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Reader response: Do you still trust Bill Gates?
Editor's note: Touched a nerve, did we? Many of you took issue with my prediction that IE 7 would drive out Firefox. In fact, the debate is still raging, so in the interest of fairness, we picked one user's argument to represent the other side of the story. Here, verdyp defends Firefox. I'll be making the first TalkBack. Care to make the second?
Even if there's a newer IE 7 coming before the next Windows release, I won't trust what [its company] says. Nothing says that Microsoft will really secure its browser against silent and malicious ActiveX installations, and nothing says that IE 7 will support the many users who still have Windows 98 and 98 SE (and the few users still using Me who bought a "new" OS, which was really so deceptive that they won't even try to upgrade to XP...).
What is consistently frightening is that Bill tries to convince everybody that the only way to browse the Internet is to use the latest version of Windows, in order to be allowed to get security updates on a free browser. Just think about it: IE 6 is no more secure on Windows 98, and Bill decided to stop all developments for Windows 98. Those who didn't want IE on Windows 98 have long since chosen another browser. And IE 7 will not work on Windows 98.
So it's time to really think about what Bill has wanted: to create a captive market where users are constantly required to update their OS every three years, just to be allowed to get decent updates for the tools they need every day, like a browser.
And despite all the justice actions, IE is still integrated into Windows XP, and it will remain bundled in Longhorn, without helping users opt out of installing IE when they already use another browser.
The Microsoft tactic is that if there are more and more Web sites using nonstandard IE "features" (or most often bugs), Microsoft is tweaking the whole Internet.
I really hope that, whatever IE 7 will contain, Firefox will continue to lead the support of true standards, and that Web site designers will stop creating Web sites that only work best with IE and Windows.
OK, Netscape 4 was so bad that IE has made significant steps. But now don't forget that Firefox and the Mozilla community have many years of facing IE. This advance will allow Firefox to support even the smallest features IE 7 will add, while keeping on the standard tracks that Microsoft failed so often to follow (decent PNG support, standard CSS behavior, full support of XML/XHTML standards).
When will site designers forget to tweak their sites for IE? My opinion is that Web sites should first focus on offering the best experience for the latest XHTML and CSS standards, then offer a degraded mode for supporting a decreasing community of IE users who don't have these features. It's time to forget about Netscape 4 compatibility and think instead about freedom of choice for Web site visitors: consider Safari on Mac OS, Opera, and Firefox, then you'll understand there's no reason why users shouldn't be allowed to visit Web sites with the best design using more-standard browsers.
I really don't trust Bill when he says that IE 7 will fix all problems. This is not proven and just a commercial tactic.
Please, ZDNet and W3C: make an effective test about standards compliance and effective features that work as documented. You'll see that Firefox is still far ahead of IE.
Firefox will continue to improve long before IE 7 becomes stable. When the Longhorn beta is released, be prepared for lots of incompatibility problems between IE 6 and IE 7. This will be a nightmare for Web site designers, unless Microsoft finally chooses to follow a strict compliance policy to open standards. In that case, Firefox still has a wide lead over IE.
Another note: Firefox is definitely not slow to load on any version of Windows. Experience proves that it loads faster, and navigation is also much faster than with IE.
If there are bugs when loading PDFs, blame Adobe, because it has tweaked too much its development for the PDF plug-in in favor of IE. It's time for Adobe to think about writing a separate plug-in for Firefox/Mozilla. Firefox can't be blamed because of Adobe's failure to adopt a more friendly open development strategy, where IE would not be the only supported platform. Same thing for Adobe Reader on Mac OS: create a true Safari plug-in, instead of just a small untested wrapper.
Final note: Don't comment about IE 7 against Firefox. IE 7 still does not exist except in the mouth of Bill Gates, and it has no technical description. By the time Microsoft will document the standard features it will effectively support and provide accurate support in a release, Bill Gates will be dead. Microsoft has never implemented what it announced, and customers have been abused so many times (think about what happened with Windows Me, and Windows XP Service Pack 2, think about the deceptive support of international languages in Windows 98 SE/Me which never implemented correctly the Unicode standard 3.2, and about Windows XP, which was issued without a decent support for Unicode 4, forcing users to wait for a hypothetic update that will only come in a later, paid update of Windows).
--Posted by verdyp on 02/16/05
By verdyp, AnchorDesk reader
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Editor's note: Touched a nerve, did we? Many of you took issue with my prediction that IE 7 would drive out Firefox. In fact, the debate is still raging, so in the interest of fairness, we picked one user's argument to represent the other side of the story. Here, verdyp defends Firefox. I'll be making the first TalkBack. Care to make the second?Even if there's a newer IE 7 coming before the next Windows release, I won't trust what [its company] says. Nothing says that Microsoft will really secure its browser against silent and malicious ActiveX installations, and nothing says that IE 7 will support the many users who still have Windows 98 and 98 SE (and the few users still using Me who bought a "new" OS, which was really so deceptive that they won't even try to upgrade to XP...).
What is consistently frightening is that Bill tries to convince everybody that the only way to browse the Internet is to use the latest version of Windows, in order to be allowed to get security updates on a free browser. Just think about it: IE 6 is no more secure on Windows 98, and Bill decided to stop all developments for Windows 98. Those who didn't want IE on Windows 98 have long since chosen another browser. And IE 7 will not work on Windows 98.
So it's time to really think about what Bill has wanted: to create a captive market where users are constantly required to update their OS every three years, just to be allowed to get decent updates for the tools they need every day, like a browser.
Post your comment hereAnd despite all the justice actions, IE is still integrated into Windows XP, and it will remain bundled in Longhorn, without helping users opt out of installing IE when they already use another browser.
The Microsoft tactic is that if there are more and more Web sites using nonstandard IE "features" (or most often bugs), Microsoft is tweaking the whole Internet.
I really hope that, whatever IE 7 will contain, Firefox will continue to lead the support of true standards, and that Web site designers will stop creating Web sites that only work best with IE and Windows.
OK, Netscape 4 was so bad that IE has made significant steps. But now don't forget that Firefox and the Mozilla community have many years of facing IE. This advance will allow Firefox to support even the smallest features IE 7 will add, while keeping on the standard tracks that Microsoft failed so often to follow (decent PNG support, standard CSS behavior, full support of XML/XHTML standards).
When will site designers forget to tweak their sites for IE? My opinion is that Web sites should first focus on offering the best experience for the latest XHTML and CSS standards, then offer a degraded mode for supporting a decreasing community of IE users who don't have these features. It's time to forget about Netscape 4 compatibility and think instead about freedom of choice for Web site visitors: consider Safari on Mac OS, Opera, and Firefox, then you'll understand there's no reason why users shouldn't be allowed to visit Web sites with the best design using more-standard browsers.
I really don't trust Bill when he says that IE 7 will fix all problems. This is not proven and just a commercial tactic.
Please, ZDNet and W3C: make an effective test about standards compliance and effective features that work as documented. You'll see that Firefox is still far ahead of IE.
Firefox will continue to improve long before IE 7 becomes stable. When the Longhorn beta is released, be prepared for lots of incompatibility problems between IE 6 and IE 7. This will be a nightmare for Web site designers, unless Microsoft finally chooses to follow a strict compliance policy to open standards. In that case, Firefox still has a wide lead over IE.
Another note: Firefox is definitely not slow to load on any version of Windows. Experience proves that it loads faster, and navigation is also much faster than with IE.
If there are bugs when loading PDFs, blame Adobe, because it has tweaked too much its development for the PDF plug-in in favor of IE. It's time for Adobe to think about writing a separate plug-in for Firefox/Mozilla. Firefox can't be blamed because of Adobe's failure to adopt a more friendly open development strategy, where IE would not be the only supported platform. Same thing for Adobe Reader on Mac OS: create a true Safari plug-in, instead of just a small untested wrapper.
Final note: Don't comment about IE 7 against Firefox. IE 7 still does not exist except in the mouth of Bill Gates, and it has no technical description. By the time Microsoft will document the standard features it will effectively support and provide accurate support in a release, Bill Gates will be dead. Microsoft has never implemented what it announced, and customers have been abused so many times (think about what happened with Windows Me, and Windows XP Service Pack 2, think about the deceptive support of international languages in Windows 98 SE/Me which never implemented correctly the Unicode standard 3.2, and about Windows XP, which was issued without a decent support for Unicode 4, forcing users to wait for a hypothetic update that will only come in a later, paid update of Windows).
--Posted by verdyp on 02/16/05
