Posted
18 June 2004 @ 9 AM

Tagged
windows, security, open_source, web

The Browser Upgrade Campaign heats up

Its the latest salvo fired against Internet Explorer. Security Focus has joined the widespread campaign exhorting people to move away from the buggy, insecure, dangerous piece of software, and the source of many of the headaches that security pros have to endure. Before them, it was LockerGnome, an MCSE who has been frustrated with IE's security track record, their I-don't-care attitude towards major bug fixes and worst Web Standards support among browsers. Before that was the interview of Scott Collins of mozilla.org on Ars Technica. And then you have the whole Internet community.

Then there are the two discussion threads(one, two) on channel9.msdn.com where everybody is shouting about whether MS cares about web developers and the lack of features in IE. There are ample indications that Microsoft is feeling the heat. You can see Tony Chor answering questions and clarifying in the threads. To summarise the happenings in the forums, after the launch of IE 6.0 in the second half of 2001, MS moved developers from the IE group to the MSN Explorer group. So there was no one in IE to listen to customers' problems. There hasn't been a feature update since then. To believe them, the whole IE group managed only to release security fixes for bugs (and they were quite bad at that too). Now they say, the group is back to work on a newer version of IE including a couple of feature updates in XPSP2. Still the attitude is being non-committal on including complete CSS2 support and PNG alpha transparency. They have managed to put up a wiki for feature requests. I don't know how that is going to help them.

Get Firefox

So what is the benchmark? What is everyone recommending to move to? Which browser is high up in terms of security and is standards-complaint better than any other browser? You don't have to take a second guess.

5 Comments (closed)

Posted by
Sri

23 June 2004 @ 10 AM

Opera is good too.

Posted by
Nilesh

21 June 2004 @ 6 PM

I believe too!

Posted by
Nick

22 June 2004 @ 4 AM

I don't see how Firefox or Mozilla will ever become the dominant browser. I guess the one legitimate shot they have would be if they could get a major player like Dell to make it the default browser for all of their machines. The average user just doesn't care. They don't even know there is an alternative to Internet Explorer. I'd be even willing to bet that a double digit percentage of people think that IE is the Internet.

Posted by
Manish Jethani

19 June 2004 @ 4 AM

I've been using Phoenix (before it changed a few names to become Firefox) since pretty much 0.1 days. It's fantastic, and I think it's got a chance of becoming the dominant browser around (esp. if MS sit around and do nothing).

Posted by
Anonymous

05 July 2004 @ 9 PM

I've been loving Firefox since it was Firebird at .6. I also love it's mail partner Thunderbird. I agree with Nick. Most people I say "Open up the internet" as if its like a program with a blue "e" icon. They have no idea what the web really is. Firefox, Opera, and others will become more popular as MS sits around, but will never claim most of the market until PC manufacturers pre-install it. Right now I think Safari has a better shot at Microsoft's throne, with all the new stuff Apple has been doing. As long as mozilla keeps it up, I'm happy. Everyone else can moan in misery at their viruses and slow productivity while I laugh silently.