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Windows Guru Calls For IE7 Boycott
Anonymous Cowherd writes "Paul Thurrott, a journalist that usually writes about all things Windows related (and sometimes about Apple affairs too), made a call in a recent article to boycott Internet Explorer, due to Microsoft's approach (continued in IE7) of not supporting web standards: 'My advice here is simple: Boycott Internet Explorer. It is a cancer on the Web, and must be stopped. IE is insecure and is not standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable for both end users and Web content creators... You can turn the tide by demanding better from Microsoft and using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Mac only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.'"
In fact, I think I'll take it a step further and boycott Windows as well.
Zonk's link leads to an advertisement on your first clickthrough for some reason. How much is Thurrott paying you guys?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Maybe this will make people sit up and take notice of how horrible IE is. This guy's one of the loudest pro-MS voices out there, and if he's not satisfied, something's really wrong!
Thats awesome
They claim they don't want to support all the standards because it will break poorly coded website. Well, there's an easy solution they already somewhat support... turn on the correct rendering engine with doctype switching! Regular users with badly coded sites are unlikely to have a correct doctype (or any doctype at all) that would trigger this mode. Standards supporters win, and users win.
Because I say so!
My sig is permanently on strike.
It comes pre-installed and has a nice big INTERNET button on your desktop ;)
Wait wait wait, WHAT? IE is not secure?!? MY DATA!
He was so pro-MS until recently. Now, he's biased against Apple and MS. It seems untenable.
...in the near future at least.
Most people don't know there are other browsers beside IE, so how could they boycott it?
I boycott Internet Explorer out of principle. Sure, I'm mainly a Mac user, but I don't use IE on my PC unless it's to use one of those various virus-scanning packages (like Symantec). Sort of ironic though.
I doubt a boycott of this sort would have much impact. Anyone who cares already uses something other than IE. Your average user will just say "Why bother? I've never had a problem." That's what I did.
Why do my serious comments get modded "funny"?
..to change to firefox at work, but our vendors supply web applications written to run on IE only -- it was a sad day when I found this out :(
Unless I'm missing something firefox (at least on every computer I've attempted on) can't pass the acid2 test. So why is that a recommended alternative? Firefox obviously isn't passing the test so how are they "better". If acid2 isn't just a wish list and truly is standards compliant I guess we should all just abandon the web as there isn't a browser out there that currently can pass the test.
Here's a link to the actual blog posting from the story to which the /. article links.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is a blog entry about this here
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
IE has been an issue since the destruction of Netscape, its only widely known compeditor. Now that IE thinks they are alone, they think they can develop the web without going through the standards comitties put in place to ensure open dialogue with developers and artists alike. The word is out, however the normal mom and pop have no idea the browser issues and problematic security holes. The goal now is to educate, and the more people talk, the more the issues are heard. Fight on my brave Windows fanbois, fight on.
Do you think Boycott realy works?
Just because they fix a few things for PR (and apparently they fooled you) doesn't mean IE still doesn't suck.
Microsoft isn't doing anything to fix its inconsistent and improper use (or ignorance) of web standards.. Nor is it doing anything to make it more secure.
MS will contine to dig their own grave, but very slowly because they package the software with their OS and there are still a lot of people out their ignorant to the fact that something else exists.
Have your webpages check to see what browser the client is using, and if it is IE7 (or hey, ANY version of IE) refuse to render the page and pop up a link to Mozilla or Firefox and tell the user that his current browser is broken, and a plague on the web, and that he should follow the given link and download a REAL broswer if he (or she) wants to see your content. (turn around is fair play I say!)
... unforunately Microsoft won't give a damn about you and your ideas.
as boycotting cancer. In future news: Paul Thurrott has been hired by Microsoft to lead its new Marketing and Strategies Division.
Does this windows Guri post on slashdot....
I thought I saw this exact comment modded +500 insightful
'My advice here is simple: Boycott Internet Explorer. It is a cancer on the Web, and must be stopped. IE is insecure and is not standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable for both end users and Web content creators... You can turn the tide by demanding better from Microsoft and using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Mac only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.'"
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Any Web site developer that produces content for the general public has to deal with IE (like it or not). It's not wise for a commercial site to tell a large block of potential customers - sorry, we won't interact with you, go load another browser.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Oh, this was a good one. this article actually made me laugh out loud. What in the hell does he really think that even developers can accomplish? That's so ridiculous it's funny. If people will use it (and rest assured, people will), then we'll develop for it. Even a large boycott by developers will have -zero- impact on the acceptance/usage of IE 7.
I've already pretty much boycotted IE myself...use Firefox pretty much exclusively, and IE only gets used for Windows Update.
However, the real issue is not what browser the tech geeks use (a tiny percentage), but what browser Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack use. IE comes with Windows, and Windows comes with their PC. Any sort of boycott that fails to address the vast majority of Windows users is doomed to failure.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why did he wait until IE7 to call for a boycott?
Internet Exploder has been a piece of shit since 5.0 and possibly earlier (I just didn't realize it until I discovered Firefox).
Or is he just trying to draw attention to himself?
Question everything
Sure, IE7's CSS support will be better, but will it be good enough? Think about this - fixing the major bugs is great, but think about how long we'll have to support this thing. Is it REALLY good enough? What marketing deadline are they trying to meet here? Vista isn't due out until 4Q2006 (or 2H2006, best case), so what artificial ship date are they trying to meet? What's the upside for them to ship it before it's as good as it can be?
Wow! Mine are on my keyboard, mostly.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/4720 8/47208.html?Ad=1
TODO create witty sig.
I just visited the Acid2 test page in the Internet Explorer 7 beta, and it looks exactly the same as it does in FireFox. Am I doing something wrong?
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Exactly how will boycotting IE7 affect Microsoft? Aside from the bad PR, a boycott aims to hit the target in the wallet.
...unless we boycott Windows or, even better, Microsoft as a whole.
Since IE7 will be bundled into Vista, and not purchased separately, there is no way to effectively boycott this product...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
Firefox Baby! Yeah!
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Block access to your site with any browser that ids itself as IE.
Put up or shut up Thurrott you clown.
PS. It must really suck to be Microsoft fanatic as the company is beging to rot from within...
hi,
Not only is IE not compliant, but neither is their usage of ISO9660 (CD-ROM), nor TCP/IP. None of these has been so since the early days of MS. Where has everyone been?
sTc
Most things worth doing are worth doing twice. -- me I think or was that my boss' methodology?
Considering they have http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242 .aspx already stated that IE is moving towards standards compliance, I think he is jumping the gun a bit here. Internet Explorer is just now moving towards being operable in a developer environment and should be recieving our blessings that it will succeed in order for web developer's nightmares to subside.
what the hell?
Exactly what I was thinking as I read your post. It may be more standards compliant than before, but it's still not near as good as other browsers that have been around for years. I'm not going to applaud them for their efforts because they suck slightly less than before.
Most people interested in boycotting IE already do so... People that are using it do it either because they are forced (workplace politics) or they are stupid and ignorant (people could be stupid, but have made the good choice anyway in this situation)...
tell it this guy :http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I already boycott IE, even in tech support calls I tell end users to check out www.getfirefox.com to prevent most spyware from being put on your system.
/ 417
:(
Microsoft has to know by now that web developers and power users want a standards compliant browser for once. Even with competition (Mozilla, Opera, Apple/Mac)... they still can't strive to meet the basic expectations.
Also, IE7 breaks Trillian, as evidenced by http://journals.aol.com/gregsblog/aimInfo/entries
I'd be wary of upgrading IE7 and Windows Vista.
Boycott a product that hasn't even shipped yet? We have no idea how secure/insecure it is, or how standards compliant IE7 is going to be. Just stop blustering already.
You could enforce this using the Microsoft-Free Fridays Apache module. :-)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Safari http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005 _04.html#008042 is compliant.
What Chris Wilson says "Our intent is to build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate Web standards"
What Chris Wilson means : When the web standards are modeled after OUR wants and desires.
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
Until now, I'd thought Paul Thurrot was a paid tongue-bather for Billy G. But this was a pretty unequivocal statement. I'm impressed.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Thank you Captiain Obvious!!
Whats next? Is he going to recommend OSX over Windows??
An Anti-Microsoft article on Slashdot! What a refreshingly new idea!
"and what do we do with all our windows software?"
;)
Wine
Here's how he ends the article:
My IE 7.0 review will be available later this week.
Gee, I wonder if it's going to get a thumbs up? Actually, that would be the article for Slashdot to post instead of this melodramatic page churner. Give us details. Let us know the implications of actual IE 7 deployments. Instead we get this useless political tripe. Like it or not, IE 7 is coming. We need to know what to wait for and what to push for. I'd accept even minimal movement towards standards rather than what we have now. Instead we get this naive call for boycott of something thats going to end up on almost everyone's desktop. And I'm an Opera 8 user.
Is it me, or does the new IE7 look like a step backwards from an interface perspective? It looks like some bad pre-Gnome/KDE usability exercise.
If MS wanted to get on the ugly-chic bandwagon they're about 8 years too late. What year did people stop using FVWM again?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I think along w/ iTunes Apple should release a Windows version of Safari. I'd like to see a browser for Windows that uses the KHTML engine, and it would be another web-standard choice for Windows users....
I'm a web designer, and i use mostly Firefox (Lynx and Safari at times as well, depending on target audience) while i'm working until it's time to debug, at which time i open up IE. And curse. And sometimes cry.
But does boycotting mean that i don't make special design changes just to accomodate IE users? Unfortunately, part of my job requires making sure the 90% (or 88%, wherever it is now) of morons out there who use IE on a regular basis can view my sites.
But for personal use, i never touch IE. I simply can't stand the thought of soiling my personal laptop by opening it up.
Yeah lets boycott gas too!! (Then we can walk everywhere). Boycott Computers (then our data is really safe). Boycott Credit cards (then no one can steal our identity). Don't waste your time crying. Design something better!
How exactly is Safari an alternative to IE7? If I am in a position to use IE7, then I'm not in a position to use Safari, unless he's suggesting I throw away my current computer to get rid of IE!
...who urges a boycott of IE7 would be willing to do browser detection and instead of showing the content to users tell them that if they use IE7 they will have to get their information elsewhere?
/.)
I doubt it.
And how about YOU? (including
Use something besides the bloated applications that come pre-installed on a shitty operating system?
I wouldn't dream of it.
But maybe the W3C could be an authoritative entity certifying Web browsers for compliance, or another method would be to declare that all browsers not complying to the standards cannot be called Web browsers. This is weak, I know. Same goes for the .NET name. Why can Microsoft freely use a name that is from a TLD? I didn't hear any complaints about that!
Remi
Home sweet localhost.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most users I know don't use firefox.. "Internet Explorer" - just the name - is so well entrenched into the masses that people will gladly bend over whenever the next Windows OS comes out. I'm the only one in my family that uses Firefox. Eventhough the IE icon has been removed from the desktop, my father (finally) learned how to use the Start Menu just so he could get to the IE icon.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
For the first time I agree with Paul Thurrot.
Previously he called Longhorn "a trainwreck".
Now he writes:
Windows Vista Beta 1 Review
What the heck am I looking at here?
A long time ago--I mean, like two and a half years ago--I was secreted into a room on the Microsoft campus for my first Longhorn demo. At that time, Longhorn was still the Kitchen Sink (tm) of computing, promising to deliver every single bit of technology you could imagine, all wrapped around a Flash-like UI that was based on Anark technology. It all looked really impressive.
I have yet to see anything like that materialize in an actual Longhorn/Vista build.
Instead, things got much worse.
The bad news is that a lot of the super futuristic stuff appears to be gone, and may be gone forever.
We were promised a revolution, dammit, and I want a revolution.
The negative reviews are so overwhelming, even from the toughest Microsoft-fans, my guess is that massive amount of blood will float in Redmond.
Microsoft is now in the same position as the Board of Directors at Apple 1996, fucked up beyond all recognition, with a useless beta OS as a dead end street. No one, absolutely no one believes in Microsoft Vista. Customers don't even want to upgrade from Windows 2000 to 2003.
But unlike Apple, Microsoft won't get salvaged by a Steve Jobs.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Slashdot forae, I really think we are witnessing the exakt spot - the mistake that in the end brought down Microsoft. Our grandchildren will read about "the Vista mistake" in Economics 101.
Well you can change the skin on windows xp and they'll think it's a new version of windows, so maybe we can change firefox to an IE skin, give it the blue "E" logo, and hopefully they'll never see the difference since IE7 is a tabbed browser.
Nasa spent billions making a pen capable of writing in space. The Russians just use a pencil.
There is a term...
Too Little Too Late.
Yes the next version SHOULD be better then the last one. But it is not what we want. Why Can't we follow the CSS Specs 100%, We can excuse free software for not because it is free and you get what you paid for but for a company like Microsoft who has a lot of resources and cash it should be head over heals better then anything out there. And it is not even close.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This article is absurd, completely ignoring the promises of Beta 2.
Ummm... Last time I heard, IE7 wasn't out yet. Hell beta 2 isn't even out yet. Microsoft has a lot of issues to deal with, but the anti-MS crowd loses everyone's respect everytime they say something stupid (which seems to happen more and more often).
Didn't we just hear Google call for more advanced features in web browsers? Maybe it's time to listen to the folks who actually, you know, provide services rather than just rant about companies they like or not for no particular reason.
that would be amazing if it worked
although you are going to piss off a lot of people who have no idea what a web browser is and how to change it
my mom is quite confidant that she knows to click the picture of the little red fox and then find her bookmark for her e-mail
if gmail or her bank decided to boycott firefox(for some reason) she would be clueless as to what it meant or how to fix it....
unfortunately this plague has roots deep enough that we just cant cut it out
Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
contact people running websites that only work for IE and complain.
If the webmaster doesn't respond, then notify the CIO/CTO and cc the VP of Marketing.
If that doesn't work, send an email to the CEO letting them know why they are not reaching nearly 2 out of every 10 potential customers. Explain that you will not use IE due to its security trackrecord unless they agree to indemnify you against any identify theft or data theft.
Encourage your peers to do the same. If enough people complain, the websites will get fixed.
MS still does not keep itself to the standards, that was already pretty clear after the review of IE7 92 days ago on /.) by a little bit more positive person though. I do not think that even a "more powerful speaker" like Paul Thurrott will not make a lot of difference in that. The quality of the other browsers in stability and possibilities will have to do the trick of forcing MS to be compliant (possible), or to quit with the browser business (not very likely to happen)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I had a neat idea last week for a web site that would require the alpha transparency in PNG files. Then I read that IE6, the most common browser, does not support it. So much for that idea.
We see comments like this on Slashdot all the time - "just write to the standard, and ignore Internet Explorer". Now Paul Therrott is basically the same thing. Why is it so hard for these folks to grok that you just can't do that with a browser that still has ~ 90% market share? Sure if you've got some meaningless blog site, or some "pets on parade" personal site, you can do this without repercussion - going from 20 visitors a month to 4 isn't really a big deal. But if you're running a professional site you've got to deliver pages that work for your customers. Doing anything else just means a quick trip to the unemployment line.
#DeleteChrome
15:7-10
Let's be honest: when you have 90% + market share, you ARE the standard. Why should MS care about 100% standards compliance when the competition has such a nominal market share? MS's market share affords them much leniency. When their market share drops to less than 80%, then they might need to worry, but honestly, when will that happen? At the current rate, maybe four or five years from now. A lot can happen in five years.
this is like doing a Boycott on Safari that comes on OS X!......
no matter what you do it will still come with the OS.
- - - - - .
Dont use IE7 Beta its buggy omfg dont use it or die!!! This guy should just shut up and hold his comments until the damn thing ships. I've been a loyal user of Mozilla Suite for 2 years, its a great browser, but if IE7 comes out and is honestly better ill switch in a heart beat. I've used IE7 and it has problems but its on the right track but I wont write it off until its done.
[disclaimer] I do not advocate the use of anything M$ puts out. [/disclaimer] I'm sure that M$ can argue: if they have 90% of the browsers out there, how can you argue that their stuff is not standard? The "standard" is the norm. The norm is defined by the masses. I'd say that 90% kinda defines the masses...
Losers with picket signs accomplish nothing.
(I am not a script)
Considering they have http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242 .aspx already stated that IE is moving towards standards compliance, I think he is jumping the gun a bit here. Internet Explorer is just now moving towards being operable in a developer environment and should be recieving our blessings that it will succeed in order for web developer's nightmares to subside.
That will be the day MS will realise the down't 0wn the world.
/. viewer.
It will take a big-name OEM though, a Dell or Compaq or IBM.
--
My not-a-script-confirmation word is "lechery." I hope that's not an stereotype about your average
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
http://www.winsupersite.com/ covers upcoming windows innovations: Longhorn/vista betas etc
Oh my god, every version of any MS product always has a few issues with it. Be it bugs or standards or security et ala. Why must the bandwagon continue to roll on with each release they do?
FFS - if you like Firefox, use it, if you like Opera, use it... and yes, even if you like IE - us it! So what if IE 7.0 doesn't follow standards. Well lets see what will happen:
1 - certain pages will look screwed up for 80% of the browsers out there.
2 - people will complain to the web master
3 - the web master fixes it for IE 7.0
4 - a new standard evolves
Frankly I'm surprised people haven't attacked Mine Sweeper yet or found fault with it simply because it's bundled with Windows and is an MS app.
It's nice that someone comes along and thinks they can impose a web standard.
The Web Standards Project has no more right or say in what a "standard" should be than MS or MoFo or anyone else though.
The fact that the lot of you hate Microsoft, so therefore will default to the side opposite whatever they're on, won't change that fact.
In other words... prove that you're right and that this *should* be the standard because it *is* right. You can't.
With that in mind, it's all just trolling...
Count me in -- I'm totally on board.
Bye, slashdot. I'm sick of your 'tude. Hello
I know one person who was still using 3.1, a few that are still using '95, many who are using '98, thousands, okay not personally, who were using NT until is got EOL so now they're using 2000, two people using XP.
Windows may have a 90% share but which windows and how much a share each?
IE7 is a dead isue since it didn't come with the box and most people are scared to install anything new (except viruses that install themselves.)
It'll go on the next box, to replace the current box since its gotten so slow.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I dont think it'll be good and do standards an stuff.
I have a whole long list of software that doesnt exist yet that i want to boycott.
We should also boycott the HURD for not being linux.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For these reasons, and many others, I have vowed to never install a 32-bit version of IE greater than 3.x. Thankfully nowadays, there's LitePC.com, which can safely uninstall IE and other useless "Windows components." Too bad it didn't exist in 1997 when I really needed it, though....
Ya know, I'd love to, but I have too many web applications which just don't work with anything other than Internet Explorer on Windows. Somebody needs to tell College Board, Packetshaper, APC, and others to abandon IE before I can abandon IE.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
I'm waiting for sites to start putting "This site best viewed with FireFox" statements on them.
Doesn't mean the site actually has to have a different view, just a statement. Things always look better in FireFox....
At least promp some more people to change......
How many people here still use IE anyways? I'm pretty sure most of you aren't even using windows much less internet explorer. So why is there an article telling us to do what we've already been doing?
Now it's Microsoft who doesn't meet commonly agreed upon standards.
The more things change...
Well, you can fill in the rest.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
http://vb.mvps.org/
.net for the longest time.
I'm thinking the rest of the crowd just relearned how to use vb, and he and a handful of stickouts kept trying to use the old VB and now look what's happened.
vb.net will work in the next version of windows. vb6 won't, or something, they have some petition. I haven't read it.
I remember being afraid of
Anyway, the point is MS doesn't care what this guy or anyone else thinks. His little revolt reminds me of the tiananmen square guy.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Does anyone here seriously believe Microsoft isn't going to be the market gorilla for the next 25years?
Microsoft has dominated the market for so long I can't see them viewing their own work as anything but the standard.
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
The line of thinking is great, because IE is constantly targeted, and beligerantly exploited, but there is a big factor that has been left out of the above article. The people that are reading that article are probably at least semi-decent with computers, and understand the inherent flaws with the software. Compare the amount of people that have a good working knowledge of computers, to the ones that DONT have a good working knowledge, and just want to click on the icon that is already thoughtfully shipped by Windows in their product to use and proclaimed on the desktop. Well.. Suffice it to say the boycott will flop. Hard. Its too easy for the non-tech types to just click on what is already on their desktop and use it instead. The larger crowd of non-techs couldnt give half a shit less about spyware, security or anything like that. (If they even know anything about it) They just want to click the magic web browser button that has been pre-packaged.
to "Freedom Explorer"!
Actually, IE's market share is closer to 85% and falling. The days of 90%+ market share are over and usage will continue to decline. That is, unless MS comes up with something considerably better than what they have (even with the IE7 improvements).
- AMW
The website he's published on doesn't even present a doctype, perhaps he'd do better to talk to some people about that one first, rather than vent about IE's "lack of standards compliance".
You know how sometimes you go to a website with firefox for example and it says that you are using an old version of netscape and need to upgrade? Why not do the same with IE7 on your site? Detect IE7, BAM, sorry your crappy browser is insecure comeback with a real browser. Here are some... links to mozilla, opera, 'etc. "but we cant do that" you say, "we'll lose customers"... right, well block out firefox, opera, and the other browsers that's probably something like 15% of the web and growing rapidly. IE7 will be on vista only and given as an update for XP users... I doubt IE7 will have more then 15% marketshare anytime soon.
... if he called for a boycott of IE8.
It would be awesome if some would wright a virus to download and install Firefox on every computer it infected ;)
First; what difference would a boycott make? /. and we want those things to keep working without a re-write.
Second; Microsoft can't and won't break existing web apps, and many existing asp/apsx apps don't render properly in anything but IE.
Some of us use our web browser(s) for other things besides reading
You are quite correct. If you are a web coder for say, Amazon.com it isn't going to fly to tell IE users to F-off.
Perhaps though, including an additional banner at the top of the site that tells IE users that their browser doesn't support web standards, and suggests a few open source alternatives is a viable and less heavy handed approach.
I have found that most uneducated computer users will make good decisions if you give them a simple to understand explaination.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Nice link. Looks very cool...
Fire Fox IS BETTER!
Why would I design something when there is a good product already?
My IE 6.0 installation stopped functioning recently so I had to switch to firefox. Using IE to navigate websites will bring my MS Office & outlook apps to a crawl. I'm glad to use firefox because I do not want to reinstall my OS on a laptop largely used for business to check email and use MS office. I'm dissapointed because IE breaks a lot of website and I do want to be able to test the quality of my sites against IE.
That said, IE 7.0 is not looking attractive.
Marge: "Do you have Internet Explorer?"
Slashdotter: "Sure, one FireFox!"
Marge: "No, no, Internet Explorer."
Slashdotter: "FireFox?"
Marge: "Eye eee.."
Slashdotter: "Eff eye..."
Seriously though, who would voluntarily "go backwards" and use IE after experiencing all the FireFox goodness?
If you haven't; try now it's free, it's funky, it's pop-in fresh... mah-hoy!
crazy dynamite monkey
It should not be so hopelessly complex to make a accessible hardware-agnostic information presentation system. Mozilla is fairly nearly caught up (to some part because it is a fresh codebase designed for the current direction in web standards), but even they fail in a myriad of ways and has tons of little inconsistencies and bugs (ACID2 highlights how easy it is to trigger a lot of problems). It would of course be best if everyone managed to keep up and make bug-free implementations of all the web standards, but in a more pragmatic sense the W3C really has to slow down a bit and let the landscape settle somewhat. Imagine a really stable browser (Firefox still has plenty of issues after a full day running for me), and it would be even nicer if writing a web-browser was a slightly more possible task. Notice how we have more very well-implemented OS kernels lying around than we have even half-way standards-compliant browsers?
I don't see particularly much reason for anyone to actually use IE7, but their goals with it seem reasonable if they instead focus their energies on making the older standards-support solid and bug-free rather than shooting for yet another level of technologies.
Can i boycott IE as a Linux user?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"We want a better IE7!"
"We don't want an IE7!"
Make up your minds, will ya? Obviously, this guy hasn't read the IE7 blog. At least the IE7 development team are trying.
Well IE gets most of it's "popularity" due to the fact that it is on a majority of PC's and some macs for the basic fact that it's on every microsoft operating system.... sadly IE lets in tons of spyware, doesn't offer a popup blocker or any gadgets and gizmos to make it run better. It's a terrible browser but it's distributed through the windows OS's out there.... therefore it gets lots of "popularity" whether the user knows it or not.
Also another reason that those Microsoft Windows users put up with the problems of IE is that a majority of today's society lack formal computer knowledge. They are afraid to try the Open Source items of today such as firefox and mozilla suite. They are intimidated by the "unknown" to them.
In consiquence IE isn't a very good browser but receives more attencion than that of it's open source rivals. Thus the IE7 boycott will result in a war between the techies and those who fear change.
GCS/MU d- s: a--- C++ W+++ w+ M-- PS--- PE++ t+ R+ tv b+ DI++ G e- h! !y
A small correction, you will allow, please.
There are still a lot of people out their ignorant to the fact that something else FREE exists.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't think anyone got the joke. But it was an entertaining way to point out that IE7 will only be available for Windows XP and above.
Boycott dill pickles, eat only kosher pickles! Crunchiness is sinful!
Changes they're making look great compared to old IE, but even supercharged IE7 will be years behind competition.
Without support for CSS2 display properties, fixed floats model, fixed width/height pure CSS layouts are still going to be pain in the ass.
Don't count on IE7 pushing the web forward. Half of net population has to be ripped off by Microsoft to replace IE6 by IE7.
I'd rather help people get free Firefox or give their money to Opera Software or Apple.
that for once, the only person considered to have a valid opinion on a call to boycott IE wasn't a "Microsoft Guru." Many of us have known for some time now that IE is a horrible stab at mediocrity.
I used to have to go and remove spyware/viruses from my parents computer on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. After Firefox hit 1.0, I switched them over. Firefox imported their favorites/bookmarks, and I created buttons for their most visited sites. I took the time to explain the benefits of Firefox, and helped them get used to the browser. Since then I've had to deal with a spyware problem once in a blue moon.
I'm a CS student, and sell computers at Circuit City (I know I know... dirty dirty salesman... its a job that helps me pay for school). I always offer to install, or at least write down www.getfirefox.com on their reciept before they leave the store. How many actually check it out... who knows. At least we're fighting the good fight.
If not for any other reason, hopefully Firefox's gain in user percentage will force Microsoft to open its eyes and realize that they (microsoft) ANE NOT the only option, and that the consumer won't always be happy with sub par software.
[optikshell.com] My weblog / gathering of neat (read geek) stuff.
How about: You can turn the tide by demanding better from Microsoft or using a better alternative Web browser.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So, what is it?
Your statement is more correct if you simply omit the last word.
The fact that IE is the dominant browser doesn't indicate that it's any better- only that it's the default.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Yeah lets boycott gas too!! (Then we can walk everywhere). Boycott Computers (then our data is really safe). Boycott Credit cards (then no one can steal our identity). Don't waste your time crying. Design something better!
Your examples are all bad. In each case there is really no alternative to use. If you have a 45 minute drive to work, the option to boycott cars is hardly possible.
In our case, something better has already been designed and we have the power to boycott. There are powerful alternatives (such as firefox)to use in a fight against M$.
Those that haven't figured out that new "bittorrent thing" yet... Or those who haven't found the free alternatives like yet...
Mozilla Firefox is so much better than the old Internet Explorer that I don't understand how anyone would still use Internet Explorer nowadays.
Support web standards and democracy, Don't click on the evil blue 'e'
also, a nice icon saying 'e'vil using the blue e will help get the word out
Not just "the" competition, but competition in general. Forget IE itself for a second, the big problem is monopoly. That's why MS can afford to be so sloppy.
So yes, let's convince people to use alternatives. There are "switch" campaigns all over, most of them focused on specific browsers, most of those on Firefox, since it has the most momentum. Sites like Browse Happy (IE is bad, use something else), or Stop IE (IE will eat your brain, use something else) or one I'm working on, Alternative Browser Alliance (monopoly is bad, use something else).
The trick is finding the right approach -- and that'll be different for each potential switcher.
I am so fed up with people bitching about Microsoft. If you don't want to use it, don't use it. If you do use it, you have no right to complain. It's like the idiots that complain about the president but didn't vote. 1. I was a web developer for 7 years and sure, maybe it took a little more effort to get things to work right in IE. But that's the reality of the world. Personally I think it's more annoying having to put a font tag inside every single table column to satisfy Netscape's misunderstanding of tables. But hey maybe that's just me. 2. It's a freakin' Beta! 3. Get over yourselves. If you want to use a completely flawless browser, build one, get one, or quit bitching. Ahhh, that's better.....had to let that out.
This is a troll for Safari folks. Some Mac fanboi is baiting you.
Yeah, like 1/2 of 1 percent of the people in the world, most of the Americain artiste types, use Macinstosh and guess what? Their browser supports ACID2. (it doesn't have any other advantages over Firefox; but Steve told them to use it and not Mozilla so , by golly, there are going to use and inferior browser and continue to astro-turf-troll).
(I actually think Apple marketing does focus group testing of their astro-turf trolls at before letting them loose on the web.)
What was Microsoft thinking? That afer IE6 the product was perfect and would never need further development work?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Okay, I see why everybody likes Firefox, and I understand why it'll probably never support ActiveX plug-ins .. but it NEEDS to support DHTML before I'll jump to it. Yes, I'm an OWA crybaby, but I also use Sharepoint quite a bit.
Isn't DHTML a standard? Yet everybody's complaining that we should boycott IE to jump to a different browser that's just standards deficient with different standards? None of IE's standards deficiencies happen to bother my browsing experience. Sorry. I know it's hip to be anti-MS, but I won't jump on the bandwagon just for the hell of it. I need a real reason first. And right now IE is the best out there.
Microsoft has almost infinate resources and yet they can not develop a browser that is nearly as good as other browsers written by volunteers. Obviously they need to rewrite from scratch... In the mean time I will stick to firefox!
Uh... I think i broke my firefox because it's not rendering the Acid2 Test correctly either? http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Kosher pickles are normally flavoured with dill, and a good one ought to be crunchy. You clearly don't know your pickles.
a question, does someone have a simple explanation for how to implement a web page which will look broken in IE7 (in a way that reflects badly on the browser)? Is there a resource so that I can track how to keep my pages broken with IE7?
Preferably, it should a) involve something which doesn't work because they don't follow standards and b) works in every other browser.
standards comply to you!
Seriously, when you have as much marketshare as microsoft, forget the w3c -- you ARE the standard.
Regardless of what IE7 supports or doesn't I'd like to encourage all designers and developers for the web to code according to standards.
Ignore IE only tricks, make your sites work according to standards. If IE can't render them correctly that's impetus for MS to fix their app. If users can't view your site correctly with IE make sure they're provided with alternatives, and that they know it's IE at fault.
Hey, why doesnt slashdot boycott IE 7 by refusing to render articles?
It is a cancer on the Web, and must be stopped. IE is insecure and is not standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable for both end users and Web content creators...
:)
I've been saying the same thing about AOL for years!
Place sig here.
Well, among other things, what's out in the first beta is less than impressive. Sure, there's a big list of stuff they've supposedly fixed already, but it's not going to be there until beta 2, and people are wondering if the final version is really going to be that much better.
Cool! One hundred and ninety comments, and none of them are modded above a 3.
Just like this one!
You're right. It's only been seven years since CSS2 became a recommendation; they clearly need more time. Since you seem to have such a good handle on this, just how much time would be appropriate? A couple of decades, perhaps?
I'm fairly sure the lack of modded comments violates some of my constitutional rights... its a shame im not an american then... wait.... no.... err... quick!!!!!! mod somebody up!!!
I doubt this will do much good in the general populace. I mean, come on. Most people out there, when you ask them what browser they use, they say "Windows". I have a friend who still thinks that a broadband connection is supposed to make her computer run faster, even though I've explained to her repetedly that it doesn't.
How many people who aren't computer enthusiasts even know who Paul Thurrott is? I'm one and I've never heard of him before. Stuff like this only means something to people who actually know something about computers, most of which already don't use IE. If you want Joe Sixpack to understand things like this, the mainstream media has to pick up on it, and lets face it, most of them can be counted among those who call their browser "Windows"
Technoli
We have 293 comments and none are above 3?
That's pathetic.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
All this IE won't pass the Acid test on purpose hype is a little out of control. Where that comes from is this article from yesterday where the IE developer says:
our top priority is (and will likely always be) security
First, let's be happy about that. Obviously the more serious problem with IE is the security issues.
He then says:
I want to be clear that our intent is to build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2 ( 2.1, once it's been Recommended).
and further more:
It's pointedly not a compliance test (from the Test Guide: "Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification"
So neither the author nor half of slashdot read anymore then the hyped up Slashdot headline. He specifically says they will be fully compliant and are making that a large issue. Cripes, if you want to have credibility, at least get the real facts straight.
But too many website REQUIRE that I use IE - corporate job applications, graduate school, etc. I use Safari on my Mac and Firefox on my PC whenever I can - but sometimes I have no choice but to fire up IE.
Give it a rest already. We can't stop coding for IE since it has 97%+ market penetration. Geeks like us are the only ones using good browsers like Firefox. We can't force this change on the average masses, and we can't afford to have our sites only support the 3% of fellow geeks using standards compliant browsers. The best we can do is design our sites to work with IE and other browsers as well (which we all should be doing anyway). Hopefully as time goes on the sheep will come to our side, then we can make the switch.
Spelign Bad.
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
This will never work because the mass majority of people who are using IE don't even know what the web standards are, let alone care about them enough to boycot a product. And as a web developer I can't tell my clients "soory your site might not work in IE 7 because i'm boycotting it right now." Nice thought, but get a clue.
Later,
Phil
Because the viruses that will infect it are still in their first Beta as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/
Looks like the Slashdot moderators are boycotting moderation! Now we're all trolls. Equality at it's best eh?
Microsoft tries to improve it's product, which everyone has been asking them to do for years, and now we should Boycott it?
I had to automate the translation of a bunch of well-formed but brittle XML coming out of a professional layout application to XHTML and CSS for web pages and a help system. I thought, "well gee this should be easy." A short while later I fired up Firefox and took a look. Well it needed a little bit of tweaking to clear up a typo or two, and to get things looking just right. Next came the compatibility testing. WC3 validator, Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, and Lynx were my targets with a variety of versions and OS's. Everything looked just fine with the exception of Lynx which understandably could not display some of the graphic elements and IE which could not display any of the custom styles I had defined. I found one minor compliance bug in all of the browsers, but I was absolutely astounded that IE could not display any of the formatting except the few that coincided with valid plain old HTML.
I had to go through the whole system and downgrade everything to plain old HTML, and the few features I absolutely had to have working I had to go to great pains to generate, by hand, in the source file. In fact three people here spend a lot of their time manually working around IE's failure to comply to the CSS spec. Several of the less critical features I just left the way they should be and IE users can do without them.
MS says that they will fix the biggest outstanding bugs and try to comply more with the spec. By biggest, they mean the features people actually use, but that IE screws up due to its half-assed implementation of a feature. I've heard little or nothing about implementing all the parts of the spec that no one uses because IE does not support it at all.
I'd be willing to give some kudos to MS and regard it as a worthwhile browser if the next time I do a project like this IE is not the only currently developed browser I can find that can't seem to properly implement the spec even though they have 10 times the developers and money of any other project. If IE actually works, without a pile of work arounds, well great.
Until that time, I'll convert everyone I can to any other browser and I'll not support any friends or family who insist on using it.
MS can talk all they want, but thus far we have been given empty promises and no commitment to do the right thing. Better CSS is just not good enough unless it is a reasonable attempt at actually implementing the spec. Anything else is just giving up beating your wife on Sundays. Don't expect any praise.
I've already been boycotting IE6 for the last 4 years.
i will do what i always do, i stick to standards and will use mozilla anyway. my 0.02cent
It seems that a series of tests that exercise various features and allow for a score to be generated would be more more ideal. This is similar to how one would develop unit tests for business objects in a professional development environment. Saying that "[browser X] passes 90% of the CSS unit tests" would be much more descripting then saying "[browser X] fails the acid test".
No, I will not work for your startup
It would take the whole web savy community as a whole promoting the use of other products to the sheeple out there in order to make a difference. I have friends using other browsers because I recommend it to them. Microsoft will eventually notice.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
For the longest time I would put
<input type>
at the bottom of my HTML, right before the </body> tag. It used to crash IE browsers and often windows itself.
I did this as a reaction to people who code windows-only sites.
If any of you knows of a way to make my (non-commercial, of course) sites inaccessable to IE using only HTML or javascript/activeX I would like to know how to do it.
Has anyone considered that for many large corporate web users that M$ is perceived as the standard? For example, aircanada.com refuses to let you order tickets or do anything remotely interesting unless you're running a recent copy of IE. Perhaps our energies are better used making companies like that understand that it is in their best interests to support non-M$ browsers rather than try to make M$ see the light.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Windows Guru? Pretty sure MS owns /. now.
I WANT an insecure, non-compliant browser!
It is my birthright!
I shall not be denied!Um, wait ... will IE7 run under Linux? Please say yes.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
I hate to be on Microsoft's side on this one, but I think that Mr. Thurrott is a little overboard.
I agree that more people should use Firefox, Opera, and other non-IE browsers, but I don't think that requires an outright boycott of IE7. If anything, we should all be looking forward to IE7 since it seems that Microsoft is making good on its promises for this one.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
> Have your webpages check to see what browser the client is using, and
> if it is IE7 (or hey, ANY version of IE) refuse to render the page and
> pop up a link to Mozilla....
No, that would just piss people off. But how about this:
Use a standards compliant feature that looks better on a proper browser but is readable on IE. The readable part is critical. Then put a little disclaimer or a "Problems with this page?" button that leads to text on the order of "This page uses standard CSS/DOM/BlahBlah. The current version of IE has some issues with it. If you are using IE we recommend either waiting for the next service release or installing one of the following browsers, all free downloads and known to be standards compliant. But rest assured that while some of our pages may render slightly wrong, we are testing our pages to ensure that the actual content remains readable while Microsoft addresses this issue."
Perhaps even have screen captures of the page rendered on several browsers, a fragment of code that breaks on IE alongside a link to or a snippet of text from the standard. But stick that level of detail on a link to avoid confusing the normals.
The correct tone is to make the IE users feel like that this is a Microsoft problem (which it is) that the site is aware of it and trying to mitigate the disruption to their browsing experience, that a solution is offered and that the site feels their pain. But to also subtly make them feel like second class web citizens for using a legacy browser. Perhaps even find a way to work that word in somewhere. All the big companies abuse that word to disparage anything that is a) more than a year old and b) not on THEIR technology roadmap. Lets turn it back on em.
The trick here is that Microsoft has no plans to actually fix their bugs, but if a couple of medium to high profile sites pulled this stunt they WOULD fix them. Because the last thing they want IE users to realize is that they are using the crappiest browser on the Internet. When they do fix the bug, wash rinse and repeat with another feature developers would really like to be able to use.
Democrat delenda est
You can have your index pages check the browser via the user agent string, and if they find IE either direct them to mozilla.org or to an alternate page with a smarmy message about their choice of browser.
boycott eating rat poison, playing rigged games of Russian Roulette, and pissing on power transformers.
/. crowd that IE, version 7 or not, is a piece of crap?
Is it really news to a vast majority of the
From article:
"The most critical point in Wilson's post, in my mind, is Microsoft's admission that it will fail the crucial Acid2 browser-compliance test , which the Web Standards Project (WaSP) designed to help browser vendors ensure that their products properly support Web standards. "
Also from article:
"You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well."
But Firefox doesn't pass the acid2 test either. What's the logic in recommending boycotting IE because it isn't compliant, and then recommending other non-compliant browsers instead?
Vote for Pedro
I've had several situations where refusing to use IE would have cost me significantly:
1. An expense report application that will only properly format the required output from IE. I would have been exposed to tens of thousands of dollars of liability had I insisted on not using IE.
2. A university exam with javascript controls that more-or-less "worked" in Firefox, but were impossible to use because they depend on the location of a widget to be such that the mouse cursor does not have to leave the parent widget to reach it -- works in IE, not in FF.
3. A mortgage payment/status system that has a problem more or less like #2.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Hrmm, maybe those windows people are behind the times, but lots of people have already switched to Firefox, or at least away from IE. Seems he missed the memo.
I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I am boycotting IE, but I sure don't use it anymore.
Scott Swezey
If they actually adhered to standards, how many sites would look like shit because they were designed specifically for IE?
I'd love to see it, but we all know they'd never shoot themselves in the foot like that.
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
Cars used to be OK to sell, even if they were "Unsafe at Any Speed". Until Ralph Nader's book by that name, about the Corvair sportscar, galvanized Americans into protecting ourselves with product safety regulations.
IE crashes much more often every day than did any car on the road. It's almost never fatal, but it still causes lots of damage. Partly directly, in insecure and incomplete transactions. Mostly in the nonproductive wheelspinning time spent patching and otherwise insulating the Web from its flaws. What will it take before we protect ourselves from the software that we use to work today, more than we used cars in the 1960s? How long until "where do you want to go today?" is regarded as safe a journey as our airbag/ABS/crumplezone cars deliver on our roads?
--
make install -not war
I'm sure many have seen this already... a quick way to show how much of the CSS spec is supported by your browser.
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
I'd be interested to know how IE7 fairs, IE6's rendering is horrendous.
so I'm reading the comments and I still see people saying that this website and that website doesnt work in any browser except IE...what websites are you going to?!
I haven't used IE since 99. whether it was Netscape the first year or Mozilla or Firefox afterwards, I have yet to come across a site that doesnt work in a non-IE browser. I pay all but 1 of my bills online(rent), I do my banking online, I do travel reservations online, etc...I even prepare and file my taxes online and have done all of the above things for years; if I can save myself a trip to the post office or not have to use my phone, GREAT!
WTF websites are you people going to that will ONLY work in IE?!
the history of the world
Paul Thurrott is whining about an unreleased browser allegely not complying with an unofficial "standard"? Let's boycott Mozilla, Firefox, and all other browsers while we're at it, since no available browser can pass this test.
The Acid2 test is not a compliance test largely because it is not a product of a standards body. The Web Standards Project is, according to their website, "...a grassroots coalition fighting for standards that ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all." (emphasis mine).
To paraphrase Dennis Miller, "Don't hate IE because it fails the Acid2 test. If you just take the time to get to know it, you'll find many, more valid reasons to hate it."
Will IE7 finally fully support PNG? Can I please have alpha blending on my frickin web page? It's not like I'm asking for sharks, lasers, or a even moon base here, people. I STFA* and didn't see it addressed.
*skimmed the frickin article.
From the interoperability page at getthefacts.com.
"Microsoft SOA technologies are a strong choice because Microsoft developed most Web service standards [...]"
What? I thought that it was Al Gore that had invented that?
No sig for now.
Transparent PNG files.
I do not however know if it has been improved in the newest version.
Freedom or George Bush
I'm not surprised by any of this. Microsoft's whole business model is to control the user end and force companies into catering to the users. Sure Firefox is gaining ground, but IE is still well above 80% market share and has no white hot smoking sense of urgency to become standard when most web users will eat the food MS feeds them. Remember the days when making a website included referencing which browser version worked on that particular site. Perhaps that needs to be brought back to help nudge (*force) the casual web surfer into realizing there's a reason web pages look the way they do, and there are alternatives that can be faster, better, stronger.
Don't boycott IE7 just yet; there is an unsubstantiated rumor that the new version of IE7 has a really interesting new feature:
Instead of having to go to web sites and download spyware/trojans yourself, the new version of IE7 will look them up and download all of them for you automatically.
That's right automatically, just think about all the time this new feature will save you.
-- This SIG doesn't show up in IE7
...everyone already on record as opposed to Microsoft creating standards and Micrsoft having to dance to others' tune. I think this is basically inane horsesh*t.
Do we expect Macromedia not to produce and website builders not to use Flash or Shockwave? Why not? They aren't standards. Do we expect people to stop using Java? Why not? It was foisted by a private company called Sun Microsystems.
It is entirely the province of those who use the net to decide how they will each do so and those who interact with them to make their choices as they see fit. Most of the other browsers aren't properly compliant either. Yet most come from outfits which are supposed to be pure as the driven snow by virtue of their being from either associations like those promulgating web standards or because they're the magical Open Source.
Ooooh... Open Source...
Please.
If Microsoft wants to add ten dozen tchotchkes to their particular browser and ten dozen other browsers want to add or subtract ten dozen tchotchkes of their own each or adopt those of someone else, good for them. Why should what I get offered for display goodness on the net be decided by some third party council of knighted strangers carried on the shoulders of a mob of people with an axe to grind against the largest browser purveyor and a long history of turning a blind eye to the inadequacies and weaknesses of their own favorite browsers?
Microsoft has brought a lot of good stuff to my web browsing experience not brought to me by the committee of blind monkeys hammering out so-called web standards. For crying out loud people, it's freaking web page display stuff, not the underlying ATM, Frame Relay, IP, etc. protocols. It's not like Microsoft invented their own version of TCP/IP and ordered you to use it to surf for pr0n...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
is that like some old fashioned thing like CP/M that's so far out of date that it's "in" again?
...
Or is it one of those alternative browsers other than Firefox, Netscape, and Opera? Is it a plug-in/extension/theme suite for them?
Inquiring and jaded minds want to know
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There are a lot of reasons to bash MS in regards to IE, but you picked a pretty bad one.
IE is a loss leader for MS, just like development is a loss leader OSS guys.
Of course they have more resources than everybody else, but they also have more demands on those resources than everybody else.
It can be argued (successfully, I'm sure) that they should be allocating more resources towards IE, but it has nothing to do with them being closed source.
First of all, because nobody can follow the CSS spec 100%, especially since CSS 2.1 hasn't even reached Recommendation status. IE is the worst of the breed beyond any doubt, but it's not fair to ask it to achieve 100% when nobody else has.
Secondly, if you don't want to throw away your HTML engine and rewrite it from scratch, you are usually saddled with many old assumptions that predate CSS. HTML has plenty of special cases (not to mention bugs) that a browser like IE7 needs to continue supporting.
We can excuse free software
No, we cannot. The "free beer" aspect of free software was not supposed to be an impediment or excuse to missing features or low quality. In fact, free software was supposed to be better because people wrote it for the love of the art without real world constraints like time or money.
... not so much for the Slashdot reference, but for finding the true issue.
You can develop standards-compliant browsers 'til the cows come home, but you're never going to make Joe Schmoe web developer produce a standards-compliant site.
As is Firefox's
At home, I can use Firefox however much I want, but unfortunately if I put that on my box at work, I suspect someone would notice and I would be in Big Trouble.
At least we don't use Outlook Express for email...
It's the CORPORATE desktop. Microsoft does NOT want to break that.
And they have users locked DEEP into Exchange, Outlook, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). They have also had corporate users develop custom ActiveX controls, yadda yadda.
OWA looks GREAT on IE on Windows. It looks EXACTLY like Outlook 2003, and behaves almost exactly like IE. Which is amazing for a browser! What really sucks, is that it's totally proprietary, which means it works in nothing else, but IT departments STANDARDIZE on it, which means their users are all using it. They are hopelessly dependent on it. And they cannot use Macs (because Safari, Firefox, Opera, and IE 5 for Mac all render it like crap), and they cannot use alternative browsers on a PC. If Microsoft "fixed" IE, they would offend their corporate customers, who are exactly the people they're trying to get billions out of when Vista/IE 7 ship, and that WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Believe me, I get the "fix your browser because NONE of our corporate IT apps work on it!" like every week. And saying "hey, not our fault" doesn't matter to these people. It means they cannot use their apps, or run key business components, on our platform, and there's not much we can do about it to fix things. And it sucks. Microsoft knows this, of course.
Rather then having a customer download a new brower, why not design a downloadable ActiveX plug-in that actually fixes the rendering problem.
Note: I'm not a programmer. I'm just throwing out an idea if it's possible.
Life is not for the lazy.
Each horizontal band line is a separate test or group of tests. Clearly, gecko renders more lines correctly than IE. "better" can be quantified.
Then skim the one from yesterday that reported on the blog entry that caused this story to appear, because it does address PNG support.
I've been boycotting IE since before they used it to crush Netscape. The only time I ever use IE is to test newly created web pages for compatability. Looks like half of eveything will be incompatable now, so why use it at all ?
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242 .aspx
IE7 will *not* pass the acid2 test, they were not even trying.
I use an IE bug to display a special message on my homepage. It is only displayed in IE, not in Mozilla, Opera, Safari, lynx, etc. The idea is to encourage people and inform them that there exist better alternatives.
Do the same on your website, maybe we should start a movement of information like that.
theefer
So, how do I teach my boss to stop clicking on the "Big Blue E" in order to get to the internet. :)
Obama = Socialism.
Or, as I do on my site, you can take the time to make it render (mostly) properly in IE, but display a fake information bar across the top inviting the user to check out the alternatives.
I think it's a bit less user-hostile, but might get the message across at the same time.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
To see if the final version of IE7 is also not standards compliant then decide to boycott? It is responses like this that discourage companies from offering public betas in the first place.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
How can you call your test a "test that test browser capability to use standards" if your CSS is not even valid?
Dear god, why? You mean this function can return a string or a Boolean value? If I had to use PHP, that would make me cry. Dynamic typing is nice and all, but abusing it like that in a standard API is just awful.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
You're making my point for me, though. Since there is no market need to ship a new IE until Windows Vista, which is due no sooner than 3Q2006, there's no reason they can't finish complete standards support in it. Since such a large portion of the market will be using it by default, it's that much more important that its standards support is complete, not "the best they can do in the time allotted." The time allotted for this seems to be an artificial thing.
It wasn't that they were against Mozilla, they just didn't see what the big deal was. Why invest the time/energy/effort to learn/download/install something new, when they know how the big E works? (Keep in mind, these are people who can have this conversation:
Mom: Wow, your computer is so fast.
Me: (Perplexed, b/c they are using my laptop from circa 2000) Uh, really? I think your home computer is faster than mine.
My Brother: SHe means the Internet is faster (I have DSL, they have dialup)
Me: Do you mean the Internet, Mom?
Mom: No, I mean email. (She's checking her email from mail.yahoo.com)
)
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
(This example is overly simplified, use it as a guide.)
Problem: The average user does not care what browser they have. They just care that it works.
Problem: IE is not standards compliant.
Solution: Develop ActiveX control for IE that loads the Firefox engine into IE.
Then spend the $400 to get the $%@! thing signed.
Try this:
/*<![CDATA[*/
/*]]>*/
p.noie is normally defined as:
p.noie
{
display:none;
background:red;
border-style:solid;
border-coor:black;
border-width: 0 0 1px 0;
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
then follow it with this
<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css">
p.noie{display:block;}
/*other IE only stuff*/
</style>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<p class="noIE">You appear to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
This program does not render pages correctly. Please download and install
<a href="http://www.getfirefox.com">something that works.</a></p>
This should validate as the whole [if IE] is a comment.
I don't get your statement that IE crashes a lot. I used it 3-4 days a week, and I don't think I've had it crash in two months.
I have the regular Explorer (file system explorer) crash more than IE, and that's only every 2-3 weeks (Tiger Finder crashes about as often).
The article however is screaming about the IE team saying that they won't aim to pass the ACID2 test for this release. I don't see a problem with this, the point of my previous post was that it is not worth it to worry about getting the browser in line with standards perfectly on every front when no other browser passes the test anyway. Getting the CSS2 into a good known functioning state for baseline web development is the right priority. People going paragraph-surfing on w3c.com and making up tests that no browser passes is not something to take much notice of until then.
To reiterate; Fix what is most needed (and they are apparently bringing up a lot of broken functionality to the standard) first, and maybe worry about what the W3C is whining about some other decade.
If you want an easy way to check out Safari with the updated webkit that passes the Acid test, check this out:
a riOnAcid.dmg
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bwaters/projects/mac/Saf
I don't believe they ARE shooting for "full CSS2," but instead are shooting for as much as they can do in the time allotted. They're not even claiming to fix all their known bugs, but only the most egregious ones. To be fair, they've got a HELL of a lot of known bugs. :)
The thing that bugs me the most here is that the time allotted seems to have nothing to do with how long it should take to get it where it should be, but some competely arbitrary ship date. Windows Vista isn't due for over a year, so what's the rush? It's not like they aren't already 5 years behind everyone else. You can't make up that much of a gap in so short a time. They shouldn't ship until it's ready. And by "ready," I mean "not crappy." We're going to be stuck with supporting IE7 for a _very_ long time.
Wiggum: Fat Tony is a cancer on this fair city. He is the cancer, and I am the... uh, what cures cancer?
> Am I doing something wrong?
Yes, you are using Internet Explorer.
In most places I am very much for keeping up with standards (where the heck is C99 in Visual C++?)
You answered your own question: I've bolded the relevant bits for you.
The only reason my kids' Mac has IE is because my daughter's web class required it for their online software. We instructed her to use it for that purpose only. For everything else, there's Firefox. Hey, that sounds like a commercial!
it's about damn time. not that my mom knows who paul thurrott is
on a completely related note, i'm composing this from ie7 on vista beta 1 (i'm forcing my self to use it for at least a week).
it's not entirely trash, just mostly. it really doesn't have anything to offer me as a current firefox user. the tabs are nice (ctrl+t works), and so is the search bar (ctrl+k doens't). i keep reaching towards the back/forward buttons to find the refresh/stop button, but it decided to move to the other side of the screen
beyond that, i haven't noticed a great deal of anything different, including support for standards
Try hack.
Ever since Paul bought a Mac, he's been more even-handed and critical of Microsoft. It's good to see this from a techy who writes well and provides a lot of insight.
Is MacSuperSite far off?
- Firefox (1.0.6)
- IE (6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
- Opera (8.0.2)
and all of them failed."I know together we'll make the possible totally impossible" - Homme
Not just because it's not standards compliant, more importantly because its tied to Windows. When MS abandons ActiveX, that would be a huge step.
It seems to me that Firefox's threat to MS isn't the UI features (which are easy to implement), but the compliance and security issues. Now that developers have a product that can make use of the standards (from 1997-1999, that is), MS has no choice but to play the game with everyone else.
The catalyst for better standards support in IE is the loss of market share, not Firefox specifically. When Opera declares to be itself soon, we'll have even more accurate numbers, probably another 2-3% drop for IE.
This is the price they pay for 8 years of doing things their own way, and using their OS monopoly to try and control the web. Obviously, that gambit failed. they dug this hole for themselves, now they're scrambling to get out of it.
I see change in the job market too. Dreamweaver is now starting to be seen as the liability that it is. A surprising amount of jobs lately specifically list hand-coding (HTML) as a requirement.
Now we have to settle the impending HTML5 vs XHTML2 battle that's going to cause an even bigger rift for developers.
Better yet, use a no standard IE feature to show the visitor that she/he is not using a modern browser: Conditional Comments
IMO the only thing that will get people to switch from IE to and alternate browser is when most websites people visit start recommending a browser that supports web standards in order to view the page properly.
If we can get all the corporations and major websites to design their sites with standards, and not cater to IE requirements, then poeple will switch. Most people are not going to bother until it affects their web experience. Which is the exact reason everyone uses IE now days. B/C sites are designed to suit IE. If they do try Mozilla and their favorite site doesn't look/work the way they are used to, guess what, they are going to go back to IE.
Yeah, transparent PNGs will be supported in IE7 Beta 2, according to the article\blog that was on /. yesterday.
/. article yet? Well... no probably not, but I think we all feel this way anyway.
Apparently the background-attachment CSS feature will also work correctly, which I'm glad to hear since you can do cool pseudo-transparent HTML elements with it (namely DIVs). Previously, instead of the picture being positioned relative to the whole page, it was only relative to the element which it was in, making it look goddamn awful in IE and pretty damn nice in anything else - see here.
Personally, I'm glad they've sorted out some major rendering flaws, and I'm glad many problems remain - I want my websites to look like they're made to in IE, but I still want IE to be bad enough to make people join the Firefox fanboy club.
On a side note, could this be the most redundant
At least wait until it isn't beta... they've said they want to make it standards compliant, so just hang on and call them out on it. It'll make for a stronger boycott.
They're so sure that they adhere to the standards they've blocked the w3c validator from validating their page.
That's ok. I saved the main page and uploaded it to the validator. Only 86 errors... no biggie...
The first thing I did when I heard about all this is to see exactly what the hell everyone is complaining about. How bad exactly does IE7 render the Acid2 test?
Well, open up IE6, and load up the Acid2 test, because I'm looking at both of them and they're essentially the same. Just IE7 has the margin closer to the top... Oops... full screen it, and both of them break in the exact same way.
IE7 doesn't render the Acid2 test any better than IE6. Which is pretty freaking stupid.
Meanwhile, open up Firefox, and the image is distorted. It's not OUTRIGHT WRONG, it's just kinda not bad.
So, rather than looking at the Acid2 test on a pass-fail metric (which most people are doing right now. 100% or nothing) FireFox actually deserves something like a B+/A-. Meanwhile IE6, and IE7 that render it exactly the same deserve an F, because there is just absolutely nothing close to a smiley face on that page.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
No, we cannot. The "free beer" aspect of free software was not supposed to be an impediment or excuse to missing features or low quality. In fact, free software was supposed to be better because people wrote it for the love of the art without real world constraints like time or money.
Not to mention that the last time I checked, IE was given away for free too.
It's not like anyone's paying any money for it.
And better looking too
Operawatch posted some info on Opera's progress toward Acid2 yesterday.
I just love when people talk crap about beta products, and say what amounts to OMG F1R3F0X0r is t3h STANDARD COMPL14NT!!1!one on the right hand, while they make crappily marked-up Web pages and Windows altar sites on the left.
Sure, Fx, Opera, and perhaps even Lynx, Links and ELinks are more on the ball with standards than Grandpa IE, but it helps when we give then standard Web sites to comply with. I hope that Thurrott, the guys at Slashdot, and anyone planning to write Web pages are noticing what the Validator thinks of them. Between the browsers and parsers of the Web, it is easily the most standards-compliant of all.
I wish it came with a reference renderer though, that would make PNG page images from valid HTML, according to common screen sizes and print page dimensions.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
<?
} // now XHTML1.1 compliant!
if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE') !== false && strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Opera')
=== false) {
?>
<br/><br/><b>Attention:</b> Although this method of browser identification isn't foolproof, you appear to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer. A number of security and other analysts (including the Internet Storm Center) have recommended that people stop using IE, since it not only has a very large number of security problems, but also does not comply with Web design standards, which means that it is a lot more difficult for Web designers to create Websites which everyone can view.
<br/>
If you want a more secure alternative to Internet Explorer, which is just as easy to use, install <a href="http://www.getfirefox.com/"
title="A Better Browser" >Firefox</a>.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>
<?
?>
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Mac only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.'"
What's the point of including Safari? Anyone who has the ability to run Safari won't have the ability to run (and similarly, won't give a shit about) IE7. And anyone who wants to run something instead of IE7 won't have the ability to run Safari.
Pretty stupid to tell people to consider Safari if they have to buy another computer to use it.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Without telling me how much IE sucks, can anyone out there tell me that these three browsers will render *every* webpage perfectly, and identically to each other?
Honest question, because I've heard people say that other browsers are not 100% perfect either. Granted, IE 7 may not even be 80% perfect, but unless the ACID test is your homepage, is it really THAT big a deal?
-David
As long as people pirate MS applications rather than patronize alternatives, MS will continued to dominate the market, and commercial alternatives will continue to fail, leaving only OSS knockoffs.
You do know how to tell the difference between a warning and an error right? I'm assuming since you came up with that number, you don't. Go back and count again.
You do know how to count, right?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Somebody needs to write a IE7 exploit that installs Firefox.
<sigh>
Microsoft asked Paul to remove a post from his personal blog (denying a scoop), citing trade secrets, not so long after he humiliated them publicly. Paul replaced/removed the post and put instead an image from a MS-PR site proving the scoop.
current CVS of Konqueror/KHTML (which i expect to be released with KDE 3.5) and current CVS of Safari and Safari 2.0 both pass, AFAIK.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
We'll just go ahead and do this on our Government of Canada website, and screw 80 percent of the users. Great thinking.
Geze... and I have been asking for a boycott since version 4!
And after all these years I am still using Windows (95 and NT 4) without any trace of IE (no mshtml.dll or anything!)
<mad scientist voice> Internet Explorer is Evil! EVIL! </mad scientist voice> And I don't think IE 7 is going to be any different.
Wow, there are 585 comments when I post this, but only 20 are scored 3 or higher.
I find it interesting that he says boycott MSIE 7 because it doesn't conform to standards, and then he recommends Firefox.
What makes it interesting is Firefox won't pass that ol' Acid Test either. And yes, I just tried it...I'm not basing that comment on rumor.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
When I posted this there were 588 comments and 5 comments above level 3.
Less than one in a hundred! This is pathetic. I thought it would just take time and some comments would be modded up. 500 comments later, I realize I was wrong.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
you call people sheep, they tend to turn on you like wolves.
DHTML, as in -- dynamically changing the page by tinkering with the document object model (DOM) from a scripting language, such as javascript?
:)
Not only does FireFox support this, but the entire user interface is written in this fashion. Get on the bandwagon buddy, it's fun!
Someone has clearly stolen Paul Thurrott's password and is using it to post articles to his site. First he likes the Mac mini, now a boycott of IE? What happened to the blind Microsoft apologist I loved to hate pre-2005?
Is it just me, or are articles like this completely pointless because the only people who would ever read them (or know of them) are people who are already using better web browsers?
I know this is slashdot and all, probably the single biggest anti-MS community in the world outside of Apple, but lets try and look at another point... The majority of web surfers out there are using IE, whatever version. If this is the case, then couldnt IE be considered (or should be considered) the standard? I mean shouldnt standards be based on majority?
Hate MS and IE all you want, but the fact is most people use it. OK, maybe not most people here, but in general, granma and the folks are generally not hip to alternative broswers. They use whatever came with their HP or Dell box, and sadly that will probably be IE. I know there was a long discussion on IE many times in the past and I think I have commented on some of them, but it comes down to the fact that when 80% of the world is using a program, that program should, and is by most people outside the rather pretentious slashdot/linux crowd (no offense but THAT is why a lot of people don't give a damn about linux in general...have you people listed to yourselves?), considered to be a standard, no matter how bad it is.
IE is pretty insecure and yeah it has a lot of bugs etc. but it has a few things going for it that none of the other browsers do at the moment... 1. You dont have to install it. It is just there. Go to any windows box and there it is. No need to download, install, configure or even think about it. Just click the blue E. That is a BIG advantage, not just for MS but for the end user as well. How many people would be online if they had to go and find a web browser themselves? Most would never even get far enough to figure out how. If it were not for that one simple program installed when you set up your windows box, you would probably not be online now. Why? Well, the reason internet access is so cheap is becuase there are a lot of people online, and they are online becuase it is easy. Pure and simple. If not for IE you would probably be paying 10x as much for access...if it were available in your area at all. It may not be as important as that, but you get the point I am trying to make.
2. IE is easy to use. You dont need to figure anything out at all. Everyone that uses windows knows how to use IE. The same cannot be said for Firefox, Mozilla ad naseum. Some alternate browsers are just too good for their own good. More options means confusion for the joe-everyday that doesnt give a damn about tabs and just wants to find his pron or who's who in the latest Nascar standings at 2 in the morning.
3. There are still some things that IE does that others (to my knowledge) do not do. They may be small and seemingly insignificant, but for me that is the deal breaker. Those little almost unnoticed things that IE does in it's default behaviour like rescaling a picture in the window to fit the window or allowing me to save it by hovering and clicking the save button even when some dick-head disables right click on their page.
You probably think I am some "noob enduser" but I assure you that is not the case. I've been in the game for loooong time. Hardcore since the XT days and DOS 3. I ran my own computer business for 10 years and I use linux on a server at my house - for what linux should be used for IMHO...a net (web, mail and FTP) server.
I tried desktop linux and hated it...too freakin obscure to figure out even the basic stuff a windows box does with ease and I got 1000's of apps for windows which for obvious reasons wont run on linux. Plus the polish and useability just isnt there. Fact of the matter is, computers are not what I do for a living anymore and having to recompile ANYTHING just to make a piece of software I download or driver work is rediculous. I really dont care what the advantage is, I just dont have the time or the interest anymore to bother. I just wanna be able to grab a piece of hardware off the shelf, slap it in my box, run the driver install and be on my merry freakin way...which despite all the rhetoric around here is the experience I have with windows almost every t
It has historically been Microsofts C compiler as well, and has done an excellent job with it (and don't go about thinking that C89 is a subset of C++ now). It is just unfortunate that they have decided to not update the C part to C99, it is not like it would even be a major undertaking. Most of the features are already available by other means in Visual C++, but they seem to just decided not to spend the week it would take to bring in full C99 compliance.
You know what would be really cool? A combination of transparent background images that cancel out and look normal in a standards-compliant browser, but in IE turn into an eerie silhouette of a lizard on a solid black backdrop.
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
This might unfortunately be the case yeah. I would highly disagree that they are five years behind everyone else however, if they put some effort in it they could easily bring IE up to the level of Firefox over a year or two (lets not forget that Firefox does not pass ACID2 either, plus some old memory leaks and occasional spell of instability after a long day). It is not unlikely that IE still is not a great priority at Microsoft however.
I'd like not to be all that negative however, CSS fixes and full PNG support, not to mention the low-rights implementation, are all really good steps. Since we wont actually get rid of Microsoft (if people didn't flee in the horrible 9x days why would they now that pretty much all Microsofts product lines look a whole lot better?) it is good thing if they move in the right direction with things like IE.
my favorite browser for rendering: http://lynx.browser.org/ the one for efficiency: http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html
Preach it, brother!
Okay, I misspoke - they're not 5 years behind everyone else, but they're 5+ years behind where they should be. I haven't seen any notable new features since, what, 1999 or so? That's pathetic for a company with the resources MS has at hand.
:)
I agree that the aforementioned fixes are good things, but not for a beta of a major new version release. They're still adding features; this should be an _early alpha_, at most.
What they could do in a reasonable timeframe is give up on IE as the product, port the KHTML renderer over to Windows, and give it a new name. No worries about browser detection, etc - a whole new product that already passes the ACID2 test, et voila, all caught up. This would probably take a couple of orders of magnitude LESS time than making the IE code base do the same thing in a stable manner. Not that it'll happen, but it'd be nice. Since it's not a paying product, it's not like they don't have better things to do with their time than continually update the renderer in their browser. Internet Vista, that's a good name. IV - it'll get in your blood!
amen to this... I'm with him. I HATE writing webpages that work both in IE and Mozilla. takes 25% or more code to get the same effect in IE as it does in Firefox.
You could do that, but why? Windows supports standards (unlike IE)! Obviously it's gotta be a 'standard' if it's used by so many people/organizations/companies. So yes Windows is a standard -- unlike MSIE.
Thurrott was a Microsoft shill who got burned by Microsoft and didn't get all the things he wanted. Eventually he was writing nonsense about what little he did know, and it ended up getting to the point where it was damaging his credibility. However, just because a shill changes his shilling, doesn't mean he isn't still a shill.
The only difference now is he's trying to pour scorn so people don't think he's just supporting them blindly. A few weeks later, a trip to Microsoft and he'll be lapping the balls of some product team like it's a vocation.
Not to mention that the last time I checked, IE was given away for free too.
.. Internet Explorer is a part of Windows. If you have a legitimate copy of Windows than yes, you did pay for it.
.. of course, IE7 _seems_ slightly different but I'm guessing given that they are planning on adding a LOT of new features to Beta 2 (as per the weblog) it wouldn't surprise me if it DID coincide with Vista's release.. wait and see.
It's not like anyone's paying any money for it.
Hmm
Free versions of Internet Explorer (ie Internet Explorer for the Macintosh, updates for Win95/98/Me) have been long gone.
Microsoft has stated that new versions of Internet Explorer would co-incide with new versions of Windows
When OEMs start making Firefox the default browser:
That will be the day MS will realise the down't 0wn the world. It will take a big-name OEM though, a Dell or Compaq or IBM.
Here's the problem: They can't. MS will raise prices per copy of XP and even a dollar per copy will have an impact on the bottom line. Where the additional cost to MS vs additional cost of phone support (malware, viruses, etc) swings things over I'm not sure, but no doubt OEMs are looking at Firefox in a serious way.
I work in a small computer shop and Firefox has saved us several hours each month in phone support. It goes out as the default browser on each system, and IE isn't on the desktop (lest people's habits bring them to it).
That site attempts to exploit an IE bug to gain access to your PC. You should be fine with the latest security patch, but be warned.
It's worth noting that the word "warning" was not even on the page that listed all of the errors, nor was the word "warn."
Right, like Sobe needs any more advertising.
<? // now actually XHTML and WAI compliant.
// <br /> is a gateway tag, and <b> is just unforgivable
// Link added to maccaws.org who do a fantastic
// job of explaining the benefit of standards
// to non-technical stakeholders. Rock.
if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE') !== false && strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Opera')
=== false) {
?>
<h2>Attention:</h2>
<p>
Although this method of browser identification isn't foolproof, you appear to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer. A number of security and other analysts (including the Internet Storm Center) have recommended that people stop using IE, since it not only has a very large number of security problems, but also <a href="http://www.maccaws.org/kit/primer/">does not comply with Web design standards</a>, which means that it is a lot more difficult for Web designers to create Websites which everyone can view.
</p>
<p>
If you want a more secure alternative to Internet Explorer, which is just as easy to use, install <a href="http://www.getfirefox.com/"
title="A Better Browser" >Firefox</a>.</p>
<?
}
?>
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Or a terrible flaming, lidless eye...and a text-to-speech capture of the user's name, whispered quietly, menacingly...in Bill Gates' nasal, sing-song voice...cut to scene of him sitting on desk, staring into monitor with...YOUR FACE ON THE SCREEN!
That might get some people to switch.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Even webstandards.org doesn't seem to agree with him. This here news item on that site is pretty unambiguously cheerful about the things IE7 *is* fixing. As a web developer, I am too.
So no, I won't stop using Firefox when IE7 comes out. But I damn well will develop for IE7. I may just forget to code for all those earlier versions.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Well I have. The first day of the semester for a class I was taking I booted up the computer when I went in and it didn't compleat booting up, instead I got the BSOD. After several minutes I gave it the three finger salute a few tymes then it rebooted right.
Just because you never saw something doesn't mean it's not true.
FalconShould there be a Law?
August 2004 that I can recall. I may of had one later but if so I don't recall.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hmmm... seems like only yesterday that slashdot posted a link to the IEblog with the news that they were fixing heaps of web developer bugs for beta 2 of IE7.
Oh, wait, it was?
Real men don't write sigs
Has anybody else noticed that Paul Thurrott *never* criticized Microsoft's products in any significant way until he publicly admitted to having bought a iPod?
I bet Thurrott got taken off the Microsoft payroll for that.
You need to fix your hardware if you are seeing blue screens. Yes I know default is just to reboot on blue screen unless you change that, but you are still notified on the reboot about the error. I have only have seen a blue screen in XP with a flaky soundcard/bad drivers.
It wasn't my computer, it was the college's that I was attending. And if I recall right it was a brand new Dell.
The following is a re-creation of the Windows XP BSoD:
FalconShould there be a Law?
You are part of the 1% of users that knows what a parsing engine is, what CSS is, etc. The VAST majority of users don't have a clue and don't care. If everyone who read slashdot boycotted IE, it wouldn't matter, because that would be I'm sure less than 1% of users, probably way less than that. Your mom, grandma, boss, uncle, neighbor, none of them gives a rip. Try to tell them about it, and their eyes will glaze over and they'll be thinking about donuts. It's pointless.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
sure IE sucks, but firefox sucks more!!! i'm sick and tired of people defending firefox when it screws up the layout of webpages and doesn't allow full-screen on .wmv files. let's ban Firefox instead! Go with opera! (btw, i'm using the firefox browser right now only bc i'm on my friend's computer that doesn't have opera). ;)
Should make a petition and demand IE7 be compliant. If by the time it is released they haven't changed it then lets burn em at the stake.
Hell lets just do it now!
Just make your page standards compliant. After all, isn't that the point? Not that any single browser should be singled out for MDK, but that browsers either be standards compliant, or they fail to render a page correctly?
I8-D
...all your old computers all the time? Daily? Thrown any away? How about cars, still running your first car? How about all the cash dropped on rent when it could have been home ownership? How about entertainments? Watch a movie at the theater it's gone, can't get that money back. How much beer have you "rented" by the bottle or can or glass?
There's waste then there's *waste* of money.
In short, ya, this is a very easy question, if you have money "into" windows software in the past, but you can switch now, then don't keep throwing good money after bad, switch, chalk it up to time marches on.. If you simply cannot switch, then stick with what you have of course.
if those damn frogs cant see it ...
oh fringe!
my bad!
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
You have to pick your battles.
Right now, Microsoft is planning on releasing an Internet Explorer 7 that has the majority of the real bastard bugs and missing features in CSS eliminated. This will probably ship before Vista, so there'll probably be a subsequent release of Internet Explorer (e.g. 7.5) to go with it. This version can be the focus for the Acid test or whatever.
Suppose this boycott is effective. Microsoft will delay Internet Explorer 7 until they fix up the rest of it - stuff that's certainly nice to have, but in no way compares to the stuff they've already fixed. That will probably delay it enough to ship Internet Explorer 7 with Vista.
Not only will a successful boycott delay the release of Internet Explorer 7 for months (prolonging the frustrations of web developers for months too), but it makes it less likely that there'll be a quick turnaround for the next version.
Right now, we know that the really important bits are fixed in their current codebase. We should want them to release this as soon as possible, rather than making them delay it for less important stuff.
My problem with an IE7 this year and an IE7.5 (they'll call it 8, you know they will) next year is that IE7 will still have to be supported for many, many years. I'd rather they just wait for the super-duper fixed-up version. Yet another browser to check for to work around the bugs. No thanks.
If the site declares a doctype, why doesn't MS simply use the Active X Gecko to render it?
It's entirely possible for me, a non coder, to get IE to use gecko ActiveX, it surely isn't hard for MS to do it selectively.
Why bother rewriting the wheel? Microsoft keeps publishing new OSS projects of its own, why doesn't it contribute to an existing one?
It's official.
No one can moderate in this topic because everyone has commented.
Feel free to flame away - no one can stop you now,
not that it's detered you in the past.
I would have marked myself +2 funny... or insightful. I do my own moderating now.
Paul Thurrott is a cancer for the IT world
WindowsITPro.com is cancer for my eyes with 8+ ads
Slashdot is cancer for Linux
Linux is a cancer for the software usability
What they could do in a reasonable timeframe is give up on IE as the product, port the KHTML renderer over to Windows, and give it a new name.
It would take years to add the gazillion proprietary IE features to KHTML or any other browser code.
If what was reported yesterday is true, and IE7 will support 99% of CSS 2.1, then full ACID2 compliance is really not that much additional work.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I don't usually post, but this is some funny stuff. Is it so difficult being anti-ms that people need to resort to using a NON-STANDARD test to call for a boycott on a BETA product? I mean, Acid2 admits it dosen't promise compliance, and NOTHING out there passes its test, not Firefox, not Opera, not nothing. Anyhoo...please do continue the hell-raising about how evil M$ (I love the dollar sign...as if money canotes evil) is and the whole monopoly thing.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
We could probably get it's marketshare down to about 85%! It's true, only ubergeeks and MS shareholders care what browser people use. Most people just want to read the news and check their email.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Many of us have been doing this for years, why does he get the press?!
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Until this Firefox thing took off recently, the good folks in Redmond sat around and laughed about how a tiny insignificant handful of people were off in a corner somewhere, talking to no one but themselves about "standards". It was indeed quite funny.
Then one day, like an annoying insect, this pesky Firefox thing managed to claw its way up to a tiny but still non-trivial amount of marketshare. The IE7 project is like the casual swat of the hand needed to shoo away the insect. Nothing more.
IE is the standard, and the standard is IE.
Free Hans!
The reason IE7 (and 5/6) are the way they are is mostly to support past screw ups. IE is the most used web browser. Ever. If E7 followed the standards exactly, a LOT of current web sites would not render 'correctly', as they used to for most of the internet users.
See guys i run wiki etc., based site. Any idea how to do this in html/drupal/wiki? Any help appreciated
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
If you just stop going to a site, the owners of the site will never know exactly why.
You have to let them know that you are not happy with non-standard site.
I would have marked myself +2 funny... or insightful.
I would have marked you +2 insightful, but I already posted.
and I don't think there is a cure, as no medicals have ever cured the cancer 100%.
Wow...an article on Slashdot bashing Microsoft again!!!....what a shock. Why don't people talk about how much of a pain in the ass it is to find sites that actually support this browser 100%....especially in the corporate world!....please....
Unless it's some plan to swell Paul's head until it explodes then please don't refer to everyone's favourite brown nosing idiot as a 'Windows Guru'.
The guy's a hack who can type quicker than he can think.
Forget about I.E. 7
Apple Safari for Mac SUCKS>
Boycott Apple computers
They are like Fisher Price Computers!
If MS told IBM "if you preload 1 million XP HOME's this year, you can have them for $50 million, but only if you make IE the default browser, otherwise it's $51M" IBM can take that to the media and the justice department and they will have a field day with it.
Anything smaller than a Tier-1 OEM and calls of "anti-trust" will fall on deaf ears in Washington.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...to refresh their interest in anti-trust. It's interesting that even though the market share has increased and dominance of every product line that requires Windows has been establsihed, the anti-trust issue has quietly gone away. Maybe MS is meeting their surveillance quotas and not subject to the same anti-trust laws as all other industries. Looks like big brother has found a reliable little brother to do the snooping. Doug Hettinger www.SoftwareObjectz.com
http://www.softwareobjectz.com
I just read here that the second beta of IE 7 is where MS will roll in CSS 2 support. But I'm also confused as to why they're not targeting CSS 2.1, which "rolls back" some CSS 2 elements that no-one was following anyway.
hehehehehe.
Haaaaa. Man, that's funny.
I bet you'll even do something even more crazy and wacky, like suggest that we all not use Windows, or stop using electricity. Or oxygen.
Now, while *I* don't use Internet Explorer, and I suggest at every turn that other people use Mozilla, I can see how this is clearly doing the world a lot of good. What's that? 5% of us use Mozilla (The pedantic would point out it's a whopping 6.25% and growing every day)? Wow. I can see that the good fight is being won one inch at a time.
But here's what boycotting - well, anything - does: it gives *you* warm fuzzies. It doesn't fix the gushing head wounds that afflict the world, it doesn't make the Evil People of the world that put them there take notice, and it certainly doesn't fix anything. It's just a lazy way to protest, and it's horribly ineffective. The people whose minds need changing won't notice.
You want to change the world? Spend some money and start giving out stacks of slicked-up free Mozilla CDs at computer stores. The only reason that people use IE at all is because it's free and it comes with their computers (which most people hardly ever upgrade, either).
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The same arguments used for IE may be used for Windows too. I don't get it.
Somehow it's ok to change a browser because it's insecure / not compliant but you don't do that to your whole OS (you know... the thing _all_ the other software depends on).
PS: I'm not saying Linux here. I own OSX, Win and Linux but it's just weird the logic used for the rating.
The article however is screaming about the IE team saying that they won't aim to pass the ACID2 test for this release. I don't see a problem with this, the point of my previous post was that it is not worth it to worry about getting the browser in line with standards perfectly on every front when no other browser passes the test anyway
Well, the problem is that most other browsers have code ready to pass Acid2 now, in development or in stable version, or are working on it.
IE team tells us they will not even start working on it.
That means before IE7 gold is out, there's a big chance all other browsers will pass the test. It's sure most will pass the test.
Now, this would not be a big deal, except for the fact that most of these browsers are Free Software or Open Source projects with little to no money to support them. At least compared to MS.
This just shows the old fact that MS, despite its billions, still can't improve at the same speed or faster than the competition, they are still years behind, and the gap is getting larger for now.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.a sp
...because
A) Firefox doesn't pass the Acid 2 test.
B) The Acid 2 test isn't a strict CSS 2 page, and as such just as microsoft described is really a wish list.
How about every Internet Explorer version? and more importantly other programs that everyone hates but is forced to use. For most of these listed I have alternatives.
Acrobat -> pointlessly slow and annoying. Use Foxit Reader
Realone/RealPlayer -> Do I have to explain this one? Use Real Alternative.
QuickTime -> Use QuickTime Alternative.
Windows Media Player 7 and up -> Use MPC, Winamp, or foobar2000.
iTunes -> Same as above.
Flash -> I cannot stress how pissed I get when I go to a Flash website and it has to load its RAM hogging shite on it. I wish there was some alternative. I don't have a slow computer either. Usually I just set the quality setting to low when a website SURPRISINGLY has a pointless Flash menu or something of the like. It's good for those animations like of cartoons and such, but otherwise pointless and they should stop using it for EVERYTHING anyway.
and the list could go on and on
Developers, who won't get decent CSS. Features coming to IE7 are nice, but none of them are crucial for building CSS-based layouts. Those which are, remain unchanged (buggy, missing).
Microsoft wants IE7 to be XP SP2 only. About half of Windows users need to upgrade before WU can bless them with IE7.
My response to the Norwegian Government's plan to use open standards and open source ( Slashdot article) will be this in respect to Internet Explorer:
Make it mandatory for all web-sites owned by Government, public services, government owned businesses and businesses that require a government license to operate (like GSM/UMTS operators), to be designed in accordance with standards, and NOT to implement IE specific quirks and non-standard behavior.
It these sites does not render properly in IE7 (6) - though shit! Install a standards based browser that will render the site; there are plenty of alternatives.
Despite all the good forces and good work being done out there with alternative browsers, adaption is too slow, and it is only political intervention that can make real headway in getting people away from being locked to IE.
I believe such a policy should be followed by all governments.
The future is in beta
Yes and I am still boycotting VHS in favor of Betamax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war/ .
Boycotting a product is not the right answer. The bottom line is that the user will use what comes with their system unless they are given a reason not to. So what we need to do is http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ evangelize standards and the browsers that adhere to those standards.
This constant bickering over which browser is the more double-plus good just alienates the user-base and makes them see it as "some geek thing" that they do not want to be a part of.
*I* should have realized I was arguing with an ignorant little prat.
Umm, no. I realize the situation quoted above is exaggerated, but if you allow customers to abuse your employees, a) you'll start losing employees and b) your remaining employees will sue you. The point is that anything does NOT go, legally speaking, in the name of making money.
I do agree that it would be ridiculous for a business site to refuse to accept connections from IE, though.
Sean
Why bother rewriting the wheel? Microsoft keeps publishing new OSS projects of its own, why doesn't it contribute to an existing one?
Oh, that'll go down fantastically, I'm sure. I can just imagine the shareholder meeting where Ballmer announces that, sure, they had the best browser in the world from 1996 to 2002, but apparently Microsoft now can't code its way out of a paper bag and hey, this open source stuff's better anyway. Watch the stock price rocket!
(It's also worth bearing in mind that while IE7 won't be Acid2-compliant, Firefox isn't either. IIRC only the latest Safari and Opera releases manage it.)
Then it seems to be a cheap or outdated validator that lists everything as errors including warnings or has no ability to tell the difference.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Yeah, sure, because microsoft doesnt have enough resources to do the whole thing at once.
... get real! they dont do it because they dont want to.
I mean, come on! Opera, which has the thiniest market in the browsers and is commercial, is full featured and fully standars compatible!!!
no sig
I'm willing to wager that Microsoft's recent attention to IE7 is based on Firefox's recent gains in the market, not any altruistic interest in suddenly conforming to standards. If they weren't losing ground on the web right now, IE7 would just be a bugfix release with a new version or two, mostly centered on tight integration to their new OS.
That means they've stagnated their web browser to the point where the reason they can't even consider passing the Acid2 test is because they are so behind on implementing the standards.
So, they say "We're not gonna try to pass Acid2 test with the next release", and I'm reading "We can't hope to pass Acid2, meet our deadline, and also fix all the security holes we're getting lombasted for".
This isn't about free software vs Microsoft, not this time. It's also not about standards vs Microsoft. The market has become such that if Microsoft doesn't take notice and then follow it up with action, they'll start seriously losing. They know that when it all comes out in the wash, if they implement more standards and still fail the Acid2 test, they'll still make a bigger difference in the market than if they just keep stagnating their web browser.
Put it another way. You have 6 months to paint your car. It would take you 2 years to paint your car with new primer and a clearcoat. As it stands now, your car regularly gets towed away for looking like a derelict. In 6 months, you can paint your car by just sanding it down, putting some new primer and a couple of coats of paint. By doing so you won't get towed away for looking like a derelict anymore. How are you going to arrange your priorities to make the best possible advance in the next 6 months? Add to that that you know that after you've made the best possible advance in the timeframe given, *then* you have plenty of time to start over from scratch.
Microsoft didn't suddenly become altruistic, they got slapped in the face with a few anti-trust actions (think what you want about the terms of the settlement, the PR damage was noticeable). They also got bitch-slapped by a new web browser. They're existence, if they continue to do business as usual, is threatened by a development philosophy they can't embrace and extend, own, or otherwise render obsolete. They're responding to market demands. Did you think that anything other than market demands would change their direction?
Like what I said? You might like my music
No, no.
Microsoft shipped IE6 long enough in advance of XP so that it could be tested and adopted by web developers. How many people would have switched to XP if it included a new browser that couldn't see shit?
Same thing here. What happens if we boycott IE7? No websites will work with it (few, anyway), so they'll ship IE6 with Vista. Do you really want to keep supporting IE6 for 5+ years?
Like what I said? You might like my music
Paul Thurrott calling for a boycott of a Microsoft technology? Paul Thurrott speaking negatively of Microsoft?
*peering out the lunchroom window for Horsemen*
Cheap and oudated? That't he w3c, dude. Wether it's doing the "right" thing becomes blurry when they're doing it, since they're the comparator of web standard rightness.
He is a cocksmoker, just like his mother. P.S., you fail it!
since it lists Mozilla in the first place, instead of Mozilla Firefox, when Mozilla isn't only a browser. If I were them, I'd just put Firefox...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Or if one is feeling vindictive it could display a bitmap of the goatse guy.
The call to boycott would carry a lot more weight with me if it weren't paired with a call to use other non-compliant browsers, like Firefox. I'm happy to use Firefox because it does what I need and isn't as vulnerable to spyware, but it does not follow either current HTML or ECMAScript standards.