Slashdot Mirror
PCWorld Says Firefox is Strong, Vista is Weak
twitter writes "PC World has released their year in review statistics and 2007 was not kind to Microsoft. IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 and no one wants Vista. 'How much of an accomplishment is it for a new version of Windows to get to 14 percent usage in 11 months? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002. In that period, that operating system went from nothing to 36 percent usage on PCWorld.com--more than 250 percent of the usage that Vista has mustered so far.'"
They all were great within the time the lived. XP was NEVER a decendant of ME. Learn your OS history, please.
Although you are 'technically' correct that Windows 2000 was released between WinME and XP, what is being missed in this argument is that WindowsXP was the FIRST version of the NT based OS that was focused on and designed to specifically replace the consumer level DOS/Win9x OSes.
You are correct that XP is not descended from Win9x or WinME in any way, it is an NT based OS with NO code used from the Win9x era of OSes. (It is was as much of a jump from Win9X/WinME as System 9 was to OS X).
In regard to the article, this is also why the uptake of WinXP was faster than even Windows 2000, as Windows 2000 was the successor to NT4 and was not pushed to home or mainstream consumer users. XP being the first NT version that was designed for and pushed into the mainstream consumer markets had quite an advantage even though Win2K users ignorantly thumbed their noses at it. In contrast to the generation of consumer OSes it was replacing, it was a massive difference in terms of performance and stability. XP not only ran faster than Win98 (the fastest of the DOS/Win9x generation), but it also was significantly more stable and secure than the previous OSes that had no knowledge of any type of security.
So for consumers and home users, XP was good jump, and even just upgrading Win98 or WinME to XP would not only increase the lifetime of the computer, but would fix technical problems in the installation wihtout having to wipe settings, and gave the users a virtually crash free experience.
Those numbers are as made-up as the numbers you find anywhere else. My company, which hosts surveys and therefore sees a very broad cross-section of the market, collects web statistics. I just analyzed our logs and got these numbers, which I trust far more than thecounter, whatever the fuck that is:
:-)
IE6 (all operating systems) 35.22%
FF (all operating systems and versions) 18.35%
IE7 (all OS) 18.15%
Other.. the rest
Should I also remind anyone that IE8 is under progress, including new UI and engine that passes ACID.
You could, if you wanted to hear someone remind you that Firefox 3 is about to come out (far sooner than IE8) and also passes ACID, as if that were relevant.
Note, these are not the opinions of my employer, but they are the data of my employer.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Not everyone does experience that. I have a 3.2GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and Vista runs fine with CPU idling at 0%-1% (although the 0% obviously isn't really 0%)
The poster you're replying to either has issues with their PC/setup, Norton, or mistakenly included the spike caused by Task Manager starting.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I believe that OEM XP is out of production Jan 1, 2008. So if you want any more, you had better go an buy some quick. Have you taken a good look at the new Notebooks on offer ... I just got burnt with a Compaq v6620 - no XP drivers available. You can install XP, and it boots, but kiss the Lan, Wlan, Video, Audio good bye. No XP drivers - only vista and linux. So what does that tell you - Vista will be rammed down your throught whether you like it or not. Eventually, all new kit will be running Vista, because the Manufacturers won't be cutting any XP drivers for them!