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Netscape Founder Backs New Browser

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the making-web-development-harder dept.

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."

22 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. May I say by chebucto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Netscape's interface was the best

    Long live Seamonkey

    --
    The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
    1. Re:May I say by TrancePhreak · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
  2. Chrome 2 by mdf356 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    '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.

    --
    Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
    1. Re:Chrome 2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Chrome 2 by Hurricane78 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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".

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    3. Re:Chrome 2 by maxume · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  3. You hear that Mr. Andreessen? by neonprimetime · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Marc: My name... is RockMelt!

  4. Chrome 0 by argent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Chrome 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Chrome 0 by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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. ;-)

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Chrome 0 by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    4. Re:Chrome 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

  5. Tim Howes by GPLDAN · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Tim Howes by NNKK · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  6. It looks like a browser, it smells like a browser by JamJam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  7. Its going to be off the hook! by doroshjt · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    1. Re:Its going to be off the hook! by doroshjt · · Score: 4, Funny

      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!

  8. Keeping Pace with the Web by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  9. Blink by jointm1k · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    You know it makes sense, a little reminder from jointm1k.
  10. it better support Linux by FudRucker · · Score: 4, Funny

    or I am going to kick your ass!

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  11. Might be based on Chrome by voidvektor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  12. Re:It looks like a browser, it smells like a brows by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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