Internet Explorer Beta Unveils To Firefox’s Flame

Because I got the you're using IE message ... and I'm using Flock - a fork of the Firefox code.

Hmmm ... on closer inspection, yes, that is a sample of the IE message. They should really note that in the story instead of making it sound like you'll only see the message if you're browsing with IE.

I have to agree with the article too - it's a dangerous idea they're playing with. Remember the lambasting Microsoft got for intentionally crippling it's sites if you were using anything other than IE? In my opinion this is no better. If everyone would just get their heads out of their collective butts and write to STANDARDS instead of to BROWSERS the web would be a much better place (for one) and the browser makers would have added incentive to get up to speed with the W3C standards (for two).

As long as coding is done browser-specific, nobody will win the war, and the surfers are the only ones that really, truly lose.

> While there is no law that denies access to a site due to the use of a browser, it is a dangerous precedent.

Which was set long ago by IE only sites. Pot, meet kettle.

> but to use a method to block a user from information flies in the face of what Google and Firefox is about

Neither Google nor Firefox have anything to do with the site. It's a site by pro-Firefox, anti-IE users, advocating their position. You don't like it, don't go there.

http://www.killbillsbrowser.com/

;-P

Then if Google has nothing to do with it, they should be on this site like white on rice for spreading lies about Google paying people to switch. If they ARE paying people to switch, it's still an ugly PR move on Google's part.

> ...for spreading lies about Google paying people to switch.

They state:

"...Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer."

I have no idea if this is true or not, but they give more details farther down the page, indicating you have to have an AdSense account to receive the money. However, even if it's true, what's wrong with Google paying people to spread the word about Firefox?

> ...it's still an ugly PR move on Google's part.

If what the article says is true, Google is paying people to recommend Firefox to others. They have NOTHING to do with the Explorer Destroyer campaign. These people are completely independent of both Google and Firefox.

Dvorak's quote :

"First, it needs to face the fact that this entire preoccupation with the browser business is bad for the company and bad for the user. Microsoft should pull the browser out of the OS and discontinue all IE development immediately. It should then bless the Mozilla.org folks with a cash endowment and take an investment stake in Opera, to influence the future direction of browser technology from the outside in. Then, Microsoft can worry about security issues that are OS-only in nature, rather than problems compounded by Internet Explorer."

Dvorak continues on, noting that Microsoft could offer its customers a courtesy by including Firefox and Opera with Windows. He ends his tirade on IE by saying that Microsoft "will forever be plagued by its greatest blunder ever." http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/4/25/3748

Quoting:take an investment stake in Opera,

Oh please God no!... Let's hope this is just one of Dvorak's mindless 'prophecies'., and that MS doesn't pick up on it.

John Dvorak has lived in his own little world for so long, he is almost completely seperated from reality.

He doesn't get open source, he pontificates in poorly uninformed ways about Macs, and is not very good at helping Windows users deal with understanding their systems.

He's been writing in the business a long time, but his understanding of the issues never seems to get any better.