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Gartner Says it's a 2-Browser World
prostoalex writes "In its advisory to the IT managers Gartner says that even though the factors that drive the current Firefox growth are not sustainable, IT departments better get used to a two-browser world. "Concerns about security currently favor Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, but the market tide can shift if security breaches result from increased usage of Firefox", says Gartner and ZDNet adds that "Microsoft must deliver an improved version of its browser in Longhorn if it is to "determine the outcome" of the browser war.""
The first 10% share of the browser market is easy. To get any more than that will be very difficult. Difficulty further enhanced by actions Microsoft may take.
No need to read article now.
I'm a big tall mofo.
What was reported as the "minimum requirements" were actually the "expected average new system". It shouldn't be the least surprising that the average new system in 2006 is rather better than a top-end system today.
I don't actually know the minimum requirements for Longhorn. I do know that it will require a lot of horsepower and a high-end video card, because they're playing catchup with OS X (both in terms of eye candy and in terms of useful features such as Expose').
So I expect that Longhorn will run perfectly well on today's mid- to high-end systems, since they're trying to take advantage of video power currently going unused. Today's bottom-range systems may not run it at all, or will do so pokily.
Ah, yes, I remember. That was the same Longhorn that was planned to have a Database Filesystem (WinFS), but it had to be removed in order to facillitate a 2006 release schedule of the OS, and a ~2008 release of the Filesystem. Meanwhile other people (Apple) have already got their implementation (Spotlight) running smoothly. I wonder if MS will ever realize that they can't do everything and do it well, especially when they go off and ignore standards, and definitely not in a timely manner. 2006... IE still won't be standards compliant though, and it will still be full of holes, and it will still only run in Windows.
Last I heard, IE 5 was the last version of IE made for the Mac, because future browser enhancements required the "sophistication" of Longhorn. Whether this decision was the result of or the cause of Safari is an exercise left to the reader.
It's funny in a way... CSS requirements for Safari made Apple radically improve system-wide typography services in Panther (drop shadows, et cetera).
With the loss of Avalon as a direct feature of Longhorn, one has to wonder what "manditory" features in the next generation of Internet Explorer cannot still be provided under MacOS X.
Actually you can turn off ActiveX in IE6 under the Security tab of Internet Options, but you have to click the "Custom Level" button to see all the options.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
From what I've understood, ActiveX is similar to Java - an ActiveX control is placed into a web page, and it is then used to enhance that page in some way. I could be wrong here - I don't use Windows for anything but gaming nowadays.
Mozilla's XPI files, on the other hand, are browser extensions. They give the browser new functionality in a modular way. For example, I have currently installed a Nuke Anything extension, which adds a "Remove this object"-option to the right-button menu, which allows me to remove the object being clicked.
This is one of the basic ideas behind Firefox: make the basic browser have only a few features, and let people extend it as they please.
So, in short: ActiveX controls are web applets, XPI files are browser addons. And since XPI files aren't installed unless the user specifically requests it (and certainly not from any random page), security is not a concern anymore than it would be for installing any other program.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.