The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)

NYT ^ | December 19, 2004 | RANDALL STROSS

[mathprof]

FIREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.

Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.

Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.

With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.

[Condor51]

Firefox ROCKS!

[blues_guitarist]

"Mr. Schare may be the official spokesman, but he does not use Internet Explorer himself. Instead he uses Maxthon, published by a little company of the same name. It uses the Internet Explorer engine but provides loads of features that Internet Explorer does not."

"(From www.maxthon.com) Maxthon is free. But if you are enjoying your new surfing experience, please Donate or Promote Maxthon to help us develop it and keep it the best."

Hmmm . . . Sounds a little like the open source model to me. Yuk, yuk, yuk!

[clyde asbury]

Microsoft will probably buy Firefox, and rename it.

MS-DOS was only renamed and tweaked from another company's DOS, too.

[WKB]

Thanks I needed that!!

[gobucks]

Yep, yep indeedy. Using it for three months now.

For once, no headaches at ALL. Prior to that, blue screens, lock ups, constant scanning for trash and junk, slow performance.

Deleting IE was one of the smartest moves I ever made computing wise.

[TomGuy]

I used Netscape until around 4.7. It got to be glutware and crashed constantly and was sending gobs of data back to Netscape.

I could load a page and it would crash. Load the same page in IE 4 and no problem.

I gave up on Netscape and went to IE. I then found Fastbrowser, which was one of the first tabbed browsers (using the IE engine) and had computer speak (good for letting the computer read aloud lengthy FR news articles).

I have been running FireFox some. Pluses include its tabbed browsing and the computer speak extension (called FoxyVoice). There are some webpage features that it doesn't support. Otherwise, it is pretty good.

Tabbed browsers are excellent for websites such as FR. I am surprised that MS is so far behind the curve on browser improvements.

[Condor51]

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere.

NO OFFENSE, but you must be young. YES Windows was ripped off, from Apple.

In short, when MS was a little bitty company, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs hired MS (Gates) to write an OS or some programs (IIRC). When Gates saw the Apple 'windows' look he basically said to his people 'steal it', make it ours. They did, and it was.

[ExTexasRedhead]

I'm not computer savvy--how do I go about changing from IE to Firefox? I have XP Pro and haven't added SP2 because of warnings from friends who have had SP2 trash their PC's. Okay, you computer guys--don't laugh.

[ohCompGk]

Also, I haven't been able to figure out how to save a site link on my desk top.

You have to add an extension to get this featture. You can find it here: deskCut 0.4.1

[KoRn]

The only thing I will give credit to M$ for is they did make using a computer easy for 'average' people. They also made local networking easy and smooth to implement.

[Condor51]

..there are some webpage features that it doesn't support.

That's been taken care of. There's an extension download. "IE" web pages will work just fine.

[TomGuy]

The start que doesn't show me my favorites

Try this:

Start >> Settings >> Taskbar and Start Menu >> Start Menu Tab >> Customize button

Scroll down the list and check the box for 'Display Favorites'

[clyde asbury]

Firefox is my default browser, too. It has its weaknesses, tho.

Adobe docs give it problems, and there are reports of security holes. Not nearly as many as with IE.

MS seems to release IE security updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

[HangnJudge]

Yup - DOS was a direct rip off from
OS/8 & PAL-8 from PDP8 DEC minicomputers
It was amazing to be able to run FORTRAN in 4K

[Salo]

I've got Firefox (and have since about 0.8). Love it. There's a security flaw with it now involving pop-ups (which are disabled by default) that also affects IE and opera. I put in the adblock and SpoofStick extensions for added convenience and safety.

MS had better get back to the drawing board with IE, and had better do so rapidly: FF has gotten mindshare and is increasing penetration - and, unlike MS's penetration, no one is getting screwed over. ;-)

[KoRn]

" NO OFFENSE, but you must be young"

No offense taken :-). I am young, and a n00b when it comes to how long I've been into computers(3 years). The combination of being fascinated by computers, and being driven has lead me to a couple of certifications, and a good job in the field. :-)

Still, so much to learn......

That's why I got into computers, the learning never stops, and you can't ever learn it all!

[TomGuy]

MS has never been an innovator in anything

I heard Gates at a computer conference in the early 90's say something to the effect that 'good ideas are meant to be borrowed; great ideas are meant to be stolen'.

Both MS-DOS and Windows are 'borrowed' from ideas/concepts developed by others early in the desktop computer history.

[B Knotts]

WARNING: Open Source can be addictive.

Next thing you know, y'all will be running Linux!

[Salo]

MS and Apple both snagged the gui idea from Xerox. Apple had the first gui to market (IIRC), and MS copied the "look and feel" of it. Btw, Xerox also invented ethernet.

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere.

[clyde asbury]

YES Windows was ripped off, from Apple.

Yep.

Similarly, MS-DOS was ripped off from CP/M. It was before my time, but my university profs used to tell how nice of an operating system it was until MS stepped in.