Web development blog

In a recent post, Lee Robertson of Epiblogger gave us seven reasons for why Firefox is better for blogging than Internet Explorer. Actually it’s got nothing to do with Firefox at all, but more to do with the add-ons that are available for it.

Why Firefox should have such a glut of add-ons in comparison to IE I’m not sure - and please don’t mention it’s because it’s open source: Firefox is cool because it’s written by nice people who make their code available for everyone to break, and IE is horrible because it’s written by Microsoft who are all fascists. I digress. I do that sometimes.

I really like Lee and Rhett’s work: Rhett has critiqued my friend Kev’s blog and is a regular listener to, and critic of my podcast. They’re both good writers with good ideas, and this latest post by Lee is no exception: i just don’t agree with the argument.

To demonstrate that, I thought I’d look into each of Lee’s points and try to rebut them, if only for the sake of balance. It’s got nothing to do with fairness, I just think IE7 is a better browser than Firefox. So to point 1:

1. “Firefox might not have been the first browser to offer tabbed browsing, but it is one of the greatest features for bloggers to have.”
   Agreed, and it’s implemented into the core of IE7.
2. “Firefox add-ons extend Firefox to make it much more than a web browser…”
   I used to be a desktop software developer and find the continuing blurring of the lines between desktop and web apps unsettling. I don’t like the idea that soon everything from watching IPTV to listening to Internet radio will be done through a web browser. I think web browsers should stick to being web browsers. Lee then goes on to look at the add-ins that make Firefox a great blogging platform.
   1. CoLT is a plugin that allows you to copy and paste the text and URL of a link so you can easily paste it into your post editor.
      Can I not do that already? I highlight the link text then hit CTRL+C to copy, or right-click the link and select Copy Shortcut. Or am I missing something?
   2. ScribeFire is an alternative post editor, so if you don’t like your WordPress/Blogger/etc interface you can use this.
      Windows Live Writer does this already, is browser-independent and is surprisingly good. I’ve used it before and was impressed at how well it worked with a standard blogging platform or - I imagine - anything that implements XML-RPC.
   3. FireFTP is an FTP client for Firefox.
      IE has supported FTP since version 5 (and in stable form since 6), or you can just use Windows Explorer. When Dreamweaver fails to connect I go straight to Windows Explorer for my FTP, and have never needed any third-party software.
   4. Zemanta suggests pictures and links related to your blog post.
      This sounds really cool, and according to the FAQ they’re testing an IE version. Either way, one point to Firefox.
   5. Web Developer gives you a massive set of tools to help test your web pages’ functionality and appearance.
      A brilliant add-on and another point to Firefox. If you develop for the Web and use Firefox but don’t have this add-on, get it. Chalk up another one to the mighty ’fox.
   6. Twitterfox is a Twitter client for Firefox.
      There are a whole glut of these and they’re very useful but I found that - as I documented in Adventures in Browserland - being too closely connected with such a vibrant community was distracting. Nevertheless, it’s something IE doesn’t have.
   7. Dictionaries and language packs
      What Lee’s referring to here is, not a dictionary but a spell checker. Some blogging platforms include their own but are often horrible (WordPress is no exception), but as I mentioned in How to Make Sense of your Blog, ieSpell is a great add-on for IE that gives you multi-lingual spell checking support that works really well.
3. “Multiple Home Pages - This goes along with tabbed browsing. You can open several pages as your home page.”
   Very true, but another feature that was implemented at the same time as tabbed browsing into IE7.

Obviously some of the features I’ve documented here are very much in the “me too” vein, where Microsoft have been trying to play catch-up with the rest of the online community, but whether a development camp thought of an idea first or whether they’re implementing something that has gone missed for ages is by the by.

In all of this I’m completely discounting IE6 and all those who have gone before. IE6 is a dreadful browser with more bugs than a dung heap in Mexico - see, I do jokes too - but its successor far surpasses even Firefox in my opinion. I still think there’s no reason to use anything other than IE7 on a Windows machine unless you need to use some of the tools I’ve mentioned that IE doesn’t have (mainly the Web Developer toolbar).

So that’s my rebuttal. If you think there’s something I’ve missed or you just want to call me Microsoft’s bitch or a capitalist pig-dog please be my guest! I am a capitalist pig-dog but no, I have never suckled at the mighty Gates teat, and never will.