[pchelpers] Re: Firefox tabs, IE impersonation, IEview plugin

Hi Scott

> EGlnl> (Please skip next paragraph if you don't want to hear critical
> EGlnl> information and comments about MS:)
> EGlnl> Netscape). I guess they were caught off guard by the sudden profusion 
> of
> EGlnl> more modern browsers, but you'd think they would have added more new
> EGlnl> features than a rudimentary popup blocker to IE in SP2 if they hadn't
> EGlnl> encountered insurmountable security problems in IE that require
> 
> Supposedly, they recently reassembled the IE development team.

Do you mean that it had been disbanded? Was there actually nobody left 
at Microsoft working on IE even though IE is used by more than 90% of 
all computer users?!

> EGlnl> rewriting from scratch. As i've heard, apparently the reason they 
> didn't
> EGlnl> add tabbed browsing is that that would require a new Windows shell 
> which
> EGlnl> is not possible before Longhorn.
> 
> There are several IE-based tabbed browsers, so I have my doubts about
> this.

I read this somewhere on Mozillazine but couldn't find it again. Maybe 
i'll post a question about this there. *If* i remember correctly, the 
reason is that IE-based tabbed browsers are add-ons, plugins, or 
whatever the correct technical term is called. MS would however have to 
incorporate the same function inside IE in order to be able to continue 
claiming that IE is part of the OS and can't or shouldn't be a separate 
application.

> Speaking of which, Firefix still has the slightly brain-dead
> functionality for running third-party apps based upone the file type;
> with IE, you can easily select from a list of programs known to have
> been used with that file type.  With FF, you have to search for the
> specific program, which is often not known.  This code appears to work
> nearly-identically to Netscape Navigator.

This will probably be dealt with in the first "real" version coming out 
soon.

> EGlnl> But maybe you were talking about what happens when you click a link in
> EGlnl> another program? Then you can find help here:
> EGlnl> http://texturizer.net/firefox/faq.html#newwindow
> 
> I don't know why this isn't the default or at least available
> built-in; seems kinda pointless to support tabs, when new links
> automatically open in a new window. I sometimes find myself manually
> consolidating several windows into one.

This will supposedly soon be built into the main program. If i remember 
correctly, Mozilla wanted to make sure that this feature works without 
any bugs in the extension before making it a part of the core application.

That is the basic prudent development approach at Mozilla, i.e. to not 
include *any* features before they've been tried and tested separately. 
The main problem with IE is not the bugs and security holes as such but 
the fact that they can't be easily fixed without causing other problems 
elsewhere because (even more than usual for all MS programs) many IE 
features were added in a wild way before they were thoroughly tested.
(see Consequences at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars )

Ekhart



-------list-services-below-----------
Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig>
Freelists login at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
List archives at http://www.freelists.org/archives/pchelpers
PC-HELPERS list subscribe/unsub at http://modecideas.com/discuss.htm?sig
Latest news live feeds at http://modecideas.com/indexhomenews.htm?sig
Good advice is like good paint- it only works if applied.

Other related posts: