Bash him all you want but he is a brilliant and great CEO.
He almost owned the internet too with IE 6 by taking it proprietary and halting to encourage client/server apps instead. Evil for us but great for his company. Balmer was the one who made MS from a tiger to a paper tiger in 10 years since he left.
Gates was not that slow with the internet. By 1996 he saw how serious it was after spending an all nighter in the computer lab browsing the web with Netscape and seeing how it can be used for apps. No one was even talking about a browser as a platform yet. He had the vision and IE (you may hate the browser today) invented AJAX to win over Netscape.
Is he right now? I do not know. My guess is he doesn't do much at Microsoft anymore besides lecture Balmer every now and then and focuses on his charity work. If he were still CEO I bet you Windows 8 would not be so hostile to desktop users and METRO would be much better.
Lets look at Apple in comparison? Their applets are more research driven for UI. On the IPAD I can use tabs on safari, the icons are pretty, everything is polished and detailed to the very way the icons move when I turn the device. Metro is very raw and not market research driven. Sure the R&D said tablets are the future, but Metro was not tested like IOS was.
Apple did the opposite approach with its applets running in MacOSX. It is just implemented terrible as a rush similiar to Vista.. just get the damn thing out already. The result is XP is still strong and wont damn die from that mistake.
If it's obvious to everyone that a company has problems, the worst possible thing a CEO can do is say everything is fine, because it makes everyone think he's out of touch or not interested in fixing what's wrong. A good CEO would acknowledge the problems and present a high-level plan for fixing them. Whistling past the graveyard just makes things worse.
At this time there is not much he can do. If I were him I would just sell his assets and give the money to the shareholders and turn off the lights and call it the day. BB has tried everything too late from tablets to putting full screen UIs like the IPhone. It is too late to do anything better or innovate as he is running in the red each day the lights stay on. The revenue is gone, his credit rating is gone, and only an angel investor can save it and why should one?
Maybe it's better to have a credible CEO who says things are going poorly than an untrustworthy CEO?
He is a new CEO as the other 2 CEOs (yes 2 of them) were fired by the shareholders. However, there is not much he can do right now. I doubt he can pull a Steve Jobs moment. That was only one time in business history was a company that far in the red that did such an awesome recovery.
You would be surprised what a good marketing and advertising campaign can do to your business.
We all hate them as they take money away from IT or salespeople make unreasonable expectations and gets bonuses for screwing you over and having you work overtime for free, but you would not be there without them. Psychological manipulation to have people remember your product or company is the only thing that helps a startup. The sales team bring in a shitload of money to pay for your salary.
Economic wise I agree as 1/3 of a price of a car is just advertising according to my college economics book. But in reality if your employer doesn't use it a competitor will and take your job away. If your ad is not on Google Ad-sense in 2012 you are frankly dead.
What Microsoft needs though is not more advertising but better marketing. They need to make products more in tuned with the wants of corporate users who refuse to leave XP (think there is a reason there), and consumers. When Metro bombs next year they will surely regret not doing more market research. It seems to me they are trying to get more advertisers for BING with this acquisition, but meanwhile 85% of its users prefer Google and they need to focus on why to fix Bing. I try Bing all the time and it just is not as good as Google when you search or ask technical questions. It is 6 years behind.
You are a Senior Developer for a Bank. By all accounts, you should have job security. Why? Because banks are notorious for having antiquated technology, particularly in-house code. As a Senior Developer, you are in a position to make yourself irreplaceable. Dig your self into the old code that no one wants to touch. Dig in like a tick. If a) you are the only one who knows the language and b) the only one who can understand the logic, then they will keep you. Don't push it, because if they know you are extorting them they will cut off their arm to spite you. Lay low and know where the skeletons are buried. You should have no problem cruising through til retirement.
Banks consider everyone cost centers except the mortgage salespeople and the traders. You think you are invaluable but IT is not as respected when shit hits the fan. It is easier to be dirt cheap and just never update when times get tough. The fact that XP is so popular still is proof of this concept
I have tried that after being shown the door a few years ago.
It doesn't pay the bills and work is there sometimes. People want references and someone who can walk on water and can do no wrong. At 40+ I can imagine this guy will need health insurance too and it is will increasingly become expensive. I work maybe 50% of the time so I can not recommend it if his wife spends his money and makes him stay in that house that he has a 30 year mortgage on.
Sure you might be a millionaire, but the key is these guys invented something no one else thought of and made it to the market. Unless you have the next killer app or think of something cool that 5 billion people have not you will lose. No one will be willing to partner up as someone else is always prefered by customers who hate change.
Yeah no shit. I wouldn't want to risk it on my worst enemy.
My advice was (I admit I am younger than this guy) was to leave for greener pastures as he can tell his industry is not doing well and it is always easier to get a job when you have one.
HR sees my gap and freaks out! Right now I applied for minimium wage jobs as I am desperate and my wife already left me. I have a grant to go back to school but it is too little and too late at this point. I am becoming a teacher as I have subbed in the past and enjoy chatting and can move to a place I want to live.
You mentioned your whole industry and your company is not doing well. We have no idea how big that deck of cards with trading complex debt instruments are in Europe and you probably do not want to stick around and find out when countries start to default and pink slips go out.
So look elsewhere in a better industry? Construction is going up a little and internet.com, analytical marketing/big data, and cloud providers are the new growth markets right now. Apply to these companies? It is always better to have a job when you look for a job. Also it is best always to be a profit center, not a cost center. Banks see non traders as cost centers and do not value your time so you will be paid less and be let go first when there is a recession compared to the other industries I described above. In a.com you are a profit center and more alianged to the processes of your employer. This means you will be paid more and have more job security statistically. Go see the world and move somewhere else?
Another option is changing careers or getting a different education if you are worried that 40 is too old to code. Go get that MBA to move into management or a degree where you can combine your IT background in another profesison like marketing (big data analytics), or teaching.
I am only 35 but hit snags in my employment and it is near impossible to get back in. HR sees the gap and runs screaming. WHat I am doing is going for a teaching credential and changing my career path. It might not pay well for 5 years but if you are worred about a layoff you can get that as a backup and your pension will be paid for in 25 years and you can get $60k a year for life. I also get to choose where I move when I graduate too. You can teach math, computer science, and even business courses in middle school and highschool. It may not pay as much but you can do IT support and teaching for additional income for districts. For example a had a recruiter call me for a teaching/computer support job in rural Alaska for 70k a year!
I am going to aim for Alaska because I liked to live there in the past and can enjoy the summers and do outdoor activities. But that is just me. If you do decide to keep programming another company might give you more avenues of going into other things such as IT sales.
It all makes sense, when you realize Slashdot is made of more than one person. There are people on slashdot who are not happy with malware on Windows and advocate more of a walled garden, and then there are people who believe in freedom to install malware if they wanted to. So you have more than one set of people, moderating at different points of time, carrying different opinions at different strengths. And thus you have, what you call, hypocrisy in slashdot, when all individuals are perfectly non-hypocritical.
Yeah no kidding I was modded down to 0 because I said there is a problem with AV software not having the access in the walled garden to clean up a rootkit infection. Sigh moderators
There needs to be a balance though. Yes security is important but that does not mean banning all javascript except for the OS browser that came with it IE 10, Chrome, Safari, and no one else. Also at least with things like SecureBoot MS is nice enough to have an API for AV scanners to detect and remove rootkits.
I think AV software and alternative browsers should be installed. Walled Gardens are only effective if they block 100% of all exploits 100% of the time and protect the dumb user from themselves. Then it is hell as if one gets through the tools are all walled away from doing anything about it and detecting it. That is a bad design if you ask me.
I got his by 3 pieces of malware over the years. None of them were installed by choice but were drivebyes.
As a result I stopped using Firefox which does not have sandboxing, I switched to a decent AV package as I was one of those users who felt I didn't need AV as I never click on things and get infected so kept old AVG etc. I only have flash on Chrome which is sandboxed by default. I keep it UPDATED as no one updated flash prior to 2011. I manually disabled Java in all my browsers as I still use Eclipse etc. Created a seperate non admin account and have secure DNS now.
The average user does not go to these extremes to protect themselves and shouldn;t. My phone is not as flexible as a real PC is to lock down and have access to control by security software. It is not the users fault that they use XP which is horrible in terms of security and use flash 9 and adobe reader 7. This is a typical home PC BTW and non IT professionals have no idea these are holes and have no reason to leave XP.
Yes not using IE 6 is common sense today and statistics show they don't. That doesn't mean Firefox which is now much bigger and has no sandboxing is better.
Phones are worse as I can not update past Android 2.2 without rooting my phone. AT&T wants me to throw it away for another $450 phone and a 2 year contract to get the security fixes instead which is outrageous. Yes this is a problem and the platform sucks for AV software to find and remove these on the phone.
There will be one. My guess is MS will break their new promised annual IE update and include it with Windows 7 SP 2. They are more focused on getting it on Windows 8 with its WDM 1.2 graphics driver first, and then backporting it to WDM 1.1 since it heavily uses hardware acceleration unlike its past versions.
Still IE 10 can be awesome for now, just like IE 4 and 5 were good browsers at the time and then will turn into shit with its own proprietary extensions like we witnessed in IE 6.
We need more browsers and competition to prevent them doing something so crazy people will ignore the stnadard. If they own 80% of the market then web developers will focus just on IE and ignore the W3C as proprietary like we had from 2001-2007.
All the regular apps including AV software are crippled in a garden so an infection like this can not be cleaned up easily.
I have a phone that is probably infected as my Galaxy 1 is slow and its browser crashes once a day. There is no way to fix it either as AV software just looks for bad apps and does not check system files or anything else.
I support Mozilla because I do not want tablet makers deciding what browser I run and having webkit take over the market. The only reason IE 9/10 are somewhat decent browsers is because MS got its ass whopped on a silver platter by both Mozilla and Google.
Windows RT will be IE trident only with FF and Chrome negligated to the desktop mode only on x86. If MS gets rid of the desktop in Windows 9 you are screwed and it is no more Comodo Dragon for you!
Apple is evil too and is doing the same with Safari as Chrome for IOS is just a Safari skin with a limited no JIT version of javascript provided by Apple. Firefox shouldn't have to make its own OS to keep its browser relevant but no one will write laws or their representatives about this issue to change this. Even if I do not run Firefox anymore I sitll want them to be relevant as to enforce all the other browser makers to play nice. Still I can see Apple CSS with iStore integration, and Chrome's newest ajax requires Dart on Android, and all sorts of other horrors, but I hope I am wrong.
Got that nice Windows RT device from work? oops you have to use IE no other browser is supported. How about the shiny IPAD? Oops Safari only as Chrome is just a skin of Safari with a very crippled javascript engine, no dart support, other Apple lockins etc.
Firefox will be dead by the time WIndows 9 is out if MS kills the desktop as FF has to use the trident IE rendering engine in METRO mode.
...so it will only run a single core, single thread, and use up memory exponentially every minute it is on, requiring a complete reboot after three calls, right?
The memory problems were fixed in FF 8 & 9.
I know you were joking but I found FF 13.01 a drastic improvement over FF 5 which was the last one I used before ditching it last year! I guess not using it for so long the improvement was dramatic for me. I still wont switch to it full time from IE 9 and Chrome yet as Mozilla is still working out the wrinkles and bugs from its 6 week release, such as system restore messing up Mozilla Update and the new plugin api which ensures plugins do not break when updating is ready.
FF is fast and uses hardly any ram! I can have 30+ tabs open and it only uses 2 gigs of ram which is about the same as IE 9 and Chrome. Did I mention it is fast? FF 3.6 is sluggish in comparison.
FF needed a kick in the butt thanks to Chrome as its only competitor IE 6 was like trying to beat the retarded kid in an IQ test before Google came along.
The fact that IE will be the only browser in Windows RT is a bad thing and we finally broke free of IE 6 just 3 or 4 years ago. I remember just 4 years ago some sites I had to use IE still. I do not want those days again.
I love IE 9/10 and think they are great standards compliant browsers. But I do not agree on limiting choice no more than Apple owning 90% of the market with Safari would be just as evil and sue everyone out of existence. Only competition ensures they wont do something stupid as the expense of us and web developers everywhere.
Firefox was practically forced into it as I do not think it is fair that tablet and phone makers can bar competing browsers and javascript applications. FF will just be a skin for IE by the time Windows 9 comes about sadly.
Indeed, it seems to me that people have already chosen their ecosystems. It will be very difficult to break into that.
I could say the same argument about WindowsCE and Windows on the desktop 5 years ago? WindowsCE had a monopoly on the PDA market and consumers loved IE 6 and their MS only monopoly.
Windows RT will only use Trident and IE, and if MS decides to go Metro only in Windows 9 you can kiss Firefox goodbye.
iOS locks out javascript and competing browsers are just webkit Safari based with different UI skins. Andriod is it the same with webkit and only Chrome gets V8. Where does that leave Gecko or anyone else in the new browser wars?
What if IE takes 80% of the market again in 10 years? What is there to stop them from making IE 6 2.0? What is to stop Apple from making their own extensions to CSS and HTML that integrate with its iStore?
The more competitors the better as the DOJ and congress wont write laws to allow competitors to come in and with locked appliances being the standard.
The story describes XSS and flash vulnerabilities. Not people who click "DOWNLOAD HERE". Almost all Windows users who have said they do not run AV software and are clean are infected heavily. Mainly it is just a bad ad that uses flash to root the system as even Slashdot had one a few months ago that I reported to them.
Worse are the idiots who feel XP is superior and run their account as a full administrator
Most users know better today but I have had my system hosed with a flash ad before and used flashblock and no longer use Adobe Reader as a result.
I clicked them before. They just throw ads that do click fraud mostly and of course have download this here to fix it! Which of course is malware.
I didn't know you could report those domains. I should. I never click on the ones with IP addresses only. The point is the bad guys are now using this as AV software and newer versions of Windows are more protected and improved. No one uses IE 6 anymore to browse the web and most prefer Chrome now so these kinds of infections are harder as zero exploits are fixed fast.
It seems the crackers are now using dirty sites and SEO to attack ignorant users to them instead of targettng legit sites and injecting them with malware for drive byes like before.
Anyone else notice when searching for something techical in Google you will see comments which are identical in like 5 sites where 4 are just copied from the 5th? Some do not even have domain names as AV software can detect and block these. The comments are copied to make the site hit SEO numbers and have tons of ads that play videos wether you click on them or not so they can steal some money and some even inject malware.
It is frustrating as I have to click around 2 or 3 sites to get the legitimate article I am looking for or comments that deal with an article I want to read etc.
To get people to buy a new PC with 7 while they still can get it.
Actually that is not a bad idea. Not a marketing plan for MS which wants people to go to win 8, but I have seen some slashdotters who still have XP who are scared of Windows 8 and are ready to go to Windows 7 SOOn before the wrath of Win 8 hits.
There are many people with files and legacy apps. No one really knows of the Windows Transfer Wizard nor do they buy the cables to do this. But that is the main reason.
Not everyone knows enough to be comfortable reinstalling apps from CDs probably lost, moving files, pictures, desktop wallpapers, and those all mission essential desktop shortcuts. People get used to seeing the same thing every day for year after year and it is a psychological blow to see something different as it no longer is his or hers desktoop anymore in a mental sense.
That mental effort is the biggest hurdle more than the financial and for why? To replace something they already have that works??
Slashdot Mirror
Bash him all you want but he is a brilliant and great CEO.
He almost owned the internet too with IE 6 by taking it proprietary and halting to encourage client/server apps instead. Evil for us but great for his company. Balmer was the one who made MS from a tiger to a paper tiger in 10 years since he left.
Gates was not that slow with the internet. By 1996 he saw how serious it was after spending an all nighter in the computer lab browsing the web with Netscape and seeing how it can be used for apps. No one was even talking about a browser as a platform yet. He had the vision and IE (you may hate the browser today) invented AJAX to win over Netscape.
Is he right now? I do not know. My guess is he doesn't do much at Microsoft anymore besides lecture Balmer every now and then and focuses on his charity work. If he were still CEO I bet you Windows 8 would not be so hostile to desktop users and METRO would be much better.
Lets look at Apple in comparison? Their applets are more research driven for UI. On the IPAD I can use tabs on safari, the icons are pretty, everything is polished and detailed to the very way the icons move when I turn the device. Metro is very raw and not market research driven. Sure the R&D said tablets are the future, but Metro was not tested like IOS was.
Apple did the opposite approach with its applets running in MacOSX. It is just implemented terrible as a rush similiar to Vista .. just get the damn thing out already. The result is XP is still strong and wont damn die from that mistake.
If it's obvious to everyone that a company has problems, the worst possible thing a CEO can do is say everything is fine, because it makes everyone think he's out of touch or not interested in fixing what's wrong. A good CEO would acknowledge the problems and present a high-level plan for fixing them. Whistling past the graveyard just makes things worse.
At this time there is not much he can do. If I were him I would just sell his assets and give the money to the shareholders and turn off the lights and call it the day. BB has tried everything too late from tablets to putting full screen UIs like the IPhone. It is too late to do anything better or innovate as he is running in the red each day the lights stay on. The revenue is gone, his credit rating is gone, and only an angel investor can save it and why should one?
Maybe it's better to have a credible CEO who says things are going poorly than an untrustworthy CEO?
He is a new CEO as the other 2 CEOs (yes 2 of them) were fired by the shareholders. However, there is not much he can do right now. I doubt he can pull a Steve Jobs moment. That was only one time in business history was a company that far in the red that did such an awesome recovery.
You would be surprised what a good marketing and advertising campaign can do to your business.
We all hate them as they take money away from IT or salespeople make unreasonable expectations and gets bonuses for screwing you over and having you work overtime for free, but you would not be there without them. Psychological manipulation to have people remember your product or company is the only thing that helps a startup. The sales team bring in a shitload of money to pay for your salary.
Economic wise I agree as 1/3 of a price of a car is just advertising according to my college economics book. But in reality if your employer doesn't use it a competitor will and take your job away. If your ad is not on Google Ad-sense in 2012 you are frankly dead.
What Microsoft needs though is not more advertising but better marketing. They need to make products more in tuned with the wants of corporate users who refuse to leave XP (think there is a reason there), and consumers. When Metro bombs next year they will surely regret not doing more market research. It seems to me they are trying to get more advertisers for BING with this acquisition, but meanwhile 85% of its users prefer Google and they need to focus on why to fix Bing. I try Bing all the time and it just is not as good as Google when you search or ask technical questions. It is 6 years behind.
Go look that up?
Javascript is forbidden. You are running a special neutered version of it with a Firefox skin on safari.
You are a Senior Developer for a Bank. By all accounts, you should have job security. Why? Because banks are notorious for having antiquated technology, particularly in-house code. As a Senior Developer, you are in a position to make yourself irreplaceable. Dig your self into the old code that no one wants to touch. Dig in like a tick. If a) you are the only one who knows the language and b) the only one who can understand the logic, then they will keep you. Don't push it, because if they know you are extorting them they will cut off their arm to spite you. Lay low and know where the skeletons are buried. You should have no problem cruising through til retirement.
Banks consider everyone cost centers except the mortgage salespeople and the traders. You think you are invaluable but IT is not as respected when shit hits the fan. It is easier to be dirt cheap and just never update when times get tough. The fact that XP is so popular still is proof of this concept
I have tried that after being shown the door a few years ago.
It doesn't pay the bills and work is there sometimes. People want references and someone who can walk on water and can do no wrong. At 40+ I can imagine this guy will need health insurance too and it is will increasingly become expensive. I work maybe 50% of the time so I can not recommend it if his wife spends his money and makes him stay in that house that he has a 30 year mortgage on.
Sure you might be a millionaire, but the key is these guys invented something no one else thought of and made it to the market. Unless you have the next killer app or think of something cool that 5 billion people have not you will lose. No one will be willing to partner up as someone else is always prefered by customers who hate change.
Yeah no shit. I wouldn't want to risk it on my worst enemy.
My advice was (I admit I am younger than this guy) was to leave for greener pastures as he can tell his industry is not doing well and it is always easier to get a job when you have one.
HR sees my gap and freaks out! Right now I applied for minimium wage jobs as I am desperate and my wife already left me. I have a grant to go back to school but it is too little and too late at this point. I am becoming a teacher as I have subbed in the past and enjoy chatting and can move to a place I want to live.
You mentioned your whole industry and your company is not doing well. We have no idea how big that deck of cards with trading complex debt instruments are in Europe and you probably do not want to stick around and find out when countries start to default and pink slips go out.
So look elsewhere in a better industry? Construction is going up a little and internet .com, analytical marketing/big data, and cloud providers are the new growth markets right now. Apply to these companies? It is always better to have a job when you look for a job. Also it is best always to be a profit center, not a cost center. Banks see non traders as cost centers and do not value your time so you will be paid less and be let go first when there is a recession compared to the other industries I described above. In a .com you are a profit center and more alianged to the processes of your employer. This means you will be paid more and have more job security statistically. Go see the world and move somewhere else?
Another option is changing careers or getting a different education if you are worried that 40 is too old to code. Go get that MBA to move into management or a degree where you can combine your IT background in another profesison like marketing (big data analytics), or teaching.
I am only 35 but hit snags in my employment and it is near impossible to get back in. HR sees the gap and runs screaming. WHat I am doing is going for a teaching credential and changing my career path. It might not pay well for 5 years but if you are worred about a layoff you can get that as a backup and your pension will be paid for in 25 years and you can get $60k a year for life. I also get to choose where I move when I graduate too. You can teach math, computer science, and even business courses in middle school and highschool. It may not pay as much but you can do IT support and teaching for additional income for districts. For example a had a recruiter call me for a teaching/computer support job in rural Alaska for 70k a year!
I am going to aim for Alaska because I liked to live there in the past and can enjoy the summers and do outdoor activities. But that is just me. If you do decide to keep programming another company might give you more avenues of going into other things such as IT sales.
It all makes sense, when you realize Slashdot is made of more than one person. There are people on slashdot who are not happy with malware on Windows and advocate more of a walled garden, and then there are people who believe in freedom to install malware if they wanted to. So you have more than one set of people, moderating at different points of time, carrying different opinions at different strengths. And thus you have, what you call, hypocrisy in slashdot, when all individuals are perfectly non-hypocritical.
Yeah no kidding I was modded down to 0 because I said there is a problem with AV software not having the access in the walled garden to clean up a rootkit infection. Sigh moderators
There needs to be a balance though. Yes security is important but that does not mean banning all javascript except for the OS browser that came with it IE 10, Chrome, Safari, and no one else. Also at least with things like SecureBoot MS is nice enough to have an API for AV scanners to detect and remove rootkits.
I think AV software and alternative browsers should be installed. Walled Gardens are only effective if they block 100% of all exploits 100% of the time and protect the dumb user from themselves. Then it is hell as if one gets through the tools are all walled away from doing anything about it and detecting it. That is a bad design if you ask me.
I got his by 3 pieces of malware over the years. None of them were installed by choice but were drivebyes.
As a result I stopped using Firefox which does not have sandboxing, I switched to a decent AV package as I was one of those users who felt I didn't need AV as I never click on things and get infected so kept old AVG etc. I only have flash on Chrome which is sandboxed by default. I keep it UPDATED as no one updated flash prior to 2011. I manually disabled Java in all my browsers as I still use Eclipse etc. Created a seperate non admin account and have secure DNS now.
The average user does not go to these extremes to protect themselves and shouldn;t. My phone is not as flexible as a real PC is to lock down and have access to control by security software. It is not the users fault that they use XP which is horrible in terms of security and use flash 9 and adobe reader 7. This is a typical home PC BTW and non IT professionals have no idea these are holes and have no reason to leave XP.
Yes not using IE 6 is common sense today and statistics show they don't. That doesn't mean Firefox which is now much bigger and has no sandboxing is better.
Phones are worse as I can not update past Android 2.2 without rooting my phone. AT&T wants me to throw it away for another $450 phone and a 2 year contract to get the security fixes instead which is outrageous. Yes this is a problem and the platform sucks for AV software to find and remove these on the phone.
There will be one. My guess is MS will break their new promised annual IE update and include it with Windows 7 SP 2. They are more focused on getting it on Windows 8 with its WDM 1.2 graphics driver first, and then backporting it to WDM 1.1 since it heavily uses hardware acceleration unlike its past versions.
Still IE 10 can be awesome for now, just like IE 4 and 5 were good browsers at the time and then will turn into shit with its own proprietary extensions like we witnessed in IE 6.
We need more browsers and competition to prevent them doing something so crazy people will ignore the stnadard. If they own 80% of the market then web developers will focus just on IE and ignore the W3C as proprietary like we had from 2001-2007.
All the regular apps including AV software are crippled in a garden so an infection like this can not be cleaned up easily.
I have a phone that is probably infected as my Galaxy 1 is slow and its browser crashes once a day. There is no way to fix it either as AV software just looks for bad apps and does not check system files or anything else.
I support Mozilla because I do not want tablet makers deciding what browser I run and having webkit take over the market. The only reason IE 9/10 are somewhat decent browsers is because MS got its ass whopped on a silver platter by both Mozilla and Google.
Windows RT will be IE trident only with FF and Chrome negligated to the desktop mode only on x86. If MS gets rid of the desktop in Windows 9 you are screwed and it is no more Comodo Dragon for you!
Apple is evil too and is doing the same with Safari as Chrome for IOS is just a Safari skin with a limited no JIT version of javascript provided by Apple. Firefox shouldn't have to make its own OS to keep its browser relevant but no one will write laws or their representatives about this issue to change this. Even if I do not run Firefox anymore I sitll want them to be relevant as to enforce all the other browser makers to play nice. Still I can see Apple CSS with iStore integration, and Chrome's newest ajax requires Dart on Android, and all sorts of other horrors, but I hope I am wrong.
The problem it solves are OS maker lockins.
Got that nice Windows RT device from work? oops you have to use IE no other browser is supported. How about the shiny IPAD? Oops Safari only as Chrome is just a skin of Safari with a very crippled javascript engine, no dart support, other Apple lockins etc.
Firefox will be dead by the time WIndows 9 is out if MS kills the desktop as FF has to use the trident IE rendering engine in METRO mode.
...so it will only run a single core, single thread, and use up memory exponentially every minute it is on, requiring a complete reboot after three calls, right?
The memory problems were fixed in FF 8 & 9.
I know you were joking but I found FF 13.01 a drastic improvement over FF 5 which was the last one I used before ditching it last year! I guess not using it for so long the improvement was dramatic for me. I still wont switch to it full time from IE 9 and Chrome yet as Mozilla is still working out the wrinkles and bugs from its 6 week release, such as system restore messing up Mozilla Update and the new plugin api which ensures plugins do not break when updating is ready.
FF is fast and uses hardly any ram! I can have 30+ tabs open and it only uses 2 gigs of ram which is about the same as IE 9 and Chrome. Did I mention it is fast? FF 3.6 is sluggish in comparison.
FF needed a kick in the butt thanks to Chrome as its only competitor IE 6 was like trying to beat the retarded kid in an IQ test before Google came along.
The fact that IE will be the only browser in Windows RT is a bad thing and we finally broke free of IE 6 just 3 or 4 years ago. I remember just 4 years ago some sites I had to use IE still. I do not want those days again.
I love IE 9/10 and think they are great standards compliant browsers. But I do not agree on limiting choice no more than Apple owning 90% of the market with Safari would be just as evil and sue everyone out of existence. Only competition ensures they wont do something stupid as the expense of us and web developers everywhere.
Firefox was practically forced into it as I do not think it is fair that tablet and phone makers can bar competing browsers and javascript applications. FF will just be a skin for IE by the time Windows 9 comes about sadly.
Indeed, it seems to me that people have already chosen their ecosystems. It will be very difficult to break into that.
I could say the same argument about WindowsCE and Windows on the desktop 5 years ago? WindowsCE had a monopoly on the PDA market and consumers loved IE 6 and their MS only monopoly.
Man, has the world changed fast since then.
Yes!
Windows RT will only use Trident and IE, and if MS decides to go Metro only in Windows 9 you can kiss Firefox goodbye.
iOS locks out javascript and competing browsers are just webkit Safari based with different UI skins. Andriod is it the same with webkit and only Chrome gets V8. Where does that leave Gecko or anyone else in the new browser wars?
What if IE takes 80% of the market again in 10 years? What is there to stop them from making IE 6 2.0? What is to stop Apple from making their own extensions to CSS and HTML that integrate with its iStore?
The more competitors the better as the DOJ and congress wont write laws to allow competitors to come in and with locked appliances being the standard.
That is a false perception.
The story describes XSS and flash vulnerabilities. Not people who click "DOWNLOAD HERE". Almost all Windows users who have said they do not run AV software and are clean are infected heavily. Mainly it is just a bad ad that uses flash to root the system as even Slashdot had one a few months ago that I reported to them.
Worse are the idiots who feel XP is superior and run their account as a full administrator
Most users know better today but I have had my system hosed with a flash ad before and used flashblock and no longer use Adobe Reader as a result.
I clicked them before. They just throw ads that do click fraud mostly and of course have download this here to fix it! Which of course is malware.
I didn't know you could report those domains. I should. I never click on the ones with IP addresses only. The point is the bad guys are now using this as AV software and newer versions of Windows are more protected and improved. No one uses IE 6 anymore to browse the web and most prefer Chrome now so these kinds of infections are harder as zero exploits are fixed fast.
It seems the crackers are now using dirty sites and SEO to attack ignorant users to them instead of targettng legit sites and injecting them with malware for drive byes like before.
Anyone else notice when searching for something techical in Google you will see comments which are identical in like 5 sites where 4 are just copied from the 5th? Some do not even have domain names as AV software can detect and block these. The comments are copied to make the site hit SEO numbers and have tons of ads that play videos wether you click on them or not so they can steal some money and some even inject malware.
It is frustrating as I have to click around 2 or 3 sites to get the legitimate article I am looking for or comments that deal with an article I want to read etc.
Just a difference in tactics.
To get people to buy a new PC with 7 while they still can get it.
Actually that is not a bad idea. Not a marketing plan for MS which wants people to go to win 8, but I have seen some slashdotters who still have XP who are scared of Windows 8 and are ready to go to Windows 7 SOOn before the wrath of Win 8 hits.
There are many people with files and legacy apps. No one really knows of the Windows Transfer Wizard nor do they buy the cables to do this. But that is the main reason.
Not everyone knows enough to be comfortable reinstalling apps from CDs probably lost, moving files, pictures, desktop wallpapers, and those all mission essential desktop shortcuts. People get used to seeing the same thing every day for year after year and it is a psychological blow to see something different as it no longer is his or hers desktoop anymore in a mental sense.
That mental effort is the biggest hurdle more than the financial and for why? To replace something they already have that works??