Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer, is continuing its slow but steady slide in market share. According to fresh numbers from web metrics firm Websidestory, IE’s share has slipped 1.8 per cent in the last three months.
More web surfers abandoning the good ship Internet Explorer
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I think firefox will be very popular. (but maybe only until loghorn will be released..)
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/community/
Firefox has made a lot of gains, most anyone who considers themselves to be a power user or geek is not using IE, and a large number of them are using firefox.
Of course there are those that insist on IE, and know how to shut off ActiveX.
If IE had tabbed browsing i would drop Firefox on Windows like a hot potato. I still have to use IE for sites that do not render properly in firefox.
Certainly Firefox partly responsible and is a good choice for a browser, but the important thing is that people make the move to more standards complient browsers, keeping the web from becoming closed and proprietary.
Mozilla
Opera
Safari
Konquerer
Dillo
Whatever it takes to keep the internet from becoming as Microsoft dependant as the office software market.
Most other sites are reporting bigger drops in IE usage.
“I still have to use IE for sites that do not render properly in firefox.”
Like what? I haven’t run into one in such a very long time…
Maybe MS won the browser war not just becasue they are a monopoly but also becasuse the competition sucked. Someone comes out with a decent browser and it starts to gain market share. Amazing how that works.
I use Firefox as my main browser and I haven’t seen a page rendered badly since ages.
What I didn’t mention in my first post: The marketing for Firefox is very good at the moment. Yesterday there was a report about it on one of the biggest german tv-channel and today I heard a 5-minute-report in the radio about Firefox…
When I’m on a Windows PC, I still happily use IE. No intention of moving over to FireFox or Mozilla, IE does the trick for me, and never had any security problems.
One thing I would like to be better in the alternatives to IE is when it comes to plugins. When I visit a site with IE that uses Shockwave or Flash, and perhaps I have Shockwave 6 installed but the site uses something that’s in the Shockwave 8 plugin, I get the ActiveX popup saying that this site uses Shockwave 8, would you like to download and install the plugin. I click “yes”, it downloads, installs, the page refreshes and I can now see the animation. With something like Firefox I get the popup saying I need an plugin of type application/shockwave would you like the Netscape plugin center to find it, if you’re lucky and it’s some plugin that it knows about you’re redirected to a download site. Then you download the file, close your browser, double click the install, navigate to the plugin folder if it doesn’t detect your browser correctly, otherwise it installs it to the right folder, then you reopen your browser and renavigate to the site you were at when this all started. If it’s some sort of plugin that’s not known you are kind of out of luck and need to research it, while the ActiveX app wouldn’t have this issue.
So, the point of all of this is, if there was a standard for plugins that had the ease of use of ActiveX without the secruity issues, I’d like alternative browsers 100%, until then it will always be one of my beefs.
I think firefox will be very popular. (but maybe only until loghorn will be released..)
Even if by some miracle Microsoft makes IE good by the time Longhorn is out (doubtful considering how far they’re behind right now and the amount of time Firefox has to get even better) the majority of people will be staying with Windows 98 (sad, but true) / 2000 / XP. And Microsoft has stated that they will not be releasing any more standalone upgrades for IE, either. Wonder if maybe they’ll change their mind when too much of their market share is stolen.
You cannot have this both ways. You can’t have the ease of installing a (safe) binary plugin by just hitting yes while keeping out any other unsafe ActiveX controls.
Installing Flash for Firefox on Windows (or Linux) is not that hard. Under Windows it’s all a matter of running the .exe. Hopefully this will make people stop and think what they’re running instead of just hitting “Yes” to anything that pops up.
iRider could be what you need: http://www.irider.com/
I have run in some sites that do not work with any other browser than IE.
Re: Firefox is nice…
“I still have to use IE for sites that do not render properly in firefox.”
Like what? I haven’t run into one in such a very long time…
Try this:
http://launch.yahoo.com/musicvideos/lists/top.asp
If you can make any of the videos play in Firefox, you are most certainly a better man than I.
Anyway, let this be a lesson to the open source crowd. People are flocking to Firefox, and do you know why? Because for once, the open source community has built a better product than any closed source offering available (sans Opera, but opinions vary). If you would concentrate on making quality software instead of bitching & whining about what Microsoft is doing and/or argueing amoungst yourselves, you would see this kind of thing happen more often.
When I’m on a Windows PC, I still happily use IE. No intention of moving over to FireFox or Mozilla, IE does the trick for me, and never had any security problems.
I hope you mean that you never had security issues with it.
I’m afraid that MS will the war again. They have money to make very big marketing actions and people like marketing… Some days ago I heard someone saying: “But I heared Windows is the best, so it is.” Firefox has time to grown and the next versions of the IE won’t have only CSS 2.0, but they will integrate new technologies into the IE, IE-only technologies…
“When I’m on a Windows PC, I still happily use IE. No intention of moving over to FireFox or Mozilla, IE does the trick for me, and never had any security problems.”
I hope you mean that you never had security issues with it.
I indeed did
>Try this:
>http://launch.yahoo.com/musicvideos/lists/top.asp
>If you can make any of the videos play in Firefox, you are >most certainly a better man than I.
You mean the text that you should download Netscape…? Well you can use a extension to make Firefox indentify as the IE and you can view it.
You can use a plugin to get rid of the text, but it still won’t work. ( I have tried )
Installing Flash for Firefox on Windows (or Linux) is not that hard. Under Windows it’s all a matter of running the .exe.
I understand it’s not a hard thing to do, was just stating that it’s not as easy as IE, and would like for someone to come up with a way to make it that easy. Example: I just got a new laptop for work, I installed FirePox 0.9.3 on it. I visit http://www.shockwave.com; the screen I get is of a link saying I need Flash to use this site, and provides me with a link to download Flash. I download it to my machine and run the setup, once it’s installed I go back to http://www.shockwave.com. I go to the game section and click on a game to play it online. I’m presented with a screen saying I need Shockwave, and go through the same process as with Flash, download, closing the browser, installing, navigate back to http://www.shockwave.com; I can now play the game. With IE I would have hit the first screen, gotten the popup, clicked “yes” to install, the screen refreshes with the Flash animations now showing, I go to the games and get the shockwave popup, click “yes”, screen refreshes, I can play my game. No opening and closing the browser a couple time, no .exe’s on my desktop I need to delete, etc.
I go to the games and get the shockwave popup, click “yes”, screen refreshes, I can play my game. No opening and closing the browser a couple time, no .exe’s on my desktop I need to delete, etc.
That kind of demand for convenience is why spyware is such a problem now. Installing software *should* require a large degree of user interaction to prevent malicious applications from installing themselves surropticiously.
That’s why I like MacOS X prompting you for your password when you install software. If you put your password in, you’re essentially declaring that you trust the software package you’re about to install.
I don’t think that Longhorn would change anything, except it’s
own name, last minute before first release. I have witnesed
all new revolutionary win32 OS’s, and nothing realy changed much. I begin to belive that Microsoft has some interest
in releasing defective software.
There is some kind of food chain, a whole ecosystem, with ‘experts’ that make their living by fixing broken Windows installations, and even developers that create addons that
work around problems in Windows. Those individuals and
organizations support Microsoft in return.
On the low end of food chain are end users, of course.
An easy prey for large and small predators.
DG
Everything works fine in Safari on OS X, makes me wonder what’s going on with the Gecko browsers on this one. I have the same problems with Firefox 0.9 and the 1.0 preview.
I’ve tried Firefox and Mozilla in OS X and I always come back to Safari, it seems to be faster and better integrated into the OS, with tabbed browsing and most of the tricks of Mozilla it’d take something drastic to pull me away from it.
It’s funny to think that since the release of Safari for OS X pretty sure that was in the early Jaguar days I haven’t touch IE for Mac it’s probably the only unstable piece of software I’ve used on OS X.. (Note that I said “I’ve used” I know there are buggy programs out there).
I’m glad Firefox is finally in 1.x, even though it is a preivew release. Mozilla has gone far beyond anybody else in the browser, it’s really amazing!
Now IE has it’s site specific pages that I still keep IE around. All Microsoft sites, and ESPN’s Motion is still not capatiable with any other browser!
I believe tabbed browsing has really shined the light on Firefox, Safari, Mozilla. Microsoft just doesn’t understand the key to tab browsing, and how product this feature is in the work place.
It’s about time Microsoft started feeling some heat with IE. They sat doing nothing on that for TOO long!
One of my pet peeves is when people think that percentage units = percent. It’s a drop by 1.8 percentage units, not 1.8 percent! In this case, such a drop is equal to 1.9 per cent.
A minor differerence, yes, but it’s still an important distinction to make.
when i set up a computer with windows, i always install the newest java re, then mozilla/firefox, then the flash plugin, and maybe quicktime. installing the plugins i need is part of the “setting up my computer”-routine. there’s really no point in complaining why you have to close/restart firefox for 2 plugins. i have to restart windows several times when i really set it up anyway (almost every program asks you to, and after 3-4 program installs, i usually do it). so, where’s the problem…
you probably don’t even keep the install files for java, flash etc, right?
all in all, there’s really no point in your complaint. go with ie, if that fits your needs better. and maybe reconsider doing online-banking… you might need another *cough* plugin for it…
christian
One of my pet peeves is when people think that percentage units = percent. It’s a drop by 1.8 percentage units, not 1.8 percent! In this case, such a drop is equal to 1.9 per cent.
Would you care to elaborate on this??
“While still far and away the market leader, the browser now has a 93.7 per cent share, compared to 95.5 per cent in June.”
Seems like 1.8% to me.
IE ships with most PC’s sold in America, and the non-web developer/non-technical user has little motivation to download Firefox or any other alternative, it’s just that simple. This is just more drummed-up pseudo competition from the mass-media. Those that care have already moved to other platforms.
1.8 is 1.9% of 95.5.
Statistics can be twisted to mean anything. Somebody might think it’s fair to say that 95% of users are either too lazy, don’t understand or don’t care what web browser they use.
How do we even know that it is IE that is on the decline? The percentage of windows users using IE could actually be increasing, and the number of windows users is decreasing.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about which web browser is the ‘best’. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and are free to choose which they use, just like I have.
I’m wondering how come other alternatives, other than the Mozilla family and Opera have been mentioned.
At jbett, have you tried using Camino? 0.8 is much more stable than previous releases, and it’s now the only browser I use…. in fact its almost the only modern browser available for OSX 10.1, I believe the latest version of Opera runs fine in it, as does iCab (but iCab is hardly ready for use as an everday browser).
Has anyone used the latest versions of OmniWeb? They dropped support of 10.1 a few versions ago.
What about other alternatives on Windows? Surely with windows being so big and all there should be plenty of decent alternative browsers?
makes ie work like a useful browser…. but you have to turn off all the cruft that it puts on by default….
IE, KHTML, Gecko, Opera… ha! you all suck! Lynx is going to take the browsing community by storm! It’s already being used by .0000000000000000000000001% of the web browsing community. That’s up 380% from where we were last quarter!
Most other sites are reporting bigger drops in IE usage.
Its extremely hard to actually benchmark such market share trends, for a lot of reasons. Its easier to research wether market share raised or lowered, although its still quite hard to actually have a credible analysis even for that.
(Logic supports the trend though.)
@ Darius the website renders fine but the video’s don’t load. It says Netscape 4.7x or 7.1 is needed (???) while i’m using Mozilla 1.6. Same with Netscape 4.8 and Mozilla 1.0. Strange. Ehm, but at who does the problem lie, you think?
And yeah i can also use IE and never have security problems. On an intranet. LOL.
One thing I would like to be better in the alternatives to IE is when it comes to plugins. When I visit a site with IE that uses Shockwave or Flash, and perhaps I have Shockwave 6 installed but the site uses something that’s in the Shockwave 8 plugin, I get the ActiveX popup saying that this site uses Shockwave 8, would you like to download and install the plugin. I click “yes”, it downloads, installs, the page refreshes and I can now see the animation.
Have you not even tried the latest release of Firefox? They’ve had easy installation of web plugins for a while now just like they have with extensions and themes. Load up a page that needs Flash and you don’t have it yet (I use Flash as the example because it’s the most popular), easy as pie, there’s a bar that will appear near the top of the page/screen that says you’ve got a plugin or some such missing and there’s a button that you can press that will automatically determine the plugin, download it, and install it automatically, and start using it without a refresh. It’s not completely automated in that you have to select the plugin you want to grab and it does it for you but I only remember 2-4 dialogs before it was all taken care of, and since I’m on broadband is was a few seconds overall. Again, I’m using Flash as the example here, I don’t know how well it works with other stuff, because I simply have never found a need for that other stuff.
Latest version at this point is 1.0PR.
Kinda just want to say that I meant without a reload of the browser, not a refresh of the page. Not that big of a detail and I may even be wrong, because not to brag or anything but my computer’s too fast for me to keep up with sometimes, oi!
“@ Darius the website renders fine but the video’s don’t load. It says Netscape 4.7x or 7.1 is needed (???) while i’m using Mozilla 1.6. Same with Netscape 4.8 and Mozilla 1.0. Strange. Ehm, but at who does the problem lie, you think?”
Well 2 things; has anyone tried changing:
1) User String Agent
2) Making sure your fav music player is register/associated to the file type.
Just my .02 cents worth. Sorry, I dont use my browsers for listening to sound.
But see, that’s because you’re splitting up the command line browser market. In such a simple piece of software, it often makes sense to branch instead of adding more features, or else risk the simplicity of the interface. Keeping that in mind, once you factor in links, elinks, and w3m in addition to your beloved lynx, you’re actually approaching .00000000000000000000001% ket share. A noble effort indeed!
To those complaining about the difficulty of installing plugins in Firefox.
pacman -Sy flashplugin
Quite difficult! Of course I still have to restart Firefox, but then, I don’t have to reboot my OS.
—
Coming to you live from the bash shell,
Michael Salivar
Even if by some miracle Microsoft makes IE good by the time Longhorn is out…
Which they’ve announced they have no intention of doing anyway. Their idea is to make web applications as dependent on Windows’ APIs as possible. That is what ActiveX is about, and it’s what Indigo will be about also.
The POS was never a good ship (maybe for 5 minutes with IE6). It has always been third class to Mozilla/Netscap and AOLs browser flag ships.
I noticed the following in a story on news.com:
“Among CNET News.com readers, site visitors using Mozilla and Firefox jumped to 18 percent for the first two weeks of September, from 8 percent in January.”
18% of News.com! News.com isn’t exactly osnews or slashdot. While it is a tech related site the fact that CNET covers mostly MS Windows news I think would make it somewhat representative of more average users than some of the more techy pages.
In regards to trying to play videos on:
http://launch.yahoo.com/musicvideos/lists/top.asp
Yes, I have set the User Agent to IE6. Java applet comes up, but then it just sits there with a thumb up its ass, so I dunno what the problem is. Works great in IE6 and Opera,.
For my site, which is >70% reported as Windows (in my logs), the figures are IE: 46.6%, Mozilla-based Products: 23.5%. Followed by KHTML, Opera and Unknown, in that order. Not bad.
Whats your point anyway? That some websites don’t render or work under Firefox? Or what? In any case, that # of websites decreased.
I find it strange a website recommends Netscape 4.7x or 7.1 whereas these versions are long out of date whereas it just doesn’t work with Netscape 4.8 which is only slightly different than 4.79. I find it strange it doesn’t even mention Mozilla, Opera or Mozilla Firefox. I get the same error when i use Opera 7.23 with Mozilla identifier, but when i use it without that identifier it says i need to install Windows Media Player… well thank you for putting that down my throat, Yahoo!
“If you would concentrate on making quality software instead of bitching & whining about what Microsoft is doing and/or argueing amoungst yourselves, you would see this kind of thing happen more often.”
Even though this was ages ago in this thread, have to respond to this.
A. Firefox is becoming popular because it *gasp* runs on windows. If it was much better then it is now, but just run on POSIX platforms, it would never be mentioned. It has nothing to do with its quality vs other opensource projects
B. Paying attention to what MS is doing is valuable…
C. Arguing is essential to pretty much everything. Without the fight between Theo and NetBSD there would be no OpenSSH or OpenBSD. Without the fight over XFree licensing we wouldn’t have the features in xorg 6.8. Without the fight over QT licensing, there would be no GNOME.
D. Oh, and the quality software bit is great. KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice, Mplayer, Xine, Gaim, Evolution, Mono, Reiser4, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD, Sendmail, Apache, Postfix…..
God damn those OpenSource devs and their crappy software!
I have been saying this for a long long time. “Everybody uses it” is the official party line, with the underlying unspoken comment being “so there’s no reason to use anything else”.
The people who make a living supporting broken Win32 installations have a vested interest in keeping that oh-so-lucrative pipeline of cash WIDE OPEN.
VERY VERY long ago I posted something along these lines to comp.sys.mac.advocacy during a period of time when I was still interested in sifting out the rare gem of information there, but it was constantly overwhelmed by win32 fudsters, while oddly, the windows advocacy group had almost no Mac people doing the same. This was noted as a symptom of the above as well.
Have you tried the boostup of Mozilla Optimizer ?
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/software/browser/mozilla_optim…
Maybe MS won the browser war not just becasue they are a monopoly but also becasuse the competition sucked. Someone comes out with a decent browser and it starts to gain market share. Amazing how that works.
Yes. And remember, Firefox haven’t even reached version 1.0. Now, if they reach version 1.0 and AOL decides to throw its full weigh behind it – spending as much on marketing as Microsoft did 6-7 years ago, I’m sure Microsoft would be forced to kiss its de jure monopoly away.
Yes. And remember, Firefox haven’t even reached version 1.0. Now, if they reach version 1.0 and AOL decides to throw its full weigh behind it – spending as much on marketing as Microsoft did 6-7 years ago, I’m sure Microsoft would be forced to kiss its de jure monopoly away.
With that being said, however, I used Netscape for many years, and the final straw that broke the camels back was the constant crashing of Netscape Communicator when running it on Windows. Run mail and you’d be praying that whilst composing an email, that the website loading in the background wouldn’t bring the whole application to a grinding halt.
Netscape Communicator sucked, it sucked then and still sucks; Netscape *KNEW* that their product kept crashing yet did nothing to rectify the situation. Is Microsoft to blame? of course not, how we have a rock solid, stable browser running on *NIX, Windows and Mac. The stability of Netscape had nothing to do with Windows but everything to do with the crappy programmers and leadership at Netscape.
Microsoft saw and opportunity and executed their plan, the fact is, by the time 5.0 came out, Internet Explorer had already over taken Netscape; Netscape and its over paid, computer illiterate management are the ones to blame for the demise of Netscape – they carry the full load.
By Gutterpunk (IP: —.turner.com) – Posted on 2004-09-17 21:27:49
So, the point of all of this is, if there was a standard for plugins that had the ease of use of ActiveX without the secruity issues, I’d like alternative browsers 100%, until then it will always be one of my beefs.
————-
This press release is kinda related and might interest u:
Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems join in push to modernize plugins and create a richer web experience
http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2004-06-30.html
I understand your point, but don’t you think that MS is not delivering much despite the millions of bucks they claim to spend in R&D?
On
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040916.html
I’ve read the following article.
“How Microsoft Plans to Use a New USB Standard to Cripple Linux”
I don’t know how seious that article is, but judging from MS’s history I won’t be surprised to see it come true sometime in the future.
Wouldn’t they better spend money on improving IE?
In my experience, when a website will not display “properly” in a browser, it is due to non-w3c-compliant code. Webpage coders write to the majority browser, not to standards. It is unfair to say that FireFox does not display pages properly. It is better to say that the page is not written properly. Firefox displays it exactly as the standards say it should.
Yes, I know there are bugs, and nothing is perfect, but do not blame the browser for problems in the code.
“I still have to use IE for sites that do not render properly in firefox.”
Here’s a tool which you can use to make Firefox or Mozilla work so that you can render IE pages properly on Firefox or Mozilla. It works on both Linux, Windows and OS X
http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/useragentswitcher/
People are flocking to Firefox, and do you know why? Because for once, the open source community has built a better product than any closed source offering available (…). If you would concentrate on making quality software instead of bitching & whining about what Microsoft is doing and/or argueing amoungst yourselves, you would see this kind of thing happen more often.
No, what would really make us see this more often was if more Microsoft software became unusable because of flaws, security holes & co. There are LOTS of quality stable and usable open source projects out there, and the success of Firefox is mostly because of Internet Explorer getting totally unbearable, thus forcing people to look for alternatives.
Generally, people tend to have lots of prejudice against free software (or against all software they don’t know, I only recommend free software so I can’t know).
So basically, we should be thankful to Microsoft for releasing such crappy products, because this is what’s pushing Mozilla Firefox.
I guess Longhorn will keep the traditional Microsoft approach to product design – keep it unreliable & stupid – and, with the addition of new technology in genuie Microsoft quality, increase the public interest in alternatives.
you all like a bunch of ninnys.
firefox and the mozilla code had 10 critical vulnerabilities exposed this week. firefox might be a fine product but it by no means is immune from security vulnerabilities. looks like the coders making it make plenty of mistakes too huh?
read up on it and if you want to see more just go check out secunia:
http://news.com.com/Latest+Mozilla+releases+fix+10+security+flaws/2…
http://secunia.com/
ie is not perfect by any stretch. it gets better like many of ms products. ie 6 in windows xp svc pk 2 is a major update and is much more secure. if you are running anything other than service pack 2 on xp you can lock down ie 5.5 and up to your hearts content for free manually or by using a tool provided free by:
http://www.pivx.com/qwikfix.asp
want pop up blockers install dozens of free tools…..google tool bar, yahoo toolbar, msn toolbar, you name it….
want tabs install dozens of add ons that are available for free download…netcaptor, maxthon, avantbrowser, etc.
fact remains that ie 6 with all of its security issues on the windows platform still gives me much better results than any other web browser i try–
it is faster by a large margin
it renders better
it works well with more pages
it displays less quirky behavior
more plugins work with it
i can extend ie 6 to my hearts content with many free add ons
whats the problem?
Validate with http://validator.w3.org/detailed.html
@ Anonymous
Facts:
1) IE doesn’t come with these features by default. Firefox instead comes with a lot of features included already (but indeed, not all, Opera comes with more by default).
2) IE is not portable from a practical point of view.
3) MS regulary only fixes flaws in IE _after_ there’s an exploit in the wild. This means some bugs, while known, could be exploited already before a patch comes out despite the fact MS was notified about the vulnerability. This fact is also available on websites such as Liu’s, Secunia, Pivx @ Archive.org and Georgi’s. Just because you in your ‘experience’ never had any problems with that (AFAYCT) doesn’t mean it ain’t a problem. Because it is a potential problem.
4) Firefox is much more extensible than IE. Please provide me links to: a) a sessionsaver for IE b) a flash blocker allowing to play Flash after clicking on it only c) profiles d) browser string modifier — to name a few.
5) None of the security vulnerabilities you name is able to exploit my system beause i have PaX enabled on my OS. Please provide me a link to software which allows me features such as W^X on the MS Windows platform.
it is faster by a large margin
What do you mean, faster? Better loading times or better rendering times? Most benchmarks show that Opera takes the first place in both, with Firefox still in front of Internet Explorer. Google for benchmarks.
it renders better
Better? It cannot do CSS 3, does not adhere to standards (i.e. renders tables wrongly) and if a page really looks better, it is because the page designer didn’t follow w3c standards.
it works well with more pages
Yes, that’s a big. The pages concerned are not correct HTML/XHTML/XML.
it displays less quirky behavior
Really? I guess by “quirky behaviour” you mean the inability to correctly display nonsense code which claims to be HTML.
more plugins work with it
I cannot imagine any important plugins not being avaible as a Netscape plugin, at least on win32. If a product is not available for my needs, i just won’t use it.
i can extend ie 6 to my hearts content with many free add ons
Most of which are trying to bring IE’s functionality on par with alternatives, while others are mostly there to take up screen space and to introduce you to new inoovative spyware.
whats the problem?
The problem is called Internet Explorer.
Yes, that’s a big. The pages concerned are not correct HTML/XHTML/XML.
I meant that this is a BUG.
> > i can extend ie 6 to my hearts content with many
> > free add ons
>
> Most of which are trying to bring IE’s functionality
> on par with alternatives
I agree that most of the “incompatibillity” is caused by bad HTML. But I don’t see your point regarding add ons. What’s better about downloading a Firefox extension and downloading an IE add on?
Opera has more functionallity than Firefox included in the standard install, so by your definition it must be better than Firefox (btw: I would agree with you)
re dpi…i cant speak to the hundreds of extensions for firefox as i have not tried them all…that is to some degree part of the problem with firefox…figuring them out is too much for most users.
i have tried firefox off and on again as it has progressed. i have 1.0pr now with my only extension currently being:
Tabbrowser Extensions Ver.1.11.2004082801 for Netscape 7 & Mozilla & Firefox
http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_tabextensions.html
it is better now than it has ever been but at many points along the way i had to uninstall and then do a fresh install. my extensions got screwed up and if available for the newest release had to be reconfigured manually.
compare to what i run as my main browser, netcaptor 7.5.2 (and yep i thought it was so good that after months of trying it i paid $15 for it)http://www.netcaptor.com/index.php —
netcaptor is an ie extender/shell/whatever you would call it (and can be had free as well with an ad bar kinda like opera)
firefox doesnt integrate with my download manager, flashget.
firefox is slower than netcaptor on every machine i have tested it on. opera can be fast too, but many times it sits there for two seconds before it even begins loading a page…when loading begins it is fast. those delays have killed opera for me. i go back and try it now and again but it still does that.
i have not once had a page not render in netcaptor where it happens every couple of days with firefox. whatever the reason is(folks like to complain about web designers not building to a variety of standards….well, guess what, there is no bigger standard than ie…it is used by 94% of users. now thats a standard.)
netcaptor saves my tabs if i want them saved…i save by default. many others do the same thing on ie.
avant browser has a flash blocker/enabler available at the click of button in the button bar. netcaptor does not. i have never wanted to use the feature. never used it when testing avant browser.
portability of ie means little to me (and id guess most people). i use windows almost exclusively. when i had my last mac i did not use ie 5 on it. it was utter garbage. safari was nice and fast but was buggy as all get out. i use ie on my pocketpc. i use both opera and firefox on my suse linux box that i am learning on.
security vulerabilities for firefox have been announced to the world in the last 3 months before patches were made for it by the firefox/mozilla teams. fact is this happens to tons of stuff. no it isnt good, yes it probably happens to ms products more. is ms getting better about it? yes. time to fix for ms has improved immensely in the last 2 years. i see a return on my investment in ms products. thats good. is there still room for improvement? yes.
yes the number of extensions for firefox probably does surpass what is out there for ie. i have not done research on it but it appears that way from my wanderings. but….using netcaptor, add on tool bars, using avantbrowser, etc. all of the common bases are covered without any problem.
i would use firefox more as it is free and if it performed better. few have any unbreakable allegiance to ie. folks just want what works best for their scenario with the best total package of features, price, security, usability etc.
i would say firefox isnt there yet.
what is “Please provide me a link to software which allows me features such as W^X on the MS Windows platform”?
what are c) profiles? does firefox have them or is that another extension to add? netcaptor has captor groups. profiles on xp if based on a user would be handled by separate logins with xp…you know fast user switching and separate login credentials and all that. but if you are looking to just have some sort of quick access without a logoff and login you can use captor groups in the same way.
why on earth would anyone need d) browser string modifier?
why does firefox not use the default favorites folder? sure it will import them at setup but if i create favorites in firefox they are not saved to the central favorites folder? they are not accessible by ie. i then also have to import favorites into firefox manually if i create any new ones in ie. doesnt make sense.
but for some this would be an issue…
i have an amd athlon 3200+ and 1gb ram on this machine so not a big deal (running windows xp svc pk 1 fully updated except for svc pk 2):
just looked at task manager processes tab to see memory and cpu usage
firefox with 1 tab open to google.com uses 0 cpu and 25,460K memory
netcaptor open with 24 tabs on 3 rows of tabs and its 0 cpu and 11,220K memory.
so firefox uses double the memory just to load a single tab. netcaptor is loaded to the gills with about as many tabs as i ever open and its half the memory usage.
as an aside, netcaptor is not without its flaws as well. only problem i have with it is occasionally when i shut it down it will pop up a cryptic error that i have to x out of and it runs fine again when relaunched. have no idea what it is or why it happens sometimes. i assume it may have something to do with a certain page i have in a tab.
not a big deal for me as this machine stays on days or weeks at a time and netcaptor runs non stop with it. it is only turned off when the machine needs to be rebooted or if an installer insists that all applications must be closed.
back to the memory issue…i found both avant browser and myie2 (now maxthon) to be memory hogs as well.
ultimately i would say to anyone, try em out if you are a tech enthusiast and settle on whatever works best for you and the way you browse. but the idea that ie is pure crap and cannot be extended or made secure is wrong.
for as much effort as an amateur would put into finding out about firefox, downloading it, installing it and migrating settings, reinstalling it constantly as its updated, finding and learning about and downloading and installing and then reinstalling extensions as firefox is updated…..they would be much better served by:
ie 6 with
the google toolbar http://toolbar.google.com/
netcaptor 7.5.2 shell http://www.netcaptor.com/index.php
Qwik-Fix Pro http://www.pivx.com/qwikfix.asp
flashget download manager http://www.amazesoft.com/
that combination is easy to install, easy to use, full featured, more like what they have used for many years, etc.
another quibble with firefox…why cant i right click a webpage and save a shortcut to my desktop?
re dpi…i cant speak to the hundreds of extensions for firefox as i have not tried them all…that is to some degree part of the problem with firefox…figuring them out is too much for most users.
But its somehow not a problem to chose and download one of those IE addons? If you go to the extension website you can read there what’s there, what it does, and with a simple click you install it. How’s that hard compared to those IE addon plugins where this one provides feature A, B, C and the other one provides A, B, D? In fact, don’t you agree most users won’t use either an IE addon nor Mozilla (Firefox) extensions? If you do, then why not compare them side by side without either of these?
And how do you explain this raise of market share of Firefox in contrast to the market decline of IE?
my extensions got screwed up and if available for the newest release had to be reconfigured manually.
Yes. That’s because the API changed in the 0.x versions. During the 0.9 and 1.x versions its stabelized. So the problem doesn’t exist anymore. If you don’t wish this, then you’d better use an alternative for Firefox. Its widely documented and referred to on Firefox website, so there’s nothing new to see or argue here. Move along.
I do agree a simple way to disable or uninstall an extension is mandatory if it doesn’t exist already (i’m using an older version).
firefox doesnt integrate with my download manager, flashget.
Firefox has its own download manager which is quite powerful. If Flashget is one of those download managers which allow you to download “in parts” using multiple HTTP connections often used on cable connections (such as Getright and Go!Zilla) then you don’t need that feature since its very hostile towards other cable users in your network segment and the webserver(s). Some webservers even ban you for such hostility, and do rightfully so.
opera can be fast too, but many times it sits there for two seconds before it even begins loading a page
This is a feature you can disable if you want. Firefox has this feature too.
security vulerabilities for firefox have been announced to the world in the last 3 months before patches were made for it by the firefox/mozilla teams.
Your source (including clear references to the events) please?
time to fix for ms has improved immensely in the last 2 years.
It hasn’t in 2 years. I can’t speak for the past months though since i haven’t checked that out, but i am very sure that before that since at least ~2 years it has been a horror. See the PiVX Archive.org mirror for proof, as well as Georgi Guninski’s website, Liu Die Yu’s website and Secunia’s website (including mirrors from Archive.Org for historical purposes).
i see a return on my investment in ms products.
..and i see spywared zombies being in hostile control.
all of the common bases are covered without any problem.
Perhaps regarding features. Such is extremely subjective anyway. However, regarding security, certainly not.
what is “Please provide me a link to software which allows me features such as W^X on the MS Windows platform”?
W^X is, in simple terms, a software hack for x86-32 to allow a page either be able to be written OR be used for execution. This raises security. Its available for BSDs, Linux and most likely other Unices. I was asking for software for MS Windows which provides the same function. It matters given IE is platform- and OS-dependant.
what are c) profiles?
A profile, in Mozilla, allows one to have different configurations using the same home directory on application layer.
why on earth would anyone need d) browser string modifier?
Webdesign, ‘security through obscurity’, blurring flawed statistics even more.
why does firefox not use the default favorites folder? sure it will import them at setup but if i create favorites in firefox they are not saved to the central favorites folder?
No clue. Perhaps you’d like to construct a feature request?
PS: Neither Firefox nor Mozilla are among my #1 and #2 favorite browsers. Opera and Epiphany are.
firefox with 1 tab open to google.com uses 0 cpu and 25,460K memory
netcaptor open with 24 tabs on 3 rows of tabs and its 0 cpu and 11,220K memory.
Flawed! IE is partly started up by Windows when Windows is started since Windows 98SE (or even Windows 98, not sure). Because of this IE uses a lot more memory than your task list will say to you. Because of this IE also starts up faster because a part of it is already started up after Windows started up.
if i fire up regular ie 6 (iexplore.exe) it goes to 0 cpu and 20,932K memory on this rig. it does not list it running when just netcaptor is running.
explorer.exe is running however and it is at 0 cpu and 17,844K memory.
if i turn off either or both ie 6 and netcaptor the explorer.exe figure does not change.
if it does in fact however get stuff loaded in some special way (i have read a bit of speculation about this issue but nothing definitive), someone with low ram amounts would still benefit. its loaded, use it. if you go with firefox its still loaded in memory but you get no benefit. you just use that much more ram when going with firefox.
and if a ms browser is optimized to run on ms windows they still benefit from a faster ie load time. if its there use it.
Whats your point anyway? That some websites don’t render or work under Firefox? Or what? In any case, that # of websites decreased.
Someone said “Show me a page that won’t render properly in Firefox”, so I did. You guys are really preaching to the choir when it comes to non-W3C compliance, but the reality is that if I install Firefox for someone and they call me up bitching that site xyz won’t render properly, now I have to deal with the shit. Maybe I can just give them one of your numbers, and you can try explaining to grandma about non-W3C compliance. More than likely, grandma isn’t going to give a rat’s ass and will go back to using Internet Explorer, unfortunately.
The biggest problem I have with IE shell browsers is that I have yet to find one that will let me click on a link and open it in a new browser window, and I have tried 7-8 of them. I guess either it isn’t possible to do this, or when I actually asked about it on the MyIE2 forum, they’re like “Why would you want to do something like that when you have tabs?” Um, because I want to, thank you very much!
Another problem I have is with security. AFAIK, even though the Mozilla browsers have had some security issues, they have been fixed pretty quickly and (AFAIK) there hasn’t yet been 1 exploit. You guys may be naive to think that SP2 made all the security problems in IE disappear, but I’m going to wait and least 6 months before I even think about using it again.
Honestly speaking IE helps hackers enter into Windows OS faster than Firefox browser. Recently one of our company client asked us for Mozilla support in our product and forced us to build product support Mozilla and because of this many people started using Firefox and Mozilla/Netscape. Now we are continuing using it because we never had any exceptions in browing not a single crash.
We thank out client because whom we made this move. Yes but I do agree that configuring plugins was bit pain but once we realised how to it was back to some clicks.
>3) MS regulary only fixes flaws in IE _after_ there’s an exploit in the wild.
Well, if a vulnerability is published, and the product it is found in is very popular, expect hackers jump on it and produce exploit BEFORE patch is ready.
Example: there had been bug in IE handling images, which could allow hacker to infect the system. There had been similar bug in Mozilla and Firefox.
When Mozilla bug was published, no big reaction from the press. When Microsoft issued its security warning: an article appeared, saying “hackers all over the world trying to get exploit for IE.”
Now, lets see which exploit for EXACTLY SAME BUG will be ready first: for Firefox (patch is available) or for IE (patch is available).
I am willing to bet 100 bucks that IE exploit will be sooner, and 10 bucks that Mozilla/Firefox exploit will never be written.
Of course, when Firefox gets 70% of user base, I will not be willing to bet on that outcome, but on opposite one- every day.
Security through obscurity. Enjoy it while it lasts.
“But its somehow not a problem to chose and download one of those IE addons? If you go to the extension website you can read there what’s there, what it does, and with a simple click you install it. How’s that hard compared to those IE addon plugins where this one provides feature A, B, C and the other one provides A, B, D? In fact, don’t you agree most users won’t use either an IE addon nor Mozilla (Firefox) extensions?”
its a bit of quibbling but i would say to get the same level of functionality, you have to do less on ie. but yes both need to be extended and that is a problem for most people. yes, most users wont bother. most are perfectly happy to use a single tab in ie 6 and merrily sail along doing their web work. thats one of the reasons why ie has 94% market share. when i talk about tabs and enhancements with all the people i come in contact with, it is very rare indeed (except amongst tech enthusiasts) to have any of them show any interest at all.
lest we forget, despite what we may think of ms, they are not 50,000 idiots just banging away at keyboards designing crap. there are some very smart people there. and i would be willing to bet that ms does focus groups etc with ordinary users to find out what they want in a browser. my experience shows most could care less about tabs. i love em.
“And how do you explain this raise of market share of Firefox in contrast to the market decline of IE?”
that is far from definitive. and at the level of movement in recent months, it is insignificant at best. we’ll see where it goes from here i guess.
“Yes. That’s because the API changed in the 0.x versions. During the 0.9 and 1.x versions its stabelized. So the problem doesn’t exist anymore. If you don’t wish this, then you’d better use an alternative for Firefox. Its widely documented and referred to on Firefox website, so there’s nothing new to see or argue here. Move along.”
good explanation, but it doesnt change how it affects end users. how many try it and have problems and then dont go back?
“security vulerabilities for firefox have been announced to the world in the last 3 months before patches were made for it by the firefox/mozilla teams.
Your source (including clear references to the events) please?”
if you spend just a few minutes looking at secunia you will see listings for exploits announced before fixes were released. i will give you one, you can research the rest:
http://secunia.com/advisories/12232/ the libpng problem announced publicly 2004-07-14 fix released on 2004-08-04 with release of 0.9.3 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251381
not to be dense, but this and several other vulnerabilities have been well publicized in the main stream tech press over the last few months.
“all of the common bases are covered without any problem.
Perhaps regarding features. Such is extremely subjective anyway. However, regarding security, certainly not.”
security, the last big bug a boo for everyone to try to mash ms down. still an issue. but being a fairly well informed tech enthusiast i too know that linux and mozilla and many other open source projects have much to do about security as well. looking at stats for the number of linux servers that get hacked, the number of vulnerabilities that mozilla has announced in recent months etc i can just as easily make a case for the flawed nature of both platforms.
the best thing for anti ms folks is the security issue. god forbid if they keep making ever more secure products. get better with each release and we all win….cept the anti ms crowd.
“The biggest problem I have with IE shell browsers is that I have yet to find one that will let me click on a link and open it in a new browser window, and I have tried 7-8 of them. I guess either it isn’t possible to do this, or when I actually asked about it on the MyIE2 forum, they’re like “Why would you want to do something like that when you have tabs?” Um, because I want to, thank you very much!”
i would ask the same thing to. the whole idea of tabs is to keep things neat and organized and it lowers the amount of system resources versus opening multiple instances of the browser. netcaptor does allow multiple instances so you can pretty quickly right click the link, copy shortcut via right click, open new browser instance from icon in quick launch bar/functio key/etc, paste in address bar, and you have your second browser. slower than a right click and choosing to open in new browser instance but not too bad. i would think it would be pretty rare that you would actually want to do it anyway. as of now i can right click and open in tab or middle click a link to open it in a new tab in netcaptor.
opening in new browser instance would not work for me as i have it set to save all tabs and open all left open tabs at next opening. if i opened a new instance it would open with all my tabs again….not convenient.
but more than a “because i want to”, tell us why you want to.
“Another problem I have is with security. AFAIK, even though the Mozilla browsers have had some security issues, they have been fixed pretty quickly and (AFAIK) there hasn’t yet been 1 exploit. You guys may be naive to think that SP2 made all the security problems in IE disappear, but I’m going to wait and least 6 months before I even think about using it again.”
no one with any sense thinks that ie 6 is now magically perfect. every web browser made likely has exploits. to think otherwise is dangerous and foolish.
“there hasn’t yet been 1 exploit”
that cannot be known with certainty. fact is the vulnerabilities are there, so one has to act as if they will be exploited at any time. and to know that no machine running firefox or mozilla has been exploited is a bit difficult when a few million are out there.
Well, if a vulnerability is published, and the product it is found in is very popular, expect hackers jump on it and produce exploit BEFORE patch is ready.
Ah, you again.
This has nothing to do with the issue. The point which matters is that a vulnerability is known for X days whereas Microsoft doesn’t solve it. Then, after that same X days, an exploit in the wild is out. Then, Microsoft starts patching.
That’s not proactive patching, that’s the exact opposite; propassive, or something. X can be anything, and it has been from 30, to 150 in the past, as well as more in a related SSL bug which still exists.
That is the problem. Firefox has nothing to do with it since Firefox doesn’t adhere this behaviour.
Someone said “Show me a page that won’t render properly in Firefox”, so I did.
Ok.
More than likely, grandma isn’t going to give a rat’s ass and will go back to using Internet Explorer, unfortunately.
That’s one possibility. Another one is using IE when a page doesn’t render correctly (you Windows people are lucky here), or using KHTML (Apple, *NIX), or just not use that website. Not everyone blames the browser resulting in ditching the browser, as you are trying to put it.
good explanation, but it doesnt change how it affects end users. how many try it and have problems and then dont go back?
How many try a newer version? How many read about this? Same questions you don’t know an exact answer for. Only speculations of which some are cleverly evaded by both Darius and you, ignoring any alternatives.
libpng problem announced publicly 2004-07-14 fix released on 2004-08-04
That’s 15 days. Not good, but in the 30-day period. Is that your best example? If it is, then go look at the IE ones because several took months to get fixed. Months!
“How many try a newer version? How many read about this? Same questions you don’t know an exact answer for. Only speculations of which some are cleverly evaded by both Darius and you, ignoring any alternatives.”
lots of speculation for sure, but what we dont have to speculate about is the reality that north of 90% of all web surfing in the world is done using different versions of ie. real easy to get confused hanging out at a high tech enthusiasts website when you read one after another that say they use alternative browsers. sadly for the rebels, the herd keeps chewing on ie.
“That’s 15 days. Not good, but in the 30-day period. Is that your best example? If it is, then go look at the IE ones because several took months to get fixed. Months!”
dpi, no you are just acting dense now. above you asked for an example of vulnerability that was known publicly before a patch was made. i provided it. now you want to quibble about the number of days it was exposed? when you ask for something as if your claim it doesnt exist and then it is shown to you, you are supposed to say something like, “sorry i had no idea mozilla had the same issues as ie”….not “i dont care that you disproved my challenge, im still gonna play games by not acknowledging your data and besides ill just toss out another challenge by making ie seem worse still cause sometimes their fixes take even more days to fix!”
i dont need to go look for stuff. i dont need to go do your research. you got all high and mighty challenging for some data and it was provided. it can be duplicated over and over…both on windows and linux, on ie and mozilla. if you arent aware of the facts dont go challenging people to teach you. go learn for yourself. you seem to be quite aware of the places to go learn.
when dozens of vulnerabilities have been exposed in mozilla code in recent months (10 in the last week) it doesnt leave me overly optimistic about its “great” security that so many love to tout.
too many enjoy living on the front page of the tabloids reading all about the downfall of the star when if they just turned the page they would see their old love has most if not all of the same faults.
sheeesh.
15 days for the vulnerability to go unfixed….and of course it is still unfixed for all those users that have not updated….just like all those bug a boo worms that got ms products on machines where USERS failed to update with patches ms had released in advance of the attacks.
http://secunia.com/advisories/11978/
“Description:
A 6 year old vulnerability has been discovered in multiple browsers, allowing malicious people to spoof the content of websites.”
so some go 15 days, some go 6 years.
What irritates me the most about IE is that, as far as IE goes, MS seems to have taken sides with the wrong kind of guys – it seems to be more concerned about content providers’ profit than user experience. The web has changed, and what used to be safe and useful has become irritating to downright dangerous. I bet that if MS announced that in the next update of IE, say 3 months from now, popups would be gone firefox-style, 95% of the sites would be fixed by the release, and 99% a week later.
IE has a potential to be a decent browser, but MS needs to canibalize ideas from Firefox and Opera to make it good (which is fine by me). However, they seem unwilling to improve it in any way.
Anyway, even if they did, they’d still not get me as a user, as I want a browser which I can run both at home and at work, and I there’s no way I’ll pay for running something like Windows at home.
“I bet that if MS announced that in the next update of IE, say 3 months from now, popups would be gone firefox-style, 95% of the sites would be fixed by the release, and 99% a week later. ”
i guess you failed to note the ie 6 already has pop up blocking.
and pop up blocking tools have been free tools from 3rd party sources for ages.
what ms cannot do or they get sued out the ass is add everything under the sun to their os for free. the user has to take some responsibility to a few simple things themselves.
its just as easy to download the google/msn/yahoo toolbars to block pop ups as it is to download firefox or opera.
Just a precision: that 6 years old vulnerability hasn’t been discovered 6 years ago. Most of the browsers affected have less than 6 years of existence. The advisory is 2.1/2 months old, all new versions of browsers are immune, and older versions have been patched….except IE.
dont be so sure of yourself.
the vulnerability is 6 yrs old. it was discovered six years ago. it was in older browsers and was fixed. it was then reintroduced by oh so bright coders on all those different browsers with more modern versions.
“all new versions of browsers are immune, and older versions have been patched….except IE.”
you are dead wrong. ie is patched.
so a whole post filled with nothing but false information.
I abandonned M$IE since Mozilla 1.0. Really M$IE is a worse browser. Now I’m starting to use Firefox, because of it’s nice interface, while the same good GECKO engine is behind.
I hope they will build in Mozilla Suite and Firefox some M$ specific compatible scripts (perhaps as extension) for helping to show pages from some worse webdesigners, who haven’t learn to make standarized pages.
Luckily there are a very few of M$ specific page makers.
After Abandonning M$IE I will abandonning M$-Windows for simple office work and Internet.
I hope that the whole Longhorn will be a big faillure and Mozilla and Opera are able to continue to make better browsers than the new browser of Longhorn. And after all I hope some more useble (publishing, CYMK etc.) apps and a ready X.org will complete as argument for stopping M$ products.
Well, if a vulnerability is published, and the product it is found in is very popular, expect hackers jump on it and produce exploit BEFORE patch is ready.
Responsible disclosure dictates that one inform the vendor a few weeks ahead of going public. It doesn’t always work that well in practice.
Not everyone discloses and I’m sure there are zero day in both Mozilla and IE. MS can’t totally plug up the holes, cause they are features (in some sense). My Computer Zone being one example, which can be patched via QwikFix.
My false information comes from the very page you sent us.
That vulnerability has been discovered first on IE6 running on XP, and the following day on every other browser. If I trust Secunia (maybe I shouldn’t?), no patch has been released for IE, but there is a workaround (MS proposed):
Disable the following security setting:
“Navigate sub-frames across different domains”.
So the vulnerability has been discovered 6 years ago, patched, then reintroduced in every browser by sloppy coders (at Opera, Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, …). It looks like a conspiracy.
If you have more recent information about an IE patch, that would be great (at least for those who use it). I know you love to give us the most accurate information possible, and you won’t fail to direct us to some trusted source. And if finally what I wrote was false, I preemptively apologize to you and everybody here
If for no other reason, you should have stopped using IE because Microsoft refused to update their browser until competition came along.
This speaks volumes of the company and it’s intentions – and means once they’ve eliminated a threat they are content to leave you with second-rate and take your money.
This should be reason enough to switch and support the companies that are trying to make a better experience for users.
just doesn’t hold water. It has been repeatedly shown that the server market for Linux is reasonably close to Microsoft’s making it a tempting target for crackers – there’s a lot more in the way of bragging rights to topple an Internet server than to mess up a bunch of desktops.
>server market for Linux is reasonably close to Microsoft’s
Servers have nothing to do with security of web browsers: most server admins know better than browsing Internet from the server.
>there’s a lot more in the way of bragging rights to topple an Internet server
There had been data that Linux Web servers get defaced as many times or more as Windows Web servers.
>than to mess up a bunch of desktops.
I would guess Linus hackers didn’t read your resoning, so they hacked a lot of Linux desktops in Stanford and other Universities. Just for fun? May be. But, hey, hackers are people too.
Should read “Linux hackers” of course.:)
but what we dont have to speculate about is the reality that north of 90% of all web surfing in the world is done using different versions
Also a speculation.
no you are just acting dense now. above you asked for an example of vulnerability that was known publicly before a patch was made.
No, i did not ask for that. Actually, i don’t to ask you much anyway because you don’t know much about security at all and because i’ve already researched this except for the past months (sue me).
If you look up, you know my argument has been both the time and the fact it was known before it was patched and patched only after an exploit in the wild.
1) Known -> Y days -> fixed
is different than
2) Known -> Nothing happens for X days -> Exploit -> Y days -> fixed.
If X and Y are in total less than 30 days one could easily argue its okay although less is better. The former is what Mozilla team does; the latter is wat IE team does.
Mozilla currently has less open vulnerabilities than IE does, according to Secunia, btw.
Here’s the related bug report btw:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121832
post 62
i had written:
“security vulerabilities for firefox have been announced to the world in the last 3 months before patches were made for it by the firefox/mozilla teams.”
you wrote:
“Your source (including clear references to the events) please?”
so when you come along and say now:
“No, i did not ask for that. Actually, i don’t to ask you much anyway because you don’t know much about security at all and because i’ve already researched this except for the past months (sue me).”
you didnt ask for something that had been known publicly a set number of days before a fix was released. when an exploit was shown to you, you came back with minimizing it because it was only exposed for a few weeks.
quibble quibble quibble. case closed. mozilla has had dozens of vulnerabilities in recent months. less than ie, im not sure. more secure today? probably. using ie by itself is probably less secure as it appears to be the target of more attacks with attackers knowing they will get the greatest results attacking something so universally used.
but all of those mozilla exploits show us that when something becomes more popular, it too appears to be just as shoddy as the reigning king.
If you would concentrate on making quality software instead of bitching & whining about what Microsoft is doing and/or argueing amoungst yourselves, you would see this kind of thing happen more often.
The people who write F/OSS are not the same who bitch and whine about MS. No ‘you’ there.
so when you come along and say now
Yes indeed and this was to find out wether Mozilla does the same behavior as IE: waiting months after a vulnerability is released, then at once when an exploit comes out, fixing it. I don’t see how you’ve pointed out this is true whereas your example is a doubtable one (15 days or 6 years? What is it? Debatable). Also, i did follow that discussion at the time it was just known so i know what i’m talking about regarding this.
less than ie, im not sure.
Then it doesn’t hold weight.
using ie by itself is probably less secure as it appears to be the target of more attacks with attackers knowing they will get the greatest results attacking something so universally used.
Because of this, from a security standpoint of view combined with a practical one, it makes sense to use an alternative for IE. And then i’m not even starting the feature discussion because i’m not so sure about that even though i regulary hear from people that they love certain features in Firefox.
but all of those mozilla exploits show us that when something becomes more popular, it too appears to be just as shoddy as the reigning king.
Relation != correlation. You haven’t proved a correlation, you’ve tried to point out and proof a relation (with which i don’t agree or disagree with, i’m open on it (15 days or 6 years)).
Anyway, i find it quite a pity IE zealots even try to draw the negative to the posotive. Its almsot as if its marketing. Just in case, i do have this image of having to do with an IE zealot. Which is not a problem per see, but i think you’re more of a power user who doesn’t have any clue about security. When discussing IE, that is a problem — unfotunately.
“Anyway, i find it quite a pity IE zealots even try to draw the negative to the posotive. Its almsot as if its marketing. Just in case, i do have this image of having to do with an IE zealot. Which is not a problem per see, but i think you’re more of a power user who doesn’t have any clue about security. When discussing IE, that is a problem — unfotunately.”
anyway, the end result is you asked for proof and got it.
anyway, no, i am not a trained security expert. but i would hazard a guess that i am as well informed about the issue as it relates to the windows platform as any non security pro.
nor am i an ie zealot. anyone that has zealotry about a web browser is a bit off their rocker. as many of my posts plainly point out, i am open to trying many different browsers: in the end all i care about is:
free (or low cost if it has some compelling reason to pay for it). i am not opposed to paying for commercial software if it is superior.
ease of use
a secure product….and of course security is always relative.
speed
total set of features
how it interacts with the net as it is, not as some standards bearers wishes it was
when i add all that up, and after extensive testing over many many years, my current browser is chosen with a well informed set of criteria met. and it is ie with a shell on top of it —that i could have chosen to use free (netcaptor) but in the end i wanted to reward the maker of the product and i would prefer to not have any additional ads to deal with.
when on my last mac i specifically used the same sets of criteria to chose not to use ie except when some sites absolutely required it. that does not make for an ie zealot does it now?
i have one linux box and obviously i do not use ie on it. i use firefox and opera (free one). that doesnt make for ie or ms zealot does it if i own a suse linux box?
many years ago in the mid 90s i was firmly a netscape user. that doesnt make for an ie zealot does it?
but when today the offerings other than ie are slower, have substantial security risks of their own (look at secunias mozilla page), have a high price (no ad version of opera), and i can extend ie to fit my needs, i choose to use ie as of now and will until something better comes along.
of the 94% or so of internet users, many could care less and dont even look to alternatives, a certain percentage evaluate somewhat like me and stay with ie (i have many tech enthusiast friends that choose ie based on rational evaluations to keep using ie), and some choose to go another route…and some of them are not well informed (totally unaware of mozilla security risks) and simply do it out of some odd political rationale.
actually dpi, you paint yourself as some sort of zealot when you deny something, ask for evidence otherwise, and when it is provided try to shovel it under the carpet.
ill be the first to admit ie’s security problems. but i too can point out over and over how many have given credit to ms for improving security and for improving fix times. you are the one that seems to be totally unaware of what ms has accomplished since they undertook their security initiative.
scariest thing for those that have that odd anti ms zealotry is if ms makes their products ever more secure they will have no more rally cry! blue screens and reliability of win 95 and 98 are long gone. only issue left is security. zealots are praying that ms doesnt get security down as well.
will be very interesting indeed to see how it goes in the future.
anyway, the end result is you asked for proof and got it
As i’ve explained in my previous post: no, you haven’t. I’m done with you. I haven’t even read your whole post. Only the first line. Its enough for me since it shows the tendancy.
IE is flawed from the roots, can be made more secure, but out of the box it isn’t. This is a danger for the health of the Internet since many people don’t take additional precautions. Out of my research i found out Microsoft’s tendancy of pro-passive patching in regards of MSIE which is significantly different than the way the Mozilla team patches. I haven’t done this regarding the past 2, 3 months but i have made up my mind regarding the past before that. Unless you provide some new sources from that past, or some sources from the past 2, 3 months you won’t be able to convince me otherwise.
As a result, i keep recommending users to try out Mozilla Firefox for both feature and security purposes. The funny thing is: these are actually reasons i hear why people chose Mozilla Firefox over MSIE.
Later.