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."

Comments

That's retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with scripts and such? All you need is IE's own conditional html comments.

Re:That's retarded

[FooBarWidget]

And that's exactly the reason why IE must die. If my site is W3C compliant I shouldn't have to use dirty hacks like that to make it render correctly in IE! I shouldn't have to spend 50% of my time developing workarounds for IE!

Re:That's retarded

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

But isn't it poetic justice that we use IE's dirty little hacks to bring it down? Remember that evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Re:That's retarded

[sparkz]

No, it's not retarded... for anyone who follows his advice, and clicks the Google Adsense advert and signs up to Google Adsense, then he (Holmes Wilson, according to whois) gets $100 from Google for a succesful referal. That's a pretty smart way of fooling people into clicking the link. Underhand, but smart.

Re:That's retarded

[grcumb]

"IE extensions have proven to be a very good thing for the web overall. It has always been IE that has pushed the limits of dynamic web pages through the inclusion of similar extensions (primarily for the development of Outlook Web Access) which have given birth to the technologies that fuel AJAX and other modern web techniques."

What an interesting viewpoint. I couldn't disagree more.

The 'Embrace and Extend' strategy on which Microsoft has relied since about 1998 is designed to be divisive and ultimately to support Microsoft's one interest: by hook or by crook, to land everyone on the Microsoft platform. They worked with little or no support or cooperation from any other body[*] and more often than not used their position to subvert the activities of others. They published competing specifications and duplicated functionality that others had already implemented through their own proprietary implementations.

Now before we go any further, it's important to remember that this strategy was dressed up nicely, spoken about politely in marketing euphemisms and was seldom openly disparaging of competing technologies. It is also important to note that very few of the people actually responsible for the creation and fostering of standards ever felt anything but frustration and animosity toward these efforts to subvert the process. I've seen such luminaries as Lawrence Lessig and Sir Tim Berners Lee stand up in public fora and state in absolutely unambiguous terms that 'this MS technology is the single biggest threat faced by the web today.' (WWW Conference, Amsterdam 2000, for those who care).

It's true that there are some who have argued for accomodation, and while they've achieved short-term gains (RSS and SOAP, for example), the recent announcement of MS-only implementations and extensions of these standards offers further evidence that MS' intentions are anything but benevolent.

Now, some may trot out the sorry old argument that a corporation's job is to profit and damn the ethical/legal torpoedoes, but the fact is that to most of the people working in standards, this is not the goal. Believe it or not, most of us actually care about the community, and feel that the way things are implemented is just as important as what gets done. So feel free to act as apologist for the soulless corporate machine if you must, but please, don't pretend that that's the only way things can be made to work.

Microsoft (and Netscape in its time) are not only guilty of skewing standards in their favour. They're also guilty of something far more insidious: the infection of the application space with software designed to lock people into their proprietary approach to things. Often enough, the design is fatally compromised in the process. The example you cite above, Outlook Web Access, is a prime example of how to break things in the name of lock-in.

Here's a quick summary of the ways in which Outlook Web Access, which encapsulates email access inside HTTP and passes it through port 80 by default, is technically broken:

• Caching proxy servers might or might not do the right thing - behaviour here is undefined
• Traffic/network analysis is subverted
• Security is compounded, as activity patterns have to be checked on more, not fewer ports (think about it)
• Likewise, security audits are far more difficult, as traffic has to be disambiguated
• Security is subverted, users can simply tunnel high volume traffic through to (at least) the DMZ with no guarantee that it's being inspected (i.e. no one catches that the traffic is neither going to the web nor the Exchange server; each one assumes it's going to the other and that it's 'okay'. Same goes with large volumes of outgoing information.)
• Deliberate bypassing of firewall policies, promoting insecure configurations (e.g. pushing things through ports 80 and 443 as a matter of informal policy, reducing the firewall to an ornament)
• Buggier software due to additiona

Re:That's retarded

[squiggleslash]

I'm sure the vast majority of people will react to messages suggesting that the page they're reading doesn't work properly under IE the exact same way that Safari and Firefox users react to messages suggesting the page they're reading doesn't work properly under their preferred browser: with a general gut feeling of intense dislike against the idiots who put that website together.

Whether they think it's dirty or not is neither here nor there. The fact is that saying "My website that does nothing that other websites don't do is inaccessable for several mainstream webbrowsers" doesn't promote your favorite browser - it just makes you (the developer of such a site) look like a complete moron who doesn't care about his or her readers. (Readers who make have otherwise been customers.)

Re:That's retarded

[SnprBoB86]

"The 'Embrace and Extend' strategy on which Microsoft has relied since about 1998 is designed to be divisive and ultimately to support Microsoft's one interest: by hook or by crook, to land everyone on the Microsoft platform."

Don't like Microsoft's extensions? Don't use them. I've been developing software on Microsoft platforms for years and as far as I know, all Microsoft extensions are clearly labeled as such in the documentation.

For some examples, see:

• "* Denotes an extension to the W3C DOM."
• The originally sited conditional comments page lacks the "Standards Information" section that every related page contains.
• "The __try/__except and __try/__finally statements are a Microsoft extension to the C language that..."

"So feel free to act as apologist for the soulless corporate machine if you must"

Real people work at Microsoft. I'm proud to say that I am one of them. These are smart people that are doing their damnedest to produce world class software. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft routinely produces extensions that ADD VALUE to Microsoft products. I often use a variety of the MSXML extensions to the DOM because I am developing for Microsoft platforms and they SAVE ME TIME as a developer. I use the __finally construct in my C++ code because it saves me from creating dozens of trivial wrapper objects for simple memory allocations.

"That last point is the key. Why on earth would MS build an entirely new way to get one's email when secure IMAP or POP3 already exist?"Lots of reasons:

• It's web based (Why would Yahoo build its web mail? Why would Google build GMail?)
• Outlook web access also provides access to all features of exchange which include...
  • calendar
  • address book
  • tasks
  • notes
  • public folders (such as email distribution list archives)

If you should be mad at anyone, be mad at those who create applications with no reguard for alternative platforms. You might argue that Microsoft is in that category, but you would be wrong. Outlook Web Access has had a "Basic" version since 1.0 that has always been compatible with alternative browsers. If you are going to build a cross-platform product, don't use Microsoft extensions. The sad truth is that since Microsoft owns the desktop market, the "soulless" 3rd-party corporate machines that produce software and web pages that only run on Microsoft's browsers and technologies do so because the small market share of other platforms does not justify testing against other platforms and more importantly, Microsoft extensions SAVE THEM MONEY in development time.

Re:That's retarded

[grcumb]

I wrote:

"So feel free to act as apologist for the soulless corporate machine if you must[....]"

To which you replied:

"Real people work at Microsoft. I'm proud to say that I am one of them."

Good for you. I'm glad you take pride in your work. But you've completely misconstrued the purpose of that statement. I'm not arguing that corporations are soulless or inhuman. I'm actually stating the opposite: that it is wrong to defend the image of a corporation as an impersonal and amoral entity. Many people do so, using the old 'business is business' cliche, which completely ignores an organisation's role in the larger community and refuses to weigh the impact of its decisions. I personally feel that both of these are part of the social contract which should extend to organisations as much as to individuals, in relation to the role of each in society.

Then you said:

"These are smart people that are doing their damnedest to produce world class software. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft routinely produces extensions that ADD VALUE to Microsoft products. I often use a variety of the MSXML extensions to the DOM because I am developing for Microsoft platforms and they SAVE ME TIME as a developer."

Again, that's fine, as far as it goes. And if you agree that a corporation is indeed composed of people, many of whom genuinely try to make things better, then you should be willing to accept that one's actions have repercussions for which one must be held responsible, for better or for worse.

The fact that certain tools save you time when working in a certain context is nice. I like time-saving tools. For me as an application developer who has specialised in managing large collections of amorphous, heterogeneous data, I've learned that standards are more important in the long run that the benefit of a quick non-standard hack. I've also learned that my convenience does not trump the common good. Just because it's more convenient for me to use port 80 for SOAP doesn't make it better. It does the opposite, in fact; it makes the security and management situation incalculably worse.

If you accept the position that corporations are made of people working for a common cause in a free and fairly competitive manner, than you have to accept that there are certain times when a small individual sacrifice is necessary for the betterment of all. In short, whatever benefits may derive to you should never trump the common good. There are limits beyond which even profit motive should not allow one to venture.

You either have to accept that, or argue for the soulless corporation - which, of course, we've already rejected, you and I.

So if you accept that in some cases individual benefit can erode the common good, then surely you can accept that some people would rather that a company not follow a certain course when it's been demonstrated that that particular course is subversive to the health of the community.

I'm not asking you to agree with me in the details, but you must, in good conscience, accept that it's reasonable for someone to view Microsoft's Embrace and Extend policy as subversive and ultimately countrary to the common good.

Unbelievable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

Re:Unbelievable.

[bunratty]

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?

Re:Unbelievable.

[larien]

My thoughts, mainly on option 3, however... A banner "ad" suggesting Firefox is the most you should use, to be honest.

Re:Unbelievable.

[Pneuma ROCKS]

Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

Absolutely.

I would like to point out that this "project" has been pushed (possibly by its creator) on SpreadFirefox.com for quite some time, but it has met with the appropriate response: NO. Link to the post. I'm an active SFX member, and I can tell you that most members of the community realize how annoying and stupid this idea is. Browser-detection scripts and browser-specific behavior should be buried and forgotten. Firefox is about standards, and the community acknowledges that.

I know the creator of those scripts is trying to help, but his/her aim is terrible.

Re:Unbelievable.

[jgrahn]

Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

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.

Re:Unbelievable.

[penguin-collective]

Yes. And when Microsoft uses it, it's a monopoly with a billion dollar marketing budget using it to promote a monopoly. When Firefox uses it, it's a community project trying to get noticed against Microsoft's billion dollar ad budget. I'm sorry you don't understand the difference, but it's a big and important difference nonetheless.

Re:Unbelievable.

[FooBarWidget]

I expected a post like this to be modded up to +5 Insightful. But frankly, you people miss the damn point!

Look at all the IE-only websites. Firefox has reached about 10% market share now, yet there are still people out there who develop for IE only, with no legitimate reason to do so. If you speak to those webmasters, you'll probably hear something like "I don't care about the minority". Why is this a problem? Because as long as IE has the most market share, it holds back the W3C standards!

• For example, IE doesn't support PNG alpha channels. This is 2006, every single browser but IE supports alpha channels, there's absolutely no reason for IE to not support it! Yes yes I know about IE 7, but how many years will it take before it's out? IE 7 won't have a significant market share for a long long long long time, and during all that time we're stuck in the no-alpha-channel-dark-ages. And yes I know about the PNG hack, but I shouldn't have to use it! And the PNG hack doesn't work for background images (translucent background images can be very useful for rounded borders or shadows).
• IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks. It has almost no XHTML support. XHTML is rendered as HTML 4, but a bigger problem is that IE doesn't even support the application/html+xml MIME type!! As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML. This makes XHTML almost useless.
• CSS support. IE doesn't support the 'overflow' property, for example. IE's support for 'margin' and the 'em' unit is broken.
• And numberous other things. When I design a website, I test it in Firefox and Konqueror, and validate the code with the W3C validator. If it's valid, and it works on Firefox and Konqueror, then it usually works on Opera too. But not IE. Almost every single time I have to use IE conditional statements to include a custom, IE-specific CSS to fix the layout.

This has got to stop. As a webmaster, I'm sick of hacking my website to be IE-compatible while I'm already W3C-compliant, and I'm sure many webmasters are sick of it too. The only way to fight this is to ensure that IE loses more of it's market share. We cannot wait for IE7, that takes too long and who knows what else Microsoft refuses to fix. Yet Firefox still doesn't have more than 10% market share. It's time for more aggressive weaponry, because apparently you can't win by playing the nice guy. Plus I'm sick and tired of all the IE-specific sites. The only way to get rid of them is by decreasing IE's market share.

I don't care what browser will have the most market share, as long as it's not IE (or IE shells). Every single modern browser out there has good support for W3C standards - except IE.

Re:Unbelievable.

[FooBarWidget]

Uhm no it isn't. Every single browser except IE has superb support for W3C standards. As long as any non-IE browser gets more market share, webmasters who want to design a website according to the W3C standards will be able to do so, instead of holding themselves back and resorting to IE-specific hacks to make the website render correctly in IE, just because IE's the only one that doesn't render things properly.

Re:Unbelievable.

[NutscrapeSucks]

I have to say this is the classic example of someone trying to do things the right way "by the booK", and ends up doing everything wrong. A few points:

+ Sending a XHTML DOCTYPE to IE actually breaks it by putting IE in "legacy CSS" mode. Send a HTML4 DOCTYPE and it's not perfect, but margin and em will work at least.

+ No browser has any sort of XHTML support except for Mozilla Firefox. The rest just fake it as HTML4, except for IE which correctly doesn't accept a MIME type for a document it can't handle correctly. So IE & FF are correct, Safari and Opera are broken.

But here's the fun part: even though Firefox correctly accepts XHTML, it disables progressive rendering and makes your site load much slower. Why would you want to do that?

So, while making XHTML compliant pages is admirable, realistically you want to serve HTML4 to current browsers.

Re:Unbelievable.

[Pneuma ROCKS]

It's time for more aggressive weaponry.

I'm sorry you feel this way, but I understand your position as someone who does a lot of webmastering. I've done it myself, and yes, it's frustating.

I have to disagree with you, though. People have a right to choose, and they have the right to choose the crappy browser that breaks standards and monopolizes the desktops. I think IE will never fall under the 30% market share (note: completely made-up percentage), if only because there's people who just don't use their computers or the Internet enough to even merit downloading another browser. Those people will use whatever's intalled on their computer, and they won't care as long as it works.

What I'm trying to say is that you will always have to tweak your sites to work on IE. IE will always have a significant market share, and I don't see the day when they become fully compliant. They will fix some CSS bugs because of the pressure other browsers are exserting, but they'll probably stop half-way. It's just not efficient in terms of investment and revenue.

Annoying IE users will only drive them away from your websites. But maybe you'll be happy seeing the IE percentage go down and think of it as a good thing. I just think it's plain wrong. People just want to surf the web, why do you they have to pay for some stupid (for them) browser war?

Re:Unbelievable.

[FooBarWidget]

1. Do most people really "choose", or do they just use it because they don't know better? I think it's the latter. Installing Firefox or any other browser only takes a few seconds.
2. What about my ability to choose? As long as people continue to write IE-only websites, I cannot always use the browser I prefer. As long as IE has bad W3C support, I have to spend 50% of my time tweaking my sites. People force me to use IE, why is it not justified if I do the same to them?

Re:Unbelievable.

[Pneuma ROCKS]

Do most people really "choose", or do they just use it because they don't know better? I think it's the latter.

That's true. But you should ask yourself whether most of these people even care about knowing better. My guess is they don't.

Installing Firefox or any other browser only takes a few seconds.

That's what it takes you to install Firefox. You do realize there's people that never download or install programs, and people who don't even know what downloading or installing means, don't you? How many people know what a browser is? And again, how many people care? That point is mute unless you plan on going around the world installing Firefox on all computers and showing people how to use it. No, it's not the same. The icons are different. Laugh all you want, that's the reaction of a real user.

Your second point is, again, very true, but unrealistic. People don't care about this. They want their browser to work. Is it unfair that Micrsoft is taking advantage of this and promoting the creation of IE-exclusive websites? Hell yes! But, in the end, it's all about giving the users the best experience possible. You're not doing that by supporting a project like this.

My only hope is that webmasters will become more aware of web standards and develop sites that are compatible for most browsers, IE tweaks and all. That's as good as it gets, IMO.

Re:Unbelievable.

[MP3Chuck]

"IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks."

As will IE7's. They confirmed a while back (on the IEBlog, I believe) that there won't be any support for the application/xml+xhtml MIME type.

Re:Unbelievable.

[FooBarWidget]

My dad is a real user. He has trouble remembering how to shut down the computer. He doesn't understand the concept of windows - when a dialog pops up, he asks how to get back to the previous page because he doesn't know he's supposed to click on the 'X'. He's a typical novice user with minimum computer skills. Yet he could smoothly switch back and forth between IE and Firefox. Heck, he can't even tell the difference. The back button still looks like a back button even when it's different. A window still looks like a window. But that's not all: he could switch between the Chinese Linux Firefox (which is what he usually uses) and the English IE (when I need Windows occasionally), even though he can't read English. So I have a hard time imagining that other people cannot recognize that a back button is a back button, when there's a text called "Back" written on it.

I'm supporting this campaign because it's in my best interest to have as many people as possible use a non-IE browser. It would lower the required to make it render correctly for everybody. That results in a better website, which is good for my visitors. Look at all the productivity that is currently lost because webmasters have to tweak the site for IE.

Using "users don't care" as an argument to not do something is not a good argument IMHO. Most people don't know or care about peak oil (Google it) and just want to live their lifes, but does that means that people shouldn't do something about it? If most people don't know or care what democracy is, does that mean that the people who do know shouldn't support it?

Re:Unbelievable.

[the_womble]

Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?

1. Firefox does not have a monopoly
2. It works - why not learn from the other side
3. Give them a taste of their own medicine
4. I doubt anyone is using this on revenue generating sites and inconveniencing paying customers
5. Plenty of sites have "you need a modern browser" messages and few people object to that, so what is wrong with a "you need a standards compliant browser"?
6. Assuming it is being used on otherwise non-profit websites, it is a reasonable reaction to MS's assumption that everyone else should bear the cost of working around their bugs.

Re:Unbelievable.

[Doytch]

I disagree with you on the browser-detection-scripts.

Check Skype's site for an example of how such scripts can help computer newbies install things. It has a step by step set of screencaps that show how to install it using either Firefox or IE(maybe others, I didn't check). Think about the mother who got Firefox installed on her computer by her geek son and is trying to follow the installation steps given in an IE fashion. People who see a technology like this that can help adoption of Firefox etc. and throw it away are simply being short sighted.

Re:Unbelievable.

[rdieter]

For example, IE doesn't support PNG alpha channels.

Hate rain on your parade, but neither does firefox/mozilla (for printing anyway):
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235097

-- Rex

Re:Unbelievable.

[hankwang]

As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML.

That's not necessary, that's what the "Accept" HTTP header is for. Put this or something similar in your .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} application/xhtml\+xml
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.xhtml$
RewriteRule .* - [T=application/xhtml+xml,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} !application/xhtml\+xml
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.xhtml$
RewriteRule .* - [T=text/html,L]

Re:Unbelievable.

[Jesus_666]

IE's (at least version 6's) XHTML support sucks. It has almost no XHTML support. XHTML is rendered as HTML 4, but a bigger problem is that IE doesn't even support the application/html+xml MIME type!! As a result I'm forced to configure my web server to send text/html as MIME type, causing all the other browsers to interpret the document as HTML 4 instead of XHTML. This makes XHTML almost useless.

Almost? The IE dev team has Fucking Killed(TM) XHTML. XHTML is useless to the point where usually the only sensible approach is to just settle on plain HTML. And remember that IE7 will not support application/xhtml+xml either, so XHTML is dead and stays dead.

Usually my approach to fixing IE's horrible CSS support is to conditional comment in a style sheet that just ensures that the site is navigable. I don't care if it looks like ass and whether IE users have two scrollbars while everyone else has none. In the future I'll probably add a conditional comment that displays a box saying something along the lines of:

I'm sorry that my site looks like a can of paint puked all over it but your browser doesn't properly support a web standard from 1998 on which my site relies (Level 2 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS2)). It has failed to properly implement CSS2 for the last eight years and it will continue doing so in the future - and in doing so it has forced and will keep forcing web developers to specifically work around its shortcomings. Please do yourself and the internet a favor and upgrade to a modern browser.
[link to getfirefox.com] Firefox is a browser that allows you to customize your browsing experience with numerous extensions. Needless to say, its CSS support is much superior to that of the Internet Explorer. It's also free, so why not try it?
[link to opera.com] Opera is often called the fastest of the major browsers. While it doesn't have Firefox's extensions it comes with a lot of stuff built in. Of course it understands CSS properly. It's free at the moment.

Re:Unbelievable.

[edmulroy]

"I'm sick of hacking my website to be IE-compatible...
...I don't care what browser will have the most market share,
as long as it's not IE..."

There is a name for those people who visit your site while using IE. They are called your customers. You sounds as if you do not care about your customers. We all know how well an attitude like that has worked for companies over the years.

Some people don't use Firefox because they already have IE and it works. Others don't use Firefox because of how it works.

They might not like how it does things like
- no "Stop" button on the toolbar
-a mandatory search control toolbar - the kind of "browser helper" thing people have been told contain spyware (anyone remember "Gator"?). (if they wanted a Google, Yahoo or other search toolbar, they would have downloaded and installed one)
-they want to view page source in an editor and not in a dumbed down browser window.

As to conforming to standards compare the rendering of the left column (width: 22ex;) on this site when viewed with IE versus with Firefox.
    http://home.nc.rr.com/emulroy/programg.htm

Many use IE so know it works. They normally prefer to not fix what they feel is not broken. If your web site is one of the rare ones that does not work with IE, they are more likely to decide the site is broken than that to download and use some other browser.

If you want to promote Firefox then tell people compelling reasons why it is better for them
and not some "Microsoft is the evil empire with all that money and we socialists object to that" type of drivel.

. Ed

WaSP Browser Update Campaign

[tepples]

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) ran a similar Browser Update Campaign a few years back.

Re:WaSP Browser Update Campaign

[bunratty]

It's also similar to Google's latest Firefox campaign. Just visit Google with IE to see what I mean.

Annoyance as a marketing technique?

[goofyheadedpunk]

Is it just me or does annoying the people you're trying to attract sound like a poor idea? I know when I am annoyed by something I'm more likely to resist. For example, whenever I meet militant PETA people I really want to go kill baby bunnies, skin them, and wear their bloody firs as a coat... and I'm vegetarian!

I think if I were an IE user I'd refuse to use Firefox on these grounds. Impress me on technical or philosophical merits, not by being a bully.

Re:Annoyance as a marketing technique?

[kryten_nl]

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?

Re:Annoyance as a marketing technique?

[witchgirl]

That's the kind of website you usually lose interest in fairly quickly due to their lack of consideration for non-IE internet users.... I, for one, never go further than that advice and look for information or business elsewhere.

Re:Annoyance as a marketing technique?

[PeeAitchPee]

For example, whenever I meet militant PETA people I really want to go kill baby bunnies, skin them, and wear their bloody firs as a coat... and I'm vegetarian!

My argument exactly . . . if we're not supposed to eat animals then why are they made of meat? ;-)

Re:Annoyance as a marketing technique?

[linebackn]

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?

I come across this kind of thing all the time. Way to often. And while *I* turn away from such sites, regular blow joe users will stop using whatever non IE-browser they may be using and "just use IE because everything works in IE". And it is damn near impossible to convince these people to not use IE.

It is high time to start fighting fire with fire (and Firefox!).

I don't see why people are getting so uptight about this. People are free to use their own judgment as to how to inform, warn, or outright block IE users. If these people want to design sites so they work in Mosacic and Netscape 2.0 they are free to do that too, but the web is moving on with or without them.

Oh, lovely, it's spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

function hasIE_phoneHome(image) {
  if (document.getElementById)
    {
      var img = document.getElementById(image);
    }
  else if (document.all)
    {
      var img = document.all[image];
    }
  else if (document.layers)
    {
      var img = document.layers[image];
    }
  img.setAttribute('src','http://getunder50.com/ping .php?host='+location.host);

}

Re:Oh, lovely, it's spyware

[orkysoft]

They're just collecting site - browser id pairs for statistics, because they want to know which of the participating sites have under 50% IE visitors.

Re:Oh, lovely, it's spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

script error
img.setAttribute is not defined

Netscape 4 (the document.layers conditional statement)

good to see they know about Javascript versions and what browsers support which attributes

a simple document.images["imagename"].src woud be better and supports everything (including WebTV aka IE3)

Re:Oh, lovely, it's spyware

[FooBarWidget]

Define spyware. What is spyware? If it's "anything that collects any information" then all the visitor counters are also spyware. Heck, the whole web would be a huge network of spyware because at least your IP and request URL is collected in the web server log!

Fact is, the script does not collect any personal information. All it does is collecting the host address of the site that has that script. It's entirely anymous. It does not breach privacy in any way. There is no rational reason to oppose it.

not keen

[icepick72]

Ya right, I want to explicitly drag the browser war straight into my commercial web sites. That should help business. What kind of web sites will you see with banners telling the user to switch? This is no better than the old "Designed for x Browser" buttons that were displayed in the past. In fact this is worse.

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[LGagnon]

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.

Please, please don't!

[Opportunist]

As long as the IE has a dominant role in the browser world, trojan writers will concentrate on it. There are already the first trojans aiming for FF, and I'm not sure if I want them to become more.

Also, it's not really a program I can support. Inform those that don't know about their options, but don't get on their nerves. Ever opened an IE (when your standard browser is something else) and noticed how it bugs you with "IE ain't your standard browser, do you want it to be?"?

And how annoying this is?

And how it doesn't want you to make IE your standard browser even MORE?

Why would you think it makes someone use FF instead of IE if you keep bugging him just the same way IE pesters you?

Re:Please, please don't!

[bunratty]

As long as the IE has a dominant role in the browser world, trojan writers will concentrate on it.

By your reasoning, hackers would concentrate on Apache instead of IIS because it runs more servers. Wrong, they still attack IIS more. Likewise, hackers will focus on IE because it has more known unpatched vulnerabilities than other browsers.

Re:Please, please don't!

[Tim C]

There are any number of possible reasons for hackers attacking IIS more than Apache:

1) IIS only runs on Windows, and so the host is definitely Windows, and so your pre-packaged exploit has a greater chance of running if you manage to crak the server (not so a *nix, which you don't have a 'spolit for)
2) *nix admins are more diligent/security aware than Windows ones
3) the attackers do it because they hate M$
4) IIS is a softer target than Apache (definitely true historically, not so much so now)
5) Apache doesn't actually host significantly many more sites than IIS, certainly not so many that IIS-hosted sites are hard to find

I could go on, but you get the idea. The basic premise is that Apache is just harder enough to crack than IIS that it simply isn't worth the bother; there are plenty enough IIS sites to crack as it is. These people mostly aren't in it for the challenge, they're just using prepackaged scripts they've downloaded from a darknet IRC channel somewhere and sent off indiscriminately looking for a victim.

As Firefox (and Linux for that matter) gains market share and becomes more popular, it will be more worthwhile trying to create exploits for it. Sure, most of these will be social-engineering ones rather than true remote exploits, but so what? It makes little difference to the end user who's tricked into installing an extension that zombies their machine.

No, it isn't

[njdj]

There are plenty of banks whose websites conform to W3C standards, and which consequently are usable with Firefox. I don't have any problem with my on-line banking (with Firefox, of course). Maybe you should change to a better bank? If your bank is backward in the way you describe, it probably has other problems which are not yet apparent to you.

Your Mission: Get Under 50

[tepples]

this project's goal is not to get people using any better browser but Firefox.

O rly? "Your Mission: Get Under 50" in the article describes a stats page that tracks sites that have fewer than 50% page views from Microsoft Internet Explorer. The end is less IE; the means is more Firefox. If the goal were to advocate Firefox to replace Opera or Safari or Konqueror, the mission would be "Get Over 50".

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is just pathetic - soon there will be banners "Using Windows - switch to Linux, you will like it better, and maybe we will let you in our website". Doesn't firefox get enough promo already? So now they resort to spam. Say no to both and use Opera..

Shit, I just did it for the cause!

[suv4x4]

Still need Firefox yourself?
Grab it here: [GOOGLE BANNER PLUG]

1. You need a Google AdSense account to make referral money for each user switched. If you don't already have an account, click this button to sign-up: [GOOGLE BANNER PLUG]

Then he goes below down to wash his hands clean by explaining that Google won't go bankrupt from this campaign, so it's perfectly ok to be retarded and lock out 80% of your visitors.

Oh and by the way this "script" shows the "you use IE" message on many builds of the original Mozilla Suite. Amateur.

Firefox Deterrent

[gihan_ripper]

Huh? This is the same type of bull that makes me hate IE only websites. At least most IE-only problems can be attributed to stupidity instead of malice. If someone tried to deliberately hinder my access to their site because I use Firefox, I'd likely never visit the site again.

Worryingly, the wording of this site makes it sound as though Google is affiliated with ExplorerDestroyer, which is very far from the truth. In fact, I imagine that Google would be worried by this page as it detracts from their "do not evil" ethos.

The Browser Wars 2.0

[Zaphod2016]

I for one expect that the competition between IE and the Google-backed FF is only going to increase in the months to come. I am torn. I can't help but approve of this, simply because it will diminish the market share of IE further. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, being harassed leads to resistance; the project might backfire.

Note: my anti-IE bias is based soley on being a web developer. MS has been fighting the interweb from day one, and IE is all the proof you'll ever need of this.

Related: a few days ago, my XP Home box started acting very strange: whenever I typed anything into a form in FF, it crashed. IE, Opera both remained fine. Malware? ID10T? ...or is Microsoft "fixing" things again?

Baad Idea

[pardasaniman]

What happens when microsoft retaliates? That would be bad.

All the websites made by frontpage, and whatever servers running IIS, suddenly boot firefox..

seriously, this is a terrible idea. Let's not stoop to their level!

Also, Is it possible some users would think it's some kind of spyware? Users that were advised not to install stuff just because a website asks them too?

How about older opera users who identify as internet explorer?

Shouldn't they follow their own rulez?!?!

[jedimaud]

Hmmm.....I surprised they don't follow their own rules, I could view the site perfectly in ie without being asked to switch to firefox.

You missed an important point

[njdj]

..another browser monoculture.

Wrong. A user who comes to the site with Opera or Mozilla or Safari, or in fact any W3C-compliant browser, will not see the message (unless browser options are set to lie about its identity, which is probably not a smart thing to do anyway). This initiative is not intended to lead to a browser monoculture.

Having said that, I would have preferred to see a script which detects grossly non-standard behavior, rather than a specific browser. I'd have no problem with MSIE being dominant if it respected agreed W3C standards.

gg hypocrits; nextmap

[Wuhao]

What the fuck? You're talking about crippling consumer choice to force your ideas on them and make money for yourself? Are you sure you don't WORK at Microsoft?

Oh lovely, site owners can opt out

[tepples]

And not only that, but web site owners can also opt out of this statistics collection. From the "Your Mission: Get Under 50" sidebar in The Article:

Here's how it works: if you want to you can turn on code in those scripts that will pass stats to our site about the percentage of IE users who visit.

Annoying

[danimrich]

This is annoying for those who cannot switch browsers for one reason or the other. In my opinion, web developers should aim to make their sites usable for as many different browsers as is reasonably possible. Including Internet Explorer, Lynx, mobile phones and old Netscape versions. Usable does not imply that the site needs to look pretty in that browser, but people should be able to access the (text) content.

Your users will have a reason why they use a particular browser, and often it's not because they're too lazy/dumb to install a "better" one.

Re:Annoying

[John Courtland]

You must not realize how much of a son of a bitch it is to make something work in IE along with everything else. In a very short amount of time I can have a nice looking site with proper nav bar, menus, and content working on FireFox, Opera, Safari, Lynx, Links, and it will even degrade properly in Netscape 6... but then if I were to open it in IE, everything is hosed.

I have a huge project I'm working on right now to upgrade my company's website design and functionality, and I would be lying if I said refactoring proper valid HTML into some mess of shit to get IE to render it properly wasn't taking up 25-30% of our development time. And by development time, I'm including not only totally new HTML/JSP pages, but new backend Java, new Javascript and new SQL tables, procedures, views and a new SQL database. Thirty percent. We cannot use any select controls because Microsoft managed to design IE in such a way that the select bar, out of all the controls on the page, is the lucky control to get its own HWND. This somehow precludes it from obeying z-ordering. So I had to write some javascript to emulate that behaviour. Let that sink in. I had to basically emulate a simple HTML form control because IE was designed by what I can only presume are retards.

So your opinion about having web developers "aim to make their sites usable for as many different browsers as is reasonably possible", to me, is poorly thought out. Instead of forcing hordes of web developers to pour hundreds of extra hours into basically developing shit, why can't Microsoft write a browser that simply TRIES to not suck? Cut the infection off at the source instead of trying to force everyone else to deal with it. It doesn't even need to be too much better, but all these hacks are the epitome of poor design and they certainly don't promote best practices. What happens to my hacks when IE7 comes out? Am I going to have to refactor my fucking code? I should send a goddamn bill to Microsoft for the fucking coronary I'm going to experience from being so pissed at their incompetence. Sorry, I got a little hot headed there. Goddamnit I'm tired of IE.

Better approach to a bad idea

[eddan]

This is definately not the way to attract new users to FF. However, if you want to do it, using a IE infobar is way cooler.

no big deal

[mapkinase]

I think Score:5 posters comparing it to the tactics of Dr. Microsoft forget that this feature is non-obligatory and you need to spend actual time inserting it into your webpage.

As for idea itself, I agree, it is too aggressive.

It would be better if someone will come up with the idea of how during every IE crash instead of "bug report wizard" (did they hire me for that?) some "buy firefox wizard" would popup.

Is this easy

[Life700MB]

As simple as this:

<!--[if IE]>
...your firefox referral goes here...
<![endif]-->

To get a referral just talk to google.


--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

Re:Is this easy

[TheSHAD0W]

Doesn't seem to work for me; it winds up popping up inside Mozilla.

Re:Is this easy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, <!-- is the beginning of an HTML comment, and --> is the end of one.  IE sees the comment, then sees the conditional code and knows to include it (if it matches the right version).  Other browsers simply see it as an HTML comment and don't show it.

Re:Is this easy

[Firehed]

Well go figure. As soon as I put my "Switch to Fx" code at the page, it starts rendering correctly in IE. I had no idea it was that sensitive, but apparently threatening browsers makes them work better.

Stupid, stupid...

[holiggan]

This is the kind of zealotism that each day drives me farther from Firefox and more into the arms of Opera...

I've been using Opera for a long while but lately I've given Firefox a try... It's nice and all, but Opera has some neat details that Firefox lacks. A very simple and frivolous example: I can move my tabs from the top to any other the side! Yeah! Oh, Firefox has an extension for it? Is it the one that breaks with every new Firefox version? You get my drift...

Anyways, I see less and less advantages in Firefox when compared to Opera. So Firefox is opensource... well, I couldn't care less. It's the same if someone said "hey, don't drink Coke, drink Shomke, because we know the recipy and we can all change it!". I don't give a flying rat's ass about code and source code, I, as a end user, just want things to work a certain way. And Opera does work that way, and does let me change things around out of the box. In Firefox, we need a stupid "extensions" just to clip a toenail in the interface.

"Firefox can't do this" "Hey, here's an extension" "Firefox can't do that" "Here's another extension". Prety quickly you will have a handfull of extensions, that might or might not break with the next Firefox version...

Heck, I'll give you another example! There is an extension to (gasp!) minimize Firefox to the system tray, right next to the clock. In one of the last Firefox updates, that extension stoped working at my computer at work. Yes, FF is updated to the latest version and so is that extension, but everytime I use both together, FF just displays a big, empty window, with *nothing* to click or any menus. And guess what! At my home computer, I have the *same* version of both and it runs fine! And don't go blaming it on Windows, because I'm using the same Windows XP in both computers. Oh and in Opera, the hotkey for that specific funtion is Ctrl-H. No extensions, no breakups...

So, about this whole "holy-war" agains IE... I'm just sitting and watching, waiting for the inevitable moment when this will blow on the face of the zealots... remember folks, FUD works both ways, and if you spread FUD to suport your product of choice, sooner or later it will bite you in the ass.

And heres a little site for you to read: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyt hs.html#Security

Re:Stupid, stupid...

[Khaed]

Oh, Firefox has an extension for it? Is it the one that breaks with every new Firefox version?

This is problem #1 for Firefox (with the memory leak being #2), and is very stupid: Say you have five or six extensions, they discover a huge security leak, and you lose those extensions, at least until the developer catches up. And some of them are part of the reason you use Firefox. You're between a rock and a hard place. (Way back when 0.9 came out, I didn't update to it until damn near the time 1.0 came out because I liked my extensions.)

don't give a flying rat's ass about code and source code, I, as a end user, just want things to work a certain way.

And you just put your thumb on a huge problem in the Open Source community. There are people who actively try and discourage the use of closed source -- including drivers like the nVidia ones -- simply because they're closed source. I have an nVidia graphics card. I have Linux. I want to use the two together. (And note: installing the nVidia driver was the easiest thing I've installed in Linux.) Would I rather nVidia release their source? Sure.

But fuck it, sometimes you just want it to just work.

I use Firefox as my primary browser. I've customized the hell out of it. I like that about it. But this article made me think of the last time I went to a website that outright refused to load without IE, and it offended me. I remember the "best viewed..." crap. Telling the user what to use is a load of horse shit and is the type of thing we're better than.

Firefox is a better browser than IE. There is no doubt about this in my mind. But annoying people won't get them to change. Here's how I got my sister to use Firefox: It blocks pop ups by default, and it has tabs. Those two things were enough. She doesn't give a shit if it uses the "em" correctly. My mom and dad don't give a hoot about XHTML.

Open source? Good luck getting 90% of users to care what that means. Most people don't even understand what source code is.

Not everyone is a computer geek, and not everyone has to be.

"Ethic" hackers vs. "commercial" trojan writers

[Opportunist]

We're not talking about hackers trying to "prove" that ISS is insecure, or some people defacing some homepage. There's no money in that, and that's something done by people who do it for bragging rights, for street (or rather, IRC) credibility and for their ego.

Trojans are a business. The amount of POCs and ego-boosters is dwarfed by the number of commercial trojans and worms. Hacking servers and taking down sites is no business. Trojans is.

Now, to be profitable, trojans need a high penetration. And for this, they have to work on as many machines as possible. That's one of the reasons why there are VERY few trojans/worms for Mac and Linux, and as far as I know, there are actually NO commercial trojans for those systems. It doesn't pay as well as writing one for Windows. And if the browser is an issue, your target for a commercial attack is the IE. Simply for its penetration.

Browse Happy

[rathehun]

Why create an annoying additional campaign. Use an existing one:

http://browsehappy.com/

R.

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[The Spoonman]

Firefox is actually competing fairly

Firefox is a browser, it can't compete. But, let's go on the assumption that you meant "Firefox advocates are competing fairly".....By childishly blocking people from their sites? People used to do this years ago when it was still Netscape Navigator. Worked so well then, I'm sure it'll work again this time.

OK, let's do this the squeaky clean way.

[r00t]

Don't actually detect IE. Use an IE "bug" to display the message. Make sure that no standards-compliant browser would show the message.

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[linebackn]

That is just pathetic - soon there will be banners "Using Windows - switch to Linux, you will like it better, and maybe we will let you in our website

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.

I take the passive aggressive approach

[squarooticus]

I just don't have the time to see if my page looks good on every browser, so I simply code to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, tough nuts. I include a small but helpful link to Firefox on the front page.

THIS is what a good webmaster should aim for:

[The MAZZTer]

He/she should aim to be able to certify his/her site works in ANY browser. http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/

Why we exclusively develop for IE

[lancejjj]

Those who only develop for IE are almost always working under contract.

Imagine, for example, that you're a retailer called "The Void". Your internal IT department can't do much, as you decided long ago that it is best to outsource all development. You approach your IT services vendor and say:

    "I want a retail website where I can sell my goods".

Your vendor says:
    "Great! That'll cost you $8 million, and we'll give you a pretty site"

The vendor writes up a contract, you sign, and you get a web site.

Then, once you go live, you get all these complaints from customers. WHAT is going on? You hire an expert to find out. It turns out that no one at "The Void" was smart enough to actually understand the ramifications of the contract. The site, as built, only works with IE.

You open a discussion with the firm you contracted with:

You: "Oh, you guys screwed up. Fix it."
Them: "No, you signed off already. You even paid us. Sorry."
You: "Fix it"
Them: "It'll take another $1 million"
You: "No budget."
Them: "Bye!"

It is easy and inexpensive to design and build for all modern browsers. It's just that many IT contractors like to milk money out of their customers. Building for IE alone is an easy way to milk money.

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[DaHat]

> Why not? I have encountered numerous banners stating "We only support windows and internet explorer", or "your operating system/browser is not supported at this time".

Why not? Because it ends up with people who employ such tactics resorting to the same tactics that they complain about so much.

So it's ok for web sites to require FireFox but the moment they say that about IE it's suddenly wrong? No... It's hypocritical.

Last I checked, FireFox and OSS was about choice and forcing people to change sure seems to disregard choice and adds to the general perception of snobbery on the OSS side.

Referral money

[ID10T5]

1) Design an evangelical hack to promote/support Firefox.

2) Get a link to your site posted on /. so you can rake in referral $$ from noob /. readers checking out your hack.

3) Profit!

I finally figured out #2!

Paranoia about IRCing as root

[Myria]

There's all this paranoia about IRCing as root, even servers that K-line root@*, but it's all pointless. Most people IRC as root, including me, because they run mIRC in Windows.

I don't see it any different than web browsing as root, and guess what, there has been far more exploits against M$IE than there have against mIRC. Or xchat.

Melissa

this doesn't even link to getfirefox.com...

[ziplux]

The button they advocate putting on your site links to the Google Toolbar page. From there, it is not clear at all how to download Firefox, although they make it very clear how you can download the Google Toolbar.

If I were going to direct people to download Firefox, I would send them directly to getfirefox.com.

Subtlety works better ...

[manastungare]

I have a similar browser detection script, but I don't want to antagonize my users. When they're using IE, I show them a text-only Google Firefox referral ad, and a brief note about why IE isn't quite as good.

But I avoid the most common mistake that browser detection creates, that is to lock people out of sites that are perfectly functional. Agreed, some of my interesting CSS magic doesn't show up, but I don't want to annoy my users -- just get them to use Firefox.

I also detect when Opera is faking itself as IE, and ask the user to set the user-agent string back to Opera, so that IE's web stats aren't overly inflated.

Been there, done that

[Tom]

And tell you what: It works.

My online game has 2 points where it tells people to switch. One is an occasional (once a week or so) friendly reminder to IE users that they should consider upgrading.
The other is a page that simply doesn't work in IE. It's valid HTML 4, CSS 2 and IE breaks it horribly. So I catch IE users, tell them about the problem (i.e. IE doesn't properly support web standards) and then allow them to continue on and see the train wreck with their own eyes.

For the past year or so, Firefox has been the #1 browser in my statistics (currently 51%, IE 37%). It works. It takes time, but it works.

And before you cry - this isn't a personal "me and my dog" homepage, I have around 1500 players and 120,000 visits a month. And it's not a Linux site either, the OS statistics say 93% windows.

Re:Been there, done that

[westlake]

this isn't a personal "me and my dog" homepage"

Perhaps not, but that's how you manage it. The studio producer used to say to the man with a cause: "If you have a message to deliver, take it to Western Union."

Re:If blocking users is wrong,it's wrong for every

[Spicerun]

"...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.

Re:That's _exactly_ what we need...

[level_headed_midwest]

I'd like to get one of those banners saying "Switch to Linux." All the banners I ever see are "This browser [KDE Konqueror] is not supported, download Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher." The WebCT online course system always tells me "You appear to be running Linux. Linux is not a supported operating system. Please select your operating system below: {Windows} {Macintosh.}" But the ironic thing is that Konqueror on Linux runs flawlessly on WebCT and IE 6.1 on Windows will often crash. Poetic justice, perhaps.

Re:If blocking users is wrong,it's wrong for every

[Tim C]

it is about time the IE users get some of the treatment dished out on the rest of us who don't use IE.

I'd agree with you, if it was their fault; but it isn't. As it is, preventing access to IE is every bit as bad as preventing access to non-IE browsers.

If you want to code to the standards as Opera and/or Firefox implement them and let IE fend for itself, fine. If you check the user agent and simply block IE, then that's just plain dumb.

YEAH!!!

[hullabalucination]

Or, what if Microsoft sent deliberately crippled HTML to Opera users in an effort to get them to switch to IE?!

http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2003/02/14/

Hmmm. Scratch that.

* * * * * *

You'll pay to know what you really think!
--Bob