A pro-firefox rant

brad — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:47:54 +0200

Originally posted here

I see how you did that, making it sound like the chrome in IE is like the chrome in firefox.

Some constructive critism. Security wise, the fact that your extensions install using third party software means you have no tap on what the install script will do, you may or may not get a security warning that an external program is going to change your browser, and you may or may not install malicious code. There is no secure connection between your addons server and me, and no certificate based security of the potentially harmful addons.

As much as you promote addons you do not provide the infrastructure for people to host them (properly, with version control etc.), comment and assist easily for "free" addons. Your addons page is ignorant of licenses which are pre-written to cater for various situations (free-non-commercial, or open source, or free and open source)

The reason Firefox is so powerful, and is a good thorn in your side, and always will be, is the fact that their extensions are powerful, human readable, and can be downloaded, changed, extended, and users of their addons facilities understand the language of changesets.

For sure, it is the power of the open source community, and it is one microsoft cannot endorse too heavily because it would be a PR nightmare. One thing the open source world is good and bad at is community. Firefox is good, and will always be better than IE because it strikes a good balance between core and community, including and not limited to the strcuture of their addons. Firefox, is a viewer for a render engine.

What development environment do you need to write addons for IE? XUL happens to require a text editor, on any platform. XUL can be executed with low-privledges (and a clear privledge seperation) in the browser (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Amazon_Browser in a XUL capable browser)

Does the language IE's addons use have that capability? is it growing to support multiple scripting languages to manipulate it's DOM? Unfortunately having to privledge ISVs over individuals who are keen to get their hands dirty in the code means you cut off the long tail. Firefox found fertile ground in that very place, and it is quickly challenged your position. You can copy it's features, and claim they are nifty, but power users (who happen to be the same people who install software on their average-user-friends computers) are the ones who write powerful plugins, without agenda, and choose the best product, not the one with the most marketting. It is nice to see that for windows XP and below firefox is on the same playingfield as IE, a level one, not one shoving products down autoupdate pipes.

Also consider the increasing heterogenity of office networks, which product makes sense? the one that works on Windows, or the one that works on Everything. Put yourself in the shoes of the trusty sysadmin who has to choose between supporting two products on different operating systems. Consider the user at home who can download, for free, with source, a browser that implements helpers for every online service he/she uses (the hint here is that it isn't firefox i am talking about, but it's cousin), not worrying that the maker of that flavour of the browser is capturing their usage over all the services, but knowing that it was made by his/her peers for him/her. IE is rapidly going getting down to the 50% market share, where suddenly you have to worry about what users are actually asking for, instead of what you think they need.

I am glad IE has come as far as it has, and it is nice to know you read critism. But start talking more candidly about how your product is following others, or how your product provides benefits to someone who has been at the mercy of your own hegemony on your users. Mozilla is the underdog who learn't that there are lots of people who are also unhappy about the bullies, and it turns out they want to hang out with him, and use services of their choice, and languages of their choice, and laugh at the bullies who still drive their 15 year old sports cars, sporting their 15 year old jackets, and their 15 year old girlfriends, and keep trying to tell the world their lame ideas of how cool school was, and how cool it still is.

Are you implementing the next generation of languages and tools that everyone is discussing, together, in an open platform, or are you talking about it behind closed doors, and releasing code which you deem "will improve your desktop experience"? Call marketing marketing, and candid discussion candid discussion. Mozilla has people who leave unhappy, and they have their say on the same public forums that we get told about new features. It's identifiable. It is community. Tell us you are having a bad day, tell us about your new team in india and how happy everyone is, but tell us how you are impressed with the competitors features, I know public open source projects tell us where their features were inspired from.

internet explorer

A pro-firefox rant