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Whither Netscape 5.0?
An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to a Time Digital article (By Nathaniel Wice: Hey man!) about AOL Shelving plans for Netscape 5's release yet this year. So is the browser war really over? Does Mozilla have a chance?
IE4 gave you the chose whether or not to install the shell upgrades. IE5 doesn't even let you do that (IE - it WON'T take over your desktop). I don't see the problem anyway - it's just like your windows explorer - gee big deal.
IE for solaris is mostly the same source as IE for windows, it was ported using one of those windows -> unix tools.
And no, it won't take over your desktop - if it's not like you can't run another window manager.
Does it have XML support like IE in the sense that you can programtically go thru the data. Or does it just not blow up like communicator when it sees XML (or HTML, CSS for that matter).
its over a long time ago. lynx is extensible, portable, fast, standards compliant, and stable. it has crashed maybe a dozen times in the 3 years ive used it. if you set it up right it can do realaudio, pictures, and all that crap.
I bet Microsoft paid AOL off to buy Netscape so they could shut it down. Thus making Internet Destroyer the king. Which would probably explain why Netscape isn't included in AOL 5.0 Just my two cents, earther
There's a very simple reason people write fud articles like this - they're scared of what might happen if it's true! If Mozilla smashed IE to pieces and toppled the Great Microsoft Empire.. there'd be nothing left to write about. :)
--
What's the correct spelling, "wither" or "whither"?
In twenty years of using software, I consider
Netscape 4.xx, the worst program I have EVER
seen. I will celebrate its demise.
P.S. Hurry up with that Linux port Opera.
IE is my Deafult browser because my corprate browser is IE. but i use netscape. When netscape crash Netscape crash.. When IE crash it crash whole computer. win95+IE5 doesn't work well at all. Even Mozilla Alpha doesn't do that this system.
I've got an even better idea. Why don't they hire some damn developers and get the thing out the door? I would willingly pay for a decent browser for Linux and I bet tons of other people would too...
First of all, hiring more new developers in an ad-hoc attempt to add more bodies to the project, would probably slow development down, not speed it up. This is a large complex project which requires that it's developers be knowedgable about its internal specifics; that is something one cannot buy off the street either from contractors or new employees. Secondly, Microsoft has already proven one cannot sell browsers as they now own our "air supply"... IOW: as long as MS gives away Explorer, there's little money to be had in selling a competing browser -- I certainly don't see Opera gaining significant market share other than in the embedded market.
[snipped previous posters "how to help" comment]
You know I already have a job, I don't need to do free QA for one of the largest companies in the world. I don't know why anyone else would either.
Mozilla is "Free Software" for real. If you're unwilling to even minimally help support free software by simply running a nightly or even a Milestone build, and reporting your success or failure back, then you have nothing to complain about regarding the project pace. I've been pretty damn impressed with the quality of the Mozilla builds under Linux and fully expect a quality beta browser in the next couple of months.
Of course, you could just be trolling for flames...
Thanks for pointing that out to me. Your absolutely right. Judging by some slashdot posts, it seems many got that impression. They should (and I should) be more careful in what we read.~
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
I agree you shouldn't release a totally crappy product, but you can't hem & haw over every bit. I've met programmers who've held onto their code for so long, because of a small bug or something. With all things there are trade-offs, so you have to fine a balance to appease most ppl. The development cycle is an iteriative process, because you can not predict all scenarios. So Mozilla will not be perfect, but the engine could do a better job than the rest. I've seen the standards compliance, and I think they should clean up the code & release it. They're waiting way too long IMHO.
One thing I like about IE is that, at least for the mac version, you can edit the title and URL directly at the "favorite" page. On the other hand for netscape you need "edit bookmark" and then "bookmark property". I generally do not like M$ interface on their mac version softwares but I have to admit that IE for mac does a lot of things right.
Fine software? It's a piece of crap. No XML support, hacked up CSS support, not even table background support properly! Buggy. Complete junk.
Does this mean Mozilla will just ship little descriptive files about the UI. Or will they change with the envirement. Like if I am in windows and I change the colors/fonts of the main widget (pretty easy to do), could some XUL thingamagiggy get those styles. A more extreme example, could XUL get styles when I change the theme engine in gtk, like from the defualt windows style to the GTKStep theme.
Otherwise, it seems the user would have to make an XUL skin for each slight change they make for their desktop.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
TBPH the way IE does bookmarking is retarded. It prevents some non-alphanumeric characters in the title (most annoyingly : and / ) and isn't a cross-platform solution.
A simple HTML compatible file is the _right_way_ as it can be loaded and used by any browser.
Actually I think Internet Exploiter is a cooler nickname than Internet Destroyer. It doesn't really destroy the internet... I was always fond of Internet Exploder too.
What I like about IE5(so far Ive only used it at work) is the zoom in/out feature for images(right click menu), the fact that ie5 and 4 support fixed backgrounds(never could get it to work in Netscape), and that even if i accidentally start up the browser, I don't wait a half hour looking at a splash screen that says "loading java". It comes up real nice and fast. I don't like the custom MS messages for 404 errors(if an ad banner fails, soemtiems the whole window gets taken over by the error message, and it takes away URLs for retries on slow/slashdotted websites), but it is EXTREMLY stable compared to Netscape.
Each time netscape crashes on me, the last thing I want to do is send a little note to their little quality feed back agent(and that even scerws up), well, except "sit on this and spin"
I dig Mozilla. But what's Netscape/AOL plan to market the browser? How do they expect to gain the market share they've lost? Microsoft has an advantage because they control the desktop. I suppose AOL could integrate Mozilla into their clients, but don't they have contracts with MS?
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
The mac version is almost as bad. I love my mac, but I put off installing QT4 as long as I could. I think they put in too much "different" and too little "think" into QT4. Anyone know a patch to get rid of the dumb interface and keep the QT4 functionality (streaming video, etc.)?
there are alotta blind people including euler who somehow managed to eek out new and interesting tidbits without any pictures whatsoever. i have a 486, i use lynx, most of the webmasters who are ignorant of lynx issues put up pretty crappy pages anyways ( i sneek peaks down in the computer lab) . i guess i should get 'civilized' by spending alotta cash and enhancing my life with javascript crashes, broken and inane pits of frame-hell, and pop up ads that can trim my fat and save me a bundle on airline tickets. on second thought, maybe ill stay a savage. pass me that fried bat wing.
gafc
Two more bugs to go before they reckon it's ready to release.
http:/ /bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&b ug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&e mail1=&emailtype1=substring&emailassigned_to1=1&em ail2=&emailtype2=substring&emailreporter 2=1&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldv alue=&target_milestone=M10&short_desc=&s hort_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&long_desc_type =substring&bug_file_loc=&bug_file_loc_ty pe=substring&status_whiteboard=&status_whiteboard_ type=substring&newqueryname=&form_name=q uery&order=assign.login_name%2C%20bugs.priority%2C %20bugs.bug_severity
it just kept reloading over and over and over. i didnt want to crash anything so i left it on over the week while i was out on a fishing trip.
I wish I knew the answer to this. Apple has been taking a lot of heat in the Mac press for the UI on this product.
ugh. i wish it wasn't so slow. who left all the debugging code ? j/k i've tried all the previous releases and they just didn't cut it for me. maybe becuase i was using it on windows. =) all this bad press made me wanted to check out what the current state of the browser is. is it really that bad? it seems to work fine on my debian box. then again, netscape hasn't crashed on me either... i don't know what all the fuss is about. it all seems more political than what the codebase deserves. the browser is free and you don't have to buy windows to use it!
"you get hit and your head goes ping" --rocky horror picture show
Aha ha... NetPositive *laughs uncontrollably*. No, but seriously, it's not awful if you don't mind it being hideously slow and not very stable.
Interesting, considering /. rejected my submission of the same news item two days ago ...
However, to be realistic, the only way that AOL/Netscape can succeed with 5.0 is if they kick out the Linux and Mac versions REAL SOON. Without the non-MS OS crowd, they're doomed.
And, stop fudging on the standards compliance issue.
Will in Seattle
I use a cheap box - a Cyrix 333MX w/32 meg of RAM and slow HD. Here's how my browsers perform.
:)
Windows Netscape 4 - Fast, stable, nearly perfect.
Linux Netscape 4 - Slightly slower and less stable.
IE 4 - More stable but slower.
IE 5 - Incredibly bloated slow and heavy. Unusable.
In my experience saying Linux NS4 is "unusable" is nonsense. Linux simply would not be enjoying the popularity it is without a good browser. My fears for the future are the ones M$ has always raised - that they'll push web standards in their own direction leaving non-M$ users locked out. But realistically, the web doesn't have much farther to go as a technology - it is what it is - graphics and HTML, and 99.9% of webpages will never go beyond that.
Mozilla should arrive aeound the time everyone feels like a change. My fantasy is running Opennstep's OmniWeb atop GNUstep. Now that would be cool
You can always use hotjava, konqueror, lynx, opera, chimera, etc.
Really, it is a fine piece of software. No, it is not yet up to the stability levels we have come to expect. No, it is not on time (hello? W2K?) But it is featurful, standards compliant, and has a lot going for it, and I think anyone who actually runs a nightly binary (as I do 90% of the time) will see that. Furthermore, they are very responsive- I filed a bug report (li tags used by my favorite site were handled not quite correctly) and had it fixed within a week. It is already good, and will continue to get that way with your feedback. Go and grab a copy...
~luge (who is in a rush for class, thus the slight incoherence....)
IAAL,BIANLY
If you were AOL and you wanted to have "AOL Everywhere", which would you choose:
... computers of every shape and size.
1) An AOL client built on IE that runs only on Windows. (IE on Mac and Unix are separate products with very little in common and would require separate AOL development efforts.)
2) An AOL client built once to standards that runs within Navigator 5 (like any other Web page) but still looks like AOL since a Web page can swap out the whole "skin" of Navigator 5. Note that this would run unaltered on Windows, Macintosh and Unix desktops. It would run anywhere you could get enough Linux going to run the whole (5MB) Navigator or the 1.5MB Gecko rendering engine. Set-top boxes, embedded devices, phones, pay terminals in airports, malls and cafes
The choice is the same for every AOL-wannabe as well.
Add to this that the Web development community is anxious for a standards-based browser because development in the absence of standards takes way more time and money. Web developers know this now, but the money men will realize it soon enough as more of their business moves to Web-only. "What do you mean IE only supports 89% of XML?"
The browser war has hardly started. IE won the desktop-computing battle because it came with the OS. They extended their desktop OS dominance to desktop browser dominance. The Web is about a lot more than just desktop computing, though. Most people aren't on the Internet yet, even in America. Most people do not have the extra time, money or technical expertise to run a Windows PC just to look at the Web.
There is no data. There is only XUL.
--
Mike Hoye
Netscape's bookmarking stinks...IE's is cool...It's the only reason why I use IE as opposed to Netscape... -Red
-Red
-Red
what the hell is a 'value engineer'
This is really important to note because Microsoft doesn't have the same stranglehold on which browser gets installed on the Mac like they do on the PC
Is that really true? I have not seen a Macintosh for a long time that did not come with Internet Explorer (and not Netscape) all the Powerbooks/ Imacs/ and G3's that are sold at my University come from the factory with such a configuration.
Our Mac guy told me that part of the deal MS conviced Apple to agree to forced IE to be included with recent MacOS cd's in exchange for the creation of a Macintosh version of MS Office. Can anyone verify this?
While Mac OS X does indeed have a UNIX underbelly, the GUI that sits atop it will be the same GUI that Apple have been providing since the beginning. Need to quit an application? Clover-Q or File->Quit will still be the ways to do it.
However, cracks are beginning to appear in the rigid consistency that Apple has enforced, and sadly, the cracks appear to be driven by high-level Apple bosses (including iCEO Jobs). The QT4 debacle is the first of what I suspect will be many applications that break the Apple desktop metaphor because they are trying to force another metaphor. In the case of QT4, they are trying to force the metaphor of the handheld remote control.
I'm not a Mac person but I appreciate the machines and the company mindset -- and I think OS X is going to represent a sea change for the company. The union of the incomparable Mac OS GUI and the near-failsafe UNIX OS promises to be nothing short of astounding -- if and only if the company understands that the hours spent in usability studies and user feedback can't be thrown away just because Steve wants his Movie player to look like a TV remote.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Have you ever looked at the mozilla code? It looked like whenever MS promised a new feature, the Netscape coders slapped something together and stapled it at the end. Mozilla was "blessed" with this code as a base. It's quite unfair for the article to point to this as an example of open source development, simply because by the time the source was available, it was FUBARed. Honestly, I use IE on solaris piped into an X session on a linux box. It's slow, but still faster than Netscape natively in linux. MS had this battle won 15 months ago...netscape's just now admitting it.
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
That's the cool thing about XUL. You can restyle the interface any way you please. Say AOL ships Comm. 5.0 with platform-sensitive styles; Windows for Windows, Mac for Mac, some hideous Enlightenment theme for Linux :-). The iMac/iBook/iWantCandy crowd will stick with the Mac style, blissfully ignorant of what else can be done with the User Experience. The Power Users will be scouring the web looking for the coolest styles around, or building their own.
It's an opt-in feature. If you like it, use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you're not sure, try it. It's undoable.
I know what you mean about "shovelware," though. Have you ever seen the Windows version of Metacreations Poser? The main window's not bad. Being a Windows guy, I wish more of the tool palettes were dockable, but that's neither here nor there. It's the dialog boxes where everything goes south. The layouts, colors, and fonts all scream Macintosh. But it gets worse, though, because Metacreations picked some Porting Toolkit From Hell. The controls are seriously broken. I get the impression that the PTFH couldn't convert Mac controls into Windows equivalents, and it couldn't replicate Mac controls on the Windows platform, so it created its own ugly, half-baked compromise consisting of sliders that can't be manipulated by keyboard, fonts too damn small to read at 800x600, and text entry fields that defy family-friendly description.
I hear you, brother. Let's hope Mozilla.org and AOL hear you, too.
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
Has AOL actually announced that Mozilla is being discontinued? Is there an official press release somewhere? Did this reporter even bother to check for a source before engaging in what appears to be blind speculation about the future of Mozilla?
I didn't think so. Until we can answer "yes" to these questions, let's not panic.
Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting a stable release of the new mozilla...
The elegant solution is to let the OS take care of bookmarks as URL objects that you can sort, arrange into folders, display as tree view, detail view, icon view, list view, with icons, without icons, etc etc etc etc etc.
Oh, Wait...that's OS/2's version of Netscape. Linux and windoze don't know what a URL object is and can't communicate what it is directly to Netscape with a standard system API.
Even better...not only can the OS/2 version drag links to the system (and to the crappy integrated bookmark thing) but it can do the same with elements such as images, saving the actual image or the link, whichever you prefer.
Linux and windows have a long way to go to before they are where OS/2 was a long time ago.
Is not slapping the "5.0" version number on what was released as Netscape Communicator 4.5.
Think about it. Sure, techies would have derided the numbering a bit, and there would have been some confusion, but nobody would be talking about Netscape being dead/browser wars being over/Mozilla a failure.
So, today, Netscape 5.2 (4.7) would have recently started shipping while IE is still back at version 5.0, and people would be talking about how Mozilla is shaping up to be a major advance in browser technology and development methodology even if it's being delayed for a while.
And it even would have been truer to the original Mozilla roadmap, since the 4.5/4.6/4.7 series is descended from the old codebase like 5.0 was originally intended to be, and Netscape 6.0 was originally going to be the first NGLayout-based version of Netscape.
Check any Mac newsgroup and you're sure to find a couple hundred posts from people absolutely incensed about this. To a non Mac person like me, it's actually kind of funny how much the community is freaking out over - egads! - a new interface. Then again I'm from the Enlightenment school of thought, so... Anyways my point is is that this is the first time in memory that Apple has violated their hallowed interface guidelines in the fifteen years since that they have existed, to my knowledge, and trust me, every product they've ever released has followed the religiously. It's highly unlikey that they'll do it again based on the respsonce they've gotten. There's a piece on Salon all about this if you want to read more.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Think about it. Is NS really becoming more stable? Nah, it's just becoming more feature bloated. & not in a useful way. I think if more concentration is put into Mozilla (this'll free up resources & make Mozilla more attractive to work on for Linux users), then that could lead to a better, more stable browser, but NS hasn't exactly been going anywhere recently.
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead
of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a
time.
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
you dumb shit. Mac OS is dead not the other way around. MacOS 9 is the last MacOS that apple is going to ship. MacOS X is now totally unix
Clueless idiot. Have you seen any of the developer releases for Mac OS X? Let me tell you, the UI is essentially identical to Mac OS 9. In fact Mac OS 9 has the ability to run Carbon apps using the same UI that Mac OS X runs.
Sorry about the strong headline but I'm personally fed up with articles like these. Mozilla was delayed for one reason - they originally tried to base an open source project on their terrible Communicator codebase. They worked for months on that and nearly had a shipping version but they decided to scrap it and rewrite the browser totally. Now although it's nearly a year 'late' at least we're getting a small (5 MB) and standards compliant browser rather than yet another bloated released based on Communicator.
I wouldn't say Mozilla is ready yet and has a few months to go but the progress has been much improved the past few months and external developers are starting to get involved. Look at http://www.mozilla.org/ and check the weekly status updates, check http://www.mozillazine.org/ for more up to date news. There's a lot going on. Open source didn't prove to be the ultimate solution for Netscape, the couldn't release the source and suddenly get a top class browser. They had to improve the code before anyone would go near it and that's what they have done. It's took them longer than expected because they didn't understand that people wouldn't hack on any crap. They've got their act together and are doing well.
There are a number of ways to help.
1) Contribute patches and bug fixes
2) Provide testcases for bugfixes (The Gecko bugathon)
3) Rate bugs in order of importance.
4) Download builds regualrly to test them.
Read the getting involved document on mozilla.org for more ideas.
Mozilla is not dead, it's coming back to life.
--
Netscape 5 never really had a chance. People have lost hope in Netscape. It has so many outstanding bugs, and if they are actually addressed in Netscape 5, I'm sure the Netscape programmers could find some other little nuance to annoy users.
/., of course).
In fact, I really think that's what the browser war is over. It's who can come up with the most annoying little nuances. What's with IE's "ftp server returned extended information?" And what's with that desktop integration? It's a ploy to make 486's obsolete, that's what it is.
My response to this? Until someone comes along and fixes this situation, I'm going back to gopher (except for reading
1. Mozilla == Open Source.
2. Netscape != Mozilla, however, Netscape 5 will be based upon Mozilla.
So, let's think. Will I be able to get Mozilla without getting Netscape 5? Yes.
We can't hide the truth. Netscape lost technological battle with IE. It simply doesn't work as well as IE, is more crash prone, not as fast and generally feels clumsy when compared to newest MS offering. We really lack good browser on the unix platform - there is some hope with Opera but I don't know enough about this product to compare it to IE. KDE has one too but I found it usefull only for viewing static HTML ( localy)
So what are we left with ??
Anybody has any ideas ?
That sucks.
What's weird is, the Mac version's UI isn't all that hot from my perspective, either. Kind of sad, as Metacreations has done cool stuff in the UI department in the past (Painter comes to mind).
On the Mac side of things, games have been the worst. It's funny how much artwork used in popular PC games is done on the Mac, but the actual Mac version of the game either:
1. Sucks (lame PC port, nonstandard UI, etc)
...or...
2. Never appears.
It's getting better, though, as the Mac becomes an actual consumer product again.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I agree completely. I use KFM for all my browsing chores (that don't require Java/JavaScript/Plugins). There is no point in competing, parallel development of two browsers if Mozilla is stable and has a good license. The licensing issue is the main issue here, they might have to keep the Konqueror HTML engine around for a while.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
A better question is what ever happened to readable cache directories. Back in the day of IE2 (and maybe 3, I disremember) the cache data was stored as regular files, with their names preserved. IE had some sort of resource file that specified which URL each file belonged to that would show up in the normal file view, it replaced the file type description if I remember. It made it easy to go into your cache and copy files, or even an entire website, for later use or reference (or delete all traces of pr0n)
I thought it was a good feature, if completely unintended, and was sorry to see it go in IE 4. Now they creat 4 subdirectories with random serial numbers and provide a special interface for viewing cache that is not as useful as being able to manipulate the files directly.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
We have to have viable competition to IE to keep the Net standards open.
If MS could count on the whole world running IE, then Apache's days would be sorely numbered, and you could bet on nice open XML being embraced and (MS-only) extended. (Then where would server-side linux be ?).
Luckily, mozilla is shaping up to be a very impressive piece of code, and it's only at the start of the wins it's going to see from open-source contributions. (Just think how much linux has gained from the community since it was aged 1)
It affected IE5 on Win95 and Win98, but not NT. There was an unchecked buffer involved in the code, so a hacker could present a malformed icon which would overrun the buffer and then run arbitrary code on the victim's box. I imagine you haven't heard much about it because it was patched back in May.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
yes, theyre almost done with BEOS apparently, and are waiting for red hat and someone to do something before anything else happens with the unix version. The Amiga version seems to be doomes, but um... er, well i have a browser anyway.
Juln
As long as there is no alternative on UNIX (I don't envisage a decent IE5 release for all UNIX variants and Opera isn't gratis) Netscape/Mozilla cannot die.
UNIX is gaining these days, even on the desktop (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris/Ray-1 etc) and these users need a web browser. If people say Netscape/Mozilla dies, apparently they also say UNIX on the desktop dies. This simply isn't true.
I'm using InternetExplorer 4.5, mainly because it has the closest standards support, much better in the CSS-1 arena when compared to Netscape 4.7.
However, IE's JavaScript is horrid, often going nut's on Microsoft's own pages. (Now that's just plain humorous.) From a pure, 'sane application' stand point, IE is evil. Nasty memory leaks which Microsoft describes as features, not bugs -- mainly IE's tendenacny to use all available RAM on your system as a RAM cache, eventually hanging the machine.
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I'll say one thing, Netscape has really gone down the tubes. The Mac version of 4.7 has serious bugs in it that were known two years ago, and have not been fixed. Mostly Netscape seems to be fixated on adding AIM and Shopping buttons and sending you too Netscape Center. Mac users by nature are anti-Microsoft, but the fact of the matter is that IE is continuing to gain share on the Mac.
This is really important to note because Microsoft doesn't have the same stranglehold on which browser gets installed on the Mac like they do on the PC. Damnit I hate MS and IE, but the fact is that Netscape has really fallen behind technically. I hope Mozilla really does turn into a good competitor to IE. It's crucial in the long run for Linux to be a good desktop machine.
> In what way will Netscape 5 be a quantum leap
> over Netscape 4?
> More stable? Faster? Less bloaty?
Hmmm... yes, these won't make it a "quantum leap".
But I don't think Netscape 5, and in general Mozilla, is all about having a more efficient and less buggy browser. It's about having a browser which people can really "work with", as oppose to just "use".
How about standard compliance? Mozilla is completely standard compliant, easing web developers a real lot on developing applications which works on all browsers.
How about XUL? Now you can have a say about the "look and feel" of your browser, finally. No more talk about "they place a useless My Netscape button there that I never use!".
How about being built as a library as well as a program? Now your desktop application that want to emit a help message doesn't need to create a full browser to do that. You can really start to write programs that contain a browser-like widget.
How about XML support? Now you don't have to wait for minutes downloading graphics just to download the stupid equations: MathML do all that just using text. And all the XML applications.
How about a more open architecture? Now you can easily plug in whatever component to the browser so that it support strong cryptography, which cannot be supported due to the stupid US export regulation.
How about a more open development model? Now if you find a bug, or a feature of IE that is not supported by Mozilla, you can put in a bug report and see how it get resolved. You can even grasp the source and do it yourselves.
Do you really mean all these are just "bug fixes"? I'd say, it's quite a quantum leap, indeed.
Shouldn't that be kill instead of killall ?
Russian Roulette? while :; do kill -9 $RANDOM ; done
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Watch what you say about my grammer. Actually, she died this year. I guess she wasn't Y2K-compliant.
Will in Seattle
"know HTML, and not from someone who relies on the browser's error correction?
Will this Mac "skin" be written in their language, or will it actually use the standard Mac toolbox?
The press should just get a grip. Already there have been over 6 million downloads of 4.7 off of CNET's download.com site alone. Yes, its a bummer that 5.0 isn't out yet, yes IE has a higher share at the moment, but 6 million downloads in 9 days from only 1 site just doesn't sound like a dead product to me.
I think that when you get down to it, it's a primarily a marketing gimmick. The idea of having an interface more similar to consumer electronics and looks cool is not a bad idea per se.. It's just that the execution sucks.
And I think at this point, the management doesn't really care as long as they can brand it. I'm thinking that whatever Apple's longterm UI plans are will be much more carefully thought out.
WaReZ c0rr3cti0ns.... d00d = DUDE 3l3373 = 3L337
Netscape was also based on Mosaic. It was the starting point that everyone has stolen...derived from in the beginning. Reminds me of PARC.
Preloading of DLLs is crap? Don't you think MS does this? All the browser dlls is actually loaded on startup, becaues IE is used for the desktop.
And considering they preload *all* office dlls just to start word faster i'd say MS are pretty much into preloading.
The only real problem with lynx is lack of support for tables. Currently, I'm using w3m, a text based browser with table support. It works great for ebay, streetprices, etc. I still use lynx for slashdot because the tables on slashdot don't really contribute anything.
This is what I think will happen if Mozilla is abandoned:
1. IE will have no desktop competition (at least on Win95, which, at present, is the only OS that counts). Microsoft will realise this.
2. Microsoft will use this monopoly position to push proprietary extensions to HTTP and HTML. Without having to worry about Netscape users not being able to view their pages, webmasters will use these extensions.
3. HTML and HTTP will be effectively owned by Microsoft.
4. Therefore, no web browsers for non-Microsoft OSs, and no servers either.
5. Without Web access, said OSs cannot make any desktop impact. Without HTTP servers, there'll only be very small alternative markets.
6. Linux, FreeBSD etc. become irrelevant.
Of course, this is assuming Mozilla is abandoned, which is as yet far from certain. At present, the worst that can be said is that its a bit behind schedule, which is hardly a sign of a failed project.
If Linux does take off on the desktop--which won't be in 2000, but may well start in 2001--rest assured a port of IE, followed by a port of Office 2003 if they haven't gone thin-client by then, will come along to fill the "[Microsoft] application void" suffered by Linux.
Its incompatibilities with IE for Win32 and IE for the Mac aside, IE5 for Solaris is a rather good browser--and unlike the Mac IE, it reportedly shares a great deal of code with the Win32 version. It may well only take a couple of developers at MS a few days to get IE5 or its successor up and running on Linux.
Given that IE5 probably shares a great deal under the hood with Office 2000, I suspect Office itself nowadays can move easily to Unix.
> How about standard compliance? Mozilla is completely standard compliant, easing web developers a real lot on developing applications which works on all browsers. ... ...
> How about XUL?
> How about being built as a library...
> How about XML support?
> How about a more open architecture?
> How about a more open development model?...
How about a browser?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
So why aren't you predicting the death of Quicktime 4 while you're at it? The interface for it is so bad, it got itself a whole column in the Interface Hall of Shame
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
A Quantum leap is one that goes from one place to another without touching any of the space in the middle. So it is exactly what he should have said.
It's entirely possible that AOL could stop funding of mozilla.org. But there would be no way to stop a third party continuing development.
If you decided you could do better than mozilla.org, you could, right now, take a snapshot of the tree, and start makeing modifications under the terms of the licence, and AOL could not stop you unless you violated the licence.
If this were not the case, there's no way the project would have earned the 'open source' stamp of approval from the likes of Eric Raymond.
DLLs are inprocess, IE and Word start in a different process from the DLL. The only advantage would be to cache the DLLs into memory, which since are core windows DLLs anyway would speed up netscape as well.
Lets say your special preloading of DLLs thing is true...what stops netscape from doing it? hrm???
I have everything closed(osa, office toolbar etc..) word still loads just as fast.
I don't know why, but many people I know prefer Netscape [3.x,4.x] to IE[4,5], and they're not all that "techie".
So Netscape has not totally lost it.
As someone pointed out earlier, Netscape 4.7 was downloaded a fair few times from download.com.
On another note, nightly builds of Mozilla are quite good =)
Infact, I use Mozilla [under linux] for my daily browsing needs, and it has not crashed all that much. This is probably because i am using "viewer_gtk" instead of "apprunner". I just find apprunner a bit slow, viewer_gtk is blazingly fast =).
I'm not an expert at coding browsers, but wouldent it be possible for KDE to take parts of Netscape (the layout engine) and put it into KDE. I'm not sure how lisencing would go with that, but it would give the equivelent of Win98/IE5 level of integration. I have never been a big fan of desktop integration, but I can see its uses, and it will eventualy come.
Will it be stable? The Mozilla dev team has made improvements, but they still haven't reached this goal. Or will AOL take an unstable Mozilla and only put forth the polishing work for Netscape, leaving the open-source Mozilla to fend for itself? Hmm.
Who would do the polishing? All of AOL's Netscape/Mozilla developers are working on Mozilla, so they would polish that, too.
Will AOL's feature additions to Netscape be merged back into Mozilla? Hmm.
Tell me, do you WANT advertisements, AOL's IM, and all of that shit built-in? I certainly don't. I really doubt that AOL will release its code Open Source just so us users of Mozilla - not netscape - can get their features. That's why Netscape will be "better" than Mozilla - AOL's "features."
Will a free, open-source Mozilla be able to contain all the necessary parts? (i.e. go read the About page on Netscape and see how much technology is from 3rd parties). Hmm.
Mozilla already contains most of that stuff and a lot more that we don't need. I'm not worrying about having ENOUGH features, I'm worrying about TOO MUCH.
Let's think... the picture's not as simple as you would paint it to be.
Sure it is, you just need to look.
No, it's not like the Sun licence. The MPL is genuinely open-source -- anyone can use any or all of it for whatever they want, so long as any enhancements they make are given back to the community.
AOL couldn't pull Mozilla even if they wanted to. They could stop paying their 100-odd developers on the project, but they wouldn't want MS de-facto to own every standard on the Net, any more than anybody else does.
Be aware. Be very aware. Mozilla is coming.
Thanks dude, er, I mean, d00d. I've only been running IE for a couple hours now, so I can't be expected to be totally elite, er, I mean, 313373 yet.
Thanks for helping me become more elite, er, more 31337.
Thanks d00d! (hey! I got that one right on the first try!)
I can't believe this is the 3rd time i've had to point this out to people here.
Just cause you heard the guy next door say IE is tightly integrated into windows doesn't mean it will take windows down. Windows is more than the kernel. When they say integrated, they mean IE is now the default SHELL for windows. Meaning, if IE crashes, it takes down the SHELL (in this case explorer). When that happens, explorer will restart. Windows does not get 'taken down' nor would it crash.
Putting that aside for a moment, if you had ever used IE5 you'd realised that IE5 by default starts in a new process - meaning if it crashes, it won't take the shell down. So again, you're just FUD FUD FUDDING.
Microsoft's main motive behind releasing 5.0 was to make Netscape look stupid for not having bigger version numbers. Personally, I find NS 4.X to be a much better internet suite than the crappy MS solution. Seriously, who needs scripting enabled... by default... in their email?
That's the stupidist thing I've heared today. 5.0 had milestone advances in XML and DCOM over HTTP. Not to mention some more (if that's possible) performance increases. These are features most end users won't see - but developers LOVE.
Netscape DOES look stupid not having developed a new version of their browser for like over a year - just rehashed 4.x codebase with extra little 'features' like a shopping button and netcentre has the centre of your world.
NS 4.X a much better internet suite??? You have never used IE5 have you? Never...
NS 4.X is SLOOOOOOOW, BUGGY, and I'd say even tho >90% of people here are Linux advocates, 95% of people here would agree with me. It's uneccesarily bloated and takes up far more memory and CPU time than a web browser with it's limited features should ever take.
I can't handle using software that just does not work. I can't wait 30 seconds for it to load just to have it freeze up trying to render tables, or lock up for 20 seconds trying to load a page. Then if i click on a link while it's loading, most of the time it just sits there...not loading and not going to my new page. It's full of bugs. Why do you think mozilla quickly ran away from the NS4.x codebase and they started over again...strangly enough copying Windows based technology like xpCOM, the registry..etc.
And as for the scripting enabled thing - can't you turn it off yourself? The thing is IE is componentised, so when you view your email in outlook, it's actually IE embedded into your outlook express. You can always turn it off you know. Scripting in your email, is potentially just as bad as scripting on a web page. Most people prefer to have a feature work.
It's like "hey, this page doesn't do XXXXX when it should - IE is crap has no features"...most people don't know how to change options - you'd think nerds(like you're supposed to be) could figure out how.
-sigh-
Relative to Netscape 4.x , yes, IE 5 is fast, stable, and standards-compliant. On any kind of absolute scale it is not, however. And we're not talking about Netscape 4.x, here, we're talking about Mozilla.
Mozilla, even at this point, utterly humiliates IE on standards-compliance.
Mozilla's performance, speed-wise, is very erratic, but, in many cases, it's faster than anything but lynx. I think most of its slow-downs are from debug code (in the interface, especially, where the buttons babble on stderr constantly), and from the fact that its cache isn't yet fully implemented. Every now and then it'll hit something it can do without talking to you about it, and it'll be blazing fast for a moment...
IE's got it on stability. Hell, even Netscape 4.0 has it on stability. But Mozilla is still pre-beta. What do you want... perfection from a product that hasn't been released yet?
Seems like y'all *want* Mozilla to fail.
/.ers blathering about the delays and some sort of "war". Ironically, an item posted on the front page here provides a great deal of insight into why we don't have a "Netscape 5", yet, and why that is a Good Thing!
:)
My sentiments exactly... the TIME piece was drivel, completely uninformed and misleading, yet we have
Most OSS projects could only hope to be this healthy- how many nascent OSS projects have their own 'zine in addition to the project website? Rest assured that all the detractors and nay-sayers will be the first ones extolling the virtues of the browser when it is completed.
Unlike Microsoft's ideal of the web browser as an "OS integrated" marketing tool, the Mozilla crew are building a standards compliant browser that fits into Berners-Lee's ideals, has true technical merit, and will deliver on the promises that neither of the "big browsers" delivered in the past.
The most insightful piece of that article, which I'm sure the author didn't even grasp, was referring to the Mozilla project as an OSS experiment. The lessons learned about the OSS development model in this project may have an even greater impact than the software produced. Most importantly, as others have tried to communicate, patience is key. As Nikolai Bezroukov stated, "Speed kills". I personally hope that the mainstream media believes Mozilla to be dead. Hopefully, that will ease some of the stress placed upon the core Mozilla team. I'm sure we're all glad that they dumped the old code.
Enough ranting... viva Mozilla!
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
--Mark Twain
Please, cut the retarded anti-MS drivel. IE for Solaris is 100% free.
I have always thought that Web browsers and Office suites could be used as "platform sellers" - port web browsers and office suites to all platforms, and then tell everyone that they would work "the best" on the original platform (Windows). This way, people could migrate from their original platform to Windows (for example), and not lose their documents, training, etc.
When it comes down to it, most people don't give a crap what operating system they run. As long as that operating system runs apps that do what they want them to, people are happy.
that zoom in/out is actually an IE powertoy feature. And powertoys are just registry/script tweaks...so it's acutally something that's pogramatically implementable by anyone using internet explorer scripts.
The way microsoft implmented it was with an external java script which is called upon with a reference to the entire object hircharchy of the current page....and the current object on focus. So you could write a script to say enlarge all the pictures...or change the font or color of selected text...etc...basically dynamic html, except it's just not the page's html/javascript that can change it's appearance, you can do it too with scripts.
Please don't believe that Mozilla is being forsaken. I have been
actively following Mozilla and I am very much looking forward to Beta.
I still have hope that Mozilla will gather more support from its
future users, and I certainly think that eventually volunteers will
become the primary contributors.
At the moment, Mozilla is a product of a group of talented programmers
employed by Netscape. Despite trade press ignorance to the contrary,
Mozilla development is occurring very rapidly. Because the primary
contributors are professional developers working at a commercial pace,
attempting to produce a commercial quality product, there is very
little room for `outside' contribution. Volunteer contributions are
typically very focused and unpredictable. It seems to me that until a
stable Beta exists, contributions from outside developers seem lost
and inappropriate where huge quantities of code are being created and
changed by Mozilla developers who work more than full time on it.
Patience is required here.
My only complaint with Mozilla is that even after the 4.x code base
was scrapped, the new code base is still saddled with an email reader,
a news reader and an HTML editor. Frankly, the world needs a good
browser more than it needs _another_ email client, news reader or HTML
editor. Microsoft figured this one out early on; IE is _just_ a
browser. Both the Open Source and the commercial world of software
already provide outstanding examples of these other clients.
Meanwhile, time and resources are spent to continue the tradition of a
single large client. How much more quickly could Mozilla have gone
Beta if it was `just' an HTML browser? Eventually, outside developers
would have integrated Mozilla with other email or news clients.
Indeed, this will probably happen yet because this is just the sort of
work volunteer contributors do best; extension, integration and bug
fixes.
I have to imagine that many members of the Mozilla development team
have had similar thoughts about the non-browser clients (certainly the
NGLayout people would have considered this.) Is there any possibility
that a `browser only' Beta release of Mozilla could be done more
quickly?
Just get to Beta. That is all that matters now.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The orignal poster was not a techie and I suspect you both know it.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
So, let's think. Will I be able to get Mozilla without getting Netscape 5? Yes.
Will it be stable? The Mozilla dev team has made improvements, but they still haven't reached this goal. Or will AOL take an unstable Mozilla and only put forth the polishing work for Netscape, leaving the open-source Mozilla to fend for itself? Hmm.
Will AOL's feature additions to Netscape be merged back into Mozilla? Hmm.
Will a free, open-source Mozilla be able to contain all the necessary parts? (i.e. go read the About page on Netscape and see how much technology is from 3rd parties). Hmm.
Let's think... the picture's not as simple as you would paint it to be.
SEAL
1 word answer: vmware...
On the contrary, the closed source model of software development, very clearly, does work. I hate to admit it, but it does. The fact of the matter is that they both work. The debate should be over which has more potential
Right or wrong, reporters have at least some ground to base an argument such as this. Saying that NS has lost the browser battle can be justified (regardless of accuracy) not because of the further delay of its release, but because of the combination of that with the fact that NS is economically suffering, and that MS now (sad to say) has far more users of IE than NS does of Navigator/Communicator.
gopher.citadel.edu
gopher.micro.umn.edu (Mother Gopher)
spinaltap.micro.umn.edu
gopher.nd.edu
scitsc.wlv.ac.uk
gopher.nara.gov
renoir.vill.edu
gopher.uoregon.edu
gopher.vt.edu
marvel.loc.gov
tvnews.vanderbilt.edu
twinbrook.cis.uab.edu
And for some good Veronica servers (gopher search engines):
liberty.uc.wlu.edu:70/11/gophers/veronica
AND THE BEST GOPHER SERVER OF ALL!
wiretap.spies.com
Um, haven't you noticed not only how fast, but how small a memory foot print IE is?
IE replaces EXPLORE.EXE with the new EXPLORER.EXE (for IE).....i mean, instead of having the old windows explorer now you have the hybrid internet/windows explorer....it would hardly take up much more space until you start browsing larger websites.
And microsoft wouldn't need to use IE to do evil thinks in the background - they could have done that with the old explorer...or any other thing in windows.
The term integrated here basically means microsoft has updated the windows shell....it's nothing evil or bad or inappropriate.
Noone complained when they moved from program manager to windows explorer. And I don't see why anyone should complain when they move to internet explorer...it makes perfect sense to me. You can replace your windows shell if you want - but deleting IE dlls would render some windows features that make use of HTML (and thus IE) technology like HTML help etc....this would basically render windows as we know it useless...althought the kernel etc would still be running. However, Windows is a lot more than the kernel. It includes the Shell, and the major technologies like COM, ADO, ActiveX, HTML.
This is the fourth time I've had to point this out.
...your shell basically.
Replacing the windows shell (windows explorer) with internet explorer doesn't destablize the windows kernel (ie. causing BSOD). If IE crashes, it will bring down the shell.
However, IE5 by default (you can do this in IE4 under options) opens browsers in a NEW PROCESS. Meaning if they crash, they WON'T bring down your taskbar
Please be more careful with your words.
Also, IE as a shell is well written....you must live in netscape land too much....it doesn't waste memory when you don't use the internet. It's called dynamic loading of libraries...and ever heard of ActiveX? The Internet/WWW related parts won't be in memory until you load up IE.
Having a "don't install IE option" simply isn't an option. Why should microsoft have to develop two different versions of explorer? one to browse the harddrive, one to browse the internet? huh? Why should they limit technology to end users who love it (like me) simply cause netscape whine? You don't HAVE TO USE IE. It's just needs to be installed otherwise major windows features (like help) won't work. Just like you don't have a choice whether WINSOCK.DLL is installed (it's basically the same thing since IE is simple an OCX, or a DLL with a fancy extension). You have a choice to not use IE for web browsing and installing NETSCAPE instead.
I hardly see the problem with having IE on your harddisk so parts of the OS that need it work.
I mean, lets say you didn't like COMCTRL (windows common controls)...and you wanted GTK+ widgets....you can program with GTK+ widgets (like the gimp port for win32) - but you still need COMCTRL installed so that windows and windows applications that use COMCTRL will work.
Just don't use IE!! ok?
"Forcing interfaces" - just don't use IE. Replace your shell with Litestep if you must. Yeesh
Oh, and I forgot to say...providing you don't want to use Litestep or soemthing else as your shell.....microsoft aren't forcing the interface onto you. Don't use windows.
So I'm curious now, can one program XUL using Java? Or is one stuck with JavaScript? Some of us aren't keen on JavaScript; the last bit of XUL I saw depended on it to a painful degree.
I've downloaded IE5 for HP-UX and it's a complete disaster - MS have got a few poor programmers to actually port Windows APIs to UNIX (hence there's stuff like registry files and virtually nothing configurable by app-defaults). It's the slowest browser I've ever seen running in my life on any platform (you need a 64-bit top-end HP UNIX box to get barely adequate performance), Outlook Express is a memory hog [and a complete joke of a mailer] and there's *NO* built-in Java support (yep, no JVM shipped with it and if you use HP's JVM, applets are in external windows, which is totally useless) ! If MS released IE5 on Windows in this state, they'd be rightly massively crucified. But since "journos" out there can't be bothered to check out what IE5 looks like on UNIX, the travesty has astonishingly gone unnoticed. IE5 on Linux, if it ever comes out, will simply be another disgraceful port in the same manner. UNIX IE5 makes Netscape 4.X look sensationally good (and I don't like NS 4.X myself - 3.04 was the last "good" release of NS in my books). So anyone wanting IE5 on Linux is deluding themselves - the best browser on Linux is currently NS 3.04, to be superseded in a few months by the Mozilla beta release (you could go for an M10 download, but it's not quite there yet - e.g. the Preferences *still* don't let you set proxies [a feature that really should have been in there a year ago]).
I like LYNX, but I think it is going to have a major overhaul or lose following after opera comes out with their text browser.
My demostrations of how CRAP netscape is to my friends, colleages, professors ;) won't be as impressive....oh well. I still think IE is faster than mozilla - and even when NS5 is out, I'm guessing it will still be faster (MS have lots of money and lots of smart engineers)....but I'll will miss the days when I could start 10 isntances of IE (all in seperate processes) before netscape displays it's splash screen :)
Do you believe everything the Apple Marketing Department says about not releasing these features? I can tell you one thing: the customization was not released because of usability concerns. It was retracted because they could not get it working properly. The MacOS sourcecode is so very old and bloated with additions, patches, new features etc. that it is inherently buggy and not suited for this kind of changes.
One other feature they did include in MacOS 8.5 is the NeXT-style scroll bar. This may seem a simple addition to do, but there are a lot of applications which do not work correctly with it. So everyone turns it off. Hey! Now we have another axample of a configurable user interface on the Mac! And I just learned that that wasn't Apple's policy...
--Maarten
--[rosso bright]--
I use it at home on my ancient 486/20 meg win95 box, and I use it at work on my Pentium 400/128 meg NT box. I just like the speed, control, simplicity, and stability.
And it *is* tweakable. You can control just about everything about the presentation and security -- including imposing your own CSS's on really offensively colored/formatted pages, if you feel like it. (Boss is coming! Quick, make the page look like a boring Word document! that's Control-G. Quick, make all the images disappear! That's the plain old G key.)
The only major "tweakability" feature missing is that you can only turn cookies on and off, not accept/reject them individually, and they promise to fix that in a future release.
If this a href="http://www.netscape.com"ink /aorks, it could be bad
Want full screen with IE you can just hit F11 with IE4/5 but that's not really full screen. So run iexplore -k that will give you full screen without any toolbars.
The more apps are written in truly cross-platform languages like Java, the less problems like this you'll see. Yes, I said less problems, not no problems!
Female Prison Rape in NY
Apparently Mozilla's developers disagree with you. They seem to be considering doing just this to improve performance on the Mac in particular.
I miss Meept.
huh ? have you actually used vmware before ? its okay if you have a SCSI setup, but much too slow for devel if your on IDE
"Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source" see my point? "will be" Not "is". Sure m9 is fast and pretty stable, but who uses it? A few linux geeks and the mozilla developers, not the end users. And like I said before joe luser doesn't care about standards or opensource. He uses what works *now*, not what could possibly work sometime in the future.
Did you mean 'hacker' or 'cracker'?
Do you know the diffrence? I don't think you do.
I was just pointing out *HE* was trolling. Sheesh.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Yesterday I would have said, "Not really" - the progress bar on Project Magic (http://www.opera.no/alt_os.html) has been stuck at 5/20 for months. But I checked it again today, and found out it was finally updated just this week - apparently they're in "lateral development", broadening the code to support more than just Red Hat/Mandrake. "Even though this is a lateral move, a more progressivly upward move should begin to occur again within the next week or two."
You can use the MoviePlayer application from Quicktime 3.x to get the standard Mac interface. It can play all QT4 media types (Sorenson, MP3, etc), I don't remember if it can do streaming or not.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Who would do the polishing? All of AOL's Netscape/Mozilla developers are working on Mozilla, so they would polish that, too.
Don't count on it. They might be seriously inclined to make Netscape the "good" one, and Mozilla the "rebel product" so that more people will use Netscape and they'll increase AOL's userbase.
Will AOL's feature additions to Netscape be merged back into Mozilla? Hmm.
Tell me, do you WANT advertisements, AOL's IM, and all of that shit built-in? I certainly don't. I really doubt that AOL will release its code Open Source just so us users of Mozilla - not netscape - can get their features. That's why Netscape will be "better" than Mozilla - AOL's "features."
I think you missed his point. He was saying that a) they might make Netscape the only viable product, or b) they might just merge all the crap back into Mozilla, and get their advertising bullshit into BOTH products.
Will a free, open-source Mozilla be able to contain all the necessary parts? (i.e. go read the About page on Netscape and see how much technology is from 3rd parties). Hmm.
Mozilla already contains most of that stuff and a lot more that we don't need. I'm not worrying about having ENOUGH features, I'm worrying about TOO MUCH.
Are you sure? I'm not a programmer, but I am pretty sure SSL has parts licensed from RSA. And some of the image display (esp .GIF) and video stuff might be licensed also. I'm not a lawyer either so I don't know the details on this.
Let's think... the picture's not as simple as you would paint it to be.
Sure it is, you just need to look.
I think you're being incredibly narrow minded and naive, and ripping on a guy without listening to his points. AOL isn't just going to let Mozilla slide out to the masses as a browser that is far preferable to Netscape. They'll either merge code and make the two very similar (read: bloated), or leave Mozilla in an unstable and/or halfway unusable condition.
The whole idea is to provide "hooks" and such so that users of Netscape/Mozilla will be more inclined to use other AOL services (instant messaging, view their advertising, whatever). Don't think that they're in this out of the goodness of their hearts. Not after spending how many billion to get Netscape Corp?
I would play the game this way if I was in charge. They certainly won't be making money from direct sales with IE out there.
- Jordan
Opera brags about standards compliance but we live in a world with software companies that don't care about standards. Both netscape and IE have added features to thier browsers that are not in the html standards. With opera not supporting these so called "standards" alot of pages look just plain shitty. One of the biggies is table cell background images. Try loading up Themes.org with opera, you'll see what I mean.
I'm using the Mozilla M9 release to display XML pages with CSS stylesheets. I just downloaded it this past weekend. It's OK. But I'm not all that impressed. I use M9 on Linux and Windows. I also use IE 5 that supports XML and XSL. If I had a choice, I'd prefer to use IE 5 on Linux. I hope Microsoft is reading this.
That means, you could - Modify the UI code, so that you like it. - Use the NGlayout Engine in your own Browser (like Neoplanet does) So, if many Mac users want this, Apple should pay some programmes to make a Mozilla Based Browser, that fits perfectly to the Mac.
Only in the sense that Netscape first started the project (the original source release went towards development of "Mozilla Classic", a design that was scrapped almost exactly one year ago in favor of a modular, compact, exceedingly fast, and standards-compliant design) and provides a goodly number of engineers to it. Mozilla and Netscape are not the same thing (Netscape will release a branded version of Mozilla with features that can't be put in Mozilla due to licensing and export laws [encryption being the real big thing]). Mozilla's rendering component can be embedded free of charge in any program (well, that adheres to the principles of the Mozilla and Netscape Public Licenses), and Mozilla's browser can be customized by any company and released as a derivative product.
This is the Exact Reason im using IE5 over Communicator right now. I figure that the Netscape code must have been absolute Garbage if the Mozilla team trashed it for a "Written from scratch" lean, fast codebase.
Right now, Microsoft got the upper hand, their browser is a lot leaner than Netscape, it a lot faster than Netscape and it's a lot more stable than Netscape, But that will defenitly chance as soon as Mozilla is finalized and released. If you think that Microsoft's Web share is going to be as high as it is when/if Mozilla is released, then you are really dreaming.
I'm about as sick of these "Mozilla is a failure", "Netscape is dead" stories as I am of hearing Larry Ellison spouting off about once every six months for the last six or seven years, "The PC is dead. Network computing is the future!"
As long as people continue to use it and work on it, it won't die.
Besides, the reason it's taking so long is because it's a quantum leap over what Netscape 4.x is. Not just adding a few more fancy buttons on the same-old same-old as Netscape and MSIE have been since their versions 1.x.
I am personally very happy using and will continue to use Mozilla.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Given that Netscape 4.x is crash-prone, Mozilla is not anywhere close to release (it may be usable in the end-user sense in time to run on top of GNU HURD and GNUSTEP), and content/tool companies are abandoning Netscape compatibility (i.e., Cold Fusion's decision to only support MSIE), maybe it's time for some enterprising hackers to short-circuit the process and get MSIE running on WINE.
Microsoft would probably resist this all the way, with undocomented system-level hooks, VxDs and such. Though if it can be done, it may very well be useful.
There are other choices out there. Of course, there is opera and lynx but opera costs a little money and lynx just does not display pictures but displays complex pages horribly. This brings me to a pre-beta open source browser fomerly known as gzilla. gzilla is changing its name to armadillo because gzilla confuses people and make it think it is related to mozilla. Interestingly too, armadillo feels that people where looking at it as a linux based app so they have a armadillo for their mascot now. Despite its identity problems and pre-beta status, armadillo is something to keep an eye on.
Do you mean Mozilla?
There have been a number. There was Mnemonic, the Freedows of browsers, which was meant to be really kick-ass with lots of innovative design features, but never seems to have gotten anywhere. Then there were some which got up to simple HTML rendering (sub-NCSA-Mosaic standard).
Writing a simple HTML 2.0 browser isn't too difficult. KDE and GNOME have one each for documentation. Writing something with a DOM and layers and CSS and JavaScript and such (as many modern sites require) is another matter.
So much for OpenSource saving Netscape. Looks like its their time to go. Anyone here still using Mosaic? Didn't think so.
... what IE does. Windows maintains your "favorites" folder, which is made up of .URL files (analogous to your "url objects"?). It can be manipulated like any other folder.
Unfortunately it's operation is tied to IE, and Netscape doesn't use it.
-------------
The following sentence is true.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
How come it works on your system? On the Linux systems I've used it on, it'd crash after a while. (On SGI IRIX, it would do the same, only spawning lots of zero-size alert dialogs; irritating, that.)
What good does it do to work in the user experience if the back-end code is shifting out from underneath it?
Ah, a perfect example of the linux mind set. I wrote about this in a post here a while back. It's all about power v. ease-of-use. This statement betrays the underlying theme: "Power/function is everything. You do it first, then do UI."
Of the three OS paradigms that matter today: *nix, WinXX, & MacOS, we see a clear lineage. Unix: Power is everything, UI is secondary. Mac: UI is everything, power is secondary. And WinXX: Try to split the difference (often losing both, sometimes hitting a nice balance).
When I write an app, I usually spend MORE time interviewing users, having them look at possible UI's, etc., then coding the "power." In other words, I do it FIRST.
Just my 2 cents......DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I have to disagree. Releasing a fast, stable, and/or feature laden browser for th *nix's is very important, of course. But for many, who have become used to browsers that just don't meet their hopes & expectations, browsers in Linux may not be the deciding factor. There are plenty of othe areas in our beloved OS that still need massive improvements before the general public will be rushing to update their kernels on a regular basis. Anyone on a LAN can tell you that M$'s Network Neighborhood (or that wretched "My Network Places" from W2K) makes accessing shares on a network a breeze, especially by comparison to samba.
And this is especially an issue if we're talking about the "non-hardcore types". They don't want to have to worry about updating libraries everytime they install something, and they certainly don't want to have to refer to man pages and how-to's any more than they want to refer to the M$ help pages (which are toned down more to people with entry level computer experience). They want to install once by clicking a few "Okay" "Continue" and "Finish" buttons, and then have everything work the way they want.
It's just not that simple. Personally, I love the OSS that has made so many wonderful OS's & utils & apps available to me, but I'm not sure Linux will ever become " viable desktop contender and alternative to Microsoft hegemony". I'm not sure for the simple reason that the users developing all of this are developing it for themselves, and the users that would be needed to become a viable competitor are the ones that simply won't know what to do with that many options that can be configured.
Back in the old days, when Netscape was the big evil corporate intruder, the W3C published its own standards for the next generation of HTML. It included things such as mathematical formulae and so on. Netscape wasn't interested, choosing instead to work on flashy, cool-looking things (frames, Javascript, background images) that commercial content developers and users would find cool.
Who won? Netscape. They had the browser, and people were more interested in stuff that looks cool than in standards correctness.
Even if Netscape is more standards compliant than Microsoft, that won't guarantee its ascendancy. If MS's HTML looks cool and works with the standard Windows browser, it will become the defacto standard, for everyone save purists.
First of all, hiring more new developers in an ad-hoc attempt to add more bodies to the project, would probably slow development down, not speed it up. This is a large complex project which requires that it's developers be knowedgable about its internal specifics; that is something one cannot buy off the street either from contractors or new employees.
:) I admit I forgot about Opera, I'll have to go and check it out. I just find it amazing that what is probably the 2nd or 3rd largest desktop operating system out there (depending on where MacOS is) donsn't have a quality browser available for it, although Konqueror is nice for the liteweight stuff (but then again, so is Lynx..)
I have read The Mythical Man-Month myself and I agree with you to a certain point. However, I must be missing something here, if adding paid contractors or employees will only slow the project down, doesn't allowing anyone to see the source and contribute do the same thing? Whether the person is paid or not, donesn't adding additonal developers in any form do the same thing?
Secondly, Microsoft has already proven one cannot sell browsers as they now own our "air supply"... IOW: as long as MS gives away Explorer, there's little money to be had in selling a competing browser -- I certainly don't see Opera gaining significant market share other than in the embedded market.
I wasn't aware there was a Linux version of IE... can you point me to the download site for it?
Mozilla is "Free Software" for real. If you're unwilling to even minimally help support free software by simply running a nightly or even a Milestone build, and reporting your success or failure back, then you have nothing to complain about regarding the project pace. I've been pretty damn impressed with the quality of the Mozilla builds under Linux and fully expect a quality beta browser in the next couple of months
Like I said before, I already have a software development job, thanks. I'd me more than willing to write a check to Mozilla.org or AOL or whoever for $30 or whatever for a piece of software that worked. The point here is I could care less about the openness or the freeness of the project, I just want a damn browser... is that so wrong?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I didn't say closed source didn't work I was trying to criticise the validity of the article. The exact same reasons they were using to say that open source didn't work could have been used to say closed source didn't work. Basically saying that the article was totally wrong.
--
I don't know. It's pretty easy to get rid of AIM. Just delete the .exe file and poof, all gone. :)
Yes, it's over unless Linux gets significant desktop share in the next year. Right now, if you are using windows, you have to go out of your way to download an inferior (in features) product. There's no way Netscape can survive that much longer.
I wish people would stop blathering about Mozilla/netscape's death, and download it (or cvs) try it, and submit bug reports to the developers. Atleast that way you'll be doing something helpful. I try to make a new build atleast once or twice a week, and for the most part mozilla is running pretty well on my system (Debian Potato)
So just give it a shot, and help the developers out.
And if you're not willing to help, then shut up.
Mike
Tigger's like to read
If you think that the current Mozilla skin is such a problem, here's a challenge: write a Mac skin, and contribute it to the project. It would be a valuable contribution, for two reasons: first it would exercise the User Language, and secondly it would allow you (and other Mac users) to evaluate Mozilla without having your delicate sensibilities hurt.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
If for no other reason than to support diversity period. A world with only one browser, that made by Microsoft, is a very sad world indeed. If you think Netscape is bad, then wait 5 years and see what IE devolves into without any competition.
However, I've been very impressed with recent Mozilla builds. It's still not ready for prime time, but then again, Netscape 4.5 and later aren't either. If there's any "last best hope" for standards compliance, diversity, and non Microsoft dominance, it's Mozilla.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Mozilla may not be dead, but the browser war was over long ago. IE isn't a perfect browser, but neither is Netscape. However, that's enough for Microsoft to win. They have the dominant OS, and a "good-enough" browser packaged with it. Why should I install another app to duplicate functionality on my machine? And I used to be a die-hard Netscape fan. I would imagine the family purchasing a new computer wouldn't even think of Netscape.
That's exactly how I feel. I had always regarded IE users as heretics until I upgraded to Windows 98 and discovered the beauty of the incorporated browser/file manager. It's just too damn convienent. If you've ever used KDE, it's like kfm except faster, better supported, and much more widely used. Going to the trouble of firing up Netscape simply wasn't worth it anymore, and to this day it still isn't. You can't really relate to what the government said about packaging the browser with the OS until you use Win 98 or above: it's a part of the OS; the functionality between them is blurred. Web pages can be your wallpaper and the filemanager has a built in browser. It's insidious, but it's the way things should be, and it's how Micros~1 now leads the browser war by a huge margin despite not even having an Internet strategy while Netscape was already rolling out a product in the early Nineties.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Personally I have no problem with using Netscape 4.X (or Mozilla builds) until 5.X comes out. Microsoft's 5.0 browser didn't really seem to be more than making 4.0 making look slick and integrating it tighter with the OS (so that when it crashes, it takes my Windows box down with it). Microsoft's main motive behind releasing 5.0 was to make Netscape look stupid for not having bigger version numbers. Personally, I find NS 4.X to be a much better internet suite than the crappy MS solution. Seriously, who needs scripting enabled... by default... in their email?
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
First off, I didn't even know there was IE for Solaris...anyway, is IE for solaris any good? Or does it take over your desktop there too? I absolutely hate how IE4 decides it owns your desktop environment, and won't use IE until it quits that dumb behavior (or until I put windows on my hd).
Where's the Opera port at in terms of readiness?
Save the children; quit overparenting!
According to the milestone roadmap, M11 should have been out week and a half ago. What's up? I'm waiting for this one anxiously because I'm guessing it will be the first really usable version.
No, the TIME "journalist" actually just rehashed a CNet article. He didn't bother to do any actual research at all.
I've found myself using the StarOffice browser more and more on both Solaris and Netscape. Its not as "pretty" perhaps, but its more stable and well integrated with the rest of the suite, which I use a lot. Few complaints so far.
netscape 5.0 needs to hurry and come out because of the mem leaks in 4.xx for linux .
Well..this is sad news. Guess I better start a petition asking Microsoft to make a BeOS port of IE as the mozilla port sucks like no tommorow
Mozilla will change a lot of things.
I had just checked out one of the Linux nightly builds the other day (which was partially broken), and I was quite impressed. Very nice features, not TOO much bloat. The rendering was VERY fast, the new networking code works MUCH better than NS 4.x, and I was able to use it for quite a while before running into any problems. Very good for Alpha quality code.
This is just part of the latest rash of anti-opensource articles. It will pass, just like all the articles from last year about Linux. When Mozilla is done, it may actually be Open Source's finest hour.....
one word : QT4. Now explain to me exactly why apple changed the interface w/o even a whimper.
Sun + AOL trying to kill Linux by eliminating access to a decent browser.
Look at all the proof -- refusal to port ICQ (except that crappy Java junk they wrote).
It's official : Not only does AOL suck (they always have) but Sun is involved, too.
Screw them all.
I have been a Linux only user for almost 3 years now (no MS allowed), and I've been patiently waiting for a decent web browser to be available for my platform, which is currently a Redhat 6.0 box.
So far,
If IE was available for Linux, I seriously wouldn't care if Netscape died a horrible death or not. All I want is a decent web browser for my computer system of choice.
If I had a nickel for everytime I've ever seen "Bus Error" on my machine while trying to run Netscape, I'd be a rich man. Java applets usually crash the browser, as well as just about anything else that's not well behaved pure html.
And while I'm on a rant has anyone appreciated the crappy Motif toolkit used with those awful pushbutton checkboxes on forms. Or the dropdown list widget that fills up your entire screen on drop downs that have many items. What's that all about?
So I'll be patiently waiting for a decent browser for Linux. I'd even pay for it. Whatever it takes
Thanks Aaron Newsome
"There are relatively few projects that leap, fully grown from the thigh of Zeus, fully formed like Athena."
...projects that leap, fully formed, from the HEAD of Zeus -- like Athena did.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
I have been a Linux only user for almost 3 years now (no MS allowed), and I've been patiently waiting for a decent web browser to be available for my platform, which is currently a Redhat 6.0 box.
So far, .. no such luck. Netscape 4.x is barely a workable solution but this is what I've been stuck with for a really time now.
If IE was available for Linux, I seriously wouldn't care if Netscape died a horrible death or not. All I want is a decent web browser for my computer system of choice.
If I had a nickel for everytime I've ever seen "Bus Error" on my machine while trying to run Netscape, I'd be a rich man. Java applets usually crash the browser, as well as just about anything else that's not well behaved pure html.
And while I'm on a rant has anyone appreciated the crappy Motif toolkit used with those awful pushbutton checkboxes on forms. Or the dropdown list widget that fills up your entire screen on drop downs that have many items. What's that all about?
So I'll be patiently waiting for a decent browser for Linux. I'd even pay for it. Whatever it takes ... I wonder how lng I'll be waiting.
Thanks Aaron Newsome
A bug could be something as benign as displaying the wrong font size in tables, but declaring this a "vulnerability" lets you know right away that you better install the fix.
Actually, I don't consider this a bug anyway, but instead a security hole. That is, the feature works as it was designed to, but a lack of foresight in the design resulted in the security hole.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
No kidding, eh?? As far as im concerned, IE is the standard browser at the time. And yes, in most situations id consider the marketshare hard to overcome. But the fact is that it doesnt matter SH!t. Mozilla is a product BY the people, FOR the people. its standard compliant, fast and not excessively bloated. MS can do whatever they want. I wouldnt mind IE for Linux. But it doesnt matter. When Mozilla is finished, it will take over the market. It doesnt matter what they do. Just let it go.... Let people trash it. The end result will be the same. TN
Disagree in principle. I downloaded some patches that make Poser work a little better, and make animation a snap. I still don't like all of the over-blown features of Poser, but then, I don't like a lot of stuff with a lot of software so I go in and delete a lot of stuff as long as it doesn't screw things up. I haven't tried it on my LINUX yet. That will be another challenge. ---nedy.
My feeling is that Netscape lost the browser war a long, long time ago. The Linux version of Netscape continually crashes, and it doesn't have the features that IE has. The Netscape habit of reloading the page everytime you resize a window (particularly on a complex HTML page) is also highly annoying. I've sent mucho feedback to Microsoft to port IE to Linux. I hope they do so soon, maybe it might be an improvement over Netscape (assuming they don't port the Solaris version of IE, heh). Opera is another browser contender on the horizon. Hopefully, they'll live up to their claims. the KDE browser is ok for normal browsing, but doesn't currently offer the range of features I need to make it my one and only. Truthfully, KDE and GNOME have a long way to go before they can implement the level of integration seen with IE/Windows, another disadvantage. (Disclaimer: I use and love both GNOME and KDE regularly) I believe Microsoft not only won the browser war with anti-competitive practices, but also by putting out a superior product. I don't believe Netscape did their best, and if they did, it wasn't good enough. Also, when you install the Windows version of Netscape, it automatically installs AOL Instant Messenger, and makes no easy way to get rid of it. Isn't this the same as marketing a browser with the OS? They're trying to strongarm me into using AIM, instead of my preferred ICQ. The original Netscape ideology has gone the way of membrane keyboards... Don't force your interfaces upon me.
OH, come on.... It doesnt matter what Netscape does. It doesnt matter what MS does. Mozilla is built FROM THE GROUND UP to be a standard compliant browser. It will have no excessive bloat and it will blow the others (old NS, IE) away. Dont worry about it. It just takes some time. TN
Mozilla 5.0 has its limitations, but they are easy enough to work around. Once you know a program's limitations, the marriage works a lot better.------------ As for Netscape, you really don't need all the plug-ins and add-ons and stuff. In fact, you don't need a lot of it. Just enough to make it run properly. With all the add ons, it looks fancy, but it runs about as well as Explorer, which is not good. It's like a fast car - - you have to stip away the dead weight to make it perform.------------nedy.------------------------- ---------------- Casey Stengel: "The future ain't what it use to be."
It seems that with the anti-trust case ond other cases wrapping up that MS has more PR resources available. Its not so much in the info as in the spin. The info in the article is that the release day is slipped. The Slashdot mentions that this means Mozilla is shelved (Slashdot loves creating contraversy). Many have pointed out that win 2k (which was demonstrated to me almost two years ago as NT 5) has slipped also. But Netscape is touted as a failure and win2k is ensuring stability. I beleive this is more evident with Mozilla, even to completely rewriting it to comply better with different standards, as well as all the debugging tools developed and released for it. We have no idea what the hold up is for Microsoft. The article mentions releasing the souce code as a sublstitute for in house qualified staff, while JWZ (among others) mentions that it better serves the purpose of developing in a fishbowl. You get the benifit of many opinions, and bug fixes from other qualified people. The product is better, more stable and faster developed, but a substitute for your own workers I'm not sure it was ever intended to be that. Some might have dreamed that, but I don't think it was intended. Oh well, people who want a good browser will still help develop Mozilla and others. JWZ pointed out on many occationsh that open source means (essentialy) that it will never die unless we ourselves put it on the shelf.^ ~
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
So the delay of Mozilla has meant Netscape has lost the browser war has it. I think I'd better become a reporter.
Microsft have officialy lost the OS war due to the delay in releasing their closed source operating system called Windows 2000 which was originally due out in the beginning of the year. Microsoft had originally called Windows 2000 NT5 and expected it to be released in 98, then 99, then who knows.
Insiders inside the Microsoft Corporation said this was to make sure they had integrated their messenger with every component of the operating system and also to add new features to control the user interface (e.g. a colour picker to change the colour of the screen of depth). This is one of a series of delays for Microsoft products since their experimentation with closed source in the seventies. This proves that closed source does not work.
Now you don't see many articles saying that, so why do you see that about Mozilla?
--
A lot of people have mentioned Lynx as an alternative browser to Netscape. I agree with this, Lynx is small, fast, stable, and efficient at what it does. The problem with it isn't necessarily that it can't display images(most images on the web serve no purpose, important ones can be viewed with another application), but that it is not good when it comes to laying out tables and frames(doesn't do it). There's another browser called W3M, which can be configured with a lynx-like interface. In fact, I'm using W3M right now!
I tried it several months ago and it worked really crappy. But recently(with the last release, in fact) the table layout engine was revised and I am amazed at how well it can render text. The Slashdot homepage looks fairly decent, and right now it is very navigable.
Of course there are problems with it: I don't think cookies are implemented properly, you have to wait for the whole page to load before you view it, and theres a lot of minor glitches. But for those geeks who want an alternative to Netscape, want to browse for text (but are fed up with Lynx), grab a copy of W3M and try it yourself(do a search on Freshmeat). I think you'll agree with me that this puppy has a lot of potential. (Similar goal to the Opera text browser, but this is GPLed!) It's getting better with each release.
Also, on the GUI side, I like Konqueror(the kde browser). Sure it's not perfect, but especially with the upcoming KDE 2.0, we'll have a great package that will be usable for anyone. So yes, there are good alternatives to Netscape! Don't worry about whether 5.0 is released or not! We'll defeat them with our own browser.
Linux: Long live the source code.
"I have read The Mythical Man-Month myself and I agree with you to a certain point. However, I must be missing something here, if adding paid contractors or employees will only slow the project down, doesn't allowing anyone to see the source and contribute do the same thing? Whether the person is paid or not, donesn't adding additonal developers in any form do the same thing?"
This is an important point I think. A major thrust of ESR's CatB essay is that Linux violated Brooke's Law (from MMM), surprising a lot of people who thought they understood large software project management. This is what lead to the concept of a bazaar model. I believe the trick is that *when* the code is well organized and well written, new developers organize themselves and just start chipping in on corners of the code that interest them. The O(N**2) communication problem doesn't arise because not much communication is needed after some initial organizing and at patch submission times.
Netscape, unfortunately, had just suffered rapid expansion in a browser war and from what I hear was not in a sufficiently organized state to support bazaar development well. Hence rewriting was undertaken, and this does involve problems with communication scaling that could easily be predicted to take a while. I am hopeful for the results though. Often being written again after having made mistakes with a first version is the best thing that can happen to software.
I've seen too many software projects, including my own, take longer than expected. I'm not going to harass Mozilla over delays. When they release a stable beta I'll start forming an opinion and help as much as I can with feedback. Until then, I'm going to assume they know what they're about. If they don't, there's little I could say that would do much good in any case.
Our company has many users bitching about slow internet response time. When they are shown Netscape running on NT/95/98 they are amazed that it's so good. They are also stunned when ie4 has to be installed for "y2k compliance reasons". Netscape on Linux works just fine, and is still as snappy. We made our intern use ie when developing our intranet. Sometimes it took 3 minutes for pages to load. The "product" is pure shite. Let's work in the real world with this one.
Amen, fellow caward. I tried running HP-UX IE 5 for several months, mainly to get Outlook Express and access multiple e-mail accounts. Not only did it sponge up memory like crazy (a bad leak?), but it had problems providing basic X-Windows GUI behavior. Having been screwed early this decade by MS on its Mac applications, I have little confidence in their maintenance of any non-Windows application. My impression is that, for a long time, non-Windows MS applications have mainly been for providing leverage to get users onto Windows.
It seems that with the anti-trust case ond other cases wrapping up that MS has more PR resources available. Its not so much in the info as in the spin.
^ ~
The info in the article is that the release day is slipped. The Slashdot mentions that this means Mozilla is shelved (Slashdot loves creating contraversy). Many have pointed out that win 2k (which was demonstrated to me almost two years ago as NT 5) has slipped also.
But Netscape is touted as a failure and win2k is ensuring stability. I beleive this is more evident with Mozilla, even to completely rewriting it to comply better with different standards, as well as all the debugging tools developed and released for it. We have no idea what the hold up is for Microsoft.
The article mentions releasing the souce code as a sublstitute for in house qualified staff, while JWZ (among others) mentions that it better serves the purpose of developing in a fishbowl. You get the benifit of many opinions, and bug fixes from other qualified people. The product is better, more stable and faster developed, but a substitute for your own workers I'm not sure it was ever intended to be that. Some might have dreamed that, but I don't think it was intended.
Oh well, people who want a good browser will still help develop Mozilla and others. JWZ pointed out on many occations that open source means (essentialy) that it will never die unless we ourselves put it on the shelf.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
It's just too damn convienent.
It's not, though. On my Win95 machine, I double-click the My Computer icon and a window pops up showing my drivers and the controls folders. On my mom's Win98 machine, I double-click the My Computer icon, the computer thinks about it for about thirty seconds, then loads this two-paned thing that shows all the icons I have, plus a gratuitous extra pane that shows annoying graphics, gives file descriptions, and shows previews of some types of files. I'll take the fast version over the pretty version any day. (But then again, unlike most people (who get Win98 pre-installed on their computers), I'm generally trying to use my computer to do actual work rather than just "get on that internet thing".)
The browser/file manager in Windows98 has the same problems with inconsistency that the Win95 interface did. (Dammit, if I wanted to create a shortcut to a program, I would have right clicked and gone to the "New->Shortcut" option. If I'm dragging a file around, I expect the file to go where I put it!)
And as for having you're wallpaper be a webpage: Yeah, it's kind of neat, it's also a huge waste of memory, and if you click on links on your wallpaper, the web page that it links to doesn't get displayed as your wallpaper.
Software companies should go back to doing things the Unix way: Write programs that only do one thing, but that one thing right.
-Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Quote:
"Netscape's parent, America Online, has quietly put off the release of Netscape Communicator 5.0."
This means delay, not kill.
Also, the article is a mirror of a recent, possibly inaccurate, C|NET, anti-Mozilla article. The author claimed the 'e-mail/instant messenger' feature, which is NOT part of Mozilla. Mozilla will have a IM component, but not integrated with the e-mail. Netscape may have other plans, but AS WE ALL KNOW!!!! Netscape != Mozilla, especially recently.
Development on Mozilla is continuing on, and while it has been delayed by about 1 month, things are still looking very good, especially on the Linux end.
jf
i'm going to go to their site and bug them about making a linux version. I'd even give them money.
Juln
OK, one last (important) comment.
For all you Gnome/KDE developers out there. You both have decent browser technologies (to borrow from MS), but when when mozilla gets there, PLEASE support it by incorporating it into your desktop systems. Hopefully it will be fully standar compliant and open source, and then the best situation would be to incorporate improvement into it and use it.
TN
(And PLEASE, DO cooperate!)
Once upon a time, Netscape was good. Back in the days of 2.0 and 3.0. It was fast, and it worked. I think 4.0x did too many bad things to netscape, which made it much slower than anything else. However, IE was useless in the beginning. (1.x was non-functional, 2.0 was barely functional. 3.0 was somewhat usable. [On the side: What's up with M$ not making a usable thing until v3.x? I.e. in both the case of Win3.1 and NT 3.5]) But I've never liked IE's setup, and I really *hate* the idea of a browser being integrated into the OS. Sure, it pops up almost instantaneously in Win98, but that means it's lurking around eating up memory or swap space. Plus, how do I know it's not doing something evil in the background?
Netscape has always annoyed me with the lack of advanced settings, since they considered it "advanced" to change the cache size. I want to be able to tweak it and say what I want it to and not want it to use(More than just picking to block javascript and such)..
Something I would like to see, I haven't checked out mozilla source, or any other browser, but wouldn't it be nice to just compile the options you really want? So that you can shring memory requirements and loading time? That would certianly make me happy...
This message is priced at $0.02. Thank you.
This is very similar to a fud article on c|net the other day. Nothing new. The biggest failure of AOL/Netscape has been their lack of PR for Mozilla. The less they say, the more the mainstream press is going to hurt them.
What is actually interesting was this article which goes on about Microsoft's new plans to support standards in future versions of IE. Would Microsoft be doing this if Mozilla didn't exist? I don't think so. If there wasn't a Mozilla, Microsoft would be pushing 'MSTML' or some other proprietary kludge.
Competition, standards, and Mozilla are GoodThings(tm) and need active support.
Yes, Mozilla is late through no fault of its own. BUT, just witness the amount of stuff that has COME OUT of the mozilla effort! All sorts of secondary and tertiary projects were spawned. All sorts of good stuff has come out of the Mozilla effort, let alone NGLayout and renderer. Everybody has been bashing and FUDing Mozilla since its inception.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is an important point I think. A major thrust of ESR's CatB essay is that Linux violated Brooke's Law (from MMM), surprising a lot of people who thought they understood large software project management. This is what lead to the concept of a bazaar model. I believe the trick is that *when* the code is well organized and well written, new developers organize themselves and just start chipping in on corners of the code that interest them. The O(N**2) communication problem doesn't arise because not much communication is needed after some initial organizing and at patch submission times.
But isn't the initial organization time the very reason that adding more developers to a late project the reason it becomes even later? It's an interesting take, and theres a good paper in this somewhere if someone could provide a more definitive answer.
You gotta love the Mozilla for taking the Throw you First design away and implement the second one thing to heart though.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-808813.html
Paul Festa, writer of the above CNet piece, is not known for his kind words to Netscape.
Had either Paul or the writer of the TIME article actually did *any* research whatsoever, they would have found that Mozilla is chugging right along, and gaining more and more "third-party" support as time goes on.
It astounds me that /. readers are not only _not_ reading the contents of the TIME article before posting their opinions here, they aren't even reading Taco's piece correctly (and somehow coming to the conclusion that Communicator has been shelved completely). I would suggest checking out Mozilla.org, or mozillazine.org, or a nightly mozilla build before making comments about its demise. Ignorant badmouthing does the Open Source community no good. Even Linus T. made unqualified comments about Mozilla the other day. Seems like y'all *want* Mozilla to fail.
I meant screen of death not depth and this message was sort of a joke mainly to point out how stupid these postings are.
When you think that Microsoft will get a massive share even though W2K is massively delayed then why should mozilla be dead even though this is delayed?
--
Have _you_ ever looked at the code? mozilla dropped the classic code base almost entirely.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I have tried the browser, and althought IE5 is my favorite browser of all time - i use it occasionaly (as well as hotjava).
I can tell you now - it's not technically superior
Mozilla still takes longer than IE to both render and start up. "Preloading" of DLLs etc excuses are crap since IE starts in a new process and still is fast - and it's not like Mozilla couldn't use these programming tricks to speed up overall speed.
At the moment IE5 is more standards compliant than Netscape - I can't mention this WRT to mozilla cause i don't know it's internals - but for the moment, i'll stick with something that's fast and RESPONSIVE.
The difference it seems is that in a corporate environment the initial organization is done by other members of the development team. Holding the new guys hand detracts from the time they can actually work on the project. In this case though the developers don't have to spend any more time training in new developers, any yahoo on the net can download the source and teach themselves how it works. They can then communicate in a common medium (mozilla.org) that doesn't require any more overhead from the core developers standpoint. They can just check the message boards, bugzilla and get cracking. Having a good automated communications infrastructure is a very important point here, it can do a lot of the organization for you, freeing you from some of the constraints of Brooke's Law.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
...for the info. Mozilla is based on Netscape's code is it not?
Anyway I was just saying, and it is just my opinion, I like the way IE does bookmarking. So I use it...I guess I could change some Mozilla code but I guess I'd rather play with my TINI board.
-Red
-Red
what the hell is a 'value engineer'
Let's face it, better programmers could have nailed it by now.
It better have full screen browsing.
if tomorrow they fucked with the code and made advertisements in, and somehow did it in such a way that people couldn't figure out how to remove them..
..then the source code from tonite would be the basis of a new independant browser project.
I tried it for BeOS, and it looked pretty good.
:-)
I know nobody wants to pay for a browser, but you did just tell me you might.
In any event, the Mozilla people will keep on trudging towards release, and it certainly looks like they'll eventually come up with a nice product, whether Netscape offically releases it or not.
Of course the browser wars are never lost as long as people use platforms other than Windows(tm) and MacOS(tm).
D
----
I've been worried about Netscape withering for some time. Without Netscape, Linux will not have a decent browser.
I hope that now the developers of KFM (and whatever the Gnome equivalent is) will hit the aaccelerator and bring KDE's browser at least up to par with where Netscape 4.x is now. That way, if Netscape really does die, the Linux community can yawn, shrug, and keep on browsing just like the Macintosh and Windows users will.
This might be a little offtopic, but...
I remember seeing somewhere on the internet that IE5 (dunno about other versions) has an interesting bug.
Basically what happens is that IE5 allows you to create a custom icon for your website when a user bookmarks it. *but*, it doesn't actually check to see whether the file (which has a specific name, something like bookmark.ico or something) is actually a windows icon file. Theoretically (according to the site) it would be possible to put some executable code (backorifice anyone?) in the file and IE would execute it.
with a flaw like this, it surprises me that no one I know has ever heard of it, but then again, it could just be a minor problem.
(I did know where I saw this article, here, but it appears to have disappeared.) If anyone knows more about this, then I'd be much obliged.
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
The future of Linux as a viable desktop contender and alternative to Microsoft hegemony is ABSOLUTELY DEPENDENT ON HAVING A COMPETITIVE BROWSER! No non-hardcore types are going to use sub-standard browsers for very long. Lack of a good browser is the main thing keeping me from abondoning Windows entirely. If there is a rallying point in this epic battle, it should be around the browser, the essential window onto the Net. I therefor call on the volunteer army of Open Source developers to pick up arms and focus their efforts on Mozilla, the last, best hope of the free computing world! Viva Mozilla!
.... are the best way to burn all your time, unfortunately. I find that I, for example, spend too much time on the net. Sites like slashdot will make you old before you notice.
:(
Get a life! Go do something useful.
:-)
PS: Properly set-up Opera is really, really cool. I use it exclusively when on mswin. It's sad that such a good browser comes with such an ugly default setup
PPS: Why don't browsers have a cache in one file?
http://www.microsoft.com/unix/ie/defau lt.asp
They offer it for Solaris and HP-UX.
My experience with IE for Solaris: it loads slowly (slower than Netscape 4.61 on the same machine) but it renders HTML quickly. I'm not sure what kind of config crap it installs in your home directory; I didn't look closely at that.
>one word : QT4. Now explain to me exactly why
>apple changed the interface w/o even a whimper.
Let me guess - you're not a Mac user?
If you had looked around on the Mac sites, there has been far more than a 'whimper'. In fact, there has been quite an outcry over it - Mac users hate it. Sure, it's very pretty, but from a UI perspective it sucks hardcore. Apple really foobar'd on QT4's interface (which they've also used in Sherlock 2, albeit not quite as badly).
Hopefully Apple will reconsider.
Perhaps next time you'll *gasp* see what Mac users think before you make a blanket statement on our behalf? Thanks...
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
Seriously I would pay good money for a Unix web browser that is comparible or superior to IE. If it is cross plateform (ie windows) all the better.
I think if anything has killed Netscape and Mozilla, it has been MS instantly installing IE on the desktop of almost every 95 box. Where I live I've encountered many many people using IE, simply 'cause it was easier, it was there installed on the machine... And then the fact that every new MS product re-installs or updates your IE as it see's fit.
I've yet to hear anything on the vertict of the DOJ vs MS case, anyone know anything of this?
I really am not sure what Netscape/Mozilla can do now, to battle back against the giant mammoth that is MS, it would seem they have lost, but it they can strick some deals to integrate and install the browser with every non-MS OS, they might end up having a fighting chance. Basiclly what I mean it, I know Netscape craps out from time to time, for various reasons on different OSs, but they need to figure out why and then integrate Netscape/Mozilla to work better with the respective OSs. Once it starts regaining a reputation, start getting manufacturers to include Netscape/Mozillia with their install so that when their program requires a browser, it starts using Netscape/Mozilla...
Just a thought...
CR
I saw your brilliant observation regarding bookmarks and decided to give IE a try. I must be dumb, though, 'cuz I can't get it to work. You are obviously a genius, so I figure you can help me make IE work. The error I get is:
./iexplore.exe: cannot execute binary file
bash:
Have you seen that before? How do I make IE work? Please help, I don't want to go on another day without the great and wonderful IE.
Ok, people... put on your forward thinking cap...
;) What is our alternative if Netscape disappears?
With everything becoming more "NET" centric (more focused on the desktop here), what will happen to Linux IF the major browser suddenly disappears?
Do you think Microsoft would port their browser over to Linux?
Could this be Microsoft's secret plan to slowly kill off Linux? If someone can't browse the internet using a browser, then why would they want Linux on their desktop? (I can see the Microsoft marketing right now.... Switch to Windows, we have a browser!)
Ok... now cool off for a second....
Is Opera up to the level of support (on the web site side of things) that Netscape is?
Is there another Browser on the horizon to take over as the king of NON-Microsoft OS's?
Personally, I use Netscape ALL the time (except when mandated by da boss), and would mourn the loss of it.
Just some food for thought...let's see what happens.
Sure, it might be late, but a lot of software products arrive late. Sometimes years late in Microsofts case.
The Mozilla product that is coming out it not the product it started with. Its now got new engines and renderers. It doesn't have the wide community development support that the linux kernal has, but whats there is good.
They passed M9. They will release. People should stop beating on developers to release a product. Doing this forces a release too early, and too buggy. Its better to let them ship when its ready.
You'll often read reviews lambasting a Mac program because the "Preferences" menu choice isn't in the expected place (Edit menu), or copy has the wrong keyboard chortcut (Command-C), or because it uses a Windows bring-over (tooltips), or even because the application's menus are using an old WDEF so they appear in black and white instead of MacOS 8-style grayscale (Netscape).
We're picky, and we value our user experience.
This is why Mozilla will fail on the Mac. A completely reinvented set of controls? Not a single button that looks like a Mac user would expect? I came across some windows in Mozilla 5 that didn't even use the standard MacOS-style *scrollbars* or resize gadgets! Everything looked all Windows-y. Every single nuance of Mozilla, from top to bottom, is completely un-Mac; to those of us whom love the Mac for the UI, it's about the biggest slap in the face a software company can give. Mozilla will be discarded as "shovelware", a bad port that's mainly Unix and Windows-centric.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand, seems to understand the Mac user. They're adopting MacOS technologies left and right (Sherlock, translucent drag images, consistent drag and drop). They're extremely careful to adapt MacOS Appearance controls (nice shaded list views, buttons that look how they're supposed to look.) The whole thing feels and woks like Mac program should.
I understand the reasons behind the Mozilla interface. Totally configurable! Totall customizable! To me, it sounds like a nightmare in waiting. A parable: with MacOS 8.5, Apple engineers devised a way to swap out practically any interface element with another to create colorful and unique "themes". Zany windows, hi-tech windows, unique shapes. At the last minute, this feature was pulled, and has never been seen since. While Mac users were upset, the reason was simple: consistency in an experience is important. Just because I can have a "hilarious" South Park browser, doesn't mean that's a good thing for most users.
To conclude, I offer a bit of sadness: Mozilla 5 is the first release of Mozilla I don't care about. I remember the glory days of constantly checking the netscape FTP servers for a new version of Netscape (back in the 1.x 2.x days). I remember voraciously pouring through release notes, excitied about what I can make my web pages do. But now? It doesn't matter. A program designed by engineers, with features only an engineer could love, not a user.
It's dead.
Full screen browsing has never worried me (I can get rid of all the buttons and just have the title bar showing which is good enough for me).
But if you want the feature (which you seem to do) then please put an enhancement request in at Mozilla.org. First of all please check bugzilla to see if such a request has already been made (it probably has) and if it hasn't then submit a 'bug' report but categorize it as an 'Enhancement' so they know it's not really a bug it's a feature (request). More info on how to do this is at mozilla.org, just make sure you mark the bug report as an enhancement request rather than an actual bug.
You may then want to report the 'bugs' id number so people here who also want the feature can vote for it.
--
We've got the source. It doesn't matter what AOL and Netscape do. As long as there's someone in the world who wants a fast, stable, standards-compliant web browser, Mozilla isn't dead. And, no, IE does not meet any of those requirements.
A lot of noise has been made lately about /. being a type of news outlet, but with a summary like 'shelving plans for Netscape 5's release' and 'does mozilla have a chance?' its simply a lot of hype, instead of an objective stance. Anyways, as for mozilla
/. itself lately addressing this fact actually) But the same people also bitch when the software is late because they're taking their time in doing the things right instead of shoving a product out the door, bugs and all. Serious people, you can't have it both ways. These same people are the ones that don't really do a lot of coding, because if they did code a good amount of time, they'd understand the delays in re-writing a browser from scratch, and the amount of work that takes.
But more and more peole are downloading and installing the Mx releases with every release. The M8 release had something like 80,000 downloads the first day it was released(dont quote me, cant find the email with stats). Everyone else here has already pointed out the comparisons with W2k and how its late as well.
Here's my rub: People like to bitch when a piece of software crashes, is buggy, or doesn't work well. (There have been numerous articles on
XUL which is used by Mozilla to customise every aspect of the user interface is responsible for the look and feel of the Netscape browser and allows the user to apply skins to cusomise the look of their browser and this INCLUDES all the widgets (buttons, etc) as they're using their own XP toolkit.
This means that Netscape can release a Mac skin as the default with their Mac version and a Windwos skin with their win version and whatever with their UNIX version (we linke many skins!!).
At the moment it's just easier to ship one skin.
I seriously doubt the Netscape branded Mozilla will look like what you've got now.
--
...why did Apple release QuickTime 4.0?
In it's current state, I mean.
It violates a lot of the so-called interface rules of a mac. Not a single button that a Mac user would expect seems to be the case for QuickTime 4.
But maybe I'm wrong, since I don't have access to a Mac. The PC version is stupidly designed and lacks sane control structure.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - F. Voltaire.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all the disinformation on mozilla. Even our key advocates have been quoted as trashing it recently, which really bothers me.
slashdot broke my sig
All I want is Internet Explorer for Linux.
I really don't have much against Microsoft. I'm jealous of Bill Gates. I hate the operating system. But, the company has treated me well.
I really don't like Netscape though. I thought it was the cat's meow back when the 1.x versions were being released. But since 2.0 came out, it's been going down hill.
2.0 had frames support. Next hting I know, every site has these horrible frames dividing up every inch of the screen into tiny little squares, filled with animated gifs and blinking text on a black background.
Then there was Navigator Gold.. where everyone and their mother could create a web page. Granted, I wouldn't have a source of income without it... but I just find something evil about the software.
And Linux, the most stable OS I've used on an Intel x86 chip. I have to run Netscape, the lease reliable software for it... WHY!?!?
Gah.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
Top 15 Possible Reasons Netscape Communicator 5 is Delayed
(Of course, I'm not saying I 100% believe it has been delayed. I don't recall seeing a source on that article. But anyway....)
15. But they aren't done adding One... More... Feature! (IRC? WTF? Just gimme a browser that doesn't crash all the time under X.)
14. The Netscape campus has been invaded by communist squirrels.
13. The remaining bugs are on strike for better health benefits.
12. It is in accordance with prophecy.
11. It has been proven by scientists that the web causes cancer (what doesn't?), and the browser will not be released until further knowledge on the matter has been obtained.
10. Mozilla is caught in a subspace neutrino field distortion.
9. They're trying to put down a peasant revolt against AOL.
8. The developers are too busy playing Quake.
7. Communicator 5 was actually released in May. Everyone else has happily been using it for months now. We just didn't know how else to tell you that we don't like you.
6. They're arranging the code so that delays will be easier to conduct in the future.
5. Future looks cloudy, ask again.
4. Browser? What browser?
3. They're all drunk.
2. Too busy making smartass excuses instead of coding.
1. It's all your fault. Now get out there and beta test!
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
I was under the impression that Mozilla was using the Gecko rendering engine, which is a new one seperate from Netscape. read about it...
I don't know about the rest of you, but this is really scary to me. Think about it. Of all the applications that you have, which one do you use the most? For me, its far and away my web browser. If a particular platform does not have a full featured browser (secure transactions, proxy, java, javascript, plugins, etc), its very unlikely that I would use it.
I see many people saying that "netscape was crap, I'm glad to see it go". Well, if netscape had never existed for Linux, I really don't think linux would be anywhere close to where it is today. An OS without a full featured web browser is a dead OS.
Mozilla is not up to the task yet, and won't be for quite some time. Netscape works, but is falling behind in support of new features (HTML 4, CSS2/3) fast. If Linux and other OSes don't have a modern browser, there is not much of a future for them.
Heck, if anything, I smell conspiracy. AOL buys Netscape. In the DOJ case, MS claims they haven't stifled competition (pointing at AOL/Netscape). MS gets off. AOL lets Netscape die. AOL and MS form a partnership. Result, MS is the only platform with a modern browser and AOL has the icon on the desktop. You heard it here first.
- Darrick
Troll.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
You do realize that that would be just about the smallest possible leap to make don't you? At least at an atomic level...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
You don't understand the reasons behind Mozilla's interface. The interface was implemented the way it was so that they could maintain one codebase with very little native code. In addition, the CSS2 and later specs essentially require that things like buttons, form-fields, drop-down menus, etc. be implemented by non-native controls, because the specs require them to do things that non-native controls can't do (change opacity, for example).
Please attempt to inform yourself about Mozilla before making such disparaging comments. You've used a pre-beta build that has had little or no work done on the user experience, because they've been focusing on getting the back-end code running properly. What good does it do to work in the user experience if the back-end code is shifting out from underneath it?
These issues will be addressed, but you can express your concern in the Mozilla newsgroups, and let the developers know how you feel. That's much more constructive criticism than what you attempted here.
This article is an almost exact copy of an earlier article on CNet. Many good points were made on the MozillaZine article about the CNet article.
I am not too worried.
I am looking forward to Mozilla's new browser. I have used Milestone 9 and I like it. It looks and feels good.
I am also hoping that nekko can be incorporated into Gnome and KDE's file managers.
M$'s browser will only get LESS standards compliant if it is the only one left and that IS something to fear.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Hey! If it doesn't render in the Desktop Browser then don't go there! ;)
BILL GATES IS DA MAN!!!
Ok, back to the porn...
Look, this is pretty simple. There are two browsers out there with a huge chunk of market share, Navigator and IE. If IE takes over a chunk of market share, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what M$ is going to do. They are going to start tailoring IE to have lots of little new bells and whistles that will seem fairly benign. After some time occasionally websites will use these bells and whistles and they will make other browsers pages look worse. And then, you know what? Exactly. People will start using IE more and more. Then IE they will do other things that make IE even better on a windows machine than a mac or linux box. And so the cycle goes. Delaying Navigator is a profound mistake.
-- Moondog
Netscape for Unix is Not Very Good, but since there is no alternative it's under no threat or even pressure.
Netscape for Windows is Not Very Good either, and since it's main competitor IE5 is free, comes pre-installed with windows and is of a quality rarely seen in MS apps, putting even more resources in the lost browser war would be pointless.
Counter-productive even, since they most certainly will not want to give the impression that MS making a browser has been anything but a disaster for consumers. "Look, we give up, we can't compete with these sort of practices"... or at least until the trial is over.
Unfriendly who?!?! Opera?
'G' and 'Ctrl-G' keys ALONE are worth all the IE features.
But you are right: it's much better than any NS now and IE's, of course.
... If you find any sites that still work, and still have useful information, let me know.
I decided to check out gopher sites not too long ago, but out of all the sites I checked, the server either doesn't want to connect, has no info, or the info is 3 years old.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
If you are dead set against IE, try Opera. It is small, fast and quite unfriendly, but it works. It works extremely well, better than either of the others.
The 'hotlist' is a much better implementation of the book marks/favorites crap than the others have done(more of an Explorer feel to it) and the multiple windows is so much better to work with than opening new windows in IE or mozilla.
It's just better.
Sorry, I really like it.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
Mozilla.org isn't 'saddled' with anything from AOL (referring to Instant Messenger). I think AOL IM is GREAT and the relatively minor task of integrating that support into the browser is real easy thanks to our open modular architecure. In fact, it's already been hacked on by third parties, who have, incidentally, also gotten IRC to work in the same framework.
Anti-mozilla articles have plagued the project since the beginning. That's why it's important to only release the Beta when it's ready, and not before. Its important to make a good impression with the first beta. After the beta is released, who will remember all the nay-sayers like Mr Wood who wrote their crap?
Here's how you can help make the first beta great:
Signed
Netscape Engineer
Mozilla may not be dead, but the browser war was over long ago. IE isn't a perfect browser, but neither is Netscape. However, that's enough for Microsoft to win. They have the dominant OS, and a "good-enough" browser packaged with it. Why should I install another app to duplicate functionality on my machine? And I used to be a die-hard Netscape fan. I would imagine the family purchasing a new computer wouldn't even think of Netscape.
And then, there's my other beef: AOL. I hold little respect for this company, and yes, maybe I fear their intentions a bit. Similar to MS. But look what they've snatched up:
Winamp
ICQ
Netscape
You better believe that they'll try to merge functionality into Netscape 5.0. Probably more AIM crap and advertising and who-knows-what-else that I don't want to install. Netscape 4.5+ was annoying in this fashion due to their blatant attempts to direct everyone to Netcenter. I still use 4.08 as my browser of choice on Linux because of this.
I'm hoping that Mozilla will be available separately from Netscape, so that I can use a less commercially-tainted browser. These big companies fighting over us peons really gets on my nerves sometimes.
In that regard, I'd be happy to pay the Opera guys 30 bucks if the Linux version was mature. At least its a chance to get away from the bloat. Hmm I haven't checked that lately... maybe I should go do that.
SEAL
As far as I'm concerned, Mozilla is doing the right thing - standards complaince. Yeah its late as hell, and by the time it comes out, there might be an IE 6 release (or shall we say...bloat?). Mozilla is focused on releasing a small modular browser that follows standards.
The largest problem with the web is poor support for w3 standards. After you look over webpages created with CSS2/CSS and HTML 4, you'll wonder why its taken so long for somebody to actually implement the standards. While technology has been so important for the first few releases, the standards are more important in the development of the web now.
If there is one thing that Linux and the Internet has taught us, it is that open standards are good for the consumer and for the developer. If nobody follows standards, even browsers, then what happens is fragmentation. In other words, Mozilla is the right way instead of moving towards poor compliance.
Finally, lets remember that Mozilla is a very ambitious project and does have a chance to dominate the browser wars once stable and released. Lets look at it this way - Mozilla is designed to be modular and cross platform. Necko, XUL, Jabber, so much good and hardly any bad.
I know that when N5 does finally come out, developers will jump on it because it does support standards. Websites will be more attractive, easier to design, easier to read, and what else?
...and N4's CSS implentation is the worst...
simon
I switched from Gnome to KDE a couple of weeks ago and have been really happy with it. Why did I switch? Netscape crashed on me once too many times. I've got a few bones to pick with KDE, but I really love having a good light-weight browser in KFM. Sure it's not perfect, and I'd be lying if I said it has never crashed on me. But it loads really quickly (at least compared to suckscape), and it handles 95% of the pages I go to well enough. (Slashdot is actually one of the worst). And it crashes about once a month instead of once a day. I don't miss the .lock files either.
Once tne browser wars are over:
"In order to port IE over to Linux, you will be required to purchase MS-Windows, WinAPI for Linux.
IE is free, however the MS WinAPI is a bargain at $59.95"
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
It already bugs me that Micro$oft has the dough to keep down competition in almost every field, but if Netscape hangs up their hat, I am going to feel really dominated by Redmond. Netscape was that shinning light of inspiration to keep battling MS no matter what. I hope this article is based on wrong info, it would be a shame to have IE be the only updated browser out there (can you say no reguard for W3 standards). MS will come out eth their own "better" versions of everything from XML to HTML tags, and there will be no other browser big enough to stop it. Sounds like something from 1984, with MS as big brother. :)
This post could be consider /harsh/ words, this is just my personal
thoughts, they could be right, or wrong, and they may or may not offened
you. It is not meant as a flame/troll or spam, just my thoughts from head
to paper (err keyboard)
What the hell is wrong with Netscape. Listen all programs should have 1
role and do that the best they can. Netscape is a web browser so it
should do that the best it can and that is all. What is all this other
bloated crap they are adding to it?
They are adding a IRC chat cleint, Instant Messager, Instant Messager 2
Email converter, plus what they have now, Email Cleint, News Client. Hell
about when 4.X got released there was an Interface to a palm pilot built
directly into my freinds WindowsXX version of Netscape!!
Listen, Netscape is avaiable for many platforms , this inlucde Linux,
FreeBSD, most commerical Unicies, Windows, Mac, etc.
On each of these platforms, EVERYONE has atleast 25 differant text based
and graphical email cleints, about that many text and GUI IRC clients,
about that many news clients both text and GUI based, shalt I go on? Do
you see my point? Netscape is a web browser and a web browser should be
able to download files and display files, that is it.
Everyone and there brother has written an email cleint, they are a dime a
dozen and atleast 15 GREAT ones on every platform you can get your hands
on, why waste Netscape development resources on something that is already
there?
Web Browsers aren't cheap though, there is basically one good one, one
decent one, and a couple no-names. Netscape is the decent one, if it
doesn't do what it is supose to, browser the web, it is going to fall into
the no-name category, or worst... Get with the fscking program people.
It should do only one thing. OK, OK nevermind, I think that procmail
would benifit from having a svgalib and X based jpeg image viewer built
in. Elm would be better if it had it's own C compiler build in, so your
friend could email you source and have your email client automatically
compile it for you on the fly. I really think routed would be a better
program if it had the 3dfx Voddo3 chipset video drivers built directly
into it. Alsowhat the hell is gpm problem with it's lack of feartures, I
mean for a mouse driver to be considered good or even decent needs to have
support for prefect emulation of PowerPC MacOS 8.0 system and user
programs in the x86 version of Linux, that is a basic funaction of a
console mouse driver for God's sake.
This apache thing is driving me nuts to, to make apache better they should
take the source to sendmail and qmail and compile 2 smtp server directly
in to the apache binary. You see you put to of them in there to give the
admins a choice on which on to use. Then you take qpoper and the undernet
and dalnet irc cleints compile those into the apache/sendmail/qmail
binary. After that lets take proftp and wuftp, a couple instanst
messagers, inn and a telnet daemon for good mesure, pull it all together
and compile it into one big pile of shit, write a config file from hell,
stuff it on a fucking server and call the big stinking smell ass mess
fucking fearture rich inovative.
All this programs are decent if not IMHO GREAT by there selves, they would
all suck each other down if they where all stuff together into ONE HUGE
SUPER PROGRAM TO END ALL PROGRAMS FOREVER. THE LAST PROGRAM YOU WILL EVER
NEED, sort of bullshit Netscape (and other browsers, cough cough) are
trying to pull on us.
Do one thing good and that is all, don't try to be the one app that does
everything, included but not limited to anything. Netscape is a GREAT
browser, with all these add "feartures" I would rather use lynx, atleast
it knows what it is supose to be doing.
We should dump this whole net concept, which will be eventually be owned by M$, and go back to the good old days of archie, gopher, vernoica, nntp. Who needs these blinking advertisements brainwashing us 24 hrs a day. Give the net back to the people, specifically back to the super-spaz's, who created it in the first place. They mall and the boob-tube are still there for the idiotic rest of them
ZZZ
IE hasn't won the war. They won a huge battle and have a lot of marketshare, but Mozilla has a better chance in the long term:
1/ Non MS platforms are going to become more important. Linux, Mac, Pamltops, Set-tops. Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 will dominate these markets. Windows may never go away, but it's days of 90% market share are numbered.
2/ AOL will push Netscape on it's user base. They can't afford to let MS embrace and extend the Internet, so you can bet that 20M or so AOL users will be using Netscape by the end of 2001.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I don't know if Netscape will ever get back their dominent position, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there will be a robust, cross-platform, standards complient alternative to IE with considerable market share (at least 35%). That's all that we need to keep MS honest and be able to surf effectively from our favourite OS.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
"Mozilla" has always been the internal name for Netscape Navigator since version 1. mozilla.org is about opening up the internal process to external developers. There probably never will be a released product called "Mozilla", only a source tarball. In short Mozilla == Netscape, and if in doubt, check your HTTP headers or about:Mozilla
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Press Alt-B (Ctrl-B in Windoze) and you get an easy to use drag-n-drop bookmark utility. Why is IE's any better?
you dumb shit. Mac OS is dead not the other way around. MacOS 9 is the last MacOS that apple is going to ship. MacOS X is now totally unix -- dont like the new MacOS X interface ? too bad. you guys will have to adapt when your favourite OS ends up with a GUI thats different from any other Mac OS before it.
Who owns the source to Mozilla? If AOL decides to pull Netscape and go IE(hypothetical), can they pull the support from under the Mozilla project?
If so, then Mozilla is useless no matter what happens. Somewhere, someone down the line will decide that the project doesn't coincide anymore with their corporate beliefs.
If they can't do anything about the source, if the community now really owns Mozilla then who cares about Netscape? Sooner or later someone with more ego than life will sit down and crank out the code. Get enough open source monkeys typing on a project and it gets done, period.
So what? As has been stated before, netscape is delayed, not dead.
Remember the days when IE was the underdog? IE 2.0 was a seriously junior league bit of code. Then bam! out of the blue comes ie 3 (or 4?) and suddenly netscape begins to lose market share.
My point is, there is still plenty of room for netscape to manuver and come out on top. There is still plenty of time for another browser to appear out of nowhere and take over.
It's just a matter of a group of people sitting down to write a good software architecture. Maybe Netscape has done this with their code rewrite. Maybe Opera did this from the start. I dunno.
Think of the "browser war" as a soccer tournament. Netscape's losing at halftime during the first game of a tournament. Opera and the K browser got bye's through the first round.
So, are you the guy watching from the sidelines, or are you going to grab a bucket of water for the tired players? YOu can whine, or you can jump on mozilla, or the k browser, or any number of browser projects.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
I've decided to give up all those annoying graphics. Some sites even overload my cable connection these days with their silly shockwave and annoying java. This is why I'm going off to live in a log cabin like a hermit, away from civilization with nothing but an old 386 complete with 9600 baud modem connecting to a very good shell account.
Seriously, this could be the very spark Mozilla needs. As an opensource project, it's flopped, but as an underground rebel browser going up against the big bad company it might succeed. What happens when everyone who has enjoyed netscape for years find out that it's discontinued? They get anxious and start coding! No way am I going to use IE, and I'm sure alot of others feel the same way. I'd cut myself off from civilization and use only lynx before that happens!
DanH
(anonymous only because cookies are a Bad Thing, and entering a password every time you read slashdot is annoying)
I pretty much know what I do from what I read here...I don't check sources too deeply (which I know is not altogether wise)...but I'm pretty sure that I had read that Mozilla had it's roots somewhere in Netscape...anyhow thanks for the info.
-Red
-Red
what the hell is a 'value engineer'
I'm assuming that Netscape/AOL can legally pull the Mozilla code at any point they see fit leaving the non-MS marketplace without a browser.
If this where to be the case, I think companies like RedHat, SuSE, Caldera and perhaps even the likes of IBM and SGI should buy-out the browser code from Netscape/AOL, as they all stand to loose if Netscape gets killed off, and re-release it under a license such as the GPL or BSD.
I'm not even saying they should put people on maintaining/improving the code (although that would probably be a good idea), as the current level of the Mozilla code can probably be maintained by the opensource community like other big projects (unlike the code as first released by Netscape).
I'm just a bit confused about SUN, M$ is a direct competitor to them and although I know a IE version for Solaris exists, I don't think it would be a wise move by SUN to rely on IE being around as a browser for Solaris. So why does it look like SUN is not realy backing Mozilla?
Nothing beats lynx and never having to take your hands off the keyboard. Who needs stupid pictures.
Why hasn't the famous "linux community" wrote there own browser? Constantly I hear how shitty MS is and how the linux version of runs better yadda yadda.
Yet you have relied on NS bloated code for years.
Something you LOVE to point out if MS has a bloated app. If NS was only on Win9x you would point and laugh at it. However the situations reversed and all I hear is excuses "opera is in development now" "mozilla is starting to do better even if it is a year off".
Why doesn't the community stop bitching about NS bloated code and start a new project to compete with IE4+?
Or is it now you hope that Opera will save you? It sort of sounds to me like developing a project as huge as a fully compliant, fast and stable browswer wouldn't work with the "world as the developer opensource model"
Instead of bitching about how shitty NS is and how Mozilla is taking forever to write a competing browser why doesn't the linux community write there own? is it to hard? can opensource in this manner not do big projects?
Just a few thoughts, I think anyone with an open mind can understand the point i'm trying to get accross. To you linux enthusiasts that can't admit your OS has one single flaw, please reframe from posting replies.
Because microsoft hasn't lost the browser war. There isn't competition that's already got windows 2000 technology out to the masses like IE has over netscape.
...is due on 15/99/99 according to this page. When is that?
All target dates quitely slipped up to 4 months.
..Sucks...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
people who are stupid enough to design websites that require frames, require javascript, etc, usually dont have anything worth reading on their shitty pages.
While a good attempt, there were some corrections to your list. The Real List of Reasons why Communicator 5.0 is delayed is: > = changed
> 15. Fear of Microsoft has them trying to add One... More... Feature! (IRC? WTF? Just gimme a browser that doesn't crash all the time under X.)
> 14. The Netscape campus has been invaded by Open-Source (e.g. communist) squirrels.
> 13. The remaining bugs are demanding stock options.
12. It is in accordance with prophecy.
11. It has been proven by scientists that the web causes cancer (what doesn't?), and the browser will not be released until further knowledge on the matter has been obtained.
10. Mozilla is caught in a subspace neutrino field distortion.
> 9. They're trying to put down a pheasant revolt against AOL.
> 8. The developers are too busy playing Railroad Tycoon II for Linux.
7. Communicator 5 was actually released in May. Everyone else has happily been using it for months now. We just didn't know how else to tell you that we don't like you.
6. They're arranging the code so that delays will be easier to conduct in the future.
5. Future looks cloudy, ask again.
4. Browser? What browser?
3. They're all inebriated.
2. Too busy watching the market instead of coding.
1. It's all your fault. Now get out there and beta test!
Will in Seattle