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

[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.

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.

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: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.

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: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: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: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.