[BC] Browser wars

[Alan Kline]

------ At 03:04 PM 12/6/2005 -0500, The Most Honourable Dale H. Cook wrote: -------
>At 12:58 PM 12/6/2005, Alan Kline wrote:
>
>> >I guess they just think the rest of the world that uses a *real* web browser
>> >(Firefox running on Linux, in my case) doesn't deserve to enjoy anything.
>>
>>And I thought that MS had already settled one anti-trust suit related to
>>Web browsers.  Silly me--I reasoned that they might have actually learned
>>something from the experience...
>
>This isn't an issue with browser distribution, as that suit was. 

Sure it is.  This is M$ blocking distribution of content to anyone who doesn't
use their software.  And as Wilie pointed out, Media Player 10 might be free,
but XP isn't.  It's trying to squeeze out competition, just as M$ did with
Netscape.  The "bad code" didn't write the text on the page that tells people
that they must use M$ products to view the page.  It was deliberate.

I actually have IE6, MP10, and XP on my machines, mainly because they came
equipped with all 3.  I still refuse to allow M$ to try to dictate what software
I will or will not use.  I only use IE to access the on-line ordering at Papa 
John's Pizza, mainly because it's easier than cooking if my wife's working. ;-)
(and their site doesn't work with Firefox)

Another example of "bad" Microsoft code--not long ago, I acquired an optical USB
mouse for my Gateway laptop.  When I installed the driver, it either uninstalled
or hid the control panel for the touchpad.  A giant PITA until I went back and 
restored the touchpad driver.  Fortunately, Gateway has a nice system restore
utility...

>This is an 
>issue with a web site designer who uses an inferior design tool (probably 
>FrontPage) that is crippled because it creates sections of non-standard 
>HTML code that are supported only by an inferior browser (i.e., IE).
>
>Many web sites have such non-standard code - the engineering page on the 
>Premiere site is an example.

You're absolutely right on both of those points.  There's an awful lot of
crap on the Web, just as there's a lot of good stuff.  And a lot of it is 
just badly coded, by people who lean on a particular design tool rather than
get a good one or learn the HTML involved.

ak