Try to Make a Comeback

I think netscape will die a slow and painful death… again. Why would someone chose netscape? Internet Explorer is standard on a windows machine. Everyone knows it. Those that know of its issues with safety will most likely switch to Firefox.

The only people who’ll be using the new netscape may be AOL customers, because AOL is the owner of netscape (right?). But then again, AOL users arent really people

That may be true but it is nice to see Netscape fight either way. For so long (and still) most common internet users don’t really know you have a “choice” in what web browser to use. I remember when windows 98 first came out there was the big controversy of it being bundled with Internet Explorer and how it was unfair to other browsers because it would set a standard.

Turns out they were right. My parents don’t understand that the “internet” exists outside of internet explorer. Switching them over to firefox required much explaining.

The problem is without serious competition web browser progress will be halted. If everyone uses IE and that is that we all suffer the same setbacks. IE will not improve itself nearly as much as it would if there was another browser out there sucking up its users.

So preach on brother Cyrris!

Well, AOL actually signed a deal with Microsoft to use IE for a few more years. This Netscape release seems to be completely separate from AOL’s ISP service. Why Netscape decided to bring this out, I’m not sure, but I think it could be somewhat successful if they made a big advertising campaign, and got all the old Netscape users to try it out upon thinking “Hey, I remember that, I used Navigator back in the day”.

But if it’s going to be all bloaty and crap like the prototype is, it doesn’t stand much chance at all.

Man, that’s ugly. I could make a better theme in MS Paint.

The IE rendering is cool, though.

Well, let’s get one thing out of the way: the interface does look a lot like Netscape 7 and, in all fairness to it, that’s not a good thing. However, anything that chips away at a monopoly, even if the product itself isn’t actually all that good, has got to be a good thing. The sooner that other hardware platforms, operating systems and applications become heterogeneous, the better, particularly where the Internet is concerned and the whole bloody point of it was that it shouldn’t matter if you are using Window, Linux, UNIX, etc. Words cannot describe how annoying it is to find that a web site has designed so that only Internet Explorer can use it when they could have designed it such that all browsers could. And yet IE is undoubtedly one of the worst browsers available at the moment, in terms of usability, and a shocking security record to boot. How the hell does it still manage to dominate with the quantity of bad press that it gets?

The is true of Windows at the moment. I blame offices for this. People use Windows at work and then use it at home as well because, hey, it’s what I know. But let’s be fair to it, Windows is dire at the moment and Longhorn is still years away. Again, I despair that this operating system manages to dominate the market and therefore determines what gets made for it and what, more importantly, what the rest miss out on. Seriously, the Mac OS X is so much better than XP at the moment it’s stupid, but yet it still only holds a tiny fraction of the market and much of the major focus goes to the worst OS out there at the moment.

This isn’t really a pro-Apple statement, just anti-monopoly when the dominant products are utter crap. Go Linux, Go Apple, Go Solaris!!! Hell, anyone that can know MS Windows down to something like only 70% of the market.

It’s good to see that Netscape is still willing to get up and have another go after being brutally raped by a certain Mr Gates Esq. , but that cluttered interface and big download isn’t going to win a lot of IE users over.

Actually, whatever happened to the ruling that Microsoft had to stop providing Internet Explorer with Windows as it was anti-competitive? It obviously was never implemented but I’m wondering how they ever managed to get out of that one, particularly since the EU seems to have managed to force them to provide versions of Windows XP without sodding Media Player.

I still wish the split had come into effect. One company for Windows, one company for the other products. Would have made much sense and would have been very fair.

Anyhow, they recently released a newer interface for the prototype review people to look at. I took a screenshot which can be found right here. Much less cluttered, but I think the fact that it doesn’t even have the usual WinXP title bar, and has the menu in the top right, is going to make IE users very uncomfortable switching to it.

Bah. I like my internet explorer as a browser. Its fast and it works very nice. I tried to switch to FF several times, but never found it worth it.

@ Kelmon

I’ve tried slackware linux. I’ve tried mandrake linux. I’ve used Mac OS X (but only a few times). I prefer windows over all. Why? Because linux is a userunfriendly piece of ****. Sure its stable. its what runs my webserver. But I dont want to spend 2 days working on drivers, packages and whatnot just to get my OS to run. So shoot me. I want something that I install, and that works. and Windows XP Pro does this very well.

Mac OS X is a whole different thing alltogether. Not only does it NOT run all my software (just like linux), it also requires me to buy a whole new pc. One which, even though being inferior to its x86 (64) equivalent, is vastly more expensive. Not to mention upgrade costs. I’ve seen what Mac ram costs, and I tell you, its insane.

I run windows XP, and off all OSes I’ve tried, its the best. I have never had it crash on me, it has awesome native hardware support (seriously lacking in linux) and runs my games better than any windows. So I use it. And I use Internet Explorer. Its fast and it doesnt give me shit. So sue me.

The only thing I’ve found worth switching to has been the switch from Outlook to Thunderbird. <3 @ spamfilter.

To be fair to it, Windows does have a number of things going for it (cheap hardware and good support are big selling points), but it is inferior these days and the gap is only get bigger. It is quite possible that you’ve been lucky but after 2 XP machines I am thankful for something else, particularly as a mobile user. It’s probably a case of what you are used to but Windows needs to learn a thing or two for Longhorn. For example, which idiot designed the Maximise button for a Window? The OS X version simply gives the window as much space as it wants and no more. Makes much more sense unless you like manually resizing a windows that suddenly no fill your entire screen yet only need a small area. It’s little things like that…

To be honest, the RAM prices aren’t that bad. Another 512MB for a laptop set me back around EUR 90, which I thought wasn’t bad. It’s expensive if you buy Apple’s own stuff (much like all their products) but you don’t have to.

It’s a fair comment about having to replace your software. I didn’t have much to begin with on XP that was I bothered about keeping (most of my games were traded in for a Gamecube and Metroid Prime a few months before) or buying new software for the Mac wasn’t that painful, particularly with a student discount. Oddly, Office on the Mac is a lot better than on the PC with the exception of not having Access and OneNote. The formatting palette is something that I really miss in Office 2003…

Anyway, what I was trying to get at was that no operating system/browser should have the market domination that Windows/Internet Explorer does. It stiffles competition and leads to stagnation. Let’s be fair to it, neither Windows nor Internet Explorer have made any real improvements over that past 5 years. Windows 2000 was a leap for the system but after that it is like they couldn’t be bothered any more (and hey, why should they when they have the market in the bag?). Shame…

True, but the steady market decline has alerted those at microsofts IE development, and a big update is planned before the longhorn release. It will most likely include tabbed webbrowsing, among other things. Who knows, perhaps they’ll do what netscape did and allow the user to use the mozilla renderer.

To be honest, I hope that MS don’t bother and other systems are able take a major share of the market. For computing, that’s a “good thing”. One company that dominates the market means that whenever the next security flaw is found or the next worm comes along, the majority of the computing world is vulnerable. Even the major research groups recommend using different operating systems/applications so that when the shit hits the fan (and it can do so on any system) that your entire organisation isn’t on the receiving end. Yeah, support isn’t fun but it’s quite clear that if one system is dominant then it becomes the target and we have lots of problems. I don’t doubt for a moment that OS X is riddled with holes. However, since it is a completely different system, Windows and IE security flaws just don’t impact me.

Computing needs a mix of architectures that can communicate with each other through middleware in order reduce the impact of cracker groups.

Basically, MS isn’t good for the market because they aren’t prepared to innovate unless they are threatened. Once a larger group of companies has a share of the market then no-one will have any choice but to continue innovating. As soon as one reaches a dominant position then it’s bad news for everyone…

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to reboot XP for the 3rd time this morning…

Microsoft is becoming a lot more secure. The problems began once microsoft as (perhaps the only one) saw that you needed to make pc’s easy to use to make them attractive to the big public. This is why they are so big today. The thing was that with win 95, 98 and ME more focussed on usability than stability and security. With windows 2000 and XP the focus got a lot more on stability and security again.

The problem is mostly user related. Sure, once in a while a critical hole is discovered that doesnt have a good solution right away. But what you see with all the virusses is that they use old holes. People using old versions of windows, or unpatched versions, get targetted and apparently thats a lot of people. It is however not microsofts fault if people are too dumb to upgrade or patch.

I havent had a virus on my windows XP pro pc. Ever. Why? Because I run Norton Antivirus and autoupdate my windows, including service packs. If people forget to patch or update, then claim that their out of date windows is so vulnerable, well DUH.

It really is amazing how many system administrators neglect to update regulary. Not to mention home users.

Also don’t forget that without microsoft, consumer computing would have been very different. Like it or not, microsoft did succeed in what all the others failed: bringing the pc to the average (dumb) users home. Sure, they have a lot of flaws, but all OSes have their own flaws. I dont think Microsoft is the big anti-christ of software many make it out to be.

To be honest, every monopoly is the anti-christ and Microsoft just happens to be a very good example of why it is bad. First, they’ve got the market by the balls and can charge what the hell they like and there’s almost sod all that anyone can do about it. Secondly, once they’ve reached their position they stop innovating and rely on the cash cows of Windows and Office (it’s been years since either have done anything new yet business keeps needing the new version else the support gets cut off). I’ve nothing but respect for a company that bets its entire existence on an innovative product but the position that it has achieved is simply damaging to the market as a whole.

I’d love to see Apple take a reasonable share of the market since the simply deserve it with OS X. Equally, Sun’s Solaris operating system is really rather good (along with the UltraSPARC processors) but they just can’t market for toffee. Linux is the only one that stands much of a chance of making a dent and all power to them.

I just want to see a competitive market and therefore vote for the underdog on this one. Besides, if I see another web site that NEEDS Internet Explorer, I’ll go nuts. Honestly, how crap is that? “Just must use the worst, least secure browser to use this web site”. That’s just poor…

I agree, but thats the fault of the website maker, not microsoft.

More competition would be nice, and I think it will get there once the other OSes can deliver that Windows can. Full hardware support for the x86 (64) platform, great software compatibility and ease of use. And I must say mandrake has at least the ease of use thing down, and the hardware support wasnt that bad either.

Actually, I think it’s more the fault of the alternate browser-manufacturers.

As a website designer, would it really be worth my while adding extra code to the page so that 0.1% of people who come to the site have no problems? Or should I just care about the other 99.9% ?
(as it stands, I don’t mind making sure that my site is compatible to most users, but it’s hardly the most complicated site in the world…)

As for why more people use XP and IE, Kelmon - it’s simple; they’re very user friendly and - these days at least - almost completely error free (I’ve had one IE CTD, and that was because I had 40 windows open and was trying to open a new one via Trillian (what?))

You can’t blame people for using something that’s simply easier to use. FF et al generally have lots of lovely features, and ‘customisations’ you can do - but that just sounds like ‘extra work’ to the average user; most don’t want to have to fanny about with their browser settings before they can do anything else.

You can’t blame MS for making a more attractive, and - to most end users - better product, just as you can’t blame site designers for catering to the vast majority of their visitors.

As a website designer, would it really be worth my while adding extra code to the page so that 0.1% of people who come to the site have no problems? Or should I just care about the other 99.9% ?

IE’s market share is generally accepted to be at about 90%. That leaves 10% of internet users - quite a few million people - and ignoring them isn’t a practice that any web designer should be in to. We need to remember that the only reason IE is more widely supported is because it accepts broken code, and so now every man and his dog can make his website in 5 minutes instead of taking the extra 10 minutes validating and bug squishing.

But now, IE’s non-standards compiance means that good designers who do wish to cater for 100% of net users have to add countless design hacks to make sure it works in IE as well as the standard compliant browsers. So overall, we’ve seen a rise in production time, and lots of unnecessary code in websites meaning they take longer to load.

Yup, welcome to good ol’ Catch-22. People don’t want to use other browsers because many web sites won’t display or even work without IE, and web site designers don’t want to have to spend the extra effort to design their sites to standards. Yes, you damned right I blame MS for this. Standards are there for a reason and if you don’t follow them then you end up with a fragmented market where, in this case, MS got the biggest fragment by a long shot and their bodged implementation means that other browsers have to use MS’s “standard” or risk people not used.

In terms of MS making a better product, that’s highly disputable. What isn’t disputable is that they make the product that everyone is familiar with and that’s the real reason why they are in the position that they are. No one really likes Windows. I defy anyone not to have sworn at the OS for having done something really dumb. I have never worked anywhere where Windows wasn’t a swear word of some description. However, we all use it because that’s what is standard and therefore when we buy something for ourselves we buy Windows because, hey, I know how that works. Been there, done that, got off the bus…

Seriously, how can anyone argue that Windows is a better product when they make such design decisions as The Windows Registry. Yes, kids, let’s implement a single point of failure that every program scans and makes the system slower as it expands in size. Marvellous. Which muppet came up with that? No one else implements such a system because no one else is that much of an idiot…

Anyway, I’m throwing in the towel on this one. I’m going to continue cheering for Netscape, FireFox, Safari, Opera or anyone who challenges a monopoly with a good product.

But now, IE’s non-standards compiance means that good designers who do wish to cater for 100% of net users have to add countless design hacks to make sure it works in IE as well as the standard compliant browsers. So overall, we’ve seen a rise in production time, and lots of unnecessary code in websites meaning they take longer to load.

I disagree. Remember my W3C compliant website which DID work in IE and DIDNT work in firefox? You had to get all funky to make it work in firefox too. Generally FF has better standard compliancy, but not always. Besides, perhaps they should make their renderer as robust as IE’s, so those ‘broken’ websites work too.

That said, I do agree that people should follow the standards at least enough so that a website works in both IE and firefox (I personally feel no need to support even more like Opera, Netscape and Konqueror).

defy anyone not to have sworn at the OS for having done something really dumb.

True, but I have yelled at my linux box a whole lot more.

I do like windows, at least over the other OSes I’ve used. It doesnt have those fancy (and in my view utterly pointless and ugly) skins (ok it has the windows xp theme which sux but I always set it to classic). And it runs all my programs like a dream, and it doesnt crash anymore like windows 9x did. Period. Thats all I’m looking for. I honestly dont give a flying fuck wether or not they’re good for the OS market, as long as they’re good for ME.

That said, I do agree that people should follow the standards at least enough so that a website works in both IE and firefox (I personally feel no need to support even more like Opera, Netscape and Konqueror).

Well, the great thing about W3C’s standards means that if you get a site working in Firefox, it will also most likely work fine in Opera, Safari, Netscape, and Konquerer. That’s the whole idea of standards - browsers displaying the same code in a reasonably similar way. IE is just the odd one out.

Well, fair enough. I’ll just part with the comment that the windows concept can be done better and OS X is living proof of this. Yeah, it’s a shame that the two platforms are completely incompatible at a compiled-code level (at least without employing something like VirtualPC 7, which I ought to get at some point). Tiger looks as though it will open the gap more, particularly with Automator and Spotlight, but since they remain incompatible with x86 processors and Windows software, it is unlikely to make much more of a dent in the market. To be honest, the thing that is shifting Macs more than anything else is the iPod, purely because it has a much bigger exposure. At the end of the day there is little that can be done on Windows that cannot be done on OS X but much that cannot be done the other way around. I hope that Microsoft does a lot with Longhorn to bring Windows up to date but given that they have postponed major features like the WINFS file system, I doubt it is going to offer any compelling reason to upgrade, although I hope to be proved wrong since I will undoubtedly have to use it at some time.

Oddly, we can perhaps have a reverse discussion about the iPod since it dominates a market that MS, along with everyone else, is trying to penetrate. And, to be fair, some of the same arguments can be levied at the iPod because it doesn’t offer video at the moment and its damned expensive. However, having never actually used an MP3 (let alone modern versions), I can’t really offer an opinion either way.

That’s the whole idea of standards - browsers displaying the same code in a reasonably similar way. IE is just the odd one out.

I hate shooting my own argument/rant in the foot, but I think that Opera has/had a problem as well as I note code in a CSS file that I “borrowed” that has a section called the “Be Nice To Opera” rule, but needs to be implemented because IE5 can’t implement the box model properly and the hack needed causes problems in Opera. Not strictly Opera’s fault but given that it seems to be the only browser impacted I presume that something non-standard is at work there…