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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.'"
I had to uninstall IE8 from vista because it screwed up folder views for all of Vista. For some weird reason, on some systems, IE8 causes every folder to be opened in a new window. The only fix at the time was to go back to IE7. Pretty sad when upgrading a browser downgrades your OS.
I use a program called SpiceWorks to monitor the network, run the helpdesk etc which makes heavy use of interactive content.
I notice that the very last item is about performance.
I can load up the entire inventory of my network in around 3 seconds in Chrome and Opera. It takes 11 seconds in IE8.
Not fast at all.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The problem is that for every one of us developers that hates IE, there are 10 more developers who know nothing else and think this Firefox thing is some hippie fad, and are very adamant about it. Frontpage and .Net have caused immeasurable damage to the web with their completely broken markup, but if you're the kind of imbecile who knows nothing but Frontpage, your P.O.V. is that all the other browsers suck.
No matter how you slice it, it is always easier to support a single platform, than to support all of them. It just so happens that when you develop "for" Firefox, you're usually closer to that cross-browser goal than had you aimed for IE in the first place. But then once in a while, I'll forget to test my template in IE and sure enough, that's the one that breaks.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Its campaign may be rubbish, but it's working! Also, we have been pounding MS for sticking to IE6 for long enough. Now that they're trying to get users to switch to a better browser (IE8 may not be the best, but it's definitely a lot better than IE6) we pound them again. They may claim what IE8 is better than Firefox/Opera/Safari/Chrome put together, we may hate them for that, but we have to spare a bit of love for the fact that they're finally letting their users know that they can have better than IE6. Now, unless they suddenly stop supporting IE8 and put it in the WGA program, we should be thanking them.
It shouldn't be so hard to:
if (IE) {
hack IE
Download and install FF with IE skin
Set Desktop link to point FF
Set default browser to FF
Open FF to current page
Close and uninstall IE
}
I think they don't get it. And to be honest Mozilla no longer does too. Customization is great. It is (well, was) the great thing about Firefox. Once you start packing a whole load of features into the basic browser you are losing all that flexibility. That's what add-ons are for, giving the user choice, while keeping the basic browser fast and effective.
I'm not using IE8 this side of Hell freezing over. However, I do appreciate upping the ante and offering competition.
Mozilla sat on their asses in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, while they stuff the basic browser full of crap in the same way they destroyed Netscape. That's the one good thing about IE8 it kicks Mozilla up the ass.
Now maybe Mozilla can start working harder on memory leaks, multi-threading, making Firefox not suck on a Mac, and getting rid of needless bloat like the Awesome bar.
No, it's definitely about getting the facts. Just not all of the facts.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Didn't someone write a Gecko ActiveX plugin a while ago? Can't you just wrap your entire page in an object tag for IE users and have them download and install the Gecko ActiveX control for rendering HTML?
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