Mark Poppen

The other day I thought it was a good idea to check “Always use … to subscribe to feeds”, when I opened a feed-link in Firefox, but then I got a shortened tweet with a direct link to a feed, which I had to copy and paste. Since TinyURL was hiding the actual link, and Firefox opened the live bookmars right away, I couldn’t see what the actual link was.

Now, I though that was a pain in the butt, so I wanted to change that. I scratched myself behind the ear, asking myself “where in hell am I going to find that?”. After looking around in Firefox, clicking every wrong tab, going through all the menu’s, all the options, I found it in the spot where I least expected it. But now that I think of it: It’s a very logical place to put it. For the ones with the same problem, here’s the answer:

Preferences > Applications > Web feed.

You know, Internet Explorer 6, that old piece of shit browser that some people still use? The browser that’s always a pain in the ass when you’ve finished your design, to find out it doesn’t work in IE6? Yes, That one. We’re going to kill it. Join the IE6 DeathMarch and show you’re done with IE6.

Why should we still design around IE6 when there’s a bog load of alternatives? IE7 and IE8 are up for download, Firefox is better, and Chrome is faster and Safari is cross platform. Unless you charge your client extra for working around IE6, it’s just costing us, as designers, money.

So: Join the DeathMarch and start creating conditionals for IE6 telling people to upgrade their browser!

So the guys at the big G thought they had to make a browser. Awesome attempt, and I really like the fact that it’s super-fast! The tabbed browsing works good, the memory management rocks and you even have an internal task manager, so when a tab gets stuck, you just close that one instead of the whole browser.
When you open a new tab, Chrome shows your most visited websites, which is mighty dandy (they sort of ripped that from the speed-dial in Opera).

Awesome, Mark! So you’re a fan?

No. Actually, Chrome kinda sucks, for 1 big reason: You can’t use add-ons! I know, most people couldn’t care less about add-ons, but that’s what my beloved Firefox does. Yes, it takes up a shit-load of my memory, and yes, Chrome loads pages faster, but I have tonnes of add-ons in my Firefox which help me find stuff on the web quicker (social bookmarks), keep in touch with people through Twitter (using TwitterFox). I use Xoopit to organize all my attachments in Gmail, and the web developer toolbar to dicect and debug a website I’m creating and I use a few other (which I could miss).

Anyway. I think ALL Internet Explorer user should switch to Chrome, as they will experience a better browser. Oh yeah, Microsoft released a beta version of their IE8 (Too bad Microfrost, you’ve lost this battle as well).

There.. I’ve said it (maybe not yet, but I will now), I’m sticking to Firefox for now.

Update Sep 2, 08 – 7:28pm: Molly made a screencast of Chrome @ DemoGirl.com
Update Sep 3, 08 – 1:21pm: CNN’s Peter Svensson is an idiot. Really. Read his article.