AP reports on renewed "Browser War"

An anonymous reader writes "CNN and others are reporting an Associated Press story on "the revived browser war" with Mozilla paired against Microsoft. It seems the 1.0 release is creating some waves out there. " Considering most people consider the war long since over, I can't imagine this mattering much.

Comments

90%+ for IE still

[dpete4552]

Until my logs show something close to 50/50 for IE/Mozilla I don't believe it. Still showing 90% for IE, and I promote Mozilla on my site.

Re:90%+ for IE still

[killmenow]

And I use Opera, but identify as IE5.

And when I use curl, I use an IE5 user-agent string. Some sites just won't let you in otherwise.

We've all heard it before: when (yes, I said when) AOL switches to Mozilla, there will instantly be millions of Mozilla users.

Re:90%+ for IE still

[Jonny Ringo]

Just tell them that you're blind and that their site won't let your blide- enabeled web-browser in.
Yeah, that's a great idea. Here are some others.
park in a hanicap area and pretend your retarded.
pretend you can't walk and use a wheel chair and try and get into buildings that do not have wheel chair ramps (you can also pretend your stuck on a curb).
What the hell??? Do we need to start pretending we are blind because we don't want people to use IE. Shit, man thats pretty lame.

War is over unless AOL changes default

[acomj]

It AOL changes it Default browser to Netscape, than web designers will again have to consider netscape/mozilla when doing pages..

Why AOL hasn't switched after buying netscape must say something about microsofts control...

Competition is good though, so hopefully this will help all browsers get better..

Re:War is over unless AOL changes default

[SN74S181]

Sounds like an interesting tactic for AOL to take.

The question is: what would be the business reason for spending all the money to do so?

It's painful enough at AOL to try to get the userbase to move up to the latest release. I know people (family members on the in-law side) who say things like '5.0 is the best!'

It seems like a big expensive proposition, and what for? To spite Microsoft?

A bit of history

[b.foster]

Microsoft won the browser war because IE4 beat the hell out of any other browser that was available at the time. In fact, IE4 beats the hell out of the latest Netscape 4.7x release on any platform.

Unfortunately for Bill Gates, his company has rested on its laurels. IE6 offers little that wasn't present in IE5, and the many useful features in Mozilla 1.0 (tabbed browsing, anti-popup features, speed, stability, and security) mean that IE will be losing a significant amount of market share very soon.

And how can we complain about that? May the best product win - again. It's nice to see open source come out on top.

Re:A bit of history

[lgraba]

Microsoft won the browser war because IE4 beat the hell out of any other browser that was available at the time.

And I guess the fact that MS:

1) "Integrated" IE into the OS so that you got it whether you wanted it or not, and
2) Threatened the computer OEM's with withheld Windows licenses if they installed Netscape on computers going out the door, thus forcing them to pull Netscape

had nothing to do with it.

Face it, with actions such as these, in which MS used their power to skew the market by shutting off marketing channels, you do not have a fair fight. If MS had played fair AND achieved the market share they have, THEN they would have something to brag about.

Frosted glass

[jlusk4]

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/complexspira l/glassy.html

Those of you using IE will need to switch to Mozilla. Those of you using Mozilla won't even notice the part that doesn't work under IE, it feels so natural.

Cool effect that works only under Mozilla and just feels right. Now who's at the disadvantage?

Mozilla would win the browser war

[cr@ckwhore]

Here's my theory. If the word was spread that mozilla can block pop-up ads by simply checking a checkbox in the preferences, then I bet people would come to mozilla by the millions.

Unfortunately, most people are completely unaware of that simple, yet extremely powerful feature.

Re:The War War

[Anonymous Coward]

The market will dictate which browser "wins."

That's a rather interesting statement to make. Were you, perchance, unaware that the market certainly did not dictate which browser won the last time? Micro$oft's monopoly power did.

What is interesting--yes, interesting--is the question as to whether they will be able to get away with it again and, in fact, have the market not dictate nor indeed have any say whatsoever.

NO ONE ever "Chooses" IE!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

IE is the biggest not because people go out of their way to download it, it's because it's already on all the neophyte PC owner's shiny new windows machine. They don't go, "hmmm, I think I need to get a browser, I better FTP to my nearest microsoft mirror and get the latest IE. Boy I sure love IE. IT beats the pants off those other browsers." I challenge you to ask an "IE user" to name two other browsers.

Nope. No one chooses IE. Bill already chose for them. That fine for people that don't understand. For those of us that do understand, we see IE for the WebDialer installing, non standards compliant, stupid question asking, piece of M$-ware it really is.

Being a Netscape 4.6 user, I was suffering on slow page downloads (news.com was one), but I didn't switch to IE (hehe switched to a different tech news site). I downloaded Mozilla after reading about the golden on /., and went to news.com.

Needless to say I have a new favorite browser. And the source code to it too.

Great Job Mozilla Team!!

The harsh truth

[inkswamp]

I'm seeing comments here about how it must be one or two features of Mozilla that make it attractive to people, but the harsh truth is that until the 1.0 release, Netscape/Mozilla sucked ass and now it's an uphill battle in pulling people away from IE.

I'm not trying to troll here, but it's the truth. And don't give me the typical "but IE breaks web standards, etc." I'm not talking from a developer's perspective, but from a user's perspective which we have seen time and time again is the real deciding factor in most technology "wars," fair or not.

I try my best to keep my machine MS-free, but when it comes to browsers, there was little choice in the matter. Netscape 4.x was a joke and Netscape 6.0 was freaking slooooowwwwwww. A lot of people (even those who despise MS) fled to MSIE for relief, and let's be honest. MS did a decent job with it, at least from a user's perspective.

I'm using Mozilla 1.0 now, trying to give it time to grow on me and replace IE. Mozilla has a few quirks, but its benefits outweigh the negatives and I see significantly little difference between it and IE in terms of user experience. I've been actively encouraging others to try it out, but it will take time. Netscape botched the browser war very badly and IE has rooted itself in the public mind as THE ONE AND ONLY BROWSER. Although I like Mozilla, I have real doubts that it will get far, but best of luck to them. I'm on their side.

--Rick

Not to Mention Fully Supported PNG in Mozilla

[Uggy]

IE 6 doesn't have full alpha layer for PNG yet... no word on if it ever will. 24 bit png with alpha layer (transparent/translucent) works just great in Mozilla, blending into background, without all the tricks and hacks that you have to do with IE. I can use a style sheet to change colors on the fly and don't have to to re-save all the damn graphics and screw with them to get the shadows, edges to come out right. For me that's IE's biggest drawback.

What do most people who design for IE do to avoid this silliness? Is there any 24 bit graphic format that supports an alpha layer in IE? No, really, I'd like to know.

I have bookmarked this story

[q-soe]

The sight of people defending AOL Time Warner against Microsoft is in my mind worthy of a bookmark for future reference... AOL Time Warner are a monopoly in a way Microsoft would love to be - they have absorbed media companies left right and center yet as long as they release or support free software they are considered acceptable? Hmm why is it im suspicious of their motives ?

These people control what you see and what you read - they make no bones about their desire to dominate the media world and for them to turn around and start lawsuits against a former ally and best buddy (MS) shows the level of loyalty and trust worthiness they should be afforded.

I use Mozilla on Linux - i like it - its not as stable nor as useable as IE5.5 but it is a damn good browser. Netscape is a bloated, buggy unuseable piece of crap on windows and from my experiments on linux as well. To defend AOL and beg for them to do something like this is a joke, they WILL not do anything unless they can gain a competitive advantage from it - this is the way they have built a business (and previous slashdot stories can attest to it)

Im bookmarking this so when they become 'evil' in the eyes of /. i can post links to this story - Just WHO do you guys think would have the cash to buy parts of a split up MS anyway ? Painting the worlds largest media monopoly as a small guy against microsoft's might makes me laugh and feel ill at the same time.

It might sound bad to some people but superior products win marketshare - IE was better than Netscape - IE won whilst netscape frittered away a lead and became a second rate product (yet mozilla is a first rate ? go figure)

And yes the majority of the real world (non open source) consider IE a very good product.