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Microsoft will just add new ways to get/keep people locked into IE. They won't "come up" with anything. Standards support are lacklustre and Microsoft would rather create their own standard than add support for an existing one. I don't expect to see SVG or Canvas support in IE any time soon; they'd rather push Silverlight.

Can you blame them for pushing Silverlight? It's far more advanced than SVG or Canvas.

Yes, but why is it beyond them to extend the base specifications (like with OpenGL extensions), and contribute the changes back in the form of open, unencumbered documentation, with a suitable reference spec for others to use for implementation.

Silverlight might not be SVG or Canvas (it's more like Flash), but still, where is SVG and Canvas in IE? Websites are already using it- Firefox, Opera and Safari support it.

It's a complete lack of willing from Microsoft. People are so totally used to Microsoft's lack of transparency and cooperation with the industry that they don't question their practices more. IE is a shit product, but not enough people are asking why. IE8 will just be a "me too" release with more annoyances for all web designers everywhere.

Firefox is the complete opposite. I can go on IRC and talk with a core Firefox programmer or Mozillian if I need to, and I even have on occasions.

Ah, and be accused of embrace, extend, extinguise? I'm sure they love the thought of that.

They could contribute but it doesn't mean their proposals will get anywhere, especially considering who they are.

They should support some more standards that other browsers do, but I'm not going to fault them for Silverlight. It's a great technology that pushes the envelope just a little further than flash could.

Not EVERYTHING has to be done through a slow painful process like most open standards are.

Mod me down if you like, but what he says is true. I first learnt about SGV while at uni. That was about 4-5 years ago. To this date I still haven't seen a single site that use it. Not one. Why would MS bother to try and support SVG when no one use it. Yes I'm sure people replying could link straight away to a few sites in geekdom that need the svg plugin, but in the real world no one uses it or has heard of it, I mean even non-geeks have heard of flash all be it through games. Flash has developed 4 or 5 versions since I first heard of svg. The pictures I've seen of SVG don't look any better (or primative) then when I first heard of it.

The problem with the SVG recommendations from W3C (like all their recommendations) is that they take so long to hammer out the things that, by the time they do come out, a commercial alternative is released. Maybe they could also stop working on the specs for the next two versions too before someone has actually implimented the first version.

Edited 2007-07-15 21:47

SVG is very important, unlike Flash, SVG is an open standard and is not tied down into just web content, SVG has it place everywhere and most toolkits and web browsers are already using it for render scalable vector graphics to make rich interfaces.

So, the most support of SVG in Firefox and everything, the better for everyone.

Edited 2007-07-15 22:34

putting svg in your site directly using xhtml does not work in ie (same for mathml and all other cool xhtml stuff), for the rendering as an image you need an external plugin, which i could not find easily. and because it looks broken to nearly all visitors (read: ie users) nobody uses svg. it's not because svg itself is bad. where everybody should use svg they use flash (see google's stock pages for example).

svg is well supported in graphical applications, so making svg files is not hard, and you could also generate them using code. the reason microsoft does not support svg is because they want people to use their own version (silverlight was it?) and have the vendor lockin again.

Sorry, but the main reason for people to make web sites in the first place, is that people should be able to read them.

If the browser used by the majority of all users doesn't support a certain feature, that feature is unlikely to be utilized by most web developers. This is true for SVG, as well as for more advanced CSS features. Yes, there plugins to show SVG, in IE but unlike Firefox and many other new browsers it doesn't support the latest versions, and unlike the Flash plugin it is not widely used.

The reason for the IE dominance has nothing to do with its technical qualities, but the fact that it is shipped with a commonly used OS. Users with little knowledge or interest are not likely to install a new browser. Now this seams to be changing.

"Mod me down if you like, but what he says is true."

Except that SVG is not a contender to either Flash or Silverlight?
It's like saying WMF is also a contender in this arena.
It's a vector graphis format, not a presentation framework.

Perhaps it was never used because, well, support has been lacking.

4-5 yrs ago? That's pre-firefox explosion, when IE was what just about EVERYONE used.

Think about it...how could it be used if nobody supports it? I think it's only with the advent of alternative browsers and some DE's that SVG is becoming serious.

Firstly, Silverlight was meant to compete against Flash, presentation components of Ajax and JavaFX - *not* SVG. Microsoft did not use Silverlight because it is an extension of .NET. So, if Silverlight used SVG instead of XAML, either a chasm is created between Silverlight and .NET and WPF, or SVG as a standard has to be changed substantially.

More importantly, if Microsoft used SVG, it would be tying proprietary stuff with an open standard, thus actually making it a *bad* thing.

As for Canvas, it was developed by Apple - and Apple retained its rights on those patents. Using WHATWG's Canvas still opens Microsoft to legal liability. How is Canvas then an open standard?

Both SVG and Canvas can be used in IE as plugins - that's how Flash got around, wasn't it? The lack of websites using either, and the subsequent lack of users bothering to download plugins for either, shows that while W3C and WHATWG have blessed SVG and Canvas, respectively, as standards - most don't give a toss. (In the case of Canvas, a workaround without the use of plugins is being developed)

And you bringing up Canvas was a good point - even Apple decided against spending resources on full SVG compliance. If Apple, one of Microsoft's competitors in the browser market, couldn't be bothered with SVG instead creating its own "standard", why should Microsoft?

I don't use IE for a reason, and I dread designing my website so it would look nice on all browsers, but SVG and Canvas is not somewhere they dropped the ball, or somewhere they are deliberately using their market power to muscle out competition (in any case, Flash doesn't seem to be getting a pounding from Silverlight, aye? But I thought Microsoft was an all-powerful monopoly).

I don't see how Firefox is a threat to IE or Microsoft. Even if FF continues to outshine IE in most ways, and people actually choose FF over IE because of its advantages, I still fail to see how it's a threat. If anything, FF is a threat to web developers, because as FF usage grows, they have no choice but to deal with browser compatibility issues. But there is nothing preventing web developers from supporting FF.

If FF eventually comes to dominate the web, Microsoft will still be able to publish popular and profitable web applications. So would any other business. If Microsoft enjoys any advantage in web services because they develop IE, it's a very small one. In fact, the more they leverage this advantage, the more likely they are to lose browser marketshare. Microsoft lost the web to Google, not Mozilla.

The only part of Microsoft that Firefox threatens is whatever remains of their pride.

Well, Microsoft might consider actually making Internet Exploder genuinely compatible with web standards (gasp).

I don't think it's entirely personal choice in this case. Large organizations, like corporations and government agencies, are far more open to open source projects in Europe than in the US.

I'm not entirely sure why this is the case. I think European organizations have been willing to consider alternatives. You hear European governments warming up to open source more than US government organizations.

lol thats easy to answer, EU governments are more socialist in nature than the US, so their politicians aren't as deeply embedded into the pockets of big money like US politicians. Notice I said "Not as Deeply" Big money helps make decisions everywhere.

If by "easy" you mean overly facile, then I heartily disagree:

1) Notice I said that even European corporations have been more open to open source projects. That's not a "socialist" argument.

2) I don't think average computer users really care that much about Firefox's standards compliance. Do average users even know what CSS even is? Like I said, it's not personal choice that's ENTIRELY producing Firefox's stunning success in Europe.

It's not as rosy as you paint it. Microsoft still have a strong stranglehold on corporations and the government here in the UK.

The difference is that Microsoft are portrayed as strongly American to worldwide audiences. Their adverts, their style of design, everything about them is, well,... cheesy. Apple on the other hand have setup a strong British image over here, being sure to localise their efforts in this country.

It doesn't go without saying that most Europeans think twice about how they do business with the Americans, what with you know, the total disregard for people's freedoms your government has.

I might be making a real dumb comment; but I'm betting that slowly and surely, Europe is trying to distance itself from America.

"have setup a strong British image over here, being sure to localise their efforts in this country."

Look, I'm a Mac fan but this is biased nonsense.

Apple dropped the British-English localisation of Mac OS after 8.6. That killed off the Wastebasket in favour of the Trash, and introduced very un-British spelling. International-English is basically US English and you'd be wrong to deny that.

OS X was originally released with only a US English dictionary and things like Sherlock and Dashboard are usually not as well supported here. Mac prices have always been higher in Britain, and new initiatives like the AppleStores, iTunes Music Store and iPhone always arrive in the US first.

Apple's printed material and design are the same as in the US. If you ever did the battery replacement programme, you'd notice that it came with the stock instructions with shipping instructions for North America. It doesn't bother me that much, but it's still true.

By contrast, Windows and Linux even have Welsh language versions. If Apple won't give us a "Help Centre", then we'll never get a "Canolfan Cymorth" in my area of Britain.

Historically Apple have always been a marginal force over here. Commodore, Sinclair, Atari, Acorn, Microsoft and others have ruled in the home, the school and the office in their time.

They employ very few people in the UK, less than Microsoft for sure. And above all - Apple ARE a US company. That's where our money goes.

When you say, "strong British identity" you really mean "I like them". I like them too, but they care a lot less about us than you think.

Edited 2007-07-15 18:47

Ouch. Owned.

Apple's perceived identity is based FAR more on their marketing efforts than software-languade nuances. The fact the Mitchell and Webb are used to face Apple's UK ad campaigns has much more impact on the UK public than calling something 'trash'.

Thank you Noah Webster for championing the idea that words should be spelled as they are pronounced.

why dont you just do as reasonable people do, and screw any browser support, make your "code" clean and according to w3c specifications, and if some browser chooses not to work, well so what? screw them, the reality of this though, is that with almost certainty, that it will work in khtml/opera/gecko.. as for IE? well, screw them.

If your site is trying to make money somehow, that is a terrible idea.

yeah, but making it illegal to sell slaves also was a bad idea for slave sellers, if they wanted to make money..

Yeah, compare a god damn web browser to slavery. Real nice.

Comparing IE to slave trade is just ignorant. Nobody forces anybody to use IE, most non geeks are lazy or don't know the alternatives, but they do exist, and they are not illegal. Grow up.

Actually, you can make sites that look very good in even in IE by sticking to the w3c standards. So sticking to the standard shouldn't be a problem even for money making sites. Doing things that only works in one browser will only make your pages more expensive to maintain in the long run.

The problem today, is that the standard allows for more cool stuff than that can be displayed by IE, so you will need to check that your standard compliant web pages degrades gracefully when viewed in IE6 and other vintage or non standard compliant browsers.

It is entirely possible to write a page the perfectly complies with w3c specs and yet fails to render correctly in some way on every browser out there.

Coding to w3c spec is not in it self a silver bullet and not a valid excuse for your page not working. If I hired you to do a web page for me and it didn't render in correctly I'd demand you redo it, despite your claims that it follows w3c perfectly.

Edited 2007-07-15 20:16

make your "code" clean and according to w3c specifications, and if some browser chooses not to work, well so what?

This could be the fastest way to get Microsoft to update IE, methinks (provided the W3C specifications used are well supported by the other browsers), but there are a few major caveats.

If enough sites don't render correctly in IE and that starts driving people away from it in droves, I see Microsoft completely rewriting Trident from scratch to be as standards-compliant as possible, or maybe even licensing or buying another rendering engine.

But the problem is actually getting the people to use something else because it's more standards-compliant. Joe Sixpack doesn't understand or care about web standards. And IE7 has most of the "killer features" Firefox and Opera have that would have sent Joe Sixpack looking at those browsers. Hell, an otherwise competent, computer-genius buddy of mine doesn't care--he thinks whoever has the most usage share should dictate 'standards'. He uses Opera, but the whole standards fiasco is a non-issue to him.

Another problem is you will lose a lot of visitors in the short-term, and profit-generating visitors are what drive a lot of the 'major' sites on the Internet.

Really, I don't care what browser people use, as long as the vast majority of 'em are using a reasonably standards-compliant one--even if that browser is an updated IE.

Edited 2007-07-15 21:37

lol
well unfortunately the "screw them" attitude is exactly what Microsoft has been doing with Internet Explorer since they introduced it. being that I actually care that my web pages are displayed in a manner that resembles my specs I do very much care and I have paid for it every time I wanted to try something new with CSS.

Bump, but I don't see what it would prove. We know the audience is technical. It would be better to know the stats of a completely non technical website.

A commercial, very non-technical website I wrote and maintain just passed 1 million unique views and the stats are:

78% Internet Explorer
18.7% Mozilla Firefox
2.5% Apple Safari / Linux Konqueror
0.8% Opera Browser

89.3% Microsoft Windows
3.3% Apple OSX
0.3% Linux

Probably if you would calculate the mean of both websites you get the results from the post.

I've just looked at my own stats and while it's meaningless to post them here, I have a question: anyone knows of the best way to monitor browser growth month by month? Just thought I'd ask before writing some custom script...

I'm curious to know the reasons behind the fact that Europe seems more open for using alternative software related to the US.

I'd guess that one reason is that there are far fewer large commercial closed source software houses in Europe, and no one likes to send their hard earned money out of the country.

Had Microsoft been a Germany or French company, then they would probably be more anti Open Source than even the US is now.

Sure. Get an OEM to sign on to do it. You'll likely have to pay them or find a way for them to make money off of it though.

"but isn't it about time successful software like this was installed on machines as default."

No.

I agree. When I use firefox on Ubuntu, it crashes probably once a day, though I don't really use that box that much, so it would likely crash more with more usage. Default install, nothing special about it.

When I use firefox on Ubuntu, it crashes probably once a day, though I don't really use that box that much, so it would likely crash more with more usage. Default install, nothing special about it.

When I was using Firefox on my last system (Dapper with Mozilla binary 2.02) FF would crash quite often especially after using a lot of Flash.

My new system (faster box more RAM, Feisty 2.04 default install patched) FF has not crshed on me once since I set it up about a nonth ago with about a reular daily one to two hours browsing. Also FF seems to be consuming less RAM now.

I also found a lot of bugs/issues with the binary distributions of Firefox, but these have evaporated since I started building it from source on Gentoo. Those who have such problems might consider building from source on their own distro; yes it takes some time, but I suspect it is the cure for a lot of the bugs.

firefox 2.0.04 almost never crashes on my Fedora 7 linux
I suspect broswer plugins may be behind a lot of the crashes linux users are reporting..

Strange, i also use firefox on Ubuntu, and this laptop is always running with firefox always open (on average two windows with about fifteen tabs). It never crashed on me the past ten months or so.
It used to crash a lot on Ubuntu 6.06, but not on 6.10 or 7.04.

I'm running 7.04 from a fresh install. Desktop with an AMD Athlon XP 2500 and 512mb of DDR memory. Nothing fancy.

God forbid someone have the choice to use what software they want...

Except that it's my computer, and the virus' that IE attracts like moths to a flame affect me as well.

Personally, I like the fact that we have some real viable choices now. On Windows you have IE, Firefox, Opera, and even Safari. I don't count Netscape since it uses either the IE or Firefox rendering engines.

A lot of people know IE and are comfortable with it. I don't fault them for that. Making Firefox look like IE to help some make the transition isn't a bad idea. However, pushing ones choice off on another is always bad form. However, I won't fault you for you actions on your home computers.

IE is the most manageable browser if company is using Microsoft Group Policy. Most of the features and options can be easily controlled from one place for the whole company.