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AOL Releases Netscape Beta, Based on Firefox
An anonymous reader writes "Netscape has released their new prototype browser for Windows based on Firefox 0.9.3. The prototype's development was outsourced to Mercurial Communications and includes several Netscape specific extensions. The biggest difference from Firefox, however, is the ability to switch to the Internet Explorer rendering engine from within the browser using an IE ActiveX control. The browser is currently available for a limited download."
There are screenshots and comments over at Planet Mozilla.
The prototype's development was outsourced to Mercurial Communications and includes...
That's the perfect name for a company hired to knock-off the Firefox browser:
Mercurial:
Having the characteristics of eloquence, shrewdness, swiftness, and thievishness attributed to the god Mercury.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
isn't there already a firefox plugin to launch the url in ie? shouldn't they just cut their losses and dump netscape?
In Korea, only the old use ActiveX controls.
hahahahhahaha.
worst. slashdot. cliche. evar.
...is currently available for a limited download
:)
not anymore...
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
In Korea, only old people outsource SOVIET RUSSIA!
It seems like Netscape really dosent care to try staying in the browser market, so why do they keep trying, will this just be another project that will be killed again in a few months/years.
Im just conserned because im a web developer, and really would perfer not to need to worry about another browser that might not follow standards.
TruePunk | Games
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of Firefox being more secure in the first place? It seems that most of the security holes in IE were from the mshtml part.
Slashdot sucks
...they are beta testing a new IE based browser.
Surely including an IE rendering engine negates one of the biggest advantages of moving to Firefox: fewer security exploits.
Andkon should be proud of it.
The big reason I should use this Internet Browser is because it can act Just Like the Broswer I am trying to get away from? This does not seem to make sense to me.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Will this get incorperated into the FF code?
...yup...
That's like saying: it's got the ability to piss it's pants when it lacks a toilet!
Where's my free iPod!? Until then, I'll settle for a kiss...
Downloading much faster via the Coral Cache Link, so I thought I'd post it.
Firecocks
Really, Firefox used to be one of the best browsers around before it got fucked up. There are so many errors put in between RC1 and final 1.0 that it astonished me why they haven't released RC1 as final.
When reading a page then the STOP button is often not pressable anymore (e.g. loading large pron pages with 50 and more pictures) you can't stop it. So much other things totally fucked up that used to work in previous RC1 releases.
Henrik Gemal has screenshots here
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
Morpheus: Microsoft is our enemy, Firefox, but when you're on the internet, you look around. What do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still IE users. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to switch to a browser that doesn't come included on their desktop when they bring their computers home from Best Buy and pop in the "2000 Free Hours!" AOL CD. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on Microsoft that they will fight to protect it. Were you listening to me Firefox, or were you looking at the woman surfing the hot lesbo porn?
Firefox: I was...
Morpheus: Look again.
Woman has turned into Bill Gates, introducing new "standard" to break non-IE browsers.
Morpheus: Freeze it!
Firefox: What is it?
Morpheus: IE-only standards. That means that anyone we haven't converted over is potential audience for crappy sites who only QA against IE. On the internet, you see this everywhere. We have survived by being standards-based, by working to be compatible. But these false "standards" are the gatekeepers.
Firefox: Whoa.
Morpheus: I won't lie to you, Firefox. Every single company or product that has stood their ground, everyone who was fought Microsoft has been crushed or aquired. But where they have failed, you will succeed.
Firefox: Why?
Morpheus: I saw Microsoft crush Netscape's market share. Men have come up with fantastic innovations only to find them incompatible or MS copies already included in the next version of Windows. Yet their programs are still based on factory-style programming and decisions made by pointy-hairs. Because of that, they will never be as secure or as functional as you can be.
Firefox: What are you trying to tell me, that I can block pop-ups?
Morpheus: I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Doesn't ff already provide some ActiveX support?
If only I could run WindowsUpdate without IE...
How is it that Firefox can support ActiveX plugins? My thought was that not supporting ActiveX was a feature of Firefox. Besides, what's the point in supporting IE rendering, when Mozilla's is more robust and compliant to current standards?
idm owns me
Planet Mozilla says they copied the wrong browser: "Supposedly this is based on Firefox 0.9.3, which IMO was the worst Firefox milestone"...
Oh what a bastardization this browser is!
"the ability to switch to the Internet Explorer rendering engine from within the browser using an IE ActiveX control" Great.
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
It's like a horrid mixture of OSX and windows olive-green theme gone horribly wrong... The upper bars look cramped and the top right portion is a mess of buttons and widgets.
The biggest difference from Firefox, however, is the ability to switch to the Internet Explorer rendering engine from within the browser using an IE ActiveX control.
That is without exception, the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
Let's take Firefox - known for it's security - and have you enable ActiveX, the mack-daddy of all virus vectors. And then for an encore, have it run the mother-of-all virus vectors, IE - inside it!
What do you do for an encore? Take a shower with your toaster???
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
use an old version of FF (or get stuck with it for months while the real FF releases are more frequent) nor to use the IE engine.
I'm not sure whats so unique about it. I doubt anything is unique AND good but I could be wrong.
Is it to try and compete with Microsoft, some nostalgic reason or what?
How many people are gonna be afu when they go clicking the top left area
Looking at the screenshot located at http://betanews.sjc.cachenetworks.com/betanews/art icles/1101831853/netscape.png, this has got to be the ugliest browser I have seen.
Kind of looks like slashdot, come to think of it...
Still, no excuse for displacing the menu bar. Whatever happened to usability guidelines and standard UI widgets?
"A source close to the company said AOL opted to include IE engine support in order to offer users more choice, as some sites are optimized for certain browsers. But to avoid security vulnerabilities found in IE, Netscape "gives the user the choice through Site Controls of what sites they trust and don't trust by allowing them to turn off Web functionalities that expose security holes on a per site basis," " Does this mean that while the IE engine is running it will be just as open to IE attacks? Or that people will have the ability to use built in IE features, or are those seperate to the IE engine...
TruePunk | Games
I always thought that Firefox was meant to streamline the webbrowsing experience? The first thing that I noticed when installing the browser is that it asked for my zipcode for weather reports. Ugh, no thanks, 90210 here I come. It also asks for a reboot after install. For what? What do I need to reboot after an install of a webbrowser for? What are they installing?
It defaults to ONE ugly screen with a tab opened, a headlines ticker going, a "money" ticker going, and the menu bar on the opposite side of the window than I am used to. There's a "new tab" option on the left side of the browsing area instead of leaving the main tab open there. You think new users are going to like this? I don't.
At least I don't see any AOL icons installed to my desktop or my favorites (yet). They might come after a restart though.
It's nice to see the backing of AOL/Netscape on Firefox. People might recognize those two names before Firefox and they might switch. Especially if it can render the IE-only pages 100%.
What do they mean by limited download?
1 7/win32_jgksyc/NSbrowserSetup-Full.exe
Good question -- why don't we all head over to:
http://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape/kqnf_4595_10
and find out...
and now back to the fallout shelter...
For the non geek, there are only two web browsers, Microsoft and Netscape. One comes with Windows and is easy... the other has grown to suck more and more over the years. No matter how good Firefox, Opera or any others may be, they don't have the name recognition that Netscape still has.
I would expect that a major Netscape release like this with a Firefox backend will do a lot to draw the non tech folks who continue to use IE because they think it is their only option.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Because...uh...the majority of people who author web pages aren't compliant to current standards. Could it be that?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"ability to switch to the IE engine"..
or how to ruin the efforts of a community to develop a more secure browsing platform with only one mouse click.
They should have concentrated on developing many extensions for the thing.
Stuff like aim chat extension, save bookmarks, listen to netscape radio (i.e a a small taskbar control). I can think of way too many things before even considering running IE in Firefox.
Why didn't they instead spend the $$$ improving rendering in FireFox so that all these IE only sites render properly?
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I always liked Netscape and all but please can they just die already. They lost the browser war. They were bought, kept on life support, allowed to die, resurrected, killed off again. Now they are back? I have never seen such amounts of money and effort put into something that they are just going to give away for free anyways. (oh wait I have but at least linux and freebsd has a market)
Oh well its a good way for AOL to hasten its own demise by burning more money on bad investments. If they charged one dollar a year for a not-shitty version of AIM they would probably get 500 million easy.
I thought everyone knows that anything associated with AOL = forecasted doom?
As always, I love how web standards are never adhered to, necessitating one having multiple browsers installed in order to view different sites properly. Not to mention all the IE specific functionality that something like ASP often requires. Working for an ISP, we make sure our sites can handle all they way back to Netscape 4.7x as most of our customers are still on dial-up so many are likely to also have older browsers/computers. It's a massive headache, but yet we have have to do it. Can't all the browsers just stop fighting and get along for a change???
I disagree. AOL has taken IE and an old unstable version of Firefox and bred them together to come up with this bastard child of a browser.
That's as if Bill Gates and Michael Caine had a test tube baby together!!! (hmmm I wonder who would carry it?)
You EMBRACE and EXTEND. So a user has a choice between a browser that does one engine, or a browser that gives them a choice between TWO things. Which will they choose? Duh! The one that gives them too things.
Remember when MSN Messenger debuted? It supported AIM. AOL freaked out and knew if they didn't stop it right then, then AIM was dead. Why? Because MSN Messenger users could talk to AIM users AND MSN Messenger users. Why would anyone want to stick with plain old AIM that could only talk to AIM users? Eventually, everyone would've switched to MSN Messenger.
Many ask why aol/netscape bother with maintaining a browser. Perhaps the answer can be found by looking at AOL as a whole rather than just at the browsers themselves.
Sure, this version of Netscape will probably go the way of others. It will also create, for a short while at least, greater diversity in the browser arena. This would, it seems, tend to force all browsers toward a unified standard of interoperability.
AOL does not sell browsers, it sells content. If unified standards are used, it is better able to deliver that content. With a diverse browser environment, AOL also stands a better chance of not being "shut out" when a single, dominant, browser is "innovated" such that it can no longer reach AOL services. (Not that Microsoft would ever do that sort of thing.)
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Inquiring minds want to know - Does it have the Slashdot Rendering Bug?
Awwww, whaaaa... I might have to do some testing, whaaaa... and the whole world doesn't follow the rules... whaaa
Which way is up?
Who thought this skin looked good? I mean, sure, Netscape is understaffed and all (being nothing more than a name), but you'd think that AOL could afford a UI designer that wasn't blind!
Folks, this is why skinning an application is bad. For every attractive skin that gets published (and those really are few and far between), there's thousands of craptacular skins just like this that people think look good. Excuse me while I go poke out my eyes. I just can't take the seafoam green any more ...
Woohoo, that is the deal clincher. Sign me up for AOL today.
I can't believe it. Netscape struggled against M$ for years and lost then did the right thing giving birth to the Mozilla foundation, or at least nurturing it. Mozilla foundation produces the first high quality, standards-compliant competitors to M$ and what do Netscape do? Hack it so that it behaves more like IE.
This is MADNESS. Then again, who gives a toss about Netscape anyway?
My eyes!
Ahhhh!!!
In the new Netscape Browser, select the option to render in Netscape mode, and then type windowsupdate.microsoft.com in the url barl. Lo, Windows Update appears and works!
I sure hope they limit the download. For the sake of mankind.
November 25th called, they want their joke back.
I am just waiting for those four riders that come when the end of the world gets here!!!!!! -> Me runs around like crazy with tin foil hat. - But can it actually be good?? I mea lots of sites are ie only and swithcing to ie's engine can't hurt... right???
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
Magnificent! Thanks everso.
I don't understand... why would I want to be able to switch to an automated virus downloader?
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Besides, IE can't render PNGs properly. And if they use the old JPEG rendering engine, they've opened up a nice hole for trojans. So, now we have this new, wonderful control that lets you break images and maybe break security.
Well, you can't blame them for trying to be consistant.
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)
the majorite of people suck.
This is why the researchers among car manufacturers are thinking of making cars that can drive by themselves in some situations. If people drove better, then the scientists wouldn't think of investing into such research.
Same thing with making websites.
A lot of people who make websites don't follow standards too well and then you got people/developpers(don't even think about it), instead of trying to solve the problem think that they can include the rendering engine which is used by these very same noobs. The result is an emerge of BIGGER noobs.
Help / About Netscape Browser, then click on the "Credits" button. Hmmm, a whole load of names missing there.
if users know it's based on Firefox. How many users will bother to only toggle into IE mode to get at certain sites? They'll just leave it in IE mode all the time (or not even be aware it's a special mode), get crap-full of viruses, and assume Firefox is no more secure than IE. If they only know it as Netscape they'll assume Netscape is as bad as IE, and they'll be less likely to believe hype about non-IE browsers as more secure. The only hope is if they don't associate Netscape and Firefox and just assume it's Netscape being as crap as it used to.
"Uh", could it be then that the current standards suck for the majority. The whole world has square pegs but yet FF and OSS wants only round holes because "they know best."
Probably the same spyware related crap (Weatherbug, Viewpoint 'Media Player') as AOL instant messenger does...
Take a look at that screenshot - yet another shining example of how AOL just doesn't get it.
Someone please tell them the point of Firefox was to be minimalist and NOT be chock full of useless crap?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
The browser seems vaguely interesting in an academic sense, but who is seriously going to try this? Geeks have FF, Mac people have Safari and normies have IE; all have some ebb and flow into each other and some alternatives exist in a small niche.
I have the feeling that this was a dumb idea sold to AOL execs by some really talented and unscrupulous middle manager looking for a way to not get his budget cut. AOL seems to actually be run pretty well - they target a completely different (read: clueless) audience and they keep that audience pretty content. This is a stupid move.
And, yes, I know that there's already a browser named Chimera. It's dead, Jim.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Ha! Thanks for supporting my point in the post below. The current crop of IT'ers think they know it all. Ha!
It LOOKS nice....
jebus christ, leave it up to netscape to ruin the concept of firefox.
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb05.png
Ugh, no thanks, 90210 here I come.
OMG I do that too! Mostly because I'm Canadian and don't know any other zip codes... but still. Usually it works. You can tell that was a decision made by a PHB, eh!
The traditional argument around here has been that AOL/Netscape gives Mozilla/Firefox brand strength. Well, stuff like this is backfiring tremendously. Whether justified or not, the general public has long since identified Netscape as the 'loser' browser, and tend to scoff at anything that resembles it. One of the first things many people say to me when I install Mozilla is, "It kind of looks like Netscape" -- and they don't mean it in a good way. Thankfully, Firefox has taken away some of that stigma, but for how long? Even though I'm on a Mac using Safari, I still think Firefox is one of the most interesting things to happen to browsers in a long time, and certainly a good piece of PR for open source in general. Please Netscape, just stay away from this.
I'm a Web Developer, and this Netscape release is making me seriously consider it for my main browser (once all the wrinkles are worked out, and sadly, once all the AOL-based crap's inserted into the install).
For a long time now, I've been whining about how no one's released an "IE compatability layer" for Mozilla/firefox, both on this site, and elsewhere.
To me, it's a given that this would alleviate any need for IE, if your Firefox session could suddenly render everything as IE, either on a site-by-site basis, or by a user chosen option (which is how Netscape's handling it).
I've heard lots of replys about how this would slow everything down, and how hard it would be to do this, and so on. To me it was always a "why wouldn't you do this", since the IE rendering engine can be used by 3rd party apps.
And here's Netscape, long written off as an outdated, and slow browser by me, suddenly returning from the dead with just such a feature! So I downloaded it, and installed it (crashed once while setting itself up, but it's an early beta afterall), and the IE mode works perfectly!
I went to some old "IE only" pages here at my company, chose "View as IE" fromt he context menu, and suddenly I was able to browse all these pages without a hitch (for the record, the main problem I've had with IE and our pages is navigation and DHTML. Our company's built several sites and apps around IE specific functionality). The speeds great, and just by right clicking and choosing "View as Netscape", I'm back to browsing with Firefox.
Now I'm torn... I've hated Netscape for years, both for it's quirky rendering and CSS handling, as well as for the bloat that AOL introduced to the install. I'm glad to say that this beta is very impressive, and while i realize it's hopeless to think it'll stay this way, there's no AOL crap, or extra icons as a result of the setup!
I can only hope that some Firefox guru out there sees the writing on the wall and ports a similar IE mode back into Firefox ASAP. I don't want to use Netscape, but being able to switch between rendering engines is a big plus to us Web guys!
Netscape has really impressed me with the direction it's taking with this new release. Let's hope they stick to their guns and release a lean, mean, and extremely versatile browser, which this worth of a beta such as this.
Do you hear me Netscape? Don't f*** this up like you have with past releases, and you might just be back in the 'browser game'! This is pretty impressive considering what Firefox and the Mozilla team have brought to the table (and yes, I realize that it's mainly this same Moz/FF power which is fueling this beta).
Hats off to a helluva beta. The GUI looks like it's shaping up pretty nice too! Love those curved corners guys... Make it themable, and you've got a hit on your hands!
For those that might not know, firefox has an ie extension available for download. It allows you to open the current page in IE. Why may you ask??? Because there are the occasional pages that just don't look right in firefox. Plus, it's a handy tool for designers who are interested to see how there page looks in the two browsers.
I'll probably get modded as Troll or flaimbait for this but...
Having the ability to switch from Firefox to the IE engine isn't 100% bad. I agree, it's a gaping security hole and it's not a "feature" most slashdot types (myself included) would want or use. It is however, something that might help the average AOL junkie make the transition. If they think a page is not loaded correctly, they can stay in FireFox and load it with the IE engine.
If AOL would roll this out for a couple versions, then quietly kill it after people become used to Firefox it might actually be helpful.
As someone who religiously uses the web developer tools for Firefox, I could REALLY use this IE engine switching feature in Firefox. Save me the trouble of Start-Programs-Internet Explorer.
;)
Yes, saving me 7 seconds is worth a team of people slaving weeks and weeks to put this in Firefox
nice one :)
The Mozilla Organization worked *hard* to brand Firefox and create brand recognition in the public. Netscape releasing a browser with (potential) security problems dilutes Firefox's brand and serves to confuse the public.
/.'ers seem to love jerking their knee to.
I am more worried about brand dilution hurting Firefox adoptation than I am about the potential security holes in Netscape via IE. The security holes will be bad PR, and that can only hurt Netscape, which by proxy will hurt Firefox. The public is easily confused.
Bigger problem, even? What incentive is there for web developers to create standards-based websites (for viewing in *nearly* standards compliant browsers such as Firefox or Opera) when the end-user can just up and switch the rendering engine to IE?
I think this is a bad idea, but not just because of the security problems that
Anyone thought about it? Tinfoil hats on, it would explain why such a bizarr move was pulled in the first place.
1. Take the firefox build of one of the worst milestones possible.
2. Allow it to use the IE Rendering Engine
3. When it breaks, runs slow, has the same bugs as IE, blame it on the firefox base code.
4. The users of the new netscape browser will think that firefox (that browser everyone keeps talking about) is just as bad as IE.
5. IE users stay IE users, even netscape users because now they don't feel there is any reason to use firefox if it breaks all the time.
6. ????
7. Profit!!!
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
Ok, so...
Netscape is making a browser based on Firefox, Mozilla's browser that is based on it's bigger Mozilla browser which is based on Netscape's old browser.
My head asplode:/
Is it Free Software/Open Source? I thought Mozila used a copyleft license, so shouldn't it be?
Why, dear God WHY, is the menu bar in the upper RIGHT corner? I keep reaching for the menus, and they're in the wrong friggin' place...several decades of software must be wrong...
Dave
Much apart from the fact that they've replaced Firefox's nice clean interface with that ugly monstrosity but they've also included ActiveX support. The lack of support is the primary reason I switched to Firefox!
Why don't they just use Firefox 1.0 with minor (MINOR) cosmetic changes?
asks for US zip code for detailed weather information... I put my zip code in germany
Screen Shot"
... perfect awfulness. If a skilled and pissed-off user interface designer sat down to purposely design something as user-hostile as possible, I don't think he'd come up with something this bad.
That is undoubtedly one of the worst UI disasters I've ever seen. Just looking at it makes my eyes hurt. The horrible choice in colors, the business, the unreadability of text due to gradients and poor color and font choices, and that's just looking at a static image. From the looks of it, I wouldn't be surprised if half the widgets were animated.
It's like
Ye gods.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=131092&cid=109 47940
Because you're curious and lazy, and I am obsessive-compulsive nothing to see there though.
No, not at all. It's because the majority use Microsoft as a reference standard, rather than the independent standards that were intended to be used as reference standards. This is basically a matter of market share: developers think, "well, if I do it the MS way, I get 90% of the market; if I do it the standards compliant way, I get 100% of the market - but hey, I'll do it the Microsoft way anyway, because I'm too lazy to learn the reference standards and microsoft.com is my only source of programming information."
. . . is that the lame IT guys at my school might finally replace the Netscape 6.x on all the machines with something a little closer to Firefox.
Netscape is based on Firefox, which is based on Mozilla.... which is based on Netscape.
So Netscape is now loosely based on Netscape?
I think this is one of those puzzles that if anyone figures out the answer, the Universe will cease to be.
Personally I think that this could be used in a great way for us webdevelopers out there.
Imaging having a "browser" where you can put in a url and it will show you what your page will look like in a number of different browsers with each browser being represented by tabs.
So in other words you enter in myproject.com and a number of different tabs open up. One for Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Mozilla, etc.
I've been searching for something like this for years and could never find it.
all the benefits of firefox, and the biggest downfall of IE!
AOL couldn't of made a better decision on this one.
No wonder why it's #1!
Runnin' On Empty
but the Moz/FF stronghold is geeks, we need to get it on non-geek platforms. I've told my dad, my friends, everyone to switch to FF, but I always say "if you have problems on such and such a site go back to IE for that one alone". not being able to use the site which is your bank, or do your weekly competition with the Times (this is my Dad) is not acceptable to the end user. Get them on FF as much as possible, but if its all or nothing with them, you'll prob get nothing.
For this reason I do broadly support the IE switching option, providing its like a button "Switch To IE" that would always render that (page/domain) in IE. Similar to the way "Allow Poppups works. This would solve the major problem of "I use IE because I often visit XYZ and FF doesn't support it".
Saying that a universal "Switch to IE rendering" option is going to be more damaging than helpful to FF.
Netscape was once a good browser but it becoming too much of a pain to have to delete all the aol junk that gets installed with it.
Why do I want something that is nothing but a billboard for aol when I can download and install the real firefox???
...it's time for a lawsuit.
Seriously. Netscape-- the biggest competitor to IE-- now will have the ability to use IE's rendering engine?
Isn't MS gonna sue AOL over this? They're mortal enemies... no?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
This extension Anon is talking about is NOT new!
Didn't this kinda go around in a sort of weird Karma circle?
The new Netscape, based on Firefox...which itself is based on Mozilla...which is the off-shoot of Netscape.
Wow...just blew out me mind...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
In principle, this is not a bad thing, and can even be helpful.
Some brain-damaged sites don't render well in Mozilla/FF natively, but do render in the IE engine. This is particularly true in corporate environments.
Three things are needed for this to be a big win:
1) no obvious way to make this the default (i.e. it is on a per-page or per-site basis, but all new sites open in the FF engine)
2) administrators can lock it out completely, or preset it for certain intranet pages and lock out new pages.
3) there are no bugs by which a third party can "trick" the machine into using the IE engine
4) the plugin is in a sandbox, so IE security holes don't escape to affect the rest of FF or the rest of the system.
Oops, #4 will be darned hard to do due to the nature of Active X. Oh well, nice try.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
All I did was install Firefox on every computer in my office, set it as the default browser, and removed the IE icon from anywhere possible.
Finally, I renamed the little foxy world thingy to 'Internet Explorer' and voila - everyone migrated. Guess how many people noticed?
Any incompatibilities come with very few sites that IMO most people don't use anyway. The people, that would understand what was wrong would know how to launch IE as a backup.
Come on, this is AOL-TimeWarner we're talking about. It's not like zero-profit Mozilla was unique in that sense.
I personally love when companys get into "wars" like this. They all try to out-do the other company and their products end up better than they would've been otherwise. So if Microsoft or AOL came out with a better browser, than I'm downloading it. I'm not going to get angry over the fact that they're ripping Mozilla off. As long as I get a good product I'm happy.
The green color really looks bad ( I hope the poor guys who downloaded it can change it). It really doesnt seem that too much effort has been put in this browser except adding extra menus and widgets and thus creating a crowd. In a bid to be different they even shifted the File Edit etc menus to the other side (which really doesn't make much sense). All in all there is nothing in it which will make Firefox users to switch to it or even IE users to switch to it ;-)
"VI VI VI The editor of the beast."
So what - C++ - The language of Orwell?
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/12769151/
Distance Firefox from this monstrosity. AOL, who owns the Netscape brand name, forked the codebase and made separate changes to create some bastard version for them to sell. If asked why they can do this, say that the license permits them to do this. Make sure that clearly Mozilla had nothing to do with any of this ActiveX or IE crap, or the shitty interface, etc...
Somebody tell the weasel to start limbering up...
I know a lot of people hate the idea of an ActiveX plugin for IE rendering. But, I think it is a good move that will allow more options for companies to adopt Firefox as their standard brower. Many organizations are locked into IE because of internally developed applications that use IE-specific technology. Without this option, there is NO upgrade path. Period.
However, I'm actually very interested in the opposite scenario. I work for a company that distributes a web-based application, and we are very interested in using XUL to create a richer UI experience. XUL, however, is only available in Gecko. I've searched everywhere, but cannot find an IE plugin that allows for the Gecko rendering engine to be used (or the subset of functionality required to render XUL components).
There is no way we could require users to use Firefox (we're not going to limit our customer base no matter how cool the technology), but if a plugin existed for IE that we could distribute, we would happily go down this path.
I would think that this would be in the Firefox group's best interest anyways to establish XUL as a de facto standard. Could anyone comment on this?
This has to be the stupidest, most moronic argument that I have ever heard!
You do, of course, realize why the majority of people who author web pages aren't compliant don't you? It's because they test their work in IE. Don't know how to do something? fiddle around untill it works. If they are using IE, it may work when it's non-standards compliant. Why not make a browser that is compliant so that when said developer is testing out the hacks they see it works in IE but not in the standards compliant firefox? This will cause them to redesign the page to work in firefox as well, thus making it standards compliant.
By your argument, I can deduce that you would probably jump off a bridge if everyone else did, so with that in mind.....keep using IE
I've got to say, Firefox is now the second most horrible looking web browser. I absolutely hate the way Firefox looks and feels and now Netscape has copied them and made it look worse.
To Mozilla developers: Please please please don't go this route. The look and feel of Mozilla is what I like. It's been the same since the early days of Netscape and I'm very comfortable with it. If I wanted something that was GUI as hell, I'd type with one hand... I mean, I'd use a Mac (or KDE/Gnome/E). Some of us like bare bones and clean.
If you need it. http://www.daltonrooney.com/download/NSbrowserSetu p-Full.exe
My bandwidth cap resets tomorrow and I have tons left.
seriouslyexcited.net
In WinXP - why, when you click anywhere in the browser that's not a text box, do you get a blinking cursor? And, how do you turn it off? In W2K/98x this doesn't happen at all, but in XP it really ticks me off. I can't get rid of it or find it in the about:config area.
Any tips?
From dictionary.com for inert: 1. Unable to move or act. 2. Sluggish in action or motion; lethargic. See Synonyms at inactive.
Well, I hate to run against the usual slashdot grain, but I actually like this puppy. Sure, a slghtly less glitzy skin might be nice, but overall I'd say that they integreted a number of nice little features with some nice style.
I like the way they integrate newsfeeds, although I haven't figured out how to change them. Note that slashdot is one of the defaults available!
I like the site control on each tab. I think that they have managed to fit a lot of functionality into a fairly small space.
Can't seem to install tinyurl creator yet though. tsk.
Three Squirrels
I realize that the rabid OS fans on this site think that this is the worst possible thing to ever occur on planet earth, but the rest of us live and work in a world where ActiveX is a reality. Our vendors only supply certain applications on the web using ActiveX. You know what? We then need to standardize on using IE across the enterprise for those few apps that everyone needs. We cannot change the vendor. We cannot just lose those apps. We cannot get rid of IE.
Enter a browser that is *mostly* Firefox, but for which you can use IE/ActiveX for the sites that need it. In other words, 95% of our enterprise could now be using Firefox technology, and only IE where they have to. Which allows us to change our mantra of "only IE is supported" to "we support IE and Netscape". We can then turn around and tell our vendors "you know what, you're the only vendor that still uses ActiveX" and they can't respond "but why does it matter cuz you're using IE?"
I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but if they allow us to control the rendering of sites by URL in a config somewhere, this will be the first nail in IE's coffin around where I work...
...wouldn't Netscape Beta be what happens when Agent IE dominates Firefox' body?
You could buy one on Ebay. Like me.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Absolutely wonderful! Thank you very much for that.
There are better screenshots at:
http://gemal.dk.nyud.net:8090/misc/nsb02.png
http://gemal.dk.nyud.net:8090/misc/nsb05.png
http://gemal.dk.nyud.net:8090/misc/nsb06.png
http://gemal.dk.nyud.net:8090/misc/nsb14.png
http://gemal.dk.nyud.net:8090/misc/nsb15.png
Forget the tech. It's all about yanking Microsoft's chain. Embrace and extend. Remember?
Hey, what's wrong with the interface??
Regards,
Stevie Wonder
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It appears more and more that AOL is hell bent on destroying every aspect of Netscape.
The single biggest advantage of non-IE browsers is that they don't use the IE rendering engine (activeX, jpeg exploits, (d)com exploits, etc all boil down to this).
This version of Netscape is DOA. To compound the problems web developers face, this browser probably doesn't alter its UA string as part of the engine swap.
Way to go, AOL. You should buy SCO and begin gathering all the stupid IT companies under one corporate umbrella.
The menu bar is in a very unconventional place - up in the titlebar. Not standard placement in any way, but possibly a better use of Fitts Law?
Has anyone seen this kind of menu bar placement before?
Actually nongeeks have absolutely no idea what a browser is.
They just think they're looking at "the internet."
In windows or something. The way Microsoft wanted it in the first place.
...And let me add that AOL doesn't just sell content, it also sells bandwidth.
I'll never use this new browser, but Firefox will always be around, no one can take that away. In the long run, Firefox has a lot more to offer than a bastardized version, dedicated to bringing in revenue. Hey thats the trade-off of OSS, people can use it for whatever they want, as long as they stick to the agreement.
They open sourced Netscape, but they didn't promise they wouldn't eventually piss us off.
WHY did you choose 0.9.3? I love FF, and I've used 0.9.3 for a while, but I upgraded to 1.0 as soon as it was here. I understand that 1.0 just came out, but wouldn't an older version have been better than using 0.9.3 for this? Not that I was going to touch it anyway, but why did AOL make such a stupid choice?
I've put up a screenshot, with notes on Flickr. Bash away.
Why must everything catter to IE. The whole point of Firefox was to say "Fsck up fools." First Ventelia now this, Oi.
Until about two months ago, I'd have agreed with you. But the mainstream press has been picking up the Firefox story in a big way. Google shows 104k links to GetFirefox.com (and Google underreports links). Articles on Slate, the BBC, CNN, and countless tech sites, not to mention print articles in newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to USA Today, have been almost universally positive.
I'm also encouraged that people don't necessarily connect Firefox to Netscape. That's a point in Firefox's favor.
More and more Regular Joes are hearing about Firefox, and as legions of geeks switch to Firefox, they're taking their less-informed bretheren with them. Remember that for a time Netscape had a stranglehold on the browser market, and nobody paid any attention to Internet Explorer. This is not an unchanging market, though it has been moribund for a few years.
Remember what happened in the search engine market when Google hit the scene? The barrier to entry isn't as low in the browser market, but Firefox has made it very easy to download, install, and use Firefox. I don't see Firefox taking over the browser market, but I think in 2005 Firefox will see increased name recognition, and more importantly, a continued increase in marketshare.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The whole for going to Firefox (or Netscape) is absolutely NOT for safer browsing. "Safer browsing" has been around for years, but nobody has cared about alternative browsers recently until Firefox. This was thanks to the features and design of Firefox, not the rendering engine. Most people really don't care about very much about whether they're using the most secure browser. It's much more valuable to have a browser that works. That's been important to Firefox's success - the ability to view most webpages normally, just like IE. Firefox clearly far outshines the new Netscape with the user interface, but the IE rendering option is absolutely a plus. The security risks are only ones that the user takes upon themselves. And there's clearly a demand for viewing webpages with the IE engine that were looked at in Firefox - the "IE View" extension is one of the most popular. In order to beat IE, Firefox needs to be able to beat it on every count. The optional IE rendering engine eliminates the one good reason stick with IE. I hope this feature from Netscape is incorporated back into Firefox, at least as an optional extension. It would make an astronomical difference in the browser wars.
Just scroll down a couple pages and the links are right there.
There is only one web browser: that little icon on your desktop marked "Internet".
Thats why I play: aardmud.org:4000 http://www.aardmud.org
-There are only soldiers, and men who wish they were soldiers.
Thanks for this tip, I didn't even consider it or knew what it did. Thanks again!
Netscape used to be Mosiac Communications and their URL used to be:
www.mcom.com
Mercurial Communications developed the new browser and their URL is:
www.mcomi.com
Coincidence? You decide.
They can then at least guarantee that company's internal web apps writen in asp and .NET will render the same way as they did in IE.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
holds up. You assume that IE is actually inherently less-secure than Firefox. I personally doubt that this is the case.
Remember, IE has been top-browser for many years now. This means your average zombificator targets IE for preference as it will give the largest possible target for a single vector. I would be very surprised if they even think it worthwhile to look for holes in Gecko/Necko et al.
The known-vulnerability exposure of a currently-patched IE is extremely small, as it is for a currently-patched firefox. But look at the stats for IE split by version from various sites -- the majority are not patched to current.
Keeping IE up-to-date is as simple as enabling automatic updates for windows. Keeping firefox up-to-date is more difficult, and thus will be done even less than IE is now.
There are several good reasons to move from IE to Firefox, but untested security superiority is not one of them.
Phil
I guess today is a passable day to die.
That piece deserved some +20 addt. points of karma bonus!
.... from last century, totally irrelevant now!
Give it up, just use Firefox!
You might be interested in checking out "IE7", a CSS and JavaScript package that, when put on a page, pushes IE 5.5 and above into standards compliance. It ranks very high on my neat-hack list. See here: dean.edwards.name/IE7/
|/usr/games/fortune
Worst. UI. Ever? Perhaps--either that, or it's pretty damn close.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
This seems to me to be an utterly pointless excercise: Take Firefox (a new exciting alternative browser), which is essentially, well sort of, grandson of Netscape anyway, and repackage it as Netscape (a dead or at least very, very stale browser that most people gave up on ages ago), give it a hideous looking and visually confusing skin and an "IE-rendering" mode so that web pages will render just as awfully as they do under IE. Come again??
Why don't AOL just officially endorse and adopt FF instead of flogging a dead horse? Won't that get people using it? I have had no problems in moving anyone to FF. I just say it's better than IE, which isn't hard to justify as most people seem to be convinced that IE's pants already.
I do wish everyone would stop keeping the lie that it's at all difficult to migrate any user from one app to another going, because it really is not. Just watch them. I bet you can get any Word user on OpenOffice within an hour and doing fine, from Windows to Mac or to Linux (and not a Windows-lookalike desktop like KDE or Gnome either) in about half and hour, and from IE to FF in about 5 minutes - like address bar, search bar, home, back, refresh, erm, stop, print - it's the same - how hard can it really be??
Also Firefox has a cooler name and a nicer icon to boot.
it probably installs weatherbug, aim, makes netscape your default home page and shits links all over your deskop.
I run FireFox 1.0, recently swicted from Opera, and a previous long time Netscape user. I am a regular net user, and I have yet to come across just *one* page that would not render in Gecko. I haven't opened an IE window since I downloaded FF when I formatted my drive. My brother, father, and Mother use FF as well, and have found no reason to use IE. ActiveX is losing popularity and most businesses have it turned off by default, so, this seems useless.
"Love is like a trampoline, first it's like "SWEET!!" then it's like *BLAMM!*"
Or, should we really see this as Firefox embracing ActiveX in an attempt to try to crush Explorer faster? Will they extend on it with XUL? Or... is IE about to take over XUL? Wow, this really looks like a war again!
Maybe I missed something, but if they are hosting a COM control to 'render' the IE compliant page, then you will have the same issues as if you were running IE. Viri and all...
If it is not the COM control then why did they waste time impersonating/re-creating the IE engine?
There have been a number of important issues addressed, but I didn't see the most important one answered: Will using IE's rendering engine enable the AOL Browser to visit websites that require IE ? If it can't do this, then I'm sorry, the browser is just another useless option for a lot of people.
webmaster@127.0.0.1 or webmaster@localhost
It gives somebody a clue when spam comes out of their rooted box or open relay mail server. It also makes for a cleaner internet. That junk traffic doesn't go far!
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
it's too bad that it's a Windows-only release. i would have liked to try it on my PowerBook G4. i guess Mac support is low on their list. or else maybe ActiveX is too difficult to support on the Mac. i will not be using the new Netscape browser--i have Firefox on my Mac (version 1.0), so i guess i'm not missing out much, except for those pesky sites that require ActiveX support.
........ kris
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
One of the main reasons I have stuck with Netscape through the years (since version 1.22) is because it is NOT IE. I do not want ActiveX or IFRAMEs, thank you very much. I have never encountered a site that uses either "feature" for anything but spyware, adware, and/or IE exploits. Things like this will definitely deter me from future versions of Netscape and push me into using Firefox and Opera. At least good old Netscape Communicator didn't stoop this low.
That's the simple way of switching to IE rendering. Just right click, and it'll reload the page. Your other pages/tabs would still be working using the Gecko engine. When you're in IE mode, right click, and hit 'Display like Netscape', and you're back to using Gecko.
You can also set individual controls for sites in the options: you can set a certain webpage to always render using the IE engine: microsoft's site is set to this by default (hence why Windows Updates works). You can even enable/disable ActiveX for websites (even if they're set to render in the IE engine), including javascript, images, popups and so on. It's a really nice feature...
Many people here seem to hate the IE rendering capability. Frankly, as a web developer, I LOVE this...no longer do I have to have IE open when designing a site, I can just right click, and voila! And it defaults to Gecko for everything, unless you specifically tell it to open in IE, so I don't see why so many are complaining about the security issues...
I'd actually consider using this full time once their are better themes, and extensions like the web developer tools is ported over. Right now the 'get more extensions' and 'get more themes' links in Netscape seem to link to update.mozilla.org...but the site seems to be down. So who knows? Some stuff might work...
It's probably been downloaded by 1 person ... the project manager's mother.
Thank you! That was driving me crazy. I activated that option on Mac OS X hoping it would allow me to finally get into drop-down selectors on web forms by tabbing into them. Still doesn't work. Anyone know why? On Windows I've always been able to tab into any form field in any browser. On the Mac I keep having to move to the mouse to select the state and other such things that use a drop-down selection list. Very annoying.
Thanks again!
To the folks at Mozilla and Firefox for whatever bastard spawn Netscape is going to spew forth onto the unwashed masses of AOL.
I saw a screenshot. Dear Netscape - why bother? Why not donate whatever money, time and resources you are wasting on this to back Firefox and Mozilla?
Wow! Does it also include the incredibly annoying page rendering bug that is solved by a Ctrl-+/Ctrl--? I use Firefox as my primary browser at home and at work and this annoys the brown out of me.
They tear it to pieces.
t ml
http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article5691.h
In a way, it would work especially well given that Netscape is owned by the same parent company as Warner Bros. Pictures.
Try Taskbar Commander.
I actually like their idea. 99% of sites render perfectly with Mozilla Firefox. However, there is that 1% that do not.
The default for the Netscape browser is to use the Firefox engine (Display Like Netscape). However, you can click on a tab's yellow button and select the IE engine for that particular site only. This is a great hybrid approach. So lets say your bank does not support Firefox. No problem. You select "Display Like Internet Explorer" and only that site displays like IE. In fact, its kind of tricky and people don't even know they are switching rendering engines. In addition, the bookmarks and settings are all in the same Netscape browser.
I like Firefox just fine so I'll be sticking to what I have, but this is definitely an option I can recommend to non-geeks.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Fashion designers all over the world are wondering what the next "black" will be. Some say it will be aqua, others lean towards aqua-marine. The recent discovery that the Slashdot user account was purchased by a Slashdot crazed fan for merely $115, has lead to the next black for the fasion industry and it's green. Yes, UID envy can creep up on you and snag you by the balls faster than you can click the submit button, so we at Slashdot are advising people to simply click Preview and ask yourself if you are suffering from UID envy BEFORE you click Submit. Grousing about moderation is also Off Topic and will be moderated that way. Since you *are* new here, judging by your hideously high UID -- please be warned that siding with insensitive claude for *any* reason, will only demonstrate how ignorant you are of the Slashdot culture, which generally supports such Ebay purchases because they are fun.
... THEN... SUBMIT. Thank you.
So please refrain from showing how stupid you are and have a nice day. Remember -- PREVIEW
AC
There is no way we could require users to use Firefox (we're not going to limit our customer base no matter how cool the technology), but if a plugin existed for IE that we could distribute, we would happily go down this path.
Mozilla ActiveX Control. Try it; you'll like it. The API for this control is so similar to IE's API that you literally have to change two lines of code: one to add the GUID for CLSID_MozillaBrowser and one to replace the reference to CLSID_Browser (IE) with one to CLSID_MozillaBrowser.
obvious racist nickname... But don't let it fool you. MC Negro is not black! He's making fun of blacks because of the stereotype that blacks like to rap. Notice his use of the term "brother" in his comment. Obvious racial slur from someone who is just karma whoring, talking about emacs. Emacs emacs emacs... do I get karma too?
Isn't the Internet Explorer rendering engine one of the things that made IE 6.0 so unstable to begin with? I knew the entire thing wasn't that secure, but basing a browser on Firefox, wouldn't you want security and stability overall? It seems like an oxymoron to place the IE rendering engine in a browser based on something as stable as Firefox. Are they shooting for flexibility or what? Hmm.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
I have the opposite problem. I test everything in Firefox and then have to break it so it renders correctly (or doesn't throw some idiotic error) in IE.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
What you said is true except for the way this Netscape prototype handles gecko vs. IE and other security factors. It maintains a list of security settings for each site that you don't want to handle like the default such as whether to allow popups, javascript, Java, and Active X. This same setting specifies whether you view it as "Netscape" (gecko) or Internet Explorer. Active X is only available to the IE setting (grayed out in "Netscape"). The advanced javascript settings are only available in the Netscape setting.
By default (at least the way I tweaaked things) you have to turn Active X on for a site. Just switching it to IE won't do it.
Active X exploits probably account for most of the IE security flaws (although not all), so it's not as hazardous you imply.
I emailed the Mozilla mailing list a couple years ago with a suggestion that they ought not to be developing a mozilla widget set, because it's better to have native widgets on each platform. But they thought it would be better to have Mozilla look the same on every platform. (Always mistaken logic IMO. People who think that their application is the only one that certain users will need, are the ones who usually think that way, but it's never actually true. Consistency of UI on the platform that you have chosen is way more important than having one app that looks the same on every platform. Not to mention that it's inefficient to re-invent all the widgets.) So now after they have spent so much time doing that, and debugging it, and re-inventing the idea of skin as if _that_ had never been done before, it gets thrown out due to excessive bloat and speed issues, and Firefox becomes way more popular because it uses the native widgets available on each platform, and leaves out some other less popular faatures. If only they had done Firefox first, maybe we users wouldn't have had to spend so darn many years running Netscape 4 because nobody had succeeded in improving on it. Gecko was ready years ago but they spent so much time doing stuff that didn't need to be done at all, and Mozilla wasn't actually useable until around 1.0. (But I did use Galeon for a while.)
ActiveX for Mozilla (Seamonkey and Firefox). Is it any good? I haven't tried it.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
What is that taskbar thing that you talk about??
I'm suddenly tempted to run this Netscape Browser in Crossover Office on Linux (yep, I've got IE6, too)...
An averge Joe's reaction: Out of curiosity, I decided to download and install the prototype version of the new Netscape browser. and while I found the interface interesting looking. It certainly is green!
I found the application extremely hard to work with in the area of customizing it for my usage. The first problem I ran into was setting up the sidebars. I had my favorites from Mozilla that I thought I could easily enough re-add(NOT!). I also could find no easy way of importing my Mozilla bookmarks although it looks like this could be done if you know what file to go after in your Mozilla config directory. Other options were easy enough to set, such as the home pages which could be set for multiple tabs(an option I particularly liked).
The key problem is that people are used to seeing how IE does things. Every person I've failed to convert to Firefox has held onto IE because Firefox "doesn't make their page look right" when they're using their downloaded scripts for theit blogs and the like. *wry grin* Sure, I could be a zealot and yell at them to write their pages in a standards-compliant manner, but from their point of view, their code works fine in IE, which most everyone uses so therefore this browser I'm suggesting must be fundamentally broken.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.