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Microsoft Says Firefox Not a Threat to IE
KillaKen187 writes "A CNET article claims that 'just days after the launch of open-source browser Firefox 1.0, Microsoft executives defended Internet Explorer, saying it is no less secure than any other browser and doesn't lack any important features.' It's also interesting to note that these statements made by Steve Vamos, Microsoft Australia's managing director, come with no knowledge of what Firefox has to offer as he admits not even installing or using Firefox."
This will probably be offtopic, but during recent presentation on shares source initiative in Ukraine, the Microsoft representative started getting corruption messages from Powerpoint, and had to run the entire PPT file in OpenOffice, which he conveniently had on the laptop. photo1, photo2, the caption says "Microsoft Shared Source Initiative".
In the Longhorn builds that have leaked out onto the internet, IE does in fact have tabbed browsing. However, it also has some STUPID new crap, like a redesigned bar at the top that has....a pointlessly MASSIVE back button. However, it still has just as just as many issues as current IE.
Say what you may, I use Firefox on all my ( windows, Linux, OSX, AIX, Solaris ) systems. I have taught other people such as relatives and firends the joy of Firefox, and they too have switched over too the new browser. Firefox is a revolution of people getting what they want from the web back. With a search bar, adblocking and pop up blocking, and support for all the major plugins ( like flash and java etc ...) Firefox is now the most nicest browser out their. And many websites are fixing themselves to work with FireFox.
They claim that tabbed browsing is not a feature that their clients want, yet if you go to the windows page at microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/windows/default.mspx they have an option there that says "Want Tabbed Browsing, Search Toolbars, and More?". All those options suspiciously being features incorporated into firefox. Maybe they do see it as a threat after all.
Most people don't actually care. The vast majority of people simply don't know what a program is, what an operating system is, what a CPU is or whatever. To them, you click this little button to print, that little button to shutdown, and you click on "Internet Explorer" to "Explore the internet". That's why its such a great name for a web browser, and also the reason why Apple introduced a little "Browse the Internet" icon in MacOS 8 which launched your default browser. The real reason why Firefox is not a threat is because People Are Dumb.
Browsers come and go, but firefox is making a serious impact here.
I was flipping channels, and saw some news show (damn if I can remember which one) was talking about it briefly. Something like a open source browser being TV worthy is something.
Heck, even a lot of the non-geeks at my work have heard through the grape vine that Firefox is the way to go. They are installing it, and loving it, and spreading the word.
Of course, you were only trolling.
Pretty Pictures!
First MS will lose the small 'at home' and business customers. Once these people are comfortable with the competition, the competition will seep into the big MS customers, for whom the 'small customers' are employees.
No, I'm not going to post this directly to you Steve, as I reckon you will ignore it.
XUL is potentially a huge advantage that Firefox (and other Mozilla-based browsers) have over IE.
...)
Using XUL, you can develop full-blown user interfaces that aren't limited to HTML-style text boxes, radio boxes, drop-down boxes and so on. Instead, you get access to trees, grids, menus, groupboxes, SOAP and XML-RPC client access and so on; a sizeable subset of what e.g. VB has to offer. It also understands CSS, so you can make XUL interfaces visually attractive if you're unlike me and actually have the patience to do so...
It's quite easy to develop XUL code as well, if somewhat time-consuming because there isn't yet a good, stable IDE available.
MS knows there's a market for this stuff, because it was developing XAML which meets broadly the same requirements. However a solid XAML implementation is currently a few years away at least, so XUL has a window of opportunity.
In case it's not obvious, here's why you'd use XUL instead of e.g. VB to develop application front-ends:
- easy to deploy to clients (i.e. install e.g. Firefox, and that's it; no mucking around with DLL versions)
- easy to maintain (i.e. tweak the code on a server rather than tweak and redeploy to every client)
- already cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac, BSD,
- no dependence on ActiveX or Java to give the "rich client experience"
- supports CSS and works with HTML, so competent Web designers should be able to pick up XUL without great difficulty. Someone please please please create an IDE to make this easy!
- works with existing Web servers (e.g. Apache, IIS) without difficulty; after all, XUL is just XML text and Web servers have been serving text since day 1
It is for this reason, that the lab I administer has a Firefox link labelled "Internet" and all links to IE have been removed.
They don't care now, but they're starting to. To continue my story from yesterday, one of my coworkers who had asked me about Firefox got a virus. She didn't actually realize it until the IT people came by and told her that the antivirus program had just removed a virus from her machine.
:-)
All she'd known is that her machine had been running slow. She did some thinking and came to the conclusion that it had come from some lyrics site that had nailed her with popup windows. As I floated the word "Firefox" across the office, the coworker who had installed Firefox happily piped up, "I haven't seen a popup all day!"
Peer pressure, that's where it's at.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Microsoft already has teh XUL killer under development - XAML, a very simialr technology.
What needs to happen?
Make a XUL plugin for everything that browses!! But espceially makea n XUL plugin for IE that lets you run XUL stuff inside IE, basically a sort of embedded Mozilla engine. Then work up a few killer apps to make people download and use the plugin.
If a few good uses of XUL can become widespread over the next six months or so, it has a good chance to take a hold before XAML can squash it. And with enough visible support big companies like IBM might jump on the bandwagon.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As a web developer there are plenty of features I would like to see along the lines of CSS/XHTML/ECMAScript standards compliance. I would say that my payment of sweat and tears with workarounds to these problems more than qualifies me as a customer.
Well, duh! This is like claiming that snow isn't important to people living in the middle of the Sahara. If you can't use something, have no access to it, have no knowledge of it, then you won't consider it important, because you won't know about it to consider it important!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm trying to think of something similar... hmm...
James reiterated that a feature like having a handle on both sides of the door is simply not important to someone who is only on their way out
Actually its a great statement. It covers most classes of Microsoft software users:
1.) The stupid ones
They couldn't use tabbed browsing even if they tried. No. Its true. I tried it with my mum (bless her) and she simply couldn't understand the concept. Sure, opening loads of browser windows everywhere was also confusing and cluttered the desktop, but hey.
2.) The ignorant ones
Is there any other browser than IE?
3.) The Microsoft zealots
If IE doesn't have it, then it isn't worth having.
4.) The wannabes
They just discovered computers and don't want to look different by using a browser that isn't pre-installed... until someone else does and tells them its cool.
5.) Those who just don't care
They have a browser installed. Why have another one? Heck, the whole OS stinks, so why try to polish a turd?
Not only are people dumb, but they get used to using one browser. No matter what type of computer they are. For example, my school bought a bunch of iMacs this year. They all run OS X, and all of them have Safari. What browser to people use 90% of the time? Internet Explorer. Which browser is easier to find? Safari. It's in the freaking dock. Where is Internet Explorer? In the Application directory of the hard drive with OS X installed on it. People are so stupid and hooked on Internet Explorer that they spend extra time trying to find it. They don't understand that IE is not the internet.
I think if other companies want their browsers to be used, they should give them a name that has INTERNET in it. That way people will know that you're going on the internet. What the hell has Firefox got to do with the internet? Same goes for Netscape, Opera, and Safari.
hey!
Idle, somewhat connected question... has anybody seen any statistics on browser usage for people who have actually tried an alternative browser? I've introduced quite a few people to Mozilla/Firefox, and I don't recall any of them saying "Well yeah, but I still like IE better."
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
One-by-one as I clean machines with spyware and crap-ware of all sorts, I also install Firefox 1.0 onto their machines and if they want I spend about 3-5 minutes showing them the features that would be important to them. I show them pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing and how to install extensions such as Adblock.
I'd say 1 out of 10 or fewer people so far have wanted to go back to MSIE... and the reason is usually because they are just used to doing things a certain way but it doesn't take long to get used to the new one anyway.
These steps are important because my company's goal is to dump Microsoft and any product that depends on a Microsoft operating system. Moving people to Firefox, and getting people to use OpenOffice has, so far, been a welcome improvement for most of my users. (We need to write PDF files from time to time and only OpenOffice does that... sure we could buy and install adobe acrobat... expensive... no point in that when they get what they want for free with OpenOffice.) And once they are all used to seeing OOo and Firefox in their faces, changing the OS from beneath them becomes a LOT more trivial than it would be to go about it the other way around.
Truly, the migration path from Windows to Linux is in the applications... get the apps we need to run under Linux and we're golden. So far, OOo and Firefox is paving the way nicely and presenting a very favorable impression for using OSS in the workplace.
I've got an application on a pendrive I carry around which is just a one-click corrective action. Firefox, Spybot, loads of config changes, runs auto-update. Great.
:D
It even works through my school's 'security'. Excellent
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Those are basic usage things. Clicking on an icon labeled Internet is basic usage (steering), as is turning it on (Filling up and applying gas), getting email and playing a game (general driving). Defrag, popup blocking, anti-virus and knowing what program does what and how to replace them are not basic usage, just like changing the oil, getting a tune up and whatnot are not basic usage people take it to a garage for that. When i turn the wheel in a car, it turns, but I couldn't even begin to tell you how nor do I care, because I don't need to know how it works to do this. Just like clicking on a link to IE, I don't need to know how it does what it does, or what program it launches in order to use it, I need to know how to click it, enter a url and use google, thats it.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Congratulations.
I know nothing about motor mechanics; if my car develops a fault, I take it to a garage. Am I dumb now?
Knowing nothing about the mechanics of such an expensive piece of machinery is a quick way to get ripped off. Even compared to a JiffyLube for $20, you can save half by doing it yourself. I may be a network consultant, but I am quite comfortable seeing to the needs of my own automobile and have in the past changed everthing from oil, to spark plugs, to alternators, to oxygen sensors. None of which are as difficult as I or other might have imagined. Pick up a tear-down manual for your car at AutoZone for about $14 and knock yourself out.
I know nothing about building. If I needed an extension built, or a wall knocked through, or whatever, I'd go to a builder. Am I dumb now?
Construction is another area of greatly marked up labor. Basic engineering principles are easy to master and will save you thousands. I learned most of mine working on a low-slope/commercial/industrial roofing crew in the summers in college. I have also picked up carpentry, mansonary, and electrical along the way. Trust me, DIY projects will save you loads of cash and are not difficult to master. Start small, work you way up. That hole in the sheetrock you have a picture hung over is a nice small place to start learning. The most satisfying project I have completed are the two walk-in closets in my master bedroom complete with loads of built-ins.
I know nothing about teaching. I may know the subject, but I know nothing about planning and preparing lessons, setting homework, or keeping a class full of students interested and engaged. Am I dumb now?
I am not a "teacher" but I tutored people in college and also created the format for a 2-week summer computer camp that introducted K thru 4th graders to basic computer concepts. I can say without a doubt I learned more while teaching other people than I ever learned while other people were teaching me.
Because by extending your reasoning to other fields, I am, and so are you, and everyone else here.
People here need to stop being so elitist, and denigrating people just because they know less about computers than some arbitrarily determined minimum level below which the person must be "dumb".
It is not elitest to say someone is far from well rounded. Specialization is the autobaun to obsoletion. My social circle includes no other "computer people" but I have taken the time to learn wines (nice course at a local university), cigars (even though I don't smoke them more than VERY RARLY, being able to talk to an aficionado is a great way to start a conversation with them, a possible future client). I am not inclined to follow pop culture but I read People, US, etc., so I have something to chat up those interested in it about. I have picked up on while living in Miami Beach, Haute Couture, Haute Cuisine, styles of Architechture (followed that through with an Architechture Lecture at a local university, facinating stuff, Miami Beach is the only place you will find Tropical Deco), furniture design, more sports than I can count, and having a best friend that is a film festival coordinator I have learned a load of things (namely occupations) that I never imagined existed. I never knew existed. Computer People need to expand thier world to other things (and that doesnt mean reading about it on the computer, that's cheating, get outside) and non-Computer savvy people most definatly need to learn more about computers as they are a tidal wave on the horizon that will (more than now even) infultrate the very fabric of their existence. I by no means think that I am even close to well rounded, I have a long ways to go before I can begin to consider resting. It is, however, unforgivable for a person to *choose* to remain ignorant.
Leonardo Da Vinci never announced "I'm an artist, what do I care about engineering?"
Trust me, you do not want this behavior changed. You see, Mozilla and IE used to allow this. Then the bad guys figured out that you could ferret out the local filenames things were cached under, load your own malicious code into the cache in an innocuous way, then refer to it as a local resource in a dangerous way. Since it was a local resource it could do things a remote resource wouldn't be allowed to do. So Mozilla drew a one-way wall: local resources can refer to remote resources, but remote resources aren't allowed to refer to local resources directly. They looked at being type-selective, but concluded that if they did someone would always be able to finagle a way to turn that into arbitrary access, so the only safe thing was to block across the board based on the local/remote nature of the protocol.
IE tried to avoid this and be more selective. The result has been a fairly steady stream of zone-escalation exploits for it. To put it plainly, you can't open just one hole.
And frankly, if your page is remote, why are you assuming a local file exists at a particular location? You should be referring to your own resources, not someone else's.
Firts let me say I'm a huge advocate of mozilla based browsers. In my opinion, they're the only group to get it RIGHT.
I've made it a requirement of friends and relatives that if they want me to look at their machine and fix them that they need to install and use firefox as their primary browser.
There is a problem with the whole thing though - many of them go back to IE because one site of another will not work due to IE dependancies. Of all the people I've converted, only a small percentage kept with it.
We've seen a big spike in FF/Moz usage over the last few months, however, if you'll excuse my pessamism, I think this will eventually drop off as people find one or two sites that don't function properly because they were designed only with IE in mind. A good example of this is my sister, who went back because her son couldn't play a couple of yahoo games which explicitly ask for IE.
I think this is the real reason they say Firefox is not a threat to IE - because despite the superiority of Firefox, most people don't care about the benefits of security. They just want page X to work properly, and when it only works properly in IE, they'll run back.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Actually, it's worse than that. When you "uninstall" IE, it leaves iexplore.exe on your computer and merely sets its hidden attribute. You can still run the program itself, as well as like you say, all the DLLs which are the real problem.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Thanks for the responses! The about:config really helped. Who would have guessed, a build-in XML type registry.
:)
As for the answers to certain queries. I'll try to be more accurate in my statements:
* Changing the temporary cache path?
I like storing anything temporary on another drive, not my system drive. That way I can erase the whole thing at the end of my windows session if necessary.
* No option to clear cache when done?
The IE option is to "Emtpy Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed".
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?
I am refering to any scripts, all scripts, whatever scripts. A TV or newspaper isn't capable of running scripts, neither should a browser...in my humble opinion. Yes I love the FireFox Javascript fine-tuning control. I really wish IE had that. Of course I unchecked all the options for Javascript on FireFox.
* Prompted cookie setting control?
Yea, I missed the "Ask me every time" option. Thanks. It wasn't obvious that it was under that dropdown because it is labled "Keep cookies". The word "Keep" gives me the impression that the cookie had already been set.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
Yes apparently FireFox doesn't have this option, even under about:config. The specific IE option is "Play animations in web pages". I have this turned off.
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.
Zones are nice for intranet stuff where you know you are completely in a secured development environment. The restricted and trusted sites are also nice. I think the thing I like about zones is that it completely adjusts every browser setting for each zone. In fact, I would argue that there should be more zones, more user creatable/definable zones. Zones that users can setup and name. Zones are the limited equivalent of sandbox type controls.
* Installed security is to save passwords, allow web sites to install software, save form information, and Java is enabled?
(Of course IE is probably even more open, but the point is that FireFox is supposed to be secure right?)
I don't know about you, but when I end my browser session, I erase everything. I erase history, cookies, temporary internet files, passwords, form data...everything. I even erase the sites in my blocked lists. In fact, whenever I start my browser, I want it to startup as if I had never used it before. In many ways Firefox should have the option to browse similarly, like in Apples Safari browser where the browser does a complete privacy reset when done. I would love that!
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something.
Obviously I don't want to name them all. Just open up any IE and choose the security tab, then choose a zone. All the promptable settings are there. And yes I can be prompted to prevent active x controls to run. I just wish META refresh was promptable. Arguably it needs to be.
Firefox is a good start. I really don't want to download Mozilla to get more advanced options. I mean what is the point of FireFox then? I want to use FireFox, I just need more browsing control. I do not like a broswer that does things for me. One other annoying thing about FireFox, even though it isn't a biggie...the fonts don't look right on some sites. I hope they fix that.
Thanks for your input. I'm just that much more informed now!
+2
Clever idea, but it can backfire if they depend on a site that only works on IE. I tried something along those lines with one of my relatives, and his banking website wouldn't work. He was horribly freaked out because he thought I had "broken" his "bank account" and he thought he wouldn't be able to withdraw money while he was on a vacation he was leaving for in several days.
Well I explained what was wrong, but he didn't believe me so I spent about an hour on the phone trying first to explain how to open the site in IE, then trying to explain how to change the default browser to IE, then even trying to get him to simply delete Firefox. Unfortunately he was too stupid to figure it out, and I had to drive to his house and fix it for him.
As you can probably guess by now, I'm not going to install Firefox on people's machines anymore unless they know what I'm doing. If a luser is too thick skulled to figure out what a web browser is, then they deserve to be stuck with IE.
Not that I'm bitter or anything... :-P
For all the talk of the cathedral and the bazaar, there are a lot of folks here who seem to believe in the success of conversions driven by submission to secular authority, personal influence or techno-magic.
Don't tell me how Grandad, your kid sister, your lab rats -- one, a young woman, divorced, with two kids and a job to protect -- have all come to love Firefox.
Don't tell me how clever you've been, the tricks you played that make it all seem so easy.
Instead, prove to me that you can make it out there alone in the cold, cruel world of Windows. 300 million users world-wide. Nine million OEM systems shipping each month with IE6 as the default.
Microsoft itself, for instance, became a success by giving people what they didn't know they needed, or by filling a void that no one realised was there.
<harshing on Microsoft>
Really? When was this? Bill Gates and Paul Allen did a good turn with BASIC back on the Altair, but they were copying the innovation of John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz in doing so. DOS was a rip of CP/M. Windows was an attempt to block VisiCorp's VISION and Digital Research's GEM, not to mention IBM's TopView, Quarterdeck's DESQ/View or, say, the Lisa and Macintosh. Flight Simulator came from Bruce Artwick's subLogic. Word came after dozens of other Word Processors. Excel was Microsoft's second attempt at a spreadsheet app after Multimate, which in turn was after Visicalc and Lotus 1-2-3.
The web browser? Tim Berners Lee and Marc Andreesen's team at NCSA, among others. Powerpoint? Purchased from an outside developer. Visio? Purchased from an outside developer. FoxPro? Purchased from an outside developer. C#/.NET? Closely imitative of Java, without all of that icky non-Windows-bound aspirations.
I'm rather looking forward to seeing Microsoft become a success by giving people what they didn't know they needed, myself. Microsoft Bob surely wasn't it.
</harshing on Microsoft>
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
IE is not JUST iexplorer.exe. That is only a small stub file that loads certain COM components associated with Web browsing.
;)
Same with EXPLORER.EXE, it is only a stub that loads the COM controls that deal with file browsing.
There are other COM modules available, such as Network browsers, Picture viewers, and in Win95, there was the easter egg COM module.
the stubs can load any of these COM modules dependent on the content being displayed. Indeed it IS possible to make a HTML COM component based on Mozilla, and the COM/ActiveX component IS available. however, it is stil not possible for the Mozilla COM module to replace IE and its trident engine in this context either.
The point I am making, is that IE is NOT tied to the OS itself, its only tied to the SHELL of the OS.
If you REALLY want to stop IE from starting, even on a Windows XP box, use Program Manager as the shell! It does work.... its progman.exe located in c:\windows\system32
I use progman.exe and Mozilla as the shell on my "guest" account of my XP box, and it works VERY nicely!
Have a nice day!