Firefox tops 1,000,000 downloads in 4 days

[Dan MacDonald]

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/

Is reporting that the beta for the first commercial release of FireFox has reached it's 10 day goal of 1,000,000 downloads in just 100hrs.

Like many of your I was a big Netscape fan back in the day, I never thought IE would ever become a better browser. But it did, and Microsoft gobbled up 99% of the market.

For a while things went pretty well, everyone had IE and developing compelling web applications was starting to become a real possibility. Then Microsoft realized something, the more compelling web applications became the less compelling the Windows platform became. If IE kept up with the web standards then someone could potentially make a great MSWord replacement that would run in a browser and be totally cross platform. The more options you provide consumers, the less compelling YOUR option becomes.

So Microsoft has really slowed their adoption of new standards and support of IE in general. Only recently with the buzz around some of the new browsers has Microsoft finally added a popup blocker to IE (in SP2)

I'm a huge believer in the potential of the internet, I want to see compelling web applications, I want to see web technology advance server side AND client side. It seems recently Microsoft has put all of its energies in advancing web technology on the server side (.NET anyone?), but very little on the client side.

I really like .NET and Microsoft technologies in general, but I think they are crippling the advancement of technology on the internet by sitting on IE. It's time to change, as they say on the FireFox site "It's time to take back the web". If you havn't checked out FireFox lately, check it out.

Be sure to download the "Tabbrowser Preferences" or "SingleWindow" plug-ins to really experience the benefit of tabbed browsing. My favorite setting is to "open offsite links in a new tab" instead of opening them in a new browser. This setting alone feels like a huge improvement in how I surf the web.

[Teq]

Good news indeed, firefox is far from perfect, but it is a shot across the bows of Microsoft, while I doubt Firefox will have the effect on IE that IE had on NN, I am sure it will find a good home on many a computer system and deservedly so :)

[luggage]

I gave it a try but didn't like it. I use Avant Browser and I've gotten too used to it now.

[Valen]

I've been using Mozilla for a few years. It's about damn time they came out with a browser that doesn't require a memory resident "quick launch" to load in a reasonable amount of time. Though, I did hear that IE gets its speed due to the fact that it's partially (completely?) integrated into the GUI. So I used that as an excuse to tolerate Mozilla's shortcomings. :) Now if only I could figure out how to transfer my email from Mozilla's client to Thunderbird. :rolleyes:

[Dan MacDonald]

In most applications I find firefox to actually load and render HTML faster then IE.

[Mike Boeh]

I like firefox, but there is one thing that I hate.... When you click the "back" button in IE, it remembers your scroll position on the previous page- but Firefox doesn't...

[ggambett]

When you click the "back" button in IE, it remembers your scroll position on the previous page- but Firefox doesn't...
Weird... I just tried it on 1.0PR on Linux, and it does

[Larry Hastings]

That's it, I'm naming my next game FireFox!

[Dan MacDonald]

Weird... I just tried it on 1.0PR on Linux, and it does

Just tried it on my version of FireFox (windowsXP) and it does here too...

[Pixel Gem Games]

I think ive used just about all browsers out there, ie, myie, avant, mozilla, firefox, opera and I must say that my choice is Opera. Its fast, robust, and works the way I want it to. Only problem I see with it is lack of plugins. There are 2 thing sI would like to see on opera I could easily code but I cant :(

[Mithril Studios]

In most applications I find firefox to actually load and render HTML faster then IE.

I've gotten this impression too. I'll have to get the latest version.

Anthony

[dreeze]

I've used Opera for a few years now and I really like it. It's fast and have all the features I need. I recommend it to people whenever I have the chance :)

[Mike Boeh]

Just tried it on my version of FireFox (windowsXP) and it does here too...
They must have fixed it, I guess I will have to re-download :)

[Kai Backman]

I have been using NetCaptor for ages and it has been a excellent replacement for IE (tabbed browsing, pop up blocking, gestures etc). The latest version of FireFox I tested got me doubting my preferences, I would be delighted to find an even better browser than NC .. :)

[svero]

Wow.. this is really awful news. Another platform to support. Another thing to test. Why can't everyone just use the same browser? I really don't get what everyone is so happy about. This is the worse thing to happen since svga...

[ggambett]

Why can't everyone just use the same browser?
Sure, the world would be a better place if everyone used Firefox :)
I really don't get what everyone is so happy about. This is the worse thing to happen since svga...
Remember that brain-dead and bug-filled browsers and email clients are largely responsible of the zombie networks sending millions of spam every day...

[Obscure]

I have been using Mozilla for ages and recently switched to Firefox and Thunderbird. They are both excellent and the various extensions are great too.

The one that allows for spell checking in forms like this is great for people like me that can't spell. Adblock, prefbar and the Mozilla archive format are also great.

[Air]

Wow.. this is really awful news. Another platform to support. Another thing to test. Why can't everyone just use the same browser? I really don't get what everyone is so happy about. This is the worse thing to happen since svga...
Don't fret too much. Firefox is still basically the Netscape/Mozilla core HTML & Javascript processors, with bugfixes and such. So you can pretty much just follow your basic Netscape v7 web authoring rules and maintain 100% compatability with Firefox.

For the record, Firefox does render most websites faster than IE. I can tell because my video card has very little Windows acceleration abilities and scrolling windows often requires it to redraw all the contents of the window. At the very least the two render at roughly the same speed on some sites. But really this is of little suprise because the core renederers of Mozilla and Netscape 7 were also faster than IE -- it's just that bulky interface around the browser window that was so friggen slow. :)

It also does things like render images *as* they download, which is nice. In most versions of IE and most image formats, you don't see a thing until the whole image is downloaded-- which can take a while given a large image, slow connection, or a sluggish website.

As for the "remembering the scroll position when hitting back" -- my version which I downloaded about two months ago does that fine too, although you must wait for the whole page to re-display (or re-download if not cached) before it jumps back to your position. And if you move the scrollbar before it finishes, it won't jump back.

[Phil Newton]

Switched to FireFox earlier this year and I really like it. The extensions and tabbed browsing are definately my favourite features, and it's nice to be able to customise it to my tastes.

I still use IE for the odd web-page or if I'm doing some quick design, but FireFox is my number one browser now. I also use Thunderbird for email, though that's not quite as popular as FireFox is.

[svero]

I've tried firefox recently. The main reason being spyware and search redirectors and that crap. For the moment firefox will be better on that. The one problem I have with it is that I couldnt import my toolbars and popup blocking software. (or maybe you can use Ie extensions? i expect not but didnt look too closely) I've grown use to my particular ie plugins and I'm reticent to lose what they do. Like the google bar has pagerank, search within site, and groups etc... All nice features.

If Firefox does gain a large market share then we'll see the same kind of hacking attempts on it that IE had. It's not like switching to firefox is really going to make the web more secure or lead to less spam. That argument is just nonsense.

If there are many browsers being used we'll have to support many browsers. I still maintain that lack of uniformity is a bad thing for developers - not a good thing. Imagine there were 30 os's instead of just windows mac and linux that were worth supporting. It'd be a cross platform nightmare. The fact that firefox is reasonably well behaved now is great, but who's to say where it goes as the browsers compete for features and marketshare. There was a time where supporting netscape and ie required testing on both browsers and coding your html to the lowest common denominator. I didn't enjoy that.

[ggambett]

Like the google bar has pagerank, search within site, and groups etc... All nice features.
Get your googlebar with pagerank etc etc here (http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=193&vid=701).


If Firefox does gain a large market share then we'll see the same kind of hacking attempts on it that IE had. It's not like switching to firefox is really going to make the web more secure or lead to less spam. That argument is just nonsense.
The "more hacked because it has bigger market share" is nonsense originated by MS... Apache has a 67% market share (vs 21% of IIS) (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html) and IIS is far more hacked. Please stop using that argument.

[EpicBoy]

It's not nonsense. You go after the largest target because the pay off is the greatest. Windows is attacked primarily because it has the larger market share. For example, Linux advocates love to brag about their security features but if Linux ever becomes as widespread as Windows prepare to watch those walls crumble as the hackers of the world turn their attention to it.

[ggambett]

You go after the largest target because the pay off is the greatest.
When it comes to web servers, the largest target is Apache. Three times as big as MS servers. Why, if its size is 33% of the largest target, it gets 60% of the successful attacks (http://geodsoft.com/opinion/server_comp/security/breakins.htm)?

[svero]

The "more hacked because it has bigger market share" is nonsense originated by MS... Apache has a 67% market share (vs 21% of IIS) (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html) and IIS is far more hacked. Please stop using that argument.

A web server isn't a browser. And besides there are plenty of hacks for apache. I'm constantly patching it on my server. Does iis have more patches? I've read sites that say it does and some that say it doesn't but in statistical reliability comparisons they're about equal on runtime.(hacks included) One thing is certain... There is a anti-ms bias that tends to cloud the reliability of certain articles.

In terms of market share you're only partially correct. Apache is used by far more home users and enthusiast than serious companies. If you weed out someone running a web server in his basement for his beer making hobby iis and netscape come out way ahead. Serious hackers are aiming at real companies not every joe user's basement hobby install. If you look at companies in the fortune 500 apache only has 15% of that marketshare with both netscape and iis beating it by a wide margin.

[svero]

Just to nail down my point on this apache market share thing...

"Port 80 Software, has conducted a web server survey in June that has shown that half of top 1000 corporate websites run on Microsoft IIS. Survey results show that 53.9 percent of the sites use Microsoft IIS, while 20.3 percent use Apache and 14.6 percent Netscape. The remaining 11.2 percent use other platforms such as Sun One, Lotus Domino, Weblogic, Websphere, IBM and Zeus." - web hosting news

So where it matters (ie top traffic websites) apache's market share is actually not significant.

[carl]

Just to nail down my point on this apache market share thing...

"Port 80 Software, has conducted a web server survey in June that has shown that half of top 1000 corporate websites run on Microsoft IIS. Survey results show that 53.9 percent of the sites use Microsoft IIS, while 20.3 percent use Apache and 14.6 percent Netscape. The remaining 11.2 percent use other platforms such as Sun One, Lotus Domino, Weblogic, Websphere, IBM and Zeus." - web hosting news

So where it matters (ie top traffic websites) apache's market share is actually not significant.

Interesting... it's been a while since I looked into these statistics myself (about four years in fact).

I did some quick googling, and found another study of the Fortune 500 that provided the same results for 2004 (the Port 80 Study appears to be from 2003): http://www.biznix.org/surveys/

What I found interesting was their study also checked the Global 500 list (also provided by Fortune). That significantly evened the results between IIS & Apache (actually giving apache the edge), with Netscape Enterprise Server/ IPlannet losing market share.

So, according to this study, IIS is very popular in the US, and rarely used outside of it. I don't necessarily agree with their analysis of why this is so, but I do find the results interesting.

[GBGames]

If there were 30 OSes to support, each with an equal market share, don't you think a unifying platform would be developed to make it easier to support all of them with minimal effort? Think Java, or .NET, or even some open standard that can be implemented by any OS.

Having multiple choices is a good thing for consumers, and if you think it is a problem that your program/website/application won't run properly in multiple browsers, then you can blame the fact that Microsoft basically took control of the market and prevented Shockwave/Flash/etc from being created and updated on "unsupported browsers." Netscape wasn't that much better back when it started, but if all browsers followed the open standards without adding too much of their own proprietary extensions, you wouldn't have this problem.

Write to a standard, not to a specific platform.


EDIT: just a side note, there are hundreds of distributions of Linux, quite a few versions of BSD, etc. Applications can be made to run fine across all of them in C/C++. This is mainly due to the support of open standards (filesystem hierarchy, standard libraries, networking, etc).

[svero]

>If there were 30 OSes to support, each with an equal market share, don't >you think a unifying platform would be developed...

It might it might not. Why speculate. Even if there were some kind of unifying platform.. like say directx as an interface to all 3d card. As we well know you still have to deal with testing and debugging for each card. That's the way it ends up in the real world. You can't just sit back and look at it ideolistically and say gee wouldn't be great if everyone just followed some standard and everything just worked. That's bullshit. It's not *real*. It's a child-like utopian view of a world that simply has nothing to do with what actually happens. You can hold up an apple and say as often as you like that the apple will float but when you let it go it will still fall.

> Having multiple choices is a good thing for consumers

Maybe... but it's not good for the companies trying to make the most profit they can. And that's the world we live in.

>wasn't that much better back when it started, but if all browsers followed
>the open standards without adding too much of their own proprietary >extensions, you wouldn't have this problem.
>Write to a standard, not to a specific platform.

Yeah but we're not talking about some linux nerd's fantasy world. We're talking about the real universe. In the real universe companies compete for market share and if the way to do that is to add proprietary extensions that customers want then that's exactly what they'll do. It's nice to imagine a world where everyone just codes to some arbitrary standard but it's not realistic. The technical skill isn't even there in general even if the will to do it were. It's never going to happen. It's a fantasy.

[Valen]

There're many standards in existence Svero, without which there'd be no civilization as we know it. The internet has a standard (http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci523729,00.html). OpenGL has a standard (http://www.opengl.org/documentation/opengl_current_version.html). Browsers are required to comply with standards (http://www.w3.org/). When you're having problems with your site not displaying the same way on both IE and Mozilla or Firefox, chances are it's because IE isn't complying with certain standards. If it works in IE and not Mozilla, it's usually because IE is more forgiving of syntax errors (which makes it less compliant as well).

You might say "well you see, this is what I meant when I said that standards don't help." But the way things are, Microsoft is the tail that's wagging the dog. If there was a lot of competition in browsers, they'd all strive to be compliant. Monopolies are never good for the consumer. It took Microsoft over 3 years after Mozilla's release to incorporate a popup blocker. What's so great about that? Or the fact that IE still has no tab support? Or what's so great about the fact that Windows has remained the same since 1999?

[svero]

>You might say "well you see, this is what I meant when I said that
>standards don't help."

I didn't say standards don't help. I said people won't always follow them either because they're technically unable or because they don't want to. That's reality.

>But the way things are, Microsoft is the tail that's wagging the dog. If
>there was a lot of competition in browsers, they'd all strive to be
>compliant.

No. This is false because as we all know most websites are not coded strictly to standard. (including your own I bet!) -- The goal of a browser is to make it as easy and comfortable as possible for a user (say my grandmother who couldn't care less about internet standards) to browse websites. Firefox could popup a big red error dialog everytime it comes across non-standard web code and make a big buzzing sound and force the user to read it for 20 seconds before enabling the ok button. It doesn't do that does it? Why? Because the goal of a good browser is to not enforce standards. Nobody cares if their browser is compliant or not. All they want is to read the lastest issue of the onion or buy a book on amazon and have the site display correctly.

> Monopolies are never good for the consumer.

Monopolies can in some cases have beneficial effects for a consumer. In general they're bad, but in technology having several different platforms generally means more expensive and less stable software.

>It took Microsoft over 3 years after Mozilla's release to incorporate a popup
>blocker. What's so great about that? Or the fact that IE still has no tab
>support? Or what's so great about the fact that Windows has remained the
>same since 1999?

Nobody is stopping anyone from offering an alternative. But the fact remains that with more platforms to support and test for our jobs as developers are more complex.

I fail to see how this conversation is any different from people cheering on a completely new graphic card standard by fictional company newgraph inc. and saying.. finally those bastards as nvidia and ati are losing marketshare. It's just another thing we have to code to.

[EpicBoy]

Or what's so great about the fact that Windows has remained the
Conversely, what's so bad about that?

[Valen]

Conversely, what's so bad about that?

I know it's hard to imagine life where Microsoft isn't the only company that provides an operating system used by most of the market, so let me give you another example. Imagine that there was only a single car manufacturer that had a total monopoly. It only released new car models or updated existing ones when it felt like it. And let's say it only released a new model every 5-6 years. It also decided when to put in safety features, and fixed flaws at its discretion. And if you didn't like that its cars have bad gas mileage, well, tough. You either buy this car or you don't have one. Would you be happy in a world like that?

[EpicBoy]

If the car works, supports the attachments I want, has the upgrades I require and gets me where I need to go ... yeah, I'm cool with that.

[Valen]

Am I the only supporter of Capitalism around here?? :) Ok fine, let's say the company charged 2x more for its car than an average car costs right now. Would you still be happy?

[Air]

To further extend the Microsoft->Car Manf. analogy, at least in that case you could rest assured that the car company in question was giving its employees an excellent level of job security and good wages (which MS does). Unfortunately a dwindling # of american firms feel the desire or ability to do such a thing. Of course if you live overseas then that aspect probably seems far less appealing or worth your concern, obviously... :D

[Obscure]

Am I the only supporter of Capitalism around here?? :) Ok fine, let's say the company charged 2x more for its car than an average car costs right now. Would you still be happy? I would, it would mean less people using cars and certainly less total tossers in SUVs.

[the2bears]

So where it matters (ie top traffic websites) apache's market share is actually not significant.

I'm not quibbling with the stats you posted, but where do you get the above? Corporate sites are not necessarily top traffic websites. I'd be more interested in what Google, Ebay and Amazon use than what P&G, Ford and Coca-cola use.

Bill

[Fost]

Is it thought powered? but you have to think in Russian?

[Sirrus]

Is there any reason not to switch to Firefox?
Any disadvantages yet?

Alex

[Mithril Studios]

Is it thought powered? but you have to think in Russian?

ROFL

When I first read this, I thought "What in the world is he babbling about?!"

Then I remembered the movie... :D

Anthony

[EpicBoy]

Is there any reason not to switch to Firefox?
The only issue I have with it is trying to access webmail at work (it displays things a little quirky). Other than that, it seems fine. I've been using it for months without any hassles...

[GBGames]

>If there were 30 OSes to support, each with an equal market share, don't >you think a unifying platform would be developed...

It might it might not. Why speculate. Even if there were some kind of unifying platform.. like say directx as an interface to all 3d card. As we well know you still have to deal with testing and debugging for each card. That's the way it ends up in the real world. You can't just sit back and look at it ideolistically and say gee wouldn't be great if everyone just followed some standard and everything just worked. That's bullshit. It's not *real*. It's a child-like utopian view of a world that simply has nothing to do with what actually happens. You can hold up an apple and say as often as you like that the apple will float but when you let it go it will still fall.


So how does this change anything? You still have to support multiple cards if you use DirectX exclusively now. ATI and Nvidia support some of the same things differently, and that is because one or the other or both is not supporting the standard properly.

I never said that having multiple OSes would eliminate the need for testing your software. I am just saying that if there were 30 OSes, there would likely be a universal standard for your code to work on all platforms. If it doesn't work on platform X but works everywhere else, it is likely because platform X isn't supporting the standard correctly. With 30 OSes, each competing equally, platform X would need to comply or have a very compelling reason not to.

Not to get nitpicky and petty, but you basically changed my argument into "wouldn't it be great if everyone follows a standard and everything just worked." It's computers. Even with standards as they are now, there are problems. My point is that standards would eliminate the need to worry about supporting multiple platforms. If IE, Firefox, Opera, etc all supported the same plugin architecture, you wouldn't need to worry if your online app worked in different browsers. You would worry if they ran on different plugins, or on different OSes (since plugins currently need to be ported). If they supported the HTML standards the same way, you wouldn't need to worry about your website rendering weird in IE as opposed to Firefox.


>wasn't that much better back when it started, but if all browsers followed
>the open standards without adding too much of their own proprietary >extensions, you wouldn't have this problem.
>Write to a standard, not to a specific platform.

Yeah but we're not talking about some linux nerd's fantasy world. We're talking about the real universe. In the real universe companies compete for market share and if the way to do that is to add proprietary extensions that customers want then that's exactly what they'll do. It's nice to imagine a world where everyone just codes to some arbitrary standard but it's not realistic. The technical skill isn't even there in general even if the will to do it were. It's never going to happen. It's a fantasy.

Now you're getting insulting. It isn't just some "linux nerd's fantasy." Having standard setups for BIOS helped Microsoft along. Having standard architectures helped a lot of computer manufacturers along. Having standard libraries helped programmers along. Standards helped the Internet and the WWW get to where it is today. Microsoft uses the same TCP/IP stack that BSD, Linux, etc uses.

In the real universe, standards allow progress while proprietary extensions only limit what can be done. Sony memory sticks are proprietary, and so if you want to use it on a competitor's device, tough luck. If you want to buy it, it is going to be expensive compared to similar memory from Compact Flash and SD cards, which have allowed a world of new devices to exist.

And if it is of your mind that it is ok just because companies want to make money, then where do you draw the line?

[svero]

I'm not quibbling with the stats you posted, but where do you get the above? Corporate sites are not necessarily top traffic websites. I'd be more interested in what Google, Ebay and Amazon use than what P&G, Ford and Coca-cola use.

Bill

There were two studies. One was top companies and the other top websites. (ie by traffic) -- I don't remember exactly what the urls are but all I did was search for something like "market share iis apache top sites" or something like that in google and they popped up.

[EpicBoy]

And if it is of your mind that it is ok just because companies want to make money, then where do you draw the line?
It's entirely up to the market though. If the market is willing to accept proprietary Sony memory sticks at a higher price, then they will make money doing it. Otherwise, the market will reject the idea and Sony will have to comply with standards or try another tact.

[svero]

>I never said that having multiple OSes would eliminate the need for testing
>your software. I am just saying that if there were 30 OSes, there would
>likely be a universal standard for your code to work on all platforms.

But from the beginning that was my point. That we would have more work to do. So you agree with me now.

>If it doesn't work on platform X but works everywhere else, it is likely
>because platform X isn't supporting the standard correctly.

Right and as a company providing games we don't care whether company x supports the standard right. We just care that the game works. If soundblaster has a driver bug that causes my game to crash then I have to work around it somehow or work with creative to fix it EVEN if my game is using the standard correctly. At the end of the day the game has to run. That's MY job. Not standard enforcement.

>With 30 OSes, each competing equally, platform X would need to comply or
>have a very compelling reason not to.

We've seen historically that companies don't comply. I have no reason to believe they will in the future either.

>Not to get nitpicky and petty, but you basically changed my argument
>into "wouldn't it be great if everyone follows a standard and everything just
>worked."

But for your argument to make any sense then it has to take place in that fantasy world. Otherwise your argument breaks down. And the reason for that is that your argument isn't sound. It's not based on what really happens but rather on what you'd like in a perfect world.

>Now you're getting insulting. It isn't just some "linux nerd's fantasy."
>Having standard setups for BIOS helped Microsoft along.

IMHO Ideologues and "linux" nerds (most people know exactl who I mean) are the only one's that would try to put forward the argument you're making. Because people who aren't married to the ideology are more able to look at things objectively and as they actually are instead of how they should be. I'm not against proposing standards and using them, but it has to be done with the understanding that there will be no rigid enforcement of standards in a free market and people will do what they want outside of those limits. That is what happens. Doesn't matter whether its good or bad or whether you like it or not. It is happening and it will continue to happen. It's like gravity, or dna, or evolution. You can't just wish it and make those things go away. Having multiple platforms is more work for us. It just is. There's no arguing that point. So I don't see why having more than one browser with major market share is such great news. How does it help me in any way unless I happen to like some firefox feature? What people are basically saying is.. Yay! take that microsoft. For no particularly good reason that I can tell except they've been indoctrinated into some anti ms religion. If something were better under ms they wouldn't admit it. Many of the kinds of people I've met who fall into the "linux nerd" category use outdated technology and are very slow and unable to develop efficiently because they're not willing or unable to adapt for ideological reasons. Nothing at all to do with using a better development process.

>And if it is of your mind that it is ok just because companies want to make
>money, then where do you draw the line?

Doesn't matter if it's ok or not. I don't draw the lines and neither do you! The market is what it is and we do the best we can within that market. You're talking about what you'd like things to be like. I'm talking about what they ARE like. I could wish people on Realarcade liked adventure games better than bejewled so I could make a fun point and click adventure and make lots of money off it because I like adventure games. But then I could spend 2 yrs building one and then sell 10 copies and go broke. Why? Because I ignored the real market and coded a game to my fantasy.

[svero]

It's entirely up to the market though. If the market is willing to accept proprietary Sony memory sticks at a higher price, then they will make money doing it. Otherwise, the market will reject the idea and Sony will have to comply with standards or try another tact.

Exactly Right!

[Dan MacDonald]

Here's one dudes thoughts on web applications, I tend to agree with him...

I'm not sure how I managed to get this far without mentioning the Web. Every developer has a choice to make when they plan a new software application: they can build it for the web or they can build a "rich client" application that runs on PCs. The basic pros and cons are simple: Web applications are easier to deploy, while rich clients offer faster response time enabling much more interesting user interfaces.

Web Applications are easier to deploy because there's no installation involved. Installing a web application means typing a URL in the address bar. Today I installed Google's new email application by typing Alt+D, gmail, Ctrl+Enter. There are far fewer compatibility problems and problems coexisting with other software. Every user of your product is using the same version so you never have to support a mix of old versions. You can use any programming environment you want because you only have to get it up and running on your own server. Your application is automatically available at virtually every reasonable computer on the planet. Your customers' data, too, is automatically available at virtually every reasonable computer on the planet.

But there's a price to pay in the smoothness of the user interface. Here are a few examples of things you can't really do well in a web application:

1. Create a fast drawing program
2. Build a real-time spell checker with wavy red underlines
3. Warn users that they are going to lose their work if they hit the close box of the browser
4. Update a small part of the display based on a change that the user makes without a full roundtrip to the server
5. Create a fast keyboard-driven interface that doesn't require the mouse
6. Let people continue working when they are not connected to the Internet

These are not all big issues. Some of them will be solved very soon by witty Javascript developers. Two new web applications, Gmail and Oddpost, both email apps, do a really decent job of working around or completely solving some of these issues. And users don't seem to care about the little UI glitches and slowness of web interfaces. Almost all the normal people I know are perfectly happy with web-based email, for some reason, no matter how much I try to convince them that the rich client is, uh, richer.

So the Web user interface is about 80% there, and even without new web browsers we can probably get 95% there. This is Good Enough for most people and it's certainly good enough for developers, who have voted to develop almost every significant new application as a web application.

Which means, suddenly, Microsoft's API doesn't matter so much. Web applications don't require Windows.

It's not that Microsoft didn't notice this was happening. Of course they did, and when the implications became clear, they slammed on the brakes. Promising new technologies like HTAs and DHTML were stopped in their tracks. The Internet Explorer team seems to have disappeared; they have been completely missing in action for several years. There's no way Microsoft is going to allow DHTML to get any better than it already is: it's just too dangerous to their core business, the rich client. The big meme at Microsoft these days is: "Microsoft is betting the company on the rich client." You'll see that somewhere in every slide presentation about Longhorn. Joe Beda, from the Avalon team, says that "Avalon, and Longhorn in general, is Microsoft's stake in the ground, saying that we believe power on your desktop, locally sitting there doing cool stuff, is here to stay. We're investing on the desktop, we think it's a good place to be, and we hope we're going to start a wave of excitement..."

The trouble is: it's too late.


You can catch the full article here (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html).

[EpicBoy]

Why do people continually trot out "Joel On Software" as gospel? I know you didn't say that exactly, but that's what I've seen people do time and time again.

What exactly is so special about Joel that I should give a damn about his opinion? That he has a web site?

[GBGames]

>I never said that having multiple OSes would eliminate the need for testing
>your software. I am just saying that if there were 30 OSes, there would
>likely be a universal standard for your code to work on all platforms.

But from the beginning that was my point. That we would have more work to do. So you agree with me now.


Ok, I'm starting over here. For one, we seem to be missing each other in the argument. Yes, part of what I am talking about is idealogy. I think that if everyone followed standards, like HTML, web pages would be easier to develop for. I think that if there were multiple OSes, the industry would eventually have to agree that these OSes would need to interoperate, and so a standard for applications would be developed that each OS would then be obligated to support. People wouldn't write to Win32 APIs directly. They would write to a library that is supported on most platforms. Like I said, Java or something like it would rule. I am arguing about how things could be better if things were different, which is what I thought the original argument was (having to support hypothetical multiple OSes, platforms, etc would or wouldn't be a problem).

You are arguing that I am not being realistic and then argue how things are.

With a new browser becoming popular, you are saying it is bad because now you have to support it along with IE. Well that's the market. You could act like a bunch of websites and say you need IE to play your game, but we both know that would be ludicrous. The difference is I think that you should support the web standards in general, and you think you need to support your market more than anything.

What I think is that (hypothetically) if all of a sudden the playing field was leveled and all browsers had access to the same plugins, you will spend a lot more time trying to tweak your code for the individual browsers, whereas someone else could just code for the plugin which is now universal.

Yes, if there is a bug in some browser, you would need to work around it until the bug is fixed. I never denied that. Again, hypothetically, if everyone was trying to perform to a standard, that sound card you mentioned would likely be considered problematic from the beginning and wouldn't be as popular.

So, yes, I suppose I am talking about idealogy, but the discussion was hypothetical in the first place. I was talking about how things could be (having to support multiple platforms), and you were arguing that it isn't how it is in real life.

Right now, in real life, the situation isn't much better. If you only support one platform, you are denying yourself customers, and you still have to worry about incompatibilities. Direct3D/OpenGL works differently on a Radeon 8500 than it does on a GeForce 2 GTS. So like I said, I never claimed the elimination of testing. It just wouldn't be as bad as some people think it would be to have multiple platforms to support.

[GBGames]

>How does it help me in any way unless I happen to like some firefox feature? What people are basically saying is.. Yay! take that microsoft. For no particularly good reason that I can tell except they've been indoctrinated into some anti ms religion. If something were better under ms they wouldn't admit it.


Well, some people aren't indoctrinated to assume that it's just "good enough" when they know it could be better. Having to reboot my PC less often isn't as big an improvement as not having to reboot my PC.

I used to think that anti-MS sentiment was unfounded, and there is a lot of anti-MS for the sake of anti-MS, but for the most part, Microsoft makes crappy software and sells it as innovation. As mentioned before, IE hasn't been improved in years. Firefox, Konqueror, Opera, etc have all advanced way beyond IE, and what people are basically saying is.. Yay! I finally have good software!


Many of the kinds of people I've met who fall into the "linux nerd" category use outdated technology and are very slow and unable to develop efficiently because they're not willing or unable to adapt for ideological reasons. Nothing at all to do with using a better development process.


Outdated technology? We already said that IE is the one that is outdated. When my computer just works, it seems more advanced than my computer that crashes. Having access to software that is continually being worked on is better than having access to software that is updated/released at the whim of the company that makes it.

Ideology enters into it. "linux nerds" as you call them would prefer their software to work and work well, because it is possible to make good software. It doesn't make it outdated or slow (compare Samba to Windows, or Apache to IIS). It makes it right.

[Greg Squire]

I'm not quibbling with the stats you posted, but where do you get the above? Corporate sites are not necessarily top traffic websites. I'd be more interested in what Google, Ebay and Amazon use than what P&G, Ford and Coca-cola use.

Bill

Google is using GWS on Linux; Ebay is using Microsoft-IIS/6.0 on Windows Server 2003; and Amazon is using Apache on Unix. The Netcraft (http://news.netcraft.com/) site can tell what a webserver and OS is being used.

Here are some other interesting web stats from various places:
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/
http://www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/geographics/article.php/3410261
http://www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/stats_toolbox/article.php/
http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/stats/size.shtml
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

[Mithril Studios]

Why do people continually trot out "Joel On Software" as gospel? I know you didn't say that exactly, but that's what I've seen people do time and time again.

What exactly is so special about Joel that I should give a damn about his opinion? That he has a web site?

Not that I think Joel knows everything, or that I agree with him on all points, but to respond to your question - I think it's because Joel worked for Microsoft for a number of years just as the company was starting to explode. IIRC, he was The Man in charge of the Excel (97?) application, among other things. I don't feel like looking up the exact details, so if someone else sees this is wrong, feel free to point it out and provide the correct details.

Sometimes he has some good things to think about... and other times, he's just talking...

Anthony

[goodsol]

Why do people continually trot out "Joel On Software" as gospel?

Joel on Software isn't the Gospel - it's the Revelations. ;)

[Dan MacDonald]

JOS isn't special, It just happened that I had read an article there that fairly well summarized what I thought on the topic. Far easier to quote his explenation then to spend 30 minutes comming up with my own articulation...

[svero]

Outdated technology? We already said that IE is the one that is outdated. When my computer just works, it seems more advanced than my computer that crashes. Having access to software that is continually being worked on is better than having access to software that is updated/released at the whim of the company that makes it.

Ideology enters into it. "linux nerds" as you call them would prefer their software to work and work well, because it is possible to make good software. It doesn't make it outdated or slow (compare Samba to Windows, or Apache to IIS). It makes it right.

Except that none of this is actually true and you haven't really shown in any way that it is except to state it as fact. Can you back up this assertion? I doubt it.

My xp box has been running without crashes or downtime since I've had it. That was about 2yrs ago. Yesterday I tried firefox for a bit to see what the hoopla was about and frankly I wasn't all that impressed. Don't get me wrong. It's an ok browser, but I didn't see anything there (aside maybe from a lack of spyware hacks developed for it - not entirely ms's fault - I do still think that comes down to marketshare - either that or firefox will have to code to the lowest common denominator) that really made me want to switch. My experience using it was...

1) go to bigfish games site
2) click to download a game
3) My usual download manager is not used - expected that
4) goes to the firefox download manager dialog
5) About 40% of the way through the download the line drops on my modem
6) The download manager box makes no mention of it - I try to close it figuring it will remember my download and I can get back to it later, but it say the download will be lost so i leave it up
7) I redial and get the line back up
8) The download manager does nothing. I hit pause and continue. It does nothing. The download was lost.

Is that your idea of advanced software that finally works? What kind of imbecile creates a download manager dialog that can't recover? Doesn't seem too terribly impressive or advanced to me. And this is one of the better programs I've used that are touted as an improved alternative to buggy ms software!

The fact of the matter is that ms stuff is not outdated relative to stuff from the linux world. Some of it may be worse and some of it may be crap but that's simply not always the case. In many cases it's just the opposite. And yet despite that people like you make statements like the one above. Why is that?

[Nemesis]

@svero

Good to see some sanity.. I can't figure out all this anti-MS paranoia. It is well and good to have competing products that keep MS on their toes.

However, most of the comments agaisnt MS products are borne out of hatred not on actual facts. At my day job I have the opportunity to deal with equivalent software products (databases, application servers etc.) from all the major vendors and I do get some exposure to other non-Windows OS's like Sun Solaris, HP Unix, Linux Mandrake and it's zillion other variants.

Frankly I'm unimpressed by most non-MS OS's and products and in many cases appaled by the level of crudeness, non-performance and unreliability.

[GBGames]

Except that none of this is actually true and you haven't really shown in any way that it is except to state it as fact. Can you back up this assertion? I doubt it.

...



Ok, you give one example of how Firefox doesn't do what you expected it to do, regardless if you should have expected it to do so or not, and that's supposed to be proof that what I say is false?

The truth is, studies have been done. Samba 3 is many times faster than Windows 2003 Server.

I don't NEED a minimum of 256MB in order to install Linux on my PC. In my personal experience, a fully up-to-date Linux system doesn't run too slow on my 64MB laptop (faster than Win98 on same laptop), whereas WinXP won't even install on it.

You claim that my statement is just false, then say you doubt I have the means to back it up. You saying that it is just false is also not backed up by anything you presented. Anecdotal evidence isn't enough.

With tabbed browsing, builtin popup blocker, and a huge list of plugins to do things from spell check to play games, Firefox already has a number of features IE doesn't. One of my favorite features is Type Ahead Find.

These are innovations. Microsoft's browser hasn't changed from 5 to 6 much, has it? Being supposedly more secure than before is not innovation.

Windows XP hasn't crashed on you in two years? Have you run your computer without powering off for two years straight? I find that hard to believe, as you had to reboot a number of times to apply security fixes and install software if you seriously hope to have WinXP run for any length of time without contracting a virus.

Microsoft's latest innovation for the next version of Windows: multiple desktops. Oh wait, that's been in existence since window managers existed.

Microsoft is good at making people think that problems with their software aren't that big of a deal. If NASA was using Windows, they wouldn't take too lightly to being told, "Well have you tried to reboot the shuttle?" Most users, on the other hand, have gotten so used to thinking that a problem with the computer is their fault that they forget that software is supposed to work correctly.


The fact of the matter is that ms stuff is not outdated relative to stuff from the linux world. Some of it may be worse and some of it may be crap but that's simply not always the case. In many cases it's just the opposite. And yet despite that people like you make statements like the one above. Why is that?


People like me? Which is that? Idealogic Linux nerds or unthinking MS-bashers? Which group are you lumping me into?

And which statement? I've been using Gnu/Linux as my main desktop for a few years now. With multiple desktops, the latest in web browsing technology, and knowing that my machine will not crash nearly as often, I not only get a lot done in less time, I can do so much more. I know firsthand the benefits of quality software like OpenOffice.org and Firefox (which I have been using since v0.7, after using Mozilla for a long while).

Like I had mentioned before, I used to think that people bash MS only because they are a big target. I used to think it was unfair. But then I thought about it, and I realized that Microsoft not only releases an OS that is inferior to most others in terms of quality (Windows XP is much more stable, but you can't say it is nearly as much as Linux or BSD variants), but it releases applications that are also horrible. IE 5.5 was supposed to be amazing, but it really stagnated. Integration with the OS is a security concern, not a feature. With the number of security holes in Windows, it is easy to get a trojan or worm on your system.

It is not just because of the market share. It is because Windows is such an easy target. For example, websites big or small get defaced if they use PHP Nuke. PHP Nuke is buggy and insecure, and it isn't used on that many websites, but even small sites that don't get much traffic get defaced because they are easy targets.

Linux, BSD, Apple, etc all have their share of exploits and viruses and trojans. The difference is that when Linux has an exploit that gets discovered, it gets fixed. You don't download adaware or spybot to get rid of things that ended up on your Linux machine. You fix the reason they got there in the first place. Quality is more important than shipping on time. Having the latest UI is useless if you can't run it.

I'm sorry, but as nice as Windows XP is, it has enough security problems that I won't use it as my main OS. Couple with it the legal problems with running it (activation, so-called Digital Rights Management, the EULA for WMP7 or above, etc), and I wouldn't use it at all if it wasn't for the games.

If you gave multiple desktops a try, if you gave Firefox a real shot and got used to all of the nice features, if you got used to the real customization a Linux system allows you to do, you would probably feel like me when sitting in front of a standard WinXP PC with only IE on it: crippled.

MS has had quite a few years head start on Linux, and yet Linux/Open Source Software has not only caught up in terms of quality (passerby think I am using MS Word when I am using OOo, or have a funky Windows desktop when using KDE), but it is surpassing it. Some of the software is crap and some of it is not better than MS's offerings, but that's simply not always the case, and it's continually being worked on all the time.

[GBGames]

@svero
Good to see some sanity.. I can't figure out all this anti-MS paranoia. It is well and good to have competing products that keep MS on their toes.

However, most of the comments agaisnt MS products are borne out of hatred not on actual facts.


So it is insane to point out that Microsoft's software is of poor quality? Sure, it can look nice, it can be easy to use, but it can also be unintuitive (to format a page in Word, you go to the File menu instead of Format, whereas in OOo, you go to Format and then Page), buggy, and a security problem. The US government is not calling Linux or Mac computers a security threat.

All software has bugs, but with the resources that Microsoft has, you would think that their OS wouldn't have the problems it has. If someone finds a security problem, Microsoft should fix it immediately. I don't have the details, but there have been a number of reports of people who have alerted MS to security problems and they did nothing but sit on the information for hours.


At my day job I have the opportunity to deal with equivalent software products (databases, application servers etc.) from all the major vendors and I do get some exposure to other non-Windows OS's like Sun Solaris, HP Unix, Linux Mandrake and it's zillion other variants.

Frankly I'm unimpressed by most non-MS OS's and products and in many cases appaled by the level of crudeness, non-performance and unreliability.

What OSes and programs are you saying are unreliable? I think it is fair to hold you up to the same standard of using actual facts.

When you have an OS that is based on software quality first, you get software that does its job with few crashes, bugs, and issues. One advantage MS has is that it designs its software to a UI. If it looks good and professional to the customer, it is good and professional. There has been talk and in a number of cases implementation of open source programs that take into account the end-user's experience as well as software quality.

For a long time, Gnu/Linux was a programmer's OS, and so it looked it. These days, however, projects like KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, Gaim, etc are all helping to bring the platform to be a quality replacement for anyone's Windows system. Microsoft's big advantages are in hardware support, since they have so many contractual obligations that prevent companies from opening their source or otherwise contributing to a different OS, and in games, since they've been there longer and have a base.

Security and software quality make sense for any OS, and you can't say that Microsoft competes well on those merits without denying something.

Yes, there are MS-bashers who do so without thinking. I'm not one of them, so I would thank you to stop lumping me in with unthinking idiots. I know firsthand what it is like to have good quality software that works as expected, and when I go back to Windows, such as at work, I am appalled at the fact that the functionality of it is a mere subset of the functionality of my Gnu/Linux system.

[Nemesis]

Ok.. I've been asked to provide some details so here goes:

Databases:

IBM DB2: Has anyone has the (dis)pleasure using IBM DB2 for Windows? I was unlucky enouch to deal with DB2... it was a nightmare to install and patch.. it crashed and corrupted our data at least once fortnightly and the admin GUI was written in Java and it is absolutely tacky. It froze all the time and when it didn't, it was ectremely unresponsive. The HP unix equivalent is a little better. The only decent version I know is DB2 for MVS mainframes. DB2, as with all IBM software is also horribly expensive.

Oracle: Ok.. this one isn't half bad.. at least it performs decently. However, for some reason Oracle decided to get lovey-dovey with Sun.. which resulted in another Java-based GUI. Somehow their GUI is better than IBM's.. which may probably mean that IBM should stick to making hardware and not software. Oh.. and the installation takes aeons and is far from problem-free.

SQL Server 7/2000: I mastered using it in a day or two.. no need of manuals.. installation is a snap and I've never had as much as a glitch when installing it. Feature-wise it competes well and it scales really well.

Application Servers:

IBM Websphere: It works.. albeit requiring truckloads of hardware to run decently. Updating / patching is fiddly (forget Windows-Update style simplicity). Once set up, it is reasonably ok.. with decent support for custering etc. Like DB2, Websphere A/S costs boatloads of money. Thechnology supported is simple template-based i.e. JPS. Java Server Faces (the answer to ASP.NET) is still on its way.

Apache / Tomcat / Jboss / Php etc. Considering that most of these solutions are free, it is worth-while looking into these. But again.. forget the intuitive interfaces on par with MS. For personal hosting / indie sites I would go for one of these solely for reasons of cost. For anything bigger I would look elsewhere.

IIS/ASP.NET: This is IMHO the bleeding edge of web technology. Building apps and web services with ASP.NET is a snap.. it is as simple as writing visual event-driven applications like traditional VB. There is support for clustering, advanced security features etc. etc. As usual... installation is always a snap and with Windows Update keeping everything up to date is a no-brainer. Compare that to manually patching your o/s and software.

I have also had the occasion to work with e-business solution software based on J2EE. While as a developer I am impressed by their sher scale and sophistication, the bottom line is that the software is slow, needs to have lots of hardware thrown at it and is not as reliable as one would expect from enterprise software of that scale and cost.

In closing, and in defense of MS: I know they are far from perfect, and I'm really glad that they are constantly under fire because that will keep them from attempting underhanded moves like they've done or tried to do in the past and will certainly try again in the future. However, MS software has improved in leaps and bounds, not only in presentation but also in quality.

[EpicBoy]

I don't see where Microsofts products are crappy and shoddy. For example, they have the best development tools I've ever seen ... nothing even comes -close- to touching their debuggers.

The new Whidbey oriented development environments - the 2005 line - are unbelievable. The C# one almost makes me cry with joy and I'm only using the beta!

[svero]

>Ok, you give one example of how Firefox doesn't do what you expected it to
>do, regardless if you should have expected it to do so or not, and that's
>supposed to be proof that what I say is false?

No but it's one very relevant example of how what you said isn't always true. This thread did start out as a thread of people saying how wonderful it is to have a new browser gaining ground, and then later you tell me one of the reasons this is so great is because unlike ms software firefox falls into the new category of software that's stable, advanced, and doesn't crash. That wasn't my experience. I don't hate firefox. Im even considering moving over to it because of spyware etc... but I don't think the spyware problem is a reflection on ie.

>The truth is, studies have been done.

Could be. I never asserted that all windows software trumps unix based apps in every case. That was your assertion on the other side of the argument.

>I don't NEED a minimum of 256MB in order to install Linux on...

I didn't need 256mb to install DOS. Does that make it better? I'm not sure what you're getting at here. These metrics seem random.

>You saying that it is just false is also not backed up
>by anything you presented. Anecdotal evidence isn't enough.

Why isn't my evidence enough? I think it is. You said it was better on the other side away from microsoft sofware because it was more advanced and more stable. I showed an example where that wasn't true. Your statement is therfor false. Don't believe me? Open up your copy of firefox and try the example I gave you. That's easy enough. It's not purely anecdotal. I'm not the one who painted the whole world with a brush. I argued you into a dead end and then you just said.. "well my software is better" and left it at that. Sorry but you'll need to be more convincing. I've had plenty of experience working with both windows and unix and I've not seen it.

>With tabbed browsing, builtin popup blocker...

Features... ehn. I donno. If people want the features they'll switch. If they don't then they won't switch.

>Windows XP hasn't crashed on you in two years? Have you run your
>computer without powering off for two years straight?

No of course not. I ocassionally reboot for all kinds of reasons. Restarting the OS to install a driver or a patch is normal. I've also rebooted my webserver serveral times in the last 6 months for various reasons and I've installed tons of patches on it. It's linux based.

>Microsoft's latest innovation for the next version of Windows: multiple
>desktops. Oh wait, that's been...

I find it funny that you should tout features. Personally I think it's a mistake to add too many features to an OS. If anything many of ms's problems stem from their desire to add too many features to their software.

>Microsoft is good at making people think that problems with their software
>aren't that big of a deal. If NASA was using Windows...

I don't see how this isn't true under any computing environment. I don't believe linux is any better on this score. In fact it's probably a lot worse. User friendliness is not a strongpoint of linux. You've made the stability argument a lot but I haven't had any stability issues with xp or win 2k. Why don't you publish a link to some detailed tests showing that the windows machines crash more. Then I might be forced to agree that windows is less stable. Until then...

>People like me? Which is that? Idealogic Linux nerds or unthinking MS->bashers? Which group are you lumping me into?

You seem to be a little of both. I donno.. you dig your own graves in this conversation. If you want to claim that everything that isn't MS is great and runs with no bugs and never crashes and is more advanced and efficient then your standing on really *really* shaky ground. If your goal is to come off as a well informed objective individual you'll have to be more even handed. A lot of people reading this are very familiar with both windows and linux and they're bound to know what you're saying isn't true. The only kind of person who could buy into your argument is someone familiar with only one side of the equation and has bought into some propaganda.

>And which statement?

You said... "Outdated technology? We already said that IE is the one that is outdated. When my computer just works, it seems more advanced than my computer that crashes."

>I've been using Gnu/Linux as my main desktop for a...
>few years now. With multiple desktops, the latest in web browsing
>technology, and knowing that my machine will not crash nearly as often,

And how do you know this?

>I not only get a lot done in less time, I can do so much more.

I'm not sure how you'd know that. I've worked with people who say windows sucks are still using makefiles and gnu c on the command line. That's their idea of efficiency and a good system - ie. What I use to do when I programmed in DOS years and years ago. The difference between me and them is that I know what they're doing and I've moved on and they have no idea what I'm doing. They're way behind the curve. And yet somehow they believe they're more efficient.

>inferior to most others in terms of quality (Windows XP is much more stable,
>but you can't say it is nearly as much as Linux or BSD variants), but it
>releases applications that are also horrible.

I wouldn't know that. I've been using xp for a few years and it's run just fine. I agree that win98 and WinMe etc.. were extremely poor in terms of stability, but a lot of that was due to backward compatibility and the way windows came into existance and how it had to support older software for business reasons. As far as the applications go generally speaking microsoft software is quite good, user friendly and better than just about anything from the opensource world that I've seen. You mentioned openoffice. I've used it. I switched back to ms office. It's no excel! At least the version I tried.

>IE 5.5 was supposed to be amazing, but it really stagnated. Integration
>with the OS is a security concern, not a feature. With the number of
>security holes in Windows...

There are plenty of security holes in unix based systems. Im constantly patching my web server. I'm not a lover of everything microsoft does. I'm a harsh critic of many of their api's and the way they've integrated various technologies like COM etc.. into the OS. That being said they also do some pretty cool stuff. I'll agree that they sometimes move forward a little recklessly but I'm not so sure that linux is the end all be all solution to that.

>It is not just because of the market share...PHP Nuke is buggy...

Well this is another assertion that you've not really backed up. Is windows an easier target? and if so why? Is it because the os is particulalry vulnerable or is it because more average people use the os and are more likely to run a virus because they're not computer savvy? There could be lots of reasons. As for nuke I agree that it's poor on security. Im not sure what that has to do with this argument. There's an alternative called cgp nuke which is more solid and offers the same features.

>Linux, BSD, Apple, etc all have their share of exploits and viruses and
>trojans. The difference is...Quality is more important than shipping on
>time. Having the latest UI is useless if you can't run it.

I'm not sure I buy this argument. I haven't seen any evidence that security holes in linux etc.. are fixed better or quicker. That being said I will give you this much. Microsoft runs it's business differently. They're a business. They aim for profit. But they also aim for market-share and if companies who buy software from them aren't getting what they need they lose business. So they have their own motivations to make sure their Quality levels don't slip too much. Microsoft is bashed for being monopolistic and perhaps in some cases it is a little. But at the same time people do have alternatives. You can get a mac, or install redhat. Those options are there. So Ms can't just let all quality slip.

>I'm sorry, but as nice as Windows XP is, it has enough security problems
>that I won't use it as my main OS. Couple with it the legal problems...

What's wrong the the DRM stuff? Are you also against copy protection schemes and anti-piracy measures?

I've been running xp for a few years and before that win2k. I've not had any security problems. I know how to use a computer.

I think it's virtually impossible for a regular everyday person to be safe in the same way without completely relying on zonealarm and some antivirus software, but those same people would simply be unable to even run your system.

>If you gave multiple desktops a try...front of a standard WinXP PC with only
>IE on it: crippled.

I believe you probably feel that way because you're more comfortable with the OS you know well. I like some of the features i've experienced under unix but most of that stuff is available in one form or another under win if you want to install it.

>MS has had quite a few years head start on Linux, and yet Linux/Open
>Source Software has not only caught up in terms of quality...

I don't know that the quality and usability is caught up. IMHO it's still behind in some respects and has a few bells and whistles that windows doesn't. But see I don't think windows is the end all be all of wonderful software. I know it has many shortcomings. But I also know that linux bsd etc... aint all that hot either.

I will cease to argue this in detail now, simply because I'm spending too much time on the thread and not enough time working. I've been writing this post for about 1/2 hr already.

[GBGames]

>I will cease to argue this in detail now, simply because I'm spending too much time on the thread and not enough time working. I've been writing this post for about 1/2 hr already.

Yeah, I'm feeling the same.

However, I would like to say that you're taking my argument the wrong way. I never claimed that non-MS software is better by default. This all started because of the complain that having to support multiple OSes would be a horrible nightmare for developers. I was arguing that if it were the case, it wouldn't be as bad as you say. Then it devolved into a Microsoft debate, where I claim that Microsoft software is of poor quality, and you claim that it isn't as bad as that.

Reading your last post, you seem to be of the mind that the CLI is outdated compared to GUI, or that using Make files and Gnu C is outdated compared to having the Visual C IDE (or for that matter Anjuta or KDevelop).


>I don't NEED a minimum of 256MB in order to install Linux on...

I didn't need 256mb to install DOS. Does that make it better? I'm not sure what you're getting at here. These metrics seem random.


DOS is outdated technology. Linux and Windows XP, what I was comparing, are the latest. What I was getting at was that Windows consumes a lot of resources and doesn't provide nearly the same functionality. So your statement about DOS was random.

In the end, I again want to point out that I never claimed Linux or BSD or whatever was by default better just for not being MS. That would be silly. I just think that Micosoft does a crappy job of making good quality software. You disagree. We'll leave it at that because this thread has been hijacked long enough.

[GBGames]

What's wrong the the DRM stuff? Are you also against copy protection schemes and anti-piracy measures?


When it gets draconian, yes, I am against it.

[EpicBoy]

DOS is outdated technology. Linux and Windows XP, what I was comparing, are the latest. What I was getting at was that Windows consumes a lot of resources and doesn't provide nearly the same functionality. So your statement about DOS was random.
So you're saying that Linux uses less memory and does more than Windows does? Any links to back that up? If you truly believe that, I don't think you really fathom everything that Windows is doing and what it offers.

[Dan MacDonald]

I tend to think Microsoft can create some of the best software applications out there. I worked there for two years, I’ve seen the inordinate amount of money they spend on testing and they get better at it all the time. Microsoft is the top dog because it deserves to be, I’ve worked in several organizations since then where software is developed and nothing really compares to Microsoft in terms of development process and quality assurance.

My dedicated servers are Windows based; I'd rather shoot myself then use Oracle or JSP. SQL and .NET are some amazing technologies, however, their perfectly inline with Microsoft’s business model, make their platform and their servers more compelling.

I don't think Firefox is an IE killer, not yet anyway, but I wouldn't mind if it brought some competition back to the browser space. Simply because I think the torch of driving browser technology is best let to an organization where it is not a conflict of interest.

[Valen]

I don't think the spyware problem is a reflection on ie.

Just to clarify something, as I understand it you're saying that it's not IE's fault that it's a big target. Yet earlier you said that people don't care about why something works or doesn't, they just want something that will work, period. If you use this argument here, it doesn't matter that IE is a big target or that Windows is a big target. The bottom line is they both are less secure than alternatives, and that's the only thing that matters. Of course that is one reason I like using Mozilla. If Mozilla got huge and had lots of security holes that were being exploited, I'd move on to something else.

In defense of Windows though, I have to say that it has been very stable since Win2K. Before they completely switched to the NT architecture (95, 98, ME), Windows was simply horrible. I couldn't go 3 months without reinstalling 98 because it just slowed to a grind after you used it for a while. With 2K I've never had to reinstall because of performance issues. Sadly, Windows NT 4 was a lot better as an OS than everything that led up to Win2K. I tried using it for a while but eventually I had to switch to 98 because at the time it only supported DirectX up to version 3. It did run StarCraft though, which used DX 3. There's some trivia for ya. :) Another bit of trivia is that StarCraft was developed on NT 4.

To a large degree my beef with Microsoft has more to do with product pricing than with actual products. People say that MS Office is better than OpenOffice. Maybe, for now. OO is definitely catching up, and a lot faster than it took MS to get to this point with their own suite. But compare the pricing between the two -- OO costs $0, and MS Office costs $500. Ok so maybe $500 isn't a lot for some people (though I'd rather spend that money on something else). How about MSSQL vs MySQL? I haven't seen any arguments that MSSQL is better, yet do you know how much MSSQL Server costs? $20,000 for 1 license for 1 CPU. You can see it for yourself (http://www.microsoft.com/PRODUCTS/info/product.aspx?view=22&pcid=2504e160-a915-4a78-b446-18832e36c1c6&type=ovr). I'll stick with PHP/MySQL thank you very much.

[EpicBoy]

OO is definitely catching up, and a lot faster than it took MS to get to this point with their own suite.
To be fair, it's a lot easier to get somewhere when you can see the goal line. OO can look at the Microsoft products and know exactly what they're missing and get to work. Microsoft had to run focus groups, gather feedback, etc to know what to add to their office products. That takes a lot longer and costs real money.

[Kai Backman]

Joel on Software isn't the Gospel - it's the Revelations. ;)

And because of this thread I got hooked on reading old Joel articles until midnight yesterday .. It's always such fun .. :)

[svero]

>Just to clarify something, as I understand it you're saying that it's not IE's
>fault that it's a big target. Yet earlier you said that people don't care about
>why something works or doesn't, they just want something that will work,
>period. If you use this argument here, it doesn't matter that IE is a big
>target or that Windows is a big target.

You're correct and to some extent firefox is probably a good choice for some new users. However I don't think that the argument extends to linux just from a usibility pov. Even with the latest redhat installs being pretty nice etc... its still not a great choice for casual users. So security is part of it yeah but not all of it.

>In defense of Windows though, I have to say that it has been very stable
>since Win2K. Before they completely switched to the NT architecture (95,
>98, ME), Windows was simply horrible.

Absolutely. 98/Me are unusable. I could never consider them as an environment for serious work. I'd constantly be rebooting.

>To a large degree my beef with Microsoft has more to do with product
>pricing than with actual products. People say that MS Office is better than
>OpenOffice. Maybe, for now. OO is definitely catching up, and a lot faster

Ms pricing is pretty bad yeah. Everything they release is 1000+ these days. That's certainly one reason to want some serious competition.

>I'll stick with PHP/MySQL thank you very much.

Sure.. that's what I use too. PHP and MySql are one of the few things from the non-ms world that I'm really behind. PHP in particular is great. Can't say the same for some of the other things people tout though like the gimp.

[Sunshine]

Sorry, I stick with the companies that served me in the past, even in hard times. But I guess brand loyalty is unfasionable these days. Like morals, ethics and the rotary phone. :rolleyes:

[amannis]

I recently switched from Opera to Firefox too.
The only thing that annoyes me in Firefox, is the fact that it's superslow compared to Opera. I don't mean page loading but the program itself is slow.
It takes forever to open firefox when I have multiple tabs left open.
But Firefox is so nice in so many other ways that there's no going back to opera (mainly due to the extensions).

By the default the page loading in Firefox is 'slow' too (afaik, Opera has similar settings by default on):
http://www.farrokhi.net/blog/archives/000235.html

You can really see the difference in loading speed with your own eyes!