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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?"
Okay, I can't.
AOL is for dumb users. IE is for dumb users. This is a perfect match.
(This will probably get me modded as flamebait, but in the old days of Slashdot, it wouldn't.)
*user clicks close button*
[POPUP:] Thank you for being an AOL Browser user! I'm sorry you have decided to stop using it. I'm going to go ahead and leave it open for a few more minutes, for FREE.
*shows [OK] button only*
ermmm...
AOL OS
Based on Microsoft Windows technology.
CUZ TEH INTERNET IS SO MUCH DIF3RENT WHEN UR VEIWNG IT WIT AOL!!1! OMG LOL
I think it's rather simple.. they want to be synonymous with "The Web" (known to us as a collection of other things) to the average home user. I know plenty of folk who think AOL *IS* the web.. it can't hurt their business.
Now, as to who would want an AOL branded IE, I know I wouldn't, but I imagine they will introduce some value-add to make it interesting to the typical non-technical user.
NOW I CAN AUTOMATICALLY POST IN ALL CAPS!
but the damn slashdot filter seems to know I'm using AOL.
Affirmative! Here's a link from May of 2003. Typical AOL - it took them a year and a half to do something with the technology, and meanwhile the whole browser arena has been turned on it's ear (shameless plug for Firefox)!
Sig? - yeah, whatever.
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.
AOL sticks with IE in a deal with the devil! AOL is evil.
AOL buys Nullsoft. Definitely good!
AOL axes Gnutella, Justin leaves for greener pastures. AOL, clearly evil.
AOL uses wxWindows in AOL Communicator. AOL is obviously good!
AOL releases a branded version of IE. AOL, definitely evil.
Look, AOL is a big fucking company. They are going to do lots of good and evil things, because there are lots of people making decisions at different levels of the company. Do they have a coherent browser strategy? Not really. Have they tromped on the corpse of Netscape? Definitely.
There's finally a good browser based on Gecko (Firefox) and they've basically abandoned the Netscape browser. But AOL is just dealing with the reality of who their user base is and what they expect (the trailing edge of the Internet revolution, if you will - these people think IE is great, and will think a better IE is even better). And for all I know there may still be deals in place keeping them working with MS on the browser front - for a long time they were locked into that deal to get pre-installed AOL with Windows. Also, I wouldn't be shocked to see an AOL-branded or Netscape-branded version of Firefox come down the pipe 4 or 5 months from now too (post 1.0, of course).
As for the rest of us, let's just enjoy the cool shit that AOL occasionally produces, and continue to ignore the rest of the crap that will invariably come out of them.
I've had a really bad experience trying to cancel AOL some years ago.
I don't know whether the person on the phone accidentally gave me the wrong number or if they were trying to throw a hint at me. I called their customer service center and asked to cancel the account. She fought tooth and nail to get me not to cancel (of course) and finally gave me a phone number to call in order to cancel. Okay, but there was one problem when I called.
"To talk live to a hot, horny girl, press 1."
I have no idea whether she gave me the wrong number (I read it back about three times to confirm) or she was hinting to me to "go fuck myself" because I wanted to cancel.
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
AOL put a lot of money into working on Mozilla and didn't pull any corporate shenanigans a la Sun's debacle with OpenOffice. Where would Mozilla be today had AOL/Netscape not pull millions of dollars of R&D money into building it up? Probably nowhere, or just now becoming remotely useful.
OSS fans need to adopt a bit of political realism here. Corporate entities are amoral, and that means that they will side with those who best serve their owners' interests. It is thus in the interest of OSS users to actively encourage them to see OSS like Mozilla, OpenOffice and the Linux kernel as being in their interests to support.
AOL has given a lot, and I can't think of them actually taking anything. Does anyone seriously expect the average AOL user to jump over to Firefox? It's hard to believe that people as smart as many OSS users are so detatched from the public that they don't see how incompetent most AOL users are. AOL knows that, most of us should too.
The people who are hooked on AOL are not a significant enough block anymore to be the pivotal base to win over. If AOL is smart, they'll capitalize on their investment into Mozilla by making the Mac version of AOL software use Gecko. That's more than enough users to make a dent in the market. AOL, last I heard, had two million Mac users. That'd be over twice the number of people that downloaded Firefox 1.0PR.
In the end, people should be amazed that AOL has given so much to OSS communities, without playing battered wife to the Evil Empire like Sun is doing now after their settlement.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
"Think of the Internet as a Highway." There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know didley about the net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's a rotten metaphor. Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net. . . A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection. No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant- vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone. AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitrogylcerin and idle at 120. No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the bird on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirtguns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning. NO OFFRAMPS. None. Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.