has firefox had its day..

[JDX_John]

Just to once again correct you there, FireFox was developed by three guys Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross using part of the code from Mozilla Application Suite. They wanted to build something that didn't have the bloat of the suite, but not the commercial restraints of Netscape.

From what ui remember it weas something to do with Netscape, that was bought out by AOL, three of the staff asked if they could take one of the projects and almost rebuild it. AOL allowed this and Mozzilla was formed as a none profit and AOL invested a $1M in 2003 spread over 3 years to pay for the heardware, software and wages. So it wasnt a massiive funded operations, as it only owrks out at $27K (£18.5K) per month. So even if they are on lets say $4K a month each, thats $12K, and then of course office over heads etc.

Thats very small money, not tens of millions or hundreds of employees.

But the version of FF we're using wasn't built for $12k by 3 guys. Like Opera, FF has been going many years now. The first version of FF was undoubtably crap. It's like you saying Linux was written by one guy... maybe an original shaky version of a now-giant app was done by a very small team but how much do you think is spent on FF, in terms of $ and man-hours, these days? To compete with MS and Chrome, Mozilla now has 250+ employees and last year a profit of $44million... Chrome is taking big chunks out of them and MS are undeniably gaining ground despite FF's much more professional setup these days.

Bill G wrote much of DOS alone, IIRC... but we don't claim Dos 6 was written by a small team.

 

[Bri]

But i really want to try and use the rig for creative uses, so if you can come up with something that hasnt been done before, and would show photography that the rig can do,

I'm into CCTV Systems and they require motion activation, places I put them as a management tool saves a lot of hard drive space if you know what I mean....lazy sons of beaches...

On another note, folks I recommend you check Ians website out he has kindly profiled other than himself, some creative artists, I particularly love the World Builder Animation as my personal favourite.

Five Stars mate............

....now lets get back to arguing about browsers.....

In my industry, Fire & CCTV I am constantly arguing against any closed protocol system, in your world you would call it MS. Its prohibitive and as MS has proven over the yrs a guaranteed money spinner. eg Ive just finished putting a sprinkler system into a school and worked with the guys who had the fire alarm put in. It is a closed protocol system, no one can work on it except the manufacturer, now I work with open protocol( your version of Open source) systems and the client would not accept my point of view that I coulve provided them with a more cost effective solution, and added a closed protcol interface to network it with existing systems, and if they didnt like me any time after there are a number of others capable of taking over from me.

My question is open source a bit like that?

 

[chief07]

I think the best reason to use Firefox is still for the plugins. Depending on what you use it for (I do some SEO), there are really useful addons you can get (PR checker, dofollow link highlight)

 

[richardlawton]

I stopped using FF about a year ago because it started crashing pretty much every time I used it, and crashes were pretty much guaranteed on sites with Flash video. I know FF fans love to knock IE - but at least for me IE was robust!

 

[perfection]

with so many browsers available i bet its a web designers nightmare having to make cross browser compatibility. With the standards set by the W3C consortium why dont they create the engine built for browsers and then the companies that create the browsers make a browser built around the engine and then they can add addons and all kinds of gadgets then we wouldn't have issues with webpages being viewed differently in different browsers because they interpret the code differently.

 

[NextPoint]

Most browsers show web pages the same - the exception is Internet Explorer, which has it's own rules. If you develop a website that works in Firefox, it will work on all of the other browsers except Internet Explorer - so you just fix the IE issues once the website is complete.

 

[perfection]

doesn't chrome interpret the webpage different aswell just like internet explorer does.

 

[NextPoint]

Internet Explorer doesn't show web pages properly, but the other web browsers do. In fact, Safari and Chrome both use the same rendering engine - WebKit. It's more an issue that IE does things wrong and web developers have to write special code for Internet Explorer because so many people use it.

 

[richardlawton]

Most browsers show web pages the same - the exception is Internet Explorer, which has it's own rules. If you develop a website that works in Firefox, it will work on all of the other browsers except Internet Explorer - so you just fix the IE issues once the website is complete.

Depends what you want to do and which version of IE you're using. My own website doesn't require any tweaks for IE. Just good design.

 

[perfection]

so if they all used the same engine then we wouldn't have this problem of cross browser compatibility

so i think the W3C should set the standards in browsers as they already set the standards in the web and how its coded anyway.

 

[richardlawton]

so i think the W3C should set the standards in browsers as they already set the standards in the web and how its coded anyway.

That's precisely what they do. They set the standards for HTML & CSS: effectively specifying how tags and elements should be rendered within a browser. The browser developers just implement these in their own way. I'm not sure what you mean by setting standards in browsers - what are you wanting them to specify?

It's like a bunch of cooks all following the same recipe. Even though they have exactly the same instructions some will produce better results than others.

 

[NextPoint]

Depends what you want to do and which version of IE you're using. My own website doesn't require any tweaks for IE. Just good design.

Well, trigger happy designers are often the ones to blame for designing things that are difficult to convert ;-). I prefer website designs similar to Hello World - never breaks in IE, ha!

Different browser engines aren't an issue, it's more how they are developed. Microsoft have been evil with Internet Explorer because it's not been in their interest to develop to standards - now that they have lost a lot of market share, they are forced to embrace standards. It's just Internet Explorer that causes problems for websites - nothing to do with Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

 

[perfection]

The browser developers just implement these in their own way. I'm not sure what you mean by setting standards in browsers - what are you wanting them to specify?

if they all used the same engine for browsers to interpret the code then no matter how they create the website no matter what browser your using they will all see it the same way because they are using the same engine.

 

[richardlawton]

if they all used the same engine for browsers to interpret the code then no matter how they create the website no matter what browser your using they will all see it the same way because they are using the same engine.

That's rather like saying all cars should have the same engine made by the government (who set road laws) and car manufacturers should just apply different kinds of chassis... Ain't going to happen.

 

[perfection]

yeah but in an ideal world that would be good wouldn't it

 

[NextPoint]

We almost had that happen with Internet Explorer and look what happened there! IE 6 held back web technologies like SVG and transparent PNGs because Microsoft had no incentive to improve their web browser - then FireFox came along and they were forced to make improvements. Competition is always good for the consumer.

 

[perfection]

yeah but thats microsoft for you.. they wanted there own internet and charge people.. but i can see where your coming from it is good for competition and keeps them on there toes.

 

[richardlawton]

Microsoft have been evil with Internet Explorer because it's not been in their interest to develop to standards - now that they have lost a lot of market share, they are forced to embrace standards. It's just Internet Explorer that causes problems for websites - nothing to do with Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

That's not fair to Microsoft and certainly not the whole truth.

This is all the consequences of the ancient IE-Netscape wars. As I recall, Netscape (grandfather of FF) did as much - if not more - than IE in developing non-standard tags. This rivalry actually pushed development of HTML and the web - without it I doubt we would have the kind of Web 2 we experience today. So it was actually a really positive thing.

Netscape lost the war, which left IE as the de-facto standard browser.

Microsoft's mistake was in not realising that there is actually huge benefit in having non-proprietary standards, and in not spending a small amount of their vast wealth in re-writing their browser engine.

 

[Subbynet]

Microsoft's mistake was in not realising that there is actually huge benefit in having non-proprietary standards, and in not spending a small amount of their vast wealth in re-writing their browser engine.

You think a company which generated hundreds of billions of dollars from the inclusion of IE really made a mistake?

MS don't care about standards, standards don't tie you to the MS stack.

ActiveX anyone...

 

[richardlawton]

You think a company which generated hundreds of billions of dollars from the inclusion of IE really made a mistake?

MS don't care about standards, standards don't tie you to the MS stack.

ActiveX anyone...

No company with a monopoloy cares about standards - they *are* the de facto standard!

It was Microsoft's dominance that caused home & business computing to take off and without them the web would never have existed in the way it does. For that I can forgive them quite a lot.

 

[Subbynet]

No company with a monopoloy cares about standards - they *are* the de facto standard!

It was Microsoft's dominance that caused home & business computing to take off and without them the web would never have existed in the way it does. For that I can forgive them quite a lot.

But Microsoft was not accused of being a monopoly until they leveraged their desktop dominance to take over the Browser market.

Its a mistake on your part to think that MS caused home and business computing to take off... Plenty of companies existed who were operating in this space, none of them survived the licensing deals MS done with major retailers which put Windows as the default OS on all machines sold, and with a "MS Tax" included even if windows was not sold with the machine.

In fact, a lot of the leg work done by Tim Berners-Lee in writing the first ever Internet Browser was done on a Nextstep computer, which was made, owned and run on who else - Steve Jobs.

 

[eshopwiz]

Chrome kicks ass. way better than firefox in terms of performance. but alas, I have too many plugins for firefox to give it u just yet... So I usually run both

 

[richardlawton]

But Microsoft was not accused of being a monopoly until they leveraged their desktop dominance to take over the Browser market.

Its a mistake on your part to think that MS caused home and business computing to take off... Plenty of companies existed who were operating in this space, none of them survived the licensing deals MS done with major retailers which put Windows as the default OS on all machines sold, and with a "MS Tax" included even if windows was not sold with the machine.

In fact, a lot of the leg work done by Tim Berners-Lee in writing the first ever Internet Browser was done on a Nextstep computer, which was made, owned and run on who else - Steve Jobs.

I didn't say there weren't other companies. It was the fact that there was a de facto world standard that caused home and SME computing to be become a mass market. And without that mass market we wouldn't have computing & the web as we know it - it would still be a big business and niche home market.

 

[Subbynet]

I didn't say there weren't other companies. It was the fact that there was a de facto world standard that caused home and SME computing to be become a mass market. And without that mass market we wouldn't have computing & the web as we know it - it would still be a big business and niche home market.

But your talking about something different, namely hardware standards. MS is not a hardware company. :|

 

[richardlawton]

But your talking about something different, namely hardware standards. MS is not a hardware company. :|

Software, hardware, whatever - it's irrelevant. The ordinary person just knew that there was now this thing called a 'PC' that had something called 'Windows' and you could buy something called 'software' obtainable anywhere knowing it would work on your machine.

By whatever means, fair or foul, MS established a de facto world standard for PC-based computing. This created the mass market. Without this mass market nothing much would have happened - including the phenomenal rise of the web.

 

[Subbynet]

Software, hardware, whatever - it's irrelevant. The ordinary person just knew that there was now this thing called a 'PC' that had something called 'Windows' and you could buy something called 'software' obtainable anywhere knowing it would work on your machine.

No sorry that's the completely opposite of your last statement, and its not even correct anyway - you always had to check if it would work, more so in the past than today. Guess what, if you buy a Mac, and run Mac software it works. Or if you run Linux, and install Linux software, that works too...

You want to talk about standards, well how about POSIX standards? You know, write software once and run it anywhere - on Windows, Mac or Linux... Who gave shoddy support until recently? That's right Microsoft. It was basically unusable, a waste of time.

By whatever means, fair or foul, MS established a de facto world standard for PC-based computing. This created the mass market. Without this mass market nothing much would have happened - including the phenomenal rise of the web.

No, they didn't create no standard for PC Computing. IBM did that, and MS ripped off CP/M to sell to IBM.

Its hardly as if MS was the only or even the best operating system available at the time, many others existed, but it was the mass market offered by the defacto and absolute industry giant - "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" that propelled MS to the big time.

This defacto standard has been X86, and the reason MS survives is the close co-operation between Intel and Microsoft.

 

[glenwheeler]

Firefox is more lively than ever,why would it have its day?

 

[richardlawton]

No sorry that's the completely opposite of your last statement, and its not even correct anyway - you always had to check if it would work, more so in the past than today. Guess what, if you buy a Mac, and run Mac software it works. Or if you run Linux, and install Linux software, that works too...

You want to talk about standards, well how about POSIX standards? You know, write software once and run it anywhere - on Windows, Mac or Linux... Who gave shoddy support until recently? That's right Microsoft. It was basically unusable, a waste of time.

No, they didn't create no standard for PC Computing. IBM did that, and MS ripped off CP/M to sell to IBM.

Its hardly as if MS was the only or even the best operating system available at the time, many others existed, but it was the mass market offered by the defacto and absolute industry giant - "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" that propelled MS to the big time.

This defacto standard has been X86, and the reason MS survives is the close co-operation between Intel and Microsoft.

I'm not sure why you're throwing in all these red herrings. Without a standard (or monopoly), mass markets rarely take off. Sony's BluRay beat Toshiba's HD DVD. JVC's VHS beat Sony's Betamax. Columbia & Victor's 78rpm beat Edison's 160rpm records. And so on and so on.

DOS/Windows became the winner in the home & small business computing market. Thus enabling a mass market to take off, without which it is doubtful that we would now be here having a robust exchange of views.

 

[Subbynet]

DOS/Windows became the winner in the home & small business computing market. Thus enabling a mass market to take off, without which it is doubtful that we would now be here having a robust exchange of views.

Excuse me - you started off talking about browsers, now your on to Operating Systems, and even now you back this up with more hardware examples. (Funny how all your examples lead back to hardware!)

Without the x86 IBM Compatible PC Microsoft would be no where.... But hey, you think DOS/Windows is the/a "standard", yet my Linux OS works on a IBM Compatible machine.

Standards... They ain't about a single company, that's why they're called Standards. Sure MS "won" the market, but lets not beat around the bush, x86 PC's won the market.

Let me quote for you what you said.

Microsoft's mistake was in not realising that there is actually huge benefit in having non-proprietary standards, and in not spending a small amount of their vast wealth in re-writing their browser engine.

Yet the opposite was true, MS made no mistake, and knew proprietary standards would further entrench Windows in the marketplace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

"Embrace, extend and extinguish,"[1] also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate,"[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

 

[richardlawton]

@subbynet

For some reason what I'm saying is pissing you off - I'm not sure why. You're actually arguing against things I'm not saying and completely missing the point I'm trying to make. And far be it for me to point out that according to your public profile, you were born the year I was project managing my first business computer system implementation.

Oh well. OK, you win. Microsoft are the root of all evil on earth and Bill Gates is the spawn of the devil.

Feel better now?

 

[TailorMade]

Going back to the OP, Firefox hasn't had its day. Explorer on the other hand probably has. Stick with Firefox, try Chrome. When you come across sites which are buggy in Firefox, perhaps let the site owners know - and they will likely work to resolve the issue if they are serious about it.

Personally, I use FF, yes, sometimes a site doesn't work that well, generally that site is not important enough to justify me installing Explorer. Anyway, if you are on Windoze, you can't delete explorer anyway can you? So use it as a fall back. I'm on ubuntu OS now, which has its draw backs, but as far as operating systems go, I think it beats windows hands down but that's a different conversation entirely..

 

[Subbynet]

Oh well. OK, you win. Microsoft are the root of all evil on earth and Bill Gates is the spawn of the devil.

Feel better now?

Not really, that wasn't the point I was making.

 

[richardlawton]

Going back to the OP, Firefox hasn't had its day. Explorer on the other hand probably has. Stick with Firefox, try Chrome. When you come across sites which are buggy in Firefox, perhaps let the site owners know - and they will likely work to resolve the issue if they are serious about it.

I like Chrome a lot as I feel it's the fastest. I stopped using FF: too many crashes, yet the sites worked fine in Chrome, Opera and IE. That seems to point the finger at FF, not the site or my setup. I'm now getting odd problems in Thunderbird too. It suggest the Mozilla guys have lost the plot slightly...

 

[DotNetWebs]

...Without the x86 IBM Compatible PC Microsoft would be no where.... But hey, you think DOS/Windows is the/a "standard", yet my Linux OS works on a IBM Compatible machine...

I am currently enjoying reading this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0M9EDDAXEQ3B0XJWVE5T

It's a great read and obviously very pro Linux - but it points out the ironic fact that one of the reasons Linux succeeded over other 'free' UNIX clones, was that it could be installed alongside (and thus dual- booted) with a DOS partition. By the time Linux came along DOS had been around for years and Windows 3.1 was enjoying huge success

Apparently Linus was hooked on "Prince of Persia" (the original DOS version that I also used to play at the time). He only had one PC and wanted the best of both worlds!

IMO there is room for both MS and Linux in the world. I have Windows only PCs and Linux only PCs but my main machine is a Windows 7 Core i7 running several Windows and Linux virtual machines.

I just choose the tools I need that can do the job I want in the most cost effective and productive way. Sometimes Windows wins and other times Linux wins!

Regards

Dotty

 

[Bri]

Going back to the OP, Firefox hasn't had its day. Explorer on the other hand probably has. Stick with Firefox, try Chrome. When you come across sites which are buggy in Firefox, perhaps let the site owners know - and they will likely work to resolve the issue if they are serious about it.

As they should, but i'd rather see a complete rewritten version say 3 or 4 rather than as with most software these days 3.1.14.nano which has smoothed out a bug in line 4 that lets you use...blah de blah. The whole number has more impact.......coming soon the all new and improved .........

 

[DotNetWebs]

...Microsoft's mistake was in not realising that there is actually huge benefit in having non-proprietary standards...

It's seem they are starting to realise that now.

Here is an interesting article I have just read on Tech crunch:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/30/rip-silverlight-on-the-web/

I have been impressed with the capabilities of Silverlight which has far greater power than Flash or HTML5 - but I have held of from developing for it as I didn't believe it would achieve the same market penetration as Flash.

It seems many other developers felt the same and now MS are quietly moving towards HTML5 for their non-mobile applications.

Regards

Dotty