"Root is not required on Linux to run executables or connect out to the Internet, and software does not have to be compiled to run in Linux."
You're right, but any program that is run by a non-privileged user (without running su or sudo) can only affect the files and folders that can be modified by that user. Running a virus program as an unprivileged user will only infect that user's files - just delete the user's files, delete the account, create a new account, copy a backup of the user's files, and you're good to go. It might still be a pain in the ass, but it beats completely reformatting and then copying the backups to the user's folder.
"Buffer overflow vulnerabilities take care of the 'files not executing by default' problem in Linux."
If the program is not executed, then how can it take advantage of the buffer overflow vulnerabilities? The virus has to be executed before it can start messing things up.
"Also, you should never underestimate the stupidity of computer newbies. If linux had the same number of naive users as Windows, mass email worms where executables are contained inside of archives would be able to propogate."
That's why most (or at least many) distros have auto-update tools. SuSE has susewatcher, and Red Hat/Fedora has something else, and I'm sure many of the others have their own tools. This helps to ensure that your computer has as few vulnerabilities as possible.
"If linux had the same number of naive users as Windows, mass email worms where executables are contained inside of archives would be able to propogate."
Sure, if you're stupid enough to install a program from just anyone who e-mails you.
People this stupid are rare nowadays, even in the Windows crowd.
"The malware could easily run under the user's permissions and connect out to random addresses trying to infect other hosts, connect to IRC servers and be a bot, or act as a file server. The possibilities for malware on Linux are as endless."
No. It's not as simple as that.
Linux chat clients/e-mail clients/etc. don't have stupid "features" like MS' VBScript (which is what makes Outlook/Outlook Express so vulnerable) that makes them auto-execute code. And, like I said, a user-space infection is a fairly easy fix since it only affects that user's files - yeah, you still better hope you've got a backup, but you don't have to reinstall like you do in Windows.
Say I'm a hacker, right? And I notice a bug in some open-source code and I notice a bug in MS' new version of IE.
Now I'm a good person, but I don't have access to the IE code. So I can fix the open-source code, but all I can do about IE (or any other MS product) is tell them and hope they'll fix it but many don't since MS doesn't see them as a problem.
The only way to get them to fix it would be to prove to them that it IS a problem.
Sure, there's a lot of bad people who want to do harm, but most of us nerds who know how to code want a secure, stable OS and we can fix the problem as soon as we see it.
"If a bunch of ignorant people used Linux, it seems to me it would only make Linux what Windows is today - a platform with a huge bullseye on it."
Why?
Do you really think that if "a bunch of ignorant people used Linux" we nerds would switch over to something else, just because the average user is now using Linux? There'd still be the same number (if not more) of contributors to Linux, so we'd still get problems fixed at the same speed or faster.
And Windows is "in the crosshairs" (so to speak) because of its gaping security holes. Do you really think that a PROFESSIONAL hacker would want to find YOUR social security number, or YOUR credit card number? Do you really think that an EXPERT hacker would waste his/her time on an individual or small business rather than big corporations that use Unix-based systems, like Yahoo! or DaimlerChrysler? If they're going to do something illegal - and they're good at it - they're going to go for the big stuff. Think about it - if you were real good at stealing cars, would you go for the Neon or the Porsche?
Sure, maybe if they could get lucky enough to hack into Bill Gates' computer, but I'm sure MS has plenty of security systems in place to make sure that doesn't happen.
I'm guessing that this whole thing is a piece of misinformation. What would Google have to benefit from buying Opera? If Opera's free they wouldn't be making any money off of it. And I have yet to see Opera thrown into any of the major Linux distros, much less packaged with Windows. What makes you so sure they would want to buy an old browser and then build up its reputation rather than make friends with a browser that already has a good reputation?
As I already mentioned, Google's money is in the search technology that other browsers would use, not in the actual browser itself.
Plus, my point was to show how quickly word-of-mouth spread around about how good Firefox was. Firefox got onto just about everyone's computer - without help from anyone. Google may be helping Firefox monetarily, but they're not advertising for FF. Any news about Firefox and how good it was, was spread through word-of-mouth except for the ads on supporters' personal sites and a single ad in the Wall Street Journal - and most of this happened even before Google got involved. Opera's been around since when Netscape was suing MS for building IE into Win98 - and still, after all this time, nobody's heard of it. It's about just as likely that they've heard of MyIE or other little-known browsers.
"Sure, but why spend a couple of years reinventing the wheel. Opera already has it."
Because the open-source nerds are going to do it anyway, so why not just wait for them if many people already prefer their browser? As I already said, Google's money will be made off the search engine these devices use, NOT off their browser (they may make a little money off it, but not much, compared to what they make from their search technology and AdWords).
"Actually almost every phone that has internet capabilities is using some form of mobile Java, no Palm, WinCE, or Linux required. My Sanyo 8200 has Java, as did my Samsung before that. So no, it is not often Palm. Again, most phones today and probably a good while in the future are not running linux, palm, or WinCE."
You're missing my point - all of these devices have SOME OS whether it be Palm, WinCE, Linux, or the maker's own homegrown OS. Running Java isn't just some magical thing that the phone can do without any sort of OS on it - it has to have SOME OS on there, and most phone makers probably would rather not waste time making their own if the other OSes would work just as good.
"Even if they did care, you can just as easly run Opera on Linux."
We've already been through this. We don't like Opera - if I had my choice of Opera or Firefox on ANY device, hacked or not, I'd pick Firefox.
"But if you add up the people who actually bother to do it you could maybe fill up a star-trek convention. Most people don't buy these devices to hack Linux onto them, they buy them to play games, listen to music, make phone calls, etc."
As did I. My iPod still works fully functionally as an MP3 player and still runs Apple's original OS (you have to force it into Linux mode at boot if you want Linux). No one would ever know that iPodLinux was even on there if it weren't for the penguin when you first turn the thing on.
Plus, do you really think that a company WOULDN'T want the people at this "star-trek convention" using their phones/PDAs?
Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, Mozilla is planning on making a mobile version of Firefox.
"So can Opera. The "Runs on Linux" argument is moot in this case, Opera already does that."
Right, but most of the Linux people seem to prefer Firefox. We've already customized FF to our needs, and it's much harder to do this with closed-source browsers.
My point is that there will need to be some changes if browsing the Internet on mobile devices is to become a common thing - larger screens, perhaps, or higher resolutions without making the fonts too small. Otherwise many websites could not be viewed properly and would be hard to use.
From what I see, devices for Web use aren't really meant for browsing the Web so much as for checking your e-mail, instant messaging, that sort of thing, and then if you do anything on any actual sites it's checking up on stocks. They're not really meant for actually reading more than a couple lines of text.
That's not to say that Google doesn't want us using the 'Net on our phones! But Google has little to benefit from buying Opera seeing as most of their money will still be made off of their search engine and AdWords - and I really don't think they would be supporting Firefox so much if they weren't planning on making friends with Firefox (I believe Mozilla plans on making a mobile version of Firefox, too, by the way).
"It doesn't matter how many non-geeks have heard of Opera, I'm sure more than a couple of them have heard of Google, and that's all it will take to get their attention."
Yes, it does. We've all heard about how much Google is trying to help out Firefox - yet if you weren't a geek (or already using Firefox) you'd never know. Go to www.google.com and find the link to Firefox's website and you'll see what I'm talking about - even with how much Google supports Firefox, there is absolutely no mention of Firefox on Google's site.
"You may be able to run Firefox on anything that runs linux, but that doesn't mean it will run well. Unlike Firefox, Opera's mobile browser is designed for the small screen, and it does an excellent job of rendering pages on them."
But Firefox can be modified for use on mobile devices to do just as good a job at displaying pages as Opera.
"Since their mobile browser is Java based, the phones don't NEED linux or CE to run it."
No, but they need some other OS that understands Java (often times it's Palm OS). Linux understands Java, too, which is another reason why device makers like it - they can either make their own OS, buy one from someone else, or just use Linux. And if the device is running Linux, then it can run Firefox.
"To be perfectly honest I doubt they really care what "hackers" want on their PSP. They care what the millions of consumers see when they turn on their out-of-the-box device. By buying Opera they would have a solid browser and instant buy-in into the mobile market."
Then perhaps you aren't aware of just how many household devices are hacked to run Linux. It hasn't even been a month since the 360 has been released and there's already a project to hack it to run Linux. And I personally have installed Linux on my iPod. Yeah, most people don't do this sort of thing, but still, some do.
Even though it might be relatively few people who do this, it adds up when you consider that just about every device has been hacked to run Linux - when you add all those PSPs, DS's, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s, iPods, etc, etc all together you can see where it could add up. Not to mention the fact that Firefox could be put on devices that already run Linux such as TiVos (in fact, many people build their own TiVo-like boxes and there are even plugins to make Firefox run within a TiVo-like GUI) and Palm Pilots.
Plus, Google doesn't make any money off of Firefox - but they're still pouring money into it. Why? Because they know it's worthwhile. Not because they're going to make money from it or to get an "instant buy-in into the mobile market" - that's not where Google makes its money. Google doesn't know how to make browsers or other computer apps. They know about the Internet and they know about search, and they'd rather stick with these two things (with maybe a couple side projects) than learn how to make web browsers. And that's why Google probably isn't interested in Opera - they're not good at making web browsers, so they'd rather make friends with someone who is. They don't need the money from making the browser - they'll make their dough off of the search engine people use with that browser.
That's what I was saying. Last (academic) year before FF was past beta no one else at my school had heard of it. Now everyone's using it (they didn't install it themselves, but when I look around the classroom I can see that they're using it).
At least I don't have ADD or go off on rants saying that people don't write about the subjects written in the paragraphs I didn't read.
I did NOT say to abandon the handheld computing area - in fact, I even went on to say how handheld devices could benefit from Firefox. Read before you comment.
"Oh, so because thats what is happening RIGHT NOW, its better not to think about the future. And why would google be interest in the future anyways!??!?!"
Right. Because I would just LOVE to try reading/. and other sites on a screen that's smaller than my hand. Yup. That's me. I LOVE killing my eyes by staring at a page of text for five minutes because it's too small to read. And having to scroll a lot to view the page on a screen that small. If you want to experience this immense amount of page-scrolling I'm talking about, set your resolution to 400x300.
If you really run at that resolution for more than a couple minutes, I'm sure it'll drive you insane and you'll see exactly why I, for one, don't want to read Slashdot on my cellphone - on Google's site I even have to scroll down to see the "Search" bar. If tiny screens with either hard-to-read text or resolutions too low to see anything are the future, then no thanks, I'll stick with my PC.
Handheld devices might be nice for notes, games, e-mails and stuff, but there's not enough screen real-estate to easily display many of the sites I use - that navigation bar on the left of the screen right now would probably take up a third of the PDA's screen, and it'd be even worse on a cellphone.
PDAs have had the ability to display PDA files and "e-books" for a while now. You still see people reading magazines and books, though, even though they could read the same things on their PDA. Why? It's harder to read on a PDA.
"Opera is corning the mobile browser market and this is a very smart investment for Google, a FORWARD thinking company."
Opera is dismissing open-source, which is NOT a very smart investment for Google, a company with its roots in open-source technologies and which would not be here today if it weren't for open-source.
And, like I said, with more and more handheld devices using Linux, you can run Firefox on them if you want to browse the Web on them.
I can run Firefox off of my flash drive. In fact, I can have Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Firefox on my flash drive and have them all share the same profile so I can run it from any PC.
Can I do that with Opera? Somehow I get the feeling that I lose that functionality if I switch to Opera.
"You don't have to pay for anything, and you're not losing out any functionality(unless you enjoy ad banners) by not paying."
Wait. . . if the free version of Opera has no banners, why would you have to
pay for ad banners?
Maybe that's why he's posting as "Anonymous Coward". . .
Seriously, though - $10/month for AOL when you already have broadband is $10/month too much.
Re:Lets hope they open source it
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Google to Buy Opera?
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· Score: 2, Informative
"It's not what's cheaper, it's what can they get on more hardware. Opera not only supports the usual OS's (Windows, OSx, Solaris, Linux, and on and on) they are also a big player in the mobile market. This would get google a jump into the mobile market that MS and Yahoo can't touch at the moment, not to mention massive support across current PC platforms."
Right now the number of people who browse the Web from a PC greatly outweighs the number of people who do so from a phone/PDA. On PCs, Firefox has more users than Opera, and Firefox has a lot more "word-of-mouth" - this time last year almost no one at my school had even heard of Firefox, this year Firefox is on every computer on the school; how many non-geeks have heard of Opera? Right now among non-geeks Firefox is the hero to come along and smite the big blue "E" that has caused them so much trouble, and Google supporting Firefox gets them extra "cool-points" from both geeks who know about all of IE's problems and non-geeks who just know that Firefox is more secure and faster.
Also, MS can and has touched the mobile market with Windows CE or whatever their handheld version is called. I don't own one of these devices, but I'm sure they have IE.
And much of the handheld market seems to be leaning toward Linux - not only do we have cellphones and PDAs running Linux, but we also have things like the Nokia 770 - as well as multitudes of hackers hacking network-enabled things like the PSP and the Xbox. Anything that can run Linux can run Firefox, and since Firefox is fairly common on PCs (at least compared to Opera) people will be more familiar with it and more likely to be comfortable with using it on both their Win/Linux/Mac PC and their PDA or hacked Xbox or whatever.
Personally, I've preferred Firefox (at least as far as Windows browsers - I use Konqueror) since day one - I've been using it since like 0.5 beta or something. I never could get used to Opera.
That said. . .
"I still think that if Opera were open source, 99% of the/. users that bash it now would be drooling all over it."
. . .
Then why don't they open source it? You can still make money off of open-source programs, so if open-sourcing it would make people like it more and get word-of-mouth spreading around, why don't they do it? They could still charge for certain features or for a "Professional Edition".
. . . it looks like KDE does do this to a certain extent - I tried this with a couple MP3's and it did work, and it also worked with one of my.wmv files.
However, as I suspected, KDE can't guess the file type of every sort of file - which is why it couldn't figure out what to do with the Quicktime video clip I had originally tried this on. I knew this sort of thing was possible but I had correctly assumed that this can't be done for every file (and since most programs still use file extensions, I had assumed that no one would ever bother to try to program this functionality into the GUI).
"Word (for Windows and particularly for MacOS) was around a helluva long time before "Wordperfect for Windows" was even released (the first version of which was mind-bogglingly sucky). Heck, it was the *lack* of "Wordperfect for Windows" that was one of the biggest reasons Word displaced Wordperfect."
Okay. You're right. MS Word was released two years before WordPerfect for Windows.
"Wordperfect and Word operated *very* differently. Had you ever actually experienced Wordperfect outside of reading about it, you'd know that."
I'm sorry, Mr. Pissy-Pants. I guess those 10 years I thought I was using WordPerfect I was really using something else, huh?
Yeah, there were quite a few differences, but for the normal everyday stuff it was basically the same. To change the font you use the font selector thing, to change justification you use the justification buttons. . .
"Well, mine did. Twice, in fact, within the twelve month warranty. First time the headphone socket stopped working (it would still play, etc, but no sound). Second time it would only turn on if it was plugged into a computer via Firewire. That last replacement was 6 weeks ago and I'm hoping to get at least 6 months out of it before it dies again."
. . . How new is this iPod - is this one of the newer ones, or is it one of the older iPods? The older ones, I thought, were known to have battery problems, which would explain your power problem, and the headphone jack on any device will break fairly easily if it's in your pocket.
That said, I am surprised. I've got a mini, and it's been dropped, fallen off the car console. . . hacked with iPodLinux:) . . . and I've had no problems whatsoever, and I also know others who have iPods and have dropped them and stuff with no problems.
"Right. Because it's not like Linux hasn't gots tens of thousands of bugs. Particular when a "bug" in the context of that 60,000 number can be something like a spelling error."
Tens of thousands? Where'd you find that number? I've certainly never experienced any of these.
I didn't pull that 60,000 number out of my ass, you know. I read that from a website somewhere (although after some googling I see that 63,000 is the number of "issues" and according to MS only 28,000 are actual bugs). And, no, a "bug" wouldn't include a spelling error - that'd be a typo. If you're talking about in the code itself - the code generally doesn't even compile if you made a spelling mistake.
"Just because you got an Excel error before the machine happened to BSOD does not mean that Excel FUBARed your machine. It likely means that whatever hardware issue caused the BSOD caused Excel to puke before Windows did (much like my DirectX games would puke before Windows did)."
No.
Games make use of your computer's DirectX implementation, which allows them to directly interface with your computer's hardware (which is why they might cause a hardware issue). Excel makes use of Windows' interface - it doesn't care about your hardware.
Funny how these hardware issues never seem to happen in Linux. . . I can remember having them in Windows on my PC (not frequently but they did happen), but I've been using Linux exclusively for almost a year now on the same computer - yet I have no such problems.
The best recent example I can think of for a single Windows PC is the story a kid at school told me the other day. He was telling me about his fairly new high-speed PC, I think he said it was 3.0GHz, good video card, hyperthreading, 1GB or so RAM. . . and how it's running real slow. He runs antispyware apps and antivirus apps, but it's still slow. Then he tells me "I guess it's about time for me to reinstall, which I do every couple months"!
A machine that fast should NOT need a reinstall every few months. Come to think of it, a machine that fast should NEVER need a reinstall.
Of all the times I've heard about someone who knows someone whose iPod broke, I have yet to hear from anyone firsthand about their iPod breaking.
As for the problems with the computers themselves. . . you're video editing, which is very demanding on system resources, especially for a laptop.
And are you awarehow much do you really want to do with your pocket PC?
You wanna hear a real computer horror story?
At my school we just bought an entire new Windows-only network. It's literally brand-new. Second week of school during first-hour Computer Science Topics we can't even get on the network. The teacher actually even tells us all to buy USB flash drives because we can't connect to the network to access the network drives, and the teachers can't even do attendance because it's done online.
The open-source community isn't really trying to replicate Office, just that some of the projects try to emulate its look and feel so that people don't give it that BS excuse that it's so hard to use.
Let's not forget that some of the creators of these open-source word processors/office suites might have been used to using Word when they started their project - maybe they liked the layout of Word but didn't like the way Word works.
Also, Word actually seems to resemble the old "WordPerfect for Windows" from before Word was popular. So maybe they weren't emulating Word's look and feel at all and were going for WordPerfect's look and feel, which happened to be similar to Word.
There's also open-source word processors/office suites that don't particularly look anything like Office.
And wasn't Win2k the one with the 60,000 bugs? No thanks to that - I'll stick with the Penguin.
So many people like to dismiss the issue of time, too - OO.o started, when, in 1999 or so? Word was available for DOS long before then and was popularized in 1995 when computers really became commonplace - meaning MS had a good head start against OO.o.
Same with Linux - Linux was first released in '91 or '92, but MS released "Interface Manager" (renamed "Windows" in 1985) way back in 1981. So technically Windows should be way ahead of Linux because MS has had an extra 10 years of experience (although they seem to be behind Linux, in reality).
Give OO.o and Linux a chance and you'll see that its bugs are nothing compared to the ones in Office (you'd think people would've got the hint with Melissa spreading through Word docs - killer Word docs sure made me want out!)
Text editors do do this - that's how they get their "undo/redo" history. It's just that they don't save this information because if they recorded every single change, the file would be huge and take forever to load/transfer. Plus saving this information all the time automatically would slow things down quite a bit.
And in the case of a video-editing program, it would be inefficient because it would require the program to re-create the effects whenever you load the file. Unless it saved each changed frame as a picture file, which would still be very slow and would require lots of hard disk space.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, but any program that is run by a non-privileged user (without running su or sudo) can only affect the files and folders that can be modified by that user. Running a virus program as an unprivileged user will only infect that user's files - just delete the user's files, delete the account, create a new account, copy a backup of the user's files, and you're good to go. It might still be a pain in the ass, but it beats completely reformatting and then copying the backups to the user's folder.
"Buffer overflow vulnerabilities take care of the 'files not executing by default' problem in Linux."
If the program is not executed, then how can it take advantage of the buffer overflow vulnerabilities? The virus has to be executed before it can start messing things up.
"Also, you should never underestimate the stupidity of computer newbies. If linux had the same number of naive users as Windows, mass email worms where executables are contained inside of archives would be able to propogate."
That's why most (or at least many) distros have auto-update tools. SuSE has susewatcher, and Red Hat/Fedora has something else, and I'm sure many of the others have their own tools. This helps to ensure that your computer has as few vulnerabilities as possible.
"If linux had the same number of naive users as Windows, mass email worms where executables are contained inside of archives would be able to propogate."
Sure, if you're stupid enough to install a program from just anyone who e-mails you.
People this stupid are rare nowadays, even in the Windows crowd.
"The malware could easily run under the user's permissions and connect out to random addresses trying to infect other hosts, connect to IRC servers and be a bot, or act as a file server. The possibilities for malware on Linux are as endless."
No. It's not as simple as that.
Linux chat clients/e-mail clients/etc. don't have stupid "features" like MS' VBScript (which is what makes Outlook/Outlook Express so vulnerable) that makes them auto-execute code. And, like I said, a user-space infection is a fairly easy fix since it only affects that user's files - yeah, you still better hope you've got a backup, but you don't have to reinstall like you do in Windows.
Say I'm a hacker, right? And I notice a bug in some open-source code and I notice a bug in MS' new version of IE.
Now I'm a good person, but I don't have access to the IE code. So I can fix the open-source code, but all I can do about IE (or any other MS product) is tell them and hope they'll fix it but many don't since MS doesn't see them as a problem.
The only way to get them to fix it would be to prove to them that it IS a problem.
Sure, there's a lot of bad people who want to do harm, but most of us nerds who know how to code want a secure, stable OS and we can fix the problem as soon as we see it.
"If a bunch of ignorant people used Linux, it seems to me it would only make Linux what Windows is today - a platform with a huge bullseye on it."
Why?
Do you really think that if "a bunch of ignorant people used Linux" we nerds would switch over to something else, just because the average user is now using Linux? There'd still be the same number (if not more) of contributors to Linux, so we'd still get problems fixed at the same speed or faster.
And Windows is "in the crosshairs" (so to speak) because of its gaping security holes. Do you really think that a PROFESSIONAL hacker would want to find YOUR social security number, or YOUR credit card number? Do you really think that an EXPERT hacker would waste his/her time on an individual or small business rather than big corporations that use Unix-based systems, like Yahoo! or DaimlerChrysler? If they're going to do something illegal - and they're good at it - they're going to go for the big stuff. Think about it - if you were real good at stealing cars, would you go for the Neon or the Porsche?
Sure, maybe if they could get lucky enough to hack into Bill Gates' computer, but I'm sure MS has plenty of security systems in place to make sure that doesn't happen.
As I already mentioned, Google's money is in the search technology that other browsers would use, not in the actual browser itself.
Plus, my point was to show how quickly word-of-mouth spread around about how good Firefox was. Firefox got onto just about everyone's computer - without help from anyone. Google may be helping Firefox monetarily, but they're not advertising for FF. Any news about Firefox and how good it was, was spread through word-of-mouth except for the ads on supporters' personal sites and a single ad in the Wall Street Journal - and most of this happened even before Google got involved. Opera's been around since when Netscape was suing MS for building IE into Win98 - and still, after all this time, nobody's heard of it. It's about just as likely that they've heard of MyIE or other little-known browsers.
Because the open-source nerds are going to do it anyway, so why not just wait for them if many people already prefer their browser? As I already said, Google's money will be made off the search engine these devices use, NOT off their browser (they may make a little money off it, but not much, compared to what they make from their search technology and AdWords).
"Actually almost every phone that has internet capabilities is using some form of mobile Java, no Palm, WinCE, or Linux required. My Sanyo 8200 has Java, as did my Samsung before that. So no, it is not often Palm. Again, most phones today and probably a good while in the future are not running linux, palm, or WinCE."
You're missing my point - all of these devices have SOME OS whether it be Palm, WinCE, Linux, or the maker's own homegrown OS. Running Java isn't just some magical thing that the phone can do without any sort of OS on it - it has to have SOME OS on there, and most phone makers probably would rather not waste time making their own if the other OSes would work just as good.
"Even if they did care, you can just as easly run Opera on Linux."
We've already been through this. We don't like Opera - if I had my choice of Opera or Firefox on ANY device, hacked or not, I'd pick Firefox.
"But if you add up the people who actually bother to do it you could maybe fill up a star-trek convention. Most people don't buy these devices to hack Linux onto them, they buy them to play games, listen to music, make phone calls, etc."
As did I. My iPod still works fully functionally as an MP3 player and still runs Apple's original OS (you have to force it into Linux mode at boot if you want Linux). No one would ever know that iPodLinux was even on there if it weren't for the penguin when you first turn the thing on.
Plus, do you really think that a company WOULDN'T want the people at this "star-trek convention" using their phones/PDAs?
Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, Mozilla is planning on making a mobile version of Firefox.
"So can Opera. The "Runs on Linux" argument is moot in this case, Opera already does that."
Right, but most of the Linux people seem to prefer Firefox. We've already customized FF to our needs, and it's much harder to do this with closed-source browsers.
From what I see, devices for Web use aren't really meant for browsing the Web so much as for checking your e-mail, instant messaging, that sort of thing, and then if you do anything on any actual sites it's checking up on stocks. They're not really meant for actually reading more than a couple lines of text.
That's not to say that Google doesn't want us using the 'Net on our phones! But Google has little to benefit from buying Opera seeing as most of their money will still be made off of their search engine and AdWords - and I really don't think they would be supporting Firefox so much if they weren't planning on making friends with Firefox (I believe Mozilla plans on making a mobile version of Firefox, too, by the way).
Yes, it does. We've all heard about how much Google is trying to help out Firefox - yet if you weren't a geek (or already using Firefox) you'd never know. Go to www.google.com and find the link to Firefox's website and you'll see what I'm talking about - even with how much Google supports Firefox, there is absolutely no mention of Firefox on Google's site.
"You may be able to run Firefox on anything that runs linux, but that doesn't mean it will run well. Unlike Firefox, Opera's mobile browser is designed for the small screen, and it does an excellent job of rendering pages on them."
But Firefox can be modified for use on mobile devices to do just as good a job at displaying pages as Opera.
"Since their mobile browser is Java based, the phones don't NEED linux or CE to run it."
No, but they need some other OS that understands Java (often times it's Palm OS). Linux understands Java, too, which is another reason why device makers like it - they can either make their own OS, buy one from someone else, or just use Linux. And if the device is running Linux, then it can run Firefox.
"To be perfectly honest I doubt they really care what "hackers" want on their PSP. They care what the millions of consumers see when they turn on their out-of-the-box device. By buying Opera they would have a solid browser and instant buy-in into the mobile market."
Then perhaps you aren't aware of just how many household devices are hacked to run Linux. It hasn't even been a month since the 360 has been released and there's already a project to hack it to run Linux. And I personally have installed Linux on my iPod. Yeah, most people don't do this sort of thing, but still, some do.
Even though it might be relatively few people who do this, it adds up when you consider that just about every device has been hacked to run Linux - when you add all those PSPs, DS's, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s, iPods, etc, etc all together you can see where it could add up. Not to mention the fact that Firefox could be put on devices that already run Linux such as TiVos (in fact, many people build their own TiVo-like boxes and there are even plugins to make Firefox run within a TiVo-like GUI) and Palm Pilots.
Plus, Google doesn't make any money off of Firefox - but they're still pouring money into it. Why? Because they know it's worthwhile. Not because they're going to make money from it or to get an "instant buy-in into the mobile market" - that's not where Google makes its money. Google doesn't know how to make browsers or other computer apps. They know about the Internet and they know about search, and they'd rather stick with these two things (with maybe a couple side projects) than learn how to make web browsers. And that's why Google probably isn't interested in Opera - they're not good at making web browsers, so they'd rather make friends with someone who is. They don't need the money from making the browser - they'll make their dough off of the search engine people use with that browser.
And it appears as though maybe Mozilla is planning to make a mobile version of Firefox.
That's what I was saying. Last (academic) year before FF was past beta no one else at my school had heard of it. Now everyone's using it (they didn't install it themselves, but when I look around the classroom I can see that they're using it).
I did NOT say to abandon the handheld computing area - in fact, I even went on to say how handheld devices could benefit from Firefox. Read before you comment.
"Oh, so because thats what is happening RIGHT NOW, its better not to think about the future. And why would google be interest in the future anyways!??!?!"
Right. Because I would just LOVE to try reading /. and other sites on a screen that's smaller than my hand. Yup. That's me. I LOVE killing my eyes by staring at a page of text for five minutes because it's too small to read. And having to scroll a lot to view the page on a screen that small. If you want to experience this immense amount of page-scrolling I'm talking about, set your resolution to 400x300.
If you really run at that resolution for more than a couple minutes, I'm sure it'll drive you insane and you'll see exactly why I, for one, don't want to read Slashdot on my cellphone - on Google's site I even have to scroll down to see the "Search" bar. If tiny screens with either hard-to-read text or resolutions too low to see anything are the future, then no thanks, I'll stick with my PC.
Handheld devices might be nice for notes, games, e-mails and stuff, but there's not enough screen real-estate to easily display many of the sites I use - that navigation bar on the left of the screen right now would probably take up a third of the PDA's screen, and it'd be even worse on a cellphone.
PDAs have had the ability to display PDA files and "e-books" for a while now. You still see people reading magazines and books, though, even though they could read the same things on their PDA. Why? It's harder to read on a PDA.
"Opera is corning the mobile browser market and this is a very smart investment for Google, a FORWARD thinking company."
Opera is dismissing open-source, which is NOT a very smart investment for Google, a company with its roots in open-source technologies and which would not be here today if it weren't for open-source.
And, like I said, with more and more handheld devices using Linux, you can run Firefox on them if you want to browse the Web on them.
Isn't that what MS did in IE?
Leaving MS for a company that does the same thing. . . sounds pretty counterproductive to me. . .
Can I do that with Opera? Somehow I get the feeling that I lose that functionality if I switch to Opera.
"You don't have to pay for anything, and you're not losing out any functionality(unless you enjoy ad banners) by not paying."
Wait. . . if the free version of Opera has no banners, why would you have to pay for ad banners?
At least he doesn't use the "Anonymous Coward" feature to save his karma.
Seriously, though - $10/month for AOL when you already have broadband is $10/month too much.
Right now the number of people who browse the Web from a PC greatly outweighs the number of people who do so from a phone/PDA. On PCs, Firefox has more users than Opera, and Firefox has a lot more "word-of-mouth" - this time last year almost no one at my school had even heard of Firefox, this year Firefox is on every computer on the school; how many non-geeks have heard of Opera? Right now among non-geeks Firefox is the hero to come along and smite the big blue "E" that has caused them so much trouble, and Google supporting Firefox gets them extra "cool-points" from both geeks who know about all of IE's problems and non-geeks who just know that Firefox is more secure and faster.
Also, MS can and has touched the mobile market with Windows CE or whatever their handheld version is called. I don't own one of these devices, but I'm sure they have IE.
And much of the handheld market seems to be leaning toward Linux - not only do we have cellphones and PDAs running Linux, but we also have things like the Nokia 770 - as well as multitudes of hackers hacking network-enabled things like the PSP and the Xbox. Anything that can run Linux can run Firefox, and since Firefox is fairly common on PCs (at least compared to Opera) people will be more familiar with it and more likely to be comfortable with using it on both their Win/Linux/Mac PC and their PDA or hacked Xbox or whatever.
That said. . .
"I still think that if Opera were open source, 99% of the /. users that bash it now would be drooling all over it."
. . .
Then why don't they open source it? You can still make money off of open-source programs, so if open-sourcing it would make people like it more and get word-of-mouth spreading around, why don't they do it? They could still charge for certain features or for a "Professional Edition".
However, as I suspected, KDE can't guess the file type of every sort of file - which is why it couldn't figure out what to do with the Quicktime video clip I had originally tried this on. I knew this sort of thing was possible but I had correctly assumed that this can't be done for every file (and since most programs still use file extensions, I had assumed that no one would ever bother to try to program this functionality into the GUI).
Okay. You're right. MS Word was released two years before WordPerfect for Windows.
"Wordperfect and Word operated *very* differently. Had you ever actually experienced Wordperfect outside of reading about it, you'd know that."
I'm sorry, Mr. Pissy-Pants. I guess those 10 years I thought I was using WordPerfect I was really using something else, huh?
Yeah, there were quite a few differences, but for the normal everyday stuff it was basically the same. To change the font you use the font selector thing, to change justification you use the justification buttons. . .
"Well, mine did. Twice, in fact, within the twelve month warranty. First time the headphone socket stopped working (it would still play, etc, but no sound). Second time it would only turn on if it was plugged into a computer via Firewire. That last replacement was 6 weeks ago and I'm hoping to get at least 6 months out of it before it dies again."
. . . How new is this iPod - is this one of the newer ones, or is it one of the older iPods? The older ones, I thought, were known to have battery problems, which would explain your power problem, and the headphone jack on any device will break fairly easily if it's in your pocket.
That said, I am surprised. I've got a mini, and it's been dropped, fallen off the car console. . . hacked with iPodLinux :) . . . and I've had no problems whatsoever, and I also know others who have iPods and have dropped them and stuff with no problems.
"Right. Because it's not like Linux hasn't gots tens of thousands of bugs. Particular when a "bug" in the context of that 60,000 number can be something like a spelling error."
Tens of thousands? Where'd you find that number? I've certainly never experienced any of these.
I didn't pull that 60,000 number out of my ass, you know. I read that from a website somewhere (although after some googling I see that 63,000 is the number of "issues" and according to MS only 28,000 are actual bugs). And, no, a "bug" wouldn't include a spelling error - that'd be a typo. If you're talking about in the code itself - the code generally doesn't even compile if you made a spelling mistake.
No.
Games make use of your computer's DirectX implementation, which allows them to directly interface with your computer's hardware (which is why they might cause a hardware issue). Excel makes use of Windows' interface - it doesn't care about your hardware.
The best recent example I can think of for a single Windows PC is the story a kid at school told me the other day. He was telling me about his fairly new high-speed PC, I think he said it was 3.0GHz, good video card, hyperthreading, 1GB or so RAM. . . and how it's running real slow. He runs antispyware apps and antivirus apps, but it's still slow. Then he tells me "I guess it's about time for me to reinstall, which I do every couple months"!
A machine that fast should NOT need a reinstall every few months. Come to think of it, a machine that fast should NEVER need a reinstall.
Windows' file search tool sucks, too, though - I don't know if it crashes or not but it seems to be sooooooo slooooww at finding stuff.
As for the problems with the computers themselves. . . you're video editing, which is very demanding on system resources, especially for a laptop.
And are you awarehow much do you really want to do with your pocket PC? You wanna hear a real computer horror story?
At my school we just bought an entire new Windows-only network. It's literally brand-new. Second week of school during first-hour Computer Science Topics we can't even get on the network. The teacher actually even tells us all to buy USB flash drives because we can't connect to the network to access the network drives, and the teachers can't even do attendance because it's done online.
Now it works, but it's unbearably slow.
It appears to me that you just copied the file to the /tmp/arquivo folder. Did you also get rid of the file's .mp3 extension like I said?
Yeah, sure, MS Office looks nice. I'll give you that much. And that's why we make our office apps look like it.
But, as nice as it looks, MS Office doesn't work very well - and that's where the open-source office suites come into play.
Let's not forget that some of the creators of these open-source word processors/office suites might have been used to using Word when they started their project - maybe they liked the layout of Word but didn't like the way Word works.
Also, Word actually seems to resemble the old "WordPerfect for Windows" from before Word was popular. So maybe they weren't emulating Word's look and feel at all and were going for WordPerfect's look and feel, which happened to be similar to Word.
There's also open-source word processors/office suites that don't particularly look anything like Office.
And wasn't Win2k the one with the 60,000 bugs? No thanks to that - I'll stick with the Penguin.
Same with Linux - Linux was first released in '91 or '92, but MS released "Interface Manager" (renamed "Windows" in 1985) way back in 1981. So technically Windows should be way ahead of Linux because MS has had an extra 10 years of experience (although they seem to be behind Linux, in reality).
Give OO.o and Linux a chance and you'll see that its bugs are nothing compared to the ones in Office (you'd think people would've got the hint with Melissa spreading through Word docs - killer Word docs sure made me want out!)
And in the case of a video-editing program, it would be inefficient because it would require the program to re-create the effects whenever you load the file. Unless it saved each changed frame as a picture file, which would still be very slow and would require lots of hard disk space.