davehayes.org

first off, let me say that this is not in reference to open source theology, the open view or any other such ideas about Christianity that are currently coming into discussion in the church. if you’re looking for that kind of stuff, you can head over to brian drinkwine’s xanga, as he’s the expert on those things. this is something entirely different.

i had an interesting discussion last night with some acquaintances about firefox, an open source web browser. as many of you know (either by the links down the side of this page or by talking to me), i’m a big advocate of free open source software (an explanation of which is beyond the scope of this writing, please visit the link there for more info) and as geeky as it may be, it’s something about which i can be rather passionate at times. this stems primarily from my role as a network administrator and a web developer (or webmaster, web designer, whatever you want to say) and the inherent frustrations (i am a frustrated person, aren’t i?) associated with the software tools that i utilize in that role. let me provide a little bit of history…

for years microsoft internet explorer (MSIE) has been the king of the hill in terms of web browsing. it’s an integral part of the windows operating system and everyone knows that the blue “e” on the desktop is what you click on to get to the internet. everyone is familiar with its conventions (the back button, favorites and such) and have grown comfortable with its interface (much like the windows operating system itself). however, some time last year someone began to rock the boat. that someone was the mozilla foundation, and they were generating quite a buzz with their browser, firebird. they weren’t exactly newcomers in the web browser arena, as the precursor to firebird/firefox (mozilla browser) had been around for 5 or 6 years at that time and was actually very popular on many linux/unix platforms. mozilla browser proved no match for MSIE, however, and held very little market share within the windows user base.

MSIE’s reign hasn’t been all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, though. MSIE has garnered a reputation as one of the most insecure pieces of software in existence. over the past couple years it seemed as though every week there was news of a new worm or virus to exploit some security hole in MSIE. users were inundated with popup ads, spyware and loads of binary baddies in general as a direct result of MSIE’s poor design, which unfortunately is characteristic of most microsoft software, but that’s another topic entirely. just as this nastiness was seemingly coming to an apex, the beta versions of mozilla firebird began to hit the net, boasting of popup blocking, spyware immunity and tabbed browsing. somewhere along the line the name was changed and almost exactly a year ago, mozilla rolled out firefox 1.0, and it made quite the splash. it was indeed more secure than MSIE, and did a fantastic job of blocking popups, it was faster to boot and it had this newfangled tabbed browsing. by now firefox is enjoying a market share of greater than 10%, which is no small feat considering the MSIE is installed by default with windows, so everyone using firefox had to make a conscious decision to do so. with version 1.5 nearing release, open source has seemingly begun to win a battle against proprietary software (something that linux can hopefully one day accomplish).

continuing past trends, there was a huge security vulnerability discovered in MSIE that basically allows a malicious web site to have their way with your computer, which is where our discussion began. undoubtedly, the best way to defend against MSIE’s various security vulnerabilities is to not use it. the most obvious candidate for a replacement browser is mozilla firefox, and it’s an easy, common sense decision to make. when i go about the business of converting folks to genuine firefox users for the sake of the open source cause, i usually explain (and sometimes demonstrate to them) the problems with MSIE. then, i provide them with the solution:

firefox is awesome. firefox is very small, less than a 5mb download (compared to MSIE’s 80mb!). it loads pages faster than MSIE, it has (very, very good) built in popup blocking and it has a customizable built-in search bar so you can quickly search your favorite web sites. firefox supports tabbed browsing, allowing an easily manageable way to have many websites open within a single window, preventing desktop clutter. firefox is skinnable, allowing you to customize its appearance. firefox supports your favorite plugins, such as flash and java. firefox is extensible, supporting little add-ons that provide extra functionality such as weather alerts, adblocking, web site integration, increased performance, integrated developer tools and many, many other things. firefox is 100% standards compliant and it is immune to the numerous security problems that plague MSIE. best of all, firefox is free open source software. all you have to do is go to the web site to download it and start using it. it’s a no-brainer, right?

apparently not. i still encounter people who absolutely refuse to switch to firefox, and i can’t figure out why. at best they have one or two web sites they visit that don’t work properly in firefox or have some little nitpick that could probably be fixed by an extension. at worst they usually take cheap shots at me personally or the technology subculture to divert attention from their lack of a good argument. initially, i thought this was mostly due to an irrational fear of change, which many of us suffer from to some degree or another (just look at the battles in church over musical styles). i kept hearing comments like “i tried it and i didn’t like it,” or, “it was too different than what i’m used to.” “i’m not into that computer stuff, MSIE works fine for me,” or, “i don’t care about all those things it does.” none of these arguments present any real rationale as to why one should use MSIE rather than firefox and exhibit profound nievity. “but it’s so obvious that firefox is better, why won’t they switch? there’s literally no reason not to…” and then it hit me.

how similar does what i’ve been saying sound to the Good News? if you’re not a Christian, your life is in a broken state. sin is keeping you from having a relationship with God and you are completely open and vulnerable to the attacks of satan and his minions. however, God loves you so deeply that he sent his Son, his only son Jesus to live a perfect, sinless life and die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins so that God can look upon as though we were as blameless as Christ, allowing us to enter into a relationship with Him. you cannot earn salvation, you cannot buy it or barter for it because it is given freely to all who will accept it.

for the sake of clarity, let us draw a parallel statement. if you’re not a firefox user, your computer is basically broken. MSIE is leaving you vulnerable to the attacks of hackers and viruses and keeping you from being able to browse happy. however, there is hope. the mozilla foundation has generously created the firefox project and released it under the GPL so that we can all benefit from it freely with tabbed browsing and popup blocking allowing us to use our computers without having to worry about many of the various internet nasties. there is no cost, all you have to do is download it and use it.

now, let me say this: yes, i’m a nerd. i know that. i don’t think of firefox as Jesus and i don’t consider open source to be the answer to all life’s problems, but they are Good Things and the similarities are hard to ignore.

what’s interesting is that we see people rejecting Christianity with the same kinds of attitudes. “i tried being a Christian and God let me down.” “i’m fine with the way i’m living.” “i really don’t care about what the Bible says.”

what is it that causes people to cling so tightly to the things that are bad for them while they spend so much breath convincing themselves that they don’t need whatever Good Thing someone else is offering them? in the case of switching to firefox, i don’t know… maybe they’re just stupid. but in the case of Christianity, we can’t forget that there is someone trying to foil us, spreading deceipt and lies (microsoft, is that you?) in an attempt to keep as many people as possible from coming to know God. so many people buy into it and take on this role themselves, constantly keeping their head buried in the sand and pulling the wool over their own eyes and often times pulling others into the same situation. how, dear reader, do we combat such blind, self perpetuated closed-mindedness in both the technical and religious arenas?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 at 7:34 am and is filed under faith, tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.