have to find out about the gastank adapter through Consumer Reports.
Microsoft isn't forcing you to use their dangerous browser, but they make it sufficiently hard that it's taken several years before more than a tiny fraction of the users are thinking about using something else...
You're absolutely right. There shouldn't be any browser included with any OS. That way everyone would be forced to go on the internet and down... DOH!
This creates an environment on the web browser that makes it easy to include flaw after flaw, because the developers who work on it (while totally decent), are not really good enough to encourage quality coding from the get go in such a manner that would prevent these kinds of things from occuring. ActiveX, while nice, is bloated and has far too many problems, and it is unecessary and not cross-browser compatible, along with many of the other things in IE that make it so powerful.
The simple solution is to resimplify IE, and remodularize it in such a way that there are bug fixes released for downloadable modules, and not the browser itself. There should be a default browser that doesn't have all of the BS that would enable some user to take over your computer. By disabling this, it would remove millions in cost from the people of the world, simply by not allowing as many viruses to get pushed around.
Therefore, I believe that the solution for Microsoft is simplification. That simple step would make certain items on the web incompatible for a while, but I think that the only time a commercial venture really needs to use ActiveX is when it is dealing with some for of subscribing end user or when programming in intranet type application.
Of course, windows won't do this because they are interested in aesthetics and ease of use for the end user, which also creates ease of use for the people who write viruses as well.
> When I drive my Subaru it doesn't pop-up ads for Ford.
When you drive your Subaru, the radio plays ads for Ford. And Chevy. And Kia, &c
> When I drink my Starbucks I don't get told that I could also be drinking Folgers.
When you go to the grociery store, you see House Blend next to #10 cans of Folgers.
> If your ignorant mother had a computer that had no web browser on it would she know a different way to get to the Internet, find an FTP site that has browsers for download, retrieve one, and install it?
Non-sequiter. Would anyone not familiar with the technology know how?
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
How often to people give heated feedback to, for example, Mozilla/Firefox? I personally find the browser to slow and clunky in many ways, which is why I use IE and a popup blocker (Google Toolbar) rather than Mozilla, for sheer speed.
Only 18 months ago Mozilla was considered a poster child for a failed free software project. It was ridiculed frequently on this forum for being slow, buggy, etc... Then along comes Firefox. How short the collective memory is! The Mozilla developers fought through it all. They deserve our highest esteeme.
an ill wind that blows no good
Its also easy to keep using fossil fuels, is it the fault of the energy companies that make money off of fossil fuels that customers are too damn lazy to look for alternatives?
That's because they don't fucking read books.
As far as I am concerned, people who do not take their own lives seriously enough to read and educate themselves get the miserable lives they deserve.
Think it's callous? Watch discovery channel and note that the lioness goes for the antelope that limps.
A while back I was at a restaurant. I was also working in the restaurant industry, so I know good customer service skills. The manager at that Burger King on Sherman Way in Reseda treated his customers like dirt. Now, I though: "that's unfair" and I wanted to go tell him. Yet I thought to myself: "why should I help this man run his restaurant better? He'll just compete against me better. Fuggedaboutit."
(I'll get to MS in a second)
As I was driving away, I was thinking about the customers that go to that place. You know, the ones that don't know any better.
Now, you know, Microsoft understands that 90% of the world's people are generally stupid and uneducated. They cater to them. They give them crappy software that makes lUsers feel smart (in retrospect, it's hard, you know, to make something that makes a stupid person feel smart), they take their money, treat them like dirt (no phone support, no email support, we'll sue your ass if you steal from us), and the customers just love it...
I have no sympathy for those users.
I wish microsoft good luck in their endehavor to cater to the stupid 95%.
If that's what we open source people want to cater to, I say watch out. It's harder than it seems to make a stupid person go "this was easy". There's gonna be a lot of good high quality complex and powerful software that's gonna become mundaine and everyday for the everyman, thus absolutely unuseable by the people who have to get the work done.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Here's where Apple advertises competing browsers on APple's website:
u ti lities/
u ti lities/opera.html/ macosx/internet_uti lities/mozillafirefox.htmld ownloads/macosx/internet_uti lities/mozillacamino.htmlo wnloads/macosx/internet_uti lities/cyberduck.htmlo ads/macosx/internet_uti lities/icab.html
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_
Including:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_
http://www.apple.com/downloads
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.apple.com/d
http://www.apple.com/downl
Where's Microsoft's version of these pages?
In what way is that different from any other industry though? I don't remember buying a Nissan that included an ad for a Mazda in the glovebox. If people have heard of other browsers (which most have, even if it is just Netscape 4.7), then they KNOW of the alternatives...if they aren't able to download and install them that is there fault.
Think about these scenarios for a second:
Microsoft doesn't include ANY sort of browser in the default Windows install. Only the technically literate will be able to get a browser using commandline FTP tools. This limits people's access to other browsers more than the current situation.
Microsoft includes Mozilla and IE in its default Windows install. This is something we would NEVER expect any other company to do. See the Nissan/Mazda example above. Also, what about people that don't like EITHER, should they also include Opera and Konqueror ports?
Windows installs only Mozilla by default. Same song, different pitch. Not only will M$ never do this they have no reason to be expected to do it, nor would this change the situation. Eventually everyone would use Mozilla and people would bitch about it and complain that M$ was forcing them to use Mozilla.
Personally, I hate M$ and IE. I use Gentoo/XFCE4/Firefox at home (have to use IE at work...), but this is an area where we really can't FIX the problem in any way other than doing our best to make people aware of the alternatives and helping them install the software if they can. Also we should do our best to stop new sites from using IE-centric features or just blindly assuming they are being viewed on a Win 9x/NT system using IE.
MSN == Eloi
It's about time we face facts and start acting accordingly.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Interesting position. However, there are consequences -- namely, even the intelligent and educated are affected by the "choices" of the ignorant. Case in point -- spam, viruses, worms, etc. flood the internet, eat up storage and bandwitdth, and reduce productivity. Extra time and money must be allocated to hire and train people to combat the problem.
Here's another -- I read an article in a medical journal a few years back. It discussed doctors giving too many antibiotics to the ignorant masses -- who demand antibiotics for everything from a common cold to a stubbed toe. This results in selecting for antibiotic-resistant bacteria -- super-bugs, if you will. The result is disease that can no longer be combatted by antibiotics. There are several bacteria that now exhibit resistance to penicillin -- for a long time, the most powerful weapon in the antibiotic arsenal.
It is in the best interests of EVERYONE that people lose their ignorance. Many need help to do it. Are you going to chip in? Or are you going to sit on the sidelines when the social, environmental, and financial systems collapse and giggle about how fucking smart you are?
95%+ of all gas stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY gas protected by patents.
95%+ of tire stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY tires protected by patents.
95%+ of mechanic shops service FORD ONLY cars
95%+ of of all auto parts stores sell FORD ONLY proprietary parts.
95%+ of etc, etc This situation was created by Ford because of their illegal monopoly and tactics. The others went were the money is just to survive. If Ford had not been an illegal monopoly and engaged in anti-competitive tactics, competition would have come along and made the market much better overall.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
To be completely fair, it's taken several years for people to start discovering other browsers because it's taken several years for there to come into existance a free browser worth switching to.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Microsoft engineers users' perception such that they are led to believe that IE is the only web browser.
It's not a matter of being too lazy to download Firefox, it's a matter of not knowing it exists because Microsoft's marketing has conditioned them to think IE = The Internet.
This is not a bad thing in general. This is what every company's marketing department dreams of: making their product synonomous with the service. Kleenex and Band-Aid are both other companies that have done this successfully.
Why do users equate IE with the Internet? Where did Microsoft go wrong here? What were they supposed to do? Not include a browser with the OS? Have links to competing browsers on the desktop?
I don't think the number of IE-only sites are the reason for Microsoft's browser dominance. They are the result of them.
IE is a fast and effective browser that for a time was the best available. Now users are starting to realize that it is no longer the best and hasn't been for some time now. Consumers use whatever is the best for them until something better for them comes a long.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
IE is used all over windows - not just for web browsing. They really have integrated the damn thing into everything.
Not so sure on the "Ford" analogy, but one I have may be close. I have a Volvo that has a Bose stereo. It had a POS in-dash changer that died. Talked to the dealer and they are notoriously shitty, and are constantly being replaced (for $450 for a refurb unit.) So I go looking for third party replacements. The old bose was a 5 speaker system (center in the dash.) No normal stereo supports that. Fine - I won't use the 5th. Then I find out that the bose "system" has little amps at each speaker so that means I have to replace all the speakers too! Well, this starts getting Very expensive, very invasive, etc. so I end up getting an Alpine changer with FM modulator and keeping the half-broken old bose system because of the tight integration.
This reminds me Very much of IE in Windows. Yes, I can use an alternative browser for some stuff, but the integrated IE is still there and used for other stuff I have no control over (more than just WU.)
People just keep saying over and over that the users are just as much fault for not educating themselves. There is a reason why Slashdot users know about IE, Adaware, Linux and the new OS X system. We like learning about this stuff. Should I be accused of being lazy because I don't know how to cross-stitch? No, that just doesn't interest me and I could live out my life happily not knowing it. Many people feel that way about computers and we shouldn't call them lazy for not drilling into technical things when they really have no interest to do so. If I buy a PC from any store, I get Windows and IE...done deal. People should not be blamed for not knowing about Firefox, Safari and other options like that. It is up to a business to support the public interest of the business and since Mozilla is distributing Firefox free, don't expect advertising. Therefore it seems like the necessary advertising for Firefox is word-of-mouth and that seems to fall on users. Since Firefox's main users are techies, it's fate rests on us telling our mom's, not Microsoft. My mom is afraid of computers; she's not going to download Firefox any more than I'm going to learn how to stitch with her.
This has nothing to do with personal responsibility. If I purchased a DVD player that had bad wiring that could start a fire, would I be required to take it apart and solder myself? What if the DVD player were just defective? I still would not be required to fix it. The maker or a tech would do it at the makers expense. Liability for paid-for software should be no different. Note: paid-for software does not include closed sourced software that is free of charge. Basically, if you pay for a product, the maker of that product should be financially responsible to a certain extent.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I have to buy special "Macintosh" software, and if I add any third-party product (like memory or disk drives), Apple won't service it, even if I'm paying for the repairs.
OK, name one operating system that doesn't require applications to be written/compiled specifically for it. Name one operating system that you can run Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris, and OS/2 binaries on natively. Can't think of any? That's what I thought.
And Apple WILL service your machine if you add RAM and hard drives. What you stated is an outright lie. If your 3rd party devices are the cause of your problem however, why should apple fix/replace components that they didn't supply? Are you going to go to Dell when the Crucial memory you bought goes on the fritz?
You, sir, have no idea what you are talking about.
I don't think the number of IE-only sites are the reason for Microsoft's browser dominance. They are the result of them.
Neither one of those explanations tells the whole story. In reality it's a recursive circle. IE-only sites exist because IE is popular because IE-only sites exist because IE is popular because IE-only sites exist...
The first "base case" of this recursion was Microsoft making sure that IE exists on every single installation of Windows. That made web site developers think "If I develop for IE, I get most of the users, if I develop for something else I don't. Even if a user of Windows prefers something else to IE, I know that at least they have IE available as a fallback when they can't use my site in Netscape." (Of course the notion that it is good to develop for *all* browsers is alien to a lot of people).
The actual quality of IE versus the competition is irrelevant to this scenario.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.