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Mozilla The Internet

NYTimes Reports on Firefox 549

Posted by CmdrTaco from the mainstreaming-the-underground dept.
Soldrinero writes "Just three days after running a community-sponsored two-page ad, the New York Times is now running a news story on Mozilla Firefox. Our favorite browser is presented in a very favorable light, and there's a good discussion on both Firefox's useability-enhancing features and its security merits. Being fair, they also present Microsoft's solution to security problems: 'Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer'"
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NYTimes Reports on Firefox More

NYTimes Reports on Firefox

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  • Did somebody pay them ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yogikoudou ( 806237 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:39AM (#11129823) Homepage
    Why an ad if they make a good article for free ?
    • Why would buying a new PC solve security problems?

      I got a cheaper solution. Download and install Linux.

      First, it gets rid of that POS called Windows! Secondly.. its free!
      • that'd be fine except for the fact that the average home user does not want to learn linux... at least not yet. working as a home support tech, I've learned that all people want is to have their computers "just work". Plus in a printer and it works/is easy to install. cameras, scanners, etc etc. until linux reaches a point where it's as simple as apple's OSX or windows XP, it's not going to happen.

        • Re:Huh? Bill needs clue.. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gaijin99 ( 143693 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:57AM (#11130242) Journal
          While I agree with your conclusion that what people want is a computer that "just works", and I'll also agree that Linux doesn't quite supply that yet, I'll also point out that neither does MS. Joe User can't fix a Windows problem any more than he can fix a Linux problem.

          As far as I can see the only thing that is stopping a mass migration to Linux is a lack of software, especially games and business software. Joe User can't upgrade his graphics card under Linux, true; but he can't upgrade his graphics card under Windows either. What Joe User *can* do under Windows is go to the store, buy a prepackaged piece of software, pop in the disk and click "next" until its installed.

          Also, we have to admit that some of the critical software for Linux isn't as good as the software for Windows. Last night I discovered that KOffice's KSpread program won't let me make a non-contiguous selection. KWord doesn't feature paragraph grouping or widow and orphan control. I *want* to use the free software programs, but I find myself using Crossover Office to run MS Office because MS Office works. Its expensive, but it does the job.

          Linux is ready for the desktop, we just need software to run there.

          • Re:Huh? Bill needs clue.. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by TGK ( 262438 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @11:18AM (#11130391) Homepage Journal
            You're confusing "works" with "always works." Microsoft's major advantage is that, at least at first, the interface is fairly intuitive for basic tasks, the software install process is idiot proof, and the applications "just work"

            Sure, if it breaks you still need a fairly sophisticated idea of how everything works to fix it, but the computer is fast becoming a home applicance. Like any other appliance, it goes to a specialist for repair.

            Linux needs the following

            1 - An installation standard that is every bit as idiot proof as installing a self executing binary with microsoft.

            2 - An out of the box user interface that has the polished look and feel users have come to expect form Apple and MS.

            3 - Application suites competitive with pay products like Office.

            • 1 - An installation standard that is every bit as idiot proof as installing a self executing binary with microsoft.

              Errm... "yum install foo"

              2 - An out of the box user interface that has the polished look and feel users have come to expect form Apple and MS.

              Have you used a recent distro such as Fedora?

              3 - Application suites competitive with pay products like Office.

              OpenOffice?

          • Geez, if only I had mod points... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by rah1420 ( 234198 ) <rah1420@gmail.com> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @11:49AM (#11130564)
            This bears repeating:

            Joe User can't fix a Windows problem any more than he can fix a Linux problem.

            To drive home the point, how about this very reference from this morning? [slashdot.org] It took a sysadmin with VERY MUCH clue 5 hours to nuke all the stuff off a Wintel machine, and all it takes for it to come undone is one little click on the IE icon.

            I cleaned up a friend's machine last month. The father was sure the kids were surfing pr0n sites and nasty bits that he didn't want them to go into. To prove it wasn't their fault I logged on and I opened IE. We waited about 5 minutes with my hands off of the keyboard while we chatted about this 'n that. I logged off and re-ran the spyware and malware scanners. 50 hits in 5 minutes. He was stunned.

            I couldn't get him to go to Linux, but at least he's running Firefox now.

    • Re:Did somebody pay them ? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why an ad if they make a good article for free ?

      You obviously don't understand the newspaper business. To get the article you have to buy an ad.

      • Re:Did somebody pay them ? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by RealUlli ( 1365 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:28AM (#11130083) Homepage
        To get the article you have to buy an ad.

        I think the big ad resulted in some higher-ups at the newspaper noticing that big ad and the cash-flow, which in turn resulted in them asking their editors why nobody had looked at that product yet.

        So some reporter took a look at Firefox and was delighted...

        The rest is his[ s]tory... ;-)

        Regards, Ulli

    • Re:Did somebody pay them ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Morosoph ( 693565 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:53AM (#11129889) Homepage Journal
      They didn't get that artcle for free. They had to buy an ad to get it!

      It's called "appropriate context". A feminist magazine (I forget which one) stopped taking ads because the advertisers wanted to influence the editorial content. In this case, the NYT is rewarding the free software community as both a signal "we reward our advertisers" and an inducement for the community to advertise further.

      We may still have a good article, but it wouldn't be excellent, and it wouldn't be now. Oddball minorities need a lot of "balance" to make an article appear neutral. Mainstream entities (and this ad. makes Firefox mainstream) can have more positive reviews without so much appearance of bias, and NYT readers having seen the ad. will see Firefox as mainstream.

      The need for reward, and entering the mainstream both make this kind of coverage possible.

      • Re:Did somebody pay them ? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rocjoe71 ( 545053 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:19AM (#11130029) Homepage
        NYT is rewarding the free software community as both a signal "we reward our advertisers" and an inducement for the community to advertise further

        Well, you're not wrong, BUT, an article following a 2-page add that comes about by a community pulling resources together is also a comment regarding a grassroots movement going mainstream.

      • > They didn't get that artcle for free. They had to buy an ad to get it!

        Yea, true, because Microsoft has not spent nearly as much on advertising in the NYT as Firefox has. That posting was modded modded 4, insightful?

      • Re:Did somebody pay them ? (Score:5, Informative)

        by tomkarlo ( 15606 ) * on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:50AM (#11130221) Homepage
        Nice theory, but you've failed to check the most basic underlying fact -- is this really their first article about Firefox? No.

        The NYT, and their lead technology writer, David Pogue, have mentioned Firefox any number of times before. Just a cursory search of the archives shows 6-7 articles published prior to the advertisement, and I know Pogue has been advocating it in his online weblog and emails as well.

        So, while yes, the advertisement in the NYT helped raise Firefox's profile, it's difficult to draw any direct causality between its placement and the timing of this article. (Not to mention the traditional church and state separation the NYT enforces between its advertising and editorial regimes.)
    • Why an ad if they make a good article for free ?

      I read many articles in many newspaper about the ad and the way donations were collected, and in German newspapers, they wrote both about the ad in the New Yorks time and the one in Frankfurter Allgemeine (a major German newspaper) that was published on December 2. Firefox is, of course, a sufficient reason to write articles about, but this idea that users donate money for an advertisement for Free software is an additional topic to write about, and the mo
  • www.spreadfirefox.com

    Or some community submission for that matter:
    http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Wooly-Mittens /SpreadFirefox.jpg [ctrl-c.liu.se] ;)
    • Even though I'm on your side, I'm going to say that linking to that picture was not a good decision. At the very least, a warning of the adult content was in order.

      We seek acceptance and recognition of legitimacy from others, and randomly linking to a naked vixen does not advance that, nor does this advance the cause of Firefox within the context of Slashdot.
      • Oh, come on, just a harmless [horde.org] joke. Sorry for no "adult content" warning. (uh... I think the meaning of "adult" has strayed a bit from what the dictionary says. I personally wouldn't describe that one as "mature" :)

        Okay, disclaimer here - the linked movie isn't quite work-safe though not "that kind". Funny. Not trollish.

  • Word of mouth (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UconnGuy ( 562899 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:45AM (#11129848)
    Word of mouth advertising is the best. With the NYT article, and "geeks" like us spreading the word about Firefox, more and more people are starting to use it.

    Just the other day, I had a friend who couldn't go to any site on the net without IE crashing and the Send Report box coming up (does anyone actually send the reports??). Anyway, she was getting frustrated, so I pointed her to Firefox's download site [mozilla.org]. She downloaded it and now uses it exclusively. She loves the look and feel and says it seems much faster in rendering sites. I told her there may be a couple sites she will have to use IE for, but for the most part, Firefox will work.

    She said she is going to tell her friends about it. As I said earlier, word of mouth advertising is the best way to get the word out....especially for people that aren't very knowledgeable technology wise.
    • does anyone actually send the reports??

      Yes. I have to maintain a lot of Windows PCs the send feature is supposed to get you any suggested fixes. I have rarely seen it work for IE or for the OS but in Office XP and above you click send, wait a minute and a website comes up that sometimes even details your problem and how to fix it. Better yet, 1 out of maybe 8 times it just fixes it. While I would never use it on the servers (due to MS "fixing" things) I think it is great for PCs.

    • Re:Word of mouth (Score:2, Interesting)

      by kg_o.O ( 802342 )
      Just the other day, I had a friend who couldn't go to any site on the net without IE crashing and the Send Report box coming up (does anyone actually send the reports??). Anyway, she was getting frustrated, so I pointed her to Firefox's download site. She downloaded it and now uses it exclusively

      How did she manage to download Firefox with IE crashing on every site?

    • Re:Word of mouth (Score:5, Funny)

      by zecg ( 521666 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:54AM (#11129896)
      Word of mouth advertising is the best.

      While it can be said it's sometimes "surprisingly effective", it's certainly not "the best" if reaching and influencing as large a possible an audience is your goal (as often is with advertising).
      TV commercials featuring well-endowed women diving in kegs of beer and by accident finding huge penises, followed by flashing logos to the blaring tune of elevator rock seem to be somewhat better.
      • Word-of-mouth advertising *is* the best for Firefox because Firefox nor Mozilla are not some huge monolithic entity out to sell their product in the conventional sense.

        If savvy folks, like the commenter who wowed a girl over to Firefox by installing sexy themes, tackle the problem one user at a time (or even a hundred users at a time) the solution will start to spread like wildfirefox.

        In a week, when all the New Year's Resolutions start and Year In Review stories come out, this Firefox ad will be catching

    • What you can do (Re:Word of mouth) (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rseuhs ( 322520 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @11:16AM (#11130372)
      is complain to webmasters who haven't heard of it yet.

      For example take this [weightwatchers.com], they support Netscape7, but lock out Mozilla and Firefox.

      The webmaster did not want to believe me when I told him those browsers are essentially the same (I had a rather lenghty email conversation with him), but he will when he gets enough complaints from enough different people.

    • Which IE only sites? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stesch ( 12896 )
      Why do people always point out that there are some IE only sites left? I can't remember seeing one lately.

  • No registration required (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:45AM (#11129849)
    The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)
    By RANDALL STROSS

    Published: December 19, 2004

    IREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

    Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.

    Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.

    Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.

    With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.

    Microsoft has always viewed Internet Explorer's tight integration with Windows to be an attractive feature. That, however, was before security became the unmet need of the day. Firefox sits lightly on top of Windows, in a separation from the underlying operating system that the Mozilla Foundation's president, Mitchell Baker, calls a "natural defense."

    For the first time, Internet Explorer has been losing market share. According to a worldwide survey conducted in late November by OneStat.com, a company in Amsterdam that analyzes the Web, Internet Explorer's share dropped to less than 89 percent, 5 percentage points less than in May. Firefox now has almost 5 percent of the market, and it is growing.

    Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of product management for Windows, has been assigned the unenviable task of explaining how Microsoft plans to respond to the Firefox challenge with a product whose features were last updated three years ago. He has said that current users of Internet Explorer will stick with it once they take into account "all the factors that led them to choose I.E. in the first place." Beg your pardon. Choose? Doesn't I.E. come bundled with Windows?

    Mr. Schare has said that Mozilla's Firefox must prove it can smoothly move from version 1.0 to 2.0, and has thus far enjoyed "a bit of a free ride." If I were the spokesman for the software company that included the company's browser free on every Windows PC, I'd be more careful about using the phrase "free ride."

    Trying to strike a conciliatory note, Mr. Schare has also declared that he and his company were happy to have Firefox as "part of the large ecosystem" of software that runs on Windows. In fact, Firefox is ecumenically neutral, being available also for both the Mac and for Linux.

    Mr. Schare may be the official spokesman, but he does not use Internet Explorer himself. Instead he uses Maxthon, published by a little company of the same name. It uses the Internet Explorer engine but provides loads of features that Internet Explorer does not. "Tabs are what hooked me," he told me, referring to the ability to open within a single window many different Web sites and move easily among them, rather than open separate windows for each one and tax the computer's memory. Firefox has tabs. Other browsers do, too. But fundamental design decisions for Internet Explorer prevent the addition of this and other desiderata without a thorough update of Windows, which will not be complete until 2006 at the earliest.

    How fitting that Microsoft finds itself in this predicament. In late 1995, at a time when Netscape Na

    • Or, if you don't like registering to read NY Times articles, just go here [bugmenot.com].

  • NY Times was fair with MS, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kusanagi374 ( 776658 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:46AM (#11129855)
    ...microsoft wasn't fair with themselves.

    Being fair, they also present Microsoft's solution to security problems: 'Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer'"

    They're shooting themselves in the foot here. Open source does not require you to 'buy a new personal computer'. Oh, the market does tho, and Microsoft is there for the market, not for the consumer. That's sad.
  • So, it only took two pages in their own newspaper to make them realize that something is out there called "Firefox" - from there, it was a snap googling out how it seems to be a web-thingie of some kind that is locked in a clinch of sorts with Microsoft's web thingie. By God, write it up! It's a story come to us!
    I exaggarate, I know.

  • What a brilliant Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timmyf2371 ( 586051 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:50AM (#11129872)
    Living outside the US, I've no idea what sort of marketshare NYTimes has or which market it targets, though I do recognise it to be a "famous" newspaper and one that is respected.

    That said, the article itself is a brilliant advert for FireFox and gives an excellent overview of the circumstances in which Internet Explorer overtook Netscape and how that compares to what is happening in the browser market right now.

    And assuming NYTimes is not a technical journal (which I don't think it is) it doesn't have the problem of "preaching to the choir" as so many articles have had in the past.

    Long live Firefox.

  • HP.com and spreading regard of content providers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hank Chinaski ( 257573 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:51AM (#11129877) Homepage
    hp.com has officially recognized firefox as a standard browser

    *** Policy in effect starting December, 2004 **** In Autumn of 2004 we have seen a dramatic increase in customer usage of the Mozilla/Firefox browser on our Web site. Mozilla has positioned their Firefox browser as a more secure, faster tool for browsing the Internet. Firefox has received a lot of visibility in the press, and this is contributing to the rapid conversion rates in our user population. In order to support our customer's efforts to better control their online experiences (through the use of browser choice, security related issues and speed) we need to ensure that all pages will successfully render in this tool. To fail to do so would be a conflict with our Total Customer Experience (TCE) goals. Effective immediately, HP.com will formally adopt the Firefox browser as a standard browser.


    found here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=blog/1742

  • More important news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:52AM (#11129881)
    Yeah, Firefox, great and all. But we're missing the big picture here. This is an article on NYT and the "horrid blood sucking registration required" phrase was absent from the description.

    My world has just turned upside down. Is the NYT now on the slashdot buddy list?

  • Lots of free press, gotta do something about it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nicke999 ( 575910 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:53AM (#11129887)
    Firefox is getting alot of well deserved hype these days. Everything revolves around Firefox being new which gives it a great marketing advantage (the small non-profit organization against the goliath, microsoft). But for how long will the hype last? Although I personally belive a large milestone was reached with the release of Firefox 1.0 we must be careful not to enter the "comfort zone" and expect that this is how things will continue to be.

    This was the first step, now it's time to plan for the next.

  • My favorite line (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @09:59AM (#11129922)
    The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."

    This is like getting a letter from Ford saying they forgot to put in the airbag and if you want one, buy a new Mustang.

  • So does Scrappleface... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eslyjah ( 245320 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:05AM (#11129958)
    Scrappleface is running a story [scrappleface.com] as well.

  • Cool now spread xul apps across the web (Score:3, Insightful)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:05AM (#11129959)
    But don't ask me to do it I still have not figured
    out how to program a hello world using it.

    Seriously lets see some cool it only works in firefox xul applications.

  • At long last, the correct reply! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rocjoe71 ( 545053 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:09AM (#11129980) Homepage
    He has said that current users of Internet Explorer will stick with it once they take into account "all the factors that led them to choose I.E. in the first place." Beg your pardon. Choose? Doesn't I.E. come bundled with Windows?

    Well I thank the author for addressing that quote which we've seen in other articles regarding Microsoft's comments towards Firefox. The reply was exactly what I (and many more) thought of the original quote.

    • Choose? Doesn't I.E. come bundled with Windows?

      I'll never understand this reasoning. No one forced you to use Internet Explorer. Certainly no one forced me. I used Netscape Navigator up through version 4.0, then got fed up with it and decided I'd give Internet Explorer a whirl. Liked it better, have used it since. I could have just as easily stayed with Netscape, or gone to Opera or Mozilla.

      Just because something is bundled/integrated does not mean that your ability to choose an alternative is sudde
      • I don't think they're saying that no one chooses IE. They're saying it's not the case that 90% of users choose to use IE, as Mr. Schare implies. Many, if not most, people use IE because it's preinstalled on their computer, and they don't know about the alternatives.
        • They're saying it's not the case that 90% of users choose to use IE, as Mr. Schare implies. Many, if not most, people use IE because it's preinstalled on their computer, and they don't know about the alternatives.

          Then the way the article is phrased is misleading. So people don't know about alternatives - whose fault is that? The users' for not bothering to find out even after some of them get fed up with the IE browsing experience? The Mozilla Organization's for not marketing aggressively enough?

          It's

  • Firefox at work? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Felgerkarb ( 695336 )
    I use Fireforx at home and love it. I also love it's success, as a proof of concept for Open Source software for those who have had no experience with it.

    My love for Firefox is accentuated daily by comparison to my continued use of IE at work. Due to security issues (which one could argue are based on MS software in the firstplace) I, as an end user, cannot install Firefox. Now the obvious solution would be to have IT migrate the institution as a whole to a new browser, but that is unlikely to happen in t

  • incredibly... (Score:4, Funny)

    by peebeejay ( 721789 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:20AM (#11130036)
    ...Mr. Schare then went on to claim that the susceptibility to attack is a feature Microsoft's customers demand. "Every day we get millions of emails from Internet Explorer users thanking us for our design and also offering us great deals on herbal viagra and free porn."

  • Hurdle for FireFox (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nodehopper ( 839304 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:32AM (#11130111) Homepage
    It is nice to see FireFox getting some well deserved press. It needs as much as it can get because it has a huge hurdle to overcome. It isn't pre-installed on computers. This means that it requires people to do something. /. readers enjoy improving their computers with great software, where as your average computer user wants to point and click with as little extra effort as possible. Some how the average pperson needs to be convinced that there is a greater benefit in installing FireFox than in taking no action at all. Along with this hurdle, sit down with an IE user and install FireFox.....then watch them use it. They have no idea how to use tabbed browsing and will open browser window after browser window, because they don't know any better. And the extensions are great, but well beyond 90% of users ability to understand. So....Remember....Don't just tell your family and friends about FireFox. Istall it for them(along with Flash, Shockwave and Java} and show them how to open multiple tabs. Install a couple extensions for them. This will take maybe 30 minutes, but it will create a FireFox user. Don't just spread the word...Show people first hand!

  • a new definition of being fair? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by roror ( 767312 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:38AM (#11130146)
    `` Being fair, they also present Microsoft's solution to security problems: 'Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer'" ''

    That was being unfair. Being fair, according to TFA, Microsoft's solution to the security problems is to upgrade to the latest windows OS, i.e. XP. Not buy a new comp. Still not a solution per se. But, it's different from buying a new machine.

    Now if you say that Microsoft's solution is to upgrade to a newer OS which is better suited to the problems of current time - it doesn't sound that bad - does it? hence it must be said that "microsoft wants you to buy a new comp". It doesn't even make sense. Buying a new comp will not solve the problems - it's a software problem not a hardware problem. Doesn't matter. it'll still run, because it shows microsoft .. err .. Micro$oft if you prefer, in bad light. It'll run.

    All these are the reason I don't read newspaper anymore. You don't know what is the fact after reading them - why take time off from fragging a few more fat tailed animals in UT.

    • Re:a new definition of being fair? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by peebeejay ( 721789 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @11:54AM (#11130603)
      I don't see how that wasn't being fair. Here's the paragraph in question:
      Mr. Schare of Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer. By the same reasoning, the security problems created by a car's broken door lock could be solved by buying an entirely new automobile. The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."
      Where exactly is the reporter not being fair? The Microsoft PR guy said something breathtakingly stupid, and the reporter caught him on it. In fact, nearly everything Mr. Schare said was stunningly dumb. I mean, can he tell us what were the "factors" that led people to "choose" IE in the first place? Hmmm...where does "included in the computer I bought" come on that list?
      If you're complaining that Slashdotters like to pick on MS a little too much, you're right. But in this case, it's MS unwittingly picking on itself.

  • Choice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @10:42AM (#11130175) Homepage Journal
    Best line from the article:

    Beg your pardon. Choose? Doesn't I.E. come bundled with Windows?

    Ah, so refreshing to see a mainstream journalist hit the nail on the head in a single line.

  • Firefox and Active X (Score:3, Insightful)

    by minairia ( 608427 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @11:19AM (#11130395)
    As sacreligious as it is, I think Firefox should have a plugin that allows Active X to run, but set-up so that only certain URLs as provided by the user allow this. (I know that several "non-official" solutions exist, but these are fiddly and hard to set-up, especially for ordinary users.

    As much as I hate IE and the security nightmare it creates, the sad fact is that for banks, other financial institutions and coporate intranets, ActiveX and other IE gorp can't be avoided.

    It sucks to introduce people to Firefox, have them all impressed and then get a call that they can't get through to their Wells Fargo account (if any IT people from Well Fargo are reading this, get a clue. Your bank is one of the biggest in Silicon Valley and the fact that you persist in being IE centric is pissing a lot of your customers off).

    Company intranets are a hopeless case. Considering the bureaucratic, pin headed phb mentality behind most corporate IT departments, it will years (if ever) before company intranets are adapted for non-IE browsers. The only even partial solution to gain Firefox type features in this case is to use Maxthon, and that still leaves the door wide open security wise.

    • Re:Firefox and Active X - not necessary on Win32 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by markdowling ( 448297 ) <mark@dowling.gmail@com> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:00PM (#11130643)
      Rather than introduce ActiveX to default Firefox builds, you could just leave IE installed on max security (block all ActiveX, among other things) and only certain trusted sites enforced by IEAK, while deploying Mozilla 1.7 for mainline use. That's what we do.

      And it's not just ActX now, we had to check all of our PCs for JRE when the recent vulnerability was announced, and installing JRE5 does not uninstall the defective JREs, annoyingly.

      Corporate installs of FF 1.1 and/or Moz 2 would be nice with MSIs and options to retain trusted plugins like Flash, Acrobat and dictionaries. It's very annoying having to reinstall dictionaries when upgrading Mozilla.

    • Re:Firefox and Active X (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NtroP ( 649992 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:21PM (#11131211)
      It sucks to introduce people to Firefox, have them all impressed and then get a call that they can't get through to their Wells Fargo account (if any IT people from Well Fargo are reading this, get a clue.
      I am a Wells Fargo client and I do all my banking from my Mac at home (Safari and FireFox) or my Linux Box at work (FireFox). I have no problem with their site that changing the UserAgent doesn't fix. That being said, it does piss me off when sites require certaing 3rd-party technology to work (and yes, I consider ActiveX to be 3rd-party).
      I think Firefox should have a plugin that allows Active X to run
      I have to disagree here. The whole point is to get enough leverage by having people run non- "MS-tied-crap" to force companies and web-designers to use "universal" methods for accomplishing their goals. That being said, it would be nice if we could actually GET "universal" methods to work "universally". Just the other day, my web designer complained that the only truly cross-browser javascript he trusted to work in all browsers was warn() and maybe onclick(). Even then he wasn't 100% sure.

      I don't mind using 3rd-party technology to "enhance" your site, but I'd better be able to navigate and perform all the basic functions on your site without flash, shockwave, javascript, and ActveX enabled. You want to add cool effects with flash? Great!, but don't do your menus in flash without having a fall-back method for basic navigation! The same goes for any such technology.

      What needs to happen, is for the browser market to get so diverse that ALL browsers must be conscientious about accurately following standards and by the same token all web-sites/designers would be forced to actually USE those standards.

      • Just the other day, my web designer complained that the only truly cross-browser javascript he trusted to work in all browsers was warn() and maybe onclick(). Even then he wasn't 100% sure.

        I don't think onClick() works quite the same in all browsers. Last week I was designing an interface where I wanted to tie a help-window popup to disabled checkboxes and I seem to remember onClick() in the disabled checkboxes working for one of Safari or Firefox but not the other. A little question mark to the side now
    • As sacreligious as it is, I think Firefox should have a plugin that allows Active X to run, but set-up so that only certain URLs as provided by the user allow this.

      It has.
      http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm#downl o ad [www.iol.ie]
      In fact, I'm using it in my firefox right now, listening to embedded midi's :)

      And yes, it ONLY enables windows media player. All other activex plugins have to be inserted by hand.

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