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Friday, June 4, 2010

Firefox, Chrome, Safari have finally killed Internet Explorer

FSM Columnist: Trusted

Tony Mobily
2010-05-22
0 Up Down
Tags: chrome, firefox, ie, internet explorer, microsoft, safari

I have been wanting to write this article for a while. Years, in fact. I am determined to write it in the simplest possible format: no punch-line at the bottom, no building up to a grand conclusion, but simply stating something impressive, true, and simply wonderful: the hegemony that Internet Explorer once upon a time had is… over. Right now, other browsers are fighting amongst each other, and it’s all about how much of IE’s share they are getting. The war is over: Internet Explorer lost. Everybody else won.

So, what kind of scenario has the IT world painfully missed? And more importantly, now that the deed is done, what are the consequences?

What the risks were

First of all, I really feel the need to point out that Microsoft with a de-facto monopoly would have been disastrous for the IT world — and for the world in general. Thing is, I am not exaggerating. Yes, I am the editor of Free Software Magazine and therefore am bound to talk in extreme terms about the dangers of the proprietary competition. However, “no”: a stronghold of Microsoft in the browser’s world would have had far, far reaching consequences. First of all, Microsoft’s attempt to push VB script could have been successful, pushing the client-side problems even further. Also, all the Windows-only technologies would have been more and more common as time went by. Being Australia (and proudly so, if I may say), I remember a few years back when Westpac (or Challenge Bank) released their new module to their powerful Internet Banking: the “money planner”. It was a very neat system, which allowed you to keep track of expenses on your accounts. And it was based on ActiveX — y es, ActiveX! That’s all gone now (thankfully), but that happened while IE had a major, major market share. (In fact, I would love to hear your horror stories of IE-only web sites). The risk was that Microsoft had total control of the web experience, and that the web itself — the crucial ring in the Internet chain — was totally controlled by a company with a history of embracing, extending and extinguishing. Eventually, GNU/Linux as a desktop would have become simply non-viable because it couldn’t run Internet Explorer. Worse, mobile desktops (mobile phones, PDAs, Android phones, or anything that didn’t run Windows mobile) would have been much less useful for the same reason.

The web would have been a much more hostile place for non-Windows devices.

Thing is, the only way to avoid this wasn’t just “create a competitor” — instead, the free software world needed to create a successful competitor — one with major market share, one with millions of users complaining, loud, if an important web site were “IE only”.