Business Must Be Cautious With Firefox

Computerworld ^ | JANUARY 24, 2005 | Michael Gartenberg

[holymoly]

When Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer tightly with its operating systems and allowed the browser to execute Windows code, it created a double-edged sword ticking time-bomb.

There, I fixed it.

[Petronski]

But business users need to think twice about making the switch from Internet Explorer, since Firefox lacks the ability to run Microsoft ActiveX code.

Silly silly silly. Adopting Firefox does NOT mean IE goes away. It is built in, and not really removable.

And the inability to run ActiveX is in most cases a virtue, not a vice.

[evolved_rage]

Did the mark this "Special Advertisment Section" like they do in PC World?

[facedown]

Bump!

[Knitebane]

Lacking strong competition, Internet Explorer was no longer a strategic product for Microsoft, and few resources were devoted to it, other than those needed to fix bugs and security holes.

Fixed bugs only after a certain number of people reported one.

And people still don't understand why a monopoly is bad for the market?

[srm913]

I downloaded Firefox a month ago and never looked back.
The tabbed browser feature is fantastic, and the nifty bandwidth tester plugin is great.
I also love the automatic popup blocker.
All in all, a worthwhile investment-
Oh wait, it's FREE!

[JoJo Gunn]

My instant response to the headline is "and nobody has to be careful with IE???"

[mlbford2]

In the last year, since switching to FF, I have only had to use IE once for AXC.

[wagglebee]

If I was into conspiracies, I would think that Microcrap developed the problems with IE just to keep the computer market active and growing.

[BruceysMom]

I downloaded Firefox after seeing it praised on a thread here at FreeRepublic. I love it. I have DSL and it runs so much faster with Firefox. The only time I use IE is when I want to play solitaire at msn's game site. Requires the ActiveX. I'd like to use Thunderbird but last time I checked it wasn't compatible with msn's email program (which is not much more sophisticated that the old tincan and string hook up)

[Utilizer]

Running Opera for literally years now, and ATGuard as the firewall. Wish I could figure out a way to implement the ATGuard functions in Linux -I would switch this machine over in a heartbeat. Need to run some CAD programs on the other machines and they only work in a 'Doze environment, otherwise I would work totally in Linux.

[JoJo Gunn]

There are many who believe that MS and Norton and McAfee, et al, have a major hand in all the spyware and viruses. It's kind of like all those outfits such as Easter Seals and the Cancer Society. Do you really believe they want to "eradicate" what they're in business for?

MS finally puts it's name to a piece of anti-spyware, and what's the first thing it does? It strips away protection for the untold millions upon millions of 9x users, which the program had before MS took over. I'm not one to believe in global warming or little green men who favor strawberry ice cream, yet what kind of message did MS send?

[WIladyconservative]

I use Firefox and Thunderbird and I'm not all that pleased with them. I used to use Netscape, so I'm familiar with how they work.

The problem I have is that they won't stay out of my prefetch windows directory and when I close them, they remain active(sometimes in multiples!). I have to open the task manager and stop the process to get them to close completely.

I've spent a lot of time on Mozilla support forums and no one has a definitive answer as to why this keeps happening.

I DO like the addition of spoofstick, though. Tells you a lot of info but takes up very little space.

[PAR35]

If major corporations adopt Firefox, it will have a negative effect on the economy. Thousands of folks now being employed to try to secure corporate systems will be laid off as the need for them vanishes. The trickle down effect of folks abandoning IE could throw the whole country into a recession.

[AFreeBird]

That might even happen before Longhorn ships.

I don't see how since IE is built in to windoze. You can't rewite IE without rewriting the OS.

It was a stupid idea to integrate IE and the OS. When I first heard about MS' proposal on ActiveX as their answer to Java, I knew it was a bad idea and MS didn't let my intuition down.

[arasina]

And the inability to run ActiveX is in most cases a virtue, not a vice.

Ain't dat da troot!

[arasina]

MS finally puts it's name to a piece of anti-spyware, and what's the first thing it does? It strips away protection for the untold millions upon millions of 9x users, which the program had before MS took over.

Evidently Microsoft believes in 'planned obsolescence' because it keeps their market moving.

I haven't switched to Firefox from Mozilla because I'm not certain if I want a separate email program. Is Firefox plus Thunderbird all that much better than the Mozilla Suite?

[Richard Kimball]

I used MSN for my internet service provider, and dropped them because they not only went to a hotmail-based system, but as an ISP, blocked me from using email programs (including Outlook and Outlook Express) to download mail from my non-MSN email accounts.

I still have my MSN email address (kept it active when I went to another provider), but I just use it as a throw-down when I need to send an email address and am afraid I might be spammed.

[Richard Kimball]

Wow, I'm scared now. I'll bet MS doesn't take out big ads in this magazine, or anything.

[Dubya-M-Dees]

Many mission-critical applications have been built on Internet Explorer, and most organizations don't have the budget or resources to recode them

I'm sorry.. if you have mission-critical applications that depend on IE.. then you didn't plan very well. Almost all major web based business applications are designed to be platform independent. That means Linux.. and that also means browsers other than IE.