Interesting story about alternative browsers.

[jeremy.king]

I was reading this story

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=575&e=18&u=/nm/column_livewire_dc

and found it interesting the phrasing of this paragraph near the bottom.

"But there is a downside to each of the alternative browsers. Since Internet Explorer is still the industry standard, some pages may not appear correctly with Opera, Safari and Firefox."

The author seems to imply that Microsoft is the standard. What a crock! Even the press has been misled by the darkside.

 

[PlaceofDis]

no big surprise, but it is a shame, people think that IE is right just because it comes standard on every windows box, they never stop to think that the alternative browsers might be conforming the the standards better than IE, even though they dont come pre-loaded on the machine

 

[edesignuk]

people think that IE is right just because it comes standard on every windows box, they never stop to think that the alternative browsers might be conforming the the standards better than IE, even though they dont come pre-loaded on the machine

As long as IE ships with Windows this will always be the case. My dad and brother use IE because it's there and works, it's a simple as that for them.

 

[Brother Michael]

Which is exactly why the Firefox community is pulling out all the stops to get their browser out in the hands of the public. They are not content with being a small market share of intelligent web surfers, they are looking to change the whole face of the internet.

The best thing you can do to help them is whenever you help someone with Windows, make sure that you leave a footprint in the form of Firefox on their machine.

Mike

 

[jeremy.king]

The best thing you can do to help them is whenever you help someone with Windows, make sure that you leave a footprint in the form of Firefox on their machine.

This is something I have made a habit of. I've become a bit of a Firefox enthusiast, although I still must develop to IE, as most clients require this. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to sway those in charge........yet

 

[grapes911]

The author seems to imply that Microsoft is the standard. What a crock! Even the press has been misled by the darkside.

While IE isn't a IEEE standard or anything, it is hard to argue that it isn't an unoffical standard. Lets be honest. There are still sites that only support IE. I would guess that in the next five years, that will change.

 

[bux]

While IE isn't a IEEE standard or anything, it is hard to argue that it isn't an unoffical standard. Lets be honest. There are still sites that only support IE. I would guess that in the next five years, that will change.

And there's also many pages that doesn't support IE

 

[grapes911]

And there's also many pages that doesn't support IE

There are, but I'd bet (even though I have no facts to back this up) that there are many more pages that only work correctly with IE, than only working with other browsers.

 

[jeremy.king]

My point was with the authors phrasing. It could have been a bit more critical of Microsoft's failure to support the evolving W3C standards or how many website authors fail to ensure compatibility with standards-compliant browsers.

The way its phrased, makes the casual reader think that these BETTER browsers are rendering pages wrong, which is NOT the case. They are rendered the way they are coded...SLOPPY.

 

[tomf87]

It may or may not be due to sloppy code. It is most likely related to using IE-specific features.

To be honest, I've seen some W3C standard code that is very sloppy and wouldn't pass the validators because of missing closing tags and no doctype declarations.

 

[jeremy.king]

I've seen some W3C standard code that is very sloppy and wouldn't pass the validators because of missing closing tags and no doctype declarations.

How can it fail validation and be standard compliant? I'm not sure I agree with that statement.

 

[cluthz]

Hehe, now to some good news..
I talked to my father yesterday and he told me that his bank didn't allow login with IE anymore because of some security reasons
Seems that Mozilla is the most compatible browser with internet banks now.
Never had any trouble using mozilla.

 

[tomf87]

How can it fail validation and be standard compliant? I'm not sure I agree with that statement.

I meant using standard code that complies with all browsers and not using code that was directed toward one specific browser, like IE DHTML or ActiveX. You can use standards compliant coding, but fail validators for syntax.

I guess I'm not explaining myself well...

 

[jeremy.king]

You can use standards compliant coding, but fail validators for syntax.

I guess I'm not explaining myself well...

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but if the said code is going to be standards compliant, it would have to pass validation, that's part of the contract.

I understand that even if people don't try to use cute little IE features, they can still write sloppy code, but it wont comply with W3C standards, therefore its still not compliant. Speaking of which, most of these problems would be caught if IE didn't fix code problems for the developer, such as missing close tags and such. Oh well...

I guess I am excited that Firefox is gaining steam (mostly due to standards compliance and extensibility) and IE has stalled somewhat as far as feature development goes. Hmm.... Isn't this what happened a few years back when NS lost popularity (combined with the fact IE was on every Windows desktop).

 

[Benjamin]

yeah it isn't standard with w3 however it is standard and integrated in 90% or more of the personal computers out there unfortunately

 

[Rower_CPU]

The only official standards are the W3C ones - MS' "standards" are not, they are proprietary. It's a semantics game, but saying something that's widely adopted due to MS' market dominance is a standard is not accurate.

 

[Apple Hobo]

This is why IE is a festering rectal sore on the bunghole of the internet.

I'd love to see an überworm released by some gang of hardcore 733t cyber-ninjas that crushes everything related to IE on the entire internet. The internet for IE lemmings would grind to a halt, while the alternative browser users would surf on an MS-free, standards-compliant internet. Any site that is unnecessarily Windows-dependent would crash and cause its own server to burst into flames. Muahahahahahaha! Someday perhaps...

 

[davecuse]

This is why IE is a festering rectal sore on the bunghole of the internet.

I'd love to see an überworm released by some gang of hardcore 733t cyber-ninjas that crushes everything related to IE on the entire internet. The internet for IE lemmings would grind to a halt, while the alternative browser users would surf on an MS-free, standards-compliant internet. Any site that is unnecessarily Windows-dependent would crash and cause its own server to burst into flames. Muahahahahahaha! Someday perhaps...

Yes IE sucks, but viruses are by far the greater of two evils. I wouldn't wish those types of headaches on anyone.