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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
(Unverified)Aug 9th 2006 1:23AM
I have a problem with defining the Standard. For me, the Standard is the market. And the market votes for IE. That is exactly why MS can afford to disregard the W3C "standards".
The Web has already reached a level of sophistication that is beyond the needs of regular Joes. They don't care about extensions etc.; all they want client-side is basic browsing, maybe with some AJAX or DHTML. They don't care how the source is written, as long as it works. They don't care about Web 2.0 and good web design techniques. They want a good enough experience. They browse the Web for the information, not for the visual effects. It's like with wireless phones: most people don't care for extra features, beyond the expected basic functions.
The main thing people really care about right now (the reason why Firefox has gained on IE, and also the reason why this gain will reverse) is security. But as soon as IE7 comes out, I expect the number of switchers to decrease and FF to lose market share, because IE7 is another MS product based on feedback from regular Joes.
How would I have attacked IE? First of all, by writing a Gecko engine perfectly compatible with the IE one, but much safer. Then, I would have written a visually more attractive GUI on top of it, but very similar to IE. Only after that would I have cared about extending the browser, very carefully. And only after conquering the market would I have pressed for better standards, namely W3C's.
Because regular Joes don't care about standards, but about getting things done. And they won't change their browser just because the nerds say it's broken. The main reason they switch, right now, is security. They don't want another learning curve, they don't want broken pages, slow browsing, new GUI. They don't want headaches. For many of them, IE is THE browser, and they don't want to learn something new (one of the main reasons they don't switch to Linux or OS X). And, for them, if a page breaks in IE then the page is broken, not the browser. If a page breaks in FF, but not in IE, then FF is broken. In real life, pragmatically speaking, IE is THE standard.