Netscape 8 Breaks IE XML

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has alerted users that Netscape's latest browser appears to break the XML rendering capabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Dave Massy, a senior programme manager for IE, warned users in a blog posting that after installing Netscape 8, IE will render XML files as a blank page, including XML files that have an XSLT transformation. What a week for Netscape 8.0; first the browser needed several fixes hours after its release, then it was discovered that without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install, and now IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work."

Comments

Does anyone use it?

[coop0030]

I haven't tried out Netscape 8.0 (Firefox is fine with me for now), but what are some reasons people are switching to Netscape 8.0?

Does anyone have any stats on how many people are even using it? What are the website statistics showing?

To me this sounds like Netscape ran into a "too little, too late" situation with their newest iteration of their browser.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Metaphorically]

As far as "too little, too late", I read that it's actually a whole different team of developers that AOL has hired. So really it's not even the same people making the effort, just AOL making a browser and slapping a well-known brand name on it.

Just what I heard, that's all...

Re:Does anyone use it?

[LegendOfLink]

I personally don't, but there's a good article on Internet Week about it.

http://www.internetweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?arti cleID=163106005

I'm going to be biased and stick with my Firefox for now.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Will2k_is_here]

I work the helpdesk part time at my University.

Users have used Netscape since NS 4 days. They don't feel comfortable trying anything else. NS7.2 tells them they have an outdated browser so they just upgrade. That's why they download it.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[McGiraf]

I see no reason to use netscape since mozilla came out and now i use firefox.

I think Netscape it just mozilla a few (minor) versions back + netstcape "branding" modifications.

But i could be wrong, I did not used it in a while, I have note even seen it installed anywhere.

I'm wondering why they even bother to release it instead of promoting mozilla and/or firefox, seems like a waste of energy to me.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[jeff_schiller]

According to someone in the IE Blog, AOL "outsourced development of NS8 to a company called Mercurial Communications. "

Re:Does anyone use it?

[mrbcs]

Agreed. I still use Netscape 7.2 on a win98 box because firefox seems to crash on me quite a bit. Gonna try updating the os to something a little more current and try again.

I tried the mistake called Netscape 8 the other day. It didn't last an hour. Back in the old days.. I used netscape 4.08 for years because it was the only one that was stable for me. I actually still use it a bit now and again, but it has tons of problems now.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[jeff_schiller]

http://www.mcomi.com/EN/17/technologies/softdev.ht ml "Netscape had used Mercurial for a smaller project in the past, and based on that positive experience, chose them as a development partner for the Netscape 8.0 browser release. They did an excellent job, working under short deadlines and with complex requirements. Mercurial was a source of product innovation, as well as an excellent development shop. As a result of this experience, a number of other divisions of AOL are contracting with Mercurial for further work." Jeremy Liew, GM, Netscape.com (a division of AOL)

I guess Jeremy is now thinking "where's that Backspace button?"

Re:Does anyone use it?

[pebs]

I haven't tried out Netscape 8.0 (Firefox is fine with me for now), but what are some reasons people are switching to Netscape 8.0?

Surprisingly I know a good number of people using it. Though these are generally non-techies. Netscape's marketing seems to actually get some people to use it. I then have to go on to explain to them how Netscape is just a derivative of Firefox/Mozilla. Though in all these cases, these people have said they don't like IE or won't even allow IE usage on their PC. That's a good thing that they have awareness of that. Though Netscape allowing the usage of IE's rendering kinda defeats that.

This was a while ago (before Firefox 1.0), but one of my friends chose to use Netscape over Mozilla because Netscape setup a lot of plugins (Flash, etc) out-of-box.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[__aaclcg7560]

... but what are some reasons people are switching to Netscape 8.0?

If you design web pages, you would look at the pages in all the major browsers to ensure that your pages don't have any special problems.

The way NS 8.0 is going, running it in a VMware session is probably safer for now. It's borking IE... ouch! In the old days, you could depend on IE to bork itself and/or the operating system.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[ThePromenader]

I use it only for testing pages, and sometimes to look at complicated source code 'cause it makes it into pretty rainbows : )

All right for the thumbs-up/thumbs-down comments, but perhaps these would have a little more weight if one could understand HOW one application can break another? I haven't found a word about it here nor in the article. What exactly is the modified "common" dependancy (file?) that makes them incompatible?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[XxtraLarGe]

As somebody who designs a lot of web pages, I have IE, Netscape, FireFox & Opera on my Wintel Box. I need all these browsers to test out how my pages are displaying. I use FireFox as my main web browser, and I use IE for some pages that require Active X stuff here at work. As somebody who uses a lot of XML, I just now verified that the error does occur, so I've unistalled Netscape 8. I still have Netscape 7.2, which doesn't have the IE XML killing power that 8.0 does. Hopefully the IE XML problem will be restored after I restart my computer.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[lordofthechia]

what are some reasons people are switching to Netscape 8.0?

Now that netscape is an AOL owned internet service the name is getting a lot more recognition. Not only that but I'd imagine most folks that have the Netscape internet service use netscape site as their homepage where the latest Netscape browser suite gets pushed on its customers. Other folks just get a kick out of upgrading their internet software (probably the same folks who get exited over the new AOL x.0 software).

As far as why someone would choose Netscape vs Firefox, I would say its all the bundled software (composer, mail, AIM, and I think Winamp now). For alot of ppl its more convenient to get it all in one big download. Now if those folks would just find out about the Mozilla suite and other IM clients...

Re:Does anyone use it?

[McGiraf]

Funny???

How so?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[2names]

Why would you want a problem restored? Surely you meant to say "hopefully the IE XML problem will be fixed after I restart my computer." Unless, of course, you want the bug to remain to try to test/fix it. Can you clarify please?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[httpdotcom]

If you develop web sites, NS8 has a nice feature of switching between Firefox/IE rendering engines with just a mouseclick. So you don't have to ever run IE. This was a big selling point in my book (ps. I use Firefox for everything and anything...if it made toast, I'd do that too!)

Re:Does anyone use it?

[lowrydr310]

Is Netscape 8 bundled with AOL, AIM, Winamp, and RealPlayer? There's nothing better than installing a new browser and having "TRY AOL FOR FREE" appear all over the place.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[XxtraLarGe]

Why would you want a problem restored? Surely you meant to say "hopefully the IE XML problem will be fixed after I restart my computer." Unless, of course, you want the bug to remain to try to test/fix it. Can you clarify please?

Yes, fixed is what I meant to say.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[2names]

Thank you for the clarification. Do you ever do any bug testing / fixing with your web design work?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I'm afraid it's worse than simply "a waste of time". Apparently, Netscape 8 incorporates the IE rendering engine, and uses it by default for "trusted" sites. This is a seditious act by AOL to tie the Netscape brand to the Windows platform, and shits on the web standards the Mozilla team has worked so hard to support.

Now that Netscape 8 has been shown to corrupt IE installations, Microsoft can make statements about how alternative browsers are a security issue. Thanks a lot AOL. Netscape would be better off dead and buried.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[tuckericj]

The company I work for is considering it because many of our internal apps were developed specifically for IE. We've got a pretty good firefox population and they are savvy enough to switch to IE when going to these poorly written apps, but the rest of our less technical users would be better served by an app that defaults to firefox rendering but switches to IE for the ill behaved apps.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[zimus]

Because he talk good

Re:Does anyone use it?

[surefooted1]

Near his "any key."

Re:Does anyone use it?

[thephotoman]

Well, I use it sparingly for my Windows side and LiveJournal-based RPGs, as I like to keep Firefox as my primary browser, where I'm always logged in as me. I'd use something else, but alas, there aren't too many great browsers for Windows. K-Meleon doesn't agree with me, and I refuse to use Exploder for any reason.

That said, I've turned off the option to use the IE engine on "trusted" sites. It's something it shows you on the first startup. I'm trying to convince my mom to use it, as she needs ActiveX for a few things, and it's the only option to have ActiveX when you need it but not when you don't. Yeah, the people she works for won't set up a webmail service, instead, they prefer to use ActiveX scripts to read their e-mail, which they require all their employees to maintain. It sucks from my standpoint, and I'd set up a mail forwarder if they'd let me do that, just so that she'll STFU about not being able to check her work e-mail in Firefox.

My sister, on the other hand, is a Microsoft whore. I'd slap her, as would my father, but my mom won't let us, because she still thinks that MS is a good thing in the computer world.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[periol]

I'm afraid it's worse than simply "a waste of time". Apparently, Netscape 8 incorporates the IE rendering engine, and uses it by default for "trusted" sites. This is a seditious act by AOL to tie the Netscape brand to the Windows platform, and shits on the web standards the Mozilla team has worked so hard to support.

I don't know why you think it's a bad thing for the IE rendering engine to be in Netscape. I think it's a great idea, or at least it will be when they have it working right.

It can't happen in Mozilla or Firefox because they're open source, and won't use the IE rendering engine. But Netscape can, and all it means is that I can open those crummy IE-only sites in a browser other than IE.

As for your other complaints? It's called open source, and Netscape is in no way "shitting on web standards" or some such nonsense. They're just trying to address one of the major complaints that people have had about non-IE browsers.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[qray]

This hass been AOL's problem all along. On again off again decisions and no follow through. They axed the browser development team only to come back and try it again.

AOL had all the oppurtunities in the world and seems to have managed to squander them all.

==
I am not a script!

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Dr. Evil]

From what I've read, once a site is deemed safe, it renders in IE always. This means web developers don't need to consider Mozilla at all, whether or not their site is IE-only.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

They're just trying to address one of the major complaints that people have had about non-IE browsers.

The complaint that it's not IE? Why even bother then, everyone capable of running IE (Windows users) already have it. Running IE with a different skin is no different than firing up iexplore.exe.

Since you didn't grok my comment about web standards, I assume you're not a developer. Here's the deal: IE is not very good at supporting web standards like CSS, PNG, etc. It also encourages sloppy markup. By incorporating IE, Netscape will lessen the pressure on developers to write standards-compliant code. At the same time, the reliance on IE destroys the cross-platform nature of the browser, and by proxy, the web itself.

Even with Firefox having a 10% marketshare, there is still the entrenched concept of there being two browsers: IE & Netscape. What happens when Netscape has, essentially, become just another IE wrapper? Nothing good can come of this.

Remember the deals AOL made in the past to keep their icon in the Windows default install. I sense something similar is afoot.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Tophe]

I've heard that uninstalling NS8 won't fix the XML problem because the uninstall doesn't fix the registry changes made. You'll need to do a system restore to before the installation or after uninstalling NS8, deleting the following registry entry will resolve the problem: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension\.xml

Re:Does anyone use it?

[OrangeTide]

The point is there is now only one browser, now that IE and Netscape are the same thing. What's the point of installing netscape at all if it's just IE's rendering engine?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Reverend528]

I haven't found a word about it here nor in the article. What exactly is the modified "common" dependancy (file?) that makes them incompatible?

Apparently they share a file known as "The Registry". I've read that when one program modifies this file, it can break other programs.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[thsths]

Just give it a try, it is actually quite a nice browser. Sure, while it does block pop-ups very reliably, it cannot block ads on the page itself. Apart from that it works really well.

Certainly the title bar and the controls are nice and efficient. They got a lot of things right there: the controls are intuitive, relevant and mostly complete, which is more than you can say about Firefox. They also take up less precious desktop space (it is not just eye candy).

Apart from that, I think it is "good enough" for most users. I would certainly recommend it over IE, even if it falls short of delivering "the safest browsing experience".

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Arker]

But Netscape can, and all it means is that I can open those crummy IE-only sites in a browser other than IE.

No, you're still opening it in IE, only in another skin.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[iamacat]

Do you mean there will be a huge number of Netscape downloads from Korea??

Re:Does anyone use it?

[periol]

Since you didn't grok my comment about web standards, I assume you're not a developer. Here's the deal: IE is not very good at supporting web standards like CSS, PNG, etc. It also encourages sloppy markup. By incorporating IE, Netscape will lessen the pressure on developers to write standards-compliant code. At the same time, the reliance on IE destroys the cross-platform nature of the browser, and by proxy, the web itself.

I've done my fair share of development, and I'm quite aware of IE's weaknesses. From an enterprise level, there are many companies that have IE-only intranets that aren't about to switch away from that. Yes, we all know IE sucks.

I'm a Firefox user, but to my mind Netscape is better than just plain IE. It's still essentially Firefox but it also has the IE rendering engine, so it's standards-compliant and can run those IE-only sites. But in tabs!

Come on, that's not that bad.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> Apparently, Netscape 8 incorporates the IE rendering engine

I'm curious how this reports out in the user agent string? Not that the http_user_agent string is worth sh*t for determining browser capabilities, but many web developers channel (or deny) content based on the reported UA.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[MtViewGuy]

In short, why bother.

Netscape 8.0 is major bloatware; you can do far better with the current versions of Firefox and Thunderbird.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is the modified "common" dependancy (file?) that makes them incompatible?

It's not a common dependency. Netscape registers itself (or part of itself) as an XML rendering plugin for IE. It's not so much that IE ceases to work, it's that the XML content is passed to Netscape's 'plugin' which fails to do the job correctly.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Magic5Ball]

It also encourages sloppy markup.

In almost every other case, software that goes to great lengths to handle malformed input in a graceful way is viewed in a positive light.

By incorporating IE, Netscape will lessen the pressure on developers to write standards-compliant code.

The code very often complies to standards--the standards just don't happen to be among those you support. If there was no IE standard, no one would be able to complain that developers are writing IE-only code.

At the same time, the reliance on IE destroys the cross-platform nature of the browser, and by proxy, the web itself.

Well now, that's a bit of a stretch. If the 10% firefox usage number is correct, the web is already past the point of maximum reliance on IE and the web seems quite the opposite of being destroyed.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[greay]

If it uses the IE rendering engine, doesn't that mean it's NOT standards-compliant?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[periol]

it only uses the IE rendering engine on pages that require the IE engine. otherwise it uses the firefox rendering engine. those settings are configurable as well.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Hugh Lilly]

Where's my TAB?

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Baricom]

In Firefox mode:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050519 Netscape/8.0.1

In IE mode, it outputs exactly what my Internet Explorer does.

Re:Does anyone use it?

[Rich Klein]

I came back from lunch today to find my coworker across the aisle using Netscape 8.0. He'd just installed it before I walked in, but said that he uses Netscape 7 at home.

You're outta here!

[TripMaster Monkey]

1. Netscape browser needed several fixes hours after its release.
   
2. Netscape browser will not install unless IE is installed.
   
3. Installation of Netscape breaks IE.
   

Back in the day, I was a big Netscape fan, and I waas really hoping that this new release would bring them back as a player, but enough is enough, guys. Three strikes, and you are OUT.

One more thing...
<zealot>
Firefox rules...IE sucks...let's fight!
</zealot>

^_^

Re:You're outta here!

[downsize]

1. Netscape browser needed several fixes hours after its release. 2. Netscape browser will not install unless IE is installed. 3. Installation of Netscape breaks IE.

too bad for #2 otherwise, it sounds like something I would want to enforce an update for all domain users :-} - although, since IE is installed by default....

Re:You're outta here!

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

You're thinking that Netscape 8 breaking IE is a flaw, while it's clearly a feature. Hence, #3 is not a strike, it's a home-run.

Re:You're outta here!

[Rei]

Take #2 out, and you have the inverse of the old days - remember back when a new install of IE would break Netscape, and was broken as heck?

Re:You're outta here!

[Java Pimp]

Actually, for me, Netscape was "outta here" when I started finding AOL links in every back corner of my computer.

Re:You're outta here!

[Paul Rose]

Anybody remember the "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run" attitude of MS in the late 80's?
I'd say IE deserves it

Re:You're outta here!

[Master of Transhuman]

Heh, heh. How about the MSN Opera buster and the "bork,bork" Opera response?

That was fun.

Re:You're outta here!

[Cougem]

Yes but is strike 3 actually a fault of MS, or netscape?

Re:You're outta here!

[Hognoxious]

Anyone remember the browser wars? As in wars, not as in gentlemanly debates or games of chess. Seems someone's taking the phrase literally.

Re:You're outta here!

[Khazunga]

Thanks to Slashdot, I now know that "Boa sorte" is Portugese for "Good Luck".

And now you also know it's spelled "Portuguese", not "Portugese" :-)

Re:You're outta here!

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> >>Firefox rules...IE sucks...let's fight! >>

Come on TMM, we all know konquerer is best....

Re:You're outta here!

[Kadmos]

3. Installation of Netscape breaks IE.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't one upgrade (3.1 -> 95 or 95 -> 98) of Windows uninstall Netscape?

crap

[netrage_is_bad]

Now how would a user fix this?

Re:crap

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

By using Gecko to view XML files instead?

Re:crap

[AnonymousJackass]

From TF Blog:

"We currently have the following work around for people that are hitting this issue:
1. Uninstall Netscape 8
2. START->RUN
i. Type: regedit
ii. Hit ENTER
iii. Navigate to the following:
iv. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension
v. Highlight and right-click the node titled "xml" and select delete.
vi. Restart Internet Explorer

{roman numerals my own}

AC/DC

[WickedClean]

Netscape needs to run a commercial with AC/DC's 'Dirty Deeds' song playing in the background. Sounds like they are trying Microsoft tactics.

Finally, IE the way I want it.

[yotto]

*IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work.* /me runs out to install Netscape 8.

Re:Finally, IE the way I want it.

[SpacetimeComputing]

> *IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work.* /me runs out to install Netscape 8.

Or, more productively: /me runs out to install Netscape 8 on the machines of all the people who I'm the support tech for and who say "Firefox doesn't look like what I'm used to." /me rubs hands in anticipation... ;)

Re:Finally, IE the way I want it.

[nuOpus]

No, he probably read it fine. It meantions that to get IE working right with XML after the Netscape install, you need to uninstall Netscape becaue it breaks IE. If I could install one thing that can break everyone's IE installations ... lets do it! LOL

Lots of us (including me) think IE is a load of crap and do not care if it can no longer load XML or render plain ol' HTML. It is a browser that has gone since the 90's without the need for any form of renovation ... still the old browser with old rendering technology (slow in comparison to newer browsers) with lots of problems (guy who created active-x to let spyware get in easy should be shot) and no features. Now that other browsers like Opera and Firefox are out, MS FINALLY decides to give it new features for when it gets released soon or with longhorn. If it were not for firefox ... we would have the same old crappy IE with no features like tabbed browsing.

Re:Finally, IE the way I want it.

[m3rajk]

most open source supporters that use MS Win-BLOWS do so soley for compatability with idiots that have been assimilated. or rather, why i use it, it's hard to find ways to get things like adobe to run properly even with wine. so i have two machines, the one i like, and the one society's willingness to roll over and let the borg assimilate them causes me to need.
look at palm: that is what MS SHOULD have done.
instead we have a modern-day second-rate robber-barron (jp morgan anyone?)

Yea for QA Testing!

[AcquaCow]

Or rather booo....

I'd love to know what kinda crap their QA department is getting right now.

-- Dave

Re:Yea for QA Testing!

[Gaima]

I'd love to know what kinda crap their QA department is getting right now.

If they're anything like our QA department, nowt.
As our QA department would have been told to "test it, so Marketing Manager can demo it to ABigSoftwareCompany tonight". or "test it, so we can release it this evening", both with no idea what said software is actually supposed to do.

Re:Yea for QA Testing!

[LiquidCoooled]

What I still don't know is does rendering XML in netscape bork as well, or is it just when you use vanilla IE?

If it works in NS, then that aspect of the QA went apparantly well ;)

Re:Yea for QA Testing!

[Kelson]

does rendering XML in netscape bork as well

Yes, when "Netscape" is using the IE engine. I've tried it.

Oddly, vanilla IE yields a blank page, and "Netscape" 8 shows... an unloaded-image icon.

Windows without IE

[spadadot]

From : http://www.flexbeta.net/main/comments.php?catid=1& shownews=13318

How is it possible to have "a copy of Windows that did not have IE installed" ???

I would really like to know this, please post instructions ! :)

Re:Windows without IE

[kidgenius]

You can use installers like 98lite, or, if you choose, you can remove IE from your system. Then when you go to install netscape, it won't work.

Re:Windows without IE

[petermgreen]

iirc the original release of win95 didn't ship with IE either (i think osr2 did though).

whats also a pita is if you install IE 4 with windows desktop update on windows 95 (i've only tested this with original release dunno about osr2) then do an over the top reinstall of windows 95 then you CAN'T install IE4 on the resulting system (i found this one out the hard way).

if you plan to do an over the top reinstall on such a system you MUST remove IE first!

Re:Windows without IE

[pebs]

How is it possible to have "a copy of Windows that did not have IE installed" ???
I would really like to know this, please post instructions ! :)

I assume something like:

1. Install Windows 98
2. Uninstall Internet Explorer

Re:Windows without IE

[sanyacid]

The best program I have ever used to customize my Windows installation is nLite.
You can completely remove IE and many other components and services.

Some features:
- Service Pack Integration
- Component Removal
- Unattended Setup
- Driver Integration
- Hotfixes Integration
- Tweaks
- Patches
- Bootable ISO creation

So far it supports Windows 2000, XP and 2003.
www.nliteos.com

Re:Windows without IE

[trex005]

I hate to slashdot a good tool and thus make it unavailable... but if you are win9x http://litepc.com/ieradicator.html/

Re:Windows without IE

[Tony Hoyle]

Try NT4. Install SP6a.. comes with IE3.1.

Unfortunately the MS site won't render properly in it so you can't download IE6, IE4 or anyting else.

Firefox requires at least IE4 before it'll install (bizarrely!) due to missing DLLs.

Great fun!

(I still have to do this occasionally for client testing... luckily experience has taught me to burn CDs with all the upgrades on it first).

Re:Windows without IE

[PHP Addict]

On XP (and perhaps earlier versions, don't have any to check), you can go into Control Panel -> Add/Remove Software -> Add/Remove Windows Components (side panel). Uncheck Internet Explorer and follow the instructions.

Re:Windows without IE

[spauldo]

Windows 95 came with IE 1.0. There's no links to it (IIRC) but it's there. The first webpage I ever wrote was written for it on an internal LAN.

The later versions of 95 came with IE 3 (can't remember, SR2 or something? Damn it's been a while).

Of course, those versions of IE weren't integrated, so you could remove them easily.

Re:Windows without IE

[Arker]

I almost didn't reply, since so many others have, but scanning them I realised none of them have actually posted the right answer.

Yes, you can 'uninstall' IE but, that doesn't actually remove the core of the POS, just some of the outer fluff.

To actually get rid of it completely, you have to get 98lite, and install from scratch using 98lite. This way, you can actually avoid installing the IE components in the first place. This is the only way to the best of my knowledge to ever get a clean windows install.

If you ever install IE, you have to format and do a reinstall from scratch to get rid of it again.

Of course, a clean install does mean that a lot of very poorly written programs won't run, but in the grand scheme of things, that's an advantage.

Re:Windows without IE

[Magic5Ball]

I don't remember that being the case and can't find any traces of IE on my Win95 SP0 CD cabs. On the plus side, the MS version of history agrees with my memory...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistoryIE.mspx

In July 1995, Microsoft released the Windows 95 operating system, which included built-in support for dial-up networking and TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), key technologies for connecting to the Internet. In response to the growing public interest in the Internet, Microsoft created an add-on to the operating system called Internet Explorer 1.0. When Windows 95 with Internet Explorer debuted, the Internet became much more accessible for many more people.

Internet Explorer technology originally shipped as the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95.

Re:Windows without IE

[spauldo]

Hrm, strange.

Granted, I'm basing this on an OEM version, although I'm sure they didn't come with plus! - Too many customers called about it and we didn't support it. They did have IE 1.0 there, though - as an executable in the windows directory.

It's fully well possible the retail version didn't come with it, but the machine I was supporting came with windows 95 right when it came out and it had it.

SR2 and above had 3.x on them, IIRC.

Un(evil)

[xbhatti]

Having a hard time. Who is evil here?

Breaks IE?

[taijirad]

So, does this mean IE was working before?

Re:Breaks IE?

[KarmaMB84]

Obviously not, if a third party change to the registry can break IE, IE has some major problems...

Re:Breaks IE?

[PurpleXanathar]

>> Obviously not, if a third party change to the registry can break IE, IE has some major problems...

Uh then Linux has major problems! If a third party randomly changes the etc/passwd file I cannot logon anymore.. Apache too! it seems to dislike random bytes in httpd.conf..

The key NS8 touches is

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension

It seems to me it's reserved to IE and if a third party application (NS8) breaks IE changing it, it's the third party fault.

Then, of course, IE has major problems. But this is not the case.

Re:Breaks IE?

[LiquidCoooled]

If a third party application is fucking around in some other applications registry settings, then its doing something wrong.

The blame for this is squarely at netscapes door.

How many times have we had programs messing where they shouldn't, causing unexpected actions and events?
and whether it is in the registry or an ini file is irrelivent, those settings are NOT totally understood by the third party.

Would you like me to start fucking with your firefox settings?

Would you hazard a guess how long it would last if I did?

Re:Breaks IE?

[arkanes]

IE isn't an application, though. So this isn't Netscape fucking with another application, it's Netscape editing a system setting to correctly configure itself (except it's got it wrong, of course). There's nothing wrong with editing IEs registry settings and lots (and I mean *lots*) of applications do it. It's system software, after all.

robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[motorsabbath]

Always humorous how one app can destroy another with impunity in the Win32 world. How do people deal with it?? Blech.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[petermgreen]

oh i'm sure you could do it on *nix without too much trouble assuming you are root (which most app installers are going to need).

fact is if an installer runs amock on any platform you can end up with a pretty fucked up system.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[gunnk]

You *could* screw up a *nix system with a bad installer, but it is harder to do for a couple of reasons:

1 -- you usually only need to run the installer as root if you are doing a system-wide installation. If it is just for you it is easier just to install it in your home folder. Personally, I do that fairly often. I have an updated version of whatever I was installing in my space and can fall back on the system-wide version if I foobar it somehow.

2 -- *nix apps are generally more self-contained than Windows apps. The fact that much of the configuration information for Windows programs resides in the registry is just asking for problems. For example:

If program A uses protocol X and program B does so also, installing B may change registry entries concerning protocol X so that they match its needs. Program A stops working with protocol X.

The *nix tradition of self-contained configuration files avoids the collisions that can arise in the registry.

So again, YES, it is possible for an installer to completely wreck a *nix box BUT it is much less likely.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[mdecarle]

Indeed. Self-containment is Good (TM) ! You explained why properly.

However, tens of ini-configuration files are Bad (TM), because they are too complicated. There's large numbers of them, you need to open them in text-editors, find out where that setting is, etc. In other words, complex handling. The Registry is a solution to this. Now if the Registry would support self-containment, it would be perfect.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[motorsabbath]

"However, tens of ini-configuration files are Bad (TM), because they are too complicated. "

"The Registry is a solution to this."

Both of those are opinions. Having dealt with both I prefer the rc file concept anytime. Anytime. However, that's an opinion also :-)

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[Master of Transhuman]

However, hundreds (indeed, thousands) of Registry keys are Bad (TM), because they are too complicated. There's large numbers of them, you need to open them in a specialized editor, find out where that setting is, etc. In other words, complex handling.

See how easy that was?

Cut-and-paste works great!

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[Tony Hoyle]

The registry *does* support a form of self-containment. You can load hives at temporary locations (a bit like mountpoints) and have them in separate files.

Nobody does this though.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[cahiha]

The problem is the registry. UNIX doesn't have it or anything like it, and that's a good thing.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[shellbeach]

The *nix tradition of self-contained configuration files avoids the collisions that can arise in the registry.

... which is why GNOME uses gconf2, I guess - it makes everything so much more like Windows! ;-)

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[drsmithy]

Always humorous how one app can destroy another with impunity in the Win32 world. How do people deal with it?? Blech.

Which OS are you thinking of where that *can't* happen ?

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[drsmithy]

You *could* screw up a *nix system with a bad installer, but it is harder to do for a couple of reasons:

Less likely != harder.

you usually only need to run the installer as root if you are doing a system-wide installation.

Saying it's harder for installers to mess up the system in unix by using an example where you don't even try to install to the whole system is a bit apples and oranges, don't you think ?

*nix apps are generally more self-contained than Windows apps.

Right. Which is why the typical unix system has binaries for every program in the same directories, libraries for every program in the same directories, config for every program in the same directories, but on Windows each app (and its unique support libraries) typically get their own directory. Methinks you've got that one arse-about-face.

If program A uses protocol X and program B does so also, installing B may change registry entries concerning protocol X so that they match its needs. Program A stops working with protocol X.

And this is different to changing the same sort of global settings in /etc how, exactly ?

The *nix tradition of self-contained configuration files avoids the collisions that can arise in the registry.

"Collisions" can arise just as easily in /etc as in the Registry. Configuration data in the registry is just as "self-contained" as configuration data in /etc.

So again, YES, it is possible for an installer to completely wreck a *nix box BUT it is much less likely.

This has a lot more to do with unix's (and more importantly, its developers') platform maturity than anything inherent to the system. It's just as easy to wreck a unix system as a Windows system - the difference is the average unix developer cares more about not doing it than the average Windows developer.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[mvdwege]

gconf2 still uses self-contained config files. Only differences with normal *nix config files are:

1. gconf files are XML.
2. gconf files are not managed by the applications themselves, but centrally served up by the gconf daemon.

Despite the superficial similarity with the registry, your entire desktop does not break when a single gconf file goes wrong. Only when the gconf daemon itself b0rks do you have a minor problem.

Mart

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[shellbeach]

gconf2 still uses self-contained config files

I have to ask - why, then, would you not simply use self-contained config files?? The fact that gconf files are XML and that they're handled by a central daemon is of dubious merit, to say the least. From my own limited experience, gconfd loads all config files even if you're just running one application and chews up uneccessary processor and memory in the process ...

Despite the superficial similarity with the registry, your entire desktop does not break when a single gconf file goes wrong.

Our experiences would differ on this, I think ... One mis-formed database prevented any gconf-dependant app from starting. Perhaps they've changed it since I've used it last?

Only when the gconf daemon itself b0rks do you have a minor problem.

I've solved the problem by avoiding any application that uses gconfd, but it annoys me in the same way that that spawn (no pun intended) of Satan, kdeinit, annoys me with KDE. It's just bad design, and it's embarrassing ...

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[EnglishDude]

Well....

piersk@wired-cardiff-54:~$ apt-get install mozilla-firefox
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?
piersk@wired-cardiff-54:~$

I have to be root to install nearly anything on Debian :/

Yes I could download an app on its own and install it myself, but then I won't be able to do an "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" which updates everything without me having to do it all by hand.

Re:robust opsys layout and design - ayup

[motorsabbath]

Coward, after 7 years of working at a Linux and/or BSD box daily as a developer and a hardware engineering end-user, I've never seen 1 application interfere with another in such a manner. Not even once. I've broken libraries before by installing incorrect versions, but this never actually broke the install of another application. Not even once. Never. Maybe I'm just lucky, dunno.

What exactly does NS8 do?

[otis wildflower]

I R'd TFA, but not the blogpost. What exactly does Netscape do that breaks IE?

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[TommydCat]

If I recall correctly, your submission came up as a blank screen...

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[ari_j]

You didn't spell it "senior programme manager" is all. How can the editors get wet over a story when you spell everything correctly? (Note to the people who think "programme" is the correct spelling - no, it's not. A "senior program manager" at Microsoft is an American job and deserves an American spelling.)

Take it from MS...

[SamMichaels]

Turn every release into a big beta test. At least they actually called it a beta with the anti-spyware program....and of course that's the one that didn't have many bugs (since someone else programmed it).

/imperial march

[Rs_Conqueror]

without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install, and now IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work."

Microsoft couldn't have planned it better themselves...

Re:/imperial march

[Master of Transhuman]

Maybe they did.

Maybe they designed IE's XML handling so that no other browser can be installed without breaking it.

A new level in sneakiness.

Of course, we know FireFox and Opera don't do this, but maybe the bozos at Microsoft aren't smart enough to do their little trick right (maybe because they're still fixated on beating Netscape and AOL), so the other browsers snuck through.

I've yet to see a technical discussion of how this happened and why it was so EASY for Netscape to do this, OR why it happened without Netscape's testers discovering it.

I mean, is it a flaw in IE's design that it was easy to do this, or was it simple incompetence on the part of Netscape that allowed its developers to do it? Or both?

Re:/imperial march

[soulhuntre]

Here's an idea... go READ THE DAMN LINK where they explain the problem, how it is happenign and so on.

Just a thought. Or, you could continue to make ill-informed posts with vaguely alluded to conspiracy theories and blame placing.

Oh wait. I forgot what site I was on.

Brilliant!

[Hansele]

All part of Netscape's evil revenge plan to eliminate IE. Once XML is eliminated, the next step is to replace the Window's START button with a Netscape NOW button!

How stupid can you be?

[Anonymous Coward]

" then it was discovered that without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install,"

WELL DUH. This is the Netscape with both Gecko and IE rendering engines. It needs both, but can only deliver Gecko they can't redistribute IE component so it has to come with the OS.

DUH! Why is this such a huge discovery?

Re:How stupid can you be?

[TrappedByMyself]

I just thought they need IE installed so they can break it.

Evil Mozilla !

[bushboy]

Yes, it's a fact !

Netscape has become the Evil Lizard !

The Phoenix that rose from the ashes finally finds it's evil prey !

Moooo hahahaah Mooooooooo hahahaha !

Re:Evil Mozilla !

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Phoenix as in what firefox was called when I started using it? ;D

Seems ironic maybe

[smashin234]

I kind of think it is funny, but first I must say that every company has hiccups occasionally when a product first comes out.

But the funny part, IE for years unfairly competed with netscape, and now netscape is doing it back to them by destroying their browser's ability to handle XML documents...

Now the question, did they do this on purpose you think and not think about what would really happen?

Great!

[m85476585]

I've always wanted a way to break IE! If Windows won't let me uninstall it, I will break it!

Variation on a theme

[smittyoneeach]

s/DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run/Netscapie no escapie until IE dIE/

And you're too slow!

[Spy der Mann]

I stopped using Netscape after AOL bought it! Kept using NS4.7 (and later IE), until Firefox appeared.

Repeat after me: Netscape, Is, Now, Just, A, Brand.

Re:And you're too slow!

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're the jerk that makes my boss require me to make netscape 4.7 compatible web pages. :p

Re:And you're too slow!

[g0at]

Repeat after me: Netscape, Is, Now, Just, A, Brand.

Per, haps, but, I, always, find, gratuitious, punctu, ation, to, be, annoying?

-b

Re:And you're too slow!

[itchy92]

Repeat after me: Netscape, Is, Now, Just, A, Brand.

Or, for brevity: NINJA B!

Actually, that'd be a cool band name...

"Death to Pirates, the new single from Ninja B. Out now!"

Re:And you're too slow!

[PHP Addict]

Repeat after me: Netscape, Is, Now, Just, A, Brand.

Exactly! Remember the movie Tommy Boy where Zolinski wanted to buy Callahan Auto just so it could use their name? Same thing, except AOL succeeded where Zolinski failed.

Re:And you're too slow!

[LifesABeach]

Maybe IE, and Netscape have more in common than we all thought possible. Could the knights that say, "IE", explain why their web services product removes XML Processing Instructions before the browser receives the data?

Re:And you're too slow!

[Scroatzilla]

My favorite feature of NS 4.7 nowadays is how it disappears--not crashes, DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY WITHOUT A TRACE-- 2 or 3 clicks into any project I'm trying to test. :|

Obviously, MSFT should change XML in IE

[WillAffleckUW]

to comply with the Mozilla standard.

After all, standards rule over companies, right?

.

.

[pin drop]

.

I'd love to see the reaction from the /. community

[iibbmm]

If installing IE7 caused Firefox to fuck up somehow.

So it breaks IE????

[darkonc]

I think I'll just quietly install NS8 on all of my clients' boxes before they fix this 'feature'.
No need to tell them about it, though... Just leave them using Firefox.

Re:So it breaks IE????

[trex005]

Quick, someone put up an offsite link to the installer so we can have access to it for all time!

Re:So it breaks IE????

[FuturePastNow]

Okay. Here you go. I downloaded this last night because I wanted to see what NS8 looked like (the default theme is terrible), so it should have the latest security fixes. And it still messes with IE.

(Note: Rapidshare is not a permanent hosting solution. If a file goes un-downloaded for thirty days, they delete it. But I'm cheap and it's free.)

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[Hungus]

Don't worry it will be outsourced soon to India, and since India uses proper British spellings this will not be an issue.

too bad

[mindwar]

too bad. the dual engine rendering was a feature i'd wanted to check out

FF inspiration

[photomic]

Maybe this will inspire the Firefox team to one-up this achievement. I'm thinking something that completely uninstalls IE forever. Nothing like competition to encourage innovation, I say.
--
BTW, what's with the post captcha?

Re:FF inspiration

[NeoBeans]

Totally not politically correct, but that was really funny!

Microsoft did the same thing with IE 4.0

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing new. When IE 4.0 first came out for Windows 95 and NT in 1997, it broke Netscape so it would not run at all. Even worse, if you attempted to uninstall IE, then NOTHING on the PC would function. Nothing short of a reformat would fix the mess. For this reason (and others) I vowed to never allow IE to infect any PC I care about.

It's amazing how quickly everyone forgets the IE 4 chaos....

Re:Microsoft did the same thing with IE 4.0

[Stormcrow309]

Yep, obviously Netscape seemed to forget. They just managed to roll back any adoption of a browser beside IE at my site by two years in the least. Sigh!

Sounds like yet another...

[Anonymous Coward]

instance where an arbitrary and totally meaningless deadline for launch wrecked havoc on software.

Releasing Netscape based on Firefox 1.03 after 1.04 was available with important security fixes was completely idiotic if a key differentiator of Netscape is supposed to be superior security!

And then releasing an updated version within 24 hours based on 1.04 to show the world they could simply have delayed the initial launch by a day in the first place proved their mismanagement (any excuse about changing to 1.04 being complex and delaying the launch too much went out the window).

Now their bragging rights about being able to switch betweeen IE and Firefox rendering is damaged because they didn't test enough to find out if their product breaks existing functionality like displaying XML?

Not Netscape-specific but for software in general...Managers, get a clue, if you don't like deadlines given by engineers then remove features until they can provide timeframes that are acceptable. And you engineers that are too cowardly to say "No, that cannot be done by that time unless we eliminate/postpone some of the requirements" get some balls.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[dangerz]

It's easy to say 'get some balls' when it's not your job on the line.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Jtheletter]

Not Netscape-specific but for software in general...Managers, get a clue, if you don't like deadlines given by engineers then remove features until they can provide timeframes that are acceptable. And you engineers that are too cowardly to say "No, that cannot be done by that time unless we eliminate/postpone some of the requirements" get some balls.

I totally agree with you, but as an engineer it has been my experience that when you say that sort of thing to management most of the time you get no concessions, just a "make it happen." So you have two choices, implement as much as possible within the timeframe and get berated for things not working by deadline, or leave out some implementation and, wait for it, get berated for things not working by deadline. It doesn't do a damn bit of good to speak up when no one's listening.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Now their bragging rights about being able to switch between IE and Firefox rendering is damaged because they didn't test enough to find out if their product breaks existing functionality like displaying XML?

OK, so here's the deal. You're a QA lead for testing netscape and you have to prioritize tasks. What priority do you place on comprehensively testing a feature that only works some of the time and is used by very few people in a competitor's product with whom you are interfacing? I've tried to use IE to view XML, and it occasionally would work and occasionally would render a blank page. Now after whatever Netscape did, it renders more pages blank? Big deal, no one who really wants to view XML uses IE anyway, since it only worked sporadically.

Not holding up the release to include the security fixes was a serious mistake in my opinion. Not finding this minor bug in a competitor's product with whom they are interfacing is a complete non-issue in my mind.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[seriesrover]

Bear in mind that company's make certain decisions (release software for instance) based on different criteria than that of a sole engineer. It takes the engineer's position into account but also marketing, finances etc. Whilst an engineer myself I can see that a manager has a balancing act to perform. But the key is realistic time estimates and realistic features - something very difficult to do.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[aussersterne]

Usually, if the engineer says something like that, the manager will just move the team along regardless. "We're going to release on XYZ. Whatever's there is what the team will be working on and will get released. If you want it fixed by release, just be sure it's fixed before then."

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Khyber]

Managers, get a clue, if you don't like deadlines given by engineers then remove features until they can provide timeframes that are acceptable.

That's backwards. Managers give the deadline, not the engineers.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Master of Transhuman]

And if your job is on the line because your management are assholes, it's time to find another job.

Granted, ALL management are assholes - SO better yet, start an OSS project and find some funding so you don't need assholes telling you what to do.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Master of Transhuman]

Not exactly. Engineers tell management what the deadline SHOULD be, management tells engineers what the deadline IS.

That's the problem.

A poster says management makes deadlines based on finances, blah, blah - in other words, decisions made on non-technical bases which impact technical quality.

This is done because managers are morons and don't give a shit about product quality, customers, employees, or anything else but their stock options and office politics.

The WORST mistake the IT industry ever made was creating the concept of a "product manager". These people are FUCKING CLUELESS about anything.
They do NOT know what the customer wants, they do NOT know anything about the technology, they do NOT know how to manage, they do NOT know how to test something until it works, they have absolutely NO comprehensible function except to be delegated work higher management is ALSO too clueless to perform.

I saw this at BofA in the late eighties and have used the results from plenty of software companies where such morons are in charge.

This is one reason OSS is better - there are NO product managers! (Except at large projects, presumably - and even then, I suspect THOSE project managers are techies who have been "promoted to their level of incompetence" - which means they interfere less than the usual product manager.)

JUST SAY 'NO!' TO PRODUCT MANAGERS!

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[lscotte]

Managers, get a clue, if you don't like deadlines given by engineers then remove features until they can provide timeframes that are acceptable. And you engineers that are too cowardly to say "No, that cannot be done by that time unless we eliminate/postpone some of the requirements" get some balls.

Haha.. Obviously you don't work in the software industry.

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Tony Hoyle]

Management can be trained.

My strategy is usually to let them fuck up a couple of times (after first going on record that they were about to do so (in diplomatic language of course))

They usually come around eventually..

Re:Sounds like yet another...

[Bill Dog]

I do, and I agree with the GP. If you're just starting out in this industry there's not much weight behind your words. But I started my current job as a senior engineer, and was hired for starters to fix a mess, and did. I've "trained" my boss to know that when I say I know what I'm doing, I do, and if I say what he's planning will lead to bad things, he knows it. Of course, it helps that I have a boss who realizes that most of the time what is bad for me is also bad for him (since we are on the same team). With a dumb-as-a-stump boss, however, all you can do is look for another job and bide your time. There are decent bosses out there. But you also need to manage them.

Could it be true?

[jeffphil]

!seineew era sreenigne epacsteN :)

Re:Could it be true?

[game kid]

When I read a PCWorld article long ago about that phrase embedded (in a DLL? IExplore.exe? I forget), I was laughing like crazy.

I never really felt so great about Netscape. The beta seemed a little weird (disappearing toolbars and the like) but this seems ridiculous.

I would have expected the company to have seen this bug (and fixed it--it is a for-profit group), so I wouldn't have reported it. If it's not fixed by the time I finish this post, then I'll agree with that backwards Microsoft phrase.

Re:Could it be true?

[thelenm]

Why the frowny face?

How nice

[Cliff.Braun]

Of Microsoft to let us know that another browser is bad. that would be the initial reaction, in this case it seems justified though.

Re:How nice

[jeff_schiller]

That's nothing new. Check out Ben Goodger's assessment of NS8: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/008180 .html When something goes wrong, of course the other team is going to crow a little...

Wise boss

[bored]

Back in the mid 90's my boss in response to me bitching about windows said "Its not that M$ writes good software, its that everyone else's software is worse" This was shortly after we dumped all our unix servers in favor of NT. Yes, at that time linux was around and we had even tried it for a while. I showed it running on one of my machines and my other boss managed to lock it up in under 3 minuites. The general consensus at the time where I worked? Linux was just another unix complete will all the usual unix problems.

Re:Wise boss

[Master of Transhuman]

"Its not that M$ writes good software, its that everyone else's software is worse"

It's not that everyone else's software is worse, it's that most Windows people are too stupid to use any other software - because it's all they know and they're too short-sighted to use anything else despite ANY demonstrated benefits.

Humans will ALWAYS choose the wrong path given a choice. It's embedded in primate genetics.

"If you're right, I'm wrong, and if I'm wrong, I'm dead - and that can't be allowed. So you're wrong and I'm right!"

With this program embedded in their monkey skulls, what chance does anybody have of pointing out how stupid they are?

Right now, George Bush and his redneck moron followers are the poster boys for this kind of thinking.

And in IT, Bill Gates is the poster boy.

Re:Wise boss

[modecx]

Right now, George Bush and his redneck moron followers are the poster boys for this kind of thinking.

I'd agree with your observation, GWB appears to be about as sharp as a marble.. However, I think he's "dumb like a fox" i.e. feigning stupidity.

Nothing else can explain how he got into the office, with the support of the voters, other than the above, and the notion that he's a damn good actor--which shouldn't come as much of a suprise, because, one of the other presidents that crowd revered was also an actor.

In regard to his voters, well, you're right, of course. Was there ever any question?! :D

Re:Wise boss

[Master of Transhuman]

I agree with your observation in one respect - George is not to be called stupid because he can't speak well. He can't speak well - not because he's stupid - but because he's SO arrogant and disdainful of everyone else that he doesn't give a shit what he says to "the little people". He even told that reporter that in so many words: "I'm the President. I don't have to explain anything." So he just makes crap up and can't be bothered to do a good job of it in many instances.

My point about his stupidity goes deeper than that - his total attitude about life is so wrong (because of that major human flaw I mentioned) that he and those who think like him qualify as stupid. Irrational might be another term more precise than stupid. The bottom line is that people who think like that take actions which IN FACT end up causing the very problem - death - they were intent on avoiding. That's the irony.

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[top_down]

Well, you are part of that community. How would you react?

This must be...

[Kymermosst]

payback for bundling IE in the first place.

Netscape's Revenge!

(It's funny, laugh.)

all i can do is...

[Phil246]

laugh heh.
there isnt anything i can say which can sum it up as well as just laughing

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[jeff_schiller]

Well, I reported it in my Blog anyway: http://blog.codedread.com/archives/2005/05/25/nets cape-8-breaks-internet-explorer-6/ So nyah!

just some info...

[Run4yourlives]

the New netscape is owned by AOL, and really has nothign to do with Mozilla... that connection has long ago been severed.

I lot of folk in this thread seem not to realize that.

Netscape bashing

[sktea]

It seems only yesterday when someone accused Mozilla of inappropriately bashing Netscape? Never mind the facts, let's just focus on the emotive language.... I'm concerned that people "out there" will interpret Netscape's problems as reflecting on Mozilla, which they most certainly should not.

Re:But wait!

[DigiShaman]

No no no. It's Nutscrape Navacrater or Internet Exploiter

Turn about is fair play ;-)

[killtherat]

Hey, how many time have we seen Microsoft break other people's apps and simply say 'tough shit'. Now sombody does it to them and it's the end of the world...

But seriously, is this some soft of dll conflict or something?

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[iibbmm]

That's a horrible way to look at it. The problem lies with the developers/webdesigners, not the publisher of a browser that is more 'lenient' than it should be. If people checked their sites' compliance before shooting it off into the open, you wouldn't have any problem. It's like blaming Ferrari for not putting a speed limiter on their cars, allowing people to drive over the speed limit* *I see the hilarity in comparing IE to a Ferrari. Shut up.

The biggest unanswered question is...

[guttergod]

If it already is broken, do you *really* break it?

Re:The biggest unanswered question is...

[Adrilla]

If a .png of a tree falls in IE does it make a sound?

Re:The biggest unanswered question is...

[Adrilla]

sorry I thought we were getting philsophical.

Re:The biggest unanswered question is...

[MynockGuano]

No, but it flattens everything within the breadth of its widest leaves, even around the trunk.

Just Growing Pains for an innovative product

[HighOrbit]

Lots of people seem to be down on NS, first because of the patches and now this. But AFAIK, they have the only mainstream browser with two rendering engines. Even though the version number is "8", this is really a spanking new product. Any truly innovative product is going to have growing pains. So far, none of these are fatal flaws that can't be fixed with a patch. Cool down and give 'em a chance.

I found it to be high praise for Firefox and damnation of IE that NS reverts to Firefox rendering when it considers a web-site to be even semi-suspect. Basically, they said IE is dangerous and Firefox is safe(r ).

Re:Just Growing Pains for an innovative product

[lotrtrotk]

I agree. They are treading new ground, and were bound to have problems. As soon as I heard about it, I was both excited & skeptical at the same time. I hope things develope well for this browser. Having the Netscape name with security of firefox, and compatibility with IE is a hard thing to pull off. But if it works, it COULD once again be the powerhouse of a browser that it was 10 years ago. (though I doubt it... I wish them well)

Re:But wait!

[raolin]

Actually, my reaction was more along the lines of :
"How the devil did Netscape 8 make it through testing without these issues being found and corrected".

I don't see where an anti-MS reaction is warranted or even to be expected.

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[iibbmm]

The same way I react to this. It's absurd, but I doubt it's intentional. I simply can't believe it made it through the QC program. I'll rephrase : I'd like to see what the average response to this would be, and compare them. I'm interested in the bias.

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[Adrilla]

I can already tell you the argument in that case:

Netscape breaks IE: They both use the same rendering engine. It was an honest mistake.
IE breaks Firefox: MS did it on purpose because they were losing marketshare.

Soft import?

[tepples]

Then why couldn't Netscape Browser 8 soft-import the IE control and only call it when both 1. the user asks to view a page in IE and 2. IE is available?

give me a break

[xnot]

Um, isn't the point of installing Netscape 8 to use it as your web browser instead of IE? In other words, WHO CARES if Netscape breaks IE in the process of being installed?

God sakes, microsoft has a hissy fit every time people install alternatives, but then on their own time they feel perfectly justified in hijacking filetypes or even breaking other programs on purpose to keep people from using 3rd parties. People blame the authors of those program, instead of microsoft who caused the original problem by tying their old and pathetic web browser into the operating system.

I would have preferred it better if Netscape UNINSTALLED IE in the process of being installed.

Re:give me a break

[Pendragn_tk]

I disagree. I use both Firefox and IE. Some sites work best in one, some work best in the other. I can't believe you think it's okay for the installation of a piece to break its rival software without alerting the user. Not cool. tk

hmmm

[Paranoia Agent]

Do other browsers come with this feature?

Smells funny...

[FhnuZoag]

Really, just looking at the Microsoft Fanboys referenced in that article.

"Internet Explorer (7?) is all I need."

"Honestly, the rubbish you [Microsoft] have to put up with... my heart goes out to you guys. Keep up the good work with IE7"

Yes, people, we are eulogising about software that hasn't even been released yet.

I thought the point with Netscape is that it is meant to be an IE-replacement - hence the render using IE engine feature. Whether it respects an obsolete, badly coded application it is designed to get rid of is kinda irrelevant.

Obviously, this is a bug that needs to be fixed, but let's not start burying Netscape yet. More competition is always good.

Re:Smells funny...

[MynockGuano]

My favorite:

It's obvious to the most casual observer that Firefox UI is orders of magnitude better than that of IE6, but that is (relatively) minor to correct. After which, there will be no compelling reason to use it.

Yes, we all use it for the UI.

(On second thought, maybe Windows users do only judge a program based on its UI? That's an interesting implication. Certainly would explain why they're using Windows in the first place, I guess.)

Re:Smells funny...

[MynockGuano]

Doh! Guess I should have read the next sentence. Please excuse my above ramblings.

Like other open standards extremists Mozilla are too insular. They should work on what end users want (UI) instead of what a whiny minority of web developers want.

I'd like to point out here that were it not for those "whiny" web developers, there would exist no webpages over which to place your shiny UI. Kinda like those XML pages in IE now!

Re:Smells funny...

[MrCopilot]

Are you kidding, AOL buried Netscape not us. Those guy over at AOL can make a small pile of shit into a mountain of DUNG! and unbelievably money.

--=
if(me!=script)
{
form->fillout(squiggleletter);

}

Re:Smells funny...

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Really, just looking at the Microsoft Fanboys referenced in that article.

"Internet Explorer (7?) is all I need."

They're right, of course.... and here it is:

http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/

Re:Smells funny...

[otisaardvark]

That commenter does seem pretty over the top in her praise of Microsoft's practices! Having said which, she has an excellent point. Your average user won't care about what's under the hood unless it directly affects their experience. And UI is very important - one of the core differentiators between browsers. Let's see why I like Firefox: - Tabbed Browsing (UI) - Find as you Type (UI) - Live Bookmarks (UI) - Integrated Search (UI) - Smart Keywords (UI) - Download Manager (UI - OK, needs a lot of work) - about:config (UI - OK, this is stretching it...) Also, UI is crucial to security. It might not prevent buffer overflows but it can help prevent phishing: - Gold address bar for secure sites (UI) - Punycoding IDN domain names (UI) - SSL certificates (UI - if they aren't displayed in a usable way, then no-one will use them) - Extension installs (UI - it waits for a few seconds before allowing you to click 'yes') To the end user (not web developers) UI is one of the few things that makes one browser different to another. Of course, this changes when they can't access their favourite certain sites because they use some obscure plugin, but even then, how to install the plugin becomes a matter of UI! Of course to the technically inclined things like support for MathML, SVG, and other rendering IS important. BTW what criteria do you use when selecting your browser?

Re:Smells funny...

[MynockGuano]

Point well-made.

To answer your question, some of my criteria for choosing a browser (as an end-user...when making web pages, standards compliance == happiness):
- Works on Linux
- Easy to tinker with
- Stays the heck out of my way and lets me see the web pages, not the web browser. In this respect, a lack of UI is preferable. Though that could be considered a UI "feature" as well, I suppose.

I guess it all depends on how you look at it. >8)

Re:Smells funny...

[Kelson]

I thought the point with Netscape is that it is meant to be an IE-replacement - hence the render using IE engine feature. Whether it respects an obsolete, badly coded application it is designed to get rid of is kinda irrelevant.

I wouldn't go that far. The first thing I did when I read this was test it. "Netscape" 8 disables XML rendering in the IE engine, not just in the IE application. And "Netscape" uses the IE engine by default on what it considers to be trusted sites. So it breaks IE and the "replacement."

How can this be true?

[jc42]

The article says:

I decided to install Netscape on a copy of Windows that did not have IE installed. From there I would see how Netscape ran.

But, but ...

Bill Gates testified in court, under oath, that IE was an integral part of Windows, and you can't have Windows without IE. Bill would never tell a lie, would he? Would he?

My world is shattered ...

I'm not updating

[timster121]

At home I use Firefox.

However, the company I work for standarizes on Netscape and IE. Right now I'm using Netscape 7.2. We were all told very specifically to *not* install Netscape 8 because of all the problems it's been having. This is interesting because previously we had always been encouraged to use the latest version to test out the new features and make sure our web applications were compatable.

No big deal

[dtfinch]

IE already renders a great number of XML pages as blank, without the help of Netscape.

Re:No big deal

[Metaphorically]

I've had trouble getting XML to render right in IE as well. I think there's only a certain subset of XML files it can render right (based on DOCTYPE declaration or the namespaces it uses, not sure exactly).

I don't think there are many sites that are actively serving up their pages (to the end user) as XML (not counting XHTML, of course).

Correct me if you've got different info.

Re:No big deal

[BigGerman]

not all of them, just the ones with invisible tags and optional attribute values ;-)

Gentoo uses a sandbox

[MarkByers]

Gentoo installs first in an isolated sandbox (a fake root) which prevents a malicious installation program destroying the system. When the installation program is complete, portage finds the files which were installed into the sandbox and copies them across to the real system, keeping a note of which files belong to the packages, so that they can easily be removed later.

So although the problem of installing packages without wrecking your system has been solved already.

Out of interest, how do other distros approach it?

Re:Gentoo uses a sandbox

[petermgreen]

i said INSTALLERS not distro packages

yes distro package managers with a sufficiantly anal design can mitigate a lot of the problems of bad installers but at the end of the day it only helps if your distro package manager supports the app you wan't.

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[jeff_schiller]

Why don't you post her link?

Wait-

[doombob]

IE's XML rendering worked in the first place?

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[value_added]

A "senior program manager" at Microsoft is an American job and deserves an American spelling.

Only if the job description is not a job description, but a formal Job Title.

Which it isn't.

The lack of capitalisation could have been a clue, but only if you paid a bit more attention to the submission than to your own tortured sentence structure.

It's not a bug...

[Weaselmancer]

...it's a feature!

Ok, obvious I know but somebody had to say it. =)

Re:It's not a bug...

[Master of Transhuman]

Unfortunately, ten or twenty people already have...

Your "Score:1" will shortly be "-20:Redundant"...

Re:It's not a bug...

[Tony Hoyle]

...it's a space station!

Damn wrong thread.

Re:It's not a bug...

[Weaselmancer]

...and *days* later, I'm still at 2!

Proof positive that it's not what you say, but how you say it. ;^)

payback

[tezbobobo]

This is an attempt by Netscape to payback IE. Try to picture it Manga style, with a little dragon rising out of the ashes.

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[databyss]

You should post it tomorrow, it'll probably get accepted then.

Dream on

[nagora]

and now IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work.

If only it were that easy!

TWW

Netscape isn't done...

[circusboy]

until IE won't run!

Workaround

[taped2thedesk]

I believe that the current workaround is to use Netscape.

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[ari_j]

"Tortured sentence structure," indeed. This from a person who (1) fails to realize that a poorly-written Slashdot post cannot be expected to be properly capitalized, and relies on capitalization in the story blurb to determine meaning, (2) incorrectly capitalizes "Job Title," and (3) writes "Which it isn't." as a sentence and paragraph to itself, after another purported sentence which is in fact a misplaced clause and before yet another that misspells "capitalization" (or is too British to receive any attention).

Yes, my sentence structure is indeed tortured. It's tortured by idiots like you who see fit to be pedantic without the requisite knowledge.

Slashdot is predominantly a news site located in, based from, and operated primarily by people residing in the United States. On the front page of any news source, it is always nice if the language used is consistent within that page. But at least it's not ABC News, where this story managed to discover a previously unknown word: Artical (see the caption under the photograph).

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[ari_j]

Is it the British spelling that makes Indian people impossible to understand when they speak, or is there some other factor there?

It's all about the ads

[eyegor]

Yeah, install AIM these nowadays and your desktop and start menu get filled with all sorts of AOL cruft.

When "Elf" came out, AIM was pushing these horrible "LOUD" ads for it on the AIM client (I managed to block most of it by blocking access to their ad server).

I know AOLs hurting for money and trying madly to get some revenue, but they need to make sure they don't chase away potential clients with obnoxious behavior and poorly written software.

Debian approaches

[paulproteus]

I'm not a Debian developer, just a user. Debian uses fakeroot plus a chroot or User-Mode Linux. All this applies to Ubuntu, too, of course.

The standard way is to compile and build using "fakeroot". This program lets the installer chown and chmod all it wants and remembers it until fakeroot exits even though it's being run as an unprivileged user. It sets up PREFIX to be a subdirectory of sourcepackage-n.nn/debian/.

In addition, Debian developers install using a chroot system. There is a package called 'pbuilder' that automates this setup. That way, they get to insulate their system from brokenness, as well as from security holes; they can nuke and re-create the chroot; and they can have multiple chroots for different distribution versions.

In addition to that, there is a uml pbuilder system uses User-Mode Linux instead of a chroot. Combined with copy-on-write filesystems, this can give a package the most pristine environment possible. Pristine environments are important for strict quality control, both of built binary packages and of dependencies.

(I'd avoid flaming Gentoo, but I can't resist; the thing that drive me NUTS was the horrible package quality of Qt and MythTV. The MythTV ebuild didn't force a recompilation of Qt with MySQL support, so it segfaulted on run. Debian has a feature called "Build-depends" and "Depends" that makes (1) compilation of MythTV fail without Qt's MySQL support, and (2) installation of the resulting package fail without Qt's MySQL support. I ran screaming back to Debian after that wasted a day.)

Re:Debian approaches

[onemorehour]

(I'd avoid flaming Gentoo, but I can't resist; the thing that drive me NUTS was the horrible package quality of Qt and MythTV. ...)

That does sound like a terrible experience, and I'm sorry about your wasted day, but since you understand what was going wrong, you could email the package maintainer for MythTV, or submit a bug in gentoo's bugzilla. I don't think there's anything in portage that would prevent people from inserting code to check for MySQL support in Qt before compiling MythTV, so I think your problem was, as you said, with the package and not with the system. And there are many ways to report individual package problems and make sure they get fixed.

Re:AOL is full of idiots

[digidave]

Wrong. It's potentially one of the best ideas they've ever had.

I haven't used NS 8, but it appears to allow you to specify which sites should be rendered in IE. It sounds like a great way to help rid corporate desktops of IE. I know a lot want to, but are shackled by their intranet apps. This would let them browse the Internet safely using Gecko and have the browser automatically use IE for internal apps that need it. Those apps can be slowly fixed to work with Gecko, or just naturally life-cycled out and replaced with Gecko-compliant apps.

Obviously...

[It doesn't come easy]

...this is Netscape's way of saying all browsers are evil and should be disabled immediately...

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[It doesn't come easy]

It may be offtopic but it's true...

You are obviously not in the inner circle, my friend...

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[ari_j]

Wouldn't you be too ashamed to link to it if it was your grandmother who ran a sexually explicit blog?

How often has MS broken a competing product?

[toofast]

Countless times. I agree with you.

The people who install Netscape may use both browsers until, "hey, this page doesn't render in IE but it does in Netscape. Let's use Netscape for everything."

I think this is a good thing. Hey MS, how's it feel to have other people breaking your functionality?

Re:How often has MS broken a competing product?

[toofast]

I can count a few on this list:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=884130

Coincidence? WP Office, Norton Antivirus, IBM's Rational ClearCase, Norton's SystemWorks... Hey, did MS announce that they want to start selling Antivirus software? Might as well start breaking Norton right now!

How does this happen?

[msjacoby]

I can understand the numerous bug fixes - not everyone can afford to do massive testing, but who doesn't test on a windows machine that has IE installed? Seriously, how did this happen?

You do not recall correctly.

[bwoodring]

See Subject.

Actually it works under wine...

[Mad Merlin]

Back when the Netscape 8 beta came out, I gave it a shot under wine (not to actually use it, but just for fun) and it installed and worked properly, unless you tried to use the IE rendering engine for something, at which point it crashed, though I didn't want to install IE under wine because I'd never get the sulphur out...

Same thing years ago

[n1_111]

These are reasons I stopped using the POS 5-7 years ago. Netscape worked half ass at best and frequently crippled IE as well. These days I use Opera, or K-Meleon.

Re:AOL is full of idiots

[KarmaMB84]

Especially while a lot of the non-zealot reviewers are getting a major hardon over the idea. If Netscape had polished it some more and given some options for the AOL AIM stuff they crammed in it, it might've actually gotten better reviews than Firefox has been getting.

Who sends browsers XML anyway?

[pocopoco]

Is there any valid use for sending a browser XML+XSL anyway? I actually used it for a page for a while once. The results were good on modern software, but some users with older or alternative software couldn't render it and complained. Changing things so that the transform happened on the server side was relatively painless anyway and increased compatibility.

Throw in the fact that Mozilla/Firefox is crippled in the XML/XSL area (refuses to load external entities in XML, id() function in XSL non-functional, etc. where those both work fine in MSIE and aren't proprietary by any means) and it becomes even more trouble doing things client side.

Deja vu...

[gmuslera]

... this alert is not coming from the same company who had hardcoded into Windows 3.1 that if was running under Caldera DOS or whatever was called in those days simply refuse to work?

Anyway, could be Netscape fault, or (deja vu again) bugs in IE (MS IE with bugs? impossible), or DLL hell (both ns and ie have similary named dlls to i.e. render xml), or even Windows design choices (i.e. you can only have one xml renderer, if you install another then IE refuses to work).

Is not so bad, people can dump entirely IE, or install Firefox/Mozilla suite instead of Netscape, or even install Opera. Whatever of this choices will give them a very much safer environment, more features and a clean path to migrate to better operating systems in a near future.

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[mider]

Actually, even in the UK programme would be the wrong spelling when you're refering to a computer program. Programme is used for all the other varients of programme. In the UK it's a Computer Program and a Programme of Musical Study.

Sort of like cheque and check. At least, that's my understanding of the situation.

Heh... That's not the only bug!

[unother]

Try this... I know it must happen on other sites, but I was "fortunate" to find this.

1) Navigate to http://www.ascd.org/ w/ Firefox. Move through the site via the dropdown DHTML menus. Works.

2) Navigate to http://www.ascd.org/ w/ IE. Move through the site via the dropdown DHTML menus (albeit drawn differently). Works.

3) Navigate to http://www.ascd.org/ w/ NS8. Note that IE engine is being used. Move through the site via the dropdown DHTML menus. Get caught in a recursive site-provided "Page Not Found" loop. Change engine to Firefox for site. Same issue. ...there are problems with NS8, let's face it.

oh come on

[buzzini]

As I'm sure you know, what Bill said is true with the prevailing (and I think common-sense) definitions of "Internet Explorer", "uninstalling", etc.

BUT if you redefine "uninstalling" to mean "get rid of the icon and block external access to its APIs" then, yeah, you can "uninstall" it.

In any case, Bill wasn't lying.

Re:oh come on

[gl4ss]

you can uninstall internet explorer in the old common way without breaking the os totally.

and certainly doing it in win98 was even simpler.

bill was lying.

Tit for Tat (IE4)

[FrandGunk]

"DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run!"

Re:XML in IE

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The Moz/FF devs' stubborn insistence on absolute compliance with standards is a double-edged sword. IE wasn't perfect, but the Moz/FF approach means they won't display a lot of XML at all (due to servers not providing it with correct MIME types). Moreover, there were serious errors in Moz/FF's basic XSLT handling (count, anyone?) years after MS supported the equivalent behaviours in IE.

IOWs, while Moz/FF may stand up and say, hand on heart, that they're trying to implement open standards perfectly, IE is still more useful for a lot of people. Until someone breaks it, which just reflects badly on both parties.

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[eric_brissette]

That would require me to install IE7 to notice. Assuming that IE7 will be part of some ginormous security update for the OS, (otherwise I wouldn't have a reason to install IE7) I guess I'd probably react by fixing Firefox. And changing the IE icon from a blue "e" to a brown cartoonish tasty-freeze shaped dog poo hidden somewhere deep in the Accessories group in the start menu.

Its obvious

[grendel_x86]

MS is paying AOL to make a horrible browser to discredit mozilla / firefox.

(Yes I am *mostly* joking)

Smells like hypocrisy!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yes, people, we are eulogising about software that hasn't even been released yet.

Shocking. The F/OSS community would never engage in such barbaric activity, I tell you!

Whether it respects an obsolete, badly coded application it is designed to get rid of is kinda irrelevant.

I'm sure you'd say the same if installing Visual Studio rendered an old version of GCC unusable.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[jc42]

I'm sure you'd say the same if installing Visual Studio rendered an old version of GCC unusable.

Actually, this is a well-known phenomenon among "independent" Windows software developers.

I have a number of friends who are working on high-quality audio and video apps. One of their ongoing problems is that, when installed on Windows, they tend to break. Usually this happens soon after someone runs Windows Media Player (WMP).

I remember reading reviews back when WMP first came out. After giving WMP a poor review, the reviewers would then comment on how, when they tried running their other higher-quality audio apps, they were all broken and had to be reinstalled. They would then work until something triggered WMP, and then they'd all be broken again. And WMP couldn't be fully uninstalled.

The story became clear when the news got out that Microsoft had a simple solution: License your audio/video app through Microsoft, and it would keep working.

That's right; WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps. To make your app work, you have to sign over most of the rights to Microsoft. They'll then put your app on their "approved" list, and they'll give you a royalty on the sales.

Anyway, I know a number of people who have become rather depressed when the import of all this gets through their thick skulls. They had this silly idea that they could write their own app and sell it on the Open Market. Hah.

I just tell them that their naive economic theory is still alive and well, if they write their apps for OSX or linux. Or Solaris, for that matter. But Microsoft owns Windows, and they control the software that runs on it. This doesn't alleviate their depression. But a few of them have become Mac and/or linux fans.

My wife had a collection of audio/video stuff on her Windows box. She was getting more and more frustrated by WMP breaking in and taking over, totally screwing things up. One day we installed a bunch of things on my Mac Powerbook, and I let her play with it for a few hours. She then went out and bought one. A few days later, she gave me her Windows box, which I turn on when I need to do some testing of web pages against IE. She shudders at the thought of ever using it again (though she has to use Windows at work, and knows it quite well).

Anyway, I'd consider NS screwing up IE to be merely payback for what MS does to independent software. Too bad there aren't any laws against this sort of thing. At least, there aren't any that can be used effectively against Microsoft.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[gmcgath]

Of course they wouldn't. To eulogize is to praise.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[justins]

That's right; WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps.

Stop lying. Thanks.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[Joe U]

"That's right; WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps"

And your source on this info is...? Because you conveniently left that info out.

Here, I've edited your quote to be more realistic.

Try this: 'That's right; according to the voices in my head, WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps. But I wear a tinfoil hat now, so the bad evil M$ is not out to get me anymore.'

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[Ersatz Chickenweed]

That's right; WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps

Kinda reminds me of back in the day, when I was a lowly tech-support person at a small, "national" ISP (we used UUnet's POPs)...

We used to routinely--and by routinely, I mean that they constituted at least 75% of our calls--get a lot of people calling in with the same problem: they could dial into AOL just fine, but their computer couldn't successfully negotiate a connection with our (UUnet's) modems. It would just break down during the handshaking process and give one of several predictable errors.

Well, it turns out that whatever AOL was using in their specialized dial-up adapter broke the standard windows dial-up adapter. As soon as you nuked and reloaded the standard MS-provided Dial-Up Adapter from the Windows CD (a process I could still do in my sleep to this day, I've done it so many hundreds of times), those people could connect to our (UUnet's) POPs just fine. But guess what: if those people EVER dialed back into AOL--even if they just attempted to dial and then aborted the process--it would immediately re-break the standard MS-provided dial-up adapter and they'd soon be back on the phone with our tech support people.

Now fast forward to today, and who owns Netscape? Oh, that's right... it's AOL, so I guess this is just a more modern interpretation of their same old slimy tactics. What scumbags and/or incompetents they are.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[duguk]

Confused me too, but i reckon he might mean the file associations? When you run WMP, it overrides the file assocs that YOU set in it. (When you did the setup, it does actually ask you... and if it's that, they're not very good Windows programmers!) If not then I'm lost.

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

To eulogize is to praise.

My point exactly. :-)

Re:Smells like hypocrisy!

[soulhuntre]

That's right; WMP contains a search-and-destroy component that disables unapproved AV apps

What a pathetic attmempt at a troll. The explaination later in the thread doesn't help... it pretty much comes down to "my friend once showed me this thing that happened, so you should all believe me".

Feel free to post a link to your friends application, so we can show him what his mistakes are.

Int he meantime, you might want to tone down the FUD.

I just have one thing to say

[Kilz]

All's fair in love and browser wars. :)

do they do any testing?

[justdrew]

What the hell is netscape anymore anyway? I wish it would just go away, the REAL netscape ceased to exist long ago.

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[ari_j]

It'll get better in about 20 minutes when I sit down to "Eat Fresh (TM)" at Subway, but don't get me started on their termination of the Sub Club stamp promotion. ;-D

Re:Does anyone use it? Funny?

[lcsjk]

You just got slashdotted! Well, so I made up my own def.!

two rendering engines?

[Animats]

they have the only mainstream browser with two rendering engines.

That's a bug, not a feature.

NOW how do I FIX my IE XML rendering????

[mozkill]

Now that I have nuked my IE web browser XML rendering capability, does anyone know how to fix it?

Re-installing the IE components did not work.

Thanks if anyone can solve this. :-)

Re:NOW how do I FIX my IE XML rendering????

[Kelson]

The IEBlog post describes how to do it.

Basically, you have to uninstall Netscape 8 (really! If you don't, it resets the registry entry over and over again, re-breaking it). Then you delete a particular registry entry.

For once, a reboot isn't required.

Re:XML in IE

[Jugalator]

IE actually performed XML in a compliant way?

Yes, MSXML 3.0 supports most of XPath 1.0, XSLT 1.0, XDR, and SAX2, and shipped with IE 6.
MSXML 4.0 SP2 has since then been made available with some additional conformance improvements.

If I recall correctly, it was doing some non-standard stuff anyways.

Yes, and Gecko supports Mozilla-specific CSS extensions. So?

I'm not surprised it gets broken.

No, one app usually break when another overwrites files the former used, so it's to be expected.

OK, now, can someone explain what was so seriously Insightful up there?

how can this even happen?

[danharan]

NS8 break IE? I'm no software engineer, but that reeks of poor design.

For some reason, I'm also suspecting that it's IE that's brittle. Anyone have solid info yet?

I smell a rat!

[coopaq]

If this is done on purpose then it's like a nasty scheme to make any browser other than IE look like crap.

Maybe I am paranoid. maybe.

Are AOL and MS in bed together yet?

Sun is with MS.

It's what dying companies do.

Irrelevant

[Roadkills-R-Us]

The whole thing is irrelevant to me.

When I install Firefox or Netscape (or Opera) on a Windows PC, it's with the understanding that IE will not be used again. My experiences with IE show it to dangerous for use by merel mnorlats (that would be all of us). So if I'm going to install another browserm the end user better be willing to use it.

Otherwise, why bother? You want to keep taking your chances with IE, that's fine. Just don't waste my time.

All that said, I do have a couple of people at work who are forced by teir job descriptions to use IE-tainted websites. They do, indeed, use two browsers. But one's on a Mac, and Safari works fine. Fot the one on Windoze, we just use Firefox. So no problem.

Re:Irrelevant

[dingfelder]

what is a "merel mnorlats"?

Did you mean "mere mortals"?

"It's part of the OS!"

[slapout]

without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install

Now you can't really blame Netscape for that one. MS says that IE is an unremovable part of the OS. (Yes, we all know that isn't true.) So if it is offically part of the OS, Netscape should be safe assuming that it will be there.

Too good to be true!

[peacefinder]

"... now IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work."

You're telling me that if I install Netscape on my users' machines, they can't use IE?

Right on.

PS: Anyone know where to get a download-once-install-many package for Netscape 8.01? A corporate installer doesn't seem to be available at the Netscape website.

Netscape is still a POS

[phatrice]

now does uninstalling Netscape 8.0 fix my IE?

Re:Netscape is still a POS

[mozkill]

no, that will not fix IE... neither will re-installing the IE components... its hosed... someone needs to post a fix so that I we can all fix this problem...

Re:Interesting? Interesting?

[thebatlab]

I agree on it being bizarre someone modded you interesting. And I find it unfortunate that you were going for +5 Funny. At best, this is -2 OLD JOKE.

Over a year ago people found out how to "uninstall" IE from Windows. As soon as he said it couldn't be done you know everyone went nuts trying to do it.

So let's stop using an old joke to try and get boosted up with other possibly relevant posts.

Natural progression

[vex24]

Well it's always been this way... Netscape is where they try out their crazy experimental ideas and if something sticks they put it in their stable publicly released product, Mozilla.

Wait, what?

Why?

[ceeam]

So many messages in this thread and not a one (above my viewing threshold) about the fact that _XPSP2_ is breaking IE XML rendering! I used to rely on MSIE to view/check_that_it_parses XML files (even though it has problems with something reasonably big, but those are not quite as bad as with FF - hint, hint to developers). But since SP2 came out it's all fucked up a little. Branches don't expand/collapse and there's a yellow warning(!) panel on the top and something else that I forget.

PS: You have to check to allow "Active Content in Local Documents" or something like that. I'm just annoyed that they have this issue in default configuration.

Portage supports user supplied packages.

[MarkByers]

Portage supports user supplied packages.

So no you don't have to wait until it is officially supported. If there is no ebuild in portage, you can:

• Download the ebuild directly from the project page and put it in your local repository.
• If the project does not supply an ebuild you can search the net for one.
• If you are the only Gentoo user using that package, you can always write your own ebuild and put it on the web for others to use.

The sandbox protects you from malicious installers, but you still need to be on your guard for malicious ebuilds. Luckily ebuilds are plain text and usually short, so you should give them a read if you don't trust the source.

it's not a bug

[nilbog]

It's not a bug, it's a feature. Funny, M$ usually gets the wording right on these sorts of things.

can't please greeks and troyans

[namekuseijin]

... they are learning it the hard way that having a ( mostly ) standards-compliant rendering engine and an obsolete, crap one isn't going to work...

Re:Selective Slashdot Acceptance

[RetroGeek]

I have had stories rejected too. Oh Well.

What realy burns me is that the same story is accepted later (same links, etc) authored by someone else.

I wish they would make up their minds.....

Too Late!

[Winkhorst]

They should have thought of this when they still had 50% of the market! "See, Internet Explorer just doesn't work right!"

Plug-ins, plug-ins, plug-ins

[ScrappyLaptop]

"Open in IE" works great for just such "emergencies", although it would be nicer if websites weren't browser-specific, wouldn't it?

Re:Plug-ins, plug-ins, plug-ins

[jerryasher]

"Open in IE" is great. Better if "Open in IE" also sent an email off to "webmaster@..." and "abuse@..." complaining....

"Open in Firefox" is also a must have extension for many of us at work who must use IE for enough things that it is easiest to make IE the default.

All your bugs are belong to us

[hritcu]

Netscape: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Netscape: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You !!
Firefox: How are you gentlemen !!
Firefox: All your bugs are belong to us.
Firefox: You are on the way to destruction.
Netscape: What you say !!
Firefox: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Firefox: HA HA HA HA ....

Re:All your bugs are belong to us

[Magic5Ball]

Perhaps we should also pour hot grits down the pants of a Naked and Petrified Chris Coldwell...

Psuedo Code

[Arimus]

Hm,

MS Psuedo code:-

Launch IE XML Render
Catch Exception Cant start as its crap
Scan for app to blame
Print Netscapes fault not ours

Solution: Replace MS with Linux and move away from dll hell.

Greetings, Mr. Shatner...

[kbs]

I'm glad you read Slashdot.

Re:Greetings, Mr. Shatner...

[dillon_rinker]

No, no, no. You're thinking of:

"Per, haps, but...Ialwaysfind gratuitious. Punctu, ation, tobeannoying?"

Yes, it breaks it, nevertheless..

[cabazorro]

I'm running Netscape 8.
It uses the rendering engine of IExplorer
and Firefox and you can choose which one to use.
I was trying to add RSS feeds to the personal bar ( a task to somehwat the folks at Nestcape made cumbersome and idiotic ) and lord behold, when you enter trying to display a _http://somefile.xml/ you get a blank page and Netscape doesn't alert you that it has detected and RSS feed.
Then you go to the left corner and change the rendering to Firefox and wham-o you get the xml displaying and Netscape pops a section in the top side and asks you if you want to add the feed to our personal toolbar.
If you say yes, then it creates this horrible contraption that attempts to scroll or use a ticker to display the rss resulting in the disctracting junk dancing on top of yor browser. No good.
Other than that Netscape is fine. Firefox is better, Opera is not and IExplorer is whatever. Funny thought that Microsoft cannot protect their OWN apps against a foreign install. But I digress, The real temporal solution to the xml fiasco is to switch rendering, not removing the darn browser. That's it.

Netscape 8.0.1

[mitrich]

I have been using Netscape 8 since the beta, now on 8.0.1. I still use I.E. or Firefox if I wish. Usually I do not wish. Netscape makes my life easy with passcards, individual on the fly site security configuration. Tabbed browsing is not working right, but that is not a big problem for me,and it will get fixed. So, tell me, I am not an expert, give me an example of usage for XML.

oops

[pyrrho]

whoops.

darn!

Think Different!

[Chris Tucker]

This is the traditional post stating that the Mac OS is superior because it is unaffected by danmfool DLL or other interactionsi.

Also included in the traditional post is a gratuitous slam against Windows users: "Windows users are poopieheads for using Windows!"

Finishing up with a "In Soviet Russia..." joke

In Soviet Russia, Internet Explorer breaks Netscape!

It has been my pleasure to provide the Slashdot Community with the traditional posting making fun of the Windows OS and WIndows Users, contrasting the Windows OS with the Mac OS, in a snarky, oh, so superior and ultimately uninformative manner, in a comment thread about yet another flaw/fault/sploit in the Windows OS.

Thank you for your kind attention!

Netscape Breaks IE

[TheStupidOne]

Now if only OpenOffice broke Word, we'd be set. Convert the masses to OSS The Microsoft Way(TM)!

Broken XML rendering capabilities

[edxwelch]

"Netscape's latest browser appears to break the XML rendering capabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer"... while Microsoft themselves are responsible for the broken the CSS rendering capabilties in IE.

It's turnabout

[hawk]

actually, it's turnabout :)

Windows 3.1 didn't come with built-in internet capacity. It was added with your browser.

When explorer was introduced (or was it an upgrade?), it overwrote some of netscape's files, disabling netscape.

It's only fair that netscape return the favor . . .

hawk

NS8 + GWA + Firefox

[POWRSURG]

By any chance does anyone know if the Google Web Accelerator might use this on XHTML pages when viewed in Firefox? I installed both the GWA and NS8 at work, and found that when I visited a page in Firefox with invalid XHTML it would no longer display, but instead pointed to where the breakage in the XHTML occured (in the case that I had seen an img tag was not properly closed so it broke at the closing p tag).... I thought that seemed to be fairly odd for Google to release a product that couldn't handle invalid trivial XHTML breakage, but if these are some how tied together it makes a bit more sense to me.

Oh, that's all right

[mwood]

Lots of other things seem to break IE's XML too. I haven't been able to get the PSDK Update pages to work for months on this other box over here. It's been so long that I don't recall what installation zapped it, if indeed I ever knew.

And I'm not going to blow away an *entire OS* and *thousands of settings* just to replace one lousy .DLL.

MOD PARENT TROLL

[Lehk228]

Parent is lying, I have several "unapproved" media player apps on my machine, all of which are large enough that if MS was targeting and nuking competing apps they would have been on the hit list.

Not innovative

[Al Dimond]

Hell, back in the day Winamp had a minibrowser that used the IE rendering engine. There are tons of "webbrowsers" out there that use the IE rendering engine and just provide their own UI around them. I fail to see how this is at all innovative. It's Firefox, with the ability to use the IE rendering libraries. Big deal.

And after all these other programs have done this, Netscape comes out with a product that can't do it without hosing the IE installation. Isn't this well-enough tred territory by now that such mistakes shouldn't be made?

Now that's what I call takeing out the competition

[lunatick]

That is just 1 reason for me to get it :)

I hate IE, but if it renders Netscape useless as well it is a problem.

I did break away from netscape though (never went the IE route always used netscape) and went to firefox and thunderbird. I gotta say I like them better than netscape.

It's a shame many places will not have compatabel offerings for netscape and firefox though (UPS.com lable printing will not work with mozilla :(

Re:I'd love to see the reaction from the /. commun

[crazyphilman]

Who would notice? We're all running Slackware, Debian, or Gentoo.

Re:XML in IE

[unapersson]

"Yes, and Gecko supports Mozilla-specific CSS extensions. So?"

In a way that obeys the standard, using a -moz prefix, while microsoft refuse to follow the standard and go ahead and pollute the CSS namespace with their extensions rather than using -ms.

IE == OS

[donnz]

"it was discovered that without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install"

Well, duh. IE *is* the OS you know. I expect he ment to say "without Windows installed Netscape 8.0 will not install".

Re:What QA Department?

[erunaheru]

Quality assurance

Erm... really?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I have a number of friends who are working on high-quality audio and video apps. One of their ongoing problems is that, when installed on Windows, they tend to break.

Yeah, that can happen if you don't know how to program for Windows. Funnily enough, it doesn't much seem to happen to people who do, though. Which apps were these, again?

Personally, I've tried several of the usual suspects, including several versions of the dreaded WMP and RealPlayer. The closest they've got to fighting is associating file extensions with themselves rather than another app when they're installed and/or run. They're all pretty well-behaved in this regard now, and AFAIK the current versions of all the major packages at least prompt the user before changing these.

What specific problems did your friends' applications encounter?

Re:Erm... really?

[jc42]

Yeah, that can happen if you don't know how to program for Windows.

So I suppose I should follow this advice, and not do any Windows programming until I learn how to do it right. Of course, if I'm not doing it, it's not obvious how I could ever learn to do it right ;-)

What specific problems did your friends' applications encounter?

Well, I do remember pretty clearly a demo that one fellow did a couple of years ago. He insisted that a bunch of us watch, so we could verify that he wasn't crazy or lying or hallucinating.

What he did was install his app fresh, and in a command window typed a dir command showing the timestamps and sizes of a set of files in his app's directory. After verifying that his app ran he fired up WMP, let it run for a minute or so, and then told it to exit. He then repeated the dir command, and showed that one specific file had changed. His app no longer worked as a result.

He repeated the demo several times, showing convincingly that the file was stable until he ran WMP, and then the file changed. His app wasn't running when the file changed, but WMP was. This was considered by all of us as pretty good evidence that WMP (or something that it called) had changed the file. We couldn't really get any more evidence than this.

He did change his file's name, and then the problem didn't recur. But, of course, this is only a temporary fix. It didn't help customers that already had his app installed. They could upgrade, but who knows how long this would fix the problem?

Actually, I've seen the same sort of thing happen on unixoid systems. But there, it typically happens with "global" files, such as those $HOME/.*rc files that some apps use. This was a bit of a mistake, of course, since such file-name conventions are prone to collisions. More often these days, an app "foo" will set up a $HOME/.foo directory for its private files, which effectively prevents collisions unless two apps have the same name.

In any case, an app that hits a file in a directory that usually doesn't exist is a bit bizarre. It's hard to see how this could really be an accident. The simplest explanation is that the app is targeting that file for some reason.

Of course, it's often a good idea to don your tinfoil hat when suggesting this in public. But really, nobody should be surprised when an app appears to be doing something to kill a competitor. It's not like people have never done such things.

Re:Erm... really?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What a strange behaviour...

Can you tell us the name of the application, or of the file that changed? It would be interesting to Google for Microsoft's explanation for such behaviour and/or articles exposing it if they denied it...

So can anyone tell me?

[JustNiz]

Is there a single advantage to choosing Netscape over Firefox?

Try it, you'll like it.

[drg55]

I just downloaded it and its pretty cool. Sounds like another Microsoft scare campaign. First impressions, I like it.

Re:XML in IE

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Blockquoth the AC:

Huh? They have no such insistence.

They're mellowing their stance these days. Having earlier implied that they were going for complete standards compliance, reality has bitten, and one suspects that the prospect of never getting significant market share because of things like daft incompatibilities with IE changed their perspective. Things like compatibility modes are a symptom of this reality.

Details please.

We've done this one on Slashdot before, so here's the short version. Suppose your ISP hosts your web site for you, but is unkind enough to provide incorrect MIME type information for XML files you store on the web space they host. (Note that this is something over which you, the ISP subscriber, have no direct control.) Now suppose you upload a perfectly valid XML file, correctly referencing a perfectly valid XSLT file that generates perfectly valid XHTML. If a visitor browses to that XML file, but the MIME types aren't set to reflect the content of the files (e.g., you get text/html as the type, even though the preamble in the file is obviously written to XML standards) then what do you think happens in Mozilla, and what do you think happens in IE?

To quote Fry, from futurama...

[geekoid]

Fix It,Fix It,Fix It,Fix It,Fix It,Fix It,Fix It,.....Fix It,Fix It!

There once was a poster from nantucket,
Who wrote a funny quote from Fry.
And just as luck would have it,
the Compression filter made it Die.

Netscape breaks IE

[Hosiah]

So what's IE's excuse when Netscape *isn't* installed?

Are we missing the point?

[Brad1138]

" then it was discovered that without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install,"

I think the big thing to take from this is someone figured out how to uninstall IE. To hell with IE & Netscape, give me my FireFox.

Re:XML in IE

[wan-fu]

Heh, I see I was modded into oblivion here. I seriously just had no idea. As one poster mentioned, it's not hard to validate XML. Truthfully, I wasn't too sure what was broken, but I recall some things about the way IE handled XML DTDs, XSLT, etc. stuff on top or whatever (I don't know too much about this tuff) that wasn't in a "standards compliant" way.

Re:XML in IE

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Blockquoth the AC:

Mozilla.org was launched in 1998. The first "quirks mode" was introduced in 1999, and that certainly wasn't the first concession to compatibility.

Nevertheless, while quirks mode is certainly a welcome tip of the hat, the project's behaviour has not always been so "charitable", and as noted in the example I originally gave, sometimes it still isn't.

Even if we take it as a given that the ISP is unresponsive and clueless, and that you, as a web developer, are unable to procure the basic necessities of web hosting, it's still a stupid thing to argue about.

Firstly, not all web developers are professionals, operating with professional budgets. In this particular case, I was attempting to make available some articles that people on a newsgroup had found useful. Secondly, my ISP at the time were morons who didn't understand the MIME type issue with their server. However, the time I didn't have my own domain name registered, and keeping the e-mail address was a major lock-in. Nor did I have the money to start using multiple ISPs at once.

You are criticising Mozilla for not going out of spec when every implementation but one follows the spec

If that one implementation holds 95% of the browser market, then writing primarily for any other spec, standard or not, is simply not good practice if you're aiming to maximise the number of people who find your web site useful.

By all means support standards, and push for the behemoths to do so as well. I've never said anything else. But understand that in an industry with lots of little fish supporting an official standard and one big fish with its own way of doing things, most people will prefer you to support the latter. Today's big fish is Microsoft, and the bias of many web sites towards IE and many businesses towards .doc are prime examples. There will be other big fish, and other examples. It's just what happens when one product/supplier/method gets way ahead in the market for a while.