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."

Comments

Let me see if I get this right.

[jd]

You can use the new Firefox, on a Windows machine, which will have IE already installed, where Firefox looks and feels just like IE. Can anyone spell "pointless"?

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.

Re:Holy crap, my eyes!

[tekunokurato]

You're a fucking idiot. You hate skins because they give people choice? Hate them because they're laggy or because they're an inefficient use of space, but not because they increase people's options. Jesus christ.

Re:Two Words: Name Recognition

[which way is up]

I not so good with the english as am i with putting it in your mom's ass

Re:Two Words: Name Recognition

[which way is up]

not so much as putting penis in your mom's ass

But...

[WillerZ]

I'm not sure this logic:

They bear the brunt of the support-call cost for a subscriber's entire PC (particularly for viruses, spyware, pagejacking, and increasingly fraud). Moving their userbase away from IE would surely save them a fair amount of this, and that's real dollars and cents.

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