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IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

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Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#71

Post by panduwana »

blub wrote: post #65
rbanffy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain those issues?

The issues are quite noticeable for someone that isn't heavily invested in web apps. Most of HN is - and that's why they prefer to ignore them. But let's look at the market... Have web apps displaced desktop apps? No. Have they displaced mobile apps (as per HN mantra 90% of iPhone apps could be web apps)? Not even close. Now why is this? It's because web apps offer a significantly poorer user experience across the bo…

> Now why is this? It's because web apps offer a significantly poorer user experience across the board.

That is true today, but to say the issues can't never be solved is a bit of stretch:

- Speed issue: NaCl.

- Standard widgets: HTML5 already have input type=datetime, color picker, address book, and many more.

- Animation: WebGL.

- GPS: Geolocation API is available today on most browsers.

- Sensors: Accelerometer API is available today on some browsers.

Now I'm not saying that web app will certainly become the norm, but it's not impossible.

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#72

Post by Retric »

phatbyte wrote: post #52

The funny thing is, while as a web developer I hate with all my guts fighting IE standards(?), I also hate how Firefox (yes even version 4) is a memory hog. It's unbearable to work with it consuming 700mb to 1Gb of memory, with just a few tabs and firebug on. Chrome(webkit) on the other side, wins both of these two combined any time of day. Mozilla, you have come a long away, you created history when you came out wit…

I understand that people like netbook/nettops etc, but ram is really cheap. At 10$ / Gig range there is little reason to have less than 8GB and 16GB while probably overkill is still fairly inexpensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#73

Post by steveklabnik »

est wrote: post #67
dillon wrote: post #7

This is why Developers hate IE, we have to make code specifically for that browser. I guess if you truly hate Microsoft, you wouldn't code it and just tell the user to download Firefox.

> This is why Developers hate IE, we have to make code specifically for that browser. Stop using -webkit, -moz, -o first.

Red herring. Vendor prefixes are part of the standards process.

Once the standard is finalized, you simply drop -moz and you're done. This is nowhere near the same league as IE CSS/JS fixes.

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#74

Post by phatbyte »

Retric wrote: post #72
phatbyte wrote: post #52

The funny thing is, while as a web developer I hate with all my guts fighting IE standards(?), I also hate how Firefox (yes even version 4) is a memory hog. It's unbearable to work with it consuming 700mb to 1Gb of memory, with just a few tabs and firebug on. Chrome(webkit) on the other side, wins both of these two combined any time of day. Mozilla, you have come a long away, you created history when you came out wit…

I understand that people like netbook/nettops etc, but ram is really cheap. At 10$ / Gig range there is little reason to have less than 8GB and 16GB while probably overkill is still fairly inexpensive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...

"Algorithms are for people who don't know how to buy RAM." - no idea who wrote this

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#75

Post by Retric »

phatbyte wrote: post #74
Retric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that people like netbook/nettops etc, but ram is really cheap. At 10$ / Gig range there is little reason to have less than 8GB and 16GB while probably overkill is still fairly inexpensive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...

"Algorithms are for people who don't know how to buy RAM." - no idea who wrote this

"The secret to happiness is running software on a better computer than the dev who created it." -me

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#77

Post by jokermatt999 »

blub wrote: post #65
rbanffy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain those issues?

The issues are quite noticeable for someone that isn't heavily invested in web apps. Most of HN is - and that's why they prefer to ignore them. But let's look at the market... Have web apps displaced desktop apps? No. Have they displaced mobile apps (as per HN mantra 90% of iPhone apps could be web apps)? Not even close. Now why is this? It's because web apps offer a significantly poorer user experience across the bo…

I think you're generally right that native apps are better than web apps. I have a few points to pick at, but don't take that as disagreement.

* web apps don't have access to special platform functionality such as GPS, sensors, camera, etc.*

Take a look at PhoneGap. This is definitely becoming less of an issue, and I wouldn't be surprised to see even more progress on it.

Including Google. It's in their interest to lock-in users to their platform, even more so since Android became a major player.

I can't speak for others, but Google's native apps are merely frontends to their web service. I regularly switch between the native and web versions of both GMail and Google Reader on my phone. There's slightly different feature sets (syncing/refreshing tends to be no issue on the web, but it's kind of weird on the native apps. The UI is better on the native apps. I can open links in background tabs for the web, but I have to switch apps for native, etc), but I could completely stop using the native apps with 0 issue.

Other than that, I strongly agree. I've never had to worry about my internet being slow or down to use a native app, and I know I can use them years later with no issue.

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#78

Post by samlevine »

blub wrote: post #65
rbanffy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain those issues?

The issues are quite noticeable for someone that isn't heavily invested in web apps. Most of HN is - and that's why they prefer to ignore them. But let's look at the market... Have web apps displaced desktop apps? No. Have they displaced mobile apps (as per HN mantra 90% of iPhone apps could be web apps)? Not even close. Now why is this? It's because web apps offer a significantly poorer user experience across the bo…

Irony: using a web app to suggest that web apps haven't displaced any native apps.

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#79

Post by famousactress »

acabal wrote: post #30

I'm still not sure what the point of all this is. Any developer worth their salt already knows that IE9 is more or less a small step forward but still far short of what it needs to be and of what FF/Chrome have accomplished ages ago. Any non-technical user won't be reading this article and won't give a damn about IE vs. FF vs. Chrome, as long as their internets work. Why keep up the pissing match? Who are they talkin…

Any non-technical user won't be reading this article and won't give a damn about IE vs. FF vs. Chrome, as long as their internets work.

Not giving a damn isn't the same as not being affected by. IE slows down innovation and productivity on the web. Everyone's internets are worse for it, and it's a ball-and-chain everyone's paying to drag behind us.. whether or not everyone's aware of it.

Re: IE9 vs. Firefox 4 (done in canvas)

#80

Post by jlongster »

johncaverns wrote: post #61
jlongster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Mozilla, and we are watching Chrome. It's just not the right time to campaign against Chrome. Chrome is only eating away from IE's market share, and IE 9 could attract a lot of non-techie users. Adopting a process-per-tab model is currently being implemented ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis ), and I imagine once that's done we will be discussing Chrome a lot more.

I switched from Mozilla to Chrome... Mozilla is just waaay too slow. The only thing I missed were the extensions, but Chrome is getting better on those as well. Based on my experience, Mozilla has a lot of reasons to be afraid of Chrome.

Have you tried Firefox 4 Beta?

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/

We are nearing the end of our Firefox 3 cycle (Firefox 4 is going to be released next month), and that's where our significant speed improvements have been implemented in the last 2 years. It's about even with Chrome speed-wise.

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