Excellent discussion on the FireFox issues. I guess my point in all this is that FireFox is here to stay and only time will tell if that results in the opportunity for a more secure browsing environment. The post regarding standards is well taken, and I don't think anyone whose informed in the biz confuses ActiveX with an RFC standard. But this issue of standards is not so simple as "comply and everything is easy". Why should Micorosft comply with dated standards when they own the vast majority of the market share? Put yourself in the same situation. Say you owned a company that made 98% of all the doodads in the world and you wanted to make a thinngy that interracted with doodad so to make that work better you added some stuff to the doodad. But now, those living in the 2% world (and that's a lot of people) complain about their non-standard doodad and being forced to live with it, etc etc. But the interaction of the thinngy with the doodad adds a lot of functionaly and benefits the other 98% pretty nicely. If someone said to you as the owner of the company "you should make your stuff acccording to industry standards" are you going to comply just because they want you to? No. Microsoft is going to comply to the degree that it makes sense for them to - that is why in some things they are pretty compliant and in other things they aren't.
However, domainance can lead to complacecy and business books are full success stories where the nimble, fast acting little guy defeats Goliath who is asleep at wheel. Even if Goliath wakes up, it takes a couple years for him to get out of bed. Goliath as Microsoft in this case, may be in this situation. If so, the browser market will be at least intresting and possibly improved in years to come. I mean, when was the last time you looked forward to a new version of IE?
-brett hill
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Unless the FireFox team puts up a complete browser (not a suite, just a browser) they will be still-born in the corporate world. Right now, FireFox is like computer camp, techies only need apply. The rest of will happily use Mozilla 1.X or its successors.
Anonymous User November 23, 2004
Agreed company have dominace over the market can change standard, yet the company changing standards should 1) announce the difference between the changes; and 2)make sure the new standards is compatable with the old one, or they should announce a NEW standard so it won't confuse people. Now the same file format(html)/scripting language(javascript) have two or more "standards" makes we web developers' life harder. To me, having more than one standard over the same thing at a time is only slightly better than "no standard".
Anonymous User November 23, 2004 (Article Rating: )
"the interaction of the thinngy with the doodad" is much better in firefox, cos it rulers your face
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
Would car buyers accept that the biggest car manufacturer suddenly had its own "extensions" to the tow bar for caravans and it meant that caravans adhering to this new "standard" could not really be used (eg. it may couple, but you cannot drive) on other manufacturers' cars?
No way!
I would change to Firefox (or maybe Mozilla or a derivative), if I could, but alas, it seems that a number of my must-use websites (including my bank) use Microsoft-only extensions and therefore leaves me with no real alternative.
My biggest gripe with Microsoft (apart from my feeling that they are too greedy) is in fact their tendency to one-up any standard with proprietary extensions, which makes it almost impossible to make compatible products and thus leaves us without real alternatives.
In more and more countries, the governments demand for the government websites to be accessible for disabled people -- I would like the governments to own up to people that cannot or will not use Microsoft products by demanding that (at least) all government websites were accessible to browsers adhering to the official standards.
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
"Say you owned a company that made 98% of all the doodads in the world and you wanted to make a thinngy that interracted with doodad so to make that work better you added some stuff to the doodad."
Sounds a lot like "illegal maintenance and extension" of the companies monopoly...
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
Sorry, but you are completely wrong. The web was buildt on open standards, and open standards are the only way you can grow global services. When MS tried to push their MSN service instead of the internet it went nowwhere. The US mobile telephone business is 5-10 years behind Europe and east Asia, and this is because all the operators tried to preserve their own "standard". A standard is not made by a company, it is agreed upon and open. When you allow someone to dictate a "standard", things deteriorate.
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
don't remember the author but there is a saying guys - "Monopolies are like children no one likes them until they have one of there own"
and about Ford changing its tow bars no comparasion cause Ford gets insentive for adhering to standards vs MS adhering to a rather small market share - Yes MS is concerned about open source and they should be but with such a large share, they (MS) can hold its own
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
CORRECTION- Comparison
Anonymous User November 24, 2004
But MS doesn't change the standard sound design reasons, they change it either to gain market dominence by breaking competing products or to allow developers to do stuff easily with wanton disregard for security.
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Anonymous User November 23, 2004