Posted on 07/19/2005 10:13:44 AM PDT by Keyes2000mt
We all know those people, who are intolerant of other viewpoints, who push their views on you and shove them down your throat and accuse you of sorts of evil if you won't go their way.
I'm not referring to members of any religious group, I'm talking about the Fire Fox Hippies. We all know Fire Fox hippies they tell us Fire Fox is the waive of the future and gives us an opportunity to "fight the power, man." We're told its more secure and only a fool would use Internet Explorer because of its gaping security holes.
Today we get this news from Web Watch:
SpreadFirefox.com, the community marketing website for the open-source Firefox web browser, was hacked last week, potentially exposing user data.Attackers broke into the website by exploiting an unpatched security vulnerability in the software that runs SpreadFirefox.com, the Mozilla Foundation said in an email alert to registered users of the site on Thursday...
Mozilla believes the machine was hacked to use it to send spam, according to the email. However, it is possible attackers obtained usernames and passwords and any other information people may have provided to the site, such as email and home addresses, birth dates and instant-messaging names, Mozilla said.
Oh, yeah, I feel so safe with FireFox on my computer. I'm glad that only my wife uses it. A day for Humble Pie for the FireFox hippies including Radical Russ who stills has a button on his front page reading, "Get Firefox, the browser you can trust."
FireFox and Linux users are like liberals in their devotion and zeal to promote their cause ('open source')
I know I have to work to feed my family and I do not want code I write to be given (or taken) away free
Hardly a "hippy" by any cultural definition.
And, Mr. K, open-source is a nebulous term and Firefox and/or Linux are only 2 examples of what "open source" is. The open source concept is more based in the idea of collaborative effort (i.e., teamwork) than some socialist/liberal/hippy notion of utopia.
And, if you are making an arguement that Linux (the primary open source project of note) doesn't make money, you need to check your facts.
Novell, the largest Linux distributor and provider of Linux services had 1.165 billion (yes, BILLION) last year (Source)
Meanwhile, Red Hat (the #2 in market share) pulled in almost $200 million in 2004 (Source).
Now, I'm not getting into what's better --Windows or Linux, but your statements simply aren't valid.
Agreed. I'm a Linux developer and use both Windows and Linux, and I prefer Firefox, though I'm beginning to like Opera. I'm nowhere near a hippie. They all serve a purpose.
Don't want free code? I guess you should dump Internet Explorer too. I don't really care about the hippie advocates of Firefox, I use it because it's just a better browser.
where on earth did you draw that conclusion from? I was talking about 'open source' zealots- i.e. trying to force their views on others...
I'm not talking about all FireFox users, just the FireFox evangelists and you know they're out there.
I wasn't talking about that- I was talking about the people who insist you use Linux and Firefos- and they remind me of liberals trying to push their agenda on you.
Persoanlly (as a software engineer) I KNOW linux is a superior operating system- I can program for Windows and Linux and I dont care which- as long as they pay me. But 95% of the market is wondows so I do more windows work.
I use FireFox, but I'm not a FireFox "evangelist". The main thing that keeps me using it is that I can open up a new page in a tab, instead of having to open up a new window (as in IE, although I understand there is a seperate add on that would allow me to do that with IE).
And next time Microsoft or Firefox offers you a security patch, just think to yourself: "Your computer has been wide-open for months now, someone notified us of a security defect today, here is your patch."
And, to be quite frank, I'm what you might called a Firefox evangelist. I also am a Linux users (2 distros actually - Xandros and Fedora Core) and am quite happy with that. I also have 2 Windows machines (XP Pro) which I use also, albeit more and more reluctantly.
Xandros is a particularly good distribution especially for Windows user who want a very easy-to-use GUI. And it has Code Weavers CrossOver Office, which makes using the more popular (and, argueably, the only necessary) Windows applications such as Office, Quicken, QuickBooks, etc.
I moved to OpenOffice.org's productivity suite and am not only contented, but find that it is a much more robust tool. I can configure that application in ways that Office would never allow.
I used to be a very strong advocate for Microsoft. Not because I was a Microsoft fan or a Bill Gates groupie (and there are plenty of those "out there" too), but because Linux hadn't tackled the usability issue. With the desktop Linux development that has occurred over the last 2 years, however, Linux has just as good a GUI as Windows and in some cases, the desktops are much more impressive than any Windows machine.
And, while drivers issues are still cited, it is only because manufacturers haven't had to contemplate anything other than a Microsoft Windows environment. It will still be an issue, but less and less the case because of the general move to standards-based approach to hardware development and the software (i.e., the drivers) that run the hardware.
I might note that Microsoft is even coming around to an "open source" approach. In fact, they recently have been hosting several conferences involving the Linux community in particular. Now, it is probably doing that so it can rape the community from the inside-out, but if there intentions are otherwise, it's an indication that even Microsoft is "getting it".
I have posted this a few times on FR, but Microsoft's big mistakes were 1) they started designing their browser (Internet Explorer) in a legal argument, not from technologically-sound principles and 2) they stopped listening to their customers.
How? Once they started arguing that IE was part of the Windows OS (which it actually wasn't prior to the legal argument), they tied IE down to the OS.
The result: ActiveX controls that could run across the web, through the browser, and take complete control of a users system. The spyware and zombie issue is almost entirely because of this technically-inept approach.
Then, when their customers cried out for help ("someone needs to do something about these viruses, pop-ups, spybots, etc"). Microsoft's swift response was, "Here's a patch. Wait for Longhorn."
So, you can see why projects like Firefox spring up. That's why very secure OS's (like Linux) have worked on their GUI and offered an alternative.
And, I would note that if you are still using IE and/or Outlook (or Outlook Express), you really need to move to Firefox and Thunderbird. I haven't had 1 virus on my Windows machine since I started using them. Believe it or not, it's true.
Yeah, I believed it, and downloaded both. Firefox crashed within three days and Thunderbird never worked at all. So I'm back with the ones that work even though I have to run garbage collection programs.
Oh, well. Try Opera for a browser.
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