Yahoo Pushing IE7 On Firefox Users

El Lobo writes "Looks like things are heating up again in the browser wars. Google has been openly supporting Firefox, so now Yahoo is displaying a new feature on search results pages for FireFox users. It appears that Yahoo is pushing downloads of IE7 from Microsoft and including itself as the default search engine installed in the file menu area." I got the invitation to download IE7 when running Firefox on a Mac, and even when running IE5 under CrossOver; but not when running IE7 under Parallels.

Comments

Fair enough

[El Lobo]

They are not "pushing". It's just an advertisement. I have seen worse, for example all those Firefox evangelistic campaigns like: "Make history with Firefox", "Rediscovery the web with Firefox", "Add a Firefox button to your web", "Firefox in your email signature", "Firefox site prefeared" . Hell I've even seen a "Screw IE" button once on some "respected" site
Nothing different from this "Firefox protects you" official Google site: http://www.google.com/firefox
Fair enough. Nothing to see here, folks [bg]

Re:Fair enough

[Anti_Climax]

I hit one page looking for a free/open source application (wish I could remember which one it was) and was greeted with a large banner at the top and an audio recording saying my computer was "infected" with internet explorer and I should switch to Firefox to remedy it.

Now I can understand the advantages and disadvantages of Firefox and IE, but annoying me by acting like a jackass isn't the way to convince me to switch.

I will say, after trying IE7 under Vista at work, trying Firefox 2.0, having issues with IE6 remembering my settings and finding out about IETab, the switch was an easy decision for me. Pundit asshattery hurt rather than helped the situation.

Re:Fair enough

[Renegade88]

Linux free for over 10 years.... And proud of it!

Just like every other lemming around. Nothing to be proud of in particular.

Many BSD users have been Linux-free this whole time, other than the ones that teethed on Linux, then quickly realized there was something better (like me). Just because someone doesn't use Linux doesn't automatically mean they are using an inferior OS.

Re:Fair enough

[dubonbacon]

Google are hosting the official firefox homepage and are the default search engine. They are paying Mozilla for this.

Re:Fair enough

[asabjorn]

I would agree if it was not for the fact that Microsoft acquired the browser market share that it currently has through questionable practices (read monopoly abuse) so the tactics it is using to target the users of it's biggest competition should be limited. From Yahoo!s perspective it probably makes sense financially to do such a deal with Microsoft, but inherently this is more about Microsoft trying to push it's browse platform as a way to lock users in to it's main platform. Therefore it would be better if Microsoft was prohibited from doing such deals because that would probably increase the competition in the marketplace and Yahoo! could make a similar deal with an alternative browser instead (e.g Opera).

But I would say that in the so called browser wars the government has largely failed at performing their role in limiting Microsofts abuse of their operating system monopoly in achieving a monopoly position in another market. It is not illegal to have a monopoly, it is just illegal to abuse it.

Re:Fair enough

[diegocgteleline.es]

I've never seen firefox advertising in google while I used it with IE. Just because they have a firefox-exclusive home page doesn't means they spam people to use firefox, like Yahoo is doing. Instead, they hire firefox developers and offer monetary incentives if a adsense user agrees to advertise firefox.

Re:Fair enough

[winomonkey]

Websites, or, those who build them, DO prefer Firefox. Something about standards complaince, I believe (currently rewriting my CSS so that it is supported by the last three versions of IE...looks fine on FF).

Re:Fair enough

[apendrag0n3]

Couldn't agree more... {shameless advertisement: OPENBSD - Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 10 years! http://www.openbsd.org/}

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Shock horror!! You mean they are ass kissing and applying double standards; thats not new for Slashdot.

Re:Fair enough

[Crazyscottie]

While you are correct in that FF is leaps and bounds ahead of IE in terms of standards compliance, it's worth noting that FF still doesn't pass the ACID2 test like Opera and some others do.

Re:Fair enough

[Crazyscottie]

Asking purely out of curiosity, not out of disagreement (I've never used BSD)... What can BSD do that Linux can't?

Re:Fair enough

[oyenstikker]

Develop on Safari or Konqueror. I have had to fix sites that were written by professionals who develop on Firefox, but used invalid CSS that Firefox and IE handled gracefully, but incorrectly.

Re:Fair enough

[nurbles]

The may not be "pushing" but by making almost impossible to see the content of email messages on the Yahoo mail site, they've effectively forced me to use IE (well, IE Tab in FireFox, but still...) in order to read the mail that comes to that account. And both FireFox 1.5 and 2.0 have the same rendering problem with Yahoo mail, at least for me. When I contacted support, I've been told (more than once) that my questions is important and will be answered as soon as possible -- which is NOT apparently within 30 days of posting a question about total unusability of their service. But "pushing" me to use IE? No, I wouldn't say that. After all, I can just not use Yahoo at all, right?

Re:Fair enough

[penguinrenegade]

Since you're asking in curiosity, I'm responding, not flaming whatsoever.

BSD is the base that Apple's OSX is built upon, among MANY other successful BSD derivatives, so I am not speaking without knowledge here.

BSD is the base that was copied to form much of the software that the FSF has. GNU stands for "Gnu's not Unix!" which is recursive, and an "inside joke."

Basically the way it was described to me best was that Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) emulates and copies Unix, and BSD.

Think about it this way - car manufacturers often copy other models and features. Some are better, some are worse.

BSD has other (different, not better, not worse) freedoms than the GPL (which is associated most with Linux). There is the freedom to go proprietary, which many exercise. There is the freedom to interface much proprietary software with it.

BSD is typically more stable than a comparable Linux installation. This is not always the case, several people may want to mod me down, but BSD IS STABLE.

BSD also doesn't have Microsoft screaming about IP infringement. Microsoft hasn't sued Apple for it, and they CERTAINLY would go after them if they had done it, since they're the deepest pockets based upon BSD.

BSD also has many tight-knit communities, some of which offer certain things people may like.

Remember, I like BSD and Linux - have used both for some time!

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

//it's worth noting that FF still doesn't pass the ACID2 test like Opera and some others do.//

While you are correct that the current release of FF does not pass the acid2 test, it is worth noting that the code to correct this is and achieve acid2 compliance is included in the current development branch of FF, and it will be operational in the next release.

http://www.thinklemon.com/weblog/2006/04/13/firefo x-acid2-compliance-on-its-way/

It is also worth noting that IE is the only major browser (out of Opera, FireFox, Konqueror, Safari and IE) that has no plans to achieve acid2 compliance at any time.

Re:Fair enough

[AusIV]

I don't have IE6 to test with, but I got the impression that this was more of an "Upgrade your browser" ad than "Use IE" advertisement. Most of the people I know didn't even know an update to IE was available. I'm guessing this advertisement was targeted at anyone not using IE, not just Firefox users.

I do think it's rather silly though, that they bother showing the advertisement to users who can't run IE7 anyway because it won't run on their operating system.

Re:Fair enough

[Pengo]

Nice comments, but you didn't list a reason why one might prefer BSD over Linux, or what BSD does 'better'.

Again, no flame.. I'm curious myself, it's been many years since I have touched BSD (OSX aside)

Re:Fair enough

[binaryloc]

push, in your context, means: sell or promote the sale of

advertise means: "paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor."

No one is saying it's not fair, it's simply an observation of fact: yahoo is endorsing, advertising, promoting, and 'pushing' IE.

Re:Fair enough

[Rinzai]

I would agree if it was not for the fact that...

You know, I always have problems with people that begin their argument with "the fact that." Most of the time these "facts" turn out to be opinions.

That aside, why is it that everyone makes such a big freakin' deal about what browser Joe Customer uses? The argument I see most posted goes something like this:

Microsoft has forced too many users to IE! They're anti-competitive--leaving no room for alternatives! Too many people use IE! Don't they know that everyone should be using Firefox?

Maybe I'm a little on the thick side today, but how is everybody using Firefox better than everybody using IE? Isn't that just as anti-competitive?

And, before you web designers and developers start chiming in about CSS compliance, think about this: in a hypothetical world where all extant browsers were CSSx compliant, would it really matter which browser anyone used?

What I've found over the years is that it's an extremely teenage attitude to assert that just because one prefers iPod over Zune, or Firefox over IE, or Skecher over Nike, that everyone else should as well. I believe it's called...egocentrism?

Re:Fair enough

[eln]

I've been using Yahoo mail with Firefox for years now, and it renders just fine. Even the new beta "Web 2.0 powered" interface renders fine. I've never had any issues viewing mail with it. I've noticed on the new interface the preview pane (the bottom pane where the contents of the message appear when you click on it) is ridiculously small by default, but you can easily resize it the same way you would on standalone mail apps like Thunderbird.

Re:Fair enough

[jlarocco]

While you are correct that the current release of FF does not pass the acid2 test, it is worth noting that the code to correct this is and achieve acid2 compliance is included in the current development branch of FF, and it will be operational in the next release.

The "development branch", the "alpha", the "beta" and the "release candidate" don't count. If you want to compare development branches, Opera, Konqueror, and Safari make Firefox look even more pathetic.

Re:Fair enough

[AlgorithMan]

BSD also doesn't have Microsoft screaming about IP infringement. Microsoft hasn't sued Apple for it, and they CERTAINLY would go after them if they had done it, since they're the deepest pockets based upon BSD.

just want to add: MS would have to be VERY stupid, if they sued Apple, since MS holds lots of Apple shares (they bought them to avoid a lawsuit, after they imitated apples guis...) also they'd have to be extremely stupid to claim IP rights against a company that really holds the rights to the accordant IP =)

Re:Fair enough

[aztracker1]

Binary compatability across a version tree... in other words, if you are running v4.1 BSD and go to 4.2, your drivers still work, good thing for binary drivers (nvidia, ati, etc)... down side is it isn't as well supported..

I think that the Linux side of things should *REALLY* start to emphasize binary compatible trees at the kernel level, as I honestly get tired of having to update drivers every kernel update... Sometimes things break when this happens.. far less likely with BSD over Linux.

Emerge which is Gentoo's claim to fame is modelled after the BSD ports system, which has been around far longer. BSD's binary package system has been around longer than apt, yum, or other linux distribution systems is stable, and consistant.

The down side is BSD hasn't reached any critical mass. The FreeBSD, and I would assume the OpenBSD installers are a painful experience getting a system setup, especially getting software raid working (though I prefer hardware). Driver support is limited, and most new drivers are ports of linux drivers, however the support layer is pretty good. There is also a linux compatability layer which will allow for most linux binaries to run.

For the desktop side, PC-BSD has made huge strides, it's very easy to get installed, and use... there are a few other desktop oriented versions, but imho this is the best. It's installer is based in QT and is basically a FreeBSD 6.x install with X-Windows, and KDE installed an preconfigured, there are also some extra configuration utilities that are enhanced, in addition to some custom utils.

Re:Fair enough

[AlgorithMan]

now I just need to be a smart ass in this area *g*
the Linux and BSD APIs are both turing-complete... therefore BSD can't possibly do anything, that Linux was completely incapable of - and vice versa... :-)

Re:Fair enough

[Alien Being]

"Most of the time these "facts" turn out to be opinions."

In this case, a federal court that ruled that it was a fact that MS abused its monopoly position.

Re:Fair enough

[aztracker1]

Honestly, I develop in windows, mainly because I like asp.net and VS 2005, I use a windows XP vmware setup under Ubuntu 6.10. I test in IE6 (now IE7, since it's being force-fed), Firefox 2, Opera 9, Konqueror and Safari under Windows, OSX, and Linux (where a given browser is available).

It would be nice to see Konqueror's browser engine ported to a usable browser for Windows, for at least testing... I finally got around (today) to tweaking my hobby website for non-windows users, given that pt sizes are different between windows and osx or linux.

I would suggest at *LEAST* testing in a minimum of IE6 (if you need to support it), IE7 (though some of the bugs in it *REALLY* piss me off), and Forefox 2 ... since these are the *VAST* majority of what web users are using. It really isn't that hard to account for differing browsers...

Suggestion: Use a platform that supports server-side scripting. Have the header section issue css files as follows...

• site.css
• site.BROWSER.css
• site.BROWSER.MAJ.css
• site.BROWSER.MAJ.MIN.css
• page.ext.css
• page.ext.BROWSER.css
• page.ext.BROWSER.MAJ.css
• page.ext.BROWSER.MAJ.MIN.css

Where the actual file exists, and browser is broken down into the class of browser. This way you can have your main css, and tweak for browser instances... you can also have a page css, as well as browser tweaks at that level, yes, checking for each of these files existance is a small overhead (not bad with most file-systems that cache this information), but it is well worth it. Generally I have the site, site.IE, site.OPERA, and site.IE.7.0 at this point, and rarely have to include browser specific tweaks in the page's css.

Re:Fair enough

[Rob Menke]

Microsoft sold all of its shares in Apple years ago (at a tidy profit, too). "Microsoft (still) owns Apple" is an urban legend that will not die.

Re:Fair enough

[LifeWithJustin]

Yahoo is so bad for pushing IE7... blah blah blah...

Hey now let us not forget this or the /. related link of this.

Myabe Yahoo could also pay people $1 for switching to IE7

Let us not forget this unfriendly script

Re:Fair enough

[The_Wilschon]

The idea is that MS is exactly what you say, "Anti-competitive". Competition generally spurs innovation. If MS is trying to win the "browser wars" by flexing their monopoly rather than by making the best browser, then competition is failing to spur improvement. If the "browser wars" were between opera and firefox, or something like that, that is, two browsers not at all tied to the operating system, then whoever made the best browser would tend to win, and strongarm tactics would not enter into the picture. The end result would be better browsers, where better winds up being defined by general preference. And yes, some people would fine one browser to be better, and some would find another to be better. Thus, the war would continue, and browsers would just keep getting better and better.

If all browsers were CSS compliant (and compliant with all other web standards as well), it would no longer be a matter of "this browser doesn't work on this site", but it would be about which browser is fastest, has the smallest memory footprint, has the neatest features, is most secure, looks the prettiest, etc etc etc. Also, since web developers would no longer have to futz about spending the majority of their time devising dumb hacks to work around browsers X, Y, and Z transparently to the user, web development could proceed more quickly and more cheaply. This would lead to better websites, as well as less overhead for companies that need websites (and not just companies... charities need websites too. Less overhead means more of every donation can actually do some good.). I'm assuming that you were not actually thinking that non compliance was a good thing... That would just be more than I could handle.

Re:Fair enough

[asabjorn]

You know, I always have problems with people that begin their argument with "the fact that." Most of the time these "facts" turn out to be opinions

The fact I am referring to is the judgment in several countries and states against Microsoft's abuse of their monopoly in the operating system market.

Maybe I'm a little on the thick side today, but how is everybody using Firefox better than everybody using IE? Isn't that just as anti-competitive?

According to OneStat Firefox now has a global market share of 12.93 percent while Internet Exlorer has a market share of 83.05 percent. The scenario where these numbers are reversed is still very hypothetical. The goal is to regain a competitive market space on the web platform(s) and that would be more likely in a market space where one single player does not command a majority of the market share. The ideal situation is not a black/white situation where we have to choose either Firefox or IE, but a situation with a choice between many different implementations of the standards for web browsers. It is also detrimental to the competition when the dominant player in the browser market has a major incentive to unnecessarily tie the browser platform to their operating system and software tools.

Re:Fair enough

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Here's a nice tool to use : http://www.browsercam.com/

Re:Fair enough

[Kennon]

Hey there is an IE firefox page too! Check it out...it ownz http://www.google.com/ie

Re:Fair enough

[Jahz]

Firefox protects you

That page is default start page for Firefox, not an ad. You have to already be using the browser to get there, unless you go out of your way to browse to the Firefox start page...

Re:Fair enough

[Salmar]

There's no question that using Internet Explorer greatly compromises your internet security (now slightly less so with IE7), but yeah, an audio recording imforming you of a browser 'infection' is a bit much. I've even seen some relatively small anti-IE buttons that were similarly disrespectful. Insulting IE users isn't the way to win converts, even if Firefox is the most advanced, customizable and secure browser around.

That said, I'm still a bit miffed that Mozilla hasn't remedied their JavaScript issues in 2.0.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

//If you want to compare development branches, Opera, Konqueror, and Safari make Firefox look even more pathetic. //

That may or may not be so, but the point stands that each and every one of Opera, Konqueror, Safari and Firefox make IE look pathetic.

This applies not only to the acid2 test, but also to other web satndards such as SVG (which IE cannot render and for which Microsoft has no plans to support in IE).

Therefore, the "development branch" of IE is far and away the most pathetic of the whole bunch.

Re:Fair enough

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

There's no question that using Internet Explorer greatly compromises your internet security (now slightly less so with IE7), but yeah, an audio recording imforming you of a browser 'infection' is a bit much.

Yeah. A couple of icons on the desktop and in the start menu would have been much better. :)

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

//Maybe I'm a little on the thick side today, but how is everybody using Firefox better than everybody using IE? Isn't that just as anti-competitive?

And, before you web designers and developers start chiming in about CSS compliance, think about this: in a hypothetical world where all extant browsers were CSSx compliant, would it really matter which browser anyone used?

What I've found over the years is that it's an extremely teenage attitude to assert that just because one prefers iPod over Zune, or Firefox over IE, or Skecher over Nike, that everyone else should as well. I believe it's called...egocentrism?//

IE has two main attributes that make it objectionable: (1) it is available only for a single platform, and (2) it is the least standards-compliant of all browsers.

The combination of these represent a clear attempt by Microsoft to "lock-in" the web itself, so that one would require a Windows platform to view web content.

Of the other contenders, only Opera and Firefox have neither of those problems. There is an attempt being made at this time to port Konqueror (along with the rest of KDE) to Windows, so that would add Konqueror to the "multi-platform-capable" set as well.

IE and Safari seem to be destined to be forever tied to a single platform. That alone is not enough to reject those browsers, but that attribute plus being non-compliant with standards ... then steer clear of any browser like that. *cough* IE *cough*.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey fanboy, M$'s conviction as a monopoly abuser stands. So it is fact.

Re:Fair enough

[jlarocco]

Therefore, the "development branch" of IE is far and away the most pathetic of the whole bunch.

Yep, which is why I didn't list it. IE doesn't matter because the people who use it simply don't care or are ignorant of other choices. Firefox users have actively choosen a web browser that lags behind in features.

Re:Fair enough

[Anne Honime]

I hit one page looking for a free/open source application (wish I could remember which one it was) and was greeted with a large banner at the top and an audio recording saying my computer was "infected" with internet explorer and I should switch to Firefox to remedy it.

Now I can understand the advantages and disadvantages of Firefox and IE, but annoying me by acting like a jackass isn't the way to convince me to switch.

After years of us, users of alternative browsers (opera, netscape 4, etc.), we've been fed up by litteraly thousands of "I don't care if it displays badly on your monitor because only IE matters" sites, you find offensive that a correctly designed site reminds you in a mild way that your attitude (among millions of "I pee on W3C standards" like you) has and will harm you ? Now that you're eating your own food, that sounds seriously funny. But I must admit a wave sound is a bit too much ; personaly, I validate my pages and make a warning that my site won't support any broken browser. This links to a list of good browsers, and IE isn't in it, full stop.

Re:Fair enough

[Stinking Pig]

I'm sure there's plenty of egocentrism to go around, but the real reason geeks get upset about internet explorer is because they have to write web pages and applications for the damned thing. It's very frustrating to write HTML, Javascript, and CSS for a site and have it work perfectly in everything but MSIE.

Better yet, MSIE 7 breaks code that worked in MSIE 6, but not by becoming standards compliant, so there's yet another set of work arounds required....

Re:Fair enough

[Salmar]

Yeah. A couple of icons on the desktop and in the start menu would have been much better. :) Uh, I don't think you're clear about our discussion:

by Anti_Climax:

I hit one page looking for a free/open source application (wish I could remember which one it was) and was greeted with a large banner at the top and an audio recording saying my computer was "infected" with internet explorer and I should switch to Firefox to remedy it. Were you thinking about how Firefox installs itself? It does what you described: it gives you options to place an icon on your desktop and/or the start menu. No sound recording.

On a tangential note, have you tried installing Firefox?

Re:Fair enough

[aztracker1]

Thanks, made a quick blog entry about it.

Re:Fair enough

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Glad you like it :) I'm not affiliated with them, other than an old college friend is working there and I did up the flash usage tutorials for them.

Re:Fair enough

[sremick]

"That aside, why is it that everyone makes such a big freakin' deal about what browser Joe Customer uses?"

It's really not that complicated:

1) When the dominate browser is the least standards-compliant, and actually pushes proprietary features instead of their standards-compliant equivalents, it encourages a proprietary web and is detrimental to everyone else not on the proprietary platform. It is also detrimental to those ON the proprietary platform, because their costs are kept in-check by competition. Without competition, you have a monopoly and prices spiral upwards (just take a look at the prices for Vista).

2) Security. The internet is inter-connected. A bad apple is a burden on others on the network. John's infected Windows PC affects plenty of others, with attempted infections, DDOS attacks at machines or websites, junk email, and just added traffic that slows down the internet. Even though I don't use IE or Windows, those that do and get their machines infected have a direct negative effect on me and my online experience. All that spam sure as hell isn't coming from my FreeBSD, Mac or Linux friends running Firefox/Safari/Konqueror/Epiphany/Galleon/Opera/et c.

3) Support. Those with the most grievances with Windows tend to be IE users. I am empathetic to my friends and family... it is not pleasant for me to hear about their computers being rendered useless by infections, and their pains and struggles getting them fixed. I often fix the computers of close friends/family for free out of pity but I'd much rather they didn't have to endure that and learn about stuff like Firefox the hard way. I really don't care that they use Firefox, just that they DON'T use IE (or anything based on IE). "Anything but IE" = "much fewer computer problems", plain and simple. Unfortunately their monopoly OS likes to push their monopoly browser and most users just don't know any better, and suffer horrendously for it.

Re:Fair enough

[a.d.trick]

I'm guessing you know almost nothing about web development.

While this is hardly a good excuse, the fact that IE exists means that web technology is at about the year 2000. Anything developed since then is useless to us because IE does not support it. There are also many other cool technologies that we would love to use (like MathML) but can't because IE doesn't support it.

As for IE, there's no excuse for its utter crappiness. It's not like Microsoft is a poor, tiny software company. So sometimes web developers get really annoyed and do something like this. I don't think it's a good idea to intentionaly block any browser, but that's why they do it.

As for me, I develop my site so that it works in any standards-compliant browser and IE users get to see it in all IE's buggy glory (which usually isn't that bad because I know how to avoid the common bugs). If I was getting money from my website I might make some more work to make IE work nicely, but right now I really don't care.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

"While this is hardly a good excuse, the fact that IE exists means that web technology is at about the year 2000. Anything developed since then is useless to us because IE does not support it. "

I'd say web technology is stuck around the early nineties because the core standards barely support any decent interactivity without resorting to Javascript. I realize there are new kludges added all the time, but they don't advance the core technologies.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's worth nothing because ACID2 is worth nothing.

Re:Fair enough

[TheNetAvenger]

but used invalid CSS that Firefox and IE handled gracefully, but incorrectly.


See here is again is what people don't get...

One of the reasons IE became as popular as it did is that it didn't 'fail' when pages were formatted improperly or 'downloaded' improperly (remember dial up?)

In the 4.x browser war days there were a couple of things that MADE people prefer IE or Netscape. One of them was the fact that a missing tag at the end of a table wouldn't cause the page to not display AT ALL as it did in Netscape, so even if the page was messed up, IE would try to render it based on the information it had.

Now a lot of people see this as a flaw, but if you look at the technology it is actually a 'smart' feature that the browser would at the very least display a page even if it wasn't formed properly. Call it a form of programming 'intelligence'.

This is NO different than the CSS failures of IE and Firefox of today. They support 'legacy' tags that both browsers used and are not 'compliant', and they also will try to render page parts even if the tags and improperly formed. THIS IS WHY neither will ever fully pass all the CSS page tests on the web like ACID2, as they don't test for ability, but they MAINLY test for a browser's INABILITY to handle bad data and the developers expect the browser to NOT display the improperly formed tags.

This is really an argument that can go either way, as I see benefits in 'forcing' compliance, but I also understand that some sites are old and their data would be inaccessible or lost if every browser only conformed to strict CSS and ignored legacy tags or malformed tags. This is where I go, well it isn't hurting anyone for the browsers to be a bit smarter than the site developers.

Also everyone applauds Safari for being strict CSS, but the side note in this story is Safari also doesn't have to have any intelligence built in, nor does it worry about or handle old tags or malformed pages, they all become 'unworthy' and Safari isn't 'smart' enough to render them.

As for the browser wars of 4.x, there were a couple of other reasons IE was prefered over Netscape. Like the page refreshing when it was resized on Netscape or raw display performance.

In the end, I would pick Firefox or IE7 and their 'flaws', legacy support, and ability to render malformed pages over Safari any day. Web developers tend to suck in general and I would rather have some intelligence in my browser to help counteract crap pages, even if it means the browser will fail CSS standards.

However if you are web developer, just design the page with proper standards, watch for IE7 and not assume it renders like IE6 which sucked on several CSS abilities. Then just go for standards. PS the above posts are correct - TEST IN EVERY browser you can get your hands on, there are like 5 major browser players, it is not hard to do.

Re:Fair enough

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Joke ---->
You -->  O
       --+--
         |
        / \

I'm perfectly clear about the discussion.  I'm suggesting demonstrating MSIE's lack of security _by example_.

Re:Fair enough

[bit01]

There's a big difference between silently rendering bad HTML and rendering it with a warning.

Until a browser gives informative warnings by default and that can be switched off if needed, preferably by site, browsers that render broken sites are just that. Broken. Silently acquiescing to broken code is broken behavior. It needs to be visible to be fixed.

---

Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.

Re:Fair enough

[aussie_a]

It is unlikely that will ever happen unless the backers of Firefox resort to illegal behaviour. The day that happens is the day I'll concede you your point. Until then its pointless to talk about it, as the likelihood of it happening is so far remote its like talking about me getting hit by a meteorite in five seconds time.

Re:Fair enough

[aussie_a]

I actively chose Firefox because it has all of the features I use (I switched to Opera and it had no features on it that I used that Firefox lacked. And I was using Opera for a good time, probably about 6 months). However the big reason I moved (just because Opera had features I didn't use didn't mean I had to stop using Opera) was speed with Opera being slower then Firefox.

Re:Fair enough

[FireFury03]

greeted with a large banner at the top and an audio recording saying my computer was "infected" with internet explorer

The example you cite is bad because of the wording. However, I have received abusive emails from people surfing my website in IE before now. The reason: I put a warning message on my web pages when viewed in IE recommending that people upgrade to FireFox since it renders web pages (more) correctly and is more secure. And indeed, my website won't display correctly in IE - I don't want to put the time in to work around IE's brokenness just so people can continue to use a truely broken browser. Nor do I own a Windows machine to test IE on.

When MS decide to make IE standards complient to a similar level to FireFox and Opera, *and* produce a version that I can run for free, I'll start testing my site in IE and working around the minor bugs that are left. My website isn't commercial, I don't make any real money off it, so if someone wants access to the information on the site they should show the courtesy of using a sane browser rather than bitching to the site owner.

Re:Fair enough

[GlobalMind]

While I agree that having some degree of smarts in the browser is a good thing, what has annoyed me the most is that you could go out and validate your CSS and STILL have it display differently in nearly every browser you try.

Thus why I didn't go to table-less designs in favor of CSS rendered positioning. It simply doesn't work consistently enough. Then you also have the issue of dealing with backlevel browsers as not everyone is going to be at the latest release of everything.

While there are some crap web developers out there the fact is you end up going to the lowest common denominator in order to make things work the best for the largest possible audience, and that is completely based on how the browsers are rendering the page.

There are the strict CSS & HTML camps out there which is all fine & good but the real bottom line is that this goes both ways. Neither the web developer nor the browser maker sides are entirely in the right here.

K.

Re:Fair enough

[orasio]

BSD is the base that was copied to form much of the software that the FSF has. GNU stands for "Gnu's not Unix!" which is recursive, and an "inside joke."

Basically the way it was described to me best was that Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) emulates and copies Unix, and BSD.

Think about it this way - car manufacturers often copy other models and features. Some are better, some are worse. When you say Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) , you obviously mean "GNU". Just wanted to clarify that, you missed it by so little that I wanted to make it clear for casual readers that don't understand the difference between GNU and Linux .
The whole idea of GNU was really to copy Unix, and make it free, you are correct.

BSD has other (different, not better, not worse) freedoms than the GPL (which is associated most with Linux). There is the freedom to go proprietary, which many exercise. There is the freedom to interface much proprietary software with it. The way I see it, BSD is about giving the most reasonable freedom possible to the developer.
A developer is free to do mostly whatever he wants, with BSD.

With the GPL, the freedom they are taking care of is that of the users.

The BSD lets the developer decide which freedoms he wants to transfer.
The GPL doesn't, it takes that freedom away from developers, and "gives it" to the users.

Re:Fair enough

[mikehoskins]

Nothing different from this "Firefox protects you" official Google site: http://www.google.com/firefox
Fair enough. Nothing to see here, folks [bg]

Which sits next to this site: http://www.google.com/ie/

Re:Fair enough

[jlarocco]

I actively chose Firefox because it has all of the features I use (I switched to Opera and it had no features on it that I used that Firefox lacked.

That may be true, but you can't deny that many of Firefox's more popular extensions are for things that Opera already has built-in. Adblock, Greasemonkey, and NoScript come to mind, but there are quite a few others.

was speed with Opera being slower then Firefox.

Oh come on. I really don't care why you chose Firefox, but you don't have to lie about it.

Re:Fair enough

[rucs_hack]

personal preference?

I'd prefer bsd as a number cruncher. I run long experiments, and a nice rock solid system is good.

Linux is what I use for normal dev work, where I like the tools and stability.

I like windows for one thing only, games. And that only because I have no choice. I don't especially despise windows, or evangelise against it, I just prefer to avoid it when possible.

Re:Fair enough

[Salmar]

`O *smack*
/-+--
|
/ \

Sorry about that. I get it now.

Re:Fair enough

[Kjella]

I think that the Linux side of things should *REALLY* start to emphasize binary compatible trees at the kernel level, as I honestly get tired of having to update drivers every kernel update... Sometimes things break when this happens.. far less likely with BSD over Linux.

They don't want to, it's a design decision. They want as many drivers as possible free and included in the main kernel. The easiest way to do that is to make it a PITA to have a driver outside the kernel. Sure, there's a few major drivers (in particular the nVidia driver) who'll do it anyway, but in the long run I think it's good. BSD will have a lot more binary drivers "because we can", which is code that can't be bugfixed or worked on. With the exception of WinModems and fake RAID cards which are essentially a software application, you need that specific hardware to use the driver anyway. Most of that code isn't rocket science, it's just about knowing which memory addresses to poke. Those things should be in the kernel, not in some blob that'll break when you try it on SMP/NUMA/non-x86/whatever else they don't care to support.

Re:Fair enough

[Bert64]

And the fact that you have to waste effort avoiding the common bugs of IE is bad enough.
When bugs were found in firefox's rendering engine (see the slashdot formatting bug a while back) they got fixed, rather than the microsoft attitude of "so what, we wont fix it, let them break their site to work with our bugs"

Re:Fair enough

[IngramJames]

Firefox site prefeared

I do hope that wasn't meant. It's the best Freudian slip I've ever seen :)

Re:Fair enough

[SanityInAnarchy]

However if you are web developer, just design the page with proper standards, watch for IE7 and not assume it renders like IE6 which sucked on several CSS abilities. Then just go for standards.

This actually brings up a point against your whole argument.

I mostly develop under Firefox, and I develop with XHTML. This is because if I forget a closing tag, Firefox will tell me about it. It won't just make the page look uglier, it'll tell me I have a problem. I also use the Web Development Toolbar, which tells me when I've enabled "quirks mode" -- if I haven't, then I know I'm not relying on any Firefox-specific intelligence.

This means that by the time I'm done with a page, I'm pretty well guaranteed to have it work on any browser that supports the standards.

Your suggestion about "smartness" is one of the most frustrating things for the web community. IE is "smart" in certain ways that other browsers aren't "smart" in, and in fact, ways that kind of break the standards. However, even if IE was fully standards-compliant, any additional "smartness" is harmful, because it means that lazy web developers will develop under IE, see it render fine, slap a "Best viewed in IE" notice, and call it a day -- leaving tons of crap in there that relies on a particular kind of "smartness" that may not be supported everywhere.

I think having Safari (and others) actually fail on such asinine pages is a well-deserved slap in the face to lazy web developers. As long as developers continue to depend on certain types of "smartness", including the old "hide javascript code from older browsers" trick, we will be stuck with relatively large, bloated browsers. A particular type of "smartness" will become a defacto standard, and any browser that doesn't support that type of "smartness" will be called stupid by developers and users alike, even if it supports the standards to the letter.

Hello? This is why we have standards. This is why we have w3.org. They are meant to make development and browsing easier, not harder. If your site doesn't validate, the Validator will tell you, and it'll look wrong on one of the major browsers. If most web developers did that, it would mean we could all use browsers like Safari, because so few sites would look wrong, and we'd be able to complain loudly to the few that still did.

It's a chicken and egg problem, yes, but I work at it from both ends. I pick Firefox for other reasons, but I'd rather have strict web compliance both in my browser and on my websites. I would much rather be part of the solution than part of the old problems, still dragging along things that were considered "smart" back in the days of dialup.

Re:Fair enough

[TheNetAvenger]

Until a browser gives informative warnings by default and that can be switched off if needed, preferably by site, browsers that render broken sites are just that. Broken. Silently acquiescing to broken code is broken behavior. It needs to be visible to be fixed.



This isn't a browser's responsibility, this is the design package's responsibility. We are past the days of people using notepad for major sites, so we also should be past the days of relying on the browser to tell us what we messed up.

Sadly, one of the companies that FINALLY has seemed to get this is MS, their new Web Designer/Sharepoint (Frontpage replacement) is very good about forcing the developer to adhere to the page rules they select. If they choose XHTML Strict, CSS xx, then the application will scold them if any tag is messed up and even explain why.

Sadly the old Frontpage really failed here, as well as dreamweaver and other tools. For example, just opening a site that the old Frontpage 2003 thought was perfect will show 100s of errors on the page and even explains that this tag will work but is not compliant and should be changed. Also incorporating the VS style of intellisense and redlining it might push a lot of developers to start making compliant sites.

I just hope the rest of the industry follows suit and not only builds better compliant making tools, but also forces the developers to adhere. Right now there are so many site development tools that try to make things easy for the developers, but in generating the code (like dreamweaver for example) the software generated code fails compliance miserably. Not everyone is a tag guru and can't then fix the software generated html that is messed up.

I think we all should put more pressure on site development tools and hosting sites that use really crappy standards, rather than complain about something that should be for end users, the browser.

Re:Fair enough

[LWATCDR]

Well as someone that has had to deal with coding for IE let me say that I can understand the difference.
1. IE hasn't followed standards worth a crap and Microsoft even published web tools that default to generating code that only works well with IE.
2. IE 7 is better but it is also broken in new ways. Yes I coded a page and tested in FF and IE6 only to have it break in IE7.
While some of the over the top ads for Firefox are a bit much there is one big difference.
People have chosen to install Firefox. IE is a pushed download or installed by default on your system.
Not saying that really pushy FF ads are okay but I also don't see it as the same thing.
IE6 has been a nightmare for a long time and getting ride of IE is a good thing. I will feel differently when IE passes the ACID2 test. Until then it needs to go away.

Re:Fair enough

[TheNetAvenger]

mostly develop under Firefox, and I develop with XHTML. This is because if I forget a closing tag, Firefox will tell me about it. It won't just make the page look uglier, it'll tell me I have a problem. I also use the Web Development Toolbar, which tells me when I've enabled "quirks mode" -- if I haven't, then I know I'm not relying on any Firefox-specific intelligence.


I don't totally disagree with you, but here is where we are all focusing on the wrong end of this situation.

It should NOT be the browser's responsibility to debug our sites. Browsers are END USER tools that are to display the page the best it can with what crap the site provides. So, intelligence in the browser DOES screw the developer, but it HELPS the end users and that is what it should do, as they are the customers of the sites, the base.

We should instead focus on development tools that are smarter about compliance and force developers to adhere. Using MS as an example, a little intellisense wouldn't hurt a lot of the site developers. (Self closing tags, proper tags, redline bad tags, object preditction, etc.)

We shouldn't be developing major sites in notepad anymore, those days should be as far gone as developing Halo3 in notepad and compiling from the command prompt.

The development tools are where we should focus our anger about allowing crap they shouldn't or at least warning developers about crap tags. As I pointed out in another post, MS has finally 'gotten' this through their head, and the new replacement for frontpage is more of a site development environment. As far as web development tools, it is by far the most complete our developers have seen for keeping strict compliance, and is quite refreshing for them that they had some assistance that they are not using outdated tags or breaking the rules.

This is where the focus needs to be right now, espeically with so many standards and so few people understanding them well.

The only bridge between your concept of using a browser for debugging would be to ask for debugging versions of IE and Firefox (true debugging versions, not just one that displays crap wrong.) However, the focus right now STILL needs to be on the site development tools to do their job, expecially when there is software out there that generates HTML for novices and the generated HTML is horribly wrong when it comes to standards or compliance.

Windows geeks or anyone with a VM should check out the new Frontpage replacement software - it is in two versions, Sharepoint Designer as a part of Office and Web Designer as a part of the Expression projects. I think the betas are still available for download, and if not trial versions should be before long. They are not perfect, but a MAJOR step in the right direction considering these are from MS...

Re:Fair enough

[SanityInAnarchy]

It should NOT be the browser's responsibility to debug our sites. Browsers are END USER tools

Which means lazy developers and PHBs will only require the site to work in one browser. You want the browser to fail intentionally, or at least display a gigantic fucking warning, otherwise developers will continue to say "Who cares that it breaks the standards in 15 different ways and will set back web standards for years to come? It works in IE!"

The development tools are where we should focus our anger about allowing crap they shouldn't or at least warning developers about crap tags.

Do you have any specific tools in mind?

If the users of a website aren't complaining, the site won't change. If the developers of a site don't care that their software is putting out crap, the software won't change. Or do you really expect Adobe to change GoLive because two guys on Slashdot say so? And even if they do, do you expect everyone to pay money to upgrade just because two guys on Slashdot say so?

However, if a thousand users of a website complain to the webmaster, the webmaster might just listen. If said webmaster listens, they might complain loudly to whoever writes their software, and those people might actually improve the software.

We shouldn't be developing major sites in notepad anymore, those days should be as far gone as developing Halo3 in notepad and compiling from the command prompt.

So how would you develop Halo3? I'd do it in vim and compile it from the command prompt. Maybe I just haven't found a decent, non-bloated IDE yet...

I wouldn't mind some GUI tools to help me, but I'd still rather actually type raw code. The reason I mention vim is it does syntax hilighting and a few other nice things, but you really don't want to get too far removed from the code, especially for a website, where you'll often find doing it yourself will save half your bandwidth because of all the crap the automated tools can't help but include.

Re:Fair enough

[tepples]

the Linux and BSD APIs are both turing-complete

For one thing, a Turing machine has no I/O. This is unfortunate for any argument that hinges on Turing or LBA completeness because one thing that keeps people away from Free operating systems is lack of compatibility with specific flavors of I/O.

Re:Fair enough

[tepples]

Here's a nice tool to use : http://www.browsercam.com/

$400 per year? That's more expensive than just buying a new Mac and a new commodity PC every four years.

Re:Fair enough

[madprof]

Do you consider it a strength that you are too lazy to code to standards and work around flaws in the most popular browser?

Re:Fair enough

[bit01]

This isn't a browser's responsibility, this is the design package's responsibility.

No, just because the development tools can and should be responsible has no bearing on whether the browser should be responsible also. In both cases it is broken code if they silently ignore or create errors.

I think we all should put more pressure on site development tools and hosting sites that use really crappy standards, rather than complain about something that should be for end users, the browser.

If it's not visible in the browser how on earth is the end user going to be able to give feedback to the developer that their website is broken? Warnings, with the ability to disable them where needed, are a good way of closing the loop; making sure that the developer hears about any bugs they field so that they are fixed.

I repeat, silently ignoring broken code, HTML or otherwise, is broken behavior where ever it occurs. Cowboys will try to ignore that fundamental but that's why they're cowboys.

---

Beware deceptive astroturfers.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

"Firefox site prefeared" likely because they were coding in web standards...

Re:Fair enough

[aussie_a]

I actually don't use any of extensions. I'm also not lying and I don't appreciate being called a liar. I used it for 6months and then I tried Firefox for a day and realised Firefox was much faster.

Re:Fair enough

[TheNetAvenger]

If it's not visible in the browser how on earth is the end user going to be able to give feedback to the developer that their website is broken?

#1 Most users will NEVER report a problem, they will just go to another website.
#2 If you are relying on users 'testing' your work, you already have problems.

Re:Fair enough

[jlarocco]

I've used both browsers on a whole bunch of machines, under a whole bunch of operating systems, and I've never seen Firefox out-perform Opera. Oddly enough, this comparison seems to agree with me. So I'd love to know what you're doing to have Firefox faster than Opera?

Re:Fair enough

[Anne Honime]

Do you consider it a strength that you are too lazy to code to standards and work around flaws in the most popular browser?

That's two questions wrapped in a single bias, really. I don't consider myself being too lazy for coding to standards. It's time consuming, and doesn't display an enormous difference with a more lax coding. So, it's overall more efforts. Especially when you stick to -strict DTDs as I do.

On the other hand, "work around flaws in the most popular browser" isn't only about lazyness ; I can do it, and I refuse to do it because standards are usefull if they are respected, and useless when violated. Worse, it actually promotes lazyness a) from the users of IE7 because there's no incentive for them to switch if it simply works from their point of view - anyway, they won't reward you for any extra care you took, they feel they desserve your time. Well, too bad, wrong. And b) it promotes lazyness and malpractice at Microsoft, and it's akin in fact to active support of their "embrace and extend" strategy for coders to spend time where Microsoft really should have. And it help them defeat open standards at the same time. If something is needed at Microsoft, it's not complacency with their mischiefs, it's strict enforcement of general public rules. And this is up to any user vigilance.

So in a word, it neither is a strength nor a weakness to strictly enforce standards. It's a about politeness. I do my best to talk to whomever likes to read me in decent languages, both in "human" form and "computer" xhtml, and I expect visitors to be educated enough to understand both. And if I'm wrong, well, those are people I'm not very likely to have pleasure to have a relation with anyway.

Re:Fair enough

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Heh. ASCII art of you running into a glass door...

Re:Fair enough

[aztracker1]

And the cost/time to have different OS and software versions available? If my time is worth $50 an hour, and it takes me 3-5 hours of time for setup per windows version (win9x, 2k, xp, vista) + 2 hours for osx, and linux versions, etc, that adds up to more than the cost of the service.

Re:Fair enough

[Salmar]

Yeah, I had a bit of trouble trying to fiddle with <tt> tags and whatnot.  This is what I meant to do:

   `O *smack*
  /-+--
    |
   / \

...as a poor ASCII of me slapping my head.

Re:Fair enough

[tepples]

If my time is worth $50 an hour

Is there anybody who will value my time at anywhere close to that in northeast Indiana? Until I do happen to get hired, I need to use affordable tools to build a portfolio. What's the best tool to use before being hired?

Re:Fair enough

[AlgorithMan]

thnx
learning never ends...

Re:Fair enough

[AlgorithMan]

you can simulate I/O in turing machines by using specific areas of the tape (often delimited by $ or #) as "input"

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The developer, in choosing GPL, is giving the freedom to the users. It's not 'taking it,' which implies some force.

Further, the GPL is retaining the developer his right to see what others do with it down the road. It's a lot like putting a radio tag on an animal and letting it back into the wild. BSD is more just letting it back into the wild: maybe you'll see it again, maybe you'll recognize it, but probably not.

Re:Fair enough

[a.d.trick]

When bugs were found in firefox's rendering engine (see the slashdot formatting bug a while back) they got fixed, rather than the microsoft attitude of "so what, we wont fix it, let them break their site to work with our bugs"

Well, to be fair. There have been a number of outstanding bugs in firefox that have sat around for a long time (but not near as many, and the process is all transparent).

Also Microsoft does have an enormous problem with backwards compatibility issues. You can blame them all you want for stupid people making websites that conform with IE's bugs, but that won't solve the problem. As it is right now, I don't think we can expect IE to drop it's quirks mode any time in the next 7 years. Too many dumb websites would break. Also as long as that quirks mode is available, stupid devs will continue to use it. So you have the bootstraping problem.

Re:Fair enough

[orasio]

The developer, in choosing GPL, is giving the freedom to the users. It's not 'taking it,' which implies some force. You are just puting it under a good light. I was trying to see it from the worst reasonable point of view of the next developer (actually I should have used distributor to be more clear), and show how it is still a great deal.

The original developer is not forced to do anything when using the GPL. He can always relicense.

Freedom is actually taken away (or not granted, that's a language issue, but it could be put this way) from the next developer that uses the code, because he ccan use it, but doesn't have the freedom to distribute it as he wishes. The issue here is that the GPL is about giving the most freedom for the users, for various reasons, one of them being that we are all users first, and distributors next.

Re:Fair enough

[aztracker1]

Honestly, depends on what you want to do... Are you more into programming, or the visual side of things? If you are more visual, would concentrate on your photo editor skills (photoshop especially), as well as Flash... From there, go into x/html + css and javascript (actionscript for flash).

For programming, would do a fair amount of understanding xhtml + css first (for web dev). Also, a solid base of JavaScript is important. These won't be the bread and butter skills, but make your life easier. Get into one framework and know it well. The big ones at the moment are ASP.Net, PHP, JSP/J2EE, and Ruby. If you don't mind going commercial, you really can't go wrong on the ASP.Net side, probably a bigger caveat is that it supports multiple languages, which means VB.Net and C#, and best to know both. PHP has a pretty solid base, but tends to have a lower pay scale. JSP/J2EE has a slightly higher payscale, but a more limited market. Ruby has seen a lot of attention lately, and gaining a lot of ground, and is kind of a wild card at this point.

As for the tools to use, depends on your environment. If you are unemployed, then setup a vmware player install of linux (if you use windows), or vice-versa ... and test in at least ie6, ie7, Firefox 2 (windows and linux), Opera 9 (win and lin), and konqueror (apple webkit/safari is very similar, same tree). This will cover *most* of what people are using.. if you can make things look about the same in these, you are doing better than most...

Re:Fair enough

[arifirefox]

IE certainly does matter if there are still many websites that require IE. We can't live in an Firefox/Opera/Konq/Safari fantasy web where everything works for everyone. To fight the IE dominance we need marketshare and Firefox is the only browser that is making a real difference. I can see why Opera isn't doing what it takes to get out of the IE web and they will stay at 1% until they can figure it out. Hint: it's not about the features but the implementation.

Re:Fair enough

[jlarocco]

Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that they are not planning on Acid2 compliance, so IE isn't relevant.

On an unrelated note, this doesn't really do much for your "Not a fanboy" statement over here. Get a clue.

Re:Fair enough

[Agret]

We are past the days of people using notepad for major sites

Yea, now we use vi with syntax coloring :)

Doomed to fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody's using Yahoo for search, including people who work at Yahoo.

Re:Doomed to fail

[Yvan256]

Nobody's using Yahoo for search

Except Yahoo Serious.

Re:Doomed to fail

[RCanine]

More insightful than at first it seems. I used to use Goodsearch, but ended up abandoning it as the piss-poor Yahoo-powered results weren't worth the boon to my conscience.

Re:Doomed to fail

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Nobody's using Yahoo for search, including people who work at Yahoo.

I've found that the search-engine bar on firefox has actually encouraged me to use yahoo (and other search engines) because it makes it so easy, I type the search terms in once and then just pick different search engines from the drop down menu. It is just as easy as going to multiple pages of results from a single engine.

FWIW, in my searches for hi-rez CD cover art, yahoo image search was often a better tool than google.

Re:Doomed to fail

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

There is a mod for IE6 (also works for IE7) on XP that will allow to simply type "g " in the address bar and away you go ;)

Re:Doomed to fail

[BigDumbAnimal]

Another 'innovation' borrowed directly from Opera (version 5 or so).

Does it matter?

[uchihalush]

It's not really a big deal because if the experience on Firefox really better than IE, as we tout it is, then the converters will have no choice but to stick. Even if they download IE to see if it's better, the better browser WILL in fact win. We are not talking about people who are reluctant to switch, it's those who already have. If they are not having an enjoyable experience on firefox then let em leave who the hell cares?

Re:Does it matter?

[RAMMS EIN]

``It's not really a big deal because if the experience on Firefox really better than IE''

That's not the only issue. Another issue is that IE has the bulk of the market share, especially among non-tech-savvy users. This means web developers always have to consider how IE behaves on their sites, even if the behavior is clearly a bug in IE. For years, this has stalled progress on the web, because Microsoft would not support certain features in IE, making it unattractive for web designers and developers to use them.

The growing market share of Firefox has led more sites to include certain niceties, even if they didn't actually work well or at all in IE. This has increased the attractiveness of Firefox, as well as compelled Microsoft to improve their browser.

Arguably, it would be a Bad Thing if this development were stopped just now it's starting to yield fruit. Competition between web browsers is good, it leads to better browsers and better sites.

Re:Does it matter?

[ottothecow]

There is definately a page on my university's site (dont remember where though, sorry) that exploits an IE CSS bug to display a firefox download link only to IE users. No fancy browser-checking code here, just some valid CSS that is improperly displayed on IE.

Re:Does it matter?

[lessthanjakejohn]

3 lines of Javascript...

Re:Does it matter?

[BenoitRen]

The problem is that many users blame badly rendered sites on Firefox/Opera/whatever when it's really the site's fault since it's designed for IE, so they switch back.

Re:Does it matter?

[Kopl]

Microsoft has a history of becoming the market leader with inferior products.

Yahoo?

[10e6Steve]

Who uses Yahoo?

Re:Yahoo?

[IdleTime]

What's a "Yahoo"?

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a goggle?

Re:Yahoo?

[Daath]

Here you go, and you're welcome :)

Re:Yahoo?

[schon]

What is a goggle? Well, according to Google , it's a protective form of eyewear designed to protect the eyes and seal to the surrounding face.

Re:Yahoo?

[daeg]

Yes, Yahoo! actually used Google results up through the beginning of 2004. They dropped Google and went with a derivative of the Inktomi search engine which they had acquired through the beginning of 2003.

Re:Yahoo?

[Timesprout]

About 28% of Americans use it according to most market research.

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo isn't totally useless as a search engine. Just look for Best Search Engine, and it'll point you the right way.

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawho?

Re:Yahoo?

[Yakman]

What about according to Netcraft? :)

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their spider sucks. They keep trying to load nonexistent files for which they already have got many 404 errors even after all references to them have disappeared for a year.

Re:Yahoo?

[slyguy135]

And in the Top Ten results for that search, MSN comes... nowhere at all. Even HotBot came 5th!

And it didn't come anywhere in the Top 40 either, pop music fans. Oh dear.

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, Americans. About 50% of them voted Dubya into the oval office. Twice.

Re:Yahoo?

[sootman]

Holy crap, that works! Right after two sponsored links, there it is--Google.

Well, at least the people who run Yahoo's search engine are honest. If it were me, I'd look for strings like that and return 'Yahoo.' :-)

Re:Yahoo?

[Rakishi]

No more like a quarter of the voting age population, the voter turnout is around 50%.

Re:Yahoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like GP's 28% is of the whole population, you mean...? Sigh.

Re:Yahoo?

[RealGrouchy]

That must be why they're pushing Microsoft IE7^W Firefox Downloader...

- RG>

Re:Yahoo?

[dotgain]

...and they do nothing.

Re:Yahoo?

[Headcase88]

Then, in an ironic twist, if you type Best Search Engine in Google, it'll point you the wrong way :S

Re:Yahoo?

[tepples]

Have you tried setting up a 410 error code for those pages? The 410 code means that you anticipate that there will be no page at that URL in the foreseeable future. And if those pages share a common URL prefix, have you tried listing them in /robots.txt?

Yahoo?

[thrillseeker]

Wasn't that one of the pre-Google search engines?

Detailed analysis follows.

[Daath]

Ok, where to start. Let's see... Ok, here goes: So what? Who cares?
No. Seriously. So yahoo got a truckload of cash from Microsoft. Who can blame them? Not I, posting from Firefox 2.

Not "pushing" until they block your user agent..

[plasmacutter]

It's not "pushing" until they block the user agent of your browser..

My school started doing this last year.. I navigated to their registration site with safari and got a nice little "we won't let you go to this site with your browser of choice" message..

I promptly enabled the debug menu and chose MSIE6 as my user agent.. it then let me in and I had absolutely no problems doing what I wanted to do.

Now this may become a much more sticky problem when they start taking advantage of the "remote attestation" in treacherous computing to prevent you from lying to the servers of anticompetitive schticks like this school of mine.

'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[Justus]

I'm all for getting riled up and everything, but you know, it's rather more likely that Yahoo is pushing IE7 on anyone who's not running IE7 (so Firefox, Safari, IE6 or lower, etc) instead of specifically trying to get you to switch from Firefox.

This isn't really shocking or terrible or anything, as it seems like Yahoo has a branded download of IE ("IE7 Optimized for Yahoo" is visible in one of the screenshots) and doesn't have a branded version of the other browsers. Does it really matter what browser they advertise?

Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[HalAtWork]

Why should they bother? Anyone who can update to IE7 will, as IE7 is (or will be soon in certain areas that don't have it already) pushed through Windows Automatic Updates. What is the point of Yahoo advertising IE7 to anyone?

Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[ampathee]

Uhh.. Because as the GP said:

Yahoo has a branded download of IE ("IE7 Optimized for Yahoo" is visible in one of the screenshots)

Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[aevan]

For those who disabled Windows Auto Update?

Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[Zantetsuken]

Well, I was going to post it in my own original thread since I hadn't seen it yet - that they want people to download and use IE7 so that the next time they visit yahoo they get all of yahoo's crap-ware installed. But this is the first post on this page that has said anything about the sponsored IE7 download pre-including the crap...

Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'?

[cp.tar]

I don't see a problem either... and I definitely don't see that ad targeted at Firefox users.
Or Opera users, for that matter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we been able to search directly from our browsers for quite some time now?

From all I can see, Yahoo is targeting IE6- users.

You know, the ones still using Yahoo. </troll> ;)

Yahoo Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed that some of the games that yahoo hosts don't work properly on firefox.

Re:Yahoo Games

[eck011219]

How is this modded offtopic? Come on, people, this is a valid observation to this discussion.

Re:Yahoo Games

[billsoxs]

"I've noticed that some of the games that yahoo hosts don't work properly on firefox."

OK I am going to burn some Karma and not post AC - but how is this off topic? It is a /. story about yahoo pushing IE7 and someone notes that some of Yahoo's games do not work on FF. If Yahoo is writing games that work only with IE7 then this is another reason that Yahoo might be pushing IE7. Whomever moded this 'offtopic' needs glasses - as they hit the wrong button - or needs to not have mod points.

For the record I am using Safari but I also run FF and IE5 at times - for really poorly written web pages.

What's the problem?

[Alex Kraskramp]

I don't see a problem with this. I you don't want to download IE7,.. fine. No hurt feelings. I don't use Yahoo's services; I prefer Google. Google wants me to download and install its Google Toolbar, Google Desktop search engine, et cetera. I choose not to and I did not experience their offerings as a nuisance or anything more evil than what I experience when I walk into a random stones-and-bricks store. By the way, Google does not promote FireFox as a form of pure altruism. Businesses make business decissions.

Re:What's the problem?

[MollyB]

Do you mean the store sells random stones, along with bricks? Or is it any random store that sells nonrandom rocks and (presumably) uniform bricks? Perhaps you meant "brick-and-mortar"?

Your point is clear, however, and I agree with you. Individuals make individual decisions. No need to get excited...

Re:What's the problem?

[Alex Kraskramp]

Well, English is not my native language and you're right, thank you. I should've looked it up, since I intented to use the correct English expression for this.

To expand on my point: when I visit a store, I'm surrounded with signs and ads, all advertising the greatness of the store in question or promoting some deal they've closed with an other company that, of course, present the customer "an offer they can't possible refuse".

I believe I started with NetCrawler as my SE. AltaVista followed shortly. Then Google had indexed enough of the web to present itself as a viable option. The simplicity, bla bla bla, market share.

The bottom line is: when someone comes up with something better, the users will follow. If users don't like Yahoo's songs, they'll simply switch station.

No disrespect to the author, but this articles boils down to.. a hurricane in a small glass of water.

Re:What's the problem?

[MollyB]

My comment was made in ignorance; your English is better than most native speakers/writers of it. Idioms are challenging for anyone learning another tongue. Sorry for seeming so boorish.

Re:What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's tornado in a bottle ;)

Re:What's the problem?

[Alex Kraskramp]

Hey, come on! I just said I appreciated your comment (-:
And by the way, in The Netherlands people of foreign origin generally have a better grasp on the language than native people.

But, though this is an interesting discussing, it is off-topic. Could anyone moderate at least this reply down?

I don't get it

[mysticgoat]

I just tried Yahoo Search. I haven't seen the ad for IEv7 in half a dozen different searches (using Firefox v2.0 as my browser).

Could this be because I have already installed IEv7? Or because I was using FF v2.0 and therefore not a likely candidate for upgrading?

In any event, I favor anything that would encourage people to migrate from IEv6 to something that was more secure and complied better with web standards, even IEv7. We'll all be better off for that.

Re:I don't get it

[Pacifist Brawler]

Very bottom of the page. I just got it running Firefox 2.0 on Linux (Kubuntu).

Clicked the link and got a "your system doesn't meet minimum requirements message." I was disappointed ;)

Re:I don't get it

[Skater]

Very bottom of the page. I just got it running Firefox 2.0 on Linux (Kubuntu). THAT'S what passes for "pushing" these days? An "MS IE Optimized for Yahoo" ad at the BOTTOM of the page, below all the results, navbar, etc.? "Pushing" IE to me would be, say, blocking use of search.yahoo.com with other browsers or something - and even that would be questionable "pushing" since there are plenty of other search engines, and I don't think Yahoo's is so great that I could live without it (in fact, until just now, I haven't used it since Google appeared).

If that's pushing IE, then websites should feel free to continue pushing things in that manner. It's the most unobtrusive ad I've ever seen. I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out to me.

This is a nonstory.

Re:I don't get it

[romland]

On /. non-stories make the good stories.

No joke.

"Pushing" it to Mac users too...

[RustNeverSleeps]

I've seen the same thing, and I'm on a Mac which obviously prevents me from using IE7 if I wanted to (which I don't).

malware evolution

[minus_273]

I am guessing this the next logical step from the toolbar plague we experienced a few years back.

Hardly pushing

[grasshoppa]

It's a freakin' ad.

Pushing would be forcing you to install IE7 to use yahoo.

Oh the humanity

[Handlarn]

Yahoo and Internet Explorer 7 vs Google and Firefox 2...

What to chose? Hmmm... What to chose?

Re:Oh the humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Altavista and Opera?

Re:Oh the humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like choosing between raw onions covered in ketchup vs. chocolate cake covered in icing.

Re:Oh the humanity

[Mitchell Mebane]

Clearly, Google wins.

Re:Oh the humanity

[hclyff]

Problem with most people is they don't know they have chocolate cake in the fridge and gladly go for the onions on the table.

Re:Oh the humanity

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Some of us love onions and ketchup :)

Re:Oh the humanity

[Pasquina]

Yahoo Agrees:

Yahoo and Internet Explorer 7: 9,170,000 results
Google and Firefox 2: 26,500,000 results

Re:Oh the humanity

[couchslug]

"What to chose? Hmmm... What to chose?"

Yahoo for webmail, Google for searches, and Opera for browsing. :P

Re:Oh the humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Choose the one with a spell checker.

Re:Oh the humanity

[Handlarn]

Is that some kind of attempt at ridiculing me? If so, I guess we could count the spelling errors you make when you write something in my native language.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[morgan_greywolf]

Yours isn't the only one. I'm a University of Phoenix grad, and they have a block on non-IE browsers on their student access site. Worse, one student I know of who goes there tells me that some classes have requirements to read DRMed eBooks with Adobe Reader, and of course, all though there is an Adobe Reader for her platform of choice (GNU/Linux), it doesn't support the DRM.

Search-Market Consolidation and Free Market

[reporter]

When a market reaches maturity, the numerous competing firms consolidate into a small number of major competitors. Consider the personal-computer market. It once had numerous strong competitors: AST, Gateway, Compaq, Dell, HP, IBM, etc. Now, there are only a few major players: HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

The same happened in the market for 0x86 processors. The market once had numerous strong competitors: AMD, Nexgen, Cyrix, Centaur, and Intel. Now, there are only 2 major players: AMD and Intel.

The search market is facing a similar consolidation -- in 2 phases. The market once had numerous strong competitors: Microsoft, Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, AskJeeves, etc. After the first phase of consolidation, there are 3 major players: Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google. Now, the market is entering the second phase of consolidation. Like the personal computer, the search tool is a commodity product with almost no product differentiation. A search on Yahoo works just like a search on Microsoft Live. Why do we need 3 essentially identical products on the market?

The market appears to be consolidating into (1) Google being the major player and (2) the merger of Microsoft and Yahoo being the minor player. The recent loss of search market share from Yahoo to Google is also nudging Yahoo into being acquired by Microsoft.

Yahoo is leaning in that direction by giving preference to IE7.

Re:Search-Market Consolidation and Free Market

[Rix]

When a market reaches maturity, the numerous competing firms consolidate into a small number of major competitors. Consider the personal-computer market. It once had numerous strong competitors: AST, Gateway, Compaq, Dell, HP, IBM, etc. Now, there are only a few major players: HP, Dell, and Lenovo. And hundreds of thousands of generic small-medium shops. And Acer, Asus, LG, Toshiba...

The same happened in the market for 0x86 processors. The market once had numerous strong competitors: AMD, Nexgen, Cyrix, Centaur, and Intel. Now, there are only 2 major players: AMD and Intel. Actually, Intel had been the only serious player up until quite recently. The addition of AMD is an increase in competition.

The search market is facing a similar consolidation -- in 2 phases. The market once had numerous strong competitors: Microsoft, Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, AskJeeves, etc. After the first phase of consolidation, there are 3 major players: Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google. Now, the market is entering the second phase of consolidation. Like the personal computer, the search tool is a commodity product with almost no product differentiation. A search on Yahoo works just like a search on Microsoft Live. Why do we need 3 essentially identical products on the market? Your history is a bit off. There were several competing search engines (Yahoo, Altavista, Webcrawler, Lycos, Infoseek). We needed a bunch, because there wasn't a single one that could be used reliably. Then there was Google, who could provide comprehensive results, and is the only serious player now. Maybe someone will come around and do it better, but it's not likely to come from Microsoft or anyone else in the corporate world. If there's a Google killer, it'll come about the same way Google did; research.

Yahoo is desperately hoping someone will buy them before they run out of money or everyone forgets about them.

Re:Search-Market Consolidation and Free Market

[FFFish]

It'll then come down to a war between Google UI and Yahoo UI. The latter will probably end up with extensions to take advantage of integration with Windows UI/Windows OS and/or use proprietary data standards. The former will unleash its dark fiber network in some way that makes its UI also essential for a highest-quality online experience.

Heh. The next software war is going to be in virtual reality on highspeed data networks. Snow Crash, here we come!

Re:Search-Market Consolidation and Free Market

[enrevanche]

yahoo is still quite profitable, they are not going to "run out of money" soon. It has about 6 billion in revenue, with at least 600 million in profits for the last year (through 10/2006).

Re:Search-Market Consolidation and Free Market

[Bert64]

Although microsoft's search engine didn't even exist in the days when altavista was popular, msn search is quite new... Infact, not so long ago yahoo was just a portal page and they used other people's search engines for actual searching.

Not too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read the article title, which is somewhat misleading, I thought that there was some new feature that required IE7 in order to be used. I'm glad that everyone Yahoo offers still functions in Firefox, because that's all that matters to me.

Image search as well

[Anonymous Coward]

> Upgrade your image search experience with the new Internet Explorer 7. Get it now

What advantages does Internet Explorer 7 has over Firefox for people like myself who are searching for porn?

Can a Microsoft or Yahoo spokesman enlighten me?

Re:Image search as well

[Anonymous Coward]

As reported by several insiders, Yahoo and MS are working together to develop a revolutionary technology which will render an ordinary 2-D image in 3-D, if the image contains a penis, a vagina, tits/boobs. It has not yet been confirmed if assholes will be rendered in 3-D, though gay community expects that they will not be disappointed when they finally beta release it to public.

Re:Image search as well

[Anonymous Coward]

> It has not yet been confirmed if assholes will be rendered in 3-D, though gay community
> expects that they will not be disappointed when they finally beta release it to public.

What does the gay community want a 3D Ballmer for?

Re:Image search as well

[cp.tar]

assholes will be rendered in 3-D

Do we want a 3D goatse?

Now excuse me, I have to go and rinse my eyes with some acid.

Re:Image search as well

[Anonymous Coward]

the best combo is IE 7 with coolwebsearch :D

ads? too many

[tomstdenis]

I just re-opened my yahoo account. I'd say a good 35% of the screen is ads, all over the place, along the left, in the message pane, along the right, the top, ads ads ads.

Compare that to google with it's adsense ads. Small, unobtrusive, text ads....

Whether Yahoo prefers IE or not [btw the BETA client works just fine in Seamonkey..] is moot compared to the horrible placement of all the ads...

Tom

Re:ads? too many

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use Yahoo mail for some things. I have not seen the ads you speak of in a long long time. I use Firefox. I use Flashblock but not Adblock. I have either already blocked most ad sites via my hosts file or via the context menu in Firefox that allows me to block images from certain domains and the most notorious of ad domains are blocked at the router.

My Yahoo Mail experience is pretty ad free. However, I will state that it is not the best free email package out there, but for the few things I need, it suffices until they mess up and I go looking for a better package, probably Google.

Google ads are not blocked on any of computers as they are the nice simple text ads. I do not block those types of ads as they are not intrusive. I agree with you on that.

Re:ads? too many

[Anonymous Coward]

the internet has Ads???

oh wait that's what this Adblock-Plus thing i have installed is for

Be independent.

[Chaffar]

Use the Lynx/Teoma combo.

yahoo pushing firefox - no really

[gsn]

so I just went to search.yahoo.com after eons and what do I see on the top of the page

"Use Yahoo! to search from Firefox
Just select "Yahoo!" from the search box drop-down menu in your browser"

screenshot

So Yahoo seems to be advertising its own search service more than anything else. Huh...who'd have though a search company advertising their own search service - the horror. They are hardly pushing it - that'd be forcing you to download IE7 with the yahoo toolbar bundled and blocking dedicated FF+typically Google users like me.

Utter bs. Must be a slow news day.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I should write a blog post and submit a story about how google is pushing FireFox on IE7 users...

who cares

[c6gunner]

Who actually uses Yahoo any more, anyway?

Re:who cares

[Frankie70]

Who actually uses Yahoo any more, anyway?

28% of the market uses Yahoo.

i.e. The number of people using Yahoo to search is more than the number of people using Firefox to browse.

Re:who cares

[swansontec]

I use Yahoo. I find that it works better.

Re:who cares

[c6gunner]

heh. I guess South Park was right: 25% of people really ARE retarded.

Funny...

[Steppman2]

I searched for "browser" in yahoo using FF2 and XPSP2 and got nothing but advertisements for Firefox... Try it yourself!

Re:Not just an advertisement

[sysgeek01]

It can't be an advertisement when Yahoo is offering the download directly from their website. Yahoo is pushing IE7. http://downloads.yahoo.com/internetexplorer/index. php?fr=yfp-t-501 On a humorous side not, Yahoo owns the domain "yawho.com I saw a bunch of people with phrases like "yahoo?" and I thought it would be a funny domain, but they beat me to it. :)

Safari and Opera: not a target

[rvw]

When using Opera 9 (OSX), I got another ad, for Yahoo Answers. When using Safari, I got an ad for the search bar. So this ad is targeted at Firefox, which seems reasonable. Safari is not a target as MS has discontinued development of IE for the Mac, and has said people should use Safari. Opera is probably too small to bother, and not growing in market share.

Re:Safari and Opera: not a target

[ccoakley]

Incidentally, The toolbar doesn't work with Safari. I just did the checks on the various browsers myself. I got a kick out of the fact that the Safari ad didn't apply to Safari at all.

huh!

[syd108]

I thought we only discussed about stuff that matters? Oh well if that were true I would have not posted this either

bitten back

[arifirefox]

all it will mean in the end is that nobody will go to yahoo anymore because they'll use Microsoft search by default. Yahoo can avoid this with their own version of firefox that puts yahoo as its default search engine

Interesting...

[ogott]

Seems as if right now, when I'm performing a search on Yahoo.com using Safari, there's an 'ad' on the bottom of the page leading to a download of the Yahoo Toolbar for IE or Firefox (explicitly for Win, Mac, Linux). On the other hand, when I use Firefox (under Mac OSX as well), there is the link for IE7 instead.

Wasted ad if they don't check the OS

[Chris Tyler]

I just tried a search on Yahoo and got the same ad. They must have checked the User Agent string to see that I was using Firefox. But why didn't they check to see if I was using Windows? -- why bother advertising IE to me if I can't run it on my system?

Re:Wasted ad if they don't check the OS

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run IE on Solaris and HP-UX, as well as Mac OS.

Oh, you meant IE 7? Never mind.

Re:Wasted ad if they don't check the OS

[hritcu]

Maybe they also want to suggest to you that a change of OS would also be welcome. So that you can run IE7 :)

Who?

[Iriestx]

Yah-who?

Re:Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

ahahahaha!

Yahoo never gets it!

[bogaboga]

Yahoo does not get it. Can you imagine that even now, Yahoo's Launchcast service does not support Firefox! When one attempts to use it, he is faced with this "Error Code: 24."

No wonder they (Yahoo) are a struggling company by some measures these days. It does not have to be that way. It's because of this reason that it is my mission to avoid Yahoo services as much as possible.

The pushing of Internet Explorer 7 is yet another arrogant and bigoted notion that tends to lean on the premise that all internet users use the Windows platform, which is grossly false.

Re:Yahoo never gets it!

[Anonymous Coward]

check back in a week or two (if all goes well) hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Pushing users off

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to set my family's computers homepage to yahoo. But they have since redone their TV listings so that they load like crap. Before that they made it so that many of their videos would only work with Window's media player.

It's not just that they're pushing ie7. It's that they are becoming too microsoft-flash-ajax centric, especially for people with older computers and slow connections (yes, not everyone can afford broadband/new computers). Yahoo doesn't really care about these users, I guess because they are not the ones they want to market to. But I do have a broadband connection and Yahoo's TV listings load horribly now (they just changed them to an ajax layout).

Yahoo is really taking steps backwards, not forwards. I hope that their deal with Microsoft was worth it, because they are losing people heading to their website.

Re:Pushing users off

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer IIARNY (I am a relatively new yahoo)-

People see what they want to see, I guess... Yes, Yahoo! does tend towards flashy / cool, but do me a favor and surf on over there with images off / css off / flashblock, etc and tell me what you see.

(go ahead, I'll wait)

If that's the web you want then get cracking and "make it so", it's not that hard. See what it's like to surf with a screenreader or keyboard only. (here's a search for you: accessibility on developer.yahoo.com) ... or on one of the A-Grade browsers (which is why the MS dig hurts).

Yeah, a lot of the new yahoo stuff feels maybe a bit too "Yahoo!-ey", and in some cases is a drag on performance for older computers (especially once you mix in the ads- performance == peanut butter). Sorry. A friend of mine recently made similar complaints re: the new TV site. It's a newly redesigned site. Kinks == Being Worked Out, I'm sure.

And I take specific offense to the "MS only" video playback. Check this out on linux w/ the flash9 beta (and relevant plugins). Or this video. It's not perfect because we can't devote a ton of resources to it, and a lot of our content comes from 3rd party providers (pre-encoded, if I understand correctly) so there are limits, but we all do what we can do with the time we have while keeping the feature-monsters satisfied.

I have to agree though, about Yahoo! sometimes putting the cart before the horse. I'm not a big fan of the new Yahoo! Mail interface, and dread the day that becomes default. Similar complaints came from the financial message boards people (they made it more like slashdot and people complained... go figure :^), it's tough to be such an integral part of the internet and not make mistakes. Keep us honest, send feedback and see what happens.

--Robert

Re:Pushing users off

[thrillseeker]

I used to set my family's computers homepage to yahoo. But they have since redone their TV listings so that they load like crap.

I had the same problem, especially with a recent Yahoo change that made it impossible to use the listings without registering for a FYA (Fine Yahoo Account), and so just a few days ago took the time to swith the fam(ily)net(work) to use this for tv listings now - still not great but better than the tv.yahoo.com, which no longer works anyway. The only thing I find myself using yahoo for now is to make fun of them on Slashdot.

They can push

[no-body]

as much as they want....
Yahoo is only used for weather pages, way too noisy... and -
W2K can't run IE7, not to speak about the "Advantage" thingie....

Yep

[eck011219]

No editorial intent here, but I can confirm that that's what happens. When I go to yahoo.com with Firefox 2.0 in Vista and search, I get the ad and link. When I use IE7, I don't.

I don't see it

[jon_joy_1999]

I dunno, I guess it's because I have .*ads.* and .*/b\?.* adblocked?

people ask why do I block advertisements. I respond "Why do I mute the television and go online during a commerical break?"

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[rgbecker]

Interestingly it seems yahoo is having some problems today displaying my myhome pages. That doesn't seem to be related to whether I use IE7 or not though.

What is the Problem?

[CodeBuster]

Although I am a Firefox user, personally I don't see anything wrong with what Yahoo is doing here. They are using THEIR website to promote a product of THEIR choice which may also be configured to use Yahoo as the default search engine. They are not forcing anyone to download IE7 and unless you run out and buy a copy of Vista before the end of January it was not pre-installed on your computer. Granted, IE7 was listed by Microsoft as a critical update in their update services, but that was the doing of Microsoft, not Yahoo. Should one not be free to advertise and promote the products of their choosing on their own website?

Re:What is the Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, one is entitled to push whatever crap they want. And to be ridiculed for that.

what ever happend to Netscape?

[adaminnj]

I just want to know if Netscape is not even in the game anymore.

I know Mozilla, and Firefox is kind of part of the "Netscape",
but it looks so far removed in the browser war it's hard to belive that they where ever in the game.

I meen who remmbers mosaic, internet in a box, and the other hand full of browsers that where on the market in the 90s?

and when did Yahoo decide that IE is good, where they not a Netscape company not that long ago?

but we all know that lynx is where it's at right.

Re:what ever happend to Netscape?

[Petrushka]

Netscape does still exist, but has bloated beyond all belief and no one with a shred of decency or social conscience uses it now. It's based off Firefox code (just as Mozilla came from Netscape) but also acts as a wrapper around IE 6, thereby giving you the security holes of two browsers for the price of one. It's big, it's ugly, it's slow, and it's not coming anywhere near my computer ...

Re:what ever happend to Netscape?

[adaminnj]

thatnks for the info,

I like FireFox. even over Safari.

I knew the Mozilla project was the opened Netscape code and Firefox is a new browser supported by the Mozilla project, I'm just wondering why Netscape has decides not to play in the browse market anymore?

Re:what ever happend to Netscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just wondering why Netscape has decides not to play in the browse market anymore?

Because AOL bought it and sat on it.

Re:what ever happend to Netscape?

[adaminnj]

Aha! forgot about that. Thanks

Well, duh!

[tao]

I got the invitation to download IE7 when running Firefox on a Mac, and even when running IE5 under CrossOver; but not when running IE7 under Parallels.

Uhm, no, did you really expect to get an invitation to download IE7 if you were already running IE7?!

Re:Well, duh!

[dreamlax]

Was he not simply proving that it was not a static ad?

You are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

I browse using Telnet, and I don't need to search: I know where things are.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[Bent Mind]

My bank started doing something similar recently. They don't block IE or Firefox. However, they do block Konqueror. I simply changed the user agent ID and everything works the same. I don't think it's really a conspiracy, rather poor coding on the part of the web designer.

Of more concern to me is the actions of my local TV news station. In the past they offered video feeds in Real format. Real works on all platforms and with all browsers as far as I know. However, they recently switched to some new proprietary format that only works with Windows and IE.

I often wanted to ask these companies if they are being directly paid by Microsoft or if they are purposely pushing Microsoft's monopoly on us. However, I think the truth is that there are a lot of people making IT decisions that don't have a clue what they are doing. They know the buzz words and marketing hype and simply parrot it.

It seems to have stopped maybe

[rdean400]

I just ran some searches and it's not doing it any more.

However, I did notice it doing that every time I accessed Yahoo using Firefox. I waited until I saw their actual advertisement version, clicked the "Ad Feedback" button, and told them what I thought about being asked to switch browsers.

I think it's a good thing to show the ad to IE 6- users on Windows, but it doesn't make sense anywhere else.

I'd download IE7, if not for my pirated Windows :)

[moogs]

yeah.. damn those genuine advantage..

Apples and oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD is a distribution of BSD. Linux is a kernel. You're comparing one distribution of BSD to the multitude of Linux distributions.

You have a point, but you're making it poorly.

Now that's a nice idea...

[cp.tar]

... we've just been thinking of some way to decrease our market share some more.

Sincerely,
Yahoo!

VIDEO IS SPAM

[electrosoccertux]

So don't bother watching it like I did.

Blahoo

[interval1066]

This is why intelligent OSS fans use Google and not Yahoo. Never have, never will. And I implore my less-IT knowledgeable friends and family to use Google mail. Unfortunately they often opt-out explaining that they are used to Yahoo, even after I explain the myriad reasons NOT to use Yahoo (Word virus ease-of-use, msg tail adds, whatever else I can think of). It would be good for Google to write a Yahoo-Google Mail transition page for these people.

Ya Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya Who? Hang on a sec while I google them...

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[dpilot]

Sometime I think it would be really nifty to see civil/criminal charges for actions like this. Microsoft IS a convicted monopolist, specifically because of IE. Forcing use of IE is somewhat akin to "aiding and abetting" criminal activity.

Yahoo! is useless

[Dracos]

That is all.

Re:Yahoo! is useless

[justinlee37]

I use Yahoo! video search because GoogleVideo won't archive porn.

TV stations are the sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask them if they have a "only this brand and no other brand of rabbit ears antenna can be used" to get their OTA TV signal. When they say "no", then ask them what's the diff with their online feed, why should that be restricted to one brand of operating system and video player.

Personally, that's just one of many problems I have with the major networks and their outright hijacking of the public airwaves. When is the last time anyone heard of some station NOT getting a rubber stamped license renewal? I'm tired of them just being party propoganda hacks for the establishment D and R government cartel, the transnational corporations and major league sports. They have long abandoned being of the public interest and benefit. That was supposed to be the first criteria for getting an exclusive frequency license, but for some reason the jerks at the FCC don't seem to care.

Re:Other considerations besides security.

[TheRaven64]

Linux has better performance, better driver support, a MUCH MUCH friendlier support community, and more choice of distributions, from embedded systems through desktops, servers, and clusters. I agree on some of those. Linux has better performance, and better scalability (I wouldn't run OpenBSD on anything with more than 4 CPUs). It also has better POSIX/SUS support. More distributions is true, but I don't think I'd count it as a good point. OpenBSD has better man pages, a saner userland than any Linux distribution I've used (only half a dozen, so I might have missed the good one).

The friendlier support community is interesting. I've found the OpenBSD devs to be incredibly friendly and helpful people, as are the NetBSD people (with one or two exceptions).

It's not about search...

[NineNine]

... it's about all of Yahoo's cool stuff. Mail, Music, Shopping, Finance, Auctions, etc. Yahoo has the best personalized web experience, in my opinion, and it doesn't have anything to do with their search.

Repositories

[Iriestx]

Boy.. I just can't seem to find this IE7 they recommend in any of the Ubuntu file repositories.

Thanks for the warning!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've set my computer to "Pre-Fear" Firefox sites!!!

Hmm...

[Areian]

Strange, but I couldn't find the ad on either http://www.yahoo.com/ or http://search.yahoo.com/ using Firefox on my XP machine. In fact, the first time I opened http://search.yahoo.com/, the site told me how to access the yahoo search-plugin on a default Firefox install....

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually do a search? It is not on the front page but in the search results.

Re:Hmm...

[Areian]

Ahh.... I see. Thanks for the update.

Dont know where to go?

[lebjoot]

Maybe this guys can help you make a decision.

Copying

[Bibz]

Sometimes copying on your competitors isn't the best idea.

Re:Copying

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes copying on your competitors isn't the best idea.
Copy on the copy machine instead. That's what it's there for.

yahoo is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

use google services

For Windows?

[tepples]

Develop on Safari or Konqueror.

Which, as I understand it, do not run on the operating system shipped on the vast majority of PCs.

Re:For Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Develop on Safari or Konqueror.

Which, as I understand it, do not run on the operating system shipped on the vast majority of PCs.

A quick google found

http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.danka.de/printpro/NX.html

Re:For Windows?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Have you actually used kde-cygwin? The last news item for kde-cygwin is over a year old, and the headline is, "development of native KDE on windows started". I think it's still a long way off. You'd do better to list something like http://www.vmware.com/.

Re:For Windows?

[The_Cheese_Stands_Al]

The native version is actually moving forward pretty quickly. The main issue is that the native port uses kdelibs 4 (which compiles on pretty much everything now) and so it's more waiting for kde 4 to get through the development process (not ready for beta anytime soon).

So yeah, vmware for the moment, but kde4 should fix that problem (you could try building konqueror for windows--just don't expect it to be stable quite yet).

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[zzatz]

"...directly paid by Microsoft..."

They may be. I've read that Microsoft will provide free streaming audio equipment to non-profit radio stations, with said equipment providing only Microsoft formats.

I'd love to know what strings are attached, if any. If any? Every deal with Microsoft has strings attached!

Sigh.....

[IHC Navistar]

Has Yahoo! really become so desperate that is has to push downloads of a browser that includes it as the default search engine? I'm suprised that Microsoft hasn't recognized the fact that the Yahoo search page is so jam-packed with useless crap that nobody wants to use it, and that is the main reason why Google has become such a strong leader in search engines. Pepople don't like Yahoo for the same reason they don't like AOL: Wayyy to much advertising and "feaure" crap crammed into the search page. If Microsoft was smart, they would have told Yahoo to go shove their service, and approched Google instead.

Simplicity sells.

Until MS makes it a necessary component, so what

[gelfling]

IE6 for MS update only - Check
FF 2.0 - Check
Thunderbird - Check
Zone Alarm - Check
Avast AV - Check
Ad-Aware - Check
Spybot - Check
CCleaner - Check
Registry Mechanic - Check
ERUNT - Check
Winamp - Check

So given that I have XpHomeSP2 + current patches, MS Office 2003 + current patches & I use non MS for everthing else, then why am I worried? When MS makes it a hard requirement to run my current OS then I'll worry.

Don't use Yahoo.

[MikeFM]

One more reason not to use Yahoo. They've sided with the evil empire.

Re:Don't use Yahoo.

[LordSnooty]

People still use Yahoo? They're the new AOL as far as I'm concerned - invisible to anyone who matters.

Re:Don't use Yahoo.

[MikeFM]

Exactly. I haven't used Yahoo for years because they've become irrelevant. To bad - I remember when they were just a couple kids running out of their dorm room and you could still email them suggestions and get actual responses back.

Valid code

[BenoitRen]

You shouldn't have to develop in one specific browser. If you really are a professional, you write your HTML and CSS, then -validate- them with the W3 validators, -then- you test it in browsers. Next you apply the necessary hacks or workarounds so that it works in every browser.

Easy solution (for Windows, anyway)

[spywhere]

127.0.0.1 yahoo.com

I hate Yahoo. To me, they are evil... their software is crap, and breaks things... and they own Gator, er, Claria. Need I say more?
In my PC repair practice, I routinely remove all Yahoo applications from customers' computers, especially that f***ing toolbar. (Many support calls start out when a customer is inflicted with the Yahoo Toolbar, usually via Adobe, and something else stops working).
I do use Yahoo, however, when training other engineers to remove spyware. All I need to do to infest a machine is click on a few paid links in Yahoo search results. With their help, I can completely trash an XP machine in less than five minutes.

Re:Easy solution (for Windows, anyway)

[Anonymous Coward]

They make a nice JavaScript toolkit.

What a grand new feature

[jgeeky]

what's funny to me is that firefox users should be thinking, "why the hell would i download IE7 to get what firefox has had for some time." in firefox, however, i can just the search bar to multiple engines at the flick of a switch. this question sort of sums up the release of IE7. wow, in 4 years, microsoft put out a web browser that does almost as much as firefox was doing ages ago.

Who does this affect?

[Turmoyl]

You mean people still use Yahoo for anything?!

Re:Who does this affect?

[pascalc]

Yahoo is number one in Asia, the internet isn't just about western countries.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[lazybratsche]

Eh. You could just have a lazy IT department, which would rather force people use IE rather than fix some specific bug with some other browser. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, etc.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh congrats, you're a fucking moron.

Re:Until MS makes it a necessary component, so wha

[Anonymous Coward]

Except possibly a firewall*, all your other security software are unnecessary. A real nerd should know how not to get infected easily, and how to remove infection if there is one.
 
* - just to block inbound attacks. a router could do an equivalent job excellently.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[Blakey Rat]

You're just paranoid. The simple fact of the matter is that Windows is so prevalent, especially in the commercial world, that they simply don't even think about alternatives. In a typical IT office of a dozen people, there's a very very good chance that everybody there uses Windows both at work and at home. And even if they wanted to choose a cross-platform program, they have no Mac or Linux computers available to test it with. When the vendor comes in to sell the product to them, he doesn't say, "it works on Windows only" and they don't ask.

How many times have you seen a software program for download, but it doesn't say what OS it's for? They're always for Windows, and to the author of that program the thought of using something other than Windows is so alien and not only did he not port the program, but he didn't even bother to say what OS it ran on.

There's no conspiracy.

Launchcast, after all the years, is still IE only

[theurge14]

Thanks, Yahoo.

No need for CSS hacks

[Chuck Chunder]

IE has a feature called a "conditional comment" which is perfect for this.

<!--[if IE]>
<a href="http://getfirefox.com">Get Firefox</a>
<![endif]-->


Any normal browser will treat the whole thing as a comment (which it is) while IE will render the html inside.

Re:No need for CSS hacks

[ottothecow]

But the irony of the CSS hacks is that you dont have to use browser detection or some silly IE "feature". It is valid CSS that doesnt show on other browsers and only shows because of broken CSS in IE. If microsoft was to fix the CSS, it would eliminate advertising for their competition in addition to better supporting to the standards which would make some people happy.

Of course if the CSS hack wasnt widespread, there wouldnt be much gain from eliminating the advertising...

Re:No need for CSS hacks

[dhasenan]

Or you could use Server-Side Includes, which are meant for this and don't depend on a specific browser:

<!--#if expr="$http_user_agent = /MSIE/"-->
<a href="http://getfirefox.com">Get Firefox</a>
<!--#endif-->

The issue there is that the server has to process it, not the client. So you could use JavaScript, which is also meant for this but works on the client side. (And woe unto those browsers that don't support it.)

Re:No need for CSS hacks

[Phroggy]

Don't do that. Many browsers send User-Agent strings that are designed to masquerade as other browsers in order to bypass these kinds of checks - in fact, that's why nearly all modern browsers claim to be "Mozilla", because a lot of sites wouldn't work unless they thought you were using Netscape.

Do you really want to piss off these users?
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; X11; FreeBSD i386; en) Opera 8.51
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Netscape/8.0.4
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; Google Wireless Transcoder;)

Notice how Safari passes tests for "Gecko" (Mozilla-based browsers including Firefox) and "KHTML" (Konqueror):
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3

Re:No need for CSS hacks

[Anonymous Coward]

The IE "conditional comment" appears as a comment for non-IE browsers. IE renders it. It's not a matter of "support", because every other browser sees it (correctly) as a comment. It's perfect for this kind of thing, unlike your solution which relies on the web browser sending a valid User Agent string (which they don't always).

Re:No need for CSS hacks

[Anonymous Coward]

And if your user agent is going to lie about who it is, don't complain when you get something you don't expect. The sword cuts both ways.

el lobo... i'm sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking mac fag. go suck steve jobs dick again.

yahoo search better than google

[Anonymous Coward]

google is full of gamed results from spammers and bogus ebay scams

can't find any real goodgle results

I can run only Firefox, IE 6, and Opera

[tepples]

you write your HTML and CSS, then -validate- them with the W3 validators, -then- you test it in browsers. Next you apply the necessary hacks or workarounds so that it works in every browser.

So I have valid HTML 4.01 Transitional and valid CSS. Now how do I "apply the necessary hacks or workarounds" without buying hundreds of dollars of hardware on which to test the hacks or workarounds for web browser software that runs only on computers other than my own? If I'm a professional, I can spread the price of a Mac mini over several clients, but if I am an amateur looking to become a professional by building a portfolio in hopes of being hired, I am probably in no financial position to do this.

Re:I can run only Firefox, IE 6, and Opera

[BenoitRen]

No worries. If you need to test on Mac browsers, you can use these sites:
http://www.browsrcamp.com/
http://browsershots.org/

Re:yahoo pushing firefox - no really

[kjart]

So Yahoo seems to be advertising its own search service more than anything else. Huh...who'd have though a search company advertising their own search service - the horror. They are hardly pushing it - that'd be forcing you to download IE7 with the yahoo toolbar bundled and blocking dedicated FF+typically Google users like me.

Yup, you get the same kind of thing visiting Microsoft's Live search page when using Firefox. You'd think that Microsoft at least would want to push IE, but all they want to do is put their search into Firefox's search box. Oh, and anecdotally, I find the Live add to be the most unobtrusive out of all of them - which I appreciate.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[Miseph]

Oh congrats, you're a fucking coward.

You know what's lamer than "attending" an online diploma mill with an iffy (at best) academic record?* Not having the balls to attach your name to it.


*Nothing personal against the GP or any other UoP grads, just saying...

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[Phroggy]

And even if they wanted to choose a cross-platform program, they have no Mac or Linux computers available to test it with. When the vendor comes in to sell the product to them, he doesn't say, "it works on Windows only" and they don't ask.

This is exactly right. The vendor shows them that the web site works in IE6 and IE7, and as far as they know, that means the web site works. There is no question of whether it works in other browsers or on other platforms if nobody there has reason to believe it might not. "Well, Macs can browse the Web, right?" That's the only requirement they know about (and they're only 95% sure the answer to that question is "yes"), until something different is explained to them.

moron

[Anonymous Coward]

your a moron if your too stupid to beat GA

Re:moron

[rdebath]

Nice epitaph you've picked for yourself

I see sarchasm

But of course as "genuine annoyance" gets worse more people will say "fuck this" and either not bother or use something better.
This means websites will continue to have to support the crap that is IE6 in addition to (the somewhat less crap that is) IE7 long into the future.

OTOH if M$ and Yahoo push hard enough everyone without XP or with a messed up GA will become a Firefox user.

had to try it..

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried clicking the ad using Debian and Iceweasel (firefox 2.0) it says:

Internet Explorer 7 optimized for Yahoo!

Sorry, your system does not meet the minimum requirements to install Internet Explorer 7.

Internet Explorer 7 can only run on these operating systems:

* Windows XP Service Pack 2
* Windows XP Professional x64
* Windows Server 2003 SP1

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Yahoo Mail also crashing FF

[guspasho]

I find this very odd, especially because starting a few days ago my Yahoo Mail has suddenly started crashing Firefox. It happens every time I click on a message after using the browser's back button to back out of another message. Yeah, I'm using 1.508 but there's no reason it should suddenly stop being supported.

It's interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that it took IE SEVEN major versions to even attempt to implement a decent GUI and standards compliance... Opera did it in 3 major versions and Firefox in 1... And only Opera 9 got the standards completely right, with Firefox 2.x closely behind. As usual MSIE fails, now on both their own pseudo-standards and the real standards... Go figure.

Only yahoos use yahoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me give you a hint:

yahoo \ya"hoo\ (y[aum]"h[=oo]), n.
1. One of a race of filthy brutes resembling men but subject to the Houyhnhnms in Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." See in the Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. + WordNet 1.5 + CM]

2. Hence, any brutish or vicious character.
3. A raw countryman; a lout; a greenhorn. [U. S.]
4. Someone who is not very intelligent or not interested in culture. :)

No invitation to download if you already have it

[Tech]

I got the invitation to download IE7 when running Firefox on a Mac, and even when running IE5 under CrossOver; but not when running IE7 under Parallels.

Why would they bother to invite you to download IE7 when you are already running IE7?

Javascript - the devil?

[Keeper Of Keys]

Yes. Isn't it terrible that you can't create interactivity on the web without "resorting" to the interactivity layer.

A bit more than preference

[twoallbeefpatties]

As a Mac user, and a fan of obscure music videos and Husker football games, it's been a serious source of annoyance that Launch and Yahoo Sports both require the latest version of Windows Media Player to run. And when there are so few diverse video sites out there, and the Oklahoma Sooners website linked straight to Yahoo Sports as the only place to hear the Big 12 Championship game for those of us living out of state, that means that sometimes you really miss out on content just for your choice of computer, much less your choice of browser, for which those sites also require IE on top of the Windows base interface. When a site as big as Yahoo makes it clear that they express a serious preference in browsing, that can have a real impact on market share for people who really want to get into a specific site.

"Pushing IE7 On Firefox Users" - or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange how I see the exact same advert when using IE6, isn't it?

Has someone not exactly checked their facts (or other browsers)..?

Yet another reason not to use yahoo

[walterbyrd]

I switched from the yahoo search engine to google a long time ago. Then I switched from yahoo finance message boards to investorvillage, after yahoo borked their message boards. Just today I found that yahoo borked their maps, which I used to use all the time. Now this.

Shocking behavior on the part of Microsoft

[brenbart]

Golly, Microsoft wants all those users back who migrated to FireFox and are going about their usual methods to get them. I'm stunned.

In your face vs polite reminder

[Aqualung812]

I have no issue with putting download buttons for every browser other than IE, or saying "This site designed to W3C standards, not IE standards. Download a W3C browser here:". The post is refering to people being complete asses about it in the way of not just audio files, but stupid redirects like awstats page where you get taken away from the page, after it loads, to be given a full-page lecture about your CHOICE of browser. I make it a point to go to this page with IE every time even though I have Firefox installed, just in case that person looks at his logs. Yes, I saw your notice and CHOOSE not to follow your advice.

Even better are pages like this: www.riskable.com. Here, I don't even get an option to press my luck and see how well (or poorly) IE does. I'm just told "You didn't choose the same browser I did, so I DON'T WANT YOU READING MY SITE".

I know the risks, it is my choice. If it doesn't work right because IE doesn't do it right, fine. Let me know that somewhere on your page and let me get irrated at MICROSOFT, not the zelot web designer who is pushing their choice on me. This is the shit that keeps alot of GOOD F/OSS software at the kids table. If people were just allowed to see Microsoft fall on their face, they might switch. If some pushy geek is telling people "YOU NEED TO CHANGE! MICROSOFT IS THE DEBIL! IDIOT!", they are less likely to listen.

Re:In your face vs polite reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

You are still completely missing the point. People using "alternate" browsers because they can, or have no choice in the matter -- have for years put up with the same treatment that has you so hot and itchy under the collar. And this treatment has been from businesses and large web sites, not just ordinary people.

So shut the F up. We have no sympathy for you. You and your type all but ruined the `net for a long time. It gives me joy to know that your hackles are raised. I revel in it. I imagine amusing scenarios where you, the slightly-overweight Starbucks sipping wool wearing red faced click and drool type that gets Bothered when they see images of soldiers with half of their face blown off because they prefer the BushAbstraction.

Re:In your face vs polite reminder

[Aqualung812]

WOW. You tied the browser war to the Iraq war! WTF does "soldiers with half of their face blown off" have to do with web sites? You've got issues. Did your pr0n not show up right in Netscape 4 when you were growing up?

interactivity layer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware that there was web standard called an "interactivity layer". Which RFC mentions it?

Yahoo is in cahoots with Micro$oft

[skyhawkp2p]

Yahoo Mail will not work properly with Firefox anymore as of version 1.5. I'm using 2.0 and when I click on the Delete button, nothing happens. JavaScript is enabled and I don't have this problem on other sites. It's a conspiracy.

Re:Not "pushing" until they block your user agent.

[SanityInAnarchy]

So you're telling me they're so lazy that they'd actively work to block browsers other than IE, rather than just stick a "Works best with IE" notice at the bottom of the page?

NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooo! Yahoo is doing targeted advertising! How dare they!

Before reporting this, it making it seem like Yahoo is somehow AGAINST Firefox users you might want to do more checking. They're not pushing IE7 on Firefox users - they're pushing IE7 on users without IE7. I still see the advert in IE6 on an XP system.

that Open Source "Security" mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

It's tough dealing with people who live with this "security though obscurity" mindset, but people looking to install malware on your PC sure love the OSS attitude!

In the last year, hackers have been using Firefox to 'springboard' an attack on an unpatch IE, since FOSS people are notorious for not keeping their systems up to date, especially when it isn't their pet browser.

Just because you don't use IE doesn't mean it isn't there. It's like any other application on your system: keep it up to date. That's exactly why I will never put Firefox on a machine, or ever recommend it- why raise the attack footprint? FF doesn't bring a whole lot more to the table. It's just a browser, not a lifestyle- get over it.

Communicating using an unknown language?

[tepples]

you can simulate I/O in turing machines by using specific areas of the tape (often delimited by $ or #) as "input"

But if you don't know what language the other device uses, how does your program interact with it? The problem with claiming that operating systems are "turing complete" is that their developers do not know enough about the wire-level language that some peripherals use.

Re:Communicating using an unknown language?

[AlgorithMan]

I saied bsd can't possibly do anything that linux was _completely incapable_ of...
"linux doesn't have a driver for device X" would only be a counter-example iff it was completely impossible to write a linux driver for device X...

What to choose?

[fallen1]

The lesser of two evils? ;-)

Oh, wait, that's right.. Google has a "do no evil" policy whereas Microsft has "Extend, embrace, extinguish". Nevermind.