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Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign
ko9 writes that Microsoft has re-launched its "'Get the facts' campaign, in an attempt to promote Internet Explorer 8. It contains a chart that compares IE8 to Firefox and Chrome. Needless to say, IE8 comes out as the clear winner, with MS suggesting it is the only browser to provide features like 'privacy,' 'security,' 'reliability.' It even claims to have Firefox beat in 'customizability.'"
web standards? no browser has given me more greif by completely changing the layout of a page which every other common browsr in every common OS displays perfectly fine. Not to mention all the 'made for IE' pages that look like shit in every other browser.
IE is going to have to work damn hard to get rid of that reputation amoungst developers
They're using the definition of fact that says: "fact : a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference "
The catch is, it's biased people at MS who "accept it as true" on the "basis for [inherently flawwed] argument or inference"
Microsoft is becoming infamous for these bogus get the "facts" campaigns, which are really marketing attempts to use Microsoft's truth to distort common belief, replacing the facts with MS' contrived point of view.
Looks like this campaign is not even aimed at the market. Microsoft announced a lay off. It appears they are not culling the employees by performance and competence. They seem to be lopping off whole programs and letting everyone go in those programs and all the lucky ones who happen to be in the rest will continue employment en masse. This leads to low employee morale as the IE team people go, "my job depends not on my performannce but the kind of contacts my manager has with the higher ups and how well my team's output is doing in the marketplace. IE is steadily losing marketshare. Europe is going to unbundle IE and there will be a push to get IE less Windows in USA too. What is going to happen to my job? Should I bail out?". So the IE Team VP gets the higher ups to show some signs that his reportees will not be left high and dry. Just a product of internal turf war, empire building and palace intrigue within that large bureaucracy. Nothing much to see here. Move along.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Apple Safari v3
Google Chrome 1.0.154
Microsoft Internet Explorer v8 (RC1)
Microsoft Internet Explorer v7
Mozilla Firefox v3.07
Opera 9.64
So they compare a Release Candidate vs "older browsers"?
Safari is at version 4 as a regular release, not sure about any beta's or RC's...
I'm using Chrome 2.0.172.31 right now to post this
Firefox is at 3.5 for a Beta (Or RC by now..)
Opera is at 10 for a Beta
They should have done apples to apples. When the IE8 RC was out, so was pre-releases of FF 3.5, Opera 10, as well as Safari and Chrome in more updated versions than they used.
Like you, I disagree with these "comparison charts" which let the marketing people cherry pick what options they want to show and completely hide all others. However, an important difference lies between the way these two charts are set up. The items on the chart at Mozilla are actually things that the browsers have or do not have (boolean values if you will), and therefore at least the checkmark is appropriate. On the Microsoft chart, they use the same checkmark system for things that are not 'true' or 'false' at all, like "Security" and "Privacy". They use this to suggests not only that IE is better at these fields, but that the others do not have this feature at all. It's a subtle difference that is very important to how people read the chart.
The story is, quite simply, that it is appallingly easy of companies to shamelessly and flagrantly lie, to produce the most obvious falsehoods, and for absolutely no one whatsoever to bother stating the obvious fact; that they are appalling liars.
It's not even deceptive wording, or qualified phrases we're talking about here. Most companies and organisations just come right out an lie nowadays. Some choice selections from the article. Note that the tick marks in the article next to browsers are replaced by stars here.
A lie.
A falsehood.
A barefaced, shameless, utterly false lie. For you see, there is no W3C CSS 2.1 test suite. There is a Pre-Alpha CSS 2.1 Test Suite, but upon further investigation it can be seen that the IE team themselves have submitted at least 3221 of the 3708 test cases, or at least that was the case last August 18th.
Perhaps some would argue that these are merely exaggerations or omissions, not lies. I beg to differ. Taking these statements as truths would lead one to believe that IE has less exploits, less chance of exposing private data and a higher or equal chance of rendering web pages correctly that either Firefox or Chrome. All three conclusions are false. These are lies.
Some will believe them, but even sadder, more will not accept them as lies.
P.S.
My reply text is being squashed into a 25 character wide column to the right of a mass of grey. It would be great if Slashdot rendered properly these days.
P.P.S.
Perhaps I'll try it in IE8!
May the Maths Be with you!
Running IE on Linux is like rubbing tainted semen on the outside of a condom. You're doing it wrong!
No, a third party has an MSI of Firefox. Mozilla still hasn't stepped up to the plate.
Isn't that the strength of open source? It's done, even if it's not done by Mozilla.
"The developer tools in IE8 are pretty decent, certainly far better than what comes with Mozilla Firefox by default."
Why on this or any other earth would you include developer tools in a browser by default?
Most of the people who use your browser will never, ever use these tools. Those who need them can download when. if the need them.
Extra crap pasted onto your browser just adds another potential exploit, and slows things down.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?