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It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

blogs.computerworld.com

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Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#141

Post by estel »

wavephorm wrote: post #129
cletus wrote: post #25

I wonder how many people throwing opinions around this were "of age" in the early-to-mid 90s and thus remember what an unstoppable behemoth Microsoft was. This was a time when they had 95%+ of the desktop OS share and you basically couldn't run a home computer with Windows. This was the early days of Linux (IIRC in ~1994 I downloaded SLS running Linux 0.99.x onto ~30 floppy drives over a 2400 baud modem!). Macs were…

Microsoft has definitely earned their hatred in both the consumer and development communities. They rode their monopoly as far as they could, and they are going to pay for it very dearly. Literally noone I have met in the past 10 years is developing Windows software anymore. Sure, some people use .Net to develop web applications, but it sure seems that nobody develops Windows-only software. So Microsoft, has already…

That sounds like a function of the people you've met tbh. Looking at job postings around these parts, the most widespread platform remains .NET.

Whilst the non-existent adoption amongst startups doesn't necessarily bode well for MSFT's future, there is still a huge amount of .NET development going on worldwide.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#142

Post by throwaway64 »

Tloewald wrote: post #96
tosseraccount wrote: post #87

Why are they blocking FF? It seems to me Apple's inviting the same anti-trust problems Microsoft had. Just let FF on and compete.

A browser is a huge attack surface. It's excluded for the same reason Flash and Java are excluded. BTW I think this justifies Microsoft's stance too. The big problem is that Microsoft has this nasty track record.

so we can trust IE to be much more secure and not have problems?

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#143

Post by trotsky »

georgemcbay wrote: post #88
cletus wrote: post #25

I wonder how many people throwing opinions around this were "of age" in the early-to-mid 90s and thus remember what an unstoppable behemoth Microsoft was. This was a time when they had 95%+ of the desktop OS share and you basically couldn't run a home computer with Windows. This was the early days of Linux (IIRC in ~1994 I downloaded SLS running Linux 0.99.x onto ~30 floppy drives over a 2400 baud modem!). Macs were…

I was around during the time period you're talking about and in my personal experience, Microsoft had plenty of help in killing Netscape from Netscape itself. I switched to MSIE3 not because of bundling or FUD but because it was a much better browser. Microsoft has been a bad actor at times when it comes to business practices, but I think a lot of people overestimate how much that helped them and underestimate how mu…

I agree - netscape had a big hand in their own implosion. Their codebases had gotten away from them and they had problems managing well after all that growth and hype.

It also didn't help that they went around doing lots of press about how they were going to completely replace the OS layer and kill microsoft when they had basically zero code along those lines.

Sure they had the vision, but it painted a huge (even larger) bullseye on their back while they were busy sinking in their own quicksand.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#144

Post by sriramk »

randomfool wrote: post #122
sriramk wrote: post #48

My feeling here (ex-MSFT employee, so maybe biased one way or another) is that Mozilla is going after the soft underbelly of Microsoft, because they can . Mozilla is already locked out of iOS and they have failed at getting Apple to budge. If WinRT locks them out, they'll be locked out of two out of the three major tablet platforms (it's a safe assumption that WinRT will get some marketshare at least). Microsoft is a…

"Strategically, it makes a lot of sense to own the browsing experience e2e" Can you expand on this? There are a couple of benefits I can think of, but no major ones. - Quality of experience: owning the browser ensures that sub-par browsers don't degrade the overall experience (such as destroy battery life and overall platform impressions). - Controlling innovation: If Microsoft feels threatened by HTML then it can li…

I don't think Microsoft will make the mistake of falling behind on the web platform again. In fact, their latest moves (both tech, organization-wise) show them throwing more weight behind IE/HTML and less behind .NET/SL/Win32 (this is from me reading the tea leaves from the outside, not any inside scoops).

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#145

Post by swang »

larsberg wrote: post #121
spanktheuser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was around and remember it well. Even if some of the HN community missed the OS wars, they've probably dealt with the consequences of Microsoft's OS monopoly - after killing Netscape, Microsoft allowed Internet Explorer to completely stagnate. More than 5 years passed between the release of IE6 and IE7. Anyone who spent late nights/weekends in the last half decade trying to get some web page to render properly in I…

> Microsoft allowed Internet Explorer to completely stagnate IIRC, after the legal madness, there were some major shakeups. Not least of which included the entire IE team being settlement-forced into other positions in the company (many went on to what would become WPF, which should be obvious if you've ever seen XAML). I don't envy the post-IE6 group, having to take a huge codebase, maintain backwards compatability,…

There might have been a team but it seems like all that team was created to do was to maintain the IE6 codebase. That is pretty much stagnated development. At the time Microsoft was essentially giving web developers the middle finger because really, what were our alternatives?

Why did IE7 ever get released? Simple, because of Phoenix, aka Firebird, aka Firefox, aka competition. Without that I doubt Microsoft would have ever updated IE or bothered to rewrite IEs rendering engine (which didn't work well until maybe IE9). If not for the new competition into the browser field we would probably still be asking them to fix alpha transparency in PNG files.

So what I'm getting at is, they could have started IE7 anytime they wanted to after IE6 shipped with XP. Stagnation because of team shakeup is just an excuse. I doubt IE7 would have taken that long if Firefox was released right when XP came out.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#146

Post by kprobst »

azakai wrote: post #137
kprobst wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What monopoly do they have? Do they not have what is essentially a monopoly on the tablet space? I'm not up to date on Android tablet market share, but it seems to me that there isn't so much a market for tablets as there is one for iPads. Everything else is pretty much nonexistent. I might be wrong about that, I guess.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/05/03/amazons-tablet-market... Apple has 68% of the market. It's in a very powerful position, but it isn't a monopoly.

I stand corrected, thank you. I thought it was far higher.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#147

Post by floomp »

kprobst wrote: post #123
floomp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll note that I left Linux off that list as I believe it will never be a viable mainstream desktop OS and of course I know it powers Android/ChromeOS Why not? The main issues for Linux in this field are QA of releases, and support from third-party application vendors for a small subset of programs. Those aren't unsolvable problems. Even today Linux may be a superior solution to both OS X and Windows for certain…

Surely you must realize that this is the same argument people have been making for close to 15 years, and not much has changed. So that should answer your question about the OPs point.

I don't believe it's the same argument. A lot has changed in 15 years for Linux. It still has a tiny market share, yeah, but it's more accessible and approachable than ever. I think it comes down to making sure Linux delivers the same amount of polish as Windows and OS X instead of any fundamental change that's required.

Not to say I buy into the year of the Linux desktop stuff - I'm expecting it to be a gradual change as Linux gets better and more people start to use it. OEMs preinstalling Linux on PCs definitely helps, too, which they've already been starting to do.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#149

Post by da_n »

#drunken troll comment

"Windows 8 FTW! Dude you are the DON. I really wish there was more people like you writing opinions like this online and make sure Apple gets what they deserved! What a bunch of asshole! Seems to me you should also give Samsung a call, see what they think! After all this they do not have browser either yet on iOS and I bet they really wanted it maximum! Apple should be take a leaf from the real Mr Steve book, and stop making mess of themselves. Shameful really, this is why I always buy Samsung product and Microsoft software, it is best for everyone to avoid this Apple who are never good for anybody. Thank you for great article."

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#150

Post by kprobst »

floomp wrote: post #147
kprobst wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you must realize that this is the same argument people have been making for close to 15 years, and not much has changed. So that should answer your question about the OPs point.

I don't believe it's the same argument. A lot has changed in 15 years for Linux. It still has a tiny market share, yeah, but it's more accessible and approachable than ever. I think it comes down to making sure Linux delivers the same amount of polish as Windows and OS X instead of any fundamental change that's required. Not to say I buy into the year of the Linux desktop stuff - I'm expecting it to be a gradual chan…

I'm not implying that nothing has changed with Linux, just with its situation in the desktop.
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