Comments on: Saying it out loud: IBM is moving to Firefox as its default browser

By: Bob Sutor

Bob Sutor — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 14:21:27 +0000

Regarding Firefox 4, it’s not even available yet. We and millions of other people will take a good look at it when it comes out.

By: Carlos Acosta

Carlos Acosta — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:54:21 +0000

i hate IE, firefox is better in every way.

By: Firefox4

Firefox4 — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:33:39 +0000

Is IBM gonna use Firefox 4.0 when it goes final?

http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/05/10/firefox-4-vision-fast-powerful-and-empowering/

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_4.0b1

Posted from Minefield(Firefox) 4.0b2pre nightly build

By: Ivan Muela

Ivan Muela — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:24:23 +0000

It was about time! Hoorray!

By: Martin F

Martin F — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:52:37 +0000

I think this is excellent news and goes along way to helping promote the strength and value of opensource.

A message that I try to champion at every opportunity although this is, unfortunately, an uphill battle at times.

Now all we need is to encourage the development of IBM tooling for linux on smart phones/netbooks running such as Android, Maemo/Meego etc and it will make a fairly compelling picture for customers to be able to use common applications across a range of different platforms.

rgds

By: James Knott

James Knott — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:15:44 +0000

Many years ago, I used to be on the team that built the standard desktops for IBM Canada. I recall when Netscape was made the standard, replacing Web Explorer.

By: suezz

suezz — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:11:14 +0000

“This is really interessting – let me ask you some questions: how are yu going to deal with policies, updates etc.? As far as I know IE is the only browser that can be managed thru a central point (AD/SCCM/SMS) etc.?! What restrictions will there be when it comes to AddOns?

Thanks and greetings from Munich”

I would say that is a windows problem – all linux distributions all have management capabilities built into them you just have to build you own software repository and be done with it.

So I would say go ask microsoft how they plan to meet their customers demands and start pacakaging firefox with their software.

By: John Walicki

John Walicki — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:02:11 +0000

What does it mean to be the default browser? Well, there are systems settings so that when an application displays a link, Firefox will launch when the link is clicked. This will encourage even greater use of Firefox and eases IBMers’ transition to Firefox as their primary browsing environment. The user can then take advantage of many Firefox extensions that IBM have developed for internal use.

By: John Walicki

John Walicki — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:47:04 +0000

As to Chrome…

Google Chrome is an interesting and relatively young browser under active development. It is following in Firefox’s footsteps by showing the importance of open standards compliance.

IBM has contributed significantly to Firefox’s accessibility features. Ultimately, we went with Firefox as the default browser because of its maturity, cross-platform support, accessibility features, security, extension architecture, and independence.

http://www.mozilla.org/access/features

By: Jorge Merino

Jorge Merino — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:34:00 +0000

Ouch! another hit for IE. Few weeks ago Google also encouraged their employees to be away from IE.

By: John Walicki

John Walicki — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:31:31 +0000

I’m John Walicki from the IBM I/T organization and lead the Firefox Adoption program and our Browser Independence strategy. Several comments have asked how IBM manages hundreds of thousands of Firefox enabled workstations.

The IBM internal IT organization uses a Firefox Add-on called the Client Customization Kit (CCK) to manage preferences, a standard set of corporate bookmarks, default extensions, and configuration parameters. We also preload internal search engines for IBM intranet search and the employee directory. Automatic security updates are handled through the builtin Firefox software update facility so that our employees are protected within hours of an security alert. Major updates are disabled by default and can be controlled and provisioned centrally through the IBM CCK management after extensive internal testing.

CCK was originally written by Mike Kaply when he was at IBM and IBM donated it as open source to Mozilla.

Also see:

By: Bob Sutor

Bob Sutor — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:46:50 +0000

I’m in the process of moderating the comments. For those who posed very specific questions, I’ll be having someone from our CIO’s office respond.

For those of you from IBM who have asked questions, please see the w3 news story that was posted yesterday. There’s a tremendous amount of information there, including what we’re doing for the few remaining problematic browser-based applications, what are the recommended extensions, and so forth. I’m not going to otherwise have that discussion here.

By: Kahuna Pig

Kahuna Pig — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:47:34 +0000

this is the kindest, gentlest comments section I’ve ever read. Everybody here loves FF! IMO, it’s fine, but the giant company I work for uses IE (7 & 8), even tho’ all our software development has been outsourced to IBM. the browser I use at home is IE8. I have tried to love FF, but there’s just no compelling connection there.

By: Ezequiel Gonzalez

Ezequiel Gonzalez — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:46:44 +0000

Once upon a time Netscape was the king of the hill. Then came Windows 95 with Explorer “built” into it and took over. Netscape became Mozilla, and mozilla was transform into Firefox… Firefox will not become a monopoly, but will ensure that no proprietary company with proprietary standards will ever again dominate the net browsing field. Good job and awesome victory for the Open Source community!

By: Gofredo Marocchi

Gofredo Marocchi — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:39:16 +0000

Will you also consider bundling NoScript as a very strongly suggested extension?

I agree it makes browsing a bit more intricate at first, but some training and some time spent using it should lead to an even safer Firefox browsing experience IMHO.

By: Dmitriy Zasyatkin

Dmitriy Zasyatkin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:15:02 +0000

Thats really cool, because any browser is better than IE, which is an absolute nightmare for web developers. Although, I do believe that Chrome is much faster and more beautiful then all the other browsers.

- Dmitriy Zasyatkin (Long-time Firefox Fan)

By: Adil

Adil — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:08:16 +0000

@Anne Medar : Because Thunderbird does not even scratch the surface of what Lotus Notes is capable of, the database access capability that it offers, It is way more than just an email client.

By: William Walker

William Walker — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:35:48 +0000

Hmm, nice but what about central management, how they will control browser addons that users install on their computers ? What’s about updates, they will rely on automatic updates from mozilla site or will they build they own server and provide their own custom build ?

By: Jaume Armengol del Pliego

Jaume Armengol del Pliego — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:26:37 +0000

Great news from IBM. It deserves a tweet ;-)

Have a nice weekend, Jaume.

By: Redeemed

Redeemed — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:25:53 +0000

IE is a non-starter for me. It won’t even run on any of my computers, all of which run Linux.