Netscape 7.0 is Out

MrJones was one of many many users to submit that Netscape has released Navigator 7.0 unto the world. With their dwindling market share, it'll be interesting to see what affect this has on internet users. But here's hoping it makes a dent.

Comments

Re:Yes, but ...

[PotPieMan]

Somehow I doubt you have an RS/6000 on your desk, dude.

Re:Yes, but ...

[GigsVT]

How about spend $300 and get an x86 machine that is 4 times faster than that boat anchor that cost $10,000.

Re:Netscapes Market Share Down to 3.4%

[Quixadhal]

"because everyone sets their browser ident to IE..."

I've tried Netscape (Hell, I used Mosaic -- now THAT was evil), and Mozilla, and Opera, and Konquerer, and a few others I can't recall. ALL of them have good features, and NONE of them works as consistantly as the dread M$ IE.

I don't mean consistant as in "doesn't crash" (although Mozilla is sometimes a close competitors for cph (crashes-per-hour)), I mean that in IE I can almost always see the page without broken parts.

Why is this? Two reasons. One: IE is MUCH simpler to configure, in fact most of the configuration is done for you by M$, or via their install-on-demand style of plugins. Mozilla tries to do this, but it usually fails because the plugin doesn't configure just right. Two: web admins who write pages for a browser, will usually write it so that it works in IE. If it also works in other browsers, cool.. but it's seldom as high on their priority list.

So, my choices are... stick with the browser that I know works, and is likely to continue to work for as long as M$ holds a lion's share of the market (or the sun goes dark) -- but live with the taint of EVIL(TM) caused by using this horrible totalitarian product, or endure having a growing number of web sites that I either can't read, or can't enjoy properly -- but get to be C001 in the eyes of the Open Source Gods?

BZZZT, wrong answers.

Standards are ONLY useful if people follow them. This means web page authors MORE than browser programmers! What good is it to say "My browser is 100% W3C compliant" when the pages you're going to use it on are not? That's like saying your electrical device is 100% compliant with the US 110VAC/60Hz standard while you're travelling in Europe! I'd love to see all the M$ extensions go away, I'd love to see real standards compliance out there... I'd love to see the internet as clean as it was before commercialization too, and I'd love to see all pollution solved, and everyone enjoying the beautiful shiny world we all share... but... I don't have those kinds of drugs.

Until someone makes a web browser that correctly handles ALL the content that IE does, I have no incentive to switch. I don't care about cutesy skins, or sounds. I don't care about spam blocking (I have a proxy to do that). I don't feel the NEED to have the source code (although I probably would recompile IE for the Athalon if I could). I just want to look at the stupid pages and see what's on them without having to spend half my life fiddling with various config files and downloading even more helper-apps that only work half the time.

So, if you want Mozilla/Netscape to survive and grow, stop whining about web pages written for IE... they're a fact of life and will NOT change anytime soon. Yell at the Mozilla/Netscape developers to come down off the high-horse of "Standards" and make their product work in the real world, where we all have to live. If you really MUST have a standards compliant mode, make it an option (TurnOffEvilMSExtensions = true). I know it's impossible to keep up with the M$ standards shell game, but ignoring them doesn't make the web any easier to use.

Wet Slap

[tarsi210]

Dear Internet,

For my sanity, usefulness, and the pleasure of all, please kindly do the following:

1. Don't start up the browser wars again. The browser wars were hell on productivity and usefulness. Since dying down, I can now choose one of my two favorite browsers (IE or Konq) and comfortably browse about 99% of all Internet sites and they render nicely and consistently. All the browser wars did was make people and browser companies squabble over standards and compliance and do backhanded things to undermine the other guy. For us users, it made surfing a living hell of badly rendered webpages and for us developers, a double living hell of development and compatibility.
2. Screw your blessed standards and the horse you rode in on. - The standard is what everyone is using, folks. No friggin' standard does me any good if noone uses it or noone complies to it. You can preach about your W3C standards till you're blue in the face and I'm going to go home and look at non-standards-compliant webpages with a non-standards-compliant browser that will show me what I want, when I want it for 98% of the Internet. I'm all for setting guidelines, folks, but if something isn't standard and yet is used by 90% of the Internet, you have to wonder why it isn't in the standard.
3. Let NS die peacefully - please. - We finally just got all of our clients to acknowledge that NS4x sucks and to switch to IE (which on their Windows boxes runs better, faster, and easier). If NS once again gets the market share or any larger piece of it, support issues fly through the roof and everyone becomes confused again. I hate M$ as much as the next guy but my users don't. They just hate lost time, money, and productivity. IE gives them joy, NS gives them headaches, end of story. Promote the offbeat browsers to the more knowledgeable (Konq rules my world, personally) but leave the sheep to their sheep pen.
4. Force NS to prove that they mean business if you insist on bringing them back. - NS has sucked for so long, even if they released 7.1 tomorrow and said that it had features that would do my laundry, I wouldn't trust it. 4x sucked. 6x doubly so. Earn my respect back, NS, or you'll never get me back. Be consistent, be useful, be stable, be fast, be a resource miser, and be headache-free. Then I'll give you a chance.

Re:NS7.0 vs Mozilla

[Planesdragon]

Actually, according to asa [mozillazine.org], Mozilla 1.1 has about 1000 less bugs than Mozilla 1.0.1, which is what NS7 is based on.

*blink, blink*

You mean Mozilla 1.1 wasn't based on Mozilla 1.0.1? WOW!

I wonder how they managed to replicate all those years of effort in just a few months. Man, that must be why 1.1 took so long to get released...

Salon ?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Oh yeah, look! Salon Readers!

Hello! *flaps hand*.

How are you gentlemen !

Too bad that you will be reading this because it's at +2!

FUCK cunt SHIT wank BILL GATES felates monkeys in his spare time! Hot grits! Natalie Pr0tman. All your base are belong to graspee! Imagine a beowulf cluster of salon readers! Could they change a lightbulb? Probably not. Goatse goatse goatse.cx!

P.S. Please leave this comment at +2 to introduce Salon readers to the "joy" of /.

graspee