IE designer switches to Firefox!

[newbie2]

"Why I switched to Firefox

It’s a sad day and a good day. For years I’ve held onto my IE install out of love. I worked on IE 1.0 thru 5.0, and was one of the people that designed much of its UI. But my love for the past has faded. Last week I switched to Firefox: and I’ve been happy.

Why I switched:

1. IE is a ghetto........."
http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/?p=115
:-P :-P :-P

[Zelut]

Glad to hear it. I can't stand IE and miss firefox anytime I am forced to use it. I think things load cleaner & faster and its just a better product.

I'm actually to the point that I despise anything windows, but thats just me :)

[escuchamezz]

must be some great designer this guy, IE just copied the mosaic interface and has hardly changed from version 1 to 5 in the interface

[Brunellus]

This guy doesn't get much props from me, sorry to say. He's responsible for my single biggest pet peeve about IE's UI: when I open up a new window, the browser by default assumes I want to view the same page...and so proceeds to load it, not from a local cache (which would make sense)...no, it downloads everything AGAIN.

This annoyed me to no end: if I was opening up a new browser window, I WANTED TO VIEW SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT I WAS ALREADY VIEWING.

He lists this "feature" as one of the things he wants implemented in firefox. Uh, no, thanks, buddy.

[Rule]

This guy doesn't get much props from me, sorry to say. He's responsible for my single biggest pet peeve about IE's UI: when I open up a new window, the browser by default assumes I want to view the same page...and so proceeds to load it, not from a local cache (which would make sense)...no, it downloads everything AGAIN.

This annoyed me to no end: if I was opening up a new browser window, I WANTED TO VIEW SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT I WAS ALREADY VIEWING.

He lists this "feature" as one of the things he wants implemented in firefox. Uh, no, thanks, buddy.

I agree with you there that is stupid. I open a new tab/window so I can haev a new page not the same one.

[newbie2]

http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050926WhyFormerIEDeveloperSwitchedToFirefox.html

[23meg]

but as far as i remember, this was just the default; there was an option to have blank pages in newly opened windows. can anyone confirm this?

[23meg]

he says:
I use tabs less often than I expected: opening new windows is often more comfortable - easier to track which window lives where.

old dog, new tricks..

[aysiu]

but as far as i remember, this was just the default; there was an option to have blank pages in newly opened windows. can anyone confirm this? Blank pages are useless to me. One of the first things I do with a fresh Firefox install is add the Tabbrowser Preferences extension so I can have new tabs open with my homepage (Google)--that's useful... a blank page is not.

[23meg]

why don't you use the google search on the search bar? or do you?

if you check out the comments on his post, berkun says that the rationale behind having the last visited page instead of a blank page there was quite a populist one, like "most people would rather see something than nothing". blank page = frustration i guess.

i like blank pages. sure they are useless, but not everything has to be useful; they give a sense of a new beginning, an urge of initialization. it's just a matter of giving people the choice rather than thinking in their name, which seems to have been the case here as it usually is with ms products (i think i was wrong in my first post).

[blastus]

"Nothing in FF makes me feel safer explicitly..."

Well for one it is not bound to the OS. It amazes me how an architect of the IE team can ignore this fact. By the time he left the team (1999), IE was well on its way to being totally bound to the OS.

To the extent that browsing-specific routines have been commingled with operating system routines to a greater degree than is necessary to provide any consumer benefit, Microsoft has unjustifiably jeopardized the stability and security of the operating system. Specifically, it has increased the likelihood that a browser crash will cause the entire system to crash and made it easier for malicious viruses that penetrate the system via Internet Explorer to infect non-browsing parts of the system -- U.S. DOJ November 1999.

These statements have been proven beyond doubt. Consider that malware such as spyware was virtually non-existent back then and one realizes just how accurate a picture the U.S. DOJ painted.

[newbie2]

Consider that malware such as spyware was virtually non-existent back then and one realizes just how accurate a picture the U.S. DOJ painted.
"A third key?!
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these discoveries, by outsiders."
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/5263/1.html

"The European Parliament reports have sparked Continent-wide anger. Questions
have been raised by officials in Denmark, Germany, Norway, and Holland,
while the Swedish government has launched an investigation into whether
Swedish companies have been victims of covert NSA surveillance.
In Italy, a Rome deputy district attorney has opened an inquiry to determine
whether NSA activities violate Italian privacy law.
More important, perhaps, the reports encouraged France and Germany to lift
their restrictions on the use and sale of strong encryption software, which
Washington has been trying to limit."
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/p...ber/005968.html

"Germany's Bundiswehr is banning Microsoft software (and presumably other major American software packages) from use in critical environments due to concern over "back doors" suspected to have been placed for the use of U.S. spy agencies, particularly the NSA (National Security Agency).
China, last year, declared Linux, particularly the home grown Red Flag Linux, the official operating system for Chinese government and commerce due to similar security fears."
http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M010318.html

[poofyhairguy]

Blank pages are useless to me. One of the first things I do with a fresh Firefox install is add the Tabbrowser Preferences extension so I can have new tabs open with my homepage (Google)--that's useful... a blank page is not.

No offense, but how is that more useful than a blank page? Especially when you can just type what you want to search for in the top search bar- same result without that first bunch of CPU/bandwidth drain to load Google!

[cokhavim]

This annoyed me to no end: if I was opening up a new browser window, I WANTED TO VIEW SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT I WAS ALREADY VIEWING.

He lists this "feature" as one of the things he wants implemented in firefox. Uh, no, thanks, buddy.

well, i have a friend who got annoyed with firefox for not loading the same page, and so switched back to IE. why? because when viewing webmail, she wanted to refer to other emails. and it's much easier with IE to just open a new window, click "back" (to the inbox) to choose the mail, than (with firefox) to open a new window, go to the yahoo page AGAIN (or gmail or whatever), navigate AGAIN to the inbox, and then click the desired email. in other words, firefox required an extra step to do the same thing.

[stimpack]

I also have to download Tabbrowser preferences as the very first thing, FF is not usable for me until then. Instad of a blank page it laods my home page which is a local html file with all my links on sorted into catagories, its as ugly as hell but the fastest way ive found to get to places :)

[PatrickMay16]

well, i have a friend who got annoyed with firefox for not loading the same page, and so switched back to IE. why? because when viewing webmail, she wanted to refer to other emails. and it's much easier with IE to just open a new window, click "back" (to the inbox) to choose the mail, than (with firefox) to open a new window, go to the yahoo page AGAIN (or gmail or whatever), navigate AGAIN to the inbox, and then click the desired email. in other words, firefox required an extra step to do the same thing.
She could have just right clicked on the "inbox" link, then selected "open in new window".

[aysiu]

i like blank pages. sure they are useless, but not everything has to be useful; they give a sense of a new beginning, an urge of initialization. it's just a matter of giving people the choice rather than thinking in their name, which seems to have been the case here as it usually is with ms products (i think i was wrong in my first post). But both Firefox and IE think in your name rather than give a choice. IE's choice is same page. Firefox's choice is no page.

I think the Tabbrowser Preferences extension should not be an extension. It should come standard, so you have a choice as to whether you want your homepage to be the new page or a blank page to be it. As you said before, it's all about giving people the choice--right now, neither browser does that.

[aysiu]

She could have just right clicked on the "inbox" link, then selected "open in new window". Or, with a more modern mouse, middle-clicked the link to have it open up in a new tab.