IE Standardization Fading Fast 176
alphadogg writes "Just as Internet users in general have defected in huge numbers from Microsoft Internet Explorer over the past several years, the business world, as well, is becoming less dependent on the venerable browser. Companies that used to mandate the use of IE for access to web resources are beginning to embrace a far more heterodox attitude toward web browsers. While it hasn't gone away, the experience of having to use IE 6 to access some legacy in-house web app is becoming less common. 'A lot of it has to do with the emergence of the modern web and the popularity of mobile. They have made it very different for companies to truly standardize on a browser,' says Gartner Research analyst David Mitchell Smith."
shit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever the cause this trend is great news indeed. After all these years of painfully adding exceptions to our websites to deal with Microsoft's stubborn refusal to follow standards, there are finally signs of improvement. We are not out of this mess yet and things may get worse, but for now let us just be happy with the news.
I propose all of us raise a glass of your favorite beverage to toast the beginning of the end of web's dominance by Microsoft!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft: Develops proprietary non-standard browser set to default on their dominating operating system, takes over the web
Apple: forks an open source browser project, develops Webkit out of it, gives it back to the community and works with the community, refuses to support proprietary buggy exploit-ridden browser plug-ins and helps kill it off from the web
i'm not happy about the whole h.264 thing either, but at least we know they have a reason--their idevices are only capable of decoding h.264 in hardware. it doesn't really make it any better but what they have done isn't anything near what MSFT did 10+ years ago.
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Hardware h.264 decoding is just code running on a DSP, it is quite possible for Apple to add support for HW decoding other codecs if they really wanted to.
Re:shit (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple gets a 90% share of the browser market, and you routinely see sites telling users "You must be running Safari to access this site," let us know.
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Wow -- that was an impressive rant. I fail to see how "webkit" and standards-based HTML is the same as what we dealt with from Internet Explorer. I've yet to see a "safari only" website.
How are you PAYING for the tollbooth that is MPEG/LA when you visit a site? Probably the only time a fee comes up is if someone is asking you to purchase content. I'd love for there NOT to be some patent costs for video -- but can't you see why Apple went with MPEG4? The only other viable video codec at the time was WMV (Mic
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Re:shit (Score:4, Funny)
Can't take it...
<grammarnazi>'affects' is a verb (not in this sentence, but in normal use). 'effects' is a noun.</grammarnazi>
Re:shit (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. Micro$oft, £inux, Appl€. The Unholy Trinity.
Now, if Son¥ was in there, we'd have the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Danger! Danger Will Robinson! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen a lot of people start making this mistake again, but now it's the KHTML/Safari/Chrome/Opera engine, especially on mobile.
Re:Danger! Danger Will Robinson! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It should be noted that Google has recently overtaken Apple as the largest contributor to Webkit.
Re:Danger! Danger Will Robinson! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some info showing the share of contributions
http://blog.bitergia.com/2013/02/06/report-on-the-activity-of-companies-in-the-webkit-project/ [bitergia.com]
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Perhaps, but according to data, they've committed about as much code, while Google has had far more authors working on it. Google also updates Chrome much more frequently, so it's no surprise that they're overtaking Apple on the WebKit development. Chrome updates come in constantly, Safari gets updated just a couple more times that iOS a year, maybe. Apple is focused in many places and it seems that they don't extend their hiring and recruitment nearly as much as Google - it's great when your company suppli
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Standards exist to keep the vendor's implementation honest.
--
Only cowards use censorship.
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Um, they all use Webkit, and Opera is no longer entirely different. There are now three major rendering engines: Webkit, Gecko and Trident/IE.
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Re:Danger! Danger Will Robinson! (Score:5, Informative)
Opera's entirely different.
Not for long: http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/300-million-users-and-move-to-webkit [opera.com]
It's a good start, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's hope companies also stop mandating the use of Shockwave and JavaScript, or at least let me use the web site without having to completely disable NoScript.
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I rather they do use Flash and Shockwave than put everything in HTML5. Then I would have even more trouble disabling everything.
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Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
And it was probably the only good Shockwave app ever - Snowcraft.
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Same here, it's been a while. I admit, I actually used to like those Radiskull & Devil Doll cartoons, and a lot of the stuff on Joe Cartoon. There were also some fun games on Newgrounds like Pico's School. Flash has since engulfed Shockwave (now including Shockwave functionality) and is now mostly used for web videos... the sooner Flash is gone, the better. It's always been a pain in the ass and its Linux support sucks. And does the damn thing even run on BSD? Also, I don't even think my phone has
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you did any sort of serious web development you'd also know how time consuming it is to include support for no-script crap.
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As a bonus, with the rise of tools like NodeJS and MongoDB, you can leverage JS much more broadly, and not have to completely swi
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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no thanks. as a professional web developer I often have to let my clients know that to "do that fancy ajax stuff" I need to use JavaScript, and if they want to retain compatibility with non-JavaScript browsers then it will cost them significantly more for their project. i then show them how their favorite sites like amazon, ebay, etc. will simply refuse to work without JavaScript enabled and they opt to still use JavaScript but refuse to support non-JS browsers.
If you did any sort of serious web development you'd also know how time consuming it is to include support for no-script crap.
As someone who has been a professional web developer for a decade or so I mostly agree with you, but you are neglecting accessibility.
Where I work we do a lot of work for government type organisations and they are not allowed to discriminate against people with disabilities. That means that they have to have sites that are usable by blind people using a screen reader (mostly jaws I believe). That means we waste thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on making amazing ajax websites that also degrade to a usa
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Web forms ultimately need to be validated on the server side, so client-side validation isn't 100% necessary.
Server-side and client-side validation serve different purposes. Server-side validation is important for security reasons, but client-side validation provides for a better user experience by identifying errors right away instead of waiting to submit and refresh the page.
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I'm a web developer and I agree with you sort of. Developers have become way too fucking dependant on JS and frameworks like jQuery, Mootools and YUI.
What I don't agree with you on is your Privacy arguement. I don't see how it causes privacy issues. You can track people without javascript.
As for security that is unfortunately an implementation issue and/or convenience tradeoff. JavaScript itself is not insecure.
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Developers have become way too fucking dependant on JS and frameworks like jQuery, Mootools and YUI
There is no better way for making interactive web applications than using Javascript. The only real alternatives are using proprietary platforms like Flash or Silverlight. The level of interactivity on the web that people demand these days has gone past the level you can get from reloading an HTML document every time the user clicks something or enters some text. Add in the development of WebGL for hardware accelerated 3D graphics in web browsers and some of the other fancy features of HTML5 and it's easy to see that Javascript isn't going anywhere for a while. jQuery, on the other hand, is pretty slow and should be used sparingly.
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I use Javascript, I'm not saying its not useful.
I just think that if the user can't even access the website without "modern" (per se.) Javascript is retarded. If you can't draw a semi usable website without it then your website is useless in my opinion. Javascript should Enhance the experience, not be the entire experience. There are certain use cases its acceptable (online games is the big one that comes to mind). But your blog doesn't need to be written in HTML5/JS, and not render anything without JS on.
I
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Also, why shouldn't we do validation in JavaScript? You know those nifty info boxes that slide open while you're filling in a form? That happened because JavaScript did validation on it, and it probably did it before firing off an AJAX request to see if that user name was actually taken (you know, instead of sending every single character you typed to the server). Ultima
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:5, Informative)
JavaScript is insecure and violates privacy
Javascript is a language; it cannot violate your privacy. Security and privacy issues related to Javascript can only be application-specific issues which are introduced by the developers of said application. Javascript as a language is in no more violation of your privacy than C.
Re:It's a good start, but... (Score:4, Informative)
I call BS (Score:2)
Try finding a merchant account with a bank (not a new fangled Web 3.0 deal like Square) that doesn't specifically write their "web" app to specifically *only* work with IE on Windows. There are lots of other examples of extranet "applications" that are written w/ MS libraries that depend on IE .It's frustrating and depressing.
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Try finding a merchant account with a bank (not a new fangled Web 3.0 deal like Square) that doesn't specifically write their "web" app to specifically *only* work with IE on Windows.
Done.
In fact, none of the (Australian) banks I've used in the past few years has had that requirement. Does the US work differently?
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Ditto for Canada
Scotiabank mandates a certain minimum browser, but I do most of my banking on Scotiabank with Linux/Firefox
Re:I call BS (Score:4, Informative)
No, and I'm not sure where he's from - I live in the US and none of the banks I've used in the last maybe 5 years have mandated IE 6 - at least not to the public. I worked for Big Ol' Bank for a spat and, up until recently, IE6 was the "must be compatible with" browser of choice, although not the only that we could use. So, our internal sites worked great on modern browsers, and maintained functionality in IE6 thanks to some good JS libraries and sacrificing some data-intensive tasks for people who couldn't get clearance to download a new browser. They've since done a push to install Windows 7 across the enterprise, but who knows when that will be done.
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Mod parent up (Score:4, Interesting)
There is in fact legislation in Korea requiring the use of an ActiveX control as an anti-Phishing measure, and there has been since the 1990's, in order to implement the SEED encryption algorithm in a captive frame; here is a report on it: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south-korea-still-paying-price-embracing-internet-explorer-decade-ago.shtml [techdirt.com]
Similarly, Chinese banks implement an alternate ("software clipper chip") asymmetric key encryption, also in a captive browser frame.
The software that initially implemented this was developed in Germany, and there are a number of major banks all over the world which require ActiveX controls to implement secure banking. This is why if you search for "banking activex firefox" or "banking activex safari" or "banking activex opera", you will see lively discussioms with people bitching about not being able to do banking.
Now, there have been several researchers who have published exploits, which indicate, that it's possible to attck through the ActiveX control, and therefore this type of thing in reality provides no security any longer. But moving a bank or a government is like trying to move a mountain.
Before you fault them, realize that when you are logging into your Google account, you are also doing so in a captive browser frame -- which is why there aren't programmatic ways to log into Google accounts.
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So how do I log in to my google accounts through iOS apps, pop mail in a client, etc?
Gmail in the browser used an iframe buffer for pseudo Ajax (not sure about now) both because it was easier for cross browser at the time and faster/more reliable. That's not the same as what you are stating though.
I call shenanigans.
Two factor authentication (Score:2)
Try doing two-factor authentication with those apps that were not written by Google themselves, and tell me where you found the Google published SDK that allowed you to do it.
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https://stripe.com/ [stripe.com] ?
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Although some ANZ accounts apparently need IE
I've always been able to use FF/Linux with my ANZ account since I opened it (2004).
Not "venerable" (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't believe IE ever deserved to be called venerable [merriam-webster.com].
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Re:Not "venerable" (Score:4, Insightful)
one of the definitions is.....
how many other single versions of a web browser have had as long a supported lifespan as ie6?
12 years 7 months and 15 days between rtm (24 aug 2001) and xp eol (8 apr 2014).
as much as you and i, and pretty much everybody else, may dislike ie6, that IS impressive.
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Trivia: MS support lifecycle always rounds dates to the nearest quarter. I still remember when XP was to enter extended support on December 31, 2006.
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And BTW, even IE *5.01* on Win2000 was supported until July 2010 like Win2000 itself.
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And don't forget Server 2003 which actually ends support in July 2015.
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That would be 'venerable' as in 'having the characteristics of a venerial disease'?
Evidence: It is contracted as a reault of poor hygienic practices, is endemic among the poorly educated and areas of poor sanitation, it itches where you can't scratch, and may cause brain damage if left untreated.
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I don't believe IE ever deserved to be called venerable [merriam-webster.com].
venerable: No
venereal [merriam-webster.com]: Maybe
5 Browser Compatibility Projects in 3 years (Score:4, Interesting)
Venerable? (Score:4)
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I can't say when there was a time when "venerable" would describe Internet Explorer. It's pretty much been despised its whole existence.
I'm guessing it was used sarcastically.
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It was a typo. They meant to write 'vulnerable'.
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It was a typo. They meant to write 'vulnerable'.
I thought it was an autocorrect of 'venerial'.
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I can't say when there was a time when "venerable" would describe Internet Explorer. It's pretty much been despised its whole existence.
It's not any good by today's standards, or even those of 5 years ago, but let's not pretend the alternatives were any better, back then given the choice you wrote for IE6 not Netscape 4. We'd be in the same position of ass-backwards browser-specific hacks for NS4 had it been Netscape that won over IE.
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Yea, it is unfortunate that Netscape 5 "Mariner" was cancelled.
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However, IE is only an option if you run Windows. You could get Netscape for a lot more OSes. Same is true today. Of the major browsers, you can only get IE fro Windows. The rest will run on nearly anything capable of running a browser at all.
Meanwhile, web designers have hated IE for a very long time because it was the one browser that didn't stand a chance of doing something reasonable with a page not written specifically for it and pages written specifically for IE tended not to work on anything but IE.
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So it was always one page for IE and one page that everything else could use.
And 'everything else' was Netscape, which was just as bad for standards compliance.
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Don't forget Opera Amaya, Arena, and many more. Netscape was certainly the biggest, but hardly the only other browser.
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However, IE is only an option if you run Windows.
Or Mac OS 7-10.3 [wikipedia.org]
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That was a few years ago, not a current option.
Nowadays IE is annoying (Score:3)
Today a client of mine bought a subscription to a web application (SaaS) and because they have Windows 8 workstations (IE10 built-in) they had to install Firefox, otherwise the web application would not work.
In the last two versions or so of IE, Microsoft has taken a path of enforcing things prematurely. IE is the only browser where jQuery post is not working, and they also force CORS down the throat while many applications are built on jsonp solutions.
I remember a long time ago where workarounds in CSS were mostly for Netscape. Now it's almost always for IE.
Re:Nowadays IE is annoying (Score:5, Informative)
Query post works in IE, it's just that IE was written by retards and will actually do something no browser written by intelligent humans would ever do: cache Ajax POST calls. Yes, they actually treat POSTs like they are fucking idempotent calls. I shit you not. I assume this was in some misguided attempt to make up for the shitty performance of their browser. This caused a problem in a web app we wrote and it took a while to figure out because it never occurred to us that any browser could be this fucking stupid, but IE managed to exceed our expectations. jQuery has built in cache busting for ajax calls but it only works for GET calls, so we had to add in our own to resolve it.
I have not checked to see if this is something that has been resolved in recent iterations of IE (9 or 10).
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I just experienced this issue today. Not jQuery, it was a regular XHR request.
My work around was to force no-cache and way past expiry dates in the HTTP return headers.
This was IE 8 or 9 on Win 7. (I don't know which version. I only boot it up in VirtualBox when someone complains)
Gartner Doesn't See Internal Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite example of a web-app developer who knew virtually nothing about HTML but shipped what "worked" had every single element on the page absolute-positioned with CSS. What looked like a simple table of 30 rows of data on the screen was actually hundreds of DIVs that had been rendered on the fly by the server with absolute position coordinates for each one. Even INPUT elements that were invisible had absolute positions calculated for them. Every time someone loaded a page, the server would calculate the offset for each "cell" in the table so it would look like a table, and for dozens of invisible form elements so they wouldn't collide with the table. The billion-dollar non-tech company that bought this couldn't figure out why the server frequently became unresponsive... They actually bought a second server from the developer and a load balancer to get around the fact that the developer didn't understand basic HTML, and have been using the app for 7 years. When I explained the problem to them, they reasoned that it would cost them more to ask the developer to do it properly that to just add additional servers as needed. They will probably be using it for the next 20 years. And the login page states that it requires IE.
Often this type of app lives on an internal server that will never be updated because the company doesn't want to pay for something that works well enough, but serves some essential purpose that hundreds or thousands of employees are required to use daily. IE standardization will die out in consumer applications long before it goes away in businesses. Microsoft knew this is how most businesses approach computers, and it's the reason the Windows/Office/IE monopoly was so successful. It's the reason Microsoft is still successful despite the Ballmer decade.
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Hello, you seem to have missed the bit where the page was made up of hundreds of absolutely-positioned DIV tags, the co-ordinates for which were calculated at runtime on the server.
Now, take a deep breath, count to 10, then try again.
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Again, it seems people can't read.
This is
what
the OP *said*
that
the app was doing.
Nobody said it was a smart thing to do. In fact, the point was that it was in fact an incredibly stupid thing to do.
"Stupid" != "people don't do it"
Now do you get it?
Looks like good news (Score:3, Insightful)
So instead: this is hopefully a sign that, in the world of computing, monopolistic practices will give way to healthy competition.
There we are, tentative but hopeful!
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As a putative armchair economist, I have to say 'good luck with that'. The conflict between those who want to monopolize, those who want everyone to be a proletarian, and those who want a dynamic, chaotic, organic garden will never end.
Free enterprise, free politics and ecosystems all have the characteristic some call "The Edge of Chaos" (there's a book. Some disagree with the principle, but it's a useful model) - that confusing, frustrating, infinitely complex, most adaptable and ever-changing middle gro
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So why don't we all just roll over and die?!
Slashdot these days is so extremely cynical. It has been said that behind every cynic is a disappointed idealist. Things will never be perfect and not everything we want will come true. But just for a moment put the pessimism on hold and just let yourself be happy with the good news.
Because reporting of good news on this site is so extremely rare...
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Gratifying (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gratifying (Score:4, Funny)
Sad, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad, isn't it? People are *still* talking about standardizing on browsers instead of enforcing adherence to standardized markup languages.
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I agree whole-heartedly, and have for a long time.
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Sad, isn't it? People are *still* talking about standardizing on browsers instead of enforcing adherence to standardized markup languages.
Maybe it would be different if the W3C hadn't sat around for years with their thumb up their ass. According to the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], CSS 2.1 wasn't finalized by W3C until JUNE 2011! That's utterly insane. CSS 3 is still being kicked around by W3C, which seems to think they have all the time in the world to dot every i and cross every t. Guess what? They don't. The CSS
All the newer IBM training courses... (Score:3)
Require Firefox or Chrome, but will not run on IE.
Of course, they are really pushing the Linux Desktop as well, they had a program recently where if you had an older laptop you could get a newer one if you went with a Linux based system.
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I can stil view the site, access the video lectures, take multiple choice quizzes, and most everything else but for some reason it won't allow me to submit essay type quizzes.
Not my company (Score:2)
Wish I could believe this, but it is too soon to declare victory.
the big one (Score:5, Insightful)
"We need to spend money to get rid of IE" doesn't fly with management.
"You can't run that on your iPad because it needs IE" however, does.
It's no better (Score:2)
zombie (Score:2)
IE is pretty much a zombie browser outside the corporate environment.
I run a couple online games and other sites. My browser stats:
Chrome
Firefox
Safari
(unknown)
Opera
Android browser
IE
Mozilla
BlackBerry
other
IE makes up 0.4% of my visitors. I am honestly surprised every time I learn that someone is actually using it. (and no, it's not because I run some freakish Linux-fanpage or something, 75% of my visitors use windows, 17% OS X, just 1% Linux, the rest is mostly mobile).
Except for... (Score:2)
The companies still using training and ERP from places like skillport and Lawson....
mark
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It's also the wrong word to be using in the context, and is completely nonsensical if taken in its strict meaning. The correct word is 'heterogeneous'. 'Heterodox' refers to doctrines or opinions that strictly deviate from orthodox teachings in a religion or system of belief, but not sufficiently enough to be branded as heresy.
Heterodox economists (Score:2)
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"Not to mention that many websites have began using vendor-specific features (i.e. -webkit-*). I'm not sure if it is a good sign and a good time to celebrate (?) just because people are moving away from IE "standards" (to WebKit "standards")."
+1 they are just exchanging one master for another and its the users that get shafted because of the developers arrogance or stupidity.
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My bad, I was using the diluted form of the word which includes web designers
Re:popularity of mobile (Score:4, Interesting)
I seriously doubt it. WinRT is a horrible mobile OS, maybe with WinRT +1, but it's current incarnation has enough loose ends to make Gnome 3 look polished.
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That's not even worthy of a troll mod.
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In technology a product can be dead and still widely used. When we say it is dead it means there are little to none development for it, and anything that does work that is new is by chance and not by design.