Slashdot Mirror
Browsers Fighting to Keep up with the Web
An anonymous reader writes "With the continued evolution of the internet and more tools being developed or migrated online browsers are fighting to keep up. Wired has a quick look at the current status of the browser war and what different browsers are doing to try to stay ahead. From the article: 'Already, IE has seen its U.S. market share on Windows computers drop to 90 percent from 97 percent two years ago, according to tracking by WebSideStory. Firefox's share has steadily increased to 9 percent, with Opera's negligible despite its innovations. WebSideStory analyst Geoff Johnston said Firefox must continue to improve just to maintain its share. Because IE automatically ships with Windows, he said, users satisfied with IE7 may not find enough reasons to download and install Firefox when they buy a new computer.'"
Hey maybe someone should file an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft for bundling their browser with their operating sys.... oh wait, nevermind.
where Flock is headed (no pun intended). It looks like a great browser. IE7 can ship with Windows all day long, but savvy users will always download something else.
things will never change. A majority of internet users don't realize how bad IE is. Also they don't even know other browsers even exist. Not much you can do other than sit back and let it happen
... is exactly what drove me away from Microsoft in the first place. Specifically, Windows 95 "C" where the IE installer started and couldn't be cancelled through a normal dialog box (but could be 'End Task'ed), despite the fact that it was a piece of shit. Yes, Netscape was king of the non-standard extension back in those days, but their abuses pale compared to Microsoft's ActiveX in the late nineties through today, and with the massive vulnerability that ActiveX poses Microsoft should face a class-action lawsuit for negligence in their product design resulting in expensive and time-consuming repairs to computers on a regular basis. Furthermore, it was a travesty that despite Microsoft's Anti-trust ruling they weren't forced to remove Internet Explorer from the OS or weren't forced to include third-party web browsers in the same fashion that they were forced to include third-party connection suites like Compuserve, Prodigy, and America Online in addition to their own MSN.
Mozilla should continue to grow, and advanced users should continue to push to make sure that it is implemented, so long as it remains a better tool for the job than the default (Internet Explorer).
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
After duking it out with Mario all those years, and now with the threat of the Web, poor browser may not have that much fight left in him...oh crap
Despite the innovations that IE7 may posses, the fact is that open source software will continue to mold itself to the whims of the web at the time, and it will be very difficult for Microsoft to keep up.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Anyone who found enough reasons to download Firefox before (Adblock? Mouse gestures?) is certainly going to find enough reasons after IE7's release. I downloaded the beta several weeks ago; after a few days of casual usage, I was underwhelmed, annoyed at the intrusive and bloated UI, and unsatisfied as to the permanence and functionality of the new security features. If all you want is tabbed browsing, I suppose IE7 might work, but that's far from being Firefox's only worthwhile feature.
Obviously, I'll be getting IE7 along with everyone else -- it's a security update, after all -- but that doesn't mean the blue 'E' will ever get clicked. And if my father and sister value their free tech support, they won't be clicking it, either.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
If IE was standards compliant and secure, people wouldn't care. Features are nice, but features can be implemented by the king of the hill once the kinks are ironed out by the underdogs.
As a web designer / developer I'd be happy enough if people who stuck with IE would at least get a good representation of standards compliant rendering of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. That's the *first* step that is *required* of Internet Explorer.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
What the hell are you talking about???????
The most disgusting thing about all this is that microsoft really has abused its monopoly in all this. Even if firefox is the best browser ever, developed by volunteers and distributed freely, it is only going to get and keep 10% of the market because IE7 comes with the OS, its easy to use, and it is adequate for most people.
Why should some consumer go out and download something that they will actually LIKE using as it meets their needs, vs just being useful and meeting their needs. OF course the statement alone describes why techies do it, but it hasnt sunk in with the wider populace.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Our website was built by a "website design bureau". We told them it had to be standard, so it would work on Mozilla as well.
What they produced was an absolute mess. CSS boxes were built to IE handling, and rendered incorrectly on Mozilla, which they consistently referred to as "Mozarella". They believed all problems seen on Mozilla were Mozilla bugs, and they added browser detection and workarounds.
Of course it still failed on Opera and Konqueror.
They used an awful piece of Javascript to make dropdown menus.
When they were done, maintenance was handed over to me and I gradually changed all their work to make a standards-conformant site that still rendered the same way. It was a lot of work, starting from the dire state it was in.
But finally, it renders OK and the menus work on most browsers without using javascript.
Exceptions:
- CSS menu only works in IE by including csshover.htc (conditional inclusion using !--[if IE]...). maybe IE7 will support:hover on list items?
- IE4 and below don't quite cut it, fallback to javascript code using serverside UA string detect. these are dying anyway, probably I will remove this support when IE7 appears.
- bug 234788 in GECKO means the menu disappears when mouse moves over scrollable text area. this bug has been fixed in GECKO but Mozilla and Firefox keep releasing new versions based on the broken GECKO for over a year.... We want Firefox 1.1 and Mozilla 1.8!!!
What I learnt: use a website design bureau only to make a site design. Don't allow them anywhere near HTML coding. They just use successive approximation towards the "browsers they test with", and try to impress managers with "browser utilisation percentages" instead of standards compliance.
Given the fact that remotely exploitable holes are found with Internet Explorer almost on a daily basis, would having your machine constantly backdoored by BackWeb, BonziBuddy, Gator, Hotbar, Ezula, Weather Cast, GAIN, Claria, etc. be enough to switch?
"Despite the innovations that IE7 may posses, the fact is that open source software will continue to mold itself to the whims of the web at the time, and it will be very difficult for Microsoft to keep up."
What does it matter if Microsoft keeps up? Most of their target audience are computer users who will never want a Firefox extension or an RSS feed.
Most people login to read the news, get the weather, and send an email or 2. What Microsoft offers fulfills that.
Slashdot crowd doesn't realize they are the extreme minority, and a big business doesn't make big money targeting small minorities.
*Firefox Download Utility
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
The problem is that there's no real, new, revolutionary development in browsers. They're all following each other's leads and copying each other's successes, not looking beyong the narrow confines of their little war for market share.
With applications migrating from static desktop to web driven versions and web sites creating useful functionality, the web browser has to evolve. Even the word "browser" is really not fitting anymore, since they do so much more than serve up static content. They are becoming control interfaces, transaction screens, and data transfer mechanisms; the browser is going to have to become "heftier" (do not read as larger) to deal not just with interacting with these new applications, but to provide a new layer of security.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
So does my development time. I swear, i'd be done my own software if i didn't have to support 30 different OS's (Win Service Packs, ect), 40 different versions of web browsers and so on. I can only imagine what IE7 is going to break.
plus, anyone who is running a Win2K3 server knows there are already security issues, the IE7 patch already came out.
Just a little off topic, but IE is down to 90%? when did that happen? My question is, programs (like realplayer) that dial home to artificially inflate web stats do they use the default browser or do they use IE? that could have a huge impact on percentages, since it's the site with the largest number of hits.
Uses of IE: 1. Simple download tool for going onto the Mozila site to go download the latest Firefox release after a fresh install of Windows. 2. Err.... thats it.
They got tabs on Internet Explorer 7.. who else has that? Plus, what about all those IE addons... Acoona, Hotbar, Gator, Weatherbug.. Nobody can compete. Amazing technology from Microsoft. hahaha
"Snatching defeat from the mouth of victory on a daily basis."
If they are tech savvy enough, start with the IE7 blog at MSDN.
If they don't know the difference between a USB and a Firewire cable, just tell them how much you charge to burn down a machine and rebuild it after their teenage son picks up a dozen worms while searching for pr0n.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
I recently converted some physics books to html, and I would have loved to be able to use svg for line art and mathml for the equations. Firefox supports them, but IE doesn't. Sure, I could have made two versions, or done content negotiation, or something complicated like that, but it would have significantly increased the level of complexity of the project. I just wasn't willing to go to that much effort for for an incremental improvement that would only benefit 10% of my audience. MS is clearly in a situation where they have an effective monopoly, and absolutely no motivation to support any new standard, much less to carry out their own innovation. Heck, they don't even support transparent pngs yet.
There are lots of other ways that MS has had a negative effect on the internet as well, including their behavior about java, and Windows' lousy default security settings, without which botnets wouldn't have happened.
I don't normally feel any compulsion to bash MS. If other people want to use Windows and Office, that's their business. But what they've done to the internet and open standards really hurts everyone else. If it hadn't have been for them, we'd probably have already moved beyond java applets and ajax, to a web 3.0 that would really deliver what web 2.0 is currently struggling to accomplish.
Find free books.
Where is XForms support? Yes I know about the Mozilla plug in and all of the other external support, but until it is built into the browser I can't even think about using it in my web sites. The current HTML forms support is crude at best, yet it is crucial for any kind of application. The XForms spec has been around since 2003 and still no browser supports it. Don't wait on MS; they won't support it since it makes the browser a more capable platform for delivering apps and that competes with their OS/application strategy. Opera is supporting Web Forms 2.0, but that is not the W3C standard. I wish the browser community, Firefox, would stop messing around and provide a real step forward in browser capability, XForms support.
I've always disliked supporting multiple browsers... and I have a hard time believing that if every browser was standards compliant there wouldn't be some small thing that would be rendered differently enough to cause problems. I don't care who wins but a having just one browser to deal with would make things much easier. That said competition is a good thing. We get more features faster this way.
Always be polite.
I know the analyst quoted, Geoff Johnston, from when I worked at MP3.com. I went to lunch with him a few times because WebSideStory was down the street and Geoff was an artist on our site with the band Noisepie. He's the guy in the center. He's a pretty cool guy who seemed pretty knowledgeable.
.agrippa.
I administer roughly 100 websites, ranging from downright soccer-mom commercial, to those oriented to the more tech savvy, and everything in between.
Last month I saw 37% of our users arrive via Firefox or other Mozilla project.
We also go up to .8% from Windows CE (mobile) web browsers.
I don't know how much stock I put in these various metrics. They always grossly underestimate non-IE browser from my experiences.
I guess it all depends on what site you measure. AOL.com probably gets 99% IE, while Slashdot probably gets 50% IE.
Unless you can measure the whole web, which is impossible, cherrypicking sites is always going to produce unreliable numbers.
I imagine that they poll mostly "mainstream" websites, but the fact is that such sites really account for an overwhleming minority of internet traffic.
Good God ya'll - reading all these comments is giving me a warm & fuzzy feeling because I'm using Safari. Thanks folks...........
If more manufacturers took a leaf from Dell and installed Firefox on all new computers, then over time firefox's user base can only go up. It's getting buy-in from pc manufacturers thats more important than trying to beat IE with features (and therefore bloat)
you ''know'' something is rotten.
When the big news is that, in some country, some leader only got 90% of the vote instead of the 97% expected, it may be significant, but you know that country is no democracy.
When the big news is that IE's market share has dropped from 97% to 90%, it may be significant, but you know that the product did not get its market share on the basis of open competition on a level playing field.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
not purely because it's a MS product. See, IE is what's called a value add product (insert joke here). At the end of the day, IE is meant to enhance a flagship product--Windows. So, Microsoft can get comfortable and decide to re-assign their IE staff to something more productive. That's how there's a security issue. Because there is no new innovation, the code stagnates, and is vulnerable to those who actively seek exploits.
Then you have Firefox. Does Firefox compete for code time with other Mozilla products. Yes, a few, but Firefox has quickly become a flagship product. There are people within and without the organization that maintain the code. This creates inherent security because there are positive contributors constantly refining and securing the code.
It's that simple. Will I ever download IE 7? I'll eventually have it in a few years when I buy a computer that has Vista on it, but I won't download it because of IE 6's lack of MS support. With Firefox I simply feel secure that SOMEONE will continue to develop it and make it more secure. Ironically, I can't say the same for a corporate developed piece of software.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
I am all for stopping that whole Microsoft Monopoly thing, but if they didn't include IE with windows... then how would one get the replacement browser, and don't say FTP because where am I going to get my FTP client without a browser to go d/l it in the first place?
This is serious...
--Valthan
There are some changes in IE7 that should be noted:
A search box in the corner!(OMG, revolutionary!)
Tabs(This is like 720 degrees revolutionary!)
But... wait... the tabs will be quick tabs with little thumbnails of the web pages(This is amazing, someone should integrate this into an OS)
And finally,
(Note, the following satirical conversation assumes that Vista will actually ship at some point.)
IE7 *Now entering protected mode*
IE7 You are attempting to contact host 'www.google.com' are you sure you wish to continue? The internet is a scary place. Non-microsoft web pages can harm your computer.
USER Yes.
IE7 Honestly, wouldn't you rather look at MSN pages instead of risk compromising your computer? Are you definitely sure that you wish to continue?
USER Yes.
IE7 Is that your final answer?
USER Yes.
IE7 Just to check, it's not opposite day is it?
USER It isn't opposite day.
IE7 But, if it is opposite day, and you say it isn't then it really is. Are you sure it's not opposite day?
USER Fine, it is opposite day.
**Segmentation Fault. Paradox buffer overflow**
At this point, the user restarts IE.
IE7 *Now entering protected mode*
USER MSN Search: google
IE7 No search results found
USER Disable content filter
IE7 1,224,671,930,542 results found.
USER Go to first result: www.google.com
IE7 WARNING! WARNING! The host attempted to send data of the unknown descriptor "HTML." This data most likely contains severe security exploits. In response, your internet connection has been severed.
User opens Firefox.
Now that I'm done IE bashing for the hell of it. The protected mode sounds like it could be a nice sandboxy type thing that could potentially make IE a lot more secure. Of course, it will probably break favorite flashy webpages or block downloads of "OMG you have to see this video.exe" sent to you by sexylola@zombiefarm.net, so users will disable it.
Personally, I will stick with Firefox, or maybe this Opera thingy everyone talks about. Is it like a Firefox extenstion or something? *ducks*
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
"users satisfied with IE7 may not find enough reasons to download and install Firefox when they buy a new computer."
I think a lot of Firefox users will still want to get Firefox because for a long time they've been clicking the Red Fox instead of the Blue E to get on the Internet. My friends, I know, will notice this at least, and most likely, when wondering how to transfer all their old bookmarks to their new computer, will look into downloading Firefox because that's what their old bookmarks are in.
I think that interest in Firefox is not going to decrease with the release of Vista with IE7. A lot of FF users are people who would never switch, and the rest are probably too used to it to go back to IE. MS will have to make IE7 a lot like Firefox if they want to keep casual users from noticing the difference.
This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3...
because IE7 comes with the OS, its easy to use, and it is adequate for most people
How horrible!
microsoft really has abused its monopoly in all this
Yup, they're really raking in the dough by selling their browser... wait. I mean, they're really squashing Mozilla and preventing them from selling their browser... er, hold on. Ah... I get it... you're secretly arguing about who makes money off of the ads in search engines, MSN or Google, right? So MS's "monopoly" is crushing poor Google. Not! They've got a bigger share of search than MS does of desktops. Maybe you were making some other point entirely? Where's the abuse, exactly?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I love FireFox and I will always use it unless something faster, quicker, safer, and more intelligently design appears.
But what are they trying to achieve? 100% market dominance? Do they need that? Can they sustain themselves just by providing a solid browser to the core 10% of the market that cares? If they are going out of business because they don't have 90% of the market, well then they have work to do. I would think they are just a tool for a niche market of serious computer users, and not the drooling masses.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
IE users won't find reasons to upgrade if the websites aren't giving them those reasons. If Google Maps started using SVG for the street maps or something... well you get the idea.
there was the internet. Then came the Web. The Web made a simple cross-platform access to networkes information possible. The URL was a designation of permanent Resource locations. New features where used only if neccessary.....
and where are we now? Every website has dynamic pages; half of them require a session ID even for dowloading a manual. Three quarters of them require Javascript to read use otherwise static links. Only one fifth of the website seems to afford programmers who can in this complicated world deliver the experience of the early web (=it works), the rest has a vast mixture of flash, javascript and other Stuff - most of the time requireing the newest version of some obscure plugin to be installed.
It's like wandering into a schoolyard filled with children speaking broken English, and then when you correct them they tell you to "start speaking gooder English".
Blame the lazy web designers of the sites your hitting...
Is that intentional grammar nazi baiting? :)
Let me tell you, IE 7 is just as fucked as IE5/6.
IE 7 requires the htc file to implement the HTC hover menu. IE 7 still has the bug with apply text-align to block elements. IE 7 still has weird overlap issues.
IE 7 is basically IE 6 with a tab bar and some more annoying anti-phishing code. The website layout I designed recently works like this: one path is for Mozilla/FireFox/Camino/Safari/Konqueror/Opera (tested and working), and the other is IE 5/6/7. One uniform path works consistently in everything except IE, and the smarter Gecko-based browsers even get a little CSS3 magic thrown in.
IE 7 doesn't implement all of CSS 1, a standard that's pushing 10 years old.
(This was me testing IE 7 inside VMWare on Windows Server 2003)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
We regularly re-elect approximately 99% of incumbent representatives in the US. What does that say about us?
New versions of Firefox 1.x will run on windows 9x.
New versions of Firefox 2.x will run on windows 9x. (2007?)
Not until firefox 3.x will support for windows 9x be dropped. (2008?)
Microsoft's last browser that supported windows 9x was released 5 years ago, while firefox is still planning on supporting it in new releases for at least another year.
Fully when I see this...MSIE 90%, Mozilla/Firefox 9%, others 1% - gee it sort of leaves out some very important browsers. I am no Apple fanboy (In fact, I rather abhor Apple as a company and media phenomenon) but there's NO WAY that Apple is down at the bottom with Safari. Apple has about 10% of the market for PCs (more in some areas) and I am sure that most of them us Safari. Every Apple owner I know does. So why do we keep on seeing these BOGUS statistics?
The current software situation cannot be likened to a dictatorship. There is a monopoly, but it does not arise from unfair manipulation. The people are not opressed, users are free to use what they like. Many of them do choose something different. The truth that we find scarier than an malovent monopoly, is that most users just DON'T CARE. They're not born indoctrinated, nor does Microsoft brainwash them. They do it to themselves. No-other business can dream of such brand loyalty, even if the majority of users will exclaim daily at the product and even ridicule it. They've never even tried a competing product and will fervently deny their existence.
Fighting Microsoft gains nothing. They have nothing we want to take. Users themselves have the keys to their chains. We need to teach them.
I would contend that those users who use FireFox now already don't trust IE and will stick with it FireFox, despite the integration of features.
FireFox has one feature IE does not: A low profile.
Do you really, really want the community to answer that? It might be pianful.
The decline to 90% is significant when you consider the consumer inertia that had to be overcome to attain that decrease, however small. IE6 comes installed and ready to use, after all.
Yes, the majority of that 7% are probably users with an above average level of technical sophistication. But they probably have some influence over what others around them run (e.g. colleagues, friends and family).
Now what will it take to shift this momentum to more 'average' users?
I don't think they can. I don't remember where it was but I read that MS signs deals with the manufacturers to "include certain aspects of windows" in order to resell the OS and maintain support.
Damn, I wish I had that link now.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
P.S. - I'm not being sarcastic.
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
Heh, my comment is already posted on the Wired story :-)
This is exactly the problem, everyone writes everything for IE instead of following the actual standards, and as such people believe that FireFox displays things improperly. As a Java/JSF developer, IE never seems to get things right that work the first time in FireFox, and the code to ensure it is displayed properly in IE is always more verbose and a pain in the ass to write. And that's not even getting into the customization or security issues.
- Kal`Goblez
While the web culture and the PC culture have a lot of users in common, there are also many who belong more to either one group or the other.
For those users who are part of the web culture, IE has already lost the browser wars to Firefox. Most PC users who grew up with the Internet and feel comfortable with searching and downloading have already switched to Firefox.
IE will always be the dominant browser for the PC culture, however, because of pre-installation, and because most people who are part of this culture feel comfortable with Microsoft products despite their poor quality in many cases.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
When the big news is that, in some country, some leader only got 90% of the vote instead of the 97% expected, it may be significant, but you know that country is no democracy.
I prefer Firefox also, but I guess I don't see this the same way as you do. Business is not a democracy. There are other companies that have a 90% market share too and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. This doesn't mean that you aren't free to use a different product. They do exist. If you don't like the current choice of products, you can even make your own to compete with the current alternatives. No one including Microsoft is going to stop you from doing so. Obviously, the reason most people use internet explorer is because it's there when you install Windows and Windows is usually there when you buy your pc. Is this really a problem though? It's not a problem for me. Since I can easily download the browser that I like, no issue. Quite frankly, I think Mozilla/Firefox has the right solution to the problem: make a superior product. Firefox is much better than IE and that's why it's taking away market share. I think it will continue to do so unless Microsoft improves the quality of their product as well.
No Sigs!
I personally found Bon Echo (Firefox 2.0 alpha version) kind of impressive. Considering it is just alpha I hope they don't mess it up later in the development. Firefox 2.0 currently promises of being a really good improvement for firefox (not feature crazyness but speed and stability, heck the only crash I get now is when closing firefox, unlike 1.5.0.4 which crashes eventually on some pages, specially those with embedded videos.)
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
"When the big news is that, in some country, some leader only got 90% of the vote instead of the 97% expected, it may be significant, but you know that country is no democracy."
Actually that's when you know the country IS a democracy.
Is there any way to stop these browsers from fighting?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
I really don't see the problem with putting a browser (and email client) in with your OS... Many people just want to 'get to the internet' and send emails to family.
BUT, I don't understand how some browsers (read: IE) can get away with not implementing standards. Users should be in control of the 'browser wars' not the involved associations. must not be cost-effective when most users just want to 'get to the internet'.
Web standards will never be fully implemented if 90% of users just want to 'get to the internet'. I forsee that as more people become web-savvy, browsers will become more compliant or go extinct as users gain real control. Think of the children, the kids who have cell phones and browse the internet on PSP's and maybe even post on slashdot?
MSIE won't change untill it is made to change, and I think it will take more than a slip of 7%, and two years, to do that.
I have to boot up IE once a month to download this months windows/office/IE patches. That's its last role, running an activeX control needed to download the stuff needed to stop your XP box being 0wned by somebody else. There's something deeply ironic there.
-steve
For all practical purposes, the war was over in 2001. For the next 3 years, IE6 was the undisputed ruler of the web. And look what it got us:
For 4 years, Internet Explorer went without a significant upgrade to its capabilities. It couldn't even finish support for the specs that had been defined years earlier, never mind adding new stuff.
With 97% of web surfers using IE6 on Windows, the target was obvious for malware writers: viruses, spyware, and worms burst onto the scene and have gotten so bad that even Microsoft says the best way to get rid of them is to wipe your system and reinstall it from scratch.
I'd much rather deal with slight differences in standards support (like trying to manage the differences between Firefox, Opera, and Safari today) than deal with huge chunks of missing features and major bugs the way we have to when developing something for IE6 and F/O/S.
Having more than one browser out there with viable market share puts pressure on the leaders to keep improving their products. Having more than one major target will make it harder for malware writers to hit the entire web at once, and will slow down the spread of malware.
So yes, we're better off with the competition than without it.
Sounds like you hired idiots, becaudse a real web development company wouldn't do that. TBH that's probably your companies own damn fault for not checking into who it was hiring (I suspect some lemenet of "doing it on the cheap" was involved).
At least one benefit of IE7 will be that those still using IE6 will have to upgrade to a (marginally) better version which is at least a little more secure than the previous version. If the Average Joe baseline is IE7, maybe that'll help cut down on the rampant Internet bugs caused by older IE versions?
Ummm, that we're rational people who learn from our mistakes?
This guy's the limit!
IE got to that level of market share for two reasons:
1) It was bundled with Windows, starting from (iirc) Windows 95 SR2 (or whatever it was called)
2) Netscape 4 was shit
On point 2), before you write me off as a troll, understand this - I have never used IE as my browser, and never will. I only use it when I absolutely have to. However, IE4 wiped the floor with Netscape 4 in terms of speed and stability. It didn't stop me using Netscape, but even at the time I admitted it was shit, but "at least it's not IE".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Sorry, the market says if you make a good product, the consumers will find out about it. Netscape, firefox, Opera and all the others have come and gone over the years. Why? Because IE is just a better browser. Deal with it. To make statements contrary to historical market browser trends means you're either dumb, young, or just flinging dung.
I doubt most here have tried IE6 64-bit on a WinXP x64 pro platform, not WinXP with a 64 bit proc. It blows the pants off firefox in the latest Ubuntu, SuSE, or whatever teenage hack distro you can throw at it.
You lose. Somebody puhleeeease help us po wittle consumers forced to buy Japanese cars here in America. What a japanese monopoly. God Bless Bill Gates.
Except that,
FireFox is an opensource project.
When Microsoft dropped support in IE for old windows, users were only left with the choices of sticking with outdated IE or upgrade the whole OS+IE combo.
When support for old windows is dropped from official branches in FireFox :
- if there is a large enough community of people who want to keep their OS & FireFox, chance are that community will back port bug-/security- fixes to the 2.x branch.
- if there is an even bigger critical mass of Win98 users, maybe a separate FireFox version will be developped for the Win9x platform.
- or alternatively, maybe a smaller Gecko-based project, that is lower in ressource requirement and that can better run on older setups, will get attention from the Win9x community (K-Meleon ? Some other FireFox-lite ?)
Compare to what happened to Linux distros.
Most of present day distros have grown into full-sized mamoth (although they're more easily tailored to something less ressources hungry than windows).
Some people are still interested to run Linux on antiquated hardware and/or embed hardware (beyond what's customisable in main-stream distros). For them, there's still a niche market of more adapted distros.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I hardly think that the OS wars not being on a level playing field is news to... well, to anyone. Furthermore, I don't think that the playing field will EVER be level. Linux has some VERY great points going for it (free, open source, etc., etc.). However, as long as it takes an act of congress to get FULL hardware support from the majority of hardware vendors, MS will always have an edge.
Microsoft's continued monopolization of the end-user computer market does not look (to me, anyway) that it's going anywhere at all... At least not in the near future.
You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.
I'm all in favour of fancy application stuff being delievered over the internet, I use x-forwarding and nx all the time and know how great it is.
However, I'm completely with this guy - lets keep the web for static and near-static content and use something else for applications. A net-app client designed from the ground up to handle it with security and the right features built in from the start, not hacked in.
I have a serious question about who decides what makes it into "standards". I know that there's an organization that makes up what standards are. I know (at least I've read a lot here on /.) that IE is not compliant to those standards. BUT Microsoft still has around 90% market share (I'm not arguing that this is a good thing at all), so for all intents and purposes, their protocalls, and whatnot should be the de facto standard, if not the official one, right? Develop for IE and you reach 90% of your audience (much more for many sites), but write 100% compliant code for a site, and you might alienate 90% of your audience. I just don't get it.
Dreadful security and dated UI aside, ahy are we going after MS to change IE rather than adapt new browsers to the IE "standards"? Are IE "standards" not widely used because they are closed and opaque to developers, thereby locking any developer into using their tools? Does IE follow any standard? Has the W3C standardized on things that are easier to use and will age more gracefully? In short, and this is an honest question, why aren't the IE "standards" standard?
I know I'm exposing my ignorance to all things concerning web development with this post, but every time I see people getting up in arms about IE not being compliant I wonder about this.
-- Thanks for taking the time to read this and using your precious mod points to bury this post. --
In this case, firefox should provide an automatic installer that doesn't require manual intervention, whining about this has no point if big companies don't have a way to implement FF or Moz easily. I just can't imagine companies of this kind using employees like 2 minutes per machines installing FF.... And don't think that _they_ have to find their way....
What about a broken standard -- for instance span width? Firefox forces you to use tables for formatting, due to a bad spec that is self-contradictory, but IE knows better.
It's called business. Because businesses know that if they give more, they get more.
I dislike Microsoft just as much as the next guy, but I'm sick of all this monopoly talk. You know what? Maybe we should file lawsuits against Xerox. Afterall, they have machines that are copy machines, printers, fax machines all in one. It is an unfair advantage to all of the companies that only make printers. We should make them sell all of them seperately. Yea, that makes sense.
Netscape 3 was perfectly adequate for most people. Heck, people still use that old crap today. It was IE's bundling, as you yourself said, that was anti-competitive. Moreover, windows itself is anti-competitive, and microsoft has been convicted of these crimes in different countries around the world. Period.
Firefox forces you to use tables for formatting ... or div tags, which is what you should be using. Span tags are inline.
I take it you never used a Warez type site in those days. IE kept crashing the computer. Netscape kept working. But I don't think you're a troll.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It depends on how you measure that, really.
Let's say you were to look at my house - you'd find most machines have IE.
What it wouldn't tell you is none of us use IE. The first thing my son did with his new Mac mini, for example, was download Firefox, Adblock, and NoScript and train the latter two in how to permit his fave gaming and flash sites to work properly.
My WinXP laptop, has IE. But, other than downloading patches to the extremely buggy Microsoft OS, I don't use it unless I'm forced to. I normally use Firefox or Opera.
So, my household could be counted as 100 percent IE. But, like most MSFT statistics, that would be an inaccurate measure. In fact, it should be counted as 100 percent Other Than IE.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The problem is not that these people use IE; that in itself is not the issue. The problem is that IE has a lot of non-standard stuff in it, such as ActiveX. The fact that most of the market uses IE encourages web-designers to code their sites to work in IE, and allows them to get away with being lazy and not making sure it's standards-compliant. And with IE being closed, it's exceptionally difficult for other browsers to reverse-engineer in the ability to read non-standard code the way IE does. As such, if you don't use IE, you often run into sites that won't let you proceed without using IE, or that render things poorly in most/all browsers except IE.
That is the problem with IE being bundled with Windows. It's using Microsoft's monopoly to not only gain unfair marketshare in web-browsers, it's also making it more and more difficult for people to use other browsers.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
You only mention IE and Netscape. What about other browsers? Didn't Microsoft buy the technology from Spyglass? Who knows what would have happend if Microsoft didn't offer their browser for "free." This crushed nearly all competition.
>> users satisfied with IE7 may not find enough reasons to download and install Firefox when they buy a new computer.'"
They just don't know about all the hidden logging files and phoning-home it does. Firefox/Mozilla et al should make more noise about rights and privacy and underline how they don't abuse them.
Anyone not obliged to use Windows or IE that still chooses them clearly isn't aware of the issues or alternatives. To the informed that have free choice, Microsoft just isn't an option.
Firefox forces you to use tables for formatting ... or div tags, which is what you should be using. Span tags are inline.
Not only that, but if you use CSS to set that span tag's display setting to block, it then becomes basically the same as a div tag and the width setting works perfectly.
Say it with me: "Block elements have a width. Inline elements do not have a width." This goes for EVERYTHING. The GP is either clueless or lazy, and I admire neither.
Oh, and the whole issue is explained in the spec and IE violates it anyway. IE needs to vanish from the face of the earth, its users need to be forced to use something that doesn't suck, and its developers need to be castrated or killed. Why? Just for the fun of it. And besides, who's gonna complain about some missing IE developers?
Since the 22nd Amendment took effect in 1951, there have only been four: Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, and the younger Bush.
I don't know where you went to school, but around here four out of 11 does not equal 99%. You must be very young and not have much knowledge of history.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
You can already install firefox without user intervention, it's a one line change in the config.ini to set "Run Mode=Silent"
And apparently you can't read, since he said 99% of representatives, not presidents. In California 2004, 100% were re-elected, at least by party, since districts are so gerrymandered that they're safe for the incumbent party. I don't know if 99% is exactly accurate, but it seems close.
There's a history lesson for ya'.
I'm Peggy.
He said 'representatives', as in House of Representatives.
They do have an incumbent election rate of 98+%
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQThe bundling doesn't explain everything. I always add Opera and Firefox to any Windows instllation I do for clients. When they call me again because their computer is slow or keeps crashing, I often find Opera and Firefox removed while the system had been taken over by spyware and other crap through IE. When I ask why they uninstalled the other browsers, they always reply "Because I didn't like them."
But that is not even the big story. That the people of Massachusetts re-elect this guy is. In fact it annoys me so much that you may find me wearing this shirt.
Throw me in with the young "doesn't have much knowledge of history" group... Here I've been thinking the four you mentioned were presidents, not representatives.
I will never go back to IE. NEVER!, even if they base it on Firefox code!
Bundle Fx with Windows! Oh, wait Bill would never go for that. Oooh what about the manufacturers and ISPs though, they might go for it. IBM would love the chance to give M$ a kick in the balls, and with their focus on security and stability they could use it as a selling point. The ISPs could use it as a selling point as well - I don't know how many pointless TV commercials I've seen about ISPs providing security features. And a lot of users have come to think of their browser as tied to their ISP, because of that old hack "Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by _________" and AOL's long term association with Netscape. It's so perfect, why didn't I think of this before?
( I
wiped the floor with Netscape 4 in terms of speed and stability. It didn't stop me using Netscape, but even at the time I admitted it was shit, but "at least it's not IE".
But this is exactly the opposite mentality of today. You were using a worse product because of personal beliefs, users do it because it's what they're used to.
IMHO this is hypocrisy. If one product is better, why not use it?? I use Linux, OSX and Windows, each have their good things and bad ones, but saying I'll use one only regardless of what everyone else is doing doesn't make much sense.
We blame users for using MS products although they're inferior, but when they're better we still refuse to use them because of ideologies...
Where did you get the 10% figure? Nowhere, because there is no statistic that puts Apple at 10%. Several that I've seen have said 2% or 3%. Even if they had a spectacular year with the new Intels, it's still no more than a few percent.
Also worth noting is that IE 2 shipped with NT4.0 only 3 months after Microsoft licenced the NCSA Mosaic code from Spyglass to create IE1. IE 2 that shipped with NT4.0 was still a good way behind Netscape 2 though since Netscape 2 included features such as support for frames, javascript and plug-ins, IE had none of these features until IE 3 shipped with Windows 95 OSR2.
You are right in saying that netscape 4 was shit though. Version 4 of Netscape and IE demonstrated the first time IE overtook Netscape in terms of features.
All new computers come with a huge amount of blank space on their hard drives. The (shipping with XP) vendors should just install the various major browsers (IE, FF, Opera, Sea Monkey, and etc) and be done with it. Put icons on the desktop for all of them, let joe customer decide what they like. And if MS squawks, threatens them with this or that, tape the squawking,document it, and give that info to the DOJ. Enough's long been enough on the desktop browser monopoly deal there.
Yeah. Microsoft has the gall and audacity to tell computer manufacturers that if they want to ship Windows on their machines that they actually have to include parts of Windows and not hack it apart. What nerve. Nothing is stopping manufacturers from installing Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Netcom Netcruiser, Mosaic, or anything else; and if you want people to use Firefox, either accept the fact that they're gonna need IE already in the OS in order to download it, or maybe they should get off their ass and put it in a store so people can buy it. Oh wait. Making money is evil, I forgot.
Dell installs so MUCH CRAP on their computers. The first thing I did after getting my new Inspiron was to take out the OS reinstallation CD and wipe it out clean.
Best $10 I ever spent getting that CD from Dell.
How do they collect the data? They don't ask people which browser they're using do they? I hope it's not through user agent strings either. Many spiders will identify themselves as IE and even Opera can. All these fake user agent strings boost IE's perceived market share.
I notice that one can no longer download Opera in .tar.gz format.
Try it for youself: Opera Download Page Link
You can click their "Download this package in TAR.GZ format" checkbox all you want, but you won't get it.
Thanks, Opera.
Ted Kennedy is alright by me. Of course, I'm pretty far to the left, but I'm sure we can agree on one fact.
He will be the senior senator from Massachusetts until he retires or dies. As an aside, Kerry will be the junior senator from Massachusetts until he retires, dies, or is elected or appointed to higher office. Hell, Robert Byrd has been in the Senate since my grandpa was born.
It is very, very sad that our ancestors fought to free us from the power of a hereditary king only for us to turn around and start electing hereditary representatives.
If Microsoft wants to play fair, all they have to do is compete on all the platforms that Opera and Firefox do. :-)
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All your userbase are belong to us ...hahaha
you have no chance to survive
make your time
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
Anybody I know who' serious about security is not going to forget to install firefox first thing.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
In my country, Nixon was also reelected.
You're simply misinformed. Firefox lets you use div's or tables for formatting (you should use div's if at all possible). And ultimately, setting your spans to display:block will allow the width property to work the way you might want (assuming it's impractical to go back and redesign the page to better match the standard).
span.myclass { display:block; width:200px; }
Don't get me wrong, CSS is frustrating to use for a number of reasons, but it's better than the alternatives and IE makes the problems with CSS worse instead of better.
Regards,
Ross
No, that's not right.
We should force them to supply Copymachines without printers and faxmachines to customers who want it, and prefer a 3rd party printer. But they can still continue to sell them all bundled if they wish.
THAT is the analogy. And I think Xerox does that, without being a monopoly(or because of it) and without a lawsuit.
Not being in a monopoly means Xerox has to cater to all sorts of customer's wishes, and can't force their faxmashines on customers who just want the printer. Or vice versa.
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
The difference is someone can go in and backport it to 9x/ME/NT if they want to. Just because there's no official build doesn't mean YOU can't make an unofficial one. And someone will. I can guarantee it.
Does not compute.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
His politics are alright by me (I wouldn't vote for him, though), but there is still a certain sadness that he simply will not be voted out of office short of killing someone. ;-)
Seriously, I just don't get it. Opera does all this nice stuff with proper tabbed browsing out of the box and just a well designed interface all around. Internal popup blocking before anyone else had even thought of it being built in (not to mention still the best "block unwanted popups" option.) A very handy internal handling of things like RSS, e-mail, etc (I love the RSS handling and it's how I keep track of Slashdot articles because it is so handy.) Not to mention that unlike Firefox or IE, Opera is massively efficient with resources (both CPU and memory, but, especially memory -- this statement is not without basis, Opera and Firefox were both recently run on a Pentium 1, 70MHz laptop with 40 MiB of memory, and while Opera ran smoothly until a lot of tabs were opened and pointed to various sites, Firefox was pretty much limited to just one, MAYBE two tabs if both sites were pretty clean as any more than that caused severe slowdowns due to swapping.)
Basically, the only single thing any browser has on Opera would be Firefox's support of extentions (though for what it's worth Opera has just about everything you'd normally want an extention for built right in and done right.) I used to think it was because they were commercial (though they always had the free ad version) but, now Opera is 100% free with no ads, so apparently that isn't the problem. It's not because it is closed source (I mean, how many of us actually WANT to look at the Firefox source?) I also thought it was because many versions of Opera default to identifying as Internet Explorer (to fix problems with those stupidly coded sites that either deliver malformed code or even refuse to continue at all if they don't see IE or Netscape in the browser identification string,) but, I'm pretty sure they don't do that anymore (hard to remember for certain because I always changed it to identify as Opera without even thinking about it -- it requires one keypress and one click to change) so I guess that's not it unless a huge number of Opera users are still using those versions that defaulted to identifying as IE and leaving them on IE... In fact, the latest versions have per site settings so you don't have to set it to IE globally for just one site coded by a moron.
I can't think of any reason why Opera remains so low on the lists. The only thing that even seems RELATED is the lack of extentions, but, every time I think about it, I realize I can't really think of one extention that Opera truly needs for the average user to function -- in fact, a large number of Firefox users tend to have no extentions at all... Can someone tell me what I'm missing? Do people just hate it on principle? If so, why aren't they throwing out their cell phones and running to Nokia with their new proprietary browser?
Trolled? or pwned? Predictably, either term will surface atop the ether of one's imagination when nothing more substantial will. So, yes. In a sense, you are correct. Trplled!
there is still a certain sadness that he simply will not be voted out of office short of killing someone. ;-)
I'm sure this is the reason for your smiley, but for non US-citizens who may not already know, Ted Kennedy already killed someone.
he simply will not be voted out of office short of killing someone. ;-)
For those who don't know, in his younger days Ted Kennedy did kill someone. In a drunken stupor, he drove off a pier with a young lady in the car. He got out, and instead of going to the police or trying to get help, left her to die in the car. If his ass were black he'd be doing life. If he didn't have a rich family, he'd have done at least twenty years. Instead, coming from a priviledged background, he gets to be a Senator.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Why should he be voted out, if his constituents are happy with him?
The point of getting rid of the king wasn't so that we could automatically elect a different king every 2|4|6 years; it was so that we could elect a new king whenever we felt like it.
I don't see anything sad about the practice of not electing a new king if we don't feel like it, so long as the option is still there.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Opera: "We used to be ad supported, but we got better."
No thanks. I'll never even consider trying Opera for the simple reason that it was once supported by IN YOUR FACE ads. If they want me to forget about that, they should change the name. However, I'm still not sure I could ever trust the company.
I think the whole Web 2.0 trend (using heavy JavaScript DOM, XmlHttpRequest, and CSS) will probably boost innovation in browsers. As these apps (and "mashups" thereof) get more complicated, it becomes easier for developers to just say "use a standards-compliant browser". This will result in larger and larger groups of people downloading Firefox, Opera, or other standards-compliant browsers, because their friends told them about a site that needs it.
Web browser innovation is fueled by web site innovation, and vice-versa. If we want "cooler" features in our browsers, we need to develop sites and services that fully utilize the existing features, and push the envelope, while still accomodating enough of the user base to make them useful.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Simple as that. When someone asks me to help them with a Windows computer, I install Firefox, run Spybot, and then give up. I tell them it would probably take me less time to get them running on Linux than to fix their Windows issues.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I think some of Microsoft's products are good and others are really crappy like IE. However, I try not to use any of Microsoft's products because Microsoft's business practices of the last 1 1/2 decades have been detestable to me.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I block scripts using NoScript, so you still don't count me.
Oh well.
Right at this moment I'm blocking scripts from:
1. google-analytics.com
2. tacoda.net
3. doubleclick.net
4. falkag.net
But am permitting slashdot.org.
It's time to wake up and smell the Firefox extensions.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
is not bundling a browser with an OS, that has to happen.
The problem was more when someone like HP wanted to bundle a different browser than IE, or even in addition, and MS wouldn't have that sort of thing.
The problem was not what they bundled to the end user but the fact that we don't buy computers from Microsoft, we buy them from "OEMs" so why in the hell can't the OEMs bundle stuff regardless of Microsoft's needs.
That's where the monopoly leveraging came in.
btw, since I mention HP, and this company used to be a dream company for engineering, let me just add, FUCK YOU CARLY FIORINA.
-pyrrho
I used NoScript for a little while. However it became a pain to always allow JavaScript. I personally do more of a blacklist approach than a whitelist approach. I don't care about JavaScript running from most sites. I just want to block sites like doubleclick.net, falkag.net and the other trash advertisers. So I just use AdBlock+ and add *.doubleclick.net/*, etc.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
if you speak rather losely.
Laura Bush did too.
Pointless to fight politics this way.
-pyrrho
To those users who think that we have a choice. We currently dont. 99% of workplaces use microsoft because that is what the software is made for. As an mmo gamer I use microsoft because that Is the system the game was designed for.(yes i can use bootcamp and whatnot but i dont want to.) I wish I could buy a game and play it on my Linux desktop but I cant and I doubt that I ever will be able to... Unless windows becomes open source? Or Windows gets sued and looses and the likelyhood of an american court convicting an american monopoly over the world of anything will be the day...insert witty rhetoric. /rant
Open up a Command prompt and navigate to the directory that you want the file downloaded, Desktop might be good
Type in the following
ftp ftp.mozilla.org
log in as anonymous and type password of email address. Note the password will not appear on screen.
Type the following command
cd pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases
Type in dir because the release may have changed by the time you try this. I would recommend going for the most recent stable release.
Use the cd command to go to the release directory, choose it to be win32 and the English Great Britain release. At the moment that was the following command
cd 1.5.0.1/win32/en-GB
You then need to download the file. Note you need quotation marks around any file names with spaces. A dir command will let you know the file name, may well be easier to do the following
dir
This will produce a list of files, you just need to use the get command. In my example I typed in the following
get "Firefox Setup 1.5.0.1.exe"
After a few moments, on broadband, the file will have downloaded and be ready to install.
Notes
The command dir will list the files on the current directory
The command cd will change directory
Firefox isn't the only program you can download which would be useful if IE isn't working. The site ftp.planetmirror.com has a huge array of programs available for download. Two particularly useful downloads would be avgfree and spybot. At present they are found at these particular addresses:-
ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/avgfree
ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/spybot
On some servers you need to specify how you are downloading files, whether as ascii or binary. When downloading exe files, it's going to be binary. Simply type in 'binary' to change mode. Among the commands available is help.
Firefox will let you use any tag you want for formatting; you can even make up your own tags and give them style rules. (X)HTML is for structure, CSS is for style.
I agree,
As a web developer with a company that insists on supporting netscape 4, even though only about 0.1% total hits are netscape 4 (By the way who are the morons out there still using netscape 4, you guys suck!!) I have to deal with the rich level of crappiness that is Netscape 4 every day.
Up until a short time ago, Opera costed money. That is probably the #1 reason it has such low popularity.
The reason I do not like it are:
I think it's interface is unintuitive.
It's ugly.
It's focused on tabbed browsing, which I do not like.
It is not well integrated with Mac OS X.
Firefox is now the "non-evil-microsoft" browser, so it is getting much more attention than Opera.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
because were stupid
...if the browser didn't suck?
I mean, the only reason the whole MS/IE/browser monopoly thing is newsworthy to us is, from what we see with alternatives rising in popularity, due to the browser just being trash.
But let's say it's Apple with the monopoly. They bundle Safari, which isn't a bad browswer, isn't the best either, but the masses won't be cursing at it, with their OS. If everyone were using Safari, would we be complaining so much?
I guess it's a pointless exercise, but I do wonder how much of our concern comes from the lack of competition and how much of it comes from just having the monopoly be controlled by a shitty product.
Was that actually meant to mean something?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I read the May 13th announcement and naturally I tried it. After a dozen attempts I gave up. Some javascript didn't work as expected, no big deal. At least the Canadian government is aware that people want to use Linux. Another thing that doesn't work too well is watching movie trailers. I usually end up poking through more javascript, figure out the real URL and wget the file. I'm sure if enough people complain things will change. CBC is supporting Linux more as well.
Considering that most of us don't vote then I guess it says that most of us don't care.
The real important question is... Why?
Absolutely Netscape 4 was shit. It became a painful experience to do anything with it. But I think it's even more noteworthy that despite the fact that Mozilla came from a shit origins, isn't already on your computer, and has no marketing and advertisement campaign, is still capable of approaching a 10% market share based on... nothing that marketing could effet.
It's not hereditary unless they can pass it onto their kids. So unless Ted Kennedy's successor is one of his offspring, it's not a hereditary position.
Korvar the Fox!! www.korvar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
I think it's interface is unintuitive.
How so? It has the same interface that Firefox and IE both have basically... Perhaps you just don't like the default settings?
It's ugly.
You mean you don't like the default skin? Well, so get another. Like Firefox/Mozilla, the main site has a ton of user resources (look in the "Community" section.) I highly recommend the "Breeze Simplified Micro" which has a very nice minimalistic look.
It's focused on tabbed browsing, which I do not like.
Then turn it off. Here's how turn it off in version 9 with four clicks:
Click Tools (Menu)
Click Preferences
Click checkbox next to "Open windows instead of tabs"
Click ok.
Most of us want tabbed browsing because it's a wonderful way to clean up the clutter and speed up multitasking. Many are still upset that you have to use a myriad of plugins to get Firefox to handle tabs the way it should (such as by not popping up new windows for things when you want tabs.)
It is not well integrated with Mac OS X.
Ok, I'm a linux/windows user, so I can't comment much on this. What do you mean "integrated" though? Normally by integrated one would think of things like IE where they are built into the OS, but, this surely isn't what you want because it's unreasonable to expect that from a browser. In fact, I have been upset since IE 5 when they first started integrating the browser into the OS. IMO a web browser should never be used for things like the desktop and file manager. I used to use things like 98 Lite to remove it even. Unfortunately, with XP removing IE can cause serious problems (it can be done, it just causes problems with some stupidly built things that require fully functional components from it.)
Experiment around a little more. You may find that when you change certain settings around or give certain things a chance, Opera isn't so bad. In fact, I hated tabbed browsing when I first used Opera some maybe 5 years ago and turned it off, but, a while later I gave it a chance and today I find it to be the most useful thing any program that can involve clutter could possibly do. It cleans things up so nicely. Still, I suppose we have hit on perhaps the real point of the matter. Perhaps the problem isn't that it used to be commercial, nor that it lacks extentions, nor even stuff like tabbed browsing or the interface, but, perhaps what the problem is is that the defaults do not encourage a smooth transition from other browsers. Unfortunately, I have commented on this in the forums and no one cares, so it may continue to hold them back since your average user who just wants to try it out and see will find it so different that they may not give it a proper chance. I would recommend that anyone who can should give it a try for a while, play with the settings, and see if they can't learn to enjoy the advantages it has over Firefox though. There's a reason why even though Firefox is opensource and free and comes with most distros, while IE is integrated (and thus on nearly every windows user's box,) yet Opera is still used by so many people in the desktop world. It may not be the highest market share by far, but, the point is that it is far less negligable than, say something like links, and users aren't choosing it just because they are so happy with the mobile version of Opera (which you likely wouldn't even recognize compared to the desktop version.)
The only thing holding back the web is people (like you) that continue to support the broken browsers. The reason that 90% of the people on the web use IE is because they have no motivation to change. It does everything 'well enough'.
However, if more and more sites were built TO STANDARD with a little conditional (IE only) statement thrown in saying "You are using a broken browser. Please download one of the following: Firefox, Opera, (etc); I don't care which one. They are all free and standards-compliant", people would be motivated to change.
If you run a free site, or a blog, or anything non-commercial (eg, you don't need web traffic in order to put food on your table), you have no reason NOT to do this. You do everyone a disservice by breaking your site's code to support a broken browser.
IE is not holding back the web. You are.
Don't put advice in your sig.
The problem with most of these services is that they delay the loading of the main page. For example, I have falkag.net in my blacklist (and in my hosts file as an alias for 0.0.0.0) because whenever I open a page that uses some falkag script I have to wait for ten to twenty seconds until the script is done loading and the rest of the page gets loaded.
I'm okay with statistical monitoring, but some of these services make the internet feel like back when ISDN was considered broadband.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I don't think people have anything against opera per se... they're just not very well known.
Most of my friends have never heard of opera, but do know about firefox. Not that they use either of them, but still...
I've been using opera 9 for two days now and i must say i'm very pleased with it. It's a lot snappier on lower end machines
than firefox (i'm using it on 5yr old 1Ghz celeron with SuSE8.0 linux). It's probably going to be my main browser on that machine.
As an Opera user (both in win and linux) I ask this alot.. and believe it or not but many people still think that Opera is not free. That the free version still has ads. That is the #1 reply I get when I try to get people to try out Opera.
"Install Disk"
By integrated I do NOT mean like I.E. One can remove Safari from OS X without a problem, although there isn't really any point in doing so. And I heartily agree that browsers make poor file managers. By integrated I mean it takes advantage of system services (Spell check, password manager), and uses standard interface conventions. This allows for a uniform experience across applications.
Most of this is subjective, and it's good that there are competing browsers. I would like to point out that I did change my Opera settings, with all of the bars but the address bar gone, and some okay looking skin.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Kind of ad hominem really. The guy made a terrible mistake when younger so his policies must all be irrelevant. It's kind of the same as people who want to kick good politicians out of office because of their private lifes though obviously on a higher level.
Anyway how many people did Bush send through the execution revolving door.
No one forces you to use IE.
I block scripts during random surfing via IE tools/internet options security tab, so your not counting me either. Only sites I trust get to run scripts and all advert and tracking sites are blocked. Sure some of the web doesn't work, but those are the parts of it I don't want to see anyway.
"The people are not opressed, users are free to use what they like."
yes, they can get home their fancy new PC, wipeout the Windows that come inside, install Ubuntu, download NVidia drivers, google for their scanner/printer/etc drivers, recompile the kernel, hope it works and then google for Cedega or try Wine to play the latest games, buy Office and try to run it under Wine for those persky documents friends keep sending and don't open alright in OpenOffice, try to run the new MSN beta via Wine so that they can videotalk with their friends, download gstreamer-ugly-plugins for those patented video/audio formats and whatmore...
yes, users are free to live in a fucked up world dominated by a large company involved in every bit of our digital lifes...
I don't feel like it...
I have never used IE as my browser, and never will. I only use it when I absolutely have to. No, you are not a troll. Just someone with a bit of short term memory loss.
I blame the moron developers for using propietary MS bullshit like VB instead of open standards that would work with any web browser. Those pricks deserve to be shot.
Joseph?
Firefox doesn't support display: inline-block. This means they can't line up DIV's on the same line without using TABLES, or floating.
So yes they force you to use TABLEs for formating, since floating is much harder to control.
Name a president better than Nixon since 1992?
Nixon openned China and terminated the Vietnam War.
Not all cheaters are traitors.
As regards IE7, now is the time for everyone to code their website so that
IE7 breaks, before it gets market share. Afterwards, you'll be stuck
developing for the Microsoft Web, in Microsoft languages on Microsoft platforms.
And none of it will work anywhere else.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
JavaScript is not required to get a good idea of which browser you're using. The User-Agent string is sent with every HTTP request, although it can be spoofed.
IMHO this is hypocrisy. If one product is better, why not use it??
Because sometimes ideology is more important than technology. Before I'm modded as a pro-RMS troll or something, think about all the technology we wouldn't have if it weren't for the ideology of Free Software, Open Source, Object-Oriented Programming, etc.
Manifestation of ideas is easy, CREATION of ideas is the hard part.WebSideStory and a lot of other sites are blocked here. A substantial number of those which are blocked are in the list because of annoying tracking bugs. Some other tracking sites are NOT blocked because their methods of tracking do not cause problems, and hence don't even get noticed. But in the case of WSS, I specifically remember the reason they were first blocked, despite this being years ago. They used a GIF that was animated AND had its cache setting set to expire immediately. Thus every time the GIF cycled through the animation and reloaded, it wasn't in the cache, so it pulled itself again from the server. At the time, dialup was still the vast majority of net access, and so I blocked their site by entering a replacement domain zone file in the DNS cache used by everyone for lookups. The DNS server is a rather effective way to block a lot of that crap, too. I now have 936 domains blocked that way on the primary set of DNS caches, as of today. I also have an alternate DNS cache for users that want to get around for some reason (this isn't intended as a censorship mechanims).
This basically distorts their stats in two ways. One is that many networks that are more dilligently run will just not even show up in their stats because of being blocked. Since it's not hard to block them, I suspect a lot of networks have done so. The other is that their stats may in fact be distorted to favor whatever browser refetches more often because it uses its local cache to restart each animation recycle, and obeys even insane caching parameters.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That's because they're used to IE, due to bundling.