I’ve been a Firefox user for years. It’s simply better than Internet Explorer (IE), almost in the way that a Swiss Army knife is better than a brick. Unless you’re specifically in need of a brick, you can just imagine that such a knife is more useful, if only because human beings have considered that it ought to be.

Internet Explorer used to be great. It was useful, smooth, adaptable, in many ways superior. But a culture of protectionism is antithetical to creativity and innovation. I have no doubt there are geniuses in Redmond, but what are they thinking? I don’t know what their goals are, besides staying competitive, but I don’t think the focus is on making us happy, productive little web surfers. The trend seems more towards making a browser that’s finished than one that meets the user’s needs.

I don’t use IE often, but sometimes I have to. For example, Netflix Watch Instantly functions only in IE. I remember using IE 10 years ago, and you could move the parts of the toolbars anywhere you wanted them. Re-size them, shuffle them around, make them useful. Hide them if you wanted to. You can’t do that anymore. (Yeah, I know about unlocking them.) The command bar will only go in 2 places, and you can barely re-size it at all.

In Firefox, I have add-ons that make it useful. I have toolbars that I can hide when I’m not using them. They don’t stop working, they just hide. In IE, if you try to hide your Google Toolbar, for example, IE demands to confirm that you wish to disable it. Then you have to go through steps to turn it back on.

I use an add-on called Last Pass. It’s a security tool. I have it on Firefox and IE. Here’s what it looks like in Firefox. It’s the red button with the white star.

In IE, it’s an entire toolbar, running the full width of the window, from screen edge to screen edge. Can’t shrink it, can’t move it. And if I try to hide it, IE will turn it off altogether. Why?

Sometimes it seems like the people at Microsoft are among the brightest, most inventive of Americans. Other times, it seems like they’re being petulant, angry that their monopoly is threatened. They’re protective, defensive, restrictive. It’s gotta be hard to make good stuff that way.

To be fair, there are exceptions to the image I have of MS as a castle with a moat. Office 2010 Beta is a chance for people to try out software and give MS feedback. But there’s a world of difference between soliciting feedback and being willing to listen and change. 

Maybe it’s a divisional thing, a vestige of Explorer’s battles with Netscape, and fear of Firefox’s growing popularity. I say this because some MS products are just getting better and more flexible all the time, and more aware of the presence of an end user in the situation. If you haven’t checked out Windows Media Center in 7, as compared with Media Player in XP, you’re in for a treat when you do. It’s cool. I’m looking forward to getting it to work with Netflix the way it’s supposed to.

I’m still a big fan of Office 2003. I used Publisher today, and it worked just great. I wish they’d found ways to make Office better, without resorting to those silly ribbons that replaced the toolbars. But maybe that’s just me.

Bottom line, I think MS products like IE would be better if they were open source, because Microsoft really needs the help of all mankind to make their stuff work better. And until they begin to see that light, the rest of us are better off considering open source software, for many of the things we use computers to do.

Firefox is open source.
 
Take a quick look at this: http://www.mozilla.org/about/

With my morning coffee, I read an article about the new Google Buzz and its impact on membership in other social networking sites, meaning Facebook and Twitter.

And Buzz is indeed a product that’s reactionary as opposed to trailblazing. It’s Google’s biggest acknowledgment of the fact that people dig these short real-time messages and social-media sharing. It aims to take the reasons why people use Facebook, why people use Twitter, and why early adopters have started using “geo” services, and wrap them all up into a product intimately connected to its existing Gmail client.

Buzz launched on Tuesday, and over the past couple of days, we’ve been buried up to our Windows in opinion about it. My initial reaction to Buzz was “get out of my way you piece of crap, whatever you are,” because it popped up in my face while I was trying to quickly access my e-mail. It demanded to be played with, right now, like a big happy dog with a slobbery tennis ball.

My reaction since then has been that I’m interested – because I like playing with new stuff – but otherwise pretty much underwhelmed. It’s essentially a toy for g-mail users to play with, and many of the the people I know and care about don’t use g-mail. No fault of mine. Also, they couldn’t have thought of a new name? Hasn’t Yahoo Buzz been around for a while? But I digress.

And please note that I can digress, because I’m blogging. If I were Tweeting or Facebook-posting right now, I wouldn’t have room to explore a tangential thought. It’s not allowed. Which brings me to the question of the hour: why do people “dig these short real-time messages?” Because it’s fun, quick and easy, right?

Sitting down and choosing the right words and putting them in the right order to form cogent sentences and cohesive paragraphs isn’t easy. And it isn’t always fun. It’s hard work, and punctuation matters. [Language alert on that link, but it’s really funny. I just got that cartoon via Buzz.]

I’m not suggesting that my friends on Facebook can’t write. I’m saying that dashing off a quick thought, sharing a family photo or a pet, a little note on the weekend’s adventures, etc., is more fun.

In the course of writing this post – about 15 minutes, including a quick side-trip to Facebook to get ideas on how to characterize FB in the last paragraph – I’ve actually lost some of the inspiration and motivation I had for starting it. Where was I going with this? That’s part of the problem with writing: you need an idea, and the ability to hold on to it until you get at least that first shitty draft onto paper or screen. It helps to take notes.

There is a difference, I think, between posting and writing, despite the fact that this post fails to exemplify it. And If there were a good reason for continuing the exploration of this line of thought, I would have to keep plowing ahead, get the job done, express those thoughts, go back and edit and proof and publish. Thankfully, there’s not. No boss or editor is expecting this to be any better than it is. Yet I’m aware – and thankful – that if there were, I’d have the space and a few skills to try for improvement.

That would not be the case on FB or Twitter.