Communicator Is Losing The War.....

Carnage4Life writes "Here's a ZDNet article that backs up the post by Dave Whitinger..it seems corporate IT types are tired of waiting for Navigator to catch up and may begin to abandon it... Wonder where that leaves Linux users if websites start tending to be IE enabled to perform useful tasks."

Comments

First!

[ciurana]

First!

Re:First!

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic? This should have been -1.

It leaves Linux users where they have always been.

[Johann]

One word: SAMBA

--

what a big dissapointment

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see JWZ now...

"Told you so"

communicator

[Zlazhman]

I don't see that where I work. Im a web developer and the company still supports netscape. we don't want to be tied up with microsoft too much and make us vulnerable. but they are right that communicator would have to move forward to maintain their position. Otherwise we would be forced to use web technologies that only IE can use currently. Another thing that worries me is Office 2000 web conversions. These programs are popular or will be in the future. You can save them as a web document. However it won't work well under Netscape.. but of course will work fine under IE.. What if companies do that? that would be troublesome..

Re:communicator

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd figure that since AOL owns Netscape, they'd pour all their developers into Mozilla and get it done before IE 2000(I'm guessing) comes out. AOL is rich enough that Netscape doesn't need to make any income right now. But no, they keep releasing new versions of 4.x, if only to remind users that they exist.

Actually, what is happening now is that IE is following what Netscape did. Netscape used to just rush products to the market, and say "we'll fix the rest later." That is what IE is doing now. Partially implementing only the stuff they like from standards, rushing it into the market. While Mozilla is going to come out with full compliance and pretty bug-free. Of course, it might be the fact that they are taking so long that kills them.

But the users, unknowing, think that IE is fully compliant just because websites use IE's toy features and whatever features the IE team bothers to implement. Why would anyone use something that IE or NS hasn't implemented yet? Exactly, that's why MS is winning the browser war right now. Quick and dirty, while Mozilla is slow and steady. All we gotta do is trick MS into thinking it is ahead....

Re:communicator

[TummyX]

This embeddedness figured prominently into Judge Jackson's ruling. As things stand, only Microsoft can get stuff like this to work. The people who tailor web pages to IE5 are shooting us all in the foot. I do not care whether IE5 works better. Once you have to have a specific browser to access web sites, not only is Linux at risk but the internet as well.


Don't be an idiot. IE is the best browser. It views standards compliant pages very well. You don't have to use IE specific features if you don't want to. *rolls eyes*.
Every _real_ web developer who develops for the public either develops two sites (using ASP or wotever)...or uses standard.
Even microsoft.com views fine on older browsers but views even better with DHTML when it detects you're using IE.
What pages out there need IE to view huh? They're enhanced for IE, but always have simpler sites for older and less advanced browsers like netscape.

By the way componentisation is GOOD.

Re:communicator

[UberDude]

First of all, AOL have committed themselves to the concept of an open source project to rewrite the browser. There are already over 100 in-house developers working on Mozilla, plus the dozen or so external contributors.

IE5 is *not* a partially implemented piece of software. It's the best (read: fastest, most stable, most standards-compliant) browser available today. I wish it had serious competition, but anyone who knows what you can do in IE5 knows exactly how far away the other browsers are.

You're deluding yourself thinking Mozilla can regain its lost ground; IE5 is far ahead. It's doing everything you might expect Mozilla to do, plus a few more things, and it's already been available for months. There are currently more IE5 users than IE4 users. It would be nice if they ported it to BSD/Linux, but why should they?

All "we" have to do is develop a better (or even remotely comparable) browser and maybe the perceptions will shift. Maybe. Frankly I doubt it. Anyone who has seen and used Office 2000 will understand that, even though it's proprietary, IE5 uses embedded COM objects in an incredibly powerful and interactive way.

Make no mistake, IE5 is already *the* choice for corporate Intranet solutions, and it's only a matter of a short time before it entirely supplants its alternatives on the Internet. The benefits far outweigh the drawback of losing a small percentage of customers through incompatibility.

Convince me otherwise.

Re:communicator

[Anonymous Coward]

Go take a look at the acid box test if you think IE displays standards compiant pages well.

Re:communicator

[Wansu]

It would be nice if they ported it to BSD/Linux, but why should they?

They have no incentive whatsoever to port this to an alternative operating system.

Anyone who has seen and used Office 2000 will understand that, even though it's proprietary, IE5 uses embedded COM objects in an incredibly powerful and interactive way.

This embeddedness figured prominently into Judge Jackson's ruling. As things stand, only Microsoft can get stuff like this to work. The people who tailor web pages to IE5 are shooting us all in the foot. I do not care whether IE5 works better. Once you have to have a specific browser to access web sites, not only is Linux at risk but the internet as well.

Re:communicator

[Anonymous Coward]

>You're deluding yourself thinking Mozilla can >regain its lost ground; IE5 is far ahead. It's >doing everything you might expect Mozilla to do, >plus a few more things, and it's already been >available for months. There are currently more >IE5 users than IE4 users. It would be nice if >they ported it to BSD/Linux, but why should >they?

Perhaps the perfect remedy for the antitrust suit would be to order Microsoft to release its source code for IE5 (6?)(7?)etc. under a GNU or BSD license so that anyone could use it or port it to any platform.

Re:Communicator

[My_Favorite_Anonymou]

I can't see the old Netscape user switch either. The thing about IE5 is that the feature I want in NN4.7 doesn't exist in IE5 either.

1) Short cut image-load on/off (NN3.04 has, I still use it unless I go to some Malicious Netscape3 crashing yankess.com and what has you.)

2) IE does hugh page move left/move right terribly. Yeah I know *sometimes* only IE5 can read /.'s unfinish page. OTOH, the page /. gives me sometimes wider than my 800 px screen. In this situation Netscape is much faster than IE5.

3) IE5 abandon the old good url auto-complete scheme with a evil one. Ironically, netscape adopt this great tradition from IE4 and it's much better. Netscape (IE4) only auto-fill the most recent/frequent used url, which is much more accurate than the drop down list IE5 gives me. You have no idea how slow that is (233 libretto)

4) If I enter a word in url bar that IE doesn't "understand", it will open a fscking left penal to show the search result. It's a pain in the ass to X it. Now this is pretty significant. Once the two browser decides to go different roads and emphasis user habby instaed of subtle speed difference, the users are encorage to stick with their current browser that they are familiar with.


All in all, Netscape is now officially the poster boy victim of MS monopoly attack, people have a lot more reason to give it a second chance.


CY

Re:Communicator

[m3000]

About your point #4, you can stop that. It's in the Internet Options thing somewhere on the menu bar. I forgot exactly how I did it, but it's on the options somewhere.

Also on point #3, I *somehow* got it to give me back the auto-complete URL. I have no idea how I did it, but I was messing with options one night, and now it works.

Re:communicator

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather be tied to Microsoft than tied to AOL/Netscape. Microsoft's staying power is much greater than that of AOL/Netscape, and they make a wider array of products that integrate well together. Plus, IE simply has more features, and you can count on your Windows98/2K customers having it, making deployment that much easier.

Re:Communicator

[Score Whore]

Additionally there are... extensions? to IE5 that include the feature of a toolbar image on/off button.

Re:communicator

[jafac]

You've bought into Microsoft hype. ". . . uses embedded COM objects in an incredibly powerful and interactive way." chuckle, chuckle. You sound like you could be writing articles for ZDNet.

IE5 may lack a lot of the memory glitches and rendering bugs of the old Netscape, but that's mainly because Microsoft was able to pour unlimited funds into developing it. Do you know why Win98 was really Win95 with a few minor bug fixes, and the browser sewn in? Because when it looked like Netscape's Aurora project (admittedly turned out to be FUDdly vapor) was a threat, they pulled half the developers off of Win98, and put them onto the IE4 team. Of course, NO other company in the world has a Desktop OS monopoly, so no other company could possibly pull up the kind of resources Microsoft can. So IE has turned out to be a quality, highly optomized product.

However, MS doesn't necessarily put that kind of effort into all of it's products. COM, is basically designed to deter what MS feels is a low threat. CORBA. And Java, of course. But COM is still a big piece of POO. COM is basically OLE, renamed. There are TONS of problems with COM and especially DCOM.
Without revealing the identity of my employer, we had spent about $20m on the development of a major distributed application. Now if I said exactly what it did, I would reveal the product, and my employer, which would be politically unsound. But anyway, after the product went into beta, we discovered significan problems, that were traced back to DCOM. Thinking we were doing something wrong, we had MS come onsite and give our developers a week of intense training. Our developers found out; gee, we weren't doing anything wrong, we had it right. A few things were tried and tweaked, and there were still some problems. Updating service packs fixed some things, broke others, and ignored the major glaring issues. (random disconnects, security issues, uncontrollable error messages spewed into the server event log when nothing was wrong). We have dozens of open issues with Microsoft developer support, and have been told, even on many of the severe ones, that they won't be fixed anytime soon (they've got a lot of effort focussed on ActiveDirectory). So, 9 months ago, they decided - SCREW Microsoft, we had to port our server to Solaris anyway, and there was no cheap implementation we could use on Unix, so we yanked the whole DCOM architecture out of the product, and engineered our own from the ground up. Oh, the product would WORK with the MS DCOM in place, but we would have spent a fortune supporting the damn thing. NOW, our company has control over the bugs, so we can fix things that are a high priority to us. It was expensive, but it would have been MUCH less expensive had we not wasted our time on this Microsoft garbage in the first place.

So, don't buy the hype about DCOM, and COM, which really isn't all that relevant to the browser wars anyway.

Your other assertion, that IE will supplant all the alternatives on the web - IS WRONG. IE is not cross platform, and most of the nifty compelling features don't work on the few other IE platforms other than Windows. People who are not using Windows Mac or Solaris, will NOT use IE. Period. they don't have the choice. Windows can not, and will never be THE OS that is all things to all people. No OS can be that, no matter how hard the riches person in the world WISHES it was so. So it is not a matter of short time, or even infinite time. It will never happen.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Re:communicator

[TummyX]

Uh, have you even TRIED it?

Most HTML documents produced by Word view fine under netscape...as long as netscape doesn't crash on you.

It's HTML and XML. Nothing special.
Inthe end it's netscape's fault for not implementing new standards, but spend time adding "Shop" buttons and "We'll redirect you to netcentre every second click" type features.

Re:Communicator

[zsmooth]

3) IE5 abandon the old good url auto-complete scheme with a evil one. Ironically, netscape adopt this great tradition from IE4 and it's much better. Netscape (IE4) only auto-fill the most recent/frequent used url, which is much more accurate than the drop down list IE5 gives me. You have no idea how slow that is (233 libretto)

You can turn on the "old good url auto-complete" in preferences. It's called "Use in-line auto-complete" or something like that. I believe somebody already posted how you can turn off #4. When something's bugging you, it's usually beneficial to snoop around in the user options. Most of these UI issues can be configured to your liking.

ALready actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Our company has several web applications that are IE only already....BLAH.

Re:ALready actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you have already lost my business.

Does this shock anyone??

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape had lost every software battle it has fought. This isn't a troll, its just the facts - they were creamed in both the client (browser) wars, and the server wars, where Apache and IIS have pretty much put it out of the running.

Now the big issue is, why? Plainly put, crappy products. Their browser is a dog, even worse than IE.

Their servers are woefully inadequate compared to the freely-available Apache, which also has captured the market for server extensions.

As much as Microsoft damaged them with questionable practices, there is no doubt Netscape helped dig their own grave.

Re:Does this shock anyone??

[Adam Selene]

Netscape had/has a problem. The browser is a prime example of a wonderful hack. The PROBLEM with wonderful hacks is this. When someone else needs to work on them, or they need massive extention, it's hard for anyone to work on it (even the original author). This is where good design, documentaion (including COMMENTS in the code) and the like really helps. It's called shooting yourself in the foot

Re:Does this shock anyone??

[harlows_monkeys]

and the server wars, where Apache and IIS have pretty much put it out of the running

That's incorrect. Apache has more servers by number, but Apache also has a larger fraction of the piddly little iconsequential servers. If you survey major web sites, you'll find Netscape is doing quite well compared to Apache and IIS.

Re:Does this shock anyone??

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Netcraft gives fairlygood numbers, and all you have is conjecture. Until I see more definitive proof, I'll assume that you in face have not visited the server closets of any major websites (I have visited a few, including *the biggest*, and Netscape was nowhere to be found).

Netscape and bugs

[slk]

Netscape, pretty much for the entire 4.x release
process, appears to be unable to release a
solid, stable browser that behaves consistently
across different color depths, and doesn't crash
regardless of what java and javascript do.

By version 4.7, you would think that they'd
figure out how to make Java work consistently,
regardless of how many times NS has crashed
during that X session. By verison 4.7, you would
think that random pieces of javascript (i.e.
what's on /.'s homepage) wouldn't cause browser
crashes under some circumstances but not others.

Finally, you would think that bugs that have
been reported since 4.05 and earlier would
actually be fixed in 4.7, instead of them
just adding new features.

Right now, in terms of stability, netscape
is crap. Right now, if IE was available for
FreeBSD (either native of a Linux version),
I would probably be running it, because IE
on NT sure is a hell of a lot more stable
than Netscape on anything. I don't think IE
has better features. I don't think it has a
better interface. The only reason I care about
IE is that it has less bugs.

Right now I'd also be very very happy to be able
to pay $35 for a copy of Opera for FreeBSD.
It's small, fast, and STABLE! Yes, the most
important part of that is STABLE. Besides being
annoying, flaky software isn't user friendly.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[tzanger]

It's comments like yours which show just how close-minded some people are.

IE4 blew big hairy donkeys with smelly feet and gingivitis. No arguement. I used Nutscrape because a) it worked in Linux and Windows, and b) it was far less buggy.

However, I had my share of trouble with Netscape. Crashes for no apparent reason (nothing to do with java) being my biggest problem. It had serious problems loading large (>400k or so) web pages (I read /. in flat mode), but that wouldn't have bothered me so much if it didn't take down the other eight browser windows I had open!! What else did it do wrong... Let's see... Messenger opened up a connection and downloaded a goddamn Netscape ADVERTISEMENT every time I opened it (prefs.js fixed that). In their infinite wisdom they disabled multiple POP mailboxes but allowed multiple IMAP boxes since they were trying to push IMAP over POP. all kinds of little yuckies, but it was better than IE4. Even going from 4.5 to 4.51 to 4.6 to 4.61 didn't solve any of these problems. There was no email address to complain to. Their FullCircle software often crashed before it could get the report in.

This wasn't because my hardware or install was buggy, this was over three reinstalls and over two completely seperate computers, from Win95OSR2 to Win98. Netscape Communicator just blew, but it was better than IE4.

IE5 is MILES ahead of any Netscape offering, and I hate to admit it. CSS WORKS, it renders HTML much faster and more correctly than Nutscrape, and it would load huge pages without error. It even handles bad HTML better than Nutscrape. I now use IE5 almost exclusively on Win, but am stuck with NS's failures on Linux (albeit not as many failures as Win version).

I very much dislike Opera, it reminds me of being stuck in StarOffice. MDI blows, in my opinion. I need the graphics and a bit of java at times, so don't talk about Lynx. Mozilla may remedy all this, but I'm not getting too excited over it yet.

There will always be a back-and-forth battle until someone finally gets their act together and releases a decent cross-platform browser. Your comment about never touching IE again because of one **first-release-of-software** bugfest is like the child who's bitten by a dog once and vows to kill every dog they ever see as long as they live. What a childish outlook.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[blue]

How do you prevent it from loading the "goddamn Netscape ADVERTISEMENT"?

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Email send button on the file pulldown
menu just can't be replaced!

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Editing the prefs.js was too high-tech for me, I just added an alias for messenger.netscape.com to a server with a nice short 404 message.

What FSCKING CRACKHEADS came up with putting that obnoxious page in the mail client, WITH COOKIES NO LESS?!? Thanks for playing with yourself by adding all this c00l c0rp0r4t3 advertising instead of improving your stool-leaking browser, Netscape, I love you! Kisses!

Re:Netscape and bugs

[smale]

" The only reason I care about IE is that it has less bugs."

Well I did a tech support bitty for someone when they were installing IE4 when it first came out, because Microsoft said it was the second coming of Christ, and when they rebooted thier computer to complete the install (why does an html browser need the os to be rebooted to install it?), they said thier computer just sat thier and did nothing. Well I had to deal with this hands-on, and sure enough, a boot disk said there was no c: or d: etc. Fdisk showed two non-dos partitions. Thats right. IE4 repartitioned thier hard disk into two unusable partitions and she lost everything. I will never touch any version of any IE for as long as I live. Feel free to submit your own hellish IE stories below this post, for the entertainment of the IE loving community.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

I run Netscape Navigator (not Communicator) version 4.08 on Linux and FreeBSD with Java, Javascript, Style Sheets, Autoinstall, and Cookies disabled.

I use Navigator about half of the time I am using a computer. I use a computer about 8 to 12 hours per day.

Navigator crashes (usally a "bus error") about once a month. Usally when it crashes I have more than 20 windows open, more than half of them loading a page.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend who works at Netscape who confirms that the company refrains from releasing bug-fixes until a company offers them money for the fix. I know of other companies which do the same, some of them geek "favorites". The point is that Netscape isn't going to fix its bugs just because a bunch of individuals point those bugs out.

-- Guges --

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

You call that a career? Sounds more like a sentence, you poor bastard.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Stinking Pig]

Yeah, well one time I installed freecell.exe on my Windows computer and it rebooted all by itself and it didn't have anything on it anymore either and it made this grinding clanking noise and then it burst into flames and the fire department came. Clearly freecell caused this to happen so I will never play any computer solitaire game again.

Please limit the FUD to reality, other items make you (and by extension, us other /.ers) look dumb.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit - there is no fucking way IE caused that. The computer may have already had something wrong with it (most likely virus, already corrupted FAT table or hardware failure), but installing IE on a known good system will not cause this. And while you may have done tech support for this one person - I started my career supporting thousands of people using IE.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea what a complete moron you sound like? While I don't doubt your story that upon reboot the system was toast it was NOT due to the IE4 install. Sorry couldn't have happened due to that, more likey your clueless friend (just a little more clueless than you) likely had the CIH virus on their system.

You are single handedly bringing down the average IQ of the Linux community, you should be so proud.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Centove]

Ya know this really annoys me. I have purchased netscape all along. And so far all I have gotten is a shitty product. If they think I'm gonna give them another dime they can kiss off. As far a opera.. stuff it. I refuse to pay for yet another piece of shit software that if its broke I have to beg to get stuff fixed. Thanks but no thanks.

Re:Netscape and bugs

[odaiwai]

Man, you must have the stupidest lusers on the planet as she clearly ran fdisk when you asked her to run ie5setup.exe.

dave

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Sir SurfALot]

For someone to be able to say that any given piece of software, but particularly Netscape, is more buggy than something from Microsoft is truly embarassing, wouldn't you say? *grin*

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man don't be doggin' Netscape 4.7. Screw W3C standards, we got ourselves a new 'shop' button!

Re:Netscape and bugs

[Harv]

I agree with most of what you say. It's almost as if Netscape has given up. Whipped. I still use Navigator 4.7, but find that with my bad eyes, one feature of IE makes me use it on the increasing number of sites that use microscopic type, or CSS, or both. The Larger/Smaller button on the tool bar (in the Mac version, at least) is a good example of giving the user the power to control the environment. I can blow the type up to readable size, or reduce it for quick navigation on the fly. I like that, and if Netscape added that I'd probably never use IE. I think Microsoft deserves to be drawn and quartered for all the good stuff they've killed in the crib --- and will someone tell Bill Gates he ought to shut up and not do TV interviews anymore. God, what a dweeb!-- but give the Devil his due, the frigging Larger/Smaller buttons are great. Pathetic, ain't I?

Whee

[PenguinX]

Well, perhaps people should pay attention to what people are talking about in the talkback part of the article. Not to mention that NS5 will have the Gecko engine, so Internet Explorer will definately feel some fear ... Gecko has a rendering subroutine that is really really fast. Internet explorer still seems slow to me on the wind0z3 95 side.

Re:Whee

[Quarters]

Gecko can be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But, if the entire program is as wobbly as the 4.x series it won't matter one bit.

With 700+ MHz processors who really gives a damn how optimized the rendering engine is? If IE 5.0 on my 900MHz Athlon (just an example) is stable and can render pages brought down by my ADSL modem in the blink of an eye I really won't have cause to switch to NN 5.0 just because it is a couple of milliseconds faster.

Re:Whee

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, it's been like a year now and nothing's really come out the door. Opera? Still under wraps, for Linux anyway, and not necessarily going to support all IE functions. Arena? Nobody uses it. It's sad, but those of us on alternative systems, and who are crummy/overloaded coders, are just plain screwed.

Re:Whee

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a person that hates Microsoft, and does alot of web development. Hating Microsoft means that I'm a Netscape supporter by default. The worst part of this browser issue is that the alternative is Microsoft. If it was, for example, Oracle Internet Explorer, I would have moved over months ago and let Netscape sleep in the bed they made. The unfortunate reality is IE has 6 months on the market with a browser that crashes less often, renders faster than other browsers available, and supports relatively current technology. Netscape has some vaporware that will be real fast when/if it comes out.

Re:Whee

[smale]

Maybe you have seen that persons sig about Gates' Law, and that sure makes you look like an idiot when you feel that what you just said is a good thing.

Re:Whee

[TummyX]

don't worry ...i've downloaded most of the milestones and the html rendering is still slower than IE5.
And I doubt it will be much faster when gecko goes gold :P.

Re:Whee

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, rendering speed try to render this page under IE and NS ... (simple page with table 50x50 images ...) IE 5.0 - cca 10 minutes NS 4.6 - cca 1 minute (PII 400, 128 MB) You can have fastest machine on the world, but if you are using slow datastructurs ... Barney

Re:Whee

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried this, and it only took about 10 seconds to render in Netscape 4.7 on Linux (pII-266, 128MB). If you include the fetch time (over a fractional T1), it was still well under a minute.

Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[waddgodd]

Why are all these companies seemingly looking for exuses to make their web sites incompatible with X browser--the old NS-only sites, the IE-only sites, etc.? Whatever happened to HTML being browser independant? The WWW is starting to stand for Won't Work Well. Well, it's THEIR throats they're utting: I ain't going to do any worse for not having the opportunity to be advertised to, but thye'll be MUH worse if I make my buying decisions in their self-imposed silence.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds good in theory, but the unfortunate reality is that whoever is writing the standards will just keep "upgrading" them. For instance, HTML was originally supposed to be usable in a TEXT BASED environment as well as a graphical one.

Between Microsoft, Netscape, and the people writing the "standards," they've done everything they possibly could to break this kind of functionality by not enforcing browser and platform independence.

The Lynx people haven't kept up their end of the bargain either. Stuff that has been broken for years (e.g. table formatting) is still broken.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[BigDaddyJ]

Why are all these companies seemingly looking for exuses to make their web sites incompatible with X browser--the old NS-only sites, the IE-only sites, etc.? Whatever happened to HTML being browser independant?

It's not that they are trying to make it explicitly incompatible - just that they don't need to spend money and time to enforce compatibility, since they just need test their HTML against the majority browser.

Unfortunately, you and I don't count as part of the majority anymore, and we make up a smaller and smaller share of the e-commerce pie.

--bdj

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[Chuut-Riit]

Where I work, we started out using only Netscape as the browser. Then IE got installed. Then the IT Grand Poohbah decided that IT would no longer support Netscape, just IE. The (in my view complete bullshit) reason given was that the rest of the system was M$ (NT server, WIN95 clients, M$ Office and Outlook, etc.) Netscape is still available on the desktop, but over time, as the firm intranet becomes more and more optimized for IE, the loss of functionality when using Netscape is extremely noticeable, and I get nasty Javascript error messages (so I turn it off). I continue to use Netscape because I'll be damned if I use IE, but eventually I'll have no choice. My guess is this type of thing is occurring in other shops as well, and will continue to occur in the future, irrespective of what Netscape 5.0 is like.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[Zurk]

the only thing the internet is good for is the same thing it has always been good for - email.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[margaret]

Why are all these companies seemingly looking for exuses to make their web sites incompatible with X browser--the old NS-only sites, the IE-only sites, etc.? Whatever happened to HTML being browser independant? The WWW is starting to stand for Won't Work Well.

No, we're talking about STANDARDS here. All of the technologies mentioned in the article - XML, CSS, XSL - are either current or proposed W3C recommendations. Check for yourself.

If a page written according to these guidlelines won't work well, then something's the matter with your browser. Which is exacltly why I loathe Netscape 4.x. I can write a page with perfect code (according the the w3c validator), and it will look like crap in Netscape due to it's poor CSS support. So I prefer IE. Web designers and businesses are understandably pissed that they can't use standard technology becasue Netscape breaks their pages. The solutions are design for the lowest common denominator or have browser-specific pages, which undermines the whole point of the web.

Mozilla, on the other hand, is even superior to IE in its support of web standards. So I'll admit I'm a fair-weather friend with no loyalites whatsoever - when mozilla/netscape5/whatever comes out, it will be my new favorite browser.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[Lord of Caustic Soda]

Except you have people who cannot for their lifes spend 5 seconds turning off sending HTML emails...

No browser should be set to send HTML emails by default, if the stupid user is too stupid to switch it off, he/her is too stupid to be needing the fancy stuff.

All those people who design bloated, image-ladden web sites with pointless Java programs obviously have not actually used the net much. People usually bitch about sites being too slow to load and don't have the stuff they were looking for, they don't stay away from a site with the information they want simply because it's not fancy-looking enough.

Speaking from personal experience, there were several occasions when I turned away from an online shopping place half way through an order because the damned thing loaded so slowly that my patience started running out and had the time to realise I might not want to buy the stuff just yet...

Longer loading time = more time to reverse an impulse buy

Keeping things a bit on topic: maybe with the dominance of IE we might finally be rid of that Netscape spawn of evil - the blink tag! :)

Okay, long shot...but if the f*cking French can get into Rugby World Cup final, stranger things can happen.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[C.Lee]

>All those people who design bloated, image-ladden web sites with >pointless Java programs obviously have not actually used the net >much. People usually bitch about sites being too slow to load and >don't have the stuff they were looking for, they don't stay away from >a site with the information they want simply because it's not >fancy-looking enough.

And of course these are the people who are bitching and screaming the loudest about the coming WWW acess lawsuits,because they damn well know that they are the ones who will get hit by them and I can't think of a bunch of people who deserve it more. In other words, they're going to get what's coming to them, and they're going to find that there aren't going to be very many people who are going to be willing to defend them.

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[bmetzler]

The WWW is starting to stand for Won't Work Well. Well, it's THEIR throats they're utting: I ain't going to do any worse for not having the opportunity to be advertised to, but thye'll be MUH worse if I make my buying decisions in their self-imposed silence.

The web should, no *must* be browser independent. It should be standards dependent. If it makes a difference what web browser you use, then someone has abused the web.

I use IE now, because it is the newest Windows browser. I use it in the same way I'd buy a 99 Ford model car because Chevy hadn't released a new model for 2 years to make their 2000 models irresistable. Driving a Ford this year shouldn't prevent me from replacing it with a Chevy next year. And likewise, I should be able to pop out IE 5 and pop in Mozilla without noticing a difference in functionality.

If I do, then the one that's not standards compliant is *wrong* and will be disposed of as quickly as possible. I think that a lot of other people/companies think the same way.

And as you mentioned, if they don't, then they are the ones that are losing. If I am not able to buy a ticket for Northwest online because they aren't out to serve *me*, well, then there are plenty of other airlines to go to.

-Brent
--

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[AndyElf]

...one that's not standards compliant is *wrong* and will be disposed of as quickly as possible. I think that a lot of other people/companies think the same way.

True, but how most ofpeople/companies out there *know* what is *the standard*? What most of them *percieve* to be a standard is what they are used to seeing, not what W3C writes in some obscure manual/policy/standard, but what MSIE *shows* them to be a standard. Things like loose HTML syntax, marquee tag, poor compliange with CSS1 and tons of other small nifty feature none seems to use, but still being in use nonetheless.

It is exactly these small nifty-and-not-as-much-so things that really start getting in a way, costing Netscape the war. One could not put it better than Dave Whitinger (re-phrased): why do I as a Joe-random-user should not enjoy Web as much as my friend next door? And this includes all aspects of it: I want Shockwave, I want DHTML, I want my links to react to my pointer hovering over them! Yeah, I may not know DHTML from an animated GIF but why should I? And I do want it to be stable--the time is almost gone when we could just slap "Windows is not stable enough" and be done with the argument.

Truth and an important fact is that we doneed Mozilla to succede. Personal computing now is not a standalone desktop in an attic: Linux (or any other *nix) needsa rock-solid browser, maybe even morethan multiple desktop environments and window managers.

If we fail we willloose the war

Re:Greaaat! Another incompatible browser

[bmetzler]

Truth and an important fact is that we doneed Mozilla to succede. Personal computing now is not a standalone desktop in an attic: Linux (or any other *nix) needsa rock-solid browser, maybe even morethan multiple desktop environments and window managers.

I'm certainly believe that with all my heart. And I think that when Mozilla is released we'll have it. And I think it won't be as big a problem to get people to use Mozilla as you think.

Microsoft will be prevented from forcing IE on OEM's and IAP's. We'll see more of them using Mozilla as their browser, that'll result in more people writing real web pages. And life will be good.

Well, I can dream...

-Brent
--

WHy bother?

[CmdData]

I don't even know why anyone would bother using/developing Netscape anymore. I thought Netscape was achient technology kind of like Linux. They both go well together.

Re:WHy bother?

[segmentation fault]

You're right. Linux is ancient technology. Somewhere in the '70s, if I'm not wrong. But unfortunately, that and FreeBSD are the only useable alternatives.

Microsofts operating systems is even more dated. And the user interface is crippled. And they have done everything wrong. Everything in they're operating systems are either missing or they sucks. Personally, I think that for anything other than launching games, Windows do not work.

I don't think Linux' user interface is dated. What is dated are the current "We're still on a PDP11" development environment.

Re:WHy bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is coming from a star trek freak. pretty simple concept, if you don't like it, leave.

Re:WHy bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

You started out fairly reasonable in this thread, but you're getting more and more insipid with each post. I estimate three beers per post. Am I close?

Re:WHy bother?

[segmentation fault]

USB support, dvd, scsi, 3d accelerators. Yep pretty ancient.Seriously, Linux was written in 1991, and has been regularly updated ever since. I wonder how much original code is still in the kernel. I also disagree that MS operating systems are dated. For a desktop system NT, and what i've used of 2000, is a pretty decent platform. Even under moderate usage it is fairly stable.

You totally miss the point. A tape recorder is ancient technology even if the tape format is new and the recorder was produced this year, and it doesn't crash.

It's good enough for most people.

Most users takes whatever is given to them.

As for the PDP11 environement, well if it works why change it. I;ve got plenty of GUI tools that work with the text configuration files. Works fine.

Text configuration files are Good[tm] and is not what I mean by a PDP11 environment. What I mean is that first of all most programs are written in an assembly version for PDP11 which was created because the original assembly was to verbose and thus required to much typing on an teletype. It is a direct translation (had to be, the PDP11 had only ~16K of memory). And being a PDP11 assembler, it lacks support for stuff that the PDP11 did not have, like overflow registers.
And the exec exec exec model is, well, very dated. load run run run is more up to date. Keeps information between sessions, reduces running time and makes a lot of other stuff easier to do.

Re:WHy bother?

[treke]

USB support, dvd, scsi, 3d accelerators. Yep pretty ancient. Seriously, Linux was written in 1991, and has been regularly updated ever since. I wonder how much original code is still in the kernel. I also disagree that MS operating systems are dated. For a desktop system NT, and what i've used of 2000, is a pretty decent platform. Even under moderate usage it is fairly stable. It's good enough for most people. As for the PDP11 environement, well if it works why change it. I;ve got plenty of GUI tools that work with the text configuration files. Works fine.
treke

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still fondly remember when I ran ldd on the Mozilla binary and got a listing of around 53 shared libraries, most of which didn't exist.

LDAP URL format...

[FatSean]

I like NS because when I hit an LDAP server I get all the attributes. IE pops up it's idiotic "address book" and tries to make the server schema fit with the MS schema. Useless. Oh yeah, and when NS locks, I can kill it and restart. When IE freezes, my ^&#*^ TASK BAR is useless! Often the explorer as well! Bah.

Re:LDAP URL format...

[Sethb]

I hear people gripe about IE taking down their shell all the time, when really the solution is pretty simple.

In your Tools->Internet Options dialog box, check the item called "Launch internet browser in a separate process" then if IE crashes, only IE crashes, and not your shell.
---

Re:IE is the standard

[Anonymous Coward]

And you choose to take the 'other' choice for the sole reason that it is the other choice... way to use your freedom there...

/. and freshmeat looks ugly with Lynx and w3m

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you ever tried to visit the sites using a text based browser? /. isn't so good with Lynx and w3m, but freshmeat, oh hell, they use shit like Refresh that's executed on all links to an application. But why they're using it? Because without this they can't make this lame "Top 20". So good to see "major" sites only supporting Netscape and IE, that aren't OpenSource. Why the fuck you need graphical browsers? Why the fuck you support commercial stuff? Use Windows!

Re:Truly depressing thought for a once great produ

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape wasn't charging for their browser. The abilities of the browser are not affected by market share, though the market share is affected by the abiltiies of the browser.

Microsoft isn't charging for MSIE either, but as soon as they can get away with it, they will.

Hate to say it... but...

[rabababoa]

If you have tried a fresh install of 98 SE, with ie5 installed (and do it correctly!) you will notice that ie is an extremely stable process under the correct setup. Much better even that netscape is under windows. I have a theory... Netscape, although it used to be known for stability over IE, has since tried so hard to catch up with M$, that it sacrificed stability for features, and you end up with an unstable N. Its no fun. Netscape WILL go down. IE is for Windows, Mozilla (which i am decently faithful in) is for Linux. I am faithful that once mozilla gets rolling, netscape wont have a place in windoze or linux....

Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? Any company that caters only to IE doesn't really deserve to be visited. They're only limiting their user base. As Linux users grow, their only real graphical browser is Netscape. Opera, Mnemonic, Gzilla... well I haven't seen anything yet. W3C's Amaya is ok, but it is quite slow.

So, these companies base their entire websites on some stupid toy feature that only IE provides? Don't visit it.. hmm.. perhaps a boycott of all these sites and their products. A non-compatible website blacklist :) Oh no, then their stock value will go down... too bad...

As I have said before. It isn't hard to have an effective and good looking website that is compatible with most browsers. Catering to one single browser is a bad choice, but it doesn't seem like it now, just because most people are using IE. What if, suddenly a company like Opera turns up and their browser is 100x better? Uh oh....

"But we're too lazy to cater to other browsers! We want to make money now!!" Whine whine blah blah. Like it would be hard for a web design company to download netscape and lynx for a quick check. "But HTML coding is hard... we don't want to change just so the +30% who use Netscape can visit our site. Then we will actually have to work to get this feature to do something, not just rely on <crap> tag that IE has."

And with all these cell-phones and PDAs that can surf the web now, why wouldn't you want to cater to text browsers? What about blind people? These are things that these companies are not thinking about.

When stupid people design websites, this is what happens...

Re:Hmm....

[Nylathotep]

I see you've never actually worked with web pages. Netscape is 100% fubar. If you do anything more complicated than tables (Ie...DHTML and layers, and useful stuff, netscape bitchs, moans, and falls apart.) We'll whip out a page, work perfectly in IE than spend 3 days trying to get it to do the same thing in Netscape.

IE all in all is a very forgiving browser.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

That is true, I have not worked on a large site before, but it is entirely possible to make a good site with HTML 3.2 that is every bit as good as Java(script), Shockwave, and image loaded sites.

Yeah, Netscape will bitch if you forget to close a table or something, but it should be that way in the first place shouldn't it?

IE is pretty forgiving, but that doesn't mean you should get lazy with your HTML.

What do you use DHTML for anyway?

Popular sites like altavista, yahoo, ebay..etc. I don't see much dynamic html there. Maybe a bit of CSS to get rid of the link underline and make them highlight when the mouse goes over(IE-specific feature), but nothing much else.

Sites that load on the JavaScript and this neato button expands menu stuff annoy me and although they seem neat at first, get old quickly.
Example:
Swatch.com

Almost any site you think of can be handled well with plain HTML 3.2 and a bit of PERL, if you don't count web applications. Even then, quite a bit of free website places offer pretty good webpage managers that don't rely on Javascript.

I guess some website designers feel they have to be the latest and greatest or else they're not worth much more than the average person with an HTML manual. Websites are just a way to access information, like books, not TV, where you shove it down people's throats.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's not quite true. You shouldn't have to close TRs and TDs in a HTML3.2 page, so says the DTD. Navigator has never been a compliant browser. Only HTML5/XHTML requires you to close all your elements, because it's based on XML and not general SGML as the previous versions

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Popular sites like altavista, yahoo, ebay..etc. I don't see much dynamic html there. Maybe a bit of CSS to get rid of the link underline and make them highlight when the mouse goes over(IE-specific feature), but nothing much else. "

the highlight is Ie-specific it does work in Mozilla. Its the CSS thingie that did get implemented correctly by Ie and left out of NS. But NS is at least 1 yr older than IE, most of the stuff was still drafts then.

Re:Hmm....

[reverse]

When stupid people design webbrowsers, netscape is what happens.

I design web pages.. I hardcode from the ground up. And I can honestly say that IE has longs since passed netscape by in supporting the standard.

As for your comments on corporate websites.. well, not everyone browses the web recreationally. Some people need to go to some websites.. and since all windows users have IE, even the netscape users are more likely to just pop open an IE session that to boycott a site.

Self inflicted wound

[segmentation fault]

This situation should be no surprise for anyone. Netscape has done everything wrong since they first started.

First, they fucked up the standards. Since Netscape did not follow the standards, IETF released HTML 2.0, which was an attempt for a standard to follow Netscape. But they still managed to screw it up, thus making standard violation acceptable, and "enhancements" hard to detect.

Then they stopped enhancing the hypertext system, and instead started to play the "feature" game. The only game Microsoft knows how to play beside Monopoly. They invented the javascript language, which is so crappy Microsofts incompetent language designers could easily fuck it up without people noticing a quality loss.

They managed to write a browser which could not render pages properly. When web pages started to be IE only, there was no way to tell which browser was most to blame.

The browser source they released was so crappy that most of the pieces had to be replaced.

There's only one way to win this war:

1. Finish the browser
2. Hang on to Microsofts "enhancements"
3. Start to innovate. Don't just add something to the current mess. Change it all to be a little better than before. When noone innovates, people choose Microsoft.
4. STICK TO THE STANDARDS! If you have to add something non-standard, make the integration standard-compliant and make sure noone fucks up the integration.

Personally, I think doing smart stuff with XML, like writing DTDs with client side graphich layout and making W3C standardize them, is a good start. Just make sure there's no way to use the DTD to affect rendering.

Personally, I think this is the Battle[tm]. If we loose, there will be no access to the web from linux. And who are gonna run linux then? Or any other OS with no IE? Noone. Not even me. And I truly hate Microsoft and thinks a lot of the people working there deserves penalties in the range from large fines to a few years in prison.

Re:Self inflicted wound

[Abigail-II]

First, they fucked up the standards. Since Netscape did not follow the standards, IETF released HTML 2.0, which was an attempt for a standard to follow Netscape. But they still managed to screw it up, thus making standard violation acceptable, and "enhancements" hard to detect.

Well, it's certainly true that Netscape ignored the standards to gain marketshare, but that's not the reason for HTML 2.0. HTML 2.0 describes "state of the art" of early 1994. That's 6 months before the first Netscape alphas became available.

However, Netscape's ass-whiping behaviour of ignoring the proposed HTML 3.0 table syntax lead to a large rewrite, eventually leading to RFC 1942. We're now 4.5 years past the introduction of tables in Netscape, and there hasn't been much improvement yet - yeah, you can now have background colours in your tables - big deal. They are nowhere implementing RFC 1946. Which was formalized in May 1996, but essentially finished (and available) in fall 1995.

Up to this very day, Netscape doesn't fully implement HTML 2.0. Heck, they can't even parse a comment.

-- Abigail

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and proxies don't work in some of the latest builds.

Sure they do. At least I'm currently using a proxy in milestone 10 (on a W95 system).

they made IE for Unix already!

[Anonymous Coward]

solaris in particular, i think. they did such a horrid job, people wondered whether it was just an attempt to say "look, see? Solaris isnt as good as NT - IE is all slow and buggy! On NT, it is just fine!". They made a mapped out a win32 api on top of solaris, and also, made a registry to go with it! the info on it can be found at ... damn it, they moved the page. It might still be somewhere in this msdn page

ignoring all left mouse clicks?

[Lavahead]

Simple bug fix: disable java-script. Really!
Every time this incredibly irritating bug has popped up for me has been due to Javascript errors. Going into Edit->Preferences->Advanced, turning off Javascript and reloading has fixed it every time.

Nowadays i just surf with Java and Javascript off. It helps with a lot of the bugs and most java(script) on the net is crap anyway :(

Re:ignoring all left mouse clicks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to this, most of what I do on the web is done well with simple HTML. I read web pages and download files. I also don't have flames painted on the side of my car either so my point of view may not be valid.

Mnemonic is dead! Try Armadillo

[Anonymous Coward]

They released an alpha version 2 years ago, and don't seem to be working hard on it. Try Armadillo.

netscape will still exist, not just mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I am faithful that once mozilla gets rolling, netscape wont have a place in windoze or linux. Do you mean the old versions of netscape? I am pretty sure that even after mozilla is finalized, there will be not only arelease of a mozilla browser, but anetscape branded verion of mozilla - surely including a windows platform version, and it will certainly have users.

What future browsers needs are *fewer* features.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my oppinion what browsers need is not *more* functionality loaded at start up, but less.

Let me elaborate this statement.
First off, as we all know there is a formula (at the moment I don't recall it's name) stating that for each ammount of code, there are X number of faults (bugs) in the code. As the code increases, so does the bugs.

So.. In order to minimize the bugs there are two solutions: A) Review and beta test the apps more before release, and B) use less code.

The easiest to do would be option B, while I personally think a combination of A and B would be the best.

The solution the browser makers could apply would be to start the software without and 'plug-ins', java support and other 'fancy'(cloggy) features. Just plain HTML (and perhaps image support).
This would enable the browser to start much quicker than todays'.
If the user would like to have support for additional features, then they would load dynamically (and by the user's choice in the options section, reside in memmory until app. closure for ex.).

Tip for web page software creators.
Any provider of HTML creation software should provide information that says something like: "remember, if you create a page with 'this' or 'that' feature requirement, which is not specified in the W3 standard of HTML, then you will risk loosing business, since many potential customers might not be able to access your pages or might not accept the extra load time".

Myself I remember the days when Gopher was popular, and when Mosaic arrived (and the first Netscape). These tools were great. Unfortunately they aren't of much use today since many sites will not work properly on them. (some because of newer HTML standard and most because of unneccecary extra 'enhancements' which you must have support for).
By that time it was even quicker viewing a rendom web page by using a 14Kbit modem than today's random page with MS or NS browsers and a V.90 modem.

To conclude this post (which became longer than expected), I'd just like to say: Please be aware of the *magic* second, which is a rule all developers should aim to meet (or come close to).

For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[Mikesch]

I just thought I'd try to sum up the general feelings of users as far as Netscape goes. I work tech support for an ISP and I think this also adresses a lot of issues that regular users run into:

1) Support the damn standards.

I want to build compliant style sheets and tables and actually have them look decent in both browsers. I don't want some wacky bug screwing with table rendering or mucking about with javascript. I want JavaScript to work without specifying which browser I'm taking into account and writing an individual subroutine for each one.

2) Let me download just the browser again.

Dear Netscape Messenger development team;
Messenger sucks.

As someone who works in tech support, I'm sick of explaining to people why there are user interface issues that crop up, why some things are displayed inline and others aren't. I honestly would rather use a 3rd party mail program than that bloated POS. On a wintel platform, follow Microsoft's lead and make the mail and new separate programs, it'll make everyone happier.

Also, nobody uses Collabra, Composer or any of the other crap that you shovel into every release. There are other programs which do the job much better. This goes for AOL IMmer too, I have ICQ thank you very much. If I want AOL IMmer, I know where to get it. A bit of an idea, take all the coders working on that crap and have them work on the main browser, finding bugs and whatnot.

A functional web browser that is under a 10 meg download wouldn't be bad.

3) Tone down the user interface.

Nobody needs a goddamned shop button. I found that I use a grand total of 4 buttons on my browser:

back, forward, stop, and refresh.

That is all, anything else is mostly useless. Nobody uses the Cool sites crap, or anything else for that matter. More features that take up room. People will invariably use the extra crap for stuff it wasn't intended to be used for, breaking the browser, leading to a call to tech support.

4) Keep bookmarks html.

This is the one thing that Navigator has done right. If I want to move bookmarks from one version to another, or one computer to another I just need to copy a file, unlike IE where I have to copy a whole directory.

5) Load time counts.

Yes, the new layout engine is fast, but that doesn't mean anything if the damn program takes 30 seconds to load. The computers that we use at work are pII-266's with 64 megs of RAM, and IE5 loads in 2 seconds, Navigator takes about 30 seconds to load. You can make all the excuses you want about IE5 being part of the OS and all that. That is beside the point, if IE can do it, so can Navigator, figure out a way. Nobody notices if a web page loads in 1.4 seconds in one browser and 1.7 in another, If the interface feels slow and clunky, that is enough to turn me off.

6) Make the interface decent.

See how smooth IE is, attempt to make Navigator look similar. Navigator is too industrial looking for most peoples tastes. This may be harder because M$ has hidden a lot of the API that IE uses (it is undocumented). Netscape can at least try to get Navigator to look close. This is a minor point, but it counts.

7) A bit controversial, but if IE has bugs, occasionally try to make the page look decent anyway.

People write bad html, tested in only IE. IE renders it the way they want it to render and that is enough. I'm not supporting bad HTML, but it is not the browser's job to become style police. There are a lot of bugs out there and a lot of sites taking advantage of those bugs. Navigator is now in a position of playing catch up. Emma in Nebraska doesn't care about HTML correctness, she cares about being able to read webpages, regardless of the platform they were designed on. Keep standards compliance, but don't be totally rigid on it. In situations where the standard is not clear, follow Microsoft's implementation of it.

I was a faithful Navigator user up until version 4. I continued to use Navigator for a while after it was released, but fewer and fewer sites looked correct and I had to switch to IE. I go over to the people working in web adesign where I work and they are constantly cussing out Navigator.

Anyone have anything else to add?

Andrew (patiently awaitng a version of Navigator that doesn't suck dead kittens through straws.)

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[Wonko42]

Right on. I've been designing web pages for years, and more recently dynamic pages using ASP, PHP, and the like. Netscape just pisses me off these days. I can't stand it any more. I worship IE for its ability to render pretty much whatever I throw at it beautifully, but even when I go to great pains to be totally compliant with the specs, Netscape still chokes on my stuff.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[gargle]

Netscape created the JavaScript standard, so maybe it's IE mucking about it. CSS works great in Mozilla. Try for yourself.

This may surprise you, but IE actually supports some of the standards that NS created better than NS itself does. I've been developing an app that uses the NS invented Liveconnect API (which lets Java communicate with Javascript), and amazingly enough, IE5 works much better with than Netscape (and I'm following the documentation on the NS site religously).

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[tc]

With everyone whining about the smooth scrolling in IE (someone even using Tweak UI to kill it) I think I should probably mention that if you go to the Tools/Internet Options... menu you can turn it off.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[yesthatguy]

however I use some of the tools - e-mail client and composer. btw the e-mail client recognizes the links - it lets me do anything with a link that I can in navigator, e.g. open it in new window, I haven't find out how to do it in inbox (microsoft e-mail client)

"Inbox", better known as Outlook Express, automatically opens links in new windows...it'll probably do everything that Messenger does, plus more. As well, if you would rather use Eudora Pro, or another e-mail program, you can easily configure IE to use a different program.



---------------

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse them with the facts when they're ranting about Microsoft products.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[amias]

In the light of this microsoft monopoly business we should all be thinking about how we can preserve software diversity and not winging about advantages and disadvantages of X software against Y software . I could'nt give a brass farthing if somebody else likes a browser or not, as a web developer all i want is a browser that conforms to HTML and JavaScript properly . This leads me to no conclusion as to which is best only that greater adhearence to specs is needed . As a user i have my specific needs and look for the software that full-fills it and try to avoid the politics - end of story . By setting up camps and raising the issue above it's low status i think peoples time to look in to real issue's is diminished by having to sift through browser wars threads mistaking them for real social commentry . Maybe if people just commented on the positive aspects of each browser something productive may emerge instead of going round in decreasing circles . We could save time by writing a program to post the name of each web browser in turn to a newsgroup . So in answer to the original question , for Navigator 5 to succeed IMHO all it needs is strict standards conformance , to be cross platform and all other bells and whistles easily removable. Toodle-pip Amias

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[Anonymous Coward]

Which would be a first for Netscape. Netscape has NEVER been about following standards. They have always tried to implement new HTML tags and force people to conform to their idea of what should be in the Web, they are far worse than Microsoft in that respect.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[blue]

1) Support the damn standards.

Netscape created the JavaScript standard, so maybe it's IE mucking about it. CSS works great in Mozilla. Try for yourself.

2) Let me download just the browser again.

I agree with some of your points. I don't use Composer, but I do use Messenger. I never heard of "Collabra" though. There is a base install, you know, which only includes the browser. (I hate AIM.)

5) Load time counts.

IE is integral to the OS. It loads when Windows loads -- Windows still loads slowly (on my P3 450, at least). I don't think you'd want Netscape integral to the OS as well. (Just more load time at start-up.)

6) Make the interface decent.

See how smooth IE is, attempt to make Navigator look similar. Navigator is too industrial looking for most peoples tastes. This may be harder because M$ has hidden a lot of the API that IE uses (it is undocumented). Netscape can at least try to get Navigator to look close. This is a minor point, but it counts.

To be blunt, I HATE the smooth scrolling. I only use IE for Windows Update, and it still bothers me. I use TweakUI to disable it, but then it's TOO chunky -- two lines or so per down key, which I'm used to the 1 1/2 of Netscape.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[frantzdb]

"that's the matter of taste. one thing I hate about the IE is smooth scrolling (which sucks a lot). other then that I don't want ANY browser interface, I want to see web pages."


I find smooth scroling one of the best features of IE. I find it makes pages easier to read because I can easily keep my place as I scroll down the page. I'd hope it will be an *option* in NS5.

--Ben

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[steffl]

you have some good points but:

2) Let me download just the browser again.

I agree on this one. user should have control on what parts are actually installed - they should be all separate programs...

however I use some of the tools - e-mail client and composer. btw the e-mail client recognizes the links - it lets me do anything with a link that I can in navigator, e.g. open it in new window, I haven't find out how to do it in inbox (microsoft e-mail client)


3) Tone down the user interface.

obviously the toolbars should be configurable (just like the personal toolbar is). about the only button I use is the back button (rarely, I prefer keyboard). it should have better support for keyboard (more hotkeys, configurable), for example I do not know how to get to the Location field using keyboard (on windows platform the tab key gets you there)

5) Load time counts.

the reason the explorer loads so fast is that it loads during win startup and is in memory all the time, whether you use it or not. the netscape actually loads when you start it for the first time. if you close it and start again, it usually loads pretty fast... you can start the netscape during startup and keep it minimized, it is basically the same thing that IE does (you just don't see the IE icon in taskbar)

6) Make the interface decent

that's the matter of taste. one thing I hate about the IE is smooth scrolling (which sucks a lot). other then that I don't want ANY browser interface, I want to see web pages. the interface should be as minimal as possible. I would include only one toolbar, no menu, on toolbar I would like to have bookmark button, location field and menu button (possibly back/forward/reload/stop buttons). of course not everybody would want the same setup so - it should be completely configurable.

regarding: "I was a faithful Navigator user up until version 4. I continued to use Navigator for a while after it was released, but fewer and fewer sites looked correct and I had to switch to IE."

what are you talking about??? I use netscape almost all the time (I very rarely use IE, usually if it is called by some program) and I do not see any major problems with webpages.

erik

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[mill]

Uh, if it is not the browsers job to "become style police" then who's is it?

Why does that darn compile flaunt that "Syntax error" in my face all the time?! It isn't its job to "become style police".

Because Netscape released crap in the beginning and therefore accepting crap people wrote crap. The only way to reverse that is to not accept crap. Or maybe we should try to educate people and help them understand why complying to standards is necessary. Looking at your proposal I think it is obvios that would be a futile approach.

Btw, a page doesn't "look". It is your user agent that presents it in a visual way. But then you are concerned about your pity problems with looks instead of the huge amount of problems broken HTML causes others.

/mill

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[samantha]

OK, so I have a bad attitude. I am royally PO'd that I can get a simple, efficient WEB browser in Linux. Netscape locks up every few hours it seems like. The KDE built-in browser is used more by me for casual browsing because at least it doesn't lock up although it occassionaly (relatively rarely) crashes. But it doesn't know what to do with what I though was some fairly simple HTML like some form based stuff. Can't some of us who know about such beasties manage to beef this thing up a bit? It might be the only alternative for some of us. And while I am on the subject, what is with fonts and text size on Linux vs. Windows in Netscape? Why isn't the "larger/smaller" text selector enabled? Some sites use tiny fonts that don't respond to changing Netscape overall fonts or changing kfm font size either. But I can control the size of the displayed text in IE5. This is no joke to those of us with aging eyes who read a LOT online.

What is up with this browser stuff? It is not my area of anything approaching expertise or even competence. But dammit, this krap is making my favorite platform look pretty bad. I've stuck my head into Mozilla just a bit. First impression is it is way too bloated with everything in the known universe. My suggestion is to get a good basic browser working that is fully up to HTML4 standards, is fast and rock solid and only then add modules to do fancier things. Anyone doing this?

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[HeatherMax]

Well, I'm using Mozilla to write this reply (build 1999110608), so...

1) Support the damn standards

Mozilla does.

2) Let me just download the browser

I'd have to agree, except that they've managed to get this in a 5.5M download, and it's still supporting mail and news. I too will want a browser that just browses, but Mozilla will do that too - or someone will embed the widget in a simple window without all the mail/news stuff.

3) Tone down the user interface

Funnnily enough the chrome on the current version has back, forward, refresh and stop buttons and they've managed to make the bookmarks toolbar small enough that I actually want it on my screen for a change!

What mozilla does support is 'downloadable chrome' which will mean that smart cookies everywhere will redesign the browser UI, and there should be enough variety for everyone.

4) Keep bookmarks HTML

Mozilla still has, and I agree wholeheartedly

5) LOad time counts

It sure does. Load time, even in this pre-alpha version, is excellent. Also the rendering is progressive, so no waiting for the whole table to be calculated six ways from sunday before you see anything.

6) Make the interface decent

Mozilla improves on quite a few failings of the Netscape interface, and I think the developers are well onto this one. Again, downloadable chrome will help a lot since the look, as well as all of the mouse actions, menus and so forth are all defined in the chrome.

7) ...try to make the page look decent anyway

Mozilla does a pretty good job, but it's hard to figure where you should stop with this, and when you do find a page with errors in it, where should the errors appear on the page?

I've often used Netscape in the past to check my pages for errors simply because it is so unforgiving and have found things that simply didn't show up in IE. Error output is 'undefined' and un-definable, and I think that browser-centric behaviour is all that can be expected.

Also, that disagrees with your "Support the damn standards" line, doesn't it? :-)

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[TummyX]

Keep bookmarks html.


it's got to be one of the crappiest ideas ever IMHO. Bookmarks treated the way windows does shortcuts (*.lnk etc) is a good idea. What if i want to delete bookmarks? I have to use their clunky interface, no APIs i can use to edit it unless I parse the HTML myself. Yuck.
There's no difference to copying a directory as there is a file (ever seen -r or /s?)


M$ has hidden a lot of the API that IE uses (it is undocumented).

Wrong, IBrowser and IE APIs are very well documented. Cause MS considers IE to be a tools, not a browser (IE technology that is).
I know quite well how to add buttons to the toolbar, or make IE do different actions depending on the tag of the HTML document. Hell, I can even write my own browser based on IE like neoplanet have done.
It's all on MSDN.....You can write those band objects too (the search bar, favorites bar and the quicklaunch thing on the taskbar)...they're just COM objects called "bands".

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[blue]

It was not a rant about Microsoft products, did you read the original post? TweakUI is, as well, a Microsoft product, either way. Big deal.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[guran]

regarding: "I was a faithful Navigator user up until version 4. I continued to use Navigator for a while after it was released, but fewer and fewer sites looked correct and I had to switch to IE."

what are you talking about??? I use netscape almost all the time (I very rarely use IE, usually if it is called by some program) and I do not see any major problems with webpages.

I still mainly use NS because of my old bookmarks. What I really *hate* about NS is that it reloads the page on resize and print... losing all client scripts.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[mpe]

1) Support the damn standards.

I want to build compliant style sheets and tables and actually have them look decent in both browsers.

You souldn't assume that there are only 2 browsers.

I don't want some wacky bug screwing with table rendering or mucking about with javascript. I want JavaScript to work without specifying which browser I'm taking into account and writing an individual subroutine for each one.

Where is the standard definition of Java Script?
You will still have problems if certain browsers don't follow the standards anyway.

2) Let me download just the browser again.

Dear Netscape Messenger development team;
Messenger sucks.

So do a great many GUI mailreaders, the biggest problem appears to be that the writers of these both insist on creating their own special format to store mail in and bloating the whole thing with a rudimentry MTA.

What's needed is
a) be able to directly read mbox, MMDF, maildir without file copying kludges. (Including in Windows versions where email can be made available over a network.)
b) don't have the program act as an MTA. Provide one for Windows, for Unix use the one which is already there. (Also provide the ability to configure fetchmail.)
c) ensure that outgoing emails and sent in a form suitable for standard MUA's to handle. i.e. never use HTML (or other funny formats) where there are attachments these go right at the end after the signature, without putting bogus MIME headers arround the main body.

4) Keep bookmarks html.

This is the one thing that Navigator has done right. If I want to move bookmarks from one version to another, or one computer to another I just need to copy a file, unlike IE where I have to copy a whole directory.

Except that having bookmarks (or for that matter cookies) in a single file is exactly what you don't want where several processes can be accessing the same data. i.e. on a multi-user machine or a network. The required file locking complicates things.


7) A bit controversial, but if IE has bugs, occasionally try to make the page look decent anyway.

People write bad html, tested in only IE. IE renders it the way they want it to render and that is enough. I'm not supporting bad HTML, but it is not the browser's job to become style police.

What about the IE "Mime Type" bug where it explicitally ignores the information given by the server?

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[mpe]

2) Let me download just the browser again.

I agree on this one. user should have control on what parts are actually installed - they should be all separate programs...

Don't assume that the end user and the system administrator are the same person. (Even for MS Windows systems.)

A big problem with many web browsers is that they expect per user configuration.

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[Anonymous Coward]

i also hate smooth scrolling in IE - thats why *I* turn it off!

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed:

[philg]

"You souldn't assume that there are only 2 browsers."

Good point -- but more precisely, we shouldn't have to make assumptions at all on how many browsers there are. That is, we should be able to write standards-compliant pages once, and have them formatted appropriately in each browser. Of the two largest browsers, Netscape is far the less compliant; it also lags behind Opera, and even Lynx. "Where is the standard definition of Java Script?"

http://www.ecma.ch/stand/ecma-262.htm -- ECMA is a European standards board; this is their standardized version of the core language, including the input of Netscape and Microsoft (IIRC) employees. Note that it standardizes the language, and not the object model the language manipulates.

The HTTP Document Object Model -- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/ -- is the W3 standard for the object model, complete with recommendations for Javascript language bindings.

IE purports total adherence to the HTML DOM, I believe, though I haven't used the interface, as such, to know one way or another. I do know it is more complete than Netscape's. Both browsers' javascript is, I believe, ECMA-262-compliant.

phil

yeh....

[delmoi]

You know what? Any company that caters only to IE doesn't really deserve to be visited. They're only limiting their user base.

Yeh, to the 90% of people who use IE...

Look, the fact is netscape dosn't suport standards correctly, unless you consider "CSS" and "Tables" and "Java 2.0" to be propritary IE features (Yes, I've had trouble with tables in netscape, each cell has the background in a table, even when the table itself has no background and its in another cell).

Economic pressure isn't going to make anyone support a POS web browser
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:yeh....

[GenericJoe]

With CSS, what are you going to use it for? Pull down menus like microsoft.com? I guess that is one thing, but you don't need it. Simple things like highlighting links and removing the underline are supported in both browsers and don't change anything for text-mode browsers. Quite simply, I want to use CSS for positioning, font choice, color, etc. IE, all of the *presentation* aspects. SO I created a web page that did just that. And it crashed Netscape. It crashed Netscape under windows, *and* under linux. But it wouldn't crash Netscape if I turned off JavaScript. Interesting that...there was no JavaScript on the page. I'd run Mozilla, it does a decent job of CSS, but it won't run on my computer. It won't compile either. *sigh* GenericJoe

Re:yeh....

[alexdw]

But it wouldn't crash Netscape if I turned off JavaScript. Interesting that...there was no JavaScript on the page.

The reason Netscape stopped crashing when you turned off JS is because turning it off also turns off CSS. Why?

Back when NN 4.0 was under development, Netscape decided that they wanted stylesheets in their browser. They just couldn't wait for CSS, so they designed their own. Netscape's answer: JavaScript Stylesheets. Of course, the W3C was putting the finishing touches on CSS, and Netscape realized that it had better support that as well. So, they just put translation code in their browser to translate from CSS to JSSS. Result? Their CSS implementation depends on JavaScript.

That's why it crashes. That's why it turns itself off when you turn off JavaScript, even with CSS still enabled. And that's why it doesn't support CSS properly. So, when yet again Netscape crashes when you use even the simplest of CSS attributes, remember JSSS.

Re:yeh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Font choice and color worked fine for me.
I'm not sure what you mean by positioning though.
I just put:
<link rel=STYLESHEET TYPE="text/css" HREF="style.css">
In each of my pages.
And style.css looks like this:

BODY {
font-family: "Helvetica", "Verdana", "Times New Roman", sans-serif;
font-size: 14pt
text-align: justify;
}
A { text-decoration: none; color: #0000FF; font-weight: bold;}
A.toolbar { text-decoration: none; color:#00ff00; background:#006400; font-weight: normal; }
---
I'm not really sure what else is needed.
It makes the links on my toolbar green, and the others blue. Works perfectly.

Re:yeh....

[Anonymous Coward]

IE shouldn't be near 90% yet. I haven't checked for a while, but that is a scary thought.

I have no idea what you are talking about with the tables, but sites like slashdot and freshmeat work fine in both Netscape and IE, and they look pretty good too. Freshmeat must be one of the most table filled sites that exist.

Sure Java is good, but should you base your entire site on Java 2.0? Considering some people don't have the time to download new-greatest-latest browser, not everyone has DSL or cable yet.

With CSS, what are you going to use it for? Pull down menus like microsoft.com? I guess that is one thing, but you don't need it. Simple things like highlighting links and removing the underline are supported in both browsers and don't change anything for text-mode browsers.

Again, toy features, things you shouldn't base your entire website on. Add them if you want, but always keep in mind the other users with other browsers. Clean and simple works well, and often flashy image/shockwave filled websites get annoying really quickly.

It annoys me when I have to wait for a Java applet to load just so I can navigate a site.

This is a website you are creating, not Quake. Websites are for information, not for cool popup buttons and moving things. You can add those in, but that should not be the only way to get around your site. People who make video games can ignore backwards compatibility because they have to be the latest and greatest. Websites don't.

So what if Netscape doesn't let you put some kind of image background for a table? Work around it, it isn't that hard. Any kid with Internet access who can read will be able to do it, why can't you? What could be so important that you need a specifc background in each table?

IE supports standards, but only whatever pieces they choose to put in. Everyone develops around that, therefore people believe it is fully compliant.

Netscape's browsers were pretty good until 4.x when it really bloated.

Economic pressure won't make anyone support a POS web browser, but NS 4.x is not completely POS. But, again, I stress, this is a website! You want to alienate some of your vistor base? Fine, you won't offend me, but how successful a website is is judged by how many people visit it right?

Besides, NS supports enough that you can make a good looking site that serves its purpose well.

I'm not sure if you read my entire post, because it seems I am repeating myself.

Tell me what feature is so important that you absolutely cannot support other browsers?

Re:yeh....

[Mojojojo]

The point is being missed here. IE is a better browser...hats off to Microsoft for actually making something good. It doesn't crash anywhere near as much as netscape. Shit, if I don't connect to the internet first under linux, netscape will lock up. I can't browse pages on my computer using netscape unless I connect to the internet...That sucks. Netscape sucks. It will crash loading Java for god's sake. I'm real sorry, but everyone's solution seems to be well don't use that feature, why do you want pull down menus anyway? That's not an argument, that's an excuse for a crappy browser. And I'm terribly sorry, but Lynx is great and all, but Lynx is a text only web browser. We in the Linux community need not dismiss something superior, I mean, isn't that why we use Linux in the first place? I assume that most other people reading slashdot are like myself and are techies, programmers, etc. We like things that work good.

The point in all of this is that the web is the platform of the future, not Linux or windows or java or whatever, info over the web is the future. In 5 years MS operating systems shouldn't be shit. The only reason for people to be using them is the internet and the IE specific stuff. Microsoft was late in the internet game and they admit it. Now they're ahead. The reason is the same reason netscape and all other OSes are behind, because we all sat on our butts and said, HA!!! we're on the internet and we can do this that and the other thing...Now Microsoft says HA we've got all that and a bag of chips and the sexy bitch selling them, and you can hardly do this that and the other thing right in the first place.

Personally I think that Netscape sucks, Opera costs money so won't ever be considered, and IE has a better browser. At this point the best thing to hope for is that Microsoft gets split up and they decide that they should make IE for linux. Not only that, but Office too, since star office is too bloated. The best hope for office stuff is the (needs a lot of work still before 1.0) abiword and gnumeric. Linux will prevail. I think that Gzilla will be our only hope, provided netscape plugins work seemlessly.

Re:yeh....

[m3000]

One of the things it doesn't support, and that I personally think looks REALLY cool is the A:HOVER { COLOR:FF0000; TEXT-DECORATION: UNDERLINE; } CSS command. A:HOVER doesnt' do anything in Netscape. Again, it's nothing major, but it's just something that IE supports and Netscape doesn't.

Re:yeh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it isn't even a part of the standard, AFAIK. Just an extra MS added like BGSOUND and MARQUEE.

Re:yeh....

[FrodoB]

It's part of CSS2.

And supported by Mozilla.

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Quarters]

Unless AOL has driven the development of Navigator 5.0 to the point that it is an easy to adapt component system you won't see Navigator inside of an AOL client for quite some time. The entire 4.0-5.0 codebase for the AOL client is written to access IE for web browsing. It doesn't just launch IE as a separate program, it uses IE as it's internal web browsing technology.

Even if they stood up now and said, "6.0 will have NN as the browser" we wouldn't see the result of that for at least 12-14 months. That's a horrendously long time to wait for the tide to change.

Why must sommunicator change? Not good as it is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must software constantly change to be useful? Can't tools reach their ultimate evolutionary point and then remain constant, unchanging, and useful? I mean, no one's trying to add more functionality to 'chdir'. Why? Because it's beautiful and elegant as it is. The same goes for the C language. Let IE turn into a limping, bloated, lumbering monstrosity. Netscape is nearly perfect as it. It just needs the remaining bugs ironed out. But new features? No. That's what plug-ins are for. Leave the core Netscape alone.

No, you are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should check your stats more often then once every two years....

Re:NeoPlanet

[IntlHarvester]

Doesn't NeoPlanet send a record of every site you go to back to their tracking server?
--

I hope Bill Gates pays you well.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen you post numberous comments in this thread, all saying "Netscape boo, IE yay!".

Give it a rest.

Buy.com....

[Anonymous Coward]

There's so much I would have purchaced there, had there servers not been so slow. (and this was a Uni Computer lab...)

/me loves the 'Post Anonymously' checkbox

Maybe the word should be... GNUscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Netscape is reaching the end of the line. Maybe it's time for a new browser with a Linux level of cooperation goinf into it's development. (Let's weave it inseparately into the linux kernel itself! [just kidding]). A GNU browser as a flagship app for Linux. What do y'all think?

Re:Maybe the word should be... GNUscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was more or less what was on my mind. I've enjoyed having Netscape on my linux system -- barely. It's so unstable and buggy that I only rarely use it for those cases where lynx doesn't have the necessary functionality. I have been thinking for a long time about either rolling my own browser or incrementally improving lynx. If Netscape went bye-bye, it would just be more impetus to start coding.

-- Guges --

Re:Maybe the word should be... GNUscape?

[treke]

There already is a program called GNUscape Navigator. Look under software at www.gnu.org
treke

Mozilla Stablity

[z4ce]

Has anyone noticed that the mozilla releases seem to be much more stable on windows than linux? Is there some reason for this? GTK stablity? Or what?

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[CmdData]

I have noticed it on most applocations that run under both OSs.

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[blue]

His claim was that for applications that ran on both Windows and Linux, the Windows counterpart always ran better. You make no sense.

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[blue]

You said earlier that Linux is "ancient technology". I have doubts that you have ever used it, and are here just to spread nonsensical FUD. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft paid people to go around and do this. Oh, let me ask, what are these applications you're talking about?

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[sterwill]

sterwill@dogbert [~] notepad
notepad: Command not found.
sterwill@dogbert [~] minesweeper
minesweeper: Command not found.

Proof: Windows is better.

--

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you used linux before? Have you ever programmed before? Have you used mozilla for linux before? My guess would be no to all three questions. Thus perhaps you should remain quite. If you use mozilla under linux, it becomes apparent that a gigantic problem is drawing. The motif version (4.x) works fine in most cases. GTK is the newest component in the chain of software. It is the compoenet directly responsible for drwaing. What part of the chain do you think is at fault? kernel -> libc -> X -> gtk -> mozilla ^---------------^ ^---^ ^-----^ A B C A: Works fine for other apps, word perfect, mysql, postgresql, netscape 4.x, etc. etc. etc. B: Newly developed, no large programs developed with it really (gnome is a series of small programs and libs) C: works decently on widnows. I wonder where the problem is?

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because Windows is more stable? Ok, so that was a bit over the top even for a troll. I'd say that you're guess is correct and that it's a problem with GTK or conflicting libraries that is causing the instability. Of course it couldn't be that the Linux code is inferior or anything.

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[Anonymous Coward]

you lack a sense of humour and a clue

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[sterwill]

You lack a sense of humor.

--

Re:Mozilla Stablity

[blue]

There is no humor without relevancy in the context.

Rendering speed

[BZ]

As someone who is currently developing a web interface to a system, I have to say that rendering speed is an issue even on today's machines.

The system uses tables for layout, and often nests tables 3 or 4 deep. Current browsers on middle-range hardware (PII 400) take on the order of 5-10 seconds to render an average page. Needless to say, this is suboptimal.

Re:Rendering speed

[Abigail-II]

The system uses tables for layout

Who the frig would care whether your site renders fast or not? Tables for layout means you've no fucking clue about the media you're working with.

-- Abigail

Re:Rendering speed

[Anonymous Coward]

What could posibly inspire anyone to use tables for layout?

Even with the inconsistancies in CSS, this is a fools errand unless you are trying to stay 3.0 version compatible. Of course, if you are still worried about 3.0 browsers then you've got bigger problems than rendering speed.

Re:Rendering speed

[m3000]

Do you even surf the web at all? Almost every site uses tables, in fact, I can't think of one major site that doesn't use tables offhand.

Re:Rendering speed

[blue]

Slashdot and Freshmeat both use tables for layout.

Re:Rendering speed

[Znork]

Tables, unfortunately, appear to be the best of a number of painful ways to do things. The alternatives, like frames, are painful for the user. Tables also make cgi generation of parts of pages very easy. The drawback, of course, is that complicated table pages are slow to render.

Re:Rendering speed

[Darchmare]

...and you would prefer what? A gray page, a badly dithered graphic of a mailbox at the bottom, and pages upon pages of 9 pt. text running from the far left margin to the right?

For example, let's take a look at your page:

http://www.foad.org/%7Eabigail/

I agree with one thing - at the top of your page you say that the web is largely content-free. That's correct, and a shame. There are a couple problems here though. First, your page is mostly a page of links. That's not bad, per se, but it doesn't lend much to your argument. You also make the assumption that to have content you must have a butt-ugly page. Not true. Slashdot, for instance, uses tables for layout purposes. On the page you're looking at now, they are used to enforce a graphical representation of a conversational thread.

I assume you'd agree that Slashdot is of value. Most sites people enjoy - even those such as this one which are built on content and little else - also happen to be pleasing to the eye. There are dozens of layout rules that actually make content literally easier to read. Many in the 'gray page' crowd seem to forget that reading a dozen pages of 9 pt type stretched across their browser window isn't nearly as easy as reading that on a page or well designed web site.

Humans are visual creatures. Don't just throw out thousands of years of knowledge in layout, aesthetics, and user interface design because the standard doesn't keep up. What do you think CSS and the like is for? Seperating presentation from content.

I'm all for moderation, but not extremism. Use the technologies that make sense and are as inclusive as possible without sacrificing your goals. Use ALT tags as much as possible, etc. But don't stop progress.

(BTW: You use a two-cell wide table near the bottom of your page for seemingly presentational purposes only. I'd suggest changing that right away, as it completely goes against your philosophy)


- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net

Re:Browser Wars

[Stinking Pig]

Armadillo, but still at www.gzilla.org. Looks kinda neat, but still very very young.

Likes -- about as fast as Lynx.
Dislikes -- can't display www.gzilla.org properly, trying to configure it via File | Preferences does nothing.

flame if you must, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I was on with Netscape when it was version 1 (I've still got a copy of Mosaic) and was loyal until the 4.0 browsers came out. Now the only time that I ever use Netscape is when I want to piss myself off to see that the code that I have just written for a web site or application won't function in Netscape. I'll switch back to Netscape when they:
1. Come out with a version (windoze) that loads as fast as IE
2. Come out with some more of the innovative features that Micro$oft used to only dream about when Netscape was king
3. Come with a better email program
4. Come out with a version that lets me be a lazy coder

Re:Browser Wars

[keytoe]

I disagree - the Web was designed to be a hyperlinked multimedia delivery system. That doesn't mean that it is a multi-service delivery system. Essentially, it's a resource request mechanism: you ask for a resource, the server gives it up. What the requesting client does with it is completely up to implementation. The idea of standards provides a consistant representation of what the client should do with that resource.

SMTP/POP/IMAP/NNTP were designed to provide completely different types of services. These types of transactions are not request/response based, but instead are dialog based (ie, LIST/UIDL/GET[[UIDL/GET]...] for POP3). The underlying mechanisms are completely different paradigms, therefore they should use different tools.

This is not to say that each of these services couldn't be properly delivered through the web, but that should be handled on the server side and the web interface would only be a representation of whats really going on. Sites like Hotmail and such provide email using an actual web interface - and it works fine with the standalone browser because it's request/response based.

In all, I'm basically begging the rest of the world to wake up to what the unix world realized a long time ago: 'do one thing and do it well - then connect the tools'. I've seen some great ideas in this area (OpenDoc comes to mind - great idea, absolutely shitty follow-through) end up pushed aside by the raging bloatware juggernaut. If this keeps up, there eventually won't be any applications - just 'systems'...

Re:That's ok.

[BigDaddyJ]

If a company wants to put up an IE only website, they just won't get any money from me. It's that simple.

At one time, that argument worked, and well. That's why for a number of years web designers went to great pains to ensure that webpages were well-tested on both browsers.

But not today. Considering the number of people that use IE, many web designers are simply testing their page against IE. If the current trend continues, you'll become a *very* small minority, one that they don't care about since the percentage doesn't substantially hurt their business.

THAT is the real danger.

--bdj

Re:Opera kicks

[crm0922]

I hate the multiple document interface Opera uses. And it weirds out on CSS a lot, as well as croaking on some jscript. IE, annoying as it may be, sure is stable, looks good, and costs nothing.

Chris

PS - It is the only Microsoft product I have any appreciation for, and it took until version 5.

The standards don't work in netscape

[delmoi]

Netscape, while being a dog for the user Is also one for the developer as well. This is beacuse just using "standards" dosn't work at all on netscape. CSS is horribly broken, for example
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:The standards don't work in netscape

[blue]

Mozilla CSS support is really good. It is standards compliant and renders very nicely. IE is not well-known for standards either--it uses their own version of Java, for example.

We Brought This On Ourselves

[jalefkowit]

I can't help but feel we brought this on ourselves. You know, for a long time, I thought that the idea of paying for a decent browser was Unspeakable -- it was like my birthright as an American included having a stable, free (as in beer) Web browser. Now I look at the market, though, and I wonder if what we're seeing isn't just the logical extension of that expectation:

• Netscape, realizing that it couldn't stay alive if its primary product was something you couldn't sell, focused its attention on things it could make money on, such as Netcenter and Enterprise Server. Not surprisingly, development of the browser suffered as Netscape's priorities shifted away from it, sputtering and finally dying out.
• Microsoft, knowing that it didn't need browser revenue one way or the other, used its browser to defend the thing it makes money on -- the Windows platform.

The thing is, these corporate strategies are perfectly rational reactions to a market where web browsers are regarded as economically valueless. Would you expect Netscape (a public company, don't forget) to have poured millions of dollars more into R & D for a product they would never see one cent of revenue from?

Maybe if we had voted with our dollars for the proposition that a good browser was important to us, rather than expecting one to automagically appear and get better every year, things would be different today. Maybe if, back in 1996 when it mattered, we had stepped forward and said "Yes, I'll gladly pay a fair price for a good, stable cross-platform browser," someone would be providing one today, rather than what we ended up with: one browser that's cross-platform and another that's stable. Just a thought.

-- Jason A. Lefkowitz

Just what I expected...

[FatSean]

Just the kind of thinking I would expect from someone so uncreative as to steal their "name" wholesale from a TV show.

Only one solution to this...

[chuckw]

There is only one solution to this. Adapt their technology for our own use. To do this we should divide our efforts into two camps.

1. Focus WINE development on getting IE to run on Linux.

2. Focus more efforts on the development of Mozilla.

If we can get IE running on WINE then we might be able to augment the installation of IE and eventually ship a "mini-wine" specifically for IE. My understanding is that there is an HP-UX version of IE which may make it easier to port IE to Linux the "emulator" way.
--

Re:Only one solution to this...

[rbf]

1. Focus WINE development on getting IE to run on Linux.

That's only useful to those of you who use Linux on x86's.. For the rest of us Alpha, SPARC, PowerPC, etc. users, that isn't an option.

Re:Only one solution to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you people read the IE EULA? It states that it is illegal to use the application program (or "operating system component" as they call it) under any operating system other than the one it is designed for (Windows 9x)

Not that I care about the EULA, In fact I think it would be very funny to see this "operatin system component" running under another operating system.

MS's APIs are not hidden.

[CmdData]

I've develop programs using MFC and I can say that there are not APIs that MS has that are not documented. That is to say all GUI APIs are all available to anyone wanteding to develop software for windows. Anyone that wants to develop any windows app has the same info that any developer at MS has. So all this crap about how MS has hidden thier APIs is total bullshit. Now I know they are not open source but the docs are all there. System calls are all documented as well.

Re:MS's APIs are not hidden.

[CmdData]

"Dr. Dobb's Journal, November, 1992 " The year is 1999 not 1992. For proof, just go to any book store and you will find a lot of programming books on windows APIs. Also see http://www.developer.com is a good resource.

Your logic is flawed.

[FatSean]

Terribly flawed. It hurts my brain that you think this way. I'm not even going to try and explain...

Re:Your logic is flawed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy's obviously drunk as a skunk.

Re:Your logic is flawed.

[sterwill]

Hey, some people are like that. Turn out the lights on them, and they'll argue to your face that they're the only one in the room.

--

Neoplanet on Mozilla.

[delmoi]

I think there was a 'beta' version of neoplanet out that used Mozilla as a backend. Of course, considering Mozilla isn't anywhere close to being done...
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[JordanH]

At my last job, I steadfastly refused to use IE, on a Win platform, for ethical reasons. This really isn't the same as being "So anti-MS that I'd rather use an abacus!" It's just a recognition that the process that brought us IE was an unethical business practice in which I would be participating by using it.

I have to admit, that even at that last job I would keep IE around for compatibility testing. I had Web apps that behaved differently on IE and Netscape and when someone reported some odd behavior on IE I would try and reproduce it.

My current employer requires that I use IE for various application compatibility reasons. I suppose I could have threatened to quit over it or something, but I didn't feel that strongly about it. I still use Netscape or Mozilla where I can.

I find it hard to believe that this is only now hitting the news that employers are switching to IE in droves. I've seen this happening since IE4 came out. I've not seen a workplace that won't allow you to use IE if you choose, but I have seen ones that forbid Netscape.

NS5 == too little, too late

[acb]

Netscape 5 has slipped a bit too much. Since its purchase by AOL (only interested in increasing its service revenues, hence the "Shop" button where the "Stop" button used to be), they seem to have stopped caring about competing. All the best engineers have since left, leaving a skeleton staff.

Netscape has conceded defeat, by its actions if not by words. They are no longer a competitor to Microsoft, who now all but own the HTML standard. Like it or not, the commercial desktop world is now a one-browser environment.

Hopefully the post-judgment Microsoft won't be able to "de-commoditise" HTML too much.

Re:IE For Linux

[InsomniacsDream]

Actually, I think it might not be such a bad idea if M$ were to start releasing some of it's non-OS software (including IE) for other platforms. Even though their OS sucks, they do have some neat programs, IE being one of them. As much as I hate Windows, I do sometimes miss the variety of apps that were available when I used that system.

Back when Win95 was first released (and before I found out about Linux) I used to have fun playing around with Compton's Encyclopedia, MS Encarta, and of course all the games. Now, I use Linux exclusively because it is a much more stable and robust OS, but I long for the day when there will be just as many good apps for Linux. I still need to dual boot into Windows now and then because my wife likes to use the American Greeting Create-a-Card program to make greeting cards. There is no reason why this kind of software can't one day be made available for Linux.

I am excited about the recent ruling against M$ because maybe this is the start of an era where software vendors will start taking Linux more seriously; once they realize that most people don't care what OS they're using as long as they can still use the programs they like. I predict that someday in the near future (5-10 years) M$ will lose its dominance in the OS market, but it will still retain its strengths as a software vendor. Remember, what made M$ succeed was not its superior OS but rather that it produced a plethora of software that 'normal' people could use. This will alwyas be their strength. I think they should realize, however, that their days of OS dominance are numbered.

MORE APPS FOR LINUX!
MORE APPS FOR LINUX!

Re:Netscape has bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Supports all Web technologies huh? If you can view this text file in IE, I will give you a doughnut. http://holly.colostate.edu/~je rbaker/misc/readme.doc

I'll believe it when I see it

[acb]

A month from prime time? I doubt it.

It's anyone's guess whether Mozilla, the GNU Hurd or Xanadu will make it out the door first. Or possibly Freedows.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what Xanadu is, but I know MOzilla and Freedows. Mozilla kicks ass, Freedows is vapourware. The Hurd is already a usable Operating System, which has all important features and some really nice capabilities Linux will probably never to provide without making a 180 degree turn in development. Go to www.debian.org/ports/hurd, and check out ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/sid/main/binary-hurd-i 386, where you can find quite over 100 precompiled software packages for the Hurd. What's even more important, the Hurd is stable. And it will not be released until it is rock solid. If you think that the fact that gnu-0.2 was the last Hurd version means something, then I wonder why you still use Linux 2.x and not Windows 2000. Anyway, the next release of the Hurd will be ready in a while. Marcus Brinkmann, Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what Xanadu is, but I know MOzilla and Freedows.
Mozilla kicks ass, Freedows is vapourware.

The Hurd is already a usable Operating System, which has all important features and some really nice capabilities Linux will probably never to provide without making a 180 degree turn in development.
Go to www.debian.org/ports/hurd, and check out ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/sid/main/binary-hurd-i 386, where you can find quite over 100 precompiled software packages for the Hurd.
What's even more important, the Hurd is stable. And it will not be released until it is rock solid.
If you think that the fact that gnu-0.2 was the last Hurd version means something, then I wonder why you still use Linux 2.x and not Windows 2000.

Anyway, the next release of the Hurd will be ready in a while.
Marcus Brinkmann, Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Prepackaged Netscape

[acb]

That's because there's no other browser, save for Lynx (which doesn't do graphics). Most distributions come with Lynx as well though.

Other than Netscape what would they use? NCSA Mosaic from about 1995 or so, which can't do tables properly? One of those hobbyist-made browsers which implements about 10% of HTML? Granted, the commercial ones could bulk-buy Opera, though it would add to the cost.

Netscape still at 80% for physics [and XML issues]

[apsmith]

Check out:

http://ridge.aps.org/APSMITH/osstats/

-- Netscape's market share among our users has hardly dropped at all. Is it only the corporate side that's dropping it? Then again, it could be because almost 50% of our users aren't on any form of Windows.

I also don't understand how this article can claim that XML support is critical when MSIE 5's support is very buggy and full of proprietary MS extensions - for example relying heavily on the ID attribute which has no special meaning in XML. If you look at the Word 2000 "XML" output you'll see it's basically bastardized HTML 4.0, full of "html:span's" and "div's" for example. Mozilla's XML support is excellent and much more standards based. If the promise of XML turns into just another proprietary MS format that only renders correctly on MS software, the W3C has lost a major, major battle here.

The OSS community needs to run Netscape

[Graabein]

Read Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's FoF in the DoJ vs. MS trial if you haven't already. Now answer this question:

What was the one thing he emphasized over and over again that MS does to uphold the Applications Barrier to Entry in favor of Windows?

That's right, winning the browser wars. If MS can kill Netscape (and Java, including Netscape's Java engine), MS will have a stranglehold on the PC market.

The OSS community needs to embrace Netscape/Mozilla or come up with an OSS alternative real quick if it values its computing freedom.

(Personally I even think Netscape is better than IE when it comes to stability. IE on Windows will crash and freeze (and in the case of Windows 9x take the OS with it) seemingly at random. My experience is that IE crashes frequently, leaving the OS in an unusable or unstable state. At least with Netscape it's pretty predictable, over time you learn what makes it crash so you can avoid it. If you run Netscape on a proper OS like Linux it can't take the OS with it so all in all you have a much more stable and predictable web viewing experience.)

Use Opera, use Lynx, use Netscape, use whatever except IE if you value your freedom!

Let webmasters know that if they require IE to view their site you will be taking your business elsewhere!

-- Gunnar

Re:The OSS community needs to run Netscape

[blue]

Actually, when he referred to the "Application Barrier to Entry" he meant the number of applications and variety that are available on other operating systems, which Windows has vastly more.

Re:The OSS community needs to run Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, Microsoft should have called a bunch of Linux users as witnesses. With all their ranting about how Windows sucks, Microsoft is doomed to lose, IE crashs etc the judge would have sided with Microsoft that a company with that poor quality of software couldn't possibly have a monopoly, after all here are a bunch of people testifiying about how they dont' use any MS software, so MS couldn't have a monopoly.

Mark this as "interesting"

[acb]

Someone moderate it up.

IE on WINE

[acb]

How far are we from being able to run IE on Wine?
Has anyone given it a try? Is it doable in any sense?

An IE-on-Wine HOWTO would be good once it's viable; running a commercially supported Windows browsing environment in an emulated sandbox would be a lot better than putting up with AOL's bloated, crash-prone browser. (Netscape for UNIX has gone down the toilet as far as usability goes. So much so that at home I use NS 3, as it crashes less often.)

You are just plain RIGHT. Emperor is naked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Using Netscape is like getting in a time machine set for 1995.. This means just one thing...IE for Linux. Hurry up already, Bill!

Proof please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you demonstrate without a doubt that all the API's are open? Many other's have demonstrated undisclosed API's (see this link for example). On the other hand, I have not seen a shred of proof that their API's are open as you claim.

Re:Proof please.

[TummyX]

I think the 70 thousand great windows applications that exist are a good enough example. Ever read MSDN? Sure maybe there is some obscure function in a DLL which noone ever uses...and which isn't mentioned in official documentations...but who cares? It can't be that important if all this software is out there without needing to use it.

Why would MS close their APIs? Their OS exists cause of 3rd party software...yeesh.

Try being a windows programmer and read msdn (msdn.microsoft.com) before you crap on.

"I have not seen a shred of proof..." - what a load of hogwash

Re:Proof please.

[Anonymous Coward]

you are obviously an idiotic vb junkie. Just wait till microsoft decides to expand its services division, you'll see firsthand yourself then. In case you would like to find out beforehand, try researching!

Re:Proof please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not possible without a line by line audit of both the source and the documentation, which I doubt even Microsoft has done. Considering the number of other quality programs available for Windows that was NOT developed by Microsoft it's obvious that if there are 'hidden APIs' they are not required to write good code.

Re:Proof please.

[TummyX]

Um, where was any form of argument in that?


you are obviously an idiotic vb junkie

Um, yeah I know VB well, but I also know C++ and Java (java equally well).



Just wait till microsoft decides to expand its services division, you'll see firsthand yourself then

explain.



In case you would like to find out beforehand, try researching!


Uh, what are the reasons for you thinking that?

No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscrape

[Anonymous Coward]

..of course you're gonna justify NS...its not like you can run anything else..oh wait, Lynx!

M$ on My Box Over My Dead Body

[Dictator For Life]

Ain't going back to Egypt. No, no.

Re:That's ok.

[Abigail-II]

That's why for a number of years web designers went to great pains to ensure that webpages were well-tested on both browsers

"What kind of music do you usually have here?"
"Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western."

People "designing" web pages or web sites for a specific set of browsers are utter lusers who do not understand the media they are working with. 2 digit IQs - in octal.

Either you make something for the World Wide Web, or you don't. There's no middle ground. Regardless of what Netscape and MSIE are making you believe.

-- Abigail

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla *is* an easy to adapt component system (and Navigator 5.0 will be based on Mozilla). On Linux, Mozilla can be implemented as a GTK widget. Something similar could probably be done on Windows, using an ActiveX control (if it hasn't been done already).

Strangely enough, I actually use Composer a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a FreeBSD user, and if I want to rip off a quick html page to post on the intranet for other people to see, its a pretty good tool.

IE Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... BTW I can now run IE using WINE cheers Ant

Re:IE Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you get it to work? It doesn't display the page all the time when I try it.

Re:IE Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using the latest CVS code. The only problem I see is that it dosen't display the tool bar. Otherwise it runs fine until I try to load a page with something like flash plugins or such then it crashes.

cheers,

Ant

Re:IE Linux

[monstar]

ROFL!!!

IE: this is SHITE - it crashes all the time

NS/MOZ: this is GREAT, apart from the fact it crashes all the time.

Re:Opera kicks

[blue]

I have tried Opera and I didn't like it. I don't like MDI, and the last time I checked (latest version) it had problems rendering the tables on my.netscape.com. But, IIRC it doesn't support Java.

why not support Opera?

[caucho]

I haven't tried it, but doesn't Opera already support most of the standards?

Opera already has a committed and competent full-time programming team. Much more competent than Netscape and much further along than Mozilla. It would certainly give more choices and add more browser competition.

Opera can certainly compete with IE if it only gets market share. Of course, it's not open-source. I wonder if the Stallman inspired attitude of some Linux devotees has scared Opera away from supporting Linux. I mean, they chose to support BeOS before supporting Linux!
Scott Ferguson

Re:why not support Opera?

[sterwill]

Users don't support Open Source because someone told them to. They support it because it just works better. How do you suggest I make a proprietary program like Opera work under NetBSD for my Sparc? How about Alpha Linux with XFree86? On my PowerBook running Debian? I can't without rewriting it; software without source sucks.

--

Re:why not support Opera?

[Anonymous Coward]

"software without source sucks. "

No kidding, I hate it when people do all the work and then won't let me use it like a parasite. What's wrong with these people? Don't they realize that it's not really their work? They don't have any right to the product of their labor? It's my right to take what they've worked on damn it!

Re:why not support Opera?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're certainly entitled to try to get me to pay for their closed-source software. But I, the user, have the final say. And I say, "Stick it up your ass."

(Posted with Mozilla; compiled from source)

Re:ZDNEt? wow thats surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

What a pile of crud. It's ironic that every other day there's a link to some factually deficient page slamming MS in some way or other on one of the ZDNet's many tentacles and the Slashdotters pile there in droves to look for some sort of support to their cultish beliefs, but when something DOESN'T conform to your way of thinking it's MS advertising money. This comes up over and over again.

If that's really the case then MS really needs to pull the strings more and whip the whips, because most of the hit boosting bullshit stories on ZDNet and CNN (the fact that CNN prints "articles" by clowns like Petreley disturbs me greatly and drops in in the dump bin of lost of credibility) have hardly been positive to MS.

If...

[Graymalkin]

IE was released by some third party company not affiliated with M$ how many of you would really have a problem with using it (besides the fact there's no Linux version)? I use IE5 in Win 98 and I use IE 4.5 in MacOS 8.6. Whenever I'm on a linux box I try not to use Netscape, it turned to shit after 3.01 INMO. When I want to browse the internet I want my browser to load up, not a software suite. WHen IE4 first came out it was trudging down the same path Navigator embarked on, it tried to make everything part of the browser and load it all up at once for you. With IE5 that philosophy has been dropped in lieu of giving you all the software but keeping the browser, email, news, ect. all separate binaries. Netscape insists that 'Communicator' come with absofreakinlutely everything you will possibly use. Besides the programming aspect, IE is much more stable than Communicator is and when I do have it crash on me I can kill the process with a tool like Wintop. When Communicator freezes it takes down the entire interface and a reboot is needed, I can usually salvage an IE crash. As soon as Netscape changed Navigator into Communicator they really screwed up their chances of winning the browser war. Netscape no longer resides on my system because it couldn't keep itself running very long. I'm not M$ fan and if I had an adequate replacement for IE5 I wouldn't use it either. I've seen nothing else comparable and I don't use half functional crap that is "a good idea". Opera has an annoying interface and lacks alot of the usability features I rarely use in IE but would miss them at inoppertune times.

Re:If...

[Patrik Nordebo]

I don't hate IE because it's from MS, I hate it because the interface sucks. Scrolling in IE is absolutely broken. That's a big enough deal to me that I use Opera instead in Windows, even though I dislike MDI interfaces. IEs UI is also ugly, but that I could live with (and there are ways to fix it, I suppose).
And then there is IE on Solaris... Absolutely useless, it's really slow (and that's on a 440MHz Ultra10 with 256 megs of RAM) and really unstable. Netscape is much more usable. That's my experience with it, anyway.
But then, I use Linux almost exclusively, so IE simply isn't an option.

Re:If...

[jesser]

When Communicator freezes it takes down the entire interface and a reboot is needed, I can usually salvage an IE crash.

If IE brings explorer.exe down with it (which it does occasionally), you lose all the stuff in your system tray. This is probably a design flaw in the Windows O/S, because I saw that happening with a shell other than explorer.exe (probably litestep, but I'm not sure).

But then again I don't use netscape much, so I can't say anything about your first point.

Re:(MathML) Re:Mnemonic

[Anonymous Coward]

i am involved in a small way in
the MathML project for mozilla.
while it was possible to add in hooks for mathml
in the layout engine, it was'nt a very clean extension. however, with the experience gained,
the next version of layout should be easier
to extend.

i have followed the mnemonic project with some
interest. i applaud their desire to get a browser
out that is more useful for engineers and scientists. it's been long overdue since
the WWW was started by Tim-Bernes Lee for the
exchange of information among scientists
primarily. there is little financial incentive
for any of the commercial entities (Opera,
AOL, MS) to support MathML, and the fact that
rendering math correctly is not as easy as
ordinary text does not help either.
the only option
that seems left is for volunteers to help out
in an open source browser.

my main problem with mnemonic is that currently
it is only being developed for X11. this is
completely reasonable given the limited number
of volunteers. mozilla on the other hand is
already cross-platform. with more volunteers
mnemonic can eventually be cross-platform,
but from our experience we have found that
rendering MathML in a cross-platform manner
has raised a lot of issues early on in the
design of the renderer that in retrospect IMHO
I feel that had cross-platform issues been
dealt with at a much later time, it would have
been very painful to get it right.
the cross-platform issues have almost nothing
to do with mozilla per se.
i have doubts that mnemonic will have an easy time
being cross-platform later unless they are willing
to sacrifice the quality of rendering mathml
(which BTW is much better than having NO mathml
as is the current sorry state).
being cross-platform in this day and age
for scientists and engineers means
windows as much as linux/unix and to a lesser extent mac. the scientific world is no longer X-centric.

another vital browser component for engineers
and scientists will be SVG for plots and
diagrams. there is already some very rudimentary
implementation of SVG for mozilla. more
volunteers are needed. please pitch in if you
can.

- shyjan mahamud
Carnegie Mellon University
PS : the mozilla code is not "spaghetti"-like
as some people would like you to believe.
it has it's problems but on the whole IMHO
it is pretty clean and modular. the main
impediment to understanding the code has been
the fact that a non-trivial rendering engine
trying to implement HTML, CSS, DOM, XML, XSL ...
has an inherent complexity which cannot be "modularized" away beyond a certain limit. have a
look at the rendering engine for emacs for comparison.
Despite this inherent complexity,
Roger Sidje who implemented most of the code for mathml in mozilla has a high regard for
the way the basic mozilla layout code was designed. it has enabled him to add the mathml extensions with very high reuse of the existing code. as far as i'm concerned
i get a lot done without having to know everything
about the layout engine. that to me is modular
enough.

Corporate IE Preference: Foolish

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company to provides software support to USG national security agencies: CIA, NSA, etc. IE is banned from their systems because of the hideous security problems--ActiveX remains a showstopper. CIA is pretty much all NT4.0 (a special version) after years on OS2. NSA is a very -ix dominated world. Netspape rules in any environment where the SysAdmins are thinking about security.

If you try to install IE4.0 or IE5.0 on a CIA computer, it's considered a security violation.

Re:Corporate IE Preference: Foolish

[CmdData]

USG?

Re:Corporate IE Preference: Foolish

[Anonymous Coward]

United States Government

Re:Corporate IE Preference: Foolish

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what the hell are you smoking???? I have never seen so much stupidity coming from one person.... hey wait.... you are not a person are you.... you are a computer a microsoft generating random flame bait. Come on you can be honest... who are you really?? I am going to guess you're that damn talking paperclip. You got lose from microsofts AI lab.

Re:Corporate IE Preference: Foolish

[Darchmare]

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the thread you're replying to?

There isn't a single person in this thread defending Microsoft.

(I hope you're glad you posted anonymous)

- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[blue]

Lynx is too damn cool. I primarily use Linux for console stuff, because I still prefer Windows over X. Mozilla is really nice though, in both Linux/Windows, and pretty stable (I'm running the "browser buster" test right now and it's on pg. 63/100). However, when I am in Windows I use Netscape. I don't like IE. There is a new bug per week, but that's not the reason -- I don't like the way it renders/scrolling. My dad, the non-nerd, prefers Netscape as well.

What does it say that Netscape supports multiple platforms and IE does not? If Microsoft really cared about giving everyone a great browser, they'd surely port it to other platforms and gain a larger userbase -- but no, they want you to use Windows. They want the whole damn industry. Why wouldn't Linux users justify Netscape?

Simply defending/justifying Netscape does not mean I am stuck with it. I use it because I prefer it.

No FUD please. Thank you.

If I were M$....

[waldeaux]

Given the *current* state of affairs, which I would list as:

1. IE5 has been out for several months
2. IE5 has better compliance with the DOM-1 than NN4
3. Mozilla is Waaaaaaay behind in getting out
4. IT drones are starting to abandon NN as browser to support, either in using it as a client OR supporting it in their internal and external webpages

Then, if I were M$, I would doing these things:

1. Working on a new version of IE to come out RIGHT after NN5 with lots of new goodies (it doesn't matter if they're in the DOM standard or not) in order to push the bar away from NN5.

2. Hold back on porting IE to non-M$ platforms as much as possible. If I HAD to get something out, make it bug-ridden, and have it interfere with other things on that/those platform(s) as much as possible in order to nudge people towards NT/W2K.

3. Encourage IT people to support IE's unique features as much as possible, and discourage them from holding back on their own site development for NN5 to catch up. Label NN as "obsolete" and make a point of creating as many sites that only work on IE.

4. Hope like hell that the Mozilla people drop the ball and NN5.0 is buggy, non-uniform in terms of cross-platform performance, and is as unstable as IE, esp. on NT/W2K.

It's straightforward to see how this impacts the Linux community. First, we become stuck with an "outdated" browser on an operating system that isn't allowed to have IE. At the same time, all of the effort is pushing towards catching up to IE, which makes it harder to get 3rd party support for non-M$ OS's, and diminishes our ability to use the Internet.

What can be done? At this point, I'm just not sure. I spent this AM screaming at Netscape because every platform renders PostScript differently - so you get different printed output depending on *which* Netscape you use! (I expected some differences but it was as much as what you'd expect from N different browsers!)

So much for "cross-platform". I keep hearing that Mozilla will have true cross-platform support, but at this point, I have little faith in this claim. If it isn't, we can expect to have a VERY buggy release of NN5.0, which will pretty much bring down the axe (see #4 at top). "Stop Rewarding Stupidity" Bob

Try "Light Mode" Slashdot

[antizeus]

You should create an account and switch your preferences to "Light Mode".

• It looks great under Lynx (my preferred browser).
• Light mode looks better than the garish regular mode even in graphical browsers.

Frankly, I think normal Slashdot is hideous. Light mode is definitely the way to go. Loads and renders quicker too.

Re:we have not yet begun to fight!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's supposed to be a browser, not a national monument. They should have been putting out minor releases more often, because people are just not interested in Netscape anymore. The fact that the browser has been stagnant is killing them. It's not like you have to work very hard to find sites that aren't fully functional with Netscape. If Netscape can't get product out the door, they'll have to kiss their a**es goodbye, and we'll go down too in the same stinking ship.

Re:bug fixes needed

[Big Jojo]

In fact the only reason I've upgraded my copies of Netscape is to get bugfixes. It seems like there was a big increase in bugginess sometime after 4.0 shipped, but recent versions have been causing me fewer problems. 4.5 died several times a week (NT4) but 4.61 does so less than once a week. My Linuxen are on 4.71 and are pretty much OK, though they're fat and slow. And insufficiently conformant, though one is tempted to call that a feature issue.

The real problem is that Netscape never put enough effort into its browser! For one major example, they didn't invest enough to get a structure based rendering engine; the Gecko engine corresponds to stuff Microsoft did in order to ship IE4, as I recall. There was the post talking about how the IE/IIS teams (just engineering) were bigger than all Netscape. Clearly that's "enough" effort ... but I sure hope that it can be done with a LOT less effort.

The web will be lost (to everyone, not just Linux folk) if people can't actually implement a standards-conformant browser unless they have monopoly resources backing them. And I'm sadly afraid that's what's been happening at the W3C ... lots of huge specs, which MS implements at the 60%-80% level (plus proprietary features) and nobody else can afford to get even that far along.

Re:why not support Opera? (BeOS)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, And i'm very happy they choose BeOS first. It's the OS i use the most and there is only one browser available. Now we can choose from 3 browsers (actually 4 if you count the port of lynx): Net+, Opera 3.6 and Mozilla (very beta) As in linux you can choose from more than 10 browsers, so why rush.

Re:Mozilla was Microsoft's Master Stroke

[jbrewer]

Oops! That should be "failed to deliver a viable competitor to IE", of course.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[blue]

Going through "Internet Options", I don't see Roaming Access Profiles anywhere. Is this a secret hidden IE feature, or only if you bought Win98 SE?

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[TWR]

There are only 2 real reasons why you'd use Netscape on a mac or win platform.

Here's a reason: IE 4.5/Mac doesn't render /. correctly! Netscape 4.7 is fine.

Maybe IE5.0/Mac will show up in January and fix this...and give XML/XSL/CSS2 support. Maybe.

If there aren't any standards compliant Mac browsers soon, using a Mac on-line is going to be pointless. Jobs needs to kiss Bill Gates' butt a little more...

-jon

Why Communicator was/is messed up

[cyanoacrylate]

Netscape as a company was founded on the principle of 'giving away the razors to sell the razor blades' - they gave away the browser to interface to their line of server products. Of course its going to be buggy as all hell (we all know that, don't we :-( ).

We should applaud the Mozilla guys for not chickening out and redoing the whole mess from the ground up.

There, that's my two bits, and nobody else seemed to be saying it...

Re:IE5 and exsplorer.exe are diffrent procs on win

[blue]

Actually, it does tend to take down the shell as well. Remember, IE is now integral to the shell/explorer. Although, most of the time I can safely close it. (I only use it for Windows Update.)

Re:Browser Wars

[TWR]

Multi-scheme browsers predate Netscape Communications.

And they are still a crappy idea.

This is one thing that the Mac has gotten right since the dawn of popular Internet usage. Stairways software developed Internet Config, which (among other useful features) lets you specify your preferred program for various protocols. Apple hired one of the Stairways people and integrated Internet Config into the OS.

So, I click on a "mailto" URL in a browser and my mail program opens up. I see an http URL in my email and it opens up in my brower of choice du jour. Other protocols are also supported, but those are the biggies.

With a couple of different extensions I can even click on a URL in any document and have it open up in the right app. There's no way this is a worse solution than repeating the same functionality poorly in multiple programs. Programs that work together are a Good Thing.

-jon

Re:I couldn't agree more (read: support Mozilla)

[Abigail-II]

this will only aid the acceptance of Mozilla as the standard WWW browser.

That's funny. What's next? Microsoft releasing its source code for Windows, so people can build the standard OS?

Netscape has always been utter crap in all aspects. Never been able to implement a standard, always bloated, severely crippled news and mail readers. Only people with time to waste would build something on top of that. And only fools would believe something useful coming out of it.

-- Abigail

Re:Truly depressing thought for a once great produ

[Patrik Nordebo]

Netscape was charging for commercial users until Microsoft started giving away an IE of comparable quality (I think it was IE4, because IE3 sucked far worse than any Netscape), at which point Navigator became very hard to sell. Navigator sales once represented about 40% of Netscape's revenues, so having to give it away was a major hit to their bottom line.

The Problem With Netscape Is??

[mister-e-dog]

What is the problem with Netscape? I'm using it now,and it sure certainly seems to work okay. Earlier today I was browsing in IE5, happily it didn't crash as it is wont to, I did so only because I keep hearing complaints about how badly Netscape renders certain sites, so I visited a few of the sites that are problematic under Netscape in Linux, and I noticed several things; they were poorly designed sites that caused problems with IE5 too, or they did look better in IE5 but also looked better in Netscape 4.7 for Windows, and Opera for Windows because all their fonts were True Type fonts which I do not currently have for Linux. I also did note that IE5 seemed marginally faster than Netscape 4.7 for Linux but slower than either Opera for Windows or KFM for Linux or Netpositive for BeOS, though the latter thre have either limited or no support for Java & Javascript. I had completely given up on IE5 several months ago when I was using Windows exclusively because I found it difficult to configure compared to Netscape and Opera, and mostly because it crashed WAY too often and always brought down the whole system with it, requiring a reboot and session with scandisk and a slew of cryptic error messages. When Opera or Netscape crashed they almost always graciously terminated themselves requiring only that I restart them.
I realize that Netscape is not perfect, their install procedure for Linux( I just installed 4.7 last weekend on both Linux and Windows from their cdrom),is among the worst I've seen and I sent them an e-mail complaining about this. I still haven't got the spell checker to work either and I've yet to get a response from them on that matter or the Lack of full Java support with Linux, but it still does more for me than any other internet browser or news or mail application I've used and does it more conveniently and reliably to boot.
I'm not a developer and can't speak to how Netscape behaves from that standpoint, but as a user I just don't see that many problems with Netscape overall, and other than the poor installation procedure the only serious problems I have with Netscape in Linux aren't Netscape's fault, they are a lack of plugins and a general over reliance on gimmicks by too many web designers, and the latter causes problems no matter which browser you use, including IE5.

Re:The Problem With Netscape Is??

[imperfect being]

once upon a time i used netscape. well wait lets go back. once upon a time i used mosaic. :) Then! came netscape and i was much happier. when microsoft whipped out IE i was unenthused. it was just a buggy version of netscape with a little windows throbber instead. so i let it sit. Fast forward to IE 4.0 still buggy. crashed constantly on my machine, and always took the system tray with it.. finally IMO IE 5.0 was a stable and worth using browser. still a ripoff of netscape, but thats microsoft for you...

im rambling, so let me get to the point. I am the webmaster of a small Internet ECommerce Company, and i spend something most of my days making webpages. doing this job kind of forces you to know the browsers inside and out. i dont like netscape and let me tell you why:

netscape is picky as hell. i have missing or extra html tags often netscape will refuse to display the page. internet explorer on the other hand ignores the error, or guesses where tags should go, etc... most of the time this works great in IE. now on the one hand netscape encourages you to write good clean html. and clean html is always the goal. on the other hand netscape FORCES you to write good clean html. while IE is much more forgiving. thats netscape gripe #1. not a huge huge deal..

the other thing that really gets me about netscape is its lack of supported features. take style sheets for example. now style sheets are wonderful things with all sorts of powerful tags to let you design your webpage. but on the average netscape seems to support only about half of the stylesheet tags. now im not saying IE is perfect in that respect. but they are hitting closer to 80%-90% of the tags functioning like they are suposed to. netscape is 50%-50%..

point is. netscape may seem fine and functional to a user, but it's quite limiting to anyone designing html. This is really unfortunate as us poor overworked webdesigners often get stuck making one page layout for netscape and one for IE, or even worse having to cut out some of the stylesheet effects they want to use because netscape cant handle it... i think a lot of companys (especially those doing web design of some sort) are realising that netscape is behind the curve, and if you want the latest thing you need to be viewing in another browser.

Re:IE vs. Communicator

[delmoi]

For one thing, having the browser so tightly tied into the operating system often causes the whole system to lock up when the browser crashes(at least in most of my experiences).

No, it dosn't. IE5 has crashed on me about twice since I got it (comparatively, windows itself crashes about once every two days). When it did, it did not bring down the OS. In fact, it didn't even close all my browser windows. In linux terms, IE isn't a part of the 'kernel' it's part of the 'window manager', and with IE5 (unlike IE4) It dosn't even bring down windows exsplorer when it crashes.

Secondly, if the browser is compromised by an intruder, the system is more easily accessed than if the browser wasn't tied so closely to the OS.

If Any app gets compromized on windows, the intruder will have root access to everything... Netscape or IE
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

MODERATORS: Please moderate the post above..

[TurkishGeek]

This has to be moderated up.

Alredy abandoned Netscape

[ToiletDuk]

As a professional web designer, I already gave up trying to support Navigator about a year ago. I still try to make the overall design look as similar as possible in both browsers, but there are dozens of things I like to do design-wise that Netscape just hasn't implemented yet, so sometimes it's impossible.

For instance, I worked on a site recently where the content text was double-spaced and ahd loosely typed. But netscape's style sheets implementation doesn't support character-spacing attributes. The DHTML support is also horrendous. Z-indexes are virtually ignored.

So I've basically resorted to designing all extra features for IE and making the sites just look the same in Netscape without having all the bells and whistles.

Re:Netscape!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually.. it has plug in support for java.. so really.. its 'whatever you want' jvm...

It may be, but not for netcraft

[delmoi]

Its only one domain, after all. Also, since they were using Netscape-enterprize before, this dosn't help us Anti-microsoft people :)
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

bash, bash

[GeorgeMcBay]

It never ceases to amaze me how some people will bash Microsoft for *anything*. MS deserved a lot of bashing for a lot of things, but I don't think this is one of them. Almost all of the "special features" that these "IE only" sites are using are actually open web standards that have been published for months if not years (like, a lot of the CSS standard, which Netscape 4.x and below doesn't support, or supports incorrectly).

There are, of course, some sites that also *require* ActiveX and VBScript, and those sites should be properly flamed on an individual basis.

Re:bash, bash

[Anonymous Coward]

go back and reread the comments. The bashes are on vbscript and ACtiveX. The flames reguarding CSS are in netscapes dirrection

Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the major reason most users have computers? The web. How does the increasing majority access the web? IE. Will M$ "enhance" IE so that it relies on proprietary M$ technology? Of course. Will web developers use the proprietary M$ technology on their webpages? Of course. Will M$ port IE to Linux? No. Will the average computer user be happy using a browser that can't access the "enhanced" features of many websites? No. So what do we Linux enthusiasts do to ensure that Linux becomes a viable desktop alternative? Some people have suggested coming up with a new browser. Since the majority of Windows users will have little inclination to switch what already came with their system, a new browser will be ignored by web developers because it won't have nearly the number of users as IE. So a new browser is out of the question. What about Mozilla? Mozilla will be playing catch up with IE as long as IE has the most users. If M$ addes a feature and web developers begin to use it, then Mozilla will have to add that feature as well. But now we have another problem. Why should a web developer even care that Mozilla exists if it is essentially a clone of IE? Whatever the developer writes for IE will work with Mozilla. So the only point in having Mozilla around is for all those "fringe" OS users out there that can't use IE. But what if IE begins to use features that require Windows in order to operate? M$ will do this, of course, all in the name of "integration" and "simplification". Who needs the W3C to set standards anymore? M$ will decide the standards and everyone will be forced to abide by them. It really doesn't matter if Mozilla turns out to be the greatest and most stable web browser with lots of great features. IE comes with every copy of Windows. That's what the vast majority of people will use. Goodbye Linux. It was fun while it lasted. I'm sure going to miss you.

Re:Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[markoose]

Creating a browser with all the "features" of IE is not the answer. I think what is needed is to educate web designers that simpler is better if they want to reach the maximum number of visitors. With the advent of web on TV, PDAs and mobile phones this becomes even more important. Anyone who assumes their only vistors will be using windows PCs is being incredibly short sighted.

Re:Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

Your completely mistaken. Companies like Macromedia and RealAudio have made IE a success because the plug-ins for IE function much better on IE than Netscape. Multimedia just plays better on IE and it comes net ready not that it is a more feature rich browser. Linux developers must harness some of the multimedia power available on windows -- maybe encourage ports of the cooler 3d chat worlds or develop a multimedia standard that works well on X windows. As soon as we can see Flash 4.0 and Quicktime 4.0 playing on an X windows based browser, or something even better, IE will continue to dominate. The people joining the net these days don't want to read just text.

Re:Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[C.Lee]

>Your completely mistaken. Companies like Macromedia and RealAudio >have made IE a success because the plug-ins for IE function much >better on

You're completely mistaken. With the various acess lawsuits looming in the future, you can bet that there's going to be a reduction in the "multimedia" focus/aspects of WWW sites. Toss in the recent ruling concerning Microsoft being a monopoly and you can pretty much bet on corperate sites running scared of being hit with lawsuits if they try to force the use of IE or other Windows-focused software.

Re:Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[treke]

But they are making a educated assumption. Sad as it may be, the fact of the matter is that most people are browsing the web on windows pcs, or macs. And macs do have a version of internet explorer(and a pretty good one from what i've seen
treke

Re:Linux as a desktop alternative is screwed

[plawson]

So what is taking Mozilla so long? It sounds to me like we need a monster push to make Mozilla happen right now.

Opera kicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I can't wait for them to release a version of Opera for Linux. After using it for 5 minutes under windows I deleted Netscape straight away. Opera is so much faster, smaller. It's just so much better than Netscape and IE.

Re:Opera kicks

[pvthudson]

The worst browser out there is Sun's HotJava, it is by far the biggest pile of crap out there. Old Scotty must of been trying to keep up with Billy on that one. Hey its a Java Browser so its slow and runs satisfactory at best on every OS. Opera is ok, they need a non-MDI version. Netscape crashes way too often. IE wins by showing up because everybody else blows.

Re:Opera kicks

[Rhys Dyfrgi]

Opera supports Java, with a plugin.

Wouldn't it be great if all browsers used the same Java VM?
---

Re:Opera kicks

[TonyGreene]

The MDI is the first thing I liked about Opera. Then I found all the customizations. It's fast, flexible, and efficient.

Netscape is okay except for the Java pages that crash it occasionally. MSIE is okay except when it crashes the OS goes down with it.

Opera only lacks Java support, which is not important for me.

Re:Opera kicks

[jafac]

that's exactly what I hate about Opera too.

They better not implement MDI for the Mac and Linux versions - oh, I'll probably run Moz anyway.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Re:Opera kicks

[Wiwi Jumbo]

PS - It is the only Microsoft product I have any appreciation for, and it took until version 5.

Conversely, it only took Netscape 4 versions for people to hate it...

Wiwi
--
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"

IE5 and exsplorer.exe are diffrent procs on win...

[delmoi]

IE5 shouldn't bring down the shell, infact IE5 is *much* more stable then IE4 was (and exsplorer, in general to)
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:IE vs. Communicator

[Abigail-II]

Netscape has access to the Linux kernel and the source for X...why can NS make a Linux specific version of Navigator?

Oh, it's not a matter of can. M$ could make a Linux specific version of MSIE as well. And Sun a Linux specific version of Hot Java. But they are all commercial companies. Netscape compiles on a whole bunch of Unix platforms. Why on earth would they invest money in making a platform specific version, if there's no reason to think there's any gain?

-- Abigail

My life with browsers

[British]

1. When the web was just getting popular, I installed winsock(ugh) and good 'ol mosiac. I never got mosiac to work EVER. it just crashed when trrying to load a web page.


2. I used netscape for several years. It had the usual crashes and stuff, and remember having to upgrade from 2.x to 3.x so I could go back in a web page with frames without going back too far


3. fast forward a few years later. I have to do tech support for an ISP for nEtscape 3(and eventually 4). My ghod. There were so many stumper problems that I simply could not fix at all, even with the gurus around me. The ISP I supported also supported IE after awhile, and I can't even remember taking one IE related call.


4. Netscape 4.x: I used that for a while, and had the usual crashes. big whoop. slow to load, all sorts of weird problems on occasion

5. IE 4.x and 5.x. Screw the politics over it, I LIKE the integration with the OS. This comes in handy when you do a lot of web page authoring and find yourself switching back and forth between web pages and jsut plain 'ol Explorer.


The ONLY time I use netscape 4.x is for that silly Composer program, which, I as a QA tester have found PLENTY of bugs that never were fixed, to outright simple ones(duplicate hotkeys) to completely screwy GUI problems(ever try to get your cursor into an empty frame cell? It's REAL fun).


as for choices? I wanted to install communicator just for the composer app on my old 486 laptop. Nope, sorry. I ended up copying that cheezy FrontPage Express directory over to my laptop, and it started up just fine. It didn't complain about not being 98 or having only IE 3 installed.


As for crashing in IE 4/5? The only time i remember IE crashing was when I had that stupid thirdvoice program installed. It's gone now. THe onyl complaint I have about IE 5 is sometimes when banners dont work, it doesnt let you see the rest of the web page. Hackernews.com had a broken banner, so I bring up netscape to view the site, and it worked....and then crashed of course a few minutes later.


Nope. I'm stickin to IE. It's solid for me, and very quick to load.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Netscape gonna release their source? Wouldn't it be great if they made netscape communicator open source software? I thought this was gonna happen. And until it does Nutscrape sux.

Communicator is nowhere near good enough

[vipw]

Netscape communicator is most embarrassing peice of software for all the free unices. Communicator is an ugly memory leaking pile of garbage in its current incarnation, and I don't see it getting better until mozilla replaces it. Perhaps if it better supported standards proposed by neutral parties such as w3c instead of trying to implement non-important "features" like smart browsing and constant advertising through redirection it wouldn't suck as bad. Another problem is how different communicator and navigator are, and how running communicator about quadruples the rate of crashes. And it does crash aplenty, while for some people it only has to be restarted when it uses up all available swap space others have more routine(as many as multiple times per day) crashes.

IE would need to turn into the limping, bloated, lumbering monstrosity you suggest to bring it down to the level of the unix netscape communicator. I understand that the windows version isn't so bad, but I haven't used it more than a few times in the last few years.

And suggesting that web browsers are complete enough to no longer have to change to keep pace with web technologies is assine at best, the web is nowhere near done with its technology metamorphis -- Where is my .png transparency?

Sorry about the rant, but suggesting that browser developement should stop is probably offensive to people such as the members of the mozilla team(who obviously have a clue) and I though that I should defend their well directed efforts.

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the latest XEmacs w3? It's currently the only browser that supports style sheets, plus a dozen other features!

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[Sethb]

I'm not 100% certain on this, but back when I had a roaming IE profile, it was on an NT4 server. Basically, if you have an NT 4 domain, you can set up your profile to be a roaming one.

This is actually pretty handy, if you use a lot of different NT workstations, as it allows you to have the same desktop/start menu/Internet Explorer preferences/Outlook or Outlook Express settings/ no matter where you log in at. When I administered an NT4 domain for a while, I used this so I could easily check my e-mail regardless of where I was in the domain. It's a shame more products don't use it, it's a very handy feature.
---

There.Are.No.Hidden.APIs

[reemul]

Please, everyone, there are no hidden APIs. Period. This conspiracy stuff is what makes me hate to admit to liking Linux. Microsoft hires thousands of developers. Lots of them cycle through fairly quickly, and a lot of the ones that leave don't feel too warm and fuzzy toward MS. Do you really think that of those thouands of snarky ex-devs, not one of them would have had access to those 'hidden APIs' and disclosed them after they left? Not a single one? I'm sure they could leak them 'anonymously' to some anti-MS dev house, like Oracle or Sun, with no problem whatever. Heck, no NDA would stop them, not when the simple fact of Microsoft pursuing the ex-employee over the data would be a crippling admission of guilt. This is another stupid net myth, mindlessly parrotted by folks who really want to believe it, or who cannot be bothered to think for themselves. Just one more ludicrous conspiracy theory, an inheritor of an inglorious history stretching back from the Kennedy assassination all the way back to the trial of the Templars (actually the first historical example, and one that is still argued about several hundred years later.)

Rationally, there is no such thing as a secret when several thousand people know it. Sorry. MS is not in the business of being nice, and they do a lot of shady and ruthless things. But keeping that sort of thing secret doesn't involve shady practice, it would have to involve mind-control. And if they had that, the recent legal announcement would have been rather different...

-reemul

Re:There.Are.No.Hidden.APIs

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Microsoft uses hidden APIs" is a security blanket for those who can't write code to compete with that written by Microsoft.

If it were these mythical 'hidden APIs' that caused Microsoft to develop superior software why is Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro so superior to MS Picture It? Why is Word Perfect comparable to Word? Why was Norton able to write so many tools? Why? Because the hidden APIs don't exist. As has been pointed out by others if access to the source or hidden APIs is all that's needed to write superior software Netscape should rock on Linux since they have access to all the source - instead Netscape STILL sucks shit.

Re:Create features that IE doesn't have .

[jellllhead]

That's no good ... Netscape supports plenty features that IE doesn't have, it needs to support the ones that that IE already has and Netscape doesn't. Some of these features are propietary, but many are not.

Though Netscape may never be able to fully support M$ VB script, it may, for example, enhance it's support for stylesheets and take a look @ javascript functions that only work in IE.

Please. Netscape really offends a large amount of web developers i know. If we don't want to develop pages that look cool in Netscape, who will want to use Netscape if they have a choice?

Netscape is bleh..

[Zagato-sama]

While I've always been a Netscape supporter, I must say that IE makes quite a nice file explorer. I've been using windows 2000 for a month or so and it really is quite a step up from the old windows explorer. The ability to preview images and movie/music files in the embedded media player is also a great bonus. Another interesting feature I've stumbled upon is that in Win2k ftp sites appear as regular explorer windows, dragging and dropping between your drives and a remote ftp site is now quite a cinch, and no third party is required, I can even do a chmod or relogin as another user. (Although I doubt it's able to "hammer" on a ftp site with repeated connections..also haven't tried resuming uploads/downloads) Netscape..netscape seems to be a lost cause. Besides the "Shop" button, I really haven't seen much of an upgrade since 4.5 and 4.7 ..or since 4.0 for that matter. I'm not sure where AOL is going with Netscape, my first thought was that they bought it just to kill it off, but such an idea is simply ludicrous, netscape was flopping already and wasting such a large amount of money just to kill a company would be a hard sell even to a black helicopter conspiracy theory subscriber ;) I'd like to wean myself off netscape..but it'll be hard. Once you use something for several years it's hard to pick something else up in it's place. So I guess for now I'll stick to using Netscape as my browser and IE as my file explorer..until Netscape officially dies that is ;)

Re:Netscape is bleh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal, KDE has had the FTP copy feature for ages.

Re:Netscape is bleh..

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean all of the year it's been stable enough to use? Also the FTP copy in IE has been available in IE5 since the early betas, so well over a year ago.

Re:Netscape is bleh..

[Zagato-sama]

Oh this feature was in IE 5 for 98? I guess I never noticed it since I never upgraded from IE4 to IE5 while using 98. That's pretty spiff, yeah I saw the kde version, but I remember it being horribly bad at connecting to sites at the time. By the way, do you know by chance how to mount ftp sites as drives in windows 2000? ;) I saw a lmhosts NT4 example a week ago but it didn't work for me for some reason

What will determine the final outcome

[Pipis]

There are several factors that determine which browser wins the Wars. Specifically:

1. Distribution channels. The DOJ trial FoF made a great case for the fact that most users will not switch from the browser that comes installed with their PC or given to them by their ISP. The Slashdot crowd can find this hard to relate to, as we're used to installing our own software, but an increasing number of Web users don't, won't or can't. Hopefully, the final ruling on the case will limit MS's ability to dominate distribution channels, and even if it doesn't, the attention that has been drawn to these practices will probably give OEMs and IAPs the guts to challenge Microsoft and install Navigator instead of IE for their users.
2. Componentization and Embedability. Software developers want an HTML (and friends) layout component to embed into their applications. Intuit uses IE in Quickbooks. SoftQuad use IE in HoTMetaL and XMetaL. Others do similar things. Mozilla is uniquely poised to dominate this area. Gecko is an incredibly lightweight, powerful component that is much better than IE's counterpart in a million different ways. The wonderful thing about this is that a software developer's decision to use Gecko over IE's HTML control is based entirely on technology considerations - they don't care about user interface eye candy or marketing, they only want a component that will work well with their software. If Mozilla/Gecko is released soon, I expect it to dominate this market.
3. Standards Compliance. This battle has to be won, and it has to be won now. Microsoft has no reason to support Web standards, and never will. It's plainly against their best interests. Again, looking at the FoF we see that the Web is considered a development platform, and Microsoft is Microsoft because it controls platforms. But anyone playing the Web game that has their head screwed on right would rather die than let that happen.

However, in addition to all of the above there exist the very important factors that govern the success of any software product: features, stability, system footprint and general technical excellence. Mozilla has the upper hand here (except for stability, for the time being, but we'll have to be patient).

Who will prevail? It all depends on when we'll actually get a release of Mozilla. As JWZ said when he quit Netscape, Mozilla failed in many ways because it was grossly mishandled on the part of Netscape. Mozilla got a terrible codebase and Netscape expected thousands of hackers to dive in and fix the mess. It is interesting to find that the work got done a lot faster on the parts of Mozilla that were written from scratch (e.g. NGLayout) than anything else: Netscape's code was such complete crap it was difficult to hack, and most people didn't even bother. AFAIK, Mozilla as it exists today was almost completely written from scratch. That's how bad the code was.

What we need to do now is hold our breath and hope for a release, SOON. Netscape is planning to have the beta go live Real Soon Now (I remember they asked me for a "Developer Testimonial" back in September to include in the launch... and that was supposed to be rushed in...), which basically means that we'll have a beta some time in January, with a release some time in February or March. Amen. It's late, but it might not be too late.

What will happen then? If all goes well, ISP start bundling Mozilla with their sign-on packs, because the average ISP employee is going to drool over Mozilla. I used to work in an ISP, and I can tell you that User Friendly is not far off the mark. AOL might be bound into using IE in its software for another year, and probably have plans to continue to do so longer than that, but if the rest of the world rocks the boat one way, AOL will do the same. AOL picked IE over NS because IE could be embedded into AOL's software. Now, Netscape can do the same, and with more ease, and with smaller download times. AOL will not switch over fast, even though it owns Netscape, but I believe that unless Mozilla fails completely, it will switch soon.

Also, Mozilla will completely dominate the browser market for anyone not using Windows or MacOS within a few months. That might be a small (tiny?) percentage of the market, but it's market segment that carries a lot of weight - a lot of us are developers and have a direct influence on content creation and corporate acceptance.

What Netscape has to do is aggressively market Gecko as an alternative to MS's HTML layout component, and FAST. If they can get companies like Intuit to use Gecko, we will get more and more content developed for NS (i.e. standards-based) instead of IE.

But I think the major driving force behind browser acceptance will be content providers. As someone pointed out, Joe Webmaster might not care about standards and just preview his webpage on the latest IE, but most professional Web developers (i.e. those that work for search engines, portals and other high-traffic sites) will, and most of them are sick and tired of porting code from NS to IE and back. They'll start doing things with Mozilla that IE can't do, and then the market dynamics will pressure ISVs, IAPs, OEMs and individual users to use NS over IE.

It all hangs in the balance, but it's very important that Mozilla is released soon. We're in the final stretch - I hope it's sonner rather than later.

Field Report: Intuit

[BaronCarlos]

I must also concur to this assessment that it's already begun.

Two Years ago, QuickBooks changed their policy of using Netscape as their included Web Browser, in their Version 5.0, to IE.
Now, Intuit has released both Version 6.0 and Version 99 of Quickbooks with Microsoft Internet Explorer actually imbedded into the Quickbooks Software, and from what I hear, QuickBooks 2000 uses a seemless integration of internet and desktop software in it's operation.

Intuit has not shown signs of changing their policy again, at least not in the near future.

From what I understand, when Version 5.0 was released, Netscape had lacked several integration features that were key to Quickbooks' Online features, and the software stuck. (I do not believe that it was due to a political/economic reason.)

*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*

"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"

Re:Field Report: Intuit

[Jon_S]

Read the MS-Findings document. It was political. At least for Quicken; don't know about quickbooks.

Re:Netscape has bugs

[GeorgeMcBay]

Actually if you right click that link and pick "Open in New Window" with IE (at least IE 5 which I am currently using) it renders just fine in a new browser window..Doesn't need notepad/wordpad. I think this is more of a feature than a bug. But YMMV.

companies that make IE only web sites

[stewart.hector]

are misguided. The internet is not for microsoft, microsoft did not invent it, it is not an extention for microsoft platforms. The internet is for ALL platforms, ie, platorm independent. Clueless companies / people who think the world uses microsoft and the world uses IE. Well, *they do not* - 100% of people do not use microsoft. They don't live in reality.
This just shows another example of microsoft power - it can use its power, indirectly to make people and companies alike to force other people to use windows - when they create IE only sites and when there is a demand for that site for non microsoft audience. As for the person who says "he is disappointed with mozilla"... pardon? its not even released yet, its alpha. How can you form a judgement on an incomplete piece of software? Atleast wait for its completion and then make up your mind.

AOL users don't know what browser there using

[delmoi]

Many people don't relize this, but I saw someone using AOL once.

they don't use a 'browser' it's all intigrated into AOL software. If aol were to switch to Mozilla, there customers wouldn't even know...
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:AOL users don't know what browser there using

[m3000]

Yea, the AOL browser doesn't look or act anything like IE. I've used it a little bit (was forced to, only internet connection I had for a while moving) and it is so incredibly bad, but I guess a newbie would like it. And considering AOL'ers think that AOL IS the internet, they would have no clue that their browsers changed.

Re:AOL users don't know what browser there using

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they would notice, they would notice their AOL client crashing every 20 min as soon as they "upgraded" to a version with Netscape. They may not be aware of why it's crashing but they would certainly notice a difference.

Do you think AOL is the only one who doesn't know how unstable Netscape is?

Re:AOL users don't know what browser there using

[Brian Knotts]

Please stop FUDding. We're obviously talking about *after* the release of Netscape 5.0, which will be based on Mozilla, and bears little resemblance to the old proprietary code base.

Mozilla is stable enough for me to use right now, as I'm posting with it; it should be quite stable by the time it gets put into Communicator 5.

Besides that, Netscape 4.x isn't *that* unstable. I manage to keep it running for a couple of days, usually. It just has a huge memory leak.

--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page

The point is that you shouldn't need to worry.

[Mikesch]

So IE supports a small subset of standards, at least you know what it is going to support. Netscape supports much less than IE, badly I might add.

The point is that someone can make a completely compliant webpage, have it display fine in IE, but have Navigator display things offset from other things, have tables with the backgrounds all wrong, etc.

Argue all you want for the web being just a way to display information, it has become more than that. In a way, web design is now an artform, something that is fun to look at and functional. It has become a way for people to create sites with impact, see http://www.gaijin.com for an example. If the web were to remain waht it initially was, then the only tag we would need would be the anchor tag.

The web is moving and evolving, and the problem is that not only does Navigator not support standards, many of the ones it does support it supports badly.

Navigator is almost a 5th generation browser, there is no reason that it should not support tables correctly. There is no defense for that. These are bugs that have not been fixed in 4 years. If M$ were to do the exact same thing, we'd hang them by the balls, but because it is Navigator we have to deal with it and design web pages that make sure Navigator doesn't shit itself. They are singlehandedly keeping the web from becoming the medium it could become.

Ooooohhh, new shop button, that'll keep me coming back to Navigator.

Re:Re: Not Likely

[bhirt]

I doubt that NN would be that much better -- even when they had virtually unlimited funds in the beginning they couldn't make a good product. Without IE, NN it wouldn't even be free -- thanks MS. I can't remeber a single version of NN that worked well, and the original code it was based on was hopeless.

The real looser in this whole battle was the company that MS bought the original version of IE from. MS didn't build the first IE from the ground up they liscensed it from (looking glass/spry??? -- can't remember anymore). What I do remember is that MS signed an agreement to pay royalties for each copy of IE they sold and then turned around and gave it away for free, really screwing the original authors.

Re:we have not yet begun to fight!!

[delmoi]

Just because Microsoft feels they can release an unstable crappy browser doesn't mean we should loose hope.

IE is not crappy, or unstable. Netscape Is the company that does that, remember? Have you used IE5? it's crashed on me Twice since september. I just downloaded m10 of mozilla, and it looks nice. I'd hardly say it's a month away from reliase though, unless it's going to follow the tradition of all netscape software, buggy as hell
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Netscape is so bad, I nuked linux...

[Bald Wookie]

Yep, I quit using linux (on my main screw-off PC) because I didnt like the browsers. These days Netscape is a crufty POS. It wasnt always this way. Back in the days of 2.0 and 3.0 Netscape ruled the roost. Right now, compared to IE 5, its not even a contest. This whole situation makes me very sad.

My first experiences with the net were with a dialup shell account on a HP-UX box. At first there was no web. Pine and trn were my friends. Later on I remember running Lynx for the first time and being blown away. Banner ads were nothing but a gleam in some twisted bastards eye, and as far as I was concerned Unix and the Internet were inseperable.

Then I started using Netscape on a Win 3.1 box over a PPP link. In a lot of ways, I liked my shell account better and kept using it for mail and news. Eventually, I moved on to Win 95 and refused to use IE until I was forced to at work. As far as Im concerned, IE was worthless until 4.0. Even then, Netscape was good enough.

Last year, I finally installed Debian 1.3. Everything worked and I was pretty happy. I upgraded to Slink, surfed the unstable tree and enjoyed myself. The software wasnt broken, except for Netscape. I tried other browsers, tried other Netscape versions and tried a Mozilla milestone build. They all sucked compared to what I was using at work- IE 5. I was tired of Netscape crashing, tired of it hosing X, and wanted point and drool. Now I have it. Granted I still use Linux for anything serious, and run it on other boxen. However, right now suffering with Windows on one box is worth it to be able to use IE.

I see the lack of a top quality browser as one of the major problems with Linux. This is not a troll, or flamebait. Its a sad confession with hope for something better.

-BW

Re:Netscape is so bad, I nuked linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is amazing is that this keeps getting glossed over. For all intents and purposes on the desktop, Linux is no more stable than Windows/Mac.

Yes, for servers it is rock solid - but on the desktop you NEED X/KDE/Gnome to be stable, and if a crappy app (Netscape) can take it down then there is no difference between Linux and Windows.

Re:bug fixes needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my favorite new 4.7 feature is that "Shop" button on the toolbar - now THAT is innovation!

Re:Browser Wars

[Abigail-II]

Ahhhh... Remember the days when a Web Browser was used for browsing the web rather than handling very aspect of the internet experience?

Having to use all those different tools was one of the reasons "the Web" was invented. Multi-scheme browsers predate Netscape Communications.

-- Abigail

microsoft has $500 million though

[Anonymous Coward]

...

Re:microsoft has $500 million though

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh 500 million what? Bill Gates has about 80 billion in personal wealth. Microsoft, the biggest company on Earth is worth nearly half a trillion. $500 million indeed. You should know what they're up against.

I wonder why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly because Netscape was bought indirectly by the enemy to passify their software developement? Or am I schizophrenic? :)

at my work

[sad_]

i work at FedEx were the corporate standard browser still is Navigator. (btw: the standard webserver is Fasttrack) sure some people are using IE inside the company, but when they call the helpdesk with a IE problem they are not declined to help that person.
also i dont think we'll be changing from this policy anytime soon...

Don't just stand there, do something!

[mpt]

Firstly, something I have to get out of my system ...

FIRST POST!

Yes, it's my first post to Slashdot. I've been here about 18 months now, and never felt compelled to contribute before. But this discussion just makes me sick. I am in a maze of whiny little Slashdotters, all alike -- complaining about Communicator, doomsaying about Mozilla, and no-one doing anything.

So let's cover the whingers' main points.

Navigator/Communicator 4.x is buggy.

Sure it is. Basically, Communicator 4.x is built on the same basic architecture as Navigator 1.0, and has grown like topsy. It's a mess, and it's hard to debug. Which is why, earlier this year, Mozilla.org ditched the old codebase and rewrote nearly all of Mozilla from scratch.

But in the meantime, I'd much rather have a browser with several performance bugs and fewer security bugs, than the other way around.

Communicator hasn't improved since version 4.5.

Yes, that's mostly true (unless you count `Shop' buttons and the like as improvements), except that a number of bugs have been fixed since 4.5. Basically, Netscape are keeping Communicator 4.x ticking over while they work flat out on Mozilla, because Mozilla is where the future is.

Mozilla won't offer anything IE5 doesn't already have.

Balls. Mozilla 5.0 will far outclass IE5's broken support for HTML 4.0, CSS1, CSS2, and XML. And Mozilla optimized builds are already faster than IE5. To quote Rick Gessner, Netscape's Director of Engineering:

About a year ago, I was asked to present the very early demo on Gecko. As a follow up, we went back to debate with Microsoft on the state of the browser war. The MS guy was nice enough, and credible, too. He seems like he cares about what he was doing ...

But our own Eric Krock was on a mission. Even though he had larengitis (sp), he managed to show a side by side demo of us vs IE, and we killed 'em.

We smoked their demo on size, speed, and mostly on standards compliance. It was really funny to watch.

But even more exciting than Mozilla's standards-compliance and performance, is the fact that it offers the building blocks for constructing any client-side Internet application you like -- using its cross-platform front end of XUL (the XML User Interface Language) and JavaScript. So not only can you change the look and feel of Mozilla, but you can alter the entire user interface, or even create your own app using the Mozilla layout engine and networking code.

Mozilla is doomed.

So if CNet and ZDNet say something often enough, it becomes true? That's sick. Sure, JWZ left. Good! Sure, Mozilla.org had to scrap a lot of their old code. Great! It's an open source project, you can't kill it, you can only delay it ...

Mozilla will be too late.

And this is the bit which really annoys me. Everyone is standing around moping about how IE is taking over the world, and thinking that talking about it (in usual Slashdot fashion) is enough.

It's not.

Join the Mozilla effort. Do it now. It doesn't matter if you don't know C++. It doesn't matter if you're stuck on Windows. It doesn't matter if you only have two hours a week to spare. Just join in. Download binaries. Report bugs. Suggest enhancements.

I'd like to think that the Slashdot readership were actually interested in the future of both Linux and the Internet. I don't want Linux to be a second-class end-user operating system, simply because it doesn't have the world standard Web browser on it. And I don't want Microsoft, or any company for that matter, to control the Internet.

Do you?

[ Give up ] [ Fight back ]

-- mpt

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the "preference" not working. You need to edit the configure file by hand.

Hah! No, IE is the standards compliant one...

[Anonymous Coward]

IT staff will be punished if they adopt Internet Explorer, as it actively violated the standards that Mozilla will (hopefully) support hah... typical /. anti-MS crap with little respect for the facts.

In this instance, much as it is unlike their usual behaviour, MS are supporting more standards than NS is. Let me here you say "CSS"? Jeez, I've developed dozens of webpages and the one bitching thing that annoys me most is Netscapes total failure to support CSS properly...

Re:Hah! No, IE is the standards compliant one...

[Tekhir]

Let me say XML namespaces. Why bother being part of a standards group and actually help write the standards and then fail to implement them properly in IE5. XSL is another technology that is not implemented correctly.

I rather have a company not supporting a standard than a bastardization of a standard.

Re:Hah! No, IE is the standards compliant one...

[MrHat]

Hrm... I kind of rushed off the original message... let me see if I can explain in a little more detail:

IT staff will be punished if they adopt Internet Explorer, as it actively violates the standards that Mozilla will (hopefully) support...

I was syntatically off the mark here. I don't mean to imply that Internet Explorer breaks all the W3 standards, or that Netscape supports them all. I'm merely expressing a hope that a created from scratch, open source browser project will give the users some clout when it comes time to draft out standards. Have you ever noticed that Microsoft "played key roles" in the development of CSS, XML, and other supposed "standards"? Is it that surprising that they are fully implemented in Internet Explorer?

Nevermind the fact that Internet Explorer has bastardized (I know, someone else said this... but I like the word) standards and even forced some of their own so-called standards upon users. Microsoft polluted Java with the "Windows Foundation Classes", called VBscript a "standard" client-side scripting solution (only to back off and use it only in ASP), and told WWW developers to use those nifty new ActiveX controls that tie entire WWW sites to Win32. It was around this time that they started declaring COM as an "open standard". They made a big deal about COM on Solaris, which is now nowhere to be found.

Now, I'm not excusing Netscape in any way. Netscape has failed to support even standards that Microsoft has nothing to do with, and is looking more every day like a huge conglomoration of useless third-party software. Just take a look at the specs for the Wintel Communicator 4.7: It includes AOL Instant Messanger, RealPlayer, Winamp, Betnik something-or-other... It seems they've reved the product for the past year only by tacking new gadgets on.

What I hope can happen, is that the Mozilla project can distance themselves enough from the Netscape/AOL marketing mess to produce a worthy graphical open-source browser, something I've yet to see (correct me if I'm wrong). Netscape/AOL can use it if they want to, but the free software community can guide it toward goals that aren't necessarily world domination of Netscape's Netcenter portal.

I'm not an open-source bigot, in fact I'm using quite a bit of Microsoft software right now. I just think that we could all benefit from having an open-source browser that is at least detached from the motives of a company. (Refer to the article on the Opera site on why "free" is never really "free").

Rant mode disengaged.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[jilles]

Lynx is no alternative for IE. Its only useful if your blind in which case you would want to put a braille machine on it or an enormous nerd with very thick glasses and skull. In all other cases people also want to view the graphical information. Netscape 4 is now at least two years old and we haven't seen it progressing. Netscape 5 is a promissing product but it will take several months to become final. When it will become final it is an unproven but still promising product. In other words it will take at least half a year for mozilla to catch on. That's a lot of time for a browser.

IE5 and Explorer.exe *ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT*seperate

[delmoi]

IE5 is called IEXPLORE.EXE, and explorer.exe is called, well EXPLORER.EXE, They exsist in seperate memory spaces. They are seperate processes. Not linked.

However, Explorer is pretty unstable by itself (much more so then ie5 on my box, actualy). and any stray app can bring it down.
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Typical Linux Luser reply

[briancarnell]

"Use Opera, use Lynx, use Netscape, use whatever except IE if you value your freedom! Let webmasters know that if they require IE to view their site you will be taking your business elsewhere!"

Huh? Because Netscape sucks when compared to IE I should use it anyway just to spite Microsoft? Give me a break. Sorry but most of us in RL have work to do -- and having Netscape constantly crashing when it comes across some piece of code it doesn't like just isn't worth it (we wouldn't need IE to see some sites if Netscape supported the damn standards!!)

Re:Typical Linux Luser reply

[Anonymous Coward]

Who needs integrity anyway! Sell your soul! In the RW the man own's everyone anyway!

Re:Typical Linux Luser reply

[radja]

Whereas IE has shown it holds itself perfectly to standards...

Re:Typical Linux Luser reply

[reverse]

Whereas IE has shown it holds itself perfectly to standards...

Well of course not... but netscape's support of HTML just .. well. It just plainly isn't as good. I dont particularly like M$ ... but I'm not going to oppose them for the sake of opposition. They make a better browser.. in almost every way.

Whether they got where they are ethically is a totally different question, but if you look at where IE is in relation to Netscape.. Its just better.

It might be a stretch to say this.. but I wish there was an IE5 for linux. Or at least something that worked better than Netscape does.

schmim

IE java

[delmoi]

I don't know if this has changend, but for quite a while IE was the only browser with java 1.1 support, Netscape still only used 1.0. In order to even view some of the java on Sun's site, I needed to use IE.

I downloaded m10 tonight, and played with it a little. Pretty crazy stuff. I'll go back to netscape right away, once they reach beta, or somthing. I can't wait.

It wasn't able to render www.public.iastate.edu/~cokere/re correctly though :(


--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:IE java

[blue]

It's a work in progress. I agree it looks nice. They changed the interface a bit, so download a nightly build and try it out. I think it was said that Netscape 5 will support the latest version of Java.

Re:IE is just easier

[Jason Straight]

Actually it is quite a bit different. Netscape is not tied in with the operating system. Even if people wanted to use NS they still have to have explorer. I bet even if you gave NS away right on the CD with windows it wouldn't make much difference because people would say "I have to have IE on my computer, why would I want 2 browsers on it?"

I'd run Communicator if . . .

[cnj]

I'd be running Netscape's offering if their products worked. Come on, they can't even get the binary to work for me to download!

Until then, I guess I'll use my copy of IE which came with my computer. It isn't like that hasn't completely screwed up my computer with some unwanted download or simly lock up the computer for some untold reason. Oh, yeah, and I'll run it on my U*nx box, since it has all the market there. After all, it is focused on compatibility and standards, right?

"And what the people but a herd confus'd,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol

Re:I can't think of one program which isn't used m

[Relforn]

Hey, the Gimp looks nice on an X desktop. So does Mozilla (built it on my NetBSD machine awhile back, it looks fine there)

The Free Unix world does not revolve around Netscape.

Yeh, it'll kick ass when it comes out!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

witch, by the way, is Real Soon Now.

Re:Yeh, it'll kick ass when it comes out!!!

[AndrewHowe]

Uh-huh.

Look, OK, let's just agree a truce. You wait patiently for erm, I dunno let's say Windows 2000, and I'll wait patiently for Mozilla. Neither of us will bitch about 'vapourware' or anything else. Everything will be much more friendly, and we can start to be more positive about things. OK?

Only it doesn't really work like that, does it? You really want me to be nice to you because Mozilla is an open source project, and so it's just so much more important for it to be solid as a rock before it's released, and blah blah blah. And probably you don't give a rat's arse about Windows 2000, OK whatever but that's not my point.

It's interesting to note that most people I've heard talking about the Win2000 beta say it's already a good solid product. Whereas I tried Mozilla M10 and it crashed *constantly*. I do not have the necessary net access to check out releases more often, and I'm sure many of the issues are being addressed. But as far as I can see, if it's going to be solid before it comes out, it's not going to come out very soon. And if it's not solid, it's going to be laughed off the face of the net.

Re:Browser Wars

[Abigail-II]

I disagree - the Web was designed to be a hyperlinked multimedia delivery system. That doesn't mean that it is a multi-service delivery system. Essentially, it's a resource request mechanism: you ask for a resource, the server gives it up. What the requesting client does with it is completely up to implementation. The idea of standards provides a consistant representation of what the client should do with that resource.

That's an description of *HTTP*. HTTP isn't the same as the web, it's *part* of the web. One bases of the web is the underlaying URI/URN/URL addressing scheme. HTTP is just one of the schemes, FTP, GOPHER, NEWS, etc, are others.

SMTP/POP/IMAP/NNTP were designed to provide completely different types of services. These types of transactions are not request/response based, but instead are dialog based (ie, LIST/UIDL/GET[[UIDL/GET]...] for POP3). The underlying mechanisms are completely different paradigms, therefore they should use different tools.

Why? What does it matter? Why should a POP server care if it was called by a piece of program that has its own entry in the process table, or by a piece of program that shares its entry in the process table with a piece of program that shows bouncing gifs? You'd think the POP server behaves differently?

What matters is that the user has the choice, and if (s)he prefers to seaminglessly jump from an HTML page delivered by HTTP to a Usenet posting delivered by NNTP, more power to him/her. I prefer having a car that drives me everywhere - I wouldn't want to switch cars when entering a freeway, or for driving a gravel road.

I'm basically begging the rest of the world to wake up to what the unix world realized a long time ago: 'do one thing and do it well - then connect the tools'

That's an implementation detail. If it works fine for you, good for you. I use mutt and slrn for my email and news, but I'm not going to start an FTP client if I find a link in an HTML page that happens to use the ftp:// scheme, or use a separate gopher client.

I assume you don't inline images either, but use specialized tools for that? (One for GIFs, one of JPGs, one for PNGs....)

-- Abigail

Re:Why must sommunicator change? Not good as it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Let IE turn into a limping, bloated, lumbering monstrosity. Netscape is nearly perfect as it. It just needs the remaining bugs ironed out.



Yeah, a few little bugs, like the fact that the FUCKIN BACK BUTTON DOESN'T WORK! Jeesus H. Christ, how hard can this be to fix? Just add a few lines of code that keep track of where you were in a page so that when you follow a link and hit back you don't have to page down 10 times to get back where you were! They should bite the bullet and release the source to communicator 4.7, what the fuck do they have to lose? I guarantee you this would be the first bug to get fixed. There would be a patch on some dude's web site within 24 hours. Every new release, 4.5, 4.51, 4.6, 4.61, 4.7, i keep thinking they'll fix the goddamn back button, and no luck. I am starting to suspect that they haven't changed anything at all since 4.5 or so, just s/4.5/4.51/g on the source code and ship it, just to maintain the appearance of an ongoing development effort. Oh yeah, I forgot the shop button, thank goodness for that. Moderate this down if you want, but the reason communicator has lost the browser war is that it sucks rocks.

Re:Make sure you read it the whole thing though.

[ratman]

"While it is an interesting development, there's probably little cause for worry unless it
becomes a trend."

It is something of a trend, and has been for a while. But it is OK. the trend is something like this:

an idea gets some funding and a startup is born.

the startup, running on neophytes and/or directed by suits, turns up their services on NT.

the startup begins to mature, and eventually migrates off of NT.

Doesn't always work that way, but that's the trend.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[blue]

I can do the same at the Vocational Technical Center I go to, which are Windows 95 machines, but they use Novell NetWare stuff that'll do it -- this isn't the same as Roaming Access Profiles, though. With Roaming Profiles, you can store/retrieve your bookmarks/cookies/almost anything on a HTTP (with Apache module) or LDAP server. What you were referring to meant you had to be somewhere on the network.

Standard Java

[delmoi]

IE supports Standard Java far better then Netscape. I couldn't even view some of the samples on Java.sun.com in Netscape, worked fine in IE though. I'm still using NS4.05 or somthing along with IE, beacuse I hear the newer versions are even worse.


--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Nobody has mentioned the browser in Star Office...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just recently downloaded the new "Sun" version of Star Office 5.1. So far, it seems pretty solid.. it does a GREAT job of reading all kinds of files, especially MS Office 97. It also has a browser included. I've not used it much, but it also seems to work well. The interface is different and takes a while to get used to. Does this browser add anything to conversation?

Re:I've Switched

[FigWig]

>My favorite Netscape bug: The one where Navigator
>starts ignoring all left mouse clicks

This is THE show stopper that keeps me using IE on windows. I can't recall if I'd had the problem on Linux. Actually, I find Netscape 4.61 on Linux to be pretty stable. And replying to an email doesn't require netscape to be killed -9. I'm blown away!

Mozilla != Netscape

[TonyGreene]

Only people with time to waste would build something on top of that. And only fools would believe something useful coming out of it.

That's probably why the Mozilla team started from scratch.

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure that IE and NS are rendering "correctly"? Mozilla may be the one rendering correctly. It may be the pages that are broken (to conform to things that NS and IE do incorrectly).

Removing the Messenger spam from Netscape

[WNight]

Use junkbuster or WebWasher and block
messenger.netscape.com

That'll fix it for ya.

You know, the solution to this whole Real Player GUID problem is an application-specific firewall. Simply don't let some apps connect to some sites on the net.

Re:I've Switched

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammitt... I am having this left mouse click problem right now ;)

bug fixes needed

[trance9]

A lot of people have a lot of hope invested in communicator. However, Netscape has consistently put effort into adding features, when most of us would just be happy to see it run all day without crashing.

I think we would all put up with a few less features, if the features that we had worked reliably. I suspect that it's not just geeks who feel this way.

Whatever happened to software quality? In order to beat Microsoft, Netscape appears to be playing the same dangerous game of releasing unreliable software. Dangerous for Netscape, because nobody plays this game better than MSFT.

So I know the mozilla people are reading this: Mike, get with it, fix some more bugs. Get people off of features and onto stability.

Re:bug fixes needed

[Anonymous Coward]

And for that matter, they could give it away FOR FREE, terminating their competitors' revenue streams!

And imagine if they could come up with a way to FORCE it to be installed on users' machines!

Gee, that would be pretty damned innovative.

Re:bug fixes needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think, if a company had enough money - they could concievably put so much effort into supporting and implimenting new web standards (not to mention W3C contributions)that other browser developers/contenders would rush their product to market - barely keeping their heads above water - in order to preserve a customer base. Such a company could also limit their browser to one platform and in effect seriously stifle the growth of platforms/projects that rely on the Internet for development!

Re:bug fixes needed

[josepha48]

Mozilla 5.0 needs to have all the features that IE has in order for it to compter and stay in the browser war. If it does not have all the features that IE 5.0 has and if people have to write pages for the different browsers which browser do you think will win? IE as it comes with your system.

send flames > /dev/null

I couldn't agree more (read: support Mozilla)

[MrHat]

I couldn't agree more that Netscape Communicator has become bloated and buggy. Rather than abandon Netscape, however, we should thrust our efforts into the Mozilla project. Not only will we get a high quality, open source browser, but we'll get another nice stick to beat Microsoft with.

As far as I know, the results of the project will not be "owned" per se by Netscape; this will only aid the acceptance of Mozilla as the standard WWW browser. IT staff will be punished if they adopt Internet Explorer, as it actively violated the standards that Mozilla will (hopefully) support.

My $0.02...

Re:There.Are.Hidden.APIs - look at wine dev.

[DGolden]

Clearly you haven't looked at the Wine undocumented API stuff then. The wine developers have had to reverse engineer chunks of undocumented APIs that are used by things like MS Office and IE.

Re:That's ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you make something for the World Wide Web, or you don't. There's no middle ground. Regardless of what Netscape and MSIE are making you believe.

Yes. This is exactly correct. Anyone coding for a specific browser profoundly misunderstands the medium entirely and is unwittingly heading straight for the proprietary days before the Web.

Tim Berners-Lee must be agonizing over the monumentally ill-conceived idea that one should design for one browser or another.

Admiral Yamamoto

This is news?

[Skyshadow]

Sorry folks, but anyone who has used both IE and Netscape any time in the last few months could have told you this. I worked at an ISP up until four months ago and I had to be really framiliar with both broswers as we supported them both. As much as I hated to admit it, Netscape couldn't hold a candle to IE.

At least on the Windows platform (which is really one of the only two platforms that are relevant to this discussion), IE is faster, more stable and overall more functional. When it was first released, IE was just a pale shadow of Netscape; just a photocopied feature set. That's not the case anymore.

I have hopes for Mozilla, but I'm beginning to come around to seeing that the delays in getting a production version out are really hurting it. No matter how progressed it is, there needs to be a shipping version within, say, six months. If this is not accomplished or if that version sucks, Netscape will have lost such serious ground that it will have difficulty catching up. Already we can see that their reputation as being a quality product is being damaged.

Man, I hate saying that sort of thing; admitting that MS is better in this case makes my teeth ache.

----

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla rocks dude. To the extent that IT's standardization on IE gives impetus to lazy design websites that don't adhere to standards, it may allow MS's extensions to gain acceptance. As far as pure browser technology, Mozilla is on the right track. I can't wait until it is released. And oh yeah....I'm typing this on Mozilla right now!

Re:This is news?

[Chris Johnson]

Isn't that just the same as saying the Judge is right, MS is a monopoly, has caused an immense amount of damage, most notably killing off all other browser competition, dumping their product and starving out any other browser projects then burning the ground they walk on so nothing will ever grow there again?
Isn't that a more accurate statement of the situation than 'IE is better. Drat!'?
Isn't that EXACTLY the point as far as the antitrust case is concerned? If there was lots of thriving competition and lots of good effective choices to use, would the Judge have hit MS as hard as he did?
I don't know what he has in mind, but this only proves how right Penfield Jackson is and how much he 'gets it'. Personally, I have no problem being a 'protest vote', as the sites _I_ like work with Mac Navigator, and I've found a version (not very new) that runs pretty good for me, and decided to ignore CSS and most Java content and javascript. That's my choice. I make it because I _really_ can't stomach helping a monopoly scorch the earth. I don't expect other people to do likewise, which is why the judge was right in his findings of fact. IE is technically better in various ways than Netscape (at least on Windows) _because_ it's impossible to compete with a monopoly dumping a product they're spending billions on perfecting. All their effort has gone into making it actually work. It's possible to understand that this has happened and still remember that it is _part_ of an anticompetitive action that has also made it flat-out impossible for ANY other business venture to try and make a commercial web browser. Certain technical tricks like the ZDNet vanishing poll bug suggest that MS has also put great effort into finding ways to make it impossible for ANY venture to make ANY web browser and not be hammered by buggy problems. If IE accepts malformed HTML that seriously screws up Netscape, and then MS-supporting sites and authoring tools begin producing that malformed HTML _on_ _purpose_, what then? That becomes anticompetitive behavior against both commercial and uncommercial entities, and it's impossible to defend against within the free market system alone. It needs to be treated as a criminal act- and IE needs to be nationalised, confiscated, since Microsoft has managed to make things so that going into the new millenium, the world does not HAVE any choices, and no new choices are going to arise. All that is required is to get IE away from commercial control- it's in way too controlling a position to be any part of a free market. It's the informational equivalent of a totalitarian state- let's start treating it as one and making it exist within a structure of rules and checks and balances.

Re:Browser Wars

[DeadSea]

I have found that the above goes for Wintel platform as well. If you want a *very* good, stable, product, get the stand alone version of navigator. Under windoze, I have never had nescape crash on me. I'm using netscape 4.08 and I love it. Who needs all that extra crap anyway?

At least you MS people have choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

How I long for Opera to get off thier ass and get the linux version completed. Why they have have focust on Be is Be-yond me. ...ugh....bad. Netscape sucks ass, but what other choice do I have?

Re:At least you MS people have choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Use wine to run the Windows version of Opera. It works fine and is faster than native communicator.

this is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

they've been losing market share to the bundled MS product for a couple years now, whether from the individual or the corp. it type.

their company is basically splintered and gone.

the only hope i see for mozzilla/netscape is that some fallout from the DOJ trial gives them a head up -- for example, no more MS product purchases by the government.

that, or DOJ forces all MS apis to be open and split out the apps. Then (maybe) IE and Mozzilla/netscape could compete head-to-head.

Re:IE5 and Explorer.exe *ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT*seper

[blue]

Perhaps, but they are very integral. Type in C:\ in an Internet Explorer window. Familiar looking, isn't it? Type a URL in the Explorer window. Behold, it loads. That is Microsoft's defense of having IE built into the OS, that it is part of the shell and everything else. If you have heard of 98lite, which removes IE from Windows 98, its features lists having to use the Windows 95 Explorer due to the Windows 98 Explorer requiring IE.

Netscape 4 sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape sucks.

The only thing that crashes daily on most /.ers Linux boxes is Netscape.

All I'm looking for is something like Netscape 3 but doesn't crash. I like the fact that the "autoload images" option is just a single menu click away. Netscape 3 is fast, and you can open new windows even as it is downloading. With Netscape 4 you have to wait for things to download properly first.

I don't need the Java/Javascript crud. There are VERY few sites which have a _good_ reason to use them. I don't understand why some sites even need javascript just to activate some dumb image click. I'm tempted to send "Your website sucks, and you suck" to every webmaster who does that.

Name me a useful Java browser app.

Netscape is just PAYING THE PRICE for their conscious decision to go for features vs stability/reliability. If I heard right, they were proudly bragging that whenever it was a choice between features or stability, features came first. I have no sympathy for Netscape.

Name me one Netscape product which is reliable and has good performance.

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[Anonymous Coward]

Before taking judge "overturned on appeal" Jacksons word as gosple you might want to wait until there is an actual verdict in the trial. All the finding of fact is is his opinion, which has often been proven wrong in the past. So who do you think he's going to be consulting for when the trial is finally done with? Sun? Oracle? Or join Bork at Netscape?

I'm still waiting for the finished product

[Anonymous Coward]

that says it all. "Sure NS5 will be much better than IE when its released" *when* So after a year of opensource what do we have? nothing. Just beta versions and milestone releases. Ah, but whats this you say? "NS5 will conform to all standards" thats all well and good, but the average person on the street could give a shit. They use what works, and IE5 works right now.

Re:I'm still waiting for the finished product

[blue]

That's why Microsoft can violate all the standards they want -- no one gives a shit. If there are no standards, none of the markup/plugins/whatever won't look the same across platforms/browsers. If there is a strong standard and everyone follows it, you can safely expect every browser to render nicely across platforms/browsers. Milestone releases show progress, and the nightly builds work exceptionally well for a product that isn't ready.

The average person on the street is the common argument. The APOTS doesn't care about Linux. The APOTS doesn't care about Mozilla/standards. The APOTS loves Microsoft products and uses them because they "work". The APOTS could give a shit. I prefer to take a shit.

Re:I'm still waiting for the finished product

[Score Whore]

*Offtopic*

Come to my house buddy, my cat's litter box needs cleaning.

Cause it bites?

[Sabalon]

Netscape pretty much bites as a navigator.

It is unstable, has a hard time supporting standards for HTML/CSS, and the company seems to be too busy trying to make themselves be a little bit of every one to everything instead of releasing a stable, decent product.

As much as I hated MS's Explorer implentation on HPUX (Here...have our X libraries), it was much more stable. If they released a version for Linux I'd switch to it happily.

Re:Cause it bites?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. I've used IE for HP/UX and it seriously licks some balls. It starts up *really* slow and some of the features like file:// haven't been implemented yet. Overall, I say that Netscape has the upper hand in the UNIX market.

On my mac at home, however, it's a different story; Netscape is as slow as molasses compared to IE 4.5.

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[margaret]

I don't understand these posts which say that Mozilla, in its current state, is better than IE. Everytime I try Mozilla, there are pages which work fine in both IE and NS, but which Mozilla doesn't render correctly. And Mozilla inevitably crashes after I spend any time using it.

Maybe it has something to do with procesor speed? I've read that gecko's supposed to be really fast, but mozilla runs slow as molasses on my system. (I am stuck using a POS pentium 90 though.) By itself, however, viewer.exe runs at a decent speed, so maybe slower processors can't handle rendering the "chrome" and other extras...

But I'm just guessing. Any mozilla people out there?

Re:Browser Wars

[finkployd]

Ahhhh... Remember the days when a Web Browser was used for browsing the web rather than handling
every aspect of the internet experience?

I've been saying that for a while, come to think if it, so has nearly everyone :) So why is the mozilla team ignoring this request (given, the last Milestone release DID have a VERY weak standalone browser)?

I'm looking at the browser formerly known as Gzilla VERY seriously now (the new name escapes me). It seems like it could shape up into a nice, standards complient browser that is small and stable. Mozilla is too far gone to probably ever be a stable browser again.

Finkployd

Re:Netscape has bugs

[TummyX]

Hrm, works here. Windows 2000 IE5, Right click -> open in new window

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[treke]

How will samba help us? It's just for Windows file and print sharing, or am I mistaken?
treke

Re:Netscape has bugs

[TummyX]

Actually looked at it a second time and Word integrated itself into IE using OLE and loads it up. Funny it's faster than netscape loading up it's splash screen.

Mozilla Nightly Build, 11-7-99

[Anonymous Coward]

You should take some time to look a mozilla nightly build. There is an _incredible_ change from M10. It has a beautiful UI and loads slashdot without crashing. In fact, I'm using it to post this. -Jeff Baitis

Another browser to try...

[CokeBear]

Lycos makes one. I haven't tried it yet, as its not available for Mac (They're "working on it"). But it looks like it might be an alternative to the other 2. And Lycos is big enough that they just might pull it off...

Re:Another browser to try...

[brettbender]

This is merely a Lycos-branded version of NeoPlanet's
'browser'. Ironically, it requires IE, as it isn't really a browser at all.

Truly depressing thought for a once great product.

[GreyFauk]

I've used Netscape as my main browser for years.
It's been irritating me to no end that it's become such
a bloated and unstable application. :/

With the current events surrounding the M$ trial, one
wonders how much better of a product Navigator would be at this time
if they'd not had to deal with M$'s embrace and corrupt
policy on html/java/javascript standards.
Seems that 90% of the time that Nav crashes on me these days
is on pages that use m$ specific Java-crud. This is
truly irritating.

If IE had been written as a competitive application, by a
company _other_ than m$, without m$'s specific
advantages as a monopoly (which I firmly belive it is), it's my opinion that Netscape Corp. never would
have sold out. In fact, I belive that it would have been a
much MUCH bigger company today and we'd have a much
better navigator because of it.

Without m$'s clout.... IE would have died a horrible, yet appropriate,
Death.

Bummer daze... :(

Re:IE vs. Communicator

[gargle]

One of the main reasons IE works so well with the windows operating system is because both systems are made by the same company.

1. Most apps on windows aren't as horribly buggy as Netscape. Most companies can, even without access to the Windows source code, write programs that aren't horribly broken.

According to your logic, Mozilla will never be as good as IE since the Mozilla team doesn't have access to the windows source code?

2. Netscape is buggy on all platforms, even on platforms like Linux where NS has access to the source code, and can presumably make use of this to hunt down bugs.

Look at the bigger picture

[TheMunk]

M$'s only goal is to get people to the point where they feel there is no choice but to use IE. They will do this by adding proprietary standards/features. Once People feel there is no alternative and IE is the only choice M$ can charge as much as they want. And if people dont like IE Too Bad!!
I read a few of the "Talk Back"s on ZD and so many people support M$ even though that support will lead to their being one real browser with no competition just like windows or worse.

I think our(Linux Users) best bet would support Companies that dont break their pages for Netscape. And hope Mozilla can catch up or at least remain enough of a presence that most sites willstill be functional with it.

Jesse

It's been coming for a while..

[Anonymous Coward]

We use win boxes with netscape at the school i work at, for student access as well as staff and faculty. IE presents too many maintenance and security issues. (not that windows itself plays nice)

However, we do have a couple IE boxes. Why? There are government sites that we need to use for one reason or another that *require* IE. This is nothing new, its been this way for years. Pretty hypocritical for .gov sites to require IE, while the us government is involved in a court cases with MS.

Re:It's been coming for a while..

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape has it's share of security holes, the only reason more are being found in IE is more people are looking for them. People WANT to find problems in Microsofts software, they can possibly get a small slice of fame by finding fault with Microsoft, who gives shit if another security hole (that won't be fixed) is found in Netscape?

Re:It's been coming for a while..

[_Sprocket_]

Pretty hypocritical for .gov sites to require IE, while the us government is involved in a court cases with MS.

Hey. US Gov't organizations have plenty of clueless PHBs and lazy web developers, too! :)

Is everybody mad?

[Anonymous Coward]

As always, people believe to some writers from some magazines, who never even checked out the story. Everybody, go to http://mozilla.org. Download latest nightly build. Surf around and be prepared... in about 2 months from now, we will see articles on slashdot how mozilla is greatest browser, how everybody always believed in mozilla, how its great example for open source... Why did IE win the war? Hello earth...they ship IE with each copy of MS Windows... Are you going to go to wait for 2-3 hours to download Netscape - you the average consumer? And please, next time before you conclude that mozilla sucks, just check the damn thing... it rocks... its next great thing on the internet...Its the first good browser ever built, and remember all this 2-3 months from now! I hope slashdot has huge old archive... because I will like to stab you all with it!

Re:Is everybody mad?

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!@% IN MY WORLD, WHERE I SPEND 24/7 ON EYEARECEE. I CONTINOUSLY POUND DE JUAREZ SITES SO I CAN DL NEW SOFTWARE ASAIR (AS SOON AS ITS RELEASED FOR DE CL00BIES). EYE KNO FOR A FACT THAT MY WHOLE CHANNEL, #0-s3c0nd-juAREZ DOES TOO! THUS, EVERYONE MUST!@$ PEOPLE USE IE BECUIZ IT RULZ NETZCAPE !~@$

Re:IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, your comments are too true. While Microsoft is hardly doing a great job at fully implementing the W3C standards either, they are a generation or two ahead of the current release of Netscape.

What is even sadder is that many Linux web sites are using these features (which IE implements) so that even simple tasks like printing frames from these sites don't work from the Netscape browser!! Talk about frustrating!

Mozilla is *already* plug compatible

[Sam Ruby]

Mozilla (a.k.a. Navigator 5.0) already has an ActiveX control which is plug compatible with IE5. All one needs to change in their program is the GUID. 12-14 months? Should take about 12-14 seconds...

They even have a program which can be run on binaries and automates the process....

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Brian Knotts]

Well...I'm certainly not going to argue with *you*... :-)

Of course, as you point out, the Netcenter portal was the key reason for the acquisition. I was trying to say, but failing to make it clear, that it is my belief that when you own something as valuable as Netscape Communicator, you don't generally throw it away. It still has value. Also, I believe that I had heard shortly after the acquisition that AOL fully intended to move to Navigator 5 at some point for the AOL browser component. And when they do, it *will* have a significant effect on browser share stats...no two ways about it.

Don't count on AOL to save the day.

I'm not. I'm well aware of you feelings about the Mozilla project, and I agree to an extent about the failure of the project to achieve significant goals. Nevertheless, they are going to ship something *eventually*, and when they do, it will still attract a fair amount of interest.

I guess I'm just trying to tell people that there is no reason to panic. People like to get themselves worked up into a frenzy over software "wars," and I really don't think there's any reason to do so. The Mozilla source is out there; so is the Linux source, the FreeBSD source, the OpenBSD source, and the Xscreensaver source (:-)). It's not going away; there will be a significant number of people who wish to use it for the forseeable future, so it can be maintained.

There's just no reason to panic...at least not now, in my opinion.

Thanks for responding, BTW!

--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page

I can't think of one program which isn't used more

[Bio]

I know how boring it is to work on a platform where no reasonable browser is available. I used a copy of Netscape 2 for DEC-Unix on a Linux/Alpha machine.

Many sites around started to use version 3 and version 4 browser features. And there was just no browser available on Linux/Alpha that did support it.

Re:That's ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what pin head, people don't write pages for "the World Wide Web". They write pages for a specific audience which unless it happens to be Slashdot (which Mozilla doesn't work correctly on) is going to be using IE.

I'd say people who make blanket statements about others is an utter luser who does not understand the media they are working with and has a less than room temp IQ.

Re:I've Switched

[m3000]

Well, I have Netscape in Linux crash on me at least once a day, and it's the one that came with my distro (Mandrake). In fact, I even upgraded to the "stable" version, but that hasn't helped at all.

Netscape is open source we can change it

[Kala]

Linux programmers can adapt Netscape to work with IE enabled pages. The open source allows us to do that. Further there are other open source browser initiatives like geko that can be made IE enabled.

Something bashers forget

[manush]

You can't just compare the features and stability of IE and Netscape, shouting that Netscape sucks.
IE is a windows-only product. Netscape is cross-platform. Developing and maintaining a cross-platform product is far more complicated than supporting just one OS. By doing it, Netscape respects the internet and the web as a whole instead of just making cash of corporate policies.

Netscape is for now the only reasonable browser choice for many alternative OSes. Instead of complaining, thank them for supporting your OS and go help the Mozilla project.

Re:Something bashers forget

[monstar]

*cough* IE4 for solaris. *ahem*

my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I *personally* would rather see linux stay away from the mainstream desktop for one very selfish reason: I can always get a good paying job knowing unix. If linux went totally mainstream, I imagine I would have a much harder time finding a good paying job. - Luke

Why not use Nav 3 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know what websites you're using, but I run Netscape 3 90% of the time. Once in a while, something works badly enough that I fire up Netscape 4, but for most purposes NS3 is faster, easier to use and more reliable. Occasionally, I get a site that seems to insist on IE. So I go somewhere else : they need me more than I need them.

No Flash-- Maybe StarOffice's browser someday

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux needs macromedia help it escape from NS. IE and Windows is a much more enjoyable journey for the non-text focused user.

ZDNEt? wow thats surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

given the MS slant that advertising dollars creat on ZDnet, i don't really consider them a viable source for objective news.

Re:ZDNEt? wow thats surprising

[starlingX]

This is true. However, if you consider that this is the LAST thing that Microsoft needs right now, in the light of the recent developments in the Anti-Trust lawsuit, I'm not really sure what to believe. If this didn't come from ZD, I could easily see this as reverse-FUD aimed at making MS look like big olde monopolizers.

Re:ZDNEt? wow thats surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

And since Andover.net and Slashdot rely almost exclusively on the good will of the Linux community, you consider them objective?

Of course, Slashdot is adding a lot of credability to Linux, so that helps - but it takes it's toll in hypocrasy.

Let's ask again, why is it that the #1 site on the web for OpenSource advocates hasn't released it's own source code in a timely fashion, and is viscious to anyone who asks?

Must be nice - ride the OpenSource wave, keep your own software closed and wait to be bought out.

Re:ZDNEt? wow thats surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

no, i never said slashdot was objective either, becasue you are right. they are not objective. Slashdot has always tended to be about things that Cmdr Taco and Hemos are interested in - and well hey, its their site. And yeah, that fabled 'new slash version' sure has been a long time coming...

Re:Browser Wars

[coredog]

Sounds like COM in Windows. I can specify
what program is going to handle a specific
URL (via it's interface, TweakUI, or the registry).

I can even add my own protocols
(biteme:// ,anyone?)

I agree 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time, I was a hardcore Netscape supporter, but like many, I switched to IE5 after waiting for Netscape to come up with a stable version of communicator 4.x

Netscape sucks now if you compare it with IE. Still no CSS, hmmmm ...

Ironically, as a web developper, our current solutions use Linux/Apache/PHP on the server side, and IE only for the client.

Re:I agree 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. The reality is Netscape sucks, Mozilla is a LONG way away from being a contender and IE is simply more standards compliant.

Let's play what if. If Mozilla supported CSS and IE didn't, do you REALLY think all these people would be avoiding the standard so that Microsoft users coudl keep up? Hell no, they would just laugh and say "get a real browser!"

Hypocrasy, just like the rest of Linux advocacy.

YES - /. often cores NS if javascript is on

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot use slashdot with javascript turned on using the freebsd navigator, I know that much.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[Anonymous Coward]

The security holes in IE are pretty overblown. Yes there have been many found in IE5, but all of them have been found in a lab and never exploited. Its like the anti virus companies scaring people into buying their software "if you're on the web you're at risk" while technically true in 5 years of doing tech support for an ISP and development for Internet applications I've encountered ONE virus, and that was a pathetic Word Marco virus.

At least MS doesn't make you pay for fixs like someone above accused Netscape of doing.

Netscape Fails Acid Box Test Woefully

[Carnage4Life]

I did here's a link to the site.

View it in Netscape Communicator 4.7 it looks like the product of a night of drugs, booze and bad code. Look at it in IE 5 and besides a spacing problem it looks fine.
Since the page is completely standards compliant and IE shows it better than Netscape this means that IE is the more standards compliant browser.

This is more obvious to anyone who has tried to create a website and expected that because something is in the standards it should look fine in Netscape, sadly this is not so.My homepage looks fine in IE but Netscape acts really funky about certain things so I ended up having to sniff browsers to decide what pages to show people.
I loved Netscape when I first got on the Web and hated IE. Slowly but surely IE drew level with Netscape and now (as much as I hate to admit it) IE is a better product. Even without the useful and timesaving features like Auto form filling (I fill forms every other day online and it's great that now each form has a memory of the things I've typed in it...no more constantly retyping my address at MapQuest every time I need directions) or Auto Password fill (use with care) IE5 is more standards compliant and thus is a better than Communicator 4.7 .

We need to help Mozilla. If we fail, we will lose the war.

Bad Command Or File Name

Re:Netscape Fails Acid Box Test Woefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape may render the test poorly, but it just shows IE is not as compliant as some people think.

Mozilla, OTOH, displays the test perfectly.

very important

[trance9]

It's very important that netscape/mozilla hold on to a significant chunk of the market--say half or so. Otherwise, if IE is really the only browser, then it's only a matter of time before visual basic crap will start sneaking into the average website, locking everyone into the Win32 platform.

Re:I've Switched

[blue]

My favorite Netscape bug: The one where Navigator starts ignoring all left mouse clicks. It's been there for a _long_, long time.

I don't know what causes this bug, but I get it occasionally as well. This is how I fix it: when it crashes, close all Netscapes and then hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, and you'll notice that Netscape is still running. Select it and hit End Task -- you'll probably have to do it several times for it to die, though.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[Johann]

Because just like the problem of Linux users accessing files / folders on NT servers and vice versa (the problem solved by SAMBA), Linux programmers will figure ways around the new IE features.

--

Re:IE is the standard

[blue]

Why does everyone assume that a Netscape user only uses Netscape because it is the only other choice? I use Netscape because I like it better. I think it is faster than IE. I don't care what anyone says. My dad uses Netscape and doesn't like IE either. I simply prefer it, believe it or not.

Re:IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[m3000]

I've been to a site where it dumped me because I was using IE with Windows. He objected MS's practices, and I guess that was his way of striking back. It was sorta humourous though, as the site I was trying to see was about how bad MS was. Isn't it sorta beating a dead horse when you can't even reach the people you are trying to persuade? :-)

Mozilla (Netscape 5) has ALL of this

[MatriXOracle]

1) Support the damn standards.

Mozilla is the most standards-compliant browser you can get.

2) Let me download just the browser again.

Messenger is actually much improved in Mozilla. For example, you finally get to have multiple POP3 accounts. If you really don't want it, I suspect that somebody if not Netscape will release a browser-only version. It is open-source, after all. (BTW: Collabra hasn't been part of Communicator for a LONG time...which makes me think you haven't seen the Messenger overhaul in 4.5) As for size, my last Mozilla download was under 5MB, and that's with all the debug tools and everything. No Java VM though, but even with that Mozilla/Netscape 5 will definitely be under 10MB.

3) Tone down the user interface.

Mozilla has EXACTLY this... the only toolbar buttons are Back,Forward,Stop,Reload. They're integrated into the address bar, too, which means less space taken up by the toolbars and more for the actual browser.

4) Keep bookmarks html.

It's still there, don't worry.

5) Load time counts.

This is not quite at 2 seconds, but it is at 10 and being worked on. In addition to Mozilla, I'm also running 4.7 now, which usually takes 10 seconds on a PII-350. 30 seconds, even if it is a slower computer, seems HIGHLY exaggerated. IE5 takes about 5 seconds.

6) Make the interface decent.

Download any Mozilla nightly build dated after 26 October, and you'll see a beautiful new skin that is completely unique and quite beautiful. Plus Mozilla has skin support, so you can make it look like whatever you want (there's already an IE4 skin).

7) A bit controversial, but if IE has bugs, occasionally try to make the page look decent anyway.

I'm not 100% sure as to the current status of this, though there was talk of a "compatability mode" at one point. I know that every standard that was not clear was checked out to make sure Mozilla does it the right way. As well, I believe that most content developers will choose to follow the standards: they'd rather do that now, but no released browser supports them correctly Netscape 5 will change that.

I strongly recommend that you check the latest nightly build of Mozilla. Not quite fiished, but I think you'll be very impressed. Beta 1 is just a little over a month away.

Re:Create features that IE doesn't have .

[IkeTo]

Right. And they are already done. Did IE has XUL? What's their answer to MyNetscape?

But more seriously, what is need is much simpler: to ship soon. Mozilla is already a great browser. Everybody is waiting for Netscape 5 to erode market share back from IE.

I can't think of one program which isn't used more

[heroine]

often to promote Linux at trade shows. For the last 3 years Netscape was the only program you'd see at trade shows. It's in every screenshot. It's the only program dual headed X is demonstrated on. We haven't had anything as flashy to demonstrate Linux on since Netscape. Losing Netscape would definitely put us back a few years.

Netscape failed to keep up

[RayChuang]

Personally, the problem with Netscape right now is that Netscape Communicator 4.7 is just too bloated and unstable for its own good.

Netscape should just forget about including RealPlayer G2 and AOL Instant Messenger and just install the browser suite ONLY.

Also, Netscape's development team cannot compete against just the excellent Microsoft "usability" lab, where much of the features of Internet Explorer were refined.

The problems with Netscape are as follows:

1. The current web browser renders pages in a number of cases 25% slower than IE 5.0.

2. The Collabra and Messenger modules are overkill and unintuitive to use compared to Outlook Express 5.0. In fact, I consider Outlook Express 5.0 to be one of the BEST email programs out there; only the Professional version of Eudora is better.

3. The bookmarking of favorite pages and checking on the history of sites visited recently is FAR better under IE 5.0.

4. IE 5.0 can be easily configured so it doesn't tie in to the MSN home page; meanwhile, it appears that Communicator 4.7 wants you to do a lot of functions through the Netcenter page, and there's NO way around it. :-(

There is much hope that Communicator 5.0 (which will incorporate the Mozilla open source code) will be much improved. I REALLY hope that the Netscape coders have carefully looked at how Internet Explorer 5.0 functions and come up with something better.

IE For Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

That leaves us facing the pending reality of M$ pushing their IE for Linux...

Death of the Net Predicted. Film at 11.

[knuth]

This article manages to take good news (Netscape 5 is poised to debut officially) and turn it into impending destruction of the world as we know it. "The release date slipped. So it looks like Netscape is doomed doomed doomed." I guess you still can't get fired for buying Microsoft. But... consider the source: ZDNet, Microsoft's faithful lapdog.

As a web author and user, the new version of Netscape may be well worth the wait. I have heard only good things about Gecko, the rendering engine. If Netscape 5 supports HTML 4.0 better and more completely than MSIE, I will be a very happy camper.

Penfield Jackson proves it!!!

[jlrowe]

Penfield Jackson proves it!!!
The judge in his 'Findings of Fact' proves in 206 pages exactly why IE is even in the picture. Without illegal means, which cover a gamut of angles that it takes a mathemmatician to count, IE would not even be on the radar screen.

With the evidence brought forth in that document, I just don't care what IE is like. I consider it and Microsoft evil. And the judge has proven it.

For most users, the difference between IE and NS is negligible anyway. Even in corporations, where I work, web pages must or should be written to allow that older versions of browsers might be used. Upgrading 20,000 user for instance, is not a perfect process.

And if corporate web pages are used on the internet, you can guarantee that a lot of users are using older browsers.

So I think the point that IE might be perceived to be ahead in some way [but gotten illegally] is a moot point if you look at reality.


The only fair thing as far as the court goes and IE/Netscape/Other brosers go is to give Microsoft a penalty. Ten yards back like in football.

I'd do a number of things. Probably just take IE away from Microsoft completely, and not let them bundle any browser. Force the freeze of IE in versions and features. Allow only for bug fixes and fixing of security holes. If browsers are bundled, let them be bundled by including a CD with a choice of competing browsers, but not include IE. Make IE cost some real money [at least $30-40] while others are free or lesser cost.

What you are arguing here is that IE got ahead. But the real point is that is was done illegally, and there should be a heavy penalty and compensation for the victims, which include Netscape, Opera, etc, and the consumer.

I do *NOT* think that that should be the end of the punishment handed to Microsoft either. Only just one tiny aspect. It does not cover the damage done to other software and companies like DRDOS, OS/2, Apple Mac, Novell, Lotus [Smartsuite and Notes], Wordperfect, Corel, Java, Sun, and many many more.

Communicator

[nicksand]

Even though it may be fading in popularity, Netscape still has an incredibly strong userbase. Out of a network of about 50 users (many of whom are not techies), about half have specifically requested that I install Netscape for them (as opposed to using IE, which is preinstalled on their computer by the OEM).

Though it is prone to crashes (especially the Win95/98 version), Netscape still has a lot of supporters out there, and won't be dissapearing any time soon. I think that Netscape 5, once it finally gets released, will become the standard web browser on most internet appliances, and will once again regain lost ground on the Windows platforms.

Re:Why must sommunicator change? Not good as it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the back button does work. You probably are at a site with a page that sends you to the page you are on

GNU?

[Anonymous Coward]

as i understand it mozilla isn't getting much help because it's still tied to netscape. Why doesn't gnu start something? I for one cannot code well enough to make a browser, but i know there are many people out there who can. It would be wonderful for someone to make an actuall OSS browser, and release it for everyplatform possible. We've also seen the wonderful fruits that OSS can reap, why don't we make an OSS, gnu browser?

Re:Netscape has bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Not here. Right-click -> Open in New Window exhibits the same behavior. I am using build 5.00.2614.350 of IE5.

Re:Truly depressing thought for a once great produ

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously weren't around when Netscape was the most used browser. They implemented new HTML tags with every release! Rembmer 'blink'? Netscape was doomed because their browser sucked, and still does. If Microsoft hadn't released IE (which was inevitable) someone else would have come out with one to troucne Netscape. Opera betas are better than released Netscape crap.

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Anonymous Coward]

And why would AOL want to subject their users to Netscape? That would be a death blow to their business. Look at what AOL does, they get a new version of their software and force all their users to upgrade. They force them to upgrade to AOL 7 (or whatever) which comes with Netscape and suddenly their users start having AOL crash on them several times a day instead of NEVER like it does with the IE browser. How many of even their clueless users are going to keep using AOL when they are FORCED to use substandard software? At least if they moved to a real ISP they would have the choice of whatever software they want to use.

You FUD spreader

[Anonymous Coward]

3 or 4 people have left the Mozilla project the rest are preparing to release a beta in the mid of December.

A majority of Netscape engineers are working with Sun on iPlanet, the new server software.

Mozilla is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago I pointed my roommate to the Mozilla page and instructed him to give it a download. His words; "Hey, this is pretty cool." Mozilla rocks. It kicks the pants off IE. If proxies worked I'd use it as my primary browser; it's more stable than Netscape 4.x.

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Alphix]

Proxies do work as far as I know (I haven't actually tried using proxies)....for more info look at bug reports:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10276
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8559

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[arafel]

If by "rocks" you mean "very slow, and even more unstable than IE5", then sure, I agree...

Otherwise, forget it. :-) The only major complaint I have about IE5 is that it's fairly unstable - sometimes just scrolling down a page will kill it. Not good.

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Kenshin]

In IE5, sometimes scrolling down a page locks up my entire system.

When Mozilla's beta release comes rolling around, we'll see who's got the goods.

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[gargle]

I don't understand these posts which say that Mozilla, in its current state, is better than IE. Everytime I try Mozilla, there are pages which work fine in both IE and NS, but which Mozilla doesn't render correctly. And Mozilla inevitably crashes after I spend any time using it.

Are you sure Mozilla is really better than IE? I assume you're using windows (since you claim that it 'kicks that pants off IE'), so our user experience can't be that different..

Re:Mozilla is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

IE4? Yes. IE5? Dunno. Mozilla will be king when its final release comes, though. At least for a few months. :) Oh, and proxies don't work in some of the latest builds.

IE vs. Communicator

[paxx]

One of the main reasons IE works so well with the windows operating system is because both systems are made by the same company. IE has access to all the hidden APIs and other good stuff that windows programs get to use, but competitors' programs don't. Not to mention the fact that the source code for the operating system is freely available to the IE development team. But there are some side effects to this.

For one thing, having the browser so tightly tied into the operating system often causes the whole system to lock up when the browser crashes(at least in most of my experiences). Secondly, if the browser is compromised by an intruder, the system is more easily accessed than if the browser wasn't tied so closely to the OS.

My opinion is that it's better to have a seperate browser and operating system because it doesn't cause complete system failures when it crashes and it's not as easy to comprimise the whole system by attacking the browser(like that old IE 3.0something exploit).

Re:IE vs. Communicator

[PimpBot]

(I don't mean to be a troll or flaimbait...at least the first one is something I've been wondering about...)

IE has access to all the hidden APIs and other good stuff that windows programs get to use
So? Netscape has access to the Linux kernel and the source for X...why can NS make a Linux specific version of Navigator?

For one thing, having the browser so tightly tied into the operating system often causes the whole system to lock up when the browser crashes
I've got IE5 on my Linux parition, and I use it frequently...last time it crashed was a few months ago, and it didn't take out Explorer (yes, I have the IE4 active desktop installed). Perhaps you have some other problem? Norton software (im my expierece) reduces the stability of a system 10-fold.

My opinion is that it's better to have a seperate browser and operating system You *can* install IE seperate from Windows (don't install the desktop update from IE4)

Ok, now my opinion - yes, MS hasn't been the nicest of companies...but, imho, their browser has beaten Netscape (at least, for now).
--------------------------

*Cough* 60%

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape is still a major browser.

Netscape!

[RoLlEr_CoAsTeR]

I hope that IE has a lot of reason to fear when this new version of Netscape comes out.... because, as cheesy as this may sound, I love Netscape, and I don't use IE unless I absolutely have to (not all of the Windoz computers on this campus have zip drives so I can run Netscape).

Kudos to Netscape, whatever they do. (Preferable, however, release that new browser, and make it _good_).

Re:Netscape!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say vaporware? Sure you can. Netscape proponents have been saying that Gecko 'is going to be' better 'when it comes out' for a long time. By the time it is actually released IE will be so far ahead Gecko will look like a high school comp-sci class project and Opera will be stomping on it.

Re:Netscape!

[PenguinX]

The new engine is supposedly "quite a bit" faster then the current Netscape engine. It also will incorporate W3c standards, as well as some of M$'s "standards" for interoperability.

Oh, and a new Java engine from Sun :)

IE only features

[m3000]

Here's a listing of features that IE supports but that Netscape doesn't. http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/ie.html

Apache is losing ground to Microsoft too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is Navigator losing, apache seems to be sliding. Check out http://www.netcraft.com/survey/ to see Netcraft's chart. Microsoft had at big 2.78 percent increase last month. It seems as if Netscape servers are holding their own, so there is one bright spot for the former "Microsoft Killer".

Re:Apache is losing ground to Microsoft too.

[PenguinX]

amazon.com switching from netscape enterprise server to apache is a fairly large move -- or at least that is what I would think.

Re:Apache is losing ground to Microsoft too.

[Shelled]

Check the numbers again. The total number of Apache users increased significantly from Sept 1999 (4072056) to Oct 1999 (4348932). However, its total market share did decrease slightly, mostly due to the effect of a single company.

"Much of this came at hosting company Webjump, which offers free web hosting on a system made up of NT machines fronted by a Resonate switch."

NT went from 1627651 to 2018992 servers over the same period.

Create features that IE doesn't have .

[squireson]

Create new features where they make sense , I say .
If Netscape couldn't win the browser war then maybe the open source community is the only developement environment that can wage that kind of campaign successfully .

We need ot beat them at their own game , me thinks .
Your Squire
squireson

Re:Create features that IE doesn't have .

[reverse]

Heheh.. No. I'd have to disagree. Strip the bastard down. Interface-wise.. and then actually show some sort of effort to support at the very least standard HTML (which netscape is just atrocious at)

The user interface doesn't need any more buttons. No one uses the little Shop button they just recently threw up there.. etc etc etc.

The personal taskbar is good.. let a user build his interface (as, I believe IE5/Win2k allows a user to do).

schmim

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Brian Knotts]

What do you mean? If there's no other browser on the scene?!?

Hello? AOL owns Netscape. Do you think they are going to just let that investment go to waste? Of course not! AOL is going to replace IE with Netscape in their client; it's just a matter of time.

Then, we will see the resurgence of Netscape...and just how much AOL skews the browser usage numbers.

--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page

Re:Proxies

[Anonymous Coward]

Proxies do work; that was new in Milestone 10. See the release notes.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[treke]

Ok, I must have been too tired to get that the first time around. I certainly hope linux gets a good browser. I'll be looking forward to seeing a good browser under Linux, I personally don't like netscape. Any recommendations?
treke

Nescape Crashing

[aaarrrgggh]

You know... i love netscape. I really do. But, i hate it when it crashes my )(*&^ OS at work (NT... no choice...) as i go to /.

Sad thing is... it hasn't gotten better in the year+ of updates!

Mozilla 1999-11-06-09-M11

[kjj]

That what this was posted with.

Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[gad_zuki!]

There are only 2 real reasons why you'd use Netscape on a mac or win platform.

1. I'm so anti-MS I'd rather use an abacus!

2. Security.

Not that Netscape is bulletproof, but look at IE's trackrecord in the past few months. Something like a dozen exploits, most of which do a lot more than just crash your system. So I patiently wait for 5.0 because I don't need the headache of some exploit trashing my system and I don't want to support a company so lax on security.

Heh, I got a kick out of the guy who lists one of IE's strong points as frequent security patches. If these are the 'experts' I'm glad I disagree.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[gargle]

It's actually an NT feature (I'm not sure whether 9x can do this). Basically each user's profile, which can contain stuff like the desktop configuration (desktop icons, wallpaper,etc) and software configuration (including IE), is stored on a server, and when you log on to a machine, your profile is downloaded -- it works very well, almost like having your own computer in a public lab.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[Foamy]

I agree with you concerning Windows platform, but on a Mac I don't. I find NN4.7 much much faster and, get this, much more stable than IE4.5. IE4.5 will crash me hard (force restart) every time I use it, but NN4.7 rarely crashed, and when it does the app can be force quit without a restart. I can't even remember the last time NN4.7 crashed on me.

The key? Turn off java. Who needs it anyway? Like I really need things scrolling across my screen.

As for security. Have there been any holes in either IE or NN that really affected the Mac platform?

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[DdJ]

Actually, you didn't cover the big reason *I* use Netscape on Windows.

Roaming access profiles.

I can sit down at different Windows boxes, a Linux box, a Macintosh, or even the same machine when it reboots between Win98 and WinNT, and use the same user profile (it's stored on a server). This is a must-have feature for me now, since I work at home and at the office, and at the office I switch between machines a *lot*.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[edgy]

Wrong. I've been able to set up roaming profiles on an NT domain using Samba and all as the server.

This is different that Netscape's version. With this, anyone, anywhere, with teh right login and password, can authenticate against the web server and retrieve all of their settings and bookmarks and use the browser as if they were at their machine. No matter what OS they're running on. This is much more powerful than the roaming profiles of NT domains.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[gargle]

Roaming profiles work just fine on IE. My university computer lab uses this.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[IntlHarvester]

Both browsers have outstanding security holes if JavaScript is enabled. IE may in fact have many more, but you only need one hole to create an exploit.

(Basically, both companies have a de facto admission that JavaScript is not a secure technology. The only thing IE gives you is "security zones", which allow you to define which sites JavaScript is enabled for.)
--

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[AArthur]

I have to agree with the Macintosh version of Microsoft Internet Exploiter is slow and crashy. It also has problems rendering pages that Netscape 4.5.1 (the version I run -- and prefer 'cause it's really stable) renders perfectly.

Most people I know who use Macs still prefer Netscape Communicator, and I do, because it's just a great browser. Pluse there is a PowerPC Linux version of Netscape Communicator. For us that run both PowerPC Linux and Mac OS, having the same browser and interface is a blessing.

All and All, Netscape for Macintosh rocks.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[Kanasta]

Actually, seeing as IE security holes get published so often, the average user is probably more security conscious when using IE than NS. Also, at least IE attempts to patch their bugs (maybe?).

NS for some reason keeps taking down my kernel32 on Win98. Argh!! All I want now, is for IE to allow separators in their links, or better still, to use a bookmarks file rather than a folder full of .url shortcuts. I don't like being limited to legal filenames when naming my 'favorites'.

Maybe we could get a group of programmers together to copy NS interface and use the IE engine? Not like NeoPlanet, all it does is skins skins skins. The main brower on NP has a 'special' toolbar which is different from all other browser windows? And it has the same favorites limitations as IE.

So, anyone up for it?

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is correct to say that IE doesn't support roaming profiles; it's Windows NT that supports it, albeit badly.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[jabbo]

Wow, just like AFS was doing for people at MIT and CMU... over a decade ago.

With Kerberos authentication (you know, that stuff that MICROS~1 is about to invent for Win2000) integrated.

With network transparency.

With secure remote access.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[gargle]

Read the thread again, and tell me what does this have to do with the original topic? I was merely pointing out to the original poster that IE does support roaming profiles.

Re:Confessions of a Netscape Junkie

[gargle]

Fine, it's different and more limited than Netscape's roaming profiles.
Nonetheless, it is incorrect to say that IE does not support roaming profiles.

90% !? Who are they kidding ?

[squireson]

Who are they kidding ? 90% of the people that I know who have computers don't use IE .
about 30 - 35% use Netscape .
Heck , I know people who are using Netscape 3.0
and get pretty hacked when they encounter a website that doesn't look right .
They do not go through the trouble of downloading
a new browser . The five million downloads for IE 5 were mainly disgruntled IE users .

Your ?Squire
suqireson

useful tasks?

[dannyman]

... like browsing well-crafted content? maybe i'm being backward here, but but basic support for HTML, and on a good day, stylesheets, is what *i* find useful. :)

if your web site requires flash, shockwave, or javascript, and does not degrade gracefully, you've definately lost _my_ eyeballs.

Re:IE vs. Notvigator

[TeddyR]

Interesting thought.... IE is stable ONLY because MS has a competitor. Other MS products are not as stable because there is no competiton...

Re:Netscape has lost where I work...

[TeddyR]

I had a place that wanted a similar configuration which I was able to convince into using Squid+smb auth... (another place is using squid + PAM, with a PAM smb auth module authenticating off an NT server), and has allowed keeping the browsers as they are....

so yes... it is possible to install a squid proxy server that authenticates off an NT server....

MUCH cheaper in licencing costs...

Explain...

[ffatTony]

if a crappy app (Netscape) can take it down then there is no difference between Linux and Windows.

How can netscape crash X? Anyone have any examples of how netscape crashes X11? For me, debian potato on an i686 netscape 4.7 crashes about twice a day (much better than 4.61), but has never caused X to die. I simply have to kill off the netscape processes, remove that stupid lock file and run netscape again whenever it crashes.

Netscape sucks, but it has never screwed up X for me. In fact no program ever has, even when unexpected events occurred (excluding UnrealTournament which sometimes freezes while glide is accessing the monitor/keyboard, although according to 'ps' X is still very much alive).

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[daviddennis]

Your viewpoint would be a shade more convincing if you made references to facts in the opinion that are verifiably wrong.

D

----

IE Buggy

[Inhibit]

No matter how many times I read complaints about Netscape 4.x vs. IE x.x and how many people proclaim IE to be less buggy, I still don't believe it. I seriously max Netscape to it's limits, and tend to run into Win 9X crashes more often than Netscape problems. Also, seing as how IE 5.x was incorporated into the 2nd edition 98 coding, wouldn't that make it a wee bit more bloatware -ish than Netscape. Only say 300+mb for a web browser? Come on! Now if we could just finish Mozilla overnight...

Netscape has lost where I work...

[Anonymous Coward]

they set up a Microsoft Proxy Server which is configured to use only NT authentication. Netscape (nor any other web browser) will work now. Even if Netscape 5 kicks IE's ass and offers new features we need, we won't be able to use it. I personally hate Internet Explorer so badly that this situation has made me physically ill. - and Microsoft says they aren't harming consumers. BULLSHIT!!!

Re:Netscape has lost where I work...

[Anonymous Coward]

makes you physically ill?

seriously, how do you possibly expect anyone to take your comment seriously when you perrper it with lunacy like that?

maybe you need some time off work.

Re:That's ok.

[odaiwai]

They may understand the medium, but they are coding for most of their target market. This is the nub of the argument.

IE5 is currently the best browser available. People will code for IE5 specific features. Other browsers on other platforms will not support these. Therefore other platforms will not be able to compete with win* when it comes to viewing the web.

ipso facto, quid pro quo, non illegitimi carborundum, win* becomes the only viable 'OS' with which to view the web.

Those who use lynx, maya, opera, mozilla are viewed in the same way as stone axe users at the start of the iron age.

dave "ugh"

I've Switched

[SecretAsianMan]

In Windows, I used to browse with only Netscape browsers and scoffed at those who used IE. But after experiencing my zillionth netscape bug, I tried IE 4. It was faster, more stable, and integrated more cleanly into the Windows environment. I've been using it ever since. In Linux, I end up either using Lynx or not surfing at all. Communicator is, I dare say, *worse* under Linux. My favorite Netscape bug: The one where Navigator starts ignoring all left mouse clicks. It's been there for a _long_, long time.

Re:I've Switched

[PenguinX]

To refute your Windows claim, I wonder why I.E. 4.0 is so perfectly integrated into Windows

Netscape crashes? nooo I wouldn't have guessed. But I probably rack up at least 10 hours behind it a day without mabye a crash or two - then again, at work We run (ick) 95 - which works much better w/ Netscape. 98 has a tendancy to do a if{netscape then /0} sort of bug.

As per Linux - just so you know - please make certian that you are using the variant that is precompiled for the libc you use... most people get the wrong one and it ends up crashing ... hrm.

At any rate, I'm just ranting l8rz

Three letters: A-O-L

[Brian Knotts]

When AOL switches back to Netscape, the numbers will look a *lot* different.

No reason to panic yet.

--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[stg]

The way Netscape is lately and how fractional it's updates are, if AOL switches back to Netscape, at least as it is now, the only number that may change is the number of AOL users.

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[monstar]

>This whole ``Netscape/Sun Alliance'' thing

The NSA!!.
Sudddenly all becomes clear..... :)

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Jamie Zawinski]

AOL owns Netscape. Do you think they are going to just let that investment go to waste?

AOL bought Netscape for the Netcenter portal. They didn't want the server business, and they didn't want the client. There were legal and tax reasons why Netscape couldn't be easily broken up and sold off for parts, or I'm pretty sure that's what would have happened. This whole ``Netscape/Sun Alliance'' thing is AOL's way of selling-but-not-really-selling that side of the business to Sun.

Of course not! AOL is going to replace IE with Netscape in their client; it's just a matter of time.

If there is ever an end-user version of Mozilla, and it's highly compatible with MSIE, AOL may yet do this (as a target of opportunity.) That would be a very good thing for the web, and for Linux. But I seriously doubt it's keeping anyone in AOL management up at night; they're perfectly happy using MSIE, and they won't stop until something better comes along. And if nothing ever does, it won't matter to them.

Don't count on AOL to save the day.

Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Parity]

AOL is contractually obligated to use IE through 2001, unless the courts overturn that. By that time, if there's no other browser on the scene, IE will be the only web browser, and the web will be a microsoft proprietary interface.

Barring gov't action against Microsoft, we -have- lost the war. AOL isn't going to save anything. Mozilla or Netscape or Opera in combination with gov't action might.

--Parity

Re:Netscape Navigator is in AOL's best interest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Navigator is hardly an asset to AOL. Integrating Netscrape into AOL would be the worst thing AOL could possibly do. Everyone agrees that Netscrape sucks and crashs extremely often. What would happen to AOL's userbase when they put Netscrape into their AOL client and suddenly are swamped with calls from pissed off users who can't chat for more than 10 min before AOL crashs due to Netscrape. It would cost AOL far more to try and use Netscrape than to continue to use IE.

Why tables?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tables work, and they are fairly predictable across browsers and OSs. When the same can be said of CSS layout, I'm sure more people will use it.

Re:Make sure you read it the whole thing though.

[twixel]

Apparently, the static pages are served by NT and the perl scripts by Apache/Solaris.

we have not yet begun to fight!!

[miahrogers]

I'm currently using the most recent nightly build of mozilla. And in case you haven't used it lately, it's about a month from being ready for prime-time.

The thing that most don't understand is that mozilla is a great browser, and like all great things it takes a while to got it coded. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will mozilla be. Just because Microsoft feels they can release an unstable crappy browser doesn't mean we should loose hope.

The .gov is starting to turn agains microsoft, and so are MANY of the people who are tired of their insecure, unstable, expensive crappy OS's. let's just name a few, HP, IBM, DELL, SUN, AOL, and you can always look to the current prices of Redhat and Cobalt for more inspiration. Those are HUGE comanies, who are very very tired of being raped my Microsoft.

AOL owns Netscape, and will be using the fruits of mozilla as soon as it stableizes.

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.


matisse:~$ cat .sig

Re:we have not yet begun to fight!!

[MrHat]

Heh... Quoting "about:mozilla". Now that's funny.

By the way, has anyone ever tried typing about:mozilla in the location box of a copy of Internet Explorer? It pulls up a blank, blue page. Any speculation as to why? Is M$ just too used to creating big, blue rectangles? (Cough..NT..Cough)

Who gives a ****

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have any loyalty to any particular program or browser over another. What's best works for me. I started off with Netscape, but when I tried IE, I instantly switched. IE is just waaay better. I also don't care about this whole "Don't use MS products blah blah blah". If their product is good, I'll use it without a second thought. If Netscape manage to come up with a better browser, I'll use that instead.

And I'm pretty sure that there's a _huge_ amount of people out there who think the same way.

Re:Who gives a ****

[radja]

well.. IE accepting bad HTML.. I'd hardly call that a plus.. in fact, I call it a big big minus. Why?
It is at the moment the most used browser. For all the consumer cares, the page that they can see using IE, won't display or won't display properly on netscape or another browser, so this MUST be a problem in the browser. They are right ofcourse.. it's a problem with IE. IE breeds bad HTML. non-compliant HTML. So with what do we get stuck? a web full of bad HTML, only usable for IE. guess which company would like that . . .no more crossplatform web..

//rdj

Ditto on the Mac side

[binarybits]

I too hate to say it, but I've decided that IE 4.5 is better on the Mac side as well. It's a processor hog, it doesn't always render things right, and it has lots of quirky bugs, but it is fast and stable compared with NN. Loading a cached page is much faster, and it renders the page as it's being loaded. IE is the only Microsoft product I've used, but I have to give them credit for doing a decent job with it. I really hope Netscape 5 can win me back.

Now install IE 5

[sheldon]

IE4 was pretty good...

However IE5 is excellent. I have been using it since the beginning of the year and have yet to crash the browser.

With IE4 I was able to crash the browser by trying to scroll the window down while it was rendering certain webpages.

After using IE5 you will seriously question why anybody continues to use the buggy Netscape.

Believe it...

[hollandj]

I'm posting this from the latest nightly Mozilla. It is pretty smooth and startin gto look polished. I can't log into hotmail and I think that is because it doesn't have SSL or maybe just SSL proxy (I'm going through a proxy). This is a VAST improvement over M10.

Re:Believe it...

[ppanon]

Well, I thought it looked really cool too. I did find it was a little slow on the drop down menus (but I'm only running an old 32MB P166.

Then I noticed the big memory leak on a page with an animated GIF banner as I saw my available system resources going,.. going,... gone-over the space of a few minutes.

But then again, it's the nightly build and I'm not exactly surprised. They had better get it fixed by M11 or there are going to be a lot of upset people but they seem to be on top of it. Last week's Mozillazine said they were increasing tracking of memory leaks.

I like the new chrome a lot better too, I really disliked that mauve pastel look. My major gripe is that Preferences entry fields and drop down list boxes are pretty messed up in Win32 with Large or Extra Large Fonts. I haven't tried it under Linux yet.

Re:Narrow-minded thinking here

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it simply boils down to the fact that the web was designed to be accessable to ALL, not just the lemmings who decided to buy the latest version of Windows.

If you're going to turn the web into 'what Microsoft pushes', you might as well drop the pretense and start publishing in microsoft word.

The internet is bloated as is!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is there this trend to make webpages so *graphical* and so *media enhanced*? Geez, as long as a browser supports ASCII it should be up-to-date and supported. Any webpage that uses excesive sound/grafix/some other crap is useless anyway. All webpages should follow this example!!

Standard for all web-pages HERE!!

Re:IE is the standard

[MrBrklyn]

Actually, At NYu we have tested both system out extenssively. Netscape is actually more stable than IE, has a smaller foot print, is more secure.

Without the ability to force feed it's browser, it still holds a whopping 41 percent of the market. The integration of IE into Windows is a danger to the local network, and IE simply has more bugs.

The damn thing can't even handle simple smooth graphics loading on large Web Pages. It screws up form inputs, it cause General Protection Faults. It just really is inferior.

The purpose of a web browser is to surf the net. Once it is integrated, it becomes in secure and buggy.

If you want integration, forget the browser, USE X WINDOWS

Miscosfot doesn't have X. So what choice do they have besides integrating IE into the desktop.


Ruben I Safir

Mnemonic

[DGolden]

Try www.mnemonic.org

It's code is marvellously clear, (not like Mozilla's spaghetti mess) since it was conceived as an open-source GPL project from the ground up.
(although their C++ formatting rules make more sense than the GNU official ones...)

They're also keen to get MathML up and running early on - so it's likely to be popular with scientists and engineers.

NetPositive++

[Mai Longdong]

The answer is to simply run NetPositive.....of course that means you'll also have to be running BeOS :^)
And to the moderators....NO! This isn't a f*cking troll or flamebait! Believe it or not, there are other OSes out there besides Linux and Windows. FWIW, Netscape 4.61 cooks on OS/2 Warp 4!

Re:Why must sommunicator change? Not good as it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the back button does work. You probably are at a site with a page that sends you to the page you are on

I know about redirects, thank you very much. What I mean is that, say you're 3/4 of the way down a page like this, and somebody posts a link. You follow the link, read the story, hit back when you're done, and end up 6 pages above where the link was. On IE 'back' actually takes you right back to where you were.

Re:ICQ ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Messenaging client are much simpler to produce than browser, besides their are plenty of them avaible for linux, see freshmeat

Re:IE is the standard

[Anonymous Coward]

"At NYu we have tested both system out extenssively. Netscape is actually more stable than IE, has a smaller foot print, is more secure."

Wow, you guys should go to work for C't, the other company who does tests that don't follow EVERYBODY elses experiences. Which version of IE did you test? I say you're full of shit and have run biased tests if you've found that Netscape is more stable than IE.

Mozilla needs to parce all HTML that IE does.

[Anonymous Coward]

An important ability with Mozilla is to parce all the HTML that IE does, no matter how illegal it might be.

As an example, check out Network Associates McAfee Virus products for Unix. Click any of the "Try" links, and you'll find the form it takes you to is incorrect, and Netscape can't deal with it.

What's happened is their "ACTION='URL_HERE'" section has the URL_HERE word-wrapped. IE deals with it fine, Netscape results in a 404.

This (main topic) is an exceedingly important issue, but it's not the only one.

Re:Mozilla needs to parce all HTML that IE does.

[radja]

yes, all we need is another sloppy parser. Who needs a standardized language for webpages anyway? W3C are just a bunch of whiners, it were better if there were no standards other than those set by microsoft.

//rdj
PS. this post may not have been entirely serious..

Re:Netscape has bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's a text file why does it have a .doc extension? Text files display just fine in IE, troll.

Navigator suckage gripe-list 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape pisses me off daily. Some of the annoyances that come to mind:

- Not drawing anything if a table finish tag is missing due to builder or server error.

- Goofy font and textbox sizing with some fonts.

- Bad "guessing" choices if end-tags are missing.

- Goofy "ghost" table margins.

- Goofy actions if tags are closed in a different nesting than opened.

- Cannot immediately rename bookmarks

- Others that I cannot remember off the top of my head right now.

Re:Navigator suckage gripe-list 1

[mill]

There should be no guessing when the HTML is broken.

/mill

Re:IE is the standard

[MrBrklyn]

Actually, At NYU we have tested both system out extensively. Netscape is actually more stable than IE, has a smaller foot print, is more secure.

Without the ability to force feed it's browser, it still holds a whopping 41 percent of the market. The integration of IE into Windows is a danger to the local network, and IE simply has more bugs.

The damn thing can't even handle simple smooth graphics loading on large Web Pages. It screws up form inputs, it cause General Protection Faults. It just really is inferior.

The purpose of a web browser is to surf the net. Once it is integrated, it becomes in secure and buggy.

If you want integration, forget the browser, USE X WINDOWS

Miscosfot doesn't have X. So what choice do they have besides integrating IE into the desktop.


Ruben I Safir

Re:That's ok.

[Abigail-II]

They may understand the medium, but they are coding for most of their target market.

Uhm, yeah, sure. Lots of companies have "MSIE users" as their target market. Just like all those companies who have "people driving in a black sedan" as their target market.

-- Abigail

Re:Driven to IE by Java

[Anonymous Coward]

By the fact that java sever needs a working java implemention to administer the sever. Netscapes java is so much a problem I was forced to load IE on my machine. How ironic is that? Well, I like IE better (even though its slower on the mac side.)

what?

[Anonymous Coward]

A stupid person contributed the post to which I'm replying. Netscape is a terrible piece of software engineering. On a typical day, between crashes, it will eat up 60M of virtual address space on my Linux workstation. IE is a nimble, elegant, fast product compared to the awful Unix implementation of Netscape. We're lying to ourselves if we don't have a clear picture here. LINUX NEEDS A QUALITY WEB CLIENT!

You're way off.

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML style content (be that a HTML page or a generated view of your file system) is rendered with shdocvw.dll -- the renderer used by IE (ie is simply a shell for the renderer) and by explorer. Not suprisingly, it's also used by neoplanet, winamp, and any other app that wants some handy dandy web lovin.

Netscape Navigator is in AOL's best interest.

[Skynet]

There doesn't seem to be much mention here that AOL owns Netscape. It is in AOL's best interest to make Netscape as pervasive a browser as possible. It will accomplish this by make Netscape Navigator its core web browser. With the uncertainty of M$'s future in coming months/years, it is only a further catalyst for AOL to switch its core browser to Navigator. Thats millions of accounts that will be using Navigator instead of IE.

The battle might have been lost, but the war is far from over. Navigator has one hell of an ally: AOL.

To summarize: $150 billion in market capital. 'Nuff said.

You all missed a few things

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I don't think that aol with stick with IE, not when they have their own browser(probably the 5.0 release). Although I have spoke out against aol in the past, it is nice having the # one isp on your side. And don't forget that the # two isp(earthlink) use netscape by default.
2. They have us and we are fast becomming the market. How? How did microsft beat out unix...price! We will end up on the desktop of the cheapest computers while retaining the power user segment. People buy on price!!!
3. We have mozilla which is moving like a rocket, catching up on years of development in a few months. Anyone here believe that open source momentum stops when we have 'caught' the competitor? Didn't think so.
4. We control(apache) the server side of the deal. We need to keep that, and maybe use it. Apache can be configured to serve up only compliant pages, maybe we should?

Joe Rice
jlrice@crosswinds.net

IE is just easier

[retep]

I maintain a small network with 13 Windows computers. I never bother to install Netscape. With IE you get it right out of the box. I can do things faster and therefor save my employer time.

Sure Netscape is just as good if not better then IE. And it doesn't have any of the terrible security of IE. (ActiveX anyone?) But it's just not as easy.

I don't support Microsoft on much, heck I use Linux/Netscape exclusivly at home, but I think they made things much easier/faster by including IE with Windows.

Look at all of the Linux distributions. Notice how all of them (other then Debian) install Netscape? It's not much different then Microsoft including IE with Windows.

some thoughts

[Xtacy]

i've seen posts on this thread saying that netscape's server is losing to apache and IIS. Which is true, and some people say that netscape should release more stable software which is also good, but what I can't understand is if netscape doesn't make any money off of its browser, why would they devote so much time to make it less buggy when they should be working on their server product?

Re:some thoughts

[CmdData]

Because MS does not charge for thier web browser.

Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I am running a nightly build now.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[Derek S]

The way for Linux programmers to work around the new IE "features" is to pitch in and make Communicator 5.0 a better browser than IE. That way web developers won't even bother straying from the standards. Playing catchup is a good way to lose.

Narrow-minded thinking here

[Anonymous Coward]

This post reminds me of Mac nuts who when trying to defend a certain missing feature from Apple products (memory protection, for example), explain that "you don't need it". Implying that the presumed need is an effect of Microsoft marketing. The web is information, sure; but it's also about design, aesthetics, mutimedia; new, fun and interesting ways of presenting information and interacting with users. You want to freeze the web as a Minitel-over-TCP/IP. I want to see people experiment with this new form.

Microsoft is in violation of the Law.

[MrBrklyn]

All this discussion of new features of IE is missing the point. Microsoft broke the law in forcing IE on the public. The giving away of Internet Explorer at no cost, in of itself, is an act prohibited by a Monopoly by the Sherman Anti-Trust act. Everyone who has ever taken a single Business course knows this. The selling of a product at a loss for the purpose of bankrupting an competing firm who could not match the loses, and to force them out of business, is the very definition of an ilegal business practice.

The further thrusting of the Browser on the public through forced installation with the Windows, AOL, etc, is further illegal activity.

The Web Browsing Software is for Browsing the Web. Linux really has nothing to worry about. IE is a trememndous securiy risk. IBM, Oracle and others are using JAVA to make sure that their applications are cross platform. Linux and Unix have FAR MORE POWERFUL interface for integrated networking applications. This application is the X windowing system. With tk ported to windows, and with Java available, anyone with any insite will use X tools and Broadway Joe to deliver apps over the Net. Netscape only needs to work as a browser. As a Browser it is more secure, does a better job of downloading pages and graphics, and has LESS bugs than IE in these core usages.


BTW - MS has provided a nice place to let your views be known to you Elected officials on these issues.

See:

http://legislators.com/

My sample letter went like this:

I have watched the monopolistic manuvers of Microsfot for many years now. It's obvious that they are breaking the Sherman Anti-Trust act routinely. They have no intention of ever competeing fairly in the market. They released Internet Explorer at no charge, robbing Netscape of fairly earned revenues and forced it on the public against it's will. Now it has integrated it into the propriety office suite software and is threatening the Internets ability to remain a standardized communication device.

Do anything you can to break up Microsoft today.

http://legislators.com/cgi-bin/ms_compose.pl?dir =innovate&stmailaddress4=NY197&stmailaddre ss5=NY142&stmailaddress6=NY005&stmailaddress7=NY17 9&stmailaddress8=NY024&mailaddress0=ny11 &mailaddress1=ny09&mailaddress2=nysr&mailaddress3= nyjr&message=&comptype=fedstate&_state=n y

(MathML) Re:Mnemonic

[Mike Bedy]

Er.. I think MathML already works in mozilla (if you set the correct options during compile.) It was a good example of how extendable Mozilla's layout engine is. As future extentions are added to the browser world, the new Netscape should allow for far quicker/cleaner extentions. That is one of the main reasons for rewriting it.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[m3000]

I think that's what Mozilla is.

IE is the standard

[CmdData]

I work for Enterprise Rent-A-Car and we hve 35,000 employees and our IT staff deploy only IE to all the PCs in the company. We do not allow software that's not in the standards folder \\fscorp00\images\niche Netscape is not in the niche. IE is faster, can view more websites, and is all arround a better browser.

Re:IE is the standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Wise words indeed, although the only tool is you. The borg has assimilated you. I still have a mind to choose, thank you very much.

Wow, you're proven a very good point.

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as i hit that link (i'm in IE5, btw) I got a handy little popup. The popup informed me that windows installer was configuring an office 2000 component... a few moments later, Word was integrated with the browser and I read your text file just fine. All this took place in under 10 seconds. I repeat. Windows detected that Word wasn't prepared for browser integration, proceeded to configure itself and load. Without user interaction. After this initial configuration, clicking the link integrates word and loads the document in less than a second. If that isn't pretty damn slick... what is? Can I have my godddamned donut.

Re:Why not use 0.99beta

[Anonymous Coward]

i use 0.99beta because im a fucking IDIOT

What about *working* PNG support?

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been one issue which has never been touched in this whole discussion: working PNG support. I know that both Netscape and IE support basic viewing of PNG images, but their native PNG support is far broken compared to GIF and JPEG. Now that Burn All Gifs has come and gone, does Netscape have any idea what it means?

....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, not closing TRs and TDs is supported in netscape. It is when you forget the that netscape bitches.

Re:That's ok.

[Helge Hafting]

At one time, that argument worked, and well. That's why for a number of years web designers went to
great pains to ensure that webpages were well-tested on both browsers.

But not today. Considering the number of people that use IE, many web designers are simply testing their page against IE. If the current trend continues, you'll become a *very* small minority, one that they don't care about since the percentage doesn't substantially hurt their business.

No sane company would want to loose even 10% of their market if the only advantage was "it use a new cool-looking feature in IE" Their game isn't using the latest html oddities, it is selling their stuff, plain and simple.

Damn it!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the *most* starndards compliant browser but that doesn't mean that they have implemented the entire spec. While you can do a lot in it, since people design around it, you are lead to believe that it is *fully* standards compliant.

There was a story here a while ago about how many things Microsoft left out of IE5. It also talks about how developers have to work with IE's rendering, so when it is viewed in a fully standards compliant browser, it looks bad.

Oh that's great, we want a browser to start executing stuff. Anyone remember ActiveX? Embedded objects? It is just a web browser, not an OS or a Window Manager.

And what the hell are these benefits? I would rather have a quick loading mostly text site that a monstrous DHTML/Java/Shockwave loaded site that takes minutes to load while I scream I just want the information!!

IE 5 is pretty impressive, but the point is that you should not exclude other people.

It is about information damnit, not fancy buttons and menus. Everyone should be able to access it, not just people who download latest-greatest-browserx. And not everyone has DSL or a cable modem.

These are *toy features*, things that are not needed or maybe even wanted. In some cases they may be useful, but you can create something BETTER with the regular stuff. Some of the best sites DON"T use these features.

Microsoft's site is a good example of a DHTML loaded site. Ok, tell me how to get to the download directx page from the front page. Perhaps you could try search, or maybe downloads, ok downloads works, wait it isn't there! Yes, I could use Windows Update, but that is not the point. What if I wanted to download the file and transfer it to another computer? microsoft.com/directx works, but how would I know that?

Mozilla will come out fully compliant, and it will be pretty fast too, if they don't let it bloat. It may not gain back the ground, but it will be good.

IE5 is not really far ahead. It is because they are implementing the features they want and worrying about the rest later. While the Mozilla people are working on the whole spec, IE is only working on the things that developers who like those toy features want.

Actually, I'm not sure about most standards compliant. Amaya may beat you there, look for it at www.w3c.org it isn't that fast, but it should be fully compliant. Watch how ugly your IE compliant page looks in a standards compliant browswer...

XUL

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one of the main difference between
IE and Mozilla is XUL.

If you don't know XUL,
I recommend you have a look at :
http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/xptoolkit/xulintro.h tml

ICQ ?

[Flippo]

friends of mine are dumping icq for msn messenger even though messenger has waaaay less features... etc

kinda like the beginnings of ie all over again...

icq vs. messenger = netscape vs. ie ?

instant messenger incompatibility might put another stranglehold on desktop-web-linux...

an even tougher one than ie-proprietary functions...

Re:ICQ ?

[Flippo]

ok
cool
but my point is
if say 90% (wild guess) of desktop users revert to m$n me$$enger
which NEEDS windoze (so far)
how hard would it be to create a m$n me$$enger-compatible messaging client that one wouldn't have to upgrade each and everyday (cfr aol vs m$)
provided of course we'd want the desktop masses to migrate to linux...
and how about wine
haven't heard much bout that option yet
doesn't seem to be any ref to me$$enger on their site, guess that's a njet
ie5's got a 3 so that's a no go 2
comments?

Old News

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape has been dead for some time, now. I'm a professional web application developer, and I can tell you that Netscape is rarely used internally in companies, any more. It is a buggy, outdated, unsupported product that people simply don't use. I write almost all of my apps exclusively for IE.

Give Billy a little credit

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Billy deserves a little more credit than this. IE on Linux will never happen.

Re:Give Billy a little credit

[Anonymous Coward]

try http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/unix. htm

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[Haven]

ONE WORD | Lynx |

Re:For Navigator 5 to succeed: agreed!

[asqui]

yes yes YES!
Finally!! Someone that has a brain! These points are exactly the things I have been going on about sonce forever!

Netscape are really happy when they find a happy new feature to put into their piece of shit, but the fact is that they cannot make a product that simply acts normal, as the user would expect any normal windows program to act. No they have to do things their way and make everything totally the opposite from established standards. Or occasionally just totally random!

And this also applies to the 'non-UI' things, such as the HTML and Java parsing. I never really used Netscape so when I found out that Netscape wasnt rendering my site correctly all I could do was put up a neat little note on the front page telling Netscape weenies to get a real browser because I dont have the time for working out what the hell its problem is! I've heard that stylesheets arent loaded properly...so what can I say, if netscape cant even do that right theres no telling what happens with Java!

The other major thing is that they have a bloody bloated piece of total SHIT! Do you really need to have all that shit in there? Its like they think bigger is better or something! I'm not too cetrain but last time I looked there was no option for a 'lite' version or anything. Its becoming equivelant to the emacs of the browser world! The fact is people prefer to mix and match specialised programs for their needs, rather than use one big pile of shit with the various capability incorporated just for the sake of saying 'we have this feature'!

MAybe you should switch OS

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never, I repeat never (and no want to hear BS to the contrary) had slashdot crash my Netscape much less the OS in over a year of reading this site daily. Either you're full of shit or NT is breaking Navigator. My Netscape 4.7 is much better than 4.5, 4.51, 4.6, 4.61. The memory leak problem appears to have finally been solved.

IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We've done a lot of XML here. I want to bring it to the browser, and I can't have the boat anchor of Netscape saying I can't do it."

There is a lot of bitching and moaning about IE specific features. But that isn't always, or even often, the issue.

As a web developer, I have never used a feature that was proprietary to IE. All the HTML I write is compliant with the specs as posted on the W3C. The problem is that currently IE is the browser that most faithfully implements the open standards we depend on.

It is NOT Microsofts fault that no one else has written a good browser that supports the standards that are freely published.

In other words, Netscape/Mozilla's bugs do NOT mean a site is IE specific.

Re:IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but there are plenty of sites that check which browser you're running, and dump you out if you don't I.D. as MS IE 4.0 or greater running on Windows...even if they DON'T use IE-specific stuff. That really sucks, especially since a lot of the sites render fine on things like Opera, Amiga Voyager or IBrowse or AWeb, Mozilla, KDE Konqueror...

Re:IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

>We need something better. Period.

YE@H, L1K3 >>LYNX LYNX RoXoRz!!!!!!####@@

I USE LINKS ON MY GR33N-SCR33N LUNAT1X BOX3NNNNNN COS 1 A/\/\ 50 F@CKING 37337!!!!!!!!!

@#@#@#@#@#@#
Z3R0K3\/\/L859@AOL.COMM

Re:IT's not IE only, it's that Netscape Sucks.

[starlingX]

I can think of a few mis-implementations of the open standards that you tout that your MSIE so faithfully implements. However, I'll spare the drudgery of listing them and instead say this:

MSIE sucks. Netscape sucks.

We need something better. Period.

Corrupted .summary files

[ripler]

Usually, this is a problem with a corrupt .Sent.summary file in your nsmail directory. Remove the file and it will be rebuilt automagicly when you send mail again.

Most crashes related to Netscape on *NIX (WHILE READING MAIL) can be contributed to corrupt .&lt FOLDER&gt.summary files. Rebuilding these files will _usually_ fix Netscape Messenger problems. In our corporate environment we are using Netscape on HP-UX, and I see this almost every day. The easiest way to fix mail problems is to delete all of the .summary files, and let them rebuild when Messenger is restarted. It may take a little while depending on the speed of your box and how big your folders are.

YMMV

I've been meaning to try IE for HP-UX, but haven't had the time. Although it pains me to say it as I have been using Netscape since the 1.2 days, Communicator is the most unstable application that we have running on our machines to date.

Browser Wars

[keytoe]

Ahhhh... Remember the days when a Web Browser was used for browsing the web rather than handling every aspect of the internet experience? If I recall, the stability of Netscape started seriously slipping when it started doing mail/news/development. Well, the first couple of iterations of Java and JavaScript were a little flakey, but hey, you'd expect that from new features.

I've found that Navigator Standalone runs much more stably on my Mac than any version of IE. The only thing I can see in IE that I like more than Navigator is dynamic rendering of pages (man, I HATE waiting for these nested comments wrapped in one huge table to load on /.) - not really that much though...

If only Netscape(AOL) would focus on making Web Browsers rather than slapping a shoddy email client (I already have one that works well), a crummy newsreader (got one of those too, thanks) and a composer (that's what text editors are for - ok, I'm a purist ;) into the works. All it seems to accomplish is increase the complexity of the project and suck valuable resources away from the real goal of a Web Browser: Browsing the web!

Ditto

[Chris Johnson]

Likewise, I use Navigator Standalone on the Mac. I didn't used to- I used iCab, but was forced to stop because their betas expired and the new betas went through impossible bugridden phases. I went back to Navigator 4 and have been staying with that ever since.
Maybe the government should just _seize_ IE and make it the Government Issue Web Browser for All that so many people seem to desperately want. I could cope with that, but it's no good letting any commercial entity have that kind of power. At least the government is obligated to pretend to look after its citizens. I won't _touch_ IE unless it's nationalized. I don't care if they dumped so many billions of dollars of work into it that it sucks less than Netscape. People need to understand the control implications behind handing anybody the total control of the Net.

No decent browser = dead OS

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no doubt in my mind that if a decent browser doesn't appear for Linux soon (certainly before the next IE) then Linux will die. While I love the stuff I can do with Linux, I'm not going to put up with a browser that takes minutes to load (P133/16Mb) and then takes an age to download pages and as often as not renders them incorrectly, and I don't think many people will, certainly not the more recent adopters of Linux.

Netscape 5 and Mozilla aren't going to save us

[Anonymous Coward]

Market share isn't going to be eroded from IE because Netscape 5 is released, no matter how good it is. IE comes with Windows. That's what people will use.

Re:Netscape 5 and Mozilla aren't going to save us

[Bilbo]

On the other hand, IE doesn't come with Linux, and believe it or not, more and more desktop systems are coming with Linux pre-installed.

Re:That's ok.

[kzin]

By what I understood from the article, the webmasters' problem was not inability to use IE's specific tags, but NS not supporting many standard features from the WWW Consortium such as XML and the like. These features were developed to be used, and not beind able to use them because NS doesn't support them is IMO more than justifiably annoying.
I really do hope Mozilla will solve the problem.

Mac browsers barf on /. code

[nwetters]

What annoys me is that my Mac browsers ignore *different* bad HTML to the same versions on Windows. For example, IE 4.5 on the Mac barfs with the nested tables in /. but IE 4.5 on NT ignores the bad coding.
>>>>
Here is a summary of the information that Doctor HTML has learned about your Web page:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/07/1913 240&mode=thread


* There were 212 table structure problems found.


---

Something Bill Gates Said About Browsers

[Carnage4Life]

In an interview a little while ago in response to questions about competition from cheap and free office Suites on Linux that could make Linux a viable alternative to Windows Bill Gates said that Linux would never fully catch on because of a the difficulty of writing browser software.
He then gave the impression that writing software like Word and Excel was going far better and was easier than writing a modern browser.
I remember thinking this was odd because it meant that this meant they were spending as much or more resources making Office 2000 as they were on the (at the time) unreleased IE 5. Especially since they gave away IE 5 and charged for the Office Suite...so I thought he was full of shit.

Now reconsidering the landscape it seems Satan was right. We have Star Office, teX, and several other products that can give each tool in Office 2000 a run for its money but we don't have a browser. We must do something about this...

Let's join Mozilla, let's fight the IE only webmasters, let's inform the uninformed and most importantly remember if we fail, we will lose the war.

Bad Command Or File Name

Re:Lazyness

[mpe]

Unfortunately, many coders would rather program something glamorous such as an operating system or game.

There's also the issue of the code being in a mess when it was released. It is always likely to be more difficult to turn an existing closed source program into a viable open source one.

You are just plain wrong.

[solar]

As far as servers go, Apache and Netscape are neck and neck, usually running on Sun Solaris machines followed by Linux. IIS on NT doesn't even take home 10% of that market... unless you believe the Microsoft press releases.

Not reading the article

[TrentC]

First of all, did anyone actually read the article before chanting "wait for Mozilla" or talking about boycotting companies that design MSIE-only web pages?

Several of the people being quoted are talking about using a browser either as a front end to a corporate intranet (where standardizing on one browser is feasible), or an application system using XML. It has nothing to do with corporations designing MSIE-only web pages for the internet.

I'm not saying IE is the better browser, or that Mozilla will not beat the pants off of it when it's done, or that I won't use Mozilla when it's done, but it's not done and that is the big reason why these corporate intranet / XML-based applications are using MSIE.

Sure, you can tell me to submit bug reports or fix bugs myself -- despite the fact that I've not been able to get Mozilla to work yet, be it on my Win95 machine at work, my Power Mac at home, or compiling it myseslf on the Linux/PPC partition at home, when I do I'll document every bug I can find -- but are you trying to say the same thing to Burlington Coat Factory? Their IT people probably have better things to do.

Jay (=

Web Applications/Intranet

[noahclem]

There are waaaay more intranet sites and web applications being built than there are public internet sites. So when a corporation wants to build a web application (which more and more are doing instead of normal VB forms apps), they have a choice - be left with a fairly anemic app to support Netscape and MS, or go with IE and have all of the ui that they want (not talking ActiveX here, but DHTML). Unless they have an anti-MS bigot with the powere to scuttle, they will go with the IE-optimised version every time.

If there were something better, it would be used.

Lazyness

[PenguinX]

Unfortunately, many coders would rather program something glamorous such as an operating system or game. Something that will get them instant fame. Unfortunately we are not looking at where the real development of the internet is and has gone. Therefore we should all download Mozilla, report bugs and suggest patches. Come on you dolts we do it for everything else.

But no, browsers need to be totally free, as in we need to be lazy about it.

Sad huh?

What is the Dif Betw Communicator and Navigator?

[noahclem]

You brought up that there is a big difference between Communicator and Navigator. I've been wondering about that for a long time. What is the difference? At first, I thought it was just the suite, but Navigator comes with the suite too.

I would love to know, thanks

Re:That's ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a point of diminishing returns. As things stand now, it's easy to make a standards conforming page work correctly on IE. It can take 3-5x longer to get the same page to work on Navigator. That's fine when Navigator has the most market share, but as Navigator starts losing, people begin to wonder "Why am I spending 5x the work on 1/3 the people?"

Re:NeoPlanet

[webmaven]

Neoplanet is actually doing something very interesting:

They are planning on embedding both browsers into their product, and letting users switch between them at will. They are also dedicating programming resources to helping the Mozilla project.

Check out these links:
Neoplanet Press Release
Download the Neoplanet 5.0 Gecko technology preview
--

Never happen Re:Three letters: A-O-L

[Steeldrivin]

AOL won't switch to Netscape.

Think about how many AOL users have, and will continue to have, IE installed.

Do you really think AOL wants to make their customers install a *second* browser? And I'm sure they don't want to deal with the customer support headaches that would create.

Re:Re: Not Likely

[Score Whore]

MS got the IE codebase from the same place netscape got theirs: UIUC & NCSA. I still remember when Netscape was called Mosaic communications and their browser was called "Mosaic" and was comparatively kick ass. Apparently Netscape Corp. and their programmers could design and code their way out of a wet paper bag.

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[daviddennis]

I'm not a big MSIE fan myself, but you can easily switch off the smooth scrolling - I think it's in the preferences / advanced tab. One of about 1,000,000 options, but it's there, and once you find it, the irritating smooth scroll goes away.

I still pine for Netscape 3, which had a way better interface than Netscape 4. In fact, NS 4 stuck me as a bit of a copy of the then-current version of IE, which is exactly what I didn't want in a browser.

Generally, I won't use IE simply due to the symbolism - I hate Microsoft's junkware, and using IE proclaims to the world: "I use Microsoft's junkware, I'm a MS clone guy". So I only use IE to test my own web pages, and occasionally when I've found some sites that I need to access that don't work with NS.

Before using IE, I recommend you read Judge Jackson's findings of fact in the MS antitrust case. Made me sick to my stomach. Do I want to do what those bastards want me to?

NO!

D

----

Re:That's ok.

[daviddennis]

Most of the features I see in sites requiring recent browsers simply aren't worth it. I want useful, interesting information, not little programs that pop up and do useless things.

Personally, I look at my site in all browsers I can get, and if it doesn't look right, I tweak it until it's OK. I'm certainly not going to want to exclude someone just because his idea of the best browser is different from mine.

D

----

Huh...well

[Anonymous Coward]

They have UNIX ports...solaris and HP, but they are probably going to practice more "monopolistic" practices and not port it to any free unics/BSD (IMHO BSD is different from UNIX, mainly cause of the command differences)

Mozilla was Microsoft's Master Stroke

[jbrewer]

Mozilla was Microsoft's master stroke. Not only has it failed to deliver a viable competitor to Netscape, it has also kept any other open source browser project from gaining critical mass.

Maybe set top boxes will save us?

[slim]

(posting a day late. Will anyone read this?)

There was a recent report (dunno where) which suggested that in two years' time, desktop PCs will not be the most common way of accessing the Internet, with the large number of set-top-box systems on their way.

For example, now I have a Dreamcast, if I just want to check a web page quickly, and I happen to be downstairs, I'll use the DC rather than leave the comfort of my living room.

The DC browser lacks a whole lot of features, which in one way is a shame -- but one positive aspect is that a large population of (potentially money-spending) internet users, stuck with basic HTML renderers and not much else, might encourage content providers to tone down their reliance on obscure plugins.

There's *very little* of real worth that can't be accomplished using a browser something akin to Netscape 2, and the fancy stuff goes on at the server side. That's what made the Web so nice in the first place.
--

ZDNet No Lapdog

[Anonymous Coward]

All I have to say is Bullshit!

I read almost as much anti-microsoft comments and reporting on ZDNN as I do on /.

They certainly don't deserve the rep of being a pro-microsoft screed.

Netscape has seen it's day come and pass. Mozilla must carry on the torch to keep Microsoft honest. At least with an Open Source project we won't have to worry about corporate politics and budget concerns forcing it out before it is ready. Stick with the W3C's standards and give the finger to MS's abominations!

Developpers don't need M$ tech on there pages...

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply, for a few web sites it's interesting to have videos and speechs...but think that there is other cool job in web world than stupidly put speech and videos online...like in the beginning of multimedia techno with cd-roms full of stupids videos... Then...we (developpers...) are working for page that can be interactives and interesting on more than one browser...because people must have the choice...and people is interesting by other things than Videos and speech...text datas are often more interesting...

Netscape is dead.

[xdc]

I have always designed my web pages to work with all browsers. And Netscape has always been my browser of choice, because it was the best. Though it lacks nifty features like IE's rebars, I really like the Netscape Communicator 4.x interface. I find bookmark handling in particular easier to deal with in Netscape than in IE.

Unfortunately, Netscape dropped the ball, and stopped improving their browser engine after Communicator 4.0 was released in June 1997. Though it wasn't standards-compliant then, I fully expected Netscape to remedy that as soon as possible. They never did. In fact, I've never even heard them say that they were working on full HTML 4.0 support.

Instead, Netscape has wasted time with side projects, first trying to push (no pun intended) its ill-fated Netcaster client, then its portal site, and then all kinds of useless junk like AOL Instant Messenger and the Shop button.

Meanwhile, Microsoft wasn't just relying on bundling IE with every conceivable piece of Windows software. IE4 was released with a solid lead over Netscape in HTML and CSS support. While Netscape's ill-named SmartUpdate was and still is broken and difficult to use, IE4 introduced Windows Update, which makes installations, upgrades, and add-ons a snap.

Now IE5 is the undisputed best web browser. Under the hood, it is so far superior to any other browser that there is no contest. To initiate an exodus from IE, Mozilla will have to be fully compliant with HTML, CSS2, XML, and be amazing to boot. And it will need to be released soon.

As for Netscape, I am resigned to its crushing defeat. Over a year ago, it was already clear that it lost the browser war. People have waited patiently since 1997, but there is still no sign that Netscape 5 is forthcoming, let alone any indication that it will be as good as IE5.

Unless there is a dramatic reversal in this situation, I think you can expect to see more and more Netscape holdouts give up and start writing web pages to today's standards, whether Navigator can deal with them or not. I am unhappy about this state of affairs, but that's just the way it is. Netscape stood still while the world kept on turning.

Re:IE5 and Explorer.exe *ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT*seper

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is subtle.

However, by being separate EXE's, they WILL run in different memory spaces. However, if something like a video driver bug causes one to crash, then it is likely that the other will as well, since they use the same underlying rendering engine.

I honestly cannot remember the last time IE crashed and it brought down Explorer.exe

If you want to find one of the main culprits of windows instability and Explorer crashes, look to RUNDLL.EXE

There are many times that I have to close Outlook before another application can run because RUNDLL is locked by Outlook.

It seems like the more RUNDLL is used, the more unstable Explorer.exe gets. IEXPLORE.EXE doesn't often touch RUNDLL, except when you use it like Windows Explorer.

It's very simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Communicator code simply sucks. Sucky code creates more sucky code. Eventually, product release cycles grind to a halt, and turn to desparate tactics such as open source. Then, the open source developers realize they have to rewrite the entire thing. Then, some open source developers begin to get bored with the project, and don't do any work because they don't get paid for it. And they become disillusioned as they see all these Internet millionaires with 1/10 the talent they have make even more money. And they see these mickey mouse web site developers with 1/10 the talent they have pull down 100 G's a year writing JavaScript. Microsoft, on the other hand, probably has a huge team of engineers. The dedicated ones continue to squash bugs and implement new features. The less dedicated ones contribute because at least they are paid to do it. And so IE progresses steadily, and its feature set and stability rise proportionately to the money MS pipes into it. When Gecko is finally release, its quality won't matter. It will still be out-featured and outsold by IE.

Re:It leaves Linux users where they have always be

[Anonymous Coward]

You are about 1.5 years late, Netscape source was released April 1. 1998 as Mozilla.

Netscape lost the server war

[Per Abrahamsen]

According to netcraft, Apache has 54% market share, IIS 25%, and Netscape 7%.

Blacklist plug-in for Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

A previous poster mentioned something to the effect of "blacklisting all websites that aren't 'friendly' to Netscape because of non-compliance(s) to some basic standard design standards". I'd appreciate a Netscape Plug-in that after clicking on a link, warns me in advance of a black-listed site and gives me an option to cancel out of it. Also I'd like an added option (on the same 'warning' pop-up) to be able to send a standard e-mail to the webmaster of the site explaing my reason for not visiting. We can have a commitee of volunteers who browse the web to test the most popular websites for Netscape friedliness. If one doesn't cut it, then it makes the list. Then we can download the updated lists maybe once a week. I'm I being naive or does this sound like a reasonable idea? Would it be illegal?

Re:Blacklist plug-in for Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, Ziff Davis would be first on my list. Only for Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x sometimes 5.

Opera, Netpositive, lynx, and others cannot display ZDNet correctly because of their non-standard code that they use.

I wish I had more time I would love to help put together such list and offer it through ftp.

NeoPlanet

[_Sprocket_]

NeoPlanet strikes me as amusing. "Wait. You're saying IE provides a method for applications to be 'web-enabled'? What if we write our own front-end to these IE hooks? We can have our own 'browser' without developing browser technology, per se!"

If I've gotta use IE for something, I use NeoPlanet. Its flashy. And it kinda makes me feel like I'm not really using IE (even though weblogs will pick it up as an IE hit).

Re:NeoPlanet

[Shelled]

Sorry for the off-topic, but is it possible for Neoplanet's front end to be more stable than the native IE5? On my admittedly non-stock setup (EVWM on a notebook) it appears to less prone to breaking. Or is this just another example of the the compu-placebo effect?

Web developers are no evil

[Menthos]

Considering the number of people that use IE, many web designers are simply testing their page against IE

I don't think it's just because the larger IE user base that many web site creators test their sites in IE.
They simply test against IE because it's their favorite browser and therefore the browser they're developing for.

The reason why they like IE? Because it supports more CSS and DHTML and thatalike and renders their pages like they want them to. Netscape, on the other hand, lacks descent implementations of those things.

But, since Netscape 5 will support almost all recent standards, I think this will change. Many web developers are not against supporting multiple browsers, they're just so bored with the fact that whatever they do, IE and Netscape won't render their CSS code and so on the same way or even close. So they lose interest in Netscape, and primarily focus on IE, leaving Netscape users in the dust.
So I think that when a standards-compliant and standards-uptodate Netscape comes, web developers will start to test against Netscape more often, maybe even developing primarily for Netscape 5 and testing in IE.

Web developers are no evil, they just hate tools or programs that simply won't make their work work. On the other hand, Netscape 5 could become the web developers' new best friend.

Re:Web developers are no evil

[jafac]

I like how you boldfaced will like that.

Because Mac users are in the same boat. We take all kinds of crap about how bad our OS is, how it's memory management is archaic, no multithreading, etc. etc. (I could go on, I won't), and pretty much any technical Mac fan out there is going to cite Mac OS X. But the fact is, OS X is vapor right now (consumer version - and server version doesn't exactly live up to "the promise" of what OS X will be).

I believe that this time period, the previous year, to a year from now, is pretty tough on all freedom-loving, cross-platform advocating nerds out there. But when the waiting is over, we'll be happy. Very happy. I think that probably Moz has a bit further to go than OS X, but in one year's time, I will be ecstatic to run Mozilla on my G4 Power Mac running OS X. (likely dual booting Linux PPC). And I'll never look back to this dark time when I was running Nutscrape 4.61 on Mac OS 8.6 (which is REALLY way better than 7.5).

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Make sure you read it the whole thing though.

[Chuck Chunder]

Apache still picked up around 250000 new hostnames. Microsoft picked up around 400000, though:

"Much of this came at hosting company Webjump, which offers free web hosting on a system made up of NT machines fronted by a Resonate switch. This is one of the first deployements of NT in a large scale hosting environment, and it will be interesting to see if other providers follow Webjump's lead. Traditionally, hosting companies [who control the great majority of internet web sites] have almost always chosen to run Apache based servers, often on Pentium based systems running Linux, FreeBSD, or BSDI."

While it is an interesting development, there's probably little cause for worry unless it becomes a trend.

I love technology

[Anonymous Coward]

computers should be used as tool nothing more nothing less

You monkey

two more cents

[jonMC]

What got me from the /. post was the last line about websites being IE enabled for useful tasks. My company (a large consulting firm that will remain anonymous) has already taken this step. Access to the company intranet is restricted to clients using IE, and this trend seems to be spilling over into other areas as well.

I have to agree with other posts that the level of innovation included in each new Navigator release is pretty pathetic. I used to download and install each new version with glee a few years ago, but lately there seems to be nothing in the new versions that even slightly interests me.

IE, on the other hand, seems to continue pushing forward. Browsing certain sights is a completely different experience using the features IE has implemented, while with Navigator the pages look, well, as boring and static as they would have with the HTML 2.0 spec.

Like everyone else, I think I'm hoping Mozilla can be the cure to this problem. The layout engine *is* fantastic, and as someone else has said, if they can get the program to load anywhere near as fast as IE does, it'll be a big blow to IE.

Re: Yeah whatever.

[TummyX]

If microsoft had never made IE netscape would still be the piece of crap it is today.
With IE at least Netscape made an attempt to improve their product...but becuase they had such a munted source base, they couldn't do it.

IE is successful not only cause of microsoft tactics. It's successful simply cause it's better. That's the hard truth I'm afraid.

At Uni, they still use Netscape (refuse to use IE) because they're strictly a Unix only, Non microsoft department. It's pretty sad to watch netscape crumble all the workstations.

This is FUD, pure and simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but I'm sick of these ZDNet pro-M$ articles slashing at mozilla... Yes, Mozilla is behind, but in a way its ahead, because its cross-platform support is gonna kick everyone's asses when it comes out.

Was there anything balanced in that article? Sigh. Hopefully the media spin will turn in time that people will actually give it a chance.

Try one of the mozilla builds, they're getting there.

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[jafac]

It's not a completely URL-based operating system. Explorer.exe was hacked to give you URL access.

Try using a DOS shell. It's not only NOT URL based, it's still fucking NETBIOS based. Lan Manager anyone?

New Technology my hairy ass.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Re:Re: Not Likely

[jafac]

Spyglass owned Mosaic at the time, (or at least the part that MS bought from them for IE) and they're still around, doing disgustingly well. Supposedly, there's very little of the original Spyglass-owned code left in IE.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

I still love technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers should be used as tools nothing more nothing less

I know why you are a monkey!!! you work for M$ don't you. It is such a silly .sig, get rid of it, I read it and go " my! what an idiot"

other factors.

[jafac]

A lot of people have made some interesting "what if" statements about IE vs. Navigator - but I think that the most important factor in Navigator's decline and Netscape's demise was the fact that MS gave IE away. If MS remained in the same price range, or even charged what it cost to develop (kind of an oxymoron for software, because it can be copied at no cost), Netscape would still be around, and Navigator would be a far, far better browser than it is today, and IE would probably be much more standards compliant. However, the internet would probably have about 20% of the users it has now.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

Not hidden API's, but still . .

[jafac]

While it's probably true that there are no *hidden* APIs that give Microsoft's applications developers some secret advantage over ISVs, there IS another very significant factor.

Ask anyone who has spend any amount of time developing apps for Windows, and they'll tell you that the documentation sucks. This could be on purpose, or by accident, but quite often, you'll use an API that doesn't behave as documented, and there are "tricks" that developers learn about these API, but with each update of MFC, these behaviors change.

Now, obviously, the company that produces the API, has a significant advantage in that their developers are far more intimate with the funny behaviors of API. Now, either Microsoft doesn't document these things well on purpose, or Microsoft just doesn't put as much effort into the documentation as they do the code (the same criticism can be made of many Open Source projects). In either case, folks OUTSIDE of Microsoft, developing applications with MSVC++, are going to have a harder time of things. If something doesn't behave right, it's a call to developer support - hopefully a constructive answer? But for the Microsoft employee, it's: "hey, why did it do THIS?" "go ask Jimmy, he wrote the API" "OIC!".

In effect, you have "secret APIs", which is probably why this myth has persisted and spread like it has. Now, there DEFINATELY was a "secret API" kind of technique used at some point (trial of Caldera vs. Microsoft: MS used code to check to see if Windows was installed on top of DR-DOS, and if it was, would error out with some wierd FUDly message - this trial was just recently ruled to go to jury). But as you said, this sort of thing could not possibly be widespread, because people talk.

But these ex-Microsoft employees can leave the company, maybe some are torqued-off, but they'll just chuckle at how badly documented MFC is, and we have to chalk it up to ineptitude, rather than malice.

Now, there was some talk about the remedy for Microsoft being FORCING them to open their source code and document all the "secret APIs", but in reality, we're talking about ineptitude here. How do you legally force someone to "do something right" when they're incapable. I think that getting down to this level in the courtroom would be tedious indeed. And with 140+ million LOC, it's not something I would expect ANY legal system could get through in my lifetime, so I don't expect to ever see it.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

How to prevent the advertisement in Messenger

[Menthos]

Solution can be found here:
http://help.netscape.com/kb/cons umer/981014-6.html

What about *working* MNG support?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem for PNG is that it does not support animation. So the real question is how well will inline MNG works, if it is supported at all.

Re:Truly depressing thought for a once great produ

[IntlHarvester]

wonders how much better of a product Navigator would be at this time if they'd not had to deal with M$'s embrace and corrupt policy on html/java/javascript standards.

What? Netscape invented embrace-and-extend HTML. Take a look at the the whole layers thing in Netscape 4 -- entirely not standards compliant. To some extent, MS has been just going from the Netscape playbook, but generally IE is far closer to the standards than Netscape is currently.

If IE had been written as a competitive application, by a company _other_ than m$, without m$'s specific advantages as a monopoly (which I firmly belive it is), it's my opinion that Netscape Corp. never would have sold out.

Here you are probably right -- At one time it was reported that Microsoft had more employees in it's IE and IIS groups than Netscape had employeed in total (and Netscape was developing mail, directory, and groupware servers also). Microsoft realized no direct profits from that move - it was only done to ship a superior product for free than Netscape was shipping for a price.

Is IE a better product than Netscape? It'd had better be, since more resources were poured into it.
--

netscape and css

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape and css are 2 things that dont seem to go together. I *was* and avid netscape user, but as many web developers will all say, netscape sucks to design for. I made a new webpage, implemented with css background positioning. IE supported this, and my page came out how intended. Netscape on the other hand had the background positioned left instead of to the right as planned. I had to implement various workarounds for this, from changing the width of the background to finally taking out the background all together and making it a table aligned right with the background set as the table background. Netscape definitely needs a solution, you would think with aol at its side that it could conceivabley catch up. james

Netscape has bugs

[CmdData]

"IE surpassed Communicator because there are fewer bugs, a better development staff behind IE, tighter integration with Microsoft products, frequent free upgrades and security patches," said David Howell, director of IS at PED Manufacturing Ltd., an Oregon City, Ore., maker of castings for medical implants and aerospace components. I totally agree with this guy. Since Enterprise Rent-A-Car switched to IE 2 years ago, we have had a much better browser. Our clients/staff/customers are much happier now that we have switched to a browser that supports ALL WEB technologies.

IE vs. Notvigator

[mcolin]

We have switched entirely from an all-Netscape shop to an all-IE shop in the last month. Nutscrape has gone all too unstable in it's latest releases to use anymore, so we're switching all our users to IE. And, guess what, as much as I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, there's one thing to be said for IE 5. It's more stable, it's faster and it's much more usable than Netscape. And yes, I hate myself for supporting Micro$oft, so cut off the flak already. Now if MS could only bring it's other products up to par with IE 5...

??? Check ANY stats regarding servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape not only is way behind Apache, its very far behind IIS.

Run IE in a separate process

[zsmooth]

I have IE set to run in a separate process (I think it's in options/advanced). The few times it's crashed in the past few months it hasn't brought down the OS with it. Sure, it'll take up more resources but not any more than running Netscape.

Sad, But True

[Splat]

Despite all those little alarms going off in my head to ignore this, it's sadly happening, and in my immediate world. Upon arriving back at school this year, I found they finally got the T1 connection up, and the machines have - Internet Explorer 5. I assist in the computer labs and was going to protest this decision, then it occured to me - why bother.

The machines are 486/133's (how sad I know), and they simply don't cut the mustard when it comes to using Netscape. I don't know why (ok I _probably_ know why ... propiterary API's that aren't being shared or whatnot), but Netscape sucks big time on the machines. Crashes left and right, renders like a drunk slug, and takes way too long to load. Meanwhile IE 5 somehow manages to perform efficently on the machines.

I then arrived back at the technical school I goto, to the newly arrived Pentium III's. How odd, we had Netscape last year, suddenly IE's our browser this year. I installed Netscape for a project about a month later and boy, was I surprised. There I was on a state of the art new spiffy Gateway machine, and Netscape's performance was still horrid. IE 5 wins again.

I am (was?) a devout Netscape user. IE had never seen the light of day on my machine. I've used Netscape from version 2.02 to 4.61. My computer dual boots Windows 98 (I just can't kick the games, doh!) and Linux. While in Windows after playing a game, I was using a webpage that required a browser with some of the new specs (HTTP 1.1 or whatnot, I forget exactly.) "Netscape 4.61 or Internet Explorer 4 required". Well, I only have Netscape 4.07 in Windows installed because I don't really use the internet in there. Let's see, I obviously need one of these browsers. I have a 56K modem, do I wait an hour and a half to download Netscape 4.7, or hm, is that "Includes Internet Explorer" I see on that CD there?

I install IE 5. After what seemed about 5 reboots, and about 20 minutes later I'm in Windows on the internet. Boy, this thing just FEELS better then Netscape. I use Internet Junkbuster in Linux for cookie filtering (call me paranoid?), and misc other utilites to customize my browsing. Well I'll be damned, Internet Explorers got all these nice customized "Security Settings" per website you can use. No longer do I have to open up my /etc/junkbuster/cookiefile, I simply add the site to the "Trusted Sites" zone. Nice. I also spend the time to marvel at the faster more intelligent rendering engine IE seems to have, the nice smooth scrolling, and all the other little things.

Fast forward, two weeks later. Sitting in Linux I am, curious on the status of Mozilla. I download Mozilla M10. An excellent work so far, and I look forward to using the final version. The only problem here? IE 5, with what seems to me has almost all the features of Mozilla I'm looking for is out now. Mozilla M20, Gecko, Netscape 5 - whatever it may be called, doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. While I can certainly wait a few months, my schools obviously can't. And that means IT departments everywhere probably won't. With Linux comes the need for a browser that can perform well. While we all love lynx, it just won't work in corporate settings. Opera looks promising, but it's not here yet, and everyones become too jaded and used to a "Free" browser anyways.

This is not intended as flamebait or whatnot, I'm simply telling the tragic story of how myself, a Linux geek, Netscape loving guy, has unwillingly come to accept IE.

That's ok.

[unhooked]

If a company wants to put up an IE only website,
they just won't get any money from me.

It's that simple.

If it won't run in lynx,kfm,or netscape too bad for them.

Not FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but in the case, ZDNet is accurate. Netscape is getting further behind IE every day, as much I personally loathe this sad situation.

Mozilla, Java, Linux, Justice Dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if IE wins as long as it becomes a reliable platform for thin client applications. Microsoft doesn't want it to be that, though. The lack of support for standard Java and the lack of support for all of the major server OSes cripples IE in the long run.

If Mozilla beats IE on technical merits, IE is a goner IMHO. It will go the way of VJ++. Microsoft could spend billions to make IE tiny and cross-platform, of course, but why would they? They couldn't charge for it, and it would only undermine their Windows position (although they may get booted out of that position shortly anyway).

Maybe IE will go open source. I wonder if they implemented it for easy porting.

Navigator is browser ownly

[vipw]

When you have the entire communicator bin being run there is alot more code being loaded and never used unless you use the mail client or news reader. Since many people actually use the stripped down navigator binary, the communicator bin doesn't have near the bugtesting and even when one is found it takes longer to isolate it due to the bigger application being ran.

I don't know if i'm responding too late for you to be reading this, but unless the mail client or newsreader are critical to you, never install netscape-communicator, it is of much lower quality, especially on less common OSs freebsd(in my experience) even moreso than linux.

Wish

[Anonymous Coward]

I do use IE, because I only browse on my windows machine, and it is much easier to use, and often time more stable.

But I do wish I could discourage web-sites from using anything that is an IE-only feature. Is there anyway to disable those features in IE?

Ryan

Re:No! Shhh! The Linux nerds are STUCK with Netscr

[sklib]

Granted that MSIE is a big hairy dog that poops on windows's kernel.. Don't get me wrong here, BUT.

I think it is a very powerful feature to have a completely URL-based operating system. This may allow a user to access *any* file on the internet available through a supported protocol just like it's right here. One of the advantages may be an option to remotely install a program -- Just go to their website, run the installation script from there, and let your high-speed internet connection do the rest. No need to bother with downloading the install file, forgetting where you put it, etc etc. I thoroughly believe in the abstraction layer, and reading the contents of any file anywhere all in the same way sounds very good to me.

That aside, I think it sucks that those features would bring down the OS when used.

Mozilla M11

[kjj]

This was posted with Mozilla M11 nightly for 11-07-99.

Two issues going on here

[J. J. Ramsey]

There are two issues:

1) Who has produced the better browser?
2) Do we want MS to set the "standards" on the Web?

It seems to be that IE 5 is arguably better. I suspect this is partly because it supports XML (which is what the article was talking about), perhaps partly because MS "cheated" with some of its APIs (maybe, maybe not, but it would be typical MS), and partly because Netscape just plain old dropped the ball.

On the other hand, we know that MS's style is to try to lock customers into its product line and make it difficult for them to get out of it. Do we really want MS to do this on the web? I don't think so. So, I'd say the webmasters ought to try to insure that Netscape, lousy as it is, is still a usuable option for their sites, just to keep MS at least somewhat at bay. If you don't like what I just said, I'm sorry. I can't say that I like it, either.

Hopefully, Netscape or Mozilla will catch up, or the DOJ will put MS in a position where they can't use IE to advance a monopoly.