Microsoft – Chris Wolfe

There is no best browser

Pet peeve time. It’s long past time for tech writers to give up their click bait attempts with articles about which internet browser is BEST. These pop up at least once every week or two on the tech blogs. They are usually a head-to-head comparison to the top four or so: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and sometimes Opera or others. Here’s a recent example:

[https://www.pcworld.com/article/3213031/computers/best-web-browsers.html]

Best web browsers of 2017: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera go head-to-head

We take a look at the performance and features of the big four internet browsers to see which one will serve you best in 2017.

Let me just ask, who uses only one browser? I realize there are grandmas and kids and other less techie people in the world who might just use whatever came on their pc or laptop (IE, Edge, Safari…) but most people I work with, and every person who I’ve every helped over the years, use at least two or more browsers at the same time. Yes, there are strengths and weaknesses to every browser (every class of software), but there is no BEST one.

For myself, I gravitate to Firefox because of the extensions and it has a somewhat smaller memory footprint than Chrome. But even to this day, leaving it running for days on end and having multiple tabs open will result in FF sucking down a massive amount of memory. And it gets slower, and slower… and s l o w e r. I found the only way to stop that is by saving my sessions, killing the FF process, and firing it up again… starting the whole cycle again. FF can also get all locked up by a single rogue tab. I know the developers are working on these problems, but as of today (v56) it still has these and other problems.

Chrome is nice but does take up a lot resources, as each tab is a new system process, though this does help by not letting one tab crash all of Chrome. I always feel I have to be more ‘miserly’ with my Chrome tabs than with FF. New versions come out very frequently and I believe that they were the first to get a functional 64 bit version out than FF (sorry, too busy to google that). I keep all my Chrome sessions across all my devices synced to the same account so that extensions stay in sync, and I can keep track of open tabs on all of the different devices.

Edge: ha, who uses Edge? Still no good extensions, still does not work with all sites. No other words necessary.

Safari: Not a Mac guy, but it works very well on the iPad and iPhone. Tightly controlled by Apple, just like everything else. I think once, a very long time ago, I tried it on a Windows PC. Not sure if normal people still use it on PCs. Chrome is a good alternative on iOS.

Opera seems pretty solid, but to be honest, I only use it to log into my Facebook account. Why not connect to FB on FF or Chrome? You must have missed it when it was discovered that FB can track you ALL OVER THE INTERNET from the browser you are using, EVEN AFTER YOU LOGGED OUT. Sorry to get all caps locked on you there, I just can’t believe how bad that speaks to FB and privacy. And it’s not just about using cookies and clicking on the Like buttons. You think FB really ever lets you go?

Ah, but another great browser is Vivaldi! Spunky and still relatively fresh to the scene, it also is pretty solid and reliable. But again, like Opera, I really only use it to stay logged into my personal Gmail account. Using Google products is funny and slightly annoying as they seem to still think, in this grand year of 2017, that people have and use only one Gmail/Google account. 🙂 So, needless to say, I don’t use my main Gmail account (open in Vivaldi) for much else in the Google environment, hence that’s why I don’t use Gmail from FF or Chrome because outside of Incognito mode they only let you have one account logged in at a time. (So yeah, it gets a bit unwieldy when you need to use four or five Google accounts on your computer at one time.. but it’s manageable!)

Just for grins, there was also the standalone portable QtWeb browser back in the day. I just checked their site and the last update was 2013! Guess they just couldn’t compete with the PortableApps group, which are the versions of Chrome and Firefox that I use… highly recommended!

Windows Phone is dead

So… that only took about seven years to crash and burn out. Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 in the fall of 2010 but they never had a chance against the iPhone or the Android vanguard. It’s been interesting to watch the slow tank over the years and just a twinge painful because Nokia was involved and they used to make solid phones. Sure, there were a couple or three flurries of news bites where MS would make some grand announcement, like when they released Windows Phone 8 and WP10, but there was generally no interest from NO body. They were never a contender.

I used to be a MS basher, but to be truthful I changed my mind when Ballmer finally stepped down around the summer of 2014 and passed the CEO reins to Nadella, and I watched what happened with the company. Ballmer leaving was a shot in the arm that MS needed and they were able to really get to work on new versions of Windows and other initiatives, even focusing on their software to run on their phone competitors (smart!). I was interested in the platform enough that a couple years ago I bought a lower-end phone running WP7 so I could play around with it. Even with the low phone specs, it ran well and I did enjoy seeing what it offered. It’s true that one very big reason for the phone’s failure was always the lack of apps.

So I’ve softened my stance since 2010: it’s too bad that Windows Phone didn’t work out, only because competition is good for everyone involved. I’m not saying this is true about their phone at all, but in the tech industries, the best does not always win out. WP was classy and different. MS is cutting the fat and culling the herd… looking back now it seems like it was just kind of a big experiment, anyway.

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/9/16446280/microsoft-finally-admits-windows-phone-is-dead]

Microsoft finally admits Windows Phone is dead

“In a series of tweets, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore has revealed that the software giant is no longer developing new features or hardware for Windows 10 Mobile. While Windows Phone fans had hoped Microsoft would update the platform with new features, it’s now clear the operating system has been placed into servicing mode, with just bug fixes and security updates for existing users.”

Poor Windows Phone

Microsoft’s mobile answer to the iPhone and iOS continues to tank, just as I predicted back in 2010. Gartner’s latest report ([http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2017015]) tells the numbers: for 1Q12, Microsoft only has 1.9% of worldwide phone sales, and that’s even down from 2.6% back in 1Q11. I guess I might have been generous saying M$ could even get 5-10% market share. This past year has been their big coming out party with Nokia, and I’ll admit that they are making some really nice hardware; if anything would have given both of those companies a shot in the arm, that was it. We’ll give it another year or two and check in on them again. IF both or one or the other is even still in the mobile space by then…

Windows Phone 7

So Microsoft has been announcing new phones running their new mobile OS Windows Phone 7. HTC is fully behind it and will have as many WP7 phones as they do Android. I’ve looked at the commercials and reviews of the OS, and my reaction is, “Meh.” What’s the point? It’s already 2010, the iPhone has been out like 3 1/2 years, and this is finally MS’s competitive mobile phone? Sure, the animation of the screen design looks a bit new and fresh, but there is absolutely nothing I’ve seen so far that would make me even think about switching from iPhone. If I were to jump platforms (and there’s no possibility of this, at the current time), it would be to Android. And not AT&T’s variety of Android, so this would be a bigger decision for me than just going to a new phone, it would also mean a carrier jump.

So I predict that the WP7 will be around for awhile but will never get more than 5 to 10% market share. MS, with their deep pockets, will push it for a time. But they’ll never be a worthy competitor.

Bad news for monkey boy

“Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer received a 5.5% decrease in his overall compensation last year as the company suffered its first-ever drop in overall revenue, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.”

But hard to believe that it’s taken this many years for Microsoft to take a loss.

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138725/Microsoft_s_Ballmer_finds_wallet_a_little_lighter?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2009-10-01]

Monkey Dance:

And a classic Apple riff: