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Firefox Reviewed - a browser for Microsoft haters | |
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| Time: 10:24 EST/15:24 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Brian Kvalheim | ||
Anyone reading technology news articles can not have failed to have read something about a new web browser currently doing the rounds. The Firefox browser aims to take the dominant position away from Microsoft and its Internet Explorer product. Indeed, early indications are that the browser is indeed taking share away from Microsoft with some researchers indicating IE's market share has dropped 5% since May to 88.9% with Mozilla browsers, including Firefox, responsible for around 7% of the market. So, having read the hype today I decided to download the application and see what all the fuss is about. Downloading was a breeze once I found the Firefox site. Firefox.co.uk is a no go and firefox.com redirects you to go to getfirefox.com - it appears the original owner of firefox.com has had to make way to the owners of this new brand. | ||
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| #1 By 5912 (145.222.138.61) at 11/26/2004 10:47:00 AM |
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This 'review' is about as informative as a piece of toilet paper and about as biased as I am about my own intelligence. :)
For the IE-fanboy-community only. If there is such a thing.. |
| #2 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/26/2004 11:03:47 AM |
| I found it almost humorous. While there are some good points, it is NOT a very extensive review. |
| #3 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/26/2004 11:14:26 AM |
| Actually, I have found that Firefox doesn't do anything for me that IE doesn't, and it seems slower in my experience, so I stick with IE. |
| #4 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 11/26/2004 11:24:28 AM |
| Ugh, another thread where AWBrian tells us, yet again, that he doesn't like Firefox. AWBrian, I think we got the point by now. |
| #5 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 11/26/2004 11:36:58 AM |
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LOL...i guess I am a broken record eh?
tgnb, I hope you have a nice and safe Thanksgiving weekend. |
| #6 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 11/26/2004 12:20:26 PM |
| AWBrian, i hope you do as well :) |
| #7 By 15406 (216.191.227.90) at 11/26/2004 12:51:17 PM |
| As usual, you can always count on Parkker to act as Chief MS Apologist. Care to back up your Mozilla FUD with some facts? |
| #8 By 2332 (66.92.78.189) at 11/27/2004 1:00:30 AM |
| Come on people. You all know I'm a Microsoft "fanboy"... but even I use Firefox. I even enforce its use in my company via group policy. :) |
| #9 By 1658 (24.18.60.13) at 11/27/2004 11:37:56 AM |
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"Not really. It actually turns out MS was making changes to their OS to bring it closer to what Linux offers. Building a true multi-user system with more efficient scheduling, higher scalability, and finer grained security, and bringing this to the Desktop."
Any chance we can get an article posted that discusses Linux or NT security so I can rip this statement to shreds without being off-topic? |
| #10 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/27/2004 1:49:03 PM |
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Halcyon, you're wrong about NT catching up to Linux in that area. It is very much the other way around. Linux just got an O(1) scheduler recently -- NT always had one. NT has always had finer grained security than Linux, offering ACLs and group policy. Linux just recently got ACLs (and they aren't used in most Linux distros). There have also been studies showing NT as more scalable than Linux. There was code added to recent versions of Linux to increase its scalability, and its legality was brought into question by SCO. IIRC, the code was contributed by IBM who brought it over from AIX.
Mark Russinovich of SysInternals did a comparison of the Windows NT kernels and the Linux kernels last year showing that many Linux kernel features were added after their availability in Windows. Microsoft's efforts to improve security have largely been efforts to top themselves based upon results of their research. Scalability improvements were likewise made to top themselves, but also to compete with and surpass proprietary UNIX solutions which once had a hardware advantage. Here's a version of Mark's Powerpoint slides from his TechEd presentation http://www.teched.cz/prezentace/WIN499.ppt |
| #11 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 11/27/2004 2:11:51 PM |
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"I tried to use Firefox and did not have any problems installing or running it but it did not give me anything in the way of features that IE does not have."
Just because you didn't notice the more advanced features doesnt mean they aren't there. There are PLENTY of things firefox does for me that IE can't. "Tabbed browsing does not do anything at all for me that the Windows taskbar does not." But other people feel very different about that. For me for example tabs are very different than the windows task bar. "IE lets you handle cookies about anyway you want." How can I set IE to always block or allow cookies from specific sites? I can't seem to do this, please tell me how if its possible. "Firefox and Mozilla have security holes just like IE." Agreed. This is to be expected. "Parker is right when he says they are trying to hide the holes." This is untrue. You cannot "hide" holes in open source. One of the benefits of open source is that flaws CANNOT be hidden and are exposed faster and can be fixed faster. Furthermore we don't really know if Microsoft is hiding flaws that haven't been detected yet because we can't look at the code. "Some of you speak of Linux. It is nothing more than a hackers tool right now." Funny, Linux Server sales topped $1 Billion in 3Q 2004 I wonder who all these hackers are that spent so much money on Linux last quarter. http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/11/24/HNlinuxserversales_1.html "No common computer user can install and configure it you almost need a degree in programing to do that. How do I know? I have been trying to run it for a couple years now." I dont have a programming degree, in fact i dont program at all. Yet Ive been running Linux for years on my desktop. Have you ever considered that just because YOU have problems doesnt mean its hard to install and use? I'm sorry Linux doesnt work for you. Its not for everyone. Choose the best OS for your needs. However, dont say Linux is hard to install or use based soley on your own experience. I know plenty of people who have horror experiences with windows, but I also don't equate that to windows being hard to use. |
| #12 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/27/2004 2:17:52 PM |
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How can I set IE to always block or allow cookies from specific sites? I can't seem to do this, please tell me how if its possible.
Tools | Internet Options... | Privacy tab | Sites... (first button under the slider) |
| #13 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 11/28/2004 3:27:48 AM |
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This is all as wrong as it can possibly be stated.
Even supportes of IE speak only to being able to turn off ActiveX support...I just gak when I read this crap. ActiveX is a COM Client - period. It is not the only COM Client there is - there are many of them. People speak of ActiveX like it is a dirty word - that is ridiculous. It was meant to have a code signing features and its development tools were/are great. Ok, all of that aside, one "can" control how ActiveX controls are treated in IE, and surprise... ActiveX support "does" exist for Mozilla - and has for a very long time - it's not native, but it is available - ref that "it's a COM Client part, again..." So that leaves security and features? Now, FF is pretty sparse "as is" but its supporters point to all the plug-ins that one can download for it....ignoring a) that they have to... - so much for light and fast... and b) tabbed browsing <the end all in features> - ignoring a bucket full of IE add-ons that provide the same capability - that many people simply do not much care for. <So much for choice...> Now once again, the main issue - FF, and IE are irrelevant, or soon will be and thanks be to heaven. The present means of delivering experiences in software is changing and each is beyond what any browser can support within itself - they will be used to launch many experiences in software and in ways end users may themselves structure - many such experiences composited on <for lack of a better word> "pages" users build themselves. FF and other browser developers can continue all they wish to - down the wrong path. I can see brother Bill laughing as he shakes his head - until it turns to saddness at just how narrow minded of thinking his competition is. If you all want to stay in http fine, but too many developers are sick of it - sick of the W3C and its non standard phantom standards and the limitations of the present day. It makes no sense at all - hardware, networks and infrastruture as powerful as they are.....restricted by this limited little world we all live in. Enough is enough already. |
| #14 By 143 (68.250.102.178) at 11/28/2004 4:25:03 AM |
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I like Firefox but it's not secure. On some web sites(not porn) SAV Corp. found .exe files that where never blocked by Firefox. These .exe files where blocked by IE.
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| #15 By 1658 (24.18.60.13) at 11/28/2004 12:04:47 PM |
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And your utter lack of intelligence strikes again:
"Ok I take it back, NT successors do not offer a multi user environment, better security, more efficient scheduling, and better scalability than Windows 9x, and they're not better suited to the Desktop. In fact, Linux and NT are not similar in the least." You just went from comparing one version of Windows to another version of Windows and then finalized your statement by saying that Linux and NT are not similar. I never said that newer versions of Windows weren't laden with better security features, more efficient 'scheduling' (whatever that means exactly), and more scalable than their predecessors. I was however clearly attacking your comments on the fact that those improvements were "just catching up" so to speak to Linux. Your knowledge of Linux permissions, control list capabilities, directory services capabilities, and administrative management tools is seriously lacking. As I said, we need an article on the granularity and managability of both of their models, then we can draw this argument out. I'm so looking forward to that so I can watch you cower again behind your childish and obnoxious statements such as the one I've quoted above. And I can just see your next post: "I was saying that sarcastically you dumbass." Doesn't change the facts, you do not support your arguments. This post was edited by aamendala on Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 12:06. |
| #16 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 11/29/2004 7:11:37 AM |
| Parkker Sales of $1 Billion last quarter no matter where they came from properly refute the statement that linux is no more than a hacker toy! |
| #17 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 11/29/2004 3:41:47 PM |
| Parkker your speculation defies logic, as well as gravity. Can you show me ANY study that shows that MOST computers sold with Linux end up running a PIRATED version of Windows? I've never seen such a study. In any case, My whole point of showing the $1 Billion figure was to show that Linux is not just a hacker toy. People and Companies don't spend Billions of dollars each year on "Hacker Toys" especially not on a consecutive basis. |
| #18 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/29/2004 3:50:41 PM |
|
Linux has no lack of scheduling options, the fact that another is being added is just par for the course.
It lacked an O(1) scheduler in the official kernel distribution until recently, meaning the kernels used by pretty much every distribution of Linux lacked an O(1) scheduler. I remember all the noise generated over this bit of code. Turns out NT had it over 10 years earlier. This and the lack of a fully reentrant kernel made the Linux kernel slower at processing requests than NT. Recently MS is moving into clustering, and will be adding many of the technologies Linux is using already as well. Computing standards from yesterday are the building blocks of today. The first Linux cluster was created in summer 1994 at NASA’s Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences (CESDIS). Clustering started on IBM mainframes in the 70s but was a niche technology. In the 80s, Digital released the VAXcluster. Digital and others later went on to release clustering solutions for NT (Digital demonstrated its Clusters for NT product at the 1994 COMDEX). Microsoft, in partnership with Digital and Tandem, announced MSCS in 1995 which provided a standard clustering interface on Windows NT 4. It shipped as a software upgrade in 1997. Is that in theory? In implemenation that was really not the case. ... In a managed environment, you'd want the users to do as little as possible. If there's a need for more flexibility than the default user account provides, create a custom account that provides the necessary permissions. Why would you even need to control spool behavior? If you don't know what you're doing, you could screw things up, resulting in a support call. It's better for IT that this is controlled by policy. Linux has flaws as well. If you think you don't need a firewall just because you're on Linux, sooner or later you'll be hacked as well. The lack of support is one of the reasons Linux hasn't gained much popularity other than on servers. Who wants to be dependant on on OS that potentially breaks compatibility with each update. RE: Files: It's mostly unstructured text which makes it hard to tool for, you often have to do a lot of work to get results in the form you need, and there's the possibility of introducing errors when making changes. XP SP2 has both hardware and software support for NX. Look at the dialog sometime. You can enable it for only Windows system files or enable it for all files and maintain a whitelist for any problem apps. Server 2003 can run headless. It's also not necessary to run IE to get patches and updates. You can use the built-in AutoUpdate service or some other patch management system. |
| #19 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at 11/29/2004 3:51:11 PM |
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Scalability improvements were likewise made to top themselves, but also to compete with and surpass proprietary UNIX solutions which once had a hardware advantage.
In other words to compete with Linux, which already accomplishes this on commodity hardware, as well as proprietary hardware. No, to compete with proprietary UNIX. MS was working to beat UNIX and do it on commodity hardware before Linus even thought of Linux. They accomplished this goal in clustered performance several years ago, and in single-system performance last year. Windows NT needs a point of reference for evolution, and that is Windows 9x. Even though it did not evolve from the code base, NT was destined to be API-compatible with, and to phase out, 9x. You can't use 9x as a point of reference for NT. NT was around before 9x. Microsoft had planned for everyone to move to OS/2. When Windows 3.0 became popular, those plans had to change. MS and IBM eventually went their seperate ways with OS/2 development. MS started development of NT. It had a POSIX subsystem, a 32-bit Windows subsystem, and a 16-bit Windows subsystem for backward compatability with legacy Windows apps. The new 32-bit API was shipped downlevel to 16-bit Windows clients as win32s. The goal was always to transition up from the consumer-level OS to the business-level OS (once OS/2 -- now NT). Linux had nothing to do with this and wasn't even around during the first release of NT. Linux didn't even start to gain popularity until well into the NT 4.0 timeframe. |
| #20 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 11/30/2004 7:54:52 AM |
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Parkker while the link you sent was rather interesting, it doesnt prove your point. You obviously choose one sentence of the whole article to try to distort it into your favor. 80% in emerging markets is a LOT but doesnt give backing to your blanket statement that MOST computers end up running a pirated version of Linux. Rather MOST computers in emerging markets according to the study will be running a pirated version.
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