Mozilla Poised for Revival?

MarkedMan writes "An interesting and fairly lengthy CNET article on Mozilla and the pending 1.0 release. Kind of shallow research, making some common mistakes (Like many others, he half implies that AOL picking Mozilla as the default browser automatically puts 35 million users in the Netscape camp.) Good to see this getting some fairly mainline press."

AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[Grasshopper]

I've seen a lot of comments that seem to totally discard any significance coming from AOL using Mozilla as the base of its browser.

If nothing else, this seems particularly important to me because it will force more Web developers to stop using IE as a test browser.

With the poorest standards compliance of all browsers, this has created a flood of these "Best Viewed with Internet Explorer" pages, because they write THML, Javascript, etc. that is broken.

Now, if these broken Web sites are revealed as such by a larger audience, we could see some improvements in the overall quality, because something tells me the typical AOL user will happily complain about anything. :)

Re:Now pretty good

[einstein]

even if after a year is spent trying to fix the commercial source, they abandon the crappy commercial code and start over from scratch? I love Mozilla, think it is a great browser (now), but I'm not sure if it should really be a poster child for OSS.
(running Konqueror 3.0.0-2)
---

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[Digitalia]

Yet, if the majority continues to use Internet Explorer, those who do use Mozilla will consider their browser to be the one defying standards. Though we try and impose ideals on software and hwardware, the only true standards come about when the majority of users embrace a certain idea. In this case, Microsoft has the ability to establish "standards" because of superior market share.

Re:Even if

[Captain Pooh]

How many AOL users know they are using IE?. I remeber on a radio show pcradioshow [pcradioshow.org] The host asked what browser he was using, and he replied with AOL.

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[Grasshopper]

I believe, however, that your typical AOL user isn't going to jump ship on a whim because a few Web sites are broken. I don't think these people will instantly conclude that their AOL software is broken, which is what it seems like you are suggesting.

Rather, it will seem like the Web site is broken, which is what I would love to see. :) After all, all these broken Web sites with screwed up HTML (tables especially - ugh!), JavaScript, and especially anything that's intentionally IE-specific deserve it. When 35 million additional users can't use your Web site because you have crap code, there's a compelling reason to fix it.

This "fixing" that I am optimistically hoping will happen is what I think the biggest benefit might be.

Re:All right

[hex1848]

You have to remember, many of the 35 million users that are going to get Netscape on the new AOL coaster (err, cd) are also going to be windows users with IE already installed on their boxen.

Get Real.

[Doktor Memory]

Folks, I have a newsflash for you. AOL is never, ever going to use Gecko/Mozilla as its default browser. Not in 8.0, not in any version.

This is all about negotiating leverage: AOL's contract with Microsoft is up for renewal, and they want to squeeze the best terms possible out of MS to ensure that the little AOL icon is on as many OEM Windows desktops as possible. So they'll threaten and bluster about dumping IE for Gecko, and in the end MS will make a few token concessions and AOL will re-up with IE.

For all of their public bravado, MS and AOL's executives are both painfully aware that their respective near-monopolies are entirely dependent upon a mutual detente. Neither one can survive without the other.

If you just Try it

[KingKire64]

The Last time i used netscape was like 6 years ago. I fully believed IE was better and booted faster.

2 months ago i heard Moz was making good prograss and seing how IE 6 is Junk(keeps freezing when Looking up DNS) I gave Moz a shot. I am converted.

I dont have to worry about pop up ads and VIruses. I say if We just Get Ppl to acutally try it the word of mouth with spread.

Just think of what will happed whejn AOL includes it with AOL 8?(is that what the next number wil be?) Kudos to the devs they put out a great product

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[TheTomcat]

I don't think these people will instantly conclude that their AOL software is broken, which is what it seems like you are suggesting.

Why not?
Especially if these users are used to browsing the web at work (with IE), or are upgrading from a previous version of AOL, or are coming from a different service (to AOL? yeah.. it COULD happen).

"It USED to work. This new AOL x.y is messed up. I'm going to call Customer Service."

AOL will then have to a) explain to the users that the web sites they're viewing are not standards-compliant, which most people won't care about, and will just want their AOL to work, or b) start trying to support non-standard technologies in the AOL release, which will be hard or impossible, and could lead to them eventually switching back to IE.

Yes, I'm cynical. I hope for the best, but I'm realistic.

S

but they do not know that

[stego]

It has been my experience that a great percentage of AOL users simply do not know that they can use any browser other than 'AOL'. They do not think of it as a browser, but an application called 'AOL'. ('How can you run AOL in Internet Explorer?' 'Can it run in Word, too?')

What are you talking about?

[HanzoSan]

Its Microsoft who refused to deal with AOL not the other way around.

AOL wanted a deal, Microsoft said AOL would have to ditch AIM, Winamp and Realplayer, AOL would have to use Microsofts Media Player, MSN IM and IE in their product?!

Please, AOL is not spending millions if not billions of dollars so they can waste it in a deal with Microsoft.

AOL purchased netscape, made AIM, purchased ICQ and Winamp because they knew at some point it would come down to this

ITs all part of a bigger plan, now that AOL is Time Warner, AOL is bigger than Microsoft and does nt NEED a deal, AOL is set to take Microsoft out.

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[antis0c]

Good Web Developers hit up w3.org's validators for testing compliance. Even better Web Developers would also use PHP, Perl, [favorite server side language here] to further fix compatiblities with broken IE and other browser functionality. IE 6 also follows HTML 4.01/Transitional to spec IIRC. However, you must defined the DOCTYPE to HTML 4.01 Transitional or it will revert to Microsoft's bastardized HTML. Which you'd have to do to be following 4.01 spec anyway. I can't say for CSS or JavaScript though ..

AOL Pushing Mozilla

[ltsmash]

he half implies that AOL picking Mozilla as the default browser automatically puts 35 million users in the Netscape camp When ever has a MAJOR company been successful in pushing a product on users?

Mozilla 1.0 and Microsoft's Mac Strategy

[Schlemphfer]

One big appeal of Mozilla is that, with this browser, non-Wintel users aren't second-class citizens.

IE 6.0 for Windows came out last August. Yet Mac users still aren't even at the 5.5 version -- the most current version for Macs is still 5.1.

The unstated message Microsoft sends to Mac users is, "You want the coolest, latest browser, then switch to Windows. If you want your browser to be two years obsolete, stick with your little toy Mac."

With the release of Mozilla 1.0, this browser will be giving IE some heavy competition -- particularly on non-Wintel platforms. It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft suddenly starts offering Mac users a much more current and attractive version of IE. And if they do, the question will be: why weren't they doing this all along?

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[sphealey]

Especially if these users are used to browsing the web at work (with IE), or are upgrading from a previous version of AOL, or are coming from a different service (to AOL? yeah.. it COULD happen). "It USED to work. This new AOL x.y is messed up. I'm going to call Customer Service."

Do you do much front line technical support? When something goes wrong, 99.99% of humans blame whatever is farthest away from them, whatever is least under their control, or some combination of those two entities.

Things I have observed:

• End user types wrong data directly into input screen, presses enter, naturally gets wrong result. All other software works as before. "There must be a bug in this software"

• E.U. downloads software from Internet (say IE6 or Netscape 6.0), installs, new software crashes and blue-screens the PC on every startup. "There must be something wrong with the configuration of this PC".

  E.U. goes to old PC, fires up Netscape 2.0, surfs to site which says in big, bold letters: YOU MUST USE IE4/Netscape 4 TO VIEW THIS SITE, gets garbage. "There must be something wrong with this web site".

The absolutely last thing the end user will do is blame the AOL 7 software. After all, AOL is their friend, the web site designer is not.

sPh

Using Mozilla everywhere

[steveha]

I use Mozilla or Galeon everywhere now. Some web sites detect which browser you are using, and if they don't see "IE" or "Netscape" they won't let you in.

So I have changed my user agent string, and both Mozilla and Galeon now claim to be Netscape 4.0. Given how buggy and crash-prone 4.0 was, everyone is using 4.7x if they are really using Netscape, so "Netscape 4.0" ought to be a red flag in a server log.

Here is my user agent string for Mozilla:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Mozilla 0.9.9; Debian GNU/Linux;)

So there is at least a chance that if webmasters look at the server logs, they can see that I'm actually using Mozilla. If they just use scripts to tally what browsers have visited their sites, and the scripts ignore the "compatible" remark, my visits will show up as Netscape 4.0... oh well, no trick is perfect.

Here is what you put into prefs.js to set the user agent string this way:

user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Mozilla 0.9.9; Debian GNU/Linux;)")

Mozilla can handle every web site I care about, if it can get in. This trick lets it in.

Maybe Mozilla should have a feature that lets you set the user agent string on a per-site basis! That way we could be leaving "Mozilla" in the logs on most sites, and only lying to the sites that won't let Mozilla in.

steveha

Re:Get Real.

[tswinzig]

Folks, I have a newsflash for you. AOL is never, ever going to use Gecko/Mozilla as its default browser. Not in 8.0, not in any version.

This is all about negotiating leverage: AOL's contract with Microsoft is up for renewal, and they want to squeeze the best terms possible out of MS to ensure that the little AOL icon is on as many OEM Windows desktops as possible.

So AOL spent millions of dollars funding Mozilla development, buying ICQ, WinAmp, etc. just so they can make a deal with Microsoft?

Or did they do all that to have answers to MSIE, MSN Messenger, and Windows Media Player?

Then again, I don't presume to issue my opinions as "news flashes."

P.S. With the remedy phase against Microsoft coming, I don't think AOL Time Warner is quite as scared of Microsoft as you think.

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[Hoo00]

It is hard to copy Microsoft's standards, but it is easy for Mozilla to simply follow the W3C standard [w3c.org]. Then we will see who is defying the standards, though many AOL users may not know the difference.

Capital One/Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, until we weed out the lame, lazy web developers like those at Capital One. It doesn't mean a thing. If you try to use Netscape 6.X or Mozilla (any version) you get a graphic that says this browser isn't supported and that Netscape 6.x and Mozilla do not even support 128bit SSL connections. I find this absolutely frelled up because when you go to Netscape.com you get pelted with Capital One ads.

Lets face it. Until the MCSD and Frontpageish web developers get fired and we go back to testing websites for absolute W3C compliance. It's bloody fruitless to talk about or get excited about.

Generalizations like that are typically foolish.

[Lendrick]

Over the course of my employment--about three years now--I've rewritten over four applications from scratch... and it's the best thing that could have ever happened to the code.

The problem with application development is that new features tend to get tacked on over the years. Joe Idiot Manager says, "Ahh, it looks good, but can you make it do my laundry?" and all of a sudden, you're given a chice: either hack on a modification to make the code do something it wasn't originally intended to do, or rewrite it from scratch. The first choice is quicker the first few times through, but programs grow more and more buggy and cumbersome as more and more extra features are hacked into the code. Pretty soon, you're left with a horrid, unmaintainable mess that has tons of random, hard-to-find bugs--much like Netscape 4.x.

If you're writing a piece of software the second time around, you know what mistakes you made the first time, and can avoid them. Mozilla may have taken longer to write because it was written from scratch, but you can be damn sure it's a better browser than it would have been had it been based on the Netscape 4 code. The Mozilla project wouldn't have thrown away all that code unless they had a good reason to do so, and anyone outside the project who arbitrarily says they should have kept it is talking out of their ass.

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[56ker]

"the majority continues to use Internet Explorer" - because it comes with the OS that the majority of people use. Getting people to download something new & use it is a bit of a chicken and an egg situation. They won't use it till their friends use it so it ends up with IE remaining dominant. However if (and it seems very unlikely) AOL bundled it with their CDs lots of people would be using it & that would convince other non-AOL users to change from IE to Mozilla.

Re:Just proves Joel's point

[Ereth]

How do you reconcile Joel's "never rewrite code from scratch" with Brooks' "Plan to throw one away. You will anyway"?

Re:but they do not know that

[Asprin]

It has been my experience that a great percentage of AOL users simply do not know that they can use any browser other than 'AOL'. They do not think of it as a browser, but an application called 'AOL'. ('How can you run AOL in Internet Explorer?' 'Can it run in Word, too?')

I'm up for some good old-fashioned AOL-bashing, so let's *really* pile on, eh?

The AOL cluelessness is so rampant...

...[how rampant is it?]

It's so rampant that in my neck of the woods, AOL's renaming their products to accomodate. Apparantly, a large section of the AOL community is confused enough by "Internet Service Provider" that Time-Warner is now running radio ads billing their RoadRunner Cable-Modem service as (((DEEP shudder))) "The RoadRunner High-Speed Online". [gack!]

Re:AOL Using Mozilla/Netscape

[Suppafly]

"Best with Internet Explorer"

People that put stuff like that on their sites are morons anyway. If they halfway good at doing simple html and make a few mistakes here and there, it'll render just about the same in every browser anyway..

Re:funny browser compatibility experience

[Acoustic_Nowhere]

Also, I find it very difficult to believe that 95% of their customers are on a browser that was released about 7 months ago. You could say that this is a statistical improbability!

Re:Why I prefer Mozilla

[Bedouin X]

Tried Optimoz [mozdev.org]?

Re:funny browser compatibility experience

[flacco]

But you have to appreciate your credit union's point of view. They need to do what they can to keep their costs down.

They could do that by coding to W3C standards and letting browser makers do their job - conforming to standards.

Mouse gestures in Mozilla

[mr3038]

Yeah, mouse gestures rock. Especially because I can easily make my own actions. For example my middle mouse button opens link in new tab in the background. However, if I drag to right while pressing middle mouse button on link it opens link in new tab in the foreground. Dragging up, right and down closes all the other tabs in my copy too.

After you have installed [mozdev.org] mouse gestures from Optimoz [mozdev.org] simply edit .../chrome/mozgest/content/gestimp.js to modify gestures as you like.

However, there's a bug [mozdev.org] that causes install to fail partially in some of the latest nightly builds. After install you have to edit .../chrome/mozgest/content/ pref/mozgestPrefOverlay.xul and replace all occurrences of "outliner" with "tree" to make preferences work (pref should be the in the advanced preferences branch, after editing you need to restart Mozilla). Do this only if you cannot see "Mouse Gestures" pref in the Advanced preferences brach.

Re:but they do not know that

[toopc]

That's fucking ridiculous. I had to take a test to get married in the Catholic church but we let tons of unwashed lusers onto the net without any kind of supervision or licensing at all! We really really REALLY need an Internet license with a stringent testing structure that covers basic OSI layer model, networking fundamentals, netiquette, etc.

What an amazingly elitist attitude. Why should you care if someone doesn't know they can use more than one browser? How does it possibly effect you if some AOL user sitting in his house browses the web with his modified version of IE rather than Mozilla?

It's amazing the number of people who measure a person's worth by their ability to operate a computer. Next time you're in need of some surgery, pick your doctor based on his knowledge of Linux rather than his ability to cut you open and put you back together without killing you. One slip of the scapel and you'll realize that computer knowlege is not the ultimate arbiter of intelligence or ability.

The only people whose value should be measured by their ability to efficiently and intelligently use a computer are people who use them to make their living. I know this may be hard to believe, but some people just don't care about computers any more than any other appliance.

You might as well except that the web isn't going back to the days when only geeks knew about it. If you can't deal with that, put on some Nirvana tunes and try the Wayback Machine [archive.org]. You can pretend it's 1992 and all is right in the computing world (and think of all the money you'll make on the upcoming dot-com bull market!).