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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."
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.
Netscape, pretty much for the entire 4.x release
/.'s homepage) wouldn't cause browser
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
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.
ERROR: Null
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.
:) Oh no, then their stock value will go down... too bad...
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
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...
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).
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.)
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'...
Culture is more than commerce
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.
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!
Using Netscape is like getting in a time machine set for 1995.. This means just one thing...IE for Linux. Hurry up already, Bill!
"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
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.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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.
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.
This has to be moderated up.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
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.
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
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
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?"
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
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.
Jilles
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.
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.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
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...
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
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!
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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.
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.
Here's a listing of features that IE supports but that Netscape doesn't. http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/ie.html
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".
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.
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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.
Your viewpoint would be a shade more convincing if you made references to facts in the opinion that are verifiably wrong.
D
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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.
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No reason to panic yet.
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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--
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!
Culture is more than commerce
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.
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
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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
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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.
(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.
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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--
According to netcraft, Apache has 54% market share, IIS 25%, and Netscape 7%.
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).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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.
... 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.
/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.
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
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
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.