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

Eh?

[TechnologyX]

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.

IE rendering engine

[iJed]

Surely including an IE rendering engine negates one of the biggest advantages of moving to Firefox: fewer security exploits.

Re:IE rendering engine

[say]

It's the rendering engine. It is responsible for rendering the pages correctly on your screen and should not impose a security risk.

That is -4, completely insightless. Although everyone agrees that a rendering engine should not impose a security risk, the entire point of security flaws in IE is that its rendering engine imposes risks. Its rendering engine (pipeline) includes ActiveX objects, VBScript and all the other atrocities causing all the bad stuff.

The Netscape browser offers you to render stuff by using MSHTML.DLL, which includes a small IE within another program. Many programs does so nowadays. And all the other browsers out there (Neowin etc.) are really just shells around an IE ActiveX object.

So, all problems with IEs security will be accurately reproduced when activating IE rendering in this Netscape browser. (And all flaws of Gecko will be produced when you use Gecko).

Re:Perfect Name for a Ripoff Artist

[ADRA]

Hey hey, lets not be too hateful to AOL. They did support the Mozilla development environment for a good many years for like 0 profit. Lets not jump on their a$$es for doing something completely legal and in my eyes, ethical & moral.

If ANYTHING is used to offset the IE juggernaut, then so be it. I don't have a problem with the dual HTML engine technique since many people DO need activex support, at least once and a while.

Good thinking guys!

[Weaselmancer]

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???

Re:Good thinking guys!

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is exactly the kind of attitude that drives most people/businesses away from OSS and FF. Someday you'll learn the more you say, "fuck 'em", eventually no one will be left listening to you.

First, AOL helped build the internet. You may laugh at the silly surplus of AOL floppies and coasters, but they made getting onto the internet an easier task for most people. Many parents liked the better control of what their kids could/couldn't do on the net. True, much of their software was less than ideal, but you try developing software for 50 million people with thousands of computer configurations over a multitude of differing access paths and let's see how you do. It's easy to point and laugh unless you've been there.

The Netscape name will never be worthless as it does have name-recognition. Something that FF doesn't have and only Linux is beginning to enjoy (though many people don't yet associate all the different distros with the Linux name).

Re:Good thinking guys!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And then you go to Tools > Extensions and install the "View This Page In IE" extension, which adds a right-click menu item to open the page you're viewing in IE without introducing any IE or ActiveX into the internals of Firefox, as AOL seems anxious to do.

I don't think the average AOL user is going to buy that solution. For one, AOL users don't install extensions (AOL could pre-install this). Even most Firefox users probably don't install and extensions. More importantly, running two browsers is just a very clumsy solution. IE and Firefox do no co-exist very well on many Windows boxes, and they are both fairly resource hungry, bringing older machines to their knees. I'm primarily a Safari user myself, using Firefox and IE as needed for certain uses and OSs, but if such a feature were incorporated in Safari (with proper security measures) I'd be just fine with it. Heck, I might even use it on some weird occasion.

Re:Perfect Name for a Ripoff Artist

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you prefer some asshole continue to use IE? Whats the problem here??

No, the point is, I would prefer someone to use Firefox rather than use this bastardization of a browser.

Two Words: Name Recognition

[DaHat]

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.

Re:Two Words: Name Recognition

[AKnightCowboy]

Nah, for non-geeks, there are only two web browsers: AOL and Yahoo. As anyone on the street what browser they use, and I bet the vast majority would say AOL or Yahoo.

How true. I asked my mother what browser she was using and she told me Netscape. Even though she was quite clearly using Internet Explorer, her start page was http://home.netscape.com from when we transitioned her from Netscape 4.7. Now she uses Firefox and STILL says Netscape is her browser. I've half a mind to change her start page to Google and see if she says that's her browser.

Talk about having your priorities wrong

[OlivierB]

"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?

Nothing against them

[Facekhan]

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.

Microsoft 101

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Perfect Name for a Ripoff Artist

[ADRA]

" ALLOWS YOU TO EXECUTE CODE FROM THE BROWSER YOU ARE COMPETITING WITH?"

This is how Microsoft has won basically every battle it faced in the 90's anyways. IE supported NS extensions, Windows supports Novell, UNIX. Word supports Corel, etc..

Don't you get the game yet? If given the option of Netscape X and IE, you'd choose Netscape X because it can do everything IE does, PLUS Firefox built-in features. If you want to start weaning ppl off IE, its better to attack with a good migration plan.

Holy crap, my eyes!

[Osty]

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 ...

Utter madness

[onlyjoking]

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?

Re:Perfect Name for a Ripoff Artist

[AviLazar]

How is it ripping off? They give credit to the originators. Firefox is open source (so its allowable). And they aren't the first to do this - --- google branded a firefox version. So how does that make these guys any different?

What are they installing?

[Benanov]

Probably the same spyware related crap (Weatherbug, Viewpoint 'Media Player') as AOL instant messenger does...

Wow! Like really wow!

[Mr. Cancelled]

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!

User interface disaster

[jkujawa]

Screen Shot"

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 ... 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.

Ye gods.

OK... Gonna make myself majorly unpopular

[fozzmeister]

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.

Grease up your bunghole, AOL...

[JessLeah]

...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?

Re:Also

[ptlis]

Say i'm developing a webpage, it validates with the W3C validator and I want to make sure it renders correctly in IE as well as gecko based browsers; this would mean I could load the page up in Netscape, view it with the gecko rendering engine, followed by IE. I'd then modify the CSS so that it renders reasonably in IE then switch back to gecko to ensure it still works correctly with it. This would mean less clutter for me when testing on Windows as it means I don't need Firefox & multiple instances of IE on my taskbar; instead there'd just be Netscape containing a bunch of tabs.

I hate any form of excess clutter in my desktop environment/window manager.

Re:I think you've forgotten something too

[geoffspear]

As far as I can tell, they're not using the name Firefox.

And if you're worried about brand dilution because someone's using your code, open source is not right for you.

Re:Sabotage

[Jugalator]

... and why would AOL want to do this? :-/

Re:Also

[wfmcwalter]

It doesn't make much, if any, difference to slashdotters like you and I. But to AOL it's potentially a very big deal indeed. It'd be foolish to infer too much about AOL's internal thinking from one technology offering (particularly about a company so prone to factionalism as AOL) but this might imply that at least some part of the company is maneuvering for a firefox-based AOL client to be the standard.

I think it's likely AOL would like to move to a Firefox client, as there are several real business advantages for them, including

• 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.
• No-one wants their business to be dependant on Microsoft, particularly folks like AOL who are locked in competition with MS on a variety of fronts. The more they can extricate themselves from said dependency the safer they'll feel, and even a partial extrication today is better than none, and can be a stepping stone to dumping MS altogether. That's no wide-eyed open-source idealism, it's cold hard corporate survivalism.
• For a vertically-integrated provider like AOL, firefoxes UI framework and ease of extension makes for an attractive platform.

The fly in the ointment for them is website compatibility. Sure, most sites do indeed work fine, but there's a sufficiently large number that don't to make AOL switching untenable. A number of the folks I've successfully switched to firefox have migrated back, particularly because either their bank, airline, or corporate portal have been IE only.

Now, AOL has a full list of the sites their customers visit, and can easily compile a list of the major ones that need IE. They can build this list into an integrated firefox-IE browser, so that it switches to IE for those "legacy mode" sites seemlessly. That may well be what this netscape is - a test version of a "smart-switching" AOL client.

If they wanted to (although I can't see as much business case for them to want to) AOL could then put pressure on those sites that don't work with firefox to fix their issues. THey can threaten to start popping up little windows saying "legacy mode support", "backward-compatibility mode", or "old-style technology mode", a mark of Cain the site in question would rather avoid.

But most of all it's an option. In business, an option is an advantage even if you don't take it - in this case it's a great stick with which to beat Microsoft in future negociations. So it's a smart move to make, and a scary (for MS) technology for them to have - it's what MS fears the most, a smooth migration path away from MS.

Chalk up another brainfart to AOL

[Dracos]

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.

why

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must everything catter to IE. The whole point of Firefox was to say "Fsck up fools." First Ventelia now this, Oi.

Re:Also

[ThurstonMoore]

Slashdot is an excellent example of why to include IE rendering. I see Slashdot render incorrectly in Mozilla and Firefox all the time.

Re:Perfect Name for a Ripoff Artist

[Rysc]

Rip off? This is open source! Around hear we call it a fork.

Re:User Agent

[spdt]

That's not part of the User Agent.