Sat, 4 Feb 2006 12:21:09 -0500 from Tiffany S.
If you think that Microsoft has a better browser than Netscape, fine. I
think so, too. But they did it NOT by setting a new standard, but by
introducing stuff that was not compatible with the standard. The stuff
that Microsoft introduced did not work with Netscape Navigator.
And it also violated the W3C's definitions of HTML -- even though
Microsoft is (was?) a member of that body.
This is fairly typical of Microsoft -- whenever there's an open
standard Microsoft violates it. Look at C++; look at e-mail
protocols; look at that abortion the "favicon"(*); look at Usenet
news, and on and on.
One might argue whether Microsoft's innovations are helpful to the
user. What can't be argued is that Microsoft's subversion of
standards makes lie _much_ harder for those of us who want computers
to interoperate seamlessly. Microsoft's strategy is to throw us back
to the bad old days of the 1950s and 1960s when one model of computer
couldn't read a tape written on another model because they used
different character sets or different formats.
(*) What's wrong with favicons? Anyone using a Microsoft browser who
visits any site causes extra strain on that site by the browser's
insistence on looking in two different places for the favicon.
