Mozilla Builds a Special Bing'ed Firefox For Microsoft

Maybe M$ should base future IE releases on Firefox or integrate features from some of the Trident engine-based browsers.

I think apple will sue this move shortly.

Not a bad idea. IE sucks, and lots of people I know, even ones that don't know a ton about computers, use Firefox.

microsoft and mozilla should work together to beat google chrome

Chrome sucks, Opera sucks more... FF is ok if it didn't crash 10 times an hour due to flash or suck up a half a gig of RAM. I'll stick with IE...

As I've been saying, the amount of time and effort Microsoft put into IE9 shows that they actually care about making a good browser. I think the "IE sucks" mentality should be re-evaluated. Remember that IE9 did win in a Browser Grand Prix when it first came out. Hopefully Microsoft can make lots of good improvements in IE10 to catch up with Chrome's speed and features. I do not think that the release cycles that Chrome has are a good idea though. You saw Mozilla try and fail with this concept. You should take your time on making a solid browser instead of just rushing everything out the door with no quality assurance.

I dont really know jack about computers, but I know I cant use IE due to how badly it eats ass. And depending on what OS your on, it may not even be available in the form of IE9. I also cant stand firefox, too many pages/pics/videos dont display properly and far too many bugs and crashes. Crashes every time I use it without fail. I've tried Safari and Opera... and just dont like them at all. So I'm forced to use Chrome. So far from my experience, again I dont know jack about computers, Chrome seems to be easiest to use, the least buggy, and the fastest.

Its lack of support of its own OS's shows me that Microsoft really wants to sell Windows 7. Its funny how all other browsers can be backwards compatible to Microsofts OS's, but Microsofts own browser cant. I run XP on my desktop. Yes my desktop needs an update, but I shouldnt be forced into buying a new OS to get the benefits of the newer IE. IE 8 is garbage, I cant use IE9 because Microsoft wants me to buy Windows 7, yet any other browser will out perform IE 8 on XP. You think the "IE sucks" mentality should be re-evaluated, I think IE sucks due to its performance across more than 1 platform. Funny how the other browsers seem to be handing Microsofts IE its ass on Microsofts own OS's. I'd say that kind of justifies the "IE sucks" mentality. Also, in my book, even without rushing things out the door, IE failed to even enter the game on IE9 on the majority of its own OS users, as there are still more people using XP than Windows 7.

release a new browser every 6 months for firefox instead of every 6 weeks.

i really wish anti trust suits would be filed against microsoft.

i mean i would pay for a version of dx 10 or 11 for xp, and you all know they could do it, hell id pay 50$ for it which is about 20$ more than i payed for windows 7 on my little brothers computer.

that said, will this browser also be tied to 7 only?

Uniting against a common foe in the guise of Google. Good decision, but perhaps MS can provide some funding for Mozilla to gather skilled programmers and write a browser that won't hog 1GB of RAM for 2 tabs.

IE uses the Trident engine. Microsoft practically invented that one.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Dependance on one large company with a competing product is not too different no matter which company it is, so you really ought to stick with the one that has supported you all this time, instead of one that has decided to do it out of desperation.

The last thing Mozilla needs is to piss off Google. The competition with Chrome could be seen as a necessary evil from either company's perspective, but if Moz is in bed with Google's biggest enemy, they are going to find themselves in the crosshairs of the most active internet tech company in the world, and depending on a recent enemy for funding to fight the war. Not a good situation, no matter what they do.

The sooner firefox will be able to take advantage of more than one CPU or CPU core, the better. It's siller how it still can't keep more than one core busy when your waiting for a window full of tabs to render.

Its Chrome that's taking their market share, not IE. Continuing to bend over and take it from Google out of fear of pissing them off would be just stupid.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

So Firefox, the Phoenix that rose from the ashes of Netscape, who was unfairly (at the time) destroyed by Microsoft, is now teaming up with the the killer of its father.
This seems like a modern TV series where the good guys and the bad guys switch sides to keep the plot interesting.

i know quite a bit about computers and would never use firefox, it just doesnt work properly with many web pages i use. With IE there is no need to install a 3rd party browser, it's good enough. Like it matters if a web page loads 0.01ms faster or slower.....

Perhaps, but all's I know is that when I run IE (rarely that I do) it says something along the lines of "consider disabling add-ons to enhance security while browsing". That sure does make sense in this day and age, considering all the strong competition is promoting the use of add-ons.

In spite of the fact that Google wants Mozilla's marketshare *and is getting it*, Google is apparently still providing support to Firefox. Will Microsoft do the same if their fortunes change?

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't work too well. Eventually, you'll find that the problems you had with your new 'friend'/former enemy are still relevant, and you'll wind up being enemies again. If Microsoft deems this experiment to be either a failure or an unnecessary expenditure, they'll end it, and then where will Mozilla be?

Some stances are only sustainable while there is growth. And I wonder how long will this be sustainable or if we should start driving towards a more sustainable model. I know that it seems there is no end in this race, and from the position we have its hard to look at the peak. We are reaching the limits of physics on hardware, but just to put it to render video games, download movies and entertainment most of the time. I think that real improvements now will come from applying technology rather than improving technology to get enough horsepower to achieve new goals. And all this has to do with the browser wars in that they are an example all of this: IE8 is slower than Chrome and Firefox and IE9, but even so is quite good, and the reasons to switch are getting of minor relevance every time (diminishing returns?). I wonder how this will end, but probably it is a good example of what software industry is facing in a midterm future.

Fine with me, as long as this special version download resides in MS website and Mozilla is getting some financial benefit from this deal, so it can continue to provide us with free, good quality browsers.

Web developers are tired of MS doing their own interpretation of HTML and Javascript standards.

You can write standards-compliant HTML and it will 99% of the time display just fine in FF or Chrome. It's various different IE versions that require most of the javascript work-arounds to display properly, like:

if Chrome or FF do ....

if ie6 do ...

if ie7 do ...

if ie8 do ...

if ie9 do ...


I vowed never to write special code for IE again years ago, if others did the same, it would showcase what a turd Internet Explorer really is when no website displays correctly in it. It would be relegated to a browser for viewing ASP.NET sites, which is really all it is now.

You ignore that Microsoft can not make a competitive product. They want to, but they can't. IE is not competitive, never has been, and never will be.

They can only leverage a monopoly. When that fails, their product fails. They can only leverage their Windows monopoly somewhat to favor IE, and it's just not enough for a company that is used to making sub-standard products and making people like it.

IE is becoming irrelevant. Microsoft should partner with anyone that can help them fight Google, who are a much more successful company in coming out with products that can compete. Losing the browser war is inevitable, better to lose it to Mozilla than to Google, which is dominating Microsoft already, and competes with them on many fronts.

It's ironic how Microsoft has become a submissive worm, partnering with anyone who can fight the powerhouses. It used to be other companies had to do that against Microsoft. As Jobs said, Microsoft is now irrelevant. Strange times, indeed.

So now that FF is as buggy, annoying and crashes as often as IE they've decided to partner up?

Makes sense...

Remember ie6. ie sucks not because it's a bad browser (well, sometimes also that) but mostly because when it re-gains monopoly status it will f**k the internet again with it non compatibly and stuff

Ah yes, the long hiatus of uselessness. That alone is what keeps me away from IE, just knowing that they've done it once before.

IE9 was also the fastest web browser to have a security flaw exposed.

I'll stick with Firefox and Chrome

Chrome blows

i hv been using FF for half decade, but just switching to chrome, if FF fix the memory hog problem and not just make the browser look like chrome, then i will be happy to switch back.

I'd be ok with Microsoft buying out Mozilla and integrating their two browsers completely, really. Maybe the end product would be worse than what Mozilla would have made on their own, but at least all the future computers of the world would ship with a half decent browser. Ok, IE9 isn't a screaming mess, but most would agree its still not even close to the worst of the rest of the browsers (safari on Windows apart).

Yeah battle of the browsers continues, i agree with earlier statements and the fact is it does take time and very much effort into developing and testing a browser across all platforms, im a Safari fan i find it works very well for me however there are certain bug issues when it comes to google maps, which they have not been able to sort out. Microsoft is far to brash when t releases new browsers 6 and 8 where about the best we got, it just goes downhill from there, so lets see maybe they can improve if they consider reading this article and its responses!