We The Firefox Advocates
Boring code guy passed me a copy of Linux User magazine because it contained an article about how behind-the-times IE is and how we need to show Firefox for all it can do. It says we, as advocates, should help people:
…shift their gaze away from Firefox's end-user features and towards the web design capabilities that it supports.
With which I agree. It goes on to say that we need:
…to build websites which achieved a (previously impossible) marriage of graphically rich presentation and semantically rich markup, by fully utilising CSS.
To do this it tells us to throw off the IE straight-jacket
. It made timely reading as it's something I've been doing round here. You're unlikely to notice, but I started making small changes that won't be of any benefit to IE users. Look at this page in IE and Firefox. You should see at least one subtle difference - quotes around the quotes. To do this I added some simple CSS2.
It's a small thing I know. But it's a start. From now on I won't stop myself adding new features to this site just because they don't work in IE (although I'll stop a long way short of hindering access to IE users). If others follow, how long will it be until IE users are the ones getting the raw deal? Soon the situation will have turned completely on its head. Using Netscape 4 used to be the lesser experience. It's fast becoming IE that's the stick in the mud holding us all back.
As you probably all know, Microsoft are planning an IE 7. What does this mean for us as developers though? Ok, so they're going to plug a whole load of security holes, but do we care about that as much as we do about improved support for things like CSS2? I don't and I really hope they improve the support for "emerging" standards. Something tells me they won't though.
Microsoft don't make money directly from IE as an application. So why would the bother improving it? They've already been dragged through the courts and punished for getting IE to the point where it was most used (best?) browser. What insentive do they have to lead the way any longer? The least we can hope for is that they manage to keep up.
One day maybe there'll be a huge demand for skills in converting IE apps to standards-compliancy? Although there's now a browser that can render pages using both IE and Firefox "engines"!
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Jake -
IE will become less important ONLY when corporations release themselves from the "spell" of Microsoft. This comment is being typed in IE. Why? Because I do not have the rights to install anything else on this work desktop! Thanks, Microsoft.
There really is very little incentive for corporations, especially the bigger ones, to start pushing software such as Firefox out to their user bases. So, as long as MS keeps rolling out new versions of IE, no matter how many or few new features/standards are included, it's here to stay. Unfortunately.
-- Mike
Maybe it will help when it's *only* with browsers other than IE that we can do the things the boss wants. It used to be the case that only IE could do the things they wanted. As this becomes less the case and as Firefox (et al) not only catches up with the features/support but overtakes it will become the tool of choice. Maybe?
Jake,
The problem for us here is that our intranet requires an activex object for sign-in to a secure web-based system. There is just no incentive to switch, given that we would need to rewrite that object.
Developers understand the incentive to switch, I am slowly switching at home (I have now set Firefox to be my default browser) but administration and even our sys admins do not seem interested in hearing about it.
oh well,
-Lance
One could hope. Part of the problem as well is the nature of "Joe User". Joe User buys a new PC from the local electronics giant, takes it home, turns it on and they're staring at Windows XX and IE Y.
Joe User is not a power user. They aren't going to understand what value they could get from Firefox vs. IE, nor care for that matter. They just want to be able to read email, news, sports, and check their bank account. Most likely, they have IE at work as well so there is a comfort level with using IE, and no reason to try anything else at home. If I had a dime for every time my mother asked me "how can I do this like I do it at work".... My father - I'm just happy when he finds the power button.
Joe User is the vast majority right now. Websites that are trying to draw people in simply are not going to stand their ground and force people to upgrade because they want to take advantage of better features in a newer product. This will drive Joe User away from their site.
Another thing worth mentioning: IT budgets are trim these days. Things are getting better, but when a company looks at the bottom line they are no going to see value in upgrading an entire user base, even if the software is free. It's still takes man hours to manage the project.
The bottom line here is this. We will start to see a major shift when our generation is running the IT departments, and realize the benefits that other products can provide besides the ones that are shoved down are throats, OR if one of these new products is just a completely killer app. Like Lotus Notes was once.
-- Mike
It also mentioned IBM in the article and the fact that they couldn't carry out their planned migration to a Linux desktop as they were tied to IE and ActiveX.
Maybe I shouldn't have been browser-specific in my title as I don't think this is about any particular browser. It's just that Firefox is the most promising at the moment. It's not about the "user" eiher, really. Does it matter what they use? If it gets to the point where IE won't allow them to use what *we* make they will *have* to make a switch. Maybe PC vendors will ship alternatives?
Instead of users, I'm thinking of us, the web developers. I'm excited about CSS3 and XForms and the like and what they can do for web applications. At the rate IE moving though I'll probably be a retired plumber before there's any support out there for them though.
As developers we have *got* to stop making IE-only apps ("throw off the straight jacked"!). I've been guilty of lazy IE coding in the past but I now try my darnedest to avoid it. Even if a client doesn't care I'll make sure it works as well as can be expected in AMBAP - damage limitation for the future.
As long as we carry on using things like ActiveX the longer it is before we can realistically make a change. Let us not forget what the web is all about!
One thing of concern and worth noting for those in the Firefox camp, there is a lot of noise about who is tending the store on future Mozilla development efforts, what will happen with Firefox and other issues of some contention within the Mozilla foundation.
You can read about it on slashdot.
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Personally, I hope there are good and able to be dedicated programmers out there just waiting for their chance to help Firefox continue to grow and achieve dominance. But a recent quote worries me and must be delighting MS no end.
"Of the six people who can do reviews for Firefox, four are AWOL...." with futher indications the remaining two don't have all the time in the world to maintain their level of involvement. :-(
Mike, I would have thought the same thing about most people not being 'power users' until I found out that a few non-computer savvy architects in my office are actually using Firefox at home. When I asked why they were able to express a list of valid reasons for not using IE - all non-technical.
I think that as people are becoming experienced web users they will want a tool that gives them the best features for web browsing.
In this case they were introduced to Firefox by other people - but it at least shows that it's spreading for non-technical reasons too.
Andrew -
That's great. Just out of curiosity, what age group are these folks part of?
-- Mike
Come to think of it I recently formatted a friend's virus-riddled laptop and gave him Thunderbird and Firefox as defaults rather than OE or IE (the latter of which I left on in case he complained). I've yet to hear any complaint and presume he's still using Firefox. He, for the record, is as un-tech-savvy as they come. A browser's a browser if it works properly. He probably doesn't even know it's *not* IE...
Jerry, note that a lack of Firefox specific developers isn't as bad as it sounds. The core of Firefox is still Gecko, Mozilla's rendering engine, which has active development by way of people working on "Mozilla". I believe the next version of Firefox (1.1) will contain a newer version of Gecko (that I believe is already in Mozilla?) which improves performance and fixes some memory leaks, etc.
Jake -
You are absolutely correct. A browser is a browser ... If every PC in the world shipped with a browser other than IE, most people would be no more the wiser. The general public will use whatever is pushed to them. For now, anyway. In the case of your friend, you were responsible for pushing new software to them. What are the chances this person would have sought out the software if they did not have PC problems?
What we need is for the virus writers of the world to use the IE holes to install better software!
-- Mike
I too use Firefox as my default browser and mostly it is just great.
However I recently found one of the options on my bank's site just did not work. I reported this to the site and received an email saying they knew that it didn't work in Firefox and I should use IE instead.
So if a site doesn't work in IE it a problem with the site, if it doesn't work in an other browser it is a problem with the browser.
So far I have simply avoided that part of the site, but the fact that such sites exist must slow down any move of the multitudes to Firefox or anything else.
Paul -
If your bank is insisting on using the security-hole-riddled IE, I would switch banks.
Marcin -
Thanks for that. Clarifies the situation and offers (me at least) some hope. :-)