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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.
Which planet do you live on? Microsoft has approximately $55 billion in the bank. Do you have any idea at all what that number means? For example, after subtracting a $400 million fine from the European Union, MS would still have ... $55 billion in the bank (to the same precision).
Apple, Adobe, Macromedia, Opera, and Sun are interested in not being caused to become financially insolvent by Microsoft. Some of them won't make it. IMHO Sun will be the first to die, but all of them are in danger. They are definitely not the slightest danger to Microsoft.
>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
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.
You have a point, but you overstate it (and probably some grumpy moderator will mod you down for that...)
Some of the post-HTML standards are really beneficial. For example, the separation of document structure from presentation style (using CSS) is good, because it simplifies website maintenance and will allow programs to make sense of web pages. We're not there yet, but there's progress toward some really useful goals.
But the addition of a bunch of features just for eye candy ("very, very, very cool stuff" as the article referred to by the story puts it) is a giant leap backwards. It's just like flashing popups. The kids and the salespeople yell "wow! cool" for about 3 weeks and then suddenly they're no longer cool.
When I use the web, I want information. Stuff that looks like a video game in attract mode is just a timewasting distraction. Unfortunately, much of the advocacy for change is coming from graphic artists, not from real users.
Please.
When was the last time standing in front of the bleeding edge of technological progress and screaming 'Stop!' did anything except get you cut off at the knees?
Those of us who are, in fact, interested in what advanced content tools are authentically useful for are uninterested in your neo-Luddite tendancies. Lynx is a fine browser for those things that can be represented in text, but if you think that everything the web is good for can be presented in Lynx, you're living in a dream world. Or 1991.
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!