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?"

Comments

Re:Here's why:

[linguae]

Me, too!

Re:One big reason

[jayloden]

Actually, Firefox is not heavier, IE just has all of its modules loaded at startup in the registry. It's using plenty of resources, they're just transparent to the user. This is exactly why IE opens so quickly and performs as well as it does, because Microsoft specifically designed it to be integrated with the OS.

When you start Windows, you start IE, loading I believe somewhere in the realm of 20mb of modules and libraries into memory that are tied directly to IE.

-Jay

Re:Because they can for free.

[Barlo_Mung_42]

I think anyone can use Microsoft's browser technology. With Visual Studio comes a sample that shows how to roll your own browser. The IE objects classes and libs are all right there for use.
I doubt that the guy who makes Maxthon has to pay extra to reuse the IE components.

Unsafe

[tsa]

Hm. So now we have two very unsafe browsers on the market. I guess it will be a while before we see less worms and viruses on the 'net.

weird

[zxflash]

this is really mind-boggling, how is it that now that mozilla firefox has proven it's a viable platform the people who created the mozilla foundation choose ie over ns/ff???