I wonder if there are websites that F up alternate browsers? I see a similar complaint on the Opera forums quite a lot(not that site, but devientart causes Opera to go into fits for lots of people).
This is the problem with allowing websites to be sloppy rather than requiring strict syntax like a compiler - some site will seriously screw up the various browsers while they try and figure out what it's trying to do...
Hmmm, my laptop has an external switch to turn on or off the wireless card. Probably so you can use it in hospitals or on airplanes and the like. I would guess most laptops would, mine was quite cheap...
First, freenet currently works in the browser as a proxy - so install freenet, and start it, it will work just like that(well, not really as it uses horrendus cryptographic keys rather than freenet://uri)
Second, the more recent versions of freenet are far more usable than any I've ever tried before. I actually can load content, a page in often a minute or so (for freenet, that's fast!).
I think this is where there are differences. First, I have yet to see a useful extension that could not be replicated for any browser via another helper program or userjs or whatever.
Second, what I do see is the possibility of exploits for extensions same as BHOs in IE.
Third, I see many people having popular extensions break when they upgrade.
For me, extensions seem to be far more a hassle than they are worth. And as far as I can tell, there are enough people out there who feel the same to make Opera profitable. And that, not market share, is what matters to me as an Opera user.
This may come out snarky, but Opera is developed as an Internet Suite. So I don't believe they have any interest in designing just (or even primarily) a browser. If that doesn't fit what you want, as it's closed source, I would guess you probably won't want to use it for very long.
I mean, you can drive a screw in with a hammer, it's just somewhat more difficult.
On a more serious note - most features are modules, only loaded into memory if you use them. So, I never have mail loaded in Opera, as I don't use it. So it doesn't slow me down.
Yeah, Opera's only added 25KB to the dll file. I'd say that's acceptable bloat to turn an esoteric download protocol into the equivelent of HTTP or FTP downloads.
Well, the question here is, should a user really have to know how their router works, or how to forward ports, or even what ports are to download a patch?
Previously to the BT idea, people went to the website, and clicked a download link. Or, the updated connected via FTP or HTTP out to download the update.
In either case, that just worked - they didn't need to know they were behind a router, what ports the client used, or how to forward them (or to set a static IP on the pc you are forwarding to). So, compared to previous experiances they had, this one was worse/broken.
Of course, this also clearly shows why many people don't know it, but would like IPv6 and getting away from NAT.
But isn't this just glorified autosave ever 5 minutes? So worst case senario, you could lose everything up to 4min 59sec ago? So then the gp claim is wrong...?
I'm just saying I think there is some serious overestimation as to how much Office contributes to Windows dominance.
I'd say (well you come across this way) you think it's 85% of what keeps Windows dominant.
I'd say it's more like 40%. You can run MS Office on Mac OSX and Linux(with crossover office) today, and there is no mass exodus. Also, about every office program I've seen, OO.org, Lotus SmartSuite, Etc... can open and save Office formats, not perfectly, but about as well as different versions of Office. And that's been true for over a decade also. Still no mass exodus.
I maintain that while Office is important, it is not more than one leg of what keeps Windows propped up. Removing Office won't get people to switch.
Because you still haven't addressed games, consumer hardware, ActiveX intranet apps, Exchange schedule management etc... The list goes on.
Well. Not exactly. There's all sorts of stuff that's windows only to the average user and even power user.
Such as the software for my CyberPower UPS I just bought. Or the drivers and software for my Epson Printer. Let's not forget our webcam. Or my Scanner.
Then there is the Games. Granted, it *is* shrinking for the PC, but a lot of people still do PC gaming (think WoW). Not to mention the college students who have a PC and do the occasional games but don't have a TV or console(too poor, can't convince parents to buy them, don't want to lug them around, can't fit in dorm room).
Then there's all the stuff that supports Linux, but not as well as Windows - like Hamachi for instance, which doesn't have a GUI for linux. Guess what, most people either won't or can't use something that doesn't have a GUI.
Well, I don't know about doing All the existing one does, but certainly doing Almost all is important.
For instance the reason many people switch to FireFox or Opera vs IE is because either one does ~98% of what IE does for the average user, *plus* much more in the in your face UI area - the area users are likely to notice (The quintessential Tabs and such).
Many home users *could* switch over to Linux today, but it'd be painful. They'd lose a lot - I'd estimate about 50% functionality(Games, Hardware control programs for printers, UPS, etc), and 80% famaliariy(How installation goes, the little differences between OO.org and MS Office).
I figure for any sort of mass exodus to another OS, we'd need to get the functionality to within 95% and the familarity near 80%. That's a long way to go, towards a moving target. I have my doubts we'll ever do that.
However, there's another aspect. At some point, the hassles + price may start to tilt the balance. For instance, I really like eating at Red Lobster, and the price isn't too bad, but I almost never go there. Because of the minimum 30 minute wait, more often an hour. That kind of time will get me to try an unknown restaraunt, or even go to the Outback instead, even though it's totally different.
MS Activation already pisses off a lot of people - I'm lucky because i got a site license from my college, and don't have to deal with a lot of the crap I see posted on the net. Increased DRM, more and more security breaches, and more and more load from the "protection" software + price for them may start to make people willing to change the way they think.
Look at how hybrids are taking off in the US. If you're looking at saving $15 every fill up, many people start to take notice. And start to think, my SUV is nice, but I could be using that $60 or more a month for (Cable TV/New Shoes/New Game/Pay down loan/etc...).
Traffic doesn't go through a third party server, beyond the initial setup. Also, once released it will allow you as a company to buy the server to do the initial connections too.
You're wrong. Up until about 1997 or so, in upstate NY it was common for people to be on a party line - shared by 4 or so houses. If you stuck a normal phone on there, it would ring whenever anyone called that line. In fact, to call from one party line house to another, you'd have to call, hang up, then pick up again.
The special party line phones somehow filtered out the other #s ringing, but anyway - there were until recently party lines in the US.
However, I do think that we need to get away from NAT - it's a big pain. I have to use hamachi with my friends to run my FTP server becasue I can't figure out how to get it to work past the router/modem the DSL uses. And I had to call tech support to get my e-mail server running.
Well, let's turn that around. Why would you only expect to get paid once for the table you build, but paid apparently forever for the book you write?
Also, it comes down to whether you belive that copyright (is/should be) about ownership of ideas or promotion of creativity/innovation.
Currently, it seems you and the industries believe in the first - that you should be able to not only own an idea, but you should own that forever, as well as anything based (derived) from it.
The problem with this is that humans a)aren't that creative, and b)cannot create in a vaccuume.
You will eventually end up with no one being able to make anything, due to the amount of people he would have to pay for it. Or, you end up with the situations of today where you can't even find who to pay to get permission to use/build on the idea, so essentially you cannot use/build on the idea.
Do you see why that might be bad?
Now, if you believe, as I do(and the founding fathers seemed to), that copyright should be about promoting creativity/innovation, then you would think we are very far from that now, and are going in bad direction.
Here is the senario:
If an author currently writes a book: and it's bad - the author will need to write another one (or get another job, but bear with me) to make more money to live.
If it's mediocre, he's working on another book in a few years for the same reason, more money.
But if he writes a best seller, one that is endlessly reprintable(and he isn't in a rather stupid contract of some reason) - like Salavatore's Dark Elf Trilogy, or Tom Clancy's books - He's got a gaurenteed revenue stream.
He never needs to come up with a new world or characters, and if his book is popular enough - Rowling perhaps - there's no economic incentive to ever write another thing again. Just keep reprinting the books and getting the royalties.
Now, we pass that on to his kids. Well, they never have to work, nor be creative - they're still living off the reprint royalties of their dad's work. Now imagine we turn that into eternal copyright. Well, a whole family has been turned into a group that never has to work again, never has any economic incentive to create. It's a drag on the economy - they produce nothing of value.
Worse, other people who might have interesting ideas cannot use the characters or world to tell their stories - we not only lose out on the family, we lose out on other creative talent.
So, it's promoting the opposite of creativity/innovation. This will lead to no new books eventually - there's only one or seven plots if you ask the english teachers after all.
I still have to say, it doesn't cost very much compared to earlier times to create things. Especially books.
There is a huge amount of material on the internet that at most cost the people time that is as good as anything you can buy. There's a lot of crap too, but hey - look at movies today:)
The point I'm making is that creation of, say, books is nearing $0. There's time involved, sure, but typing something up is all there is. Distribution is also nearing $0 with things like bittorrent.
Then there are the many authors who make more money via exposure after releasing books for free as e-books than when they didn't. Check out baen books someday for a breakdown from an author.
The claim that you lose money over electronic distribution is constantly proved false for anyone other than the industry made superstars. And I just wonder how many people care that they lose a million dollars from their hundered million or whatever.
I also wonder why people feel copyright is necessary. People get rich selling *water* for god's sake. I'm sure there is a way to make money there. Heck, the freenet project is paying it's developer $2300 a month, and they don't charge a thing - it's totally donations.
You know that is interesting, does this mean that TV Ads can finally say "People prefer Pepsi to Coke" as opposed to the stupid "People prefer Pepsi to the leading brand"?
Personally, I don't see how a factual statement (assuming the pepsi challenge was actually a half decent study) is bad, or should be lawsuit whatever.
Of course, it would make ads tell the truth, and maybe back the claims up in court - so they'll never do that anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I've noticed an inversely proportional relationship between ads blocked and websites locking up a browser.
More and more, people are blocking ads not because they mind them, but because they cause their browser/PC to crash.
I wonder if there are websites that F up alternate browsers? I see a similar complaint on the Opera forums quite a lot(not that site, but devientart causes Opera to go into fits for lots of people).
This is the problem with allowing websites to be sloppy rather than requiring strict syntax like a compiler - some site will seriously screw up the various browsers while they try and figure out what it's trying to do...
Well, it's a cheap Toshiba Satallite. It flips a light on and off on the front, and causes windows to either see or not see the wireless card.
Hmmm, my laptop has an external switch to turn on or off the wireless card. Probably so you can use it in hospitals or on airplanes and the like. I would guess most laptops would, mine was quite cheap...
First, freenet currently works in the browser as a proxy - so install freenet, and start it, it will work just like that(well, not really as it uses horrendus cryptographic keys rather than freenet://uri)
z AGcPAgM/TFE//
example: http://127.0.0.1:8888/SSK@rBjVda8pC-Kq04jUurIAb8I
Second, the more recent versions of freenet are far more usable than any I've ever tried before. I actually can load content, a page in often a minute or so (for freenet, that's fast!).
Have you thought of maybe doing something with VNC?
Actually, from what I've seen, the desktop browser is 1/3 of their revenue.
Though, they also get licensing fees, like in Adobe Creative Suite 2.
I really don't see how anyone really makes money on OSS. I certainly have never paid for anything offered for free.
I think this is where there are differences. First, I have yet to see a useful extension that could not be replicated for any browser via another helper program or userjs or whatever.
Second, what I do see is the possibility of exploits for extensions same as BHOs in IE.
Third, I see many people having popular extensions break when they upgrade.
For me, extensions seem to be far more a hassle than they are worth. And as far as I can tell, there are enough people out there who feel the same to make Opera profitable. And that, not market share, is what matters to me as an Opera user.
This may come out snarky, but Opera is developed as an Internet Suite. So I don't believe they have any interest in designing just (or even primarily) a browser. If that doesn't fit what you want, as it's closed source, I would guess you probably won't want to use it for very long.
I mean, you can drive a screw in with a hammer, it's just somewhat more difficult.
On a more serious note - most features are modules, only loaded into memory if you use them. So, I never have mail loaded in Opera, as I don't use it. So it doesn't slow me down.
Yeah, Opera's only added 25KB to the dll file. I'd say that's acceptable bloat to turn an esoteric download protocol into the equivelent of HTTP or FTP downloads.
Isn't UPnP a security nightmare, and hence why it's disabled by default on most everything?
Well, the question here is, should a user really have to know how their router works, or how to forward ports, or even what ports are to download a patch?
Previously to the BT idea, people went to the website, and clicked a download link. Or, the updated connected via FTP or HTTP out to download the update.
In either case, that just worked - they didn't need to know they were behind a router, what ports the client used, or how to forward them (or to set a static IP on the pc you are forwarding to). So, compared to previous experiances they had, this one was worse/broken.
Of course, this also clearly shows why many people don't know it, but would like IPv6 and getting away from NAT.
But isn't this just glorified autosave ever 5 minutes? So worst case senario, you could lose everything up to 4min 59sec ago? So then the gp claim is wrong...?
I'm just saying I think there is some serious overestimation as to how much Office contributes to Windows dominance.
I'd say (well you come across this way) you think it's 85% of what keeps Windows dominant.
I'd say it's more like 40%. You can run MS Office on Mac OSX and Linux(with crossover office) today, and there is no mass exodus. Also, about every office program I've seen, OO.org, Lotus SmartSuite, Etc... can open and save Office formats, not perfectly, but about as well as different versions of Office. And that's been true for over a decade also. Still no mass exodus.
I maintain that while Office is important, it is not more than one leg of what keeps Windows propped up. Removing Office won't get people to switch.
Because you still haven't addressed games, consumer hardware, ActiveX intranet apps, Exchange schedule management etc... The list goes on.
Well. Not exactly. There's all sorts of stuff that's windows only to the average user and even power user.
Such as the software for my CyberPower UPS I just bought. Or the drivers and software for my Epson Printer. Let's not forget our webcam. Or my Scanner.
Then there is the Games. Granted, it *is* shrinking for the PC, but a lot of people still do PC gaming (think WoW). Not to mention the college students who have a PC and do the occasional games but don't have a TV or console(too poor, can't convince parents to buy them, don't want to lug them around, can't fit in dorm room).
Then there's all the stuff that supports Linux, but not as well as Windows - like Hamachi for instance, which doesn't have a GUI for linux. Guess what, most people either won't or can't use something that doesn't have a GUI.
Wouldn't it either have to be real slow writing everything every step of the way to disk, or basically need special hardware?
Plus, for $120 or so, I can have a UPS for any OS I want on a standard home PC, and get about the same thing.
Well, I don't know about doing All the existing one does, but certainly doing Almost all is important.
For instance the reason many people switch to FireFox or Opera vs IE is because either one does ~98% of what IE does for the average user, *plus* much more in the in your face UI area - the area users are likely to notice (The quintessential Tabs and such).
Many home users *could* switch over to Linux today, but it'd be painful. They'd lose a lot - I'd estimate about 50% functionality(Games, Hardware control programs for printers, UPS, etc), and 80% famaliariy(How installation goes, the little differences between OO.org and MS Office).
I figure for any sort of mass exodus to another OS, we'd need to get the functionality to within 95% and the familarity near 80%. That's a long way to go, towards a moving target. I have my doubts we'll ever do that.
However, there's another aspect. At some point, the hassles + price may start to tilt the balance. For instance, I really like eating at Red Lobster, and the price isn't too bad, but I almost never go there. Because of the minimum 30 minute wait, more often an hour. That kind of time will get me to try an unknown restaraunt, or even go to the Outback instead, even though it's totally different.
MS Activation already pisses off a lot of people - I'm lucky because i got a site license from my college, and don't have to deal with a lot of the crap I see posted on the net. Increased DRM, more and more security breaches, and more and more load from the "protection" software + price for them may start to make people willing to change the way they think.
Look at how hybrids are taking off in the US. If you're looking at saving $15 every fill up, many people start to take notice. And start to think, my SUV is nice, but I could be using that $60 or more a month for (Cable TV/New Shoes/New Game/Pay down loan/etc...).
Traffic doesn't go through a third party server, beyond the initial setup. Also, once released it will allow you as a company to buy the server to do the initial connections too.
The vocal removing software sucks rocks. It doesn't remove shit here, but otherwise the lyrics stuff is cool.
Maybe looking into something like Hamachi that provides NAT traversal at both ends for VPN?
You're wrong. Up until about 1997 or so, in upstate NY it was common for people to be on a party line - shared by 4 or so houses. If you stuck a normal phone on there, it would ring whenever anyone called that line. In fact, to call from one party line house to another, you'd have to call, hang up, then pick up again.
The special party line phones somehow filtered out the other #s ringing, but anyway - there were until recently party lines in the US.
However, I do think that we need to get away from NAT - it's a big pain. I have to use hamachi with my friends to run my FTP server becasue I can't figure out how to get it to work past the router/modem the DSL uses. And I had to call tech support to get my e-mail server running.
Well, let's turn that around. Why would you only expect to get paid once for the table you build, but paid apparently forever for the book you write?
Also, it comes down to whether you belive that copyright (is/should be) about ownership of ideas or promotion of creativity/innovation.
Currently, it seems you and the industries believe in the first - that you should be able to not only own an idea, but you should own that forever, as well as anything based (derived) from it.
The problem with this is that humans a)aren't that creative, and b)cannot create in a vaccuume.
You will eventually end up with no one being able to make anything, due to the amount of people he would have to pay for it. Or, you end up with the situations of today where you can't even find who to pay to get permission to use/build on the idea, so essentially you cannot use/build on the idea.
Do you see why that might be bad?
Now, if you believe, as I do(and the founding fathers seemed to), that copyright should be about promoting creativity/innovation, then you would think we are very far from that now, and are going in bad direction.
Here is the senario:
If an author currently writes a book:
and it's bad - the author will need to write another one (or get another job, but bear with me) to make more money to live.
If it's mediocre, he's working on another book in a few years for the same reason, more money.
But if he writes a best seller, one that is endlessly reprintable(and he isn't in a rather stupid contract of some reason) - like Salavatore's Dark Elf Trilogy, or Tom Clancy's books - He's got a gaurenteed revenue stream.
He never needs to come up with a new world or characters, and if his book is popular enough - Rowling perhaps - there's no economic incentive to ever write another thing again. Just keep reprinting the books and getting the royalties.
Now, we pass that on to his kids. Well, they never have to work, nor be creative - they're still living off the reprint royalties of their dad's work. Now imagine we turn that into eternal copyright. Well, a whole family has been turned into a group that never has to work again, never has any economic incentive to create. It's a drag on the economy - they produce nothing of value.
Worse, other people who might have interesting ideas cannot use the characters or world to tell their stories - we not only lose out on the family, we lose out on other creative talent.
So, it's promoting the opposite of creativity/innovation. This will lead to no new books eventually - there's only one or seven plots if you ask the english teachers after all.
I still have to say, it doesn't cost very much compared to earlier times to create things. Especially books.
:)
There is a huge amount of material on the internet that at most cost the people time that is as good as anything you can buy. There's a lot of crap too, but hey - look at movies today
The point I'm making is that creation of, say, books is nearing $0. There's time involved, sure, but typing something up is all there is. Distribution is also nearing $0 with things like bittorrent.
Then there are the many authors who make more money via exposure after releasing books for free as e-books than when they didn't. Check out baen books someday for a breakdown from an author.
The claim that you lose money over electronic distribution is constantly proved false for anyone other than the industry made superstars. And I just wonder how many people care that they lose a million dollars from their hundered million or whatever.
I also wonder why people feel copyright is necessary. People get rich selling *water* for god's sake. I'm sure there is a way to make money there. Heck, the freenet project is paying it's developer $2300 a month, and they don't charge a thing - it's totally donations.
You know that is interesting, does this mean that TV Ads can finally say "People prefer Pepsi to Coke" as opposed to the stupid "People prefer Pepsi to the leading brand"?
Personally, I don't see how a factual statement (assuming the pepsi challenge was actually a half decent study) is bad, or should be lawsuit whatever.
Of course, it would make ads tell the truth, and maybe back the claims up in court - so they'll never do that anyway.