Matt Asay over at C|Net wrote an article earlier this year titled The Web’s unfortunate fetish with the browser, in which he essentially states that he is tired of being forced to use various applications from within the confines of his web browser.
To me, it sounds like he is too easily distracted (claiming that the browser toolbars steal his concentration away from the application he originally set out to use, for example) and the argument seems kind of weak. But maybe I’m just not thinking “outside the box” enough.
Anyway, what’s your take? Is it beneficial to have a common playground in which to use all of your favorite web-based applications, or would there be more freedom in applications that use browser features but don’t always require the chrome and all it entails?
sKatterBrainZ is convinced that “all browsers suck” and has given evidence to back his or her claim. I’m used to seeing posts that go something like “[my favorite browser] is better than [not my favorite browser] because…” so this post stood out. I figured I’d share the link, in case there are others out there who are a little frustrated with the current state of the browsersphere.
I created a rather lengthy post over at my personal blog tonight titled How to Contribute to Firefox. Rather than cross-post it here, I figured I’d at least share the link, since it’s probably relevant to a lot of the readers here (or at least I hope it is).
According to YugaTech, Internet Explorer will remaing king of the browsers. Several of the reasons given hold water, such as the fact that IE comes bundled with all computers that ship with a Windows operating system installed. However, there are a couple that are flat-out wrong, like:
You want online banking? More or less, you’ll need to fire up IE. You want to pay utility bills with your credit card online? IE again.
I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t remember the last time I had to use Internet Explorer for anything that required security, a credit card or paying a bill.
In a lengthy post on the future (or lack thereof) of Internet Explorer, Alex Russell compares and contrasts the transparency of the major web browser development teams:
The features planned for Firefox 3 are impressive and the work is being done in the open, meaning it’s easy to have confidence that not only will Mozilla ship what they say they will, it’ll be here when they say it will. Same goes for the excellent work the Safari team has been doing. Even Opera keeps its community on fire by shipping regular updates, showing tech previews at conferences, and blogging about the progress being made on many fronts. If the IE team is holed up working on something stonkingly [sic] good, they certainly aren’t doing themselves any favors by not telling us about it. The result of their radio silence isn’t mystery, it’s distrust. Deep, divisive, troubling distrust of the kind you can only get when folks who break up stop talking altogether.
This is the first in a series of posts that will provide a laundry list of links to articles and posts around the browsersphere that you’ll hopefully find interesting and/or useful.
Better animations in Firefox 3 – The Mozilla Labs Blog covers some of the advantages of the Animated PNG format over traditional animated GIFs. The format is already supported in Gran Paradiso, the development version of Firefox 3, in case you’re interested in checking it out.
