MSN's Slate Recommends Firefox over IE

brightertimes writes "That's right folks, Slate (Microsoft's on-line magazine) recently printed an article enitled "Are the Browser Wars Back? How Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer.""

In related news...

[titaniam (635291)]

Microsoft released a security advisory that recommends temporarilly installing and using Linux as the simplest way to prevent the latest nasty internet worm. The windowsupdate.com website now redirects to debian.org, a sure sign that the two-year-long "Security Initiative" at Microsoft is finally being taken seriously. Company insiders say a patch will likely be out "in a few weeks tops" so that customers will be able to return to using Microsofts' superior product. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, the fact that you will be able to seamlessly continue your work using OpenOffice, Firefox and WINE is proof of the company's committment to standards conformance and interopability.

IE sucks

[essreenim (647659)]

I want to iterate the above..
If you read the article (wolf in sheeps clothing) it knocks Firefox because it has fewer users and therefore hacks for IE are far more lucrative than for Firefox - True.
Does this mean there are as many potential hacks for Firefoxs - No, False, in my opinion. Why?
Because the types of hacks found in Ie are fundamental mistakes in design that would be universal to ANY browser if they were on the same par. They are not. These fundamental mistakes have not been made by the othere -especially the OSS browsers. This is because, as I have always said - OSS software is open to the world and gets more scrutiny. Major problems a re found earlier.
However, the makers of Firefox should not rest on their laurels...

Re:IE sucks

[foidulus (743482)]

I don't think that being closed source is the sole reason why IE is insecure, there are relatively secure closed source browsers(Safari being one), I think that IE's main problem is that Microsoft never showed any interest in making it a mature browser. It is a product of the browser wars of the 90s, where MS tried to get as many features as possible into the browser, security be damned(and others participated in this mentality too during that time). The problem is, after Microsoft won the battle(in terms of install base), they pretty much lost all interest in keeping IE up to date, as there have been almost no new features introduced into IE for a long, long while. Meanwhile, other browsers fixed their problems and moved on. This is what we have today.
I think that products can be secure without being open-source. Peer review is great, but let's not forget that Microsoft has some brilliant minds working for it, the problem is that MS management decides that they want to add some type of random, pointless feature and assigns these people to do it, and do it FAST, instead of allowing them to work on increasing security, maturing the browser etc.
Probably the feature of FOSS that makes it more secure is that it removes all PHBs(Pointy haired bosses for those who aren't dilbert fans)

Re:IE sucks

[Bertie (87778)]

Erm, Safari's based on the same open-source KHTML engine as Konqueror, is it not?

Re:IE sucks

[foidulus (743482)]

The renderer is, not the whole browser...

Re:IE sucks

[nmos (25822)]

The problem is, after Microsoft won the battle(in terms of install base), they pretty much lost all interest in keeping IE up to date, as there have been almost no new features introduced into IE for a long, long while.

I don't think so. Even their newer products demonstrate that MS views security as something to be tacked on later rather than something to be designed in from the start. Right now if MS had the choice to include some cool new feature that they KNEW would get broken and damage their customers later they would do it in a heartbeat. Just look at Passport, even if they had the best security in the world it'd still get broken eventually simply because it's such a huge target. MS must know it's goint to happen and yet they keep encouraging people to dump their personal information into it. They just don't care.

It's the monopoly stupid

[fwarren (579763)]

The reason IE is so insecure is the fact that Microsoft was levraging it's monopoly. IE, is so inscure because of the way Microsoft leveraged their monopoly to try an take over the internet. The PC industry was growing fast enough, that if only some users of Netscape switched, AND all new PC's were sold with IE on them, they would be able to win the browser war. That was a given for Microsoft. They would win. So the question was, what to do with the win? Perpetuate the monopoly and hijack the internet. ActiveX will only run on windows. Let's make a world where all websites that matter, use ActiveX. Let's break standards so that websites that work in IE, won't work well in other browsers. We have enough programmers, that we cna hijack the standards and everone else will play catchup. So by adding ActiveX, making the user experience easy and good looking, with security as a side note, Mircosoft created IE, which by the way had to be intergrated into the OS as a pretence so that the Department of Justice could not ask them to remove it for a default windows install. The browser is really a few dll's that anyone can use to manipulate html. So it's strenghts are your strenghts, and it's weaknesses are your weaknesses. The file explorer, Internet Explorer, Outlook Epxress, are all built on an intregrated together via these DLL's. You can use a secuirty weakness in any one component aganist the others. Time has proven that ActiveX and breaking web standards was a bad idea that is only now starting not to pay off for Microsoft.

Re:PHBs

[ConceptJunkie (24823)]

Uhm, the phrase "pointy haired bosses" doesn't have any meaning whatsoever outside the context of Dilbert.

Obviously, you've never worked for a big company.

Laugh it Up

[mfh (56)]

You're laughing, but someone at Slate is going to lose their job over this article. It's reminiscent of nothing in my short term memory, related to Microsoft.

Re:Laugh it Up

[Pharmboy (216950)]

You're laughing, but someone at Slate is going to lose their job over this article. It's reminiscent of nothing in my short term memory, related to Microsoft.

You are probably right. I base this on the fact that Microsoft would look bad if they pushed this guy (Paul Boutin) to be fired, and somehow they will manage to not only look bad, but release 2 conflicting press releases regarding this, making themselves looking worse. Well, if history is any indicator, anyway.

Maybe They're Testing the Waters...

[Mad Bad Rabbit (539142)]

It's not like IE is a profit-center for Microsoft anyway;
they make all their money from Office and the O/S itself.
What's to stop them from scrapping IE6, and replacing it
with a Firefox derivative labelled "IE7" ?

(no doubt accompanied with lots of unconvincing spin
about how they're cool now with open-sizzource, 'yo)

Re:Maybe They're Testing the Waters...

[Walkiry (698192)]

>What's to stop them from scrapping IE6, and replacing it
>with a Firefox derivative labelled "IE7" ?

The fact that they spent three years integrating anything from "explorer.exe" to the kernel with IE?

Re:Maybe They're Testing the Waters...

[Erik Hensema (12898)]

The fact that they spent three years integrating anything from "explorer.exe" to the kernel with IE?

It's not intergrated with the kernel. It's intergrated with the OS. MSIE is basically a set of libraries used by lots of applications, including msie.exe-the-browser.

You can compare msie intergration into the Windows OS with khtml intergration into KDE. You simply cannot rip khtml out of KDE without breaking a bunch of (critical) applications. Same goes with MSIE.

Re:Maybe They're Testing the Waters...

[bunratty (545641)]

But Microsoft has stopped developing IE on non-Windows platforms, and has also stopped developing new versions for its existing operating systems. The only way to get IE7 will be to buy Longhorn, the next Windows version.

I'm sure Microsoft will suddenly start supporting the standards that Mozilla and Opera have supported for years in IE7, meaning that developers will start using those standards. Because IE6 won't recognize those standards, newly designed sites will look like sh*t in that old browser, and users will be forced to upgrade to IE7.

It looks like Microsoft found how to make its IE monopoly pay off for them after all!

Check out the Netscape trial.

[khasim (1285)]

Microsoft didn't care about browsers until Netscape and Java. Then they saw that the future might be a commodity OS running a browser as the interface to the apps (running on a server).

If Microsoft doesn't control the browser, it doesn't control that interface. Windows becomes very easy to replace.

And there goes Microsoft's monopoly.

Re:Laugh it Up

[dont_think_twice (731805)]

You're laughing, but someone at Slate is going to lose their job over this article. It's reminiscent of nothing in my short term memory, related to Microsoft.

To be honest, Slate (and MSNBC) typically provide some of the most critical press Microsoft gets. I am guessing that the news sites are run entirely independent from Microsoft, and the sites feel obligated to criticize Microsoft to prove their independence.

Oops

[chrisgeleven (514645)]

Someone didn't get the memo from old Billy boy to not diss company products.

Re:Oops

[|<amikaze (155975)]

I hope they didn't use Frontpage to make this article. I'd hate to see them violate their license agreement :)

I don't think BillG minds too much

[WebCowboy (196209)]

It's not like his eZine was dissing Windows XP or MS Office. The article still derides Free Software advocates by calling them "propeller headed geeks" and so on, and does suggest Firefox is somewhat less capable than IE because the fancy menus on Slate do not work (even though there are definitely platform-agnostic methods to achieve the exact same effect). Despite that, the article is very favourable to Mozilla's stable of products which is nice.

Anyways I don't think anyone will lose their jobs over this:

* IE doesn't make MS any money--it has been bundled into Windows XP so there is no lost revenue (at least for the short and medium term) if users switch en masse to another browser.

* MS has integrated IE into Windows so tightly that you cannot avoid it. You need IE to run Windows update, and a lot of software uses IE DLLs to function (even a lot of third party Windows-based software). Using Firefox to browse web pages doesn't completely obsolete IE

* Microsoft is doing enough on its own to obsolete IE--in fact they seem to encourage anything that will obsolete it. IE development has basically been abandoned since Windows XP was released (and even before 2002 there was little improvement). The Slate article just helps things along a bit.

* Anything that makes a Microsoft property look like it isn't part of a big machine bent on world domination is welcome--especially if it doesn't have a meaningful impact on the bottome line.

So that leaves one thought: Why does MS seem to be abandoning IE?

I think it has already been touched on by some here. Web browsing and other internet-related tasks are being integrated even further into future versions of Windows. Longhorn is supposed to be re-worked top to bottom to incorporate XML-based protocols, better support distributed computing technology (web services and so on). What is your machine and what is the internet is supposed to become almost seamless.

In achieving that goal IE has to disappear in BillG's eyes. Not only that, (X)HTML has to recede into the background as well--it is a document markup language at its roots and is poorly suited to development of highly interactive applications. Never mind that there are vendor-neutral/open standards emerging (XForms, XUL, SVG, etc)--they are not yet as established as HTML. MS sees this as a new opportunity to use Longhorn to establish an MS-controlled platform again using XAML and Avalon.

I think that BillG himself actually despises IE. The design is antiquated and insecure at its heart. The code probably gets more and more unmanageable with time judging by how often one patch sometimes creates other bugs. First and formost, however, by throwing resources as IE microsoft would prolong what it sees as "yesterday's Internet". Ideally, Longhorn would be released without any visible indication of a separate browser and enough HTML support to make existing sites function. As Longhorn grows in market share, MS hopes that sites start incorporating MS-specific protocols like XAML to transform websites into really interactive, whiz-bang internet applications that break completely in IE or Mozilla or any other mere browser on a competing or obsolete platform.

No, there will be no firings at Slate over this editorial stance. Far from it--it is probably quite compatible with the Chief Architect's long-term vision.

yawn

[YetAnotherDave (159442)]

another one joins the bandwagon...

Microsoft and Mozilla

[erick99 (743982)]

The article is very well written and the author took some care to impart the features of Firefox. I am still surprised though to see Microsoft so thorougly criticized in a publication wholly owned by Microsoft. Either they are very open-minded or this particular writer will not be invited back....

Cheers!

Erick

Re:Microsoft and Mozilla

[Cruciform (42896)]

MSNBC has articles that put Microsoft in a bad light all the time. And they do the standard disclaimer at the end that they are owned by MS as well.

They understand that it's a bad idea to mess with the "ethics" of journalism (though that's questionable these days), and that it can all be countered with advertising anyway.

The average consumer won't go looking for that article, and they know it.

Re:Microsoft and Mozilla

[TwistedSquare (650445)]

They understand that it's a bad idea to mess with the "ethics" of journalism

Ah, I knew Microsoft would beat slashdot somehow.

Re:Microsoft and Mozilla

[AliasTheRoot (171859)]

Why? Do you really think Slate or MSNBC would have any credibility whatsoever if MS decided to excercise editorial content on them? I'd imagine Redmond gives them free reign to write what they want, if MS bashing comes up then thats the Zeitgeist and probably something they already know, care and are doing something about.

Hell here

[bathmatt (638217)]

Where did all this snow come from??

What is so surprising about this?

[Noryungi (70322)]

Consider these point:

1. Even though Slate is financed by Microsoft, its journalists can be independent and willing to criticize their bosses boss. Good for them.
2. Microsoft security is such a joke that it is starting to percolate to the general public. Good for the alternatives.
3. An application (IE) that hasn't been updated for a long time, and which is present on 95% of all computers, is bound to contain more security problems than one with an active developer community (Firefox). Good for Mozilla and Firefox.

All in all, this is not really surprising, although it is certainly not good news for Microsoft.

My Dear God

[KJE (640748)]

Firefox eschews ActiveX and other well-known infection paths. You can configure it to automatically download most files when you click on them, but not .exe files, which are runnable programs. I thought this was a bug before I realized Firefox was saving me from myself, since .exe files could be viruses or stealth installers.

Talk about saving users from themselves.

Re:My Dear God

[VertigoAce (257771)]

I hate to say this, but if you try downloading exe's with both IE and Firefox, IE does a better job of telling you that it may be dangerous to open it. In addition, Firefox lets you automatically save the file to disk, so in the future no dialog box will show up. It doesn't let you run it without first saving it, though, and the author saw that as a security feature. IE, on the other hand, pops up a window warning that you are downloading an application, shows you the file name, and shows you the server that is hosting the application. Then it tells you the file might be harmful to your computer if it comes from an untrusted source. You can't stop this dialog box from popping up with any option on the box.

Just like their support of Apple

[harks (534599)]

//cynicism

Microsoft is just looking for a way to convince courts they're not a monopoply.

integrity

[Schlemphfer (556732)]

There are more than a dozen posts since this article was posted, but none so far have mentioned the obvious comment. For all Microsoft's sleazy business practices, this article is evidence that they are exercising great integrity when it comes to publishing Slate. That article completely (and justifiably) ripped Internet Explorder a new one. After reading that article, I view Slate far more favorably than I used to.

I've always thought Microsoft made the best keyboards and mice, but second-rate everything else. Turns out that they also deserve credit for making content sites.

Same old party line.

[twitter (104583)]

For all Microsoft's sleazy business practices, this article is evidence that they are exercising great integrity when it comes to publishing Slate. That article completely (and justifiably) ripped Internet Explorder a new one.

I'm not as impressed as you are. Paul Boutin is still dismissive, insulting and pulling the party line. He gives the wrong reasons for using Firebird and stops short of placing blame where it belongs. It's not just the browser, it's the OS that's got problems.

Here's a flamebait quote:

You've probably been told to dump Internet Explorer for a Mozilla browser before, by the same propeller-head geek who wants you to delete Windows from your hard drive and install Linux. You've ignored him, and good for you.

Paul does not go on to tell us why anyone who did not dump Windows after Melissa should be happy. Instead he gives us the now usual FUD equating M$ and Linux security and the M$'s lame excuse for poor security:

Even Mozilla's spokespeople stress that no software can be guaranteed to be safe, and that Firefox's XPInstall system could conceivably be tricked into installing a keystroke logger instead of Sun's Java engine. But for now, there's safety in numbersâ"the lack of them, that is. Internet Explorer is used by 95 percent of the world. Firefox's fan base adds up to 2 or 3 percent at most. Which browser do you think the Russian hackers are busily trying to break into again?

Sorry Paul, this normal user is very happy to have dumped Windoze 98 in favor of Red Hat and Debian years ago. I've had perfectly usable browsers, email clients, digital music, and everything else I've ever wanted with far less hastle and trouble than my Windoze suffering peers and relatives. The browser is just the tip of the iceburg. I've enjoyed stable systems that stay up longer than my utility company's electricity, and a plethora of superior programs and features without having to drive to a store and periodically "rebuild" my computers. Learning Linux has been easy, fun and never required me to wear a propeller on my head.

Re:Same old party line.

[tc (93768)]

Sorry Paul, this normal user is very happy to have dumped Windoze 98 in favor of Red Hat and Debian years ago.

You not only read, but actually post on Slashdot. And you think you are a "normal user"? I suspect you need to recalibrate your idea of normalcy.

Perhaps this is the slap they need

[grunt107 (739510)]

When your own people give in and recommend a rival browser, it seems they are admitting the security issues in IE are basically unfixable. This does raise an interesting query - does this mean MS will be less likely to attempt repairing the flaws, ceding some interim revenue to a free competitor that right now is no threat at all, and devote more resources to Longhorn's IE version/replacement?

MS plan I think is Avalon..

[eamacnaghten (695001)]

I think MS's plan was to try and replace HTML with XAML and Avalon - it probably still is - so they were not going to invest in technology that they were(are) going to try and kill and which they thought(think) will die.

However - I think they are making a mistake in that philosophy (if it IS there philosophy), in so far as much if they try and forceably tie people down to their platform then corporates and government departments will rebel against microsoft. Some already are - there will be more. Also if FireFox/Mozilla becomes the standard browser it could lead the way to a migration away from the Windows OS.

Microsoft have made mistakes concerning the global village paradigm before - I think they are doing it again now.

IE Maintenance

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

MSIE is incredibly far behind, in standards compliance, features, usability, and security. Basically, MSIE hasn't improved much since 4.0, which I think is more than 7 years old. Continuing to use MSIE means a serious degradation of the user experience. Apparently, it's so bad that even Microsoft's subsidiaries are jumping ship. I wonder why Microsoft has let it come this far.

Broken Sites

[Maxwell'sSilverLART (596756)]

From the article: Whether or not you do, US-CERT advises increasing your Internet Explorer security settings, per Microsoft's instructions. (Alas, the higher setting disables parts of Slate's interface.)

Sorry, you seem to have misspelled "Alas, the higher setting highlights Slate's use of insecure and nonstandard features." You might want to have that keyboard checked.

The hardest part

[FrO (209915)]

You know what the hardest part of this is? Getting those computer-illiterate people who you support to use Firefox.

I've been trying to get my dad to use it (with threats like, "when the russian mafia gets your credit card because you were using IE, don't complain to me"...) but it doesn't work. And he's not terribly illiterate. I can't imagine trying to explain to my girlfriend's grandparents, "Ok, Don't click on the blue E anymore... click on the icon that looks like an orange fox"... they would never do it.

As nice as Firefox is, it's going to be an uphill battle to get those illiterate folks to switch.

Re:The hardest part

[chord.wav (599850)]

I've installed Firefox as the main browser for all my clients and I've set up a shotcut to it with the IE Logo icon and deleted the originals, I renamed iexplorer.exe so they have 2 shortcuts but wherever they click, they use Firefox. It's not that I'm not giving my client "the right to choose" but I'm tired of calls because of spyware, worms and when-I-open-the-broswer-millon-pop-ups calls.

Is IE is on the way out?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak (773371)]

I half expected that MS would dump IE, but I think this article somewhat validates my thoughts.

The very fact that this was published on MSN must hit at deep rumbling in the MS camp. IE users are, quite frankly, sick of IE. The recent warning from the US government must have been the last nail in IE's PR coffin. People now know other browsers are out there, and have begun to download them. MS issued a hasty patch after Homelland security recommendations for another browser, but it seems they won't upgrade IE functionality until Longhorn, 3 years away! That will mean IE will have spent 6 years in development limbo.
Or then again this could be a lone cowboy at MSN, eager to leave for the fresh pastures of The Register.

I reckon MS will soon dump IE in favour of a new browsers, or maybe a new 'kind' of browser(.NEt based, XAML interface anyone?). Maybe MSN client?
Tellingly IE still runs off version numbers IE5, IE6, whereas most MS apps run off the 98,2000,XP versioning scheme. These are my crackpot prediction for a rumour hungry world.

For Web Designers out here...

[c0ldfusi0n (736058)]

I found this really nifty application called Comparator [vasanthdharmaraj.com] made by Vansath Dharmaraj [vasanthdharmaraj.com] -- it's basically a test browser with a split view: the top one is the page rendered in IE, the bottom one is the page rendered using Mozilla (which comes back to say Mozilla-powered browsers such as Firefox).

That, along with Firefox extensions IE View [mozilla.org] and Web Developer [mozilla.org] makes coding websites compatible in both IE and Mozilla browsers a hell of a lot easier.

ActiveX

[tchernobog (752560)]

Even here, a note is made about ActiveX:

ActiveX was meant to make it easy to add the latest interactive multimedia and other features to sites, but instead it's become a tool for sneaking spyware onto unsuspecting PCs.

Now, we all know that ActiveX, a technology that has been around for years and years, is perfectly insecure. Moreover, now there are other ways to do most things that ActiveX achieves: Java apps, server side scripting (with, let's say, PHP) and many more. Secure ones.
So what? We have better alternatives. Microsoft obviously won't drop ActiveX support from IE until someone still asks for it. Then, the problem is with companies and sites that make use of them.
It's strange that someone would still be using something that's not portable, and an increasing audience won't be able to benefit from (if they follow CERT raccomandations, at least :).
At last, I think that sooner or later ActiveX will disappear (given Microsoft doesn't try some horrible marketing move), because no-one wise will use it. Many users have been educated to click "NO" to those popups requiring you to install a BHO... so new site will have an hard battle against users' suspicion. The problem here is: will Microsoft let this happen, or has it some interest in keeping a buggy technology alive?

I remember it were just for one reason I switched to Mozilla Suite (no, Firefox just doesn't suits me ;): they don't have the possibility to use ActiveX.
PS: also the pop-up blocking thingie has been useful, but I am a Mozilla user since before it was introduced.

Microsoft needs FireFox

[RichMan (8097)]

At this point Microsoft needs FireFox. Without a browser alternative the ONLY safe recomendation would be to remove Windows. At least with FireFox as an alternative to IE (and ThunderBird for Outlook) Microsoft can remain as the desktop operating system.

Without FireFox the safe solution is to get rid of Windows and that is Microsofts worst nightmare. So for now Microsoft will be happy that FireFox exists and that Windows remains as the desktop platform.

I don't think the article is *that* good for FF

[FZer0 (585622)]

Ok, he states that IE is insecure and lay kudos for the tabbed browsing, but there's a lot of veiled criticism - and dare I say FUD - in it. Like when he says it will take two days to get used to Firefox's interface (wha?) or that reinstalling plugins is a much more difficult task than it really is. It's more or less like "yeah, I wouldn't change if I didn't have to, but...".

I, for one, wouldn't send this link to convince a PHB to recommend the browser switch to the upper management.

Missing the point a little...

[XeRXeS-TCN (788834)]

Well it's interesting to see that an MSN run website has slammed Internet Explorer, and spent some time extolling the virtues of Firefox, which is indeed surprising at first glance. But in many ways, there is one other important factor to consider.

Even Microsoft *knows* that Internet Explorer is antiquated. They pulled developers off it years ago, and afaik have only recently started some work on it. It displays none of the features that all the modern competitive browsers have, and has FAR more security issues than possibly any other browser.

But at the end of the day, they don't care. It doesn't provide them any revenue, so they don't really give a damn about what features you want. It comes free with every OS they distribute, and it doesn't have advertising panels or anything like that, so it doesn't really matter to them what browser you decide to use with their OS, you're still using their OS.

And that's another thing to consider. Until they bother undertaking a vast overhaul of Internet Explorer (which they may not even do), they know that users will be vulnerable to all sorts of these problems that keep reoccuring. So in some ways it can be construed as a good idea for them to move you to other browsers, especially free ones like Mozilla where they do not provide another company with revenue. This will keep their users much safer, and at the end of the day, I think that's what this is about. Their users. You can use any browser you want on their OS, but again, you're still using Windows.

Consider the two scenarios. You get extremely frustrated with all the viruses and bugs that Internet Explorer throws up, and you decide that you've had enough. What are your options?

1. Install FireFox, or Opera, or any other browser on Windows, and thus be protected from most (all?) of the issues that tend to crop up on IE,
2. Switch to Linux or a BSD variant, which are not affected by all these issues.

With those choices in mind, which would you expect Microsoft to prefer? ;)

The Reasons

[Kwil (53679)]

A bunch of other slashdot folk have pointed out bits and pieces of this puzzle, but let's see what happens when we put it all together:

1. The new standards, XML, etc, are going to be controlled as much outside the browser, by the productivity suite, as they will be within it. The standards for basic browsers have more or less solidified at this point. There's no more control to be taken here.

2. The browser market has been driven into the ground. There's no money to be made here anymore, as decent free alternatives are available, and the market has gotten used to not paying for their browser. There won't be another Netscape threat.

3. The whole "browser as your desktop" idea has faded away. MS is no longer in danger of losing its OS or productivity-suite sales to a browser company.

Put all of this together and you've got the reason why MS doesn't really give a crap if people use IE or not anymore. But why go the extra step of taking it down?

1. Even in its recommendation, the article is a backhanded compliment at best. Very much in the league of "If you have to switch, this one will work." Which leads to a setup for the future version of IE.. "All the features of Firefox, plus..." which of course will only be able to run properly on the new Longhorn system.

2. IE's security problems have really started to hit the mainstream. The article isn't telling folks anything that wasn't known already, but lets MSN Slate look like a wonderfully independant publication while doing so.

Most importantly:

3. IE doesn't make them money anyway. At this point, the various holes are costing them more than IE provides them both in actual dollars in support and programmer hours that have to be devoted to containing the mess, and in PR.

So it's really to Microsoft's interest at this point to get people *off* of IE, especially to something simple that they'll be able to easily port settings from for the new version. The only thing that might keep them there is stubborn pride. If cooler heads have prevailed in the boardroom, expect to see more on these lines from Microsoft sources.

Re:The Reasons

[e6003 (552415)]

I'm not sure I agree entirely with your points.

1. The new standards, XML, etc, are going to be controlled as much outside the browser, by the productivity suite, as they will be within it. The standards for basic browsers have more or less solidified at this point. There's no more control to be taken here.

I think this sort of control was always very much the "consolation prize" for MSFT. (One of) the original point(s) of bundling IE in with Windows was probably to try and force people, via "embrace and extend", over to using Windows NT servers and IIS to serve content. Unfortunately this was the first example of them underestimating The Power of Open Source(TM) as Apache emerged at round about the same time, and could scale far better than NT4/IIS could, on proprietary Unices before the true rise of Linux.

2. The browser market has been driven into the ground. There's no money to be made here anymore, as decent free alternatives are available, and the market has gotten used to not paying for their browser. There won't be another Netscape threat.

If you're implying that MS perceived Netscape as a threat in a revenue sense, then I think you're a bit off base. Remember, the anti-trust trial witnesses explained at great length about the "applications barrier to entry" (namely, the positive feedback circle that Windows is popular because it has loads of applications written for it, which in turn feeds its popularity so more applications are written for it). Netscape, and especially Java (remember the still-born WordPerfect for Java?) threatened to undermine that barrier if the browser could become the platform for applications. With Mozilla and technologies like XUL, this threat is more alive than ever.

3. The whole "browser as your desktop" idea has faded away. MS is no longer in danger of losing its OS or productivity-suite sales to a browser company.

Possibly, but even KDE and GNOME perpetuate the "tradition" of using the same application for browsing the local file system and the web. I kind of agree about the threat to MSFT's OS business not coming from a browser company, but I think that's partly an artefact of history - MSFT's continued anti-competitive behaviour made it pretty clear that ANY serious threat to them would have to come from a decentralised organisation (e.g. FOSS) simply because MSFT would crush, by fair means or foul, any other company that tried to compete with them.

3. IE doesn't make them money anyway. At this point, the various holes are costing them more than IE provides them both in actual dollars in support and programmer hours that have to be devoted to containing the mess, and in PR.

Did IE EVER make them any money? OK, we never knew what the cost of Win95b and Win98 would have been if MSFT had been forced to unbundle IE, but it didn't directly make them money IMO. I think your last sentence is closer to the truth than you realise - MSFT has limited programming resources and I read a statistic (can't remember the source alas) that 80% of the Longhorn developers have had to be pulled off Longhorn work, to patch 2000/XP/2003 (and by implication, IE since the codebases are so inter-twined). It's worth reviewing ESR's discussion of Moore's Law [opensource.org] as part of Halloween IX - basically, the easily-overlooked consequence of computer power roughly doubling every 18 months is that the software to make use of that power must also double in complexity concurrently with this. IMO, MSFT is becoming a classic victim of this, just as [old and new] SCO did. Of course, MSFT has far more programming resources than SCO does/did, but it will only buy them time and the continued delays and feature shedding of Longhorn are precisely the sort of symptoms to look for.

Re:Firefox

[squiggleslash (241428)]

Why doesn't Windows Update support Firefox? I'm using Linux now, so it's not that important to me, but I'd like to have an answer.

Windows Update uses ActiveX. IE is the only web browser that supports ActiveX (with good reason...)

Ironically, the very reason people avoid ActiveX - the fact that, once an applet is "trusted" it can do pretty much anything - is the reason Windows Update uses the technology (how else can you update your system without an applet trusted to do anything?)

Re:How Safe is FireFox?

[RickHunter (103108)]

Yes, Firefox is safe. Or, rather, as safe as it can be reasonably expected to get. Plugins and skins can only be installed by whitelisted servers, and must prompt the user before installation.

Re:How Safe is FireFox?

[asa (33102)]

There is auto-install of plug-ins, there is auto-install of skins - i kind of have a hard time believing that all of these were written by people wrecking their brains about possible exploits. [if you know different, let me know]

I know better. I've been involved with the Mozilla and Firefox development process for years and I can tell you with great confidence that we've considered security at every step of the way, from design, to implementation, to testing. We've got some of the top minds in the business constantly trying to find holes in our security story. They find 'em and we fix 'em.

If you don't believe me, then ask Bugzilla about it, or take a look at the code. Maybe then you won't have such a hard time believing it.

With IE, we know it's broken beyond fixing. With FireFox, we don't know. It has not been tested

Um, hasn't been tested? We've got tens of thousands of people who have tested and reported bugs (including security bugs) on Firefox and the rest of the Mozilla code base. We've got millions of users using it. We've been the target of malware writers and we are beating them with a strong security ethos that defines almost everything we do.

Imagine - unlikely as it may be - FireFox wins the new browser war. Will it still be safe? IMHO, only a real security model like the one built into Java can really protect users.

You're suggesting that Firefox and the Mozilla codebase don't have "a real security model"? I'm guessing you really haven't even looked.

Do yourself a bit of a favor and actually look at the code, the bugs, the process, etc. before you start talking about security.

--Asa

Re:Total Replacement of IE

[stormcoder (564750)]

This has already been done. The html renderer is available as a dropin replacement for MSHTML. Infact it is possible to make Outlook use gecko instead of MSHTML which I think is pretty funny.