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chrisvenusA web developer wants to put some video into his webpage. He uses the embed tags and some activex fires up (everybody uses IE don't they?) and the video plays. Similarly for many other things. However, now, because some bloke in america (and I'm no lawyer so I am horribly mutilating this) thinks he owns the idea of things playing in the browser window we have to downgrade the whole experience. Well, actually I have no idea what he thinks he owns but microsoft are having to revamp their browsers starting next year so that no longer is it this easy and for every activex control on a page it will prompt you for if you want to see it.
However, there are workarounds. You can use javascript based in a different file (not the same file which is important) to just write the exact same tag that you used to have into the page. This will then not prompt and be exactly the same as before.
So some **** in america has basically started a law suit that means that all pages currently using embedded content will get screwed up and that developers of new pages need to faff more to get them to work as well as of course the evil of bandwidth increase (which really nobody cares about in this age of braodband).
It just upsets me that as I undertand it Microsoft is stopping using this "idea" anyway so its not like the patent is going to make any money because of this lawsuit. And I am finding it very hard to believe that it is taken seriously at all but then america is a bit funny like that sometimes (no offence to any friends I may have who may be studying law in america to become one of these funny people).
For those who want more info go to http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/3088291 which links to the Microsoft information as well as the apple information. Its all a bunch of arse in my opinion. Other opinions most welcome though, especially for those who may have a deeper understanding of the law suit and therefore be able to refute my claim that the prosecutrion are anti-social idiots.
However, there are workarounds. You can use javascript based in a different file (not the same file which is important) to just write the exact same tag that you used to have into the page. This will then not prompt and be exactly the same as before.
So some **** in america has basically started a law suit that means that all pages currently using embedded content will get screwed up and that developers of new pages need to faff more to get them to work as well as of course the evil of bandwidth increase (which really nobody cares about in this age of braodband).
It just upsets me that as I undertand it Microsoft is stopping using this "idea" anyway so its not like the patent is going to make any money because of this lawsuit. And I am finding it very hard to believe that it is taken seriously at all but then america is a bit funny like that sometimes (no offence to any friends I may have who may be studying law in america to become one of these funny people).
For those who want more info go to http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/3088291 which links to the Microsoft information as well as the apple information. Its all a bunch of arse in my opinion. Other opinions most welcome though, especially for those who may have a deeper understanding of the law suit and therefore be able to refute my claim that the prosecutrion are anti-social idiots.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 02:53 am (UTC)You don't seriously believe all that crap you just posted do you?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 03:06 am (UTC)I also believe that forcing microsoft to recode all their browsers to make the current system of object embedding is pointless given that the exact same results are achievable, just with more very standard and very trivial code.
I might be wrong about what the people forcing this change are gaining but as far as I can tell it is enforcing a patent that says "Hey, when you embed stuff in a web page you could make it like just appear in a small bit of the web page". As demonstrated my annoyance may actually come from an abject misundertanding of the underlying court case but the actual results just seem to be lots of pointless coding for me. Feel free to tell me why me having to recode a hell of a lot of web pages is making the world a better place for anybody.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 03:40 am (UTC)Hell, I use Mozilla and Microsoft's own hotmail is noticeably faster than using IE (which I'm forced to use to occasionally log onto remote secure clients that only support IE for no readily available reason aside from MS sponsored corporate paranoia).
Just because a lot of people have made a lot of webpages on a broken, outdated and proven aggressivly monopolistic platform does NOT mean it's a bad thing that they have to rewrite their code to conform to everyone else's agreed standards.
I'm sorry you have to code what seems like pointless changes, but hey - blame Microsoft for wanting things that way! They were only doing it specifically so that people like you would want to keep on using and writing your stuff in Microsoft's way, thus forcing your users to buy Microsoft products so as to view your webpages.
Think of it like an inoculation, grit your teeth, get the Microsoft shit out of your system and don't get infected again! As soon as they offer you a 'convenience', remember they're only doing it to lock you and your users in.. who buy books! Why should I have to pay micro$loth so I can browse the blackwell's site properly? Answer me that!!! (ahem...)
Note - this trial is about patents, and may be symptomatic of the merkin's moronic legal system. However, the end result is as I have described above, and I feel the arguments stand.
As for your flyaway comment about broadband, [expletive deleted] off! I plan to browse the web via wireless as soon as there's a decent machine / interface that'll let me comfortably write email and use a decent browser. At that point, I expect to be paying someone a fee, probably for content / bandwidth. I'll be visiting sites that deliver data as and when needed & requested - i.e. well designed webpages. I thought people who assumed broadband was everywere were restricted to merkins with (subsidised) cablemodems!
Ahem. Scuse me for ranting ;-)
Reply part 2
Date: 2003-10-08 04:27 am (UTC)Addressing this at the end since I don't feel it is directly relevant to the main point. Lets start from the beginning.
rife with pop-ups: the only ones I have seen in my browsing are the ones done by sites that launch popups using javascript. I believe that this is the expected behaviour for javascript. If you could clarify which pop-ups you are referring to then I might be able to answer better. If it is things like "You are going from a secure page to an insecure page" then this is contrary to your ignoring security assertions and those messages can be told not to appear again if you want anyway.
Scrambles back to MSN at every opportunity. OK. I admit that I have seen this recently but only because I haven't bothered to tell my work computer not to search with MSN from the address bar. I have now and I fully expect not to ever see MSN unless I want to go there and from my experience this is the case.
Crashes frequently: nope. Can't remember the last time it crashed. I'd guess not in the last 6 months. Certainly not anything I'd call "frequently".
Full of ways to break the open standards of the web: Possibly but so are many other browsers. There is extra functionality that can be gained from using IE6 I suppose. This could well be why remote sites require it as you said because if a site is coded for IE only then you can do a whole lot more with it. I wouldn't do this ever for a public site but you can do some *very* powerful things with IE that otherwise you'd have to go code up an .exe file to do. The ones that immediately spring to mind are the Commerce Server 2003 administration interface which if you didn't know better would probably be passed off as a programmed application. The other is a content management system that is used for the intranet here at blackwell called Tridion and I have *never* seen the sort of functionality it offers through a netscape browser. So yeah, I guess it means it is following more than the standards but all it means is that IE can do more than just plain HTML4.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 04:37 am (UTC)Anyway, the reply I wanted to post: I'd love it if all browsers were made to refuse pages that were not fully compliant to whatever they were meant to be.
I've always loved the idea of undefined behaviour. If you give the browser non-compliant HTML, there is no specification which says what should happen. Nor, more critically, what shouldn't happen.
I'm waiting for a browser which orders a pizza when it sees non-compliant code.
Mummy, why do all the users look at me strange?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 04:53 am (UTC)I forgot to properly escape some <noscript> tags. The main comments page seemed to strip them all out or something but the reply page left them in so everything after it was ignored by browsers capable of running javascript. :) The entry has been reposted with appropriate ammendments that should make it work. Sorry bout that. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 05:53 am (UTC)If you give the browser non-compliant HTML, there is no specification which says what should happen. Nor, more critically, what shouldn't happen.
I think they call it "forward compatibility" ;-)
Reply part 3
Date: 2003-10-08 04:29 am (UTC)I will agree that IE has more security holes than other browsers but I am not entirely sure that yours is a fair statement. Microsoft tend to be very quick at releasing patches for their software. I've not been affected by *any* viruses because I keep uptodate on patches and don't double click on executable I receive in my e-mail. Out of interest would you care to clarify on the "OS it entwines/props up" since I feel that is a diss but I'm not entirely sure of the nature of it to be able to respond.
The other obvious reason is that if you are wanting to write something to target web browsers that you want to spread as far as possible do you choose IE (~94%), Netscape4+ (~1%), "other netscape compatible" (~1%), opera (~1%) or another browser which doesn't even register for usage (source of information http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp). More people attempt to find exploits for IE because its the one most worth finding exploits for.
Also of course the development method of something like mozilla with its open source (I believe) means that the code is reveiwed by potentially 1,000s of people (OK, potentially billions but you know what I mean). I'm not going to get into a open source argument as well though at this stage. :)
Did you know some viruses can get into microsoft machines through mouseovers?
I can believe it. Given that all mouseovers are is a way of running javascript it sounds reaonable that they would be able to. Did you know that they can get into a system just by e-mail? Wait, yeah, you probably did. In my experience the problem with viruses and trojans is not security wholes in software, its stupidity of users who don't bother to patch their systems and who double click on an attachment just because it says "Britney spears pictures showing everything.exe" and who would probably click on something that said "Wanna see your computer die.exe". Really, in teh grand scheme of things to address the issue of viruses and torjans you need to cull people or at least stop them having access to a lot of functionality on their computers.
OK. How about this as an afterthought. Did you know that linux machines can be hacked (not just viruses, full root access here) through their ftp server? How about through their DNS server? Yup, that's one of the most common services on the interenet and one of the key services on the internet. And you don't even need to go to the right web page for that to happen. You just need to have not upgraded after the last security alert.
Wheee! That was long wasn't it. Good job its my livejournal or I might feel guilty about spamming it. :)
REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 04:52 am (UTC)This will be the code following HTML standards and that is the code usable on other browsers without problem? If anything this is forcing me away from standards in order to remain with the desired functionality on M$ browsers.
I'm having to change from using <object> or <embed> tags to using
<script src="externalfile.js" />
<script>functioninexternalfile();</script>
with the external file having
function functioninexternalfile() {
response.write("<object">);
}
This is still technically complying with standards as much as it was before but I really don't think it is in keeping with the spirit of things.
And for the record it wasn't that long ago that Netscape was an entirely unusable browser due to its hideous inability to cope with such advanced concepts as HTML4. *All* browsers encourage shoddy coding by accepting and rendering pages that do not adhere to standards. I'd love it if all browsers were made to refuse pages that were not fully compliant to whatever they were meant to be. That would be more work for me as well but in a good way since it would make sure my code was accurate and did what it was supposed to and would probably do wonders for its working on more rare browsers that I don't have the ability to test on (accessibility related ones being ones that suffer from lack of standards most).
I commend you on your passionate hatred of microsoft even if I do think it is a little overzealous in its intensity.
Why should I have to pay micro$loth so I can browse the blackwell's site properly?
Blackwell website should be fully compliant with netscape 4+ as well as opera and any other browser you might throw at it (with possible exceptions of text only ones which i don't *think* are on the test program). If you find any pages on the site contrary to this then let me know and I will make sure that a bug is registered on our system. The latest changes are not making the site IE only. They are designed to make the site *less* viewable with IE and the changes that we are making are as a result of something being *forced* on microsoft by this law suit. Microsoft aren't sitting there saying "We're going to change our browser and you better all change your pages to match and with a bit of luck that will **** up netscape good and proper" they are saying "We are being taken to court and so have been forced to change our browser for legal reasons. If you want the same functionality as before do this" and it is still standard compliant as I said above so it shouldn't be a problem.
My only real complaint is that in explaining how to get around the problem somebody (can't remember which of the pages I was looking at) commented that if people don't have javascript then it won't work but its ok because they probably don't have activeX stuff turned on either. This annoyed me a lot because it was typical of people who seem to be unaware of the <noscript> tag and could have happily rendered the original content effectively by just placing it in the <noscript>. Yeah, it will suffer from irritating popup question issues but at least people who want activeX and not JS will be able to view it.
Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 05:13 am (UTC)It's finely honed from years of having to use their programs and watching them slowly evolve into 'almost as good' as the people they scurrilously put out of business. ;-)
I agree that this case in particular looks sillier and sillier the more I read about it, but it appears that if Microsoft had treated the plaintiff decently in the first place, it wouldn't have had this $500 million award / instruction handed down now... Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like a punitive measure to dissuade some rather nasty business practices from being repeated?
Quick responses -
pop ups
Why doesn't Microsoft implement pop-up blocking systems? Is it because they don't have to, as users have 'got used to it'? Maybe they like pop ups when sheeple are properly behaving themselves inside the MSNetwork? (their policy on spam, for example, seems to be skewed cos they make millions through spam themselves). For all Microsoft's kiddy-image-closing-down-chatrooms, they seem disinclined to provide any useful tools to prevent the pornographic explosion of windows from a mis-typed URL. Turn off java completely? Ridiculous asteroid-nutcracker solution!
Crashes
YMMV, but it's a system hog which grinds anything but the fastest of machines. Plus upgrades are getting bigger and bigger. I find it locks up more frequently than the alternatives on anything other than a streamlined modern rig.
Standards & Power
Agreed on all fronts. Integrating IE with all sorts of OS-like powers allows amazing customiseability of the app. Why it needs them enabled for anyone browsing any web site is a mystery to me. Why not offer 'IE Pro' to people who want it? Example - I'm using NXN Alienbrain (gaming project management sourcesafe etc.) It's integrating perfectly with mozilla, probably cos it's a german app. Note also that 'rendering broken HTML' is a lot different to 'inventing your own copyrighted tags & standards.'
Web Security
Which insane individual authorised code spawned from a web-mouseover to run at the user's access priority? (which is usually admin!). Step forward MS... and why? The principle of pretty enhancements for sheeple being more important than moderate security. Attacks aren't limited to MS, but they're much worse thanks to their attitude.
Microsoft aren't sitting there saying "We're going to change our browser and you better all change your pages to match and with a bit of luck that will **** up netscape good and proper"
No, but they did, and got prosecuted for it. Which is why they're more circumspect about it nowadays ;-)
Microsoft - King of Crashes
Date: 2003-10-08 05:46 am (UTC)Microsoft software stomps on our machine about once in every five boot-ups. And I was under the impression that this put us in the majority.
Re: Microsoft - King of Crashes
Date: 2003-10-08 06:09 am (UTC)Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 06:10 am (UTC)I find it locks up more frequently than the alternatives on anything other than a streamlined modern rig.
Weird. I'm using IE 5.5 on a 500MHz Pentium II with no significant trouble. I do have plenty of RAM (256MB), which might help. Obviously that's "modern" compared with a 386 or an abacus or something, but I'd hardly call it a "streamlined rig".
The trend I've noticed is that people who are hostile to MS software find that it crashes a heck of a lot more than it does when used by people at least a little sympathetic. I can only conclude that this is because the hostiles can't be bothered to figure out why it crashed and how to fix or workaround each problem they encounter. On linux, any user worth his salt will never cease in his tireless quest to prove that linux administration is practically effortless (and his distro more so than any other) ;-)
I'd not say that Windows/IE are perfect, or even that they're particularly good in many respects. However, they are entirely usable in my experience, and those who find them unusable seem to be those who approach them in a mood of "zero tolerance of unexpected behaviour or malfunction".
Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 06:15 am (UTC)Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 07:06 am (UTC)2. I've got IE 6 on this machine, and I felt I'd better check it out again before I type. I tried to set addressbar auto-searching to google, as I remember being able to do it, and it would be much more useful anyway when I do have to use the thing. I can't find a way to do it. The help files are pretty unhelpful, and even when I get to the likeliest place (open search bar, click 'customise', select 'advanced options') the only search provider in the drop-down list is MSN. Guess what went through my mind?
I also note no-one's quibbling about bandwidth issues or pop-ups ;-)
Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 07:38 am (UTC)Bandwidth? I seem to rmemeber my comment being that MS were being forced to use more. I agree low bandwidth is good. I especially think this after having got far too use to 512k cable modem at home and a n-Mbit connection at work and using my parents dial up at home. I think the main way that this can be saved is by people not taking a word document and saying "save as HTML" and then putting it on the web. In fact it can probably be sorted by having only competent people allowed to make webpages. :) I might be biased there though. :)
Oh, and for the google search from address bar try http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Internet+explorer+address+bar+search+google
Maybe try downloading TeakUI from microsoft (unsupported but generally very good) whcih makes it easy to do things like tab expansion of files and directories from cmd, and many other things that are normally only possible through registry editing. Top two links of http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&qu=tweakui&view=en-us depending on which OS you are running. No aguarantees it will do this but it seems like the sort of thing that it would do.
You may like to note that this very useful tool is written by microsoft. You might then like to note as a counter that it is badly publicised and unsupported by them. Hope that is useful.
In general I do find that any help given is fairly poor and that I will most often go to google to search. Sometimes I restrict searches to msdn.microsoft.com whcih often has definitive answers to many MS questions rather than those written by Joe Nobody.
Re: REply Part 1 (repost)
Date: 2003-10-08 01:29 pm (UTC)I didn't manage to change IE 6 to using auto-search via google, although I spent 15+ minutes on it.
I think it's worth pointing out that it does appear that you have to edit the registry to get Internet Explorer to use the most popular search engine in the world. Not least cos most ppl won't (or in corporate terms, can't) edit their registries...
Given the hoops I had to go through, I don't think it's unfair to make the analogy that Microsoft is saying "Changing the fuel in your car invalidates your warranty and may make your vehicle susceptible to random accidents for which we cannot be held responsible"
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 05:57 am (UTC)Ahem. Scuse me for ranting ;-)
Of course.
Think of it like an inoculation, grit your teeth, get the Microsoft shit out of your system and don't get infected again!
That's total nonsense. This isn't a Microsoft-only problem, it's just that Microsoft are the only people (so far) who have lost a lawsuit over it. If IE does indeed infringe the patent (there will be an appeal), so does Mozilla and every other multimedia-content-aware browser in existence.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 09:20 am (UTC)The reason that a lot of people are rather upset about this is that this patent isn't just a problem for Microsoft.
The W3C have various comments about this on their website.
It may be the case that various of the object embedding features will have to be written out of the html standard.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 11:41 am (UTC)My apologies to Chris as well for flaming - I think your initial 'everyone uses IE' and 'who worries about bandwidth' comments blinded me with fury and caused me to overlook the fact that, in this case, Microsoft appears to be in the right over web browsers. It's just that this is so unusual... ;-)
I do stand by my other arguments, but am humbled and resolve to RTFA in more depth in future.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 11:55 am (UTC)Anyway, feel free to flame or discuss anytime. Its nice to have comments on my journal. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 03:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-08 03:35 am (UTC)Ooh Flamewars !
Date: 2003-10-08 06:44 am (UTC)1) Web Standards: The issue of web standards extends far beyond the idea of embedded 'stuff'. As far back as 1993 I remember looking at early webpages featuring "Netscape extensions" and thinking "Hang on, doesn't that screw up the whole point of having a standard ?". The reality is that web standards evolve rather than being designed and it's not reasonable to expect things like ActiveX controls not to appear in that kind of environment.
In fact, the ultimate future of the 'web browser' will be very similar to the way ActiveX controls work, I expect. A URL can point at pretty much anything and the browser must understand how to launch/display/whatever absolutely anything. Same goes for embedded stuff. The fact that W3C didn't get in there early enough with standards for this is hardly surprising - it's not an easy thing to get right.
2) Security and Crashes: Whether or not a system crashes or has its security compromised depends not only on the software in question, but also on the user. There is a difference in security levels between most Linux systems and most Windows systems, but that's simply because Linux has a low-level concept of security that catches most problems 'for free'. Also, if you look at distributions like Debian it's clear that Linux systems have just as many bugs as MS stuff initially, they just have a more public debugging process. New builds are flagged as 'unstable', then gradually stabilised. MS don't have that option.
3) Microsoft are Evil ?: Historically, Microsoft has caused (in my opinion) many Bad Things to happen. However, boycotting MS products is neither necessary nor efficient as a way to take them down, which in any case would be bad if it happened (think about where their money would go).
Microsoft may yet do many good things in the future. After all, look at IBM - right thinking people used to spit after saying their name, but now they're pretty enlightened in many ways.
Re: Ooh Flamewars !
Date: 2003-10-08 11:51 am (UTC)Personally, I think Microsoft's big challenge is whether they'll migrate successfully to small, efficient mobile devices. Unifying their multimedia systems and trying to take on TiVo with a PC ("hey Bob, your TV just crashed") is all very well, but they're not appearing to make much effort to ensure my future 'email and web-pad' is actually going to run on MS 'technology'.
But they might indeed change. I think the difference is that of scale. IBM practically gave away their market & customers through short-sightedness and inflexibility. Microsoft appear to think that heavy-handed manipulation of other firms (equipment sellers) and locking businesses into upgrade paths will provide for the future. I'm not at all so sure. But hey - I just finished reading Stephenson's In The Beginning Was The Command Line.
Re: Ooh Flamewars !
Date: 2003-10-08 12:08 pm (UTC)That's the industry I work in, so I partly can't comment due to NDAs and plus I'd go over the comment wordcount limit !
One for another time.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-09 01:44 am (UTC)Daft. Very daft.