Safari for Windows Receives Prominent Placement on Microsoft's European 'Browser Ballot'

[KnightWRX]

Oh, the irony of an Apple fan complaining about lockin and lack of choice...

I told you again and again, I am not an Apple fan. I love Unix and everything Unix. I happen to use a Mac at this time because I was tired of Linux on Dells.

...you mean as Microsoft unified the web with a single platform available on the majority of systems?

That's what the w3c sought to do at the time and is still doing today. And you know what ? They are doing it the proper way, including all systems and all platforms, not just One system and One platform.

There is no lock-in by following standards because they are available for all. IE ? Not so much.

Microsoft simply tried to lock the web away to Windows so they could profit from it and destroy any and all competition. You can spin it however you want, the fact is Microsoft almost succeeded in locking out everyone but Windows user from the Web. If they had done it, you wouldn't have any iPhones or Macs today. You wouldn't have Linux desktops.

All you'd have is people trying to play catch up to IE and never succeeding. Kind of like the Mono project is trying to catch up to .NET and never quite making it. Microsoft then gets to say .NET is multi-platform when it's obviously pretty much Windows only.

 

[inkswamp]

Exactly. That's the point that a lot of people miss who weren't around at them time. Microsoft certainly leveraged that advantage for as much as they could and beyond the letter of the law, but it made things better in the long run.

What an abstract bunch of bulls$%&*

How can you possibly know that?

Do you have access to some alternate reality where Microsoft didn't do that with IE? Are things just awful over in that alternate reality? Is there panic in the streets, rioting and looting 24/7? Seriously, I'd love to know how you can authoritatively state that IE "made things better." Better than... what exactly? What are you comparing it to?

You realize, I hope, that the Internet is founded on lots and lots of applications and protocols based on open, agreed-upon standards, not lots and lots of proprietary products. You don't even have history on your side to make that statement. I'm certain, in the absence of IE, standards would have been set and things would have been pushed forward. You give MS entirely too much credit, I think.

 

[inkswamp]

...you mean as Microsoft unified the web with a single platform available on the majority of systems?

I'd buy into this theory if we didn't have Microsoft's history with which to put it into its true context. If Microsoft were truly interested in unifying the Web as a single platform, then explain their kamikaze mission against Java, one of the best attempts to unify platforms.

Here's a little refresher if you need it.

It's Occam's Razor--the simplest explanation is the truth. Microsoft wanted control and stomped all over emerging technologies that threatened them. If they were interested in unifying things, they would have embraced Java wholeheartedly and would have worked with standards instead of forcing their own on everyone.

 

[SactoGuy18]

All this talk about too many corporate apps tied to how Internet Explorer 6.01 SP1 runs makes me wonder has anyone written an application that can "translate" the code written for IE 6.01 SP1 so it becomes full W3C HTML standard compliant code? If such a program exists it could make it much easier to port corporate apps so it works under Firefox 3.5.3, Safari 4.0.x, and the current Opera 10.0 (Build 1750).

 

[AidenShaw]

...then explain their kamikaze mission against Java, one of the best attempts to unify platforms....

Java - "Write once, debug everywhere"

Java is an interesting idea, but a failed implementation (how many Java installations do you have on your system?).

 

[KnightWRX]

Java - "Write once, debug everywhere"

Java is an interesting idea, but a failed implementation (how many Java installations do you have on your system?).

Funny it's failed, because otherwise I guess it would be ubiquitous. Java use is very high, especially in the enterprise and e-commerce sectors. And you know what, it works.

Most of what people say about Java (slow, ugly, buggy) comes from MS' JVM, which was an extended 1.1 Java release in a time when Sun was shipping 1.4. Of course MS didn't bother with compatibility, got sued and had to remove the product completely from their OS or call it something else.

And what does it matter that I have to have more than 1 JRE installed ? They can be installed in parallel and independantly from each other. Sun still ships updates to 1.5 and 1.6 and just ended support for 1.4 recently.

They don't drag around legacy code and cruft, they actually move forward with the platform. And it is write once, run anywhere. We're moving applications from Websphere running on Solaris Sparc to Websphere on Linux x86-64. All it takes is copy over the EAR file and it's done.

I think you really need to learn a thing or 2 about Java . It has done what .NET only promises to do and will never deliver.

Microsoft did the same for Java and the web. What you call "Unifying the platform" was actually Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

 

[AidenShaw]

And what does it matter that I have to have more than 1 JRE installed ?

Doesn't matter, as long as you have virtually infinite disk space, network bandwidth, and physical RAM.

And, if you don't care that the UI for the app looks like a 1991 Solaris X-windows app.

And, if you don't care that the UI for the app ignores all UI guidelines for the platform that you're on.

And, if you don't care that the UI for the app ignores all of the user preferences that native apps respect.

Java apps are alien life forms - they don't look or act like any thing else on your system.

Hopefully, Silverlight will finally kill that alien outbreak....

 

[KnightWRX]

Hopefully, Silverlight will finally kill that alien outbreak....

And how will Silverlight achieve that when it isn't even competing with Java ?

.NET was supposed to be the Java killer. We're still waiting on the cross-platform version of that... (Please don't say Mono... they are barely catching up to .NET 2.0, MS is on 3.5...). Moonlight is about the same as far as multi-platform Silverlight support goes.

And Java has bindings for native GUI look on about every platform now. Aqua, GTK+, Win32 widgets, name it. If you really want a native looking app that only shares its logic code, Java gives you that. If you want a quick and dirty multi-platform GUI, Java gives you that with Swing. Or you can just use the Java wxWidgets binding, write your GUI code once and have it look native on every platform. But that undermines your argument, so I guess you chose to ignore this point.

And hard drive space... really.. a 50 MiB runtime, even if installed 10 times doesn't really take all that much. And at most you need 3 concurrent versions if you really have many applications that still rely on deprecated methods of 1.4.

And J2EE doesn't have any of the flaws you speak of, because it's UI is HTML+CSS+JS. Java is not just a desktop language to write local applications.

Seriously, give up. Java is just not your cup of ... hum... I was going to say tea but ...

 

[inkswamp]

Java - "Write once, debug everywhere"

Java is an interesting idea, but a failed implementation (how many Java installations do you have on your system?).

Well, let's not get too carried away judging Java in the post-Microsoft blitz. We have no idea what it would have evolved into had it not gotten the Redmond kiss of death, had the maker of the world's most popular OS taken a more friendly stance toward it... you know, for platform unification and all that.

And as it's being pointed out by KnightWRX, Java is hardly a failure. Its usage isn't just limited to user-facing apps (which I agree are not particularly pleasant looking) and web applets. Java is used pervasively in lots of places. You can't fairly judge it on one subset of uses.

 

[CQd44]

Well, let's not get too carried away judging Java in the post-Microsoft blitz. We have no idea what it would have evolved into had it not gotten the Redmond kiss of death, had the maker of the world's most popular OS taken a more friendly stance toward it... you know, for platform unification and all that.

And as it's being pointed out by KnightWRX, Java is hardly a failure. Its usage isn't just limited to user-facing apps (which I agree are not particularly pleasant looking) and web applets. Java is used pervasively in lots of places. You can't fairly judge it on one subset of uses.

Isn't Open Office written in java? That certainly isn't a failure. It's a functional MS Office substitute for a great deal of people.

 

[BongoBanger]

What an abstract bunch of bulls$%&*

How can you possibly know that?

Because I was there at the time when there wasn't a unified approach to browsing and the ridiculous tit for tat game Netscape and Windows were playing just made things more difficult than they had to be.

Were you?

Do you have access to some alternate reality where Microsoft didn't do that with IE? Are things just awful over in that alternate reality? Is there panic in the streets, rioting and looting 24/7? Seriously, I'd love to know how you can authoritatively state that IE "made things better." Better than... what exactly? What are you comparing it to?

Better than having to code for multiple variants thus enabling a mass market platform which everybody could code for. That should be obvious - if you an agreed standard (rightly or wrongly) then things move forward much more quickly. Whilst the techies were still fine tuning the application of their standards and suggestions Microsoft just said "hey, this is what we're going to do" and executed. I'm not condoning their later actions but it made a huge difference to corporate planning.

You realize, I hope, that the Internet is founded on lots and lots of applications and protocols based on open, agreed-upon standards, not lots and lots of proprietary products.

You realise that no-one cared at the time?

You don't even have history on your side to make that statement. I'm certain, in the absence of IE, standards would have been set and things would have been pushed forward.

Exactly how? You keep repeating this mantra but you've yet to explain why multiple variants gave a better solution than a homogeneous product and how it would be 'better'.

A windows user running IE perhaps ? Maybe that's why you didn't see it as Microsoft proceeded to destroy the open web.

Nope. As a project manager who didn't want the headache of multiple platforms to deal with.

Java - "Write once, debug everywhere"

Java is an interesting idea, but a failed implementation (how many Java installations do you have on your system?).

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

 

[NicoMan]

I have to say, this really isn't true at all. Most people, including the non tech savvy, know what a browser is, and have preferences. Consumers aren't as stupid as you put them out to be. My highschool uses laptops. Almost everyone in my grade has Firefox installed, and actually prefer it over Safari. And in conversations about the internet it's mentioned.

My mom, who knows almost nothing about computers, knows what firefox and safari are. She installed FF on her MBP because she liked it better than Safari.

And for those of you saying that it doesn't matter about the people I know I have a question for you, do you actually know who thinks Google is the internet, and does not know what a web browser is? I doubt it, and if you do, it wouldn't be a lot. I have a feeling most of you are getting this information from assumptions.

I agree to disagree, then.
First I didn't mean to say that people are stupid. Many people don't want to know nor do they care. It's the term browser that I am talking about: yeah maybe in the US browser wars are front page news or whatever, but Joe Public (in Europe?) will say "I just click on the big blue e to go onto the internet".
You're citing your schoolmates: they are tech-savvy. Maybe not rocket-scientist savvy, but tech-savvy nonetheless (tell you what: I am very tech-savvy, but I can't remember the last time I had a discussion with someone outside the IT business who wanted to talk about FF or any browser for that matter). Your mom has made the decision to pick FF. I say that's great. How did she get to hear about FF or want to try it? Nevertheless, she has made a decision already (And by the way people on Apple hardware tend to think consciously about browsers because they don't have IE in the first place so they need to assimilate the fact that on a Mac instead of IE you get Safari by default). Which was precisely my point.

(damn I forgot about punctuation in the last paragraph... for those people not bored to death already, remember to breathe while reading )

 

[jayenh]

Uhhhhh. Center and to the right is most prominent. Graphic arts 101.

If it was a vertical list, different story. Big deal anyways.

This. The first browser i noticed when i looked at the image was IE.

 

[KnightWRX]

Isn't Open Office written in java? That certainly isn't a failure. It's a functional MS Office substitute for a great deal of people.

No, it's not. OpenOffice is written in C++. Sun bought Star Division late in the game. They made StarOffice, which Sun then open sourced and renamed into OpenOffice. They actually still sell StarOffice though, which is a branded build of OpenOffice nowadays.

 

[KnightWRX]

Nope. As a project manager who didn't want the headache of multiple platforms to deal with.

A desktop project manager ? Because that's about the only space Microsoft "unified" (Embraced, Extended, good thing they didn't Extinguish). And what was wrong with the W3C platform ? It was a unified platform too. It has the added advantage of not being locked into 1 vendor. I think this last part is where Microsoft didn't like it. In a consortium developped solution, they weren't in control and couldn't lock people into their platform.

On the server space, you have more fragmentation now than you had in the days of the browser wars. J2EE over Websphere, Sun Java application server, JBoss, straight Tomcat, Oracle Application server. PHP over Apache, PHP on IIS. ASP. ASP.NET. Ruby on Rails. The list goes on and on and on.

Again, you're trying to justify to unjustifiable. The fact is Microsoft tried to lock the Web away from users of anything but Windows and Internet Explorer. There would be no iPhone, no Safari, no Linux desktops, no Solaris desktops. There would be no mobile Web, no tablets.

They didn't help the web at all, they set it back a good 5-6 years and we're just now catching up and going back down the path of innovation.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

All this talk about too many corporate apps tied to how Internet Explorer 6.01 SP1 runs makes me wonder has anyone written an application that can "translate" the code written for IE 6.01 SP1 so it becomes full W3C HTML standard compliant code? If such a program exists it could make it much easier to port corporate apps so it works under Firefox 3.5.3, Safari 4.0.x, and the current Opera 10.0 (Build 1750).

The problem isn't layout or even HTML/JS for the most part, it's activeX controls. There was a time that in order to provide some types of functionality that you had to use either java applets or activeX controls. From a corporate standpoint, if the site is internal and working why spend any money changing it?

 

[rekhyt]

This was a mess to begin with.

Yep.

 

[rams]

just shuffle it every time. so everybody will be happy

 

[ranguvar]

If you really want a native looking app that only shares its logic code, Java gives you that.

I'm interested in that: As far as I know, Apple dropped the Java bridge in 2005 and since then the best you can get is either using different L&Fs, or custom controls (like Ken Orr's), or via the JNI. Am I missing something on getting a truly native looking app with Java?

 

[BongoBanger]

A desktop project manager ? Because that's about the only space Microsoft "unified" (Embraced, Extended, good thing they didn't Extinguish). And what was wrong with the W3C platform ?

Nothing. They just weren't quick enough to market. I'm not justifying it - I'm just telling you how it was.

They didn't help the web at all, they set it back a good 5-6 years and we're just now catching up and going back down the path of innovation.

Then demonstrate exactly how and what the trade offs against having a mass market proposition were. That's all I'm asking.

 

[lOUDsCREAMEr]

page 3 news ftw

 

[CQd44]

No, it's not. OpenOffice is written in C++. Sun bought Star Division late in the game. They made StarOffice, which Sun then open sourced and renamed into OpenOffice. They actually still sell StarOffice though, which is a branded build of OpenOffice nowadays.

Ahh. I stand corrected.

 

[sadpanda]

What a non-issue

Users expect a browser to be bundled with their OS. Imagine if Microsoft shipped a copy of Win7 with no browser at all—no one would buy it, ever. The internet is such a basic and essential part of a computer at this point that to not include a browser would hinder an operating system to the point of making it noncompetitive. Windows bundles IE. Apple bundles Safari. Ubuntu bundles Firefox. Various other flavors of Linux bundle various other browsers, and every single smart-phone OS bundles some sort of browser, and you usually have even less choice in the mobile world. Bundling a browser isn't anti-competitive, it's common sense. Time for the EC to quit whining and let Microsoft do business.

 

[OllyW]

Users expect a browser to be bundled with their OS. Imagine if Microsoft shipped a copy of Win7 with no browser at all—no one would buy it, ever.

That's what nearly happened, before the 'Browser Ballot' idea was accepted by the EC.

At least one person would have bought it as I ordered my copy while it was still browser less.

 

[VoR]

Users expect a browser to be bundled with their OS. Imagine if Microsoft shipped a copy of Win7 with no browser at all—no one would buy it, ever. The internet is such a basic and essential part of a computer at this point that to not include a browser would hinder an operating system to the point of making it noncompetitive. Windows bundles IE. Apple bundles Safari. Ubuntu bundles Firefox. Various other flavors of Linux bundle various other browsers, and every single smart-phone OS bundles some sort of browser, and you usually have even less choice in the mobile world. Bundling a browser isn't anti-competitive, it's common sense. Time for the EC to quit whining and let Microsoft do business.

The EC aren't whining or looking out for average joe, they know microsoft do/are big business and like to cash in on companies wherever possible.