PCWorld Says Firefox is Strong, Vista is Weak

twitter writes "PC World has released their year in review statistics and 2007 was not kind to Microsoft. IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 and no one wants Vista. 'How much of an accomplishment is it for a new version of Windows to get to 14 percent usage in 11 months? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002. In that period, that operating system went from nothing to 36 percent usage on PCWorld.com--more than 250 percent of the usage that Vista has mustered so far.'"

I've just upgraded one machine at home ...

[Tim Ward]

... from Win2k to XP, a couple of weeks ago, because the child wanted to run something that didn't work on Win2k. (We have no Win9x or NT boxes left at home now, they've all been upgraded to at least Win2k.)

In the end, that'll be why people upgrade to Vista - difficulty in obtaining applications that still work on XP.

Re:benchmark?

[thatskinnyguy]

At least every time I've installed Vista the disk preparation utilities worked like a charm. ME on the other hand, I had to mess around with a Win 98 boot disk.
Also, the only problems I can find from a user perspective in Vista is that UAC is annoying as hell. With ME, I would have systemic problems right off the bat. That OS was just plain junk right off the bat. Nothing anyone could do could make it work right. The annoyances with Vista can at least be fixed with unchecking a few boxes.

Reality check

[Stan Vassilev]

IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 ...

Reality check [thecounter.com]:

1. MSIE 6.x (44%)
2. MSIE 7.x (35%)
3. FireFox (14%)
4. Safari (3%)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the word "equally", but we have 35% vs. 14%. Add the IE6 users, the number becomes 79%.

Should I also remind anyone that IE8 is under progress, including new UI and engine that passes ACID.

Re:Poor comparison

[jawtheshark]

I question your knowledge.... You say XP followed ME. That isn't remotely true. There was a consumer line which went 95, 98, ME. All of those were worthless. The professional line on the other hand went NT 3.51, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP. None of those were worthless. They all were great within the time the lived. XP was NEVER a decendant of ME. Learn your OS history, please.

Re:Poor comparison

[TheNetAvenger]

They all were great within the time the lived. XP was NEVER a decendant of ME. Learn your OS history, please.

Although you are 'technically' correct that Windows 2000 was released between WinME and XP, what is being missed in this argument is that WindowsXP was the FIRST version of the NT based OS that was focused on and designed to specifically replace the consumer level DOS/Win9x OSes.

You are correct that XP is not descended from Win9x or WinME in any way, it is an NT based OS with NO code used from the Win9x era of OSes. (It is was as much of a jump from Win9X/WinME as System 9 was to OS X).

In regard to the article, this is also why the uptake of WinXP was faster than even Windows 2000, as Windows 2000 was the successor to NT4 and was not pushed to home or mainstream consumer users. XP being the first NT version that was designed for and pushed into the mainstream consumer markets had quite an advantage even though Win2K users ignorantly thumbed their noses at it. In contrast to the generation of consumer OSes it was replacing, it was a massive difference in terms of performance and stability. XP not only ran faster than Win98 (the fastest of the DOS/Win9x generation), but it also was significantly more stable and secure than the previous OSes that had no knowledge of any type of security.

So for consumers and home users, XP was good jump, and even just upgrading Win98 or WinME to XP would not only increase the lifetime of the computer, but would fix technical problems in the installation wihtout having to wipe settings, and gave the users a virtually crash free experience.

Virtual reality check

[xant]

Those numbers are as made-up as the numbers you find anywhere else. My company, which hosts surveys and therefore sees a very broad cross-section of the market, collects web statistics. I just analyzed our logs and got these numbers, which I trust far more than thecounter, whatever the fuck that is:

IE6 (all operating systems) 35.22%
FF (all operating systems and versions) 18.35%
IE7 (all OS) 18.15%
Other.. the rest

Should I also remind anyone that IE8 is under progress, including new UI and engine that passes ACID.

You could, if you wanted to hear someone remind you that Firefox 3 is about to come out (far sooner than IE8) and also passes ACID, as if that were relevant.

Note, these are not the opinions of my employer, but they are the data of my employer. :-)

The hating-Vista bandwagon

[Lord Aurora]

I feel like a large majority of the people who hate Vista do it because they think they're supposed to. Similar to people who like Titanic because they think they're supposed to, even though it's horribly depressing and all in all not that great of a film, average at best; or MS fanboys who hate Mac because they think they're supposed to--while these feelings might have a legitimate basis somewhere (Vista does have problems, Titanic did receive good reviews, and Mac has only recently started to shine), when multiplied by a few hundred thousand misinformed people they cause mass confusion. I bought a cheap laptop running XP a while back, recently upgraded to a better system that runs Vista. I had heard that I shouldn't like Vista. It was the devil. I've been using it for 6 months now and none of the "huge problems" have surfaced--the "Cancel or Allow?" took some getting used to (and you can disable it), and everything is a trifle different from XP, but all in all I like it. The whole scandal about DRM and Vista is petty at best, the average user really doesn't have to worry about it. And as far as security goes, I was surfing around the internet essentially unprotected by outside sources for quite a while before installing McAfee, and didn't get a single virus, trojan, or piece of malware installed on my system (checked with both McAfee and AVG). I've also used the most recent Mac OS on friends' systems, and I like it, I just wouldn't use it myself. And my old machine still dual-boots Ubuntu--I'm a fan of it as well, but again, I like Vista better. In the end, I think people who hate on Vista need to give it an objective second look and think about whether or not it really is as bad as they've been led to believe. It hasn't been in my case.

Re:Poor comparison

[schnikies79]

I never used nt 3.51 or 4.0 regularly, but I did w2k and xp.

I NEVER get blue screens, ever, end of story. If you get blue screens with XP, something is wrong and it's not the OS.

2000 is absolutely rock-solid stable, as is w2k.

Re:Another issue is security (Or how to sell Ubunt

[Anonymous Coward]

I showed Ubuntu to a non-computer literate friend the other day. He wants me to install it for him, which scare me a little bit, but I will probably do it. How did I sell it to him? I showed him Firefox and then told him there was no spyware, no viruses, no virus scanners, no spyware scanners...and he was sold instantly, because he is sick to death of that on Windows.

For one thing, you should download several of the Ubuntu Screencasts [ubuntu.com] and let him watch them. If you install Ubuntu for him, put a few there and optionally subscribe him to it in Miro. Those go over many things, such as installing applications, installing printers, playing video, etc. Very helpful for introducing someone to Ubuntu.

Something else is if he has a valid Windows license consider installing it in VirtualBox (Gutsy has a package). With seamless mode* the apps will appear on the desktop. This is a better option than Wine since it always works, and no tweaking.

*Two issues: 1) Seamless mode doesn't work correctly with Compiz. Windowed mode still works fine. 2) Ubuntu doesn't ship the Windows driver iso (licensing). That's needed for mouse integration, clipboard support, decent video, seamless mode, etc. The fix is easy, just download the iso [virtualbox.org] and place it in "/usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso".

Re:benchmark?

[thatskinnyguy]

I'm running it with 1GB of ram and a 3.0GHz P4 just fine. It was a real dog when I first installed it. But after a few tweaks its quick and my processor idle is at about 11%. I was getting the same with XP.

Re:benchmark?

[Kalriath]

Not everyone does experience that. I have a 3.2GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and Vista runs fine with CPU idling at 0%-1% (although the 0% obviously isn't really 0%)

The poster you're replying to either has issues with their PC/setup, Norton, or mistakenly included the spike caused by Task Manager starting.

Re:benchmark?

[lxrocks]

I believe that OEM XP is out of production Jan 1, 2008. So if you want any more, you had better go an buy some quick. Have you taken a good look at the new Notebooks on offer ... I just got burnt with a Compaq v6620 - no XP drivers available. You can install XP, and it boots, but kiss the Lan, Wlan, Video, Audio good bye. No XP drivers - only vista and linux. So what does that tell you - Vista will be rammed down your throught whether you like it or not. Eventually, all new kit will be running Vista, because the Manufacturers won't be cutting any XP drivers for them!

Re:benchmark?

[ozmanjusri]

What also sucks, is that Gateway decided to put in only shared memory graphics, so there is no way to run Compiz or Beryl

The Intel GL960 chipset in that laptop should be fine with Compiz.

It's probably PCLinux 2007 not being new enough to recognise it. Try;

SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz --replace ccp &

And if that works, you can use

mkdir -p ~/.config/compiz; echo SKIP_CHECKS=yes >> ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager

for a permanent fix.

Re:benchmark?

[cheater512]

Defragging doesnt use much cpu at all - it just thrashes the hard drive.
It also does not run when idle. When defragging the disk state cannot change at all so running when idle isnt ideal.

Where did you pull the indexing bit from? Your ass?
The indexing service only indexes the filesystem. It has nothing to do with the speed programs load.
Also its recommended that you disable it because it sucks at what it does. It doesnt help file searches at all.
Although it could account for the 11% idle usage, its certainly not a good thing.

Re:Vista and managed software

[kamatsu]

.NET applications are "managed code" in that they are executed by an interpreter and are not fully compiled into native binaries. This means that, with proper assemblies, one can have cross-platform development. The other thing is it decreases dramatically the chances of things like buffer overruns and other security holes. Java is another example of managed code, but I don't think it does quite as well in terms of performance. You're talking about package management, not managed software :)

Re:benchmark?

[MojoStan]

I believe that OEM XP is out of production Jan 1, 2008. So if you want any more, you had better go an buy some quick.

License availability (direct OEM and retail) has been extended to June 30, 2008 (January 31, 2009 for system builders) [microsoft.com]. This was covered at Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] and other news sites.

Have you taken a good look at the new Notebooks on offer ... I just got burnt with a Compaq v6620 - no XP drivers available. You can install XP, and it boots, but kiss the Lan, Wlan, Video, Audio good bye. No XP drivers - only vista and linux. So what does that tell you - Vista will be rammed down your throught whether you like it or not. Eventually, all new kit will be running Vista, because the Manufacturers won't be cutting any XP drivers for them!

Most real "business/pro" PCs offer Windows XP as an installation option. I noticed that the Compaq v6620 is sold on HP/Compaq's "Home and Home Office" store [hp.com], so it's probably really targeted toward the "home" user. If you browse HP/Compaq's current line of notebooks at their "Small & Medium Business" site [hp.com], you'll notice that almost all of them (except a few very cheap models) offer Windows XP as an option.

The key to finding "professional/business" notebooks with Windows XP is looking in the "Business" sites, not the "Home & Home Office" sites. Unfortunately, I've noticed most brick-and-mortor stores (even "office supply" stores) don't carry these real "business" notebooks (just "home office" notebooks at best).