Who Supports Chrome
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- SteveB
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 126
- Thanks: 0
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In 1984 I received 2 letters in the mail from my 2 favourite Australian software developers that I subscribed to, one month apart they both advised they had sold their companies to another company called Microsoft. OK.. who cares... who is Microsoft? Well I soon found out, Microsoft was the company who bought the 2 best software companies in my country and CLOSED THEM DOWN.
We sat back and watched the demise of all the different computers and OS's that we loved, and did nothing, and loved the competition and choice.
We sat back and watched Microsoft steal the GUI O/S from Apple (yes I know about Xerox PARC), and did nothing, and loved the competition and choice.
We sat back and watched Microsoft destroy Lotus, and did nothing, we loved the competition and choice.
We sat back and watched Microsoft launch Internet Explorer and destroy Netscape, and did nothing, we loved the competition and choice.
Until the majority of us had no choice! All the computers in all the stores across the planet were loaded with Windows, the only office was a Microsoft Office, and the only web was seen through Internet Explorer.
We have been watching Google annihilate Microsoft on the world wide web for 10 years, and we cheered! Finally we have choice! We rejoiced when we heard Googles promise to "NEVER BE EVIL" and we rejoiced at their humanity.
We sat back and watched Google betray the people of China, and did nothing.
We finally got word from Google 10 years later... "we never promised not to be evil". Those in the know, cringed.
Today Google owns the web over Microsoft and we cheer!
Today we have Chrome.
The undeniable KING of the web, and the KING of all it's advertising, and it's search, and it's choice as to who to make popular on the web, has now released it's own version of the window of the web, the browser.
The release of Chrome has all the power to do to the internet what Microsoft did to the desktop.
Are we that stupid not to see?
Are we willing to let the same thing happen again?
Personally, I have run an online industry forum for the past 4 years, and I have run my new Joomla website for the last few months, and on both sites I recommend users to always use the latest browser versions available, and show the choices available without preaching.
But I will not provide that same courtesy to Chrome!
I love Google in so many ways, and it remains my home page, but the potential for abuse and destruction of choice and manipulation of the online world is too high a risk as far as I can see it. And if Google wins the browser market, we all lose for at least another decade.
Are we willing to do the same thing again? Are we willing to risk and lose again?
Thumbs Down and No Support here!
Opinions?
Some people may recognise a theme in this post, and it is not meant to subtract from or disrespect the original authors writings in any way. -
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- Robert J Hantson
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 31
- Thanks: 0
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When did chrome suddenly become the browser of all browsers? I don't think I fully understand the point of the post here... As far as I can tell, IE is still just about the only browser that seems to have the least amount of problems rendering web-pages... all too often I see posts by people saying that "such and such" doesn't work in Firefox... (yet everyone seems to try to convince me that Firefox is the "universal" browser that supports the internet best)...
I guess I'm always going to be an IE user... Safari, Firefox... I have spent more time banging my head against the wall because these two browsers don't want to play right with the internet and ADD/ADHD users who think that Microsoft is out to get them...
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- Andy Miller
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 9919
- Thanks: 96
- Web Kahuna
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Robert J Hantson wrote:
When did chrome suddenly become the browser of all browsers? I don't think I fully understand the point of the post here... As far as I can tell, IE is still just about the only browser that seems to have the least amount of problems rendering web-pages... all too often I see posts by people saying that "such and such" doesn't work in Firefox... (yet everyone seems to try to convince me that Firefox is the "universal" browser that supports the internet best)...
I guess I'm always going to be an IE user... Safari, Firefox... I have spent more time banging my head against the wall because these two browsers don't want to play right with the internet and ADD/ADHD users who think that Microsoft is out to get them...
I'm sure i read this wrong, but you said that IE has the 'least' amount of problems rendering pages? Surely this was a typo? IE6,7, and even 8 (so far) is littered with so many bugs and unsupported CSS elements that it's the of bane of every web developer. I should caveat that with every web developer that cares about standards and supporting browsers other than IE alone. If you search the Internet for "css bugs" or something of that ilk, you'll find almost every post directed at IE. If you look at any web template, ours included, you'll find extensive IE only css files, that are there to workaround IE incompatibilities and rendering problems. I've said this before, but in general we have to concern ourselves with IE's limitations and issues (i'm talking about 6 primarily but also 7) in every design we do. We do not have these problems with webkit, mozilla, and even opera based browsers. If IE was webkit-based for example, we would save weeks, probably months of work a year trying to find fixes for this shoddy product.
Anyway, the point is the only reason you have the impression that IE renders pages so well, is that due to it's market dominance, web designers are forced to support it. Most businesses focus on IE support because the vast majority of their users use it so they build their sites and applications in a non-standards (meaning ONLY supporting IE's broken engine) manner or use IE only technologies like active-x, and therefore unsupported in every other standards compliant browser, eg Firefox. Chrome has a long way to go before it can even take on Firefox, never-mind IE in the popularity, however, as long as it does it in standards complaint way, using the tried and true webkit engine, I'm not worried about it.
I hope that IE8 ends this terrible cycle of broken browsers from Microsoft, but after installing the latest Windows 7 with IE8, i'm not hopeful...
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1720
- Thanks: 23
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Andy Miller wrote:
I'm sure i read this wrong, but you said that IE has the 'least' amount of problems rendering pages? Surely this was a typo?
I had to read that twice, too...then got to thinking how 4-5 browsers display a 2px border around a form legend that looks the same; one of the browsers decided that a 2px border should be a little smaller (the latest IE issue I was tackling this morning, after discovering the "The IE Fieldset Background Color Bleed Bug"). But Mr. Gates knows best, I guess, which is why there are multiple CSS files in RT templates just to accommodate Mr. Bill.
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- Robert J Hantson
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 31
- Thanks: 0
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I think I need to learn how to go extremely in depth about what I'm talking about and not just hit on the forward points... (Excuse me on the statement - least amount of trouble rendering web pages... Let's rephraise that and say - least amount of posts in support forums saying - THIS WONT WORK IN IE but works everywhere else... it's more times than not the other way around...)
IE has, and probably will for a long time to come be the browser that sits in the forefront... You see, more often than not, developers complaining that they can't get websites to render properly in Firefox, or Safari, and have to jump through hoops to do so.
The key words here are the fact that IE is the dominant browser here... I see more complaints about websites not rendering properly out of the gate in Safari or Firefox, while IE seems to work just fine...
Every browser on the market today has it's bugs and issues rendering pages. There is not a SINGLE PERFECT BROWSER out there... why? Because there isn't a real "Standard" that seems to be universally accepted and used. ActiveX controls, Javascript, you name it... they all have thier own synconicities, and until the world becomes completely Unix based, you probably will continue to find that there will be plenty of browsers out there, and they all seem to want to render websites just slightly different than the other...
And if they all worked exactly the same... what on earth would make one stand out from the other?
Everyone here has thier favorite browser... Be it Oprah, Chrome, Safari, Mozilla, IE, hell - I know people still trying to surf the net with old versions of Netscape --- get over it folks... and learn how to deal with the differences... that's what got us to where we are now in the technology world and the internet... if everythign was the same... there wouldn't be any challenges left to conquer...
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1720
- Thanks: 23
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Robert J Hantson wrote:
IE has, and probably will for a long time to come be the browser that sits in the forefront...
The key words here are the fact that IE is the dominant browser here...
..because Windows in the dominant OS, and Mr. Gates makes life miserable if you try to stray from the flock. Try to get Windows critical updates (god knows there are a couple of these....weekly) using Windows Vista after you uninstalled this dominant browser. Wait, you can't...you have to use IE, much like he tries to push Windows messenger on you if you don't hack the registry.
In short, there are reasons IE is so dominant, wouldn't you agree? It's much easier for the genreal masses to stay with the status quo when it's not only installed on your desktop when you open the box to your new computer, but it's also nearly impossible to remove it without running into other major problems.
But what do I know; I am merely a Vista user who tried to remove IE7 once I formatted my new latop for the first time, only to discover I needed to put it back on to get the updates.
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- Andy Miller
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 9919
- Thanks: 96
- Web Kahuna
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Robert, I think your key premise behind your statements is just plain false.
IE in all its variations is by far, and I can say with 100% accuracy here, the leading cause of problems related to web design development. I think your statement "THIS WONT WORK IN IE but works everywhere else" is entirely accurate. Also your statement "more often than not, developers complaining that they can't get websites to render properly in Firefox, or Safari, and have to jump through hoops to do so" is absolutely not true. Maybe it's true on a Microsoft support forum by written by a guy that has only ever developed websites to work in IE and is therefore used to working with IEs non-standard requirements.
This brings me to your last point, there is a standard for HTML, and CSS, it's written by the W3C ( www.w3.org/ ), it's what makes the web work. The differences between browsers should be on features (usability, security, functionality, etc), not on how they render pages. Microsoft gets away with blatantly ignoring web standards because they are a lazy unimaginative company that knows that it can do whatever it wants, no matter the consequences, simply because it holds an overwhelming monopoly over computer users the world over. I am certainly not against adding new non-standard features to a browser that could be later added to the W3C specifications for future revisions, but please support the existing ones first! I could go on here for days, but rather than that, I beg you please read this article dating back to 2001 that I think you will find quite interesting:
brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2001/01...standards_explained/
Here's another article that outlines the IE deficiencies that we the developers have to deal with every day:
archive.webstandards.org/css/winie/
More blogs about IE's stance on standards:
blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/03/microsoft-backs.html
etc, etc, etc. ad nauseam...
I think it's clear that your statements are made from the perspective of a user. As you are a member here at RocketTheme, I assume you are working towards a more developer-oriented role, and if you plan on doing any kind of modifications or additions to your joomla-based site you will undoubtedly come headlong into this issue before long. You will very quickly find how your user-oriented view differs from the the truth because developers have hidden it from you with the sweat of their brow and many hours of their lives. This is not an exaggeration, just ask any web developer (who is not currently employed my MSFT).
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- Roeland_A!
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 10193
- Thanks: 71
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LOL, this is one for the books for sure.
- *Karma comes in many forms, my personal favourite is the random saucepan from the sky* J.Spencer 17-02-2009
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- Robert J Hantson
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 31
- Thanks: 0
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Working for the last 5 years supporting developers as a network administrator, I'm very aware of the headaches developers have writing code that works. Having dealt with many over the past 12 years or so, I've watched as the headaches having to conform to "standards" that seem to work for one area of the technology sector and not with another (which seems to not want to conform to those standards - ie Microsoft). You are absolutly right, Microsoft feels it doesn't have to conform to what others are saying are the standards. It doesn't seem to work for them, as they have made perfectly clear over the years.
By the way, I used to be a subscriber here at RocketTheme, and actually support about 30 of your own customers helping them by fixing bugs in their sites, fixing issues where the site doesn't work in Firefox or Safari, or works fine when seen through a Windows PC or troubleshooting why CA's Antivirus suddenly started calling the Javascript files that run the slideshow routines in the Hyperion Template a "Virus"... (Talk about a few headaches that was for three current clients, and two that I had never met until this became an issue last week...)
I've watched as many code shops in the past give up on trying to make the entire world happy by making sites that completely conform to only W3C standards... leaving the features and "bells and whistles" that they want to have in place behind because the secondary browsers will not display the same or, in some cases, refused to even attempt to support the technology.
Microsoft gets away with what they get away with Andy, not because they are lazy, but because the world will continue to use their products like sheep follow their shepard. I'm not defending the practice, I'm just stating what seems to be a matter of truth. I'm also not saying it's somethign that everyone should just lie down and allow to happen...
I, as a network admin who has to deal with the USER end of things when they think it's a problem with their PC rather than a problem with the developer of the site they are trying to visit would love nothing more than ALL browsers to work exactly alike, and render pages the same exact way... but the fact of the matter is... it's going to be a very very long long time before we ever get to that point...
There will always be something new to come along and change everything... and make the last "Right Way" or "Best Way" of doing things obsolete... I look at IE vs. Firefox as VHS vs. Betamax... they both did pretty much the same thing, but each did it differently, and had slightly different technologys... What we are seeing today, in the browser world that is, is what DVD was bringing along to VHS in the 90s. It took quite a long time for people to start giving up VHS, and before the transition was entirely complete, here came HD-DVD and BlueRay to start a new fight on the block...
That fight is still yet to come, and I think we'll see a transferance of technology that will make everything that we are doing now, obsolete as well... and it'll probably happen within the next 3 or 4 years. Maybe even in a shorter time frame... Will it mean that IE will dominate? Safari? Firefox? In my opinion, probably none of the above because the shift will probably be that dramatic... so much so, that many developers will be probably sitting out in the street as well... at least developers in the frame and mindset that we consider programmers are right now.
I really believe that the "Software Industry" as we know it, will actually no longer exist - at least in the way we know it to exist right now... and with it, companies like Microsoft, Apple, and others who develop operating systems at the desktop level will have no choice but to conform anyhow... (Contradicting - I know - everything I said previously... but it won't be by choice that they conform, it will be because the industry changed so dramatically that everyone had to make the change).
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