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Retro Browser War: IE6 Vs. Netscape In 2011

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gotta-wonder-why dept.

jbrodkin writes "What if you took the raw, pre-patched, 10-year-old versions of Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 6.1 and tried to surf the modern Web? What would happen? You might think firing up IE6 or Netscape would lead to an immediate onslaught of viruses, but just for fun, I decided to spend some time using these two ancient browsers. It turns out IE6 is still capable of surfing much of the modern Internet, and can play Flash and Java content, but Netscape's troubles show it probably died a justified death."

10 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Or possibly... by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Possibly, the fact that large numbers of corporate desktops still have IE 6 means that a non-trivial number of Web programmers code to where IE6 will still work, whereas no one is using old Netscape, even for fun, except for this dude.

    1. Re:Or possibly... by xSauronx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Really. I work at corporate for a medical system with a few hospitals and clinics...only late last year was IE7 approved for deployment because (finally) a couple of key software vendors supported it. Deployment is still optional at this point in time, but theres talking of making it automatic soon.

      --
      By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
    2. Re:Or possibly... by sodul · · Score: 3, Funny

      allow editing for 15 minutes, and in those 15 minutes, no moderation is allowed.

      And we should call it 'Preview', what a great concept ... oh wait

    3. Re:Or possibly... by w_dragon · · Score: 4, Informative

      They thought of that. He went to great lengths to get a version of IE6 that was released in 2001, no patches allowed. It's in the first page of the article. I know, I must be new here.

    4. Re:Or possibly... by Waccoon · · Score: 3, Informative

      I just did a clean install of Win2K (IE 5.5) under VM, and put on Netscape 4 for fun. The results weren't pretty. IE 5.5 did pretty well on my sites which made no accommodations for IE at all. Netscape regularly showed blank pages because it choked on the CSS, and some perfectly valid code even made the browser crash.

      This perfectly reflects my experience when I was in college. I stopped using Netscape because it was a slow, cranky, crash-prone piece of junk, especially on the Mac. People have fond memories thanks to the nostalgic factor. In reality, Netscape 4 was a direct response to the IE monopoly panic, and the company screwed up big time. They killed themselves.

      Apparently, I'm alone in my memories that Netscape wasn't that great a product, thus making it part of yet another VHS vs Betamax.

  2. Duh by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Up until relatively recently you absolutely had to include whatever hacks were necessary to get IE6 running on your site because it was the default browser on Windows and had a huge market share. Netscape hasn't had that sort of status in a really long time. So of course IE6 probably looks pretty good in comparison.

    Now, look at more recent sites that don't include that kludge and see if it still looks OK.

  3. Just got done surfing with IE6 :) by bl8n8r · · Score: 5, Funny

    No viri or malware here!  I was.... uh,popup... *click* ..I was just say... what the?..*click*...*click*... I was just going to sa... *click*..*click*... +++ ath0

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  4. Long live Netscape by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Posted from SeaMonkey. Personally I still like having an HTML editor, browser and email client all in one package.

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    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  5. Netscape 6+ by Dracos · · Score: 3, Informative

    After AOL bought Netscape, they decided to keep the Netscape browser on life support (but strangle it anyway) by releasing versions 6.0 and later, which were cut from the maturing Mozilla 5 codebase:

    • Netscape 6.0 = Mozilla .5
    • Netscape 6.1 = Mozilla .9
    • Netscape 6.2 = Mozilla .9
    • Netscape 7.0 = Mozilla 1.1
    • Netscape 7.1 = Mozilla 1.4
    • Netscape 7.2 = Mozilla 1.7
    • Netscape 8.0 = Mozilla 1.7

    At this point (May 2005) Netscape was irrelevant, as Firefox had taken over among the tech savvy, and word was spreading beyond us. Also, AOL had seen fit to saddle Netscape with ugly, ad-infested themes.

    The 6x and 7x lines were premature at best, almost as if they were designed to nail the brand's coffin shut, which they did.

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_timeline, and my own memory of the time.

  6. Re:Obvious by foobsr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Remember this thing came out nearly a decade ago and those "web standards" you fellas like so much really didn't exist as anything more than proposals at the time, most of which were completely changed after IE 6 had already been released.

    I disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML#HTML_version_timeline

    CC.

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    TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)