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AOL Builds New IE-Based Browser
jfruhlinger writes "According to News.com.com.com, America Online is preparing to release a free AOL-branded browser that is 'based on Microsoft's Internet Explorer technology.' The browser will be available to users who don't have AOL as their ISP. I admit that I find this development baffling -- not only does AOL already own a browser, but why on earth would a non-AOL user want to use an AOL-branded version of IE?"
If I recall AOL as a Settlement from Microsoft got the right to use IE in their program or even as a browser like this for free for like 7 years. thus the use of IE here. why spend money developing your own browser when you can use someone elses for free and just put a little front end on it?
though there wasnt much detail in the article, I suspect it is simply going to be ie with an aol 'skin'. I suspect they dont have access to ie source code....
Until that day arrives, Micro$oft continues to dominate the browser market and owns 90% of it. Hence, AOL, like any other commercial company, will back the de facto standard. Since 90% of the market is Internet Explorer, most web page designers will build their pages to be compatible with Internet Explorer (IE). AOL has an economic motivation to use IE technology as the basis of the new AOL browser.
Similar reasoning applies for office applications. Most programmers prefer to write office applications for Windows instead of MacOS because Windows dominates the market.
Apple missed the boat ... er ... luxury superliner on that "one".
You should read There must be a pony in here somewhere (reviewed by me on Slashdot) to find out AOL's real strategy. Netscape was not bought out for its software technologies.
Netscape was bought out so that the marketing department called up Microsoft and told Microsoft they wanted an AOL icon on each and every desktop with newly-shipped Windows. For like 2 or 3 years Microsoft did exactly that, which brought AOL who knows how many customers that paid for the service. Distributing Netscape-based browser to the AOL subscribers would have no financial benefits for AOL whatsoever.
First I want to say that I hate AOL... Im just trying to figure this out.
But I would think they are *trying* for the best of both worlds...
AOL has better content controll from years of being "family friendly", however they have built their browser into a portal platform. Besides the sheer quantity of suck that AOL brings, one of their worst problems is that its not that easy to just type in a address and go, thats where IE comes in.
I think their stand alone browser might appeal to end users looking for content control without having to install the AOL software on their computer and getting AOL's portal services.
The browser will probably be available to AOL users to provide them more ease of use, while allowing them to still moderate what their children see through the browser.
Again.. I hate AOL, its the devil, but this is the spin I see AOL trying to put on it.
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
While AOL may own Netscape, they probably found that a lot of sites out there were still IE specific and they couldn't afford the support costs for angry users who couldn't visit them. I'd probably do the same thing if I were running that project.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
This won't necessarily force AOL users to upgrade - I know plenty who use AOL 6 or earlier! But it will be a significant force that Microsoft can use to get more people to give them money.
I don't know why AOL is building on IE, but I can see many good reasons why Microsoft would want them to. There are a lot of AOL users out there, and that's a lot of revenue Microsoft could gain.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this came out so soon after the deadline for appealing the antitrust settlement passed. If I'm right in believing that the new AOL will only run on XP, then it's possible the antitrust lawyers for the hold-out States would have had ammunition to attack (although probably not destroy) the settlement.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
A friend's mother recently bought a computer (which it was up to me to get working), and the thing came infested with AOL. Not only was there AOL links everywhere, and AIM running at startup, but the system manufacturer had set every instance of I.E. to an AOL branded Netscape browser. Going to program files -> Internet Explorer revealed, you guessed it, a app to sign up for AOL. The regular address bar in windows had been replaced by an AOL bar, which also fed everything through the AOLified Netscape (the normal address bar had been turned off by default and, once on, was shoved almost entirely off the side of the window).
It was a mess, quite frankly. Welcome to the future.
The ______ Agenda
Take a moment to reflect on the target audience of AOL. Just reflect; you know what they're like. They're not really stupid, but they're just not exactly hacker types.
...
Now think about what happens in that person's brain when they see an AOL icon in the corner of the browser window.
"I'm using AOL!"
Now imagine what happens inside the person's brain when AOL tries to sell them the AOL service.
"I'm already using AOL! Why would I pay for it?"
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
They do make it as hard as possible to cancel. Not only do they make you dial a special cancellations number, which is not published, and barely staffed, they also put the poor saps that work that particular line in a very tough spot - they are supposed to talk you out of cancelling, and if they cancel too many accounts in a day they will be fired. They get bonuses for NOT cancelling - even though they're answering a line that is for cancellations only, and one where the simple fact that the customer has the number to dial indicates they've already waded through a lot of shit to get there, so they're pretty determined.
I doubt that giving you porn numbers is official policy, but having seen the incredibly disrespectful ways that AOL reps are required to treat customers that want to quit, I wouldn't really be surprised.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
"They do make it as hard as possible to cancel. Not only do they make you dial a special cancellations number, which is not published, and barely staffed, they also put the poor saps that work that particular line in a very tough spot - they are supposed to talk you out of cancelling, and if they cancel too many accounts in a day they will be fired. They get bonuses for NOT cancelling - even though they're answering a line that is for cancellations only, and one where the simple fact that the customer has the number to dial indicates they've already waded through a lot of shit to get there, so they're pretty determined."
I actually used this to my advantage. During a really bad few work months, I was forced to give up my regular ISP, and those free AOL CD's started looking pretty good. I signed up, intending to cancel after the free trial. Lo and behold, at the end of the trial period, I received a bill for a month's service. I called up the customer service droid to complain loudly, and was offered apologies and another month of free service, which I accepted. The next month, another bill came, and I repeated the cycle. This ended up going on for well over half a year. Of course, I never actually USED AOL. I just established the connection, then fired up my regular utilities. End result: seven months' free internet with a loss to the Forces of Satan of some $170.00 or so. Fairly played, I think.
Kinda ironic that in July 2003 AOL made a $2million donation to the Mozilla Foundation, and now their releasing an IE-based browser. Why not base it on either Firefox or the Gecko rendering engine?
"With Microsoft, you get Windows. With Linux, you get the full house" - unknown
While I don't dispute your analysis, I would offer a "devil's advocate" reason why AOL would put out this IE-based browser. They've been using IE for years and surely they have put a lot of time and, perhaps more importantly, money into adapting it to their purposes.
Some bean counters in their marketing department are going to say, we've invested all this money in this IE-based thing so let's get something out of it, put out an AOL-branded browser just to keep up the name brand recognition. Who knows, perhaps MS paid them to do it.
I believe that they didn't buy Netscape for the browser so much as for the portal and name recognition. Even today, Netscape is a household name and that's worth gold in the strange, illogical world of marketing. Remember also that Netscape open-sourced its browser before it got acquired by AOL (as I recall). AOL didn't need to buy them just to get its hands on the browser source.
We techies may think they have made a dumb mistake but it's worth watching and waiting to see how the market responds. AOL may have fallen greatly since the market boom days, but they're still a marketing force to reckon with. We techies wish they'd adopt the "good guys" like Gecko and Firefox but they have to be convinced they'll make money off it first.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
What have you lost in OOo that you have in Mozilla? Who has taken something from you?
Get a grip
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Actually... from what I hear (which may very well all be rumors) AOL engineers actually got sick of waiting for IE to implement standards, features, and new protocols. Most websites already work with IE despite how broken it is, if a site uses ActiveX, then AOL needs its users to be able to use that site. Because of this they are grudgingly using IE as a base and then extending it from there. I could see this one day being ported to firefox when more people use it, but business is business and right now the business is still unfortunately with IE. This is also kind of a mockery of Microsoft by AOL because it shows how behind times Microsoft's browser is that AOL Engineers had to just take what they have and make it better rather, then wait around. People keep speaking negatively about this venture, but in the end I think it will be good. If nothing else, people will become aware of alternatives to IE (despite that it is used as its backend), making them prone to try more browsers in the future.
Regards,
Steve
Do the licenses of Mozilla and Netscape allow AOL to use developments in Mozilla for proprietary software? I'm not too clear on the specifics of how open source developments in Mozilla are migrated over to proprietary distributions of Netscape, if they actually are.
But if AOL has licensed Internet Explorer from Microsoft, then perhaps the deal includes the sharing of proprietary code both ways. If Mozilla code can become proprietary for AOL under the project's licensing scheme, then they could possibly pass it on to Microsoft. Microsoft could end up using developments for Mozilla for Internet Explorer to deal with all its current security issues under a closed source license. That could be the whole reason for this deal.