Netscape RIP

[meow]

I've looked all over but I don't see that anyone has posted the death of Netscape so I guess it's my sad duty. :-(

It started here:
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3422
and was soon enough confirmed by Eric Meyer on a mailing list.

Now it has hit the fan.
http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0703a.shtml#netscapedead
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2003c.html#t20030715
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1026078.html

Of interest in the context.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10498
http://mozillafoundation.com/

[Mhtml]

W00t! *dances around grave in devil suit with marracas*.
I for one don't like Netscrape and am glad to see it go.
Besides it means one less browser to develop for.

[Skyzyx]

Many of us knew it was coming, but had hoped it wouldn't. A quote from Glazblog and Zeldman reads: "People, it's over. Netscape is dead. Nothing to see here."

MozillaZine was one of the first (and so far, the only) site to comment of the death of this web pioneer. To quote: "It has been learned through public and private sources that AOL has cut or will cut the remaining team working on Mozilla in a mass firing and are dismantling what was left of Netscape (they've even pulled the logos off the buildings)."

There is an upshot: Mozilla.org is now the Mozilla Foundation. Development will continue as it has as we move into development for Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.5. Brendan Eich (the creator of JavaScript) has noted in a public press release that "The Mozilla Foundation will continue mozilla.org's work of coordinating the development of the Mozilla codebase. With an independent non-profit as the legal home for Mozilla, we will also promote the distribution and adoption of Mozilla applications and technologies. In addition, we will raise funds to ensure Mozilla's long-term survival."

He goes on later to say "Now that the Mozilla Foundation has been launched, we believe the time is ripe to move aggressively toward new distribution channels, new end-user markets, and better incorporation of developer-driven innovations from the whole Mozilla community."

As far as all of the blogs I've read since finding this out at Zeldman's site and confirming it at Henrik Gemal's site, I'm the first one to post on my site about it. Go me. Let us all have a moment of silence for this once great fallen soldier, Netscape Communications.

[meow]

:confused:

[jkd]

Originally posted by Mhtml
W00t! *dances around grave in devil suit with marracas*.
I for one don't like Netscrape and am glad to see it go.
Besides it means one less browser to develop for.

? Why didn't you like Netscape? Netscape 1-3 were the best browsers of their time. Netscape 4 faltered, but Netscape 6 became the first commercial browser with incredible CSS, DOM, and XML support. And Netscape 7 polished it off very nicely.

Besides, we'll always have Mozilla. The browser suite has become one of the most successful open-source projects, and losing a commercial entity behind it is not going to stop it's development.

[meow]

WE will, yes. But how many so called normal users even know that Moz exists? We can be stuck with an even higher IE user base on Windows and as we all know by now nothing will happen to that browser for a long time. :(

[oracleguy]

Is there a "getting started on Mozilla hacking" guide? If not, there probably should be.

I agree with that.

Too bad the IT dept at work won't switch everyone over to Mozilla.

What is funny to think about is how you used to say "Is it cross browser supported in Netscape?" but it has almost became the other way around with Mozilla. Mozilla is the one leading the way with CSS2, etc. It is IE that is doing the lagging.

I heard a rumor from someone here that Microsoft was only going to release new browser versions with new OS versions. So unless you buy their latest OS, you can't have the latest IE. I hope this is the case almost because then it would really help Mozilla out. I mean wouldn't you start to get pissed off if you were stuck with IE6 while IE7 has a lot better feature support?

Additionally, that means also that a new version of IE would basically come out every 3+ years, which is waaay to long of a time to wait between versions.

[meow]

I said that long ago but you guys didn't believe me (about no IE7). :D

I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. Normal people don't care what they browse with. A lot of people don't even know they use a browser. They just 'go on the Intenet' or 'open Aol' or whatever. It's just another window on their screen.

[oracleguy]

Yeah I might of been a little too optimistic.

The "Browser Wars" is just as about money (maybe more than) as it is about the end-user's perference. I mean if your ISP could license Mozilla, tweak the code to fit your needs and push it out to your customers for significatly less than M$ is charging you, wouldn't you do it?

[cg9com]

Originally posted by meow
It's just another window on their screen.
Unfortunatly.
And that's why we go through what we go through in making webpages perfectly accessable, so that John Doe can stay ignorant to what is going on behind the scenes.

Honestly I am a little frustrated with IE, what will happen now that only new OS's will carry new IE's, this could make developing/testing a webpage more agonizing.

This is why I hope that Mozilla will reign supreme, at least they seem to care. I am actually surprised that NS is gone too.

[ronaldb66]

I've been following developments around Netscape and AOL lately, but it comes as a nasty surprise that they slashed Netscape so hastily.
I haven't been using any recent versions of NN so it doesn't effect me directy, but i've used their version 3 and 4 browsers extensively when I started out with the whole Internet thingy and it's sad to see one of the more important Internet pioneers disappear.

In the midst of all this, I'm relieved to see Mozilla keeps going strong and keeps offering a standards compliant alternative to the Microsoft scourge called IE for those who care.
They could however do with some more exposure so users know there is another way to access the internet then MS has to offer and give some counterforce to MS's annoying and unnecessary habit of tying in applications with OS's.

[brothercake]

I guess now's the time to link to this ... http://www.evolt.org/article/Browser_Wars_II_The_Saga_Continues/25/60181/index.html

[cwdlmdd]

If it is ending why have they just offered a new version 7.1?

[Roy Sinclair]

Netscape hasn't been viable since the defects in the Netscape 4 browser became obvious to the web developing community and their floundering efforts to produce a new browser failed. The only good thing they did was to kick off the Mozilla project which did eventually come out with a world class browser.

Even then the first few Netscape releases based on the Mozilla browser were based on the still buggy beta versions of Moz and their release by Netscape as production quality code only reinforced the perception that Netscape browsers aren't worth using.

For Netscape as a brand to silently vanish is no great loss, my only concern is that those employees of Netscape who were working on the Mozilla project may no longer be able to contribute as much effort (or even any effort) and that Mozilla may now suffer as a result.

[meow]

I see it another way. The only other browser people may know of is Netscape. It could well be that we effectively have one browser for Windows now.

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by meow
I see it another way. The only other browser people may know of is Netscape. It could well be that we effectively have one browser for Windows now.

Agreed.

[Roy Sinclair]

Originally posted by meow
I see it another way. The only other browser people may know of is Netscape. It could well be that we effectively have one browser for Windows now.

I don't mind the idea of only having one browser, what I mind is that it could be something like IE ;)

[MotherNatrsSon]

Maybe now is the time you will start to see "Site best viewed in Mozilla or Safari. This site is inacesable because you are using IE.":p

MNS

[meow]

Here's a picture if him and me. http://forums.yupapa.com/images/smiles/cry2.gif

http://dmoz.org/img/moz/cat.gif

[whackaxe]

people might be discouraged by it because of this argument: "if its so good, why s it free?" or "its made by amateurs seeing as its open source". maybe just a (spoof) pop up for IE users saying there is a fault in IE that makes this (perfectly well coded ;)) page unviewable in IE and that they should go and worship mozilla

[theabyss]

What are you people talking about?

IE 6 is going to be the next Netscape 4 compared to Mozilla! :D :D :D

Netscape is on it's way back in IE form! ;)

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by theabyss
IE 6 is going to be the next Netscape 4 compared to Mozilla! :D :D :D

It is actually getting to be the case...

[Philip M]

Can I say that I am delighted and thrilled to hear that Netscape is becoming defunct. Netscape 7 is a disaster, and in my opinion is a product which is not of merchantable quality. A browser with serious defects is useless - as pointless as is a watch that does not keep time.

I have had to put in a good deal of the effort to get my website "cross browser compatible", and as Netscape has only around 2% of the market I find this effort is uneconomic and unrewarding. (I do appreciate though that if a site gets 5000 hiits a month then 2% of that is 100, who may of course be potential customers).

The idea of multiple and incompatible browsers is ridiculous - as silly as competing and incomptiable telephone or video systems. Railways found out in the earliest days that they all had to have the same gauge if they were to be of any use. Incompatible video and other recording media end up with just one pushing out the others (not necessarily the best system techologically speaking, of course). People do not want videos which will not work on their machine, not digital cameras which cannot use standard cards.

Of course, it is a potential problem if Microsoft has a monopoly, but in reality that is the case already.

I look forward to stripping out all my convoluted "cross browser" code and replacing it by

if (!document.all){
alert ("Get a decent browser!)
}

I agree with Meow. Your normal average user does not care about open source or which browser he is using. No more than he cares about the technology that makes his washing machine go. He just wants it to work without hassle. My guess is that outside the world of programming geeks only a tiny fraction of 1% of people have heard of Mozilla, Opera, Gecko and so forth.

Netscape may have had a lead in the early days, but there is no sentiment in business and nostalgia is not a substitute for workability. Thank heaven the thing is dead!

[meow]

Let me ask you - do you like to learn anew and anew and anew? When you work on a site with another audience? When browser x suddenly gains more users - or disappears? Browsers come and go. They have and they will.

Me would like multiple and compatible browsers. NS7 isn't incompatible with anything else than IE which is incompatible with everything but Bill Gates. :D

This is funny and... odd. Do you think they choose the date on purpose? 5 years to die?
http://silicon.com/news/500012/1/5127.html

WEB STANDARDS NOW! CARAMBA! http://forums.yupapa.com/images/smiles/forkfork.gif

[MotherNatrsSon]

Can I say that I am delighted and thrilled to hear that Netscape is becoming defunct. Netscape 7 is a disaster, and in my opinion is a product which is not of merchantable quality. A browser with serious defects is useless - as pointless as is a watch that does not keep time.

Just so you know IE isn't really any better, it is just mor widely used, because dumb people are to dumb to change to something that does work better...

MNS

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by MotherNatrsSon
because dumb people are to dumb to change to something that does work better...

Thats because they don't know of anything else, a good deal of them where that is the case don't even understand what a browser is. But essentially like you stated, they are too dumb to change.

[Mr J]

Just so you know IE isn't really any better, it is just mor widely used, because dumb people are to dumb to change to something that does work better...

But who can say that they have the knowledge and experience to say which one is the best.

Its just like cars and bikes, whos to say which is the better one

[MotherNatrsSon]

Originally posted by Mr J
But who can say that they have the knowledge and experience to say which one is the best.

Its just like cars and bikes, whos to say which is the better one

I guess "better" would be "closer" to standards compliance and correct rendering of pages. I would agree that most people do not have the knowledge or experience. Tha is why it is how it is and unfortunately will continue to be. Look how far Microjunk and Windoze have entrenched themselves.....:p

MNS

[whackaxe]

i mean....soem people think AOL is good! maybe some ISPs will start making custom browsers using mozz and itll become more popular. who knows.

[cg9com]

With 'standards' coding, browser compinsation should be irrelavent anyway.
The only real issue is having something decent to test with in my opinion.

[scroots]

it would be nasty but if someone wrote a virus to unistall IE and install say mozilla instead, the market could change dramatically. IF that happend the bookmoarks could have a wealth of content that people have never seen and that is awsome and they may stick with it.

or they could just tap IE to make it show up in stats as another broswer and the world would change.


scroots

[Veneficus]

Originally posted by meow
It could well be that we effectively have one browser for Windows now.

Are we forgetting how many people there are that are stuck with AOL or some other ISP dependant browser? How "standards compliant" are some of those garbage browsers? Will more people end up on those browsers with the disappearance of Netscape?

[theabyss]

It seems every company gives Internet access these days. And each one installs a customized version of IE with their logos. It sucks :(

[Mhtml]

Originally posted by MotherNatrsSon
Just so you know IE isn't really any better, it is just mor widely used, because dumb people are to dumb to change to something that does work better...

MNS
Buh, that's rubbish! It's smart NOT to change because it doesn't work as well and because it "is just mor widely used". If more people are using it then why should you develop primarily for something else that will not use your site as much? Sure having support for the correct and latest standards is great but you can't possibly develop to those standards while the world is dominated by a non standards compliant browser.

[meow]

So you don't have to change your ways every time the wind turns?

Which IE do you plan to support btw? 6, 5, 5.5, 4, 5Mac, Langhorn Monster?

[Graeme Hackston]

This appears to suggest only cutbacks.

http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1026078.html

If an average surfer knows what a browser is and knows there is more than one they have heard of NN. None of them have heard of Moz and very few know of Opera. Surely AOL has an interest in keeping the name Netscape alive. They definitely paid enough to get it.

[Graeme Hackston]

Originally posted by meow
Which IE do you plan to support btw? 6, 5, 5.5, 4, 5Mac, Langhorn Monster?
LOL, won't that be fun. Maybe it won't be an issue. I think MS is looking to control browsers and content.

Have you seen this XP tag?

<meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="no" />

You set it to "yes" or don't use it if you would prefer XP in sports theme set the page styles to match the browser.

[Graeme Hackston]

Actually, in an IE only world, it could look more like this

<meta-thingy MSThemeCompatible content=maybe

[Mhtml]

Originally posted by Graeme Hackston
Actually, in an IE only world, it could look more like this

<meta-thingy MSThemeCompatible content=maybe
lol. :)

I plan to support as much as I can to the point where it becomes to much of a hassle to support something.

At the momment I target mainly 5.5+ but everything I do I like to degrade well in most browsers.

IMO staying 1 major version behind is probably the best idea.

[cg9com]

Originally posted by Graeme Hackston

Have you seen this XP tag?

<meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="no" />

huh? can you elaborate a little better? what is this garbage?

[Graeme Hackston]

I stumbled on this a few months ago. See the heading "Windows XP user interface support" on this page.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnie60/html/whatsnewpublicpreview.asp

It looks like I also mis-read it. It's windows XP period, it doesn't matter what theme it's in. I searched for a while for more specifics on exactly which elements are affected but didn't find anything.

[Spookster]

According to CNN reports it doesn't seem as if NS is dead. AOL is just decreasing the number of personnel working on the project:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/17/netscape.cuts.reut/index.html

Of course NS might as well be dead as I don't see it being used hardly at all anymore anywhere I go.

[Veneficus]

Now I'm getting worried... I was just reading some of MicroFlop's documentation on IE6.

Building on top of the functionality of previous versions, Internet Explorer 6 now provides full support for CSS Level 1.

OMG! Full support for CSS 1. How long has Level 2 been around?

In Internet Explorer 6, you will also find support for CSS Level 2 custom cursors.

Custom cursors? Isn't there a whole lot more to CSS 2 than that? Somebody needs to tell these guys to get with the program.

The browser is dead! Long live the browser!

[oracleguy]

What do you expect? The thing came out over 2 years ago.

[scroots]

to quote a mate "you can kill the revolutionary but you cannot kill the revolution".


scroots

[theabyss]

Veneficus:
Somebody needs to tell these guys to get with the program.


I just did ;)

[boggly]

I wouldn't consider Netscape dead just yet, but if it really is what's the incentive for Micro$oft to support any standards other than their own proprietary ones?

[meow]

Well, that's a purely theoretic question since IE as we know it is discontinued too. Once something new comes from MS IE6 will be older than NS4 is now. Now why did I say that? Now I feel sick and want to puke. :mad:

[Graeme Hackston]

The only IE 6 updates, if any, will be security patches.

It's a shame that a private company can have enough weight to freeze public technologies until they see fit to implement them.

Hopefully in a year or 2 people will start taking action in the form of an organized campaign similar to the one used to get NN4 users to upgrade. Maybe Apples new browser will start making IE win look so lame that people will want to download a current browser.

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by Graeme Hackston
It's a shame that a private company can have enough weight to freeze public technologies until they see fit to implement them.

I know it is, and even more so when the private company has enough money, where they could be releasing new versions only a few months apart.

[zoobie]

Nutscrape dead? We couldn't be that lucky...:D
I think of all the hours webmasters spent trying to get their pages to at least display similarly in NS...hah!
Me? Could I have my 9 minutes back? :cool:

[Mr J]

Me? Could I have my 9 minutes back

You mean you actually spent an entire 9 minites,


what a waste of precious time

:D

[theabyss]

This is kind of ironic...

I used to hate Netscape, but now I actually want it to come back full force with dominance again. It's cool that they're using Mozilla as the basis for the browser. It's good for people that know what Netscape is, but not Mozilla. They probably don't even know that it's the same thing! :)

When Mozilla 1.5, 1.6, etc. comes out, are they still going to make a Netscape version? Or is 7.1 their last? I sure hope not :(

It took me about a week to realize that it wasn't the browser that was making my page look bad, but the code put into it. So that's 10,080 minutes for me, minus my sleep time, which wasn't much :D

[Skyzyx]

Personally, I always design for standards in Mozilla, and then switch over to see if IE can swallow it. It seems to be the opposite of what most everyone else does...

[theabyss]

It seems to be the opposite of what most everyone else does...

I design for Mozilla too! I don't care about IE. I'll take a couple of seconds to make sure it looks accessible and that's it's usable. I hate IE because it doesn't support the :hover CSS property that I use for acronyms lot. Only on links. It really gets me :mad:

[meow]

Let's throw some coal on the fire! :D

News: Will Microsoft's browser engine backfire?
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-1022119.html

[cg9com]

Originally posted by meow
Let's throw some coal on the fire! :D .....

"if you lock in your users or customers, you will lose out".


Yes indeed.

It's funny how my friends who dont visit the web as developers, LOVE IE.

[oracleguy]

And it is funny how a M$ employee said that too. :)

I was reading some of the comments people posted on ZDNet and they are rather intresting.

[brothercake]

Ordinary users' love for IE has nothing to do with its interface or features; they like it because

- it's there
- it works

And those two things are true because

- MS has levered itself an illegal monopoly
- most websites are designed for IE only

If what that article talks about actually happens, two very good things will come of it

- IE will gradually lose its monopoly, just like netscape 4, as more sites are standardised
- we'll all get lots of work out of it, because we who've known this for a while already have the skills and experience to actually do it :D


I'm, increasingly, of the school of thought that browser-centricity itself has to go. It's All Just Data ... the notion of "browser" is outdated. MS clearly think so too, because Longhorn is designed along exactly those lines, hence the integration of IE with the OS.

But if it's not done with respect for standards, MS will potentially lock themselves into to a niche market of Longhorn users, and everyone else will abandon MS for their competitors, exactly like that article suggests.

Well maybe; we'll have to see. What I'm hoping will come of this is that MS will, evntually, have no choice but to:

- release an SP2 for IE6 which addresses its most serious rendering bugs, non-standard implementations, and lack of support for CSS2
- ensure that Longhorn's HTML/JS/CSS rendering engine remains compliant on a par with its competitors

MS, as I understand it, don't really give a monkeys at the moment, because they think their proprietary offerings are better, and users will want them or feel they have no choice. And their proprietary offerings are very good, it can't be denied: MS make some damn good products.

But in the long run, they will probably have to do both - what they want to do, and standards compliance as well. Bit of a tall order really, but I don't think they have a great deal of choice if they want to maintain their market share for the next 10 years.

[theabyss]

I really don't understand Micro$lop. What happens if there's a technology in the next IE that's only available to Longhorm users? They'll be shutting out close to 80% of their users. Maybe more. Want if people don't want to upgrade?

I see Windows 95 & 98 a lot in my server access log. If they didn't upgrade from 95 in 8 years or from 98 in 5, why are they going to get Longhorn? Makes no sense what so ever :rolleyes:

Micro$lop better be careful about what they're doing, or they could drive the nail in their own proprietary coffin.

[meow]

Frankly I like the interface (the classic, still have IE5). I love how Moz renders pages but the chrome is too bulky for my taste. I like how I can just have a few buttons visible and shove them all together on one thin bar in IE. One of the reasons K-Mel is my favorite Gecko. I just wish they would work on it a little faster. :(

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by theabyss
I see Windows 95 & 98 a lot in my server access log. If they didn't upgrade from 95 in 8 years or from 98 in 5, why are they going to get Longhorn? Makes no sense what so ever :rolleyes:

Exactly!

I've used Longhorn... It is almost mistakable for XP. And a basic install takes a huge, 2.5 gigabytes!

In that article, the person with that bank mentioned how they can't implement any new features introduced with IE7/Longhorn because not enough of their users will have it, and that is exactly how most other people will and should see it. It has been discussed earlier in this thread about people's ignorance towards browser, specificly that they don't even under stand what it is and such. If that is the case, those same people have the same ignorance towards the OS, at least half of them probably don't realize they could upgrade them.

I think we are all in for an intresting few years ahead of us, with the eventual release of Longhorn and what changes it will cause in the web development community alone.

I think it would be better since with 2k/XP they have finally got a pretty stable OS, that they should just try and work all the bugs and security issues out of it. That would be a whole lot better, but of course that isn't going to happen.

[theabyss]

Yeah, it's definetly going to be interesting. I'm going to enjoy the chaos caused by rookie web designers that think a Longhorm feature will work with everyone. Pages will crumble, layouts will shatter, and Mozilla will reign supreme!!! :thumbsup:

I so totally agree with your sig. IE, goodbye and good riddance! :D

[MotherNatrsSon]

IE, you are the weakest link. Good bye!

Oh HAPPY Day!!!!:D

Although I do believe the gecko people are kind of doing the same thing for MAC users too. They are no longer putting out upgrades for OS Classic 8.6 to 9.2. There are alot of people still running those OS's too.

MNS

[meow]

And Opera got pissed about Safari and put O7 Mac on hold. A long hold.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982314.html>

[brothercake]

Originally posted by meow
I love how Moz renders pages but the chrome is too bulky for my taste. I like how I can just have a few buttons visible and shove them all together on one thin bar in IE.
That's what Firebird is for :) It hasn't got the chrome, just a lightweight interface written in XUL; and the toolbars are much more configurable - you can remove any buttons you don't want, even have bookmark folders on the toolbar :cool:

[Skyzyx]

Originally posted by MotherNatrsSon
Although I do believe the gecko people are kind of doing the same thing for MAC users too. They are no longer putting out upgrades for OS Classic 8.6 to 9.2. There are alot of people still running those OS's too.

Well, Steve Jobs announced at WWDC 2002 that Mac OS 9 should be considered dead to developers, as developers should be pushing forward to advance the OSX platform. Apple has done a tremendous job at making OSX an awesome OS... mush better than the half-cooked 10.0 that came out in March 2001. OSX 10.2 is definitely ready for prime-time, and 10.3 is expected to be even better.

Although most Macs that I use have OS9 on them, it was a wiser development move for them to move to an all-OSX codebase. I believe that they needed to make the wiser development move because they're the developers. Consumers need to roll with it, or hang on to their Moz 1.2.1.

Here are some links about the WWDC 2002 keynote address:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2002/05/wwdc/
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/05/06/daily10.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2002%2F05%2F07%2FBU244383.DTL&type=business
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,79336,00.asp

[meow]

Baaaah brothercake! I don't want more stuff on my toolbar. I want less.:D

Yes, Phonix is great but still bulky. Even the status bar is BIG. With the Compact Menu plugin I can have the menu options on a button and get rid of that bar but it's a clumsy solution. Doesn't beat shoving it all together. :o

K-Mel is extremely fast if you haven't tried it. The sad thing is that there's only a small number of developers and the thing never gets ready. It's those little things that are missing, like proper bookmarking. When it gets that it will become my default browser. I've waited for 2½ years now. :mad:

[MotherNatrsSon]

Originally posted by Skyzyx
Well, Steve Jobs announced at WWDC 2002 that Mac OS 9 should be considered dead to developers, as developers should be pushing forward to advance the OSX platform. Apple has done a tremendous job at making OSX an awesome OS... mush better than the half-cooked 10.0 that came out in March 2001. OSX 10.2 is definitely ready for prime-time, and 10.3 is expected to be even better.

Although most Macs that I use have OS9 on them, it was a wiser development move for them to move to an all-OSX codebase. I believe that they needed to make the wiser development move because they're the developers. Consumers need to roll with it, or hang on to their Moz 1.2.1.

Here are some links about the WWDC 2002 keynote address:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2002/05/wwdc/
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/05/06/daily10.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2002%2F05%2F07%2FBU244383.DTL&type=business
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,79336,00.asp

I wasn't talking developers. I am talking users, computer owners. As far as OS X is concerned, they can have it till they get ALL the bugs with printing figured out. I do too much in print to mess with how well 9 works vs. X. I also know many people that are still running OS 8.6 to 9x just like many people are running older versions of windoze. OS X just isn't worth it to most people because of the $$$ wrapped up in software alone.

MNS

[DougBTX]

Originally posted by brothercake
- it's there
- it works

You are forgetting that we are talking about ordinary users: Ordinary users don't care how it got there, via MS monopoly or not.

And another problem: Mozilla is to big, and Firebird is too small. The resut: they are first off not there (you have to go download them) and when you have them, they don't work, Mozilla because it is too slow, and the reason I don't use Firebird: because I couldn't be bothered to sort out all the extensions to make it work like Opera.

Later,
Douglas

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by DougBTX
Mozilla because it is too slow

In what respect? The loading time? That's because you have to turn the option on for it to load parts of it in RAM when you boot, just like IE automatically does. When you turn the option on, it loads just as fast , if not faster than IE.

I think Moz should have that option on by default.

[brothercake]

Originally posted by DougBTX
because I couldn't be bothered to sort out all the extensions to make it work like Opera.
Yeah I've had file association problems with Firebird, but to be fair it's not really firebird's fault. You using Win2K by any chance? that's notorious for screwing up registered applications / file handlers.

Another big advantage of Firebird is that it runs without installation - so you can use it on a computer wher you don't have installation priveleges/

[DougBTX]

Originally posted by brothercake
Yeah I've had file association problems with Firebird, but to be fair it's not really firebird's fault.

I mean like installing mouse gestures etc.

As for speed, I'm sure it's just my install, a general feeling of unresponsiveness (I just loaded it up, and clicking the menu there was about a half second lag before it highlighted menu items etc, and it doesn't like my autoscroll so I have to use my mouse wheel... which is just too slow :) ).

I'll have a go at installing 1.4 some time, the installer was crashing out on me before, so should work again.... but, I wouldn't use it as my main browser regardless, for the same reason that I wouldn't use IE: I just love having my email sitting in my "hotlist" panel :)

Douglas

[brothercake]

Fair .. it doesn't have the range of extensions and key-stroke preferences that Opera does .. if a powerful UI is your priority then Opera's definitely the best browser ... I also find Firebird sluggish on occassion, and no, I can't get auto-scroll to work either ..

Priorities I guess .. my priorities are standards-compliance and an ultra-minimal interface - no extraneous buttons or toolbars or anything I don't need, just basic controls and a big rendering surface that understands things like this ....

a[href*="."]:not([href*="http://"]):not([href*="mailto:"]):after {
content:" (http://www.morimarketdynamics.com/" attr(href) ")";
}

a[href*="http://"]:after {
content:" (" attr(href) ")";
}

And that's why I love it so much :)

[DougBTX]

Originally posted by brothercake
Fair .. it doesn't have the range of extensions and key-stroke preferences that Opera does ..

Try this: http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions.html

Its just I'm lazy :)

ultra-minimal interface

Well... how about this: just press F11 in Opera, not even a scroll bar :D (F2 to enter a URL, F4 to read email/bookmarks etc etc)


a[href*="."]:not([href*="http://"]):not([href*="mailto:"]):after {
content:" (http://www.morimarketdynamics.com/" attr(href) ")";
}

a[href*="http://"]:after {
content:" (" attr(href) ")";
}


Opera can do this part atleast :)

a:after {
content:" (" attr(href) ")";
}

Yea, see your point though :)

First day here and disagreing with people already :) Lovin' it ;)

Douglas

[brothercake]

Originally posted by DougBTX
First day here and disagreing with people already :) Lovin' it ;)
Ah yes .. as long as we're debating the usability merits of one compliant browser versus another, it's all civil and nice ...

... it's only when someone mentions IE that things get ugly :eek:

[DougBTX]

"I like IE because it comes is grey"

I normaly don't browse fullscreen, but I could get used to this space :)

Is there a way to swap tabs in fullscreen mode in Firebird?

Later,
Douglas

[brothercake]

Standard fullscreen in Firebird still shows the address bar and tabs; does in mine anyway.

Those Firebird extensions are cool .. nice to have auto-scroll :) That checky is pretty good as well .. but it only sends a referring URI ... in Opera 7 you can go Ctrl-Alt-V or "Frame > Validate source" and it will upload local webpages for validation :thumbsup: how cool is that :cool:

[theabyss]

Wow. A whole 8 pages :eek:

What is that <a href thing in CSS for? That looks really weird. It seems like it's printing "http://www.domainname.com/" before URIs, but couldn't you do that by setting it in the href itself?? Just kinda confused.

It's pretty cool how you can do that. You could add something to the hrefs in CSS that point the user to an advanced CSS page. Then, the rest would follow a normal page. Very cool :cool:

[brothercake]

Originally posted by theabyss
What is that <a href thing in CSS for? That looks really weird. It seems like it's printing "http://www.domainname.com/" before URIs, but couldn't you do that by setting it in the href itself?? Just kinda confused.
It's for a print stylesheet, so that when you print the page the URI of links is appended in brackets after the link text :cool:

Check out this thread for info - http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16367

[cubeddesign]

I've always felt that netscape was inferior. I'm glad to see it go.

[meow]

Validating pages? I've been doing that with a right click in IE as long as I can remember. Extensions aplenty for that browser. Nothing new under the sun. ;-)

http://htmlhelp.com/tools/widgets/#valid

[theabyss]

That's pretty cool. I'll have to research on that print function in CSS3 later. That would be really awesome to have on a page.

Hooray for me! This is post number 100 :eek: :D

[brothercake]

Yeah mate, those CSS3 selectors rock :thumbsup:

100 posts? Puh :p I've clocked up that many in a weekend ;)

[theabyss]

I did some calculations, and on average, it takes you 2.37 weeks to post 100 times. Not exactly a weekend, but it is an average, isn't it?? :D

It took me 12.5 weeks to get to 100, but I didn't post my first message until a month after I joined. So, I'm close to posting 100 posts every 6 weeks :cool:

<?edit:msg?>
I calculated 2.37 weeks out to full time format: 2 weeks, 2 days, 14 hours, 9 minutes and 39 seconds :D

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by brothercake
100 posts? Puh :p I've clocked up that many in a weekend ;)

lol....

[theabyss]

Hmmm. Maybe instead of just Mozilla, I should put "Web standards" as the strongest link? That would be a good idea because Mozilla isn't the only standards-compliant browser out there :cool: Would I link to the W3C???