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Web Standards Project Blasts Netscape
Spasemunki writes "Mozillazine is running a link to (and commentary on)this letter written by the Web Standards Project, blasting Netscape for failing to deliver on Netscape 5/6 in a timely fashion. They argue that the inability of NS to produce a ready-for-prime-time, standards compliant browser has made it harded to coax other developers into adopting standards, and that the zombie-like continued existance of Netscape 4 in its various .x's represents an ongoing offense to standards compliance. These criticisms have been around for a while, but the WSP sums them up well, and gives Mozilla advocates (myself included) some things to answer to."
First, I've had plenty of stability problems with IE, maybe not as much as with NS, but the difference isn't enough reason to switch. Next issue, speed. IE is significantly faster than NS.
You claim that these difference are unrelated to Microsoft's illegal use of their monopoly, but on the contrary they are directly due to that. Look at what NS has to deal with - a crapy, esoteric, poorly documented API. At the same time, the IE guys are sitting there with the people who wrote the operating system in the next cubicle. Not only that but IE is even DIRECTLY INTEGRATED INTO THE OS. So of course IE is going to be more stable and faster than NS. Face reality, Netscape's current position is a DIRECT result of M$'s illegal use of monopoly.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
It also seems to me that it's been overlooked how seriously the merger of Netscape and AOL has effected Netscape. They are not the same company now that they were when they pioneered the early versions of Netscape. Many of their employees jumped ship after the merger, and even as hard as AOL supposedly worked to kill the bugs in the NS 4.x series, it was not enough to make up for the shoddy coding that has earned Netscape its miserable market share.
Fundamentally, if Netscape is unwilling/unable to release a product that is functional and standards compliant, it would seem that the browser market will be dominated by Microsoft. This is certainly not desirable, but until a company is willing to put the time and effort in to balance features against the need to turn out regular and stable clients, we are at the mercy of the only company that even tries (and still fails), Microsoft.
Netscape is dead. Long live Netscape!
At the same time, the IE guys are sitting there with the people who wrote the operating system in the next cubicle. Not only that but IE is even DIRECTLY INTEGRATED INTO THE OS.
So what? The slowness of Netscape is totally unrelated to the fact that it is not as integrated as IE. The reason Netscape is slow is because of its crappy HTML renderer, particularly its incredibly bad table processing.
Put it this way: What would integration buy you? It's not any faster to execute the drawing primitives and fonts into a window. Their is no excuse to take several SECONDS to render a page that happens to have a lot of tables.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Symlinking is exactly how I do it under Netscape 4.old. But Mozilla doesn't give you the option to choose a bookmark file in the first place, unless it is hidden in some dot file but Windows stuff doesn't usually have that. The function is certainly not where it's usually found ("edit bookmarks" pulldown.) So whatever you do with the relevant "file" is irrelevant, because you can't tell Mozilla to use that file for bookmarks. I'm not saying there is not some kludgey way to trick Mozilla into using my bookmark file. But if Mozilla wants to be Netscape 6, its browser should provide the minimum functions that the Netscape series of browser has provided. They have glossed over the need to provide what people expect from a modern browser, which was the problem with the 4 series of Netscape in the first place. They should have finished the 6 browser with complete functionality so that people could migrate to it (including stuff like javascript that other people are more concerned about), then added stuff like email and news later as packages. Do they really think that lack of email is what matters, as opposed to being able to migrate from NS 4.old to Mozilla without having to get all bent out of shape about it. If I trip over some simple function that doesn't "work" in the stable version, I am simply not going to adopt it and neither are a lot of other people. Yes it is beta but it has been beta for too long. It has turned into vapor ware.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
Sure lots of avid Windows Netscape fans will rejoice with the newe browser, and sure a lot of Mac fans will use it, and you can be certain that a lot of the Unix crowd will be afire. But what's the real reason Mozilla is going to save the web from being dominated by Microsoft?
... Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account.
But the real story here is AOL -
Another 22 million users will make a bit deal? Isn't Linux users alone estimated at 15-25 million? Don't they count for some reason?
Anyway, comparing that to the amount of web-users, it's not much. Also, I'd guess most of AOL users are also Windows-users, so are they all forced into using Mozilla? (I haven't ever used AOL, so I don't know about their software)
I doubt, therefore I may be.
I think Netscape has been way behind ever since IE 3.0 came out. Netscape has been holding back the development of the internet for years. It's about time the standards bodies blasted them. Now if only the "true believers" would wake up and sniff reality.
Not beautiful, but usable, under (IIRC) a BSD-style license, and
currently the best way to render MathML (though Mozilla is working on
it).
There is a homepage for it at
www.w3c.org.
I disagree with the last statement made, that Netscape's problems were brought on by itself. Microsoft released its browser for free, both for download and with Windows, which is what I call competing unfairly. So Netscape had to do the same to keep its user base and then lost all its money in bad attempts at selling shareware. The Mozilla project has been continued despite little funding (because it all dried up) so one cannot expect perfect timing, just like you can't expect the Linux kernel to make a major version change whenever RedHat releases a new version of its distro.
# debian/rules
In the time that it took them to write that complaint, that contributed exactly zero to anything, they could have been using their 'vast' web standards knowledge to help create test cases for open bugs on the Mozilla project. So much for WaSP participating.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were assigning a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
Do you work for a PR department? In theory, I agree with everything you've said, but the reality of the situation is where we diverge. Mozilla/Netscape is still not done. Regardless of the grand plans that you have for the app, it can't go anywhere if it's only a gleam in a programmers eye (or a buggy redheaded step-child).
Beyond that, a web browser for a PDA, or other such device doesn't have to be nearly as complicated as either IE, or mozilla. At their current stage, all they have to do is basic text parsing. As technology advances, the differences between a PDA, and a dekstop will get smaller and smaller, and regular web browsers will be suitable for them. I'm getting off track though.
When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
How long have we been hearing this for?!? With the money that AOL has, we could have have had several maturing versions of Mozilla by now. Fact is, AOL saw a possible oppurtunity, and they took it. Their decision doesn't make things right, and it certainly doesn't garauntee success.
[cue standard speech]
I've been waiting for moilla just as long as everyone else, but the fact is, they blew it. This has no relevance to the OSS community, as some great gems have come out of it. Currently, and for the forseeable future, Mozilla will remain a lump of coal.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Or:
I have to admit, it took me a while to be able to find the MS plan on purpose. . .
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
I use it for everything now. Most of the major bugs are worked out and only in occasional nightlies does something weird happen.
GO GET ONE YOURSELF - NIGHTLY BUILDS
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
Sure, blame the MS monopoly on Netscape's market share MozillaZine.... blame it all you want.
I'm a former Netscape supporter. I didn't leave because of the Monopoly. I left because Netscape hadn't released anything that didn't suck in well over a year, and Mozilla was ages away from being usable.
Its been a year since then, and whats changed? Netscape hasn't released anything that doesn't suck in well over two years now, and Mozilla still isn't usable compaired to IE.
Thats where the biggest loss of market share has come. People like me aren't computer gods, but we're vocal enough that we do make a difference. People come and ask me for browser help, and I use to tell them that they could solve many of their IE problems by installing Netscape. Do I tell them that anymore?
Of course not. Now I tell them that they can solve their Netscape problems by installing IE.
Its sad, I'd rather support Netscape. But when they ask me for advice on whats best for them, 99% of the time the answer is IE. Occasionally I recommend Opera (which I'm using right now) to people I figure will like it, but its definately not suited to the average user.
So please, don't try to pin the blame on the monopoly. In my experience, far more people have switched then have never heard of Netscape. Many of those have switched because people like me were forced into advising them to switch, because Netscape gave us nothing to work with, while Microsoft does.
(its probably also important to mention that yes, many people haven't herad of Netscape these days. But why would you hear of it? Don't blame the monopoly. Blame lack of word of mouth. Napster spread like wildfire because people were talking about it. Nobody is talking about Netscape because it sucks right now. If Mozilla.org can come out with something better then IE, people will start talking and it'll catch on. Trying to hide behind the claim of the evil Redmond giant when its really Netscape's own fault is pretty silly there MozillaZine.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Found it: http://slashdot.org/article.pl? sid=00/07/14/0056208
My dis is a well-informed dis: I've spent hours and hours using it. That's why I can't see using it as my main browser. Again, this is under Linux. YMMV.
A couple days ago, Netscape 4.74 came out. The continued flow of minor bugfix releases would seem to be the promotion of 4.x. While I'm all for bug-free software, I agree with the WSP that they should get their asses in gear and release a good browser.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Hey, I do agree with many of the WaSP's statements, and I really would like Mozilla to be in an usable state for the common user, but please, let's get our facts straight before whining...
I cannot believe the people who claim they use Mozilla daily.
I do. I grab the nightlies every day, and they're my main web browser / e-mail client / news reader. I usually keep 3 installs: Netscape PR1, the last working nightly ("working" means "renders all my pages ok"), and the freshest nightly, from the day before.
Of course there are many bugs I would like to get rid of, like the transitional DTD bug that makes pages look like crap, and sometimes the slowness of the mail/news reader gets on my nerves... but it's very usable, and more stable than IE5 in my machine (yeah, you read that right).
Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap. window.open() is not implemented, for example.
Simply not true. First, because JavaScript in Mozilla works like a charm. Second, because window.open() has been working for ages.
I use lots of JavaScript in the pages around here, and they all work well with Mozilla.
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
I couldn't agree more. I run Linux as my main platform, and have a choice between Netscape 4.x (I think I use 4.61 at home), the latest milestone of Mozilla (I've tried that), and a beta version of Konqueror (from KDE 2.0, haven't tried it), and lynx (had to include it =). Basically Netscape 4.x is the most complete (if most bloated) option of all of these. I've been using 4.x for a long, long time, hoping that they would release something more stable. As it stands Netscape is probably the least stable program on my Linux box. I tried Mozilla a few weeks ago and it worked ok...but not any better than Netscape, they both have their quirks.
I'd jump at downloading an improved/faster/more stable web browser (even if it only has one of those three things going for it) to replace 4.x. There just isn't anything out there yet. I'm afraid to say that I'd probably find myself switching to IE if they offered it for Linux (even though I've been using Netscape since version 2), because I've actually had pretty good experience with the latest versions of IE.
I can't really complain though, these browsers are all free, and the product of many people's time, much of it being volunteer. I just hope that in the next 6 months or so I'll be able to switch to something new and better (I'm thinking Konqueror looks nice...I'm a KDE fan). I fear there are other people like me who use Windows instead and have switched to IE because Netscape hasn't been improving..that may explain the increased market share.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I'm so fed up with Slashdot mob mentality. Slashdot used to be a place where people put forth intelligent discussion, facts, or opinions. Now it just seems like everyone is just waiting to sound off and beat on *someone* (usually Katz )
All of you whining about how Mozilla isn't solid enough--have you actually used it? No, not just a download at M15, but as of last week? I've been using Mozilla for 4 months now. As a browser, it IS solid. Sure, it dies every once and a while, but that's not all that different from Netscape 4.x's stability, is it?
Download a nightly and try it out. Mozilla works great. Go download the PSM module and you have SSL. I use Mozilla for all my browsing (because I can't get 4.x to run--don't ask). It is a good browser, and it is nice to go to IE only sites and actually see the page render (try that in 4.x).
Whine and complain all you want. Be an idiot. But why don't you try and inform yourself a little and download and actually USE mozilla before you go running off at the mouth.
For those who care:Quit your whining. Use the latest builds. Report bugs. Geez, it's your community. Do something constructive.
Idiocy combined with ignorance is always your own fault."Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
I find this amusing because these are Microsoft's tactics. So many people are tied into one software solution and so they really are forced into using certain applications. AOL really is trying to use the Microsoft strategy by distributing applications such as Winamp, Netscape (Mozilla), AOL Instant Messenger, and ICQ with their popular Internet connection software. I guess I just find it funny that someone from a community advocating open standards and free software (as in speech,) is suggesting that the tactics that AOL will use will benefit the community.
Can it really be that hard to write a browser?! Why do they have to put in all that extra cruft, the mail/news reader, editor? Why is the footprint so bloody huge and why does it take so long to start up?
On my Mac (I also have a Sparc and a K6 so I'm not some idiot Mac zealot) I started running iCab. It is great. The binary is less than 2MB, it can run happily in 5MB ram, its fast, doesn't crash as often as Netscape and NEVER takes down the whole computer. It supports java and its java script support is improving. It is quite usable and standards compliant.
Why can the company making iCab release a stable, fast, *usable* web browser and Netscape, with all its power can't?
Andrew
The following is what I posted to the WaSP mailing list:
/massive/ internal pressure on the developers face to get the thing going fast. And they are doing a fantastic job. I drag down a nightly build every couple days. The bugs are ticking away steadily.
/all/ of CSS? Not only do the people building it need to be expert web designers (which is enough for most people here to handle on it's own), but they have to be expert programmers as well. I am still grappling with understanding CSS2 and looking at the code, and thinking about how one would do some of the things the specs ask for...it scares me. I really respect what they have done. It's no coincidence that Mozilla rocks most the competition on their standards support, they really do have a Next Generation layout...and it's still in it's first iteration.
/their/ timeline? I mean, for me, sure...I think it's all fine and dandy to say to the browser manufacturers "if you make a _web_ browser, please make it support _web_ standards, this is a community whose value is in interoperability, and we would like you to support that interoperability". But I draw the line before making demands on /their/ timeline. It's /their/ bloody product...they can take damn well as long as they want and WaSP can just bloody well wait. Being that it's /their/ product, they can also innovate however they want, and prioritize however they want - Netscape has been kind enough to publicly state that they have prioritized on standards. Be thankful Netscape is building a /free/ (as in speech) browser for you at all. And the free software community is very simple...if you want it done faster... help! (put your money where your mouth is), or at least show some bloody gratitude already.
/giving/ to the software community. Thank you for helping build and support an /open/ community around your offering so that I can see things progress, and help is whatever way I can. I appreciate it.
---
Even being a rabid (frothing at times) web standards supporter, I don't like this.
Being heavily involved with the web, I have been following Mozilla extremely closely since the day Netscape released the code. I have downloaded and tinkered with the code, to help understand how things work, and to hopefully/eventually help them fix bugs.
As a software engineer I can say that a modern web browser is probably one of the most complex pieces of software. Period. This letter, and many of the postings on this list, make me feel that the WaSP is a group with many people who don't have enough understanding or appreciation for the complexity required to do what they ask.
A layout manager at the level of HTML 2 is a moderately hard programming task, but doable. HTML 4 is where it gets interesting, tables on their own would be difficult enough. The CSS box model adds a _/significant/_ amount of complexity. CSS2 makes this even harder. CSS2 scriptable via DOM (DHTML)? ECMAScript alone is a monumental undertaking. Dynamic reflow? Then start throwing PNG w. Alpha transparency in, Z-ordering, etc...creating solutions for all these things and rolling them together into one working piece of software...it IS monumental. And implementing it is the classic 10%/90% scenario...the devil is in the details, especially with things like CSS. It's hard enough for a someone to understand the bloody specs, let alone implement them.
The thing that gets me the most is....what do you think they are doing? do you think they are not trying? do you think they don't know that their market share is trickling away by the minute? do you think they aren't already aware that it's been years since 4? or that there browsers very existence very possibly may be on the line? Trust me....they know. If you follow closely you will realize that there is already
The other factor is people. It's easy to say "well, you're this big company with all this money, throw more developers at it" Even forgetting the fact that "more doesn't always equal better, or faster", I don't care if you are AOL, Microsoft, IBM, or whoever...finding developers skilled enough to work with a task
that complex is next to impossible in this industry. This list probably has one of the highest levels of, say, CSS know how...how many people here could claim to have an understanding of
And who is the WaSP to make demands on
I would like to take this opportunity to say to the people at Netscape and Mozilla. Thank you for seeing the error of your ways, and doing your best to deliver a standards compliant product. Thank you for what I see as a tremendous amount of effort over the last year to Do The Right Thing. Thank you for spending an enormous amount of resources building something you are
No reply yet....
Re: http://www.webstandards.org/
I was excited to hear that WaSP was advising web authors to
avoid browser-specific tags.
But I'm tempted to write you off as clueless because you use
HTML and CSS features that produce horrid pages in one of
the most common browsers - netscape.
For people like me who try to save our eyesight by configuring
netscape to use large fonts, your pages yield unreadable text. It may
be that this is a problem with netscape browsers (I'm using 4.72 on
Solaris), but all it does is restrict your readership.
E.g., on your home page, the text "LATEST BUZZ" overlapps itself.
It uses the 'class="buzz"' attribute.
Please stop selecting specific fonts and sizes in your wsp.css file.
Fonts are platform-specific. Help users to control their own browser
experience. See
Learning HTML 3.2 by examples: http://www.hut.fi/~jkorpela/HTML3.2/
for more of the technical issues and background philosophy.
Keep on advocating for standards-compliance, and hold netscape's toes
to the fire also, but advocate for interoperability also.
--Neal
--Neal
Go IETF!
One, using Gecko to render a UI makes it platform-independent, the exact opposite of making it "X Window-centric" as you say.
Ah, the great divide between us programmers and normal people turns up once again... It makes the code platform-independent. Unfortunately, a side effect of their method is to make the user experience one which only someone familiar with the X Window System could enjoy--hence the phrase used by the original poster that the experience is `X Windows-centric.'
Do not belittle the importance of widget consistency. A huge portion of taste is consistentcy and style. Few people would buy a black car with a purple interior--instead, they choose an interior which complements the exterior. Few people buy stereo components some of which are tech in brushed steel and matte black, some of which are finely polished mahogany and others of which neon orange plastic.
In re. Unix consistency, how can you say with a straight face the gtk looks like Qt looks like Motif looks like Xaw? They share many of the basic concepts, but they are about as consistent with each other as the components of my fanciful stereo system.
We've trained ourselves to deal with our inconsistent interface. We're the sort of people who are willing to put up with that sort of aesthetic suffering in order to use a more elegant OS. The hoi polloi are willing to use an ugly OS in return for an elegant UI (MacOS) or an ugly OS in return for a semi-decent UI (Windows).
We need to provide a first-class, elegant and aesthetically pleasing user experience on top of our first-class, elegant and aesthetically pleasing OS.
IE/Win's lack of compliance stems from Microsoft tailoring the software to its primary customers (huge corporations) who require specific functions for their IE-only intranets. These are hosted on Windows machines, and accessed by Windows machines.
Microsoft sells the corporations the intranet solutions they require, but they'll need Microsoft's servers to serve them, and every employee, to access this wonderful intranet, will need Microsoft's operating system.
This is why Microsoft have been unable to bring full standards compliance to IE/Win - doing so would break parts of the intranets, etc, that they've sold to their big customers in the past.
As a Web developer, I find that IE/Win's level of CSS compliance is very decent, and enables me to accomplish everything I require. This goes for Netscape's version 6 preview also.
Of course, Netscape 4 is fucking pathetic when it comes to CSS. I would rather that it had no support for CSS than its half-hearted attempt.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
So - all the myopic Mozilla / Netscape zealots - wake up and smell the coffee. Rather that foaming at the mouth about how dare someone criticise the only hope against the evil empire, take a long hard look at your product.
God, the nerve. All that they're doing is burying any respect Netscape had for standards to begin with. If I was on the Netscape team right now I'd just be like "Why do they think they have any right to slap my wrists?" and ignore them from now on. The WSP are self-righteous publicity whores who have accomplished absolutely nothing. Ever.
sig:
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
because personally the last thing on earth i want to do is use a non-standards compliant browser. but if you've got one that's standards compliant, displays everthing properly, doesn't crash my machine at least once per session, and is fast enough to keep up with my machine AND my cable connection, bring it on!
otherwise go back to your sandbox and play castles in the sand.
--
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Except that its a complete pain in the ass to install. The installer doesn't work for me, always seems to segfault. What good does it do anybody if you can't install it?
Fight fire with fire... strangest of bed fellows... yada yada yada.
I find it ironic that Mozilla will have to rely on a largley despised corporation to achieve any market penetration. While Apache seems to be the glowing posterboy for OSS Mozilla seems to be giving it a big black eye. It further crystallizes my view that OSS is generally good only once you have a working project in place. Then it can apply the wonders of porting, quick fixes, many eyes, etc... but for core development I don't see many projects on par with commercial endeavors.
I'm sure there are good counterexamples. I'd like to hear about them since I obviously haven't used them.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
"A better strategy for the Mozilla team would have been to write an IE-compatible browser"
I have to suck it up and agree with you here.
Remember when the marketshares were reversed, Microsoft had to write a 98% compatible Netscape v3 clone before they pushed ahead with their own feature set.
Netscape should not have to emulate every bad behavior of IE, but their refusal to support minor Microsoftisms like 'document.all' really makes me wonder if they want to be seen as a friend or a foe of the average web developer.
Anyway, the situation is not bleak right now. On the public web, IE has no where near the clout that Netscape held in 1995. (Back then, if you weren't using the latest Netscape, you couldn't even see half the sites.) But, IE-only sites are all over Intranets, and many fancier public sites support Netscape 4 only in fallback-mode, leaving the fancy dynamic stuff to IE users only. (This is actually a good thing considering the br0kenness of NS4's DOM.)
The huge risk is that when Netscape 6 finally ships, it will be put in that same fallback-mode bin, and all of it's standards-compliant DOM will go to waste because developers will refuse to rewrite their IE-specific code.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I use it enough to know that its in no way ready for the mainstream market, it needs a lot of polish. Especially in the Interface department, its just too slow.
Its been getting better every release, so I have hopes for it being halfway decent if it ever actually comes out. But is it going to win in a competition with IE in the mainstream market right now (the market that matters considering how huge it is)?
Nope.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
One of the biggest problems I have with Netscape 6 is that you must re-write all the plugins for GTK standards instead of Motif. It's going to take plugin developers a while to convert their plugins to stay Netscape 6 / Mozilla complient.
The lack on a decent, stable, full-featured browser for Linux is what's holding me back from using it on all of my machines. A Win 2000 with Internet Explorer remains...
The lack of a decent, stable browser for Win 2000 doesn't seem to phase you?
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
In defence of netscape: I alternate between iCab and Netscape. It crashes sometimes, but not as often as some posters have made out. Maybe the Mac port is more stable than the others - i've also used it on my brother's linux box, and on PCs at work, and those ports don't look as nice, or seem as stable.
It's really depressing.. I was an avid Netscape 4.7 user for a long time and kept holding out, but the crashes have become too much for me. And as a designer, getting pages to look right in both IE and NS while trying to remain W3C 100% valid is a nightmare. I don't blame NS solely for that, IE has plenty of it's own issues not supporting standard tags and attributes, especially in regards to CSS.. and with 75% or so of the market already.. what's their motivation to do it?
BilldaCat
Calling me a liar? It's been my main browser for months. I like it much better than netscape 4.7. Except for the constant crashing, but builds from the last few days are dramatically more stable.
Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap.
Bullshit. I begrudgingly visit plenty of javascript-based sites, and 70-90% look as good or better than they do in netscape 4.7.
I suspect you've only taken intermittant looks at mozilla, which could easily give you the impression that it's worse than it really is. I sympathize completely with your frustration, and it is unbelievable to me that the mozilla folks haven't narrowed their focus to perfecting the core app, rather than adding the kitchen sink in - "mail, IRC, whatever - sure!" - but believe me, there is a diamond waiting to poke its way out of the lump of coal.
Netscape used to be a joy to develop for...now I feel that it is more of an obligation.
Waiting for the "This is Internet Explorer's fault!" cries to begin...
-LjM
This new stance by the WaSP is highly hypocritical. It suggested the 'delay the next version of Netscape for standards compliance' path in the first place. To ask Mozilla developers to hurry up is ridiculous and self-centered.
Why don't we just break the web up into little peices?.. A MicroSoft Web, A Netscape web, A Disney Web, An AOL web.. Then you could be sure you're getting a 'family safe' web, and each company could control how much it cost's to access 'their' web..
(Damn that sticky sarcasm key)
--------------------------------------
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
subject says it all.
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Netscape is not easy to develop for. IE is much more forgiving in bad formed HTML and such. I still use netscape though, but will not if 6 takes up as much memory as the preview release does(for windows). 40 megs is a bit too much.
I really like Netscape Mail/News. This does not however mean that I think that it needs to be integrated into Mozilla. In my opinion the display engine should be a removable plug-in (And thereby be replacable) which can be used by Navigator, whatever the mail/news client is called, and Composer.
So in my opinion, the things we need are a standards-compliant display engine, and a browser which uses it. The email client, while important to me, should be secondary to Mozilla. And Composer has always been crap, and unless they can make it write worthwhile code free of empty tags and so on, I'll keep using Dreamweaver. Now that I think about it, even if they do solve that problem, I'll still use Dreamweaver since it has all that other keen functionality.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I got sick of Netscape 4.72 crashing, hosing font tables, misrendering pages.
I downloaded Netscape 6 beta. Was not impressed. I downloaded Mozilla M16. It's fucking more stable than Netscape 4.72. Although it's a little quirky about signing into sites, I have to go out and go back in to get the authenticated pages for some reason.
I say that good engineering is worth the wait. For the impatient ones, there's IE 5.5 - enjoy.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To hell with Netscape and Microsoft. They managed to screw up HTML quite nicely. I think we ought to beef up Gopher graphically , and to hell with the software companies. Interested?
Thanks...Good eye Pipe. Amazon _ALSO_ sucks.
> That's funny; I'm using a stable Mozilla right now. It crashes far less on me that 4.7x ever has...
That's funny too. I downloaded M16 hoping it would be ready for prime time, or at least close enough for my austere tastes, but it wasn't. I used it for about a week and then went back to Netscape 4.7. In my experience M16 crashed multiple times per day vs about once a month for NS 4.7, and was extremely prone to forgetting settings I had selected and saved.
I eagerly await M17, because NS's monthly crashes make it by far the crappiest piece of software that I use. As soon as Mozilla is a hair's breadth better than NS, I'll cut over in a heartbeat.
Is the difference in stability platform dependent?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You must not work in web design. The "killer, IE only features" are such things as CSS and the DOM. This means that you can't do DHTML tricks or post 1995 layout in Netscape without debugging a huge number of Netscape bugs. The lowest common denominator you are proposing everyone develop for is indeed very low. In short, you are proposing that I tell my clients that they can't have the DHTML effects, they can't have leading on paragraphs, they can't have the non-black text, they can't have thier text overlaying images, etc. Clients aren't interested in the politics of standards compliance. They want their site to look good and work well, and have some sizzle like all the other sites you see on the web. If a single browser monopoly concerns you, work on a better browser. Downgrading websites to use only the standards that Netscape supports isn't the answer.
Netscape did that for years, creating their own standards as they went along.
They stopped doing it because Microsoft not only implemented the standards and Netscapes variants, but created their own as well.
Thats the difference, Microsoft made it so their browser could do the standard stuff, most of the Netscape stuff, *and* the Microsoft stuff. Netscape hasn't been able to compete with that.
They were beaten at their own game.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Which, I suppose, is the majority of software companies.
I believe a solution to be fewer features and better testing. And fire all those marketing people.
Preach on, brother. Does the world need a browser with an xterm, IRC client, and all the other crap that's in the M16 release? Not as much as it needs a functioning browser!
I guess I'd respectfully disagree. In the past year Netscape has quickly been sliding towards irrelevancy in the browser market, and anything that counters that perception is a plus. At this rate, though, I worry that it won't matter how good the end product is unless AOL really pushes it hard (and eats its own dog food by making Netscape 6 the AOL browser).
No one wants to see a standards-compliant browser win more than me, but as the WSP article suggests, you can't build your site on promises.
I'm actually using Netscape right now, and I can expect it to crash any second if I open up any more windows. That's why I continually save posts like these. I've lost too many to keep track of, but it was enough for me to eventually dump Netscape.
It took about six months for the inertia of using Netscape over IE to slow down and for me to finally realize that the change was imminent. Outlook's Import utility clinched it, as I could now use Outlook to import all my email. I have Netscape 6 Preview 1 installed, but it looks more like a nearly completed building with the scaffolding still up than any kind of useable browser.
As Stroustrup said, "C makes it easy to shoot yourelf in the foot, whereas C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off." Yes, IE crashes every now and then, and it usually takes the whole system with it, but I don't have to deal with the maddening experience of several crashes per day. Which is worse: the boulder in my path?--or the grain of sand in my shoe. I'm not quite sure, but I've chosen the boulder.
About the only thing I miss is Netscape's status bar. They did a great job with keep the user informed about how the page was loading, while IE happifly reassures me that the page is "opening..." And IE's dumbed-down error messages aren't exactly helpful, but I've been using Guidescope as a local ad-blocking proxy and it seems to help some with DNS errors and the like.
So I'm sorry that I don't use Netscape anymore. I'm sorry that I use a browser that doesn't adhere very well to Net standards, and in some cases even flaunts them. But I'm not sorry that Microsoft built a better browser. And Netscape didn't.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I'm running 5.5 on Windows 2000, and it hasn't crashed since I bought the OS (about 2 months ago). Some might say "it's about time" given the number of tries MS has had, but it'd be nice to see something a bit more stable on the Linux side as well - something that would mirror IE.
Or how about something like Opera in a stable format?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
How bout this letter I sent off to Netscape.
Dear sirs.
PLEASE STOP ADDING USELESS SHIT TO YOUR PROJECT AND RELEASE A FUCKING BROWSER THAT WORKS.
Thank you.
Òfp
You see, either way, that's what they will need to do before they are rendered *completely* irrelevent by MS (to which I have to say, nice work on that last version, it kicks). It's amazing how many here can see this in all it's transparency but the people involved in the project are too busy coding pac-man in xul to notice the axe falling.
I believe NS6pre1 is a couple of months old at this point. The Mozilla browser has improved significantly since the release that was repackaged by Netscape. Try one of the nightly builds.
Christ, from what I understand, iCab (www.icab.de) is largely the effort of one man. When one man can crank out a killer browser like iCab, it makes Mozilla and the Mozilla project look like a complete joke.
Well according to that want add I think we have a winner: Opera. Did you forget to add open-source? Otherwise Opera is the obvious choice. Opera 4.0 is a wonderful application and I find myself using it frequently....even in Windows. http://www.opera.com/
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
The PocketPC platform already has a million developers behind it (anyone that can code straight win32 api can code on the PocketPC). Even VisualBasic idiots can get in on PPC development. And the tools are free, which is a first for Microsoft.
PocketIE on PocketPC and other devices of a similar nature, supports javascript, HTML 3.2 (and then some), XML data islands and other niceties. And it's fast.
So my opinion, Mozilla isn't going to change shit for most people.
After all the hub-bub over Netscape's weak version jump to 6 (bypassing 5.x versions altogether in a grand marketing move), how humiliating would it be if this thing took so long to finally be released that it still ends up having a smaller version number anyway? :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
All this complaining back and forth between Mozilla and WSP is pretty funny. These people need to get to the real world. Standards in most cases are set by the marketplace and 75% of the marketplace sets the standards in this case.
Netscape users will be able to claim "COMPLIANCE" while IE users will be able to use the web.
Brian
Why Microsoft will win.
Please refer me to a URL that is standards compliant that doesn't work in Mozilla.
Mind you, I expect a few problems since it is still alpha/beta/unreleased quality code. But you make it sound like you haven't used a modern (ie, M16 or later) build of the thing.
Old Netscape 4.x, yes it had lots of those problems. But the new, modern Mozilla builds just work so well. Every page I had developed that didn't work in NN4 but did in IE, worked fine in Mozilla. EVERY ONE.
As for JavaScript, of course some of the Microsoft hacks like innerHTML aren't going to work in Mozilla (though I did see a mention of a relatively simple JavaScript snippet that simulated innerHTML well enough that most scripts could be compatible with minimal effort, and a rumor that this might be included by default.)
But write some 100% standards compliant code, use it with a modern Mozilla build, and you'll find that it works.
As for rendering a page like IE does, why should it? There are standards, and there are some elements of the standard that are open to vendor interpretation. But why should a browser emulate something that doesn't follow the standard, especially when the stated goal is to be 100% standards compliant?
I do use Mozilla daily. On both this machine (600mhz & 128 megs RAM) and my older one (166mhz & 32 megs RAM). The older one has to run Aphrodite, but with that it runs just fine. Seriously, Aphrodite fixes a lot of the problems with Mozilla. And its a package, not a skin (IIRC), so it doesn't inherit a lot of the problems of the current interface.
-RickHunter
It's funny because in this press release, they flamed Microsoft for IE 5.5. Okay - so, they don't like IE, they don't like Navigator - WHAT BROWSER _DO_ THEY LIKE? What the hell does this group do? Fuss at everybody because they don't support standards? From what I can tell, they don't really do anything. They aren't publishing any documents, they aren't on any standards boards, they don't sponsor any conferences or any training sessions - they don't do anything! Time to get out the Raid bug spray...
I have heard many a great thing about IE, how it is faster and more stable etc... and I am sure that it is, but I have several major problems with it.
The first is that I find that it, and its mail program, are major security hazzards. I know that I can turn the stuff off, not use outlook, but I cannot trust MS to make a secure program anymore. I don't want to have to worry about some vengeful ActiveX programer screwing with my computer, or having to download a patch to fix some gapping security hole all the time.
The second is that "blowing your whole leg off" problem. I would much rather have an application die a peaceful death, not take out NT or my window manager, frequently then to crash rarely but have it be a major screw up and take down my system. I have had too many problems with corrupted data on my disk from programs taking down the OS.
Although I am sure that IE is more stable and more powerful than Netscape I have had very little to no problems with it sense I upgraded to Communicator 4.72 (and yes I do run with Java Script and Java ON). I regularly run it with more than 6 windows open, all symultaniously downloading and rendering pages, and I haven't had it crash on me sense I upgraded. On the Ultra 1 that I use at work, I have only had it crash on me once in two months, which I immediately reopened and went on with my business.
As for it being old technology, so what, it does what I need it to do. I want programs that are set up properly, ie run in the correct level that they should. I don't want some extremely fast and powerful browser, or office suite for that matter, that runs in rung zero and takes down my computer if it has a problem. That is why I use Netscape and Corel, if they but my computer doesn't go with them.
I'm not saying that everyone should be using Netscape, just that there are some of us who use it for good reason.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
I don't see a lot of substance to this idea, although it's been bought up more than once - if AOL were allergic opening the source to the community, it hardly seems likely they would have bought NaviServer and released it under the GPL. AOL have been on the GPL bandwagon for core parts of their infrastructure since before there was a bandwagon.
This is an important point. I'll bet that a lot of the problem with Mozilla is brain drain. JWZ is one major example. Mozilla is turning in to a "death march" project, and in this employment environment, nobody has to work on this kind of project.
Ok, so Netscape has fallen by the wayside and IE has taken over the browser world in windows. If Netscape does die, will IE be ported to Linux? I know opera is out there as well as a few others (Lynx still works), but according to IE 5.5 releases, only IE will be able to view certain web pages. Since there is no Linux IE port, then some web pages won't be viewable in linux.
I do have to say I use IE in windows simply cause it's faster to load on my system and it doesn't take up as much space. I use Netscape in Linux simply because it's probably the best choice out there (sorry opera fans). A fully standard, cross-platform browser would be great. However, Netscape has been going down hill and the changes between the 4.x arn't too noticable.
So if NS does fall away, what will the Unix/Linux community be left with? I doubt IE will be ported over. Will Opera be the next to take Netscape's place? Or will Lynx make it's return and the web will go back to text only?
%blow
%blow: No such job
^how did the sex change go?
Modifier failed
You might want to take a look at:
http://www.webstandards.org/wfw/ieah.html
The WSP has criticized Microsoft, but Netscape's non-delivery makes it harder to do that.
I'd laugh about Mozilla but it's quite sad.
Probably the single most important application for non-MS/Mac users and it's still not done or even really very acceptable. This despite anyone being able to contribute to the project (does the phrase: 'here's the code, go fix/add it yourself' sound familiar?) and having a support base (talent pool) of thousands (millions?) of users. I imagine that the urge to 'scratch that itch' has hit many a programmer.
Maybe I'm a complete cluebie, but the Mozilla.org page sure seems like anyone can help out in almost anywhichway. Sounds like OSS at its worst (project leader bails, MS - the *enemy* marches onward, etc). Mozilla is going to be a wonderful case study for people in software engineering and OSS/commercial software. I'm thinking mostly from the view of a lagging project from which some good things come.
When done Mozilla *should* rule. It *should* be capable of things that are crucially beneficial to *ix users (not just in the web sense). But as far as the Windows platform it will take a remarkable marketing and FUD campaign for it to recover its market share. That or AOL's 20+ million users, a thought makes all of us 'free' OS users so very very happy.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
"Microsoft may be the leader now, but once Mozilla is complete (only a few more months to go!) then things are going to change."
In a few months you say? Well that's all fine and dandy that Mozilla will be out in a few months. It's just too bad that Microsoft could also have a release of IE in a few months as well, that could theoretically blow Mozilla out of the water. Like the saying goes, lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Mozilla has a long way to go before it can match up with IE.
"But what's the real reason Mozilla is going to save the web from being dominated by Microsoft? 2 things actually: embedded apps, and AOL."
Goodie, just what I want in a browser...more bloated features, and a tie-in to AOL! I want a browser that does the job for me, quicky and efficiently. Maybe the Mozilla team should worry about making the browser work efficiently, before they start worrying about adding a Winamp-style skinning ability and AOL tie-ins to the browser.
If you think Mozilla is going to save us all from Microsoft based on those two things, I suggest you wake up and smell the coffee. Mozilla is losing more and more ground to Microsoft every day, and in a few months, when Mozilla does finally come out, they still have to play catchup to Microsoft, and everyone else who made IE their standard browser, and modeled their pages for IE.
--
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
The biggest chance that standards have, is with new developers. New developers are going to be attracted to the word standard, and if the standard has great documentation, and effective tutorials, then such a standard will win over new developers. It can be done. Besides, I dont really care. Most of the sites developing microsofty crap are ones that I dont wana visit - mostly ecommerce and intranet stuff. Somehow I doubt that my interest areas (free software, geeky artistic development) are going to be taken over by microsoft only development. :)
The old rule about open source: if you don't like how things are progressing, stop whining and start coding.
I'm sure lots of the WSP members don't have the necessary technical skills to contribute to Mozilla. Fine, to that end they should recognize that they have no idea how much work is involved and are in no position to judge. Those members that DO have the necessary technical skills are in a great position to judge the project's performance (and as such should know better), but rather than whining about it they should contribute to the work.
sigs are a waste of space
Done properly there is no way in hell it should take as long to write a browser as a complete operating system.
If the mozilla people were half as good at producing code that works as they are at producing excuses they would have a real product out there...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Open Sourcing Communicator in no way hurt the NS Communications company, or delayed any new product release. Remember, this company had had its "air supply cut off", due to (illegal) tying of IE3 to Windows95b, as well as IIS with NT, and they were already hemorrhaging marketshare well before the decision to Open Source.
When --no "if" about it-- AOL makes Gecko/Mozilla the embedded browser of their service there will be a resounding dent struck into the side of IE marketshare, which I think may be just the first of many as the embedded/Internet Appliance market cranks up. There are four months between now and the earliest possible opportunity (contractually) for AOL to dump IE, and it seems to me they are on track to do it.
Netscape opensourcing Communicator was a gesture of defiance that cost them nothing and brought the sympathies of a number of geeks and developers who care about the health and freedom of the Internet to their side at a dark moment. It did not prevent them from having to seek a larger buyer for shelter, but it did keep things moving for them at a time when they may well have imploded violently. Good move by Barksdale.
I don't know what you study at the Univ. of Toronto but, really, I expect you should be studied instead.
I have several times looked at the Mozilla site to try to find out
when the last milestones are scheduled to occur, but with no success.
Where does one find it?
I find this amusing because these are Microsoft's tactics.
So why should Micro$oft have a monopoly on them?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
IIRC, the mail & news part of Mozilla was donated, mostly complete, by a coder. Their time wasn't wasted spent writing it, it was wasted trying to turn a browser into a "cross-platform environment" of some kind. Which was just plain silly.
-RickHunter
It is a pretty-sure bet that markets will change and that the classic PC interface we are all used to won't be around in its current form forever. Even if it is, it will take an act of god to truly get IE unbundled from the windows OS and therefore put it back into competition with other projects.
Mozilla, with its open source base, is already being used in several other projects, and will be available to be moved onto new intenet appliances, embedded devices and other technologies where windows does not control the operating system ("ie" LINUX).
This will allow Netscape access to every new area that their open-source code penerates.
The developers of mozilla need to produce a quality product that can compete in these new spaces, even if it takes 6 more months, or another year.
As long as everyone keeps using non-compliant browsers like MSIE and NS, as long as Mozilla remains a pipe-dream, and as long as people refuse to pay a few bucks for compliant browsing software, web authors are going to continue creating browser-specific pages or using non-compliant tagging.
In my experience, Opera Software has been extraordinarily responsive to user feedback and very dogged in implementing full compliancy in their browser, while at the same time dealing with the crappy tagging that goes as web authoring these days.
Yes, they want a whopping forty bucks for their browser. For a lot of you, that's an hour or less of payola. And it reflects that these people are working at this as full-time professionals -- *QUITE* unlike a lot of the open source/free beer applications out there, that are being developed in people's hobby time.
It's a fair price for a great product that is available *now* and is *very* compliant. Demand better products by putting some money where your mouth is!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
You're missing the third camp - Use standards, and screw any browser that can't keepup with many year old standards like HTML 4 camp.
As it stands, M16 can't render standard HTML4 entities that Lynx copes with. Like the HTML 4 quoting entities I used above.
Amazon?
Are you okay? You said it twice...
Slashdot needs an 'edit comment' function, doesn't it?
:-)
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
the idea that you can't tell the difference is "ludicrous, and insulting to all the developers and contributors."
you don't have to read the article very far to see that it speaks of netscape 6, rather that the opensource mozilla.
i was responding to the article.
> In my opinion the display engine should be a
> removable plug-in (And thereby be replacable)
> which can be used by Navigator, whatever the
> mail/news client is called, and Composer.
It is.
> Do you ever criticize movies or books or music?
> If you're so interested, you better be diving in and making your own!
I think the word you're looking for is 'critique'. Criticism adds no value whatsoever, isn't constructive, and doesn't help anyone.
I'm quite sure you don't appreciate the criticism from your users, whom you assume don't know what goes into your work.
Such is the case with OSS. Developers are already inundated with bug reports and such. If you want to help, try writing documentation or something. Or write some install scripts.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
I just finished rewriting about 40 html pages to be DOM, CSS1, and HTML 4.0 compliant using the W3C verification tools. It runs fine under Mozilla and IE 5.0. It has javascript too, for dynamic drop down navigation menus. What's the problem?
If you stick with the W3C DOM1 standard you should have very little trouble with your javascript code.
Jeff
Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
I share much of the griping over the Mozilla project. I was at a conference in Chicago when Netscape 1.0 was released and almost instantly made everyone forget about Mosaic. It has been sad to watch Netscape go downhill ever since.
:-)
I'm just finishing a public Kiosk-style browser using the IE "WebBrowser" ActiveX -- IE reusable rendering engine. If you look at Windows shareware/freeware browser directories, you'll see dozens of these.
Our version of IE stores top navigation button definitions on a central server and retrieves them when the browser is launched. We will likely deploy custom browsers to different subnets based on these definitions.
I can spawn and control external applications, prevent pop-ups and force users to authenticate against a central user database before they can browse outside of our domain. I'm using XML-RPC client code to pass authentication info to a central server.
The browser automatically unauthenicates, clears the cache and history after a set time of inactivity.
It works well on any Pentium-class machine, but works and will also be deployed on a pile of old 16MB 486's.
Amazingly -- MS's reusable browser technology has been around since IE 4 was first released. Before NS ever publicly announced Gecko.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Gecko will ever be released in a form where I can customize it this this extent.
I still have the NGT Developer Preview Release (aka Gecko) diskette that Netscape was handing out 2 years ago. A browser on a disk they said! What a concept! Now Mozilla is almost as bloated as IE. They just need to add a couple more MB and it will be as stable as IE
FWIW -- though I use IE. I've made it a point to never build web apps that use IE's data binding features -- and I only do XML parsing on the server so that my apps work with NS also.
Is this sig nificant?
Well, I hate to say it but I agree.
I think mozilla's biggest strategic error was trying to do too much. My personal hindsight suggest that they should have used existing graphic libraries instead of writing their own widgets from scratch. Yes, this makes some platforms lag behind but it would make at least one major one come out faster. I have a feeling that it would encourage more developers to get involved as well. Having to learn yet another graphic library is a hassle that no doubt keeps some developers away.
I think it was also a huge mistake to try and make a communications platform with email etc instead of just a bare browser. You can always add on stuff later. Right now it's two years later and there's nothing usuable.
I tried M16 for a couple weeks and I was extremely disappointed with the number of blatant, serious bugs. It will a significant amount of time to fix them. *sigh*
The most promising thing I see coming out of mozilla is that Galleon project mentioned last week. I wish them luck.
It's interesting what happens when Open Source is brought out in the limelight. How long did it take Linux to reach a 1.0 release? Look at how it is now, and how long it took to get here. These things take time, yet there wasn't anyone blasting Linus&Co until now.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
The WSP needs to learn (or remember) something simple that my parents taught me: when you're angry, write a letter. Then, write another draft to make sure you've said everything you want to say. Then, put it in an envelope, seal it, and DON'T SEND IT.
Words written in anger will be around long after the anger is gone, and this editorial was obviously written out of mere frustration and impatience. They will be kicking themselves for it in a month or so.
If you don't pretend to be anyone, are you?
Another thing I noticed about a lot of the comments being made is that they're just plain whiny. "Netscape doesn't suck, MS is a monopoly and THAT's why more people use it..." Fact of the matter is, Netscape DOES suck, and while MS may be a monopoly, its because of business practices, not a lack of product competition. IE has more users because ITS A BETTER BROWSER! Its faster than Netscape or opera and easier to script for. Its embeddable in other applications (on win32, of course). Most of the reasons IE is a better browser than IE have been addressed in Gecko, notably the embeddability and speed. Gecko far surpasses IE in terms of platforms it runs on. However, its ultra-important to note that gecko and mozilla are not one and the same--mozilla has so much extra crap involved that it holds back gecko. I was inordinately pleased to see that someone had made a wrapper for gecko in the form of Galeon.
As for the point raised above, that Microsoft would simply introduce new standards whenever it wanted to break the competition, I thought that was something the OSS community prided itself on: the speed with which it could implement things like new features and bug fixes.
In summary, I guess my point is this: if you don't like the way somebody's doing something, don't bitch about it; do it better.
(as an aside, I do want to commend the mozilla developers on a brilliant rendering engine--but I'm still waiting before i trust the interface)
Sadly I agree. Trying to write code so that everyone sees the same page the same way is an absolute nightmare. What the users want I think is twofold: The surfers just want stuff to work and not have to be bothered with plugins and adjusting font sizes. The workers want their company website to look and act the same on everyone's machine, regardless. These two goals are hand in hand, and I'm hoping this release will go a good way towards realizing them. (Broadband would be nice, too...sigh...)
This is not to say that IE is perfect (CSS?!) but as you say, it is prevalent and that's what counts right now.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
A Web browser that supports modern Web standards (DOM) is just as complex as an OS kernel. Probably a lot more so, because of the need to be backward compatible with hundreds of different kinds of incorrect Web page coding.
Actually, WSP has said positive things fairly recently: http://www.webstandards.org/macie5_03 2700.txt
They were about Internet Explorer 5 for the Macintosh, not IE 5.5/Windows or Mozilla, though!That's the sort of lunacy that's going to kill them sadly.
Whilst to you and I it might mean something that a browser is w3c compliant but it's a bit like telling jo public he'll get better milage if he drives at 56mph... everyone kinda knows it deep down but most people just dont give a damn and want the easiest and quickest solution.
There's a guy in our office who used to work for a company that was bought by Netscape. After reading the letter I decided to ask him what the heck is going on over in Mozland. This is what I got back. The head of the company he used to work for stayed on after the buy-out and was put in charge of the 6.0 suite. This was about three years ago. Everything was written from the ground up in Java and the speed on it wasn't quite up to par so they scrapped the whole thing and went back it with C++. Now meanwhile the whole 5.0 version has been scrapped and they've decided to go straight to the 6.0 project when it's ready. So what happened? It's all management. According to my friend the people on the 6.0 team are all extremely competent coders and there is absolutely no way they would have not had everything finished by now. He stopped by thier office the other day and he said the best way to sum it up was "unmotivated". With all the changes in who's pulling the strings they've been in a programing limbo. Far as he can tell they should have released something some time ago and it's just the usual corporate bullsh*t that's been slowing them down. I used to stick with Netscape myself but like many others I finally got sick of the crashes and made the switch to IE. Now I find out that I'm using a product I'd rather not because management doesn't have a clue. Seems like business as usual.
-artistX
The biggest problem with Opera is that its a niche product. It'll never catch on in the mainstream, even if it was free. The simple problem is that it just functions too differently from IE/NN, which are more or less the same in basic UI design.
Its amazing how fast I can throw somebody off simply by putting them in front of Opera.
Now if 4.1 has SDI (which it might), that could go a long way in solving that problem.
I really wish it would catch on, Opera is a great little browser, useful for those of us who don't want everything but the kitchen sink with our browsers (*ahem* Mozilla).
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
But since it was moderated up, I must fight the powers that be.
Things that are true in this post:
(Kind of true, anyway - Mozilla networking code seems to be better than IE's, as is partial page loading which used to not be the case.)
This is true in a sense. Firing up a copy of IE consumes less resources than netscape because most of IE is running all the time when you're running explorer, unless you've 98lite'd your box into obscurity.
This is hard to argue with. I don't know how much of that is talkback, though. When I run mozilla.exe -mail on my system, about a quarter to half the time it gives an exception right when I run it. I get lots of other random crashes, too. Also, if I leave mozilla mail open too long sometimes it gets into some bad loop where it just allocates more and more memory and sucks up something like 128mb of ram before I kill it. No idea if it'll eat up all the ram/swap on the box.
However, the troll "at this stage, how much better can mozilla get? i doubt it will be much." is just totally bogus. That would be like using Windows 3.1 and saying "How much better can this get? I doubt it will be much." That sort of statement is only useful for things that already kick more ass than anyone else's product. There's lots of room for improvement in Mozilla and lots of people are working on it.
It used to be that I only ran IE (4.0) when netscape was having problems loading a URL. Then IE 5 came out and I pretty much ditched netscape entirely. Now I use IE5.5 for browsing and Mozilla M16 for mail and news. (Mind you, the bug where you can't post news to multiple groups if you're not subcribed to them all and if there's multiple news servers added is pretty goddamn annoying.) when IE5.5 has problems loading a page, I fire up M16's navigator component and paste in the URL, and it comes up properly nearly every time, so it looks like Mozilla has a leg up on IE in that department now.
Allow me to suggest a new modification to /., BTW. If someone puts too much bold in their message, just remove all the <B> tags. <EM> isn't nearly as annoying, though, so it's okay with me if you leave that alone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's exactly this lack of simple things that keep me from using Mozilla. One function I must have is the ability to choose/import a bookmark file, since I use both Win and Linux on the same machine and need to share my voluminous bookmark collection between both browser binaries. Currently, the simple "open bookmark file" function is absent from Mozilla, so there is no way to do this. Exactly how hard would this be to implement? Seems like it would take five minutes. Unlike others, who have switched to IE for Win, this doesn't help me either because IE doesn't exist for Linux and import/export between IE and Netscape screws up the bookmarks. So I am still stuck on NS 4.whatever.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
And M16 will never support those entities! (Which btw wasn't part of the original HTML4 spec.)
M17 on the other hand already does.
/J
The fact is, though, that unless we have open standards, which aren't at the mercy of corporate interests then the whole transparent interconnectivity across plaforms that makes the internet work will go for pear-shaped very quickly.
Microsoft wouldn't give a monkeys about web usability from any platform other than Windows.
The open source community should respond with a better product. No doubt about that.
Why is it taking so long for a release of Netscape 6, btw?
Doesn't really seem to fit with ESR's description of the efficient bazzar. Mind you, since I haven't helped one iota, I can't really complain.
Poor WaSP. They believe that Netscape and Microsoft, as commercial entities, are interested in standards compliance. Let's face it, people, they are NOT interested in standards compliance! The want proprietary extensions so they can easily lock developers to their browser and their servers and their OS and so on.
Mozilla can have ALL problems and defects and suckiness in general. But Mozilla is for Web browsers something like Debian is for the Linux distros: a safe haven for something fair in this game.
Cesar Cardoso can be found at cesar at zyakannazio dot eti dot br (or at least I believe so)
Well, let's see. There's this one, for starters. Or, for that matter, any piece of text using HTML 4 quoting entities. Like this one. Which Lynx and IE 4+ all render just fine.
Netscape followed the fashion for Open Source and open collaborative development but realized after a while that the task was huge and needed to pump a lot of their own effort into the development to get somewhere in reasonable time. When we get there it will be interesting to see what happens however until that time companies / people need to settle with something that is useable. This is when Microsoft's IE started to look interesting.
The first stage was giving the users a choice, Netscape's browser (buggy but working), or Microsoft's browser (late, unfeatured - not working with the many Netscape compatible websites).
Next was Microsoft realizing they have to match Netscape's offering (IE 3). Still Netscape have the majority but only out of historical reasons.
Then Microsoft introduce v4 with Dynamic HTML, big customization options (e.g. Visual Studio, AOL browser), full screen mode, and general integration with the OS to provide developers with a new easy way of displaying data, and users with a standard interface between applications. Netscape hasn't changed.
With version 5 of MSIE we have more features to display things, and Netscape still hasn't changed.
Microsoft have yet to release a version for Linux, no doubt when Mainsoft have finished beta'ing their Linux port we shall see one. And so we have a situation in which Netscape still lives, but people are annoyed and toying with fancy systems to boot Windows to run IE or run VMWare to run Windows in Linux.
The interesting area for competition is the Mac platform, all iMacs come with Netscape and MSIE installed - users have a choice but what do Mac users love doing? Using Microsoft software! Why? Its not because they are being payed off, or that other vendors are hidden or driven out, its because Microsoft release better products.
Many users don't really care whether they use Netscape or Microsoft or Opera all they want to do is access the internet without worrying about what they are using.
Hmm, good point... I want a car that gives me better mpg than the one I have now, and it musn't come from Ford, because I think they're evil.
So, naturally, I will build my own car from blueprints released by Saab. Ooops, hang on, I know nothing about cars. But according to you, my options are either build it myself, or teach myself how to build it. And if I can't do either, I shouldn't have a driving license!
I just want to drive a damn car that works, you idiot! Why on earth should I have to be a C/C++/whatever programmer in order to surf the web?
OK, now I've got that off my chest, I have to say that as many other people have pointed out, Netscape haven't released a product worth a damn in 2 years. By most people's standards, that is appalling development practice.
If you want to develop software as an intellectual exercise, for self-fulfillment, then go for it - just don't expect anyone else to rave about your application. On the other hand, if you want people to use what you've coded, then give them what they want. This ivory tower mentality - "I know what's best, and if the little people don't like it, they should learn to be a really clever programmer like me" - is a lot of crap.
Mozilla looks like it'll be a great browser... someday, but in this market a timeline of years just isn't good enough. I personally think the AOL-Sun-Netscape alliance is to blame for not putting enough professional manpower behind the project from the beginning. I believe the open source aspect of Mozilla will prevail eventually, however it should had some serious corporate dollars to pull it out of it's long standing slump.
Blender And Linux Fan
I use Netscape 4.74 on Windows NT 4.0 (SP5, pt_BR - damn), Windows 98 (home_pc) and Connectiva Linux (my work's network heavy-duty proxy and the same distro I use at home) under KDE and kernel 2.2.16. It works just fine on all of them. Sure, none of them has less than 256Mb of RAM and 2 of the 3 computers listed are dual Pentium II-500 - but I'm just bragging... :)
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Do you want it standards-compliant, or do you want it now?
For "web standards" people, they sure sound pushy. Don't tell me they think IE 5.5 is compliant just because it's out today!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
As someone who was introduced to surfing on a copy of netscape 1.2 it is a real shame to have to leave them now.
But lets face it. Their browser is crap, it's slow, it's buggy, feature-lacking and crashes a LOT. Even on solaris at work it's not stable.
Whereas IE5 is fast, not-quite-as-unstable, loaded with features, and does everything i want very nicely. Admittedly I couldn't get that to install on solaris at work because the OS was missing some patches but OE works fine.
Lets face it. M$ might not do much well, and i know it's not exactly standard complying but IE5 is a danm nice browser and it's sadly creating it's own standards leaving netscape/mozilla to play catch up with both legs tied together.
Mozilla has become more of a proof of concept than
anything else. With the new browsers coming on board in full force as soon as September, (Opera, Konqueror and whatever Gnome comes up with) there is zero reason to use Mozilla.
Mozilla is quickly becoming just as bloated as it used to be. When I first downloaded Mozilla many moons ago, it was under 5 megs. It is now almost 8 and growing.
I bet it is 10-12 by release. Opera is 2.5 megs. Fast and works well.
Sorry Mozilla, I like you -- but your just an old lizard now.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
You're forgetting something - the half-life of web applications is frighteningly small.
Websites tend to get rewritten and redesigned every year or so in order to stay 'fresh'.
Why can't Mozilla
Get a product out on time
Don't blame Open Source
Take Netscape 4.x off the market? What exactly do they want? Pull it off their site so those that want it can no longer download it? Try to migrate everyone to a buggy, unfinished browser that only mostly works?
I do agree with most of the WaSP's complaints, however, and AOL is entirely at fault. Why haven't they been devoting more resources to the Mozilla project? Open source development is great, but if AOL wants this to happen, you'd think they'd contribute something, especially if they're planning to base their flagship service on this product!
Does anyone know just exactly what AOL does contribute to the Mozilla project?
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Hijacking the status bar? On mouseover on links, it shows the URL. mouseoff, it shows a message from the wasp. and this is hijacking the status bar? It's default behavior, but only with a bit of text where there wasn't anything before.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Sure, it's frustrating waiting for Netscape 6, but I don't see how flaming Netscape for not coding fast enough will further the cause of Web Standards. I used to support WSP because I thought it was voicing valid concerns, but I'm beginning to think WSP just another publicity engine for Zeldman, whose Daily Report is written with the same royal "we" as the WSP press releases.
I agree with most of what was said, but the mistakes were not made in 2000 or 1998, but in 1996/7, when Netscape Corp. failed to realize that Communicator would need a massive overhaul. Clearly, in order for Netscape to design and implement a program to meet standards and render quickly/efficiently/etc., Netscape 5/6 needed to be well under developement while Navigator 4.0 was just being published. In Netscape's defense, no one could have imagined that Netscape's browser would be so out of date so quickly, so important to such a large number of people, and put in a head on battle against the Multi Billion dollar warchest/petty cash of Microsoft. Microsoft developed IE 1/2 (blah) 3 (not bad) (4 pretty good) (5 spectacular (hey everything's relative) for the user ). Very few companies can go head to head with MS and survive. But far fewer can survive when MS picks the battle. Netscape Communicator clearly was not developed with a long term view. Netscape sprinted to get their Communicator OUT OUT OUT! They sprinted, but when it suddenly became apparent that we're in a marathon and not the 100 meter dash, Netscape was out of breath and needed a complete overhaul. Get the browser out folks, but it's been to long already to take the early entry advantage--sorry but we're stuck with getting the best browser possible. The time for rushing a 99% standard browser out is LONG overdue. But really we shouldn't have too much fear Net Users: 400 million World : 6 Billion
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
As some know, this week is MacWorld Expo in NYC, and there is an article at MacNN regarding Netscape's presence at the show, as well as some answers from Chris Nalls, Macintosh Product Manager for Netscape. Check it out for some hard facts.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
I'm fairly certain that the complaint was more requested on behalf of Linux/MS users, but my real question is, what about for the Macintosh?
I don't know if any of you tried out Netscape 6 preview for the Mac, but it was slllooowww. I'd like to once again not have to use IE on both Macs and PCs. I mean, you'd think that since they can't beat an integrated browser for Windows, they'd at least focus on a different platform or something.
IE continues to work great on a Macintosh, something that Netscape should have never let happen.
Not to be picky, but have you ever actually used Mozilla? I have a Pentium-90 with 32 MB of RAM that I built out of parts that friends were going to junk. The point was to make a completely free computer, and I did. I run Linux on it, and most of the time I have no problem being as productive, or even more productive than I am on my Pentium II-333 128MB Windows machine. The only thing I use Windows for is games and web browsing because Mozilla simply runs unacceptably slowly on that Pentium machine. In it's current state, it is not even close to an embeddable-application.
./configure
make comment
make post
Sorry, but the space WaSP adds between each line of text on their pages is too much like double-spacing. Whatever message these guys have is lost in the presentation. Too annoying. This is the first web site I've had to turn off CSS to efficiently use.
metoo. I used to design for Netscape, and ignored IE. Now I design for IE, and Netscape can bite me. The thing that really clinched it for me was having to write nonstandard HTML to just get there to not be seams between images in a table in Netscape when IE rendered it correctly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Strong words, but netscape deserves all of them. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've felt a little abandoned by netscape for the past year or so. None of the 4.x browsers are as good as they should be, and that goes for every platform. Most of the people I know have switched to other browsers, weather they're good or not they're better than netscape has been.
Like the letter said, netscape has only a little bit of time left before they lose all their users. Kinda sad for a product that (I think) was once really great.
What are the chances of a separate development group using gecko to build a decent alternative to IE on windows?
Are there any examples of this already?
Isn't there a gecko ActiveX control? Is there a way to allow IE users to view your HTML pages using the gecko ActiveX control?
Okay, maybe Netscape IS horribly outdated, but it's hardly unstable. Also, you speak of IE compatibility, but how many major sites out there design only for IE and not Netscape? I can't think of any.
No, I think the Mozilla folks are doing the right thing by focusing on web standards and cross-platform capabilities. When NS 6 is released, IE will be forced to follow suit and start supporting more standards or lose many of their users, I believe.
Sorry, should have said: window.open() does not work under Linux.
That's what you tell your boss when your project is late is it? We'll open source it, and it won't matter how late or buggy it is.
Netscape is hardly a typical OS project; it's owned by a huge company. The letter was addressed to Netscape the company, not the Mozilla hackers.
Standards cops are good things, like any sort of QA. They're a pain but they help keep you honest. If you want it done properly, you don't make them part of the development team. It would really well next time they slammed Microsoft if they were all Mozilla developers wouldn't it?
And this is a bad thing?
Sure, IE probably complies with most standards now, but Netscape does a pretty good job too for the most part. The thing that pisses me off about IE is that MS has added way too many non-standard features (vbscript, for example) to help make it easier for newbies to make pretty web pages. What is the result of this? People use the IE extensions and anybody not using IE won't be able to see the web page. I know, netscape has used it's own proprietary tags in the past, but not to the extent of Internet Explorer. I've been to a few web sites that just come up as a blank page in Netscape or any other browser, and only work with IE. Now I'm not taking sides here. Netscape is not much better. It crashes way too much for one thing. Probably because of all the standards it's trying to comply to, and many sites using very complex code. As far as Mozilla is concerned. It is bloatware just like IE and Netscape 4.x. It uses it's own user interface library as opposed to the ones that come with MS Windows and X. (buttons, scrollbars, etc.) So therefore all this must be loaded into memory. Bottom line is, if I ever make a web site, I'm sticking to plain old HTML. The only other thing I would even consider using would be CSS, so I could make global changes just by changing one file. but thats about it.
Sheesh.
I believe it will be the Web designers themselves that provide the push. Web designers have long awaited a mainstream browser that conforms to standards, and can do CSS, etc. properly.
If web developers are excited by what Mozilla can do, then they will be more likely to design pages to take advantage of its "features" (i.e. web standards that are still not implemented properly in IE or NS 4.x). This in turn will cause more people to switch to NS 6 or complain to Microsoft that certain pages do not display properly in IE.
Also, NS 6 doesn't have to get a majority share of users for Microsoft to take notice; even a strong niche of say 30% would be enough to make them worry and do what it takes to lure people back, I believe.
So what, how 22 million AOL subscribers compares to the number of internet users worldwide. Biggest provider != majority of internet users (Thanks God!). Even if "the biggest provider" would push down their subscribers' throats some half-baked product, it would not change too much.
But you are not. I remeber some article (I am not sure where, though) about browser marked for various appliances and wireless devices. The only vendors mentioned were MS, Opera and Psion (trying as usually to cook something on their own). Netscape and Mozilla were just irrelevant to the subject.
-M-
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
Ya know, I almost didn't even bother to post today because it seeemed the inbred outnumbered the intelligent 15 to 1, but slashdot is a forum for open discussion and if these morons aren't corrected, they will just keep repeating misinformation and FUD until they can't unlearn what they have mis-learned. So, here goes:
....of course these are the same poeple who decided they could become web "programmers" *cough* by buying M$ frontpage and then think netscape sucks when it dosen't display frontpage's barf-like code. GO FIGURE! (*dripping sarcasm*)
...ad nausium (M$ products not working well with other M$ products....once again Go Figure! *more dripping sarcasm*).
.....you get the idea.
1) AOL
The MAIN reason that aol purchased netscape was because of the M$ anti-trust trial. Aol was called to in to testify aginst M$, but had a deal with them that their default browser would be based on IE if they could be included on the windows desktop as one of the "online service" choices for new computer buyers (think ultra newbie). M$ threatened to remove them and so aol purchased netscape (I think the message is obvious....take us off the desktop, and we switch our MILLIONS of users away from your product!)...don't think they would have spent money in this sort of fashion? How much money did it take to buy Time-Warner again? Don't kid yourself! I'm sure there were a lot of other reasons as well, but this was the main one.
2) "Browser Wars"
Oh please, spare me....This was a term cooked up (think "cola wars") to sell computer MAGAZINES! Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. BOTH browsers were/are available for download for personal use for FREE!
*warning this next paragraph is pretty much highly combustable flame material* ; )
In fact those who think this was/is a "real" issue are most likely the same dumbasses who went to comp UpaySA and had to ask one of their "knowledgeable" staff which BOX and version they should *BUY* !
3) The web developers who posted this (and the subsequent additional posters) are idiots.
Yea sure, this one sounds like *flamebait*, but hear me out.
Only an idiot would scream for standards -in fact, base their whole mission statement on the needs for open standards- and then bash the developers working on this very request. And then top it off by endorsing the competition - a compeditor who has absolutely NO regard for open standards in the first place. Remember the Kerberos fiasco?
Someone even went as far as to say "Die netscape, may IE Devour you." To get a feel for how ASININE this kind of thinking is, try this. Just replace the word "netscape" with "linux" and "IE" with "windows." It's the same fscking thing - choosing NOT to have a CHOICE!
p.s. as a side note to the hiku writer, please stop it. Hiku is to poetry, as pun is to humor. Its lowest form!
4) IE more stable than Netscape ?!?
Not too long ago I had the mis-pleasure of finding out for a client why Outlook Express 5.x was throwing up errors every time a user checked an imap e-mail account. (BTW, It's a bug in OE that WON'T be fixed and users were told to work around it - this came straight from the M$ noknowledge base itself - no shit!)
On multiple tries on multiple windows machines using IE, going to M$'s web site that was using M$'s ASP, the browser consistantly barfed errors into a frame then within a frame within a frame
Netscape on Linux worked flawlessly the first time (which incidently is where I found the info on that pos OE).
5) Level of expertise
I weined myself off of windoze years ago. EVERYTHING I do or need I acomplish on linux. In fact I love it so much and have so much faith in it, my company's business is now based on it.
Aside from the fact that at the moment M$ refuses to make products for the platform (THANK GOD!), I absolutely HATE, let me repeat - I LOTHE the way every thing fscking uses the web browser interface. I absolutely hate the mishmosh the windoze interface has become. Why does file utility have to look like the browser, which looks like an ftp utility, which looks like the new acrobat reader, which looks like
Joy is the diversity in the window managers and numerous applications for linux (and BSD, *nix, etc.- I didn't forget you guys ; )
I could go on, but this got a LOT longer than I had planed on and it gets a little tiring standing up here on this soap box. *sheesh* "...If some only had a brain..."
-ravage
-- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."- Albert E.
...because its competitors fail. WordPerfect, Borland, Netscape... the list is long and tragic. So long as no one has the balls to challenge Microsoft seriously, we'll be living in a Gatesian Universe. If you don't resist, you collaborate!
All about me
If you want a good, standards compliant browser, give Opera a try. It's the closest I know of, and its not bloated either, less than 2 megs I think. The only thing I dont like about it is it doesn't render some pages correctly, mostly due to web developers deviating from standards. sorry about that previous post not being formatted right, I had it split into several paragraphs but I guess I needed to select HTML formatted. hmm. my mistake.
Word up. I think that they should stop bitching and start contributing to the codebase.
Laws vary from state to state. 'Get you some books on tape- to learn about holes in space.
Let's face it, from Netscape's point of view, it was a terrible idea. The market share is gone, and the release of Mozilla is not going to make a dent on the installed base of IE browsers on Windows machines. It might have been great for us, but as a company, Netscape should not have opened Communicator.
Multiplayer Strategy
http://www.mozilla.org/projec ts/seamonkey/milestones/
Jay (=
Ok. I guess everyone noticed I'm an efficiency freak. :P Guess I'll go back to my Forth code, and my dreams of a world in which the source for the newest OS takes 5 minutes to download on a 14.4 and 10 seconds to compile on a 486 (and blows the doors off the ill-designed bloatware we call our "modern OSes"). ;)
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
What makes it better is that is can be embedded. Embedded NT and WinCE don't include IE as an embedded browser.
is that it is still the best thing available for linux. All of the other options out there are incomplete and just as buggy. Prove me wrong, please. I just started using Netscape6 beta for Linux and so far have been very happy, it is faster,more stable, and is not (as much of a ) memory hog. one day it may even be finished...
-- Hail Eris
Linux users are used to a cacophony of user interfaces where every application uses a different toolkit, looks different, feels different. Using a look and feel specific to only Mozilla doesn't seem ludicrous for people used to X-windows. Mac/Windows users won't put up with it. Mozilla hasn't a prayer of making it in the consumer market without a native interface.
Look, cross-platform development is hard, but a single cross-platform user interface is a dangerous cop-out. Sun apparently thought the problem with AWT was the attempt to use native cross-platform widgets, (in reality, AWT just sucked hard), so they took the easy way out with Swing and just set all the screen bits to be identical on every platform. Problem "solved".
It's criminal that Mozilla took the same path, for the same reason. The various front-ends sucked. Well, no shit. They still suck, and they should be abandoned.
But using Gecko to render the UI was an incredibly X Window-centric decision. Users on other platforms will not put up with it. Mozilla is dead on non-Unix platforms unless some insane person wraps a new app shell around it.
When I first started using the web, waayyyy back on Windows 3.1 with Mosaic, I was quite happy to start using Netscape when it first came out. I continued using it all the way up to version 4.something when I just couldn't take its instability, lack of speed, and general unpleasantness. So I switched to IE, which was a technically superior browser on the windows platform. Sure, supporting Microsoft sucks, but blind zealotry isn't my game ... I use what gets the job done, and frankly, Windows does a better job at playing Diablo2 and running Photoshop, so that's what I use for graphics and gaming. If I need to grab something from the web, I'm not going to install Netscape which is even less stable than windows, and I'm certainly not going to boot back to FreeBSD, start up X and open Netscape there (Which is only marginally better than the Windows version). Of course when I'm doing real work under FreeBSD and I want to check the weeb, I do so with Netscape, but more and more, I'm finding myself using w3m, which is just about the niftiest web browser I've ever used. Sure its text based and doesn't do graphics, but it has EMACS-esque navigation, colors, it renders tables and frames, and hell, even slashdot looks nice in it. All things considered, I can't win. IE is a better browser in terms of doign things like, say, working, but it's insecure as hell. I'd like to use Netscape, but its a big pile of crap. I'm happy using w3m, but it doesn't do graphics... Mozilla may be the answer but not yet. Now, from a webmaster's perspective, over 95% of the hits on my site are with IE. I don't do any crazy stuff, so it works in pretty much any browser, but it's pretty clear what the masses are using...
First, WSP says "Support all standards! Drop any development on the old codebase and work on the new codebase! We'll whine unless you don't."
Mozilla says "Look, that's going to take a long time. Are you sure you want to harangue us into doing it?"
WSP says yes.
Now, they're complaining that it's taking too long? They knew this coming in. It's like they want software to fall from the sky or something.
ie5 - 55%
ie4 - 15%
ns4.7 - 10%
ns4.5 - 5%
ns4 - 5%
ns4.6 - 3%
ns3 - 2% (!?!?)
Compared to february 99:
ie4 - 40%
ns4 - 25%
ns4.5 - 10%
ns3 - 10%
ie3 - 10%
ie5 - 1%
What does this tell you (aside from netscape having WAY too many versions of their browser out)? Even over a year ago the browser war was long won and ms could stop worrying about web standards. This won't change anytime soon.
I myself stopped using netscape a while back because it's just too slow; nest a couple of complex tables and you can be waiting for a rendered page for 15 secs on a p3-500/256MB!) and tended to crash if you had too many windows open (with news sites I usually skim the headlines (slashdot, news.com, salon) and open up each page in a new window so I can go and read them all uninterruped.
At this point in time ie is just the better browser, that's all there is to it. I also love the auto-augment feature in 5.x which will get fonts and plugins via a standardized dialog box. Totally painless.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
This letter is in response to your article, "For the Good of the Web: An Open Letter to Netscape"", linked to from your front page by the words "slams Netscape".
Since I don't know the author of the article I'm responding to, and since "The WaSP" is essentially a pseudonym for the WSP leadership, I will hereafter do my best to refer to the author of the piece as either "The WaSP" or "the WSP".
"The WaSP" states, "How can standards advocates continue to point to your example while criticizing other browser makers? How can we demand that Microsoft 'do what Netscape is doing,' when, from a business perspective, 'what Netscape is doing' is bleeding market share while failing to ship product?"
This is an interesting twist of logic, but conflating your "business perspective" on Netscape's time-to-market with your goal of standards compliance, while being the only way you can support your assertions, is faulty reasoning. Unfortunately, it's the foundation for your entire piece.
The WSP's goal is promoting standards compliance, and cajoling browser makers into supporting standards, no? Where in your mission does it talk about "time-to-market" issues? Is that something we should just assume? Since the developers have started on their new code base you've been advocating Netscape's "plans" over their "products". What has changed? I assume you have just lost patience. Is it your stated role to lose patience with sincere efforts? What kind of message does that send to the browser development community? A message far worse than Netscape's lagging efforts, I fear.
Somehow you still believe that the reason for Microsoft's inability to make IE standards compliant has something to do with a lack of competition. I've read their posts in your mailing list. I know better. You do, too.
Standards have had nothing to do with Netscape's declining market share, and if you can show one statistic that says otherwise, I'd love to see it. The reason for Netscape's declining share is nothing more than Microsoft's monopoly control over the browser marketplace. I would venture that half of the "86%" of users who are using IE now have never even seen Netscape's browser. Remember, in the past two years, more and more people have come on the 'Net -- what's that percentage? half of the current Internet users? -- and the first and only application they use is IE. Even if some have made the effort to switch to Netscape, the fact remains that the integration of the IE browser into the Operating System has played more of a role in the decline in Netscape's market share than any "standards compliance" issue. To deny that is to take a myopic view of the browser wars.
The writer goes on to say, "Frankly, if we had known you could not deliver a stable, usable, standards-compliant browser in under two years, we would not have asked you to try."
Are we amazed yet? This is the same WSP that takes the credit for putting Netscape on its current course. This is the same WSP that actually has a few members (emphasis on "few") taking part in the development of Mozilla. This is the same WSP that could see every step of the progress of the browser from the opening of its source code.
It gets better. "But wasn't it your job to know whether or not you could pull this off before you pledged to do it? Estimating software delivery dates is notoriously tricky, we admit - but two whole years?"
Let's be clear. The WSP themselves has obviously underestimated the time required to produce a high quality, standards-compliant browser *suite* from scratch. (Why would Netscape produce just a Web browser and hope to compete? I'd love it if someone explained that logic to me.) The WSP underestimated what it would take to produce a browser that could run on any of the major platforms, with a limited number of developers. (Would a browser for just Windows have sufficed? Or just Mac and Windows? Are you planning on dictating the platforms Netscape should develop for, for expediency's sake?) You also didn't consider that Netscape would need true internationalization to be effective. You assumed too much. Now Netscape is paying the price for your assumptions. Shame on you, WSP.
The writer goes on, "Why are you taking forever to deliver a usable browser?"
Two years is forever in computer years, according to the piece. What has Microsoft delivered in those two years, I wonder? They reached version 4 and have coasted ever since, because they know the market is a lock. Oh, they've added plenty of proprietary features, but their CSS and DOM support is still as sketchy as in V4.
"And why," the anonymous writer continues, "if you are a company that believes in web standards, do you keep Navigator 4 on the market?"
What are they going to put in its place? A ham sandwich? There is still a significant percentage of users out there using Communicator (I'm one of them). I like bug fixes that fix security issues in the browser. That's what Netscape's point releases accomplish.
That said, the following might sound contradictory: The reason I use Communicator? Security. I cannot subject my system to running IE and Outlook. I have important data that I'm not willing to lose, and IE and Outlook are too much of a security risk. Standards be damned, if Microsoft continues to make a browser so wedded to the operating system that it puts the whole system at risk, I won't use it. There are others out in the ether who feel likewise. We should be able to have a browser that we can trust in the interim between the 4.x releases and the 6 release. To ask us to switch to Microsoft's insecure system is unrealistic. And what about Netscape's Linux users? You didn't seem to account for them.
"If you genuinely realized it would take two years to replace Netscape 4, we wish you would have told us. No market, let alone the Internet, can stand still that long. We would have told you as much."
Apparently the WSP would have told Netscape to give up. What else would you have suggested? Pushing out a non-compliant browser suite that's buggy? Turning back time and creating a product that follows your goals precisely - goals that obviously go beyond mere standards compliance?
Then, "The WaSP" rolls out a veiled threat. "...if it takes you another six months to pull this off, the world's first fully standards-compliant browser could be playing to an empty house. And the message such a failure would send is: 'Don't support standards if you want to stay in business.' If you send the world that message, you will have harmed the cause you meant to help."
Astounding. Netscape, for all its efforts to make a standards compliant browser, is now harming the cause more than it helps. The herculean effort that these developers have put into this product is now all in vain, and the WSP has turned on the countdown clock to Netscape's demise.
"Those who look more closely will realize that software development issues, not W3C standards, are to blame for the endless delays. But who looks closely in this environment? On the web, people click, scan, and go somewhere else. The perception that standards are somehow to blame is enough to cause harm."
The same people who click, scan, and go somewhere else... how exactly will they get the impression that "standards" are to blame? This mass of anonymous users that you have fashioned doesn't seem to have the wits to grasp that.
Finally, the clincher. "For the good of the web, it is time to withdraw Navigator 4 from the market, whether Netscape 6 is ready or not," says "The WaSP".
When IE supports CSS and the DOM, then Netscape should chuck NN4. Not one second before. Microsoft is just as much to blame for the standards problems the WSP is facing (and you know it), and to expect Netscape to cut their one tie to their customer base is wrongheaded and arrogant. And to ask them to do so based on the faulty logic and assumptions expressed in your piece!!!
"If you fail now, the web will essentially belong to a single company."
Don't you know, WSP? It already does. And let's make this very clear: Microsoft is wholly to blame for the possibility of a single company dominating the browser industry and the standards process. From turning the browser into a revenue-less commodity, to bundling the browser with every Windows OS shipped, Microsoft has turn after turn made competition and progress near impossible. And they have done it in the name of "customer benefit" -- the same line they've been feeding you in your mailing list as the reason why IE is not standards compliant. Do you really think that Netscape producing a standards compliant browser would make one iota of difference in the market? Even according to your piece, the masses don't know standards compliance from a hole in the ground.
Until Microsoft is forced to unbundle IE from the Operating System, and computer makers are allowed to bundle Netscape as they see fit, the desktop browser market will only get more lopsided. Even after Netscape 6 is released. Want to place a wager?
"And for once, nobody will be able to blame them for 'competing unfairly.'" Apparently because Microsoft will have no competition.
What is the impetus behind this diatribe? I suspect that the WSP has been getting criticism recently for chastising Microsoft and not Netscape. Was this piece written to even the balance a bit? It is so lacking in evenhandedness and logic that one assumes that you (the WSP) are attempting to cover up your impotence in affecting change in the browser market by placing the full onus for the problem on Netscape. The only real success story that the WSP has claimed is Netscape's shift towards a new browser and standards compliance. One would think you'd be unwilling to dismantle -- to deconstruct -- such a victory with your management opinions about time-to-market.
The WSP has taken exactly the wrong attitude. Instead of heaping scorn on Netscape (and, by association, the Mozilla effort), you should be supporting -- nay, advocating -- the standards compliance that Mozilla and Netscape 6 will bring to the market. You should be advocating for Mozilla's standards goals that you so quickly took credit for a year and a half ago.
You should be encouraging the work of the many developers who are fighting an uphill battle against a monopolist. You should be encouraging the WSP members who are putting a serious effort into the Netscape and Mozilla product.
The WSP so easily turned its back on Netscape and the Mozilla effort. Do you know what your goals really are?
Got a response? TalkBack!
I agree with eveything you say but you made a mistake in calling it Free as in speech. The NPL is not a Free software license.
We are consumers.
sig this
Most of the sites developing microsofty crap are ones that I dont wana visit - mostly ecommerce and intranet stuff. Somehow I doubt that my interest areas (free software, geeky artistic development) are going to be taken over by microsoft only development.
You just have to laugh at this! Sure they won't touch your precious geeky sites, but for most of the world, "e-commerce and intranet stuff" are the only web sites that matter. Your argument is a perfect example of winning a meaningless battle and losing the war. Unfortunately, I expect this one's already lost. Microsoft is quite likely to have a usable standards-based browser before Netscape/Mozilla, since their enterprise customers *are* asking them to comply with standards.
I hate IE with a passion, and I resent like hell the way MS rammed it down our throats (I had to manage introducing the pile of crap when I was at Dell), but even I am starting to question whether each progressively more unstable release of Netscape is able to meet my browsing needs. If IE had support for a reasonable bookmark managment system and could use roaming profiles like Netscape (without a local AD server), I'd have a hard time finding any reason not to switch.
We've lost this one, folks. Microsoft controls the only UI that matters and is likely to continue doing so for the next several years. This does not bode well for the embedded Linux devices crowd, most of whom will need a small, fast, reliable browser compatible with it's larger desktop cousin. I'm afraid the browser issue may ultimately be the wedge that allows CE to triumph in this critical space as well. If that happens, it's "game over, man!"
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Why did you use Javascript for the redirects anyhow? I know it's Netscape and all, but from the comments of people who turn off Javascript to avoid pr0n redirects and popups, it's not going to work for quite a few people... although most people have no reason to turn it off. Why didn't you check the browser version on the server and dump the right code accordingly that way?
Or is that the way Microsoft's site does it? *grin*
galeon is an example of what a browser can be.
Sure it doesn't have a nice UI, but the thing is fast. It uses gecko engine and moz-embed whatever widget.
It works for god's sake. And I am sure with 3 UI designers we could get a working, standar compliant browser in no time.
Then my question is what the heck those people are actually doing? These questions beg some answer.
I can't believe they are unable to release a browser at that point in time. Look at Galeon, it works.
Modern mozilla UI sucks big time. Damn, I won't even go into the mail/news client love of huge bloat.
I could decode my mail if saved in assembly faster that it could show me those same messages.
I seriously think someone has to step in, take the open source components, write a UI in a couple of days and make a damn release.
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
That M$ are incapable of understanding the major.minor version number concept? They have roughly fortnightly bug fixes, and a major update (5.5) and they all show up the same. Why is this an advantage?
Not that I don't agree with you: IE is a better browser than NN4 (on the limited number of platforms it runs on).
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
icab. Trust me.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Is it just me or does the webstandards.org website look horrible? I looked at it with Netscape, Mozilla M16, Amaya, and Internet Explorer.
The diatribes in the source for the homepage are funny too. They whine about all these work-arounds they had to do and yet they produce and ugly site. Here is a suggestion: drop the fancy layout, stick to simple standards, and use no work arounds. If you do that odds are that your site will look good on any browser.
from the rabid "response" to the letter written by the folks at Mozillazine, it looks to me like they're taking the same high road that has made many companies (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) lose out on the innovation that smaller more agile companies (*cough* pre 4.0 Netscape *cough*) were able to come up with.
Come on guys! Take the advice from the WSP... although I'm sure it's not as bad as they say, they are right... You've definately lost the boat, and if you keep up the same rhetoric, the plot as well.
- grish
Now, lets see. I am president of a company that is making a product that has been making a lot of money, and now I can't make any more money on it because my competition with an unlimited warchest is giving it away. Should I
- Throw lots of money down the toilet on the browser because I know I won't be able to make any money on it.
- Switch my focus to the currently profitable Portal and Server business.
That is why IE became such a better browser, because Netscape could not justify spending the half billion dollars on development and promotion of their browser when sales of the browser had been cut off as a revenue stream. Can't blame them, really.Yes indeed, websites are always being redesigned and the ones that are not are unlikely to be doing any crazy dynamic html stuff anyhow. As an example, many people, myself included, do not often update their home pages. Then again, there is little more than standard html in those pages either. You make an outstanding point. I hope someone will moderate it up a bit...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
It is over, Netscape and their sad developers should stop whining and accept the fate that has been assigned to them. IE will / does own the browser market. That is unlikely to change do to any efforts by the Mozilla / Netscape teams.
Open-source parasites really tick me off. If you want it fixed, do it. If you don't know how, learn. And if you can't or won't do either of the above, then how exactly are you qualified to say what is good development practice?
I would think that the continued existence of NN 4.X would be the consumers fault. Not NN Inc. Or is netscape promoting 4.X in ways I am unaware of?
-----
If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
"Chrome/skins" are merely a side effect from deciding to use the rendering engine to render the UI.
The choices the Mozilla project faced were:
1) Write three front ends
2) Make Mozilla dependent on a non-free toolkit, creating a financial barrier to contributing
3) Base Mozilla on the 1.x-4.x codebase
4) Write a new XP toolkit with three local implementations.
5) Render the UI with Gecko.
What choice would you have made?
Steven E. Ehrbar
I agree that you use the best tool for the best job. And I feel that mozilla is the best web browser available. For me this isn't about standards support, its about features. With Moz I can get:
MapQuest maps from the sidebar, or any of several other apps just from two clicks. The extensible nature of mozilla allows many powerful things to be done with the sidebar. Its like having a mini-app inside your browser.
More control over my browsing experience through cookie managment and image managment (no banners).
Full NS4.x plugin compatability. Yes it works even now. Today and installed and used the flash plugin. It works well.
I feel that the disadvantages of the minor instabilities that occur from time to time (up till today's builds everything was very smooth) are very minor compared to the configurability I get from mozilla. I started on mozilla due to its standards support. I've stayed with mozilla because it is a fast, powerful web browser, among other things.
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
What color is the sky in your world? Since when does the average user care a lick about standard adherence? All the drooling masses care about is having a browser that displays all their wacky animations, graphics and other garbage, and they most certainly don't care how it gets to that point.
Considering the market share that IE currently has, NS6 is going to be climbing a very steep hill to get anywhere near drawing even, nevermind pulling ahead again. To stretch even further, it may not matter anyway, since the whole concept of a web browser may be worthless in two years no matter who's winning.
NerdPerfect.com : breakfast of champions.
let's not forget that netscape was under the gun from Micro$oft. It is a traumatic experience to become a target and have to be purchased. Alot of times it takes a company a while to adjust to a new corporate structure and get back some of the talent that jumped ship through the whole thing.
kick some CAD
What are you talking about? It works perfctly to type "text-decoration: none;" in n6 for me.
CSS level 1 became an approved standard in 1996.
HTML 4.0 was approved April 1998.
It's July 2000.
- My password is slashdot
Thanks, I'll do that....
*sets course for moz.org*
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
I've been following the Mozilla milestones and I seriously doubt that a stable Mozilla will be produced by the end of the year. The Gecko rendering engine has been rendering pretty-good HTML for at least *one year*. From what I can see, the problem is not the underlying HTML rendering technology, it is the application environment built around the technology.
For instance, chrome/skins are a nice idea in theory. But they're butt-slow in practice. I cannot believe the people who claim they use Mozilla daily. Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap. window.open() is not implemented, for example.
I write software for a living. I'm sorry that the Mozilla developers are way behind schedule. I've been on projects like that too, and they're no fun. Also, open sourcing Mozilla was a great thing, no doubt. But I can't let my empathy for the Mozilla team, and my respect for Netscape's bold move, cloud the fact that the end product is terrible.
The current state of Mozilla/Netscape is of NO surprise. Amazon owns Netscape. Amazon bought Netscape to make money. Browsers are free (as in beer). AOL presently licenses MS Explorer as its "AOL Browser". It already has a measurable 'asset' in the present license. They W I L L N O T be interested in shipping a 'final product' until the MS deal is finished. I recognize that independent OpenSource hackers dont share the POV of AOL, but it is Netscape (AOL) that is driving the timing of the project.
Free==No Revenue.
No Revenue==No Interest by AOL.
AOL has exhibited their unwavering dedication to _MAKING MONEY_. They dont care about OpenSource or the need for a compliant browser. That is very naive.
Most IE-specific code is easily tweaked to become standards-compliant, and hence usable in Mozilla.
If Mozilla goes down the road of emulating IE's quirks (e.g. document.all), no-one will bother fixing their code and you've basically ceded control of standards to Microsoft. That's a world that no-one wants to live in, whether you like Mozilla or not.
If JavaScript is disabled or not available, a page comes up which allows the user to pick which tree to use.
I don't know if IIS can do that or not, and I wouldn't know how to set it up if it did. (We don't run the server ourselves; it's run by a local ISP. I had the site running on my personal server (which uses Apache) for testing purposes, but any server-side stuff done under Apache would more than likely not work too well under IIS. :-) Just getting the JavaScript code to work under Netscrape was hassle enough (had an HTML "-->" end-comment mark on a line by itself at the end, but Netscrape wouldn't run unless that mark was escaped by Java's "//" comment mark). If it were up to me, I would've said "screw the Netscrape users; they can get a browser that works," but that wouldn't have gone over too well with the boss. (For some inexplicable reason, he thinks Netscrape's the best thing since sliced bread.) For that matter, I've never even done much web-related scripting of any kind, and wouldn't have done this little bit if it could've been avoided. (The script was cribbed from some JavaScript info sites; I had never done anything with JavaScript before, but figured it's as close to cross-platform as anything else.)
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
There are several HTML 4 quoting entities - the <q> tag, which is supposed to produce localisation-correct quoting behaviour (eg, typographic quotes, guillemot, etc). There are also explicit quote entities, such as “, which is supposed to produce a left double quote, and similar for the various national quoting standards.
Back when all I knew was the DOS/Windows way of doing things, if it "looked good at the latest IE," that was good enough for me.
When I started experimenting with other platforms and operating systems, I saw what a mess things were. Don't get me wrong, to this day, I think IE is the better browser, but what it wrought is just horrible.
At about the same time, I started to see how the "other" browsers saw the Internet: Opera, older versions of IE and Netscape, lynx, and even OS/2 Web Explorer. What I found was, with just minor modifications to the code, a site can become very friendly to those with less than "MS standards" browsers. I rapidly became impressed how a lot of browsers, while not feature laden, followed the HTML model really well and could water down whatever you threw at them.
I have qualms with Netscape's CSS implementation but probably more with Opera 3.x. I discovered a box property bug in Opera that to this day is unmatched by Netscape. Opera has, however, signifigantly improved their product in the meantime. Netscape hasn't.
Getting back on topic, however, in regards to the troll, he, like a lot of people, think that building a friendly "somewhat" standards compliant site is a long and almost impossible task. This is a misconception, and the Internet is built around bad HTML and most browsers know this. To be accessable, you don't have to follow the HTML standard rigorously; in fact, there's only a few minor things that can really help, like alt tags and proper tag completion. A lot of this "standards" stuff can be done automatically by an HTML parser/correcter like W3C's HTMLtidy. More on this practice of making sites accessable can be found at the Any Browser site.
I swear to god with 3 programmers and 3 months of time I could come up with a standards compliant browser that kicked the crap out of IE (standard's-wise that is) and was comparable on UI. (IE is pretty nice).
... and I could do it myself in a month... except for the fact that 80% of the web pages out there just use plain old incorrect HTML, so you have to work around those. People aren't going to use your browser if it won't display 80% of the pages on the web, even if it is the page's fault and not your browser's. And dealing with those pages is just a fucking pain in the ass. The Mozilla team has done a great job, all things considered. And since it's available as a GTK+ widget, you can create a small wrapper around it so you get the good HTML rendering engine without the bloat.
--
So Netscape didn't live up to THEIR expectations. So what! Mozilla is now an open-source project, and basically chose to start from scratch instead of trying to push the mess that was the netscape code forward. Engineering takes time!
Further, this project is done completely in the open (in more ways that one..) and everyone can see it at any given time during it's development warts and all. This is just one more article taking pot-shots at the project. As I recall, it was the Press that claimed it as the darling child of the open-source world... not the open-source community itself. All the while, the Mozilla project marches on. It IS getting more stable, and I'd expect it to be ready for prime-time shortly.
I REALLY don't care what these guys said.. seems just a bunch of whining to me.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
The Mozilla project sounds great to start -- open source, new layout engine, etc. The problem is that they added way too many features.
In modern programming, a new methodology has arisen which allows for very fast-to-market products. All of the mozilla people should check out ' extreme programming '.
The basic idea is to get a product out with the minimum feature set as early as possible so users get a chance to use it and give feedback. For mozilla: drop newsgroups (crappy newsreader anyway), drop IM (add it later), drop HTML editing, drop EVERYTHING except the browser!
I am forced to use the only usable browser on my system: IE5 for Mac. NetScape/Mozilla is an abomination.
I swear to god with 3 programmers and 3 months of time I could come up with a standards compliant browser that kicked the crap out of IE (standard's-wise that is) and was comparable on UI. (IE is pretty nice). But I would concentrate on the browser, not on the other crap like news, editing, or even skins.
It seems that Mozilla bit into this whole bit about a few techno-weenies (sorry /. readers) that think skins are necessary because they haven't figured out any other way to express their distinctness in a faceless online world. For most of the world, they can care less about skins -- they want a browser that WORKS!
They need to FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS! on a browser. Extreme programming lives!
You don't need to wait for the final version. Some of the intermediate M17 builds are already pretty good. I expect that when M17 becomes final I'll switch to making Mozilla my permanent browser.
OTOH, I'll certainly agree the M16 was missing a few pieces that I think necessary. Esp. in the area of mail/newsgroup filter handling. M17 has been improving that lots (though it was thoroughly broken the last time I checked, so YMWV)...it depends on which release you get. Try tonights (I expect to).
If you just say "it's not a finished product" then you don't understand the process. You need to either try it and say what bugs you found, or be precise as to what makes the current version unuseable. Or wait a week and try again. Or have a bit of patience. And if none of those are suitable, then I guess you really should be using Internet Explorer. It's actually pretty good. Just a bit heavy for my taste, and a bit skimpy on security, but it's your dollar(s).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I just ran this in QB4.5, what am I looking at?
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
The question remains, how can Netscape revive itself? They must release a new, standards-compliant and bug-free browser. And it must be better than Internet Explorer. Sounds absurdly simple, but why haven't they done it yet? What's going on over there? Netscape needs a good kick in the ass, and hopefully this letter will be the one to get them moving.
This is a really stupid comment. Bear with me, I'm just starting out... :)
It's much more easily done than you think.
It's easier said "it's easier said than done" than done.
Winamp. What data format does it use? MP3. An open standard (more or less).
Netscape/Mozilla. Data formats and protocols used? Based on open standards.
AIM and ICQ. Protocols used? Proprietary. Oops. But the protocols are either documented, commonly reverse engineered, or a backdoor to the service has been provided. And AOL has been shamed in to agreeing to an "open standard" messaging protocol. We'll see if this improves.
So sure... AOL is pushing its brand out there. But, unlike much of Microsoft's offerings, AOL is ultimately backing open standards. And creating a default customer base who wants open standards helps the community.
Now does Joe User really know what these open standards are? Most likely not. Too technical. Joe User just wants things to work. Of course, unknown to Joe User, open standards helps make sure things work. Everywhere.
And things will continue to work whether they stay with AOL's offerings or not.
And there's where AOL's new strategy suddenly stands apart from Microsoft's.
The idea that Netscape/AOL "isn't really trying" with Mozilla is ludicrous, and insulting to all the developers and contributors. You don't have to look very hard at www.mozilla.org and bugzilla.mozilla.org to see that the developers are busting their guts over this.
Right on, People are holding onto Mozilla for dear life. Why dont we have a browser yet? Oh well you can write an arcade game emulator in the new platform we have developed *CHOKE* and how does this help your browsers market share? JUST HOW!?!#@$?!#?$. *sigh* Back to cross browser code.. IE is going to leave Mozilla in the dust. Sadly because neither browser has a compliant DOM and never will IMO.
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
WOW!
Just when i was getting bummed about Mozilla, you show me this. This is quite simply the slickest integration of web and command line functionality I've ever seen. Moderate up Babar's post, and check out xmlterm.com. I'm not easily impressed, but the potential for this sort of integration is staggering. Maybe Mozilla isn't dead - but I sure wish they'd get it finished.
The Mozilla team just bought themselves another couple of months with me - maybe this thing is embeddable enough to make a difference...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Okay, before I get pissed because you are a flaming dolt just like everyone else consider these facts:
1. Loads of websites turn of underlined links now
2. You can turn off style sheets.
3. Ever think some of us wish the whole web had no underlined text save that of for citing works? Links are a different color, ya can pick em out without underlines, and quite frankly, I have such awful vision, that even with glasses, underlined text is a bear on my eyes.
What it really boils down to is personal choice, you like em, I can barely read them, and I refuse to crank up my font when I can see the rest of the page just fine.
get over it, your not perfect.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
The WSP is right. As a Web developer, I am sick & tired of the unfulfilled promises of Mozilla. It is very obvious that Microsoft felt that they could ignore a lot of standards for IE 5.5 becuase there is no credible alternative to IE on Windows.
The situation is different on the Mac, where Netscape still has a large user population. As a result, Microsoft chose a different strategy, making IE more standards compliant than Netscape.
As an aside, the WSP is being too myopic in focusing entirely on PC-based Web browsers. There is a whole raft of non-PC based Web browsers that are also throwing standards to the wind.
There is a new project that has been spawned: Konqeror. I definitely agree with your contention that there has been some complacency on the browser front. However, the KDE teams's goal is complete standards compliance, including HTML 4.0, Java, CSS, etc.
You may or may not be a KDE fan, but Konqeror looks to be a really excellent application. And being open-source, conceivably GNOME (or any other WM/DE project) could use the engine for their own browser product.
It's getting down to the wire, what with IE having such a dominant market position, but given that Mozilla, Konqeror and Opera should all come out about the same time, we may yet have a standards-compliant web.
Here's to hoping so......
Cheers..................
I can't wait for another browser. I downgraded from 3.x to 4.WhateverTheFlavourIsThisWeek,
and now it's a good day if the thing only crashes once. Jesus, people, FIX THE GODDAMN THING! It's bad enough Mozilla is two years late, at least the intermediate releases should also work! To hell with it, I've suffered enough with this hunk of junk, time for another browser, even if it's from Seattle Quality Software.
Die, Netscape, die. Nobody likes you.
Francois.
The worst part of the delays in a final release of Mozilla/NS6 is that NS4 is so horribly outdated, so horribly unstable, that users are forced to choose an alternative.
Opera won't ever succeed in taking more than a small niche of the market, simply because they want money for their browser.
The only other realistic choice is IE. IE might not be standards compliant, but users don't care.
Mozilla/Netscape is going to have a hell of a time trying to rebuild their market share at this point in the game. Netscape fell from glory while the web was still relatively young. There wasn't much legacy code out there, so switching to a Microsoft-centric web was easy. Now, many web applications are written to Microsoft's browser, many webpages are written to render in Microsoft's browser, and many companies have switched to IE as their standard platform.
Will AOL use Netscape 6 as the browser in the next version of the AOL software? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends how much of the web is incompatible with NS6 by the time it finally reaches release.
A better strategy for the Mozilla team would have been to write an IE-compatible browser, instead of a standards-compatible browser. There's just as much documentation, and there's a reference platform to compare against. The standards are quickly become irrelevant, and by the time Mozilla/NS6 makes it out the door, they may have been completely forgotten by the webmasters-at-large. At least if Mozilla was IE-compliant, they'd still be able to compete.
I know I'm sacrificing my karma to make that statement, as the prevaling attitude around here seems to be "if you make it standards-compliant, they will come", but in reality, that's not the case. "If you make it do what the users want, they will come."
NO CARRIER
You're partly right --- MS have already released "Pocket Explorer".
There are two main advantages for Mozilla:
-- It's portable. Already runs on lots of different platforms with lots of different UI toolkits. This makes it much easier to make another port.
-- It's free. If you adopt it for your device, you don't have to worry that you're putting Microsoft's (or anyone else's) noose around your neck.
My car, cell phone, modem and television all have to be certified as being standards compliant before I can use them to access public infrastructures. As a licensed amateur radio operator, I can build my own transmitting and receiving equipment to communicate on the ham bands. Any commercially produced transmitters--or even receivers--I use to access the public airwaves, however, must be type accepted by the FCC. There is no more public infrastructure than the internet. Why not petition the International Telecommunications Union to likewise require that commercially sold web browsers be minimally standards compliant? The rulemaking would be subject to the force of law by all existing ITU signatory nations, which is the entire world. "Innovation" would not be impeded, as commercial vendors could add whatever proprietary extensions they want, as long as their browsers were certified as standards compliant. Like ham radio operators, developers could do anything they want with browser code, but commercially sold products would have to be certified.
The IETF is generally considered the definitive standards body for all the various internet-related protocols. They have a strictly enforced rule over in the IETF, which I think the W3C would do well to pick up. The rule is: no protocol described in any RFC can be anointed an internet standard unless at least two independent interoperable implementations exist.
The result is that the IETF has surprisingly few internet standards (even HTTP for example is only a "Proposed standard"), but the few that they do have (SMTP, FTP, TCP, IP, among others) work very well.
Publishing a standard that has no existing implementations is an invitation for embrace-and-extend abuse. Yet the W3C has done exactly that repeatedly with their various versions of HTML 3.x, 4.x, and CSS. Even to this day, no browsers on the market have 100% HTML4+CSS2 support. Those who don't know any better wonder why HTML standards support is such a mess. I wonder why the HTML standards effort hasn't yet collapsed completely in the face of such inane stewardship.
The IETF through their public decisions processes and their wise management of the existing body of RFCs has earned my trust as an internet user. I have no such trust in the W3C. Who gave the W3C the right to publish HTML standards on behalf of the community anyway?
I don't know... I consider myself pretty objective in the matter as I've traditionally been something of a Netscape fan but recently switched over to using IE after finding it much more stable, fast and usable. I still use Netscape Communicator for email and newsgroups but the browser just isn't comparable to IE anymore. I will use whichever product is better and I don't look at the MS vs. Netscape thing as politically as lots of other people seem to do.
Seeing WASP blast both Microsoft, Netscape and Mozilla, I'm beginning to wonder how realistic they are. Microsoft has always justified their non-100%-compliance with schedules. "We have to release software and most people don't care if we have a 100% perfect CSS-3 float model.". Mozilla has been trying to get it right for two years now. They have a beta 1 but quite frankly it looks more like an alpha. In the past two years, new standards have emerged and many of the old ones that Mozilla promised to support are more or less obsolete. It seems the standards bodies, as slow as they are, are still much faster in coming up with new standards than the software companies & entities are in implementing them.
The WASP asks ("demands" is more like it) Netscape to pull NS4 off the market. How the hell do you pull a browser off the market? Netscape still allows you to download NS2 and 3 from their web and ftp sites! A billion software libraries around the world has NS4 available for download. It's not like a lot of (new) people download NS4 today anyway. For good or bad, most new people on the net just use whatever came with the machine; IE4 or IE5. I see this as another sign of how unrealistic WASP is.
Anyone can wave a flag and say "do the right thing! support standards!" but when it comes down to implementation, it takes lots of coders, lots of money and lots of time. If 99% of the world couldn't care less about the last 10% of the standards being supported, the software companies won't go that last 10% if it means that it will cost a lot more and take lots more time to get the software out the door. It's that simple..
Web developers will always write for the least common denominator. Today, it more or less means "whatever NS4 and IE4 supports half-decently". That's a lot better than it was two years ago. With NS6 and IE5.5, two years from now, the least common denominator will have taken a couple more steps into the right direction.
I for one think that the WASP should have a reality check...
Due to the various agreements Netscape signed to get code from outside sources, the code they released in 1998 wasn't even compilable (they couldn't release everything in there).
Even if it were all there, it's pure spaghetti (with bits dating back to NS2 or older) and not worth trying to fix.
You're all probably under 20 and like playing those online games and such so you have to use MS-Windows. When you buy a Windows system it comes with IE preloaded. IE libs get preloaded at bootup so it will start faster. Probably most of the sites you visit have flash animations and other such flashy noisy things (the kids love loud noises and bright colors). Because of these things you perceive some huge technological lag in Netscape browsers. Much of the non-Windows world uses the web quite differently and is quite happy with Netcape 4, kfm, or one of the dozen or so alternative browsers. For the life of me I can't see the problem: I'm using Netscape 3.0 with java turned off. Probably 1 out of 100 sites I visit asks for a plugin (usually flash). I don't return to those sites.
From a developer perspective yes it is frustrating supporting special features - but only if your web site is doing silly non cross-platform dhtml. Just do W3C compliant pages a bit of Java and CGI and forget about it. No one should be doing IE only Active/X crap on public pages anyway - that is intranet stuff.
No site with any substantive important information will be "incompatible". A site with flash animations and jscript out the wazoo is probably pretty superficial and will rapidly become dated.
Yahoo has the most useful information available and is viewable (and listenable in a screen reader) in a plain text browser. FlashGamerzRulez.com (or whatever) is *always* going to be incompatible. And in 4 months time will likely be irrelevant.
Some people in here need to get away from all the spinning flashing bright colors and neato music and think about what is important in a public network. The web is an information system not a game that needs upgrading every 6 months.
If you can't read it in Lynx, it's not a website. (Well, almost. I guess the tables could be better, but... well, you know.)
aol bought netscape. aol ships ie. so obviously aol has dealings with microsoft. regarding browsers.
so microsoft supplies the browser for the company that owns netscape, and that company fails to compete with microsoft.
except over instant messaging.
on another topic: you can warn yourself with AIM, thus eventually blocking yourself from using it. brilliant.
Correct my ignorance, but please don't do so flamingly.
Is Netscape open source, or is that Mozilla I'm thinking of? I've never been clear on the relationship between the two.
Also, if Netscape is open-source, how can this be happening? Is it because all the code was built onto the Mosaic engine? If so, can similar complaints be leveled at MSIEx.y for the same reason?
Remember, points for decorum and tact.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
I think this is more appropriate.
Another Haiku for Netscape:
you brightened the web
then failed to keep up with it
slip into the night
load "linux",8,1
As a developer, I would rather Netscape die completely than linger in it's current state. If Netscape wants to continue to live, it needs to get up to speed very quickly. Not that IE is a great solution by any means, but currently it's much easier to develop for than Netscape.
A Haiku for Netscape:
Die a painful death
May IE devour you alive
You are a failure
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Good lord I get tired of this argument.
I'm not a programmer (well, some perl, but..). I do sysadmin and support work.
What possible contribution can I make to Mozilla?
I can't. I can, however, point out what's lacking in the project from my point of view.
Do you ever criticize movies or books or music?
If you're so interested, you better be diving in and making your own!
-LjM
Granted, there have been several projects... but virtually nobody uses them (and thus you have a lack of coders/testers) because they can cop out and use Netscape instead.
In the IE/NS religious war, I have always sided with Netscape (hey, I was an original Mosaic user), but if they (Netscape/Mozilla.org) aren't going to do the job right, then the community needs to step up in its own defense and spawn a new project.
11*43+456^2
WinAmp was forgiven for its user interface vagaries because it was able to rely on every user having had previous experience with another UI that fit its function: rack-mount stereo equipment.
Mozilla, on the other hand, tries to rewrite the rulebook, fails miserably, and will die as a result unless someone wraps a proper UI around it.
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
What version of the MacOS are you using?
While I do have some problams with Netscape 4.7* I haven't had it take the OS down once sence upgrading to OS 9.04 (I would take down OS 9 daily but so would Finder). When Netscape craps out on me it just quits. I don't think this is Netscapes doing though. OS 9.04 is much more stable then earlier ones.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
Every single flaw in the Mozilla project can be blamed on Jamie Zawinski (JWZ). In fact, JWZ is actually a shill, secretly paid by Microsoft to sabotage the Mozilla effort.
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Remaining standards compliant and hoping webapp developers will see "correct" as "better" is just taking the moral high road. That's not the best strategy when dealing with Microsoft ([sarcasm]which has no morals and is, in fact, purely evil[/sarcasm]). Mozilla, despite being an Open Source project, is still Netscape's next flagship and ought to be designed to compete.
Evil will win because good is dumb. --Dark Helmet, SpaceBalls: The Movie
--Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
You think Netscape avoids bloated sites???? No way. With a non CSS compliant browser like netscape, you have to fill your pages with font tags and table formatting and other clutter, wheras a CSS compliant browser can take all this info from a single linked stylesheet. I realize that IE is not 100% compliant (on the PC anyway), but it is leaps and bounds ahead of netscape4.x!
It IS a free software licence. Don't get me wrong, it is not the best licence by any means, but it is free.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/licen se-list.html
"The Mozilla Public License (MPL).
This is a free software license which is not a strong copyleft; unlike the X11 license, it has some complex restrictions that make it incompatible with the GNU GPL. That is, a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the MPL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the MPL for this reason."
Mozilla provides a good FAQ on why things have to be the way they do (they are contracturally obligated).
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/FAQ.html
Isn't compuserve the largest isp now?
-Reid
You haven't tried symlinking the relevant file in your user profile on Linux to the corresponding file on Windows? I use this to keep my mailboxes synched between Win'98 and Linux (on Netscape 4.7).
Alternatively, you could use a script to update this every time you start/stop netscape or something...
Wait! There it is...under cannot_code_must_bitch.
... when you can use it to play games instead?
Nobody wants to hear facts . They are boring. And they upset.
Anil Bhattacharji , anilbhx@sancharnet.in, Meerut Cantt. INDIA 91-121-642166
Folks, the browser wars are not over. Microsoft may be the leader now, but once Mozilla is complete (only a few more months to go!) then things are going to change. Sure lots of avid Windows Netscape fans will rejoice with the newe browser, and sure a lot of Mac fans will use it, and you can be certain that a lot of the Unix crowd will be afire. But what's the real reason Mozilla is going to save the web from being dominated by Microsoft?
2 things actually: embedded apps, and AOL.
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were designing a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
But the real story here is AOL - they are the largest ISP in the world. They bought Netscape for a reason; they wanted to have the best browser available for their customers, without having to be tied to another vendor (who is a competitor, even!). When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
And Mozilla will have saved us all.
AOL doesn't care. They're probably going to keep doing what they are, if they think it has a chance at all of biting into MS's current domination. Personally I think it's time to just admit MS the winner of the browser wars, let netscape finally fucking die already, and get on with our lives. For the *nix users; simply reverse implement the IE-specific features into Konqueror and start from scratch on getting our own web-bells&whistles in there. It's about time there was something (decent-don't tell me about lynx or arena) to use other than the heckle&jeckle of the web browsing world.
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
-Jaron Lanier
Steve Gibson, author of SpinRite, OptOut, and the ShieldsUp! web site, sent out a security alert last Saturday which said,
"I verified the rumors... regarding [AOL]. [Some of their] programs immediately tag your computer with a unique ID, after which EVERY SINGLE FILE you download from ANYWHERE on the Internet... is immediately reported back to AOL where it is logged and recorded along with your machine's unique ID...
"This information is then compiled and used to create a detailed 'profile' about who you are based upon the web sites you visit and the files you have downloaded.
"Perhaps you don't mind being watched and tracked as you move around the Internet
"More than 14 Million people are already using the original NetZip Download Demon. NetZip knows the exact number, since every copy of their program [reports] what their users are doing! [This affects everyone who uses] Real Network's RealDownload and Netscape's SmartDownload... [which use the NetZip software].
"A Class Action lawsuit was recently filed against Netscape/AOL because of this privacy invasion, so perhaps the PC industry will begin to receive the message that this sort of secret spying and profiling is not okay with the rest of us, even if it is buried within a lengthy license agreement."
See the full technical story at http://grc.com/downloaders.htm
Fred Langa commented about this story:
"This is so wrong it's beyond words. Alas, it's also very, very typical of AOL's abusive approach to end-users; seeing them only as passive targets for advertising."
Fred Langa's articles appear in several industry magazines, including WinMag.com. (http://www.winmag.com/columns/default.htm)
This invasion of privacy is a very big issue for me personally. I will immediately delete all copies of Netscape and Real Player from my customer's computers.
(Futurepower is a trademark.)
Chris Nelson's immature reply to the WSP critique is par for the course for MozillaZine. Their articles over the past year have been a mix of (a) lame-brained advocacy a la Slashdot plus (b) knee-jerk propaganda for the bright and shining future of Mozilla against running dog MS-lackeys like jwz and WSP. Unbelievable.
I'm thinking Mozilla is in year 2 of a 5-year plan, much like Mao's Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s-60s. Everyone knows how that turned out for China.
Lansdowne
Netscape on Linux still hasn't completely solved problem with asynchronous DNS lookups.
The browser is Part of the OS? Man I *hate* IE as my shell. Big difference here is that you can choose or not to have xml all over.
What possible contribution can I make to Mozilla?
Loads - check out The QA Help Page or The BugAThon.
Gerv
1) The Mozilla project will not stop working on Composer, Mail/News, XUL, the application framework etc. because releasing a product with less functionality than NS 4.x would be a disaster, and they aren't going to rearchitect the whole thing now. If you don't like it, don't whinge - use Galeon.
2) Everyone involved with Mozilla is busting their butt to get Netscape Beta 2 out of the door. They are not sitting around saying "AOL told me to stop working this month."
3) The fact that outside contributors have contributed IRC clients and games written on Mozilla is a demonstration of its power, and people having fun, not an indication of a lack of focus.
4) Don't moan about standards compliance without quoting Bugzilla bug numbers.
5) Mozilla is currently big and slow because it's full of debugging code and no performance or footprint optimisations have been done yet. They will happen, almost full-time, after Netscape Beta 2.
6) There is a 4.x-lookalike UI in the nightly builds. Don't moan about the default skin - it's for testing purposes.
7) Make no comments about NS 6 Pre 1. By Mozilla standards, it's ancient.
8) We all know Netscape 4 sucks. IE 5 is better than it. You can stop making this point. The code is currently in "security bug fix only" mode because all the developers are working on Mozilla.
9) If you want to do something constructive but aren't a ninja coder, check out The QA Help page.
Gerv
Netscape's business plan from the beginning was that giving away standards compliant client software was the best advertising possible for their server software. They never intended to make any significant money from client sales, but their evangalism of "standards" made them a very popular corporate vendor for a while.
They declared war on Microsoft publically, and Microsoft publically declared war back. They knew that the browser war was coming. So what do you do:
1) Continue to make great, standards compliant software, so that you can maintain your mindshare advantage over Microsoft and continue to sell server products.
2) Extend your 'open standards' client with a load of completely proprietary extentions, plus a bunch of bloat that only works with your server software. On top of that, make it so that it doesn't even work properly.
Netscape chose #2, for whatever reason. Their browser market share declined, and took with it their momentum in the server market. (Everyone knew that the "portal" was nothing more than people too lazy to change their home page, so those eyeballs are looking at www.msn.com now.)
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I really don't understand what everyone has against Mozilla. Its quite obvious that no one has bothered to try any of the nightlies since M12.
/. community seems to have the bad habit of jumping to conclusion without checking the facts first. M12 was buggy, yes, but don't base your opinion of the upcoming M17 on a 6 month old build.
The M17 nightlies are quick, fairly stable (haven't had a crash yet on last nights), and with the Classic chrome (which is now bundled WITH it), even the UI is responsive.
Before any of you criticize Mozilla again, try the thing. It just might surprise a lot of you.
(And yes, Iv used last night's nightly on Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as OpenBSD and Solaris.)
The
That is why IE became such a better browser, because Netscape could not justify spending the half billion dollars on development and promotion of their browser when sales of the browser had been cut off as a revenue stream.
What??? A half-a-BILLION dollars to develop a browser? 500 MILLION dollars? That's 10,000 man years of development money! Good lord man! How complicated do you think a browser is? Maybe when you factor in "promotion", but they already dominated the industry! How much promotion do you need when you have(had) 90%+ of the market?
The reason Netscape sucked is not a lack of money, it's a lack of organization and priority. They should have ripped out the HTML engine a long time ago and rewritten it, and that would have solved most of the problems (ESPECIALLY the table processing which is the biggest source of bugs and slowness).
To be honest, I blame Andreeson's engineering inexperience. A seasoned engineering director would have known when the code base had gotten out of hand, and rewritten it rather than piling on feature after feature, and dooming it to be the unstable piece of junk that it is.
I could point out too that Opera continues to exist as a for-money browser. Netscape gave away the game. If they had just made a better product, they could have survived. And in fact, they could have made some good money in the embedded device market as well.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Discarding the development pace of Netscape 6, it's obvious from the lack of effort on AOL's part to aggressively promote or endorse this beast in any fashion that this is not a key strategic piece in their gameplan. If it WAS important, they'd have poured some of those billions they bought Time-Warner with into the project.
I sure as hell hope so, that thing is way behind current standards.
... we need to admit that they're right. The thing is something like a year behind schedule, and look what it delivers: INCREDIBLE lack of speed pretty large bloat good standards no JAVA on our fave OS lots of bugs now, compare to konqueror - starts LITERALLY 50 times faster on py p2-266 less bloat same standards any jdk you want slightly more bugs Now, should we as open source developers be trying to fix the major problems above, or the bugs below. Get on the RIGHT bandwagon.
They found that it was bloated, poorly written, and poorly engineered. So they threw it all away and started over almost completely. Architecturally, the new Mozilla is much much better, and should be able to be more flexible over time than the old code tree. But it's taken a long time to get there. And it's not done yet. But it has many, many nice features.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
There used to be only one WWW. We may very well be facing the beginning of many...
There are those that will not use MS, and those who swear by it. Each will gravitate towards its own side, and if those sides diverge, then we will have two cultures of web sites.
John
John_Chalisque
3) The web developers who posted this (and the subsequent additional posters) are idiots.
Only because you apparently haven't grasped the WaSP's point.
Only an idiot would scream for standards -in fact, base their whole mission statement on the needs for open standards- and then bash the developers working on this very request.
But Mozilla developers aren't just working on a 100% complaint web browser. There's all the extra functionality being added (IRC, mail, news, etc.) that is 100% IRRELEVANT to the Web Standards Project's desires.
In their minds Mozilla development is proceeding too slowly, and as a result making it harder on web developers who want to use standards that are 2-4 years old. It's entirely likely that WaSP will review Netscape 6 and, assuming it meets the goal of 100% standards compliance, say "You know what? We're sorry, Netscape, this browser was worth the wait." Then the onus will be back on Microsoft to improve their commitment to open standards.
Maybe AOL will be able to force their subscribers to switch to a Netscape 6/Mozilla-based browser, and trigger the final showdown as to who will control the web (AOL/Netscape, Microsoft, or a standards-compliant compromise between the two). But right now, that's all vapor. I'll believe AOL's commitment to using Mozilla when I see it.
So yes, there is a reason to bitch. Every day people settle on using IE because the one viable competitor has not had a significant functionality upgrade to their product in YEARS. (And fsck you very much, Netscape, for your insipid "Shop" button.) They're switching because IE 5.x does for them, NOW, what Netscape 4.x can't. And unless Netscape 6 is orders of magnitude better than MSIE, they won't necessarily switch back.
And then top it off by endorsing the competition - a compeditor who has absolutely NO regard for open standards in the first place.
They may have no regard for open standards, but their products currently on the market (the 5.x series) support those standards better than Netscape's current offering (the 4.x series).
Maybe people who don't have paychecks depending on what solutions they use RIGHT NOW are content to wait for Mozilla, but not everyone has that luxury.
And for the record, I have every intention of using Mozilla once it's finished. But then again, my business isn't dependant on having that solution right now.
Jay (=
Last time I looked, Mozilla was being developed as an open-source project. If V3C is whining about how long it's taking, I'm sure that all the W3C people are help to code this puppy, right? I mean, in open/free software development, since you can't contribute MONEY, surely you can contribute TIME....
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
how related is this to the recent news about IE 5.5 adding more of its own features? one of the best attacks on m$ now is that they are deviating from standards compliancy...
i know they never directly mention 5.5 in the letter, but it seems to me that they are saying "we can't ciriticize microsoft simply because there is no current alternative."
Do you remember when Netscape was considered to be the Internet by most people? I remember that I used to ask people who they got their Internet service from and they would tell me Netscape. People used to actually say "I looked this up on Netscape." :) My how times have changed.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
IE is is faster because it loads at boot time. JAva engine included.
while (rant) {
I am so sick of people complaining about something taking a little longer. Do you realize that even in internet time, it is better to build a good base and do it right and standardized? I write java servlets and it takes a bit longer than ASP but in the long run, it's much more competative because it is enterprise capable and extendable. So IE has neat little javascript rollovers, and startsup quicker...so what. What does that do for doing business over the web? The technologies coming in Mozilla and netscape look to be excellent for such things(ie, the java plugin etc.etc.) }
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
I now write my pages for IE 4.0+. I take care to check that the page are readable under netscape 4+, but my pages looks much better under IE. No, I don't use IE specific tags - I use CSS features that Netscape doesn't support (such as table borders, alpha channel tranparency, etc.) but work under IE and mozilla. 85% of my visitors use IE 4+ so giving up neat eyes candy is not worth it anymore.
Simson Garfinkel wrote an eye-opening backgrounder that explores this question. A quote:
TimBL, remember, is the guy who invented 'http://' and who dictated that two 'P's in a row should dispay the same as one (absurdly forcing everyone to add non-breaking spaces).It's just basic design common-sense that you don't create top-down 'standards' groups who dictate the rules of human factors without ever testing the standards, and without having the slightest understanding of what human-factors is all about.
I have an old rant about this.
How I wish MS would understand this... on both sides of the fence. Sure, I'm bending this particular subthread into scrap metal, but I may be more receptive to IE if most of its idiocy was shoved in my face by default. Also, MS prolly isn't the only entity guilty of forcing you to accept their stuff or nothing. Web developers sometimes do this with their flash-only sites that check to see if you're running MSIE ON WINDOWS, and kvetch or provide a blank page if you're not "hip."
(actually, I do have a choice, what with 98lite to completely and cleanly uninstall IE from win98...)
--
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Netscape is probably just in a slump right now because of bad management and the popularity of IE. This situation is similar to IBM's issues between it's Warp OS and Windows. However, unlike IBM, Netscape is almost guaranteed to revive itself and be up to standars very soon.
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
The napster clone from scour.com
Actually the best napster clone I ever used. Let's just say mozilla is useful.
Basically I encouter as much problem with NN4.6 as you do. So mostly I use Netscape 3.04 with JS java turn off for most task, (Netscape3 with JS on is suicide)
On my libretto 223 32meg, I can honestly say NN3 is faster than IE5, slightly. And that's what is matters. I only use slashdot, dejanews and ebay anyway. I will only use IE5 when I go to fansy sites. It takes 10 seconds to open NN4.6 on this win98 machine. However I will switch to mozilla as soon as possible. (whenever they make switch window fast enough, m16 is too slow) The nightmare of this win98 gives me remind me daily that I shouldn't use any ms product.
Hopefully SUN will learn something from Netscape, I speak this from my heart. You really ought to try out the sweet 3.04, if you have forgotten how fast it is.
CY
was NOT... shoved... and I even previewed it. I quit. :oP
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
For a while I was working one the mozilla project, but I just endedup leaving just because it didn't seem like anything was going on. They have an exelent bug tracking program, but you put a bug in there and nothing happens to it. I fixed one minor bug, had code and diffs ready to go, and I am still waiting for it to be put into the cvs. Horribly project, too much code. I don't care if it's the most standards complient or open source or whatever, it doesn't work, and Im staying with IE.
Eh? CELLSPACING="0" BORDER="0" etc...
what's the problem, exactly? Why is IE having a default of '0' for cellspacing more correct than NN's default? (2?)
I just grabbed netscape 6 pre 1 while upgrading to Comm 4.74, and to my amazement, it still doesn't handle style sheets correctly! Now it does em like ie, unfollowed links still have underlines even if I use a style sheet to get rid of them, only after I click em once do the ugly underlines disapear.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
He can without any javascript intevention. In PHP you can get the user agent, and do a header("Location: http://www.somewhere-else.org");
Want to compeate with Netscape and IE?
Be there first...
Want to win marketshare?
Be there first...
"We conform to the FULL CURRENT STANDARD"
This is what you get for not develuping the standards browser yourself....
Originally the same people who ran the web wrote the stupid browser.
Then they handed the job off to lynx and Mosaic... Now it's the job of Microsoft and AoL... For standards I'd say those are the the WORST companys to trust.
So if they want to get standards write a free browser. Basic in functionility. Dosn't need bookmarks or plugins just make it a basic browser. And say "Now keep up or DIE"...
It'll give web develupers a REAL target to work with... and browser develupers something REAL to work with.
I don't actually exist.
Do you have references to back up your bold claim? Or are you just making things up as you go along?
--
And, of course, if you convert Bill Gates to numbers using the standard alphabet you get:
BILL GATES
2+9+12+12+7+1+20+5+19=87.
87, of course, is the average number of "secret" messages one can find in any paragraph of text, given enough time, desire, and computing power. This paragraph happens to contain 54 secret messages. Can you find them all?
Oh, and just to try and keep this somewhat on topic: I also used to be a hard-core Netscape user, but I ended up switching to IE somewhere around 4.3. Since then I've used IE as my standard. Lately, however, I'm been checking out the Opera browser. They have versions for Windows, Linux, BeOS and Mac. It's not perfect, but so far it seems more stable and slightly faster than IE.
Red Hat had the Red Baron browser in RHL 4.1. While it wasn't what I'd call great, it was a start. They've got an idea as to how to do a browser. They've got the vitality of a young and strong company, and potentially they've got the resources.
I'm sure there was wisdom in AOL buying Netscape Communications Corporation. Somewhere. The wisdom however escapes me. The proof, imho, is that AOL's browser engine was, is, and will continue to be Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape is at present a pawn.
It's beautiful. Look at Bill Gates and what Microsoft needs to do: sit and watch. Don't port MSIE to Linux. Let Netscape die on its own and watch all viable browsers for Linux die with it. Imagine what happens next to Linux. Laugh and joke, spout the virtues of [minor player browser name], or ignore reality if you want, but who is going to support Linux if it has no usable browser?
Hey folks, the marathon is almost over and the leader is pulling away. Time's almost up.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
having just spent four weeks writing an online user interface, i think i have a few things to say about this.
1) There are too many @!#$!@# standards in the first place.
HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and all of the extenstions to the above, some of which are moving targets. Many standards release 'reference code' for rendering/utilizing said standard. To the best of my knowledge, no one is maintaining a reference browser.
2) Neither individually nor in toto do they address the average user's expectations for a GUI.
Holy shit, do forms-based HTML web sites suck raw ass. It is exactly the lack of a coherent standard for data interface that is causing the proliferation of 'standards.'
3) The abuse of many large sites of utilizing plug-ins at their main interface is untenable and will only continue to cause problems for users and browser writers.
Flash.
Now, to top it all off, many commercial 'authoring' tools utilize a variety of methods to create various page. Dreamweaver, or as we call it 'the diarhhea program', will happily mix anything it can to output its js/html/dhtml/css brew.
So, dear compliance occifers, fuck ya. You wanna browser that works with all that nonsense? Write one! We'll be happy to make it pretty, later.
--
blue
The WSP is right. In the mindshare department, AOL (of which I have a few thousand shares) is a laggard in cranking out new versions, or even using their worldwide dominance to leverage the browser.
But, it's still way easier to hack IE.
I should mention a couple people at work pointed out the real threat to Netscape is that the HTML in sites pushed out with MSFT products has caused NS to break so often that they just gave up and now use IE at home. This is where the danger lies - MSFT makes sure the code it cranks out to pub will break NS and consumers take the path of least resistance. Yes, I own MSFT shares, but I also have RHAT as well.
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, AOL will survive. Netscape, on the other hand, may be offered up as a sacrificial lamb.
Will in Seattle
I support the WSP. However, with this blasting of Netscape, I feel that they run the risk of totally alienating themselves from popular Web browser developers. It seems that the only comments to recently come from WSP is negative. Of course, there is a lot of negative news relating to the Web these days, but it would be nice to hear stories about some companies/developers that are developing/releasing standards compliant browsers.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
In its current state, I think Netscape 4.x sucks to develop for. I usually end up writing a lot of browser detection code and if you're using >IE5.0 you see a really cool site and if you're using Netscape of any version you see a mildly ok site. I can't wait to see Netscape 6 though, I think it's goping to put Netscape back in its throne.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
But the Mozilla team, for reasons that the remainder of the developer community has yet to fathom, is insistant on supporting every feature of NS4.x before releasing a product -- and more! "It's not a browser" is the party line: "It's an application framework". But a browser --specifically a HTML-rendering, Java(ECMA)script-interpreting, Java-plugin-friendly engine -- is what is desperately needed right now, especially for users of alternative operating systems.
What the WaSP is expressing is the frustration of being stuck waiting for the one component that matters most, simply because the Mozilla team feels that it's crucial to have everything for the initial release. Mozilla has certainly disobeyed ESR's cardinal rule of open source development: "Release early, release often."
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Team Mozilla is going to hear a lot more of these complaints.
- Richie
One beautiful example of a heavy-headed hypocricy is this:
This comes AFTER the WaSP (because no single author would take credit for this piece) suggests that Netscape withdraws its browser, had never started working on Mozilla, and should have never tried in the first place. They attribute the lack of support for Netscape products to its lack of standards compliance, NOT the fact that Microsoft used unlawful monopoly tactics to bully it out of the market.
Here is a nicely written counter-attack by Chris Nelson, which gives some very interesting counter points. Don't let the WaSP get you down Mozilla, just keep on rolling.
---
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
I cannot believe the people who claim they use Mozilla daily.
I hope you will believe me. I use Mozilla daily, although I don't use it all day. There are a lot of sites that Netscape just plain won't render and Mozilla will. Yes, there are still a lot of annoyances with Moz but it does function, and it's the reigning champ in rendering speed. I just posted with Mozilla.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I think a big part of the reason why a number of people here have switched to IE over Netscape is that they develop web apps for a living, and IE is right now much better to use for web development.
But, for browsing I still prefer Netscape. About the only time I have it crash (regularily running over ten to twenty windows) is due to a plugin failing, like RealAudio or Flash.
But I have to disagree with you about the boulder/pebble analogy. I run NT4 at work, and from time to time I've had IE LOCK up the whole machine. I usually have a good thirty windows open with a lot of different things going on, and that means a LOT of work to get back to the state I was in before the machine died. At best IE might take out the explorer process, which still means I lose a number of open directory windows and have to re-open them...
That's not a boulder in my path. That's a tornado that drops me right back to where I started, and even one occurance per lifetime pisses my off more than ten thousand browser standalone deaths could ever do.
I also find the little details (like the status bar thing you mention) really annoying, so on top of everything else I find using IE to give me that grain of sand in the shoe effect. So basically, I only use it for some web development and for everything else stick to Netscape.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What works in one context will not necessarily work in another. When TCP/IP was being developped, there was little outside commercial pressure on getting the network in place quickly. Vinton Cerf and associates had enough time on their hands to do the development and the standardization together. A more recent development is the standardization of IPv6: but here also there was little pressure because it was evident that nobody would start sending datagrams in their own proprietary format across the Internet (simply because such datagrams would not have gone beyond the first router they encountered).
But the Web is not as easily contained as the Internet. If you don't get your standards out fast enough, someone will come up with his own. So it's better, IMHO, to offer standards that perhaps will never be implemented in full, but will at least serve as guidelines for those implementations of a particular feature. Besides, to be fair to the W3C, you should at least recognize that they try to implement their stuff: see the Amaya web browser for example.
Also note that the "standards" in question are merely named "recommendations" and nothing else. Why, the RFC's also contain many "recommendations" ("informational" status RFC's) which will never formally be made into "Internet standards" (because they are not in the "Standards Track" for RFC's) but which nevertheless are regarded as de facto standards.
The W3C has no particular authority over the Web, but it has done a (IMHO) good job of coming up with precise specifications documenting reasonable standards. That is why people choose to recognize, to some extent at least, that it has authority. The same holds for the IETF or any other standards' organization (some extremists state that only the ISO has any authority for issuing standards and that all the Internet is based merely on de facto standards rather than the true (i.e. OSI/X.25) standard for networking; needless to say, I totally disagree with this position, and I see no reason why the ISO's authority should be higher than the IETF's or the W3C's). It is true, I would prefer the W3C to work under the aegis of the Internet Society; but if it won't, so be it.
Now, if you (or some "W4 Consortium" you might create) can come up with some reasonable (and freely redistributable) standards for the web (or for anything else) and, even better, if you can implement them at least partially, then I will consider that you have as much authority as the W3C and that your standards are equally valid. But if you can't, you must "put up or shut up".
I'm an internet application developer who runs netscape (both browser and email client) ALL day. I really push the browser a lot, with javascript and developing html, and I don't seem to be having the crashing problems others are reporting.
;)
I think it's a fine, stable browser. Yes, it is not standards compliant to the newest specs, but for daily browsing it's fine.
Maybe it's the rest of your PC that is unstable?
I run 4.72 on Windows NT 4.0 SP5. The rest of the OS goes south of the border way before I have trouble with the browser.
I usually only reboot every other day or so
I also use IE5 and the browser componant seems stable, but the OS extensions fro IE4 definitely impair the entire system's stability. Luckily, if you have NT4 and install IE5+ it no longer adds the 'active desktop' stuff, so that seems to help.
I can't comment on the stability of netscape on other OS's. Maybe it really sucks on Linux.
This is no doubt netscape 4.x is in 'bug fix' mode. They have to do this, because they have all sorts of deals with big companies (including the one I work at) to use their client software, which includes promises from netscape to maintain their product.
I think they have the right strategy; do what you need to do to keep the current 4.x business partners happy, while working on the next big thing. The make really great migration tools to help the companies move to the new platform.
Big companies don't care so much about new features, they just want a secure, stable system that is easy to deploy and administer. Netscape with the mission control center does this. It's way more secure than IE+Outlook.
You have to remember, once a big company puts a lot of money and training into a system, they don't like to change it. We may not like it, but deals like the one netscape has with my company are way more important than the home market.
Anyway, the home market will take care of itself, once AOL moves to mozilla from IE. They'll need to do this if they want to make their client software for Linux. I know most of you are probably gagging at the idea of AOL on Linux, but we have to realize they are a huge ISP, and not having their client software on Linux hurts the comunity.
BTW, I know the source code for the 4.x series is out there somewhere, so there's nothing stopping people from trying to fix existing problems. I just think it's better to put such energies into the new browser, but to each his/her own.
Peace, or Not?
Being behind on 6.0 has perhaps made it more difficult to get others to adopt their standards but consider the alternative. I.E. is trying to make up their own standards as they go along and anyone who doesn't conform to their standards won't be viewable by the majority of people out there. In relative terms, it could be a lot worse.
This seemed to be missing from the article:
http://www.mozillazine.org/art icles/article1524.html
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Netscape 4.74 (came out a few days ago I think) is just fine for me! Sure it isn't the best thing around but it doesn't crash that much on me, as a matter of fact it crashes less than the rest of the software I use.
On the development side, I HATE bloat sites - since Netscape 4.74 doesn't render MS-Bloat(tm) I get along just fine. I REALLY don't see what the whole fuss is about.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Are we all aware who owns Netscape? Who do we really blame for this? America On Line owns Netscape. In AOL's infinite quest to buy or merge with everything that Microsoft hasn't, they have swallowed Netscape and let the world down. WE put up with this - what choice do we have??? Anyone running IE 5.01 on their Linux box??? AOL has some explaining to do BUT how long do we sit IDLE and watch our OWN standards and expectations fall because America Online has no accountability? It's about time someone stood up and said enough is enough. AOL doesn't have enough confidence in their OWN browser to integrate it with their software!!!! Internet Explorer is bundled with the latest version of America Online software! For crying out loud - this is unacceptable! We shouldn't blame Netscape, Microsoft, or anyone else for this - WE share this one with AOL.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
I am now using MSIE, following the official policy of my place of employment, who also switched as of last month.
It's unfortunate, but Netscape really dropped the ball on this one, and the only real reason to stick with netscape at this point seems to be a dislike of microsoft.
If you knew my feelings about MSIE, and understood how much it took me to switch, you would know for sure that there is a problem with netscape.
considering the recent article about MSIE and how it's bastardizing the web, this is very unfortunate. But when Netscape crashes every time I visit my main site of interest, it's pretty much out of the running.
I hope NS6 will be good enough to bring people back, but from trying the beta, with that hideous interface, I can't imagine it will do much better.
sad, but it's a good thing they are acknowledging these problems instead of trying to ignore them like is done with many of the other problems in the opensource world today.
________
So how many people have bought something / been impressed by a company because the website had twiddly javascript or an impressive-looking Shockwave animation?
And how many people have moved on to another site because the site took too long to load or didn't display properly?
I think the answers to those would provide statistics even managers could understand...
it's not that the took the shell, shoved a browser into it and took out all the other interfaces. this is taking the browser and stuffing a shell into it. very cool, but not the crap micro$~1 was pulling.
Whether or not the Mozilla team is behind schedule, whether or not they have failed to produce a usable browser, it has to be admitted that Mozilla is a grandiose project on a scale unlike that of IE. Mozilla is basically the kind of thing that could win the Browser War; in fact, I'm sure that if the Mozilla team had simply concentrated on improving the NS 4.x code base, NS and IE would be pretty evenly matched. But NS has unofficially been dead for years! It shouldn't be considered part of the equation, and it shouldn't be lumped together with Mozilla, because the two are essentially very, very different beings altogether. Furthermore, need I remind everyone here that Mozilla is still an alpha program? Netscape 6 PR 1 is a beta for Netscape, but I think Netscape jumped the gun on this one. Mozilla.org expects M17 to be the first beta! Performance issues are being worked on . . . hello? People are knocking it before it's even been released! And by jove, whatever it is, at least it doesn't blatantly flaunt Web standards! If everyone here thinks Mozilla is not good enough for prime time use (and I for one do), why not also send an email of encouragement to Mozilla.org? These people will have done us a big favour in the long run. Maybe we should start thanking them now.
I agreed with everything he said up until "withdraw it from the market." No one is forcing anyone to use it. If Netscape is your biggest headache over IE and Opera, then don't. Use one of the others. Also, no one is forcing other web surfers to use it. Simply include a notice on your site saying it supports IE and Opera, and link to your article to explain why you don't support Netscape. Either way, demanding that Netscape prevent others from using its products because you don't like them is ludicrous. If you don't like it, don't code for it.
To be honest, despite all the people on slashdot bitching about Mozilla's instability, bloat and slowness, it's now pretty damn good!
I'm actually quite surprised. I had tried Mozilla before and agreed completely wiuth the bitchers that it was garbage. It was INCREDIBLY slow and unstable. It took forver to start up, the UI responsiveness was crap and it took pages forever to load. Sure they looked good, but it was way too slow. And it crashed every 10 minutes or so.
Seeing this submission on slashdot and reading some comments saying that Mozilla had much improved I decided to give it another try. I'm posting with Mozilla M16 right now and I'm very impressed by how much it's matured.
It's SOOO much faster now, the UI is much more responsive, and it only takes half as long to startup as the last time I tried it. I used M14 last time and it was nothing but problems.
I must say that Mozilla crashes even less than Konqueror(from the 1.91 release).Both browsers are quite good and I recommend everyone at least try them. They each have their great features and bugs, but both are looking VERY promising.
The only outstanding issues that I can see are the login problems(which I've heard are fixed in M17) and a few other inconsistencies.
The Mozilla project as a whole looks promising and the possibilities are incredible(see posts referring to embedded systems and application frameworks for coding things like xmlterm). I'm really looking forward to seeing the final product, and in the meantime I'll use whatever milestone I can get my hands on(and konqueror... I like finding whatever bugs I can). :-)
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
WSP has a very serious flaw in their logic. If Netscape pulled their 4.x browser off the market, web developers would write to one browser and one browser only...what does that mean?, it means that developers would use all of Microsoft's proprietary tags/technologies and become ingrained in them. Then there would be no hope of web standards. NN4 forces developers to write to the lowest common denominator, keeping standards hopes alive, even though it may drive developers nuts (personal experience confirms this :-0). IE5 may be a better browser, but once Mozilla comes out, developers can distribute it as a platform and target anyone. (Mozilla will never overtake IE in marketshare, it will be utilized primarily in developing true cross-platform solutions since it runs on many different platforms). Notice how web standards affect none of this.
but "web applications" != "websites". Big difference. Microsoft will dominate the "web application" (applications running in a browser) before anyone realizes what happens. It may not make any sense right now, but it will.
AOL bought Netscape because John Doerr told them to. He wanted them to salvage his rapidly sinking stock.
Troll Alert!
There was never a Netscape 4.3. The version number skipped from 4.0x to 4.5. Any "hard-core Netscape user" would know that.
It's a decent post, but is closer to flamebait.
/. community for responding to a troll, but I sorta wish it hadn't been modded up in the first place
Still, there are a couple of points.
Mozilla is pre-beta! It may even be pre-alpha. But people still think it's more stable, faster, and better than 4.x
So the question really is, how much better will mozilla get when it is production release? Without debug and legacy code? Cleaned up and packaged? Resource usage should go down, and speed should go up.
I apologize to the
Bye!
GPL Deconstructed
There are a number of sites that I only view in Mozilla, because the experience is much smoother there (aint-it-cool-news is a good example, as their talkback is so badly put together that if your browser doesn't incrementally render tables, you're doomed to wait minutes). Obviously I'll have to view this particular page in Mozilla... ;-)