Your post makes no mention that this is a side-by-side comparison of page development features of the two browsers. For this use, I’d say Mozilla wins hands-down, aside from one killer feature that IE has–The ability to show exactly what the page will render like on 90% of your audience’s screens.
I’m impressed with mozilla and the improvements they make with every release. Last night at school I showed it to a friend who is developing JavaScript. He was eternally grateful for Mozilla’s built-in javascript console which is great for debugging. Great post Dan.
In my not-completely-well-informed view of the matter and personal experience, Mozilla is a more “correct” browser with better features, but in Windows, I use IE because A) it loads faster, and B) pages tend to render better in it because that’s what they were written for.
The primary reason IE loads faster in Windows is that it’s pre-loaded by the operating system. Its guts are componentized and used in a lot of other things. Mozilla, on Windows, has a setting to also pre-load it at boot time so that it’ll always be ready to pop a window right up for you. Unfortunately, there’s not really any way to get around the fact that people write pages for IE rather than to the web standards.
Yeah, I’m aware of both those facts, and it’s one of the reasons for the DOJ lawsuit — them integrating the browser into the OS. However, the fact that it’s faster makes it more appealing.
It’s not faster, though, if Mozilla is also allowed to pre-load. Do you have something preventing you from enabling this feature? Or do you just prefer to use IE in Windows? I can understand that, but the speed reason seems pretty bogus.
Oh, another big point to Mozilla: automatic pop-up blocking. That drives me nuts when I use IE on Windows, as I’m so used to pop-ups just not happening.
“Pop up” — I’m the brother of Dan, who runs the blog, so I’m not an entirely unbiased observer, but I think the blog/site gets comments every day, or certainly every weekday, but on various and even very old postings (long live soap scum and analyzing ‘In the Air Tonight’, right Dan?). It’s interesting for me to see which entries get lots of and ongoing comments. I guess the gmail ones rank up there pretty high now too, huh? Maybe Dan would have specific stats about average daily visitors or page views or comments or whatever, but also maybe not. I think it’s more a labor of love and just something he likes to do, more than an exerted effor to draw in users or commenters. (True, Daniel? I’m curious for your thoughts on your goal/intent/motivation for the blog and site.)
D’oh! I actually clicked on the link, and saw that it was a company, but figured maybe some person did it. Now I feel kinda dumb for writing a thought-out response to a now-deleted spam comment, but oh well. I’d still be curious, though, if you have any stats about site visits or page views or anything.
Your post makes no mention that this is a side-by-side comparison of page development features of the two browsers. For this use, I’d say Mozilla wins hands-down, aside from one killer feature that IE has–The ability to show exactly what the page will render like on 90% of your audience’s screens.
True. I didn’t want it to scare people away by making it appear too technical. The screenshots show a lot on their own.
I’m impressed with mozilla and the improvements they make with every release. Last night at school I showed it to a friend who is developing JavaScript. He was eternally grateful for Mozilla’s built-in javascript console which is great for debugging. Great post Dan.
In my not-completely-well-informed view of the matter and personal experience, Mozilla is a more “correct” browser with better features, but in Windows, I use IE because A) it loads faster, and B) pages tend to render better in it because that’s what they were written for.
The primary reason IE loads faster in Windows is that it’s pre-loaded by the operating system. Its guts are componentized and used in a lot of other things. Mozilla, on Windows, has a setting to also pre-load it at boot time so that it’ll always be ready to pop a window right up for you. Unfortunately, there’s not really any way to get around the fact that people write pages for IE rather than to the web standards.
Yeah, I’m aware of both those facts, and it’s one of the reasons for the DOJ lawsuit — them integrating the browser into the OS. However, the fact that it’s faster makes it more appealing.
It’s not faster, though, if Mozilla is also allowed to pre-load. Do you have something preventing you from enabling this feature? Or do you just prefer to use IE in Windows? I can understand that, but the speed reason seems pretty bogus.
Oh, another big point to Mozilla: automatic pop-up blocking. That drives me nuts when I use IE on Windows, as I’m so used to pop-ups just not happening.
“Pop up” — I’m the brother of Dan, who runs the blog, so I’m not an entirely unbiased observer, but I think the blog/site gets comments every day, or certainly every weekday, but on various and even very old postings (long live soap scum and analyzing ‘In the Air Tonight’, right Dan?). It’s interesting for me to see which entries get lots of and ongoing comments. I guess the gmail ones rank up there pretty high now too, huh? Maybe Dan would have specific stats about average daily visitors or page views or comments or whatever, but also maybe not. I think it’s more a labor of love and just something he likes to do, more than an exerted effor to draw in users or commenters. (True, Daniel? I’m curious for your thoughts on your goal/intent/motivation for the blog and site.)
David that was a spam comment, not really asking about the site, just putting something so their link would show up on the page. I’ve deleted it.
D’oh! I actually clicked on the link, and saw that it was a company, but figured maybe some person did it. Now I feel kinda dumb for writing a thought-out response to a now-deleted spam comment, but oh well. I’d still be curious, though, if you have any stats about site visits or page views or anything.
I have the stats, but I prefer not to publicize them.