JCO said:
I was not trying to imply any inappropriate behavior on your part. My tone
was definitely not meant in that way. If I sound that way to you... I
certainly apologize.
No apology required. I didn't think you were trying to imply that. I
was merely pointing out your reply could be interpreted in that manner.
I was on the phone with my cousin.. when reading your post. He was telling
me that his friend used Firefox because it gets around the detection and can
still get the updates (or downloads). I might of misunderstood my cousin
and will verify with him again.
It depends upon what he is doing. You can get to any part of the
Microsoft site with Firefox. You can even get to Windows Update. It
just won't *work* with Windows Update, because Windows Update downloads
an Active-X control to examine your system and determine what updates
you need. Firefox deliberately doesn't support Active-X, so this stage
gets nowhere. (You can get Active-X support in Firefox with an
extension, but it's a "Not recommended, and you better know what you're
doing!" operation. You can also get an extension that will load IE in a
tab, and I know folks who use that to visit Windows Update in FF.
Personally, I don't see why they bother. Simpler just to invoke IE.)
Other downloads can be had from the Microsoft site, but some of them
require a Genuine Advantage check before you can get them. That's an
actual program the site sends you, which you must run to validate you
have a licensed copy of Windows before you can get the download.
Firefox won't help you get around that.
Your correct that Firefox is an excellent browser. MS is playing catch-up
to stay in the game. I was not implying that everybody that uses Firefox,
is doing so to get around the Genuine Detection. I know that it is a great
browser.
MS has a way to go. I downloaded IE 7 mostly to see what they did, and
was underwhelmed. (I dual boot Win2K and WinXP, and still have IE 6
under 2K, so I figured I had a fallback if IE 7 didn't work.) It's nice
that MS has finally discovered tabbed browsing. Unfortunately, IE 7 was
supposed to be a big security fix, and there still seem to be a number
of holes.
I understand IE 8 will focus on standards, like better support for CSS.
IE is still the *least* standards compliant browser, and causes
headaches for web designers coding site they want to work in all
browsers. (*No* browser is *fully* standards compliant. The all have
funny little "gotchas!" where things don't work as expected as must be
worked around.)
I'm happy to see MS paying attention to IE again, because the
competition makes all browsers improve, and provides a better experience
for the user.
______
Dennis