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Mozilla Slams Chrome Frame As "Browser Soup"
CWmike writes "Mozilla executives today took shots at Google for pitching its Chrome Frame plug-in as a solution to Internet Explorer's poor performance, with one arguing that Google's move will result in 'browser soup.' The Mozilla reaction puts the company that builds Firefox on the same side of the debate as rival Microsoft, which has also blasted Google over the plug-in. Mitchell Baker, the former CEO of Mozilla and currently the chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, said in a blog post, 'The overall effects of Chrome Frame are undesirable. I predict positive results will not be enduring and — and to the extent it is adopted — Chrome Frame will end in growing fragmentation and loss of control for most of us, including Web developers.' Baker says Chrome Frame's browser-in-a-browser will confuse users and render some of their familiar tools useless. 'Once your browser has fragmented into multiple rendering engines, it's very hard to manage information across Web sites. Some information will be manageable from the browser you use and some information from Chrome Frame. This defeats one of the most important ways in which a browser can help people manage their [Web] experience.'"
Baker says Chrome Frame's browser-in-a-browser will confuse users and render some of their familiar tools useless. Some information will be manageable from the browser you use and some information from Chrome Frame.
Interestingly, isn't this an exactly same issue with Firefox addons too? Some of them might create the same kind of incompabilities than Chrome Frame plugin does.
On that note, in my opinion Chrome Frame itself serve's little to none purpose. If you can install it, you could install the actual Chrome (or some other) browser aswell. Websites need to opt-in for using the Chrome Frame for rendering with a metatag, and I think Google will be lucky if even 1% add that tag.
Only good reason I've come across is the next note from the article
Specifically, said Google, it was pushing Chrome Frame because it decided it wasn't worth trying to make its new collaboration and communications tool, Google Wave, work with IE. Google developers spent "countless hours" on tweaking Wave for IE, but gave up.
Which does make sense. Users can use IE, but still get the Wave to work. But I except google to take more major approach about the plugin soon.
Google is simply "embracing and extending" IE's functionality, right?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
A very important point. Those of us who build the web finally thought we were seeing some movement with the increasing adoption of Firefox (mainly) causing Microsoft to build better browsers in IE7, and more so, IE8. We really looked forward to moving from a development model where 50% of the time was spent building the site to standards, and 50% hacking for Internet Explorer.
The Mothership
They could, you know, not configure their website to enable Chrome Frame. That seems like enough control to me.
Translation: Those fucking bastards are probably going to do the same thing to Firefox!!!! Chair... Google... Must... throw...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Google has a technically superior engine, and Mozilla's whining about it. Well boo-hoo guys, how about cutting the crap and getting to work improving your product?
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
So, I take it that mozilla foundation is not interested in hosting gecko frame.
Work bio at MMWD
IE8 doesn't support canvas, or svg, doesn't have a real javascript engine, and still mangles standard css.
It can get by on simple web pages, but it's simply not suitable for real web apps. Anyone developing one either writes off IE completely, or is using the tools that Google's been releasing to augment IE's deficiencies.
None of the engines in a browser (rendering, scripting, etc) should be relevant. They should all follow web standards. Sure it might break crap-tastic websites that use browser sniffing to try & server browser-specific content. But we already have that in javascript by detecting capabilities instead of using browser sniffing. By allowing this, it allows websitesï to force IE to behave like a standards compliant browser which will hopefully, in the long run, get rid of all the major IE vs. world hacks (and hopefully many of the inter-browser incompatibility checks).
make Firefox better than Chrome, so people won't bother with Chrome frames. Until then, STFU.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
... because I love and use it daily. But isn't Firefox 'plug-in soup'? Updates frequently breaking plugins, plugins sometimes breaking the browser, etc.
Seems silly to me for them to make a comment like this.
More options are good. There are many users who are forced to keep IE6 for work access to intranet sites and yet may want Google wave for personal use. This way they can access all their sites without having to remember which browser is for which and deal with different sets of bookmarks and cookies. What alternatives do Microsoft and Mozilla foundation propose for this group of people?
Title: "Slams"
Summary: "took shots at"
Quote: "undesirable"
Since people seem to want to take a sniff and turn it into a hair-on-fire screaming hissy fit if it fits their predetermined intention, and the editors seem to want to ignore actual news stories submitted a week before while passing along these tantrums immediately, I propose they create a category for them so those of us that prefer not to see them can filter them out.
How about 'uninvited guest editorial'? That lets the editors pretend they actually read them, and it reserves "bullshit" for the far more often necessary calls on ignoramus responses.
Urgh, I hate these links to useless tech news websites, rather than the original sources. To see what the Mozilla executives in question actually had to say, with their words in context, read Mitchell Baker: Browser Soup and Chrome Frame and Mike Shaver: thoughts on chrome frame.
And as a bonus, from a Mozilla-technology using developer (I don't think he's affiliated with Mozilla in any official capacity anymore) Daniel Glazman: Google Chrome Frame.
Oh boy. Here we go.
Mozilla drags IE into the future with Canvas element plugin
Granted, Mozilla's technology doesn't do as much as Chrome Frame. It does less. But it introduced tag soup into IE. One can now, according to Mozilla's own damn hypocritic opinion because of a technological big brother envy, be sure of how IE render content.
"Once your browser has fragmented into multiple rendering engines, it's very hard to manage information across Web sites" - Mozilla
Oh, and how does adding canvas support reduce confusion when even more complete HTML 5 support won't?
But read on guys... It get funnier.
Ars Technica:
This Canvas plugin is only the first step toward bringing standards-based web technologies to Internet Explorer. Mozilla is working on a much more ambitious initiative called Screaming Monkey that will make it possible to plug Mozilla's entire next-generation JavaScript engine directly into Microsoft's web browser. If these plugins gain widespread acceptance, it will empower web developers and give them the ability to target web standards and not have to compensate as much for Internet Explorer's broken behavior.
Hahaha! I love this! Thanks for the laugh, Mozilla!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
...stop trying to invade IE's turf and just convince people to use another browser for real. Moreover, at this point, anyone who hasn't switched probably isn't going to because one has to be either very ignorant of browsers or very dependent on an MS-specific feature to keep using that PoS.
If everyone would just follow the goddamned standards then we wouldn't have to worry about this shit. Yes I'm blaming all parties involved here, they are all either directly responsible, or too complacent.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Dudes... I work at a company whose standard is IE6. Not IE7, not IE8. IE6. And IE6 isn't even compatible with IE8 in some cases.
The reason Google is releasing Chrome Frame is very simple--so that they can get Google Wave in the door of enterprises who have standardized on IE (including IE6) without having to develop 4 different versions of it (Standards Compliant, IE6, IE7, and IE8). They decided that doing Chrome Frame was easier, cheaper, and better for the future of Google Apps (broadly construed to include Wave) than continuing to pander to IE.
I don't think they want to "enable" IE users... but they'd rather enable IE users to continue to be stupid than cripple their applications as they've been doing ever since gmail came out. From Google's point of view, this is ALL about the apps, not the browser wars.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Chrome Frame will end in growing fragmentation and loss of control for most of us
You say that like it's a bad thing.
To the extent that there is any "control," shouldn't it rest with the authors of the spec?
Opera tends to mangle CSS a bit, but other than that Microsoft is the only one not following standards.
Is Firefox careful to make sure that they are compatible with Flash? Some information is manageable from Firefox and some information from Flash. Yes, it sucks, but it is better that rewriting all of those flash applications to work in IE.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Since when is choice a bad thing?
The shit-disturber side of me says, "Take that, Redmond."
Or rather, I like the option of mixing and matching parts.
A kernel from here, an windowing environment from there, a browser shell from vendor A, a rendering engine from vendor B, as long as everyone follows interoperability standards I don't see the problem.
What? Not everyone follows standards???
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It is about time I started seeing technology of this nature, but we are still not there yet. I would love to see this framework system support plugins that way when I design a site I specify what rendering engine is needed, and the browser simply loads it and renders my page 100% correct 100% of the time. It would also make it easer for the W3C to push standards as they could release their own rendering engine as soon as they are published and everyone could start using them so long as the browser supports framework plugins. There is also an added benefit that more time could be spent on the main functions of the browser and other stuff rather than messing with rendering. Anyways, If I don't see anything in the next few years I am going to have to put together a division and scratch that itch.
Except Firefox addons are not *necessary* to use any commonly accessed websites (AdBlock Plus and NoScript may be desirable, but not necessary).
They are if you browse in certain wild-west not-so-professionally-managed portions of the web!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
These sound-byte-type pot-shots accomplish nothing.
... websites that only work under one browser if people are mixing in different systems into other browsers. Or, website designers might *gasp* need to adopt standards. God, what a wicked crime, Mozilla can't push for Firefox only site features and *gasp* Microsoft might need to make their content run on Firefox/Chrome.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Who said soup is a bad thing? I like soup, damn it!
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"This defeats one of the most important ways in which a browser can help people manage their [Web] experience.'"
I don't want to manage my Web experience.
I want to enjoy it.
I know there are all sorts of reasons why different browsers have to be accomodated. But it's still wrong.
They are doing it wrong.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
this must be stopped!
Spoken like a true unemployed elitist fool.
From a developer who is employed's stand point. If X percentage of my potential user base uses a browser then I make sure it works on that browser. That is why EVERY MAJOR WEB SITE ON THE WEB supports IE6, 7 and 8 in addition to a giant host of other browsers.
Odd - I have for the past few years always used the "IE Tab" plugin for Firefox - that makes the pages render in IE (for IE specific sites, like windows update). Isn't that EXACTLY the same thing?
Flash plugs into Firefox, not the other way. It's Flash that needs to make sure it's compatible with Firefox.
Dilbert RSS feed
Waitress? Hey, Waitress! I don't mean to be rude, but I only get 30 minutes for lunch!! One big bowl of Browser Soup, and extra addons, please!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I've been thinking about Google Frame. Honestly, I think it's too good a stopgap. Let me explain:
People have Internet Explorer. It sucks. Or people have Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari/... and they all work the same (almost).
People who have IE are mostly unable or unwilling to install, well, anything else.
Chrome is good in that installing a browser plugin is easier (and more familiar) for most people than installing a browser. They do it all the time - Flash, Java, SuperPornSearch - even if they shouldn't.
So Chrome Frame is nice, in that regard, in that I as a web developer can have IE say "install this to view this page", or otherwise throw up a "You must have at least Flash 7 to view this content"-type page. Those errors seem to be effective, for the most part.
But it's bad in the sense that if everybody requires Chrome Frame, and everybody has it, that's dandy. But it's still running IE.
In short, it's a stopgap. But it's a very good stopgap. Potentially so good that people won't switch to a real browser. And that's bad.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Isn't this why we have web standards? If you adhere to the damned standards, doesn't the rendering engine become all about performance instead of which one looks better, or renders "more correctlyer"?
Baker says Chrome Frame's browser-in-a-browser will confuse users and render some of their familiar tools useless.
Kinda like IETab in Firefox?
Mozilla is just miffed because they didn't think of it first. Now they have set themselves up to look like hypocrites if they follow suit.
Anybody who is using IE6 is either so clueless that they wouldn't know about this plugin, or they are forced to use IE6 because certain websites are coded for it. Either way it seems more like a fun stunt than anything viable.
I do all my work web surfing on firefox, but when I need to do one of my many yearly training courses, I have to fire up IE6 because the courses break in weird ways with firefox. So the only reason I'm in IE is that I'm forced to be, and this plugin would break the very reason I'm in IE in the first place.
Sheldon
They don't need to know about the plugin, or even what a 'browser' is.
They'll only know that, in common with a lot of other sites, if you click on google wave* you have to install something first.. and they'll click 'yes' because that's what they always do.
* Or, potentialy, gmail or youtube, or blogspot, or any site that wants to implement it.
Like I *don't* have to run IE AND FF already due to different engines.....it's really strange hearing the boss of Mozilla criticise Google Chrome for creating similar issues to what FF has against IE.
Oh, wait, we're all going to have to adapt to multiple engines/ browsers/ plugins etc..... ....when I started pointing this out (over a year ago), I got marked down for trolling, simply because I was listing the technical problems that we were all about to face (what I think of browser war 2.0).- this isn't a techincal 'my browser is better thasn yours' issue, it's dealing with the real world ramifications. IE isn't compliant by a long shot, but by being the most dominant browser, it has to be regarded as the standard to adhere to and the *real* standards applied second - you can shout all you want about how IE should be rendering correctly in the first place (and I'd agree) but it's *too late* - and pretendfing the market leader doesn't exist does not lead to desktop triumphs - just ask .
Oh, you can go force all sites to become compliant by developing for FF first, but by doing that you're ignoring backwards/ sideways compatibility - a situation Mozilla have cheerfully helped create, and suddenly Google are the new nasties for doing the same?
'sup dawg, I heard you like to screw with w3c standards, so I got you a browser fo your browser so people can surf the net while they surf the net.
But really, as an earlier /. post had mentioned, this makes a lot of sense for Google, in that it's the only logical way to get their web services platform to be used by people who are stuck with IE6, 7, 8 (through ignorance or corporate policy or laziness).
I'd say it's quite a bit different between getting "You must install the Flash plugin to use this site" messages, as opposed to "For best results, please view this site with a w3c-standards compliant browser, and if you're too lazy to do that, just click the "allow" button for this plugin". I think it's great that they're giving users the option of keeping the interface and UI and bookmarks :P
and whatever that people are accustomed to. And I don't expect it to take long before the Mozilla people offer a gecko rendering plugin for IE if they haven't already
The fourth most visited website is generally considered to be a major website, and it has dropped support for IE6.
I don't break functionality of IE6 sites, but if the off by three bug shows up on IE6 whatever, It's an old browser,and people that use it, like the people that use Netscape 4 don't really expect the web to work completely correct.
Work bio at MMWD
I use and Love FF but am wondering about their stake in this??? Don't we have a plug-in that allows us to view pages in IE compatibility mode for those sites that require IE??? And with the recent issues of FF compatibility with vista 64bit and zone alarm for vista 64bit and speed issues I think FF should focus on the home front. Also since UI in the new FF version set for March is apparently going to look like chrome and take away the menus I guess They don't want google getting the IE share that they are trying for.
Wake up Fire Fox and worry about the users you have before we move on.
Anyone developing one either writes off IE completely, or is using the tools that Google's been releasing to augment IE's deficiencies.
Really, those are our 2 options? Either don't support IE, or use something from Google. Oddly enough, I've been getting by for years without doing either of those. Granted, my "real web apps" don't need canvas or SVG. The vast majority of mature Javascript libraries around have no problems supporting IE with the vast majority of their functionality, what's your excuse? I've been supporting tens of thousands of corporate (read IE) users who spend hours each day using large ajax applications that I've built. I've got an installation with over 70,000 users on it where about 1% of the front-end code is HTML, and the rest is Javascript and CSS. IE8 runs that application just fine.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
'Chrome Frame will end in growing fragmentation and loss of control for most of us, including Web developers.' Baker says.
You should lose control. Web developer demands are why browsers added <center>, <font> and <blink> tags. You had your chance at control and you turned out to be horrible at it. Write to the standard and don't fucking worry about the browser!
Edith Keeler Must Die
A lot of corporations and government agencies still specify IE6
as others have said, this will help give access to newer technologies/websites to people whose organizations (or grandmothers) are stuck on old, crufty tech.
however -I wonder if it will still present an IE6 app string to those websites/apps that require it???
I'm just sayin'
The last time I heard about Google Wave, I was watching an official Google video. The big selling point seemed to be that Google Wave was compatible with pretty much ANYTHING. They were showing off ways in which it could interface with various blog engines, twitter, facebook .... they even made a big deal out of the fact that someone wrote a text console app that was capable of interfacing with Wave. And now they're trying to say that they can't make it work with IE? Something seems a little fishy here ....
Developers, Developers. AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH
My company no longer requires me to write to IE6. In fact they don't even care if it fails gracefully in IE6. I however tend to make sure my sites fail gracefully even if javascript and css are not functioning properly.
Our internal websites are different, they have to work in IE7/IE8 but do not have to be perfect. For example, one site had nice rounded corners that everyone loved. However the method I was using was not implemented in IE yet (It's a safari/firefox thing). I could of been forced to write javascript to do this in IE. But instead we just decided it wasn't worth it.
Another example is a long running report we have. It takes a long time to get the data. To improve the feel of the report I rewrote it be dynamic and have sortable columns and real time updates to options (year, etc). Firefox and safari handle this wonderfully. IE7 and IE8 simply barf on the amount of data. It can take minutes to refresh. Some of the sorting simply crashes the browser completely. It was decided to just remove the crashing features from IE and put a disclaimer about the sort time. No point in trying to figure out how to speed it up when it works almost instantly in firefox/safari.
IEtab is a plug in for rendering a web page in IE in a firefox tab, which has existed for some time without raising anyones hackles. This is not the only example and also nothing new: this kind of thing has been going on for a long time.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Supporting IE costs time and money to do, when your amazing app runs easily in a standards compliant browser, and there is more than one of those to choose from.
Many of us know our time can be better used advising users to install this plugin.
1) It's not only for IE6. Not everyone using IE are forced to use it. Many are simply content with IE or just can't be bothered installing something else. 2) They don't have to know about the plugin beforehand. When they try to access a page requesting Chrome Frame they will be prompted if they want to install it.
Since they are a site about social media, I'm willing to bet that a much lower percentage of their audience uses IE6 than the typical website.
And mashable looks terrible in every browser, so I'm not surprised that they don't care if it looks terrible in IE6 as well.
n/t
First of all, check out IE Tab for Firefox. It's an addon that lets you view certain pages with IE's rendering engine while still in Firefox.
Second of all, Chrome Frame is only activated when there is a specific meta tag on the specific web page, so it wouldn't mess up the sites you have to run IE for.
The fourth most visited website [mashable.com]is generally considered to be a major website, and it has dropped support for IE6.
The original phrase should be read as: "Youtube [according to mashable.com] is generally considered to be a major website, and it has dropped support for IE6."
Of course, this is all because Slashdot is fragmenting the web by rendering the same comments differently.
Spoken like an employed fool. From a developer who is employed, if I can code to standards and use the existence of this plugin to ensure that the majority of browsers will now work with standards, its a win-win for me and my customers. Soon, every major web site will support HTML5 and CSS3, and life will be good. You are just a dinosaur. Catch up or be left behind.
And, of course YouTube is (owned by) Google.
(Sorry, couldn't resist. Listing the ability to share data across sites as a plus is kind of funny...)
Microsoft releases and update that breaks this chrome frame addin? What is google going to do about it then?
Somehow this seems oddly similar to the Apple / Palm merry-go-round. You write something that uses my software, then I break it, then you fix it, then I break it, ad infinitum.
Spoken like a luddite who can't cope with the changing pace of the web. Blinky text and shitty MIDI renditions of pop songs don't cut it any more. The only thing you are doing by supporting IE is prolonging the amount of time that it will remain in such a poor state.
If, on the other hand, everybody started coding to standards, then the only browser that won't work is IE. IE users won't like that and will either switch browsers or complain to Microsoft, who will subsequently fix the broken mess that they call a web browser.
Psst: He's talking about Youtube, not Mashable.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Good on Google for trying to make IE better but I think most of the web developer community would be real happy if IE just plain died. Leave the web and the web browser to those that really give a damn.
Yani
While we're at it, all of the arguments brought up against the Chrome plugin also apply for the Flash plugin. And still, too uses it :-(
Many universities use this POS.
http://www.blackboard.com/
Its a user-unfriendly mish-mash of forums, teacher news posts, file transfer, PM, and file upload functionality. It could entirely be duplicated using existing open source softwares in a superior manner if someone tied together a whole suite of apps and unified the interface. All I know is I can normally trust a website to be able to Attach A File in most any browser, I thought we had that one licked back in 98.
Of course my School isn't even Worried about Firefox...
Internet Explorer 8 has not been certified to be compatible with Blackboard. Be aware you may run into issues using IE 8 with Blackboard. Using the IE 8 compatibility view may help. Click this link for more information... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956197/LN/ For information on how to revert back to IE 7, click this link... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700
Honestly, the MF has bigger issues they should be focused on. If they were killing it, Chrome wouldn't even make the front page. Bloat continues to overtake their software and they're being out-engineered by smaller teams backed by big companies. They should turn their attention inwards first and worry about Chrome second.
Maybe I wasn't clear, but I don't do much extra work to support IE these days. There are too many good libraries out there that do things without a lot of hassle and work in all major browsers. I'm talking about things like ExtJS, jquery, etc. Of course, this assumes you're not trying to use things that IE specifically doesn't support, like canvas.
a standards compliant browser, and there is more than one of those to choose from
You should be aware that quite often when you're dealing with the client you don't have the luxury of telling them what software to use. I'm not talking about building your personal website, I'm talking about building a marketable product that other companies want to buy because it helps them do their own business better. You can't tell these people that in order to run your software they need to upgrade their entire software infrastructure, however unfortunate that is. You also can't take the attitude that if they don't want to install a supported product then they just don't get to use your fancy software, because maybe your fancy software is your livelihood and your livelihood depends on a wide customer base, in addition to other things.
The last major problem I had with IE was an issue where you have a Flash movie inside of a frame, and the Flash movie sends out a post request that results in a file being downloaded which Office would normally open, and you have Office installed, then IE won't let you save or open the document, it just trashes it. That one took me a few days to work around, but Javascript and CSS libraries these days have progressed beyond IE, IE isn't the problem it was three years ago. Before you say I should have told the client with that IE issue to use a different browser, once when I requested that they install PHP on one of their internal servers I was met with the response that their corporation has a "no open-source" policy, whatever that means.
Yeah, IE is still a problem, it's still holding back development potential, but your product is going to look a lot more attractive to a client if it doesn't lose any functionality when you run it with IE6. When fewer than 5% of people are using IE6 then I'll consider dropping support for it, but that's not an option at this point.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I think they are worried about a "Chrome Frame for Firefox" beating them in acid3, process per tab, performance, etc. They are getting the argument now so thay can say its the principle that's wrong, not sour grapes because they were pipped to the post.
Outrageous! That would be like a database with more than one engine!
Oh wait...
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Google want HTML5 support, they don't want to wait for Windows to decide its too late for them.
My site is Wordpress with some nice plugins - I spent some time making it compatible with IE - then gave up when I ran into a paradox with images in hrefs with css.
Many developers don't have the luxury of demanding a specific client - but Google devs do - they are on the bleeding edge and are not waiting for Microsoft to join the party, they are dragging them in with a plugin that in the end, if their standards compliant app gains popularity, they will force Microsoft to pull their socks up.
It won't break any crappy obsolete webapps in your IE. It only activates on pages that opt in with the appropriate tag. It gives you the best of both worlds - crappy IE engine for crappy sites, and the nice WebKit engine to nice sites that would like to use modern stuff.
I agree 100%. There are a lot of people on here crying about how "IE SUCKS! We shouldn't fix it, we should force people to use a real browser!" etc... You know what? If the reason IE sucks is strictly because of its crappy JS engine and standards incompatibilities, and Google has now effectively fixed that, then what's wrong with people using IE?
Don't get me wrong... I love open source. I love Firefox. I use both almost exclusively for work and for play. I know that Firefox is strictly superior in numerous ways to IE. That said, my company is heavily web-centric, and if Firefox has to lose some market share, even die out completely (which it won't... it's open source), in order for everybody to have a standards compliant browser, I say FINE. Besides the fact that we spend about 1/4 of our time coding specifically to IE, my next biggest opposition to IE is the fact that MS has it on lock-down... well, with this plugin MS has to share its control over IE with Google... if MS cuts out Google and this plugin doesn't work anymore, then guess what? IE doesn't work on any websites anymore, either. FAIL. Not to say that Google is perfect either, but I think an evil conspiracy between the two down the road is an unlikely scenario.
A web browser is ultimately just a means to an end. There are trillions of dollars tied up in companies who develop content for the web, and just a few companies who develop significant browsers for it. How many billions of dollars could be saved every year if we simply didn't have to worry about how badly IE sucks ass?
For the retards out there who still don't understand why this is the only logical position for anybody who isn't a browser developer, here's an exaggerated car analogy. Say Microsoft started making shitty cars, and Mozilla started making a better open source car... And then Google created a magical perpetual motion machine for Microsoft's cars which eliminated the need for any fuel and produced food for starving children as its only byproduct. Would we all be up in arms about "OH NOES everybody's gonna start using the M$ shit car!!!1111"? What is up with your priorities, Slashdot???
Does this kind of debate always have to be characterised in terms of a WWF match or a wild-west gunfight?
Do we really need another framework or even another browser? From a web developer's viewpoint, I think we would all be better off with one browser in total, with an open plugin architecture and just one great render engine. I think this is what the world would want as well. I agree with what Baker says, and just wish an end to browser wars in my lifetime, as it's just gotten tiresome, and looks to get worse with Chrome coming on the scene. But I guess that's life on the web as it's always been...
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
The hypocrisy of this cannot even be charted - the people who made Firefox use the Internet Explorer security settings are complaining about 'browser soup'?
I can't remember either Microsoft or Mozilla whining this loud when the IE tab plugin for firefox appeared, which does exactly the same thing. I guess that didn't really add any competition for them :-)
What a depressingly stupid machine.
If Google want to promote people to switch browsers, then they have ample means to do so. Trying to shoehorn their own browser into somebody else's is just a recipe for disaster.
This is exactly my idea about making browser have standard major module. Where user can pick their javascript engine, render engine, and other addon. And all browser provide is a shell that host those information together. Allow user to manage those parts easily. And provides an env where those modules can communicate with each other efficiently. Obviously browser also have to manage these modules, so they don't eat each other, provide a safe env for each module, so that they have enough resource to do their job. And make sure they don't take too much resource to slow down the whole machine ...
The point isn't to fix up IE - very few people who are uncomfortable downloading chrome are going to download chrome frame. You have to opt in to use the chrome stuff anyway, so I suspect the vast majority of the devs opting will be at google itself.
The real point is to embarass microsoft for having such a crappy browser, a move which will increase adoption of firefox, opera, and chrome. And maybe even help keep IE quality up.
With mozilla's Firefox being FOSS, doesn't the nature of its very existence just scream for a soup analogy? Sure before that soup shows up to the wide public the fat is skimmed off the top and the fingernails are strained out, but the underlying concept of Firefox's creation is one soup with many, many, virtually anonymous chef's.
Forth most visited website? I'd never heard of it until you posted about it, maybe its your forth most visited website, but I don't really think it goes much beyond that.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You talk about having to code to the lowest common denominator (such as IE6; or 5% marketshare and up as you put it) and pander to every possible wealthy client with an established software pathology, but then in the same breath advertise how heavily your work depends upon Ajax and Javascript.
So what happens when your next wealthy client has JS disabled citing security concerns, and they want access to your same product line? Do you expect us to believe you'll blithely support clients who have established themselves to be browserless, offline, or paper-only?
You are being hypocritical if you do not admit that everyone has to draw the line somewhere regarding legacy support. Not all online enterprise markets heavily to companies who have chosen to entrench themselves in out-dated technology. So should we be chastised not supporting IE6 in markets where the IE6 users are not going to add heavily to our profit margins? In such cases, if CF is a shortcut that magically gives you a slightly larger user base without having to audit your entire stack for compatibility with a browser barely distinguishable from Netscape 4, then why shouldn't we give it a shot?
Google has dropped support for IE6 on Youtube, and they are taking this direction to allow users and potentially enterprises tied into IE6 to use Wave. I don't see how you could equate either of these with "building your personal website." Also, I am glad you have found such peace using the well-made javascript libraries that you cite, but oddly enough some of us wish to provide client-side functionality that ExtJS and Jquery do not cover. Some of us want client-side databasing to reduce or serialize calls to the server. Some of us want to provide a more desktop-like experience in our web-based applications. Is drag and drop really that psycho of a thing to expect out of a web application?
I know that your initial thesis was based on "Really, those are our 2 options?", but what it falls down to is that you and the original poster disagree on the meaning or intent of the term "real web applications". He means "real" as in more desktop like, a "real application" delivered via the web as it were. You infer "real" as in more profitable (I am guessing); such as "my web application is more real than yours because of how well paid I am to code it".
That being the case, do not allow slashdotters to make you feel guilty about making bank building web applications with the same client-side functionality as desktop apps written for Windows 3.1. For some reason, your very clients do not choose a Windows 3.1 gui for their actual desktops, which implies there must be some value in this user interface work the rest of us are trying to port to the web. But we will not require your assistance breaking vector graphics out of the flash sandbox or shadowing middleware at the client. We'll simply do our job, so that by the time everyone is running whatever 3d, social, mobile OS of 2019 your web apps might start looking like they belong on the Windows XP desktop. You and your clients will still be driving around in nice cars, we are not threatening that for you. We're just building the tools and libraries you'll be depending on to do your work tomorrow.
In other news, it's car analogy time! Google doesn't want progress on the web to be limited by when an established user base feels like unloading their old, substandard, web-defacing browsers. That means Chrome Frame is the internet equivalent of Cash for Clunkers! Get it? Hunh? Hunh? Yeah, whaddayou know! ;D
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
I'm not sure you understand how this plugin works. If you are using IE6 because a particular website only works with IE6, then with the Chrome Frame installed, your website will continue to work as before. That's because the plugin does not throw out the original IE rendering engine. Websites that explicitly declare that they want Chrome Frame will activate the plugin *for that website only*. When you browse to a different website, IE will continue to use their own rendering engine.
Summary: Websites that don't specify Chrome Frame as a requirement will see no difference. Websites that need the functionality of the plugin will cause the plugin to be activated for those webpages.
I agree this will be great for corporate/vertical projects where you generally have IT rollout support, and therefore ensure the plugin is installed. Free legacy browser support, yeah!
However, for a public-facing site, I think you will find that most of the IE6 losers are lunchbreak surfers in managed environments. So this is no magic bullet for IE.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Google heard you really like browsing!
So now they put a browser in your browser so you could browse while you browse yo!
and pander to every possible wealthy client with an established software pathology
That's not what I said, I said a larger customer base is better for business. That doesn't mean one solution that works for 100% of businesses, that means maximizing my customer base by staying away from things that only a minority will have support for. There's a balance between usability and functionality that involves making a product to do what you want it to do while trying to keep your possible customer base as large as possible.
So what happens when your next wealthy client has JS disabled citing security concerns, and they want access to your same product line?
Then I explain to them that disabling all Javascript for security purposes is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that if they want to use my software they need to make an exception. This isn't the same as asking them to upgrade their entire infrastructure, this is just a policy change. Javascript is far too useful to just disable it outright.
Do you expect us to believe you'll blithely support clients who have established themselves to be browserless, offline, or paper-only?
Of course not, I make software. If someone's business model doesn't involve software then they aren't my client.
You are being hypocritical if you do not admit that everyone has to draw the line somewhere regarding legacy support.
Of course, that's exactly what I'm saying. The line is still far away from IE6. I've dropped support for IE5, but it would frankly be stupid at this point to come out with new software that I'm trying to market to business customers that does not support IE6. The vast majority of business software can do a lot of cool things while still staying within the bounds of what's possible with IE6. I don't need a canvas or SVG to create reports with their data on it. I don't even need either of those to create interactive graphs. Yeah, it would be useful if I could use canvas instead of a Flash chart library, but that's not the reality I'm living in today. I'm not trying to create a technology demonstration here, this is software to help people run their business more efficiently, and as user-friendly as possible.
So should we be chastised not supporting IE6 in markets where the IE6 users are not going to add heavily to our profit margins?
Of course not, that's ridiculous to assume. If your target market is people who develop for the Linux kernel or if you're creating an Apple fan site it doesn't really make a difference if you support IE or not. If you're making business software it makes a hell of a lot of difference.
if CF is a shortcut that magically gives you a slightly larger user base without having to audit your entire stack for compatibility with a browser barely distinguishable from Netscape 4, then why shouldn't we give it a shot?
Go for it man, if you just absolutely need to have canvas and SVG on your iPod rumor site, I'm not going to stop you. But, like I said before, my software doesn't require anything that IE6 doesn't support. This is business logic, customer support, and reporting with a nice responsive interface.
Google has dropped support for IE6 on Youtube
I was extremely happy to hear Youtube and others make that announcement, I can't wait until I'm able to drop support for IE6.
Some of us want client-side databasing to reduce or serialize calls to the server. Some of us want to provide a more desktop-like experience in our web-based applications. Is drag and drop really that psycho of a thing to expect out of a web application?
It's funny that you should mention those two as examples. ExtJS has a very powerful data API, including support for storing data client-side in memory, batching calls to the server, directing and
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Anybody who is using IE6 is either so clueless that they wouldn't know about this plugin, or they are forced to use IE6 because certain websites are coded for it. Either way it seems more like a fun stunt than anything viable.
I do all my work web surfing on firefox, but when I need to do one of my many yearly training courses, I have to fire up IE6 because the courses break in weird ways with firefox. So the only reason I'm in IE is that I'm forced to be, and this plugin would break the very reason I'm in IE in the first place.
Sheldon
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see your reasoning. If you're only using IE6 for your training course, why would you need to install the plugin? And even if you did, if this training course site is built for IE6, why would they include the meta tag to render like chrome since it's obviously built only for IE6? I was forced to use IE6 at my last job due to the companies web apps, I would've loved to have installed this.
You don't have much to say about my last reply, do you? Perhaps it's difficult to remove your foot from your mouth. Regardless, hopefully I was able to turn you on to the fact that not only is it possible to create desktop-like applications for the web, and that people have been doing it for years, but it's also entirely possible even with IE6, without requiring any plugins. You're a little late to the game, but welcome all the same. Good luck to you with your own "real applications". And, just so that I don't confuse you further, when I say "real applications", I mean a web application that looks and behaves as well as any desktop application, and also happens to bring in a profit.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black