I only care that it works -- and IE works.
As to holes... you think that, if Firefox ever gets out of single digits, it won't be targeted just as heavily?
Big target always draws the most fire.
Dan
That's the problem. Not only is IE a big target in terms of numbers, but it's HUGE in terms of vulnerabilities. Firefox is tight, secure, and presents a much smaller target in terms of ease of breaching.
| In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled EXPLORER STUMBLES AS GOOGLE EYES BROWSER MARKET, BibChr wrote: |
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I only care that it works -- and IE works. |
There are many technical and architectural reasons why IE has vulnerabilities that FireFox will never have. Unless you count the security holes as "working", it's pretty silly to claim that IE "works".
Your hypothesis of "I only care that it works -- and IE works" is wrong in so many ways. Your logic about targets is flawed too, as both ShadowAce and cooldog have pointed out.
First, I really could care less what browser I use. And, I don't use IE because it doesn't "just work". IE, as I noted in my previous post, is not just tied to the operating system, it is bolted into the OS and, as a result, makes a potentially minor application hole a HUGE system hole.
So, even if Firefox was melted by malicious code, you could uninstall the app and reinstall the app and the only thing you would lose are your favorites. When IE melts, there is a good chance that your whole system is screwed. How is that "just working"? You mean IE works right up until the point your system gets a virus or worm embedded into the registery that you can't clean out, then you have to format your hardrive? That your definition of "just working"?
Second and a conclusion to the first point, Firefox runs on top of the OS (whether Windows or Linux), so it will never suffer from this vunerability. Even with the ever-retreating release of Longhorn (Microsoft's next generation OS), where the browser (at last reports) is interlaced with every aspect of the OS, don't expect the security problem to go away. A browser that is interlaced into every aspect of the OS will not remedy this problem. In fact, it will likely give even more opportunities for security weakness.
Third, as far as the "single digits" comment. It's cheap. And, after several posts where other FREEPERs are pointing out clear ways in which IE is an inferior browser to Firefox (or Opera for that matter), you don't seem like you want to face reality.
Comparing the market share of browsers and touting Microsoft as the "winner" is, well, stupid. In fact, any Microsofty that touts the market share numbers as evidence proves Netscape's point, only 6 years after the fact. Microsoft REQUIRES IE on every OEM install. You can't uninstall IE...well, you can, but your operating system will become virtually inoperable. Which is, essentially, what Netscape was saying. Unfortunately, at that time, Netscape didn't make the best browser for the best price. Microsoft did.
However, Microsoft has made a strategic blunder in the way they handled the browser. They started tying the browser to the OS to save their ass, legally, and now it is biting them on the ass. They also made the argument that they were including the browser free of charge and that it was part of the operating system. Now they are fighting against an "up-and-comer" that is selling their browser for, well, free too. That's called irony.
Now, go back and search my posts. You will find that I had been an ardent defender of Microsoft products and a relative skeptic about open-source projects. I had always maintained that open-source (Linux in particular) had to become more user friendly to become a viable replacement to the comparable windows offerings. If the open source community could inject discpline and get rid of their hang ups about being only for the technically savvy, then they would be the best product for the best price.
Well, in large part, they have done just that.
Well, Mozilla's Firefox dev team has done that for browsers. Mozilla's open source email effort, Thunderbird, is also a very good and powerful replacement to Outlook. It's junk filter makes reading my email a cinch. In fact, it's amazing that I have gotten just about every worm or virus in the last 6 months, but nothing happens in my Inbox. I just delete the line-item and it's gone. And, if you can swallow your MSFT pride for just two seconds, I would suggest the Xandros Linux distro for a new operating system. Note that Xandros' uses CodeWeavers CrossOver Office to run Windows programs, where most of the useful windows suites --Office, MS Project, MS Access, MS Visio, Adobe's Photoshop, Lotus Notes, Quicken-- run flawlessly. And, it isn't just their marketing, that's what I use to run MS Project and Quicken everyday.
And, I have been typing this post using Firefox running on Xandros Linux. Can you tell the difference? Surely not. And why does that even matter? Well, it proves that, for just about everything people use the web for (most importantly FREEPing), Firefox is just as good as (in fact, better) than IE.
You have to face reality. The times have changed and Microsoft is behind the curve.
And, that brings me to my last point. If you want to argue my point that "Microsoft is behind the times", then you need to take it up with your boy Bill Gates. In fact, he (and his cadre of flesh-eating lawyers) was (were) THE person (people) that made that argument. Gates said, on countless occassions and on the record, that technology moves fast and any superior market position today, doesn't mean they will have it tomorrow.
Well, on that point, he's absolutely right. Now if Bill, and folks like you would admit that, maybe we could make some real progress.