Microsoft Wins Browser War, Abandons 'Innovation' 794
rocketjam writes "Web developers are expressing frustration with Microsoft's apparent abandonment of its 'operating-system-integrated' Internet Explorer web browser. An article on C-Net points up the efforts of the Web Standards Project as well as Adobe Systems to prompt Microsoft to fix long-standing Cascading Style Sheet bugs in IE as well as continuing to add other improvements which have virtually ceased since Microsoft won the browser war. While alternatives such as the Mozilla Project and the Opera browser still exist, their marketshare is miniscule." In a related story, an anonymous reader points out that the bugs aren't just in rendering, they're security holes as well: "iDefense and eEye have basically said that Internet Explorer is full of holes and just surfing the Web using it is "unsafe". There's 31 un-patched holes in IE, but MS won't talk about it... It took them nearly a month to roll out a new patch after this one was found to be more or less useless."
Can't say I have much sympathy for them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh. I wish.
Re:Can't say I have much sympathy for them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Purists (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Purists (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft somewhat justified (Score:5, Insightful)
So while I agree that "embrace and extend" *is* a real tactic that Microsoft has used historically, every time they deviate from a standard, they aren't deliberately out to get folks.
In good news for Mozilla, once a Microsoft product starts to stagnate, it tends to stay stagnant. So if the Moz people can keep trudging along, AOL or Dell or someone can ship Windows bundled with Mozilla (or Linux just plain catches on on the desktop), they may have a much better shot.
Microsoft dissolves development teams once a development project is over, and can have a tough time finding people to start up a long-dormant project. The Samba people have said it before in frustration, when they tried tracking down a Microsoft SMB developer to answer a question at a networking conference. There just wasn't anyone left who *knew* how Microsoft's SMB implementation worked. The Samba lead said in frusteration something along the lines that they knew Microsoft's SMB implementation better than anyone left at Microsoft.
Re:Can't say I have much sympathy for them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't say I have much sympathy for them. (Score:2)
Davak
Hey Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
The developers are complaining that they have to create non-standards compliant websites because 95% of the userbase use a non-standards compliant browser.
You make it sound like it's the web developer's fault that MicroSoft have produced a crappy browser.
To belabour the point: developers produce sites that work best with the most widely used browser - if the browser doesn't work in the logical and 'correct' manner, then a lot of time is spent hacking and trial-and-erroring trying to get the effect that the client wants. Clients aren't going to give a sh*t whether their site is fully W3C compliant and looks exactly as it should in Opera, Mozilla, Safari, Konqueror or whatever if it doesn't look as promised in IE
Re:Can't say I have much sympathy for them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I do. The main problem is that the customer throws a fit if the page doesn't display 'correctly' in a browser with the largest market share, which means you end up compromising the stylesheets and markup to please them, usually squeezing your budgets because you're competing with 'HTML 4.01 transitionals'.
So please don't blame developers; we've been badgering MS on regular occasions to fix their browser to match the recommendations that they helped to write in the first place.
Innovation with plugins (Score:5, Funny)
Jolyon
Re:Innovation with plugins (Score:5, Interesting)
IE is simple (mostly), but there's LOTS of room for improvement. It's no longer the best browser by any measure. Monopolies suck, plain and simple.
can you say 'monopoly?' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can you say 'monopoly?' (Score:3, Funny)
So Slashbots bitch when a company moves to secure a monopoly and when they abuse that monopoly? Damn those fickle Slashdot readers...
No big surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Would work fine if the browser wasn't a point of failure for the OS. How do they expect to secure the entire package when pieces of it are so full of holes?
Just an honest question.
MS needs to either secure IE, or remove it from their core OS installation (make it an addon) if they're really serious about security IMO.
I'm not sure about "Microsoft wins"... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I'm not sure if, in these numbers, "Netscape" includes "Mozilla".
P.S. This HTTP POST request sent by Mozilla.
Stats skewed by fake browser referrers (Score:2)
I myself use Opera, or Firebird, but I also have Proxomitron running in between to filter all the crap out before it ever gets to me. Part of this filtering includes sending a fake referrer header to make sites think I am using MSIE, since usually they work just fin
Re:I'm not sure about "Microsoft wins"... (Score:2)
It are stats from may 1 to sept 30 (that is 153 days) and they are categorized by day of the week.....
How hard is that?????
Jeroen
Safari (Score:4, Funny)
It's a bloody great browser... although having thought about it, theres no reason for Apple to let the hoardes have its pretty software for nothing...
I can tell you this though... if you think your browsing and computing experience is slowing down in terms of innovation and invention, switch to the OSX platform... my god, there's enough new stuff every week to make you do a sex wee.
-Nex
Re:Safari (Score:2)
Re:Safari sex wee (Score:2)
If everyone got to use a mac for a week, then had to go back to windows, I don't think we'd have much of a problem - OS X is sweet to geek, and easy to Mom.
galeon is better (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortuneatley, Camino development seems to be very slow, otherwise it would be the best browser available for OS X.
Not that I'm knocking Safari, it's an excellent browser, in fact, it's better than vanilla Mozilla.
Windows needs a feature complete browser based on mo
Re:Safari (Score:4, Informative)
Let's wait a year (Score:4, Insightful)
Safari is making (understatement?) inroads on the Mac side and Macs are picking up momentum. Safari can tandem on that aspect alone.
Let's not forget...the tide really can change. Remember when Netscape was the undeniable champion? Look where they are now. Who's to say this can't happen to IE?
the big mo (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the big mo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the big mo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the big mo (Score:3, Insightful)
2. You don't have to go into the prefs, just go to the bottom right and look for the little icon, single click and click add when the box shows up.
Re:the little mo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the little mo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the little mo (Score:4, Informative)
How so? It's the exact same technology. In fact, Mozilla is going to split up into Firebird and Thunderbird soon. So, Firebird is simply Mozilla without the e-mail client.
No it's not. Firebird is a completely different application based the Mozilla Gecko core technologies. It shares much of the Mozilla backend but it is not "simply Mozilla without the e-mail client." If you want to use "simply Mozilla without the e-mail client," then select Navigator only in the Mozilla installer. Compare that to firebird and you'll see how they're quite different applications.
--Asa
I *LOVE* the big mo (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been testing Mozilla since the 0.6 release, I think, and I switched to it as my primary browser just before it went to 1.0. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was that IE couldn't properly render sites that were being Borg'd into MSN (i.e., ESPN). Mozilla had no such problems.
Tabbed browsing and popup-blocking were merely the icing on the cake, but now that I use Mozilla as my primary browser, I cringe when I'm forced to use IE for anything.
Not very surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not very surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
My father-in-law runs into problems with IE all of the time, but he just considers it part of the computer-using experience. He is very suspicious of the fact that I use something not-Windows on our computers; I think he thinks I'm a closet commie or something...
Re:Not very surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
"Innovation" in a business sense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is hardly surprising. Microsoft's intention was never to build the greatest browser, but to simply build a browser that would net them the largest market share. With the other big player out of the way now, there's little incentive for further "innovation".
IMO, this is one of the fundamental differences between Open Source and commercial standard development. OS projects are often made "for fun" or "for advancement of technology X", whereas commercial projects are usually (!) made "for profit". Both have their places, they just use different mind-sets: academic or business.
Re:The purpose of a browser monopoly (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just blatant (and incorrect) Bush-bashing. The Clinton administration had backed away from going after Microsoft years before (and the states coalitions self-destructed almost as soon as they started, once MS leaned *hard* on OEMs and parts suppliers all over the country.) In fact, the DoJ began actively "losing" their case long before Bush was even a candidate. They did this in many ways, but mostly by restricting the entire argument of MS's misbehaviour to one tiny thing, which was a relatively small offense, given al lthe MS had done wrong: bundling the browser with the OS. Other huge infringements that could have been used were completely ignored, as MS had Reno bought and paid for within weeks of her press conference announcing the DOJ was going after Microsoft. The things ignored included the truly damning evidence from the Caldera suit, which clearly showed Gates and other top MS honchos were directly involved in deliberate efforts to ensure that other products could NOT operate with Windows, even if that meant adding encrypted code specifically to break those products: a very clear abuse of monopoly power.
In reality, the Bush administration just looked at the hash that Reno and the DoJ had made of an eminently winnable case and (quite correctly) decided that there was no point throwing good money after bad. The damage was done - Reno and the DoJ had had the best of all possible positions, and totally blown it. As much as I would have liked to see things turn out differently, this was the right call, given the situation.
And yes, I'm pretty familiar with what went on, as I was up to my armpits in IBM lawyers dealing with this from IBM's perspective for quite a while, and left Dell to avoid having to lie to the DoJ to protect Microsoft, which my boss quite probably would have expected had I stayed. (He did not hold a particularly high view of the law, even after being directly responsible for Dell having to shell out the largest corporate fine in Federal Trade Commission history - with "no admission of wrongdoing", of course...)
There's no question MS abused thier monopoly power, but the Sherman antitrust act has really been a complete joke since the forces for monopoly managed to keep Teddy Roosevelt from being elected president in 1912. (No that I think they were directly implicated in his shooting (there's no evidence I'm aware of there), but they cetainly did everything they could to capitalize on it, kmowing that he was the only candidate that would be sure to cause trouble for the monopolists, and would very likely ask Congress for even stricter regulations and penalty of monopoly abuse. The game's been over since then, and the monopolists won..)
Re:The purpose of a browser monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
It was your hero, President Bush, who decided not to pursue the case any further, because he is 100% pro-big-business and where will you find a bigger business than Microsoft? Bush took a case that had ALREADY BEEN WON and basically, let Microsoft off the hook.
Think of it in terms of fishing. Janet Reno and her crew caught a twenty-foot marlin, wrestled it into the boat, and picked up the club to bash it in the head. Then, before the death blow, the boat changed crews -- Clinton, et al, got off and Bush, et al, got on. Bush looked down at the marlin, asked "what's that doing here? Get that thing off my boat..."
Bush bashing? No. I'm calling a spade a spade.
Browser Wars Over? (Score:4, Interesting)
A small current marketshare can in no way infer that "The Browser Wars are Over" and that Internet Explorer will ALWAYS be the de-facto standard. Sure, Mozilla may have not have a huge marketshare at the moment, but then again, neither does Linux in terms of common Desktop usage to the average user.
I feel that when Linux really takes off as a real Windows alternative to the average user, Mozilla will really begin to shine, and it's market share will increase as Linux's market share increases.
The Browser Wars are certainly not over yet...they are just being postponed for a little while.
What? A monopoly that doesn't innovate? (Score:4, Funny)
Phlegm at 11.
Tim
Re:What? A monopoly that doesn't innovate? (Score:2)
wbs.
If only we could say goodbye (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I don't suppose developers can afford to ignore IE's lack of support for basic standards like CSS. Damn monopoly.
If only they could, we could finally start to see the web returning to using standardised, open techno
Quick Solution - Everybody wins! (Score:5, Funny)
(Most) People only use IE because they are scared to install some software (I don't want to break my computer!) or they don't know there are options (What are you using - why do I get all these pop-ups?)
Use MS tactics! Force a new browser on them!
Re:Quick Solution - Everybody wins! (Score:2)
Re:Quick Solution - Everybody wins! (Score:5, Insightful)
Having done actual helpdesk/tech support work for a number of years, I feel somewhat qualified to say something here.
The above is true, but very far from being the whole story. A lot of users use IE for a much better reason than just ignorance: because the web pages they view look right in IE. I've known plenty of folks who didn't want to use Netscape 4.8 (at least when that was an option), Netscape 6/7, other Mozilla derivatives like Firebird- not because of a lack of knowledge, but because those browsers did not handle the pages they viewed very well.
IMHO, things are a lot better in this regard today, although there are still some of these issues.
Standards? Users don't give a flying flip about standards. They just want the page to work as expected, as they used to. I personally am not aware of big chunks of implementation that IE supports that Mozilla does not. Hell, I don't know any pages that don't work fine in Mozilla (but do in IE) at all- but I do know that I still hear these complaints, even though none of the pages I browse have any issues. But then again, I can do the vaaaaast majority of my browsing using links in graphical mode.
Use MS tactics! Force a new browser on them!
In the Mac world, there is Safari. I'd guess that around 60% of Mac users now use Safari, instead of IE or Moz, a higher percentage when looking at Mac enthusiasts. Apple is in the position to ship Safari with new machines, or with the OS. These users may have used IE in the past, but when they try Safari, they find they like it and that it supports the pages they need to use. No wonder they keep on with it.
Re:Quick Solution - Everybody wins! (Score:2)
The only time I ever problems with Moz is when the page authors use JavaScript trickery to handle things differently between IE and NS/Moz. Much as I used to like JavaScript, I now firmly believe that it's an Evil (tm) technology
First... (Score:2)
First we take over the world
Then we allow it to fall into chaos
um... 3. PROFIT!!!!! (sorry couldn't help it)
Microsoft "wins", (Score:2)
Here's to hoping they lose some of their latest lawsuits, and start being held responsible for the incredibly shoddy quality of their software, so the people can benefit. After all, it isn't like MS has been helping anyone else--including their shareholders--with that gigantic lump of cash they've been hoarding, illegally obtained through their extortive monopoly practices.
IE is loosing market share (Score:2)
Maybe this means we will start to see some more innovations to recapture market share.
Where do you want to go today? (Score:2)
When you understand that MS "innovation" ... (Score:2)
Tell your friends about Firebird (Score:4, Insightful)
It really is a wonderful browser that is lightweight, fast and it has a host of cool features like popup blocking, password manager (for the less paranoid), tabbed browsing.
Their market share is miniscule because no one knows about it!
This is nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
- Word Processors: When WordStar was king and WordPerfect came along and dominated, Word was the upstart. Microsoft kept throwing more and more features into the product. Fast forward a few years: Word is king, innovation slows to a trickle. The Word you use today is like the Word you used half-a-decade ago.
- Programming Tools: When Borland was kicking Microsoft's butt in IDEs and compiler technology, Microsoft had to add features like mad to get their market share back. Fast forward a few years: The Visual IDEs are king, innovation slows to a trickle.
- Web browsers: When Netscape was king, blah, blah blah. The IE you use today, blah, blah, blah.
Monopolies traditionally stagnate as often as they can get away with. Ain't nothing new here. Move along.Re:This is nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
Programming tools: the Vis Studio IDE, frankly, rocks. I can dynamically recompile code, make changes in a C project as I'm stepping through it. Dyn-o-mite! Again, I can't think of anything I would want it to do that it doesnt.
If anything, these have too many features that I never use.
Re:This is nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you what I think is true innovation: making the product more efficient, more capable, but reducing the complexity of the interface and reducing the number of 'features' needed to achieve the same goals.
As long as innovation is associated with 'new features' (read: new menu items/buttons), I will continue to cry.
We should be focused on inter-app communication/co-operation
This IS Something new (Score:4, Interesting)
What we have today is different than what has happened before. Before, one company dominated word processing, another had a lock on spreadsheets, another was the king of databases. But look at the situation now. When it comes to "productivity applications" (i.e. the programs that 90% of users use 90% of the time), the leaders are products FROM A SINGLE COMPANY.
Word Processing: Word
Spreadsheets: Excel
Presentation: PowerPoint
Planning: Visio
Database: Access
Web Browsing: IE
Email: Outlook
It goes on and on. No one is going to dethrone MS because they control the whole field. No one can get money and mindshare by succeeding in one area and then move into others, because MS controls ALL the areas. MS makes sure that most PCs come with MS applications that do everything, obviating the need to purchase any other software. If you're Joe/Jane User with limited funds, and your $500 Dell comes with programs to do all the things you need to do, why in the world would you spend more money or more time installing other programs that do the same thing?
Microsoft has a lock on the whole computer, especially now that they're extending their reach into the BIOS. The only reason they need to add more features now is to force users to upgrade their computers and feed the upgrade cycle.
As long as people can spend less than $1000 on a complete system that comes ready to use and has software that does everything they need it to pre-installed, and works pretty well most of the time, no one is going to switch to anything else.
Simple: Improve alternatives (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this a slashdot problem or a mozilla problem?
Anyways, improve mozilla, and get the word out, and people *will* use it. Developers - stop kludging your sites for IE, stop putting "this site is best viewed by IE" on your front page, put "this si
Re:Simple: Improve alternatives (Score:2)
Altho i would much prefer all browsers to be standard and have absoloute freedom of choice as to what browser i use, there would inevitably be bugs in various browsers... But so long as the site displays in mozilla, then virtually everyone should be
Maybe it's time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Maybe it's time... (Score:2)
You don't work for a PHB do you?
I agree completely, I just don't think it'll happen any time soon.
Re:Maybe it's time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Customers and money, you mean?
The sad thing is that standards-compliant doesn't pay the rent, and there are a large number of us trying to create standards compliant while trying to earn a living. It's a difficult balance to trade off, and after _two_ years of struggling and quietly putting in CSS whereever possible, my boss starts asking about it.
Hoo-bloody-ray.
There's a c
Re:Maybe it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to real-world business, ideology is about as useful as a money shredder. You don't tell your customers to upgrade or change browsers. You adapt to your customers, or your competition will.
Innovation, MS... MS...? (Score:3, Insightful)
of their Anti-Trust lawsuit with the USDOJ.
I guess this is Microsoft's new form of "Innovation."
Proof positive of the negative impact of Microsoft's monopoly in the browser market coupled with the fact that they received little more than a slap on the wrist from the USDOJ in the end.
Use IE only when you *have* to.
.
Why should they improve IE ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Innovation and improvement made only sense when they had something to achieve: pushing Netscape out of the market. But this is no longer the case.
I would not even blame them. If the customers were keen on good browsers, they would rush to pay money for better versions like Opera. But they aren't. They are simply whining that MS is not innovating, but they won't do anything themselves.
Re:Why should they improve IE ? (Score:5, Interesting)
How many web sites still say "requires IE5+" or whatever? How many websites rely on IE's quirks? By abusing their monopoly position, MS made "the web" and IE synonymous for most users, and required for many things (online banking, for example, often requires IE).
Of course customers want good browsers. They just can't see them past the big blue e on their desktop.
Re:Why should they improve IE ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that Safari is here, there's no need for any other browser. It's small, it renders well, it's free, and it's pretty generic. I use it on a daily basis - I've quit bothering with other browsers on the Mac (don't ask me about Opera - I refuse to use software produced by whiny-ass bitches).
Of course
slashdotters unite to teach about alternatives (Score:2)
The fact is, 90% of people who surf the net consider that iexplore is the only option - they consider it as being 'the world wide web', rather than software used to access it.
You don't need to educate them too much - just say "hey, try this alternative software tha
Re:slashdotters unite to teach about alternatives (Score:2, Interesting)
Stupid IE tricks (Score:4, Informative)
(PS - you can still get your page to work with IE if that situatioin applies to you, you just have to get the submit button title from the x and y click coordinates titles [which IE is so thoughtful not to ignore])
Resources vs Innovation vs *your* time (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is Microsoft, the player in the browser market with the most resources by an insane margin, have the piece of software that's the most egregious offender in terms of standards compliance?
You can come up with a lot of answers, but I've come to believe that it's because they understand something:
(1) The lock in principles that we're all familiar with
(2) You more easily make money by letting others waste their time making things work than by wasting your own resources
(3) It's possible the IE 6 codebase really is hard to polish and move forward at this point.
Focus on #2 for a moment. They steal time from every single developer who has to use their products to deliver a product -- and that's everyone who's delivering a web application, at least. How do they steal it? Just recently I lost hours of my time (and possibly business) because of some bug that makes images that display all right and proper in every browser -- except IE. You just had to know that in certain situations involving nested, CSS positioned divs, unless you set the most immediately containing div to position: relative, the images would not render. Anyone here who's ever tried CSS positioning and the accompanying loosely semantic markup knows what I'm talking about. This happens in a hundred small ways.
It's not just IE, either. I have to use MS Word XP at work to occasionally do *page layout*. Nevermind that it's the wrong tool for the job, we know that, it's just that sometimes our customers demand stuff in that format. The gyrations necessary to do things in those programs are ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. I've used two other word processors who make it an order of magnitude easier -- hell, sometimes I'd rather do page layout in the same bug-ridden CSS/XHTML combo I mentioned above. Again, who is the player with the most resources? Who does not have the easiest or most powerful toolset?
Seriously, someday I think people will wake up and realize that Bill has been wasting several GDPs worth of people's time, and that's how he's amased his wealth -- Microsoft would much rather let customers and developers waste their time than spend their own dimes creating truly effective software.
Re:CSS (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree... I've made this very mistake with clients in the past. When things don't look good under IE 5.5 or sometimes even 5.0, they don't look at you as a cutting edge developer who they want to support, they look at you as someone too stupid to use conventional, reliable web coding techniques that work across browsers.
Still, even if you tend to the idea tha
For partial improvements: (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, it can't do anything for IE's HTML or CSS support....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Real world Mozilla Success story (Score:2)
One guy's IE install was corrupt, and since we're a web based company, this was a serious issue for him. I installed Firebird as a stop gap measure until IE was working again. Set up tabbed browsing, showed him how to block pop ups and went on my merry way. I had IE fixed later that day.
Thing is, he's still using Firebird as much as he can. He came down later that day, AFTER IE was
Morons-R-Us (Score:2)
Isn't it funny how huge corporations, governments, and software firms (Like Adobe) will dump tons of money into Microsoft's products, kiss Microsoft's ass, partner with Microsoft, and never get attention to all of the horrible flaws that need fixing? Maybe eventually it will dawn on them that the reason competing products have a small market-share is because the same people who complain about their Microsoft woes refuse to support try the competition for once?
Long Time IE User (Score:5, Interesting)
I also work with several people who felt the same way.
In January or so I switched over to Opera because I got sick and tired of the pop-ups and IE had no good defense against them.
I had been using Mozilla at work for some time--having to develop for both IE and Mozilla platforms--but I hadn't been too impressed with it until about the end of the summer.
These security holes and the apparent lax nature by which MS is handling them in IE have actually scared most of my coworkers away from Internet Explorer for their day-to-day ops.
I mean, of course, when you go to the MSDN web site, you can't find a damn browser out there other then theirs that displays their pages with any kind of reliability (and I'm sure that's intentional). But for almost anything else, most sites written for IE display relatively well in Mozilla, better IMHO in Opera, and seem to display almost the same as IE in the latest build of Konquerer. And quite frankly, things seem quite a bit zippier in any one of those than in IE.
Most people won't switch because their too lazy to download the latest builds of the alternative platforms...fear though, is quite a powerful motivator.
Remember back then...? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, you got what you asked for. What are you whining about?
While we're on the topic: IE and PNG (Score:3, Informative)
Oh IE, why can you not support an open standard [w3.org] correctly?
Re:While we're on the topic: IE and PNG (Score:4, Informative)
Something else about PNGs that I have found rather odd is that IE will render the colors a shade or two darker than Photoshop and even other browsers. I can make a PNG with a color like #3366CC and IE will render it closer to #0066CC. Very subtle difference but noticeable.
Re:While we're on the topic: IE and PNG (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, I think the difference between #3366CC and #0066CC is quite noticible, but that's beside the point. The reality is that IE is actually operating the way it's supposed to - the PNG standard includes a feature called "gamma correction" where a gamma number is stored into the PNG image and the given viewer is supposed to correct for the gamma on their system.
Obviously, something's wrong with the gamma support in one of the applications - either Photoshop is saving an incorrect gamma value, or IE is using an incorrect gamma correction routine and is making the image darker than it really is.
For web use, you should disable gamma correction by not saving it to the PNG file - this will prevent gamma correction from taking place and make a #3366CC color come out as #3366CC in any viewer so that it matches an HTML #3366CC. It's a simple checkbox in the Gimp (where I do most of my simple PNG editing - I'm a programmer, not a graphic artist), but I don't know how to do it through Photoshop. I'd imagine it's possible, though.
Vulnerabilities disappeared (Score:3, Interesting)
Pivx was the company that had a website with a list of 31 vulnerabilities [216.239.57.104] in Internet Explorer. Two days ago they pulled it [pivx.com] with what sounds like a nice way of saying they were pressured to do so.
Mozilla Stats and Mozilla Aware Sites (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there some global browser stat site similar to what netcraft is to servers?
To encourage participation I recently added a browser aware cart (flexcart) that gives a 5% automatic discount if you are using a 1.0+ mozilla client.
Pass around Mozilla (Score:3, Insightful)
Then when they hear that it's more secure, and won't automatically execute everything it downloads (like those stupid virus IM's spreading over AIM)... they love it.
So I suggest every geek pass a few copies around. If everyone does it... and a few others spread the word... Mozilla will get around.
Mozilla has had 0 marketing to this point. Start the effort.
I've turned out dozens of people. If everyone does the same, the userbase will grow very fast.
They abandoned innovation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everytime I have to open IE for testing, I am amazed at how little has changed since really IE 4. I can't stand not using a tabbed browser.
The reality is that Microsoft never did innovate. Just because Bill Gates says they are innovating doesn't make it so. As with any industry often the most innovative ideas come from the little companies that have a reason to think outside the bun.
"Microsoft stops innovating." Everytime I type that I laugh and laugh. What's next? "Bodybuilder becomes president..."
BIG problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Were they ever "innovating" with IE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Web Developers (Score:3, Insightful)
Those same "Web Developers" that are complaining about IE's lack of progress are the same ones that helped IE to it's monopoly by refusing to code and test against other browsers. So they really only have themselves to blame.
The monster that they helped to create by being lazy and not regressing against other browsers and platforms is something that they'll have to live with now.
Just don't let it happen again, kay? We have another chance with media standards--all you fools who only support WinMedia, once it becomes the standard, innovation will stop with it, too.
Obvious reply to story headline (Score:3, Funny)
Can we be sure that IE is really so dominant? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can we really trust these statistics if browsers default to misrepresenting themselves as IE?
I know quite a few people who moved from IE when they realised it was keeping undeletable hidden logs of the pages they visited (guilty conscience I suppose
Just my 5c
Re:surprise surprise (Score:2)
Re:surprise surprise (Score:2)
Buuuut, Safari is only a few weeks out of beta.
Lets give it some time, it sure is shaping up veeery nicely.
-Nex
Re:Just cause it's there don't mean im using it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just cause it's there don't mean im using it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just cause it's there don't mean im using it... (Score:2)
the website i am responsible for is fairly busy (half a million homepage hits a month) and over 70% uses IE to visit it last month. i don't know how many of these were other browsers pretending to be IE admittedly.
so i have to keep the site looking good for that piece of crap browser! luckily being an academic site it has to meet accessib
Re:Just cause it's there don't mean im using it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, people could have set their browsers to lie about their real identify.
Re:Ease (Score:3, Interesting)
Obscurity is an evil now?
The only way to stop the cycle is to enforce the ruling to have Microsoft remove the browser from the OS.
Alternatively, the OEMs could start placing icons for Firebird and the free version of Opera on the desktops. Unfortunately, Microsoft would make their lives difficult if they tried the way things stand.
Re:Ease (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Smile upon M$'s mistakes (Score:2)
As much as I despise M$, everyone coded for IE, so I gave in. Now Mozilla is making ground in my mind if I want to get stuff done and that can only mean good things if I'm not the only one (and I don't think I am).
Why switch from IE to Mozilla? Wouldn't switching to Firebird [mozilla.org]
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I haven't ever really seen much "innovation" from Microsoft, as Linus pointed out in his recen tinterview. Microsoft is not a particularly innovative company. They're a good publisher and good and monopoly management, but most of their products were purchased from someone else *after* they were developed and did well. (Folks could learn something from this -- the way to succeed in business just isn't us