I’ve made no secret of my (intense) dislike for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, and today I got some good news.

Via TechCrunch

According to NetApplications, Microsoft’s forced-use browser Internet Explorer lost 11.4% of the browser market between the three versions currently in the wild (the recent IE8, the first-IE-with-tabs-finally-half-baked-standards-support-they-could-have-gone-all-the-way-but-noooo IE7, and the it-just-won’t-die-no-matter-how-many-times-I-whack-it-with-a-sledgehammer-AHHH-AHHHH-AHHHHH IE6).  While IE7’s loss in popularity is explainable – people upgrading/being forced to upgrade to IE8 – and IE6’s persistence is starting to wane because it lacks certain features like tabs and any notion of security, the nice thing is that it’s losing to the renewed competition in the Second Browser Wars.  Where it was once mainly between Netscape and Internet Explorer, there’s now Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox (Netscape’s next of kin), Opera,Apple’s Safari, and the new and very impressive Google Chrome.  As the Internet Explorer line has done very little in the way of innovation (A small browser called NetCaptor invented them in 1998 and after losing market share to the tabbed Opera, Firefox, and Safari, IE integrated them in 2006) this isn’t surprising.

What is surprising (though not at all unwelcome) is that people are taking enough interest in quality to look past the default, to revolt from the dictatorship of Good Enough.  All the new entrants to the browser wars bring new innovations – Firefox with extensions, Opera with Unite and many others, Chrome with Tab Sequestration – and people are realizing that what comes installed on their computer really isn’t that good.

Anyway, the numbers speak for themselves.

Just when you think that Microsoft shoveling money into a hole was the lowest that Microsoft’s marketing department could go, think again.

Here’s their new “Get the Facts” campaign, where the “Facts” only resemble “Facts” in Stalinist Russia.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx

Okey dokey then.  Seriously?

Let’s do a step-by-step rebuttle, shall we?

Security:  Bunk.  Let’s “Get the Facts” from ArsTechnica.  Chrome is the last one standing, undefeated because of its sandboxing feature.  Safari4 fell first, then IE8, then Firefox3.whatever.  The number for IE exploits is significantly higher and they go much longer without being fixed.

Privacy:  Microsoft forgot to mention that Google Chrome and Firefox both have very good privacy features.  Infact, Chrome was first.

Ease-of-use:  This is purely subjective, but I’ll say that Chrome has that one down pat because of its simplicity and integration with search (which can be changed, not just Google).

Web Standards:  This is the thing that comedy is made of.  Honestly…  Chrome and Firefox 3.5 still both beat IE.  There’s a reason that web developers don’t use IE.  Because we spend as much time making things work in IE that work in good browsers as we do creating the codebase.

Developer Tools:  I’d say Open Sourcitude is a very big developer tool.  So are these things called extensions, which are huge in Firefox and coming for Chrome.  Of course it wins?  Because IE has worked sooooo well in the past.  And it only works, of course, on Microsoft operating systems.

Reliability:  Sure, IE *might* have both, but it also needs to use it more.  Chrome was the one that came up with multithreaded browsing, and Firefox 3.5 has both.  Even if IE has both, Chrome and Firefox still need them less.

Customizability:  It’s a tie?  IE doesn’t have themes.  Or Extensions.  And those “features” that you have to install extensions for in Firefox:  that’s the point.  Because it makes Firefox faster.  Add to that the fact that Firefox 3.5 beats IE8 feature-to-feature, and this is completely ridiculous.  And if all those features are “built in”, it’s not customizable.  Gotcha.

Compatibility:  There’s two ways to look at this – one is that it’s only compatible because Microsoft threw standards to the wind and *they’re* the ones that force developers to engage in coding voodoo.  The other is that it’s junk because modern sites are all developed for Firefox as well, and I’ve never seen problems with Chrome.  The only one that really has compatibility issues is Opera, which is because it’s so strict.

Manageability:  There are tools to manage Firefox at an enterprise scale, they just aren’t built in.  Because most people don’t need them.  That makes the browser slow.  And I’d doubt how well they work…

Performance:  This is junk.  Now, I can’t seem to find the benchmarks, but in benchmarks comparing Firefox 3.5 Beta, Google Chrome 2, Safari 4, Opera9.6 and IE8, IE8 was the loser.  It’s not a tie.  IE is significantly slower than the others.

They got away with this by running the “stable” versions of Chrome and Firefox.  That’s because IE is much much newer than these.  However, the latest testing releases of Chrome and Firefox, both very stable, blow IE away.

Microsoft:  How many people are you trying to offend by lying to your customers?  This is desperate and not befitting of a company that does make some good software (Office2007 fan here).  But you are playing dirty.  And still losing.  IE is the only browser that is actually, actively *hated*.  Think about that and how you’re contributing to that.  And stop trying to explain the existence of IE by lying about it:  build a better browser.

Microsoft’s marketing department has reached new lows.

I mean, really new lows.

You had best read it for yourself from Microsoft Australia.  You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/ie8/competition/

Yes, Microsoft has decided to “hide” $10,000 on a website and post clues, but only people who download and use their Internet Explorer 8 browser will be able to participate.

Anyone thinking of the money hole right now?

Is this desperate?  Is this pathetic?  Is this pathetically desperate?  Check check and check.  Microsoft would, of course, be the only browser maker to actually shovel money at their browser.  I mean, Google is supposedly taking the unorthodox step of advertising its browser on TV, but that’s completely different from throwing money to anyone who will catch it.

But wait:  there’s more!

Let’s look at the ad copy (which is, in true Microsoft web-standards-adherence fashion, an image):

“We’ve buried $10,00 on the internet and if you’re the first one to find it you get to keep it.”

The hook

“But you’ll never find it using that browser.  (So get rid of it, or get lost.)”

The line

“If you want a serious shot at the ten grand, upgrade your browser to Windows Internet Explorer 8 now.  Then follow @tengrand_IE8 on Twitter for daily clues that point you to the buried loot”
The sinker.

Excuse me, upgrade my browser?  The only upgrading I’m doing is to Firefox 3.5.  How can you call it an upgrade with undeniably worse security, significantly slower, and iffy-at-best standards adherence?

To quote @dpogue: …”oh my! I… didn’t think Microsoft was capable of stooping *that* low o.o”

Neither did I. I mean, I knew Microsoft always won at the web browser/OS game of limbo (limbo limbo limbo! How low can you go?!?) but I never thought they’d actually throw money at people.

Besides, it’s not enough. I’d need at least $100,000 CAD to make me switch (for the record, the prize is about $9,000 CAD or $8,000 USD)

Even better:  at the bottom, it says “It’s not as stupid as it sounds”.  Yes, yes it is.  At least that crossed the mind of someone at Microsoft.  Otherwise I’d have serious doubts as to the future of Humanity.  The ironic part is that there will be the inevitable Firefox extension that will allow Open Source fans to participate.