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New Year's resolution for Firefox: Grow | |
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| Time: 06:06 EST/11:06 GMT | News Source: CNET | Posted By: Chris Hedlund | ||
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Forty-five days and some 13 million downloads after its official release, Mozilla's Firefox browser is showing undeniable momentum--but does it signal the beginning of the end to Microsoft's monopoly over the basic software used to access the Web? Even as Firefox gathers steam, powerful brakes are poised to kick in that could limit its long-term growth: Interoperability has long dogged non-Microsoft browsers, which are often glitchy on some Web sites. Firefox claims some significant progress on this front, but a handful of sites, including Microsoft's Windows Update site, are still inaccessible. | ||
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| #1 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 12/27/2004 11:24:47 AM |
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"the ONLY sites that won't work with Firefox are those requiring ActiveX."
False |
| #2 By 1295 (216.84.210.100) at 12/27/2004 11:28:14 AM |
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Agreed Brian. I'm trying to switch everybody I can get my hands on over to FireFox. I've found that many of the stock/commodity/currency trading sites do not support FireFox (by design and/or restriction) but use Java as their front end GUI.
I think that will change soon. I'm a loyal Microsoft user but FireFox is just a better mouse trap. Designers will start putting FireFox high up on the priority list when it comes to interoperation sooner than later. |
| #3 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 12/27/2004 12:00:46 PM |
| I haven't found any reason to switch from IE. IE does everything I need and I haven't found anything in Firefox compelling enough to switch. |
| #4 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 12/27/2004 1:04:39 PM |
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#1 - ActiveX is one of MS's COM Clients. It is used most often for "Signing" Plug-Ins.
Adobe Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Stock Tickers, and Macromedia's FLASH and Shock Wave players are examples of these. Fire Fox uses many plug-ins, and has a plug-in manager. IE in XP SP2 has one of the most effective plug-in managers there is. XP SP2 also most effectively changed the way ActiveX COM Client Controls are handled and according to strict signing and least permissive rules, actively monitors all COM Clients - including ActiveX. There is a key difference - MS's ActiveX COM Client Control, was designed to manage code sigining. Prior to XP SP2, many spyware programs were properly signed and by-passed the intended security built around ActiveX. XP SP2 fixed that. Fire Fox is not designed around such a code siging model - nor are spyware detection tools designed around it - they are designed around IE. Other COM Clients, like Java RMI, FLASH Remoting, CORBA and DCOM all do the same things - they deliver code that is executed on your local machine and or cause remote code execution - in Windows this is done via a Remote Prcedure Call, and in the Unices and Linuces they use one form of SUN RPC on TCP Port 111. They may also use a combination of "run at" statements to control where code is executed - your machine, the host, or a mix of the two. Filters [like ears] listen for and manage what kind of calls may be passed [ISAPI, VSAPI, etc...]. In other words, ActiveX is no different from any other form of COM Client, except that under XP SP2 it is very tightly managed and secured. Do not be fooled into thinking that Fire Fox is not equally dependent upon plug-ins and remember how many in the OSS community refer to Fire Fox's many available plug-ins - none of which are validated by any party answering to you, me or any one else. Use FF if you like, code for it if you like, but do not be mistaken, it is not secure and skilled men and women can rip it to shreds in a matter of minutes. They do not for two reasons - 1) they are busy conforming to our laws and working to preserve them, and 2) they regard malicious code and those that write it as being criminal. Just don't regard ActiveX as many in the press and on these boards would have you believe - it is not an evil thing - it "is" only one of many code techniques like it and it was intended to enhance security. Oh, BTW, here's a simple explanation - older. but it get's the main points and also, FF/Mozilla can both, and many users do, run AxtiveX support - it is and has been available for it for a long while - http://www.active-x.com/articles/whatis.htm You can learn how COM and the future COM+ are and will be secured here, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dncomg/html/msdn_practicom.asp This post was edited by lketchum on Monday, December 27, 2004 at 13:15. |
| #5 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 12/27/2004 1:07:28 PM |
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I really like Firefox as well, but the incompatibilities are frustrating. Yes, some sites will not work at all, but there are other sites that render incorrectly. For example, eBay usually does not render correctly, at least with the out-of-the-box Firefox install (Firefox gets about 90% correct on average, I'd say). I end up pasting links back into IE quite often because sites just don't look as intended. There are some other interesting glitches in rendering as well--for whatever reason, in the forums on Dell's support site, Firefox will occasionally truncate the body of the posts. When I paste the link into IE, it renders properly. With greater marketshare, though, I would imagine some of these problems will get fixed.
The bigger issue in an office setting, though, is patching. IE or Firefox, they both need regular patching. If Firefox has a good solution to this, I'd like to hear about it. With the additional problem of some sites not working, I definitely won't be rolling it out on any larger scale--it makes no sense to patch TWO browsers when the included one works very well and is compatible with nearly 100% of the websites out there. |
| #6 By 22601 (69.194.226.220) at 12/27/2004 2:02:35 PM |
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Usually if a site looks good with IE but not with FF, it is because the site depends on a bug or inadequacy in IE. A competent site designer can make a site that works with browsers that comply well with standards (like FF) and that also works well with IE despite its problems.
Re patching, FF has an auto-update feature. |
| #7 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 12/27/2004 2:36:54 PM |
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#10... maybe so, but the "it doesn't render correctly because it's coded for the flawed IE" argument seems like a bit of a cop-out, especially when it comes to very large sites such as eBay, Dell, etc. I would dare say that they do not have incompetent site designers.
When it comes to patching, client-driven patching and auto-updates are NOT appropriate for most business settings. Administrators need to test in their environment and roll out the patches as they see fit. SUS and SMS can do this nicely for IE. To my knowledge, nothing similar exists yet for Firefox. But even if it did, there are sites (at least at this point in time) that would still require IE--so patching would be required for both, and you've more or less doubled your "attack surface." Not a desirable or best-practice solution, not to mention the confusion you'd generate among users (which browser do I use for what? Where are my Favorites? Why is my History missing sites that I've visited? Etc. etc. etc.). |
| #8 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 12/27/2004 2:56:43 PM |
| Search previous comments as I posted about 10 quick examples of sites that are not FF friendly. |
| #9 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 12/27/2004 3:22:05 PM |
| I have a quick one for you. Open up www.ebay.com in FF and IE. In mine, quite a few of the images are missing in FF. User error? I hope not... this is a fresh, default install of FF 1.0 on XP. If I right-click on the image placeholder, I have a "view image" option that will open the image on a fresh page. |
| #10 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 12/27/2004 3:24:30 PM |
| Also, I should say that I seem to suffer a slowdown whenever I'm entering posts in the ActiveWin forums via Firefox. It loads the entire page, then waits for a few seconds before letting me enter into the textbox. Not a big deal, but I've never had that problem in IE. |
| #11 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 12/27/2004 3:37:53 PM |
| The next version of ActiveWin is scheduled to be cross browser friendly ;o) |
| #12 By 22601 (69.194.226.220) at 12/27/2004 3:50:18 PM |
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Reply to #11: it is hardly a cop-out to point out that many problem with FF displaying sites results from designers depending on IE bugs and inadequacies; a lot of people assume that, if it looks good in IE, the code must be perfect, and this is far from being true. And as for designers of such sites having incompetent site designers: well, to be truthful, it could instead be due to managers that put constraints on design methodologies that favour IE.
Reply to #14: just tried eBay.com in FF and IE. Pages looked almost identical in both, with the FF page looking just a tad nicer, apparently because of better LI spacing. |
| #13 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 12/27/2004 4:19:42 PM |
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Odd, the sites look totally different to me
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v427/thehedon/ebay.gif With IE looking MUCH better than FF. See above screenshot. |
| #14 By 22601 (69.194.226.220) at 12/27/2004 5:28:13 PM |
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What I get now with eBay is now different with FF than IE, and the FF page has more images, looking clearly nicer than IE!
What is happening with eBay is clearly not just a matter of one browser screwing things up: the server is clearly choosing to serve up different pages under different circumstances. Very strange. |
| #15 By 37 (24.183.41.60) at 12/27/2004 6:16:48 PM |
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Yup..just double checked at home. I get the same:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v427/thehedon/ebay.gif Two different looking pages with both browsers, even if I fake FF to be IE 6. And as you can see in the screenshots, and as I see on my computer, IE looks substantially better. |
| #16 By 22601 (69.194.226.220) at 12/27/2004 7:23:49 PM |
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Out of curiosity I decided to see whether the eBay home page validates. Result: over 150 HTML errors. eBay may be a successful business, but it appears to know less than nothing about making proper web pages.
If eBay loses money because it cannot serve out good pages to all its customers' browsers ... well, that's what they call 'evolution in action'. |
| #17 By 20505 (216.102.144.11) at 12/27/2004 9:20:33 PM |
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gentlemen,
i think the technical argument about browser security misses the point. it is my opinion that there will never be a large number of viruses that exploit firefox’s vulnerabilities precisely because it is an open source initiative (it's human nature). people write nasty bits of codes for internet explorer because it is a microsoft product. i will go out on a limb and predict that regardless of the market penetration of firefox it will never be the target of as many direct attacks as internet explorer. like it or not people love to hate microsoft. |
| #18 By 143 (68.73.155.36) at 12/27/2004 9:42:16 PM |
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yep...Don't be surprised when viruses targeting Firefox start increasing. <echo> This post was edited by donpacman on Monday, December 27, 2004 at 21:44. |
| #19 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 12/27/2004 10:15:59 PM |
| I think the differences in rendering eBay are from the use of ad blockers, and the differing techniques used for them, turned mine off in Maxthon, don't have one in FF, and they both look identical, meanwhile if I turn it on in Maxthon it doesn't show a good bit of info. |
| #20 By 12071 (203.217.26.160) at 12/27/2004 11:49:57 PM |
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#11 "especially when it comes to very large sites such as eBay, Dell, etc. I would dare say that they do not have incompetent site designers."
It's interesting that you assume that a big company always has the most competent developers! 1) Most of the images don't have ALT tags (as Parkker mentioned) 2) & in urls are not encoded (as Parkker mentioned) 3) Tags such as "<mainA4>" used 4) Most of the other errors reported are due to spaces at the start or at the end of a tag, which I would hope that every browser would handle, even though it's strictly incorrect. Even a student with a copy of Frontpage could have done a better job than those highly competent developers at that large company! |
| #21 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 12/28/2004 12:38:47 AM |
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Again, I should ask--do you guys that are posting screenshots have any plug-ins installed with FF (or are you using the IE rendering engine within FF)? On eBay's home page, I'm missing more or less all the images with FF 1.0, default install. At any rate, AWBrian is probably a better person to ask here--he has several more examples and a more extensive web development background.
#30, I never said the biggest sites have the "most" competent developers... I just said that they are not INcompetent. If you talked to the developers as to the reason for those errors, I don't think they would come across as "incompetent," but feel free to prove otherwise. I still would be interested to know of a good patching solution (in a business setting) for FF. |
| #22 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 12/28/2004 12:56:28 AM |
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" The next version of ActiveWin is scheduled to be cross browser friendly ;o)"
Maybe you will also stop forcing that tiny font down our throat! |
| #23 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 12/28/2004 12:58:16 AM |
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"I'm missing more or less all the images with FF 1.0, default install."
Were any other versions of Firefox ever installed on that machine previously (even if you have since uninstalled them?) Maybe your profile is corrupt. This post was edited by tgnb on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at 00:59. |
| #24 By 12071 (203.217.26.160) at 12/28/2004 3:42:57 AM |
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#31 If not incompetent, then at least lazy. It doesn't take much time or effort to fix those issues, or not have them in the first place, especially if the pages were written with any WYSIWYG editor (e.g. Dreamweaver seems to be the most popular amongst larger companies) all of which automatically encode urls, add all required parameters to tags and warn you about the usage of non-existant parameters for those tags.
The problem is that those designers have been used to testing in IE only, so whilst you don't like to call them incompetent, you'd have to agree that they are at the very least lazy. #33 "I think IE is the standard." Thanks for sharing your thoughts, we'll choose to disagree. "This mythical html "standard" than no one really codes to is just an excuse to bash IE." myth·i·cal :- http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mythical 1. Of or existing in myth: the mythical unicorn. 2. Imaginary; fictitious. 3. often mythic Of, relating to, or having the nature of a myth: a novel of profound, almost mythic consequence. http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/. It doesn't seem mythical to me, maybe your web browser is denying you access to the open standards pages. |
| #25 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 12/28/2004 10:38:18 AM |
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Halcyon-X12, I know there are ways to make the fonts bigger but that only solves the effects not the root of the problem. In any case, in some situations small fonts are nice, so globally forcing them to be larger doesnt solve the problem, only mitigates it. Its bad accessibility practice for a site to force font size onto its users. This post was edited by tgnb on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at 10:41. |
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