[thelist] Re: news.com article on browsers and mainstream sites etc..

Tim Luoma luomat at peak.org
Tue Jul 9 08:19:01 CDT 2002


Daniel Medley wrote:

>Too bad web designers couldn't
>just unify and say, "we're doing everything in a compliant manner. How the
>browsers deal with it is not our concern." If business and individual users
>want to have full use of the web and your work then they better get
>compliant browsers. If not, tough.
>

Well that is certainly part of the problem, as the folks on WaSP
discussed[1].... it's the web-writers of the world who have embraced
these various hacks and proprietary extensions who hold at least part of
the blame.  For a good long while there were few tools if any that
supported standards, and neither of the main 2 browsers did.

That's no longer the case, so we have to stop using them.

The problem, as I see it, is that there will never, ever be a version of
Internet Explorer that does not include some proprietary functions.
 Why?  Because if it did then there would be no reason to use IE over
another browser, and really, if your computer came with no browser at
all and you had the choice between 2 browsers  -- one of which had a
regular dose of security holes that could compromise your system (IE)
and the other which didn't (say, Mozilla) which would you use?

All things (wrt standards) being equal, browsers have to depend on
either their UI (look and feel, stability, etc) or proprietary
extensions, albeit plugins or HTML-muckery.

Well I will grant that I haven't had IE crash on me in a long time (then
again I only use it when I have to) but as far as UI goes, as far as the
feel I get when I am using it, I'd rather use Opera (which, in fact, I do).

Do you ever see a scenario where IE will be willing to play on a level
field -- no proprietary hacks, and you have to download IE off their
website (oh, and MSDN and windowsupdate.microsoft.com and all their
other sites will be compliant too)?  HECK NO.  It will never happen.
 IIRC, MS still requires that IE be on the desktop if anything is on the
desktop.  They still require a link to MSN if any ISP link is on the
desktop.  They are not going to risk one iota of their illegally gained
market"share".

Someone wrote to me not long ago saying that they didn't think it was
proper for me to be so upset about MS and their tactics.  They asked me
what Microsoft had ever done to me.  It's not what they've done to me,
it's what they've done to everyone.  I don't hate them, I fear them,
because they will take whatever they can get and if Gates has any
abilities at all they are for crow-barring into a market and taking it
over (see WordPerfect, see Netscape, see any of the other companies
they've done it to....)  "Freedom to innovate".... yeah.... tell me what
Microsoft has innovated that wasn't built on the work of others....

Anyway, it's a nice idea (your quote above) but never going to happen.
 All we can hope is that it gets better.

TjL


[1] http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53026,00.html







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