I'm excerpting the Firefox bits. You can get your free daypass or whatever if you want to see the rest.
Posted by asa at December 27, 2004 12:31 AMAn open-source slam dunk
In the summer of 1999, Salon was invited to observe a showdown at PC Week's testing labs in Foster City, Calif., between Microsoft Windows and Linux. The atmosphere was tense. The Linux representatives were young and arrogant; Microsoft's were middle-aged and arrogant. But at perhaps no moment did the Microsoft reps' self-satisfaction shine through more irritatingly than when they noted the superiority of their in-house approach to software development as compared to the collaborative, distributed, open-source way of doing business. Look at the browser market, one marketing manager noted. A year before, Netscape had released the code to its browser and started the Mozilla project. But it was going nowhere, and in the meantime Internet Explorer 5.0 was taking over.
To open-source advocates, the comment was cutting. Netscape had generated oodles of media hype when it released the source code to its browser, but there was no denying Microsoft's ensuing total domination of the market.
At Salon, we've covered the saga of Mozilla closely ever since, and we've marked several points at which we thought the Mozilla browser had made significant progress. But it often seemed we were shouting at deaf ears. Internet Explorer continued to reign supreme, and when we told our friends and relatives that there was an alternative, they looked at us kind of funny -- like: all that free software stuff was cute back in 1999, but now you're beginning to sound like one of those freaks who still think the Amiga computer is set for a big comeback.
Then came 2004, the release of the 1.0 version of Firefox, the stand-alone Mozilla browser, and the consequent first decline in Microsoft's browser market share in years.
Back in 1999, everything happened on Internet time. But writing good code isn't easy to speed up. Firefox is welcome proof that open-source software programs can be user friendly, easy to install, and competitive with Microsoft. If Salon awarded a Program of the Year medal, it would go to Firefox.
-- Andrew Leonard
I wouldn't go bragging too much.. considering MS hasn't been really working on IE in years.. and their liable too come out swinging to get their browser market share back.
Posted by: Hellsbellboy on December 27, 2004 05:55 AMI wouldn't go bragging too much.. considering MS hasn't been really working on IE in years.. and their liable too come out swinging to get their browser market share back.
GREAT! Seems like, as a consumer, a winning proposition for me. Mozilla has breathed life back into the browser market and forced MS to get back into the 'innovating' game. This leads to new features and a better user experience. Even if IE 7.0 ends up being better than Firefox 2.0 (or whatever the next battle numbers are) that will make me happy because no matter what, we, the consumers, will have a better product in our hands. Seems like a win-win situation.
Posted by: tim on December 27, 2004 05:47 PMI agree with tim. I'm a web developer, and nothing boils my pot more that writing a standards compliant website only to find out it doesn't render correctly on IE. Then I end up spending the rest of my time getting the darn thing working on IE, because I don't want to cut out 85% of the market. If FireFox and other alternatives finally force M$ to support the W3C standards, I'll be one happy camper, even if I never use IE again (as I haven't for years, unless I had to).
Posted by: Yacoubean on December 27, 2004 07:47 PMGood points. Except "easy to install"? The Firefox installer is possibly the worst I've ever seen (except RealPlayer which just assumes total control of your computer).
Posted by: matt on December 30, 2004 02:05 PM