Internet Explorer market share surges, as IE 9 wins hearts and minds

Cute and as overused as that phrase is, it does not deny the importance of statistics in science. It merely highlights how we (humans) can and do misuse anything

and after this brief interlude back to subject

 

Well, I see we'll have to agree to disagree.

I honestly like IE9 64 bit. I am not sure if that's a case of winning my heart & mind though. More a case of 'if Waterfox can't handle this I bet IE9 will'.

 

And having that choice is great. To simply swap back and forth on a whim or by choice or even need for best tool at the time.

 

Yes, we're a bit spoilt for choice these days. I just hope this quite wide range of choice prevails for a long time. I'm still mourning K-Meleon.

 

I really liked K-Meleon, it was fast & quite customisable. I believe that a lot of its users are now migrating to SeaMonkey.

 

Is K-Meleon officially dead now? I still use K-Meleon 1.7 on occasion. Besides being a seriously fast browser, the privacy bar is a great feature. With SeaMonkey (and probably FF as well) the PrefBar extension enables you to build something very similar to it. I've only recently learned of PrefBar. Wish I'd known about it long ago. It's a keeper.

Back on topic, when viewed from the sickening perspective of corporate greed, I guess these browser wars make sense. What makes absolutely no sense is why FireFox and Mozilla are allowing themselves to be dragged into it. It's not like they make more money with a larger user percentage. Just because MS and Google want to treat those statistics like stock market values doesn't mean Mozilla should follow suit. IMO, they should ignore that nonsense completely, including their rapid update policies which favor the big companies that can employ hundreds of coders, and focus on making a good browser. With a limited number of coders, all the rapid update policy does is increase the chances of bugs and flaws getting through. When that happens, the big money companies will jump all over it. Mozilla, stop playing their game.

 

Yes, PrefBar was stolen from inspired by K-Meleon's privacy bar (which I used to drag up to the Menu Bar). I don't think that KM is 'officially' deceased but I think it is in a coma.

I couldn't agree more.

Yes .... please Mozilla ... STOP!

 

Yes, IE9 64 bit is lightning on my desktop PC. But IMO, there is more to using a browser than speed. I've seriously customised Waterfox & SeaMonkey on various machines I own (plus portable browsers) to the extent that those extension abilities & the like have just become 'normal' to me now. I find them incredibly useful, let alone some of the security features they utilise. IE9 may be very safe & fast now, but I feel far safer in SeaMonkey (on my 32 bit machine) with WOT, NoScript, RequestPolicy & ABP.

 

I don't see MS rivalling Mozilla with extensions quite yet, unless you know something we don't Ron.

 

What right do I have to ask others not to change because I don't appreciate specific changes? Am I a stakeholder likely to suffer financial loss because of the change? Even then, it depends on how significant my holding is in the company. I'm glad that Mozilla and certain other software developers do their own thing (at least some of the time) and don't bother about pleasing everyone all the time.

 

I dunno, I give up. What right do you have?

Ah, the 'rhetorical question' argument. And your point is ... ?

This isn't about pleasing everyone though is it? I wish Mozilla would 'do their own thing' like they used to do. Instead, I'm not sure just who Mozilla is trying to please these days.

Anyway, we're off-topic ... yet again.

 

Mozilla hasn't done anything the others haven't done (Chrome, IE) or tried to do (poor Opera, lol). It's just business, and, really, if we leave security out of this and just go by UI, I personally believe Mozilla actually did it better. They're not really trying to please everyone so much as just keeping up with the competition.

As far as IE goes, I completely would understand it being at the top. Let's pretend it's still an IE world, that we're still in the early 2000s. IE 9 is by far the best version MS has produced. I'm not one of the fans of the "minimal UI movement" that started all the other browsers on the same train, but the security and speed is tops among all of its various versions over the years.

I'm on the fence about extensions and other customizations for it. Part of me wants to see the ability to do such, but, from a security standpoint, I understand the increasing risk of doing so.

 

I think vasa1 is trying to put himself (or herself) in your skin.

There is "Internet Explorer" in the thread's title but the thread is also about the "browser wars". Arguments/opinions concerning a browser's specific development are "on-topic" in my opinion....... specially when such developments have much to do with "browser wars"!

 

Browser wars talks under any guise are off topic

 

By "browser wars" I mean comparisons of browser makers' strategies and developments paces, and their resulting shares of the market. If that's off topic, then what's on topic regarding browsers? Is it possible to eliminate from discussion the competitive aspects of different browser makers' decisions?

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars

 

Browser wars do not encourage discussion. These days it is an obsolete approach trying to recreate the tired old rhetoric of good old days which were bad. Now it should be an internal dialog which browser icon to click on and use today. If anybody craves so called browser wars they should go elsewhere and argue it out there till they are blue in the face.

 

I understand your point, & by & large I agree. It's just that I don't think Mozilla need to keep up with the competition. They were doing just fine IMO, but I think they got a bit worried about that new WebKit kid on the block. Let's face it, overall Firefox is really the best browser out there, even if more people use Chrome 'statistically'. It seems that Mozilla felt threatened by Google's aggressive (& possibly slightly dishonest) marketing strategies. I just don't think that they needed to be that concerned.

I'm a bit ambivalent about minimalist GUIs, they can make a difference on a notebook. Although I do believe that one of the attractions of Chrome is its apparent simplicity. This probably appeals to people who have little experience with computers.

I think that's a good point concerning IE. After all, IE must be the most targeted browser by malware writers. Although a really good *adblocker or flashblocker might be a good idea for it.

*Better than any available & IE9's internal one.

 

Yes, of course, it's not that I don't recognise cognitive dissonance when I see it, it's just that it was very early in the morning for me, & I may have been drinking real ale earlier & was in an 'odd' mood. I blame the Easter Holidays. Although I don't often know exactly where or in which direction his/her debates often go sometimes (sorry Vasa1).

I agree with you, I doubt the mods will see it the same way though.

 

I reckon it depends on how you define the phrase 'Browser Wars' & how you define the noun 'discussion'. Obviously a load of fanboys with a collective IQ lower than their own shoe sizes hurling abuse, trolling & flaming each other is to be avoided. I mean, if you want that approach you can always join the Opera forums. However, a responsible & amicable discussion of the relative merits of various browsers & differing approaches to marketing strategies should be fine IMO.

Your gonna have to run that one by me again (does not compute ... ).

I am not so sure about internal dialogues, but surely an external dialogue discussing recent events in the usage 'statistics' of various contemporary browsers & any relevant marketing strategies is permissible?

 

Just seeing the word you are using, fanboy, low iq trolling etc etc demonstrates why it is called browser wars and not browser palaver. Of course intelligent, civil and appropriate discussion on any browser is allowed. Can't be simpler

 

I doubt that, I'm pretty sure that the term 'Browser Wars' actually refers to a historical market share conflict originally between Netscape & Microsoft. As for 'fanboy', well * a definite Google fanboy, yet we can respect his knowledge of computer security & choice of browser. Trolls, unless they are funny & witty, I would imagine don't have particularly high levels of intelligence or education. Unless they are trolling ironically of course. But many people find bulletin board irony difficult to identify, which is why smilies were invented I guess. As to 'palaver', its meaning is not at all always the colloquial one that you expected.

1733 (implied in palavering), "talk, conference, discussion," sailors' slang, from Port. palavra "word, speech, talk," traders' term for "negotiating with the natives" in W.Africa, metathesis of L.L. parabola "speech, discourse," from L. parabola "comparison." Meaning "idle talk" first recorded 1748. ~ Online Etymological Dictionary

Just as long as it's not off-topic right?