News The Quick Flammable Fox Gains More Market Share

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/05/11/FF_Gains_Share/

 

Until IE has tabbed browsing there's no way i'd even consider using it again.

 

maybe when IE supports more of the standards that FF and Konqueror support, i'll "consider" going back to it. even so, i've developed such a hatred for MS over the years, that I dunno if i could ever go back.

 

I don't think I could ever willingly go back to IE full time. Tabbed browsing, better popup blocking, and a host of quality plugins make firefox the king. Besides, I am an open source believer (sorry to all you computer programmers out there). Bugs get fixed faster, and the whole thing has less of a corporate agenda.

 

This is bearing out in our server logs - IE has been in decline for MONTHS. I've got a special post stored up for the day Firefox actually overtakes IE

 

Any rough idea how long it'll be?

 

Why does microsoft CARE? It's free and the only possible way they'd make money is if you use the default search of MSN, and seeing as most use Google

 

Brand recognition, Firehed. Why does a beer company toss out free shirts, grills, etc? Or cigarette companies? IE is a functional advertisement. Besides, the entire idea of firefox taking over IE would illustrate that the general public can build a better program than microsoft's engineers can. NOT a good place to be in.

 

Hardly "the general public" - a large group of volunteer programmers (many of whom also program for a living) would be more accurate.

And considering Firefox is based on existing "pro" Mozilla code, I find it's development has been very slow compared to the big jumps in functionality with IE3 - IE4 - IE5. So what's really new since Phoenix? Apart from the name changes?

Had MS waited for the W3 committees to get their act together, we'd still have text-only browsers. Instead they took the lead in introducing new code features, and it seems in a fit of anti-MS pique the committee decided to set a different standard in some cases.

 

cpemma,

you bring up a good point about "general public." However, its development slow in relation to IE? IE3,4,5 had major improvements, I grant, but many of them were just to get it working anywhere near a type of standard. MS has been famous for saying "we'll do it our way, and people will use it anyway."

As for the W3, yeah I agree they've done some pretty, well, interesting standards adoptions that were developed from microsoft's ideas, and that somehow still left microsoft out of compliance. So, I guess I see your point. Still, MS seems to be locked in a p*ssing contest and have been thumbing their noses at the W3 ever since IE4. I mean, seriously, why wouldn't they change the box model to be compliant?

 

i wont use firefox till it comes preinstalled and auto updates with my OS. i cant be bothered to download something that does the same thing as what ive already got

 

cept it does oh so much more

 

I'm not sure how the different views of the box model arose, and it makes no sense for MS to knowingly opt for a different view. I can only think they either got in first before the standard was ratified or some poor programmer misinterpreted the standard.

But with their then share of the browser market (IE4/5 days), MS weren't going to change anything that would have every web developer in the known universe having to edit all his code and their customers having to pay for the changes. And that situation hasn't and won't change (though with doctype, new code can use the 'standard' box model).

We have the same situation now in commercial sites that don't work properly in Firefox, but work in IE & NS. The pay-masters have said, "Firefox is still a new product, it's still in ver.1 and under heavy development, we'll spend our time and money on site edit work when it's a settled product with a decent user-base". Sound commercial policy, however annoying.

And don't forget Netscape isn't a 100% standards-compliant browser either, but nobody hates NS any more.

And an interesting interview on web standards here...

 

Hmmm, not sure I agree with the IE6 properly interprets the box model. Where did you quote that from? There's a thread here where we discuss this difference regarding the new bit-tech site... IE still expands the box model, even on strict doctypes. Should it, or is Firefox the one out of compliance?

And I still hate NS! Never got over it from back in the day when it was more buggy than IE. And I blame microsoft a lot for the lack of compliant sites which now must choose to work in one model or the other (or totally recode). Though it's not solely MS's fault, because had people stuck to the intention of HTML as a markup language in the first place, we would have structured code for all browsers to work with.

But while I wish for that, I'd also like a pony.

EDIT: Corrected referenced thread, but I wonder which one is correct now... ? Cpemma, help is appreciated here.

 

A screenshot of IE 7 has been released, and it will indeed have tabbed browsing.

http://www.flexbeta.net/main/comments.php?catid=1&shownews=13097


Was on Attack of The Show, on G4.

 

Is that because nobosy uses it?
__

That screenshot does indeed look fake.
the changes IE need are mostly under the hood.

 

I really have nothing against IE, its just the things like tabbed browsing and the extensions that make FF so much nicer to me. If they bring tabs to IE, and fix a few other things regarding popups and the like, then I might actually lean towards IE. But I do love my FF.

ps
Are there things like extensions for IE? I kinda came in late on stuff like that and didn't learn about them til I got involved with FF

 

Not in the same sence as firefox has them...

 

such as? and dont say tabs because IE and infact windows itself has always had tabs. i found them:

i dont get why you would want a 2nd row of 'tabs'.. unless to keep all internet activities bunched. but then windows has a solution for that too, "group similar taskbar buttons".

 

Not the same animal, those are windows (that's why it's called Windows, geddit?).