Netscape Founder Backs New Browser

wirelessjb writes to share that after a resounding defeat at the hands of Microsoft in the first major browser war of the mid 1990s, Marc Andreessen is looking to have another go at the market by backing a new startup called "RockMelt." "Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. 'There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,' Mr. Andreessen said. RockMelt was co-founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, both former executives at Opsware, a company that Mr. Andreessen co-founded and then sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007 for about $1.6 billion. Mr. Howes also worked at Netscape with Mr. Andreessen."

Comments

May I say

[chebucto]

Netscape's interface was the best

Long live Seamonkey

Re:May I say

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it wasn't. Die seamonkey, Die!

Re:May I say

[negRo_slim]

And they used to have the best digital content distribution mechanism, stacks and stacks of floppy disks!

Re:May I say

[TubeSteak]

I find it interesting that TFA says:
After its early success, Netscape was roundly defeated by Microsoft in the so-called browser wars of the 1990s that dominated the Web's first chapter.

Which pretty much sets up TFA to never mention the anti-competitive trade practices Microsoft used and was sued for.

Re:May I say

[consumer_whore]

The latency can be killer though.

Re:May I say

[davester666]

Does it really matter after the fact, if you lost because the other side cheated (I mean, versus losing for some other reason)?

If anything, now it's helping a bit, in that governments are looking more closely at Microsoft's business practices, and other companies are more wary both of Microsoft's press releases and becoming their "business partner".

"Dude, you've been zuned" as two meanings.
1. You've received a gift of product that has been super hyped, but doesn't live up to it
2. You've partnered with somebody, where they say they absolutely, never, ever, will do X, then does X. And then tells you that you shouldn't be angry and stay partners with them.

Re:May I say

[TrancePhreak]

Don't forget to mention that Netscape started to kill itself! Bloated and buggy.

Re:May I say

[Anonymous Coward]

The same anti-competitive practices that allowed an IP stack in Windows 95. You did not see NetManage, FTP Software, Hummingbird, Distinct, and Frontier sue, even though it devastated their business.

My car comes with a integrated radio, with no ability to swap it out for a third party unit. Should the Alpines and Blaupunkts of the world sue? How far do you want to take this? Why not sue Microsoft because Windows comes with a File Explorer?

Re:May I say

[Provocateur]

No, that's German for, 'The Seamonkey, The.'
 
No one who speaks German could be an evil man.

Re:May I say

[lavalamp70]

I used Netscape from 2.0 until they dropped the email support, around 7.5 or so. Thought it was a great product, but must admit I'm glad I switched to FF...

Re:May I say

[Brian Gordon]

But the bandwidth you should never underestimate.

Re:May I say

[bitspotter]

To say nothing of the fact that Netscape is the direct ancestor of Mozilla Firefox. Some defeat; it's like open licensing makes the browser undead.

If you measure "defeat" as a business game, where the losers are liquidated or go bankrupt, sure. But business isn't a measure of success users often concern themselves with.

Re:May I say

[Anonymous Coward]

No true Slashdotter would pass up on the opportunity to Godwin the thread here.

Re:May I say

[quotationspage]

"A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures." --Ben Shneiderman

Re:May I say

[setagllib]

It's your decision if you buy a car that does not allow a substitute stereo. However, Microsoft specifically required its third-party vendors to sell only Microsoft operating systems and to bundle only Microsoft Windows on computers. So for a very long and critical time, the only way to buy a computer was to buy one with Windows already on it, and that's a huge part of how Microsoft got its market share. These "agreements" are fundamentally anticompetitive and illegal, and apparently a very good business strategy.

Re:May I say

[Filip22012005]

The bid for which brand car stereo your car manufacturer integrated was done at design-time. It (probably) wasn't an illegal practice.

Chrome 2

[mdf356]

'There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,' Mr. Andreessen said.

Yeah, I'd build a browser more like... Chrome. Which addressed this issue less than two years ago. Has the web changed a lot in two years?

What's the profit model for this startup? That's the most interesting question, to me.

Re:Chrome 2

[Clover_Kicker]

I imagine Marc Andreessen has enough change in his sofa cushions to keep a startup going for decades.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the profit model for this startup? That's the most interesting question, to me.

According to the various articles, RockMelt will attempt strong integration with social networking sites. So I would assume the profit model is mining users' privacy and selling advertising.

Re:Chrome 2

[CarpetShark]

I'm using Chrome right now, but it isn't "different" in any deep sense of the word; just slightly themed.

That said, I'll wait to see what this new browser is all about. I'd be very surprised if you can make a browser THAT differently, given that the underlying protocol/model won't change.

Re:Chrome 2

[RiotingPacifist]

I'm using Chrome right now, but it isn't "different" in any deep sense of the word; just slightly themed.

I'd be very surprised if you can make a browser THAT differently, given that the underlying protocol/model won't change.

Erm chrome/ie7 where leaps better than the other browsers in the sense that they completly changed the underlying process/thread/tab model. chrome isn't about its lightweight UI its about the changes under the hood!

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! I hate having to download all that spyware myself.

Re:Chrome 2

[EvanED]

..its about the changes under the hood!

Yet the user's experience is only little refined because of it.

I don't want to knock that; believe me, I have enough problems with Firefox on Linux because of the lack of separation between the tabs that I can't wait for when Chrome has a decent Linux build. From what it sounds that this guy wants to do, it sounds like he doesn't want behind the scenes changes, he wants to revamp the user experience. (Whether or not this browser will, or will in a good way, we'll have to wait to see.)

Re:Chrome 2

[Hurricane78]

Your mind is not able to think very far, is it? Like those Star Trek "aliens"*. Or "new and innovative" car models that look *freakin exactly* like the old ones, so you have to look twice to even see the difference!

It's so very common that I see people coming up with things that they call great innovative thinking, and I can show them multiple boxes and outdated philosophies that they still think inside of, on the spot.

Chrome is still showing HTML pages in tabs that you navigate trough with the virtual interface of links, a history to move through, etc, and a physical interface of the mouse and keyboard. In a window. With no new widgets, concepts, philosophies, or anything new of any kind. And we're not talking about two years. We're talking about time span since Mosaic 1.0 in 1993. Because other than the Addons or Firefox and Greasemonkey, pretty much nothing innovative in browsers has appeared or changed since then. (Maybe Flock was an approach. But it was a half-assed one, and failed because of that.)

___
* I really liked the show, but I hated what they called extraterrestrial, including the "explanation".

Re:Chrome 2

[tepples]

According to the various articles, RockMelt will attempt strong integration with social networking sites.

Then what advantage would it have vs. Firefox with extensions for each social networking site?

Re:Chrome 2

[CodeBuster]

Who are the people proposing this and do they not understand the "plug-in" concept as demonstrated in most browsers, but especially well in Firefox? Firefox offers such extensive addon customization that one wonders what more could possibly be done with a new browser rather than simply writing an addon? Why should strong social network integration be "built in" to the browser anyway? That is what addons are for. This sounds like the sort of idea that a business person, who had little or no knowledge of software engineering, would propose. What is surprising is that someone like Marc would fall for it. As for the investors in this startup, well, "the fools and their money will soon be parted company"; perhaps that is what Marc intends to do from the start, separate foolish investors from their money.

Re:Chrome 2

[maxume]

So how bout you drop some of that wisdom on us Merlin, instead of just fucking telling us we are stupid.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps your should look closer Marc *IS* and investor in this new startup.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

years?

What's the profit model for this startup? That's the most interesting question, to me.

See, that's why you and I aren't on yachts cruising the Caribbean.

I've been quite closely watching the careers of several people who made substantial fortunes in the first Internet boom. As far as I can tell, startups simply have to employ one of this small group of people in order to be sold a couple of years later for insane amounts of money.

I wish I was making this up, but I'm not.

Re:Chrome 2

[JSG]

So what exactly are you arguing about? Both you and the post you reply to are wittering on over an insubstantial piece of marketing puff. Why do you castigate a stranger over nothing? This is a discussion site, but there is nothing to discuss apart from the pointlessness of the posting of the original topic, unless you want to push the possible product. If you wish to talk history then fine but this isn't about history, it's a product - that isn't released yet - launch. Incidentally, my first browser was telnet.
This is the worst slashvert I personally recall seeing in a long time. Why don't we have a vote for the best one yet?

Re:Chrome 2

[gknoy]

Perhaps browsers, in their current incarnation, are very well suited to representing a web of hyperlinked documents in a way that humans can easily read and relate to. Are there any shortcomings (aside from lack of originality/innovation) that you can elaborate on?

Re:Chrome 2

[Atario]

Chrome is still showing HTML pages in tabs that you navigate trough with the virtual interface of links, a history to move through, etc, and a physical interface of the mouse and keyboard. In a window.

Ha! So true! Those hidebound sheep, still using HTML (instead of XIEJD), tabs (instead of buckets), links (instead of jellybeans), history (instead of triple-reverse history), a physical mouse/keyboard interface (instead of magnetic-induction frontal-cortex implants). In windows (instead of architectural glass blocks)! They really should get with the times.

Re:Chrome 2

[CarpetShark]

Like those Star Trek "aliens"*.

You mean... guys with a moustache aren't really Clingons?

Re:Chrome 2

[Enderandrew]

Exactly my thoughts.

Chrome has a fast JS engine. It separates plug-ins so they can't crash the browser. The interface doesn't get in your way. It sandboxes everything for security. It integrates Gears to use web apps offline.

What is this start-up going to do that Chrome doesn't do?

I haven't read the article, but if I was going with a start-up today, I'd build around Chromium to start, but port it to Qt to use one code-base on all platforms. With the per-process design, you could even call different versions of the rendering engine for different pages/sites, which would be useful for compatibility, and for web design. I'd automatically sync the browser profile online so you have the same settings anywhere you sit down, unless you want to opt-out for privacy concerns. I'd work on a notification system like this: http://blog.abi.sh/2009/silent-diving-seagulls/ I'd jump all over HTML 5, and I'd form strategic partnerships to pre-bundle certain web-apps into the browser for revenue.

Re:Chrome 2

[maxume]

My library still uses paper books. The fools!

Re:Chrome 2

[Enderandrew]

Flock already integrates with social networking sites. IE8 does this as well.

I think you're correct that the point of RockMelt is to monetize this.

Re:Chrome 2

[Enderandrew]

Chrome is EXTREMELY different from other browsers.

Everything is a separate process, including plugins. Each process is placed in a sandbox to protect your security and privacy. One tab, or even one plugin in that tab shouldn't be able to crash your whole browser, nor compromise the security of your PC.

The V8 JS engine is also refreshingly different. Do yourself a favor and read this:

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

Re:Chrome 2

[digitig]

Thing is, any new thinking needs to be based on the tasks that users actually want to accomplish. The reason I use Firefox is because of the addins -- specifically Zotero, which I use daily. This new browser can rethink the concept as much as it likes; if it doesn't give me a means of citation management for free that is at least as good as I can get under Firefox (including integration with a word processing package at least as good as OpenOffice.org), I'm not interested. And I suspect that citation management is not high on the list of priorities when designing a web browser. The next user over might have an equally esoteric addon that they absolutely need. So I think RockMelt has an incredibly hard task -- any good ideas they come up with are likely to end up in Firefox soon after (with enough variation to get around UI patents), and we'll be able to use them without losing all the other stuff we need.

Re:Chrome 2

[argent]

Don't worry, Google can feed you all the spyware they want completely painlessly via Google Updater when you install Chrome.

Re:Chrome 2

[CodeBuster]

The sharks always eat the minnows. I doubt that he will lose any of his own money if...when...the venture goes under. It wouldn't be the first time that a small boutique IT firm was setup for little apparent reason other than to extract the initial equity put in by less savvy junior partners or investors.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

He's saying the Chrome interface is nothing innovative. It's an accurate observation. Just because he made the observation doesn't mean he's supposed to have answers on how to innovate a browser interface.

Re:Chrome 2

[cowscows]

Chrome is still doing all those things, because those things are pretty intrinsic to what a web browser does. That's not to say that there aren't cool new ways out there that we might want to access the internet, but if you make a web browser that does none of those things that Chrome does, well then you haven't really made a web browser.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, did you ever fail it hard.

On a scale of one to pwned, I'd say you scored "Grandma just found your collection of erotic furry fanfics, and she's not mad... she's intrigued."

Re:Chrome 2

[lena_10326]

Brainstorming a little bit... some advantages could be:

• Creating a distinct unambiguous brand name. It's harder to do that if you're piggy backing on Firefox which has it's own brand name.
• Andreessen's position in the industry brings notability so it'll be newsworthy (news articles = free advertising). His expertise is with browsers, so I imagine leveraging his name is more congruent with a new browser rather than a new browser plugin.
• They believe a plugin is a harder sell because there could be less perceived value in a product that sports conceptual features described in the language of business-speak. Language such as social networking, advertisement engine, productivity tools, website integration, bridge software, blah blah blah; as opposed to Flash which has concrete, visible animation features. Everyone knows what a browser is, so it's conceptually more concrete. It has an installation program, desktop icon, application window, and title bar.
• Maybe they feel the concept of "browser" is a hot topic at the moment (due to Firefox and Chrome) and they want to ride the wave. "plugin" isn't so desirable anymore because it recalls the legacy of the 1990's: implying old, "been there, done that", ho-hum, ancient.
• Maybe they feel owning their own browser platform lends more technical credibility over owning a browser plugin because the technical challenge is greater. Technical credibility could translate to bu$ine$$ credibility.
• Maybe they want control of proprietary source code, so it'll obfuscate the plan to spam the hell out---err, I mean--provide useful related links to web queries.
• Maybe they want full control of the browser in order to make good on business partner contracts. It's harder to make those guarantees when disinterested 3rd party plugins can disable or intercept your plugin with very little effort.
• Maybe they want control of the installation base in order to directly sell plugin access or communication channels--as opposed to rev sharing with 3rd parties (such as google).
• Maybe they plan to build and sell in order to be accumulated by another business. They'll need a flagship product and user database to do that.

Re:Chrome 2

[the pickle]

So RockMelt is a commercial Flock.

Yeah, ask Flock how that's working out for them. Better yet, ask a neutral third party how that's working out for Flock. I don't think there's any future in RockMelt if "social networking" is their browser business model.

p

Re:Chrome 2

[Ifni]

"Klingons is spelled with a 'k', not a 'c'. Clingons, with a 'c', are simply something that should never leave the restroom, but unfortunately sometimes do. Popular humor posits that they do orbit your anus, pronounced similarly to Uranus, so I can see how you might have made that mistake. However, you still must turn in your geek card at the door.

Re:Chrome 2

[kamatsu]

The porting to Qt isn't really necessary, recent versions of chrome have heavily abstracted the UI so switching to a different platform is a matter of changing a compile flag.

Re:Chrome 2

[CarpetShark]

Yeah, I knew that looked wrong when I typed it :) Was late, is all.

Re:Chrome 2

[CarpetShark]

One tab, or even one plugin in that tab shouldn't be able to crash your whole browser

Theories are nice, but Chrome hangs for me (and then gets killed, which is as good as a crash) more than any other browser.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Chrome has still major problems, like using terribly lots of memory when you have several open tabs.

Re:Chrome 2

[ivucica]

You forgot step ????.

Re:Chrome 2

[maxume]

Okay, but his manner of conveying that observation is ridiculous.

Re:Chrome 2

[Scroatzilla]

I can't imagine why this was modded insightful. It seems like the typical "if you know what you're doing, you can achieve anything you want already." This doesn't take into account the growing audience of people who view the Web as an entertainment medium.

It's pretty clear the Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Ubiquity, and technologies like RSS, are centered around content aggregation, and that content is the most important thing. Taken individually, these things are relatively simple to understand. But the fact is that they each require their own learning curve-- and my (admittedly cursory) experience with plug-ins points to a very primitive set of underwhelming individual applications.

I did RTFA and, of course, there is zero detail about this thing. But I see stuff like ning.com, which Andreesen had a large hand in creating, and I believe that there is probably some pretty hefty creative thinking going on. I can only guess that the idea of content aggregation, if built properly into a browser, would be pretty huge.

I definitely concede that without all of the information, it is the typical Slashdot ???? profit model. But business can ruin any idea, no matter how good. The question is, what comes before the unpredictable ???? part of this RockMelt idea? IMHO, if content aggregation is built into a browser properly, in a way that the average Web user can understand, this could be pretty kick ass.

On a tangential note, I just recently rediscovered "iGoogle" and thought, "Why am I not using this more?" After a few days, though, I remembered why: It's just an overwhelmingly clumsy content aggregation web page. I spent lots of time trying to figure how to best layout the content, but it is still too burdensome to be useful.

Re:Chrome 2

[Jessta]

Probably the same profit model that firefox has.
Controlling the window to the web is a very powerful thing.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is still showing HTML pages in tabs that you navigate trough with the virtual interface of links, a history to move through, etc, and a physical interface of the mouse and keyboard. In a window. With no new widgets, concepts, philosophies, or anything new of any kind. And we're not talking about two years. We're talking about time span since Mosaic 1.0 in 1993. Because other than the Addons or Firefox and Greasemonkey, pretty much nothing innovative in browsers has appeared or changed since then.

You wouldn't recognize innovation if it bit you on the ass. You're probably also one of the people who complain that GUIs are all the same (still based on windows and buttons and clicking and dragging and files and folders and desktops) because software developers aren't visionary enough. There's a lot of room for innovation within that broad framework. People have tried throwing out those ideas, and so far none of their replacements have been as good. But I'm guessing you haven't actually tried doing that; you're just whining. You'll never accomplish anything until you fix your attitude.

Re:Chrome 2

[Anonymous Coward]

a word processing package at least as good as OpenOffice.org

You mean notepad.exe?

You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[neonprimetime]

... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Andreessen...

Marc: My name... is RockMelt!

Re:You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was funny

Re:You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could give you +1 FTW

Re:You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Undoubtedly the new browser's name will be "Lava".

Re:You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[Billy the Mountain]

Yep and it will feature a new scripting language called LavaScript.

Re:You hear that Mr. Andreessen?

[Anonymous Coward]

AH, so business as usual then, melting your CPU and frying braincells.

The web site appears to have melted

[JSG]

The Rockmelt website isn't too interesting. It's a bit presumptuous to assume it will get a /.ing. Perhaps it is suffering from the Marketing Dept assuming people will come back later in the hope of revelation, rather than them saying "ooh nice logo" and then instantly forgetting about them and moving along.

Re:The web site appears to have melted

[JSG]

Bad juju replying to my own post but this is just a product placement ad. There is no substance whatsoever about what is actually different with this browser. There are no details either in either of the links. Surely money changed hands to put this drivel on /.

Re:The web site appears to have melted

[bertoelcon]

Given your UID I would hope you have heard of these, they are called "slashvertisements".

Re:The web site appears to have melted

[JSG]

Yep, but I normally avoid them. Incidentally I was a lurker for a good two years before I signed up. The thing that gets me is why on earth do people bother posting on them and not move on? In the good old days my karma would be in tatters by now given the amount of crap I've posted in my name all over this thing. Being off topic doesn't seem quite so scary as it once was.

I don't mind obvious ads but this shite really gets on my tits. If people swore enough and posted enough garbage on this topic then the search engine listings should look quite amusing.

Anyone got any better ideas on how to stop and kill off the slashverts?

Re:The web site appears to have melted

[Wikipedia]

true dat, andreesen was like bill gates, he stole other peoples ideas, used their labor, and didn't credit them.

Chrome 0

[argent]

I'd build a browser more like... Chrome.

I wouldn't. I'd dump most of the custom GUI features in Chrome and Firefox, and quit screwing around with the stuff around the browser window. It's the stuff inside the browser window that you actually care about, not whether the icons are grey metal or jello blue.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean completely useless and pointless things around the content like favorite & history menus and tabs too, right? I wish people would quit wasting time coming up with that nonsense and get back to the 'stuff inside the browser window'...

I'll even go back to your themes point and argue that. As hard as it is for the common /.er to process, we are humans and not machines. People love their colors and themes. When my mom, grandmother, uncle and other aunt got a new computer, I got the inevitable "you work with computers, right" call and every single last one of them had in their top 5 "how to" questions: Can't I change the picture behind my icon thingies? How do I do that?

Never underestimate the human desire to want to make their world their own. Even when they know they aren't.

Re:Chrome 0

[Korin43]

I doubt anyone that uses Chrome cares about how it looks. The reason I use it is because it's as fast as Firefox 1.0 was. Now that Firefox 3.5 takes 30 seconds to start and crashes constantly (on Linux at least), I'd rather use a browser that's fast and stable (and yes, Chrome on Linux is still pre-alpha and it's more stable than Firefox).

Re:Chrome 0

[nschubach]

Maybe you should try Iceweasel...(though I thought they had the same code base) mine starts in about 3 seconds, and never once has it crashed.

Re:Chrome 0

[AceofSpades19]

I doubt anyone that uses Chrome cares about how it looks. The reason I use it is because it's as fast as Firefox 1.0 was. Now that Firefox 3.5 takes 30 seconds to start and crashes constantly (on Linux at least), I'd rather use a browser that's fast and stable (and yes, Chrome on Linux is still pre-alpha and it's more stable than Firefox).

Really? On my rig running slackware 12.1, firefox 3.5 starts almost instantly and crashes very rarely

Re:Chrome 0

[Runaway1956]

You work with computers, right? How do I set up my machine to display not "color", per se, but to be more visible for the "color blind". See, I fail all color vision tests - can't see red or green. I don't CARE about the colors so much, as I just want important stuff to be sharp and clear. (Why on earth does everyone use red to color "important shitzls", when red just fades into the backgroud? Use a nice electric blue - make it flash - THAT will get my attention!!)

Alright, maybe I'm just mocking "normal" people. Whatever. But, it's fair to point out that eye candy isn't a priority with everyone. ;-)

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to check the stability of your distribution; also you might want to mention what the distro actually is rather than using the generic "on Linux at least" as it makes you sound like Microsoft trying to spread more FUD about Linux in general. I'm using Fedora 11 and Firefox 3.5 starts in about 10-15 sec and very, very rarely crashes.

Re:Chrome 0

[Runaway1956]

FF 3.5 doesn't take half a minute to start, OR crash for me. Either on Ubuntu, or on Windows. Limiting the number of add-ons helps is most important - if you are asking Firefox to perform eleventy-hundred tasks for you at startup, yes it's going to take awhile to load.

Stripped down, and with the browser tweaked for my purposes, FF3.5 doesn't really seem to be any slower than FF .5 through FF 1.0 was.

If it's crashing all the time for you, maybe you need to reinstall not only FF, but Flash, Java, and any other plugins that you rely on. I just don't think you're being terribly fair to FF - there are a number of forums offering support for FF as well as it's plugins, addons, and what-not.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

Not just colors. Work with a netbook and you'll learn to value minimized themes with tiny buttons and the ability to cram two toolbars in next to the menu bar. Netbooks put vertical real estate at a premium and anything that helps me reduce the browser chrome's vertical footprint dramatically improves the browser's usefulness (from "useless" to "almost decent").

Likewise, OSes that natively support theming (ur a UXTheme-hacked Windows) are a very good thing because every vertical pixel I can shave off the window decoration and widgets can mean the difference between a working app and one where the important buttons are offscreen. Interface customizability is very important right now.

Re:Chrome 0

[bigdavex]

You mean completely useless and pointless things around the content like favorite & history menus and tabs too, right?

I personally think a UI for these things in any way different than a web page of links is silly. If we can come up with a better way of navigating links to web pages, then the rest of the web should work that way, too.

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

You mean completely useless and pointless things around the content like favorite & history menus and tabs too, right?

No, I mean like the "awesome bar" and XUL and Google Toolbars and putting the tabs in weird places.

I use Camino in preference to Firefox or Chrome or Safari on OS X, because it's just got conventional native OS widgets and menus, and runs faster with less overhead than any of the "big names".

People love their colors and themes.

Themes, yes. Skinnable applications, no. The place for color and theme management is in the window system and GUI framework, so that when I select a different theme all my applications change to match. In fact it's the skinnable applications, the ones that DON'T just use native OS widgets, that need to be individually customized and themed using that application's unique and gratuitously incompatible skinning technology.

Like makali says: Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.

I too am fully in support of this proposed audio-cock technology.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

Actually, Chrome's design was to eliminate most of the clutter so you focus on the inside of the window. Why have an address bar and a search bar? While have the tabs and window buttons on separate vertical lines?

IE's method was to remove the menu bar, which I don't like. But removing clutter is definitely the way to go.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

The Mozilla devs seem to give the Linux version of Firefox very little love. I've been secretly hoping for a Qt version of Firefox for ages, which supposedly Nokia was working on. They said they did the bulk of the port in a month, but then it never seemed to finish/surface. But now there are browsers like rekonq and Arora which are very small, and extremely fast. Rekonq is eventually moving to a per-process design like Chrome, and integrates well with KDE.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

Iceweasel is an unofficial build of Firefox with some patches. In reality, I think every major distro includes a few non-upstream patches in their Firefox builds. Mozilla only allows "official" builds to be branded as Firefox. They seemed to ignore the patching other distros did, but at one point the Debian crowd got into an argument with the Mozilla crowd, and now Debian/Ubuntu can't brand their builds as Firefox.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

The base GUI of Chrome is pretty much the absolute basic features a browser needs, any browser.
And by needs, i mean needs in this day and age, not just for browsing the net, good luck pitching a window with nothing but a window.

Themes, yes, they are eye-candy, but let the "shiny" lovers have their colors and funky icons, it causes no harm at all.
If anything, i'd rather have the ability to shrink the interface like i done in Firefox. (which is now much smaller than Chromes interface now)

The one thing i would really love to see is more integration between websites and the browser, in the sense that a website has some sort of influence on a browsers interface.
Yes, i know this sounds like one crazy security nightmare, but handled correctly, it would save up space on webpages that are increasing in complexity every day.
One idea i had was to allow a website to create an icon and/or menu on the toolbar. (3 max, 15 characters max per top-level text menu)
This seems more logical: having a websites navigation, options and any other 3rd form of interaction ON the actual browser itself.
There are already some navigational features that can be placed on to the browser, such as browsing to the last and next page (NOT back and forward), or one folder up, but nobody seems to care about that besides Opera. (as far as i know)

But considering how people have been trained in to browsing sites within the page rather than using the actual browser, most people would probably be confused...
It's not as if it will waste space, just look at that huge ass address bar, most people don't give a shit about 90% of the address most of the time. (which is kind of what Chrome tried to highlight, literally, via highlighting everything after the protocol and before the directories)
And 3 menus of 15 characters of text isn't exactly going to take much space off of it either.

Hopefully browsers will take control of navigation again. And maybe then we will have more webmasters making their websites conform to a better standard of navigation in general, the mish-mash of horrible navigation on sites gives me a headache even thinking about it. (don't even get me started on Gamespot...)

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

It's entirely possible your standards aren't normative. Just sayin'

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

OK, I'm looking at Google Chrome next to Safari next to Camino. I have to look at a picture of Chrome because it doesn't run on the Mac.

They all have the same number of horizontal rows of elements. The biggest difference between them is that the ones in Chrome take up more vertical space than the ones in Safari and Camino. I have the option in Safari and Comino of displying a bookmark bar, but I've turned that off.

You can merge the address and search boxes into one box without creating a custom GUI that doesn't look or work like anything else in the computer.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "having the tabs and window buttons on separate vertical lines". The tab layout is pretty much the same for both.

What I see in Chrome is a window with just about the same number of visual elements, and slightly more complex controls. It's hardly revolutionary, it's just chrome for chrome's sake. Well named, that.

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

Themes, yes, they are eye-candy, but let the "shiny" lovers have their colors and funky icons, it causes no harm at all.

It adds overhead and complexity, the enemy of reliability and performance.

I'll let jwz explain it.

There are already some navigational features that can be placed on to the browser, such as browsing to the last and next page (NOT back and forward), or one folder up, but nobody seems to care about that besides Opera. (as far as i know)

That's PRECISELY what I mean by paying attention to what's inside the browser window.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

Well, if you add in the time it takes the auto-updater to download and install five extensions you might approach thirty seconds between "clicked the icon" and "ready to use". Firefox 1.0 didn't have that delay... because it didn't have an auto-updater, if I remember correctly.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

When you same the same number of horizontal rows of elements, are you counting the Mac application menu bar at the top or not?

I only use Linux and Windows. I'm on a Windows box at work right now. I just pulled up a Chrome 3, IE7, and Firefox 3.6a window side-by-side on Windows. Chrome uses half the vertical space on Windows as the other two browsers. IE7 uses slightly more than Firefox 3.6a.

Chrome has the fewest amount of buttons. I also like that the default "home" page isn't a traditional page, but rather thumbnails of the pages you go to most frequently. I don't even have to bother typing in my favorite sites, or going to a bookmark/favorite menu.

With the fewest buttons, how are the controls more complex?

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

I also just pulled up Safari on Windows, and it uses the same number of elements as Firefox, and almost an identical UI.

You have the menu-bar.

Below that you have navigation links next to the address bar, and then the search bar. Below that is the bookmark menu (which I almost always turn off).

Safari uses smaller icons than Firefox by default, but Firefox makes it easier to install a theme with smaller icons.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you are:

http://www.uzbl.org/

It's webkit...and that's about all, out of the box. Enjoy.

Re:Chrome 0

[Darkness404]

I think you might want the high contrast inverse theme on GNOME. Not sure if the colors are right (not being color-blind myself) but it has good contrast.

Re:Chrome 0

[Actually, I do RTFA]

You mean completely useless and pointless things around the content like favorite & history menus and tabs too, right?

No, it should have this basic features of browsers. The ones I've used for the better part of a decade.

However, since then, more crap has been spent on making it pretty. And unique. I don't want unique/clever. I want it to work the way every other window in my OS does, by looking like the OS's windows (note, I'm not running Linux). That's what they're wating their time on.

People love their colors and themes.

Not color-blind people. Nor me for that matter. I think I still have the default look to every desktop I've ever seen (with the exception of when I'm learning about a new OS and want to learn how.)

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

The difference in the number of buttons is, let's see... you have no home button, but you always have a tab bar, even if there's only one tab, even score there. You have refresh, back, forward, stop, address, and what... new page, configure? I have refresh, back, forward, address, and search. Oh, I suppose you've replaced the menu bar with those two extra buttons, so let's see, why, even including the menu bar, we have the same number of controls. And of course on a Mac I don't count the menu bar because it's always there... on Linux, I recall, there's a global menu on both Gnome and KDE taking up space, so no savings there. On Windows, the task bar. Honors are even.

With the fewest buttons, how are the controls more complex?

The simplest controls are those where the number of controls matches the number of operations. Every time you overload controls you add something the user has to remember. It's like Apple and the one-button mouse... with a single button for select and menu, they had to abandon pop-up menus and invent the menu bar, and double-clicking to both select and operate on an object. How do you distinguish between a URL and a search string in Chrome? I don't know, but I'll bet you have some kind of rule, something to remember.

I also like that the default "home" page isn't a traditional page, but rather thumbnails of the pages you go to most frequently.

Safari does that. I turned it off. My default page is a blank page. When I open a browser window I know where I'm going, I don't want to go somewhere else first, not even to Google.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Red wouldn't fade into the background if you could see it. Red is such a frightening color because it's the color of blood, so every time you see it, it looks like something's bleeding a little. It's horrifying really. Be glad you can't see it.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

The difference in the number of buttons is, let's see... you have no home button, but you always have a tab bar, even if there's only one tab, even score there.

The tab bar inhabits the space that the window decoration normally inhabits. This is effectively free space. This is actually a major gain over Safari, IE and Firefox.

Safari had 6 buttons at one time, but it is down to three buttons on the main bar. Chrome has 6.

However, Safari has a search bar, and a menu bar.

The only reason Chrome can't eliminate more buttons is that the menu bar is gone. The two buttons way on the far right won't be used that often, so they are buried on the right where they don't get in the way.

What you end up seeing on the left are back, forward, refresh, and bookmark.

You're saying that is needlessly complex?

That is as simple as the design can get. Again, let's review. Chrome moves the tab bar to save room, which is a win over Safari. Chrome ditches the needless Search bar. This isn't just space saved. The Awesomebar in Chrome is far better than the auto-suggest features in Firefox and Safari. Chrome has a whopping one more button on the left than Safari, but they have no menu bar. Overall, Chrome is much simpler than Safari.

And, you can configure a window of Chrome to open up with an even simpler interface is you basically just want to see whats inside the window.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

I find KDE 3 to be my desktop of choice on netbooks because I have so much control over every theming aspect. I can get great functionality with pixel real estate being a premium.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Same (F11, FF3.5.2) here. It starts in about 2-3 seconds (or less, I've had it start instantly), and I haven't had a crash yet.

Of course, I've got 4G of ram and dual T9400s.

On the same note, I keep trying to run the 3.x alpha of Iron (which is Chrome minus the bits that phone home and the google logo), and I've never been able to successfully load a page and browse it. U-u-unstable! Of course, I keep it around and update it, just because it's such a great windows program.

On my XP machine at the office, FF 3.5 will routinely take (I've timed it) about 5-7 mins to start, and that was before I put noscript/adblock/ietab on it. Iron takes 8 seconds.

Re:Chrome 0

[andre_pl]

they can't?
I've been running ubuntu since edgy and its always come with "Mozilla Firefox" as the default browser.

Re:Chrome 0

[andre_pl]

I half agree. Firefox is not as fast as it used to be, and it doesn't seem to be getting better. I've been using ubuntu and its default firefox for as long as I can remember and i've yet to see much of a performance increase from it in each revision.

I have a (strange?) habit of reading pages by selecting the text as I go, so I hold my cursor at the bottom of the window and it sort of slowly scrolls and highlights each line as I read it. on any moderately long page, this uses 100% CPU and stutters like crazy. WHY?

on many other sites I have a very hard time selecting text at all, its just so unresponsive that it takes three or four tries just to make sure its selecting the right area. if I try to drag the selected text somewhere, and release the mouse button the text slowly slowly floats back to the original place on the page, all the while using 100% CPU.

Re:Chrome 0

[icebraining]

Yes, but it doesn't have Debian's patches, it's pure Firefox.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

UZBL

Re:Chrome 0

[Stewie241]

Though, when you think about that, it seems rather silly to do that before you start. Chances are it isn't going to be critical to install those updates before the browser starts. So why not go and check for updates when the browser/computer is sitting idle rather than going to look for them while I wait? Check for updates when I'm not going to notice, and ask if I want to install them when I shut down the browser.

This is actually one thing that Microsoft gets at least partly right. Downloading updates in the background and asking if I want to update before I shut down the computer is smart. I'm not using the computer, so I don't have to wait for it, and it shuts off when it is finished.

Re:Chrome 0

[Bigjeff5]

The difference in the number of buttons is, let's see... you have no home button, but you always have a tab bar, even if there's only one tab, even score there.

You should try maximizing Chrome, especially if you want the most viewable web space. Tabs move up to the title bar, and out of their own tab bar then, eliminating a row. Home can be added back also, if you want it. I personally like it, because the default chrome home page (which can be changed) keeps track of what pages I go to most, so I don't have to configure anything - Chrome already knows where I want to go, and since you have to open the web page anyway, why not save a step?

The new Safari layout is apparently almost exactly like Chrome's, but their design has a few flaws Chrome's doesn't.

And of course on a Mac I don't count the menu bar because it's always there... on Linux, I recall, there's a global menu on both Gnome and KDE taking up space, so no savings there. On Windows, the task bar. Honors are even.

The menu bar on a Mac is always there, why the hell wouldn't you count it? The taskbar in windows can auto-hide, and the menu bar in Gnome at least (and I'm pretty sure KDE too) can be truncated to a little bar that floats on top allowing the window to be maximised to the entire screen real-estate, or slid to a button on the right or left side of the screen, again allowing the windows to use the entire screen.

In chrome also the page options as well as the file menu is incorporated into a button to the right of the address bar. With the incorporated address/search (which works flawlessly, unlike the IE version I've used) saving space, the two buttons for page options and file menu are very unobtrusive, usefull, and save space. Score one for Chrome.

ALSO, Chrome eliminated the status bar, instead showing a small translucent popup at the bottom whenever status information - like where links are pointing or page load progress. It disappears when there is nothing to display. The new Safari eliminates the status bar by showing page load progress in the address bar, but it does not display links. This is rather important given the number of phishing scams out there. No points for Safari if the space savings comes at the cost of functionality. Score one from Chrome.

So the score is so far Chrome - 3, FF/Opera (can you get safari in linux?) on Linux - 1, Safari on Mac - 0 (1 for the new version, they move tabs to the title bar like Chrome).

Score doesn't look too even to me. Also, I'm not sure if this is a bug or not so I won't count it, but on my friends Mac, windows won't maximise all the way to the bottom of the screen if you've used the little pop-up menu bar.

How do you distinguish between a URL and a search string in Chrome? I don't know, but I'll bet you have some kind of rule, something to remember.

Yeah, there is a rule, it's incredibly complicated. It works like this:
If I want to go to a URL, say www.somesite.com, then in the address bar I type: http://www.somesite.com/ or even just www.somesite.com.

If I want to search for Harry Potter showtimes near Phillidelphia, then in the address bar I type: Harry Potter showtimes near Phillidelphia

Wow, that's hard. I mean, obscenely hard. Most people won't get it in fact. I can understand why you'd be afraid of something so complicated. Go ahead and stick with your cluttered UI, extra menus that you may actually use once in a blue moon, and keep lying to yourself that it's somehow easier to use because you've got more buttons.

The only time, the ONLY time, when a separate search bar would be slightly better than a combined search bar, is when you want to do a search on a URL. In that case, you have to do something like Search Google www.somewebsite.com. But it's hardly complicated, and the advantages are well worth the small learning curve.

If I sound like a fanboy, well, maybe I

Re:Chrome 0

[amRadioHed]

The renaming of Firefox by Debian had nothing to do with patches they added. I'm pretty sure it was all about a license incompatibility for the Firefox artwork.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

So disable the auto updater and quit your bitching.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash google never even build a browser. It borrowed webkit and slapped their logo on it.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

If the intent was to make money with this browser you'd be a poor man.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, there are also people who cannot see blue, so making red things blue would just move the problem to other people.

Re:Chrome 0

[maxwell demon]

However, there are no people (except for the blind ones, of course) who are unable to see the difference between bright and dark. So the solution should be simple: Make the user interface work well with monochrome, and only add color as additional hints.

Re:Chrome 0

[logixoul]

I doubt anyone that uses Chrome cares about how it looks.

Speak for yourself. I dig Chrome's speed as much as the next guy, but if it wasn't for the incredibly good UI, I might not have switched...

Re:Chrome 0

[Haeleth]

Work with a netbook and you'll learn to value minimized themes with tiny buttons and the ability to cram two toolbars in next to the menu bar.

Actually, I work with a netbook and I still tend rather to value text I can read and buttons that are big enough to hit.

Titlebar + menubar + address bar + tab bar + status bar still leaves 480 vertical pixels, which should be enough for anyone.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

This does not mean we should give these features to them though.

Just look at all the god awful themes that people use. There are only a handful of truly good themes out there.

Build in one or 2 good themes, and get back to work on features that are actually important and improve the usefulness of your app/OS.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

I'm not bitching. I think that the auto-updater is implemented the right way and good to have. I merely show how, in theory, Firefox can take half a minute to start up if there's been a slew of updated addons.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

That's a bit problematic, actually. Most users start Firefox when they boot up the computer and close it when they want to shut down the computer. Delaying shutdown is worse than delaying startup (especially when you NEED the computer off at a certain time). Windows already does that too much for my taste (at least until I tell it not to download updates without my permission).

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

I can hit 12x12 toolbar buttons and I prefer text I can read without having to scroll every other second. 480 usable vertical pixels is quite bad. (Then again, the 1024x600 offered by the netbook in question are ridiculous by themselves.)

Re:Chrome 0

[tbuskey]

How about a theme for red-green color blindness? It affects something like 15% of the male population.

I have it. I can't tell the difference when a two color LED used on computer equipment is red or green. As a sysadmin, it's sometimes a problem.

Re:Chrome 0

[Hal_Porter]

Chrome has the fewest amount of buttons. I also like that the default "home" page isn't a traditional page, but rather thumbnails of the pages you go to most frequently. I don't even have to bother typing in my favorite sites, or going to a bookmark/favorite menu.

Hey Opera has had this for ages. It's called Speed Dial.

Oh never mind...

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use Firefox then try to press F11 now.

Re:Chrome 0

[Guspaz]

You seem to have missed the point of Chrome then... The browser was designed by the logic you espouse. They felt that the GUI should get out of the way as much as possible since the contents of the browser window were the important stuff. That's why Chrome has such a minimalist and simple interface compared to the rest.

Unless you want to just have a square with no UI controls whatsoever, Chrome is about as close as you can get.

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

You should try maximizing Chrome, especially if you want the most viewable web space.

I never maximize any of my other browsers, why should I maximize Chrome? The only place I've ever found miself working in maximized windows is Windows, because the crappy window manager makes it pretty much unavoidable.

If I want Windows crappy window manager, I know where to get it.

Well I'm telling you, it is, especially if you are into minimalist design and function over form.

Function over form doesn't imply minimalist design. Sometimes it means following the same style guides as the rest of the UI. One thing I don't miss from X Windows was having every damn program using its own conventions and controls.

If I want Linux crappy UI frameworks, I know where to get them.

I think the only reason you think Safari is better

Safari isn't my favorite browser by any means. I happen to use it on occasion, I use Firefox and Camino as well. They all use the same controls, behave the same way.

And I don't *care* whether the search bar is merged with the address bar or not. I can take the search bar out on any Mac browser with one drag operation, and search on the address bar using some tweak or another... in most browsers just making sure the address is sufficiently unlike a URL does it. I don't bother. Saving that much horizontal space doesn't buy me anything.

Chrome is all about forcing one particular set of UI decisions on the users, and breaking look-and-feel consistency with the rest of the OS. That doesn't matter on Linux (look and feel consistency? what's that?) or Windows (Microsoft breaks the UI design with every release anyway), and if I want that kind of environment, I know where to get it. I'm not going to bring it here.

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

Minimalist UIs don't get out of the way, they get in the way, they scream "look at me, I'm minimalist, I don't work like any other program on my computer".

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

The tab bar inhabits the space that the window decoration normally inhabits.

Not in the picture on Google's page it doesn't. Oh, I guess it does if you maximize it. I don't do that, so I don't get any benefits from Chrome. Next?

Safari had 6 buttons at one time, but it is down to three buttons on the main bar.

Merging two buttons into one widget with two active areas isn't "removing a button".

That is as simple as the design can get.

Oversimplifying the UI doesn't necessarily simplify the user experience. Even Apple has given up on the one button mouse, for example.

Re:Chrome 0

[Korin43]

I'm not trying to attack Linux. Other browsers work perfectly fine. I frequently use the dev release of chrome and Epiphany (I think this is Gnome's browser) and they work great. The problem is that Firefox for Linux is nowhere near the quality that Firefox for Windows is. And I'm using Ubuntu.

Re:Chrome 0

[amRadioHed]

Newsflash, webkit isn't a brower.

Re:Chrome 0

[Enderandrew]

I don't do that, so I don't get any benefits from Chrome.

Except Chrome's UI is more than just saving vertical space there. There are still tons of benefits, such as having the only auto-complete that doesn't suck, removing the search bar, tearing tab handles into new windows, etc. That is just UI benefits. That is still ignoring sandboxing, integrated Gears, HTML 5 support, V8, etc.

Oversimplifying the UI doesn't necessarily simplify the user experience.

You're the one who was adamant that Chrome's UI is crazy and overtly complex. It is the simplest UI out there. I'm still waiting for an explanation of how it is complex. You've yet to provide an explanation.

Conversely, I've explained reasons why Chrome is simpler. The lack of a menu bar is not only less clutter, it is part of the design of Chrome. The browser gets out of the way and lets the web take center stage.

Tearing off tabs into seperate windows is extremely easy and intuitive. It simply makes sense for them to be on top. Pop-ups don't exist in Chrome. A page that tries to call a pop-up has the element trapped within that page, but it can be dragged out if you want it. The start page apparently steals a page from Opera's speed dial.

I'm going out of a limb here, but I get the impression you haven't actually used Chrome much. nor read the comic I linked. You shouldn't repeatedly voice opinions on a subject you seem to know so little about.

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

There are still tons of benefits, such as having the only auto-complete that doesn't suck, removing the search bar, tearing tab handles into new windows, etc.

Removing the search bar is just saving space, and I can do that on Safari, Firefox, or Camino.

Tearing tab handles into new windows is old hat on Safari.

I get the impression you haven't actually used Chrome much.

Of course I haven't you goon, I'm a Mac user. Sheesh.

One of the reasons I'm a Mac user is I don't have to fuck with every goddamn program inventing its own stupid "improved" UI.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

Apart from the fact that pressing F11 now would only show me the desktop (wrong computer), full-screen mode still doesn't quite maximize the available space (full-screen mode plus rearranged toolbars would do that). Plus, I think that window managers are a nice thing to have and intend to use mine. Having to juggle some apps that have regular windows and some that take the full screen is unneccessary hassle.

Re:Chrome 0

[Anonymous Coward]

> > I'd build a browser more like... Chrome.

> I wouldn't. I'd dump most of the custom GUI features in Chrome and Firefox...

If you think the bulk of Chrome's innovation was in custom GUI features, you're just not paying attention. Compared to Firefox (especially comparing the two at Chrome's initial release), Chrome has a much faster JavaScript engine and layout performance, better security, better failure isolation, faster network use (things like DNS prefetching), etc. It's substance, not style, but obviously there has to be some stylistic change or people like you who glance at a screenshot and make a decision wouldn't know anything is different.

Re:Chrome 0

[setagllib]

What have you done to your Firefox to make full screen mode use anything less than the full screen? In mine all bars are hidden until the mouse cursor reaches the edge of the screen. Almost every modern graphical open source application has a full screen mode, with the notable exception of Eclipse (based on SWT, having no portable way of making a true full screen window).

Re:Chrome 0

[argent]

If you think the bulk of Chrome's innovation was in custom GUI features, you're just not paying attention.

That's what makes Chrome distinctive, that's what makes chrome chrome. Just about everything inside Chrome was already available in other browsers, like Opera or Safari... I'm pretty sure there was even already a webkit-based browser with separate processes for each tab, on the Mac at least.

But if I could get that stuff without the mandatory stupid skin and UI screwups, I'd probably be interested in trying it when it gets to the Mac, but I won't be able to, because that's the sizzle that Google thinks they have to put in there to sell the steak.

Re:Chrome 0

[Jesus_666]

Ah. I haven't recently (read: For the last couple major releases) used Firefox's fullscreen mode, mainly because I'm primarily a Mac user and Firefox apparently doesn't have a portable way of making a full screen window, either - Firefox/Mac doesn't have fullscreen functionality. Then again, in the Mac world it's uncommon to even maximize a window, so it's not exactly missed.

Re:Chrome 0

[nitroscen]

So.. when he sees blood.. it's colorless!?! :)

Re:Chrome 0

[MilesAttacca]

Funny, that's the reason I use Opera. Including on Linux.

Silly Mr Andreessen

[Galestar]

You have a problem with authority, Mr. Andreessen. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously you are mistaken. The intrawebz is one of the most totally awesome things in the world because every single browser understands that they are part of a whole. Thus if a blag has a problem, the tubes have a problem. The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Andreessen. Either you choose to respect the tubes from this day forth or you choose to find yourself another industry. Do I make myself clear?

Tim Howes

[GPLDAN]

Tim Howes is also the inventor of the LDAP Protocol, when he was a grad student at UMich studying DAP and DIT under X.500 of OSI fame.

Re:Tim Howes

[NNKK]

Well, now I know which browser to avoid. Thanks for the warning!

Re:Tim Howes

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Tim Howes is also the inventor of the LDAP Protocol, when he was a grad student at UMich studying DAP and DIT under X.500 of OSI fame.

I doubt anyone can get fame for having anything to do with those acronyms, except for the UMich one.

Re:Tim Howes

[jalefkowit]

Are you kidding? Chicks dig LDAP. Bring it up at the next party you attend and you'll have to tunnel out from all the underwear they'll throw at you.

It looks like a browser, it smells like a browser

[JamJam]

That article was so light on on content all that we can summarize is that RockMelt is another browser. A browser with a creative name, that has a "browser rock star" who is backing it, and one that has some new "plug-in" features with Facebook. So why am I lacking any excitement by this? Correct me if I'm wrong but it's not like Andreessen is a Steve Job's visionary or anything.

Its going to be off the hook!

[doroshjt]

It'll have built in twitter and facebook access. Totally social networkitized

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[betterunixthanunix]

And completely worthless once those services are gone.

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. A social networking browser with ties to Mozilla. Wait a minute, how is this not Flock?

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[doroshjt]

You just don't get it, you'll be able to update and SEE your twitter feed and facebook page from your browser! No other browser lets you see facebook and twitter, its going to blow YOUR MIND!

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[Icegryphon]

I heard it was confirmed for brawl.

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[tepples]

Twitter and Facebook are most definitely not confirmed for Brawl, or for any Wii for that matter. Social networking on Nintendo platforms requires mutual exchange of identifying information out-of-band.

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[Enderandrew]

No, you'll feel your feeds. When someone rips you a new one on LJ, your browser slaps you. When someone flames you on 4chan, the browser kicks you in the junk.

Re:Its going to be off the hook!

[pinkj]

Well! Goodbye Gopher! Hello RockMelt! I'm gonna party like it's 1993!

Andreessen

[BigHungryJoe]

Andreessen's problem with Netscape is that the people who wrote it were too old. No vision.

Re:Andreessen

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. My problem with Netscape was Marc Andreessen.

I created my own browser from scratch

[Anonymous Coward]

I made it from the finest 1's and 0's, using a metal plate I smelted from ore, and a lodestone I picked up myself.

Keeping Pace with the Web

[Nom du Keyboard]

What does he mean that most browsers aren't keeping pace with the web? By definition, browsers define the pace of the web. If your browser can't see it then it doesn't exist yet.

There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[tool462]

There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

I thought that was the definition of an IE-centric web developer.

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[Anonymous Coward]

If all you are looking do do with the browser is delegate, then perhaps you are keeping pace. But entrepreneurs need to be able to control the experience directly, and the general trend is for that to control to be occurring at "lower" (delegated) levels of the browser stack, in particular, Flash.

If you can somehow create a more efficient stack for getting to the content that people actually use, like Facebook, then you can create a successful business.

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[Zerth]

Actually, browsers are about dead last in defining the pace.

Scripting or plugins probably define it, by highlighting areas where the browser is failing to deliver desired functionality, so third party code is used to make up for it.

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[merreborn]

What does he mean that most browsers aren't keeping pace with the web? By definition, browsers define the pace of the web. If your browser can't see it then it doesn't exist yet.

There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

There are several examples to the contrary. An earlier reply to your comment mentions the ACID test, which has always been "ahead" of browsers, so to speak.

And the recent explosion in javascript optimization (firefox 3.5, safari 4, chrome)? That's also a "following" feature, driven by web app developers using more and more javascript in their products.

And there's another example: AJAX. Back before AJAX had a flashy name, and xmlhttprequest() was made available, the technique that would later be called AJAX was being pioneered using javascript and hidden iframes in the late '90s. xmlhttprequest started seeing wide adoption in browsers starting in 2004.

Browsers are part of driving web innovation, but only part. There are at least two other forces at play: W3C, and web developers.

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[nine-times]

Well it's not necessarily nonsense. What he might mean is that web browsers' shortcomings are hamstringing the development of web technologies. I would certainly say that IE is holding the web back from some of its clear potential right now.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe web browsers don't define the pace of the web. Maybe they just limit the pace of the web. (no, I'm not sure that's right)

Re:Keeping Pace with the Web

[NemoinSpace]

>>>There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

I know several that do. They pump out several web pages in a month that match your criteria. They also think the ACID test is something you take before writing a web page. Which probably explains the use of the 16 million color palette as well...

Not a new idea

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Technology giants now see the browser as a control point to what users do online, and they want a say in shaping it. ...
A privacy policy on the site, which was removed after a reporter made inquiries to Mr. Vishria, indicates the browser is intended to be coupled somehow with Facebook. Mr. Andreessen serves as a director of Facebook.

The policy says that a person could use a Facebook ID to log into RockMelt, suggesting that the browser may be tailored to display Facebook updates and other features as users browse the Web. Another browser, Flock, based on Firefox, already incorporates feeds from social networking sites. ...
Professor Yoffie said that "If you can get Facebook's millions of users to think that this is a better way to do what they do on Facebook, that would be an opportunity to take advantage of".

In the interview this summer, Mr. Andreessen credited Mozilla with coming up with an economic model to support Web browsers. The organization has an agreement with Google that makes Google the standard home page when people start Firefox, and sends them to Google when they type something into the search box at the top of the browser. In 2007, Google paid Mozilla about $75 million for the alliance.

This seems to be basically the same as the business model of Excite, Altavista, and Yahoo: portals and ads. I don't see how a portal (Google) oursourcing browser development is anything new.

Google Chrome doesn't seem to be following this model; it seems to be more of a free client app for Google server apps. And from the earlier comments about Facebook, it looks like the new browser will place some emphasis on the client-server pairing model.

Pessimists Can Blow Me

[mpapet]

Marc, may not be the guy to do it, but modern operating systems are more than capable of being both client and server in a hostile network. (AKA the Internet)

I would argue 600lb gorilla ISP's, media conglomerates and as an extension of the media conglomerates Microsoft and Apple won't want to embrace it.

But it's a fundamental capability of the Internet that has *just* started to be included inside a browser.

Bring it on!

Re:Pessimists Can Blow Me

[jedidiah]

Running servers on the internet is kind of like nuclear warfare.

Sure, you can get yourself a 99.99% accuracy/success ratio. It might even
impress some people. The only problem is that you've got so much crap being
thrown at so many people that even your nice sounding number is going to
be overwhelmed by the sheer massiveness of the problem.

The moment you have a system that places any more burdens on the n00b user
to "maintain" it, you have immediately lost.

That consumer laziness will ensure that any defects that creep into your
system will remain unpatched. So it's far better that you don't encourage
what amounts to sqlserver being bundled, enable and exposed to the web by
default. Replace sqslserver with PHP, BIND, sendmail or even sshd and you
have the same problem.

Blink

[jointm1k]

Tell me Mr. Andreessen, what good is a new browser, if you are unable to . . . ?

it better support Linux

[FudRucker]

or I am going to kick your ass!

Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Opera already reinvented the web?

Maybe I lack imagination but...

[bschorr]

I'm not really sure what "RockMelt" is going to do that is so much better than what I get now in FireFox 3.5. I can't remember the last time I wanted to do something in FireFox that I couldn't do - or couldn't easily find a quick little (free) add-on to do.

Re:Maybe I lack imagination but...

[gbjbaanb]

from the description.. it'll be a browser window .. in a, well, not in a window. Active Desktop perhaps?

Re:Maybe I lack imagination but...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I can't remember the last time I wanted to do something in FireFox that I couldn't do - or couldn't easily find a quick little (free) add-on to do.

Run without a crash for a full hour would be one thing I'd like to do in Firefox, but have been unable to lately. If it had adblock, I would've switched to chrome long ago.

Don't keep pace, run out ahead!

[Cryogenic Specter]

I always thought that in the future we would all be wearing VR goggles and flying through strange landscapes of flying numbers and other weird futuristic landscapes. That's what I was promised in the 90's!

Re:Don't keep pace, run out ahead!

[Enderandrew]

http://cic.nist.gov/vrml/vbdetect.html

VRML has been around for over 10 years.

However, I don't expect the technology to take off until the porn sites adopt it more heavily.

Re:Don't keep pace, run out ahead!

[jrumney]

Get in line, I'm still waiting for that flying car that was promised in the 1960s.

ugh

[Yaos]

Oh boy a new browser, than can only go to Facebook. ugh

On Crack?

[c0d3r]

Rock Melt? Sounds like these guys are on crack.

not learning from history?

[Tumbleweed]

I'm pretty sure someone already made Flock. :)

Re:not learning from history?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just my thoughts.

Re:not learning from history?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't got a clue what floc means in my language.
I'm not kidding.

Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows

[Itninja]

"Little else is known about RockMelt, and Mr. Vishria was unwilling to discuss it. "We are at very early stages of development," Mr. Vishria said. "Talking about it at this stage is not useful."

Good thing it was on Slashdot where nothing is useful.

Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows

[JSG]

This "article" is just another marketing ploy for some vapourware. Can't you see that? By gum, /. isn't the same these days 8) There are a couple of good jokes in this topic but in the end this is all just an exercise in promotion and we are it's semi willing participants, breathing life into the marketing machine.

IT'S ALL JUST BOLLOCKS - I WANT NEWS ON MY /. NOT THIS SHIT.

Man burns left hand on stove, will now try right

[CopaceticOpus]

I just checked the date, I thought for sure it must be April 1st.

Marc Andreessen is jumping into the browser wars again? What's next, Ford announces a "re-imagined" Edsel?

Shades of Eazel

[93 Escort Wagon]

Okay, admittedly the article is VERY light on detail. But over the past year or two, it seems like we've heard from a few of the 1990 internet pioneers who apparently never learned anything from the dot com collapse (maybe because they cashed out for billions before it happened?). Anyway, who puts money into designing a new web browser as "an investment" nowadays? Didn't he discover the fundamental problem with this back during browser wars 1.0? Netscape did originally try to charge for their browser...

It does make me think of Eazel, back when they burned through venture capital just to come up with... a file manager. For Linux. Who in their right minds thought that was a good investment? Well, maybe some guys were disappointed they "missed out" on Eazel, and so now are buying into Andreessen's startup.

Might be based on Chrome

[voidvektor]

I did some digging around and found an e-mail to a google group from a guy settings up RockMelts site:
http://www.mail-archive.com/scalr-discuss@googlegroups.com/msg02866.html
The same guy asked questions on the Chromium mailing list, "helping a co-worker get the chromium src".
http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/thread/105e19e8d4f6c650?pli=1
Probably nothing, but could be something...

Re:Might be based on Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he wanted to see how his site looked in Chrome. HTH

Re:Might be based on Chrome

[FreshOuttaMaps]

Not too surprising that someone implementing a web browser would research other implementations, especially open source ones. He also could be wanting to see how to integrate V8 into RockMelt, or some other component they have no need to rewrite from scratch. Don't know if that would fit your definition of "based on".

You just called Hixie a nobody

[tepples]

There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

Ian Hickson is the chief developer of the Acid3 test, which was designed such that no web browser at the time could display it.

Re:You just called Hixie a nobody

[hkmwbz]

And guess what, Hickson didn't make a single dime from that page.

The Facebook requirement kills it for me

[LionMage]

Judging from what little was revealed in TFA, I guess RockMelt more or less requires you to have a Facebook account, and to use a Facebook login to access RockMelt's features. Talk about bundling! So rather than be an agnostic client agent to surf the web, RockMelt is going to serve as a portal to funnel you, the user, through a specific service before you get anywhere else. I'm sure Andreesen is also betting that this will funnel more dollars into his pockets, since he will create a more captive audience for his service.

No thanks, not a fan of lock-in of any kind. Also not a fan of most social networking services, which is why I have avoided Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, et. al.

uh...

[fred fleenblat]

Are we not supposed to talk about loudcloud?
50+ messages so far and no mention of it.

Why?

[lsdi]

Nice! But... why?

It seems...

[PCM2]

Someone has forgotten the first rule of Loudcloud.

Re:It seems...

[Fear the Clam]

Don't take a road trip with guys who yell "LoudCloud" every time they let one rip?

Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows

[ElizabethGreene]

The big story here is Mr. Andreessen is backing a browser product, a market thought to be dead and buried in terms of profit. He was profiled in Forbes a while back and his name resonates with the financial types. He has credibility with investors because he called Facebook and Twitter (among others) as a buy pretty early in their lifecycles. Corollary, the Forbes article mentions that he has a crap-ton of OPM to invest now, so he can afford to take some long-shots. -ellie

Allow me to be the first to say...

[unitron]

...that I welcome our new TunaMelt overlords.

Yeah, but can Firefox...

[Anonymous Coward]

melt rocks?

Bah, it can't be that different

[jim_v2000]

The web is made of pages designed to be viewed on a computer screen and interacted with via a mouse. There's only so much you can do with that, and something truly new is not going to come via a browser. In fact, you probably won't see too much different until we figure out a new way of interfacing with computers that doesn't involve mice, keyboards, and monitors.

My thoughts on Netscape

[leamanc]

Once on a flight, I was reading a book about web standards, and the guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation. He said that he knew a lot about the web, joining Netscape in 1995 and staying near the end, being one of the last two or three employees. He said that Netscape was undone because upper management got extremely arrogant over their initial dominance in the browser market. They thought nobody, not even Microsoft could take them down.

He said they would laugh at feature requests by users, play foosball and drink beer all day...basically one big party while IE slowly and surely crushed them.

Based on this, I would be very wary that anyone associated with the original Netscape has the management skills to make a new browser a success.

Re:My thoughts on Netscape

[lawpoop]

He said they would laugh at feature requests by users, play foosball and drink beer all day...basically one big party while IE slowly and surely crushed them.

Isn't this kind of the meta-myth that we tell about the downfall of any corporate giant? The modern-day version of the fox and the hare?

I've heard the same thing about The Big Three, IBM, Sybase, etc. etc. Any industry leader that lost its place did so because of arrogance and ignoring or ridiculing customer desires.

I'm not saying you didn't meet this guy, but how hard of a story is this to pass off to a random stranger computer geek at the airport? We all buy into this story -- that's why it succeeds as a meta-myth. I bought it at first glance, before I stopped and thought about it.

Re:My thoughts on Netscape

[leamanc]

No doubt, it is a modern fable that we all believe. I could go into more detail to try and convince you that I really did meet this guy that claimed to work at Netscape. For example, he talked about they didn't take CSS seriously, and how Netscape had its own plans for separating content from styling.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. Anecdotal evidence doesn't matter. We can look at the history book and see what happened. Yes, Microsoft used very predatory and anti-competitive practices to destroy Netscape. But Netscape didn't help themselves at all by being very, very complacent. Netscape Navigator 4.x sucked major balls in comparison to IE 4 and 5, especially IE 5 for Mac (which I considered to be the best browser on the planet for a year or so). Being a long-time Mac user, and therefore naturally inclined against Microsoft, I had resisted IE for a long time. I remember downloading that IE 5 .smi (one of the precursors to the modern .dmg) and being blown away at how much faster and attractive it was compared to the Netscape 4 I had been holding on to.

Anyway, I digress. Believe the story or not, I think we all know that Netscape blew it and I wouldn't give this guy one dime of venture capital.

Re:My thoughts on Netscape

[lawpoop]

No, don't get me wrong. I believe that you met this guy. I just wonder if he's simplifying and exaggerating the story to it's common meta-myth. There's a lot of good story tellers out there.

Born dead

[cbraescu1]

RockMelt is going to be born dead. There is nothing it can do in terms of Facebook integration that Firefox + Facebook-related theme + Facebook plugin. And RockMelt has no viable business model - there is no place anymore for mainstream browsers.

flock 2.0?

[j1mmy]

we all know how popular flock turned out to be.

If it sucks as bad as OpsWare....

[Anonymous Coward]

Great concept but a horribly glued together peice of crap. We spent almost a half million dollars trying to get it implemented before kicking them out and bringing in their competitor - which just worked.

After that debacle, I won't go with anything that he puts his name on as I'd fear it will be 95.3% marketecture and 4.7% product

Good luck to Rockmelt

[Orion Blastar]

I signed up for an email when it is ready to test.

I want to see what it is all about. I hope it is innovative and runs fast and uses less memory than Firefox. Safari, Opera, IE, Chrome, and the others.

I got a feeling they will be inventing new HTML tags to be used in HTML 6, as well as enhancing the XML and UML languages. That their cutting edge technology will force other browsers to change to compete with them. It might even lead to Web 3.0 standards.

Netscape was great stuff when it got to version 3.0, but around then Microsoft was bundling IE with Windows and eventually shut Netscape out of the web browser business. I recall Netscape was shareware and needed an optional $35 to register it, but still allowed you to use it for free if you didn't register. It didn't go open source until Netscape 5.0 when AOL bought them out and the Mozilla foundation was being formed to create Seamonkey and then Firefox and Thunderbird.

Firefox 3.0.03 and 3.5.X seem to have HTML problems with Slashdot in the subject line being cut off when submitting and other formatting issues on other web sites. Mozilla somehow bungled up the web browser, as I have problems clicking the mouse on text and have to click on the top of text boxes as it won't click on the bottom for me to edit them. I had hoped that upgrading to 3.5 would fix the problems, but no. Mozilla usually issues a WONTFIX because they claim Slashdot, etc must have not been following HTML 5 standards and refuse to fix it. I hope Rockmelt learns from that and fixes the formatting issues.

LAPD

[mdmkolbe]

Why would the Los Angeles police department need a protocol? ... Oh, LDAP, not LAPD. Dyslexia strikes again.

Re:Man burns left hand on stove, will now try righ

[maxume]

Actually, they announced a re-imagined Taurus.

I thought the 500 was a decent brand, I don't really understand why they decided to replace it.

bah, kids....

[zogger]

..we were doing all that "flying through strange landscapes of flying numbers and other weird futuristic landscapes" stuff in the 60s, and didn't even need the goggles!

Lightweight Browser? Try Arora...

[file_reaper]

Arora might fill your thirst for a lightweight browser, it's opensource, uses Qt for it's UI and Webkit as it's core and has the private browsing, flash blocking etc...

cheers

If you ever used Opsware....

[Anonymous Coward]

You know why this will fail. Just more reinventing the wheel in the shape of a triangle.

Browser with Rocks in ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it already.

Sandboxes?

[argent]

Each process is placed in a sandbox to protect your security and privacy.

Jails/partitions, or just chroot? What, on Windows?

Or do you mean the javascript engine is a separate instance (because it's a separate process) so they're sandboxed from each other because they're in different processes. Which is a good thing, but describing it as putting each PROCESS in a sandbox is misleading as hell.

Re:Sandboxes?

[Enderandrew]

For each tab, which has its own process, it has a separate thread for JS unique to that tab/process. It has no permissions unless it is elevated, and even then, that elevation doesn't affect JS in other tabs. And when you leave that domain, the trust relationship is restarted on the next site, even within the same tab.

Like I said to CarpetShark, you should read the Chrome comic.

doesn't validate

[pbhj]

So, as a web designer I'm thinking that 16 errors from that XHTML transitional homepage, including simply not closing tags, is not boding well ...

social netsresponsive & !practical +borders

[Anonymous Coward]

Social nets and their tools are less responsive and not practical across country borders. I prefer not to use them and I probably won't use this Rockmelt. Slashdot has been getting less and less responsive because of all of this social net/advertising/user click tracking. From China, I click a link which wants something from facebook and then the web freezes from my perspective. I have to seek other proxy alternatives to view the pages and turn them on. This makes the entire web viewing experience painfully slow and I can't watch live video in this proxy environment. If Rockmelt links to any web site that the Chinese firewall doesn't like it will slow down the entire web page visiting experience. Already with just firefox and slashdot linking to google/job ads the slashdot web page is very heavy and slow to load.

Seeing the existence of Facebook/Twitter/Rockmelt tells me that so-called web page designers fail to understand how bandwidth isn't the same everywhere in the world. I certainly prefer all the web designers having simple pages with ads/simple text/simple images coming from the same site. All this cross-site scripting stuff already is a security mess. Keep it simple. Keep it fast. If you provide video, give a link to download it. Don't force the user to view it in a web page because not all of us have that BANDWIDTH you take for granted. DRM is crap and I won't by anything built with it. I won't buy any monitors/tvs/stereos with it. If you want me to watch a video, then give me a link and give me the freedom to download it and play it when I want with whatever I want. If you want me to watch a video, then give it to me without restrictions. If not, I prefer not to watch your crap anyways.

Good luck to you all!

And I would call it......

[johkir]

Lava

Past success doesn't guarantee future results.

[jellomizer]

Just because you made a big hit in the past it doesn't mean you can do it again. Normally when you have a new big hit product it is because of a few factors...

1. Timing, Netscape came along at the right time. Most PC's had SVGA display allowing 256 colors and 640x480+ graphics. Allowing for photographic pictures to be sent, as well the GUI has become standard part of computing not just a novelty geewiz feature. Standard non-geek people were using online services (or glorified BBS's) like Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and realizing there is actually a wider internet outside such services. Modem speed such as 14.4k which allowed 1 Megabyte of data in less then 10 minutes. So it came along when people wanted to use the internet and hard hardware to do so. Without such timing netscape would have been just an other Mosaic just used by education, and techies.

2. Eager Investors. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, a bunch of then Young people who have proven themselves making new investors looking for the next big thing to invest into, so they can make money off of the Next Bill Gates. In essence Early Bubble irrationality. All this extra investment got the name out.

3. Found a gap. There was a big feature gap that Netscape at the time filled.

4. Lack of competition. With no real competitors you can really get in.

Now compare it with today.

1. Timeing Browsers are old news. Even the Dominate Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting weaker in it pull. People are use and comfortable with whatever they chosen for their web browser. Better or not it is theres. The PC is no longer new and Hip, Cell Phones are becoming the new PC. And even in the cell phone market we now how full feature web browsers in those.

2. Investors are not so interested in technology as much any more. Content is more important then technology now.

3. Sure you can make it better but there isn't much of a Gap to be filled. Lets do X faster but that gap can also be filled with a faster computer.

4. Competing with Microsoft, Mozilla (your old creation), Google, Apple, Opera. You have a real battle to wage.

So if you were successful in the past doesn't mean you will be again.

my ultimate tip suggestion

[cheekyboy]

Remove ALL GUIs that use traditional windows/dialogs/menus and make them all like PVR OSD menus that
are easy to use, look pretty and most of call can be accessed by a remote control or touch screen easily.
Use overlays with transparency for status bars/widgets/addons.

Chrome puts tabs in the most logical spot

[coryking]

At first I thought their placement of tabs was weird until I figured out you can "tear" a tab off of the current window and drag it into either its own new, separate window or drag it into another window. In fact, I'd say that is the most killer feature of chrome (besides being the only browser that can handle slashdot's ton of javascript without choking). Once you figure it out, you are hard pressed to think of a *better* place for the tabs!

The ability to tear off tabs really blurs the line between what is in a window and what is in a tab and I wish more tabbed interfaces would steal it (like Visual Studio).

Re:Chrome puts tabs in the most logical spot

[Enderandrew]

Not to mention that placing the tabs in the window decoration saves space, as opposed to a separate tab bar.

Re:Chrome puts tabs in the most logical spot

[Anonymous Coward]

Visual Studio 2010 does exactly this!

Re:Chrome puts tabs in the most logical spot

[coryking]

awesome!

Anti-trust winners and losers

[Enderandrew]

This is a little off-topic, but here is another example. There is a litany of evidence that Intel used illegal, anti-competitive practices against AMD. Every major vendor lined up to testify against Intel because of this. Several countries have already found Intel guilty. But those illegal business tactics were effective to the point that it kept AMD from developing market share, even when they had superior products. Intel cheated, ran AMD into the ground, and even when all the anti-trust trials are over, AMD might not even exist anymore, let alone come out a victor in any way shape or form.

The lesson seems to be that cheaters do prosper. What you might pay in a fine later is a drop in the bucket to winning market share and becoming a monopoly.

The problem with the "plug-in" model

[coryking]

Is that when put into the hands of ordinary users, it turns the browser into a stinking, slow pile of shit. Take a close family member of mine. She's got every damn plug-in, add-on and theme ever created by man. She calls me constantly complaining about how slow her browser is or how ${WEBSITE_X} doesn't load properly. I tell her all the time to uninstall that junk, but good luck! She loves all those things and cannot understand why they would slow everything down.

Ideally, I'd love to get her hooked on a browser that *doesn't* have the ability to add shit like plug-ins. They are great for us nerds, but they are just begging for trouble when put into the hands of mere mortals. I'm actually leaning towards Chrome specifically because it *lacks* the ability to have plug-ins. The only blocker is that the bookmark system kinda sucks and she'd insist that every bookmark stored in the dozen Firefox bookmark plug-ins she has all get imported. Plus she'd insist that every password saved by the ten-dozen "auto-form filler/password saver" add-ins she has also get imported.

In other words. Plug-ins suck. Build a browser useful enough that it doesn't require plugins. Or at least incorporate the good ones into the build so as to *reduce* the amount of available plug-ins. If there are ten dozen bookmark handlers for Firefox, maybe it means the built-in one sucks? If there are a hundred password remember-ers, maybe the built in one sucks?

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[indiechild]

Agreed. Once you reach critical mass with a number of plugins, it makes the browser unstable and slow. I'm constantly having to trim down my addons to about 10 just to keep things reasonably functional.

Besides, how the hell would you make money through a browser plugin/extension?

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[louiswins]

In other words. Plug-ins suck. Build a browser useful enough that it doesn't require plugins.

Sorry to be a fanboy, but it sounds like you're looking for Opera.

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[icebraining]

"If there are a hundred password remember-ers, maybe the built in one sucks?"

No, it doesn't. I don't need a new password remebering system, and I DON'T more bloat to include stuff "other people" find useful. If you want that, I heard Opera is nice. But let me keep my Firefox feature less, thank you.

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[Bigjeff5]

I once saw a browser with the Google toolbar, the Yahoo toolbar, the Stumble upon toolbar (fantastic add-on, btw, but it's own toolbar? couldn't we just have a menu button!), some other search toolbar, and I think a weightwatchers or quilting toolbar or some shit like that.

To top it off the monitor wasn't exactly huge, so less than half the screen was left for web content. I was just like "You've got to be kidding me!".

I recently switched to the beta Chrome and man do I love it. When maximised the tabs are all at the window title, buttons and address bar are all on one row, and if I set the taskbar to auto-hide then almost the entire screen is devoted to the web page content. I love it, plus, as its their specialty, the search-in-the-address-bar works great. I'll admit I haven't tried it in IE7 or IE8, but Chrome's search beats the pants off of IE6's.

The only annoying thing about it is their method of installation to avoid requiring admin rights means Chrome has to be installed on a per-user bases. That's plain annoying. Otherwise it is far and away my favorite browser.

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[rdebath]

maybe it means the built-in one sucks?

I doubt it. It probably means it's just different.

An applicator is either designed to be used the way that the first user wants it (may be the programmer) or, often later on, it is able to adapt to user tastes. Users obviously prefer the computer to be able to adjust to their way of working, even if it's weird.

There are two main ways that an application can adapt. You either have loads of configuration options or you can change the code. Configuration options are the only way for old binary compiled code but firefox's plugin (addon) ability lets people change the code; potentially a far better fit to what the user wants.

Of course there are disadvantages to both routes but IME (outside firefox) core code + patches is much faster and more stable than first core code + 2nd user options + 3rd user options + 4th ... + nth user options.

This is not to say that firefox couldn't get better; running the plugin code in a separate process/thread to the website could give a better response to problem plugins. Disabling and enabling plugins without a restart, so a plugin could add an "Enable and use me" menu option or button would be perfect for rarely used plugins.

Re:The problem with the "plug-in" model

[CodeBuster]

Is she the same type of person who plugs one hundred things into an electric outlet and then wonders why the power just went off and what a fuse is? Maybe she should cut back on her plugin use or at least get rid off those which have overlapping features? I don't see how the fact that some people are ignorant in any way discredits the plug in concept. Is there a huge under served market out there for people who use multiple social networks yet are too ignorant to manage plugins in their browser? I doubt it, but RockMelt seems intent to find out.

Another thing to consider is this: If a browser can aggregate or otherwise integrate content from social networks then why would you actually need to go to the website of the social network (i.e. Facebook or Twitter)? It seems to me that it is not in the best interests of companies like Facebook to allow third party aggregators to automate and "rebrand" or hijack their services. Why would Facebook want others to become the "gatekeepers" to their content and services as middle men? An instructive lesson from the earlier days of the Internet are the aggregator IM clients which allowed users of different IM networks to communicate; in effect they bypassed the clients of those respective networks and became a sort of "over-network". What resulted was a war in which AOL, Yahoo, and others constantly tweaked their protocols to break the aggregator programs who then patched their programs in an ever escalating technical arms race until everyone basically moved on and the business interests figured out that IM was never going to get "monetized" and pulled or scaled back their commitments.

which brings me back to my initial point: How are social network aggregators, who are actively opposed by the social networks themselves, ever going to monetize this? The users of these networks hate ads and are notoriously fickle; expecting to get everything for free and switching to the "next cool thing" at the drop of hat. I stand by my original opinion that RockMelt is drilling a dry well with a "me too" web browser that integrates social networking (especially since Facebook and others will fight tooth and nail to prevent third party aggregators). Perhaps they intend to lose money on each sale, but make it up on volume? Right.

The one problem is

[coryking]

It does interfere with the ability to double-click on the titlebar to maximize/minimize. I also haven't tried it on Windows 7, where you can just "jam" a window to the top of the screen and it will maximize and then drag it away from the top to "restore" it (which is really, really, really, really useful when you have multiple monitors).

You're doing it wrong

[BiggerIsBetter]

Until we get some kind of X-server and Window Manager with HTML as it's native display format, we're just pissing around the bush. The X server can be a clever multi-tab/multi-window Web Browser interface, and the X clients can all generate HTML to be displayed. Done. Can we all get over the browser wars now?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING SHITTING ME!!!

[sootman]

Sorry for the shouting and swearing, but I am just BLOWN AWAY by this. Does anyone else remember the comic that Google released last year to introduce Chrome?

PAGE FUCKING ONE:

Today, most of what we use the web for on a day-to-day basis aren't just web pages, they're applications. Wouldn't it be great, then, to start from scratch, and design something based on the needs of today's web applications and today's users?
--Google, 9/2/2008

And from today's FA:

But Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. "There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch," Mr. Andreessen said.
--Marc Andreessen, 8/13/2009

It's as if he fell asleep reading the comic, dreamt about it, and woke up thinking he had an original idea. Then again, TFA says he said "most other browsers", so maybe he's specifically excluding Chrome? :-)

We need to rethink the web

[shiftless]

We need to bulldoze the crufty pile of shit called Web 2.0 and start over with something new. HTTP and HTML were simply not designed to do what people are using the web for these days. AJAX, Javascript, and Flash are crufty hacks. Try using the web on a slow connection and you'll see what I mean. The simple, properly designed websites with no bullshit continue to work fine, while huge bloated AJAX/Javascript-filled monstrosities just won't fucking load. Try turning off Javascript and Flash in a vain attempt to simplify things, and it breaks the entire fucking Internet. I'm not an iconoclast; I like many of the ideas people are attempting to implement, I just don't think the tools they are using to do it are up to the task, and there are too many compromises and hacks being made. We need to start from scratch with a new HTTP and a new HTML that is designed for the web of the 21st century.

Re:We need to rethink the web

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to go back to gopher and wais and like it.

Re:We need to rethink the web

[jalefkowit]

We need to start from scratch with a new HTTP and a new HTML that is designed for the web of the 21st century.

You get on that then and give us a call when they're ready, OK? I'm sure designing something better than a system that has successfully grown from a few documents to a critical piece of global infrastructure will be a piece of cake.

Re:We need to rethink the web

[shiftless]

Who said it would be easy? It's not going to be, but it's absolutely necessary.

Re:Man burns left hand on stove, will now try righ

[Anonymous Coward]

What's next, Ford announces a "re-imagined" Edsel?

They did that years ago in the UK, with the Ford Scorpio. Boy was that an unattractive car.

Run Compiz, use the Color Filter plugin

[jonaskoelker]

Hi. I'm sad to hear that people so often choose colors that are bad for the color-blind.

If you run Compiz (do you run Linux or some other system which uses X11 for its GUI needs?) and use the "Color Filter" plugin, there's a filter called "blueish-filter". I don't know for sure, but it might be what you want.

Two of the filters are called "deuteranopia" and "protonopia" which are fancy words for two kinds of colorblindness (the filters "induce" colorblindness, i.e. transforms the picture so it looks like it would in the eyes of a colorblind person).

I guess that the people who did that came up with the idea of assisting the colorblind, and maybe "blueish-filter" is their attempt at doing so.

In any case, try it out and see if it works. Or write your own fragment shader script ;-)

What data is missing?

[jonaskoelker]

He has credibility with investors because he called Facebook and Twitter (among others) as a buy pretty early in their lifecycles.

I call *everything* a buy. Woo, credibility here I come.

How many bad buys did he call? How many good and bad no-buys did he call? Does he perform better than the average investor?

Here's a neat scam: find 256 random people (say, buy their mail addresses from a spammer). Pick eight random stocks. Mail each one "Stock number i will go {up, down}" for all i for a period of a few weeks. Choose all different combinations. You will get 100% right for at least one person. Suggest to that person that you should manage their funds. When you get their money, run.

(I do not encourage illegal activity. The above is for educational purposes only. #include )

When Andreessen is credited with guessing Facebook and Twitter right, what data isn't being reported?

Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows

[Fear the Clam]

He has credibility with investors because he called Facebook and Twitter (among others) as a buy pretty early in their lifecycles.

And how much money are they making now?

Andreessen was interesting and lucky. Then he got fat. Now he's just bored.

Google paid him to do it

[tepples]

And guess what, Hickson didn't make a single dime from that page.

Hickson's CV would beg to differ. Opera and Google paid Hickson to write test cases for CSS and JavaScript, including the Acid series, in order to shame another browser maker into improving its product.

Re:Google paid him to do it

[hkmwbz]

Hickson did not work full-time on that. The comment you denied was this:

There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.

A good living? Hardly.

Cheated? Try broke the law.

[jotaeleemeese]

You say cheated like if it was a little peccadillo....

Those are just excuses

[Benfea]

The whole concept behind capitalism is that the guy who builds the better mousetrap and/or sells it for less money gets the bigger marketshare. In this case that didn't happen.

Yup

[Benfea]

That was my thoughts exactly when I read this: "Isn't this more or less what Chrome did?"