In Front: Microsoft's Worst Nightmare

Business 2.0 ^ | October 20, 2004 | Om Malik,

[budman_2001]

Blake Ross is lounging at his parents' Florida Keys condo, thinking ahead to his first day back at Stanford. His goal for his sophomore year: nothing less than to "take back the Web" from Microsoft (MSFT).

You might think the shy 19-year-old is outmatched. Think again. Ross, a software prodigy who interned at Netscape at age 14, is the lead architect behind Mozilla's Firefox -- a revolutionary new browser that's catching on the way Mosaic did in 1993. In beta for the past four months, Firefox version 1.0 is set to be released in November. With that, Ross will issue the first truly formidable challenge to Internet Explorer that the world has seen in seven years.

"We're hoping for 10 million downloads in 10 days," Ross says proudly.

http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,714129,00.html

[RayChuang88]

What I'd like to see is Firefox combined with Thunderbird to create an all-new Mozilla suite version. Firefox is an interesting web browser but it has a lot of quirks that does take some getting used to if you're used to Internet Explorer 5.x/6.x versions.

By the way, if you install an addon for IE named Maxthon you get essentially most of the functionality of Firefox--the current version is fully compatible with the IE that comes with Windows XP Service Pack 2.

[GeronL]

And lucritive, considering MS IE's security strategy of whack-a-mole that has CIOs feeling like they are chasin' their tails.

Thats true.

[GeronL]

I never said I liked Microsoft. I have Service Pack 2 downloaded but I don't want to install it. How do I erase it??

[Psycho_Bunny]

The only flaw I can find with Firefox is that full-screen/kiosk mode won't integrate with the autohide of the Start bar and the Firefox menu/toolbar won't autohide, either.

If they could get that working well, Firefox would dominate the market.

[budman_2001]

Have you tried the "Open in IE" extension? Works great!

[yellowhammer]

Thanks for the tip about MaxThon. Is it free also?

[JoJo Gunn]

I tried Java for Mozilla/Firefox, mainly because of NOAA radar sites. It's a crash prone mess, and it dumps the cache, which is very irritating since I'm a dialup user. The latest Java I tried (loaded from their latest CD), and uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs, it absolutely broke the Java VM that IE uses that came with Windows! And some moron know-it-all at the Mozilla forum had the nerve to tell me it was the OS (Windows ME), not the fault of Sun programmers who couldn't code a clean uninstall.

I mean, dang, if they can't write code that'll recognize their own stuff and not touch it....

[yellowhammer]

I just found the web site at http://www.maxthon.com and it does say it's free.

[familyop]

...sorry. I have no idea as to how to erase it, because I've been using other operating systems since the mid-'90s.

Anyone: how can GeronL remove Service Pack 2?

[GeronL]

or should I?? I have no ability or money to fix what problems it will cause. Is there a case for installing it anyway??

[eaglewing20]

If it is free, that sounds like a bad business model

That's what they told Bill Gates.

[Jeff Chandler]

I tried Firefox with great hopes, but it was too buggy.

[skepsel]

"...digerati..." LOL!

[budman_2001]

Try this MS website:

How to Remove Windows XP Service Pack 2

[goldstategop]

Yes. I have Service Pack 2 installed with NO problems. Make a restore point just in case with System Restore BEFORE you proceed. Then let it make the changes to Windows XP.

[Straight Vermonter]

I've used Firefox for quite a while but I haven't figured out what the advantage is to using tabs as opposed to opening another browser. Does it run faster that way?

[GeronL]

It asks that I make a backup... I can't burn 6CD's, I don't have that many blank ones or the time. Would a System Restore be enough???

[budman_2001]

Tabs make the task bar at the bottom of the screen much less cluttered.

I have only one FF task. Sometimes, I have 6-8 (6 right now) browser pages open which adds to the task bar icons.

Tabs allow me to have more/other apps open that I can readily identify (like 2-3 MS Word Docs or something) which don't conform to the tabs' paradigm.

[GeronL]

Thanks

[familyop]

There are quite a few help, review and tutorial sites on the Web for MS users. Some keywords in a search engine should get you to several. ...wish I could help more.

I run BSD UNIX systems for the development environment (can write software for just about anything with them) and security. ...started using Linux in the early '90s after evil punks cracked my MS box but later switched to BSD from Linux after some Euro newbies on the Linux user e-mail lists started their anti-American, snotty talk. It happens when an operating system gets really popular. As rotten as some Berkeley departments are (you know, Psych., Soc., English, whatever, as with most universities), the departments in the sciences (like Computer Science) are more strictly technical, as are most developers (programmers) everywhere. Even the French developers are helpful and decent, unlike most of their countrymen.