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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."
Will this get incorperated into the FF code?
...yup...
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
"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
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.
I disagree. In theory this is only mirroring what a number of users already do. Many users surf with Firefox until they get to a site that only works with IE, then switch to IE. That is not to say that this is not a security issue... actually a potential security disaster. Now all they need to do is make it mirror a more clueful user's behavior and automatically e-mail a complaint to the web master about their site's noncompliance with standards. Seriously though, this is still probably better from a safety standpoint than IE, and is workable as a default install for the clueless masses.
Help / About Netscape Browser, then click on the "Credits" button. Hmmm, a whole load of names missing there.
Why in the sam hill would I want to 'switch to internet explorer rendering'?
Isn't that the whole reason we go to firefox? For safer browsing?
If I want to browse with IE's engine, I'll use IE, which won't take time to load since it's resident in the systems memory already.
Duh. Why would anyone download a browser to browse in IE?
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.
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.
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?"
Is it Free Software/Open Source? I thought Mozila used a copyleft license, so shouldn't it be?
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.
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?
Just like the original Firefox?
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?
Since you know about this, anyone know of something similar for the Windows Taskbar?
I hate the grouping in XP and always wish I could just move the tasks around on the bar.
ActiveX is good sometimes. What should be done is have a section in the preferences so that the use can specify which sites he wants to allow to use activex. Such as for my school's e-mail. It is much more functional and useable if you use IE [activex]. Therefore, if you can set what sites are better for activex, you will have the better security on your browser as well... Why can't they incorperate that? Or maybe FireFox can. That would be the end all solution to this entire mess. If you want activex, then use it, otherwise it is set to not be used by default...
_
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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.
MSN was originally released at the same time as Windows 95. The original version was universally panned as it was built upon proprietary Windows technologies using either SMB or something very similar to it (from a look and feel perspective, you were browsing file folders), I don't think it was even TCP/IP based, the original version certainly didn't give you access to the Internet. This changed fairly rapidly (Microsoft announced Internet access at the Spring 1995 COMDEX)
Ultimately AOL bought Netscape to bolster a failing ally in their war with Microsoft and MSN. That's about the size of it, and whatever they intended didn't really work out.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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Except they never made any move to Mozilla.
Hang on, the article title is "AOL Releases Netscape Beta, Based on Firefox". Companies like AOL don't donate money, they make bets. Maybe this one's about to pay off.ActiveX for Mozilla (Seamonkey and Firefox). Is it any good? I haven't tried it.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.