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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."
I guess they aren't worried about Netscape anymore.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
You know, HP, it's hard to market a computer as "fast" or "productive" whenever it's bogged down with excessive pre-installed software. I'm sure that Netscape will also be set to load at startup with everything else that's installed, eh?
Wow, its good to see HP getting with the times... the times being 1991...
I would be suspicious. I can't tell you how much AOL crapware I had to uninstall and/or purge from the registry when I bought a Dell (don't). The fact that AOL has Netscape now would just make me wonder...
Just give me IE. I guarantee the first two pages I'll visit are mozilla.org and opera.com. Then, no more IE. No crapware for me!
blah blah blah
That's like asking someone to choose between two pieces of excrement. Why not a choice between Opera and Firefox instead?
web design experiments
Wrong browser.
"We specifically chose the Netscape browser because od its ability to run both the Triton (IE) and Gecko (Firefox) rendering engines" Sounds like a smart move on part of HP. Does opera allow choosing multiple rendering engines?
Great! Now users can use Netscape instead of Explorer to navigate to www.getfirefox.com
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
Other than Firefox?
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
AOL does not have financial ties to any other browser, this will be a paid off add tie in with AOL I am guessing
The browser wars is something that really shouldn't of happened.
SHOULDN'T *HAVE*!!!
Yes, but the browser wars were started because Netscape got uppity and played 'chicken' with Microsoft. Andreesen got up on the stage and started hyping web applications as if it would replace Microsoft. This 'woke up the bear' who then went on a rampage. Which is NOT to excuse Microsoft, just to point out Netscape wasn't the 'good guy' either.
Remember, Netscape hoped to own the web. They were the ones who first started introducing non-standard tags and features that only their server technology could serve up to their browser. They were NOT the good guys, just one of the elephants fighting in the commons and stomping on the little guys.
resigned
It's far more likely that Netscape/AOL came to HP and offered them a ton of cash to include their browser. Why would they do that you ask? Again, just another guess, but my money says that it's AOL's way of getting their portal and search on a large portion of the PCs out there.
I was not touched there by an angel.
Netscape inludes firefox rendering, and you can easily set it during install/1st config to never use IE engine.
Why Netscape? AOL has the clout to make the deal and support Netscape for free. If HP will install it, they must have some support for problems. With Netscape, they can pass the buck to AOL. That and they probably needed the nudge.
As for MS, they just lost re: netscape and antitrust so they aren't going to openly oppose this.
This is very good news as many people simply use the browser that comes with their PC. They may have heard about Netscape and Firefox, but they probably will never download it.
If it's on their PC, they will probably try it and hopefully use it.
Having a non IE browser installed by default with the PC is the best way to increase market share.
Hopefully this will pressure other manufacturers to follow suit.
Ryan
Please return RH7.1 and generally consider to stop robbing musemus.
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.
Any browser choice is still awesome. As soon as people start to see choice they'll slowly stop equating "the internet" with Internet Explorer and realize that they've had choices all along. I applaud HP with their decision to open their customer's minds and give them an option. They've really earned my respect with by still selling AMD processor PC's and now this.
Now if their all in one wireless printer/scanners didn't require 380-700mb of software/drivers (And no I'm not kidding...).
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Yes, I got that. What I mean is, when the window for the selection comes up, will one of them already be selected? Will one say (recommended)? Or will they both be unselected by default to actually force a user to choose before blindly hitting "Next", "Next", "Next".
"who analy raped netscape when i wasent looking? seriously i used it in 1997 and it was good but every new version just seems more bloated and slow"
That sounds more like marriage than anal rape.
"Derp de derp."