Comments for Blog of the FuzzyFox

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by experttease

experttease — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:10:01 +0000

“By the way, open source software is not better than closed source one per se. I use an open source OS because it works better for me. I use a closed source browser because it works better for me.”

Well said Joe.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by Joe

Joe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:25:42 +0000

Opera built-in developer tools (aka Dragonfly) are open source http://my.opera.com/dragonfly/blog/opera-dragonfly-open-for-business, and there is more open source in there, too. Check opera:about. So that’s not really 0% open source. The rendering engine is definitely not open, though.

By the way, open source software is not better than closed source one per se. I use an open source OS because it works better for me. I use a closed source browser because it works better for me.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by experttease

experttease — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:27:55 +0000

Aha, this comment kind of explains what I commented on below. You must have said this before the updates. It just goes to show how confused people are about the benefits of open source (don’t get me wrong, they exist, but they aren’t all-encompassing like a big wand on the software industry).

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by experttease

experttease — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:24:42 +0000

Agreed, Chrome and Safari are just as much the same browser as Firefox and SeaMonkey are, but apparently the ballot was not decided on this basis, but rather on popularity. Not sure what statistics they used for that though, European ones I should think.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by kl

kl — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:24:13 +0000

Opera supports open standards and open web (they pretty much have to to survive in Opera-ignorant web).

Putting it in the same “completely closed” basket as IE is unfair.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by experttease

experttease — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:21:34 +0000

“On the whole, the open source options are safer, more up-to-date, faster, and more reliable. This is due to them being open.”

Can you support this with actual facts? I highly doubt you can, since Opera has long been the most secure browser, and excepting only a brief period last year has always been much faster than Firefox (not to mention the smaller download, suggesting the closed system is much more efficient here than the disarray which made the feature poor Firefox a fatter download).

And then there’re thw two ‘partly open’ browsers which just also happen to be much faster than Firefox.

Bottom line, by all means promote Firefox, with features such as extensibility, a true boon for some (what is it, a third of its users?). And by all means point out that it’s a much safer browser than IE. But please stop short of lying openly.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by Jukka

Jukka — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:04:04 +0000

“…Opera are 0%.”

Not true as Opera Dragonfly is open source and therefore the percentages must be above 0.

Not that this open source vs. closed source would matter. Open web matters.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by Frans

Frans — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:58:10 +0000

“On the whole, the open source options are safer, more up-to-date, faster, and more reliable. This is due to them being open. There are many people, all over the world working on these browsers to make them the best that they can be. This is not true with the closed source options as they don’t allow people other than a small group of individuals, to work on and contribute to the browser.”

Being open source does not make something good, nor does being closed source make something bad. Correlation does not imply causation. I see that you incorrectly listed Opera as open source earlier. Freudian slip in regard to this line of argument?

What is genuinely bad is pushing proprietary standards. From this angle I’d put IE (and anything using its engine) at the bottom of the list, followed by Safari (H.264 anyone?), and Chrome. Opera, Firefox, and most open-source browsers consequently end up at the top.

I think I just eliminated just about all browsers on that list save for Opera, Firefox, K-Meleon and possibly Chrome, because most of them are nothing but IE-shells. I for one don’t think that choosing an IE shell instead of IE will help the web move forward, nor that avoiding Opera just because it’s closed source will do so.

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by Andrew Sam

Andrew Sam — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:35:26 +0000

Open Source does not matter as long as open technologies have been embraced. To me, Opera is one of the best browsers out there with a lot of built in features that most users never ever need a memory eating add-on to be installed. And it has consistently been the least memory consuming browser yet the most feature rich out of the box. For people moving through platforms like Windows and Linux and mobile, it’s the most ideal web browser.

And yet it supports all of the open technologies vehemently and is really an advocate of open web standards for a long time.

So open source is not so much a cliche, open web standards are!

Comment on Choice Matters. So Does Your Browser! by Pallab

Pallab — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:11:00 +0000

Opera is completely locked down? What bullshit!!
Opera has been strongly advocating Open Web and Open technologies. It’s business model makes open sourcing the engine unfeasible however that doesn’t mean that its completely locked down.
The latest eg was the implementation of HTML5 video codec. Opera supported mozilla and went ahead with Ogg Theora. Not only that Opera used an open source utility GStramer in their implementation and although took the trouble of porting it to Win and Mac (the source code for both are available as per license).

Opera Dragonfly is also a completely open source project. Please don’t put Opera in the same category as MS IE and check your facts.