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| W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom |
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Monday, January 03 2005 @ 01:42 PM EST
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Remember W2Knews and Sunbelt Software? The Windows-oriented folks that Laura DiDio sometimes gets her poll data from? They have a new poll, asking visitors to their site if they prefer Internet Explorer or Firefox. Hmmm. That's like when lawyers insist you must answer only yes or no and you wish to explain. Personally, I have a fondness for Galeon, but they probably have never heard of it, and I like Safari quite a lot too, and I've been nuts about iCab for years. When I used to use Windows, I regularly used Opera. Now, I do also love Firefox and I use it a lot these days, so in that choice, I know what my vote would be. Some of you may even wish to express yourself on the subject. Assuming their computer system actually counts votes accurately, it might be quite amusing, if Firefox got a fair number of votes, to see *that* white paper issued by Ms. DiDio. I thought about whether it would be fair, and then I thought, those polls have always seemed unfair to me, because only Windows people read that site, or mostly only Windows people. Why shouldn't the rest of us visit and express ourselves too? There is also some info on Microsoft and spyware you may find of interest on the site.
And they have put up their predictions for 2005. They say SCO is going to perish, but patent infringement lawsuits will be the next weapon: OPEN SOURCE: All the smoke that SCO was blowing has died down, and I expect that SCO will perish with it. But now patent infringement lawsuits will stick up their ugly heads and be much harder to subdue. Despite that, open source products will continue to proliferate. I thought it worthwhile, from a future legal perspective, to get that on the record here. What is the basis for that prediction that patent infringement lawsuits will be next? A girl can't help but wonder. Maybe I've been reading too many transcripts from the US v. Microsoft antitrust trial. In one Gates deposition from January 13, 1998, Boies kept pressing him about interviews Gates had given, and so when I read this prediction, the picture that came instantly to my mind was the guy being grilled in a deposition about the basis for the statement. I probably need to take a break. But I found some more Gates depositions here, and I'll tell you what: I'm finding it addictive. I guess I'll install RealPlayer and watch the video.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 02:52 PM EST |
lol
from the IE v FF site
I moved to FireFox
53.06% - 1975 votes
sspfunk[ Reply to This | # ]
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- I got the same result (vote count 1975) - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:14 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: frk3 on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:31 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:05 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Rasyr on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:26 PM EST
- poll update 5:05:36 PM EST - Authored by: Woad_Warrior on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 05:07 PM EST
- Prediction as to the outcome - Authored by: jfw25 on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 07:58 PM EST
- IE v. Firefox--what about Mozilla? - Authored by: wvhillbilly on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 09:05 PM EST
- record participation! - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 04:30 AM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 07:10 AM EST
- Result not really surprising (Firefox at approx 53%) - Authored by: belboz on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 07:57 AM EST
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| Authored by: skidrash on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 02:54 PM EST |
it's completely legal for me to build machinery for personal use that use
patented ideas.
I'm curious how that extends to software and corporations. If a corporation
does not sell the product & only builds the product for internal use are
they also immune?
Further, since most open source can be downloaded as non-functional source and
"built" into functioning object code, isn't it possible to use ANY
software patent in this way?
Heathkit "broke" a bunch of patents this way, by selling
patent-"breaking" stuff as kits. AFAIR Tektronix threatened Heathkit
at one point, didn't they?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 02:56 PM EST |
Thank you PJ for this an all you do.
I think Firefox is a good browser - even very good. I don't however perceive it
is a fast browser. I have wondered how it got that reputation?
Running in Linux there are some faster browsers available. Netscape 4.7x and
Opera are faster. Links and Dillo are even faster. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: rweiler on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:15 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: frk3 on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:21 PM EST
- FF speed/no luck with poll - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:22 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: frk3 on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:23 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:54 PM EST
- How to make FireFox faster - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:10 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 09:36 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 09:53 PM EST
- Tweak Network Settings Extension - Authored by: rjamestaylor on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 10:10 PM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 11:01 PM EST
- Rendering differences - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 12:41 AM EST
- Firefox speed - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 01:22 AM EST
- W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 05:20 AM EST
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| Authored by: billposer on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 02:56 PM EST |
I tried clicking the vote button twice to see if it is possible to stuff the
ballot box. It let me click twice without producing an error message, so either
they're silently disallowing multiple votes or they have no protection against
stuffing.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:06 PM EST |
"Hmmm.
That's like when lawyers insist you must answer only yes or no and you wish to
explain"
The way I heard it is the lawyer asked for a yes or no only answer to the
question "Do you still beat your wife?".
And then there's the bit from one of the original Three Stooges(as opposed to
the current ones) comedies where Moe is doing a survey, knocks on a door and ask
the person who answers "Are you married or happy?"
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:06 PM EST |
"Stu" is sadly funny. From briefly reading some of his comments I get
the idea that he actually believes Microsoft may not release a "free"
Anti-Spyware product. I think he is trying to convince himself that Microsoft
will allow him to continue in his pursuit of profit with his little
"niche" Windows product, CounterSpy.
Based on past history Stu, you are in serious denial.
You're dreaming Stu![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:09 PM EST |
| Still at 1975 votes [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:10 PM EST |
In the "Tech Briefing" section, W2KNews had this revealing
item:
NT: Time To Say Goodbye! Highly recommended to
upgrade 'ye olde NT Servers'. But my prediction is there will still be over a
million NT-servers running by the end of 2005, much to Redmond's chagrin. But
the real reason for upgrading will be a specific attack written for NT-only
using a vulnerability that MS never patched.
I've heard people
advance the idea that viruses have caused major bouts of upgrading (after the
release of W95, a lot of people ran W3.11, and only upgraded because anti-virus
products no longer got upgraded for W3.11, leaving them vulnerable). I even
heard a rumor that the msblaster worm got released by the NSA to get people to
patch that particular MSRPC problem. This is the first time I've seen a pro-MSFT
site advance the idea. Does this break some new ground, or does
tinfoil-millinery take me too far afield? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: red floyd on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:20 PM EST |
| Instead of RealPlayer, try
RealAlternative
instead. ---
The only reason we retain the rights we have is
because people *JUST LIKE US* died to preserve those rights.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:25 PM EST |
You needn't postulate some central figure is planning to arrange patent lawsuits
around Linux, to predict it's going to happen.
The reason is there is a lot of money involved in Linux related technology,
products, and activities
And any technological field, or product, or activites, involving lots of money
tends to attract patent litigation (and other similar types of business
activities to euphemize) from people looking to make a quick buck from
licensing, settlements, or artificially inflating their stock price.
To make a comparison:
1. I predict that within 10 years, there will be safety and/or patent-related
litigation relating to good percentage of all the commercially successful new
drugs that become available in 2005.
2. I predict that there will be litigation in the US relating to almost any
major disaster or catastrophe that involves US citizens or corporations
(probably including the tsunami disaster)
It's not necessary to postulate some evil genius planning such litigations --
there are enough opportunistic lawyers and corporations in the US, (and not
enough barriers to stop em trying), to ensure that these predictions will become
correct, even if such cases were to have no merit[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: geoff lane on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:40 PM EST |
| The poll site seem to have been
/.'ed.
<GrossSpeculation>
Microsoft has many problems facing it
over the next few years. One might think that with $60B in the bank and a
90% market share they have nothing to worry about. But that just makes them a
bigger target while their monopoly position makes it very difficult to expand
into other areas of computing.
I believe that IBM plans to try and grab a
huge amount of Microsoft corporate business by providing a complete desktop to
mainframe managed service for companies, using PowerPC CPUs and FOSS, with very
simple annual charges based on the number of users. It will be a direct attack
on the WinTel architecture and it's current problems (security, viruses, IE,
costs etc.)
While this may require completely re-engineering a companies
computer systems, the advantages of zero viruses, high security and vastly
reduced support staff requirements could make this kind of comprehensive change
cheaper in the long run.
I have no evidence to present except the sale of
IBMs PC division. This eliminates the potential internal competition between
divisions (such as that between the PC and Minicomputer divisions that resulted
in such a low spec for the original IBM PC.)
This will not immediately
effect home computers, but if IBM is successful then eventually the hardware
will become generally available.
How could Microsoft compete while it
doesn't have a hardware division, nor a mainframe quality operating system? By
stifling innovation and new products with their new patent portfolio -- but IBM
have more patents than you can imagine and in any round of patent poker would
surely win :-)
</GrossSpeculation>
---
Invention and
Innovation are not synonyms.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: decsnake on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 03:43 PM EST |
| The Washington Post says so.
IE is out, Firefox is in.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:14 PM EST |
How Microsoft Lost
the API War
IMO well worth the read. And for those hacker geeks out
there that want Linux to win some lessons to be learnt at MS'es expense.
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| Authored by: piskozub on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:15 PM EST |
It seems W2K has an imagination that is too limited to allow a possibility
like:
- I never used IE but now I started using Firefox.
which is exactly myself. In small print I'll add that Firefox is not my primary
browser. It is Mozilla (the suite, "Seamonkey" for friends).[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:18 PM EST |
| I voted for Firefox. However the count stays at 1978 votes. Can anybody affirm? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:44 PM EST |
Firefox. Then interesting thing is, however, coupled with those voting that
they use both: 75%. Good bye IE.
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| Authored by: Greebo on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 04:53 PM EST |
| I just voted, and the counter was at 1980 votes, 53.11%, for 'I saw how bad IE
was/is and moved to Firefox'.
I've also read the other article about M$
and Anti-Spyware. A number of things caught my eye. The first is this from
Stu's News site...
So, what happened last week? Microsoft bought Giant.
Now what? Microsoft fully owns its anti-spyware product that it acquired from
Giant Company.
My first reaction was 'No way!'. M$ buy a
competitor to Sunbelt, and then want to play nice by giving them Anti-Spyware
definition files?
"Microsoft will be providing definition file updates
to Sunbelt to its spyware database until July 2007. During this time, Sunbelt
and Microsoft share in the ownership of these definition files." Awesome
news.
Awesome news indeed, but not typical for the M$ we've all
come to know and love so well.
But then it all becomes clear, when you find
this little gem in M$'s own press release...
"Anti-spyware solutions
require definition updates-signatures of known spyware and other unwanted
software-that are necessary to keep the solutions up-to-date. Because of a
legal agreement between Sunbelt Software Distribution and Giant that preceded
the Microsoft acquisition, Microsoft will provide spyware signature updates to
Sunbelt through July 2007."
Ah, that's more like it. M$ are
*compelled* to provide these files because of a Legal agreement. There not
playing nice at all.
I would be very, very careful if i was in Sunbelts
shoes. M$ has a long history of wiping out the little guy.
This is my
personal opinion based on my readings of the articles. If i've misunderstood
something please feel free to correct me.
Greebo. ---
PJ has permission
to use my posts for commercial use.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 05:02 PM EST |
| We all know that SCO is simply the little white head on the festering pustule
that is the larger looming issue of IP litigation.
In an age where
collecting rainwater can be considered criminal, and anti privatization ( ref Bechtel in Bolivia) it is not
surprising that corporations are going to expend whatever it takes to retain the
ability to extort capital from a largely captive consumer base.
In an era
where corporations run extra-legal entities such as WIPO, GATT (and it's partner
in duress, the appropriately named TRIPS), and where the UN is being criticized
for criminal behaviour, and it's exceedingly little impact on human rights, as
opposed to it's increasing influence in corporate rights.
We all know how
corporations used the 14th amendment, intended to give rights to former slaves,
to gain thier own independence and recognition as legal persons. I fail to
understand how a corporation can be given these legal rights without also being
burdened by responsibility.
SCO is an insignificant irritant. They were
so ludicrous in their allegations, and slipshod in their research and
documentation, that they were easily shut down in the larger community. We were
fortunate that the first salvo's in this battle were shot by this particular
ship of fools. It is an embarrassment to the US judicial system that they are
still allowed to pursue this particual effort without producing a single shred
of actual evidence.
Think about how much effort it will take to defend
against a company who have the USPTO behind them. With patents being issued
with little or no regard to prior art, non obviousness, actual invention or
development, or even current capacity to create the 'invention'. Look at how
much damage has been done by the SCO issue (granted not as serious as it could
have been, but still there nonetheless), and consider how much more damage can
be done when the law is actually on the side of the predator.
When process
and method are patentable, the company has a basis in law for pursuing the
issue, and the target must have enormous amounts of capital reserves to defend
itself, or it has no choice but to simply cave in to the pressure, allowing
precedent to exist for the predatory company to continue to pursue bigger
fish.
SCO may be toast, but the toaster still exists, and though I have not
read the article in question, I agree with the sentiment - IP battles are going
to get more and more pervasive and ugly. Individual creators (and user) rights
are going to be subsumed by the bottom line requirements of corporate greed and
lack of conscience.
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| Authored by: Bill The Cat on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 05:06 PM EST |
I prefer Opera to any browser. I just like the way it works better than
"conventional" browsers.
---
Bill Catz[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 05:35 PM EST |
Long time reader, infrequent poster.
You don't need Real Player, PJ. Try out Real Alternative:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm
David[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 06:21 PM EST |
A lot of links on DoJ pages such as the materials used against Gates in his
deposition, seem to have disappeared. Not surprising, but many links to the
Microsoft site seem to be broken too. Weren't they supposed to maintain those
records throughout the consent decree period (forty years or so)?
Anybody know an alternative site for these?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Rob_B on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 06:39 PM EST |
Didio's next headline:
I.E. Comes In Second, Firefox Finishes Next To Last[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 03 2005 @ 11:09 PM EST |
This business is truly scary for both open source and proprietary software
developers and it almost appears that people are taking sides as for and against
the GPL rather than realising that the patent issue is a potential sledgehammer
to all small to medium developers regardless of their preferred method used to
license their software.
Here is an example of what I am referring and it may be a stretch but please
hear me out. Up until the '80s there were lots of small aircraft manufacturers
in the US and around the world. As the US was the largest market for small
aircraft (any sized aircraft for that matter), legal issue there had
ramifications for all small aircraft manufacturers around the World. Starting
in the '80s, aircraft manufacturers started to be sued by the families of pilots
who were either injured or killed in an aircraft accident regardless of the
reason for the injury or death. I have been through enough aircraft accident
investigation centres to know that manufacturers aren't perfect but I also know,
nor are pilots. Anyway, as a result of the sky rocketing amount of litigation
going on and the unlimited liability the manufacturers were being faced with
(you legal people will know the extent of this better than I), practically all
small aircraft manufacturers around the World went out of business or changed
direction and products. This meant that for 20 years there were no improvements
and developments for small general aviation aircraft and nor were any small
aircraft built (outside of the experimental category). Students were learning on
aircraft that should have been recycled turned into pop can long ago and levels
of safety were compromised. Now, those liability limits have been changed in
the US and and within hours of the limitations being imposed, small aircraft
manufacturers around the World announced they would restart production or
develop new models (I think Zenair was the first off the mark but Cessna was
soon after).
The parallel I would like to draw here is how the threat of litigation can and
has stifled development and innovation (and in the above case safety). If
intellectual property litigation or even the threat of litigation, does become a
weapon of the large software developers, then everyone is going to feel the
effects, not just the open source community. The cross-hairs are tracking so be
ready to duck![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 01:07 AM EST |
the .rm files are no longer at washington post. I would like to see this. I
wonder where can we get these files, anyone?
--
Skuggi.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 01:12 AM EST |
"Microsoft is going to send us spyware definition updates!"
Does this mean that Windows Media Player will be blocked :-) ?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bstone on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 03:47 AM EST |
SCO seems to be popular on prediction lists for 2005. Here it is from
SlashNOT:
SCO will die. Nobody will notice until business park
neighbors smell something.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 06:38 AM EST |
| Brian S. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Asianux 2.0 to be released 2 months early. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 06:58 AM EST
- OT Police get equipment upgrade. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 07:16 AM EST
- OT "Major Technology Industry Shift Drives Software Costs Down..." Meta Group. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 08:08 AM EST
- OT Microsoft and verymixedupandconfused source. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 08:34 AM EST
- OT "Linux, security skills projected hot in 2005". - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 08:40 AM EST
- OT "The truth about Sun's Linux support" and other rumours. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 08:53 AM EST
- OT "Rackspace Selected by Atari to Host Game Maker's Global Web and Intranet Sites " - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:18 AM EST
- OT Malasia goes for OSS in 2004. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:31 AM EST
- OT Venezuela opts for Linux at the start of 2005. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:35 AM EST
- OT Industry Outlook 2005 - software. - Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:50 AM EST
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| Authored by: Brian S. on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:10 AM EST |
A Miami teenager has created a free web browser that has been called
Bill Gates's worst nightmare
...........Firefox has already been
downloaded by an estimated 15 million users since its launch in November, making
it the world’s second-most-popular browser........... The
Times UK Brian S. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 11:21 AM EST |
This poll will no doubt be thrown out, and for valid reasons. Groklaw folk have
clearly washed over the poll and destroyed its usefulness.
In statistics, if many responders share some trait (reading Groklaw) that is not
The real question is whether previous poll data has acknowledged that the
respondents shared a trait that creates just as much unreliability (reading
w2Knews) Or did they use the usual "a survey of internet users showed ...
"[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 05:34 PM EST |
I wonder if they [try to] correlate what people say with navigator.appName,
navigator.userAgent, navigator.appVersion, navigator.platform?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 04 2005 @ 09:26 PM EST |
| In this article a web site operator, with several sites, claims IE's losses are
higher than reported previously based on his own statistics:
W2K Has a New Poll on IE v. Firefox, and Predicts SCO's Doom [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 05 2005 @ 10:42 AM EST |
http://forevergeek.com/
Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:
1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down
and look for the following entries:
network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you
enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page
loading.
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This
means it will make 30 requests at once.
3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it
"nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This
value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it
receives.
If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!
_____________________________
It also speeds it up if you have a dial-up modem setup.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 06 2005 @ 08:21 AM EST |
The wording on the pole has changed, but it's still the same poll, or I just
remembered it wrong. Say's the poll started 12/04.
Seen the vulnerabilities in IE, which browser do you prefer at the moment,
Firefox or Internet Explorer? [ Reply to This | # ]
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