"Can't say much for Linux developers, you guys are still trying to keep up. Keep trying? There's got to be one or two people who want to use crap software."
And Microsoft is trying to catch up with Apple... At least Linux users can get their "crap software" for free:) Windows users (like myself) have to pay through our noses for legal copies of Windows.
By the way, I've found some recent Linux distributions even easier to install than Windows XP. Funny, that. (Yes, I do get to use Linux even though I use Windows on my own PC.)
"And it's not like Google's first result is always the best. Recent studies show wide disparity between various engines for the top results."
Exactly. You are Daniel Brandt, the guy behind google-watch.org, and you created GW because your insignificant site which no one linked to wasn't ranked as #1 on Google for searches on people in the U.S. administration.
You were pissed off, and decided to have your revenge. Daniel is your name, Slander and lies against Google is your game.
You basically have no credibility what so ever when you talk about Google.
"Moreover, all the several-year-old Google bombs still work."
These are exceedingly lame. They are terms hardly anyone uses or links to, so it's no wonder Google doesn't have any high-ranking links for those. The only value of "Google bombing" is for the fun of it.
"When a company forms into a corporation, the board usually symbolizes the end of innovative thought for a company."
But how innovative has Mozilla been so far? The Mozilla Suite was Netscape all over, and then came Firefox, which aimed to be similar to IE to make it easy to migrate from IE to Firefox.
The only thing close to innovation is the extensions system, although IE has been extensible for years.
This could be a good thing if Mozilla wants to grow, although I am puzzled by Mitchell's comment that they won't be pursuing a profit. Is there such a thing as a non-profit corporation? Surely, they will need to turn a profit to bring in money for the Mozilla Foundation?
One might also wonder how everyone who has contributed to Mozilla's development because it was a project they believed in will feel. A lot of people have contributed to Mozilla through the years, and now Mozilla is going to profit?
In the end, I guess this is what it takes to take the battle with Microsoft to the next step.
But will Mozilla now lose the funding it receives from Google, IBM, Sun, and so on? Until now, hasn't Mozilla simply received donations from these and other large companies who didn't want to see Mozilla die?
"The original article is called "Windows Guru calls for Boycott of IE7". IE7."
Actually, the context of this part of the discussion was the following:
"In fact, I think I'll take it a step further and boycott Windows as well."
And then the post you replied to:
"and what do we do with all our windows software?"
In other words, we were talking about operating systems, not browsers. Yes, (semi) off-topic discussions do appear on Slashdot, and this was one of them.
"I wouldn't call either Firefox or Opera a Windows browser"
They are primarily Windows browsers. But that wasn't my point. My point was that not all Windows software is created by Microsoft. Indeed, not all Windows software is "evil".
"All WIN32 software is Microsoft software."
Of course not. Or are you saying that Firefox is "Microsoft software"?
"If you're going take the time to hit the reply button, please reply with something coherant and meaningful that actually adds to the discussion."
Says Mr. Knee-Jerk himself...
Look, I can understand that you are embarrassed for your knee-jerk response where you completely failed to understand what people were discussing, but there's no need to attack me for a mistake you made yourself. I just corrected your mistake. Accept it and move on.
"This is the same bullshit that M$ has used to justify gimping web development for almost 10 years now. Throw it away -- it's CRAP. Continuing to sacrifice standards and innovation on the altar of compatibility for a sub-standard operating system and it's hamstrung retarded cousin the IE browser has become a tired and specious argument."
He said "Windows software", didn't he? In other words, not necessarily software by Microsoft. There are lots of nice programs for Windows, not to mention games! Heck, isn't Firefox primarily a Windows browser? As is Opera.
"A store that has an open sign is actively inviting people into the store. It's the accepted purpose of the sign to begin with. The same thing with your bus example. A bus is a public form of transportation, so when the door is open, it's common knowledge that it's okay to walk onto the bus."
And when you connect to a WiFi network you actually request access:
You: Can I have access?
Access point: Sure! Here's your IP address.
"The problem is that Opera fanatics can't stand criticism, and any time someone makes noises like their browser isn't the best in the world, or the company's employees don't walk on water, they get all defensive and claiming to be unfairly treated by others."
This is, of course, yet more nonsense.
You claim that Opera Software keeps whining about things, which was clearly a lie, as demonstrated by my picking apart your claims one by one.
You claim that Opera's fans are nuts, but Opera fans are not the ones who have a terrible reputation online.
You claim that Opera Software put down others, but you have clearly not seen this guy called "Asa", who works for MoFo, and who keeps lying and spreading FUD about Opera in his own blog. You use an interview with Opera's CEO where he finally speaks out after taking a lot of crap from Mozilla for a long time, and you call it "whining".
You prove my point, as you continue to put down Opera, and you conveniently ignore the fact that Mozilla and its fans are well known for low blows against others.
Where do the company's employees get all defensive and claiming to be unfairly treated? Since you claim that this happens all the time, then surely you must have a lot of evidence to pick and choose from!
Your comment about "Opera fanatics" is also odd, seeing as you are the one getting defensive because I pointed out how silly your comment about "whining" was.
Don't throw stones in glass houses. Before accusing an entire group of users of being "defensive", try to not get all defensive yourself when your BS is exposed.
"Stating facts isn't bitching. Trying to make yourself look good and at the same time blaming others for your problems is bitching, however."
You don't get it do you? The CEO was interviewed and asked about usage stats. What do you expect him to do? Suck up to Firefox fans and pretend like stats give an accurate picture of the browser market?
I know that Mozilla loves to pretend that they came up with all these new things, while most of it was introduced by Opera ages ago. I also know that Mozilla fans love to put down Opera even though Mozilla has relied heavily on Opera for most of its nice features. What's so sad is that Mozilla fans such as yourself are desperate to put down Opera when the fact is that you owe it a lot.
Heck, how many people are paid by MoFo to work at the W3C? Opera has several.
"They whine all the time. The CEO whined about Opera being undercounted and Firefox overcounted in the stats."
So what you are saying is that if a journalist asks you a question and you answer it, you are whining? Nice.
"They whined (and borked!, and apparently sued!!) when Microsoft websites sent them broken code.\"
So what you are saying is that it is perfectly OK to purposedly break your site in Opera and lie about it? And satire/joking to make a serious point is whining too? Nice.
"They whined when Apple came out with Safari, and made noises like they wouldn't continue developing Opera on the Mac because of unfair competition."
This is the only case of "whining" that you've found. You would be whining too if people threatened your livelyhood. But hey, I'll give you this one.
However, your other explaines of "whining" aren't whining at all, and you are making yourself look silly by spreading FUD and lies about Opera.
"And that's just the company itself. Don't even get me started on how Opera's users whine (Hey, Opera had that feature first! They stole it from us!). Damn, I already got started."
Don't get me started on Firefox users (such as yourself), who constantly flame Opera, Opera Software, its users, and so on. No wonder Firefox fans have a terrible reputation.
And you know what? Opera users are right to be pissed off when a bunch of kids rip off features from Opera and brag about them as if they came up with them. And once they've done the ripping off they'll start lying about Opera and putting it down.
If it hadn't been for Opera, Firefox wouldn't have had half the features or extensions it does today.
So yeah, I think Opera and its users are entitled to criticize Firefox zealots like yourself for lying and misrepresenting facts.
Slashdot:"This is seen, by some, as a move that will bring up Opera's usage stats a bit higher, and will hopefully make webmasters, who develop IE centric sites, more aware of Opera."
You:"Not likely. Our stats package can supposedly detect Opera's spoofed UA, and I'm still seeing numbers like 0.2%."
You apparently don't get it. Pointing out the fact that Opera is undercounted when someone tries a cheap shot and makes a point about how "no one using Opera" is not whining.
The slavery point was that just because you are pointing out that something isn't right doesn't mean that you are "whining". When someone points out that Opera is being discriminated against, either because stats don't count it correctly, or because someone specifically blocks Opera from a site, it is not whining. Especially not if someone asked them about it, and they responded.
"Surely they were aware of the risk of not being counted properly when they made the decision to spoof their User agent. It was their decision, and they knew what they were doing. They need to live with the (minor, imho) consequences, or fix it (as they're finally doing, good for them.)"
I still don't get it. Opera can't point out the fact that it identifies as IE by default and that this causes it to be undercounted because Opera identifies as IE by default?
"My comments were about Opera the company"
And when, pray tell, has Opera Software "whined"?
"I said no such thing. Your English comprehension skills may be lame, but I said no such thing about the Opera browser."
No, but you said it about Opera the company. Learn English yourself, why don't you...
"Opera is a great browser for both speed and standards. However it lacks simplicity and is/too/ rich a browser."
Have you actually tried Opera 8? It's got "everything" disabled by default and stuff doesn't appear unless you start using it. The "Opera is too complicated" argument doesn't work anymore.
"Mine is that Opera bitches that Firefox's stats are inflated, but at the same time they mask their own user agent string."
Since when has stating facts been "bitching"? Opera just stated some things that contribute to Opera's figures not being as high as they should be.
Or are you saying that if a journalist contacts you to ask you a question, your answer to the journalist is automatically "bitching" if it isn't totally positive?
"Actually it reinforces my opinion that "flawed stats" are an excuse that allows Opera Fans over-estimate their marketshare by dismissing any emprical evidence that runs counter to their assumptions (just what you did)."
Empirical evidence actually shows that Opera is usually under-counted. There are several reasons for this, such as Opera caching more than other browsers, and other things.
"Opera's issue with stat packages are their problem, not mine, and one I'm glad to hear they are addressing."
Why are you bitching at me? I'm not the one who cited stats from my own site and pretended that they represent the entire world.
Maybe Firefox or IE aren't "just as good" for everyone. Maybe people have different needs. Maybe some people just want a small, fast, feature-rich browser which is secure, and which doesn't require tons of confusing extensions to do various things.
"So is it possible that Opera took this as a slap in the face and maybe are starting to change their opinion of their place in the world, i.e. "if I can't easily detect your browser I can't begin to fix my code"?"
No.
First of all, Meyer might be a big CSS guru and all, but the creator of CSS actually works for Opera, and Meyer's word on browser useragent strings doesn't really make much of a difference if you are going to use Opera on real web sites.
Also, you can easily detect Opera even when you identify as IE. It still includes "Opera" in the user agent string.
So no. Meyer is irrelevant when it comes to changing the user agent string, as far as I can tell.
"Our stats package can supposedly detect Opera's spoofed UA"
Supposedly?
"and I'm still seeing numbers like 0.2%."
Doesn't that tell you that the "supposedly" above might be wrong? Most people agree that (even with today's flawed browser stats), Opera has at least closer to one per cent globally.
"Opera (the company) has always whined that they weren't being properly counted because of they defaulted to pretending to be IE, so it'll be good to finally remove this whine. (Of course, they can still whine about it, as they'll say it's people using older versions, or people who have changed it manually, so maybe nothing will change.)"
I don't get it.
In what way is pointing out the fact that sites often fail to detect Opera because it spoofs as IE by default whining?
What do you mean by "whining" anyway?
Is it whining if your browser is being discriminated against, and you make a point of that? Were the black slaves in the US "whining" when they wanted freedom? Were those who wanted to abolish slavery "whining"? Yeah, I'm purposedly exaggerating slightly, but surely you get my point.
I don't get the hostility towards Opera. The company pays several people to work with web standards in the W3C. The guy who invented CSS works for the company. Even as tiny as Opera is it has still defined what a modern browser is supposed to do. A lot of the "innovations" in Firefox and IE7 were introduced by Opera. Heck, the company even officially opposes software patents, so it's not even trying to prevent free software from just doing whatever Opera can do (or at least trying). Stuff Mozilla representatives are bragging about in Minimo, such as Small Screen Rendering, spatial navigation, and other things Minimo is supposedly going to revolutionize the mobile browser market with, were invented by Opera, and have been available to users of mobile phones with Opera on them for ages.
Why the constant derogatory comments about Opera on Slashdot? I mean, the first paragraph you wrote was informative, but then you just had to add that second paragraph to make sure that you showed everyone how you really think Opera is lame, "so please don't mod me down for saying something remotely positive about Opera"?
I don't know why I liked GoW so much. Maybe I was taken in by the hype?
It was just a game where you got to know the main character, and the locations were incredible. Everything seemed to fit together, and the result was a game that sucked me into it and held my interest from beginning to end. I have yet to find someone who doesn't think the game is great.
And the graphics... Of course they could have been more than matched by GC or Xbox. It's just that they were amazing by PS2 standards. PS2 always was inferior to the others when it cames to graphics.
The puzzles were "simple", but I guess that's part of what made it great. It never got frustrating. It was challenging, but I never felt like giving up.
As I said, the only consoles I had prior to this were Nintendo consoles (NES, SNES). I'm mostly into PC gaming, but then I got a PS2, and heard great things about God of War.
And GoW delivered IMHO. It was just extremely polished. Huge levels, huge enemies. You definitely did not beat up the same enemies over and over. There was a lot of variety, as a matter of fact.
I really want Nintendo to kick ass. I am a closed Nintendo fanboy. But Sony Computer Entertainment Europe did something amazing with God of War. They pulled me in, and kept me there for the whole ride. Not many games have managed to do that during the last few years. If God of War 2 is as good as God of War, I might just get a PS3 only to play the sequel.
I do, actually. Have you read the comments that are posted when a story about Opera appears on Slashdot? Or if Opera is mentioned in any online forum? Firefox fanboys are there right away to tell everyone how crappy and bloated Opera is, how its JS sucks, and so on.
"Lots of people don't like the interface (its not really like firefox)"
Lots of people don't like the interface because it's not really like Firefox? Let me tell you this: I like Opera's interface exactly because it's not like Firefox. It's more responsive and does a lot more by default, and yet stays uncluttered.
"its Javascript implementation (while getting better) is barely as good as IE"
What is that supposed to mean? Opera has 100% complete support for JavaScript, and lots of IE proprietary extensions. Like Firefox. That Opera sucks at JS/DOM is a myth from before Opera got proper DOM support. Yet Firefox fanboys continue to spread the lie.
"and the fonts look terrible everytime I've tried to use it in Linux."
Never had any problems with that on any Linux PC running Opera. Then again, I mostly use Windows, so it doesn't really matter to me.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, I've found some recent Linux distributions even easier to install than Windows XP. Funny, that. (Yes, I do get to use Linux even though I use Windows on my own PC.)
You were pissed off, and decided to have your revenge. Daniel is your name, Slander and lies against Google is your game.
You basically have no credibility what so ever when you talk about Google.
These are exceedingly lame. They are terms hardly anyone uses or links to, so it's no wonder Google doesn't have any high-ranking links for those. The only value of "Google bombing" is for the fun of it.The only thing close to innovation is the extensions system, although IE has been extensible for years.
One might also wonder how everyone who has contributed to Mozilla's development because it was a project they believed in will feel. A lot of people have contributed to Mozilla through the years, and now Mozilla is going to profit?
In the end, I guess this is what it takes to take the battle with Microsoft to the next step.
But will Mozilla now lose the funding it receives from Google, IBM, Sun, and so on? Until now, hasn't Mozilla simply received donations from these and other large companies who didn't want to see Mozilla die?
"In fact, I think I'll take it a step further and boycott Windows as well."
And then the post you replied to:
"and what do we do with all our windows software?"
In other words, we were talking about operating systems, not browsers. Yes, (semi) off-topic discussions do appear on Slashdot, and this was one of them.
They are primarily Windows browsers. But that wasn't my point. My point was that not all Windows software is created by Microsoft. Indeed, not all Windows software is "evil". Of course not. Or are you saying that Firefox is "Microsoft software"? Says Mr. Knee-Jerk himself...Look, I can understand that you are embarrassed for your knee-jerk response where you completely failed to understand what people were discussing, but there's no need to attack me for a mistake you made yourself. I just corrected your mistake. Accept it and move on.
You: Can I have access?
Access point: Sure! Here's your IP address.
You claim that Opera Software keeps whining about things, which was clearly a lie, as demonstrated by my picking apart your claims one by one.
You claim that Opera's fans are nuts, but Opera fans are not the ones who have a terrible reputation online.
You claim that Opera Software put down others, but you have clearly not seen this guy called "Asa", who works for MoFo, and who keeps lying and spreading FUD about Opera in his own blog. You use an interview with Opera's CEO where he finally speaks out after taking a lot of crap from Mozilla for a long time, and you call it "whining".
You prove my point, as you continue to put down Opera, and you conveniently ignore the fact that Mozilla and its fans are well known for low blows against others.
Where do the company's employees get all defensive and claiming to be unfairly treated? Since you claim that this happens all the time, then surely you must have a lot of evidence to pick and choose from!
Your comment about "Opera fanatics" is also odd, seeing as you are the one getting defensive because I pointed out how silly your comment about "whining" was.
Don't throw stones in glass houses. Before accusing an entire group of users of being "defensive", try to not get all defensive yourself when your BS is exposed.
The argument is about how Firefox fanboys constantly whine and lie about Opera.
Nice try. You are flaming Opera by claiming that they "whine".
I know that Mozilla loves to pretend that they came up with all these new things, while most of it was introduced by Opera ages ago. I also know that Mozilla fans love to put down Opera even though Mozilla has relied heavily on Opera for most of its nice features. What's so sad is that Mozilla fans such as yourself are desperate to put down Opera when the fact is that you owe it a lot.
Heck, how many people are paid by MoFo to work at the W3C? Opera has several.
However, your other explaines of "whining" aren't whining at all, and you are making yourself look silly by spreading FUD and lies about Opera.
Don't get me started on Firefox users (such as yourself), who constantly flame Opera, Opera Software, its users, and so on. No wonder Firefox fans have a terrible reputation.And you know what? Opera users are right to be pissed off when a bunch of kids rip off features from Opera and brag about them as if they came up with them. And once they've done the ripping off they'll start lying about Opera and putting it down.
If it hadn't been for Opera, Firefox wouldn't have had half the features or extensions it does today.
So yeah, I think Opera and its users are entitled to criticize Firefox zealots like yourself for lying and misrepresenting facts.
You: "Not likely. Our stats package can supposedly detect Opera's spoofed UA, and I'm still seeing numbers like 0.2%."
The slavery point was that just because you are pointing out that something isn't right doesn't mean that you are "whining". When someone points out that Opera is being discriminated against, either because stats don't count it correctly, or because someone specifically blocks Opera from a site, it is not whining. Especially not if someone asked them about it, and they responded.
I still don't get it. Opera can't point out the fact that it identifies as IE by default and that this causes it to be undercounted because Opera identifies as IE by default? And when, pray tell, has Opera Software "whined"? No, but you said it about Opera the company. Learn English yourself, why don't you...Or are you saying that if a journalist contacts you to ask you a question, your answer to the journalist is automatically "bitching" if it isn't totally positive?
Maybe Firefox or IE aren't "just as good" for everyone. Maybe people have different needs. Maybe some people just want a small, fast, feature-rich browser which is secure, and which doesn't require tons of confusing extensions to do various things.
First of all, Meyer might be a big CSS guru and all, but the creator of CSS actually works for Opera, and Meyer's word on browser useragent strings doesn't really make much of a difference if you are going to use Opera on real web sites.
Also, you can easily detect Opera even when you identify as IE. It still includes "Opera" in the user agent string.
So no. Meyer is irrelevant when it comes to changing the user agent string, as far as I can tell.
In what way is pointing out the fact that sites often fail to detect Opera because it spoofs as IE by default whining?
What do you mean by "whining" anyway?
Is it whining if your browser is being discriminated against, and you make a point of that? Were the black slaves in the US "whining" when they wanted freedom? Were those who wanted to abolish slavery "whining"? Yeah, I'm purposedly exaggerating slightly, but surely you get my point.
I don't get the hostility towards Opera. The company pays several people to work with web standards in the W3C. The guy who invented CSS works for the company. Even as tiny as Opera is it has still defined what a modern browser is supposed to do. A lot of the "innovations" in Firefox and IE7 were introduced by Opera. Heck, the company even officially opposes software patents, so it's not even trying to prevent free software from just doing whatever Opera can do (or at least trying). Stuff Mozilla representatives are bragging about in Minimo, such as Small Screen Rendering, spatial navigation, and other things Minimo is supposedly going to revolutionize the mobile browser market with, were invented by Opera, and have been available to users of mobile phones with Opera on them for ages.
Why the constant derogatory comments about Opera on Slashdot? I mean, the first paragraph you wrote was informative, but then you just had to add that second paragraph to make sure that you showed everyone how you really think Opera is lame, "so please don't mod me down for saying something remotely positive about Opera"?
It was just a game where you got to know the main character, and the locations were incredible. Everything seemed to fit together, and the result was a game that sucked me into it and held my interest from beginning to end. I have yet to find someone who doesn't think the game is great.
And the graphics... Of course they could have been more than matched by GC or Xbox. It's just that they were amazing by PS2 standards. PS2 always was inferior to the others when it cames to graphics.
The puzzles were "simple", but I guess that's part of what made it great. It never got frustrating. It was challenging, but I never felt like giving up.
As I said, the only consoles I had prior to this were Nintendo consoles (NES, SNES). I'm mostly into PC gaming, but then I got a PS2, and heard great things about God of War.
And GoW delivered IMHO. It was just extremely polished. Huge levels, huge enemies. You definitely did not beat up the same enemies over and over. There was a lot of variety, as a matter of fact.
I really want Nintendo to kick ass. I am a closed Nintendo fanboy. But Sony Computer Entertainment Europe did something amazing with God of War. They pulled me in, and kept me there for the whole ride. Not many games have managed to do that during the last few years. If God of War 2 is as good as God of War, I might just get a PS3 only to play the sequel.
Heck, even Mozilla employees keep putting down Opera and even lying about it :(
Lots of people don't like the interface because it's not really like Firefox? Let me tell you this: I like Opera's interface exactly because it's not like Firefox. It's more responsive and does a lot more by default, and yet stays uncluttered. What is that supposed to mean? Opera has 100% complete support for JavaScript, and lots of IE proprietary extensions. Like Firefox. That Opera sucks at JS/DOM is a myth from before Opera got proper DOM support. Yet Firefox fanboys continue to spread the lie. Never had any problems with that on any Linux PC running Opera. Then again, I mostly use Windows, so it doesn't really matter to me.