Microsoft is a funny company!

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Microsoft recently published a comparision table for three big (?!) browsers: IE8, Firefox and Chrome. Here is the table (i made a screenshot in case they change their minds):

Microsoft Browsers

After you stop laughing, let’s take it step by step. So:

  1. Security. Ok, maybe I lied when I said we will take it step by step. I don’t worry about security because I don’t visit obscure sites (too often). However, in last three or four years of using Firefox I had NO PROBLEMS with security. Ok, if an obscure site will ASK you to install a toolbar and you will install it… That’s not poor security. That’s great stupidity!
  2. Privacy. I will skip this step too because I’m the only one who use my PC. Besides that I don’t login on other machines. However, Chrome have a “stealth mode” and Firefox permits you to clear all private data (just hit CTRL+SHIFT+DEL).
  3. Ease of use. I’m not the right person to judge about this, so I won’t.
  4. Web Standards. ACID test: Firefox 72/100 and IE8 12/100. I don’t even start Chrome.
  5. Developer Tools. Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you kidding me? The “web developer” is a joke if you compare with firebug. You only can set breakpoints with debugger but you can’t see values on that breakpoint! How stupid is that? Also, if you want to debug a page you need to… (guess!) RELOAD the page! Dumb asses! And for network monitoring what do you have? Nothing? Oh, that’s a bummer.
  6. Reliability. Indeed, this is a problem on Firefox. But not on Chrome too (Chrome will open a new process for each tab).
  7. Customizability. Riiiight. Please show me some IE8 themes!
  8. Manageability. I’m not in a company, i don’t care.
  9. Performance. It’s a tie, they admit it.

      10. I wonder why they didn’t include Safari and Opera in that chart…

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9 thoughts on “Microsoft is a funny company!”

  2. Hi Staicu,

    Thanks for pointing me to this article (From James Padolsey’s blog post). The problem is, you are not really explaining anything here. Most of the stuff Microsoft claims, you have just skipped over, which is understandable, because it doesn’t concern you.

    So, while you do make a few good points, as it stands, I still haven’t seen an overwhelmingly great argument in favor of Chrome or FF.

    Don’t forget that as developers we’re going to be extremely biased towards particular features. Microsoft does not have developers in mind as their target. Their target is users first, then developers. So, while you and I may be justified in skipping over stuff about “privacy and security”, Microsoft views those things as very important, and for good reason.

    Thank you for your post, though.

  3. Hi Louis and thanks for comment.

    I think MS aim to developer as well. Otherwise they didn’t include webdeveloper toolbar ;) .

    I just realized that I skipped a point: compatibility. C’mon, that’s plain stupid! You really CAN’T claim that something is “the most compatible” when you include “compatible mode”. Following this idea, IETester is the most compatible browser in the world, because he include several IE versions.

    Yesterday, when i was debug a site (btw, that debugger is even dumber than i thought in first place; F5 will start debugger instead of refreshing page), I saw the tie between IE8 and other browsers. A poor js code was really slowing down browsers. Opera, Chrome and Safari was the fastest (i didn’t wait at all). On Firefox i had to wait around half a second and IE8 around a whole second. Ofcourse, you may say that IE is fast with well written code, right? Well… not quite. Let’s not forget that some sites are written by newbies so we can’t expect too much ;)

    Overall, i explained why MS LIES on half of those points :D

    So, while you do make a few good points, as it stands, I still haven’t seen an overwhelmingly great argument in favor of Chrome or FF.

    They are faster, can be customized (at least FF can, I don’t know about Chrome), they have better developer tools and they respect web standards, without needing for “compatibility mode” ;)

  8. MS should shut up. They just arrived to the normal browsing world. If I had a penny for every time I cursed at IE, I will be having money to buy a MAC. Wait a minute…

    Seriously, IE developer toolbar is a joke, compared to Firebug. FF has private browsing mode, in case you want to look up porn and you don’t want your wife to find out, especially when she starts typing something like “www.skinny…” and “skinnymilf.com” becomes the first suggestion from your history ;)

  9. There are still about 11% IE6 users on the web, which is annoyingly too much. Ionut, here’s an idea I have that I cannot implement because I’m really not good at front-end development. Why don’t you make the lightest possible way to shade the full page so people can display people a visible message like: UPDATE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

    Leaving the cheesy stuff out, I think it would be a good idea if people would have a short but healthy comparison between the major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari) coming from a front-end developer who won’t make funny statements but explain the truth. Along with that page fader and the ajax content loader (a custom page) that back-end developers could integrate in their products, it would be enough to start a massive campaign against the old and really crappy browsers.

    I’m not a good front-end developer so just as the graphic below states, if I HAVE TO work on the front-end and I fail with CSS, I just go back to the sleazy tables. I just don’t have the energy to go in-depth and find out the details of what I’m doing wrong and how to fix it because this is mostly a hobby to me. However, I would enjoy spending some energy promoting the browser comparison while encouraging people to (at least) upgrade their browsers. Can you help?

    Time Breakdown of Modern Web Design:
    http://farm1.static.flickr.com/60/172883694_4f72df1a70.jpg

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