What is Digg?115 Comments
- gconeen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+53well i bet a lot of people download IE 7 and don't use it as their primary browser, you know just for those times you HAVE to use IE.
- MouseRunner, on 10/12/2007, -14/+53Somethings just make my day.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25[quote]I never did understand the whole anti trust thing. There is nothing stopping Apple from putting what they want on their OS so why is it so different for Microsoft?[/quote]
You don't understand that MS at the time controlled ~95% of the desktop OS market? And that using their incontestable position, they leveraged their ill-gotten power to attack other markets and competitors?
Maybe it should be explained another way. Imagine if there was one type of food market, and they decided to stop selling other people's products and started making and selling imitations of those products themselves. They would drive every competing food product out of business because there were be no other food markets to sell them at except in one obscure ghetto somewhere that only sold fruit anyway. The end result is Microfood would control the stores and the products and there would be no way to compete with them. Where are you going to build your store to compete if Microfood already bought up all the real estate? Where are you going to sell your tofu if Microfood only sells MF Tofu?
Do not underestimate the threat that monopolism in the tech industry poses. Tech is no longer a hobby, it is required for everyday life, communication and business. A single corporation, a rather evil one at that, cannot be allowed to control everything by locking the world into its proprietary standards.
Why is this so hard for some of you to understand? No one gives a damn about Windows, the problem is that MS uses Windows as a dumping ground to exert influence in other markets. Until MS is no longer a monopoly, it cannot be allowed to do that.
Apple's DRM schemes are no good either, so don't think I'm an Apple fanboy. - 0x0000ff, on 10/12/2007, -10/+33I didn't read the article, and I haven't read the comments, but i'll continue to abuse the reply button anyway.
Doesn't IE7 get forced down on anyone with automatic Windows Update turned on? And this would explain alot of downloads without an increase in 'market share' ?
I use WSUS and declined the update, so I don't know. - chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22"Besides, its RAM usage is a lot lower than FF. Grandma shouldn't need 2GB of RAM to browse the web."
1. Combine your GUI (explorer) RAM with your IE RAM, subtract some amount and you will have a very rough idea of just how much memory IE is really consuming. I can not provide specifics, and it is difficult to. Not only is explorer loaded at startup, but DLLs and other crap is loaded *elsewhere* and you simply can not separate System, GUI, and IE.
2. If you have two sticks of RAM, and you remove one - set it on your desk. That will keep that amount of ram free at all times. If you are concerned about keeping a large amount of RAM free at all times and unused, I suggest this method.
Unused RAM is wasted RAM.
3. I am not a Firefox apologist. I blasted the developers just recently for their idiotic decision to not use their own plugin system internally to avoid bloat and further Firefox's modularity, extendability, and extensibility.
4. I use IE7 all the time. I primarily use Firefox, but at work, I use FF, IE6, and IE7. - frostw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Here's an idea. Turn off the "Start Navigation" sound in Control Panel.
- mvent2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17zoombusa
"I never did understand the whole anti trust thing. There is nothing stopping Apple from putting what they want on their OS so why is it so different for Microsoft?"
Apple's bundling doesn't cripple entire industries because people stay on your offering. Windows is so big that anything that gets bundled with it is almost guaranteed to become the dominant player in that market. Internet Explorer single-handedly killed the internet giant Netscape. Safari isn't monopolizing and holding back innovation in the browser market, IE did. - follywood, on 10/12/2007, -13/+28there are still people that are using internet explorer? why?!
- CheapDigWannbe, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Have you ever looked at Opera/Safari vs other browser popularity charts?
Yeah ok so shut up then. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I was looking for the recyle bin on a new install the other day, no idea why.. But looking at the icon, I got thrown back into the past for a second, and thought... Wow, remember when the recycle bin was new, and an innovation? MS has made a lot of cool things in the past, but their software innovation seems to have to lost anything it maybe once had. Why can't they make cool software anymore that actually does stuff? The only thing I can see coming out of Vista scares me. DRM.
- somerandomnerd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"Didn't Apple invent the recycle bin on the Mac, not Microsoft?"
It's older than that- it was on the Xerox Star. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Douglas Engelbart's idea, like everything else we take for granted about computers. - zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15I use the fox because it lets me take the internet back.
IE does not but you kind of get IE if you want it or not.
Ie7 got installed on my computer via the windows auto update.
Just because it's around does not mean I use it. - Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6C'mon - Loving a browser is weird.
- adidax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I haven't made the switch, mostly because I like IE 7 better than Firefox.
I don't know where you got that IE7 doesn't have the "Smart Browsing" features of Firefox. According to the first page that came up in Google (using the Google search box in IE7), the "Smart Browsing" features are the Search Box and the Auto-Complete features, both of which IE7 has.
The pop-up blocker built into Firefox is almost on par with the one in IE7, I still run into a few sites that will slip by with Firefox, but not IE7.
I don't know where you got loads faster than IE7. Maybe you have some kind of crappy computer or something, cause IE7 Loads at least 3 times as fast on mine.
You've got me on the Plugins though. While IE7 supports plugins, there will never be as big of a community behind IE7.
The "looks cleaner" part is pretty subjective, and while you can have themes that make the UI look better in Firefox, out of the box, IE 7 looks cleaner.
And I think IE 7 lends more growth to the open-source community in that Microsoft, for whatever reason, makes people seethe with rage that compares only to religious zealots and college football rivalries.
So that's why I like IE 7 better than Firefox. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11It isn't just about the merits of Firefox; I suspect a good deal of the switching comes from the fact that 1) Microsoft has spent years more interested in making money and enemies than allies, among both web developers and users 2) They stopped supporting IE for the Mac, and never supported Linux, and both minority market shares are growing at the expense of Windows and IE.
- gconeen, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13and IE clicks every time you do something, that annoys me to no end.
- barndoor34, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Didn't Apple invent the recycle bin on the Mac, not Microsoft?
- robche, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6im suprised no-one has mentioned IE7's RSS feed capabilities. They are easily THE best than any of the other browsers out there. Especially FF"s pathetic "Live Bookmarking". Seriously just mess with the RSS in IE7, you will be blown away.
- crawfishsoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"You can cut and paste tables from IE directly into Excel and it works."
It works in FF, you just have to choose Paste Special > Unicode Text. - bitchslapper, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Well, I got most of the features I used to use in firefox with IE7, except may be that cool text-box spell checker, for everything else I do on the internet, IE7 works fine for me.
- Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Basically, a bunch of people clicked the update thinking it was important, and ended up downloading IE through Microsoft trickery. Shortly after downloading it, they thought Firefox was still better and continued to use Firefox.
- chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Me calling the developers on Firefox bloat: http://digg.com/software/Planned_features_for_Firefox_3_unveiled#c4680128
Oh, and your operating system should manage your RAM to keep it mostly full at all times for optimal performance, and intelligently swapping out what is not needed for what currently is.
RAM once filled is not unusable by other programs, if managed correctly.
Very basic intro to Linux memory management: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/KernelAnalysis-HOWTO-7.html
On Windows it is worse, yes. Microsoft manages memory like politicians manage money.
And Firefox could be leaner yes, but I would argue that it is MUCH more lean than IE7 or even IE6.
Take every DLL, exe, and other files necessary for IE to work, separate from the OS.You will find that you have a large portion of the OS included anyway (explorer, several "system" dll's, etc). Now do the same for Firefox.
Compare download size between the two. Holly crap what a difference! In installer size, even though it has most of it already built into the OS, IE7 still manages to be several orders of magnitude larger than Firefox for *any* OS. - Proactivedarwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3it all boils down to a question of how porn friendly you need your browser to be. firefox has a multitude of addons to streamline your porn browsing experience and seems much less susceptible to "issues" while browsing hot midget on amputee action. IE7 seems to run every page and random video player you can throw at it no matter how new or proprietary it may be, but like in real life, the dirtier the content, the more unwanted little problems you "contract". you can run an IE tab in firefox, but this can crash from time to time and any disruption of rhythm can cause serious injury. in summation, firefox is the clear leader for its wholehearted embrace of the most accessed content on the internet.
- Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sleep with it yet? What's it like?
- CheapDigWannbe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Actually I bet you that more than 50 million counts come from school/library/office machines with autoupdates turned on. And then a lot come from home updates. Add the people who're testing web compatibility + few people who use IE7 just for looking at 3d san fran. And here you have your 100 million.
- Falldog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So I have friends now because we use the same software?
- akinder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What the ***** are you going on about? There are NO MS apologists on this website, everytime MS does something good, it gets bashed, everytime MS does something bad it gets bashed. If anything, the only people that defend MS are those armed with facts, that the Apple/Linux zealots quickly digg down.
- kravex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Firefox's share maybe 14% and Microsfts share is 80%, but firefox users are probably on the net a lot more than the people with IE6 or 7 so the numbers don't really show anything.
- Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+41. We are talking about Windows when referring to IE vs Firefox, and
2. Opera isn't who Microsoft is worried about, at least thats what the numbers say - HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And when exactly was the "recycle bin" a new idea? GEOS had it for the Commodore 64, and I believe Atari software used that paradigm as well.
EDIT: ...and others above me have already (half) answered this. :P - adidax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yeah, block those ads! ***** the content provider!
- Jeremyofmany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I use Opera and couldn't be happier. I can browse anything I want, no spyware or malware, I can watch any media, I even have my Gmail imported into the Opera Mail Client via POP3 and stored on my HDD and deleted from Gmail. Tabbed browsing and instant forward/backs that save my input (I can type here, go back 20 pages, then come back here and this comment is still typed in) like no other browser. Opera is a powerhouse that doesn't need extensions, since Firefox struggles to be more than just a web browser.
- SSCrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I actually like the New IE7.
It has some really good features.
Its just not as fast for middle Click browsing. - wherewithal, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15Here's one reason I keep IE around:
You can cut and paste tables from IE directly into Excel and it works.
It doesn't in Firefox. - TheLee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you know, for the people who commented that it was microsoft monopolization and bundling of software that killed of netscape, i've got news for ya: netscape was already dying because netscape 4.0 (and 3.0?) sucked complete and utter ass. anyone who used the web seriously back in those days started making the switch over to IE (4?) because *gasp* microsoft ACTUALLY made a better product. By the time IE was "bundled" in Win98 (and it wasn't even because it was bundled, it was because IE integration was key to the modified Win98 interface... don't believe me? try running win98 and uninstalling IE... you end up with Win95 with a few extra features), and by the time netscape started its antitrust stuff, netscape was already on its death throes.
BUT, I guess the netscape team has made enough changes to come back in full force with Firefox. So, go netscape! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Microsoft loves "forcing" people to use their crappy app. The #1 most visited website is msn.com - Is it because msn.com is great OR because it's the default homepage that most people don't bother changing? I'm gonna bet my ass on the latter. IE6 is bundled in Microsoft Winblows so noobs are gonna use that right off the bat. IE7 is essentially a "forced" download for users. Firefox is a "voluntary" download for users. Big difference in my book.
- mugdecoffee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5IE holds the top 2 spots for most common browsers but it can't compete with Firefox? I love Firefox as much as the next guy but IE is holding its own.
- ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sure... I have Opera on my Wii, and Safari is what Mac users use because it looks pretty.
(mostly kidding... I know Opera is a great browser, and I really have no experience with Safari, but in reality I think Firefox is responsible for most of the IE market share loss) - fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Firefox's share is less than 10%, MS still has more than 90% of the market, and last year, MS saw a increase in users (active, not simply downloads) larger than the total numbers of people using FF.
So "losing ground" is a relative term.
For the record, I used to use FF, until v2. Now I use Opera. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3[quote]I am so sick of the way people assume that IE is losing ground because of Firefox. Have you ever heard of Opera or Safari?[/quote]
I heard of Safari. Let me know when it works in Windows and Linux. Before that happens, talking about Safari just annoys 65% of Diggers. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well when you are forced to install the IE7 yeah you can have millions of "users"....but it does not mean that they actually use it. I have IE7 but don't use it all....of course I use the almighty firefox.
- hiikeeba, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I recently installed IE7. I didn't have a choice. M$ forced me to with an automatic update. That's a sure fire way to increase downloads!
- ray901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ Burmask
"IE is better because it renders older webpages, which are not CSS 2.0 compliant, in a more forgiving fashion. There are billions out there."
Translation - IE renders older web pages that were designed almost exclusively for IE non-compliant browsers. Firefox does not - therefore ff is not as good a browser as IE - H4rdcore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> It has some really good features.
Like not rendering XHTML pages correctly, having problems with Java Applets and instead working with that insecure Active-X and still not having a properly working java script implementation. Yeah, those are really nice features! - filips01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2As a web designer, any ground gained by Firefox is step in the right direction and is welcomed. IE7 is a much nicer browser than IE6 by far, no argument there, but it still leaves more to be desired. Even though IE7 is out and about, doesn't make my life that much easier as I still have to check if the site doesn't loose the plot in IE6 and IE7.
"IE7 made a move towards Standard Compliance and CSS support but it isn't no leap towards it."
As per average day to day users, they just use what is there (in this case IE7) because usually they can't be bothered trying anything else, they don't know how, or they are scared to break something. With time however the general populous is becoming more technologically savvy and are making the jump after some experimentation. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can't base anything on the number of IE7 installs, mainly because of the fact that you can't delete IE in Windows. People are downloading IE7 because, if you can't delete it, you might as well get the most up-to-date version, even if you never plan on actually using it.
- fremeer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Opera is the best stand alone browser since it offers the best of everything. The plugins for it are lacking though and the thats the reason i use firefox. Its ability to have live bookmarks(love em) and the plugins are so well done and original that usually i never use anything else.
IE7 looks awesome in vista though and isnt too bad for newbs but its still too basic. If i could describe it IE is the family sedan with some extras. Firefox is the Lexus with all the extras and Opera is an m5. m5 is the best but the lexus just gets some stuff more right. - gojeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1When FF gets 90% of the market, then come talk to me.
In the meantime, marked as spam. - astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because...
A) It was forced down their throat as a 'default' update when Windows updates were run. ("OOOH look at the
pretty shiny new E on my desktop, how did it get there, oh well it must be a grand program to use!!").
B) At least 70% of people are brain washed into thinking IE is 'the only browser' they can use.
C) Web Authors use bad code (i.e. Front Page) which is coded in MS's "own" HTML, people decide
that the page loads fine in IE, and not in Firefox, and they stick with IE.
D) People don't care about their security or sensitive data and put their PC's t risk when using IE.
E) All of the above. - pirotess, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1People should now realize that Microsoft isn't a monopoly.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 111 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is