Slashdot Mirror
Has Netscape's Browser Become Too Self-Serving?
bschoate wrote in with a good question about everyone's favorite browser: "I just installed Netscape 6 and it continues and expands the practice of providing numerous ways to use Netscape.com to promote Netscape, Inc. (or AOL for that matter). I've found at least 42 (hey- there's that magic number again) toolbar or menu options that will take you to netscape.com for everything from buying printer supplies to business Web hosting. That's not even counting any of the side bar stuff like "Find and Book Travel". And, all of those tie-ins are littered with banner ads. So even if you don't buy anything, you're still generating revenue for Netscape on some level. Frankly, I see it as a slap in the face to Mozilla, since all their volunteered hard work has created a product that will line Netscape's pockets. Does any of the money generated by the browser get back to Mozilla? I kinda doubt it." Harsh words, but the more I think about it, the more I believe he has a point. Do any of you feel the same way, and if so, how do you feel that the problem should be solved?
"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Internet Explorer's only link back to microsoft.com is through the 'Windows Update' feature where there is nothing to buy. To me, it's quite a double-standard-- Microsoft would be immediately dragged to court if they had one button in IE that led to a service to buy or a banner ad.
What do /.ers think about this practice? Personally, I would cringe every time I used the Netscape browser to even do an in-the-address bar search (using the '? some-text-here' syntax), since the results come with a banner ad served up by 'ads.web.aol.com'.
I find this very troubling and very frustrating."
I use ie 5.0 at work all day long and a number of differnet versions of Netscape 6.0, Mozilla M18, Mozilla nightly build (from last week) and Netscape 4.5 at home and I can say without any shadow of doubt in my mind that ie blows the rest away.
It may be true that the IE application is more robust, but the IE rendering engine lacks a lot of the W3C standards support that Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine boasts. Supporting W3C standards means that we won't all be forced to use Windows just to view ESPN.com.
So the solution is for somebody to take Gecko, and build a better application around it.
- Scott.
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
While, IE also gives you links to Hotmail and all its channels, there is a crucial fact that they are all files ("internet shortcuts") and are VERY EASILY REMOVABLE.
I can't say the same for Netscape. The shop button is built in and you cannot remove it without editing xresources, and there is no "security zones" (site-specific security levels) like IE has.
You can clean IE up with reletively fewer amount of tweaking than Netscape. It is the point.
Labelling useful options "Advanced" or make them nontrivial to change is just another way MS and AOL is controlling the rights of the end users.
In the next release I'll bet anything that Netscape will go the way RealPlayer has gone with respect to privacy, marketing, partnerships, and advertisements.
Were it not for some idiots who provide RealPlayer-only contents I have no idea why any sane person in the world would choose RealPlayer over Media Player.
More information can be found at www.annoyances.org.
I use ie 5.0 at work all day long and a number of differnet versions of Netscape 6.0, Mozilla M18, Mozilla nightly build (from last week) and Netscape 4.5 at home and I can say without any shadow of doubt in my mind that ie blows the rest away. In fact it's not even close. As strange as it is to say this I really feel that MS has raised the standard for web browsers with ie. It's fast and it crashed on rare occasion (maybe once a week for me) while Netscape/Mozilla will go down once every couple hours under heavy browsing.
I'm a big open source fan and I have my own open source project so I am biased in a major way towards free software, but I have to doubt the sanity of anybody who can claim that the netscape/mozilla browser is better then ie. Just because we want it to win doesn't mean that it will. Just because we hate to see the giant monopolistic company produce a superior product doesn't stop them from doing so. IMHO the absolute worst thing the OSS community can do is bury it's angry head in the sand and pretend that no matter what we do it's better because we stand for the right cause.
And for those who are complaing about all the links to netscape etc., I suggest you call them up and demand a full refund for your product.
The smartdownload feature is a bigger privacy hole, it sends back a list of every file you download to AOL.
:)
Opera is your friend, it doesn't do nonsense like that.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The best (only?) way to make real money with a free product on the Internet is to sell advertising. Large conglomerates (Microsoft is a prime example) usually release free software in an attempt to gain market share. Of course in the case of IE, that really doesn't do them any good except for killing competition. Sounds like it's useful but I don't think it is because if they decided to charge for the next upgrade of IE there would probably be a lynching (or several hundred) in Redmund.
--
Todd's Law: All things being equal, you lose!
The commercialization of the Internet has even caught that old vanguard Netscape. Sad, and shame.
Ermmm... They started the whole commercialization/breaking of the internet in the first place, remember?
You could easily run it using VMWarez (or whatever it's called, that thing that's like WINE but isn't, you know the one I mean). And there is a native Solaris version of MSIE.
Problem: Netscape is nothing but a web browser that "caught up" to MSIE, with the added feature of being bombarded by "AOL Everywhere" dominance strategies. (AIM, AOL Mail support, etc...)
Solution: Uninstall Netscape!
The only way NS will succeed, is when AOL's agreement with MSIE expires,(Sometime next year, I believe...) and then they force it upon it's AOL members. I liked it, but once again, AOL ruins everything for the people that aren't lazy, and actually find out how to use the net without proprietary crap.
x86 is a totally fscked-up CISC instruction set from the 1970s, only hardware emulators (ie Pentium, Celeron, Athlon, Duron, etc) are any good at running it. x86 software emulation is useless, which is why people want open source - at least, then, they can compile it for a modern processor.
Does my bum look big in this?
> Every release since the AOL takeover has been
> progressivly worse.
There has only been one: Netscape 6.0, last week. Begone, troll!
I really couldn't care less.
:)
;).
Mozilla / Netscape is the same as emacs. "Eighty Megabytes and Constantly Swapping".
At the moment, I'm using netscape some of the time, and Konqueror a lot of the time. Konqueror is *the* new browser for Linux, in my humble opinion.
Also, Opera from Opera Software seems to become a *great* browser. I used the Beta a bit, and was really impressed. It had a couple of bugs, but I think those will be fixed for the next release. When that happens, I will either use Konq or Opera fulltime (as I guess Konq has progressed until then too
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Listen to the dulplicity of the slashdot crowd. This is why the critics of cyber-libertarianism call it "cyber-selfish". You want something to be free (speech and beer) and then you cry bloody murder when the company that makes it packages the consumer version with stuff to make money for them. You block out the banner ads on the sites that are losing money hand over fist to provide you with a service that is worth something to you, when that advertising revenue is the only hope they have of turning a profit.
Much of the Mozilla development was done by full-time employees of Netscape Corporation, now a unit of AOL. As long as they don't block access to competitors (granted, we're still waiting for an open IM, but that's not so much browser-related) we have no right to complain about their self-promotion. They even make it possible for competitors to create sidebars and such things to add on to the browser their own doo-dads if they care to take the effort to develop them and can convince people to install them.
I applaud AOL for their self-promotion method. They have given us massive amounts of open-source code to do with what we please. They have done most of the work to produce Mozilla, and they have made a polished and specialized binary for the average user. Their binary adds features that the average user wants. The average user buys the 18 gig hard drive because the nice person on the phone tells them it's good. They don't care about code bloat. They don't understand memory footprints. They just know that they have a nice, fast computer, and that it can play their mp3s while browsing the web and talking to their friends on IM. AOL has given them what they want, and has given us what we want, too.
Thank you, AOL.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
I'm not exactly sure how developers view this potentially negative aspect of such a cooperative, but Netscape/Mozilla is quite unique in that .. sure, Netscape is a variation of Mozilla, but Mozilla is always there. If you don't like Netscape, something of the equivalent is Mozilla. Use that. Something not there that Netscape has? Either bid on the developers doing it or do it yourself. As for me, I have no complaints about Netscape, but any allegedly justifyable complaints are countered by the availability of Mozilla.
But there isn't. Rather, there is a more standards-compliant browser underneath. A slow, bloated buggy one with foreign widgets, but it's more standards compliant, man. Of course if nobody wants to use it because of all the other garbage, does it matter if it's more standards compliant?
IE is successful because it wins on the details. It's not as standards compliant. However, it has none of the shit that you have to wade throught to make Netscape 6 usable. It doesn't install MSN instant messanger. It doesn't install a "Install MSN" icon on your desktop. This of course isn't enough to win the browser wars. But it also has this going for it: It's faster, It uses less RAM, and it's standards compliant enough (TM).
In all the respects that matter to those of us who actually have to code serious HTML it's a worse browser than Netscape 6. But as almost every project based on idealism rather than pragmatism, Netscape misses out on the details. That's why it's Linux not HURD. And that's why it's IE not Netscape. Mozilla could be at best awesome and IE at best adequate. But IE is adequate, right now, and Netscape 6 is poor right now.
I'll end with my new favorite Linus quote (from linux-kernel,) which I now consider the primary reason Linux has done so well so far:
Well gee, these companies are lining their pockets on open source software too, right? And they all provide clear self promotion with logos and links galor. Guys, this is how the business world and the Open Source world will best interact. Business has to make money. Not only do they benefit from reduced R&D costs, but they also benefit from a more level playing field and from standards that help keep competitors from "adopting and extending". And in turn, the OSS benefits from donations, equipment loans, active development participation, and in the end - protection. I see it as a symbiotic relationship and take no offense at promotional garnishments...
Mike
Is that wrong?
________
> Netscape employs a number (the majority?) of the
:-). This has good and bad consequences...
> Mozilla people.
Yes, almost all of them in fact.
This is partly because just about every volunteer who gets deeply into the project and demonstrates competency is immediately offered a job at Netscape
you see there is another piece of logic that you are missing here. some people choose not to use IE precisely because of the difference of moral values behind the creation of the software. that is the user's choice. in fact, as consumers, the only means that an individual has to get his/her influence to be felt is through their use of their buying power. that is, not using a piece of MS software such as IE is a statement in and of itself, one which every individual has the right to make. now people will argue against me, but these are probably the same f00ls who believe that 'a vote for nader is a vote for bush', an idea which is grounded in the same false logic. the simple fact of the matter is that a vote for nader is a vote for nader. to believe anything else is to deny democracy--in the case of software, to suggest that an individual should only base their decisions on the utility of the software in effect purport to place utility as a higher ideal than moral values. the concept of doing something in order to make a moral point must never be belittled. in fact, it could very well be argued that an individual who uses buggy OSS is acting in a manner more noble than an individual who uses proprietary software simply because it works better. if everyone chose to use non-proprietary software, then real change would be effected because all of the companies which make proprietary software would shrivel and die. the end result would be a proliferation and improvment of OSS. this would have the effect of providing development resources to the OSS movement, at which point it could maintain its philosophy while improving the quality of the product.
We're still working out the details. keep an eye on n.p.m.license to monitor the progress. With a project of this size (with many files contributed under a number of different licenses) it takes a little time to make these kinds of changes.
-Asa
One of the features I most love about mozilla is that you can right click on an ad banner and block all images from the originating server. Thus I can go through and block the ads from annoying places like doubleclick, but leave ads if they don't actively annoy me. Of course since ad banners make the net go 'round, AOL can't very well have a netscape that provides the ability to block banners.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I need a browser without email and news. I have perfectly good mail programs and news readers already (exmh and trn, if you're interested). I just wish Galeon was ready. I can't even try out their development releases without upgrading virtually everything else on my system...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I understand this. But this does not make it entirely modular as I think of modular. Maybe I have a bad definition. Loading and unloading functionality is what I think needs done. i.e. When I close the goofy My Side-whatever that should take up less mem. The current design seems to resemble MS OS design. When you turn something off on a MS OS...you just can't see it any more. It does not necessarily release any resources. When a turn a panel off (now a panel isn't modular...but this such system would work) from my current X session or I remove a module from my Linux kernel. It actually releases the resources. Wouldn't this help?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Does any of the money generated by the browser get back to Mozilla?
Paying for the hosting of an extremely high volume web and ftp site isn't putting money back into the community?
BTW, if you don't like Netscape 6, use Mozilla or Galeon. Neither of those would exist if Netscape hadn't seen a way to continue to make money; they would have just disposed of the source code and payed those people to do something else instead of cleaning it up.
-
The charge of Netscape revenue not going back to mozilla.org is more than a little ridiculous. Netscape/AOL pockets have been the primary funding for mozilla.org for some time now, in terms of both equipment and manpower. I don't see any reason why mozilla.org ought to resent the ads in Netscape. Users, OTOH, will likely find plenty of reasons to resent the gratuitous nature of Netscape's commercialization. And they should. It's insulting. It's Netscape saying, "We think our users are such mindless tools that we can deliver them a browser overflowing with ads that they could otherwise get for free."
There's absolutely nothing wrong with leveraging open code for commercial ends. The problem is that Netsape/AOL have bungled it badly. What value do their commercial additions add to the product? Is the additional software and advertising actually useful to many users? Is it useful enough to those users that they'll endure the ads rather than turn to ad-free alternatives?
A fine balance must be struck between annoying ads and the useful features that justify them. Not only has Netscape failed to achieve this balance, it has failed badly--partly due to gratuitous ads, and partly due to not-quite-finished software.
The result will be that users will turn to competing products--including, in all likelihood, the mozilla.org distribution of the browser. That wasn't supposed to *be* a competing product--Netscape was supposed to be able to add enough value that Mozilla would only be of interest to developers.
IE 5.0 performed fine...
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Looking over the comments you've posted (from your user info page), you're obviously involved in the Mozilla development. Now I'm a bit frustrated with the slow progress on the relicensing, but it's understandable.
Now I know everyone working on Mozilla/Netscape has probably been frustrated with lots of criticism over features vs memory/bloat and standards compliance vs delivery dates. I know that is gets difficult when it comes from "all directions" with conflicting opinions, where the only common theme is everyone is upset. Please try to understand the viewpoint of anyone waiting and trying to make plans to integrate mozilla code into a GPL'd project.
Without access to the newsgroup, the relicense process appears to be at a standstill.
The FAQ says "Yes, as more questions are asked, updates will be made to this page", but there been no update in three months. The answers are vauge and provide no real information that anyone planning to work with the code together with other GPL'd code could use to plan their future activities. There is no estimate of when the contributors will be contacted, how long they have to reply, or any other time oriented info. In fact, there isn't even an indication of when these things may be known and added to the page. There is no indication of what parts of the project the staff of mozilla.org can speak for, and say with certainty that they will be dual licensed.
I know there's a limited number of hours in a day, and a limited number of people to work on any project. You need to work on the most important things first. I can agree that standards compliance and bug fixing has been a well chosen high priority.
The flip side of the coin is that, judging from the Mozilla Relicensing FAQ it would appear that the dual licensing to GPL has completely fallen off the radar. In fact, there may be someone working dilligently on it, but anyone considering using mozilla in a GPL'd setting can't know that from a FAQ with vauge answers, claiming it will be updated, but has in fact not been updated in three months.
Now maybe I'm the only one who doesn't get n.p.m.license, but I doubt it. If there really is work being done on the relicense AND if the mozilla team really is interested in people using the code in GPL'd projects, it'd probably be worth the 15-20 minutes to update the FAQ page, linked right from the main mozilla.org, so that folks working on GPL'd projects could plan accordingly. Judging from what I can actually see (the FAQ), the only plans I could realistically make ammount to "it looks like they've completely forgotten about it (so I'll have to look at XmHTML, XDE, etc, instead of waiting just a little longer)".
Ok, enough complaining and whining.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I own my desk.
I like ch0c0lat3s!!
Therefore my desk likes ch0c0lat3s!!
I use my desk to sit my monitor.
My desk owns 4 corners.
Therefore, my desk uses its 4 corners to sit my monitor.
Mozilla is not like Netscape 6. Anyone that says it is obviously do not follow it very closely. Very few things, none that I can think of but I'm sure some are there, take you to nasty Netscape/AOL banners and it is much more stable, speedy, and full of features. A lot of the developers of Mozilla do of course work for Netscape but many also do not and as time goes on more people get involved around the edges and even now and then deep into the core.
I guess my only point is to not tie Mozilla in with the Netscape crowd. The first is made by many fine engineers and the later by many fine engineers forced to add stupid crap by stupid managers. At this point even if Netscape stopped supporting Mozilla it'd doubtlessly stay alive. Some of the Netscape engineers would still work on it in their own time and other companies would be bound to try to take over. I'd most like to see a Linus like leader emerge from the non-commercial ranks but that has yet to be seen. All we can do is watch and see.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Well, I was about to post about how Netscape sucks these days and agree with the pro-Mozilla folks who want a compact, reliable browser from Netscape. But as I clicked submit, IE crashed.
I'll hold my tongue. ^_^
---
> I do belive Netscape is doomed (which is sad).
Netscape is only doomed if AOL stops funding them.
But AOL managment must know that such an act would dramatically increase Microsoft's control of the Web. Netscape/Mozilla is also crucial to any effort to build Internet access devices that don't require a tax to be paid to Microsoft. AOL is very interested in that.
Netscape is all of these but not even semi-stable.
I don't see how you can even form a coherent argument with regards to the branding issues of this product when it doesn't even work.
When you use Netscape you are getting the product you prefer at the tradeoff price of ads. Sure they sell it at Staples(TM), but how many people are going to shell out $40+ bucks for a web browser when you can use IE or a downloaded copy for free. They know this and are capitalizing on it. Personally speaking I don't use any of the crap they offer.. I turn off the "My Sidebar", don't use Messenger (to avoid the ad in my preview pane) and I redefine my homepage on the first startup of Netscape. What this leaves me with is a nicely bloated web browser just like the rest.
Back to why they do it.. profit.. its quite simple.. they aren't gonna make a dime off netscape if they don't shove their corporate identity in your face. I honestly don't blame them. Your average internet user likes these things... the average Slashdot reader doesn't. Thats about 1 or 2 million of us.. and about 40 Million plus of them.. you do the math.
Sofar I'm impressed with NS 6.0, now all I want to do is wait until the big webdesigners tell me whats wrong with how it renders pages so I can fix mine accordingly.
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
> Personally, I want to see a MacOS X/ Aqua theme.
Dave Hyatt wrote one as a testbed for the theme engine. I think it was never released for fear of Apple's lawyers.
the 4.7x bunch just absolutely will not let you take the preformated sections out of your bookmark file.
I'm using 4.75 for Windows, and clearing the preset bookmarks isn't exactly brain (or registry) surgery: Click on "Bookmarks", then "Edit Bookmarks": this brings up the Netscape bookmark editor. Next, left click the first thing that bothers you. Use Ctrl/Shift selecting to get the rest of the stuff that bothers you. Now, hit the "delete" key. The end.
"What's Related" can be disabled in preferences, leaving you only the "Netscape" button on the Toolbar. I can cope.
Although I agree that I Netscape has a disproportionate number of links to their own banner ads, I'm guessing that IE has a few more than just one.
It's things like this which make me look towards the next generation of browsers-- I love iCab's ability to ignore images based on what path they have (eg, any path with '/ads/' in it, or on a machine named 'ads') or the image size (1x1 pixels, or the standard banner sizes).
How they handle cookies is nice, too, as you're allowed to reject or accept domains as a whole, while still prompting for all others.
For those people who don't have a Mac, you probably have one or two hold out friends with one, so have them grab a copy, and you'll see what I mean:
http://www.icab.de/
[oh...and it's under 2megs, too....although they're still working on CSS support]
All I see from Netscape is a much needed update for a buggy product; it's not a significant break through, even if it was a complete code re-write..
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
> it still doesn't conform to the standard.
Which standard? NS6.0 is more compliant with REAL standards than almost any competing browser.
I'm saddened by seeing that Netscape-bashing has become so popular. Netscape is not just getting a free ride from the hard work of the Mozilla contributors. Speaking as a Mozilla contributor, I have to say that it's Netscape engineers who do about 70-90% of the work (my estimate). This means that Mozilla would have taken more like 15 years to get to where it is right now if it were not for the time and money invested by Netscape
Having tried Netscape 6.0 on Linux, I have to say that it is noticeably faster than the current Mozilla nightlies and somewhat more stable. Yes, there are several known bugs, but overall it is an excellent product.
You ask whether Netscape has gone too far? I ask you whether you have gone so far in your hubris that somehow an open-source project to which you have not contributed (and yes, in this case that means Netscape) owes you something. Netscape is offering its Netcenter service to the people using its browser. No one is forcing you to use these menu options or buttons. All the buttons that go to netcenter can be turned off in the preferences! A desktop icon can be deleted. From what I recall of the last time I installed Windows software, creating a courtesy desktop shortcut to the software or to resources related to that software was a common practice....
As for those Slashdor readers who have contributed to Mozilla, I would like to hear your views on the matter. I believe that the Mozilla community has a much better opinion of Netscape than the Slashdot community at large.
Incidentally I have the search in Netscape 6 set to google right now.
/. headlines sidebar.
Kind of interesting how CNN.com gets a prominent sidebar place -- AOL TW merger at work Here?
Now if someone would only make a
--
... when the browser crashes every few minutes? I don't even have time to really enjoy these 42 ways of investigating Netscape. I thought that before they went to beta, they needed to get the mean time before failure to over an hour? I crash for no reason every 5 - 10 minutes! This is the most unstable version of Netscape that I've tried. Perhaps it still isn't SMP friendly?
IE, at least on Windows, and in the versions I've tested on Linux, is just faster, more stable, more flexible in terms of add-ons it will accept without problems... better.
There's no such thing as IE for Linux.
--
Much less obnoxious than Netscape 6. AOL's marketroid's really did a number on that puppy. Too bad for Netscape, because I really wanted to see their share go up in next month's UserAgent logs. Too bad for me, because I really wanted to use it (Mozilla Mac still has too many showstoppers).
go to the ftp, and find the Netscape6 directory for your platform. Find the xpi/ directory and download all the crap in there. Then, all you have to do is open up the files in the borwser and they will install themselves. That's all there is to it, theres an AIM component as well as a java package and many more. The directory for my browser would be: /pub/netscape6/english/6.0/unix/linux22/xpi, but of course, YMMV depending on platform.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
> What browser is the best open source soloution
> on Windows
Mozilla. Brought to you primarily by the developers at Netscape.
Why not just connect to mozilla's news server? If you use slrn, add a line with server ``news.mozilla.org'' ``newsrc-mozilla'' to your .slrnrc file (so your regular newsrc file doesn't get overwritten), and run slrn -h news.mozilla.org -create to create the newsrc file.
Notice how much bandwidth is out there? Or how many ISPs? How how cheap parts and service have gotten?
This is *directly* linked to the so-called "commercialization" of the internet.
Everything costs money, because our society is based on money. If the coders don't get fiscal benefit from working on N6 / Mozilla, then it's "recreation", and they literally have more important things to do.
And if they want to get some money by their choice of default bookmarks and homepage... then so what? Better that than scrounging for a grant, or having no full-time workers, or charing for the browser, or having a continual pop-up banner ad.
I reported a bug to Netscape back in 4.00 (a way back when) about a missing ; in a stylesheet being able to crash the browser.
By 4.6 (the last version I bothered to put on my computer), the bug was still there. Thats what, a year?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Fine, then use whatever works best for you.
This is not a good topic to discuss when there are at least four other browsers available in the same (or higher) league as this new failure from Netscape. Don't like the ads? I've got a secret patch that Netscape doesn't want you to know about -
It's called "uninstall".
---
---
Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
Yes, the bookmarks file is a text file. And yes, I edit it by hand. And no, if Netscape doesn't like what I did it 'fixes' the 'error' for me.
Example: try replacing one of your bookmark descriptions with an <img="file://foo.jpg"> reference to make a graphical index file (REALLY handy if you want to use your bookmarks for your home page.) This used to work, but since (iirc) 4.74 the freaking tags get replaced by ampersand codes. Thanks loads, Netscape.
And if you 'accidentally' delete the "Personal Toolbar Folder" or the "New and Cool" stuff in it, including "What's New," they get thoughtfully replaced despite your best efforts, thus chewing up half a screenful of valuable homepage space for absolutely no value.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Netscape is a brand in the AOL family.
AOL controls all decisions from the top down. It's not like Netscape is still it's same old self, nice and independent within AOL. AOL management moved in and they run _everything_.
The idea is make Netscape appeal to the people who don't use AOL, but keep the users in the family. These users are techie weenies who don't want to be coddled by the AOL client.
So rather than the old 'What's Cool' stuff that went all over the web. They need to keep the users on their web site (because that's how they make money).
Personally, I like Netscape 6, but it's not stable enough for me just yet. It's just like _any_ major product release; stay away from the first version!
-- topher71
> Users expect a certain minimum set of features. That set is larger now than it was 2 years ago.
I guess what I was really getting at is best addressed by another response I have to the orignal post.
> > > Why can't we get people on Slashdot to talk about the REAL developer issues surrounding Mozilla instead
Why can't we get developers of Mozilla to talk about the real user issues surrounding Mozilla?
Or is Mozilla supposed to end up like Amaya - a useful testbed for standards compliance, but something which is never used by anyone?
(Yes, that's a gross overstatement, but there's a kernel of truth to it.)
You're right that users expect a certain minimum feature set. What I'm arguing is that the features the Netscape developers haven't considered their user base.
Who's served by Mozilla and NS6?
- Advertisers in NS6.
- Developers through the debugging code.
- Developers through all the discussions on standards-compliance.
- People who think XML is cool, not because of what it can do, but because it's XML.
Who's not served by Mozilla or NS6?Two years ago, it was possible for Netscape to say "We've written a better browser, and you web developers better code your web sites so our browser can render it".
Today, the balance of power has swung - rightly or wrongly (and I think wrongly) - back to the web developers. Web developers don't care that NS6 is standards-compliant. And end users don't care either - the typical end user cares only that www.cnn.com renders. If it renders in IE and not NS, NS's market share will continue to diminish.
Ask yourself this: Does Joe Luzer want a standards-compliant browser (whatever that may mean :), or does he want something that they can use - today, not after the Glorious People's Revolution and All Web Pages are rewritten to conform with the spec - in place of IE?
don't forget mozilla wouldn't exist without netscape, so don't go there.
there are starting to be some acceptable options, Konqueror and Opera aren't bad, but I'd guess 70% of my computing (maybe more? yikes) is probably related to web surfing, and I doubt I'm alone.
Sure, there are the insane people who insist you can see everything you need from lynx, but for the rest of us, Linux would be far less useful if Netscape didn't exist for it, and as much as we HATE to admit it, we'd be better off if the one browser which has bulldozed it's way to a userbase of what, 90% now, was available for us in linux.
We need Netscape, and we need it to be good.
________
Then you'll be pleased to know that Netscape 6.0 is the most standards-compliant browser on the planet, with the possible exception of IE5.5 Mac.
remember that developers did not start the mozilla project to make money, they are doing it to prove that an open source project can work, and Netscapes commercialization of it is proof that it worked. bravo to Netscape for making money using a great open source project.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Easy, you said it yourself. Use Internet explorer. Who cares who made it, as long as it works? And like you stated, no funny banners, no crap.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I took the time to grab mozilla from the cvs tree, and spent almost an hour compiling the code (du -hs revealed 218megs of it after ./configure and half of make), but it runs very nicely now. Premade binaries do tend to be slower and more crash prone, so if possible, compile stuff yourself. It's annoying, but it works =) (unlike the rest of my system)
I am !amused.
-- H. Wilker
I don't really care that Netscape is making advertising money off of Mozilla's work. I consider that fair payment for their opensourcing the code in the first place. What bugs me is that they are wasting development effort on irrelevant stuff. It's not the ads themselves that bother me - it's the fact that we are getting ads *instead* of product enhancements.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
All the more reason for Microsoft to get on with a port of IE to Linux. As much as MS seem to be evil incarnate and the Anti-GNU (Compare Anti-Christ). Their Browsers still seem to be more stable, and trouble free (even under Windoze). Netscape froze my box twice last week, not simply a segfault, but total lockup.
A little off topic: No matter what people say, the user interface of MS software is one of the best thought up, the back end, of course does leave a bit to be desired. I personally am waiting for MS Window Manager. With this in front and Linux as the engine, you couldn't go wrong.
Okay, the IE versus Navigator 4.x vs Mozilla discussion is woefully weak on specifics.
Here's my take:
1) Standards Compliance
IE for Windows has better standards compliance than Nav 4.x, but nowhere near as good as Mozilla. IE for Mac is almost as good as that of Mozilla, from what I've read (but no way am I gonna use a Mac just for that!) IE 6 is just around the corner, apparently - let's hope it ups their standards. "We've upped our standards, so up yours!" and all that...
2) Speed
IE seems to connect & download pages faster, and displays very fast (and incrementally reflows, too, even on browser resizing). Nav 4.x connects fast, downloads okay, and displays fairly fast, but has no incremental reflow - very annoying. Mozilla connects, displays, and reflows faster than anything (at least, as of the last night's nightly build). Fastest of all - K-Meleon (Galeon for Windows, basically). Any native framework around the Gecko rendering engine is likely to be faster than anything else. You may pay the price in other features, though (K-Meleon is currently _extremely_ barebones, though that will change soon, I hope.)
3) Stability
IE on Win98SE - not the greatest, on a par (for me, on four completely different machines) with Nav 4.x - only problem is, when it crashes, it often forces you to reboot, or just locks up the whole machine, which Nav 4.x doesn't do. Mozilla - as of last night's daily build, it's 'okay' - the main problem is the Manage Bookmarks feature, which is SLOW SLOW SLOW, and buggy as hell. It doesn't correctly import older Nav 4.x bookmarks (my bookmarks file is rather huge), and moving them around you can lose things entirely, and it's just amazingly slow. It causes the browser to slow down on loadup with a large bookmarks file, too. Very irritating. Hopefully this will change - stability & speedups are currently in the works. Numerous reports of major memory leaks in Mozilla - obviously this browser is still in heavy development though.
4) Interface
IE - pretty standard Windows - easy to figure out if that's what you've been using. Horribly crippled interface for managing bookmarks. Just Horrible. And I hate how they're stored, too (each URL as an individual file, though that's a personal preference).
Nav 4.x - mostly standard for Windows - has some quirks. Very good bookmark management - allows much better bookmark access than any of the others, including Mozilla.
Mozilla - needs to take a look at managing bookmarks & accessing bookmarks in Nav 4.x and implement it. Needs 10-50x speed improvement (not exaggerating) in bookmark management. Something seriously wrong there. In the interface arena, Mozilla will have major advantages for heavy customization, and customization more easily accomplished than for IE, but with the possibility of loading down the browser with a lot of junk - but that's the user's choice! Lean and mean theme or heavy on the eye candy - it's up to you. Choice is Good(tm). I prefer a native widget set framework around the Gecko engine, so I like Galeon for Linux, and I think the K-Meleon project for Windows will do quite well in the future. I've heard that there may be a similar project for the MacOS, but I don't know. Considering the reported quality of IE for the Mac, I'm not sure how necessary that is, unless someone wants a native Mac OS X type browser.
5) Platform Independence
IE - total joke. "Multiple platforms" from MS means Win2K, WinME & Win98 at best. Nav 4.x - excellent. Mozilla - also excellent.
6) Features
IE - very very good, especially considering it's target market. Very good feature set if you're not concerned with security by default (yes, Microsoft, I mean you). On an Intranet basis, IE and it's ActiveX controls can do some fantastic things. On the Internet at large, freaking scary. It's got good regular browser features except for the horribly-crippled bookmark management & access, which should be an easy fix (you'd think).
Nav 4.x - pretty good, better cookie & cache management than IE (though I think there may be an update for additional cookie features for IE - not sure). Very good bookmark management (on a par with Spry Mosaic of old...). Incremental reflow - none, which is very very bad.
Mozilla - very very good, easily on a par with IE for Internet usage - better bookmark management, though still quite buggy in that department. Better cookie management, also has better image loading management (ability to only load images from the same domain as the website - which is not present in the Navigator 6). Very extensible, albeit in a different way than IE.
So that's my take on the situation. Each browser has it's good and bad points - like anything else, it's a matter of how things work on YOUR systems (some people find IE more stable than Nav 4.x, some less so - depends on your machine). Many interface issues are a matter of personal preference. Some people don't need the extensive bookmark handling that I demand. Some people want better security. Some people don't run Windows as their primary platform (or at all). Keep in mind many of IE's loading speed advantages are being it loads many DLLs at bootup - Nav & Mozilla aren't allowed to do that. Also note that using a native widget framework around the Gecko renderer can help approach that loading speed (you folks really should check out the K-Meleon project).
Okay, that's enough for now...
The original contents of this comment were clear copyright violation. They were cut & pasted from this site. This text has been removed at the request of the copyright holder.
> Let's us take the latest Mozilla code, cut out
> all the AOL-related and other useless cruft,
There is little or no AOL-related cruft in the Mozilla tree. The cruft was added for Netscape 6.0 by Netscape engineers working on their own private tree. So there is no need to fork.
> First couple of goals: stability, no memory
> leaks, and 100% W3C standards compliance.
That's pretty much what everyone's been working on in Mozilla for the last several months.
> Galeon is doing this.
No. Galeon is not a fork. They use Mozilla as their engine. They are not developing their own version of Mozilla, they are tracking the standard Mozilla tree.
What does nutscrape provide that Mozilla doesn't? Couldn't you just continue to use Mozilla on it's own? It's got email and browsing and news. What more do you need? And with the mozilla engine available, I'm guessing we'll be seeing a LOT of packaged programs to choose from, not just from AOL.
Haven't the inclination yet to try netscape 6, so we'll just see what Mozilla matures to...
Jason
Well, NS6 gave me more AOL junk, but it has a bunch of stuff that I couldn't get for mozilla.
Rather than fix up NS6, try this on for size:
Copy the contents of the PLUGINS folder from Netscape 6 into the BIN/PLUGINS folder of Mozilla (except for npnul32.dll) to increase plugin compatability for Mozilla.
This was the final step for me; now I use Mozilla for all browser activities. - oh, and this is for Windows, so I don't know how it will work on Linux or Mac.
oh, and don't overwrite anything, and do include the CVS subdirectory. enjoy!
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Netscape has been going downhill since 3.0, they started playing the 'be like IE' game and lost most of what made their browser great. Can't they just stick with something to get me where I want to go?
I'm stubbornly sticking with 3.0 until someone comes up with a small-footprint 6.0.
- "When I say dance, you'd best DANCE motherf*cker!" -Violent Femmes
I, too, am sick of the increasing number of junk buttons and junk features that have been creaping into Netscape. I don't use them. I want them eradicated. They provide negative value to me.
s/When/Until/g
The problem with "Until" is that we're still waiting. For three fscking years.
And every one of those years has given IE more market share and marginalized Nutscrape.
I'll believe it when I see it.
And I'm someone who also prefers NS3 over NS4. It renders stuff twice as fast as NS4. And what I've seen out of Mozilla hasn't been encouraging in that regard either.
P.S. I preferred NS3 to NS4 because
NS3's its toolbar is narrower - no "My Netscape", no "Search" button - and why did "Security" have to be a menu button? My NS4 session has to take up over half the screen just to let me click "Stop"
Turning image-autoload on/off, enabling/disabling Java and Javashit are several mouse-clicks and moseovers faster in NS3 than NS4.
Until I see an offering from Nutscrape/Mozilla that makes it easier for me to turn off the spam than NS3, I'll remain skeptical.
I parse this as "We spent all this time doing the skinning and XML-fu so that you could turn off the chrome"
I got a idea. The user base never wanted a "development platform", they wanted a web browser.
How 'bout just writin' a web browser and not puttin' the chrome in there in the first place.
The only advantage I see to NS6 over NS4 is that it's easier to turn off the extra crap in NS6. Maybe if they'd spent more time writing a web browser and less time writing an extensible chrome display platform, they'd have ended up with a better browser.
The reason people are "bashing Mozilla" isn't because they're ungrateful, it's been three years and it still sucks harder than NS3.
(Or to put it another way - for those of us who just want a friggin' web browser that sucked less than NS3, what do we have to be thankful for?)
When was the last time an end user cared about standards-compliance, especially when standards-compliance means that many of the web pages they use on a daily basis will no longer render correctly?
I make no argument concerning the fair treatment of Mozilla developers; I don't know enough about that to comment. But I did want to throw the above into the mix!
-Omar
If the point is that releasing mozilla as open source is only "lining Netscape's pocket", what's your point. The point to me is that they released the damn thing. I mean, isn't the idea of open source that anyone can use it for anything they want to? Who cares if they just point back to their own crappy travel services. The source is out there--if you don't like it, write your own!
Furthermore, open source software is used across the board for profitable operations. What about Apache? This is a true community project, that is used left and right for commercial purposes (ahem...Slashdot?). Should we bitch and complain that Apache is being used by nefarious corporate entities with the sole purpose of making a buck?
My other computer is your Windows box
besides the fact that the installer is one of those downloaders, is the fact that you get to watch flashing advertisements while you download. They're kind of small unfortunately.
> *massive* JavaScript/DHTML insufficiencies
Hah. Mozilla and Netscape 6.0 have the best implementation of the W3C HTML, CSS and DOM scripting standards among all competing browsers.
So you run IE on Linux? yea, and pigs fly...
BTW: Mozilla in linux is VERY stable, and it isn't even beta...
You know what are you talking about? The M$ JVM SUCKS! and they haven't improved it in years... SUN JVM is really good, not very fast but A LOT more updated. And if you want a fast JVM use the one from IBM
Did you ever wrote a Java program for the M$ JVM?? please shut up!
Again you don't know what are you talking about, Mozilla supports JavaScript 1.5 and is working in the new ECMA standard and JavaScript 2.0, please visit http://www.mozilla.org/js/ and inform yourself...
Really good at not implementing the standards you mean? The IE support of XSL-T XML Schema, DOM(Levels 1 and 2) and CSS(1 and 2) is broken and I wonder if they plan to fix it... IE even didn't support completely HTML 4.01
Yea, AOL and Netscape marketing sucks BUT the majority of the Netscape developers working in Mozilla are Gods, not only great developers, but very nice people. And yes, I hate PDT(if you want to see how much I dislike them read bug #3935)!
For you information not only volunteers(as me) work in Mozilla, in mozilla work people from: AOL, Netscape, SUN, QNX, IBM, RedHat, Intel, Be...
And may be volunteers don't have the big bucks of M$, but many of them are Gods(Robert O'Callahan, Blake, Jag, Pike... and all the others: YOU ROCK!), and they put a big effort working in Mozilla, you should be thankful!
I'm tired to answer to your stupid affirmations...
It's a shame you got moderated up, seems that now SlashDot readers use Win+IE, loves M$ and closed source... AND THEY BELIEVE IE WORKS ON IE!!
Please don't continue insulting my intelligence...
Best regards
Uriel
- - - - - -
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
Because the only people in this thread claiming that Mozilla is "faster" are people running it on non-Micros~1 platforms.
Every person I've seen, whether they like IE or not, has said it's a helluvalot faster than anything Netscape's released in living memory.
Galeon kicks ass - compared to NS4. But don't expect web designers to write standards-compliant HTML until Joe Luzer on a Windoze box has a reason to use anything other than IE.
And the pro-Mozilla comments I've seen in this thread don't exactly lead me to believe that "beating IE on Windoze" is a priority for any of them.
as others have said, its just a text file...edit it.
to take it another step..read this
That will get rid of all the crap on the tool bar. Also edit the Netscape.ad file (forget where it is), to make a ton of changes to the way netscape looks, and feels.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Users on Windoze boxen who want something that renders their most commonly-referenced web pages anywhere near as fast as IE.
Having used recent Mozilla nightlies under Win95 a couple times recently (girlfriend still lives in Windows), I can tell you that Mozilla is almost, if not just as, fast as IE at page rendering.
Basically, anyone without an Athlon at 1.2 GHz and 256M of RAM.
I'm running a PII-266, 96 MB of RAM. Your point?
Seriously, I haven't run into many pages where the standards compliance of Mozilla has prevented me from viewing a badly-written page. Joe Luzer should have few to no problems using Mozilla (can't speak for Netscape 6, since Moz is a bit farther ahead) to view their favorite pages.
-------------
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
but isn't part of the point of open source that we can develop better software instead of bloatware?
Do you actually code?
You want full (compliant) implementations with all sorts of things like style sheets, javascript, the latest html standard, and at the same time you want the brower to run like hot shit off a greased shovel. Hate to break it to you, but with the amounts that those things have evolved its a hell of a lot more than the NS3 team ever had to even think about. Even if you go feature for feature with NS3 (lets say javascript support) I garuantee you the current implementations are going to be slower (and larger), because the standards have grown to encompas more things. You have to put in new hooks and rewrite your code to support more stuff. Its not bloatware. Users expect a certain minimum set of features. That set is larger now than it was 2 years ago. The software has to grow to accomodate it, it has to do more work to implement them. Now add in some debugging code and hell no wonder its slower than 4.76 (at least on my P200 MMX) but it doesn't crash half as much.
--locust.
Just try to kick IE's ass... that's all that needs to be focused on.
Strive for standards.
Become a small and efficient browser that works on all platforms
Try to think of *one way* to make money for the company -- do the AOL no-homepage thing, or sell it for $10 a crack.
and then I don't think anything could stop it from being the best / most profitale browser.
----
Tons of AOL/Netscape money goes back to Mozilla. They employ dozens of programmers and peripheral support people, they provide the network which hosts the Mozilla project, and they provide the build farm upon which Mozilla is built.
No, it's more like complaining about Ford installing a GPS unit on the dash the continuously tells you (probably using that same annoying voice that Nissan used in the '80s "Your Door Is A Jar. Your Door Is A Jar.") how to get to the nearest Ford dealer, Ford gas station, Ford grocery store, Ford drive thru liquor mart, Ford jewelry store, Ford poodle groomer, Ford laundramat, Ford opera house, Ford shopping mall, Ford amusement park, Ford pizza shack, Ford egg roll stand, Ford shoe shine, Ford savings bank, Ford video rental, Ford electronics supercenter, Ford home improvement mart and so forth. In addition to this there would be a large glowing button next to the brake pedal (Stop) that would cause your truck to drive itself immediately to the nearest Ford dealer (Shop).
Fortunately, Ford does not do this. On my Ford truck there is a smallish blue logo on the grill and tailgate and a small embossed logo on the airbag cover. These are the only really obvious logos on the truck. There are probably a few more like on the inspection sticker on the drivers door jam, but I don't notice them. This compares pretty well with IE. On the version of IE I use at work (5.5) there's an IE logo in the title bar and the animated one in the upper right corner of the window. There are probably also such logos in the about box and help files, but I never look at those so I don't remember.
I do notice however that in NS 4.73 the Stop button is right next to the Shop button which bugs the hell out of me since I like text buttons better than icons. Oh well, I'm using Konqueror now and liking it.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Does any of the money generated by the browser get back to Mozilla? I kinda doubt it.
Knucklehead. Who exactly do you think is paying for mozilla.org and the salaries of most of the programmers?
I completely understand this. A lot of my projects have been doing the performance tuning stuff...which is the opposite. However, IMHO when making a user-centered project you should not make it this bloated. And, if you do, it should be more modular by design. That way, parts of it can truly be unloaded from memory. I believe there was some discussion of making Mozilla more modular at one point..although its been a long while since I followed its production.
IMHO I do not care if they self-promote themselves a bit. They need to pay the bills. Understood.
However, when they begin to make the product more bloated in order to suit their needs..I have a problem with that. Netscape 6 used like 3 times as much memory as 4.7 one my machine. Did they make a deal with RAM manufacturers or summin? Is that one of those other built in money makers? Self-advertising to help with expenses is ok for me...(to a point..as long as you can get rid of most of it) But making the product more of a resource hog...yuck!
I dunno if they fixed this in 4.75, but in 4.73, Netscape thoughtfully places the "Personal Toolbar Folder" bookmark entry back, no matter how many times I try and delete it (or edit the bookmark file). Highly annoying.
Better?? I've had IE crash when trying to load a web page with one static picture on it, much less a Flash animation.
Frankly, I don't like either. But I am using Netscape 4.7 currently and there's no problems with that version. Yet.
What is it with the IT software industry anyways? Let's promote a new version even before we've worked all the bugs out of the old version, stop supporting the old version so the End Users have to get the new version, and repeat until rich? Is that all there is to it?
Am I surprised by Netscape/AOL/whoever doing this? No. But I would be pleasantly surprised if one company would release a new browser or OS that wasn't buggy as Hell(tm).
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
.. that garf were removable. Haven't tried the 6.0 flavor yet, but the 4.7x bunch just absolutely will not let you take the preformated sections out of your bookmark file.
There are a few other reasons why I'm probably going to stick with Mozilla at home, but when the admins at work give us a choice I'll probably take it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Instead of complaining about it, we should be glad that Netscape is still heavily supporting Mozilla development. So in fact, some of those dollars do go back into Mozilla.
No, IE's success is that it (at least the 5.x series) is that it's a better browser. It's faster, stabler, and has a superior user interface. Anyone who's been using a Netscape 4.x version and thinks they're getting a "better" browser purely because it meets their political ideals is deluded at best.
This never happened to me when I was using Netscape on the school SPARCStations back at USC. It must be something about your school's setup.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
As my friend "John Whorfin" always says...
HAR!
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
A recent survey of my (pretty popular) web site showed 78% IE-derived browsers and 18% Mozilla-derived. I wonder what percentage of the Mozilla users were actually from AOL. There's not much incentive for a Windows user (95% of our users) these days to actually go out and download a second bloated browser suite onto their system.
As I surf web sites, more are putting features into the browser that are best viewed on Windows boxes. The old standard for HTML-rich sites used to be "Our web page is best viewed with a Netscape or Microsoft browser". Now people mainly develop for IE first and work in compatability for Mozilla, AOL and/or WebTV (still a significant percentage, but dwindling into unimportance).
AOL bought Netscape, so AOL will keep it alive until it make more sense to put something else on their direct-mail CDs. Long live Mozilla.
What's up with Neoplanet? They used to be a cool alternative to Mozilla when it didn't crash my Windows PC.
-- EZ
--
And just why shouldn't it run fine on a 486/50? NS3 did.
OK, so we're both exaggerating with that 486/50 crack, but isn't part of the point of open source that we can develop better software instead of bloatware?
I can understand "haha, u luzer, gotta upgr8d!" coming from Micros~1, who has a vested interest in making sure we all get on the upgrade treadmill with each revision of the OS and office suite - the corporate purchaser then purchases more Dells and Compaqs, and MSFT gets to sell more OS licenses.
But from the open source camp, I find that attitide to be disgusting.
Personally, I gave up on Netscape itself a long time ago. I'm using Mozilla when I can but still end up falling back on IE 5 pretty often.
From the beginning of the Mozilla project, I've just seen Netscape as a "Real Browser Plus AOL advertizing" product, and can't for the life of me think of a single reason to even consider using full-blown Netscape instead of Mozilla.
The Netscape browser exists for the single purpose of selling something. If you just want a (relatively) clean, simple browser use Mozilla.
Of course the Netscape browser is full of ads and flashy eye candy, that's the whole point of not just calling Mozilla Netscape.
This article is not very different from complaining about a Ford logo on a Ford truck. Of COURSE Netscape's browser is full of links, it exists for advertizing purposes. IE doesn't have that extra fluff because IE isn't there to sell a browser, but claim market scare for Microsoft. IE isn't a product on it's own, it's a grab for market share.
www.matthewmiller.net
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Ford doesn't put a logo on its trucks to advertise Ford to the owner of the truck. The Netscape situation is more like the following:
Ceiling of truck covered with unremovable maps directing you to all the Ford owned places you can drive to, but nothing else
Truck asks you if you would like it to be your 'default vehicle' and changes all your car keys to only work in this truck
Low Gas light reminding you to buy some more Ford gas
Big sign behind the spare tire slot reminding you to buy another Ford tire
Actually, I believe they also link to MSN by default as your home page, check Internet Explorer updates by default, and "search" (ever hit ctrl-e instead of ctrl-w) is Microsoft or MSN by default. However, they are not as blatant as Netscape, and that says a whole lot.
Have you read my journal today?
> As we all must agree, the browser war ended with
> IE on top.
I would agree that IE is currently on top, but why must we agree that the browser war has ended?
There is a common perception that when Microsoft wins in a market segment, they own it for all time, but when Microsoft loses in a market segment, it's only until the next release. (Even if they lose over and over again --- think Palm vs Windows CE). This perception is completely false (think low-end servers, NT vs Linux). It
deters competition and stifles innovation.
The browser war is NOT over, not by a long shot.
If there is demand for a different project based of the Mozilla code that doesn't spam you every step of the way to go to Netscape.com, someone will compile it. Noone forced you to use Netscape, and if Netscape dies, oh well, Mozilla will live and someone else will take up the project.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Same could be same for any commercial company that uses open source software. Redhat has linux, HelixCode has Gnome. TT has KDE (Look at GPL of KDE if you don't believe). To make a long story short, that is the food chain.
The reality of it, 90% of mozilla engineers paychecks come from netscape/aol. They are not forced to be there.
The fact that AOL lets players like Galeon and Eazel use GTKMozEmbed for applications is great. That is where the real value of Moz lies. Also, the platform capabilities of mozilla have not even begun to be touched yet.
Only they really know the magnitude of what they created.
;-) It will only get better, faster and more optimized. (As will IE/Opera/Konqu./etc). For me and you as the end user, thats great! Choices , remember.
--------------------
For example if you don't want AIM, edit all-packages.rdf and remove all references to aim.jar in it. AIM goes away.
If you don't want certain buttons, open the appropriate JAR file and change the XUL (e.g. communicatorOverlay.xul). The button goes away.
It's hardly rocket science but it demonstrates beautifully the power of chrome over conventional applications.
I want full W3c compliance with XML, DHTML, CSS and the other standards.
To put it plainly, I no longer trust N$ or M$ not to "change their minds" and screw us all into the ground for a lousy buck and a quarter, or worse, for the sheer joy of it.
The creeping feature creature and technology lockout means that I am eliminating the bells and whistles, moving decision making up to the server (thank heaven's for php and PostgreSQL,) and aiming for the lowest common denominator as a delivery/client platform.
They can take their geegaws and stick 'em where the sun don't shine.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
First off, MSIE does actually have another link back to M$... MSN is the default home page... big deal...
/.ers, but MSIE is better than Netscape, and Netscape's money-grubbing is doing nothing about this. While the Mozilla crew has done a great job with Mozilla, on Windows, at least, it lags behind MSIE. IE renders faster, and, horrors, is more stable. (This seems to be true on Linux, too... My Linux Netscape dumps core about every 5 minutes, whereas IE only does it about every 15 minutes...)
Now, this will come as heresy to
Plug-ins in IE are - just by empirical observation here folks - more stable, too. Flash, Shockwave, Acrobat, etc. all cause various problems on my Netscape installs, more so than under IE. Microsoft's JVM is better, as is their implementation of ECMA/JavaScript (embarrasingly for both Sun and Netscape, really). After being lambasted for being nothing but a marketing organization, Microsoft has put a lot of time and money into making the last couple versions of IE really good...
Netscape seems to have decided to take just the opposite approach and become nothing more than a marketing arm of AOL... all the good work is being done for by the Mozilla folks, and as volunteers they're having a hard time keeping up with the big bucks of M$. AOL seems to not give a damn about putting any money into the project to give the engineering effort a fighting chance against the stuff M$ is doing.
IE, at least on Windows, and in the versions I've tested on Linux, is just faster, more stable, more flexible in terms of add-ons it will accept without problems... better.
I'd like to see Mozilla kick their ass, but to do that, I think N$/AOhelL needs to do more than just sponge off their efforts and build links to annoying adverts...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
Here are some of my complaints so far...
1) Netscape's 6.0 installer is very unstable, and has a hard time coping with download problems because of stalls, etc. In fact, it took me a good four tries to get it to actually finish the install. Why can't we just have a tarball or something?
2) Netscape 6 itself breaks a number of standards supported in Mozilla, and is far too oriented to meet AOL's money-grubbing desires. Pardon me, but the browser should be for the user, not JUST the company. Companies have to make money, but I get tired of every single button or menu I click taking me to the horribly-slow Netscape site.
3) Netscape 6 is very unstable, yet the Mozilla code it is based off of runs much more smoothly. Looks like all those commercial tie-ins are causing Netscape to sink under its own commercial weight.
I had high hopes for Netscape. But it just doesn't cut it. I use the Opera for Linux port now, which, even though it is still in the alpha stage technically, can run circles around anything Netscape or Mozilla puts out. Sure there's no Java or plug-in support yet (neither of which I'm desperately needing), and it occasionally crashes, but at least it doesn't have all those weird glitches and standards issues that Netscape has.
On the Linux side, I think it's time we all start looking for or working on something better. I think the BrowseX browser looks particularly promising. It's open source, very capable already, and with some more development, could give the closed commercial browsers run for their money. But whatever happens, I honestly don't think Netscape will ever get much better. AOL simply has its priorities wrong, and has done a disservice to everyone by not coming through on a viable alternative browser.
-----
Anything that can go wr
So they use code that volunteers wrote and turned it into a self-promoting product. Why is this problem? I would first say that the fact that Netscape employees wrote most of the code gives them the moral right to do so. But even if they didn't, anyone is free to do such a thing. I could create a custom version of Mozilla (let's call it FizgigBrowser 6.1, since I have to be ahead) and have every button on there be a link to my homepage. Why is this so wrong? Netscape has graciously given everyone the right to do whatever they please with the code they pay to have written; are they somehow in the wrong for taking advantage of the reciprocal offer of other developers?
"Does any of this money generated by the browser go back to Mozilla? I kinda doubt it?"
Um, how about the fact that they've been paying people to work on Mozilla for 32 months and haven't actually gotten any revenue from it yet. Don't you think they've paid their dues several times over by now? (not that there actually _are_ any dues)
I have a tiny bit of code that made it into most of the Linux distributions. Red Hat's desktop has lots of links to Red Hat sites. Should I feel cheated?
You'd think that after web users have been exposed to ad banners on web sites, Eudora, Cute FTP, and any number of other "free" software packages, they'd be used to the notion that good software doesn't come free -- unless you're Microsoft, and you can afford it. Netscape tries to make money from their web site. This is how they get people there.
Besides, the links are all part of the skin. It's only a matter of time before Skinz.org fills up with Netscape skins that lack all the self-promotion. If you're halfway clever, you can even start hacking the code and doing it yourself.
Does any of the money generated by the browser get back to Mozilla? I kinda doubt it.
Most of the development on Mozilla was done by full-time employees of Netscape, working on Netscape's time. So yes, a lot of the money generated by the browser goes back to Mozilla.
I agree, It seems the browser is no longer a way to view other peoples websites but a way to get you to visit the browser creators havily ad ridden portal.
Opra Good! Netscape and Microsoft Bad!
Out of curiousity, I tried deleting my Personal Toolbar folder, quitting Communicator, and restarting. And, yes, a new Personal Toolbar folder appeared, filled with links to various LinuxPPC related things.
It turns out that those items are compiled into the binary -- do /usr/lib/netscape/netscape-communicator | less, and
look for the names of some of the things you're seeing. You'll also
find the magic Netscape bookmarks. This stuff is all in the form of
JavaScript code -- for example,
strings
That leads me to two suggestions:
>
> Yes he does. He just don't know it. Mozilla is the chance to make real web apps, to turn the web into a platform.
The market is littered with the corpses of companies that said "yes, Joe Luzer wants what we're building, he just doesn't know it yet."
> Rendering cnn.com correctly may be of some use today, but the fight is not for a browser, but for a web platform.
Honestly, I hope you're right. But I think you're wrong.
Until it does what Joe Luzer wants, not what you think he should want, it'll continue to lose marketshare to IE :-(
Netscape has provided the bulk if not all of the servers to the Mozilla.org the bandwidth, and 95% of the engineers, including QA, and PDT. I'm not sure what else they could give back to an open source project. If it really bothers you that much just use mozilla and copy the plugins to your mozilla plugins directory, or install a banner filter proxy. It's easy. In IE 5.5 you get links and other assorted crap to MSN so it's all the same.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
by default the search bar in IE goes to MSN Search, the Radio Toolbar has a prominent link to the Microsoft Radio Guide, etc. The default bookmarks are also full of MS stuff.
The problem is that Netscape has taken it over the top with Netscape 6. In IE, it makes sense. The search bar has to go somewhere, so it goes to MSN. (I wonder if you can change it? I've never looked.) The whole program isn't riddled with "buy me" crap, and you don't have to sign up for Netcenter, MSN, or anything else to use it.
Its a matter of scope. Logically, one would expect links back to the browser creator somewhere, Netscape just took it way too far and hurt the overall usability of the browser because of all the crap.
Thankfully, there is the Mozilla releases, which are better then any Netscape release anyway.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I was a loyal Netscape user until about a month ago, when I switched to IE because I thought it was a superior product. I d/led Netscape 6 last night and found it to be much better than 4.7, in my opinion even better than IE 5.5. You should at least give it a try, everything loads much faster and it has a better looking interface, too.
Regarding ie's ties back to microsoft... I belive that the default bookmarks are tied through, ie: the "travel" default shortcut is a link to microsoft.com/evil_counting_program?redirect=trave l.com
or something along those lines.
Netscape's are more blatent than ie's, but they are there...
No one is forcing anyone to use the browser, and people are free to modify it to eliminate whatever portions they find objectionable. No one is forcing you to go the Netscape.com against your will. They want to be a portal and get this project to generate revenue. I don't see a problem with it.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
I'd like to be able to respond to the claims of Netscape 6 being chock-full of adverts; unfortunately, the Macintosh version of NS 6 is so full of bugs that I've been trying to download a Roach Motel to clean it out.
I wouldn't consider the installer shitting well over 300 empty files onto my desktop and then crashing much of an advertisement.
--
reverendrich.com
AOL likes money.
Therefore Netscape likes money.
AOL uses Netscape for profit driving.
Netscape owns Mozilla.
Therefore, Netscape uses Mozilla for profit driving.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
You have the code which Netscape GAVE you. Feel free to build a version without the adds. Fork the tree, whatever.
Nobody is forcing you to use the browser. If thine web browser offends thee, pluck it out (uninstall it).
The thing that offends me about Netscape (4.7something) is that when I go to POP my email, it holds my email hostage while it laboriously downloads this stupid "news and features" web page in my email window, chock full of time-wasting graphics and other such bloated cruft.
I don't normally use Netscape for email (I use mutt in a Unix shell, which is the way email ought to be) but every now and then I get some html or images that I actually do want to see, so I bounce it to a POP account I use for nothing else but looking at those few emails with Netscape.
And it always infuriates me, to the point where I'm about this close (fingers two microns apart) from looping all netscape.com IPs back to localhost. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't hold the content I'm after hostage while they download, like this Netscape/AOL crap does.
I've looked at Mozilla a bit, but last time I looked (a few weeks ago) it crashed. A lot. More than Netscape 4.72. Maybe it's time to give it another look.
(Internet Exploiter, of course, is Right Out.)
Those bastards! That commercial entity is acting like a, um, let's see...commercial entity, maybe?
Could I see a raise of hands of those that are happy that Netscape is still fighting Microsoft _at all_? How about a show of hands from those that are happy that Mozilla exists? Thanks. I thought there were some non-braindead among us still.
I'll bet it encourages other companies considering open sourcing things when they see us:
1) Scream for the code.
2) Receive the code.
3) Bitch about the code.
4) Bitch about the license.
5) Bitch about the company that gave the code.
6) Goto 3.
--
Liberty uber alles.
You basically have the following choices:
1. Download IE. You just helped MSFT up their browser counts, killing off all other choices. Plus, they get revenue from you, and can keep killing open source.
2. Download Netscape 6. You now help pay for the work on Mozilla by ad impressions. They're not working for free, those AOL/Netscape engineers, even if you are. And someone has to pay for marketing and distribution. You can disable some of the automatic links, of course.
3. Keep using Netscape 4.72 or 4.74 or whatever. You still count as a Netscape browser, so you don't help MSFT, but you're not helping standards compliance or open source, so you might as well write a check to MSFT, since you've sold out.
4. Use Opera. Man, you are so cool!
5. Use Mozilla. Man, you are so cool!
6. Use Lynx. Man, you are so retro!
7. Write your own browser. Man, you are so cool!
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
The only thing that kind of ticked me off about Netscape 6.0 was all the other stuff they install w/ the 6.0 install. I hate how they install Real Player 8.0, Take 5, Net2Phone, and put that stupid AOL 6.0 icon on the desktop. Now that's what pissed me off about Netscape 6. But most of those (with the possible exception of the AOL 6.0 icon) could probably have been prevented by doing a custom install. All in all, though, I don't think Netscape 6.0 is any worse than IE when it comes to serving its own interests.
--------------------------------------
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the main problem with MSIE was that Microsoft were embedding it in a very popular OS, and making it very difficult for average people not to use it.
Netscape isn't doing that. They're offering their product, giving people an option to install it. Netscape's running an optional service oriented business and providing it for free, like a lot of stuff on the net, and it's no surprise that they've made the presentation very commercialised.
Put simply, people (and companies) are more likely to be using Netscape because they chose to than because anyone thrust it in their face as if there was no alternative.
===
Ok, so AOL is sinking LOTS of money into coming up with a browser (as someone on the project stated 70-90% of the work on Mozilla is done by Netscape engineers). So, why would AOL do this? Are they going to make money selling the browser? Some, but only a small amount (I expect to see a Netscape 6 shrinkwrap package if only as an advertizing element). But, no, what AOL wants is an AOL browser that is not beholden to Microsoft. They want to be able to add support for the extensions that AOL is interested in, and add the sorts of AOL promotion features that AOL feels they need.
None of this should come as a shock, and what's more, none of this is terribly off-putting. If you don't like Netscape, you can use Mozilla. If you don't because you appreciate things like the real-player plugin or any of the other Netscape-only features, you go with Netscape and pay the price. Your choice. Isn't that what open source/free software is supposed to be all about? The choice to fix bugs or make your own version or take out a feature you don't like? Hell, make your own Mozilla-based product, or choose a different one.
I'm posting this from Netscape 6, and I have to say that I will work quite hard to find a way to get rid of "My Netscape" and "Net2Phone" from the shortcut bar, but otherwise it's exactly the browser I want.
. . . are weenies.
"Is Netscape bashing going to replace Microsoft bashing?"
I think it's really pathetic how most people don't take 2 seconds to really investigate anything, but would rather follow whatever bashing trend floats by them. There is a whole sub-cultural phenom. on "popular" bashing of products. Let's look at some examples:
Microsoft, the movie Titanic, Episode 1, Religion, Netscape, any other large corporation...
It's "fashionable" to bash those and many others...you're "hip" and "with it" if you can repeat the same 2 or 3 worn-out phrases that make you seem "in the know"
Pathetic.
[/rant]
sorry, but this is just plain stupid. i hate the "jump-on-the-bandwagon-bashers" because they make so much fucking noise and have so little to say...
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
I think this is open source working exactly the way it is supposed to. If Netscape wants to put money into branding and promoting their particular build of Mozilla, and they feel that consumers will want to endure the endless cross-promotions because of the perceived Netscape brand value, then more power to them.
Other companies and organizations are free to distribute their own builds of the product, and most Slashdotters prefer the current builds directly off of the Mozilla website.
There is nothing unethical about Netscape distributing what they feel is the right balance of current features and revenue-generating opportunities in their build. Have they struck the right balance? Consumers and the marketplace will make that decision.
Comparisons to closed-source IE border on ludicrous.
Corby
Well, I had some of the same reactions. Yesterday I installed NS6. I didn't like the profiles. I didn't like the way it didn't quite install correctly. I didn't like the countless references back to NS, AOL, and the time wasted in general when you accidently clicked on something you didn't mean to click on. The fact that it locked up(the app, not the machine) didn't help either.
.02 dollars.
My frustration comes from not having a feature-rich, yet fast, simple, and non-intrusive web browser. I'd tried all the IE's, Netscapes... Lynx, Opera...
But yesterday night I installed KDE(I've been biased toward Gnome for the last year), and I was quite impressed with the Browser and with KDE in general! In fact, it's the closest thing to the browser I've been looking for! Cosmetically, it doesn't look like a rocket ship. It is rather plain. What do we get for it looking plain? It loads quickly . It reacts. It's reads HTML well, from what I've seen. Isn't that what we've been looking for? Here's a screenshot from the KDE screenshots pages.
I've tried mozilla and found it to be inspiring, yet disturbingly buggy. Nobody ever said it wasn't buggy, but it was my light at the end of the tunnel, and still can be. But right now it takes between 60 and 120 Megs of memory while running. How much debug code is in there?? It is debug code.... right?
Well, we do have options. Some of them are GOOD options, depending on whether we're running KDE. It won't surprise me if at some point someone puts out a distribution of Mozilla that is stripped down, quicker, and to the point when it finally hits stable.
In any case, there's my
rhadc
1. The netscape browser is for the unwashed masses, who are used to such commercialism. Do expect anything else from AOL? You are welcome to use the mozilla browser, which is better anyway. 2. Netscape has taken the mozilla browser and customized it into their own branded version. You can do something similiar if you like. Neither changes the fact that there's a free, customizable mozilla for everyone. 3. Most of the people who work on mozilla are paid netscape employees anyway, despite their effort to recruit helpers for a large-scale volunteer effort. It just never happened.
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Ooh, big disagreement there. I am using Homesite to create pages and check the code, and N6 is doing some pretty funky things. I have been surfing with it since I installed it, and many pages look strange in it, and it crashes alot, it's slower, and images load unreliably. I say that because the images will load, and with a refresh some will, some won't, and with another refresh the results will change. This was released WAY too soon, IMO. I will keep this to check browser compatibility, but frankly, I am not sure I will use it. Of course, on my Linux machine, I will probably have to use it. Despite my general opinion of Micro$oft, their browser is good, perhaps it's because it is the one thing they give away freely ;-)
I used N6 all day yesterday and I'm using M18 all day today. So far the only difference is M18 loads faster...and with the theme I installed in N6 (I deleted N6 after installing M18), even the form data transfered over and neither overwrote N4.76. If anything the Mozilla project benifits from Netscape because everyone knows Netscape's name yet not many non-geek-like-people know Mozilla. I've been using Netscape since 1.22 and I toyed around with Mozilla for a few milestones. M18 seems like a winner to me. Although there is a few sites that remain broken (hotmail for some reason) it's definately grown to acceptable. The biggest complaint I have with IE versions after 3 is that they tend to include hidden "extras" that just make for a lousy UI. As far as a double standard and MS not spamming, look at the "channel bar" that installs with Win98.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
That may be true, and that'll pretty much keep me (and probably most folks here) from using the new version(s) of Netscape. But guess what? It's open source! There's an anti-cruft version, and it's called Mozilla. There's even an anti-anti-cruft version, called Galleon.
If Netscape makes money off the mass market through their banner ads, and that money goes towards funding a great open source project like Mozilla, then what are you complaining about? It looks like everyone gets what they want.
Get them in a back-to-back comparison, and I'm sure you'll see IE outperform Netscape.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Does anyone here get this newsgroup and/or have any real info about when the world can expect to see a GPL'd mozilla source distribution.
I'd really like to play around with the code, but not until it's GPL'd.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I have two points I'd like to make.
Banner ads, shopping links, etc, etc. These are aimed at the user. This is really cool (tm) for the average joe blow that wants to buy something. As for the banner ads, maybe he's one of those people that just has a deep-seeded loathing of banner advertising. Really, I don't mind them. It's a good way to make money without actually *doing* anything and I understand that. They aren't overly intrusive, they just kinda chill at the top or the bottom.
Second, this guy really has no right to be pissed off at Netscape unless he's a member of the Mozilla project. You don't *pay* for Netscape, it's free (as in beer) software. I think the saying is "you get what you pay for."
Free (as in speech) software carries with it the ability for such conglomerates to come along and use it for pretty much whatever they want to. You can't be mad at them for doing this, because they are explicitly *allowed* to by the software creators.
I would be suprised if Netscape/AOL/Time Warning/Mirabilis/Nullsoft/Winamp/whatever *didn't* do something like this, but I'm not suprised that they did, nor do I think it's wrong, nor do I blame them for doing so.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
One of my girlfriends says that anybody who gives software away for free is a wannabee monopolist, because they will just introduce charges later when the competition is squashed. Is this true in the case of AOL? Or other software vendors? I'm not sure if I believe her, should I?
She used to work for SuSE's London headquarters, so I suppose she should know about these things.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Another vote for Opera here, or at least the 3.62 version.
.... Click on the third, and all the funky backgrounds and fonts go away, and you can look at the page in your own nice comfortable defaults instead of 4-point Barfbag Condensed dark blue on black, or whatever else some clueless Web designer wants you to use.
:-)
Look at the "progress bar". In the left side, there are three little icons. The first simply tells you if you're using a secure connection. Click on the second one, and all the images go away. Ads? I don't see any ads
Yeah, you can do this in IE and Netscape -- if you can figure out where in the menu heirarchy they hid them. They do *not* make it easy.
Opera isn't perfect -- in particular, the V4's do not "turn off" font coloring properly. You have your default font, but it still may be light yellow, or whatever.
Also, Opera does crash on me occasionally, when I hit a particularly vile example of HTML design. Certain bad Javascript constructs seem to force a browser crash.
Adding buttons to the main menu bar to turn images, backgrounds, etc on and off shouldn't be too hard for the Galeon/K-Meleon/Mozilla stuff. I might do it myself. (0.5
--
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Ok, ok, ok. Stop a moment and think. Netscape 6.0. It was supposed that Netscape would make a commercial version of its browser. Right? Right. Now they are the authors/proprietors/owners of this thing. On the net, to have a commercial value you should advertise. And Netscape's value, today is on all these AOL & Netscape Netcenter stuff. The browser is, in any case given for free. So how od you think Netscape will atract customers? - "Oh, hey! We are such a good guys, get our browser for free... and by the way, don't forget we do something else..." That is the way they do money today.
So it would be quite natural to see Netscape providing adds on its browser. Maybe they are too much for such a product, But that's the only way for them to keep afloat. Anyway they give the right to choose. They also gave ground to Mozilla's project, and this one is much less ad-loaded than Netscape.
Why it looks so ad-ictive in relation to IE? Well IE is a system embedded into a OS called Windows, upon which Microsoft gets some envious fees. Even from people who don't use it. And, besides, Microsoft has a much larger market in control. So it does not need to rape your brains with a menu carrying 40 ads right-tight into your eyes and calling you to "buy... Buy... BUY!!!!" having its logo in every corner. Microsoft can be more stealth and more promiscuous then Netscape/AOL because its interest is even on the stock value of many companies and not on the direct sell of the product.
Any way, if this bores you, which is understandable, don't forget that there is Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, Links, and a few others that have nothing to do with selling you snake oil. However most of the breath only on the *NIX. That is the cost of freedom.
IE on the various commercial versions of Unix is horid. It does appear to be a marketing trick. When Microsoft pitches something that required IE, they sometimes run into companies who have a sizable Unix workstation base. To handle this inconvenience, they pitch IE on Unix. I've seen it done with the web version of Exchange / Outlook.
I've never had Netscape actually crater XFree86. Hit enough java-embeded web pages, Netscape will crash and leave a runaway process. Its common enough that you can get a WindowMaker dock app that kills netscape sessions with a few mouse clicks.Mozilla delivers the Linux user from this annoyance.
100%. No more, no less.
Speed
It's the only modern browser that will run decently on a 486cpu+16Mb ram over windows. On a more modern setup, it leaves the other two overweights in its dust.
Stability
In two years of usage, I think Opera has crashed on me twice
Interface
When initially installed, Opera's interface is a bit funky. Once you figure it out, however, it is completely customizable. Being able to set separate settings for different pages is a huge blessing. The full set of keyboard commands makes surfing much more convenient. Being able to change buttons is an nice bonus
Platform Independence
One area I wish they would catch up on. However, they are working on it.
Features
One man's feature is another man's CPU and ram eating useless bloat. ActiveX is an internet feature only if you don't give a rat's hiney about your computer's security. True, Java isn't built in but you do get the choice of which JVM you can hook up. It's compatible with most Netscape plugins.
Your drunk.
IE is more stable and much quicker. And this is coming from a guy who is posting this from a recent nightly build of mozilla.
For privacy reasons, I insist on using a open-source broswer (who knows what malware code lurks in IE). What irks me is that people on this site are so blinded by their hate of MS that they will not acknowledge a superior product, and in turn are too forgiving of mozilla Netscape, letting them slide by with a sub-par product.
Say it again: moooollllaaahhhh.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Have Justin Farkel over at WinAmp write us up a Plug-in to overlay all the banner ads with Winamp Graphic EQ's. Then he can piss of the parent company and a fellow subsidiary all in the same shot
My new title at the office is "Vice-President of Everything Else"
I'm really tired of people complaining about Netscape, complaining about Mozilla, etc. "They shipped too early." "They shipped too late." "How dare they try to make money." Blah blah blah.
All the links to Netscape.com can easily be configured out of Netscape 6. Take a look at the Preferences section. If that doesn't satisfy you, you can go into the chrome and delete those chunks of XML.
You'd rather use Mozilla instead? Fine. Use it. Plenty of people aren't savvy enough to get the nightlies from mozilla.org, and THEY are who Netscape 6 is for.
I'm very concerned that the open source community spends all its time flaming Netscape and Mozilla, and zero time supporting it. If I were a Mozilla developer, I'd probably quit. It just seems too thankless.
Lest we forget, for those of us who run Linux on the desktop, Netscape/Mozilla is the only substantial chance we have for a good browser. Opera, you say? Still in beta. When I've used it in the past, it's been nag-ware. Konqueror? I started trying to use it under KDE2, but it crashes plenty and is missing a lot of features.
I don't see what net benefit there is from all this criticism.
Monkeytreats
Well, some people are actually afraid of using their computers, because Windows crashes so much. Some people prefer not to tinker with default settings because Windows is so prone to destroying itself. Most people never change any default settings.
Burn Hollywood Burn
It appears that the commentator fails to appreciate the flexibility of Netscape's interface. Though the interface tools at mozdev.org (chameleon) is still relatively primitive, I anticipate that they will evolve to allow relatively easy modification of the interface.
Netscape has every right to create their own branded interface. Not just because they funded and staffed much of Mozilla's development but also because this is their interface. Heck, it's only a matter of time before AOL replaces it's kludgy access software with a Mozilla derivative--not just as an embedded module but rather as the entire access software, because ultimately it's just a new skin plus plug in modules.
If you don't like the Netscape branding use the chamleon program and create your own interface. Much more than just bookmarks, you could have your own shopping channel, your own travel channel, your own music channel, etc. Don't like the search or task menu items? Delete or replace them! You can easily keep the same essential look and feel but personalize it to meet your needs. And even share such with your friends.
And, of course, you could radically change the look and feel of the browser, given enough time and artistic talent, by creating your own theme from the ground up, a la Sky Pilot.
Personally, I want to see a MacOS X/ Aqua theme. I think that would rock. Whaddya say, Steve Jobs? Can you spare a HUI designer or two?
The hardwork of the Mozilla team isn't lining Netscape's pockets at all. Those of us who want Mozilla have downloaded Mozilla and are using it. Yet there are still people who are downloading Netscape. Why? Brand name recognition. That's what's lining Netscape's pockets, a brand name they've earned for themselves over the years. There was a time when a lot of people you talked to would call the web "netscape". (I hope this time has passed.) Mozilla doesn't have this brand name recognition, it just has a beautiful piece of software. Since I'm looking for beautiful software, I download mozilla and use it. If I were looking for commercial advertising and a brand name, I would be punching up netscape.com right now and downloading netscape. It's that simple.
> Netscape is one of the biggest contributors to
> Mozilla.
Understatement of the year. Netscape is *the* biggest contributor by a country mile.