You might be a FF Fanboy....

I'd only heard about the FF Fanboys recently. These are the people, mostly adolescent, or adolescent acting males who display a cult-like allegiance to the FireFox web browser. Lots of people use FireFox simply because they like it. There are some good things about FF. A lot, if not most people who use it do so for legitimate reasons. But the Fanboys treat it more like a gang or a cult. Here's are some clues to tell if you might be a FF Fanboy...

If you think blocking all ads because a few advertisers use unethical or annoying techniques is perfectly within your rights; but a site owner blocking FireFox because it's the only way to block all ad block users is unethical because it punishes innocent people...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think the best way to prove you're not a thief is to run automated scripts to steal bandwidth from whoever you think called you one...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think rational arguments consist of name-calling and lots and lots of profanity...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think Mitchell Baker can walk on water...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you've ever insisted that FireFox has absolutely no security flaws...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you consider anyone who doesn't think FireFox is the absolute best browser ever, an anti-FireFox hatemonger...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you've ever read through dozens of comments describing how to hack a site that blocks or contains information not flattering of FireFox only to comment that the site owner is paranoid if he thinks anyone's tried to hack his site...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think the future of the internet is best decided by a committee of unelected computer-nerds (W3C), rather than the wishes and desires of billions of internet users (market forces)...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you ever commented to a post about a personal tragedy that's struck a family (like a death in the family or homes destroyed by a hurricane) so you could tell the site owner what you think of him for blocking or writing something not flattering of FireFox somewhere else...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think installing software that blocks all ads on every website is the moral equivalent to going to the bathroom when a commercial comes on TV...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think merely the presence of Internet Explorer on your computer is a security threat, whether you ever use it or not...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think the entire internet should be under the strict rule of whatever Tim Berners-Lee decides, because he "invented HTML", but site owner have no right to insist that the pages they create remain as they created them...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you've ever contacted a hosting company, complaining about a site that blocks or contains information not flattering of FireFox, demanding it be removed because it "offends you"...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

If you think sites that block IE are cool, but sites that block FireFox are an outrageous abomination...
    ...you might be a FF Fanboy.

Hopefully that'll help clear up the problem if you were wondering if you might be one or not. But odds are, if you actually are, you haven't even bothered to read past the first sentence or to before whipping down to the comment box to write some inane, profanity-laced invective.

Posted by Danny Carlton at August 27, 2007 8:38 AM