MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate 733
Quantum Jim writes "InternetNews.com reports that a major upgrade for Microsoft Internet Explorer may be imminent. Apparently in response to the recent mass migration away from MSIE, top Microsoft developers have been soliciting for improvements in the old browser at a web log and at Channel 9, an aggregate journal previously discussed by /.. InternetNews.com speculates that improvements could possibly include support for tabbed browsing, better security, more PNG and CSS compliance, and RSS integration (which Firefox and Opera Mail already support). Go competition!"
FireFox (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand this is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand it's depressing that MIcrosoft is a big enough monopolist to let the status and security of what they maintain is an integral part of the operating system, namely the browser, to go almost completely to shit before they bestir themselves to even think about fixing it.
A quote: (Score:4, Insightful)
Now this is what I call truely clueless. Typical MS thinking that is the cause of IE's sercurity vulnerabilities and lack of established standards.
Standards (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporations Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the attitude throughout Microsoft. It's the same reason why the Windows API still sucks after 20 years. The vast majority of customers don't give a damn about any of this stuff because they don't care: no sites will use alpha-transparent PNG unless IE does, so why bother implementing it?
This is the problem with relying on commercial entities for "innovation": they'll only bother when it actually benefits them. Mozilla, on the other hand, implement things purely for the sake of completeness and interest.
What... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
Having the biggest browser marketshare means you can get more sales of Windowz, and you can spit on standards. The more users of it, the more developers write for it, the more users need Windowz to run it.
So while it doesn't directly translate to direct revenue, it does translate into indirect revenue.
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who uses Internet Explorer is using Windows. If Internet Explorer has the highest market share, they control the de facto standards and can keep customers locked into Internet Explorer and by extension Windows.
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:1, Insightful)
So picture this: you run a cross platform browser that works with *all* websites. You use a cross platform office suite that works with *all* document formats 100% perfectly. All other applications you use are also available on different OS's.
Why then choose windows?
It's all part of a well known strategy called customer lock-in. Make it difficult to change so people won't bother to try.
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, here we go again, new pages that look like crap in non-IE...
The advantages of monopolys are endless.
--krahd
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. A lot of companies are using the Microsoft server tools (like IIS, SQL Server, Windows Media Server) because they're designed to work with Internet Explorer (and vice-versa). If all of a sudden Mozilla/Opera/whatever had 97% of the browser market, then companies would have to stop serving up web pages that don't render properly in Mozilla/Opera/whatever. And if you're not serving up those pages, when it's time to upgrade your Windows server software, why upgrade? Why not just switch to other open source tools, like Apache?
Additionally, once everything standardizes on a platform-independant browser, like Mozilla, who needs Windows anymore? Okay, granted, a lot of software is still available for Windows, etc., etc., but perhaps for a company that doesn't need Windows-specific applications, they might switch. This scares Microsoft more than anything else.
If everyone abandons other browsers and uses IE exclusively, Microsoft's increase in revenue is exactly zero.
Again, not true (in fact the opposite of what I state above). Since IE has a dominant portion of the browser market, companies are more willing to buy the Microsoft server tools, which brings in money for Microsoft. Also, this leads to client lock-in, since in order to view the Microsoft content, you need a Microsoft client.
-- Joe
not _exactly_ (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I admit that it is not much, but to by default have a user in your sphere can be directly profitable or at elast usefull in a number of ways.
About Windows 95/IE 5.5 Users (Score:2, Insightful)
About his concerns for people who are still using IE 5.5 (mostly all Windows 95 users, since they can't upgrade to IE 6, nor does MS support them anymore), they can be convinced to use IE 7.0 through convincing them to buy a new computer. There are still a lot of Windows 9x boxes out there, so Microsoft could use security as a incentive (among others) for people with older versions of Windows to switch to Windows XP with the new and improved Internet Explorer. (Likewise, Linux/BSD supporters could convince Windows 9x users to switch for the same reasons, too, and there is always Mozilla/Firefox, which runs on Windows 95, so there are other options)
Still, though, the developer's comment was stupid; everyone benefits from full CSS and PNG support; it would save developers a lot of time trying to get their pages to render properly under IE, and it would make IE more standards compliant.
Re:On the one hand this is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Control! (Score:2, Insightful)
The future direction of the web is at stake... if Microsoft maintains their massive IE market share, then they can continue to dictate standards, rather than follow standards created by impartial third parties.
Why would they pass this up? They have 50+ billion dollars in the bank... I'm sure tossing a couple of million into IE development is no big deal. And if it allows them to maintain their stranglehold on the Internet, I'm sure they'd find it to be worthwhile.
Re:Browser Wars II: Mozilla Strikes Back? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the mean time, the rest of the population care about learning, communication and entertainment.
I guess what I am getting at is most of us bash Microsoft because they choose usability (not the disability flavor, just that it works) over security. Slashdotters generally have a distaste for Flash even if it is because it is used gratuitously for entertainment. We choose to block ads and popups and some of us IMAGES because we feel it is useless and fluffy even though it is the main source of revenue for many businesses' web endevours. But the thing is, most folks ont he internet care that when their kid goes to PBS Kids [pbskids.org], it works. When they go to their favorite mainstream band's website, it just works. When they go to their bank's website, it just works. When they want to play Yahoo games or take part in fantasy sports, it all just works.
Where Microsoft suceeds is giving the consumer what they WANT. For stuff to work, even if it means that their computer is riddled with spyware and viruses. As long as their credit card number doesn't get swiped or find kiddee pr0n on their computer and everything else works, they are satisfied.
I saw that someone wrote that Opera is a superior browser. While they are correct when using their guidelines, most end users would feel quite the opposite. Opera, at least with older incarnations, has not been a mainstream friendly browser. As an advanced user, I think its great. My mom, my kid and most folks int he public school system I work in think otherwise.
We all know that a lot of user's problems with a computer gone "bad" would disappear without IE 5.5. But of course, many folks wouldn't want to use the web as much without the end user usability IE 5.5 has provided. Quite the double edged sword and frankly, we here at Slashdot are the minority in the internet using world.
More than meets the eye, here (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, IE7 won't be a Transformer.
Microsoft does not sell IE. They gain no direct profit from people's use of it, so you have to wonder what their motive is here. Let's assume that "good" and "evil" are subjective and emotive words that have no relevance to this discussion, ok?
If you read Joel Spolsky's API war [joelonsoftware.com] article, some perspective may be gained. Microsoft wishes only to discourage Web developers from moving away from the IE platform. If developers move away, Microsoft no longer has control over web development, and can no longer keep new [w3c.org] technologies [whatwg.org] on the fringe.
This is bad news for a company with plans to move to network applications. If a platform for network applications exists outside of Microsoft's control, it will be much harder to profit from. Thus, Microsoft's interest is served here by retaining that 90%+ browser market share, to prevent the adoption of new technologies not under MS control.
"Mass migration"??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Like it or not, IE has only lost 1% of market share. See:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/12/HNiel
Hardly a mass migration!!!
Re:Browser Wars II: Mozilla Strikes Back? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, its biggest threat is not that big at all. It's not like everybody is going to switch to Firefox in the short term.
IE is going to be the most used browser as long as it is bundled in Windows. Period.
Re:FireFox (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On the one hand this is good news (Score:1, Insightful)
MS caught in their own lies again (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut to a year and change later, Longhorn is taking too long to arrive and people are getting sick/scared enough of all the security deficiencies in IE to actually look for a better browser. Because informed consumers are their worst enemy, Microsoft gets a little nervous that their lock on the browser market might be in jeopardy, and POW! Miracle of miracles, it is suddenly possible to further improve standalone versions of IE on non-Longhorn versions of Windows! Whoda thunk it?
Technically such an improved beast should be called IE 6.5. If they actually do call it 7, it's purely for marketing reasons-- they'll launch some flashy commercials to try to snow people into thinking this is some totally reworked wonder that fixes everything they didn't like about IE 6, when in reality it will just be IE 6 with some bugs fixed and some extra shit grafted on. Too bad their campaign will probably work on the uninformed.
Don't roll over and take this, people! Keep informing your friends/family/clients that there are better browsers out there, and install your alternative browser of choice wherever possible. Don't let them listen to whatever sunshine Microsoft will be blowing up their asses about the "new, improved" IE.
~Philly
Re:"Mass migration"??? (Score:5, Insightful)
If IE was at 97% and is now at 96%, that's 33% increase in the number of people not using IE.
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
I may get flamed for this but I don't care, why complain about MS giving web designers a new tool to use and it gets used in a big way. If the feature is so useful, why can't the standards bodies and the Open Source world take a look at it and adopt it?
It would also act as a way for Mozilla to move into new areas by touting that Mozilla supports all MSIE extensions, plus runs on multiple platforms.
Limiting Mozilla to just the standards could be hurting it's acceptance in the business world...
If there is any justice (Score:3, Insightful)
Before Longhorn, but how long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it any wonder that people are switching away from a browser (and operating system) that can't even release system patches (XPSP2 [zdnet.com.au]?) on time.
Re:Why does MS still care? (Score:3, Insightful)
Verisign are making a *hell* of a lot of money of MS' back.
They can safely disable activex as it was dying anyway... they've found a better money spinner now.
PNG and CSS (Score:2, Insightful)
Heck, maybe I could use one of IE's security holes to install a PNG fix when users visit my site.
What for? (Score:5, Insightful)
So if we wait until Microsoft develops and releases these features in Internet Explorer, then we get to do everything that we .. uh .. already can do today in browsers like Firefox. Thanks, but no thanks, we can get now what they're offering next year.
Microsoft are truly amazing: Can any other IT company consistently generate excitement and buzz amongst their customer base by announcing that they are going to add features that everyone else has had for years already???
Re:Browser Wars II: Mozilla Strikes Back? (Score:5, Insightful)
My brother sure as hell cares if some virus wipes out his drive full of baby pictures. My technophobe friend sure as hell cares that she has to be careful with every single attachment she gets because of spam, spyware, and viruses. Or every site she visits. "Give us security" isn't just geeks anymore, its everyone, thus MS's actions. Spyware, spam, and viruses have hit such an all time high that the dinosaur that is MS is forced to do something about it. Especially, when its their browser which enables some pretty silly things like ActiveX, vbs scripting, etc.
I don't know much are safety engineering, but as a car owner I expect my airbag and anti-lock brakes to kick in when needed. Or the locks of the doors to work. If these things don't work then I'm pissed. You don't need to be a mechanic to understand why. Sure, a gear head is better informed than me, but that doesn't mean I don't care about such issues and when these issues become a real problem I demand something be done about them. The gearhead may have thought of it first, but he's really no superior to me as we're both consumers of a product from a company neither of us controls. Be it autos or software.
Re:On the one hand this is good news (Score:2, Insightful)
But yeah, Microsoft is a monopolist and everything is a grand orchestrated plot to undermine security, linux and.. and freedom! Tinfoil hats man.
Quick... (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not think that word means what you think. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A quote: (Score:5, Insightful)
And if people with browsers that didn't support the standards would realize the problem and upgrade, this might work.
What will actually happen is either
Re:What for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why does MS still care? (Score:4, Insightful)
But I think the idea might come down to trying to keep a brandname product in public view. And remember that even after there recent returning of cash to investors, M$ still has enough money that they can spend a billion dollars on keeping IE up to date purely for marketting reasons.
Re:Now is the time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft committed? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny, seeing as it could very well be argued that the primary reason Mozilla has been gaining marketshare is because of it's increased security, while IE has clearly needed such security measures for some years and yet has not even had an established team to work on it for that duration of time.
PNGs in IE and Mozilla. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla: <img src="filname.png">
IE: <img src="files/spacer.gif" border="0" style="filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoade
Make your choice...
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:3, Insightful)
OS X no longer ships with IE. Windows is the only platform to now ship with IE.
"new and different" is better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, I think improvements are great, as long as Microsoft focuses on becoming more compliant with CSS standards, etc. rather than trying to reinvent the wheel for a competitive edge.
Because "new and different" doesn't always mean "better".
Re:CSS compliance and IE (Score:2, Insightful)
back in reality, your absolutely right.
I think the public will accept a few minor tweaks to how they operate, and for whats allowed, but the problem at the moment is how well will sites render in the new version?
should Microsoft maintain that backwards compatibility, or bite the bullet now to clean up their act?
I personally feel that microsofts fumbling on this IE issue is actually them trying to listen to us.
For years and years, we the annoyed techies have been screaming about yearly releases and unfinished software, now they try and buckle down to sort that out, were screaming that we want new features?
It kinda makes me smile in a go linux way, but its also sad, because as a developer myself, I certainly wouldn't be happy with my software if some of my customers were unhappy using it.
Windows does what it does, in its inperfect way, but it works, most people can operate it, its simple to pick up, and as much as we moan about it, gettin paid to clean off spyware isn't all that bad.
Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, this whole article (i.e., Slashdot's article) has become a collection of threads promoting FireFox, Opera, etc., and generally IE-bashing instead of actually discussing the issue at hand. Sure, perhaps the majority of geeks don't use IE, but we're also the people who would use OpenOffice instead of MS Office, Linux instead of Windows, etc. I.e., we're not Microsoft's intended audience.
So, take a moment and think about the article's premise. Will there be a new version of IE before Longhorn? I'd venture to say no. Why? Mainly, a better IE would be a major selling point for Windows (as Safari has become for Mac OS X, e.g., Tiger's Safari RSS [apple.com]). Also, it's probably moved all new development of IE to Longhorn APIs, and doing double-development of new features is a nuisance (as it was for Apple).
In general, developing new features for IE 6 just doesn't make sense from a business, marketing, or technical perspective. Saying a new release of IE "may be imminent" just adds more vapor to the breeze, seemingly endorsing speculation, and creates even more opportunities for MS-bashing. Whereas MS-bashing can be justified, ripping apart products that exist only in your mind is ludicrous.
Re:FireFox (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, look at SVG -- that's been "under development" in Mozilla for about four years now. I wouldn't bet on when it will actually ship.
When slashbots say "Code to Standards!" they really mean "Code to Standards that Mozilla supports." (Some of us can recall when CSS was unpopular in this crowd because it was "IE-only".) Anyway, it's perfectly possible to build a "standards-compliant" site that doesn't show a pixel in Mozilla.
Re:Call Me Clueless (Score:1, Insightful)
As I see it Microsoft's interest in the browser wars is about standards. If some third party browser is making the standards for application development for browsers then maintaining these application's compatibility with newer versions of the OS becomes increasingly more difficult since the third party browser has a different agenda then MS. They are no longer free to play around with the area to see what they can do to make it more interesting. They have to wait for others to do it. This is already a big problem with the shell in windows were changing even the simplest thing in it can cause a whole category of applications to barf. It really sucks to have a great idea and not be able to implement it because application x thought it would be cool to call an undocument api to manipulate the shell in a way MS was not expecting. The open source world doesn't even have a fraction of the problem of backwards compatibility that comes along with the market share MS has. I personally don't think the open source community would be able to handle it. You would end up with one or two big distros maintaining there own flavors of everything under the sun. We could name on of them M and the other S and just refer to them as MS collectively.
IE7 (partly) not going to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
It will happen, but everything that the article implies won't be included.
IE7 will be the same caliber of upgrade as IE6, but with much more user value (who cares about the stupid image toolbar?). Little to no rendering engine improvments will happen, but most if not all of the UI features (tabs, popup blocker, etc) will. Remember that IE is essentially a very hacked up version of Mosaic, a codebase that is nearly a decade old. I've heard rumors of a Windows XP2 full release (in about a year)... likely any IE7 would accompany it.
But I do suspect that any possible IE upgrade will not be solely driven by user migration. MS has finally realized that they made a mistake in letting IE lag behind in the marketplace... the users are forcing them to admit it.
The people who run Channel9 post vehemently that they can't promise any improved support for anything. Remember that IE is still the sam bowl of spaghetti that it was 3 years ago (plus being stale and moldy). Do we really expect MS to make major rendering changes (so they claim) to IE and support it while developing the Longhorn UI (a rehash of Mozilla's display architecture)? I don't think so. I'm not sure how likely IE7 for Win98 will be.
And of course, don't hold your breath for IE including useful developer tools (DOM inspector, etc)... it never was for developers, and it never will be.
Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?" (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Google Zeitgeist [google.com], IE 6 hasn't dropped at all and is still massively slaughtering the competition. In fact, Slashdot's own browser statistics show that IE is the majority browser for people accessing this website! Also note that every year is the year of "Linux on the desktop," yet Linux is still at 1% of usage on Zeitgeist.
I don't like IE either, but come on. There is no "recent mass migration."
Re:FireFox (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, they have totally cocked it up IMO.
They have gone from TBL's origional HyperCard inspired idea for the WWW (which he admits didn't live up to his vision of an easy to edit & publish system) to promoting an overly complicated XML driven inteface which acts as a high barrier to entry.
Certainly, in 1995 it was a lot easier to learn how create a web page. You can still use the same HTML of course, but few places teach that - they all want to try and teach new users about CSS, XHTML, DHTML, JavaScript and other buzzwords which only serve to overwhelm people.
While that's fine for some people (like me), gone is the notion of a simple to grasp mark up language and editing system. I think that's why blogs are so popular - people can use a third party service that effectively creates their own website for them and allows them to update it easily and the whole process is just so simple (unlike with the the hundreds of naff, user-hostile applications that *claim* to make web design easy).
A very easy to use but powerful scripting language (something not unlike HyperTalk itself springs to mind), the ability to easily use other native interface widgets - like tabs and menus -, as well as some basic drawing tools (line, rectangle, circle and a basic fill tool spring to mind) together with an easy publishing system should have been the goals for HTML & HTTP IMO.
They seem to have no ability to focus clearly on the most important issues and then communicate those thoughts unambigously. Instead they create multiple broken 'transitional' implimentations which confuse people and lead to apathy as far as compliance goes.
IMO we should have a system where - say you are browsing your web site and you spot a spelling mistake on it at http://www.i-like-kibble.org/about.html you should just be able to click an edit button in your browser, be asked to supply a username and password and then have it open webdav://www.i-like-kibble.org/about.html either in a built in editor or it should ask you to select an editor (such as notepad, gedit or even MS Word). When the page is 'saved' in the editor, the changes should be uploaded to the site automatically by the browser. If they had been even remotely competant and argued for this from day one (and hacked up a couple of functional implimentations) we could all have that functionality today.
Instead we have an overcomplicated system focused squarely at technical users that is seeing little 'real world' use, because the vast majority of people just find using systems like Tables with a little CSS far easier and more practicle to manage.
And what really annoys me? CSS wasn't even that well designed. It's got huge gaping holes in functionality. You should be able to align anything by top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right of an object (such as a div) both as an absolute and a percentage. You should also be able to specify on what layer within that said container the object you are positioning should be drawn. Of course that doesn't work in any recent browser, because the developers have been too busy trying to impliment the mixed messages coming out of the W3C, and ensuring backwards compliance, along with supporting 'real world' hacks due to the dominance of IE.
Bit of rant - probably too long and ranty for most people to want to read - but I'm just annoyed that something as influencial as the WWW wasn't better steered by the W3C.
Of course I'm also annoyed at MS for how little they have done in this area (and how much they could have done given their dominance). Full kudos to the Mozilla contributers for giving them some competiton though. Even Windows users deseve features like tabs and autofill[1] *hugs Safari* (even though it's filthy KHTML
[1] Though the first time I saw AutoFill was in Internet Explorer for Mac OS Classic.
Internet Explorer and .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't really care, as they have their sights set on
Re:Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the tiny grain of truth somewhere was that the current version of IE actually saw a market share decrease last month instead of an increase.
Really, why do Slashdot story submitters have to have such completely and deliberately inaccurate stories? It *sucks*. I'd happily add a day or whatever on to the time until a story comes out if the eds would just read the linked to article on each story that they actually pass.
On the other hand, the "year of the desktop" claims have a bit more meat to them. Linux has a small desktop market share, and so a doubling over the course of a year doesn't look like all that much.
Also, most of the people talking about the "year of the desktop" are talking about whether the desktop is technically ready. They aren't factoring in transition time (which may well be up to five years -- nobody is going to throw out all their existing, reasonably well systems to install Linux -- they're just going to install Linux when they do their next upgrade).
Re:FireFox (Score:4, Insightful)
[sarcasm]
Yeah, isn't it amazing what a bunch of grubby basement weirdos can cobble together?
[/sarcasm]
Microsoft is getting their ass kicked big time. Linux on the desktop may not be as friendly to configure as Windows, but the architecture is totally sound.
If it wasn't for Microsoft buying laws, for the screwed up USA patent system, and other things along these lines, there would be little ammo to use to defend against open source developers except TRUE innovation and commitment to the customer.
Nice (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm talking about things like rendering   as a nonbreakable space, instead of requiring the trailing semi-colon, like in the standard
Yeah, well... (Score:4, Insightful)
If Microsoft can't even do this, then I hope version 8 is an IE uninstaller.
The W3C isn't that bad! (Score:5, Insightful)
Warning: also a long rant.
Um, the only thing that seems correct is that it used to be a lot easier to become a professional web page author (IMHO). In my experience, most (educational) places want to teach 1995 era web development ... things like massively nested frames, tables, and photoshopped images. Design is an afterthought.
Furthermore, those "buzzwords" aren't really that hard learn at all! XHTML is just a simpler HTML; CSS makes design so much easier; and a little JavaScript is easy as pie (a lot - like any programming language - takes skill). DHTML usually represents methods using JavaScript to change the existing CSS and markup; easy for little cutting-and-pasting. It just seems complicated many developers feel the need to use everything including the kitchen sink. Don't use CSS if you can use templates with PHP or ASP. Don't use JavaScript unless you really need it. HTML 4 still works. Moderation! Moderation! Moderation!
The hard parts about web development are design and consistency. Web browsers in 1995 were not more compliant than now; however, designs were so much simpler that it didn't matter. As I said before, developers nowadays want everything including the kitchen sink. Complex designs take more skill to develop and more testing to work around browser differences. Good design makes it easier to learn to code web sites, but learning to design well is really hard.
You're describing the design goals for Java or the X Window System. However, that's not for what hypertext was meant. The World Wide Web is about transferring documents - not programs. Writing documents with (X)HTML, and CSS is easy. On the other hand, writing complex programs with markup and scrips is hard.
TBL did have that functionality in mind while writing the original web browser: WorldWideWeb [w3.org]. The W3C's proof-of-concept web browser [w3.org] was designed with exactly that feature built-in. WikiWikiWeb [wiki.org] is the popular server version of your vision. The W3C's founders envisioned your suggestion; however, most users simply didn't need or want that functionality. That's one reason why Mosaic and Netscape Navigator were successful despite not having automatic editing capabilities.
Re:FireFox (Score:3, Insightful)
WHAT??? A DTD defines (in a machine parseable way) what the legal syntax for a language is. CSS defines how stuff's displayed on the screen. They are for completely different purposes.
Re:Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?" (Score:5, Insightful)
IE 6 hasn't dropped at all and is still massively slaughtering the competition.
It's not slaughtering the competition, it's slaughtering it's ancestors. IE 4/5 are dropping, netscape/mozilla are steadily rising.
Re:Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Both my mozilla and opera say they are IE6. Of course so does my IE6, which is never, ever opened. I don't even have a link to it visible on my desktop or start menu.
What really gets me is that Opera and Mozilla have a Google search bar built into it, so they should be going there in very high numbers. What if it only registers hits to the main page?
How many downloads of Opera and mozilla per day? of those...practically no one uses it? Hard to believe.
Giving Alternatives to Others (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, Firefox is giving the best features to both consumers and developers before they're asking for them, not after the fact. This, I think, is an important distinction. Microsoft is only picking up the ball because, after they announced they would no longer be playing the game, they've realized that the browser isn't going away after all and, oh by the way, Firefox is kicking ass all over IE on a number of fronts.
This is not only self-serving and a way of marginalizing mainstream consumer demands -- all while convincing them that they don't really want what they want after all, no, what they really want is what Microsoft happens to be pushing -- but it's cynical, pure and simple.
The great thing about Microsoft, though, is that they make it so easy for you to hate them. They don't apologize, and they never deliver without being asked, but they are constantly telling you what you really want, even though you didn't realize you needed it, whatever "it" happens to be, like their new touted shell that passes around .Net objects. I'm sure we'll all be "needing" that, too.
Re:Secret to the fast release revealed! (Score:2, Insightful)
And IE doesn't support any of that except for block anyway. (It treats inlines like inline-block under special circumstances, but doesn't actually know the property.)
Re:Chill! (Score:1, Insightful)
Poor spelling is a symptom of bad journalism, not a cause.
Re:I goofed! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Mass migration"??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because they paid for Windows. They got IE for free just like Firefox.
Now, another interesting thing is: How many other web browsers pretend to be IE? Can you accurately measure usage of IE versus usage of other browsers pretending to be IE?
OT: spreading FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
this statement is based on two false assumptions:
A) people would have bought it if they hadn't pirated it
B) people won't buy it because they pirated it
please stop spreading BSA-FUD. repetition doesn't beget truth.
[waiting for mac version
Re:Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OT: spreading FUD (Score:1, Insightful)
I typically spend about $1,000 on video games for my PC every year. I've been looking forward to Doom 3 for ages and planned to buy it the day it came out. Unfortunately, I was laid off the week before it was released and decided that I had to be cautious of every dime I spend. I've canceled my cable television, canceled my telephone (using VoIP instead which saves me $60/mo) and have stopped ordering take-out or eating out.
Considering my circumstances, I couldn't justify the expense - yet I really wanted to try the game out. So I downloaded it over the net (suprnova, in fact).
So no, if I hadn't downloaded it - I still would not have purchased it. But now that I've downloaded it and played it for a few days, I may consider buying it as soon as I am gainfully employed again. $60 is a lot to spend on a frivolous game at the moment, but I'll surely want to play multi-player online in the near future so I'll have to buy the game. And once I have another job, I *will*.
Re:OT: spreading FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
If Doom 3 is so important to you, please pay for it, ID software will have more money, they will spend it, butterfly-effect.
of course how else will they force you to longhorn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Secret to the fast release revealed! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a web developer and we DO tailor our sites for IE. When 95% of your viewers are using IE, the last thing your customer wants hear after his mail box fills with complaints about his "crappy website" is: "Well, it's CSS compliant maybe you should tell them to switch to a REAL browser."
You can spout the mantra that it just supports IE's non-standard ways, but in the real world you don't stay in business as a web developer unless it looks good in IE.
Case in point: Slashdot's side bar looks fine in IE but in some cases screws up in Mozilla/Firefox. I'd bet on that being because they had to make sure it rendered right in IE.....even on slashdot.
Re:OT: spreading FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like ppl who pirate software keep a seperate "cash i saved by pirating checkbook" or something, they'll just spend it on something else. your economy statement is flawed.
Re:OT: spreading FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
Legally-speaking, you've still comitted copyright infringement, yes.
Re:Secret to the fast release revealed! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you read the feedback on those IE pages you'll see that there is a HUGE demand for the features discussed. Couple that with the fact that IE is losing marketshare and you may find that catering to IE really amounts to painting yourself in a corner.