Gecko is default engine in MacOS AOL

[jkd]

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-949345.html

Ah, just the Windows platform to go, and people will no longer be able to dismiss Gecko because of a small user base. :)

[mouse]

Hmm, anyone dumb enough to buy a Mac will be dumb enough to use Aol, a cunning strategy methinks...:eek:;)

Having used Aol I fear they'll mutilate the brower and end up doing more harm than good. Personally I'm using Moz 1.0 and have been for 3-4 weeks, my site looks the same in both, just good coding rather than cross browser testing..:cool:

[whackaxe]

even worse! macs bundeled with AOL installed and configured! what is the 'default' browser for macs? (without AOL that is)

[jkd]

I believe IE5/Mac is the default browser for MacOS systems. It really isn't a bad browser either, much more standards-compliant than IE6/Win, and a nice UI to boot. (I still prefer Mozilla though, or if you want MacOS rendering, Chimera - an embedded Gecko app)

[Feyd]

Originally posted by mouse
Hmm, anyone dumb enough to buy a Mac...

There are so many ways and reasons why I could rip that apart, but most of it would have to do with graphics and video editing so I'm just gonna go sulk...

[jkd]

My view on Macs are that they are expensive toys.
You get less performance, less software, and pay more money for something that oozes of style. I would never consider a Mac desktop, but I secretly dream of owning a Powerbook Titanium ;).

Anyway.. Gecko! Good! More users, also good! :)
Macs? Does it really matter? After all, you can still install Linux on it. :D

[Spookster]

Originally posted by mouse
Hmm, anyone dumb enough to buy a Mac will be dumb enough to use Aol, a cunning strategy methinks...:eek:;)



LOL Now that was funny. :thumbsup:

[brothercake]

Originally posted by jkd
My view on Macs are that they are expensive toys.
You get less performance, less software, and pay more money for something that oozes of style.


Macs give *far superior* performance in specific kinds of application, and that's why people use them.

I would have thought that the average mac user is likely to be more tech literate than the average PC user, so Mac AOL would be even more of a minority ...

[Spookster]

Originally posted by brothercake



Macs give *far superior* performance in specific kinds of application, and that's why people use them.


Yes, you are correct. They are far more superior at crashing. :D

[Kang He]

Originally posted by Spookster


Yes, you are correct. They are far more superior at crashing. :D

May I remind you of any PC with M$ Windblows ;)?

[brothercake]

What I was specifically referring to was audio latency. For music sequencing, x86 processors just aren't quick enough; it has to be a mac.

[whackaxe]

its true that a lot of people needing high ressources from their comp tend to choos macs (IE games devellopers, DJs, 3D moddeling and rendering). but for a desktop it just wouldnt do :D

[mouse]

x86 = overclocking = :D

Mac's just aren't silly enough, where's the TEC cooling, freon, 80mm Delta fans sounding like hurricanes (which they do btw).

[mouse]

Originally posted by whackaxe
its true that a lot of people needing high ressources from their comp tend to choos macs (IE games devellopers, DJs, 3D moddeling and rendering). but for a desktop it just wouldnt do :D Scratch games developers, even with the top gfx cards the Mac totally fails to produce the goods, a Ti4600 in a Mac allows 115fps where on a top P4 you can attain over 300fps. Even in photoshop independant benchmarks have shown the Mac isn't so hot.

[Spookster]

Originally posted by Kang He


May I remind you of any PC with M$ Windblows ;)?

Yes. I have M$ WindowsXP and it hasn't crashed once in the 6 months i've had it.

At one of my jobs Macs are used. Everything from the old powerpc macs to the newest G4. They all crash on average 5-10 times per day.

Speaking of designing graphics....We use Photoshop6 on those Macs and the Macs can barely handle it. My XP machine doesn't even flinch using Photoshop6.

[jkd]

... Gecko anyone? :D :)

You could always start a mac debate in another thread, but I know George likes to keep things on topic.

[Spookster]

Ok back on topic. I have rarely seen a Mac OS in the stats of all the many sites i've done over the years so I don't see the Gecko user base increasing dramatically based upon Mac users.

[brothercake]

There might be an increase in user base if AOL/Windows adopts Gecko - but I still don't think they will.

Because, AOL's main selling point is its ease of use for computer newbies. Gecko is not consistent with that, because so many websites look and behave so badly in gecko. Now I accept that, in virtually all cases, it's because that page has been badly designed or incorrectly coded in some way, but that's not the point. it is as it is, and all most users ever experience is the actual webpage, not the mechanics behind it.

AOL must realise this. If they switch to Gecko they will lose business faster than a kebab van at a Greenpeace conference.

[Spookster]

Have you seen the AOL interface lately? I think if they do switch to using NS6 you wouldn't even recognize it as being a browser. I remember many years ago the browser(IE variant they use) was pretty obvious but nowadays you can't even tell that it is a browser. I imagine that they would stick with that concept and the UI will not be recognizable as NS.

[jkd]

Originally posted by brothercake
Because, AOL's main selling point is its ease of use for computer newbies. Gecko is not consistent with that, because so many websites look and behave so badly in gecko.

You are in the minority for that viewpoint. Most people feel that Gecko displays most pages the way they expected IE to. And when I say most, I mean an overwhelming majority on the newgroups and comments I see on articles related to Mozilla or Gecko.

[boxer_1]

IMO, the average web user (not coder or knowing anything about coding, just the average surfer) has become accustom to the forgivig way that IE will render sloppy coding. Sloppy coding (at least to some degree) is present on a high percentage of the total sites on the Internet. I think that many users would be quickley turned away by the strickter Gecko browser. Many of the pages they might have visited in the past will simply be too sloppy for Gecko. Of course, not being coders, they won't realize that sloppy coding is to blame, but will blame the Gecko browser and long for IE.

Additionally, if the user is not a total newbie to surfing the net, chances are they'll be used to IE, and again, the forgiving way it will render sloppy coding. So, not only will they encounter sloppy coding problems they will attribute to the browser, they may also be faced with a browser they're not accustomed to using.

In closing, I don't know if this is going to spawn a whole bunch of new Gecko users and may have just the opposite effect, leaving them with a bad taste in their mouth for Gecko and turn them running to grab IE ;). Combine that with the AOL experience and, well...:rolleyes: .

[brothercake]

Originally posted by jkd
You are in the minority for that viewpoint. Most people feel that Gecko displays most pages the way they expected IE to. And when I say most, I mean an overwhelming majority on the newgroups and comments I see on articles related to Mozilla or Gecko.


I don't think I am - all the developers in the world still add up to a tiny minority compared with "normal" internet users - ie the vast majority of people who don't necessarily even understand the question "what browser do you use?"

My friend you should remember that the vociferous minority you encounter in mozilla and gecko newsgroups are not typical users; the pages sites they/you/we look at are not representative of the overwhelming norm.

what boxer_1 said ....

As I've said before (probably) the IE vs Gecko debate can be traced back to some core, fundamental problems with capitalism itslef (I believe); problems which the logic of our socio-economic system is not equipped to deal with. As long as we maintain market economics, this debate and countless others like it, will continue forever.

[jkd]

Originally posted by brothercake

My friend you should remember that the vociferous minority you encounter in mozilla and gecko newsgroups are not typical users; the pages sites they/you/we look at are not representative of the overwhelming norm.

I gathered that opinion from comments posted on independent reviews of the Mozilla, like on CNet, and Arstechnica, etc.

Naturally anything on a n.p.m.* newgroups is biased one way or another (trolls are naturally biased to IE on those newsgroups).

[brothercake]

what's a troll?

[jkd]

babelfish, a good definition of a troll:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/troll.html

[brothercake]

yeah I see what you're getting at.

I agree with on one level, but I have an intuition about what I feel the market will bear. Perhaps that's why it's the Mac AOL they've put it into first - to evaluate its impact.