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HP to Install Netscape on all new PCs
TJ Parisi writes "News.com is reporting that HP / Compaq will begin to install all PCs sold in the US and Canada with Netscape. Users will be prompted with the option to set either Netscape or IE as the default browser." From the article: "The agreement, which the companies are set to announce Monday, is the first browser distribution deal with a major PC maker since the end of the browser wars in the 1990s, according to Netscape, a division of Time Warner's America Online subsidiary."
WHY? Let me ask it a different way: good god, why?!?
/. article recently about them firing all of their good engineers? Obviously, there's almost no one left with brains left at HP, at least not in whatever department choose to make this idiotic decision.
I used netscape back during the 4.0 days, when it was the best browser available for Linux. Even then, I hated it.
Now, there are SOOO many better browsers. Frankly, IE with active X disabled is better than netscape. Firefox beats them both. For Linux, there's konqueror (and firefox as well). I use a combination of Firefox/Camino/Safari under OS X. There is not ONE scenario under which I would use Netscape.
Why wouldn't they do a bundle with Firefox? Or Opera, now that it's 100% free.
Netscape's time has come and gone. There are much better IE alternatives available now.
Then again, HP is not exactly on the leading edge of tech anymore. Some would say they haven't been for quite some time... wasn't there a
That being said, I am happy to see anything that detracts from IE marketshare. Not because I hate MS (although I do to a degree), but only because I think that competition forces innovation. Look at how things were in the 90s when IE and Netscape were battling it out, we saw all kind of changes in the browser software. Hopefully we'll see something that like occur again.
Only time will tell.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
Netscape 8 is based on Firefox, but lets users switch between both the Firefox and IE browser engines.
Keep this in mind. This is Netscape 8, possibly the ugliest browser out there. It uses Firefox's rendering engine (Gecko), but also has the ability to use IE's rendering engine if needed.
FTA:
Netscape 8 is based on Firefox, but lets users switch between both the Firefox and IE browser engines.
So now IE is still kind of the default browser -- when the site doesn't render properly, they will just switch the rendering engine to IE and go on like normal. It resolves nothing, as websites are not encouraged to fix their bugs.
Links:
Netscape Browser 8
Screenshot of Netscape Browser 8 -- The goggles! They do nothing!
Details on Netscape 8 UI Flaws
HP systems also come with Sun's Java virtual machine and a Sun JVM updater installed, which is a pleasant surprise as compared to the nonsense software you usually see bundled with PCs.
Netscape 8 works with more sites because it switches to the IE engine when it tries to display a site that's known not to work with Gecko. Many users aren't going to put up with Firefox if it has problems with major sites, such as their bank. Of course, this makes Netscape 8 a security nightmare, because it combines all the vulnerabilities of Gecko and IE. That ought to keep the anti-virus and anti-adware companies happy, though.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.