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Year in review: Linux on the hot seat
December 16, 2004 -
New York Times runs Firefox ad
December 16, 2004 -
Photo: Firefox hits New York Times
December 16, 2004 -
Firefox ad readied as market share increases
December 14, 2004 -
Firefox surpasses 10 million download mark
December 12, 2004 -
Net threats spur action on browser front
December 9, 2004 -
School's out to shun IE
December 9, 2004
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browsers as well.
Mozilla regularly tests the 1,700 most trafficked Web sites and performs side-by-side comparisons of how they work in IE and Firefox. The group's data shows that Firefox is 98 percent compatible with Web content on those sites. That's up from 75 percent four years ago, according to the foundation.
"We're really down to just a few problems," Hofmann said.
Those problems include Web sites' reliance on ActiveX, Microsoft's proprietary application programming interface (API) for letting Web sites take advantage of the computer's underlying functionality.
ActiveX has long been considered a security liability and was a key focus of Microsoft's recent Service Pack 2 security upgrade for IE users with Windows XP. Mozilla is part of a coalition including fellow browser makers Apple Computer and Opera Software, along with plug-in application vendors Sun Microsystems, Macromedia and Adobe Systems, to come up with a standard ActiveX equivalent.
The second most common problem for Firefox compatibility is what Hofmann termed "Microsoft's proprietary implementation of the DOM." The DOM, or Document Object Model, is a W3C recommendation for letting scripts interact with discrete elements of a Web page.
One way Mozilla got to 98 percent compatibility from 75 percent was by convincing Web sites to code differently. Another was to emulate IE when faced with nonstandard pages.
That strategy resulted in what Mozilla calls its "quirks mode." When Firefox loads a page and its Gecko engine rendering engine detects nonstandard IE-specific behaviors, the browser switches into that mode and is able to render the page correctly--albeit at a more sluggish pace.
With the success of Firefox in winning market share, Mozilla is finding Web authors more receptive to its message about standards and compatibility. The group is now fielding between 10 and 15 calls per week from individuals and organizations asking how to make their sites work with Firefox.
Even Microsoft has become more responsive to requests that its Web pages be accessible in Firefox. Hofmann credits the software giant's sunnier attitude in part to the $12 million settlement the company paid following Opera's accusations that Microsoft was deliberately breaking its pages when viewed with the Opera browser.
Microsoft declined to comment on the matter of its Web pages' compatibility with non-IE browsers or on the issue of browser-site interoperability in general.
But the company noted another area where Mozilla will face significant challenges gaining market share: enterprise desktops.
Like post-Sept. 11 presidential candidates, both sides claim to have the best security story to tell.
"Over the last year, we have started to see interest on the part of corporate IT managers worried about security problems in IE who are starting to think about strategies for backup when serious vulnerabilities arise in IE and Microsoft doesn't have a patch," Hofmann said. "We have talked to them, listened to their concerns and are assisting them with deployment plans for rolling out Firefox."
Mozilla's pitch will likely focus on lesser-known enterprise capabilities of Firefox, such as its ability to update browser preferences from a central server.
In the coming year, Mozilla expects to continue to evangelize Firefox to corporations--something old Netscape hands at the foundation know a thing or two about.
"We see lots of interest," Hofmann said. "The companies we're talking to are across all industries. Entering the enterprise market is a long and hard route, and several of us have experience in it from our days at Netscape and know what it takes to succeed. We're in this for the long haul."
which are often glitchy on some Web sites"
It would be more correct to spread the blame out to all parties -
Interoperability mostly affects non-Microsoft browsers
sometimes because the browsers are glitchy but more regularly
because the sites are poorly designed without adherence to
accepted standards or to work with Microsoft specific
technologies.
On the other hand, I had to leave IE installed on everyone's PC because some web site programmers, for whatever reason, chose not to adhere to common web standards and instead chose to create their web sites so that they will only work using IE on Windows. Wells Fargo Bank's online business banking site being on of them. Other companies shows that it is possible to create web sites that run on any plaform using any browser.
As a result of this, users still have access to IE if they need it, but Firefox is now the default web browser.
I'm confused. Since when did the "Mozilla Foundation" begin sporting market shares? Where is Mozilla's money coming from? Where is it going to (besides NYT ads and into the pockets of mystery men)? Who's investing in this company (that isn't a company)? How much more shady can this get?
There is much unknown about the Mozilla Foundation. What happened to the little browser that could?
Mystery "foundation" (not company!), mystery "funding" (not money!). Stay tuned next week -- same Bat time, same Bat channel.
Many of the people in the Mozilla crew are working to create a better browser out of a NEED for a better browser. They're sicked and tired of Internet Explorer and Opera just doesn't seem to cut it (to them). Also, note that Mozilla was spun off from Netscape, after Netscape's fall. It could be a sort of revenge, to do what Netscape could not - overcome Microsoft and their monopolizing tactics by building an open source browser (Microsoft WORST enemy, of course).
It's no surprise how many people, especially those from companies ousted from the market by Microsft, joined the foundation.
As for this "Market share", it's a goal of the Mozilla Foundation to topple Microsoft and their Internet Explorer. If Mozilla can manage 60% "market share", then they've effectively reached their goal at defeating Microsoft.
If I were you, I'd consider Microsoft to be the more shady company. They've got so much power and plenty of places to use it. Microsoft has deliberatly locked out users of the Opera browser before, they bundled Internet Explorer with Windows and in doing so, strangled Netscape to death (the Netscape browser of course required it to be downloaded first). And recently, Microsoft was ordered by the EU to remove Windows Media Player from the standard Operating system because it is yet another monopolizing scheme.
Just look at all the antitrust cases against Microsoft and tell me WHO is the more shady company.
I found the following link which sort of answers some of your questions:
http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-foundation.html
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Firefox bugmenot - when you don't want to give personal details that aren't any of anyones business.
I will not use this until it has proven itself worthy...
I'll just sit back and wait....
Windows Update isn't a valid webpage. It seems only natural that if you send garbage data to a program, that it'll spit out garbage in response. IE just messes with people's perceptions, as it handles garbage code better than it does correct code. See http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/ for some pretty basic pages that IE slaughters.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/CurrentDL.aspx will let you download all the patches from Windows Update, without sending MS a bunch of your personal data, and it even works without IE.
13 million downloads does not mean, 13 million people still using it. I personally downloaded it and its nice the tabbed feature is great. Then I ran into pages not working properly that work with IE....so I removed it. That and all of those plugins you must download....no thanks.
Honestly I see web browsers like coffe stir sticks...I dont pay attention unless something does not work.
IE securtiy is so overblown, if you dont patch your systems automatically and you use Windows.....its like driving in a storm with no seat belt on. Essentially you become a victom of your own stupidity. I use IE all the time, but my systems are patched.
We use SUS and SMS2003 at work and all critical updates are deployed to anyone logging into AD with in hours of their release. At home I get the emails from MS, and I have my systems setup to autoupdate.
site that does not differentiate newer browsers.
Many sites have the following:
if IE
do IE specific stuff
else
do Netscape specific stuff
Very common.
I dont find firefox to be faster or to render better. I guess the tabbed browsing is nice, if you like that. I dont care for that one bit, so its not a selling point for me.
The main firefox positives I found was the popup blocking and webmaster plugin. The popup blocking in XP SP2 does the trick for me, so I dont need Firefox for that anymore. The webmaster plugin is nice, so I still use that, but infrequently. I installed a few other plugins, but they didnt work as advertised so I dont bother with them anymore.
I guess I can see Firefox being recommended to novices who dont know how to tell IE to do things like disable activex's and java.
IMO, firefox's hype is driven mainly by hate of MS, rather than it's superiority to IE.
1. Security. Not being integrated into the OS is an asset, not a liability -- if you screw up Firefox, you can uninstall it and start from scratch. You can't do that with IE.
2. Features. I've found little use for tabbed browsing, but it's nice to have available. Popup blocking in Firefox is better than it is in IE, as in it's harder to fool.
3. Web Standards compliant. This, for me at least, is the main selling point. Microsoft froze IE's W3 compliance at least 3 years ago, and that has caused innovation in HTML pages to come to a virtual standstill. Beyond that, the box model is broken to the extent that I've had to break elegant standards-compliant HTML to be an ugly hack. Innovation now comes in the form of Flash or other plugin-based technologies. I'm hoping Firefox takes a big enough chunk out of IE's marketshare that Microsoft finally considers it a threat.
Since the sites are created with IE, and IE goes out of its way to correct flaws in incorrect code, these broken sites will appear to work correctly in IE but in reality they could contain quite a few flaws. IE is not W3 compliant ( http://www.w3.org/ ) and should never be used to test a web page's integrity.
And you call that "buggy"?
- FireFox More Secure?
- by 201293546946733175101343322673 December 27, 2004 7:56 PM PST
- Currently there is even NO PROOF that IF FireFox becomes the dominant browser of the world, it will be MORE SECURE than other browsers in the market. Just because FireFox has a lot fewer bugs to fix NOW does not mean it will not have a lot of bugs to fix LATER. And, there are still lots of hackers/crackers trying to get into CIA's servers even though they know it is very secure. So you think they will not focus on attacking FireFox just because it is supposed to be a solid product?
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- The primary issue
- by Johnny Mnemonic December 28, 2004 7:37 AM PST
- I believe that the primary issue with IE is it's
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Processing -
- hackers/crackers
- by Al Johnsons June 3, 2007 3:50 PM PDT
- http://www.analogstereo.com/jaguar_xkr_owners_manual.htm
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(48 Comments)reliance on the Windows platform, which in and of
itself is insecure. Never mind the obvious issues
of non-compliance with standards and bugs, but the
linking with Windows which exacerbates the problem.
It is much like building a house on an unstable
foundation. In software engineering this is
considered and ill-concieved notion. Firefox's
independence of the platform gives it a huge
advantage.