Why isn't there an out-of-the-box Linux solution that's as good as Windows?
Actually, if you really think about it, it neither is in Windows. Last time I installed one, I had to go to Macromedia (Flash), Adobe (Acrobat-Reader), Apple (Quicktime), RealNetworks (Realplayer), Sun (Java) to get the needed plugins. Oh, yeah, and to Microsoft (Mediaplayer).
Yes, and no. In windows it seems a little nicer because it's a lot
better (IMHO) about installing the plugins... you get a prompt saying
"hey, install xyz", you click ok, it grinds for a few minutes, goes
through an install wizard, and then you go back to the original window
and voila! it's there and working.
Some would consider this a security problem.
I admit that mozilla/mozillafirebird is a lot better in this respect now
though. You no longer have to restart moz to get plugins recognized,
simply copy the files into your plugins dir and reload and they work.
You can also have them installed for all users, as root.
As to answer the original question, no, I don't think that the browsing experience is quite as good in linux (yet), and while there are solutions (ximian desktop 2 is a very nice out of the box experience, and redhat 8/9 weren't all that bad) it's not everywhere.
When Internet Explorer first came out, they had a lot of web pages and plug-ins that didn't work for them. Today, it's not Linux that has difficulties with web browsing. It's everyone who is not running IE4.x or higher on a Windows 98 or higher machine.
All Macintosh users have similar sob stories.
A couple of other things that are against linux in the whole "out of the box" experience in general. First of all while macromedia has indeed "sold their soul to the devil", so have most of the other companies, but the important ones (flash, pdfs, java, etc) do work. Another thing is because linux is a multi-user system as compared to XP (much as they'd like to show different), you can't just install the acrobat reader plugin as a user, you still have to SU to root, emerge the plugin or run the file, wait for it to finish, and then go back to your user. Mac OS/X seems to have it right with running as a user with SU privileges all the time and then popping up a "please enter your user password" whenever a program needs to be installed. Not running as root, but running close enough to it that you can tasks like installing software much easier. I wish linux was a bit more like this. I am very used to popping up a root shell when I need to do things, but I don't think I should *have* to do this.
First, this is a security item in Linux that you will not easily get around, nor should you.
Second, what you are referring to smells a lot like SUDO only wrapped up in something "cute".
I do not want any idiot on my machines able to install anything that they want to. I have inexperienced and gullible users on my network and I know full well that they would be too quick to install every kind of spyware and other crap if they were only given the chance.
And then they would come bitching to me about how their system is totally unusable because they have 100 spams a day and everything keeps crashing.
No, Linux is usable as a browsing platform. It works fine on so many sites that it's really a minority. Java applications puke. That's not the fault of Java, that is the fault of a shitty programmer who is still in chapter 8 of Jave for Dummies.
Java is a very nice, but dangerous, plug-in. Don't blame the OS for Java's inproprieties.
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