Webmasters - beware of new Explorer!

[someone else]

USA Today - 'Smart Tags' link to another Microsoft controversy (http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-06-08-microsoft-smart-tags.htm)


Basically put, the next IE version will search the websites that the user loads, then put it's own links into the content!

There's evidently going to be some kind of tag you can put in your HTML to prevent this, but I see it like I see opt-out mailing lists (where they start mailing you stuff you didn't ask for, and you have opt to not get more mail).



Now I'm thinking... they're going to try to make money off of *my* sites. Therefore, they are advertising on my site. Therefore, to advertise on my site, they will have to pay for the ad.

I believe an online campaign of webmasters sending mail to Microshaft charging them $50.00 per link is well in order for this.


This is an insult to every webmaster.

[someone else]

What it looks like: Graphic of how Smart Tags look (http://www.activewin.com/articles/2001/xpie6.shtml)

[clearjade]

yuck

[someone else]

Yes! A lawyer with half a brain has spoken!

The lawyer states that these tags may be illegal in at least two different ways. :) If this keeps up, they may never see the light of day!

Microsoft Smart Tags May Violate Laws - Newsbytes.com (http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166676.html)

[}:8) Supermoo]

*Shudders* :eek:

That's dreadful news... and that Windows XP looks very well... um... yuck. :(

[zazoo]

its not the end of the worl is it?
I mean like all we have to do is put in some tags and the problem will go away imediatly right?

sure its anouying but I dont think it would be to horrible

[meow]

And look what's to become of Netscape. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010606/wr/tech_netscape_dc_1.html
Think I'll go for Lynx.

[lucifer]

all a bit grim :(

[ultimate]

What tag do you have to place on your site then and where in the header ,body :confused:

[someone else]

There's going to be standard Meta-tags to block "Microshaft Dumb Tags". Microshaft have been extremely hush-hush about what the exact tag is, though. They probably don't want webmasters blocking them before the "feature" even hits the market.


And no, this is not an acceptable solution. This is opt-out, which when it comes to mailing lists is better known as spam. Why should these be treated any differently than spam.


This "feature":

1- Devalues what little value is left in your own ads on your site. Too much to click that drives people away from your site.

2- Is a violation of your copyright for your work on your website. Microshaft is creating a derivative work where the sole purpose is to give people more avenues to leave your site.

3- In typical Microshaft fashion, it's also just plain unethical in oh so many ways.

[meow]

We have to talk to Zeldman. If he could convince a large portion of the sites to say "to hell with old browsers" he maybe can convince people to say to hell with IE too. But I don't really believe that. :(

[Homeygwiz]

Who Microsoft?

No Way ! :D

That doesn't surprise me. Just another way for them to get more people interested in there site by having banners on every web site.

Oh well better not upgrade I guess.

HGW - " Think before you speek "

[Neverm1nd]

Why doesn't everybody just use Opera :confused:
It's small, fast, very much options and it supports *almost* everything

[meow]

I was a great Opera fan. Tried it now and then and bought it just before 4 was out. Then something happened. After 4 it hasn't worked well on my machine. It's slow, pages take forever to load and so on. Others have this problem too. On the other hand I've never had the crashes which are THE big complaint. Opera of course blames windows. That may be true but they produce a browser for windows and other software developers seem to handle the win bugs well. Besides I'm not to hot on the MDI. Love it in my text editor but not so much in a browser.

But I'm glad others find it useful. I'm all for diversity. We need more browsers to choose from. The more browsers the more need for them to be up to standard - the less problems for us. :)

[meow]

I talked with Zeldman. :D ;)
You may find this interesting.
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/smarttags/

[meow]

Has it begun? :confused::eek:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/07/30/BU231339.DTL&type=business

[ozefrog]

oh my god wat will they think of next! i hope a few 1000 lawsuits are filed for advertising compensation!

from looking at the ad, it looks to me as if is half program half javascript. a lot of javascript probs maybe??

anyway, if they can stop banners and popups, they can stop this.

btw Windows XP looks pretty cool :)

[LeX]

Oh!... so that's what that windows pic (http://www.activewin.com/articles/2001/images/xp.jpg) was! WinXP!! I thought it was some skinning program or something. :p

PS. The scrollbar looks amazingly famaliar... :rolleyes:

[LastActionHero]

You can have the windows XP interface with Windows 98/95/2000/Me also

[ozefrog]

wat do u mean interface? as in when you have win95 and u install active desktop then it looks like the first version of win98??

also do you know where i could find the interface?

[LastActionHero]

Replace your explorer shell with Litestep and install Lite_XP theme and you get the Windows XP interface complete with the exact same graphical effects, translucent windows etc. :)

[meow]

I like my program grey interface, thank you :cool:. But what is litestep, plesase?

[LastActionHero]

You see windows uses a shell to enable you to interact with all the underlying features in windows and make it user friendly. The default shell for windows is explorer.exe but u can easily change it in system.ini

shell=c:\something.exe

Some people came up with Litestep as an alternative to the drab interface of windows. And it really caught on. See Litestep.com

[meow]

Thanks. I recognize the page but I had forgot what it was called. As I remember it seemed complicated back then (2 years?). Is it easier now? Have you tried?

[Mandrake]

How stable is LiteStep and how much system resources does it take? I've been intrigued by some of these "shell replacements", but I would not want to use something that would slow down my system or make it unstable. In its "native form", Windows ME works quite well on my system. :cool2:

[LastActionHero]

Litestep is very stable now infact I would say more stable than explorer :D . And there are distros which install everything for you. Everything is very simple and you can use it with an exotic theme with only 32 MB ram. visit the litestep page on wincustomize.com for distros and themes.

[jon787]

Originally posted by someone else
Yes! A lawyer with half a brain has spoken!

The lawyer states that these tags may be illegal in at least two different ways. :) If this keeps up, they may never see the light of day!

Microsoft Smart Tags May Violate Laws - Newsbytes.com (http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166676.html)

My Dad is a lawyer and agrees that smart tags are illegal because they are modifying your work without your permission.

Thanks to some assisstance from IE6 Beta Testers I have written a javascript applet that detects IE6 and can redirect them to a different page if anyone wants it.

[LastActionHero]

That won't help because ur other page will still have to deal with smart tags. And you can't shut out IE6 users because that will reduce ur traffic a lot. Anyways smart tags have been dropped by MS in IE 6.0 so rejoice.

[jon787]

Include the javascript code on each page of your site and it will be fine.

Microsoft did include smart tags but they are turned off by default.

[LastActionHero]

By other pages i mean the ones u redirect ur IE6.0 visitors. And I'm prerry sure MS didn't implement smart tags in IE 6.0 they have dropped it currently although they will stay in Office XP