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Microsoft outFirefoxed? | |
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| Time: 09:22 EST/14:22 GMT | News Source: CNET | Posted By: Chris Hedlund | ||
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So there I was trying my best to get a midlevel Microsoft manager to take the bait. "Does Microsoft now feel confident it's found a way to slow the rise of Firefox--maybe even win back some lost customers?" Earlier in the day, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was onstage at the RSA Conference in San Francisco to unveil a beta of an updated version of Internet Explorer, a Web browser that's been begging for new security features--let alone a facelift--for ages. Microsoft promoted the introduction as a big deal. Naturally, I thought my interlocutor would jump at the opportunity. C'mon, I thought, run some jive about how IE is all ready to rout those pests from the Mozilla Foundation once and for all. Instead I was left high and dry. All I got was marketing mumbo-jumbo about how the company strives to do good by its customers and that's the ultimate payoff--and so on and so forth. | ||
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| #1 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 2/18/2005 10:26:31 AM |
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Most relevant quote from the story: "Microsoft can't wait another two years to answer the challenge from Firefox."
Thank god MS doesn't listen to the MS apologist crowd at AW, otherwise we all would have to be fully satisfied with IE 6 for at least two more years. |
| #2 By 15406 (216.191.227.90) at 2/18/2005 10:46:09 AM |
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#1: You've got it all wrong. MS is all about the consumer and what's best for him/her, so the latest MS flip-flop to update IE had nothing at all to do with Firefox. It was pure coincidence. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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| #3 By 15406 (216.191.227.90) at 2/18/2005 12:48:33 PM |
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#3: I suspect he meant when Shorthorn comes out in 2007/2008/2064.
And about Firefox, you heard wrong, which isn't really surprising. But it is scathing indictment on MS that (according to you) a bunch of young, crappy programmers can come up with a browser that's more compliant, just as fast and more secure than IE even though it's full of ancient old Netscape code and MS has billions of dollars and thousands of coders. |
| #4 By 10748 (169.3.169.174) at 2/18/2005 1:10:36 PM |
| I was a tester for IE 5, and the programmers and testers do "strive to do good by customers", I know it for a fact... Unfortunately upper management didn't beleive refreshes were needed. The fact is the grunt writing and testing the code truly wants the best experience for the end user. We where drilled daily that as testers "you are the customers advocate" and we took it very seriously. |
| #5 By 37 (67.37.29.142) at 2/18/2005 1:36:35 PM |
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"come up with a browser that's more compliant, just as fast and more secure than IE"
Good thing that is an *opinion* |
| #6 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 2/18/2005 2:11:20 PM |
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#3: Ummm. Longhorn will be in beta 1 by October, which meant IE 7 was due in beta 1 by October. Thats only 8 months.
Didn't you, or one of your alter egos, once say, in reference to the then current Firefox beta, that you would fire anyone using beta software on their company computer? Most analysts (and realists) don't expect Longhorn until 2007. But then again, if MS keeps gutting it of new features, we probably get it--Windows XP Longhorn Edition--in the latter half of 2006. #5: Unfortunately upper management didn't beleive [IE] refreshes were needed. And that is why Firefox is trouncing IE. After Firefox becomes another stale product in a big corporate line, it will suffer the same fate. |
| #7 By 10748 (169.3.169.174) at 2/18/2005 2:33:04 PM |
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#8 Trouncing? You can say that when FF reaches 50%+, what a silly statement.
It's taken some time, but once MS decides to target the browser again FF will not be able to keep up. FFs limited popularity will be just a blip on the scope of browser history. Even with the huge popularity of Netscape in it's day... it's been mostly forgotten, FF will be remembered even less. This post was edited by Pixel on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 14:38. |
| #8 By 3653 (63.162.177.143) at 2/18/2005 2:33:27 PM |
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trouncing? LOL.
You boys have finally found your next "msft killer". You're off the google drum for awhile and onto the "next killer". And yet, you will continue to be wrong. IBM Novell Apple Netscape Oracle America Online Dept of Justice RealNetworks Security Issues RedHat Firefox The list of historical "microsoft killers" gets longer and longer... |
| #9 By 13030 (198.22.121.120) at 2/18/2005 2:50:37 PM |
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#12: You boys have finally found your next "msft killer". You're off the google drum for awhile and onto the "next killer". And yet, you will continue to be wrong.
I'm not trying to kill MSFT! Why would I when I make my living off of their platform, developer and office products and own their stock? I just hold them to a higher standard than the MS apologists on AW do. I just get a kick out of reading what the MS zealots here say to justify their belief in MS's superiority. Firefox, like it or not, is a good product. It has achieved phenominal recognition and growth against a stale yet well entrenched bundled product. MS, like any other monopoly, will tend to rest on its laurels once it owns a market. Firefox is holding MS to a higher standard and I think that is wonderful! |
| #10 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 2/18/2005 3:30:48 PM |
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LinuxIsTheft, I searched for "1999" in the Firefox source code. I randomly picked one of the files with "Copyright 1999 Netscape Corporation" (intl/uconv/src/unixcharset.properties). I opened the file and guess what it says on the very top of the file: ## NOTE: THIS FILE IS DEPRECATED
So much for how accurate your method of determining what percentage of Firefox source code is netscape4 code. |
| #11 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 2/18/2005 4:26:22 PM |
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I can't think of anyone here on ActiveWin is looking for a MSFT killer. Except maybe LinuxIsTheft, he seems to be doing more harm than anyone to Microsoft by being such a blatant MS troll. This post was edited by tgnb on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 16:26. |
| #12 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at 2/18/2005 5:08:00 PM |
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Everyone, for the last year, has been playing up Firefox's increasing popularility as a David and Goliath story -- the little guy that could, standing up to the giant and beating it at its own game. What a silly idea. Microsoft isn't even trying to respond. It has other things on its mind (such as its huge security initiative and Longhorn) that are more important than a flea clawing away 10% of the browser market.
Firefox's main advantage and lure is tabbed browsing; that's it. It does nothing else noticeably better than IE. What a precarious position to be in. Microsoft needs only to implement that one feature in IE to shatter Firefox's momentum and roll back the clock. It can do so whenever it wishes. Microsoft is a merely a dog refusing to scratch. When it does scratch, Firefox will know. I'm surprised that history hasn't taught more people that. |
| #13 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 2/18/2005 6:15:35 PM |
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"What part of "except for those *nix systems" do you not understand you moron?????"
Wow I must have struck your sensitive spot. Anyway, in the grand scheme of things I am even MORE convinced after searching for 1999 in the source code that your method is flawed beyond belief. Do you want me to start pointing to more examples? By the way you never answered about whether all Netscape4 code was shit or not and whether they should have thrown out even the usable parts of NS4 just to reinvent the wheel or not. "Firefox's main advantage and lure is tabbed browsing; that's it. It does nothing else noticeably better than IE." If that were true then Opera would have been in Firefox's spot a LONG time ago. So i guess Firefox must have "something" else that is compelling people to use it. This post was edited by tgnb on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 18:17. |
| #14 By 7797 (63.76.44.6) at 2/18/2005 6:20:56 PM |
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LinuxIsTheft MANY MANY of the files in the source code have the following text:
# The contents of this file are subject to the Netscape Public # License Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file # except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of # the License at http://www.mozilla.org/NPL/ # # Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS # IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or # implied. See the License for the specific language governing # rights and limitations under the License. # # The Original Code is Mozilla Communicator client code, released # March 31, 1998. # # The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Netscape # Communications Corporation. Portions created by Netscape are # Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Netscape Communications Corporation. All # Rights Reserved. So files that contain "Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Netscape Communications Corporation" are NOT necessarily from 1999 or 1998.. So your method is FLAWED!!! You CANNOT just search for 1999 in the source, come up with a number of files, count them, compare that number to the total number of files and then say 25% of the code comes from Netscape4. This post was edited by tgnb on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 18:24. |
| #15 By 10748 (169.3.169.174) at 2/18/2005 6:30:21 PM |
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#21 Becaause Opera sucks and it's not free...
I use IE with tabs it's called Avant browser, great IE add-on. So much for FF - http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5666404-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd , <-- I agree. The only thing FF has going for it is drooling anti-MS open source activists. This post was edited by Pixel on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 19:26. |
| #16 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 2/18/2005 8:27:07 PM |
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I personally hate Avant and Maxthon. It takes a very minimal interface that is IE, and adds a bunch of crap in a hap-hazard maner.
Is it impossible to make an IE add-in toolbar that handles tabs? Of course, tabs are highly overated. How is it any different than just using the taskbar? |
| #17 By 37 (24.183.41.60) at 2/18/2005 9:14:21 PM |
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Actually Avant Browser works VERY well.
But yes, there is an add-in toolbar for IE that handles tabs: http://www.microgarden.com/webtools/index.htm |
| #18 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at 2/18/2005 11:05:19 PM |
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Crazy Browser is another freeware browser that uses IE's engine. It's been around (with tabs) for at least 3 years. http://www.crazybrowser.com/
I agree with #24 that tabs are over-rated. I used Crazy Browser for a while 3 years ago and found that I didn't care to use tabs. I also found it to wreak havoc with my browsing habits, as using tabs didn't seem intuitive and I was constantly closing windows instead of tabs (which is incredibly frustrating). I find using the taskbar to be no more cumbersome... and it works with Expose clones like Entbloess (http://www.entbloess.com), whereas tabs do not. This post was edited by Osprey on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 23:08. |
| #19 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 2/18/2005 11:57:41 PM |
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"You know, you seem to have two minds about things. On one hand you are desperately trying to make a fool of your self be displaying amazing ignorance about copyright notices embedded in files, and on the other you seem to be saying its fine that so much code from pre-2000 Netscape is still clogging up Firefox."
You're right there are 2 goals in my mind. Goal number 1 is to show that your method of trying to "prove" how much netscape4 code is in Firefox is flawed. Goal number 2 is to explain that it is perfectly OK for some netscape4 code to be in firefox. No need to re-invent the wheel for every line of code. "You also are ignoring the fact that the c code files with the Netscape Communications Corporation embedded in the header all seem to have file names like ns???????" The fact that some files are named ns* doesnt prove ANYTHING. "If they were actually developed by Mozilla or Firefox developers they would not use the Netscape prefix ns in the file name or the names of every variable. " Oh really? How do you know? Can you show us how you have this inside information or is that secret? "I do notice that you deliberately left out the name of the file so that I couldn't humilate you (as much). " I didn't deliberately leave anything out. I deliberately stated that this copyright notice can be found in MANY MANY of the files you tried to use as proof that 25% of netscape4 code makes up Firefox. Make a search for the text i quoted and you''ll see how many files contain it. As for the file you mentioned it contains: * Copyright (C) 1991-1994, Thomas G. Lane. * This file is part of the Independent JPEG Group's software. * For conditions of distribution and use, see the accompanying README file. How much do you want to bet IE contains the same file but we are unable to prove it? why? because IE doesnt show us the source code! |
| #20 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 2/18/2005 11:57:52 PM |
| Wow, Osprey, thanx for the link to entbloess, I like it a lot, I think I'm going to buy a copy. |
| #21 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at 2/19/2005 4:59:04 AM |
| No problem, CPUGuy. Yeah, Entbloess is the best of the 3 Expose clones that I experimented with the other day. The price of $7.99 is great, too. Tip: If moving around the tiled windows is a little jerky, turn off "Fade and Slide Animations" in the settings. It doesn't impact the cool zooming and fading once you're in tiled mode; it just removes the animations going into it, which I can live without. |
| #22 By 7797 (68.142.9.161) at 2/19/2005 9:08:36 AM |
| LinuxIsTheft I love how you pick one part of my post use it to say I humiliate myself and disregard the rest of my post completely, namely the part that proves again that your method is beyond flawed. Mind telling me exactly what you think filenames that say ns* prove? Are you saying all those files come from Netscape4? |
| #23 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 2/19/2005 12:53:05 PM |
| Osprey: Thanks, but my Geforce 6800 can handle the animations :) lol |
| #24 By 3653 (68.54.224.219) at 2/19/2005 5:58:53 PM |
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lol. now these fanboys are defending decade old code. Funny as hell.
#24... I agree Maxthon (myie2) has some bloat, but I love the grouping in addition to the tabs. I'm guessing there must be some legal reason why MSFT hasnt added tabbed browser already. It must be the #1 requested feature by a lot. Anyone have any idea? I doubt their UI folks don't hold enough sway to persuade them not to add tabs. |
| #25 By 61 (65.32.168.114) at 2/19/2005 6:56:48 PM |
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The goal of any development team (CS or OSS) is to reuse as much code as possible.
Rewriting code just for the sake of rewriting is stupid. It adds years to development time and gets you mostly no where. |
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