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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.
"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...
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.
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.
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
Dumb article, too.
The next big play in the "browser wars" should be more aggressive ad blocking.
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?
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.
drastically improve browser performance
I hope so. I only get 12 FPS with my current browser and that's not good enough.