__/ [B Gruff] on Sunday 08 January 2006 17:35 \__
> On Sunday 08 January 2006 16:58 Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Scoble is another Windows advocate (employed evangelist) that swears by
>> Firefox. I guess their 'browser ship' has sunk already.
>
> Steady on a minute, Roy.
>
> I appreciate your enthusiasm, but pause a moment?
> Firefox now has about 10% of the "market" - probably more where it counts.
> This is just about "critical mass" and "start of exponential growth" point.
>
> Let's just think - what do we want?
> I.E. was/is bad.
> Worst of all, it was in a monopoly situation - everybody used it because
> (amongst other reasons) everybody used it!
> Sure, we want that situation to change - but changed to what?
>
> Surely we don't want to replace one monopoly with another?
> Question: Is it possible that we are nearing the point where we should be
> encouraging *other* browsers (Opera, in addition to the "OS specific"
> Safari and Konqueror, etc.)?
>
> What does the team think? May I advance the notion that > 20% or 30% for
> any single browser is not healthy?
You will always have that situation, Bill. Whether it is MySQL and PostgreSQL
being incompatible or even RSS being 'extended'. Different implementations
can benefit from strict specifications at best. Bugs need be accommodated
for, still. Not only browser bugs, but also Web developer bugs.
We all know that Webmasters are lazy and their code suffers from infinite
misimperfections. Validation is no priority either. If you are willing to
say "hold on a minute, this page isn't valid, so I'll steer away", then
fine. Much of the Web as we know it today -- a grabage dump of sordid HTML
as Zeldman would say -- makes this attitude unproductive.
Internet Explorer goes to great length to actually *cripple* the rivals. The
issues with Internet Explorer (among many more):
* Close integration with Office-generated 'HTML'
* Hooking unstandardised non-secure (often unwanted) functionality e.g.
BGSOUND
* Denial of other browsers from accessing various Web sites (partly the
Webmaster's fault)
* Exploits that lead to increased need for support and maintenacne. More
hijacked workstations -> spam, DDOS, phishing, fraud.
* Integration with file management, i.e. user cannot uninstall it
* Channelling to a commercial site of the vendor, e.g. Page not found
messages -> MSN, default homepage -> MSN
Internet Explorer is a poison that is bundled to any Windows machines and
unfortunately can never be set aside completely.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Ballmer O/S - so furious it may crash
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
5:40pm up 29 days 0:51, 14 users, load average: 0.45, 0.63, 0.72
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
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