Posted by Calixte Pictet | 3 comments
IE: Microsoft fights back
I fell across one of the funniest corporate web pages recently.
Yep! Microsoft is actually fighting back verbally in the browser war. They might have lost a battle against the European Comission (they now provide a “ballot screen” for European users to choose their browser at first start-up) but they refuse to loose it all to competition. So what is this web-page about? Well, according to the Redmond giant, there are a lot of rumors about IE, and none of them are based on the truth.
“Here’s the Buzz: ‘By and large, we found that Internet Explorer 8 performed well, and beat out Firefox 3.0.7 in the majority of our time trials.’
Browser Showdown: Internet Explorer 8 vs. Firefox, PC World, 5/19/09″
Well, they found a nice quote, so I’m ready to believe them. Then again, beating Forefox in speed is not the greatest of all achievements. Firefox is the slowest of all IE alternatives (including Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera). So what about it’s comparison to other browsers?Microsoft is very generous: they give us a nice comparison chart so we can see for ourselves.
Security: IE wins. Explanation?
“Internet Explorer 8 takes the cake with better phishing and malware protection, as well as protection from emerging threats.”
Well, as much as I am ready to believe IE has made enormous progress with their last version of IE, I wouldn’t really bet on that.
According to the Softies, IE also wins in Privacy and Ease of Use. A tie on Web standards and Customisation, but IE still wins in Reliability, Compatibility, and Manageability. As to Performance, a tie again. They know they loose to Google Chrome hands down on this last one, so what have they to say? “Knowing the top speed of a car doesn’t tell you how fast you can drive in rush hour. To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video. This one’s also a tie.” In other words, “we’re still losing on that one”. Can you tell me why small details are used to show victories of IE over Firefox and Chrome but these same details are considered negligeable the other way round? Sometimes, when they (the Microsoft employees who wrote this article) are confident enough in their commentaries, they actually name Firefox or Chrome. Sometimes the only name Firefox, Chrome is just forgotten… Revealing? Some other things are funny too. In customisation, Explorer and Firefox are on the same level, according to the Microsoft guys. They admit Firefox has more addons over-all, but some of the add-ons for Firefox are included by default on IE. Therefore, Firefox is not more customisable. Huh?
I’m not going to attack IE any more on what is said in that web page, it’s just too easy, but I’d like to ask a question: why isn’t Apple’s Safari present when Google Chrome is? I have my theory. Google and Apple react differently to attacks, especially when they come from Redmond. Google will ignore this. Apple would have bashed Microsoft in a well thought ad and made them look ridiculous. Of course, Microsoft would tell you that Chrome has already surpassed Safari in Windows’ browser market share. Would they have done the same with another competitor?
Want to know more (or just have a laugh)? Go to Microsoft’s Browser Comparison
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Image courtesy: !killer7ben
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