MSFT is definitely held to a higher standard. The article below, touches on what I've perceived long since. I have used both IE and Netscape for years through all their iterations. I must say, that with the last 2-3 iterations of IE, it has CLEARLY pulled ahead of Netscape. I have FAR fewer problems with IE, and Netscape by comparison is full of bugs and crash-prone. Netscape is also clearly slower. But try telling that to the crowds of MSFT haters out there. If they are willing to put up with bad software and keep using Netscape, then they cannot be helped.
BTW, the guy who wrote this article, is not some pro-MSFT fanatic.
winmag.com
<<A Software Double-Standard?
Some Microsoft products are great, others less
so-but they all get criticized anyway.
Netscape is driving me crazy. The new releases of Navigator
(4.08) and Communicator (4.51) have retained numerous
long-standing bugs that get in the way of complex Web
pages. (One bug is so old it traces its roots back to the
earliest days of JavaScript!) Other browser makers-including
Opera and Microsoft-have worked around these problems, but Netscape has
not.
It's driving me nuts for two reasons, and the first is personal: I've wasted
literally days trying to program around the bugs in Netscape's browsers. You
see, I'm nearing completion on BrowserTune 2000, the next iteration in the
WINDOWS Magazine-sponsored BrowserTune series.
The current iteration is BrowserTune98; longtime readers know it as a series of
browser-neutral Web pages that tests some 300 browser features and
functions, so you can see exactly what any browser supports-or fails to support.
It's a hugely popular site, serving up over a million and a half tests a month.
(See browsertune.com and
browsertune.com
The new version, BrowserTune 2000 (BT2K for short), will offer a "fast test"
option that automatically tests a limited subset of essential browser features; a
full-blown manual test will still be available as a separate item.
Simple, basic client-side JavaScripts handle the automated testing. For
maximum compatibility, JavaScripts don't take any shortcuts or do anything
fancy: It's all pedestrian, straightforward, explicit, simple code.
But Navigator has had a bug since JavaScript first appeared: Complex scripts
cannot be placed within the TD tags of a table. It's not an insurmountable
problem-Internet Explorer, for example, has no problem with code of arbitrary
complexity placed anywhere you want inside tables. It's just that Netscape has
never gotten around to fixing the bug.
This is a particular problem for BT2K, because all of the pages on the site for
CMP Media (WINDOWS Magazine's parent company) are table-based. Since
there's no good way to avoid the tables, the only option is to use a long,
complicated document.write trick to fool the browser into not realizing it's
working inside a table. As long as you hide the TD tags from the browser in this
way, Navigator/Communicator is happy. Doh!
Netscape is equally finicky about Font tags inside HTML "Divisions." For
example, even the very latest versions of Netscape browsers will crash and
burn when they try to run the following simple code:
<DIV ID="CRASHANDBURN" STYLE="POSITION:ABSOLUTE">
<TABLE WIDTH=300>
<TR><TD>Netscape browsers never get this far.
</FONT></TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</DIV>
The meaningless, unpaired </FONT> tag is the problem.
Believe me, I've heard all the "purity of code" arguments defending the
placement of tags, and yes, there should be a <FONT>tag in there. If Netscape
simply generated an error message, or garbled the display or font behavior, it
might be OK. Instead, that extra font tag causes it to generate an Illegal
Operation/Invalid Page Fault: The browser stops cold and shuts down!
Is this necessary behavior brought about by a fanatical devotion to pure
HTML? No, it's just a bug. For example, Opera (generally regarded as the
"purest" of the browsers) has no trouble at all with the code-it just ignores the
meaningless </FONT> tag. So does IE. Only Netscape crashes and burns.
OK, all software has bugs and design flaws. And with most products, we take
bugs (even the nasty ones, like Netscape's font-tag-of-death bug) in stride.
For example, Opera (as of version 3.51) has many bugs and weird behaviors,
and a JavaScript performance that's literally two orders of magnitude slower
than IE's and Netscape's. But it's still a well-regarded browser.
Parts of Netscape browsers cry out for a visit from the Orkin man, and some of
the bugs have remained unfixed for so long they're practically fossils. But the
presence of these bugs hasn't dampened Netscape fans' affection for the
browser. And sure, Microsoft IE has its share of bugs and weird behaviors, too.
But it correctly displays any page that Opera can display; and with the
exception of some of Netscape's proprietary and non-W3C-compliant tags, IE
will also display just about anything Netscape can. In fact, after coding
hundreds of pages for all three browsers, I find IE is by far the most flexible,
most robust and most standards-based of the pack.
But IE is reviled by many. "It's buggy!" say some-although rival browsers are at
least as buggy. "It's bloated!" cry others-as if the 14+MB Communicator (about
the same as a comparable IE) is a model of svelteness. "It's a slug!" cry
others-although IE is faster than Comm 4.51.
This is not an objective comparison: Many people hold Microsoft to a standard
of perfection they would never require of any other company.
And that's the second part of what's, er, bugging me: Why do Opera's and
Netscape's browsers get excused for their shortcomings, while Microsoft's gets
nailed? Why is there a double standard?
It's very strange. Some people regard bugs from Netscape or Opera or Red
Hat or Apple-or almost anyone except Microsoft-as no big deal. But bugs from
Microsoft, they say, are a glaring example of shoddy workmanship, lazy
monopolistic practices, lousy programming and an expression of evil. Basically,
all Microsoft products stink, right?
Objective testing shows that some of Microsoft's products are actually quite
good-even best-of-class. I happen to think IE5 is one of them, and it's based on
an intimate, objective, BrowserTune-based familiarity with all the major brands
and versions.
The anti-Microsoft fanatics will brand me a heretic for saying this, but
maybe-just maybe-some Microsoft products earned their popularity simply by
being better than any of their rivals. Think about it.>>
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