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Why Browser Innovation Matters
dvanatta was one of a several people who noted a new article by Mitchell Baker on Mozilla.org about why browser innovation matters - especially Gecko, and why it will survive things like Safari Whoops - got the name wrong. Updated.
I beleive that Mozilla is working on or has integrated gestures into it's system. I've also used a program called Stroke It (funny name, good program!) that automatically includes gestures in all Windows programs and works pretty well.
seriouslyexcited.net
Where the hell is phoenix (or whatever it's going to end up calling itself) 0.6? This was due, what, in Janurary?
I want my fav. browser to become even better damnit!
-Niels
What about slashdot story innovation? Duplicates, stuff no one cares about, stuff we've already gone over before hundreds of times, and ask-slashdot-something-you-could-have-found-in-goo gle-by-the-time-the-story-was-submitted.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Safari/KHTML vs. Gecko/Mozilla is just like KDE vs. GNOME. It's a matter of personal preference based on what is important to the end user. Some will choose speed, others choose features, and still others choose standards compliance. The end result is the great thing about open-source projects: They will all eventually gain the features pioneered by the competing projects if the public shows enough of a demand to make it worth the developers time. Also, if you like feature a of x browser, but it doesn't have feature b, FIX IT!
damn i love open source
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
No, no, not a troll. Just a subject to grab attention.
Compare IE v5, v5.5 and v6.0. Nothing much really changed between them. Sure, they cleaned up some of the CSS support (although there are still some large gaps), and added some non-browser type things, but overall, they're basically the same. Now compare that to the changes between IE 3, 4 and 5. There were HUGE changes, and they happened quickly.
What changed? Well, for one thing, the web was still fairly new, and people were still figuring out what would be possible to do with it. But, more importantly, during that time, they had heavy competition from Microsoft. IE didn't win the marketshare battle simply due to being in Windows (although it helped). It leapfrogged over Netscape in features. And as long as Netscape was stuck on the 4.x codebase, it stayed that way. That code was crap.
But, now, here were are in 2003. NS 4.x is dead, IE 4.x is dead, and the web is growing up and finally truly embracing CSS. And you know who's in the lead? Mozilla, followed by Opera and others, and in last place? IE. This, plus innovative features in non-IE browsers is beginning to show IE users what they're missing. And some are switching. For the first time since "winning" the browser war, they're facing real competition. And, the early signs of IE 7 don't make it look like anything too revolutionary. (Will they even manage to get PNG right this time?)
IE is dying, and if Microsoft doesn't act quickly, it'll be too late for CPR. Being a part of Windows gives IE a competitive advantage, but it doesn't stop people from finding something better.
The author is saying 'Mozilla is innovative, Apple is going with KHTML instead of Gecko, which is not a bad thing, but do come join us!'.
I'd have to read the article a few times more, but the subtext to me here is basically that the author finds it very disappointing that Apple is going for a KHTML based closed source solution, instead of a Gecko based open source solution.
Or am I missing something?
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Seems to me the truly innovative browser is Opera. Gecko seems to be stealing all its good ideas from Opera. From mouse gestures to good cookie management, Opera's the one that's lead the way.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
In my experience, KHTML and Gecko are both good, and ideas get passed around between both and improve both. Apple has decided to use and improve KHTML, other companies choose to use and improve Gecko. Why is this a bad thing?
(Plus, I had the added benefit of taking her back to her B&B that night. Ok, I was dropping her off, but still!)
We may have super-elegant-configurable browsers now. But innovation remains important: the people at w3c are working hard to set new guidelines for the future:
Trouble is, if MSIE doesn't follow, will the web evolve? I mean, why are there still GIFs all around as they were designed for 8-bit VGA (remember the pre-web times in its glorified 320x200 mode?) Why is there a problem with PNG implementation on MSIE? It's a 1996 recommendation! Will that be the same principle holding us back from browser innovation?
They are not especially receptive to patches concerning anything they're not allready looking at doing, and they have been known to ignore user input in favor of following the Netscape party line.
The most obvious and complained about example is there splash screen. It ties up memory, noticablly slows down launch times, leaks memory, and impedes usability when users are waiting for the browser to launch, There have been many complaints about it on bugzilla, and far more on various mailing lists and bulletin boards. Patches to add a prefrence to disable it have been submitted. Yet they continue to prioritize branding their browser above user needs. The splash screen is still there, and the only way to disable is if to hack arround in the application's contents, and exploit a known bug in apple's NSImage object by substituteing the wrong kind of data.
There are other examples. Key behaviors that follow Netscape precedent at the expense of usability and Apple HIG compliance, tab options and layout, etc...
The source may be open, but the project isn't especially open to outside direction. I like the browser alot, and really look forward to the
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
It's odd that neither the original piece nor the comments (so far at least) mention the importance of browsers implementing interoperable standards. Instead there's much slinging of this methodology of developing non-standard extensions vs. that methodology of developing non-standard extensions.
If the vendors were committed to implementing standards rather than inventing their own, we wouldn't have so much division over which rendering engine is the One True Path.
I think the world-wide web would be much better served by browsers and rendering engines and user agents that properly implement standards like SVG, CSS, XHTML (and the wonderful new XML application XHTML 2) and XForms, rather than technologies that are tied to particular implementations.
I just started reading the article to find something as childish as:
Everything we've seen suggests that KHTML has a ways to go to catch up with rendering real web pages.
Not even a little bit biased. I use konqueror for my day to day surfing - 3.0, and am yet to find a signle page it doesn't render as well as fatzilla. Moreover, at work I use Konqui 2.0 which actually does not render well a good deal of pages, but is still quite usable, and it's integration to the desktop make I prefer it as well.
-><- no
I have to disagree with your second point... I love mozilla as a browser, but I really don't like it for email or usenet. Is it so wrong to like one product for each feature?
I love winamp 2.x - it is an excellent music player. I don't like winamp 3.x - it is a crappy video player.
My server
I've never understood why people complain about the rendering speed of modern browsers. Whenever I browse HTML files on my local hard disk, they come up almost instantly. It's only when I hop on the Internet that things slow down, which means that the bottleneck is the net, not the browser.
On modern systems, page rendering seems plenty fast to me. A cable modem is hooked up to my 800 MHz laptop with 256 MB of RAM (not exactly a powerhouse machine), and surfing is very fast. If it's slow for you, then I suggest upgrading to Mozilla 1.3b. The team seems to have made some noticeable speed improvements in this latest release.
Of course, when pages load in just a few seconds anyway, I still don't understand why people complain. Does it really matter if Slashdot loads in two seconds instead of four? Even if it does, I wouldn't call it "innovation".
and less buggy
Now that I can agree with. All browsers can use bug fixes. Of course, web pages can be buggy, too, and if web designers followed standards more carefully, our browsers would be both faster and less buggy.
I think that Mozilla's current feature set is good enough. It doesn't wash your dishes for you, or take out the trash, but it does browsing very very well. When I get a chance, I show it or Pheonix to folks and most decide that they do want to switch -- for reasons that they think are substantial enough. That said, here's a true story;
Like many of you, I get tapped as tech support by friends and relitives. In one case, I was attempting to figure out what was wrong when a friend of my little sister went to a web page.
When asked what browser she was using, she replied "Netscape -- I always use Netscape". Asking the version was painful, so I skipped that question (bad idea).
After going through the menus for 15 minutes over the phone, looking for an option that might enable support for what she said was "broken", I decided that she was must be lying. For one, she seemed so certian ("definately Netscape -- it's all I use"). Also, she kept telling me how "I don't know about this new version -- it's not as nice".
An old tech support method kicked in;
Her: "I dunno -- it's just not working."
"Do you see an N in the upper right hand corner?"
"No...why?"
"Do you see a little E or a globe in the right hand corner?"
"Yes! The little globe."
Five painful minutes later, and a couple misdirections, I figured out what to tell her to get her to make the repair.
Last time I asked, she still insists that she uses Netscape, only Netscape.
Point 1: Many Janes and Joes don't have a clue what software they are using -- yet they will brag or defame it at the drop of a hat.
Point 2: People won't switch but will use what they get -- and only if it's bundled. This is the core problem with adoptation of software -- from browsers to operating systems.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
you can also press Alt-LeftArrow to go back and Alt-RightArrow to go forward... but they are talking pure mouse clicks to surf around.
Like the user said above, for the mozilla upgrade you hold the left click button then right click to go forward and vice versa to go back. So you can websurf without ever touching the keyboard.
As for myself, I just want upgraded TAB functionality so I can tab through page objects easier. A way of switching/tabbing between frames, and of tabbing down whole CSS sections or something. Something like that might already exist, but I don't know about that.
Instead of Mouse only, I want keyboard only!!
And what are you going to do about it if someone claims that this 'middle ground' has been achieved, and is Mac OS X?
You get your Unix software, your Mac software, and your Windows software. You've got your pretty fonts, you get your 'Out of box experience', you get your IE, you get your Mozilla, you get your Safari...
You get your whole mantra that "simple is more important" than powerful.
GPL Deconstructed
That makes him someone who has noticed MS software is not all that great, and has noticed nearly equal products can be had for many times less, or free products can be found that are many times better.
Mozilla did not want to install flash/shockwave That's a postive, not a negative.
No, I'm pretty sure that's a negative.
-Mozilla locks up my system while downloading emails from server -Mozilla locks up my system while uploading emails to server Now we know the truth. You're just a fucking liar And am I lying when I say WinXP would bluescreen on me (Well, it'd flash blue and restart on its own; I guess that's what Bill calls "Ending the bluescreen?") when it works fine for other people? Every machine is different, and for all you know he may be running an odd setup. You have no foundations for calling him a liar.
I apologize for feeding the troll. I just couldn't stand it.
How about having a "forward" button that is more useful than todays.
:D
Heres what i have in mind:
Modern browsers are advanced enough to see repetitions in archives.
How about letting the browser take you to the next file in the opened archive when pressing forwards?
For example, im reading textfile1.txt, and i want to view textfile2.txt. I simply press the forwards button
and my nice little dreambrowser takes me to the next numbered file in the archive. Yes, you get the point
if you see how useful it would be for pr0nsurfing.
I have heard about the function in an old browser, but i cant see the reason NOT to put one in a modern one.
Lets demonstrate for better pr0nsurfing capabilities in our bundled browsers! Whos with me? Yea or Nay?
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
I use Camino, Explorer, and Safari on my Mac for different things.
Explorer is the slowest of the three and I have to endure pop-up adverts, but it allows me to save an entire web-page with formatting and pictures intact for off-line viewing AS A SINGLE FILE. I frequently save several dozen pages from various news-sites for offline reading in coffee-shops or while I'm flying. Safari can also save as a single file with formatting intact but without images. With Camino you get a file and a folder of images, etc. The single file format makes archiving a web-page MUCH easier.
I almost never use Explorer for general on-line web browsing due to the pop-up ads, lack of tabs, etc.
Camino is my usual on-line choice. Camino has tabs that are easy to get to, and I like the tray. Most important for me, Camino allows me to pick where I want to save files or images. Safari's tabs still have to be coaxed into appearing, and your file is downloaded to a default place. Both suppress popups. Safari may be a little faster but I hardly notice the difference.
I use Safari just because I'm curious about it, but it's all the way there yet. Yet. Of the three browsers, it renders on-screen text the best, and I like the minimalist brushed metal.
If I could find a web-browser that had tabs, killed pop-ups, looked sleek, rendered text beautifully, loaded pages quickly, could save an entire web-page intact as a single file, and allowed me to choose the location that I save a file in on the fly, I'd get rid of all the others.
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."