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Netscape Founder Says Web Browsing Innovation Dead
mattOzan writes "Marc Andreessen told Reuters today that browser innovation ended five years ago (which would put us at about Navigator 4.5 beta -- what was so innovative about that? The "What's Related" button? Beatnik integration?) "Navigation is an embarrassment. Using bookmarks and back and forth buttons -- we had about eighteen different things we had in mind for the browser." Well, pass me the NDA and tell me what they were!"
Browser innovation died with the rise of spyware/adware/etc. That caused browser innovations to be used against the end-user, so the innovations are negated.
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It just happens to coincide with the time he left Netscape to go start his own failed company LoudCloud.
5 years ago was a great time, though. Good times.
I have been pwned because my
In "internet years." Next thing he'll be saying "When I was a kid, we have 256 colors, and we liked it! And only 216 of them were palette safe and that was even better!"
Microsoft have got the market, they don't need to do any work to keep it, so why add furthur inovations to IE, no reason at all, theve even held back on full PNG support, well the work doesn't need to be done so why do it?
And everyone emulates IE....
popup blocking
cookie management
forms information management
tabbed browsing
css-compliance
that little bar that appears in moz on some pages with the extra links like "up" and "email" or whatever
mouse gestures
obviously, the browser has not been just sitting still.
I like to think of some web browsing items that have become refined. Tabbed browsing comes to mind *prepares to be attacked by anti-tabbers* I don't think you can separate the browser from the protocols that the browser renders. Thus, if the browser is really just a rendering too and information manager, it does it's job well. Maybe the problem is we haven't fully utilized the protocols available and thus a feeling of stagnation has taken place.
Flash is a scourge, and so is Shockwave.
The best innovation of the past 5 years was the suppression of pop-ups. Everything else is just tuning.
And that's the complete story as I see it.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
well, word processing hasn't changed all that much either in the last five years.
I'd let the browser keep track of sites I visit frequently, and generate it's own list of bookmarks for me. Sometimes I'm too lazy to bookmark things, or more accurately, to organize them well. IT'd be nice if the browser did that. Maybe Bayesian bookmark classification.
No, netscape did it to themselves. Ask any webprogrammer/designer, netscape 4.x is the bane of their existance.
Bookmarks, back and forward buttons are FINE, the real innovation is in the content, and the display of said content.
Nonsense, unless you graduated from the 640K is all the memory you'll need-school.
The current browser form is not perfect and there are tons of room for innovation. Because you or I can't see it right now doesn't mean anything. I have a feeling that you couldn't envision anything like a browser 10 years ago.
It will take some people with special insight to advance the browser. Just give it time.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
IMHO he's right, although I don't think NS 4.5, was the cut off point for such innovation. What he's talking about is large and dramatic innovation, not add-ons and great expansions (like Tab's, Gestures etc).
But this isn't necessary a bad thing, everyone who uses the net is currently used to using a web browser and its heuristically defined layout, back, forward, reload, home and stop. It doesn't really need (currently) to be changed, the same applies to the controls of a car, the way a book works or even mobile phone interfaces. It works this way, billions of people use it such and changing it would have to be for dramatic purposes.
It doesn't stop us refining it though (again, Tabs, Gestures), just like a car (ABS, Sat Nav, Power Steering etc).
It may not be the best solution, but what about something like this: a 'teach gestures' option; when checked, every time the user did something another way that could be more efficiently done with a gesture, this would display a popup with a diagram of the relevant technique.
I don't understand how his is innovation in terms of navigation at all. The web browsers navigation system is the same whether you're using the keyboard, mouse, or even mouse gestures... it's simply another input method. Throwing in voice commands or a touch screen to navigate doesn't change the fact that you're still using back, forward, and history.
In my opinion, Anderson's opinion is quite accurate if perhaps somewhat blunt. Just consider how narrow the subset of graphs, representing a user browsing the web that our current browser history model encompasses. Even the simple case where someone browses a few links deep then decides to go back a few links and browse a different topic looses quiet a bit of information. That difference alone affects browser usage patterns.
Personally, I haven't seen any significant change in the browser navigation system for even longer than Anderson is suggesting. Certainly there have been some nice incremental changes to UI and encoding schemas, but navigation itself has been untouched for... well, longer than I care to remember.
I got one word: Hoverlinks. It's a natural step from tabbed browsing.
Pause over a link and you get a small preview of the click-through content in a hovering dialog a la tooltips. Implement in links using a small frame, perhaps...
So Mark's thrown the gauntlet down. What's your idea?
Yeah, and innovation for the book died when they created the index, the table contents, and page numbering. As long as the glue that binds the book holds and the ink doesn't run when it gets wet, I'm happy.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
I don't agree with that. Java, Flash and other client dinamic content tools are greath, but still browser usability lacks a lot to be desired.
Content rendering: Browsers are still forgiving about handling crappy HTML, not to mention than they are heavy as hell (Opera maybe is fast but i use Linux so Mozilla is my choice).
In an ideal world XHTML or even pure XML (with proper Stylesheets) will be the commonplace.
Secure browsing? yeah, every three weeks or so i have to install a patch for my Windows XP box because a new vulnerability in IE was found.
Interoperability: JavaScript is dead (unless you're masochist enough trying to be complatible with IE and Netscape), Java applets are slow as hell, Flash abilities are more limited than Java (thus is controled by a single vendor).
Spyware: Cookies are abused, ads are anoing (only mozilla seems to care enough to allow you to block them).
You mention PHP... what that has to do with the browser, thats a server side languaje not a client side languaje like Javascript or VBScript.
I think browsers like Mozilla, Safary and Opera do a cool job; Others like lynx let you do usefull job with little and some others like IE5 are just useless (i mean no competition == no inovation).
Browsers could do better than this and hopefully one day they will.
My two cents.
JV.
Jose Vicente Nunez Zuleta RHCE, SJCD, SJCP
well I'm glad he thinks browser innovation is dead. now how about they start working on properly supporting things like CSS!
So incredibly annoying building a page to perfect standards and having a browser munge it anyways!
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Your browsing appears inefficent, why not try...
I'd continue but its making me feel ill.
--
othy
It is stumping to try and reinvent the browsers as we know it, or even to innovate. I compare browsing to the mechanics of reading a book: Book -> TOC -> Chapters -> Pages... if ya wanna get fancy, then throw in an index or bib.
With that mindset, viewing web pages are the equivalent to turning pages... not many different ways to absorb the content.
There is more room to innovate on the web-design level than with the browsing software. Sounds like he was pissed off because he couldn't reinvent the wheel.
Trivial Omnipotence
It's called "prefetching" by the mozilla developers (and no, it's not like when yer real drunk and you say "hey, she's pre' fetching" mozilla.org FAQ on Prefetching
Javascript is not dead if you stick to the DOM and ECMA script standards, most stuff works. As a web developer I use a fair amount of Javascript and it works fine, even without browser detection.
... I know, I work with several of them.
The problem with Javascript is that there are so many crappy programs out there that don't properly utilize the language, resorting to stupid 'Netscape' or 'IE' detection hacks rather than testing for the existance of functions. Then the so called 'web developers' just download this stuff and stick it in. "If it works in IE its good enough for me"
The Anti-Blog
If there were no Flash, there would be no Homestar Runner. And that would truly be a sad thing.
You made me feel like a really really old man now, when I was a kid we didn't have no fancy 256 colors. We had 16 colors on a Commodore 64, and we liked it. Btw, I'm 24.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Take a look at The Brain for an innovation in browsing. I'd like to see more sites adopt this sort of navigation scheme. Something that's always bothered me about browsers (I use IE primarily, as I'm one of those unfortunates that is locked into Windows) is the disgusting underuse of the "Forward" button. I don't know how many times I've backed up on a path, gone down some other path, then wanted to get back to where I was. I could back up to the fork point, but didn't have any "Forward" options other than where I just came from.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Don't forget that you could still say 'You can't get a viruse just by reading email.' That's just a hoax.
Yes... Good Times.
I metamoderate, therefore I am
browsing for porn. Would you like to:
a) View quality free XXX sites
b) Optimize your mouse/keyboard for better one-handed surfing
c) Find out how to clear your cache before mom comes home
Exactly. I would much rather see browsers considered mature technology while getting their standards correct then more tacked on 'enhancements.'
I don't want a browser that's secretly a P2P app.
I don't want embedded media and plug-ins crashing it.
I don't want a browser that is also a PIM.
I don't want a little avatar asking me if I want to go to shamelessmarketers.com.
etc.
Why does everything have to be attached to the browser? A simple interface and a stable platform is what companies should be aiming for, with the exception of tweaks and minor enhancements like pop-up blocking, tabs, etc.
The Mozilla team has learned from this mistake. People kept complaining about the "Mozilla Suite" and the bloat and they responded by announcing plans to seperate the browser from the suite.
Microsoft in the meantime continues its "the browser is the desktop" nonsense which mixes WAN data with the OS. As we've seen with ActiveX, vbs, etc this is a security nightmare.
I'm not sure what Andreesen was secretly planning, but an url box, back/forward buttons, and a stop button are surprisingly effecient when dealing with html-based technologies.
I compare browsing to the mechanics of reading a book: Book -> TOC -> Chapters -> Pages... if ya wanna get fancy, then throw in an index or bib.
With that mindset, viewing web pages are the equivalent to turning pages...
Right, except that if the average web site was a book, a third of the pages would be ripped, another third pissed on and finally a third with page after page of "EnglishScript error on line 4 of page 451. Do you want to debug?"
Extremely long work hours.
No clue what your company was really about and how it had any hope in hell of ever turning a profit someday.
Loads of sleazy people in the industry.
HUGE egos everywhere (dot-snobs).
Impossible to keep up with all the latest and greatest "next hot things".
Everybody spouting off like they know everything.
John Kerry is a Joke!
Technology never ceases to amaze me.
You left out the gesture for when the browser crashes.
Those are *UI* improvements, not *browser* *innovations*.
I love tabs, quite abit actually. But that is not a *browser* innovation. My terminal window has it. Would you say the command line "innovated" because of tabbed windows? I bet you wouldn't.
Popup blocking? That's just a response to popups. One "innovation" to stop another "innovation"? Please.
CSS? not a browser innovation, a standard! My word processing has stylesheets, XML has them, etc.. An improvement is not an innovation, just as not all innovations are improvements. Especially when alleged "innovations" come from other apps.
For crying out loud XChat has had tabbing for a long time. Graphical forms have had them for years as well. This goes for gestures as well. Games have had them for quite some time. Thus, not innovation but merely a UI feature offered elsewhere.
It is true there is very little innovation going on in the browser these days, But mostly because everyone got worried about "backward compatibility" and the fact that browsing was overhyped anyway.
After all, we are talking about wandering or searching a resource for information. How many innovations have there been in *walking* for example?
IMO, much of the lack of innovation has to do with poor shortsighted choices not a part of "browsing".
For example, the effectively flat namespace that is DNS according to Internic. A heirarchical namespace would bring us a vastly different world.
HTML is limited, the flat namespace is limiting. With these two firmly entrenched now, the next true innovation will come from elsewhere.
When the famed dream of bi-directional hyperlinks comes to fruition (if ever), we'll see innovation. When the web is more than just a uni-directional reference, and is more self-organizing, we'll see innovation. When the flat-namespace is busted out, and we move beyond HTML (or flash/shockwave -- after all those arent innovations in *browsing* they are different ways of showing you a pretty cartoon or movie clip), we'll see innovation.
Until then, we are stuck with the sea of flotsam, jetsam, and Innovation Stagnation(tm) that is the current state of the web and browsing it.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Duke Nukem Forever still a possibility of coming out before the next glacier slides across continental US soil
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson