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Explorer Destroyer
slayer99 writes "I came across Explorer Destroyer yesterday, which is a project that aims to increase the market share of Firefox in a slightly more proactive way than is usual. They provide some code which you add to your front page which presents a banner to IE users urging them to switch to using Firefox. As a bonus, you can potentially make some money via Google's Firefox referral program."
Can you give an example of what you're referring to? When has Microsoft or its friends encouraged downloading software, and the idea was condemned by open source advocates?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
There's no guarantee that this will cause another monoculture. AS Firefox becomes more popular, people will likely see that they have more choices for browsers (rather than the old IE = internet mentality). Over time, other browsers will be embraced based on how well they compete with Firefox. And unlike with IE, Firefox is actually competing fairly.
How many times have you come across a website which, in stead of giving you content, advised you to update your IE to 5.0 or higher?
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
You seem to assume that because it's on Slashdot, Slashdot and its readers think it's a good idea. I don't believe that's the case.
It's a stupid idea, and it's against ideas that are more important than open source. It's against the idea that the network protocols should be client-neutral, and that graceful degradation should take place when you use a client that (like IE) sucks.
It's stupid, and it won't work.
Don't actually detect IE. Use an IE "bug" to display the message. Make sure that no standards-compliant browser would show the message.
There are already plenty of web sites that say they only work on IE using Windows and won't let you in. The other day I even saw one that explicitly and snobbishly said the only way they would "support" using a Mac was with Windows and IE loaded in VirtualPC.
"...but by blocking IE users, you're frustrating them, making their lives that much more difficult, and making them that much more annoyed at Firefox. Plus, actively turning away users is not something *any* webmaster who cares about his/her readers would do, IMHO."
Why is it that nobody can frustrate IE users, in your view, but its perfectly acceptable to frustrate non-IE users (which has already been going on for years)? IMHO, this is long overdue and it is about time the IE users get some of the treatment dished out on the rest of us who don't use IE.