I wonder about how the extensions/add-ins are best handled. Throughout this discussion there a number of people saying "there is an extension to do that"...and then wonder why the average user still hasn't caught on to Firefox. And this is also why reviews like this automatically discard the extensions as not being part of the "base featureset" so they don't count. The average person just won't find/use them. Buttons count...features you have to search through a menu for don't. Same goes for extensions.
The problem comes up all of the time where Firefox has a browser that CAN do most things - but will not catch on to the average crowd unless there is an easier way to customize it. Maybe there should be a way to "create your own Firefox". They could create 3 seperate editions - Basic, developer, and home. Or some variation of that with each having the most common menu setup and extensions for that type of user. Then a user would just need to pick which one fits best and download that...or go through a quick series of "would you like to be able to do...?" kind of questions that would lead them to a download that is ready to go all in one. Extensions could of course be modified from there in the usual way but that would allow people to get what they wanted without going through the time it takes to download, browse through all of the extensions looking for things that may be useful, and install. Just download your edition with all of the menus and extensions pre-set up for a typical use in that category.
Thoughts?
Seems to be some pretty important information missing from the original post.
Traditionally allies, Microsoft and Symantec are now going head-to-head in the security arena. In late May, Microsoft introduced Windows Live OneCare, a consumer security package, and the software giant is readying an enterprise product. Symantec has also sued Microsoft, alleging misuse of data storage technology it licensed to the company.
In their paper, titled "Windows Vista Network Attack Surface Analysis: A Broad Overview," Symantec researchers put the networking technology in Vista under a magnifying glass to determine its exposure to external attacks. The team said it found several flaws in build 5270 of Vista and even more in earlier test versions. However, these were all fixed by Microsoft in build 5384, the version of the operating system that was publicly released in May as Beta 2.
So a Microsoft competitor releases a paper discussing flaws is a BETA that have already been fixed and the Slashdot article falls under the title "Windows Vista still Rife with Insecure Code". Problem is that even the writers of the paper aren't claiming that Vista is "rife with insecure code"...only that it might be because they found some other problems. It's amazing what qualifies for news some days.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder about how the extensions/add-ins are best handled. Throughout this discussion there a number of people saying "there is an extension to do that"...and then wonder why the average user still hasn't caught on to Firefox. And this is also why reviews like this automatically discard the extensions as not being part of the "base featureset" so they don't count. The average person just won't find/use them. Buttons count...features you have to search through a menu for don't. Same goes for extensions. The problem comes up all of the time where Firefox has a browser that CAN do most things - but will not catch on to the average crowd unless there is an easier way to customize it. Maybe there should be a way to "create your own Firefox". They could create 3 seperate editions - Basic, developer, and home. Or some variation of that with each having the most common menu setup and extensions for that type of user. Then a user would just need to pick which one fits best and download that...or go through a quick series of "would you like to be able to do...?" kind of questions that would lead them to a download that is ready to go all in one. Extensions could of course be modified from there in the usual way but that would allow people to get what they wanted without going through the time it takes to download, browse through all of the extensions looking for things that may be useful, and install. Just download your edition with all of the menus and extensions pre-set up for a typical use in that category. Thoughts?