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Browser Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo
Tomas wrote to mention an article up on XYZ Computing discussing what is shaping up to be another round of the Browser Wars. From the article: "To anyone that has been following the Window's browser news lately, it is apparent that the stage is set for another browser war. Last experienced during the nineties, companies are fighting over which program consumers use to view the internet. For the average computer user this is a very good thing as it should drastically improve browser performance in a short period of time."
From the fine article:
First, Windows products do seem to use TABS.... Right-click on "My Computer" (if you've actually left it named that!), select PROPERTIES. Not only does Microsoft use TABS to manage some of the most important aspects of computers, they've done it poorly! What the....???? When you click on an upper row tab, the upper row of TABS becomes the bottom row?!? Wow! Yes, Microsoft products not only support and/or use TABS, they were the first to make me hate tabbed interfaces.
Fortunately Mozilla and Firefox came along and convinced me tabbed interfaces could be done nicely and ergonomicly. I'm back in the tabbed fold... sigh.
Second, the claim that adding tabbed browsing to IE is less important because the Taskbar can group similar activities, therefor it already is like tabbed browsing may illustrate more than I'm able how Microsoft doesn't get it. The "like apps" Taskbar browsing has been the source of more headaches for me... I've tried using it, found it obtuse and annoying -- that's okay, just my preference and opinion. But, once again, it's been frustrating in a support role because you (rhetorically) end up trouble-shooting for users an interface poorly thought out and confusing to users. I find Microsoft's "easy to use" ideas sometimes baffling.... (how many times have you over the phone tried to walk someone through a WORD problem only to stumble when they can't find the menu option, and it's because Microsoft has unilaterally decided "hiding" little-used features under menu chevrons).
Other than that, back to the main topic, hopefully more energetic competition in the browser world will mean better and higher quality browsers, but if history serves, it will be a minor spurt in advancement until Microsoft has re-landed their stranglehold on that segment of the market.... and I'm guessing that won't take very long.
I don't care if browsers compete with performance. I don't even much care if they compete with functionality.
I just want security.
Well, OK, I also want standards compliance which maybe counts as functionality. But no crazy "innovative" feature that they believe will woo the public.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
The battle is Firefox vs IE. The danger is of Microsoft winning again, but not because they have a better product.
At best, IE 7 will work only on certain versions of Windows.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
it looks like all browsers will have to implement each other's functionalities. For example I wouldn't think for a second going to MSIE unless it was CSS2 compatible and it fully supported XPI extensions. I am biased of-course, since I am working on my own extensions (russkey, leetkey) so why would I want to use a browser that does not provide the same functionality? The only way to force someone like me to use IE is to make sure that the places I work at are only IE compliant and do not work in other browsers, because voluntarely, I would not use websites that are locked into IE only.
You can't handle the truth.
"browser wars 2: the legend of curly's gold" is more acceptable.
It is a period of civil war.
Mozilla spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Microsoft Empire.
During the battle, Mozilla
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, INTERNET
EXPLORER 7, an armored web
browser with enough power to
destroy an entire website.
Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Firefox users
race home aboard their
browser, custodian of the
web standards that can save
their people and restore
freedom to the web....
Maybe it's just me, but I think browser performance isn't much of a problem any more these days. Standards compliance, on the other hand, is, and I hope that this is the area where a new browser "war" might actually help out.
We all know that IE's standards compliance leaves a lot to be desired, but the Mozilla crew's product leaves a number of things to be desired, too. The Acid2 test may be one example, but there's also other things like MNG support and CSS-generated content where Gecko is still lacking, so hopefully, the people in charge will realize that if they want to replace IE as the standard browser, they shouldn't repeat the same mistakes of not caring about the finer details of the standards.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I don't even like Opera but I'm very surprised Opera 8 never got mentioned in the article. NS8 over Opera?! Sub-par... sub-par...
To win the browser war, budding browser development teams should implement my new idea for tabbed browsing.
The browser should let you access all the paid sites you want, and put all the charges on a tab. This can then be paid off at the end of the month. I'd switch to running IE under Wine (is that even possible?) if M$ brought this feature out.
SUPPORT TABBED BROWSING!!
I never heard of this "firefox" thing before now. I had had no idea what tabs were before now. Its interesting to learn that this "Internet Explorer" isn't the only internet out there. I'm glad there's a website like this "Slashdot" to tell us these things - thank you Slashdot!
Of course IE has had 90%+ market share.
You really expect people who don't even know how computers work to go out of their way to get a new browser when they have no clue why they would need it? Not only did IE come standard on all the Windows OSes, it also came on OS 9. If Firefox or some other alternative browser can standard, and people had to download IE in order to use it, that browser would have 90%+ market share.
Until Firefox starts coming on computers instead of/in addition to IE, there's no way it's going to have 90%+ market share.
I gotta agree. Enough already.
The joke is supposed to be making fun of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo but it stopped being funny sometime around 2002.
First of all, it really was only all that funny the first time it was done, when the creators of Mystery Science Theater used it as part of the name for their second (and last, as it turned out) annual fan convention.
Secondly, pretty much nobody actually remembers the movie Breakin' anyway, let alone the sequel which pretty much nobody went to. Adding "2: Electric Boogaloo" to anything the second time around is really just sponging off the laughs the MST3K guys got from it the first time. It shows about as much wit and inventiveness as repeating a Monty Python joke around a bunch of other nerds. You might get a laugh, but you really should feel like a complete tool afterwards.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Are we still talking about this? Seriously? Is there any new information here that hasn't been presented, seen, dissected and analysed yesterday, and the day before, and the one before that?
This reads like we are beating the same old dead horse over and over again.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Last experienced during the nineties, companies are fighting over which program consumers use to view the internet. (Emphasis added)
I "view the internet" using ssh. Sometimes FTP. Maybe SCP. I do like to view the internet using POP3, too.
The more WE, as people in-the-know, screw up the terminology, the more the sheeple will too. How about we give them the impression that the "interweb" has more than just "that dot com thing"? Maybe, just maaaaaaaybe, if they understand that the INTERNET is a bunch of computers connected together that can talk to each other (and say MANY different things) then they'll also better understand security concerns, patching, etc. Isn't security one of the big factors of the "browser war"?
That's great for you, but you're not in the majority. The browser wars will ocne again be determined by populartiy, which is determined by prettiness, features, etc. Most people don't really care about security, and only developers (and other related uber-geeks) care about standards compliance.
I don't respond to AC's.
You seem to be overlooking one small point, IE actually deserved to win the last browser war because guess what, it was a better browser than Netscape. So with previous experience at seeing off a competitor and still having by far the lions share of the market what makes you so sure they will loose this time?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
How any time you actually have an honest choice of software in the consumer software world, it's such a strange and upsetting event we have to describe it by the word "wars".
Wouldn't it be nice if competition between multiple partners were the rule, rather than an exception so bizarre that when it occurs we widely describe it by a word normally associated with mass death and destruction?
Kind of a small thing, but y'know, just a thought...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
it should drastically improve browser performance in a short period of time
Bah. It's been how long since the first browser war? And IE is still a heaping pile of crap. And, what's worse, M$ doesn't seem to want to fix what they already have on the market. "Oh, we'll fix it with Longhorn." Yeah, so you'll have to spend more money on a whole new OS, just to fix these bugs that have been arond since at least version 5.
Granted, all browsers have their flaws. But at least most of these browsers have people working to patch whatever holes are found. M$ has been nothing more than lackluster with regards to their patch attempts, rarely releasing any fixes. And when they do release a fix, it sometimes breaks other stuff (a'la SP2).
Until M$ gets its head out of its ass, makes IE stand-alone (as in not intergrated into Windows), and gets with the program with regards to patching security risks in a timely manner, I'll stick with the competition. Firefox and Konqueror work just fine for me...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Dumb article, too.
The next big play in the "browser wars" should be more aggressive ad blocking.
Call up your broker, buy 1,000 shares FFOX!!
This is what caused the almost immediate switch from Netscape to Internet Explorer. It had nothing to do with the features of either browser. As long as these three things are true, IE will NEVER go below 80% of the web browser market.
Why should either side care about winning Browser Wars II?
In Browser Wars I, Netscape leveraged its popular browser to gain members for its portal service, which was supposed to be the profit center. It also sold an enhanced version of the browser (or was it actually enhanced, or just licensed for corporate use? I can't remember. I never paid for it.)
Microsoft, similarly, leveraged the popularity of its browser to gain subscribers for MSN portal / ISP.
This doesn't seem to be such an important goal anymore. (Portals are *so* 1995.) So they'd be going to "war" to provide a product that hasn't proved to be particularly profitable. What's the point?
You seem to be overlooking one small point, IE actually deserved to win the last browser war because guess what, it was a better browser than Netscape.
That may be true, but you're overlooking another small point. The reason IE won had nothing to do with it being better. Simply putting it on the desktop of every windows computer, and therefore every computer you buy from any major manufacturer, is what made it win. As long as this is true, there will never be another war. Even if IE had a timer to crash every 30 minutes, it would still have 80% market share.
The last major browser war led to divergent implementations of HTML & JS which drove web developers crazy. The rush to more features led to frequent but poorly tested releases that were (a) unstable; (b) not secure. It is true, however, that it eventually led to a new generation of browsers and much benefit to the end users. One way to avoid the instability may be to somehow enforce and demand adherence to standards, but this is easier said than done.
I wish Firefox didn't get associated with the FTP protocol in Windows. When it asks me "Do you want Firefox to be your default browser?" I say "Yes," but I only mean "I want to use Firefox as my default http client."
It's a great web browser. It sucks for FTP.
When I type an FTP URL into the "Run" dialog, I'd rather have a proper FTP browser (like WinSCP, or yes, even Explorer!) than Firefox. I found the registry keys that change this, and have some .reg files that I keep around to change my settings, but they keep getting changed back. It's an annoyance.
Actually, your post made me wonder.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine called me up saying she was having all sorts of trouble whenever she accessed the Internet. I went over there, saying I could give her a few minutes. Her computer was riddled with spyware. IE had four different spyware related "search bars" running at the top (which is a record in my experience).
Rather then spend hours cleaning things up, I just downloaded firefox and installed some of the more popular plugins (flash etc.) and deleted the big blue E from the desktop and the start menu. I talked to her the other day and she told me "wow, my computer is still running great".
It makes me wonder now if IE might be losing ground not because firefox is better, but because there seems to be less junk out there that messes with firefox? (don't get me wrong, I still think Firefox is better).
The Internet is generally stupid
Which misses one key point: I used Netscape up until version 4.2 or so - at which point, IE made leaps and bounds ahead of Netscape, was better, so I used that instead.
Explain that one.
You're probably part of the other 20% that would actually change browsers if you liked one better.
But also I'd like to make this point. When was the first time you heard of, saw, or used IE? The first time I ever used it was when I got a new computer with Windows 95 and I used it to download Netscape. How else was I going to get Netscape? I was forced to use it.
You have to admit having it on the desktop of every computer is a HUGE advantage. At that point it doesnt matter what anyone else does, its going to take over the masses.
I like the Mozilla/Firefox tabs, and so far I prefer them over anything else I've seen lately. If Microsoft actually does have a genuine problem, though, I think it's likely to be that the tabs Firefox uses work inconsistently with most similar-looking tabs in nearly any other application.
In Windows, tabs are nearly always static. The user can always see what tabs are visible, new tabs never appear and old tabs don't disappear. This is a factor in usability because it means the user can expect that they're aware of all available configuration options.
In Windows, the concept of creating a tab or destroying a tab don't exist. If Microsoft could argue something rationally about this, it would be that the concept of creating and destroying tabs might confuse a user, if not in IE than in nearly every other Windows application they use after it. It puts the user into a frame of mind where they're being asked to do something that's normally done by a developer.
I still think it's a silly argument, though, if only because static tabs need have nothing to do with it. The fact is that Microsoft does provide dynamic tabs in their applications -- they simply look slightly different. Specifically, take a look at how MS Excel manages multiple worksheets (within a spreadsheet), and you'll notice that it uses differents types of tabs, where they're spaced along the bottom of the window instead of the top. This type of tab mimics exactly the type of dynamic behaviour that Internet Explorer would be using.
If Microsoft wants to be consistent with their other applications, they need only utilise the same system that Excel uses, and they might even find that people more quickly understand Excel as a result.
Will the hurt (more Firefox on older machines) or help (IE7 only available on more secure platforms)?
drastically improve browser performance
I hope so. I only get 12 FPS with my current browser and that's not good enough.