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Interview with Microsoft Exec on IE7 and RSS
AvianFlugelhorn writes "BetaNews has posted an interview with Gary Schare, Director of IE Product Management, which touches on the changes coming in IE7, Firefox's growth, and how Microsoft will bring RSS to the mainstream. It's interesting to see Schare become more humble since a November 2004 interview, when he questioned whether Firefox could attract more than just early adopters. Now, Microsoft says: 'we respect the work that the Firefox guys have done.' Schare also admits problems with ActiveX and explains why Microsoft will revolutionize RSS." Couple of days old, but still interesting.
'Early adopters' are what marketers call the first people to use your product. Now, let's say that there's some tiny percentage of people who initially use Firefox just because they had something to do with it or they need to run a web app that works best in Firefox. This 5% of the population is known as the 'early adopters' as it doesn't really matter what your product is; they're going to use it regardless.
Now, imagine a normal curve of the population of users. The early adopters are the ones on the far left who use it right away and the ones on the right are the crusty old-there's-nothing-better-than-IE-change-is-bad people who will refuse until the bitter end. If you make it past the early adopters and into the 35%-45% of the population range on the curve, then suddenly this product can stand on its own. To hell with the competition, it can now fend for itself in the market with that kind of user base backing it.
What he meant in that quote was that it had yet to be seen if Firefox would even make it past the initial 5% that would use it regardless and into a phenomenon that could potentially be a competitor with Internet Explorer.
In most of the applications a programmer undertakes, she or he must strive to encompass more than just early adopters if it is hoped for the product to last. This usually involves clever marketing gimmicks or commercials but, thank the lord, in Firefox's case it's just been sheer security and ingenuity of the product helping it over this curve.
Not only do I think it's well on its way past the early adopter phase, but I myself have moved to be an early adopter for most open source solutions I can find out there.
My work here is dung.
So will Firefox users have any respect for IE7 as a capable browser (if it proves to be so)?
Looking SharePoint Server I see zero integration with RSS. Neither by creating feeds or allowing SharePoint to consume feeds. This makes SharePoint in my organization worthless. I know SharePoint wasn't a talking point but I see SharePoint becoming the new FrontPage in the Office 12 lineup.
I didn't realize Slashdot posted things so recent...
From my point of view, the whole ActiveX thing in IE should be taken out. In today's world, ActiveX does have a couple of niche uses, but the Internet by far has left it behind as a old technology. Technologies/Techniques like Flash, Javascript, AJAX, PHP, browser extensions and the rest can do a lot of what ActiveX could do, and much more securely. ActiveX in my view is a weak link that is asking for viruses.
I use IE for testing how secure my computers are and seeing what new viruses are out there. What I do is fire up IE and surf the nude celebrity sites (they have MANY more trojans and viruses than the XXX sites - go figure!) and see what I catch.
"Quite often when you see an IE patch coming out, it's not actually a patch to IE code. It's a patch to kill the ActiveX control that's no longer needed, which we've determined has a vulnerability in it. ActiveX Opt-in is designed to reduce that surface area of attack by turning off most of those controls by default and letting users only turn them on if they need them. The feature makes it not interesting for the hackers to go after this legacy code that shouldn't be exposed to the Internet in the first place."
So we've enhanced the functionality of IE by ramping up the number of programmers on the project, which is a normal function of software development at Microsoft but I can't give you specifics, to add new features to IE7... new features like... ActiveX Opt-In (tm), with ActiveX Opt-In, we've enhanced the rich browsing experience the users are used to by increasing the security model of the IE7 browser functionality through better security measures.
And these security measures are?
We turned the problematic ActiveX controls off.
But wait how this is new functionali...
Top. Men.
Long Live Opera!
Well, it exploded. I would hope that it was dead. Luckily for us, Internet Explorer is still there to fill the gap created when Exploder went to visit Great Grandpa Mosaic.
Don't know. I guess every once-in-a-while it's popular. Like hating President Bush - not everyone is against him, but right now it's trendy to blame him for everything. Also, I don't know if I'd say France is "tops" in computer technology. Arguably that position belongs to Japan or the United States. But, there's nothing wrong with simply saying the West leads in computer technology. By this argument, you are correct.
...and before people try to point out an apparent error, in terms of a Political Science view, Japan is part of the West.
There are no uninteresting things. There are only uninterested people.
"Schare also admits problems with ActiveX"
Heh, that reminds me of a typical parody-movie scene a-la Airplane..
"Well yes, the house has a tiny little problem with pests..."
(stampede of rats runs on the background)
"And a little problem with the electrical installation..."
(Suddenly an electric cable in the wall catches fire)
"But overall, the house is fine"
(the roof falls down)
I'm sure it'll be just as bug ridden as IE6 and every other version of IE before it. How long with Microsoft keep us hanging off the edge of our sets waiting for the next version...
Perhaps because the French are so insecure in their abilities that they must proclaim themselves at the forefront of technology, when in fact, they are not. Le courier?
Perhaps it is the smugness emoted by French speakers when their language is not used properly. These same French speakers find it all to easy to improperly use others' languages.
Perhaps because the French helped the Germans immensely by surrendering so easily. And then, after the Allies arrived, 'helped' to defeat the Germans.
Perhaps because the French think that they are a single race of people.
Or, maybe it is because Monty Python so successfully ridiculed the French.
Cheers
Hmm... I wonder where they got the idea that IE wasn't secure enough? *cough*Firefox*cough*
I guess competition is good, since now people know what they are missing. Finally someone is, in a small way, asking Microsoft to step up the quality of their products.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Until something better comes along.
MS Guy: We added tabbed browsing and upped our CSS support to what was published in 2000.
Every web dev on earth: Good for you, now how about DOM2?
MS Guy: But... but... tabbed browsing!
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Because the French are ruining Atari and the American video game industry? Non?!
Hi fucktard, are you bunch of fucktards ever going to fucking support the goddman fucking standard like bloody PNG and position: fixed and other basic stuff?
Who cares about security, if windows users did they wouldn't use windows. Who cares about hot new features. If people wanted cutting edge they wouldn't use windows. Sadly all those windows users do want websites that work in their browser so you are stuck supporting the crap that is IE.
It is very simple, very basic support for simple standards that IE just isn't capable of it. I can only think of the following reasons, A, they are really just not capable of it. MS can't hire any people who can hack up PNG support or do proper CSS. B, they want to hold the web back so they can launch their own new version. C, they want to wind me up and get me an ulcer.
Not that it matters ifI IE7 becomes a passable browser (yeah I considered the possibility that IE7 might become a good browser but who am I kidding) we will still have to support craptastic IE6 for years to come. Hell IE5 only now is starting to disappear.
If you are not a webdesigner you cannot understand.
You can make a beautifull page that truly shines that the customer finds enchanting and the users drool about and then you test it in IE and it all falls to pieces.
Ajax is the new buzzword so lets us that as an example to show how bad IE is. First the code for a real browser (anything not produced by MS):
Oh and line 1 and 3 are only there to keep IE happy. 2nd line would be all that is needed if you coded only for real browsers. But for IE you need that while IF statement. PLUS:The code is from IBM btw so I figure it is pretty pretty efficient example.
Can you start to understand why IE is hated so much by web developers?
No doubt IE7 will cause this simple code to expand yet more.
For my own personal sites I have long since stopped adding IE support. Get a real browser or fuck off. Sadly that is not acceptable in business sites. Not even the customer service section.
So next time you ask a fucking IE developer questions less sucking up please and more 'are you finally going to do some real work or do I have to get a contract on your kids'.
IE, because Bill Gates hates the net.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1. Free as in "no cost", because you will need to own Windows to run it.
2. Free as in "freedom", because IE still binds you to microsoft
So, even if IE7 is some super great browser (which I doubt), I still will continue on with Firefox.
Meh.
Opera is too complicated!
Long live Lynx!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
For sale: WW II era French rife, never used, dropped only once.
Interestingly, over at Asa Dotzler's (full time Firefox troll) blog you have a thoroughly childish analysis of IE7 that first
- claims credit for it all
- identifies superior features or implementations
- suggests Firefox get said features
The only thing Firefox is (or was) is a wakeup call to MS. I'm glad it happened, but the Moz org needs to take a good hard look at themselves and stop thinking they're the second coming of Christ.
GS: I think you can make a fair case that we're doing a little of both. There were clearly some areas that the early adopters had been using in alternative products for a while. Tabs is probably the primary one. And we fielded a number of questions and even complaints from customers saying "When are you going to give us tabbed browsing in IE." Now we've done that; IE7 has a very, very good tab implementation. There are many users out there who are still using IE6 and have never tried tabbed browsing, and we think when they get exposed to it in IE7 they'll think it's very cool.
I had to laugh when I read this. It's nice to see MS catching up with what we've been using for years. Welcome to the party, guys! you're only several years late! :o) The fact reamins IE will never be as innovative as Firefox, simply because it isn't open source. It will never have the vast amount of features that FF has, nor will it be as customisable, because the only people who can make IE a better browser are the minority who work for MS. I think they will have a hard battle trying to get people back who made the switch away from IE. Anyway, good luck to em. This may actually make IE into a half decent browser. Perhaps MS can learn from this, in that a little competition is a *good* thing? Not that I'd ever be trying it anytime soon - it does not look like there will be a version of IE7 for Windows 2000 and Linux.
-- Fuck Beta
"In the early days, we admit, we focused more on the power and stability than on the security."
Might wanna focus a little harder, man. =O
Microsoft is telling us they will "revolutionize RSS" and "bring RSS to the mainstream". We all know what Bill's "embrace and extend" plans have done in the past.
And, I hate to be the one to point it out to you, Bill, but RSS is mainstream. All you'll do is fragment its marketplace.
He say that French not so forefront in computers. I think this racist.
You have no idea what the term racist means, do you? The French are a race just as much Nazi's were a "race" (whoo Godwin!)
Or I'm just feeding a troll. Whatever.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Quite right. I don't personally think the French have ever properly atoned for, nor hardly acknowledged, the depth and craven-ness of their collaboration with the Nazis. Their concern with Nazi rule seemed for the most part to center around how the French could benefit, and hopes that they Nazis would finally solve that pesky Jew problem. Granted, there were a good contingent of brave and principled Frenchman who resisted to the bitter end, but the cowardice of their leadership and the willingness of the population to accept the Nazis stain their nation to this day.
Why are streets of Paris lined with trees?
.
.
So the Germans can march in the shade.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but IE's "corpse" has over 40 billion dollars of reserved capital ensuring otherwise.
We'll have similar dates for a more public beta of Windows Vista
Does this mean we might be able download and run a Vista beta legally? You can normally find the betas on p2p or bit torrent, but it'd be interesting if they actually released it with an expiration date for public download. While I'm sure it wouldn't be stable, it might be cool to mess around with under dual boot or on an extra machine.
nothing
I know that here at Slashdot I'm not the only one that whenever I download a Microsoft "security upgrade," the first thing I do is turn off all the crap that Microsoft puts in as "security."
Putting in things that pop up on your screen asking you if you really want to do this, or if you noticed that it did something, or that you haven't turned on something or you haven't updated something is not my definition of security.
My definition of security is to fix the problem, not put up caution tape and flashing lights around the problem.
It is no wonder I find myself using Linux more and more often these days...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
From the article: "November 15, 2004, 10:53 AM"
Isn't this really old news, even for slashdot?
The extend part is already in progress.
When telling friends about Firefox, and why to use it, I've always mentioned the tabbed browsing first, and then noted that it's more secure than IE. Sure, there's a ton of other stuff that FF "does", but those were the two things, the selling points if you will, that I wanted to show them. "Tabbed browsing, man! You'll never surf the same way again!"
But after trying IE7, I've realized there's so much more to the experience. Tabs are a given, but FF seems to do them so much better. It's faster, snappier, cleaner. I come to accept the security as a given. Even in IE7, I wouldn't go to half the sites I do in FF. IE still doesn't seem to handle popups as well as FF, I've come to rely on the the Adblock extension which makes the browsing experience so much better. Pages load faster in FF. Little things like Find-As-You-Type (why in the hell does IE still have the ctrl-F dialog box that pops up, and doesn't wrap around the page? Up or Down??). I think I'm realizing that the EXTENSIONS in FF are what makes it great. Just the handful of ones I have installed make my browsing experience that much better, and I take for granted what I can do, and I don't notice this until trying to do the same in IE7. Why can't I rearrange tabs in IE? Ctrl-tab doesn't cycle how I would like it, but what can I do? In FF, I just find an extension. Plus, IE7 is ugly. I can change the theme in FF.
I think the only thing IE7 is really going to do is get an installed base of "secure" IE out there - all the Joe Schmoes that don't care, power up their Dell nekkid to the cable modem, and check their email. Maybe this will help curb some of the stupid things that have resulted from the old IE versions. But in no way is IE7 even remotely close to the browser that Firefox is.
It's funny how some sentences, despite being rather interesting, never make it into a quote on the front page: "They pointed out a number of things we did in IE7 that they thought would be great to have in Firefox in the future."
No offense, but if you're going to accuse microsoft of not caring about security, perhaps you shouldn't turn off the few things they do provide...
All the kick ass features like tabbed browsing, making RSS popular (which is why I'm confused they say RSS isnt popular, but maybe thats just because MS doesnt support it so IE users dont even have a clue about it) that Firefox and Opera have made necessities for a browser anymore - ALL of that ruined when IE 7 "makes it popular" because all the "Click the E", "IE is the greatest" people that have never even heard of Firefox or Opera or hate it because the idiots think its all about killing off M$, will go and say "Oh, look at all this great shit M$ is copying off the other browsers and trying to make its users think M$ is the one that invented tabbed browsing, ect"...
!#/bin/bash
server=$1;
port=${2:-80};
exec 5<>/dev/tcp/$server/$port;
echo -e "GET / HTTP/1.0\nHost: ${server}\n\n" 1>&5;
cat 0<&5;
exec 5>&-
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I've only seen two types of sites that consistently give me security warnings about ActiveX (SP2).
So... Exactly why is it I need it again?
RSS is designed to be extended, the base specification is very loose and open to extension by third parties. Lots of companies already use extensions to RSS, so MS wont be the first if they do, and they wont be 'evil' if they do. Get over it.
They pointed out a number of things we did in IE7 that they thought would be great to have in Firefox in the future. We think competition is good and it makes us feel good that they're watching what we're doing and offering some positive comments.
(Emphasis mine)
Need I say more?
I guess RSS feeds will soon be able to exploit my win box :(
we fielded a number of questions and even complaints from customers saying "When are you going to give us tabbed browsing in IE." Now we've done that; IE7 has a very, very good tab implementation.
He must be using a pretty significantly different version of IE7 than the Beta 2 preview that I am using, because the tab implementation on my version is pretty terrible. Because the tabs have to share space with 9 different buttons/menus, I can only have about 3-4 tab names become virtually indistinguishable. In a Firefox window of the same size, I can have at least 8 tabs showing before the titles begin to lose meaning. As far as I can tell, IE7's tab implementation is only useful for people who never plan to use more than 2-3 tabs at a time.
And who thought it was a good idea to hide the menu until I press the Alt key?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
So will Firefox users have any respect for IE7 as a capable browser (if it proves to be so)?
First of all, the fact that this is modded "funny" makes me want to cry. >.
Personally, I liked Firefox better than IE6, but like IE7 better than Firefox. Works well, looks purdy, hasn't crashed once. The "Phishing Filer"'s pretty neat, too.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Visual Studio is great. Besides being a fast, optimizing compiler, the fact that it lets you write your own resource files OR use a nifty editor, write native code OR use .NET or Java, compile code written in separate languages together into one executeable, and even whip out machine language in the middle of your higher-level program. Plus, it supports about a bajillion different processor architectures and 2005 has taken some steps to force good programming practices upon bad programmers. Feeding trolls is fun.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Why wasn't the RSS spec designed from the get-go to duplicate the functionality in Usenet? It seems to me that a good RSS reader should have the basic functionality of a Usenet newsreader: threading, sorting (by author, date, etc), read vs unread, catchup, reply (if the feed allows comments), article expiration, etc.
In Mozilla Thunderbird, if you set up an RSS account for a Google group (using the atom 1.0 feed), it looks like a usenet subscription, except it's much more limited. If it's the same paradigm (except where the articles are hosted), why not the same functionality?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
My definition of security is to fix the problem, not put up caution tape and flashing lights around the problem.
Of course it is. So is everybody's. The problem isn't necessarily that Windows isn't secure; the problem is that the average-Joe enduser that makes up the bulk of Microsoft's customer base rarely take the time to actually download the security fixes. The pop-ups warning that your version of Windows is out of date and your anti-virus hasn't been used since dates were stored as one-byte offsets is an attempt to fix the biggest security hole Windows ever had - the user.
DATABASE WOW WOW
It was the Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis, not the French people's. On June 18, 1940, de Gaulle called on the French people to actively fight the Germans. In 1958, de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic of France. de Gaulle and his government might have things to atone for, but this isn't one of them.
After all, I am strangely colored.
These microsoft guys have to stop being in such denial about Active X. XP SP 2 didn't fix the security issues. A friend of mine just got a brand new HP laptop, XP SP 2 installed. He got it one week ago. When I checked it out to add some antivirus stuff etc [it came with McAfee junk], I decided to give it a quick once over with spybot and adaware. Much to my non-surprise, he already had gotten two pieces of MSIE type spyware installed. Give me a break.
... and face reality. Active X is and always has been a bad idea. So is Java of course when it comes to browsers.
I've read at least 25 times over the last few years how the latest security fixes have finally fixed active x, and each falls to the next attack. At some point they have to pull their heads out of
is a simple and easy way for consumers to have their identities stolen.
Another 'revolution' (if you call it that) is the Anti-Virus/Spyware Market. Without windows, we sure wouldn't need one.
revolutionize d33z!
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
BN: When BetaNews last spoke to you in November 2004, you said another standalone release of IE was not necessary because of the community of add-ons available (like those for tabbed browsing). Now, IE7 is building in a lot of new native functionality within the browser. Why the change?
I found this question either naive or absurd. I'm not sure which.
This is Microsoft's MO. They've been doing this for years. A prime example was in the early to mid 80s when some MS VP told Information Week (I think that's who he told) that MS would *never* build in a TCP/IP stack, because that would destroy the third parties who'd already done that work. He went on and on. And of course within a short time, MS started shipping Windows with a TCP/IP stack. Or go back to almost anything in the Office suite. ``Oh, no. We just want to sell you the OS. And a compiler. The other vendors like PeachCalc and Lotus will always be our choice for those types of apps.'' (Not an actual quote, just the concept from such quotes many years ago.)
Frankly, whenever I see such statements from MS, I take it as a declaration that exactly what they say won't happen is exactly what to look for over the next 12 to 18 months. I wish I'd thought to start playing the market based on this back in the 70s. But it's not too late. Just buy stock in people selling MS add-ons, and sell a few months after MS promises the world they'll never do that themselves.
I use RSS, with Thunderbird. That's where the delivery of RSS makes sense to me, along with Mail and News. What I might call "passive delivery". It gives me a list of articles that I can go to or ignore, all while I'm doing something else.
A browser is "active delivery", stuff I want to go to right now.
"How to campaign for liars in the pre WW2-era"
Just bought a couple of times to a guy
from oval office, for some suggestions
related to Vietnam, Panama, sonetimes Iraq
an' so on...
PS: But the french cannons where
good enough to protect the colonies'
coasts from the british fleet during
your little rebellion.
... we let all the other pioneers get the arrows strategy.
Microsoft sees what "wheat" floats to the top separating it from the chaff and, if it's viable, they make it themselves and starve off the competition.
RSS is actually XML. That's the beauty of XML. XML is anything you want. What do you want today?
Wrong: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/01/23/51639
IE7 supports alpha channels for PNG:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/04/22/41096
I'm a web developer and am as frustrated by these things as you are, but if you're going to start things with "hey fucktard" at least check your facts. To bitch about all these things without even apparently have a clue how IE7 addresses them makes your arguments read like the uninformed cliche that it is.
So next time you decide to have a hissy fit, less bloviating and more fact checking.
one of my biggest pet peves about IE is the way it handles MIME types (other browsers are probobly guilty of this to some extent too).
I cant find the RFC itself but I seem to recall that the standards for HTTP and MIME and stuff say that the client should treat what the server returns in the Content-Type header as authoratitive and not try to "guess" the content type from the filename or file contents. But, IE (and probobly other browsers although IE is the worst offender) ignores the spec and attempts to guess the file type from the filename and content anyway.
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrr
Does anyone believe all parties can't script and the response to both sides in advance?
Once again, WHG III is working on something new, not fixing what they believe to be old (or broken)[1]
____________________________
[1] "People don't want bug fixes; they want new features."
WHG III
When will Micorosfoft decide to work and play well with others in the world of CSS?
(besides, Microsoft pushed their RSS to make their life easier and presumed everyone would bow but not tell the Emperor he didn't have any clothes on.
Had they lost, there would have been some big-time hissy-fits.
You will end up with something along the lines of:
- ewr47gzcxoi890r7t47t
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<encoded_xml codec="XXX">CDATA[[
sDg09*&G()&fc9x8sd987g9er87g97sdf098g7sd09fg7sd-9
]]</encoded_xml>
Web servers very often screw up the MIME types. It's no surprise. The client has all the media players and plug-ins and such. The server is just a server, hopefully without any of that junk installed. The server might even run without a GUI.
Very often, I try to view some plain text with Firefox. The web server gives a MIME type that Firefox is clueless about. (probably the specific type of text file, however MIME says "patch file" or "shell script") Firefox gives me the option to save the file or browse my whole filesystem looking for an app to view it. DAMN YOU FIREFOX THIS IS A FUCKING TEXT FILE AND YOU DAMN WELL CAN FUCKING DISPLAY IT!!!
Huh?
To be fair, I think what they mean is that IE7 will deliver a centralized RSS engine that is available to all other Windows based applications, thus meaning that more applications than browsers and the current feed aggregators will ahve access to it - without a programming team having to worry about synchronizing/download/munging/whatever.
Plenty of applications already have proprietry update/news notification services - this can be viewed as an extension of those.
RSS = Really Simple Syndication.
How on earth can you "revolutionize" something that's already Really Simple??
It would be like Microsoft just said, "Guess what, 2+2=4 was popularized by our competition, but we are the ones who really know what to use it for."
Move Sig.
RSS already was revolutionized and by "revolutionized" I mean "standardized". The result was Atom. Yes this theoretical format for newsfeed that is supposed to be superior to RSS (which is probably why no one uses it, see VHS vs. Beta, MP3 vs. Ogg Vorbis, honest politicians vs. real politicians).
This might be one area where Microsoft's tendency to create new de-facto standards might turn out useful - they might consolidate the RSS world where there are thirteen mutually incompatible versions, abot three of which have any market exposure at all. Not that there isn't a standardized feed format, mind you, but it doesn't seem as if anyone was determined to use it so we might as well stick with whichever RSS version (3.1, maybe 4.0?) Microsoft popularizes.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
In almost every country which was invadet
by the Nazis they found an leadership
who has collaberated. And when there was
no one, they established a leadership
with the local minority of some Nazis
and Gau-Leitern from Germany. In that way
they did it in france.
IE7 has one advantage: As for some reason browser generations are coupled to IE releases the release of IE7 will mean that Forefox and Opera will instantly turn from sixth generation browsers into seventh generation browsers as they already do everything IE7 does.
And when Microsoft will announce that their browser now has almost-complete CSS2 support (somewhere around 2011) Firefox, Opera and probably even Lynx will watch the IE dev team in the backlights as they continue to boldly go where no browser has gone before...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I'm absolutely shure you meant to say sDg16*&G()&fa9x8sd987b9er87g97szf098g7sd39fg7sd-9- ewr47gzcxoi890r7t47t and not sDg09*&G()&fc9x8sd987g9er87g97sdf098g7sd09fg7sd-9- ewr47gzcxoi890r7t47t :P
I don't know about the program you use, but aKregator reads RSS and Atom
That's exactly his point.
This post is awesome.
And a big bunch of people who don't realise there's something better out there. Just like all the people who install windows in Servers. (I'm prepared to accept there are people who do better with Winblows on a desktop). IE is shite. That was true for 4,5 & 6. It will probably be true to 7 too. At least now with Firefox those people who care have the option to use a browser that works (and adheres to the vast majority of standards).
There are quite a few Atom-capable aggregators. What's lacking is adoption by websites - most offer one or two RSS feeds but no Atom.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It doesn't matters if a browser is free or not... as long as there are alternatives available.
The whole idea is that there is no lock-in. I can move to any platform, any machine, any hardware, any browser any time. And still everything will work the same for me (except for the few things which won't, but then almost all web-developers are carefull enough not to use things which will break their website on any browser).
Now with FireFox 'available', I won't mind using IE (if it has the right features to attract me as a user. A large majority of Firefox users use it because of features, not because its open source).
But I still pity the web-developers who have to ensure their websites work same with all browsers.
"how Microsoft will bring RSS to the mainstream"
Easy: put it into the default web browser that comes with the default operating system that comes with microcomputers. Firefox and Linux ain't it.
I don't feel like it...
Absolutely true. Please accept the thanks of a grateful United States for your gallant and indespensable support. Our gratitude, incidentally, is such that we have striven for nearly two centuries to repay it. The unpopularity of the French can best be explained by a popular notion here that she spit in our eye when we needed her.
However Firefox has no financial imperatives that govern its viability so this glass ceiling will not cause Firefox to die out just because it can't match or overtake IE usage.
Firefox has enough interest to sustain considerable development even at 10% market share, so even if it just treads water till Windows is deposed it will still rise to take the lion's share of browser usage stats eventually.
(unless of course some other browser replaces Firefox as the flagship alternative, like opera, but i think again that would depend on defaults in the most popular linux distros of the future.)
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Is that like something M$ will do to RSS?