Last night I spent an hour or two visiting unfamiliar websites while researching a topic for an upcoming column. In the process, I discovered a new and exceedingly obnoxious trend: Some members of the Firefox community have decided that you shouldn’t be allowed to view their sites correctly – or, in some cases, at all – unless you’re using the One True Browser.
On at least three sites I visited last night, the home page has been coded so that it looks different if you visit using Internet Explorer. Specifically, the top of the page – a region approximately 180 pixels deep, occupying the full width of the page – is taken over by a large banner that reads: “We see you’re using Internet Explorer. Try Firefox, you’ll like it better.” That’s followed by a bulleted list of the advantages of Firefox, and a big bold arrow pointing to a button where the hapless visitor can download Firefox with the Google toolbar.
This is bullshit.
I’ve already got Firefox installed on this computer, and I use it more than half the time. But for this project I’m using Internet Explorer. In this case, the web designer says he wants me to have a better browsing experience, so he has deliberately created a degraded and obnoxious browsing experience for me. What’s wrong with that picture?
And despite the altruistic language, let’s be clear – this is about money. If I click that button and download the software, the website owner gets paid by Google. In fact, this is worse than a pop-up ad, because I can’t get rid of it. Every time I visit that site, the obnoxious oversize banner appears, telling me how stupid I am and how smart the website designer is.
This campaign is being run by a site called Explorer Destroyer, which offers three versions of its punish-IE-users code. The one I ran into is the Gentle Encouragement version. There’s also a Semi-serious version, which forces the user to view a splash page before seeing the site, and a Dead Serious version, which completely blocks the site from viewing by any browser that uses the IE user agent. (You can see a demo here.)
I thought the open source movement was about giving people options and about adhering to standards. Hey, Asa, here’s a question for you: Does the Firefox community really advocate designing websites so that they’re deliberately broken if you view them in any browser other than Firefox? What would the community say if Microsoft did the same?
Ed Bott 
Uh, Ed. There are already sites like that, built with Frontpage running on IIS. They work with IE but don’t work with other browsers. (Broken menus and the like)
I don’t have any specific examples, but I have installed the “View this page in IE” extension in Firefox because some pages have been coded “Microsoft proprietary” and that’s the only way I can view them. I just wish that browser writers and website creators would stick to the standards so we could end this problem once and for all.
FWG,
You’re describing a bug in a design tool, not a corporate/community policy to degrade the user’s browsing experience by “sniffing” for the user agent and then, for marketing rather than technical reasons, displaying the page incorrectly.
I understand that some sites rely on browser-specific code. That’s why AjaxWrite doesn’t work on IE and why sites that rely on ActiveX give an error when visited in FF. But this is completely different.
Haven’t you ever run into those “You need Internet Explorer 5 or above” errors on pages before? How come nobody threw up a fuss then? I’m not saying these site authors weren’t just trying to make money, but I could see someone saying they don’t have time to fix a page to work in IE. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be kind enough to just show you the mangled page then though.
Fanatics…Once again soiling something because their own beliefs are more important than others.
I don’t understand why Asa continues to bash Opera, when really the two should band together for a more open web.
Caulfield,
Not the same thing. Those pages are either badly designed or use browser-specific components. Again, in these examples there is no technical reason for the page to display differently. It is a deliberate choice to punish IE users and make some money.
“I thought the open source movement was about giving people options and about adhering to standards.”
The open source movement is about giving people access to source code and to all the benefits that derive from that access. If these people are trying just to make a quick buck, then they’re merely opportunists and deserve no more of your scorn than the spammers, phishers, and their ilk. Even if they are serious about their “advocacy”, it is grossly shortsighted of YOU to slander an entire group of people just because of a few sleazebags.
These guys are not just sleazebags, but they’re poor coders. I just visit the site with Mozilla, the open source browser that precede Firefox and is based on the same Gecko rendering engine, and I got the following message:
“We see you’re using Internet Explorer, which is not compatible with this site.”
Morons!
I’m not slandering anyone, Jim. I am interested in knowing what the Firefox community thinks about this campaign. As you say, and I agree, they appear to be leeches. And yet they are piggybacking on the Firefox/Google affiliate program and using the Firefox logo; in other words, they are making money with the tacit approval of the Mozilla Foundation.
I think you’re taking a far more nefarious purpose from this than was intended, Ed. As Caulfield said, there are many pages out there that tell you they require IE5 or IE6 to be viewed correctly. This is the same thing, just the opposite side of the coin. The web designer isn’t going out of their way to make their website Firefox-only, they’re just choosing not to go out of their way to make their website work with the non-standards-compliant Internet Explorer.
It’s a flashy marketing advertisement version of the “This page requires Internet Explorer 5 or greater. Go download it over at Microsoft.com” informing users that in order to view the website as intended by the developer, they must be using Firefox.
Granted I still think it’s obnoxious (even though I’m a loyal Firefox user) and absolutely would never force Firefox on my users by refusing them access through IE. If the users are comfortable viewing my pages half broken, that’s fine by me – the more the merrier. This is just a good way of letting them know it may be broken and trying to spread the word about a better alternative.
Oh, and making money is just a side benefit… Who doesn’t want more money, particularly if you’re advertising something you believe in (and therefore a double-win)?
So a couple of website designers decide to try and make money by forcing people to use Firefox, and they are somehow speaking for the “Firefox community” or the “open source movement”? This has nothing to do with Firefox or open source and everything to do with these individual webmasters. Is it the reponsibility of the Mozilla foundation to prevent people from using this (admittedly obnoxious) technique to earn a few dollars? And would you suggest that there are not people using Microsoft technology in an obnoxious way to earn a few bucks? Is Microsoft responsible for that?
Also, are those websites broken if you use Opera, Netscape, or a different browser, or just IE? If they work with other browsers then you should retract this statement:
“Does the Firefox community really advocate designing websites so that they’re deliberately broken if you view them in any browser other than Firefox?”
And I think it’s more than a little inaccurate to say this is completely different than IE-specific websites. Why would MS design a technology that only works with their own browser other than to lock people into using their browser and (gasp!) make money? The only difference is that in this case it is one individual web designer making that decision instead of the company who owns the browser.
And let’s not forget about the headaches that IE causes for web developers due to it’s lack of standards compliance. It is in most designers interest to encourage people to use an alternative browser, for the simple fact that it makes their job easier.
To me this whole thing is a non-issue. Anyone in the world can create a website, and they are free to restrict anyone visiting it to any browser they want. If a site wants me to use Safari, I can use Safari or I can just not visit the website, it’s that simple. Is it annoying and obnoxious? Of course it is, but suggesting that this is even remotely related to the “Firefox community” or the “open-source movement” is ridiculous.
Two wrongs make a right? In the examples you give, Chris, both designers are wrong. I’ll repeat myself, again:
If a site designer uses browser-specific code (as AjaxWrite does with Firefox and as many IE sites do with ActiveX controls), then yes, they need to alert the user that the designer made a technical decision to support a single browser platform. You can criticize their decision, but ultimately that’s their decision.
But if someone says, for no technical reason, “Sorry, you can’t view this site because you’re using the wrong web browser,” that’s bullshit. It’s bullshit whether it’s done with IE or FF.
It’s especially wrong when the stated goal of the FF community, which I agree with, is to support the use of open standards that can be used by anyone regardless of the browser they choose to use.
Aaron, read the full comments, and you’ll see that the error message appears if you visit using the Mozilla browser. And if these people are going to use the Firefox logo and be paid as part of a business deal between Firefox and Google, then yes, they are officially connected to the community.
Ed wrote:
“It’s especially wrong when the stated goal of the FF community, which I agree with, is to support the use of open standards that can be used by anyone regardless of the browser they choose to use.”
Again, why should the “FF community” be dragged into this, when it is the decision of these individuals to use these techniques? I don’t like what they did either, so gripe all you want about it, but you should make sure your ire is directed towards the right target.
Aaron, you seem to be missing the point: The Firefox logo. The money paid as a result of a business agreement between Firefox and Google.
A couple of things:
1) What about Opera? I’d still like to know if this site will work exclusively with Firefox.
2) Ed wrote: “if these people are going to use the Firefox logo and be paid as part of a business deal between Firefox and Google, then yes, they are officially connected to the community.”
Well, anyone can go to the Mozilla website and get the Firefox logo, and it is Google is paying for the referrals. This might be against the Adsense terms of service, but that would be an issue for Google to look into, not Firefox. If you’re suggesting that the Mozilla Foundation should actively seek out people doing this and try to prevent it than I would suggest that Microsoft should actively seek out people writing malicious ActiveX code to infect people’s machines with spyware.
There’s nothing to stop anyone from doing this type of thing (except maybe Google denying any Adsense revenue to people who do it) so it’s a little disingenuous to suggest they have some sort of “official” connection to the FF community.
I’m not missing the point. I can go to mozilla.com right now, right-click on the firefox logo and save it to my machine, and then upload it to my website where I block users from using IE and force them to get firefox. If I have an Adsense account I’ll get paid for it. Are you suggesting that it is the reponsibility of the Mozilla Foundation to visit any website that gets referral payments from Google and make sure they are not blocking IE users? Why are they responsible for this?
Aaron, Mozilla Foundation makes tens of millions of dollars a year off its referrals from Google. So yes, I do consider them responsible for the activities of people who distribute software under this referral program.
As for the logo, you might want to look at the Mozilla trademark guidelines:
Underlying Mozilla’s trademark policy is the general law of trademarks. Trademarks exist to help consumers identify, and organizations publicize, the source of products. Some organizations make better products than others; over time, consumers begin to associate those organizations (and their trademarks) with quality. When such organizations permit others to place their trademarks on goods of lesser quality, they find that consumer trust evaporates quickly. That’s the precise situation that Mozilla seeks to avoid — especially since, when it comes to intangible products like software, trust is all consumers have to decide on.
I know absolutely no one at Mozilla or Google and have no standing to speak for the “Firefox community”. Using my complete lack of authority, I’ll go on record for the entire Firefox community to say that we strongly disapprove of doing this.
It makes no sense to hold an entire community/race/religion, etc. responsible for the actions of a few people.
Well Ed, do you think it is their responsibility to actively monitor any website that uses the referral program to make sure they are not using these tactics? You seem to have the very same attitude towards the Mozilla Foundation/”Firefox community” that you discourage people to have towards Microsoft, holding them responsible for the actions of a few individuals. I’m sure that they do not approve of this, but how exactly would you propose they prevent a thing like this from happening? Did you consider that maybe they didn’t even know it was happening?
People are always going to find questionable ways to make a buck, and the fact that you decided to bring the Mozilla Foundation, the Firefox community, and the open source community into this is very telling. Since it is clear from the trademark policy that they wouldn’t want their name associated with such a thing, why not send them an email and let them know it’s happening instead of suggesting they are complicit in the whole thing?
Already did, Aaron. As did Harry McCracken of PC World.
Any company that makes tens of millions of dollars from a business relationship has an affirmative responsibility to monitor that relationship. Show me where Microsoft is paying a bounty to people who deliberately make their sites unviewable in Firefox for no reason, and I’ll jump on them, too.
That’s great, but it doesn’t change the fact that you all but accused them of supporting it, the type of attitude you so frequently criticize people for having towards Microsoft.
I don’t think you want to start a pissing contest about which company has undertaken the most unethical and questionable tactics to harm a competitors product, Mozilla or Microsoft. Show me where Mozilla has been sued multiple times for anti-competitive practices. They weren’t even directly involved in this, and probably didn’t even know about it, so I don’t think you want to make that comparison.
All my comments have been deleted. Wtf?
Aaron, your comments weren’t deleted. The anti-spam plug-in I use with WordPress (SpamKarma 2) saw that you had posted a whole bunch of comments in a relatively short period of time and assumed that you were a spammer. As soon as I noticed that they were missing, I took steps to recover them.
My apologies.
No problem. Feel free to delete those last two if you’d like.
Our browser is starting to fade. We have two primary problems; standards compliance and security. The security issues we have been able to overcome through blitzing the media, however between SSL and our javascript injection shortcomings we are basically a swiss cheese provider. That is killing us in the corporate arena.
In the development arena we are getting slammed because of our failure to comply with standards. We have some nifty CSS tricks but that doesn’t cut it. Our XMLHTTP parser is probably one of the most embarassing open source ventures attempted. It is crippling us as the world moves toward AJAX. Why are we letting Microsoft win this battle? The pride needs to be put away and we need to comply with standards on this issue. Otherwise we have only one option – big, obnoxious banners that beg people to use our browser.
Pierce
Nice catch, Ed. I’ve seen this message before but didn’t know the source. It always struck me as extremely obnoxious, but I didn’t know how insidious it actually is.
Keep up the good work. This is what blogs are for!
Sorry Ed, but you’re a moron. If I create a website and it’s obnoxious, then fine, my site is obnoxious. If I REQUIRE that you have a plugin installed but I don’t use it on my site, I don’t give a crap, you are using MY bandwidth, on MY server, and if you don’t like it, research your stories elsewhere.
Classy, Derek.
Except for the “you’re a moron” part, Derek is right. It is completely rational and acceptable for the author and owner of a website to do with it whatever he pleases, including taking steps to make his own life easier as a developer by encouraging the spread of standards-compliance. Those that continue to visit that website do so by the generosity of the website owner and by their own choice. Requiring the use of specific tools when interacting with someone’s property could only be problematic if those tools inhibited interaction with the property of others. Firefox, in fact, strives to do the opposite of this.
So, in your world, Mike, when I click a link on Site A and go to Site B, it’s OK for the owner of that site to block me completely based on the identity of my browser? I’ve not argued that this is illegal, only that it’s absolutely a step in the wrong direction from what I thought the Firefox community was all about. How about just respecting the user?
I’m absolutely amazed at the number of commenters who justify this sleazy behavior by pointing to some behavior from Microsoft that they object to.
I want to reiterate two things:
I am a Firefox user and fan, and what these people are doing is not OK.
Holding a large group of people responsible for the actions of a few is also not OK.
Carl, can you please tell me where I have held a large group of people responsible for the actions of a few? Look at the lede: “Some members of the Firefox community have decided that you shouldn’t be allowed to view their sites correctly – or, in some cases, at all – unless you’re using the One True Browser.”
“Some members.” OK?
This behavior is antithetical to the goals of the open source movement and the people who are building Firefox. The people who are doing this are, in my opinion, wrong. Although you’d never know that from the many comments here where people want to instinctively defend these guys because, you know, they’re not from Redmond and Microsoft is evil and Firefox rules!
I really would like to see the community send the message that this is not OK (as I hgave here and as you have in your comments). And I would especially like to see the Mozilla Foundation and Google say that this is not an acceptable practice for people using their logo and distributing their products. Sadly, as Harry McCracken reports, Mozilla has chosen not to comment and therefore to tacitly approve this behavior. Shame on them.
Ed you did the right thing pointing this out. I’m big advocate of free open-source software, and I frankly find these types tactics embarrassing. In fact, this does nothing more than sabotage the work of the community and puts a negative PR spin on an otherwise great product. Self righteous web designers with an agenda take heed. This is not what respected industry professionals like Jakob Nielsen and Jeffrey Zeldman would recommend.
Ed and all:
To me it doesn’t matter much. If some Firefox zealots are going to try and con me into using their preferred browser by blocking me if I use IE or Opera or anything really, then I don’t want to know them or their web ‘offerings’. And I don’t give a s*it about not being able to view whatever supposedly precious content they may be barring me from.
More off topic and imho, Firefox is a slow piece of bloat code. Extensions may make it more functional but they gum it up even more, which (strangely) takes away from functionality. IE is better. Opera is the best of them all.
Thanks for the space to comment here.
Gord
Ed I think the reason people take offense to your choice of words is because there’s really no reason at all to even mention “the Firefox community” when you bring these guys up. Obviously this type of behavior is not supported by the Mozilla Foundation, and you can’t really expect them to actively police every site that takes advantage of the referral program. The majority of people who support Firefox and evangelize for it do not find these type of tactics acceptable either, as the many who have posted here would show. If you had simply said that there are some obnoxious and opportunistic web developers out there who are sullying Firefox’s reputation with these shady tactics we would not have taken offense, but instead you decided to imply that it has something to do with the Firefox and open-source communities instead of placing the blame solely on these individuals, which is where it belongs. If an individual uses a Microsoft technology to take advantage of people how would you react if someone wrote an article with a lede “Some members of the Microsoft community…”? I’m sure you would be (rightfully) upset by it, because there is no need to associate a group of innocent people in with opportunistic a-holes.
Sorry, Aaron, but Mozilla has been notified about these guys and refuse to even comment on them. Meanwhile, they keep allowing them to distribute Firefox and pay them money through their business relationship with Google.
I never intended to imply that these guys are somehow representative of the Firefox community. But they are most certainly part of the FF community, especially when they directly quote the marketing messages and take people directly to the download site for the FF/Google combo. Every community has unsavory members, and yes, I do think it’s the responsibility of Mozilla to rein this behavior in, or the entire community gets sullied.
After going back and re-reading this post twenty times I don’t see that implication anywhere. And the idea that I’m going to get my back up because someone says mean things about “the Microsoft community” is pretty silly. People say outrageous things about Microsoft and Windows users all the time. I don’t take personal offense.
No, but I have to believe you would defend the “Microsoft community” if a prominent tech journalist associated a few unsavory individuals with the entire group.
I really don’t know what you think Mozilla can do about things like this. They could deny payment and force them to take it down, but what’s to stop them from getting a new Adsense account, setting up a new website, and doing it all over again. Any website ay any time can check the user agent and deny access to people using the wrong browser, should Mozilla continually check to make sure that every website getting referral payments doesn’t have code to do so? It’s only a matter of inserting a couple lines of HTML to do it, which they could do at any time, I don’t really see how they can prevent it.
Who knows, maybe they do support it. Maybe they want everyone to block IE users so they’ll start using Firefox. I wouldn’t agree with it, but there is this little company in Redmond, WA that proved it can very effective to use underhanded tactics to promote your browser.
Aaron, the websites that are using this code are, by and large, just ordinary people. If they were notified by Mozilla and/or Google that they were hurting the community, they would not start up another site, they’d just take down the offending code.
Google monitors every one of its millions of affiliates to make sure they’re following the TOS. It would be trivial to do.
And your last paragraph proves my point in spades. It’s OK as long as you’re not Microsoft.
I’m not saying it’s OK (what part of “I wouldn’t agree with it” was not clear?), just pointing out the irony of criticizing another company for using anti-competitive measures to gain market share for their browser.
One last point. The offending websites, if they really wanted to keep doing this, could use the defense that they do not want to support IE because it doesn’t comply with web standards. It would be a bullshit defense, but it’s technically true. Are Google/Mozilla going to tell them that in order to get paid for referrals they have to write html that will work with a non-compliant browser?
Sorry, Aaron, you just pinned my bullshit meter at 11 on that last one.
I looked at a dozen sites running this code. Every one looked identical in IE and in Firefox. Like I have said repeatedly, there is no technical reason to do this.
It would be wrong if someone did this on behalf of MS. It’s wrong to do it on behalf of Firefox.
You misunderstood me. I don’t mean that this particular code would be incompatible, what I meant was that it is well within the rights of any web developer to not support IE since it does not comply with web standards. There are plenty of sites that do not render correctly in IE because of this. My whole point was that it would be very difficult for Google/Mozilla to do anything about this because of this very fact.
Encouraging people to use a standards-compliant browser is in the best interest of every web developer out there, and even if their motives are not pure, the end result is desirable.
Again, it’s irritating, childish, and greedy (I don’t know that I can say it is “wrong”, because while I don’t agree with it, they have a right to design their own website however they like, just as you and I have a right to not visit it) for them to do this, but like I said, it’s pretty ironic for a Microsoft advocate to criticize someone’s methods for gaining browser market share.
Payback Hurts, Eh?
I don’t really see why this Ed guy is having such a tantrum, after all it’s no different than my local Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider building a site for my bank which uses a bunch of IE specific code rendering my bank’s website unusable to me. Annoying, yes; unprofessional certainly; but unless these sites are crucial to your well being, it’s the site owners choice; regardless of whether they are being rewarded by a third party.
Well, Ed, it looks like your years of being a a flea on the microsoft dog are catching up.
Excellent post here Ed. Here is another tactic others are using: http://nanobox.chipx86.com/ (visit in IE)
It is not for money but it has the same effect on naive users.
I can see you have already been thoroughly spammed by the fanboys. As you can see they think this sort of behaviour is a good thing and the Mozilla foundation especially Dotzler encourages it by not speaking out about it. This mentality is very widespread in the Firefox community where they are on this bizarre Anti-Microsoft crusade.
Andrew, you are full of it, and the firefoxmyths.com website is a joke. If you weren’t promoting a site that is full of half truths and blatant lies, maybe someone would care what you had to say.
Ed, Im sorry that your being attacked by fanboys like Aaron and Dave for simply speaking the truth. Somehow for these people its criminal to point out the wrong doers, unless the wrong doer. happen to be Microsoft.
Are the people doing such practices as blocking a specific browser WILFULLY wrong? Ofcourse! Is Ed right in point that out? I believe so. Is Ed implicating the ‘entire Mozilla/Firefox’ community? Not even by a stretch.
If you’d only stop being so touchy and sissy and accept the fact that even one or two bad apples in the pile will get the entire pile labelled as bad. Just learn to deal with it, and either fix the people who you are being assosciated with and who have a problem, or work towards disassociating yourself from them.
I’m a muslim. Believe me, I have to do this every day. Some stupid nut case in Afghanistan decides he wants to kill people just for the fun of it, and I have to go through ‘random’ screenings at the airport that last 3 hours long, and I get profiled as a terrorist!
I really cant see why you guys are even trying to defend the behaviour of such web desingers. If you had any experience in debating, you would know that the argument you should be pushing for really is that 1) Yes these people are wrong 2) They are rogues and not truly in spirit part of the Mozilla/Firefox community, 3) Should be stopped from doing what they’re doing to give the rest of us a bad name, wether its Mozilla who stops them, Google, or some bloggers calling them out for what they’re doing.
Peace
Here’s my view on the situation: As a web developer, Internet Explorer is a huge pain in the rear. Microsoft has even publicly apologized for basically abandoning Internet Explorer development for so long. Starting with IE7, they will begin improving it again, but IE7 makes very little progress and IE won’t be able to catch up to the other browsers for at least a few more versions.
In the meantime, web developers are stuck spending lots of extra time hacking their sites and bloating their code just to work in a browser that should by all means be considered obsolete by now — if it wasn’t for the market share, which is directly due to monopolistic tactics on Microsoft’s part. Add the fact that IE has the worst record of any major browser at fixing its security vulnerabilities and I see nothing wrong with using your personal site (which, after all, exists for the purpose of expressing your opinions and concerns) to inform users about the dangers of Internet Explorer and to offer alternatives.
My website (the one Andrew K. linked to above) does this in a relatively unobtrusive way. Users are directed to the warning page only once per browsing session, and there is a link near the top to continue to the requested page. Then, all of the reasons for switching away from Internet Explorer are detailed with tables, graphs, quotes from people with authority, and links to sources, and several alternative browsers are discussed.
And my reason for promoting non-IE browsers isn’t fanboyism like people like Andrew K. would have people believe. It’s a desire to move forward. I want to be able to design a site according to standards and have it work in all major browsers without having to spend double or triple the time hacking it to get it to work in IE. As time goes on, the IE developers plan to make IE more standards compliant. When it reaches the level of other browsers, I’ll no longer have any reason to put up these warning pages. But until then, Microsoft has shown that they are perfectly happy putting almost no development work in their browser unless something big forces them to. I’m trying to be part of that something big, to force Microsoft to keep improving their browser. I’d much rather Internet Explorer become either an excellent browser or extinct than to simply watch it linger and build a thicker coat of dust.
I’m with David on this one. In the case of IE, it’s more than just free and open choice. While I use Firefox, I don’t care if other people use Mozilla, Netscape (with the Mozilla engine, not the IE one), Opera, or Lynx. But IE use is a different matter. Other people using IE affects me. Their use of IE gets them infected with spambots which then send spam to MY inbox. Their use of IE gets them infected with bots that turn them into DDOS zombies which attack MY websites. All that spam and DDOS slows down my internet experience when I’d rather be browsing websites and stuff. Their use of IE causes them to be infected to the point of corruption, wasting a lot of MY time as an IT tech cleaning their computer when I’d rather be doing upgrades and teaching them how computers can make their lives better. And their use of IE further promotes the bastardization of the internet standards critical for the future growth of the internet, by instead catering to Microsoft’s ulterior monopolistic agenda.
So while the more extreme cases of this script might be a bit heavy-handed, I really don’t have a problem with it. There is a greater good in need here, and people really just flat out shouldn’t be running IE at this point, period. It’s their website after all, and it’s not much different than all the sites that bribed people into putting bogus “Best viewed in IE” banners, text, and buttons when the site looked fine in Mozilla/Firefox. Or all the sites that filter based upon user agent, but will work fine in Firefox if you fake your UA to be IE’s. The fight got dirty a long, long time ago, thanks to your beloved Microsoft. I chose to be on the side of those with the better goal, even if they are the underdog.
David, by the same argument you should block everyone using Windows, too. Hell, insist that only people with locked-down Unix boxes that are patched on a daily basis can view your site. That’ll show em!
Ian: I think you meant to direct that at Scott, as my primary motivation isn’t related to security. I don’t make sites compatible with ancient browsers. These days, web developers aren’t expected to support Netscape 4. It’s ancient. Web developers also aren’t expected to support Opera 6. It’s also ancient. Internet Explorer 6 is just as old as Opera 6. If IE 6 didn’t have the market share it has today, it would be ludicrous to expect web developers to support it. It’s ancient. And the truth is, it is ludicrous what we web developers have to go through with IE 6, and Microsoft has shown unwillingness to develop their browser unless both the web development community and the market at large puts significant pressure on them.
Sorry, correction: Opera 6 is actually newer than Internet Explorer 6.
David, you write:
Have you even looked at IE7?
Oh please spare me the rhetoric David. You warning clearly says IE is dangerous it not just about being a web designer. I like how you downplay what you are clearly doing. I don’t understand why end users should suffer to make web designers life easier. And that is the cold hard truth.
Ed, he doesn’t use Windows he uses Linux and you will find with many of the most rabid Firefox Fanboys. He may test install it on a box but he clearly advocates Linux.
“I don’t make sites compatible with ancient browsers.” This comment is completely idiodic. IE holds over an 85% market share. Designers make sites compatible with what people are using not what they wish people were using.
BTW did anyone actually look at the IE warning he has on his page? Please do then read his comments above and see if they even remotely relate to some passive push for better W3C standard support in IE.
That’s a mighty long post to say absolutely nothing Andrew. Do you dispute the fact that the widespread use of IE makes life more difficult for both web designers and users in general? And would you care to explain how David using Linux has any relevance whatsoever to the situation? I use WinXP on all of my machines, and believe it or not there are plenty of us Windows devotees who loathe the abomination that is Internet Explorer and wish people would stop using it. It has absolutely nothing to do with some imaginary Microsoft hatred, and everything to do with an insecure browser that affects every single web user out there, even those of us who use a different browser.
It might be easy for people like yourself to simply dismiss these arguments and call us “fanboys”, but saying it over and over doesn’t make it any less false.
Oh please give me a break, you try to make it sound like the whole Firefox community endorse this.
“Hey Bill Gates here’s a question for you, do Microsoft really advocate the use of Internet Explore to download kiddie porn?!”
Bunch of FUD
Thomas, you need to brush up on your insults. Go read the definition of FUD and then come back here with a better argument. Even if I said what you thought I said (I didn’t), it’s not FUD.
But first, read this entire comments thread if you want to participate. I never said the whole Firefox community endorses this. Exactly the opposite.
A note about this site: Comments that contain personal insults get deleted without notice. Do it twice, you get banned. Argue all you want, but stick to the arguments.
I’ve deleted two comments from this thread so far.
I’m with Ed on this – the majority of the opposition to Ed’s position sounds like typical naggers who take every opportunity, whether justified or not, to complain about IE, MS or Bill Gates for whatever reason they can come up with.
The proof is how Ed’s comments are consistently taken out of context and used to support their nagging. Ed’s point was that these people are making money off of innocent folks who, for what ever reason, are not using FF – if the tables were turned, and IE programmers put up such an obtrusive, obnoxious over-sized banner, they would be screaming bloody murder!
As a PC builder, I am not a fan of MS’s past monopolistic sales tactics of the past, but let’s not forget two things about IE, MS, and Bill Gates when it comes to Internet Security:
BADGUYS are the ones to blame for the security woes of the Internet – not MS, IE, or Bill Gates.
Over the years, MS was forced to weigh support for legacy hardware and software over security because of users who cried and whined that their old antiquated proprietary software and hardware would not work after OS and IE upgrades. Now that Gates is trying to turn the juggernaut around and make security a priority, naggers complain at every opportunity that now they have to validate their licenses, or they need SP2, or they have to upgrade drivers etc.
Gimme a break, FF users. Ed is not slamming you or FF. He is slamming unscrupulous greedy people who are scamming the system and innocent people who, for what ever reason, choose to use IE.
Bill wrote:
“1. BADGUYS are the ones to blame for the security woes of the Internet – not MS, IE, or Bill Gates.”
Not quite. When MS decided to so closely integrate the browser into the OS, and to basically ignore its (in)security for so long, they knowingly put users at risk because it was good for business. You don’t think the market leader has any reponsibility to make sure their users are protected? While they have taken some much-needed steps towards securing IE in the recent past, you cannot give them a pass on this one.
As to your second comment, well thanks for the laugh. Bow it’s the fault of people with old hardware. MS wanted to focus on security but all those mean users with old hardware wouldn’t let them. Give me a break.
And I almost forgot about this one:
“these people are making money off of innocent folks”
Please. You make it sound as if these people are being harmed somehow, or if it’s a bad thing if someone makes a few dollars. If I come across a website that doesn’t work with my browser, I’m gone. Any website has the right to require whichever browser they want, whether it’s for technical reasons or irrational browser war zealotry, just as I have a right to never visit their site. If enough people find this obnoxious and sleazy (which it is) then maybe their traffic will dry up and they’ll be forced to rethink their strategy.
As for this:
“if the tables were turned, and IE programmers put up such an obtrusive, obnoxious over-sized banner, they would be screaming bloody murder”
Well apparently you haven’t surfed the web too much, because there are plenty of sites (though I see them less frequently every day) that refuse access to anyone not using IE. It’s primarily for technical reasons, but if you don’t think MS does everything it can to keep these companies designing their sites like this (especially given the market share gains FF has made) then you are fooling yourself.
Graceful degradation is acceptable when used in a way that doesn’t impair the accessibility. I take this approach on my site: it’s accessible to all, but those with standards compliant browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.) get the full design, but for users with older browsers like IE, NN4, etc, the design degrades gracefully.
But taking such a user-hostile approach like this in an attempt to force users to use Firefox will only drive users away and the approach is certainly not supported by the wider firefox community.
I cannot believe what a firestorm of comments that Ed’s post has caused. Amazing. I originally came over here to give Ed kudos on his post. I don’t mind bumping into a web site every now and then that requires me to use IE. No problem at all with incompatibilities and needing different browsers to see different things – it’s the nature of today’s world – we are not all standardized. I do have a problem being held at gunpoint to change my browser or lose access to content, for not good reason. In fact, if I ever run into a site that won’t let me see it because the author doesn’t like my browser, well, I guess I’ll just look elsewhere.
Thanks for the post Ed, and keep it up.
Aaron,
Even a browser not integrated into the O.S. is succeptable to attack– just look at the vulnerabilities Firefox has had in the past 6 months!
I’m with Ed on this one– notify your users if there is a legitimate technical restriction on the site (and notify them in a polite way..), otherwise don’t try to force your browser choice on everyone. It’s annoying and confusing to most users.
Also, Aaron, regarding this line:
“It’s primarily for technical reasons, but if you don’t think MS does everything it can to keep these companies designing their sites like this (especially given the market share gains FF has made) then you are fooling yourself. ”
Give me a break. That’s why ASP.Net’s controls render properly for both IE and Firefox? (I’m pretty sure they also work correctly for Opera, but I don’t remember right now..) And that’s why Visual Studio uses XHTML 1.1 Transitional (and not “IE 6.0”) as it’s default page language?
Microsoft knows the web is going to be viewed by different browsers and platforms– they’re not stupid. They just slacked off for a bit and a competitor rose up. Now Microsoft is going to strike back. [Competition] can only be good for us consumers in the end..
Ed, I read that, but it doesn’t change the fact that the wording in the article makes it sound that way. And while I agree with you, that last part gave me a sour taste in my mouth.
There is no excuse to write “Isn’t open source about choice” and “asking” Asa if the Firefox community REALLY advocate this, just because some zealot thinks it’s a good idea to block people out of his website.
This doesn’t even help Firefox one bit. People don’t like to have have software forced down their throat. Hey that might be why there is such a harted towards Internet Explorer?
The widespread use of IE has nothing to do with making anything difficult for ANY user. As you have already admitted to you leave sites that are not completely compatible with your web browser. I on the other hand never have to leave a site because 99.99% work in IE. Web Developers have absolutely no right pushing their problems off on end users. This is reality I use IE or IE based browsers (Avant) because of site compatibility. I don’t have YOUR problems.
You will see one of the following to be true of the far majority of Firefox Fanboys:
They use Linux/Unix
They use a Mac
They are Anti-Microsoft
I’ve had extensive experience with this and this holds true by far so much that it is getting pathetic. This definitely holds true with the most out spoken advocates.
IE is declared insecure all over the place yet I don’t have security issues with it and neither do my clients.
Even with the Firefox Myths page people continue to try and spread the same Myths. Browser integration in no way makes IE any more insecure:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2005/03/22/400689.aspx
Yes IE is integrated but it in no way increases your insecurity.
If you truly believe what you just wrote, I’m glad I am not one of your clients.
The problems you accuse “Web Developers” of pushing onto endusers are the
the result of Microsoft not following standards.
99.99% of websites may work in IE, but do all 99.99% display the way the designer
wanted them to? The answer is no. That is the point the web designers are trying to make.
I think the course of this argument has lost the main point Ed was trying to make:
The kind of behavior being exhibited by IE destroyers is not only unhelpful to Firefox, it is immature and shows Firefox in the wrong light. The poor impression that the victims of this prank will come off with will harm the entire Firefox community. I use Firefox because I like it, not because a website told me (obnoxiously) to download it. This is simply how it is supposed to work.
I’m sorry, but as providers of free content, webmasters have a right to be as browser-specific as they want. If they don’t provide enough value for you to switch browsers, I suppose that is too bad for them. But please, don’t take it personally that developers want you to use a superior, standards-compliant browser. They just want to be able to code in peace without having to worry about IE specific workarounds to FORCE IE to make the pages render correctly.
“1. If you truly believe what you just wrote, I’m glad I am not one of your clients.”
Why? Because you would be able to use IE without incident?
“2. The problems you accuse “Web Developers” of pushing onto endusers are the the result of Microsoft not following standards.”
Web Developers problems are Web Developers problems. If Web Developers want to present THEIR problems, fair enough but don’t push it on end users who simply want to use the web. That is the cold hard truth, end users don’t care about YOUR problems.
“3. 99.99% of websites may work in IE, but do all 99.99% display the way the designer wanted them to? The answer is no. That is the point the web designers are trying to make.”
End Users don’t care, they only care if the page they are looking at works in their browser. The sooner you learn this the easy your life will be. Web Developers need to start taking responsibility for their problems and stop passing the buck or in this case trying to make a buck.
If a web designer makes a standards compliant web page, and it doesn’t work with IE is it the fault of the web designer? If he wants to give people clues about alternative ways to browse the web even while profiting from it, would that be wrong? I don’t see the argument here.
Everyone has the right to choose their “clients”, so why should a web site owners right be any different?
I for one am dumbfounded about those pages that still want me to buy Windows to use them. Those do still exist, atleast here in Finland. A good example would be job recruiting pages. There have been more than few accounts of lost opportunities when my wife has tried to send applications to these sites using our non-Microsoft browser/OS computers. (I’ve kept it that way since 1993 and have no intention to change that fact.)
“Using IE without an incident” isn’t first in my priorities and I’m still designing web pages. I for one am not sorry if my pages don’t render correctly on IE, too bad there are so many sad people using it. And yes, I too think benefiting from giving more choices isn’t wrong. Restricting choices to one browser only might be, but that isn’t what I think the IE Destroyer campaign is all about either. They might have chosen their wordings a bit roughly, but the thing is Someone made this choice of giving money to those who promote a certain browser. Microsoft could give money for those who promote theirs (although they already have their own strategy of making non-standards compliant software), Opera could also do with some promotion. But what I think matters the most is that standards compliant browsers win. If your bank connection fails because you don’t use IE that’d be one of the worst mistakes a bank makes, ever. Not only in lost clients, but there’s also the security issue.
Links that make Mozilla sad.
Ed, has my comment from yesterday morning vanished into internet limbo?
Aaron, there’s no comment from you in my spam folder or in my moderation folder, and nothing gets deleted automatically here without leaving a trace. So if you posted something yeseterday, it never made it to this server. Sorry, but you’ll have to redo that comment.
Andrew, you make this way too easy on me.
“The widespread use of IE has nothing to do with making anything difficult for ANY user.”
This is completely false. You’ve already heard developers here state that IE’s non-compliance with web standards makes extra work for them to get pages to render correctly in IE. And IE’s widespread use has led to thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of infected machines becoming spambots, taking part in DDOS attacks, etc, affecting everyone’s web experience.
“You will see one of the following to be true of the far majority of Firefox Fanboys:
They use Linux/Unix
They use a Mac
They are Anti-Microsoft”
Well none of those are true for me. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to understand that there are plenty of people who are not l33t Linux fanboys who are fed up with IE. I don’t care if people use Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Lynx, but I would really prefer them not to use IE.
“IE is declared insecure all over the place yet I don’t have security issues with it and neither do my clients.”
I see, so since you have never had any problems, I guess the multitude of people who have are just fabricated stories from the Firefox fanboys. There’s no security issues with IE, and all of those critical vulnerabilities reported on a regulas basis are just FUD. Give me a break.
“Even with the Firefox Myths page people continue to try and spread the same Myths.”
That website is a complete joke. Most of the so-called “myths” on that page are just random blog posts from some guy on the internet. If someone posts an inaccuracy about Firefox on his blog that does not make it a “myth”. The rest of the so-called myths are either distortions or outright lies. The fact that you would bother to cite such an inaccurate and dishonest website shows how much credibility you have.
“Browser integration in no way makes IE any more insecure:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2005/03/22/400689.aspx
Yes IE is integrated but it in no way increases your insecurity.”
Another untrue statement. Many of the vulnerabilities reported in IE do not even require you to be using it for your browser, just having it on your machine puts you at risk. And since you can’t reliably remove IE from a WinXP install, it’s integration into the OS DOES increase your insecurity.
As Ed noted, people say some pretty rakish things about Microsoft in every context. And now it seems that any alleged or noted behavior in Microsoft’s past is fodder for Mozilla’s future. Dave Reynolds over at the BimmerGeek blog talks about the double standard a ZDNet columnist used against Microsoft regarding fair use of intellectual property:
“There are two standards of conduct in the IT industry: those of Microsoft and those of everyone else but Microsoft. Nearly every action that Microsoft takes in the industry is contested but when Microsoft’s competitors take the same action, there is no vilification or acerbic attacks. When Microsoft buys functionality and wraps the new capability into Windows, they are accused of suppressing innovation. When Larry Ellison buys PeopleSoft or Sun Microsystems buys StorageTek, they are adding shareholder value by improving their competitive capabilities. Some will even say non-Microsoft companies are buying functionality to extend innovation into the marketplace.
“It’s a double standard that the industry exploits over and over again.
I tried and used Firefox for a while, and it just didn’t work for me. I’ve also used different tools, different cars, lived in different houses, even cities, that did not fit my life or work styles. Same with the browser. When I’m not using Maxthon — an IE variant — I use the new Opera. And if your browser, browser “community,” or browser corporation (Mozilla is a corporation now, let’s remember) doesn’t respect that choice as Ed notes, then that’s wrong on more than one level. And if you can’t see that as hypocritical, then you can’t see at all.
Punishing the user of other browser to make money, eh? How ’bout the times MS made MSN detect and deliberately degrade on Opera? You know, the time when Opera made a swedish chef version to focus on the issue. The Opera guys proved that they were sent bogus css when they identified as Opera instead of IE. Kinda like the old “No-running-windows-on-non-ms-dos” issue some time ago.
So…
Punishing the user of other browser to make money? Yeah. Seen it before.
Aaron,
“This is completely false. You’ve already heard developers here state that IE’s non-compliance with web standards makes extra work for them to get pages to render correctly in IE. And IE’s widespread use has led to thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of infected machines becoming spambots, taking part in DDOS attacks, etc, affecting everyone’s web experience.”
-Really? Where does that quote say “web developers”? It says USERS. You are trying to lump web developer problems in with end user problems. They are not the same thing. And those thousands of infected machines are due to people not patching, not installing free AntiVirus or AntiSpyware applications and manually installing crap from warez and porn sites. IE isn’t the problem, the uneducated user is.
“Well none of those are true for me. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to understand that there are plenty of people who are not l33t Linux fanboys who are fed up with IE. I don’t care if people use Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Lynx, but I would really prefer them not to use IE.”
-There are plenty of peoply who can’t comprehend where the problems with IE originate and are all too quick to misplace the blame. Just like the users who have defective, misconfiugred or over clocked hardware and blame Microsoft.
“I see, so since you have never had any problems, I guess the multitude of people who have are just fabricated stories from the Firefox fanboys. There’s no security issues with IE, and all of those critical vulnerabilities reported on a regulas basis are just FUD. Give me a break.”
-No I personally have never had any problems because I take the time to understand how something works since I do this for a living. I read books such as Ed’s and other competent authors. No one is denying IE has security issues it all depends on how you deal with them. I get new clients daily and it is ALWAYS the same story. The infected machines have no security patches installed and either non existent or outdated AntiVirus and AntuSpyware protection. The critical vulnerabilities you speak of are patched within weeks but the fact is people don’t apply patches. All the major infections I see exploit months old security holes that have long been patched or the user manually installed something. Once I set a client up and set everything to automatic they don’t come back with infections.
“That website is a complete joke. Most of the so-called “myths” on that page are just random blog posts from some guy on the internet.”
You need to read the Myths Origins section at the bottom. The examples are just that examples. None of which changes the factual nature of the information.
“The rest of the so-called myths are either distortions or outright lies. The fact that you would bother to cite such an inaccurate and dishonest website shows how much credibility you have.”
-Really care to prove that statement? Please prove one fact on the page that is sourced that is not true. It is easy to make statements, it is much harder to back them up with substance.
“Another untrue statement. Many of the vulnerabilities reported in IE do not even require you to be using it for your browser, just having it on your machine puts you at risk. And since you can’t reliably remove IE from a WinXP install, it’s integration into the OS DOES increase your insecurity.”
-Again prove this. I just provided you with a source link that proves IE’s integration in no way increases your insecurity yet you continue to spread the same Myth.
This story made Digg, and you’ll notice that the people agreeing with shutting out IE users are being modded down, while those that think it’s stupid to ban IE users are being modded up. This ought to answer any questions about how the community feels about this.
Andrew, you’d be better off just stopping now, because this is far too easy for me.
—“And those thousands of infected machines are due to people not patching, not installing free AntiVirus or AntiSpyware applications and manually installing crap from warez and porn sites. IE isn’t the problem, the uneducated user is.”
Do I need to start running off the laundry list of zero-day IE exploits? Plenty of vulnerabilities in IE affect people who maintain up-to-date antivirus and always apply Windows patches. You can claim those are the only people affected, but that would mean you’re either ignorant or you’re lying. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the former.
—“There are plenty of peoply who can’t comprehend where the problems with IE originate and are all too quick to misplace the blame.”
OK, how about the people who do comprehend where the problems with IE originate and place the blame properly? Don’t pretend that the only people who have problems with IE are the clueless users, it’s not true and you know it.
—“Just like the users who have defective, misconfiugred or over clocked hardware and blame Microsoft.”
What in the hell does that have to do with anything we are talking about here?
—“No one is denying IE has security issues it all depends on how you deal with them. I get new clients daily and it is ALWAYS the same story.”
There you go again, assuming that your own limited experience applies to everyone. Just because the only people you know that had problems had them because of their own carelessness, you cannot cover your eyes and pretend the thousands of responsible people that had security problems don’t exist.
—“You need to read the Myths Origins section at the bottom. The examples are just that examples. None of which changes the factual nature of the information.”
No, I think you need to pull out your dictionary and learn what the word “myth” means. One random guy posting something inaccurate on his blog does not make it a “myth”. I could go to blogger right now, set up a blog in about five minutes, and in my first post state that using Firefox makes baby Jesus cry. Would that make it onto your “Firefox Myths” website, because that’s essentially what most of the stuff you have there is, untrue statements from one random person on the internet.
As far as it being “factual information”, that is not the case either. Let’s look at some examples of these supposed “myths”:
The very first “myth”: some clueless guy who says Firefox uses less memory, when pretty much every Firefox user knows that it has memory problems. Calling that a “myth” is a blatant lie, because going to any forum or website where Firefox is discussed you’ll find people acknowledging the memory issues, and the developers themselves even acknowledge that Firefox has memory leaks. So “myth” is a boldfaced lie.
This is the case with almost every one listed, it’s one guy posting it on the internet so all of the sudden it’s a “myth”.
And down below we find some even more egregious examples, like where you take this quote:
“Firefox’s innovative tabbed browsing”
and claim that it says this
“Firefox was the first Web Browser to include Tabbed Browsing”
You even use quotes!!! Try and tell me with a straight face that is not a deliberate distortion and extremely irresponsible jounalism. In fact, I’m being too nice, that is another blatant lie, since you decided to use quotes. The funny thing is, the link to another of your supposed myths contains this quote from Asa:
“Firefox really brought tabbed browsing into the mainstream. (I didn’t say we invented it, that credit belongs to Adam Stiles and his Netcaptor browser,)”
But I guess you only read the quotes from Joe Blow’s blog, or the ones where you can try to distort it into something completely different.
Here’s another one. You say this is the myth:
“Firefox was the first Web Browser to include an Integrated Search feature”
Again you use quotes, when this is what Asa said:
“Firefox also popularized the simple search field integration in the browser toolbar, powered by multiple search services.”
Another blatant lie. This is unbelievably irresponsible, and you know it. Just try defending either of those.
You asked me to prove one fact on that site that is sourced and not true and I’ve produced two already. I could go on, but I think it’s pretty clear that that site is totally inaccurate, and is essentially full of lies.
One last thing. You said:
—“Again prove this. I just provided you with a source link that proves IE’s integration in no way increases your insecurity yet you continue to spread the same Myth.
Well, one can simply go to Micorsoft’s website where you’ll find this in the description of many security updates:
“This vulnerability affects computers that have Internet Explorer installed. (You do not have to be using Internet Explorer as your Web browser to be affected by this issue.)”
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/downloads/critical/default.mspx
Since you cannot remove IE from your system you are vulnerable even if you don’t want to use it. MS choosing to integrate it so deeply into the OS that you can’t get rid of it put’s us needlessly at risk.
Game, set, match. Thanks for playing.
You keep trying that point is true.
“Do I need to start running off the laundry list of zero-day IE exploits? Plenty of vulnerabilities in IE affect people who maintain up-to-date antivirus and always apply Windows patches. You can claim those are the only people affected, but that would mean you’re either ignorant or you’re lying. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the former.”
-Oh now there is a “laundry list” of Zero Day exploits? Please. Yes Zero Day exploits due exist but they are not even remotely the cause of what people are having trouble with, not even close. Before you go spreading more FUD please provide proof of all these people effected.
“OK, how about the people who do comprehend where the problems with IE originate and place the blame properly? Don’t pretend that the only people who have problems with IE are the clueless users, it’s not true and you know it.”
-You don’t get it, very very ver few people actually comprehend where the problems originate. Don’t take this the wrong way but if you are having problems with IE then you too are a clueless user. I see this daily, people get some malware and then jump to all sorts of conclusions. None of which changes the facts on how they got infected.
“What in the hell does that have to do with anything we are talking about here?”
-It has to do with how people place the blame incorrectly.
“There you go again, assuming that your own limited experience applies to everyone. Just because the only people you know that had problems had them because of their own carelessness, you cannot cover your eyes and pretend the thousands of responsible people that had security problems don’t exist.”
-I wouldn’t consider thousands of clients in the real world a “limited experience”. I deal with these issues first hand on the Internet people are highly unlikely to admit they did any thing wrong especially when posting in a forum. How many people are willing to admit they looked at porn and got infected when they tried to install an add-on to IE from one of these sites to look at some videos? No one but when I have the computer in my hands I can see their browser history ect… There is no question people have security problems, the far majority are their carelessness.
“No, I think you need to pull out your dictionary and learn what the word “myth” means. One random guy posting something inaccurate on his blog does not make it a “myth”. I could go to blogger right now, set up a blog in about five minutes, and in my first post state that using Firefox makes baby Jesus cry. Would that make it onto your “Firefox Myths” website, because that’s essentially what most of the stuff you have there is, untrue statements from one random person on the internet.”
-Do you have a comprehension problem? No claim is made that one example constitutes the Myth. The example are that examples. All those Myths I have heard more then once. Your following comments linking to the examples is flawed from the start because the examples are not the origins but ONE example of the Myth.
“The very first “myth”: some clueless guy who says Firefox uses less memory, when pretty much every Firefox user knows that it has memory problems. Calling that a “myth” is a blatant lie, because going to any forum or website where Firefox is discussed you’ll find people acknowledging the memory issues, and the developers themselves even acknowledge that Firefox has memory leaks. So “myth” is a boldfaced lie.”
-That is how Myths work, if enough people say one thing incorrectly that is a Myth. It doesn’t matter how many people then say it correctly, so long as the first group exists. But that Myth has nothing to do with Memory leaks but system requirements. Saying how much memory a program is using is implying the requirements are lower which they are not. There is no Lie get over it, IE has lower requirements than Firefox.
“You even use quotes!!! Try and tell me with a straight face that is not a deliberate distortion and extremely irresponsible jounalism.”
-Not even remotely, innovative implies Firefox invented it which many believe to be true. It is completely irrelevant what another source says so long as enough people believe a Myth it is a Myth. Going full fanboy with claims of lying does not help your cause.
But I guess you only read the quotes from Joe Blow’s blog, or the ones where you can try to distort it into something completely different.
“Here’s another one. You say this is the myth:
“Firefox was the first Web Browser to include an Integrated Search feature”
Again you use quotes, when this is what Asa said:
“Firefox also popularized the simple search field integration in the browser toolbar, powered by multiple search services.”
Another blatant lie. This is unbelievably irresponsible, and you know it. Just try defending either of those.”
Asa consistently uses wording to imply Firefox invented these features. He only concedes on Tabbed browsing. What is irresponsible is letting people believe these Myths. Now jumping to conclusions from the examples does not change the facts of the Myth or the source debunking them.
“You asked me to prove one fact on that site that is sourced and not true and I’ve produced two already. I could go on, but I think it’s pretty clear that that site is totally inaccurate, and is essentially full of lies.”
-You haven’t produced ONE fact, you were unable to comprehend what an example is, jump to conclusions and attempted to completely avoid the facts of the Myth. Since the examples are not the origins of the Myths, which is clearly stated below it makes you rants even more irrelevant.
“Since you cannot remove IE from your system you are vulnerable even if you don’t want to use it. MS choosing to integrate it so deeply into the OS that you can’t get rid of it put’s us needlessly at risk.”
-Again you are spinning and cannot comprehend. How does IE’s integration make you more vulnerable than another application running with the same functionality. The integration of IE is irrelevant to browser security. Which is what you don’t get. People imply that since IE is integrated it exposes you to special security exploits that are only their because IE is integrated as opposed to running as a stand alone application. This is completely false and I provided a source that proves it.
“Game, set, match. Thanks for playing.”
-Fanboy definitives no matter how strong does not win anything, the facts do.
If you are continue to tell outright lies I won’t waste much more of my time. You are being unbelievably dishonest.
I can’t even believe you would suggest that nobody has problems with IE unless they are “clueless users”. Suddenly you are omniscient and you know exactly why everyone with security problems got infected. For years and years there have been countless security vulnerabilities in IE, and thousands of not hundreds of thousands of users, even those who patch their machines regularly, have been affected. That you would deny this is unbelievable, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given the other lies you continue to tell. Is it really your position that the only people who have had security problems using Internet Explorer are “clueless” people who do not update their machines? Is that honestly your argument here?!?!
Your anecdotal evidence that people are to blame for their own security issues has one big problem. In the insurance world we call it anti-selection. The clients who are coming to you for help are the ones who are most likely not very technically savvy, and so obviously they probably share some of the blame for their problems. You are only dealing with a subset of users, a subset of people who are relatively “clueless”, and then you’re extrapolating that to everyone else. Myself, I’ve never had any infection on my machine because of IE, but I know plenty of people who have, through no fault of their own. The difference between you and I is that I don’t pretend that my experience holds true for every single other user in the world.
Now on to the real whoppers
—“That is how Myths work, if enough people say one thing incorrectly that is a Myth. It doesn’t matter how many people then say it correctly, so long as the first group exists. But that Myth has nothing to do with Memory leaks but system requirements. Saying how much memory a program is using is implying the requirements are lower which they are not. There is no Lie get over it, IE has lower requirements than Firefox.”
You still don’t understand what a myth is. In this context a myth would mean it is a widely held belief that is untrue. You still don’t seem to comprehend how one guy saying something incorrect on his blog does not constitute a myth. You keep asking me for evidence of things, when the only evidence you have of your so-called myths are one random guy on the internet. And I never claimed that myth was just about leaks, I said that it’s widely known that Firefox uses a lot of memory, and the developers have even acknowledged memory leaks. Also, not only is it just one guy on the internet, you’ve also distorted his words. He says, “It’s smaller (uses less memory) than IE” and you claim that means there is the following myth: “Firefox has lower System Requirements than Internet Explorer.” Only the most dishonest person (which you have shown yourself to be) would make that type of leap.
You said yourself above that in order for something to be a myth a lot of people would need to say it. It’s pretty funny that this such a widespread myth, but the only source you could find was some guy in Australia’s personal blog.
—“Not even remotely, innovative implies Firefox invented it which many believe to be true. It is completely irrelevant what another source says so long as enough people believe a Myth it is a Myth. Going full fanboy with claims of lying does not help your cause.”
You, sir, are either completely delusional or one of the most dishonest people I have ever come across. First off, your source says “use Firefox’s innovative tabbed browsing”. This does not imply that Firefox invented tabbed browsing, and Asa, in another of the sources you link for a different myth gives credit to Netcaptor for being the first. Let’s also look at the context of that quote:
“Discover how to acquire and install Firefox, make the transition from another browser, use Firefox’s innovative tabbed browsing, manage bookmarks with ease , maintain online privacy and security, customize your browser.”
No one who would take that sentence as a “myth” that Firefox was the first browser to include tabs, which is exactly what you claimed, so again you are either lying or just have really poor reading comprehension.
You can try to insult me personally and call me a fanboy all you’d like, because it’s just another thing you’d be wrong about. Personally I think Opera is a better browser than Firefox, but that doesn’t mean I won’t call you out on the lies you are spreading on that website.
—“You haven’t produced ONE fact”
I have produced two examples of your claims of a supposed “myth” being lies. Show me ONE, just one example of Asa saying this:
“Firefox was the first Web Browser to include an Integrated Search feature”
I’ll be waiting. That is what you claim the myth is, and the FACT is that he never said it. Show me where he has said it and I’ll retract my statement, but if you cannot I will call you what you are, a LIAR.
—“How does IE’s integration make you more vulnerable than another application running with the same functionality. The integration of IE is irrelevant to browser security. Which is what you don’t get. People imply that since IE is integrated it exposes you to special security exploits that are only their because IE is integrated as opposed to running as a stand alone application.”
Did you not read what I wrote? An application that has security holes, cannot be uninstalled, and does not even need to be running to put a user at risk is VULNERABLE. MS chose to to build it into the operating system because they wanted people to use it, not realizing what kind of risk they were exposing us to. Why is it that you assume I am speaking for these other, misinformed users? Did I ever make any claim like “it exposes you to special security exploits that are only their because IE is integrated”? No, I didn’t, so why would you put those words in my mouth? I only stated the FACT that IE being built inextricably into the OS puts us at risk because we can’t get rid of it and even if we don’t use it we can be affected. MS essentially turned the vulnerabilities of one piece of software into vulnerabilities for the entire OS. If you want to refute my facts, please make sure you read the facts that I present, not the incorrect ones you wish I had presented.
I have never seen someone so vehemently defend blatant, bold-faced lies.
OK, guys, you each get one post to wrap it up and then I’m closing the comments. Seriously.
The last couple comments got too long to read, so I don’t know if this was already said explicitly, but I was trying to look for a Win32 API call today, and http://msdn.microsoft.com's search button doesn’t appear to work in Firefox. What is the “technical reason” that is appropriate for Microsoft to shut out Firefox users from using the search button on their site?
Glancing at the source, I see <a onclick=javascript… href=#><input type=submit>, which I am not familiar with that syntax, or why you would want the a href at all.
BTW, it is possible that my ad filter is not allowing the javascript to run, but I am pretty sure I disabled it in order to not be totally clueless before I wrote this comment.
Jon,
That’s a bug. You should report it. In my experience, MS has been pretty good about making sure its stuff works on Firefox.
This exam,ple is totallly irrelevant here. It’s not an example of a web developer deliberately writing code designed to degrade the browsing experience of visitors using another product, for no valid technical reason.
PS: That search box in the top right is a sitewide control. If you go to one of the MSDN developer centers on the left sidebar, you’ll see a search box on the left. It works just fine in Firefox. If MSDN were really locking out Firefox users, this would not be so.
We could fire examples back and forth at each other of sites that for one reason or another don’t render properly in a particular browser. But unless it’s done deliberately and aimed specifically at one platform, it’s a topic for another discussion, somewhere else.
Oh, I forgot to say – I guess I am a “firefox fanboy” but I think it is silly for people to put up stuff based on the user-agent.
Aaron,
You stating I am lying without provinding an ounce of proof is a typical fanboy tactic. It doesn’t work on me. You also keep reading what you want to read and not what I am saying.
Securing IE is elementary, apply all patches and uninstall MSJVM, install an updated AntiVirus program and an updated AntiSpyware Program. Done.
I sure have a much better understanding of the problem then the raving fanboys consider I do this for a living. People that say it can’t be done don’t understand how the infections happen. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop someone from manually installing something. But it is very easy to protect them from any auto-installs. People keep making all these claims but don’t provide an ounce of proof. None of them can confirm something auto-installed and none can confirm they uninstalled MSJVM. It is no surprise people such as yourself rush to blame things they don’t understand.
“Clueless Users” for the majority do not update their machines, do not install an updated AV program and the rest supposed “knowledgeable” users do not uninstall MSJVM (which is used by CoolWebSearch infections). Of course people have problems but once you analyze why you can easily correct the problem which does not include an alternate browser as a solution. I am meeting new people everyday who have fully infected Zombie PCs but browser away with Firefox thinking they are invulnerable all the while the processes in memory use their computer for all sorts of malicious purposes. And that started from some unknowledgeable user recommending Firefox as the cure all.
I would like you to demonstrate or provide documented reproduceable proof of all these fully patched machines getting randomly infected. It is easy to spew rhetoric is quite another to back it up with actual evidence. I know why most people get infected, I see it everyday.
I deal with thousands of clients, which runs the gamut of society. I cannot control what people do with their computer unless they work for me. There are some people who will always have problems and there is very little you can do about it. The ones that listen to reason do not have problems anymore.
The fact that you think people just get randomly infected with no fault to their own is 100% wrong. People are just as much to blame as the makers of the malware. Who are the ones going to porn and warez sites? Who are the ones downloading anything off P2P? Who are the ones download any shareware application they can?
What part of this do you not understand? The listed examples in no way are the sole source of these Myths. They are ONE example. Every single Myth has been heard multiple times.
The system requirement Myths are never stated by a user as “System Requirements”, they are worded in various ways. And claiming FF uses less memory would be considered a system requirement. Your obsession with mentioning memory leaks has nothing to do with system requirements.
Alot of the Myths I have heard directly or are received in emails. The only people that dispute the validity of them being Myths are the fanboys.
Funny you think that wording like innovative and popularized would not imply creation in many contexts. You think Aza just added the concession because no one believe that Myth? Please many, many people are shocked to find out that Firefox did not invent many of the feature it touts all believing Firefox invented them. There have been lengthly arguments about this on the Internet for good reason. Firefox Propagandists use creative wording implying all sorts of ownership to ideas they simply stole.
There is not a single lie on the website. And no you haven’t proven one thing. The Asa example was used because he doesn’t concede the other features like he did with Tabbed Browsing and he is called on it in the comments. Read it yourself. Again you have nothing, the problem with the examples is as soon as I link to them some get reworded or deleted. Anything to cover up them being said. But it doesn’t matter the point is the Myths are false and the sources true. You know this is true which is why you are wasting so much energy looking for anything on the examples. You have nothing.
You comments on IE’s integration have nothing to do with the Myth. Firefox is not more secure for not being part of the Operating System. You are misinturpretting the meaning of the warning. While it is true that you don’t have to have IE running in some instances, you do have to use an application that uses IE functionality such as an HTML help file. This has nothing to do with Integration but application dependancies. Integration is irrelevant to security. The way you are wording it implies that people can just get infected at will without using IE. A more accurate description would be IE dependant applications are vulnerable too.
Using the word “lie” over and over does not make something a lie.
jondaley,
You comment is a good one for it explains why alot of people think this is ok. Firefox users go to a site that was only ever tested in IE and it breaks and some irrationally think the web designer did this intentionally. I am consistently hearing people blame Web Designers as being clueless to standards or deliberately breaking pages with Firefox but this is just not so. Many Web Designers simply only code for IE and leave it at that. Their is no malicious intent.
Ed that might be a good topic for another post sometime. Do web designers deliberately not follow W3C standards and break pages in Firefox?
It is simply not true yet many Firefox users believe it and this fuels these absurd IE Destroyer campaigns.
Ed,
I almost completely agree with you. However, as a member of the so-called “Firefox community,” I’d like to say that the views of the idjits who run Explorer Destroyer are NOT reflective of individual members of the community. And I can’t imagine that Mozilla would endorse these tactics either. Personally, I deplore these tactics. Evangelism works best when it’s not a full frontal assault like that used by Explorer Destroyer’s scripts 😉
Yes, I see there is a difference in the two examples, one being intentional, and one not caring enough to see if the page meets standards, rather than just IE.
I believe the anti-Opera stuff that Microsoft did was already mentioned. I haven’t used Opera in a while, so I don’t know if you still need to do the changing user-agent to IE tricks to get pages to view properly.
BTW, the MSDN site works if you use the enter key, because then the designer’s attempts at overriding the default behavior are circumvented.
Outside of microsoft.com, I no longer run into sites that aren’t Firefox compatible. All of my banks have stopped using IE specific stuff. My point is that Microsoft should stop that as well. If they don’t they are intentionally making code that doesn’t run on other browsers, and so goes in the (almost) same category as the example you point out. The result to the user is the same, it causes me to switch browsers, I don’t really care if it was malicious or just ignorant.
OK Andrew, I gave you every opportunity to back away from the lies, and you refused, so I guess you’ll just have to go down looking like a liar when Ed closes the comments. I have made it abundantly clear to anyone with a bit of intellectual honesty that multiple statements on your site are either severe distortions or outright lies about what people have said about Firefox. No reasonable person would think those quotes from Asa are equivalent to him saying Firefox invented tabbed browsing and integrated search. And those were only two of the examples, I could have listed even more.
And now let’s move on to some even more egregious lies. (And Ed, if you’re still reading I would be interested what you have to say about these issues, especially the ones I’m about to show).
At the end of your page you claim that Digg blocks any mention of firefoxmyths and bans your account if you submit it. What you conveniently failed to mention is that the reason they did this is because you were spamming any firefox articles with a link to your site, and you also submitted your site to digg more than 10 times under the username Mastertech. You got banned because of significant spamming, and when you tried spamming some more with different identities (your IP was confirmed submitting your site to digg under different identities after your first one got banned) they decided to just ban the site to prevent you from spamming any more. So it’s another lie for you to suggest they were trying to censor any anti-firefox information.
But the most blatant of your lies, and i can’t believe I missed these before, is the supposed “fanboy quotes” you have on the left sidebar that would appear to be praising your site or agreeing with you. Let’s look at some of those:
1) “…Firefox Myths. Good stuff – give it a read.” – Asa D.”
Here’s the acual quote:
“Robert Accettura has a nice response to the poorly constructed and mostly worthless article Firefox Myths. Good stuff – give it a read.”
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2005/12/accettura_tears.html
You suggest that Asa is calling firefoxmyths a good read, when in truth he is praising an article critical of the site. LIAR!
2) ” “I’m not a big fan of evangelism or hyperbole, so when a page called “Firefox Myths” entered my radar recently, I was very interested.” – Trevor (Mac User)”
Here’s the full quote:
“I’m not a big fan of evangelism or hyperbole, so when a page called “Firefox Myths” entered my radar recently, I was very interested. Then sadly disappointed. Rather than a balanced analysis of some of the folklore surrounding Firefox, it is merely a stream of weak arguments against imaginary “myths” supported by misquoting or deliberate misreading of sources. I’m not even going to reference the page.”
http://www.thingoid.com/2006/01/the-myth-of-firefox-myths/
Again, you make it appear that he is supportive of the site, when instead he blasts it for being inaccurate. LIAR!
3) “…all web sites are IE compliant, use a browser with IE engine and tabs, and a fully patched system = 100% security.” – FreewheelinFrank (MrFlibble)
Here’s the actual quote:
“This includes 1 of Mastertech’s typical phrases designed to suggest he is not the author (‘Makes interesting reading’) but then goes on to use the first person. Strange- that would be the first time for Mastertech. The notions are his: all web sites are IE compliant, use a browser with IE engine & tabs, & a fully patched system = 100% security.”
http://www.webdevout.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=456#449
So you quote him as saying that using IE means 100% security, when he is actually stating what your opinions are. LIAR!
3) “Any browser is more secure by not supporting… Firefox”
Here’s the actual quote:
“Any browser is more secure by not supporting ActiveX, not just Firefox.”
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic44405.html
So you claim he is saying not supporting Firefox makes a browser more secure, when in reality he is making that claim about ActiveX. By removing those three words you have completely changed the entire meaning of his statement. It’s equivalent of quoting someone who says “My name is not Aaron” with “My name is … Aaron”. LIAR!
Everyone of those is an unbelievably blatant lie, and anyone who would intentionally misquote people so egregiously has ZERO credibility. Those are indefensible; it’s really too bad that Ed is going to close the commments, because I would LOVE to hear you try and defend those. (Ed, please indulge us, let’s hear him try to defend himself for these ones.) Just above you said “There is not a single lie on the website.” That is absolutely laughable.
I’d come across that site before and written it off because I immediately spotted some inaccuracies and out-of-context quotes. Until I got into this discussion on Ed’s site I had no idea just how far your anti-Firefox evangelism had driven you into complete lunacy. I can’t believe how many sites and forums I came across where you were spouting off the same tired old inaccuracies about Firefox. Had I known I wouldn’t even have bothered.
So now it’s settled, Andrew is a liar.
Aaron (and Andrew), I’m a busy guy, and this is not a BBS. I think I’ve been pretty indulgent in allowing the comments to go on even though they’re pretty far afield from what I originally wrote about and what a comments section should be.
Aaron, I went and looked at the quotes you referred to. They’re way down at the bottom of a sidebar, under the heading “Fanboy quotes,” and I took them to be satire, although I can see how a casual observer might see them otherwise. Personally, I would have linked the quotes to their original material so that people could get the joke more easily, but that’s just me.
Anyway, that’s it for this edition of comments. Thanks for playing, everyone.
Honnestly Ed, you don’t think it’s fair that Firefox uses that kind of method to gain users? What do you think about the method Microsoft used to flood the market with IE?
In my opinion, it’s payback time…
And I just arrive from a nice website totally pro IE. Quite funny, they say they use fact but it’s so obvious it’s biased. Take a look, it’s worth it. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html
I know this is an old article, but I can’t really believe that someone could miss this:
“And that’s why Visual Studio uses XHTML 1.1 Transitional (and not “IE 6.0?) as it’s default page language?” – Nicholas
There is no XHTML 1.1 Transitional…
Though, he maybe meant to say XHTML 1.0 Transitional?
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html
Actually they’re left wing activists, not open source enthusiasts, and they fell prey to an enticement by Microsoft’s corporate rival Google.
Well, Its their site… should they be able to do what they want to it? Its kind of like no dogs allowed or no shoes no shirt no service… What would the dogs do if your shoes?
I use firefox more than anyone, and I cringe at the thought of having to make my sites compatable with IE. Nonetheless, I do it because I know 90% of people in the world use Internet Explorer, and a suggestion to “Download This” is only going to frighten users into thinking they have downloaded some sort of malicious software.
Microsoft’s practices are exactly the reason more and more people are switching to Firefox, so as far as it being “payback time”, I can only see this as an oppurtunity for less people to be attracted to “open-source” software.
In a way it’s sad of course, OTOH there’s merely banner ads or stupid programming of the site — there’s endless amounts of pages which show correctly only in IE, and you rarely hear someone rambling.
Payback time.
TBH, I’d make the page viewable in any and all browsers EXCEPT Internet Exploiter 🙂
I Blame Google. They are so violating their ‘Don’t be evil’-policy by pushing people to force their visitors to use another browser than they want. Unless you consider IE to be evil, then this is a totally justified crusade.
This sort of thing is actually very easy to do. It’s been easy to do for a very long time. There’s a function of the webserver that returns what type of browser is accessing the site. You just put a little code into the site that says ‘if this, load this page’ ‘if that, load that page’.
It’s supposed to allow you to create sites that anyone, with any browser, can view… so you don’t lose viewers or customers.
My advice on sites that block your browser is… avoid them. It’s not like there aren’t thousands more sites out there, and probably hundreds which are very simular to the one that blocks you.
That or load the browser they prefer long enough to go to their site, harvest the urls from it you need or whatever and then go back to your prefered browser.
Oh, and for the people that ‘blame google’, they have nothing to do with it. It’s entirely the fault of the person that wrote the website code.
Ed Bott wrote: “Aaron, I went and looked at the quotes you referred to. They’re way down at the bottom of a sidebar, under the heading “Fanboy quotes,” and I took them to be satire, although I can see how a casual observer might see them otherwise. Personally, I would have linked the quotes to their original material so that people could get the joke more easily, but that’s just me.”
Yeah, that’s true, Ed. However, what you don’t know is that before that (i.e. before posting them under the “Fanboy quotes” section), those comments were listed beside other ones, let’s say trully supportive comments. And nomather what, he is misquoting these folks anyway, which is bad IMO.
P.S. – And just for the record, here’s also a link to another interesting no less that 12-pages long thread that Andrew K/Mastertech opened back then on the Ars Technica forum that I frequent: Firefox Myths (btw. my nick there is “shirker”), where many of his, errr should I say “mistakes” and “unfair practices”, were revealed.
Ivan Tadej, Slovenia