{"id":25,"date":"2004-09-03T10:58:22","date_gmt":"2004-09-03T10:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/2004\/09\/the-great-browser-switch"},"modified":"2006-04-30T23:54:03","modified_gmt":"2006-04-30T23:54:03","slug":"great-browser-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/2004\/09\/great-browser-switch","title":{"rendered":"The Great Browser Switch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day we, as web developers, have been looking forward to for years may\r\n\tfinally be upon us sooner than we think. Many of us have known for years about\r\n\tthe many<\/a> flaws<\/a> in<\/a> Internet\r\n\tExplorer with regard to standards<\/a>, security<\/a> and even usability<\/a> features\r\n\tcompared with other alternatives such as Mozilla<\/a>, Firefox<\/a>, Opera<\/a>, Safari<\/a>, OmniWeb<\/a>, Konqueror,<\/a> Camino<\/a>, iCab<\/a> and\r\n\tmany more. We\u2019ve dreamed of the day when we can cease supporting Internet Explorer\r\n\twith the many CSS<\/abbr> hacks required\r\n\tfor a standards compliant layout to render correctly; and the day we can finally\r\n\tfully adopt XHTML<\/abbr><\/a>,\r\n\talthough IE<\/abbr> isn\u2019t\r\n\tthe only user agent holding us back<\/a> on that point.<\/p>\r\n

The campaigns<\/a> have<\/a> started<\/a> with\r\n\tthe momentum of a freight train. There have been many\r\n\tpositive news reports<\/a> that favourably mention alternative browsers, and\r\n\trecommend switching from IE<\/abbr>. The Mozilla\r\n\tFoundation<\/a> have started a 10\r\n\tweek marketing campaign<\/a> to coincide with the release of Firefox 1.0 due\r\n\ton September 14th. WaSP<\/a> are sponsoring\r\n\tthe Browse\r\n\tHappy<\/a> campaign incorporating the four major browsers. Some individuals are\r\n\ttaking action, such as Jakob Perry who has started switch2firefox.com<\/a>.\r\n\tAlthough the site would qualify as a pirated\r\n\tsite<\/a> for copying the Apple Switch\r\n\tcampaign<\/a>, let\u2019s not discredit someone who\u2019s doing something really positive<\/em>. Thousands\r\n\tof websites<\/a> have joined in the action by adding Get\r\n\tFirefox<\/a> and Browse\r\n\tHappy<\/a> buttons \u2014 it just goes to show how much we, as a community, can do\r\n\tto Lead the\r\n\tWeb to it Full Potential<\/q><\/a>. I urge you to get on board and help out.<\/p>\r\n

So what more can be done? How can you get involved? Well, if you haven\u2019t already,\r\n\tchoose from one of those browsers I listed above and switch to it. Then, visit\r\n\tsome of those campaign websites and see what they\u2019re asking for \u2014 help them\r\n\tout in any way you can, but don\u2019t stop there. There\u2019s no reason the campaign\r\n\thas to be kept on the Internet\u2026<\/p>\r\n

Let your friends and family know there are alternatives, buy\r\n\t\ta t-shirt<\/a>, or Firefox\r\n\t\tplush-toy<\/a> for your child. Join the marketing\r\n\t\tpublic mailing list<\/a>. Approach your school and let them know why all students\r\n\t\tshould be using a better browser in classes. Approach your work place and let\r\n\t\tyour system administrator know how switching can seriously improve security.\r\n\t\tLet them know about Thunderbird<\/a> while\r\n\t\tyour at it \u2014 the vast majority of e-mail viruses, worms and trojan horses only\r\n\t\tpropagate through Microsoft Outlook<\/span>\u2019s\r\n\t\tmany security holes. If you\u2019re really keen, you could even suggest they switch\r\n\t\tfrom Windows to Mac<\/a> or Linux, however simply switching browser and e-mail\r\n\t\tclients can close many security holes. Take part in this weeks College\r\n\t\tCampaign<\/a> \u2014 design a poster, join the steering time, become a college rep\r\n\t\tor simply share your ideas with the community.<\/p>\r\n

If you have any access to publications in Newspapers, Magazines or even Television,\r\n\tget in contact with in contact with Blake Ross<\/a> and see what you can do. If you\u2019re an e-mail spammer,\r\n\twe don\u2019t want to hear from you \u2014 it will only serve to alienate people<\/em>.\r\n\tHowever, even advertising on your blog, or your corporate website will help.\r\n\tApproach your boss, and see if they\u2019ll allow you to add a Firefox or\r\n\tBrowse Happy button to the site. If they\u2019re technically inclined, I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll\r\n\tsee the benefit straight away. The problem is getting the idea past the marketing\r\n\tminds of the business people that actually run the business. I know this is\r\n\ta problem \u2014 the boss where I work is, AFAIK, still using IE<\/abbr> 5.5;\r\n\tand our system administrator won\u2019t do a thing about it! However, I think he\u2019s\r\n\ta twit<\/em> anyway \u2014 he didn\u2019t want me using Mozilla, Firefox or Thunderbird\r\n\tfor security reasons! ?<\/p>\r\n

Even if you only get one person to switch, it’s still worth it \u2014 every\r\n\tlittle bit counts. Of course we’d appreciate a lot more, but if it’s all you\r\n\tcan do then that’s ok. We’ve come a long way, and we’ve got a lot longer to\r\n\tgo. So, do what you can<\/em>, and just help out!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The day we, as web developers, have been looking forward to for years may finally be upon us sooner than we think. Many of us have known for years about the many flaws in Internet Explorer with regard to standards, security and even usability features compared with other alternatives such as Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Safari, … Continue reading The Great Browser Switch<\/span> →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}