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browsers

Back to Safari

December 27, 2010 11:16:55.666

I've been using Chrome for quite awhile, but today I got massively irritated with a page I was trying to read - and the built in "Reader" feature (yes, there are extensions for Chrome that do a somewhat similar job. No, they don't work nearly as well) was the only thing that made that possible. Why? Well, see how this page renders for you. For me, the Dubai add covers half the middle paragraph, and I can't see any way to dismiss the blasted thing. "Reader" at least centered it, letting me the see the page.

The real question is, how long will it be before Safari infuriates me over something, and I go crawling back to Chrome, or Firefox?

Update: A commenter pointed out that the Chrome 9 beta worked, and sure enough, it does. I'll stick with Safari until it irritates me though - which is certain to happen soon enough :)

posted by James Robertson

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browsers

The Perils of Popularity

October 29, 2010 19:15:55.000

Way back when XP was released, and IE6 was new and shiny, I doubt that Microsoft foresaw this problem:

The latest statistics from Web metrics company Net Applications pegged IE6's usage share at 15.6%, which means it's the world's third-most-used browser edition. Many of the holdouts are enterprises locked into IE6 because the commercial software or home-grown applications they use work only in that browser.

Apparently, many of those outfits won't update because their IT applications are dependent on IE 6, and in the current economic environmnet, rewriting them just isn't in the budget. It's a nasty problem for everyone - IT shops are stuck on a now very old OS and very out of date browser, and Microsoft is left with a fairly ugly decision - should they stick with the 2014 death date for XP (and with it, IE 6), or should they provide some kind of virtualization bridge?

I guess popularity has its downsides, too.

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posted by James Robertson

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Browser Comparisons

September 18, 2010 12:34:02.000

These browser tests are pretty interesting, and they point out two things to me right off:

  • Google is way ahead of the pack with Chrome
  • Microsoft really needed to get IE9 out there, because IE8 was way, way behind

To see what I mean, follow the link and just look at the charts. IE8 is a straggler on the slow end; IE9 is right in the pack - but Google leads the way impressively with Chrome.

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posted by James Robertson

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Browser Wars

September 16, 2010 12:36:29.927

Chrome is making browsing better for everyone, including the large number of IE users who have never looked at it. Why? Because it's forcing Microsoft to work on IE, and it sounds like IE 9 is a much, much better tool.

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posted by James Robertson

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Firefox Gets On the Process Wagon

June 23, 2010 7:08:05.833

It's not quite as cool as the separate process per tab thing that Chrome does, but Firefox has taken a nice step forward - plugins/extensions run in separate processes:

The big new feature in this release is out-of-process plugins (OOPP). This means things like Flash, Java, QuickTime, etc., all run in separate processes, so when Flash decides to crash, it won't take your browser out with it. If Flash starts consuming all the CPU it can find, you can kill it without nuking your browser session

I'm still using Safari - "Reader" is awesome, and the "Readability" extension just isn't good enough yet. It's kind of cool seeing all of this browser competition though :)

posted by James Robertson

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Safari Reader

June 9, 2010 6:42:55.830

I'm giving Safari 5 a shot as my default browser, and I have to say, the new "reader" functionality is interesting. IT's also going to infuriate a lot of media people. Consider a typical article in the NYTImes, without using reader (but note the icon in the address field):

And now consider the page in the reader view:

Ads and graphics gone, crisp, clear text left to read. I like it - but I suspect that website that rely heavily on ads won't. Still -it's nothing that couldn't be done with client side Javascript added via something like Greasemonkey.

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posted by James Robertson

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Ah, Standards

June 5, 2010 19:02:10.026

You have to love the sheer cluelessness of this Apple demo site - they are trying to show off how Safari supports standards such as HTML5, which is fair. But, if you try a different browser, you get this:

It would be a lot more effective if you could use the site to compare and contrast with Safari. Found via this Guardian story.

posted by James Robertson

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Browser Wars

May 4, 2010 21:10:29.000

It's an actual contest for mindshare again:

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dropped to a historic market share low in April, according to Net Applications. The company estimated IE’s market share at 59.95% in April, which is about the range that was reached by Internet Explorer 4 more than 11 years ago in early 1999.

Now, if we could just get IE6 to die...

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posted by James Robertson

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The Open Platform Grows

April 28, 2010 14:54:28.000

Android is progressing - Firefox for the Android is coming along:

Early adopters, it’s time to rejoice: Mozilla has officially released the “pre-alpha” of Firefox for Android — aka Fennec. It is available now for testing.

I think we can say "game on". It's going to be an interesting competition between Apple and Google in the mobile space. A lot of people think it'll play like Windows vs. Mac, but - there's a huge differerence now. The App store and iTunes puts Apple in a much better place than they were circa 1990.

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posted by James Robertson

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Partying Like it's 2001

April 28, 2010 10:07:23.000

Apparently, corporate IT shops are keeping IE6 alive - during work hours, it's the 4th most common browser in use - after hours, usage drops in half:

"It almost looks like individual Internet users are more tech-advanced at home than the IT departments where they work," said Alden DoRosario, Chitika's CTO, in a statement. "It's crazy to think that people whose job description revolves around employees having secure ways to browse the Web would keep IE6 alive, while these same employees go home to more secure browsers."

It's an amazing thing. The intranet I hit at work is usable in IE7 and 8, but only after I set compatibility mode. We have met the enemy, and he is us...

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posted by James Robertson

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