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Browser Wars 2004
J. Hobbs writes "Recent posts on David Hyatt's site describing the new technology he's working on for Dashboard, coupled with recent announcements from the newly formed WHAT-WG alliance (Apple, Mozilla, and Opera) could add up to a potentially new kind of application development and deployment that I explore in this highly speculative essay. See if you don't agree..."
I'd like to see Internet Explorer become obselete as much as the next guy, but the more IE continues to develop--as they inevitably be forced to do if this plugin is released--the more competition there will be on the browser market. That's a Good Thing.
Come on Anonymous Coward, you know you have been first before.
Sure it is good one but I'm looking to get rid of IE bugs,virues etc first. Browser must be fast and should have simple built in option to clear cache, priacy stuff as soon as you close it.
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
Seems like we've been there before with MSIE 4. It didn't work well then, why should we expect it to work well now?
-- There is no spoon. Only fork.
Yea its good to see more technology in the way of browsing, of course we will always have browser wars but we will benefit from it by the development of these new technoligies for our personal use while browsing the web.
If only Mozilla had the ability to run the Google tool bar and display page rank...
xoduszero cctv packages
Gamblers Forum
How about making Mozilla and FireFox a bit faster and less memory hungry? I know, I know, I should buy faster computers. But there are so many cases where that's difficult or impossible. I would love to recycle older machines as browsing-boxes for friends, relatives, even libraries if only they ran Mozilla somewhat faster. There's still life left in a PII-350.
If you blur the line between desktop and web browser, the don't you essentially become no diffrent than Internet Explorer, only cross platform? I suppose it could be neat if done correctly but I fear that this could just open Mozilla and others up for some nasty Internet Explorer-esque exploits.
The Surfin Safari webpage shows David Hyatt's public weblog discussion on the matter of the Safari HTML extensions, it is a very interested read. (David Hyatt is the lead engineer at Apple on WebCore, Safari's rendering engine.)
I like competition as much as the next guy, but I'm worried that if this turns into a "Browser War" we're going to end up with conflicting standards: widgets that only work with Microsoft products, and then widgets that only work with Mozilla/Opera/KHTML. And then we'd be stuck coding two different versions of each widget, or doing hacks like are currently done in CSS to get it to work on winIE.
See PRGoogleBar. It's not yet up to speed with the new FireFox extension format, but it does work.
Mod me flamebait, but are we intentionally excluding Microsoft from the browser development community now? Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, Opera, and Sun are definitely interested in causing Microsoft to become financially insolvent. If Microsoft were defeated, those corporations -- corporations that also attempt to profit and dominate markets -- would lose their incentive to remain "benevolent." Competition is good, and the Microsoft engineers have probably learned from many of their mistakes; thus, they may actually be able to contribute valid advice here.
Do you like German cars?
once this is complete M$ will include it in IE7 + their own proprietry plugins that will render websites unviewable without IE7
Damn, I left my good sig in my other pants
I see a lot of news lately promoting a movement towards 'alternative browsers', and while it sounds interesting, I think there are some downsides.
1. How will I update this browser when the next security vulnerability affects my new browser? How will home users, or worse yet, businesses, patch these vulnerabilities? I can deploy an IE patch to 5000 systems in an hour. How will I do that with these alternative browsers?
2. These browsers are good bets from a security point now, but why would they be safe in 6 months, or a year? As these browsers gain market share, they will be everyone's new favorite target, and there for no better off. Additionally, users will clamor for the same features, bells, and whistles IE has, so these new browsers, I believe, will become just as big, from an attack vector standpoint, as IE is today.
I think my point is this, switch browsers because it's a better product for *you*, don't switch because of security. Why not? Because anything computer related will be compromised.
Bottom line.
If you want to be completely secure, unplug your computer from the internet, and buy a roll of stamps.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Not peace!
I think that one competition we may see in the alternate browsing community is KHTML (Konqueror and Safari) versus Gecko (Netscape and Mozilla-based). I feel that one of the weaknesses of the OSS/FS community is to fight over small things, when a bigger problem is at hand.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
Everyone wants newer, better, faster, but what happened to just coding a site or webpage using HTML 2.0 or less?
I have my webpages render perfectly just using TABLE tags. What is wrong with these people?
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
>I can deploy an IE patch to 5000 systems in an hour. How will I do that with these alternative browsers?
The same way you do the IE patch - using SMS. If you use SUS instead, then add SMS to your list of neat-o technologies and voila.. you can push out auto-updates to ANY app - not just MS ones.
Thats of course ignoring startup scripts, domain login scripts, and good-old-fashioned "You must install this app or your email access will be restricted until you do". Lots of alternatives.
>These browsers are good bets from a security point now, but why would they be safe in 6 months, or a year?
Because they are designed with better security paradigms - they don't by default trust DATA as EXECUTIBLE CODE.
>As these browsers gain market share, they will be everyone's new favorite target, and there for no better off
Wrong. See Apache v. IIS. Far more Apache servers, and its attacked far less than IIS, and far less effectively. Market share != vulnerability. Even if it did, alternative browsers wont reach "majority" status for AT LEAST two years - even at the current-this-week migration %'s.
>Additionally, users will clamor for the same features, bells, and whistles IE has
Users already clamor for the features, bells, and whistles that IE *DOESNT* have that the other browsers have - tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and *real* css and png support. So much so that - oh look - SP2 will fix some of those "issues".
>don't switch because of security. Why not? Because anything computer related will be compromised.
Somethings are compromised more easily - security is rarely black and white, and it definitely isnt here.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Huh. I have to give it to Microsoft. If everything in that article is true, they'll probably own this round of thr browser war hands down.
v sick
I can deploy an IE patch to 5000 systems in an hour.
Check out Remote Desktop for Apple. I am sure their are plenty of Open Source alternatives. Hell, I could even write a Windows AT job that checks a directory and runs any executables inside it. All you have to do is write a self-installing executable(most have -silent installs).
These browsers are good bets from a security point now, but why would they be safe in 6 months
Stupid Questions. Administrators have to be ready to update software and I consider it their job to know what exploits are in the wild. Yes, this means you have to do a job and be aware.
I think my point is this, switch browsers because it's a better product for *you*, don't switch because of security.
Not really a lot of questions here, but you switch because of security in the business world especially if the other product is a liability. Due to IE, Windows is becoming a liability. The switch makes sense if you don't want to jump to a more secure OS like Linux or OSX. And yes, these OS's are more secure whether you want to believe it is the minor footprint, obscurity or whatever. The point is, they are not a liability at this current time.
Peace
I thought Safari was the best until I ran into a new website using Flash 7.0 which I wasn't prompted for nor asked to download and it wasn't until I tried it on my Win2000 machine that I figured out what was wrong.
Just stop it. Just stop moving forward until the rest of us catch up before you deploy the next level of interactivity to the web.
IE is dead in the water if you listen to the government. Too bad the entire world isn't listening to the American Government.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
Firefox has the google toolbar... Works quite well.
:: Website Hosting :: Business Information Systems
Greg.
GreenTree Software
Website Design
"Sometimes you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" Bruce C0ckburn
I care more about a web content war. Like when is there going to be an open source initiative to put Flash out of business?
As soon as most of the people on the web have broadband, such content will be king.
Open Source Sushi
The article told me, "You're probably wondering what advantage this will give you over today's plug-ins." Then it tells me I can just drag plug-ins to run them. I don't see how this is different from just clicking a link to run an XPI. He talks about dragging them off the page so they sit in a persistent window. What's so different from just clicking a link that opens a seperate browser window itself? And with Mono/.NET, we will already have net-based applications that blur the line between desktops and browsers, but without even needing a browser to begin with.
I guess I just think it's a neat idea, but I don't see what the advantage is or why I should care considering what's already out there.
"If you blur the line between desktop and web browser, the don't you essentially become no diffrent than Internet Explorer, only cross platform?"
Isn't THAT different enough (cross platform)? With things like FLEX and XUL. Rich web apps will soon be here. As for your "open up" like IE. Well OSS has already shown that it can deliver the goods without making MS sized security mistakes.
Anyone else read it,
(Apple, Mozilla, and Opera) could add up to a potentially new kind of application development and deployment that Iexplore
Ok, its official, I'm a nerd. go moz.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Browser Wars is something that I despise
For it means you can kiss standards good-bye
For it means tears in thousands of coders eyes
When they have 2 sets of code to mess up their lives
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Browser War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
Browser War
Friend only to the patent maker
Browser War is the enemy of all Webkind
The thought of another browser war blows my mind
Handed down from Corporation to generation
Induction destruction
Who wants standards to die
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Browser War has shattered many OSS giver's dreams
Made their widgets disabled and broke, Free Time is too precious to be coding indoors each day
Browser War can't give family life it can only take it away
Browser War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
Browser War
Friend only to the patent maker
Open Source, Standards and understanding
There must be some place for these things today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord there's gotta be better than MS'S way
That's better than
Browser War
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Browser War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
What happened to programming everything in assembler via a command-line?
Damn all this new-fangled technological progress. Let us embrace stagnancy, because it's old, which makes it better.
All Microsoft has to do is to make their "Dashboard-alike" support just slightly broken and keep it that way. People will be forced to choose or keep separate development trunks, and we have the same fucking problem that we do today.
Why? Cause the damn browser is bundled into the OS and people can't choose to use one that isn't broken.
Fuck you DOJ. Do your damn job already.
ActiveDesktop. Ads and crap floating on the desktop. *shudder* The sleazy side of the 'net always takes advantage of the new-fangled technology we think is gonna be so great and utopian.
By the time thats released, firefox will already have machine learning and we won't even need to browse anymore! Our computers will do it for us! Let's see what IE does then :) In all seriousness though, thats just what they plan, they also planned WinFS which is falling apart and was supposed to be the biggest part of longhorn. In two to three years when MS does release all their big new shiny toys, just think how much further Linux, etc.. will all be. Look at how much we've progressed since 2000 or so. I mean alot of of big thigns are gonna be happening soon like DRM and 64-bit computing. People might hate microsoft for DRM if implemented poorly. And linux and apple already have a huge lead on windows for 64-bit computing. So we'll see how it plays out, this will be an interesting next 5 years.
Regards,
Steve
> to clear cache, priacy stuff
;)
Are you missing a V, or did you just misplace that R?
The unofficial
What happened to the Web as a medium for conveying information ? Forget these gewgaws, they're a waste of time and bandwidth and aren't compatible across the board like say... HTML 3.2 (that's what I try to code my pages to, loosely). You don't need iframes (which don't show up right in glinks), heavy formatting, popups, layers, etc., just get to the bloody point!
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Amazing how you got all that from the link in the parent post. You might want to check it again...
I am pretty sure that no other browser can compete with IE until it achieves one thing: IE compatibility.
IE has one thing that no other browser has: it shows almos Every Single Page as it was intended by the designers.
I know, I know, web designers' fault. They should create cross-browser pages, but they don't.
So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does. What would be better is to provide the user with an option: "show this page as IE would or show it as it should be rendered attending to W3C standars".
Until then, we'll be in a IE driven web (which, btw, is cyclic, designers design for IE 'cos the own the market, and users use IE 'cos the web is designed for IT).
P.S. I know, Microsoft is bad. And ppl use IE 'cos is there, but ppl does not change browsers due to what is stated above.
--krahd
Mod me up, Scottie!
mod me up scottie!
You didn't even read the fucking article! Otherwise, you would have known MS is going to OWNZ all those other little bitch browsers!
WARNING: LINK IN PARENT IS TUBGIRL.
How the hell did this still have a score of 1?
120chars for a sig is teh suck
Check out Googlebar.Mozdev.Org which is a Googlebar emulation thingie that some non-Google people are doing.
Why is this "Insightful?" What a waste of a mod point. Why don't you use it, I don't know, to mod the grandparent down to -1? Or use it elsewhere?
"v sick" isn't insightful in the slightest. It's just pointing out the obvious over a standard troll.
The competition will be with XAML, .NET Zero Deployment and the likes om them. The initiative described in the article is probably good and all, and I seriously hope they do make it into something. But make no mistake - MS has been working long and hard on getting stuff that blurs the line between web and local pages (or apps, if you prefer that name), and some of it works just fine (.NET Zero Deployment is a good example here). Soon enough, there will be no browser war because the browser will not be as essential as it is today. It still is, though - and that's why I use Firefox whenever I can :-)
Seriously, running richer and richer "weblets" (for lack of a better technology-neutral term) on your local machine, feeding them with remote data and making it all flexible and (hopefully) secure, is a trend that's been going on for YEARS now. A lot of us would like this to feature open standards, open source and other such goodness, but we need to take a long, hard look at the initiatives from MS - their market dominance means that THEIR standards will become a reality.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Wow... heh guess in typical /. fashion I didn't follow the link. Thanks for pointing that out, I just responded out of habit. I'll know better next time.
Regards,
Steve
So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does. What would be better is to provide the user with an option: "show this page as IE would or show it as it should be rendered attending to W3C standars".
Until then, we'll be in a IE driven web (which, btw, is cyclic, designers design for IE 'cos the own the market, and users use IE 'cos the web is designed for IT).
How would this help? Everyone would turn the option on, so that their favourite websites render properly, and web designers would continue to design for IE because that's what everybody's emulating.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
I don't design for IE nor do I hold it in high priority. Granted I happen to be into compliance and a native Safari user myself, so I might be slightly biased, but frankly I can't stand IE. And since my site still renders fine, I'm not too worried about changing my focus. In the future the needs of the site may change, but IE doesn't make up a large majority of visitors. I think designing for IE is fading, standards are the way to go. One of these days MS might just realize that.
Get me a meat pie floater!
Example's ?
I have been using Linux only browsers for 4 years and have had no problems with any webpages displaying incorrectly. As a matter of fact the only things I have heard of not working correctly are some streaming media type's (mms:// URL's) and little sites that were made using WYSIWYG tools.
And I wouldn't hold my breath about it being an IE only web, the more major site's and groups bash IE and promote alternatives the more it hurts MS, no matter how hard they try they wont be able to prevent people leaving their platform until they actually FIX the problems.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
And I'm not a Troll. I'm just a coder speaking the truth,
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
It's much easier to write UI code in HTML with some JavaScript that it is to write the same UI code with C++ or any other language for that matter. Instead of scoffing at the notion of web apps, people should embrace it as a new paradigm. Faster, cheaper, cross-platform, what could be better?
Microsoft was headed down this road with IE, but suddenly they realized that they couldn't continue or they would make the Windows API monopoly irrelevant.
IE development came to a screeching halt and they decided to come up with a perverted proprietary work-around to implement the same thing in a way that wouldn't threaten Windows (XAML and Avalon). XAML is essentially a fancy mark-up language (like HTML) that, coupled with C# (instead of JavaScript) creates rich client applications that are compiled windows apps. Throw in a little Indigo to make the apps web-aware and you've successfully recreated the wheel.
It only seems natural that someone else would want to carry the torch of rich browser-based apps. Most of the things these guys are talking about are already possible in IE. They're just trying to standardize it so people can roll up their sleeves and start writing cool apps.
Yes, after all, OS/2 was a decent operating system, and its Windows compatability layer really helped it to gain acceptance.
</sarcasm>
Would Apple kindly stop stepping on names already used by the open source community? Calling Macintosh OS 10 "OS X" was bad enough ("are you running X on your Mac"?).
Dashboard is Nat Friedman's implicit query system for Gnome. That's been around for a while.
IMHO, just going off an a tangent: I think many of us have been misled. Something else is quietly brewing.
.NET. Detractors may deride it as much as they want, but I believe this Microsoft's strategic weapon. Imagine a browser that can run a native lightweight UI (through Avalon). Imagine a world where such applications are trivial to build.
.NET, your knowledge in a .NET language like C# (and even your code!) can more or less be reused in ASP.NET, and in frameworks like .NET Compact.
.NET. .NET just works, for the most part. You can actually build usable GUI apps with it (unlike Java. The only decent GUI apps are SWT-based and even those feel klunky). And it will be interesting to see how things will look like in a few years.
.NET architecture -- which incidentally, was not conceived by Microsoft so much as it was by Anders Heijsberg who was pilfered from Borland. You can see the elegance of Borland engineering exude in .NET. Yes, I am a Borland fan.)
The stagnation of IE has been made to be seen as a bigger issue than it really is. We see Firefox making headway now and we are happy, but in reality, from a strategic point of view, it is no threat to IE in the long run unless it makes some fundamental changes.
If Microsoft gets its way, the fight is no longer going to be about rendering web pages.
I submit to you that this is due to
Right now, today, we are already beginning to see things like WYSIWYG HTML editors built with ASP.NET, that work like a native application embedded within the browser. (take a look at this, Devedit. Requires IE.
One might argue that we can sort of already do such things using XUL, Javascript, DHTML, Java etc. That's all nice and well, but how many technologies do you have to learn to build a simple app?
With
This was the dream everyone had for Java, and from the way things are going, it looks like this dream will come in to fruition in the form of
(btw, I am no MS supporter (my main machine is a Mac OS X box). But I have to admire the
while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does.
The jargon for this: "bug-compatible". You want to make a browser that is so compatible with IE that it's even broken in the same ways, so that pages render the same.
The problem with this is that you are trying to shoot a moving target. If the spec is "do whatever IE does", then you spend all your time tracking changes to IE. (Microsoft has been letting dust pile up on IE, but that's about to change anyway. And any strategy that relies on Microsoft to just lie back and not interfere is doomed.)
IE has been ruling the world, but there are several cracks in its armor.
0) Mac users have Safari, and they will scream at any web site that breaks it. They tend to be rather vocal. Alas they are a small group as a percentage, but they are vocal out of proportion. Safari has much better standards compliance than IE, so this is pressure in the right direction.
1) IE has so many security holes that people are actually getting annoyed at it. As long as IE "just works" it meets the Good Enough test and people will continue to use it. But now that people are getting more annoyed with it, browsers like Firefox get their chance. I just tonight put Firefox on a friend's computer, and he's so fed up with spyware that he was eager to switch.
Rather than testing IE so much you understand it better than Microsoft does, it would be better to just insist on web browsers that actually follow the standards. Besides, testing IE and coding bug-compatible features aren't as much fun as adding cool new stuff to Mozilla. Unless you are volunteering to lead the IE cloning effort, there probably won't be many people working on this.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Dashboard is a much better paradigm than a desktop for mobile devices. Proactive background metadata joins. Data storage hidden beneath presentation and logic layers. Inherently distributed computing, with a trusted multimedia thin client. Just as the PC enabled the desktop to replace the terminal for the masses, so will something like the Dashboard replace the desktop for the wider masses with mobile "phones".
--
make install -not war
Opensource is not about putting commercial companies out of business.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One might argue that we can sort of already do such things using XUL, Javascript, DHTML, Java etc. That's all nice and well, but how many technologies do you have to learn to build a simple app? With
One ring to rule them all? It's like a dream some habitants of global village are having. That small languages will disappear and one shiny day we will wake up and we will all use english (all french or german). Everything has its purpose.
For web applications to be convenient, they have to be easy to install and offer all the power of a desktop application. That includes access to the filesystem, and to the burgeoning number of peripherals: personal LANs, WiFi antennae, microphones and webcams. (Did you know that Flash pages can turn on the web cam on your computer, if you allow it?)
I didn't know. But that bothers me. They should not act like desktop apps.
It sounds like a nice idea but if MS chooses not to implement it or to do it badly (like say PNG support) then it is all for nothing UNLESS opera can use its dominance on the phones to some good. IF the phone is going to replace the PC (there are more mobile phones then PC's already) THEN people might be getting upset that their browser on their phones beats the pants of the browser on their PC.
Not likely but you never know. (to those who think people are going to switch because of IE security, HAHA, people still buy cars from companies whose cars KILLED PEOPLE, simple credit card fraud ain't gonna stop them)
Still they better fix that demo first this just looks stupid.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you are a FireFox fan, the Mozilla team would like your help:0 .html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/00593
How long will 55 billion USD last once you start paying dividends (as many investors both institutional and individual are clamoring for) and/or buying back stock to reduce the share price dilution due to employee stock options? The world of finance and corporate monetary structures is one just as detailed, subtle, and complex as that of code or computer architecture. Just becuase it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and would to a layperson appear to be a duck does not make it a 100% bonafide waterfowl...
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
You hate MS, yet you appear to love Apple AND Linux.... You must be burning with confliction inside. Given the opportunity, Apple would quite possibly be worse than MS. Remember, Apple controls the software AND the hardware. They also charge more for it.
-]Phreak Out[-
That's great and all, but as a practicing web developer, I can assure you that dealing with MSFT's various idiocies as embodied in IE is a titanic pain in the ass. Just to pick one area where IE's stagnation is very much a big issue if you do this for a living: CSS support. They barely support CSSv1 correctly even in the latest IE, and anything later than that is totally haphazard. As for why CSS is a big deal, well, this comment box isn't big enough to contain all the reasons behind that. I'll leave aside for brevity all the other ways that IE makes our lives difficult at work!
As for the rest of your post, despite how much I'd love to use web-like tech to make traditional applications, I don't see that working. It's been tried before by quite a number of people unsuccessfully, and C#/.NET/blahblahblahbuzzwordsoup isn't different enough to really stand out. I find it ironic, to a degree, that you ask "how many technologies do you have to learn to build a simple app?" when you yourself list quite a number in relation to the MSFT development paradigm. .NET is a bit better
than the trainwreck that is traditional win32 development, but not by a whole lot (see Joel Spoelsky's writings on this topic, that I'm too
lazy to link at the moment). Fred Brooks said it best those decades ago, there is no silver bullet in computer programming, and there never will be.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro/ development/
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/
Am I wrong?
I love and use Java like hell, even though applets are now usable - but so far only Flash can really claim write once, run anywhere ubiquity. I don't even think XAML stands up to it and Flash is already pretty much in every browser from Win, Mac, to Linux....
MOSK (Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Konqueror) will probably never achive more than 50% market share together. It's hard to compete with something that comes preinstalled.
However, if MOSK manage to become a noticeable minority (say, 10-20%), web projects that targets the public will be forced to consider supporting open standards, instead of some proprietary technology MS dreamed up.
So, keep on promoting a MOSK browser today! It's all about statistics baby!
What I'd like is the ability to split a browser window and view differnt parts of long pages either alongside or above/below each other so I can compare page elements. It would be nice to be able to split two different pages the same way too - sort of like a personalised version of framesets.
In-page bookmarks, with the option of being temporary or persistent would also be handy for navigating through large documents.
Another nice-to-have would to be an option to open all (or settable a maximum number of) the links on a page as tabs so they could load in the background and be there when I'm ready.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I think you meant to say, "If only Google had given Mozilla users the Google toolbar, instead of being filthy Microsoft-humping sluts."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
How about a way to Lock the History list. I'm sick of deleting my history just because of a porn site I wasn't supposed to go to according to the wife.
Mark
It's not so much of a conflict as you think. Apple does control the hardware and software, but (nowadays, at least -- I don't know about 1984) the reason for that is to provide an integrated and cohesive user experience, not as a totalitarian attempt to control the platform (or market) for it's own sake. They seem to be doing an increasingly good job of embracing open-source.
The other reason to love Apple is that Linux software works on it, and proprietary software (e.g. MS Office, Adobe stuff, games like Warcraft 3, etc.) works on it too. Right now my iBook has Firefox, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org, VLC, and a bunch of other Free software on it, and I'm using Fink to install Inkscape.
My iBook and my Linux x86 machines coexist much better than a Windows computer would.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm sorry, but you win the Most Ridiculous Slashdot Metaphor award for this week. Use of the FONT tag simply is not comparable to mass murder, rape or torture.
Pedantry aside, I very much doubt that use of the FONT tag is going to hurt any web surfers in the vast majority of cases - even disabled people. The most it will do is piss off the person who has to maintain the page, most probably. That's the most significant reason to switch to HTML Strict, IMHO. Be more accurate about your concerns and people are more likely to take you seriously.
Female Prison Rape in NY
I have designed and HTMLed 100+ sites over a number of years. The present situation is nowhere near as bad as it has been in the past.
Currently, I will code, check IE and then check Mozilla, Safari and IE for Mac. There are some critical differences if you're obsessive on pixel-perfect placement (I am) and it's probably more trouble if you're using CSS for positioning (ideal, but still trouble and I avoid it), but generally things look pretty decent in all of these. One of the older IE/Mac browsers was a bit agonising, but I think there's probably been a solid uptake of Safari, and the percentage of Mac users in Australia is low.
That said, I tend to avoid really over-the-top features that could be seen as unnecessary by some. We integrate Flash where appropriate, but it's never for something like critical navigation, and I think Flash has better support than some of the other options out there.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Better question... How did it get moderated "30% Informative"?
--guru
It's not pedantic if you read between the lines.
If you would take the time to actually read my comment, rather than reading as much as necessary in order to make an attack, you would see that I didn't make any mention of mass murder, rape nor torture in my comment, and that your sick little mind merely inserted these as they're probably the sorts of things your mind likes to see. :-)
And whereas disabled access to sites might be important, I would argue that these days, mobile access to sites is more important. And the vast majority of mobile devices cope with real, strict XHTML far better than they cope with atrocities like HTML 3.2.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
The web browser is basically becoming a virtual computer.
Stagnation is such an ugly word.
Wouldn't you prefer a consistent, solid interface, even layout bugs and all.
That crap earlier about mozilla learning wtf you are browsing. Who wants that in a browser. That's what a proxy is for you idiots. Stupid 'ooh lets make it do this' crap just keeps us on the treadmill so we have to keep our eye on the the bleeding edge so we know what's coming. Stop already.
You are allowed to say 'hey, it's finished'.
There should be no such thing as tabbed browsing, window management is the job of the window manager. But now loads of applications are bloating from adding tabbed window support, making them less portable, more buggy and less secure with every line of code.
I can't be the only person with this opinion can I ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
We've already started building apps that require Firefox (mostly sysadmin, data-frontends, fat-client replacement, but also some newer SOA/utility computing apps). Primarily because it's too much of a pain to work around the CSS probs in IE. I mean, life is too short. So then our users have to make sure they have Firefox, which is damn simple to do at the end of the day. The hard thing is just to give people that little nudge. And guess what? It's working, so far. If they have use-IE policies in order to get support from their own techs, that's no problem, since this is just a helper-app download to access a required service. Just like downloading Acrobat to read PDFs. Then once the camel's nose is under the tent..... you know the rest.
Modern browsers are IE bug compatible enough for most sites. Making a browser 100% IE compatible isn't the way to get people to switch. It's only by being better than IE that it can be done. Up to now it's thing like better security, tabbed browsing and pop-up stopping that has made people switch. The proposal to have HTML desktop gadgets that can be dragged off the web-page onto the desktop, or by activated Expose style is potentially another very good draw. The IE user goes to one of his favourite web page, and finds there's a drag'n'drop gadget there. He tries to drag it off the page, and finds that it doesn't work because he's using IE. That's a trigger to change.
I like it because it is not the M$.
If it was the M$ I would not like it at all.
I would hate it so much because the M$ is bad.
The IE of the M$ causes the problems.
The M$ technology is there to rape us of our will.
I have to go feed linux, my cat some m$-free food.
bye.
...like this one - it automatically switches between the MS DHTML control in IE, or a Java applet in other browsers.
I have been using Safari on OS X as well and since like 1.1 I never had any compatibility issues for standard browsing. With only the stupid developer who makes the IE only page that disallows you content if you are not using IE.
Why netscape loss the browser war over IE.
0. Declaring WAR! This is the important one. What this did made it easy to win. With netscape saying what advantages Netscape has over IE. It makes the commoner go well I don't need those features and IE seems to work good for me plus I don't have to download it and it is faster booting. Where earlier versions of IE netscape won because no one payed attention to ie. IE was like wordpad sure it worked but you really should get yourself a real application. Then Microsoft fixed it up and netscape declared war and it brought the New IE into light.
1. Netscape lagged in development in IE in important features such as CSS (Which is funny now that they are better then IE now)
2. Netscape threaten Microsoft by announcing that Netscape would make the OS obsolete or not as important.
3. Microsoft integrating their OS in Windows.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Given the opportunity any company would be like Microsoft. It is a game of king of the mountain. Where the guy on top has all the advantages and the people on the bottom try to work to gather to get to the top over power the king then once the king is dethroned the parters will battle with each other to become king.
Right now Microsoft is the king of the mountain, and they are in a good spot and it is a big mountain. But like the game the kings job is only one thing, stay the king. So Microsoft goal is to keep its user base and lock them in, to prevent being dethroned.
Now Apple, OpenSource community and other are working to dethrone Microsoft. If they get enough support they can do that. but once the group is at the top they will fight to become the king. And once they are the king they will have to find a way to lock in there user base. Unless after the fight they decide to stop the game for an other day and declare a tie for winner and declare Microsoft the looser.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Apple releases a project under the name "Dashboard", someone points out that that conflicts with an OSS project, and gets promptly modded down as "Offtopic".
Great going, guys. I think this shows what kind of "community" Macintosh users really are.
(1) side-by-side viewing of different parts of a page: Since one has tabbed browsing, just open a new window with two tabs of the same page (or just one, and "Duplicate" -- it retains the other ones history as well). Now click "Window->Tile vertically" (or press Shift+F6). Firefox probably has this feature, as well. 2 shortcuts, or two menu items. quick! Not 100% sure if this is what you were thinking of.
(2) Side-by-side viewing of different pages. Can do the same as one, but don't duplicate -- open new page. As a bonus, if you are thinking of having links from one page always open in the second window, you can do this in opera as well (play with Window->create linked). Instead of always appearing in either the same page or in a NEW background page, links appear in the specified second page.
(3) To open all links, click on the "links" icon to open your links panel. This displays all links in the page. Now press shift+left mouse button to select all the links you want to open. In other words, two clicks+drag (with shift) -- all on items appearing in the main interface -- will do it. About the same effort as opening a file or saving a new file.
0) Mac users have Safari, and they will scream at any web site that breaks it.
This also helps out Konqueror, since Apple tends to send back KHTML fixes.
1) IE has so many security holes that people are actually getting annoyed at it.
This is the best thing to happen for my personal evangalism recently. In the last few weeks I've had more luck getting people to switch to moz than in the last year.
I think I need a new sig here.
I always get cussed out for this but I don't care, it needs to be said. It's time to stop coding webpages on the net for explorer "standards" and windows "standards". You won't get people to change to a better universal standards environment with browser and OS and a more secure internet for everyone until you stop making it easy for people to stay on explorer and windows. Force windows and windows users to change,because that's where the critical changes need to occur, stop doing microsofts work for them. Make them change or jump through hoops to see a page as it's supposed to be. Make them change to a more secure way to access the internet. I don't care what people use on a standalone computer not networked to the internet, or what they use in a closed intranet, but as soon as they use that crap to connect to the universal internet we have huge problems all the time. And who's trying to fix the problems? Open source and apple. Why should those communities,who combined now are in the multimillions and are doing the really snazzy work, do windows security and windows useability work for them, when all that happens is it costs you time and money and aggravation, while MS racks up the megatonnage of dough for basically doing nothing?
Coding for explorer and for windows is like that scene in animal house with the punishment scene "WHACK! THANKYOUSIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER? WHACK! THANKYOUSIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?"
nutz
So many new and fancy acronyms/tech. They will make web developement only even more complicated, code even more bloated with workarounds and versions for a gozillion new browsers ...
... and let's not talk Java either.
.NET will kill the browser completely and create an easier way to create webenabled application - proper applications - instead of that stupid static web page metaphor - truely ONLINE instead of 'what you saw on the server ten seconds ago'.
... if your Amazon Client can talk directly to their database, you won't need an HTML-Page as 'in between' translator/wrapper for tthe information.
...
If choice means so much chaos and so little truely working 'standards' then please give me a working monopoly! I don't care if the steering wheel in a car is on the left or right side - as long as it works.
So far nothing really works as it should in all browsers - so I will simply follow where the money comes from: IE.
And please spare me the 'develop with web standards speach' - neither Moz, Firesomething nor Opera fully and properly support all CSS versions, DOM etc.
So far almost each new technology for the web has made things more complicated and less 'standard'.
IMHO I hope that a technology like
With real apps we could have proper and speedy shopping tools, better online forums, cool chat apps without bloated Java behind it
Instead of wasting gazillion of Terrabytes for sending html, java and css codes and workarounds lets focus on sending and communicating the truely wanted data as direct, speedy and interactive as possible - without any unnecessary wrappers.
HyperText is/was a great idea, but it should only be used for documents/news etc. - it was never meant for (web) applications. All that crap has been put on top later - and it never worked properly.
Let the server application/database and client talk directly
I love the article. I switched to Firefox. Here's what I hope will come in the future :
... kinda. Gmail is already one killer app for me. I need decent printing, the crappy printer handling was what drove me back from Linux to Win ME.
- Efficient drag and drop of applets to the desktop. This will give us the 'sticky' gmail window. Gmail is fabulous, as good as using Eudora, but search is even faster, because it uses the server end, not the sad crappy old PIII-550 I am running.
- Slick applets. CSS etc, properly implemented. This MUST be seamlessly cross-platform, cross-browser on Windows/Linux/Mac.
- Secure. The M$ security problems WILL drive me to Linux or Apple. My current workaround for all the problems with Win 2000 / XP is sticking with the diabolical Win ME. It sucks, but it works
I think I could probably be happy moving to Mac now, but I would rather run Linux on PC if I can get all the stuff I need.
Lots of people probably have the same problems. Windows will die once there is a viable alternative that is virus resistant, is convenient to use, supports printing properly, runs cool web apps that people actually NEED.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
Either that, or a couple more news stories about IE security holes might do the trick.
But seriously, one man's experience, for what it's worth, which might be nothing... I haven't used IE at home in at least four years. Now, I admit that I don't actually know how the sites I visit are supposed to look when they're in IE. But if a web page looks bad because I'm not using the browser the developer wants me to use, it just make his work look bad on my screen. That's not my problem. I don't care as long as the page is functional, and I don't recall ever having any problems in that regard.
Wait, I take that back. I once hit a site that refused to load, giving me a smug message that the reason was because I "need" IE. (I hit the mailto link and told them to go screw themselves -- if you want to design an IE only site, fine by me. But don't be an asshole about it and tell me what I need.)
There are windows running Windows now? ^_^
I keep a repository of the Firefox updates for my clients. When one of their employees launches Firefox, the browser automatically checks the repository for updates and pulls down the needed ones. For those who are a little more corporate, I send the updates to them and they push them toi the client machines using the same technologies they use for updating IE.
Dont know if this idea has been suggested yet, If a website can not be viewed, Firefox could either check for a cached version on your computer or from another source (eg Google, Archive.org) and automatically display that page instead. Maybe a notifier somewhere in the browser letting the user know they are viewing cached content?
It would help, because designers that don't want to design for IE don't have to, and the ones that do, well their pages get rendered to look as the designer intended. It's a solution because I could finally stop using IE entirely. As is there are a few pages that still don't work in Firefox and I have no choice but to use IE if I want to view them.
Question everything
we already have server based applications that run on a browser.. have had for some time now..
It may be starting to become more used, and viable but it isnt 'new'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
IE has one thing that no other browser has: it shows almos Every Single Page as it was intended by the designers.
I'm really, seriously hard pressed to think of a page that looks good in IE but bad in Firefox right now... but it's easy to find pages that look good in Firefox but bad in IE. So, where does that leave your claim?
So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does.
Standard counterexample. The last thing I want is a browser that tries to render that exactly like IE does.
Every single web page I have ever written, I have spent at least a day struggling to get it to look right in IE, while it works perfectly in every other browser from the moment the first draft is complete.
That's because due to Internet Explorer's market share, web developers have no choice but to work around Internet Explorer's bugs or, if that's not possible, give up on certain effects completely. So the thing that makes Internet Explorer more popular is its popularity.
No, making other browsers emulate Internet Explorer is what will drive us towards an Internet Explorer-driven web. What happens when Internet Explorer 6.5 comes out with a new set of behaviours? Other browsers will have to jump to reverse-engineer them and then implement them. And by that time, Internet Explorer 7 will be out, and so the cycle starts again...
My suggestion would be a simple and intuitive way to change the settings to be identical to the default settings on IE. I've been trying to convert my fiance to firefox, and she gets frustrated with any difference between the two because she's used IE for a while. I don't necessarily think that all of the defaults should be the same automatically, but some simple method that novice users could use to make the functions (such as prompting when saving information) the same as they are typically in IE would probably help Firefox be more used by novices, who I'd think were a lot of the market.
"So, while MS does not respect W3C standards, the only way to compete with IE is being able to render the pages exactly like IE does."
For all those that have IE, and another browser please go to My Site and note the quote in the top right corner, and see how the style sheet places it in the proper location (centered vertically) in Mozilla/Firefox, but not in IE.....
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
it would help because you need IE for windows update. that would be all i would turn it on for.
i like how mozilla renders everything else...
This is already how it works. Deisgners who care use the right DOCTYPE, which triggers sandards-compliant rendering in modern browsers.
/mike
Designers who don't care don't use a DOCTYPE and get rendered using a compatibility mode.
This is how Moz, IE6 and Safari work (at least).
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Lets face it, the browsers in there current form are not good. Having developed web applications it makes a lowsy front end,
However the browser is the one application that makes the world a much more platform independent place. There is a reason Explorer was rushed out to head off a netscape dominated browser world.
The browser needs to become an application container. Java seemed to be working towards this, however.... Flash does it well.
I don't want to have to download a different applicaiton to buy things from various online stores/check prices do my timecard etc. Especially to find that the app doesn't work under sun/linux/ms etc..
The browser needs to change not go away. Change into something that handles being the front end of web apps better.
yep, there is life after windows with ltsp, my oldest is 133 mhz and flies as fas as the P4 server heh
Exactly. Mozilla/Firefox is all about free choice and free/open software, but how am I given a choice when I want to use Mozilla exclusively and I can't because there are a few pages I *have* to use IE for to work properly. I can see your point 100%. This is probably the _one_ reason why people like you and me still use IE at all.
Web developers are given a choice, some code to standards some code for IE. But what about the USERS? If you code exclusively for IE then you take away the choice for the USER to use an alternative broswer exclusively. If you code to standards, (Mozilla/firefox/opera/safari) then you take away my choice to stop using IE for IE spacific webpages.
I don't see the problem in a plugin for IE Compatibility. at least then I can ditch IE all together and get to view the ENTIRE web with my favorite broswer (Mozilla). There would be no reason for me to use IE if this happened.
If alternative broswers take away the need to use IE entirely, then they give themselves the benifit of attracting more people. I think it would be in there best interests to do so.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
This is a misconception, at least on the projects i've been involved with. Designers design, they don't code.
Coders code, and if anyone still code for IE only it's the coders that do it, not the designers.
Photoshop just isn't a very good tool for creating HTML. Moreso, i believe jpg, gif and png are cross browser compatible.
When I read the topic summary, the first thing I thought was someone found a nifty way to use a web browser Net Friedman's Dashboard project. Only after clicking the Dashboard link did I realize it's some Apple UI technology.
The parent is on topic, this project has been around a hell of a lot longer than Apple's. How about a little fair moderation.
Actually browsers like Opera have a feature to emulate the quirkiness of IE (compatibility mode rather than compliance mode). Honestly though, using Opera I very rarely find pages that don't render properly, and in such rare cases usually can choose to go elsewhere for my information. IE seems to only have that kind of stranglehold on the business world where companies insist on using IE specific technologies, which is their own damn fault but the employees pay for it.
Interesting
.net/mono could do well/ be the answer (I will be if MS incorporates .net into what it could be). Open source java could be made to work but, sigh... sun, (I like the sandbox security model and the ability to extend functionality at runtime via plugins ala eclipse/jedit).
I been looking for that application container. I can't find it. Xhtml/ccs/javascript look like the closest thing, and thats really sad.
I think
I used a copy of "lotus components" and liked it. Memory hog. Like Apples opendoc these mini applications could be built into the application framework.
If there was a standard, so I could get to the business of writing those rich web apps.
Maybe I should start wrting that application framework for mono...or see if a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/java/"> gcj is far enough allong..
From the Techworld article Mr. Hobbs points out:
"Scriptability allows users to customise an item of clothing in a Flash movie, for example, and have the resulting pricing and availability information displayed in a browser window - something possible with ActiveX controls but not with the current NPAPI."
Um, why even use the NPAPI at all for something as simple as that??
Actionscript in Flash has had this ability for a LONG time now.
User selects option, setVar or add to sessionVar or send query to dBase, return more vars, results, or anything you want.
End of story.
No "plugin" (other than Flash itself) needed.
"Microsoft has been letting dust pile up on IE, but that's about to change anyway."
It's the installed base though. Microsoft has already said that they won't feature update (as opposed to security update; IE 5.5 and 6 were primarily feature updates; Windows Update provides security updates) the browser on XP and older machines anymore. As such, Microsoft will need to continue supporting IE6 features at least until IE6 goes out of support (i.e. IE7 will only ship with a new OS).
Any new Microsoft browser will have to retain backward compatibility or people won't bother to use it.
I'm programming a website right now that I've got working excellent using CSS in Mozilla and Opera. I'm murdering myself trying to get it to work in IE. Anyone wanna help ;)?
Jay | http://oldos.org
check out real life comics Real Life - The Online Comic ©2004 Greg Dean specificly designed for firefox.
For all practicall purposes, XUL is an xml subset. Once implemented in the gecko, it is scriptable through the hooks gecko provides. This means javascript mostly.
Even so, all you need to learn is what you already know: w3c standards (XML+DOM+CSS). If you want a server side language, thats up to you. But if youre (l|cr)azy enough, you can ALSO use javascript.
So it doesnt take anything particularly complex or convoluted. In fact, the advantage of xaml, no matter how much is hyped by MS with respect to how 'innovative' it is (its not, xul is here NOW), is that xaml will be, like ie, integrated to the os and that hasnt proved very smart or helpful to users, although it has been pretty cool for skwashing the competition.
NO SIG
So if an alternate browser is to render exactly like IE, I must ask, "Which version of IE?"
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Any new Microsoft browser will have to retain backward compatibility or people won't bother to use it.
True. But I don't think most people would consider broken CSS and other standards to be "features" with which backward compatibility is important.
And we have a unique opportunity here: since there are so many horrible, critical, awful security flaws in IE, people need to upgrade. If MS can fix the standards while they fix the security holes, they can hit people with the same update.
Then webmasters could, in good conscience, detect an old version of IE and pop up a "you NEED to upgrade your browser NOW!" rather than working to make their web site render correctly on old IEs.
MS may not care enough about this, though. MS used to care very much that IE be the most popular browser, but I'm not sure they still care. If they do care, though, fixing the standards as well as the security holes would be their best way to stave off defections from IE to Firefox.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Don't try to make (hyperlink) documents behave like real applications and don't try to make programming applications behave like a document.
A web browser certainly has to perform both tasks: presenting documents and providing additional functions, but IMHO too many technologies try to achieve too much in both worlds.
Look, virtually all the innovation in browsers came out of the browser wars. The wars ended, so did much of the innovation. Of course, another word for innovation was split standards -- and that was hell to code for. None of it matters. The browser is still only really good for well, browsing. Its a crappy place to build or use an application. The Internet != Web Sites you can find with Google. argh. At some point, people are going to wake up and realize that 90% of their email time is wasted, 80% of the web time is wasted, and the pc on their desk is largely useless. At that point, then can go back to working on whatever it is that they do. Maybe we can get the sales people to go sell something, the designers to design something interesting (like where the hell is my affordable flying car and jetpack already?) For now, people in offices will keep sending 80 emails a day arguing over nothing then surfing the web (wtf does that mean anyway) in the firm belief that the next big thing is to be found there. gr. Its a network, move on. Where is the next killer app?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
It's much easier to write UI code in HTML with some JavaScript that it is to write the same UI code with C++ or any other language for that matter. Instead of scoffing at the notion of web apps, people should embrace it as a new paradigm. Faster, cheaper, cross-platform, what could be better?
Yeah, as long as you are only doing very simple UIs. Using C++, I can beat the pants off any web developer doing complex UI. I'll do it in half the time with twice the functionality. The Web is functionally castrated. Give me a break.
You don't need to use IE to run .NET applications. Ours run just fine in Mozilla Firefox, thank you! Mozilla even seems to support some aspects better than IE - e.g. the border styling in a DataGrid.
.NET, but that's a different point, surely?
You DO have to use an MS server to run
.
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Yup its typo mistake :-(
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
Browser applications have really "dumbed down" applications and have made it tougher for true developers to deliver a sophisticated application. I too am looking forward to the "Smart App" revolution that .NET offers. From what we have seen so far, the technology is really awesome. We have run some of our sophisticated .NET EXEs right from a URL and have had success. Some even had COM/OCX controls embedded within and they seem to be installed successfully on the client machine. This new technology will give us the best of all worlds: server-side binaries, a rich presentation space for the users, and lower bandwidth requirements.
Cheers,
Mike
This bloat you guys are discussing is very real. Ask anyone who has tried to Web-enable an ERP system such as SAP, PeopleSoft, JDE, Oracle etc. Customers and users of these sophisticated applications have enjoyed rich interfaces to run thier business' upon for years. When they try to deploy an HTML-based version of these rich interfaces, the bandwidth bloat is simply unbelievable. Put SSL on top of that for security and the bloat gets even worse. Administrators have taken the code off the desktop, but they have opened up a whole new set of issues.
For web sites such as Amazon or Google, this is not a big deal, and HTML is the best way to go. But, for applications requiring a sophisticated GUI, HTML is not such a good solution. I think this is all we are pointing out.
Mike... the last Apple alliance I remember hearing of, Apple-IBM-Motorola (working on the PPC chips), had a cool acronym, AIM. That sounds powerful, like these guys have a direction and a goal. The result of this was the very nifty G5.
However, the alliance of Mozilla, Apple, and Opera gives us Mao. Now if that doesn't prove open-source is communisk I don't know what does.
The only alliance worse than this was Opera-Symantec-Apple-Mozilla-Akamai, which hosted Browser-based antivirus software, and had the unfortunate acronym OSAMA.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Umm, "Yup" to which part of my question?
:)
i.e. did you mean "privacy" or "piracy"...
The unofficial