Episode 59: The Browser Wars - Is Anybody Winning?

March 17, 2008

 The Browser Wars: Is Anybody Winning?: Download

I didn’t realize when I started this whole browser thing that people really do have loyalties to specific browsers. In Part 1 of VFTC, I found out just how loyal folks can be!Kim and I welcomed special guest, Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast at podfeet.com and Jamie Braly of TechTips for Parents. You’ve already met both of them on this very blog but this was the first time Kim and I had the opportunity to talk with both at once. Thanks to Allison (she’s got groupies), we had several new chat participants on hand, including her husband, Steve.

We started out by asking Allison is she had a preferred browser (or browsers) and her response was that she used Safari about 80% of the time and Firefox the other 20%. Nope, she doesn’t use IE…..nope, won’t go there…..! Why did she choose those two browsers?

• Safari: speed and drag/drop menus
• Firefox: Extensions (like Flashblock)
  • A note about Flashblock - I’ve been using K-Meleon as my default browser and it allows you to enable/disable Flashblock from the preferences menu. Like Allison, I’d prefer to use Flash when I want to, not because some real-estate company wants me to see thier real estate agents dancing across my screen….

Our Blog Queen confessed an addiction to Firefox. She loves the add-ins!

Just about the time Allison was dissing the dancing realtors, we had a call from Jamison. Now things really started to percolate! Seems Jamie has been using MS products on his home and work computers exclusively for quite awhile. When it comes to browsers, he uses IE7 on his PC. He’s a gamer (so, how’re you doing with Rockband, J?) and uses Opera for Wii on his gaming console. Seems that Allison just doesn’t understand why anybody would use IE when they have a choice NOT to. Needless to say, our guests differing opinions let to a lively debate regarding the merits (or not) of Microsoft products in general. While Jamison believes that any software not “blessed” by MS may cause a problem for him, Allison’s first stop when she’s seraching for software is Sourceforge, home of open source software.

*Note: I was looking up links for this post when I came across a rumor that Mozilla was developing a browser for Wii. I say rumor because the first article I found from 2old2play confirms it but other blogs poo poo the idea. Truthfully, I couldn’t find out whether it’s true or not. Articles I found are a year old, so nothing new. If you dig up something concrete, let me know!

In defense of Jamison and other tech coordinators who work in public schools, the decision about what software gets installed on school machines isn’t up to them. According to Kim, that even happens in big corporations like the big telecom she just worked for. Allison, ballsy chick that she is, was able to put together a team to show how using open source software profoundly affected the company’s bottom line. She also attend an education tech conference where she was amazed at what teachers are doing with open source software. Well, Allison, my hat’s off to you but I believe you have the ideal situation. Yeah, I know we need to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, but then who’s to say there’s a problem with using MS products if that’s not what they’ve experienced?

We did briefly discuss social vs traditional browsers. Both Allison and Kim have had some experience with Flock. This social browser integrates with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to name a few.

Before we knew it, Part I was over and we were ready to delve into Part II. We hope you get as excited listening to Part I as we were excited to record it.

Posted in Browsers