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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."
Why bother with scripts and such? All you need is IE's own conditional html comments.
Isn't this the same kind of actions that open source advocates condemn, when Microsoft and friends use it ?
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) ran a similar Browser Update Campaign a few years back.
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.
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
function hasIE_phoneHome(image) {g .php?host='+location.host);
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/pin
}
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.
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.
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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".
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.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
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.
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.
where's all that Karma?
As simple as this:
<!--[if IE]>
<![endif]-->
To get a referral just talk to google.
--
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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
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
Why create an annoying additional campaign. Use an existing one:
http://browsehappy.com/
R.
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.
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.
> 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.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"...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.