Web Standards Project Blasts Netscape 419
Spasemunki writes "Mozillazine is running a link to (and commentary on)this letter written by the Web Standards Project, blasting Netscape for failing to deliver on Netscape 5/6 in a timely fashion. They argue that the inability of NS to produce a ready-for-prime-time, standards compliant browser has made it harded to coax other developers into adopting standards, and that the zombie-like continued existance of Netscape 4 in its various .x's represents an ongoing offense to standards compliance. These criticisms have been around for a while, but the WSP sums them up well, and gives Mozilla advocates (myself included) some things to answer to."
Re:my take on standards (Score:2)
Not beautiful, but usable, under (IIRC) a BSD-style license, and
currently the best way to render MathML (though Mozilla is working on
it).
There is a homepage [w3.org] for it at
www.w3c.org.
Here's the Milestone Plan (Score:2)
Or:
I have to admit, it took me a while to be able to find the MS plan on purpose. . .
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
win32 moz is great! (Score:3)
I use it for everything now. Most of the major bugs are worked out and only in occasional nightlies does something weird happen.
GO GET ONE YOURSELF - NIGHTLY BUILDS [mozilla.org]
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Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
sure, blame the monopoly... (Score:5)
I'm a former Netscape supporter. I didn't leave because of the Monopoly. I left because Netscape hadn't released anything that didn't suck in well over a year, and Mozilla was ages away from being usable.
Its been a year since then, and whats changed? Netscape hasn't released anything that doesn't suck in well over two years now, and Mozilla still isn't usable compaired to IE.
Thats where the biggest loss of market share has come. People like me aren't computer gods, but we're vocal enough that we do make a difference. People come and ask me for browser help, and I use to tell them that they could solve many of their IE problems by installing Netscape. Do I tell them that anymore?
Of course not. Now I tell them that they can solve their Netscape problems by installing IE.
Its sad, I'd rather support Netscape. But when they ask me for advice on whats best for them, 99% of the time the answer is IE. Occasionally I recommend Opera (which I'm using right now) to people I figure will like it, but its definately not suited to the average user.
So please, don't try to pin the blame on the monopoly. In my experience, far more people have switched then have never heard of Netscape. Many of those have switched because people like me were forced into advising them to switch, because Netscape gave us nothing to work with, while Microsoft does.
(its probably also important to mention that yes, many people haven't herad of Netscape these days. But why would you hear of it? Don't blame the monopoly. Blame lack of word of mouth. Napster spread like wildfire because people were talking about it. Nobody is talking about Netscape because it sucks right now. If Mozilla.org can come out with something better then IE, people will start talking and it'll catch on. Trying to hide behind the claim of the evil Redmond giant when its really Netscape's own fault is pretty silly there MozillaZine.)
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
Hey, I do agree with many of the WaSP's statements, and I really would like Mozilla to be in an usable state for the common user, but please, let's get our facts straight before whining...
I cannot believe the people who claim they use Mozilla daily.
I do. I grab the nightlies every day, and they're my main web browser / e-mail client / news reader. I usually keep 3 installs: Netscape PR1, the last working nightly ("working" means "renders all my pages ok"), and the freshest nightly, from the day before.
Of course there are many bugs I would like to get rid of, like the transitional DTD bug that makes pages look like crap, and sometimes the slowness of the mail/news reader gets on my nerves... but it's very usable, and more stable than IE5 in my machine (yeah, you read that right).
Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap. window.open() is not implemented, for example.
Simply not true. First, because JavaScript in Mozilla works like a charm. Second, because window.open() has been working for ages.
I use lots of JavaScript in the pages around here, and they all work well with Mozilla.
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Marcelo Vanzin
Re:Mozilla WILL Change things (Score:5)
I find this amusing because these are Microsoft's tactics. So many people are tied into one software solution and so they really are forced into using certain applications. AOL really is trying to use the Microsoft strategy by distributing applications such as Winamp, Netscape (Mozilla), AOL Instant Messenger, and ICQ with their popular Internet connection software. I guess I just find it funny that someone from a community advocating open standards and free software (as in speech,) is suggesting that the tactics that AOL will use will benefit the community.
Whats the problem? (Score:4)
On my Mac (I also have a Sparc and a K6 so I'm not some idiot Mac zealot) I started running iCab. It is great. The binary is less than 2MB, it can run happily in 5MB ram, its fast, doesn't crash as often as Netscape and NEVER takes down the whole computer. It supports java and its java script support is improving. It is quite usable and standards compliant.
Why can the company making iCab release a stable, fast, *usable* web browser and Netscape, with all its power can't?
Andrew
Frothing at the mouth (Score:5)
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Even being a rabid (frothing at times) web standards supporter, I don't like this.
Being heavily involved with the web, I have been following Mozilla extremely closely since the day Netscape released the code. I have downloaded and tinkered with the code, to help understand how things work, and to hopefully/eventually help them fix bugs.
As a software engineer I can say that a modern web browser is probably one of the most complex pieces of software. Period. This letter, and many of the postings on this list, make me feel that the WaSP is a group with many people who don't have enough understanding or appreciation for the complexity required to do what they ask.
A layout manager at the level of HTML 2 is a moderately hard programming task, but doable. HTML 4 is where it gets interesting, tables on their own would be difficult enough. The CSS box model adds a _/significant/_ amount of complexity. CSS2 makes this even harder. CSS2 scriptable via DOM (DHTML)? ECMAScript alone is a monumental undertaking. Dynamic reflow? Then start throwing PNG w. Alpha transparency in, Z-ordering, etc...creating solutions for all these things and rolling them together into one working piece of software...it IS monumental. And implementing it is the classic 10%/90% scenario...the devil is in the details, especially with things like CSS. It's hard enough for a someone to understand the bloody specs, let alone implement them.
The thing that gets me the most is....what do you think they are doing? do you think they are not trying? do you think they don't know that their market share is trickling away by the minute? do you think they aren't already aware that it's been years since 4? or that there browsers very existence very possibly may be on the line? Trust me....they know. If you follow closely you will realize that there is already
The other factor is people. It's easy to say "well, you're this big company with all this money, throw more developers at it" Even forgetting the fact that "more doesn't always equal better, or faster", I don't care if you are AOL, Microsoft, IBM, or whoever...finding developers skilled enough to work with a task
that complex is next to impossible in this industry. This list probably has one of the highest levels of, say, CSS know how...how many people here could claim to have an understanding of
And who is the WaSP to make demands on
I would like to take this opportunity to say to the people at Netscape and Mozilla. Thank you for seeing the error of your ways, and doing your best to deliver a standards compliant product. Thank you for what I see as a tremendous amount of effort over the last year to Do The Right Thing. Thank you for spending an enormous amount of resources building something you are
Re:Choice One, please (Score:2)
One, using Gecko to render a UI makes it platform-independent, the exact opposite of making it "X Window-centric" as you say.
Ah, the great divide between us programmers and normal people turns up once again... It makes the code platform-independent. Unfortunately, a side effect of their method is to make the user experience one which only someone familiar with the X Window System could enjoy--hence the phrase used by the original poster that the experience is `X Windows-centric.'
Do not belittle the importance of widget consistency. A huge portion of taste is consistentcy and style. Few people would buy a black car with a purple interior--instead, they choose an interior which complements the exterior. Few people buy stereo components some of which are tech in brushed steel and matte black, some of which are finely polished mahogany and others of which neon orange plastic.
In re. Unix consistency, how can you say with a straight face the gtk looks like Qt looks like Motif looks like Xaw? They share many of the basic concepts, but they are about as consistent with each other as the components of my fanciful stereo system.
We've trained ourselves to deal with our inconsistent interface. We're the sort of people who are willing to put up with that sort of aesthetic suffering in order to use a more elegant OS. The hoi polloi are willing to use an ugly OS in return for an elegant UI (MacOS) or an ugly OS in return for a semi-decent UI (Windows).
We need to provide a first-class, elegant and aesthetically pleasing user experience on top of our first-class, elegant and aesthetically pleasing OS.
The WSP are so obnoxious (Score:2)
God, the nerve. All that they're doing is burying any respect Netscape had for standards to begin with. If I was on the Netscape team right now I'd just be like "Why do they think they have any right to slap my wrists?" and ignore them from now on. The WSP are self-righteous publicity whores who have accomplished absolutely nothing. Ever.
sig:
Re:A Windows-Only Web (Score:2)
I have to suck it up and agree with you here.
Remember when the marketshares were reversed, Microsoft had to write a 98% compatible Netscape v3 clone before they pushed ahead with their own feature set.
Netscape should not have to emulate every bad behavior of IE, but their refusal to support minor Microsoftisms like 'document.all' really makes me wonder if they want to be seen as a friend or a foe of the average web developer.
Anyway, the situation is not bleak right now. On the public web, IE has no where near the clout that Netscape held in 1995. (Back then, if you weren't using the latest Netscape, you couldn't even see half the sites.) But, IE-only sites are all over Intranets, and many fancier public sites support Netscape 4 only in fallback-mode, leaving the fancy dynamic stuff to IE users only. (This is actually a good thing considering the br0kenness of NS4's DOM.)
The huge risk is that when Netscape 6 finally ships, it will be put in that same fallback-mode bin, and all of it's standards-compliant DOM will go to waste because developers will refuse to rewrite their IE-specific code.
plugins (Score:2)
Sigh.. (Score:2)
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
Calling me a liar? It's been my main browser for months. I like it much better than netscape 4.7. Except for the constant crashing, but builds from the last few days are dramatically more stable.
Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap.
Bullshit. I begrudgingly visit plenty of javascript-based sites, and 70-90% look as good or better than they do in netscape 4.7.
I suspect you've only taken intermittant looks at mozilla, which could easily give you the impression that it's worse than it really is. I sympathize completely with your frustration, and it is unbelievable to me that the mozilla folks haven't narrowed their focus to perfecting the core app, rather than adding the kitchen sink in - "mail, IRC, whatever - sure!" - but believe me, there is a diamond waiting to poke its way out of the lump of coal.
Re:win32 moz is great! (Score:2)
One problem with today's builds, crash on submit. Your comment will make it, but mozilla dies in the process. Maybe wait a few hours for the next build.
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Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
Netscape... (Score:2)
Who needs standards anyhow? (Score:2)
(Damn that sticky sarcasm key)
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What's the status of Mozilla? (Score:2)
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Re:Sadly I have to Agree (Score:3)
I really like Netscape Mail/News. This does not however mean that I think that it needs to be integrated into Mozilla. In my opinion the display engine should be a removable plug-in (And thereby be replacable) which can be used by Navigator, whatever the mail/news client is called, and Composer.
So in my opinion, the things we need are a standards-compliant display engine, and a browser which uses it. The email client, while important to me, should be secondary to Mozilla. And Composer has always been crap, and unless they can make it write worthwhile code free of empty tags and so on, I'll keep using Dreamweaver. Now that I think about it, even if they do solve that problem, I'll still use Dreamweaver since it has all that other keen functionality.
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
That's funny too. I downloaded M16 hoping it would be ready for prime time, or at least close enough for my austere tastes, but it wasn't. I used it for about a week and then went back to Netscape 4.7. In my experience M16 crashed multiple times per day vs about once a month for NS 4.7, and was extremely prone to forgetting settings I had selected and saved.
I eagerly await M17, because NS's monthly crashes make it by far the crappiest piece of software that I use. As soon as Mozilla is a hair's breadth better than NS, I'll cut over in a heartbeat.
Is the difference in stability platform dependent?
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The lowest common denominator is LOW (Score:2)
what do you think Netscape did? (Score:4)
They stopped doing it because Microsoft not only implemented the standards and Netscapes variants, but created their own as well.
Thats the difference, Microsoft made it so their browser could do the standard stuff, most of the Netscape stuff, *and* the Microsoft stuff. Netscape hasn't been able to compete with that.
They were beaten at their own game.
Re:Alternatives to Netscape | Microsoft (Score:2)
Netscape 6 beta 1 a mistake? (Score:2)
No one wants to see a standards-compliant browser win more than me, but as the WSP article suggests, you can't build your site on promises.
Tonight at 10:00: Former Netscape User Speaks Out (Score:5)
I'm actually using Netscape right now, and I can expect it to crash any second if I open up any more windows. That's why I continually save posts like these. I've lost too many to keep track of, but it was enough for me to eventually dump Netscape.
It took about six months for the inertia of using Netscape over IE to slow down and for me to finally realize that the change was imminent. Outlook's Import utility clinched it, as I could now use Outlook to import all my email. I have Netscape 6 Preview 1 installed, but it looks more like a nearly completed building with the scaffolding still up than any kind of useable browser.
As Stroustrup said, "C makes it easy to shoot yourelf in the foot, whereas C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off." Yes, IE crashes every now and then, and it usually takes the whole system with it, but I don't have to deal with the maddening experience of several crashes per day. Which is worse: the boulder in my path?--or the grain of sand in my shoe. I'm not quite sure, but I've chosen the boulder.
About the only thing I miss is Netscape's status bar. They did a great job with keep the user informed about how the page was loading, while IE happifly reassures me that the page is "opening..." And IE's dumbed-down error messages aren't exactly helpful, but I've been using Guidescope [guidescope.com] as a local ad-blocking proxy and it seems to help some with DNS errors and the like.
So I'm sorry that I don't use Netscape anymore. I'm sorry that I use a browser that doesn't adhere very well to Net standards, and in some cases even flaunts them. But I'm not sorry that Microsoft built a better browser. And Netscape didn't.
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Re:WSP's letter is misguided (Score:2)
Dear sirs.
PLEASE STOP ADDING USELESS SHIT TO YOUR PROJECT AND RELEASE A FUCKING BROWSER THAT WORKS.
Thank you.
Òfp
You see, either way, that's what they will need to do before they are rendered *completely* irrelevent by MS (to which I have to say, nice work on that last version, it kicks). It's amazing how many here can see this in all it's transparency but the people involved in the project are too busy coding pac-man in xul to notice the axe falling.
Re:Still No Standards In N6 (outdated) (Score:3)
They better be careful (Score:3)
After all the hub-bub over Netscape's weak version jump to 6 (bypassing 5.x versions altogether in a grand marketing move), how humiliating would it be if this thing took so long to finally be released that it still ends up having a smaller version number anyway? :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Re:Mozilla WILL Change things (Score:2)
Mind you, I expect a few problems since it is still alpha/beta/unreleased quality code. But you make it sound like you haven't used a modern (ie, M16 or later) build of the thing.
Old Netscape 4.x, yes it had lots of those problems. But the new, modern Mozilla builds just work so well. Every page I had developed that didn't work in NN4 but did in IE, worked fine in Mozilla. EVERY ONE.
As for JavaScript, of course some of the Microsoft hacks like innerHTML aren't going to work in Mozilla (though I did see a mention of a relatively simple JavaScript snippet that simulated innerHTML well enough that most scripts could be compatible with minimal effort, and a rumor that this might be included by default.)
But write some 100% standards compliant code, use it with a modern Mozilla build, and you'll find that it works.
As for rendering a page like IE does, why should it? There are standards, and there are some elements of the standard that are open to vendor interpretation. But why should a browser emulate something that doesn't follow the standard, especially when the stated goal is to be 100% standards compliant?
Tonight on crossfire (Score:3)
The first is that I find that it, and its mail program, are major security hazzards. I know that I can turn the stuff off, not use outlook, but I cannot trust MS to make a secure program anymore. I don't want to have to worry about some vengeful ActiveX programer screwing with my computer, or having to download a patch to fix some gapping security hole all the time.
The second is that "blowing your whole leg off" problem. I would much rather have an application die a peaceful death, not take out NT or my window manager, frequently then to crash rarely but have it be a major screw up and take down my system. I have had too many problems with corrupted data on my disk from programs taking down the OS.
Although I am sure that IE is more stable and more powerful than Netscape I have had very little to no problems with it sense I upgraded to Communicator 4.72 (and yes I do run with Java Script and Java ON). I regularly run it with more than 6 windows open, all symultaniously downloading and rendering pages, and I haven't had it crash on me sense I upgraded. On the Ultra 1 that I use at work, I have only had it crash on me once in two months, which I immediately reopened and went on with my business.
As for it being old technology, so what, it does what I need it to do. I want programs that are set up properly, ie run in the correct level that they should. I don't want some extremely fast and powerful browser, or office suite for that matter, that runs in rung zero and takes down my computer if it has a problem. That is why I use Netscape and Corel, if they but my computer doesn't go with them.
I'm not saying that everyone should be using Netscape, just that there are some of us who use it for good reason.
You hit the nail on the head (Score:3)
This is an important point. I'll bet that a lot of the problem with Mozilla is brain drain. JWZ is one major example. Mozilla is turning in to a "death march" project, and in this employment environment, nobody has to work on this kind of project.
Re:A Windows-Only Web (Score:2)
WSP appears unaware that Mozilla is open source... (Score:2)
I'm sure lots of the WSP members don't have the necessary technical skills to contribute to Mozilla. Fine, to that end they should recognize that they have no idea how much work is involved and are in no position to judge. Those members that DO have the necessary technical skills are in a great position to judge the project's performance (and as such should know better), but rather than whining about it they should contribute to the work.
Re:Which is it, guys? (Score:2)
when the last milestones are scheduled to occur, but with no success.
Where does one find it?
Breaking another Microsoft monopoly. (Score:2)
So why should Micro$oft have a monopoly on them?
If you things to change, do things differently. (Score:3)
In my experience, Opera Software has been extraordinarily responsive to user feedback and very dogged in implementing full compliancy in their browser, while at the same time dealing with the crappy tagging that goes as web authoring these days.
Yes, they want a whopping forty bucks for their browser. For a lot of you, that's an hour or less of payola. And it reflects that these people are working at this as full-time professionals -- *QUITE* unlike a lot of the open source/free beer applications out there, that are being developed in people's hobby time.
It's a fair price for a great product that is available *now* and is *very* compliant. Demand better products by putting some money where your mouth is!
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Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
I think mozilla's biggest strategic error was trying to do too much. My personal hindsight suggest that they should have used existing graphic libraries instead of writing their own widgets from scratch. Yes, this makes some platforms lag behind but it would make at least one major one come out faster. I have a feeling that it would encourage more developers to get involved as well. Having to learn yet another graphic library is a hassle that no doubt keeps some developers away.
I think it was also a huge mistake to try and make a communications platform with email etc instead of just a bare browser. You can always add on stuff later. Right now it's two years later and there's nothing usuable.
I tried M16 for a couple weeks and I was extremely disappointed with the number of blatant, serious bugs. It will a significant amount of time to fix them. *sigh*
The most promising thing I see coming out of mozilla is that Galleon project mentioned last week. I wish them luck.
Re:Sadly I have to Agree (Score:2)
Re:Which is it, guys? (Score:2)
Whilst to you and I it might mean something that a browser is w3c compliant but it's a bit like telling jo public he'll get better milage if he drives at 56mph... everyone kinda knows it deep down but most people just dont give a damn and want the easiest and quickest solution.
Yeah, I love Opera, but... (Score:2)
Its amazing how fast I can throw somebody off simply by putting them in front of Opera.
Now if 4.1 has SDI (which it might), that could go a long way in solving that problem.
I really wish it would catch on, Opera is a great little browser, useful for those of us who don't want everything but the kitchen sink with our browsers (*ahem* Mozilla).
I hate replying to trolls (Score:2)
But since it was moderated up, I must fight the powers that be.
Things that are true in this post:
(Kind of true, anyway - Mozilla networking code seems to be better than IE's, as is partial page loading which used to not be the case.)
This is true in a sense. Firing up a copy of IE consumes less resources than netscape because most of IE is running all the time when you're running explorer, unless you've 98lite'd your box into obscurity.
This is hard to argue with. I don't know how much of that is talkback, though. When I run mozilla.exe -mail on my system, about a quarter to half the time it gives an exception right when I run it. I get lots of other random crashes, too. Also, if I leave mozilla mail open too long sometimes it gets into some bad loop where it just allocates more and more memory and sucks up something like 128mb of ram before I kill it. No idea if it'll eat up all the ram/swap on the box.
However, the troll "at this stage, how much better can mozilla get? i doubt it will be much." is just totally bogus. That would be like using Windows 3.1 and saying "How much better can this get? I doubt it will be much." That sort of statement is only useful for things that already kick more ass than anyone else's product. There's lots of room for improvement in Mozilla and lots of people are working on it.
It used to be that I only ran IE (4.0) when netscape was having problems loading a URL. Then IE 5 came out and I pretty much ditched netscape entirely. Now I use IE5.5 for browsing and Mozilla M16 for mail and news. (Mind you, the bug where you can't post news to multiple groups if you're not subcribed to them all and if there's multiple news servers added is pretty goddamn annoying.) when IE5.5 has problems loading a page, I fire up M16's navigator component and paste in the URL, and it comes up properly nearly every time, so it looks like Mozilla has a leg up on IE in that department now.
Allow me to suggest a new modification to /., BTW. If someone puts too much bold in their message, just remove all the <B> tags. <EM> isn't nearly as annoying, though, so it's okay with me if you leave that alone.
Sadly I have to Agree (Score:3)
Re:Sadly I have to Agree (Score:5)
You severely underestimate the fine people at Netscape. Check out the xmlterm project. [xmlterm.com] Yup, it provides you with a very cool xml-aware xterm thingie that models your interaction with a shell as a (dynamic) xml document. So you can cat (or xcat) html documents and have them rendered onto standard output...and re-compile your kernel for you in a subshell.
Which is it, guys? (Score:2)
For "web standards" people, they sure sound pushy. Don't tell me they think IE 5.5 is compliant just because it's out today!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Makes me feel bad about abandoning them (Score:2)
But lets face it. Their browser is crap, it's slow, it's buggy, feature-lacking and crashes a LOT. Even on solaris at work it's not stable.
Whereas IE5 is fast, not-quite-as-unstable, loaded with features, and does everything i want very nicely. Admittedly I couldn't get that to install on solaris at work because the OS was missing some patches but OE works fine.
Lets face it. M$ might not do much well, and i know it's not exactly standard complying but IE5 is a danm nice browser and it's sadly creating it's own standards leaving netscape/mozilla to play catch up with both legs tied together.
Re:A Windows-Only Web (Score:4)
You're forgetting something - the half-life of web applications is frighteningly small.
Websites tend to get rewritten and redesigned every year or so in order to stay 'fresh'.
A couple of points (Score:2)
Take Netscape 4.x off the market? What exactly do they want? Pull it off their site so those that want it can no longer download it? Try to migrate everyone to a buggy, unfinished browser that only mostly works?
I do agree with most of the WaSP's complaints, however, and AOL is entirely at fault. Why haven't they been devoting more resources to the Mozilla project? Open source development is great, but if AOL wants this to happen, you'd think they'd contribute something, especially if they're planning to base their flagship service on this product!
Does anyone know just exactly what AOL does contribute to the Mozilla project?
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WSP's letter is misguided (Score:2)
The Future of Netscape 6 (Score:3)
What about Macintosh version? (Score:2)
I don't know if any of you tried out Netscape 6 preview for the Mac, but it was slllooowww. I'd like to once again not have to use IE on both Macs and PCs. I mean, you'd think that since they can't beat an integrated browser for Windows, they'd at least focus on a different platform or something.
IE continues to work great on a Macintosh, something that Netscape should have never let happen.
Re:NS 6, IE Bugs - billions and billions (Score:2)
metoo. I used to design for Netscape, and ignored IE. Now I design for IE, and Netscape can bite me. The thing that really clinched it for me was having to write nonstandard HTML to just get there to not be seams between images in a table in Netscape when IE rendered it correctly.
Re:Which is it, guys? (Score:2)
It may not comply to some independant organisations standards but most of the internet use it and hence it is the standard.
Also whilst I know nothing of what team Netscape are actually up to right now, i'm pretty sure that they are striving to make a browser that complies to M$ standards and not w3c standards.
Re:Sigh.. (Score:2)
Um...I figured it was more than "catering to less than 1% of the web sufing [sic] public," as you put it. Consider these points:
It's called "thinking outside the box." It's called "not being yet another FrontPage-generated piece-of-garbage corporate site." I'm surprised to see a response such as yours on /. (Then again, there are rumored to be some people here whose only exposure to computers is Win9x/NT/2K, who never learned that there's another way.)
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/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
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Re:Makes me feel bad about abandoning them (Score:2)
Open-Sourcing Communicator was a Bad Idea (Score:2)
Multiplayer Strategy [toronto.edu]
Better yet, here's a link... (Score:2)
Jay (=
Choice One, please (Score:3)
Linux users are used to a cacophony of user interfaces where every application uses a different toolkit, looks different, feels different. Using a look and feel specific to only Mozilla doesn't seem ludicrous for people used to X-windows. Mac/Windows users won't put up with it. Mozilla hasn't a prayer of making it in the consumer market without a native interface.
Look, cross-platform development is hard, but a single cross-platform user interface is a dangerous cop-out. Sun apparently thought the problem with AWT was the attempt to use native cross-platform widgets, (in reality, AWT just sucked hard), so they took the easy way out with Swing and just set all the screen bits to be identical on every platform. Problem "solved".
It's criminal that Mozilla took the same path, for the same reason. The various front-ends sucked. Well, no shit. They still suck, and they should be abandoned.
But using Gecko to render the UI was an incredibly X Window-centric decision. Users on other platforms will not put up with it. Mozilla is dead on non-Unix platforms unless some insane person wraps a new app shell around it.
What a bunch of whiners (Score:2)
Mozilla says "Look, that's going to take a long time. Are you sure you want to harangue us into doing it?"
WSP says yes.
Now, they're complaining that it's taking too long? They knew this coming in. It's like they want software to fall from the sky or something.
Re:I finally did it (Score:2)
...phil
Re:Makes me feel bad about abandoning them (Score:2)
It's just not gonna happen
Re:Contribute (Score:2)
Re:A Windows-Only Web (Score:2)
You just have to laugh at this! Sure they won't touch your precious geeky sites, but for most of the world, "e-commerce and intranet stuff" are the only web sites that matter. Your argument is a perfect example of winning a meaningless battle and losing the war. Unfortunately, I expect this one's already lost. Microsoft is quite likely to have a usable standards-based browser before Netscape/Mozilla, since their enterprise customers *are* asking them to comply with standards.
I hate IE with a passion, and I resent like hell the way MS rammed it down our throats (I had to manage introducing the pile of crap when I was at Dell), but even I am starting to question whether each progressively more unstable release of Netscape is able to meet my browsing needs. If IE had support for a reasonable bookmark managment system and could use roaming profiles like Netscape (without a local AD server), I'd have a hard time finding any reason not to switch.
We've lost this one, folks. Microsoft controls the only UI that matters and is likely to continue doing so for the next several years. This does not bode well for the embedded Linux devices crowd, most of whom will need a small, fast, reliable browser compatible with it's larger desktop cousin. I'm afraid the browser issue may ultimately be the wedge that allows CE to triumph in this critical space as well. If that happens, it's "game over, man!"
Re:Sigh.. (Score:2)
My bad, I meant this page [www.icab.de].
You'll not only see M16 doesn't render correctly, but that IE 5 does better in some areas.
Please stop whining (Score:4)
Open-source parasites really tick me off. If you want it fixed, do it. If you don't know how, learn. And if you can't or won't do either of the above, then how exactly are you qualified to say what is good development practice?
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:5)
The choices the Mozilla project faced were:
1) Write three front ends
2) Make Mozilla dependent on a non-free toolkit, creating a financial barrier to contributing
3) Base Mozilla on the 1.x-4.x codebase
4) Write a new XP toolkit with three local implementations.
5) Render the UI with Gecko.
What choice would you have made?
Steven E. Ehrbar
I feel mozilla is better (Score:2)
I agree that you use the best tool for the best job. And I feel that mozilla is the best web browser available. For me this isn't about standards support, its about features. With Moz I can get:
MapQuest maps from the sidebar, or any of several other apps just from two clicks. The extensible nature of mozilla allows many powerful things to be done with the sidebar. Its like having a mini-app inside your browser.
More control over my browsing experience through cookie managment and image managment (no banners).
Full NS4.x plugin compatability. Yes it works even now. Today and installed and used the flash plugin. It works well.
I feel that the disadvantages of the minor instabilities that occur from time to time (up till today's builds everything was very smooth) are very minor compared to the configurability I get from mozilla. I started on mozilla due to its standards support. I've stayed with mozilla because it is a fast, powerful web browser, among other things.
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Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
Netscape Apologists beware (Score:3)
HTML 4.0 was approved April 1998.
It's July 2000.
Re:Still No Standards In N6 (outdated) (Score:2)
*sets course for moz.org*
Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:5)
I've been following the Mozilla milestones and I seriously doubt that a stable Mozilla will be produced by the end of the year. The Gecko rendering engine has been rendering pretty-good HTML for at least *one year*. From what I can see, the problem is not the underlying HTML rendering technology, it is the application environment built around the technology.
For instance, chrome/skins are a nice idea in theory. But they're butt-slow in practice. I cannot believe the people who claim they use Mozilla daily. Any site with a little bit of Javascript looks like crap. window.open() is not implemented, for example.
I write software for a living. I'm sorry that the Mozilla developers are way behind schedule. I've been on projects like that too, and they're no fun. Also, open sourcing Mozilla was a great thing, no doubt. But I can't let my empathy for the Mozilla team, and my respect for Netscape's bold move, cloud the fact that the end product is terrible.
Re:Which is it, guys? (Score:2)
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Re:Mozilla should use extreme programming model! (Score:2)
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Seems like a bunch of cry babies? (Score:2)
Further, this project is done completely in the open (in more ways that one..) and everyone can see it at any given time during it's development warts and all. This is just one more article taking pot-shots at the project. As I recall, it was the Press that claimed it as the darling child of the open-source world... not the open-source community itself. All the while, the Mozilla project marches on. It IS getting more stable, and I'd expect it to be ready for prime-time shortly.
I REALLY don't care what these guys said.. seems just a bunch of whining to me.
M17 (Score:2)
OTOH, I'll certainly agree the M16 was missing a few pieces that I think necessary. Esp. in the area of mail/newsgroup filter handling. M17 has been improving that lots (though it was thoroughly broken the last time I checked, so YMWV)...it depends on which release you get. Try tonights (I expect to).
If you just say "it's not a finished product" then you don't understand the process. You need to either try it and say what bugs you found, or be precise as to what makes the current version unuseable. Or wait a week and try again. Or have a bit of patience. And if none of those are suitable, then I guess you really should be using Internet Explorer. It's actually pretty good. Just a bit heavy for my taste, and a bit skimpy on security, but it's your dollar(s).
Re:What about Macintosh version? (Score:2)
<p>Internet Explorer on a 603 is dog slow compared to Netscape Communicator. It's a case of optimization. If Netscape where to change it's compile flags and/or maybe it's compiler, Netscape would be alot faster on newer machines.
For their own good... (Score:2)
Winamp. What data format does it use? MP3. An open standard (more or less).
Netscape/Mozilla. Data formats and protocols used? Based on open standards.
AIM and ICQ. Protocols used? Proprietary. Oops. But the protocols are either documented, commonly reverse engineered, or a backdoor to the service has been provided. And AOL has been shamed in to agreeing to an "open standard" messaging protocol. We'll see if this improves.
So sure... AOL is pushing its brand out there. But, unlike much of Microsoft's offerings, AOL is ultimately backing open standards. And creating a default customer base who wants open standards helps the community.
Now does Joe User really know what these open standards are? Most likely not. Too technical. Joe User just wants things to work. Of course, unknown to Joe User, open standards helps make sure things work. Everywhere.
And things will continue to work whether they stay with AOL's offerings or not.
And there's where AOL's new strategy suddenly stands apart from Microsoft's.
Moderate up Post #332!! (Score:2)
Just when i was getting bummed about Mozilla, you show me this. This is quite simply the slickest integration of web and command line functionality I've ever seen. Moderate up Babar's post, and check out xmlterm.com. I'm not easily impressed, but the potential for this sort of integration is staggering. Maybe Mozilla isn't dead - but I sure wish they'd get it finished.
The Mozilla team just bought themselves another couple of months with me - maybe this thing is embeddable enough to make a difference...
Re:Ah, the irony. (Score:2)
1. Loads of websites turn of underlined links now
2. You can turn off style sheets.
3. Ever think some of us wish the whole web had no underlined text save that of for citing works? Links are a different color, ya can pick em out without underlines, and quite frankly, I have such awful vision, that even with glasses, underlined text is a bear on my eyes.
What it really boils down to is personal choice, you like em, I can barely read them, and I refuse to crank up my font when I can see the rest of the page just fine.
get over it, your not perfect.
Yep. (Score:2)
The situation is different on the Mac, where Netscape still has a large user population. As a result, Microsoft chose a different strategy, making IE more standards compliant than Netscape.
As an aside, the WSP is being too myopic in focusing entirely on PC-based Web browsers. There is a whole raft of non-PC based Web browsers that are also throwing standards to the wind.
A Windows-Only Web (Score:5)
Opera won't ever succeed in taking more than a small niche of the market, simply because they want money for their browser.
The only other realistic choice is IE. IE might not be standards compliant, but users don't care.
Mozilla/Netscape is going to have a hell of a time trying to rebuild their market share at this point in the game. Netscape fell from glory while the web was still relatively young. There wasn't much legacy code out there, so switching to a Microsoft-centric web was easy. Now, many web applications are written to Microsoft's browser, many webpages are written to render in Microsoft's browser, and many companies have switched to IE as their standard platform.
Will AOL use Netscape 6 as the browser in the next version of the AOL software? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends how much of the web is incompatible with NS6 by the time it finally reaches release.
A better strategy for the Mozilla team would have been to write an IE-compatible browser, instead of a standards-compatible browser. There's just as much documentation [microsoft.com], and there's a reference platform [microsoft.com] to compare against. The standards are quickly become irrelevant, and by the time Mozilla/NS6 makes it out the door, they may have been completely forgotten by the webmasters-at-large. At least if Mozilla was IE-compliant, they'd still be able to compete.
I know I'm sacrificing my karma to make that statement, as the prevaling attitude around here seems to be "if you make it standards-compliant, they will come", but in reality, that's not the case. "If you make it do what the users want, they will come."
Re:Netscape Apologists beware (Score:2)
Steven E. Ehrbar
W3C motto: standardization before implementation (Score:5)
The IETF is generally considered the definitive standards body for all the various internet-related protocols. They have a strictly enforced rule over in the IETF, which I think the W3C would do well to pick up. The rule is: no protocol described in any RFC can be anointed an internet standard unless at least two independent interoperable implementations exist.
The result is that the IETF has surprisingly few internet standards (even HTTP for example is only a "Proposed standard"), but the few that they do have (SMTP, FTP, TCP, IP, among others) work very well.
Publishing a standard that has no existing implementations is an invitation for embrace-and-extend abuse. Yet the W3C has done exactly that repeatedly with their various versions of HTML 3.x, 4.x, and CSS. Even to this day, no browsers on the market have 100% HTML4+CSS2 support. Those who don't know any better wonder why HTML standards support is such a mess. I wonder why the HTML standards effort hasn't yet collapsed completely in the face of such inane stewardship.
The IETF through their public decisions processes and their wise management of the existing body of RFCs has earned my trust as an internet user. I have no such trust in the W3C. Who gave the W3C the right to publish HTML standards on behalf of the community anyway?
Re:Choice One, please (Score:2)
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/lates
Its definatly stable, but still problems shrugs.
pure speculation (Score:2)
aol bought netscape. aol ships ie. so obviously aol has dealings with microsoft. regarding browsers.
so microsoft supplies the browser for the company that owns netscape, and that company fails to compete with microsoft.
except over instant messaging.
on another topic: you can warn yourself with AIM, thus eventually blocking yourself from using it. brilliant.
I just don't understand this... (Score:2)
Correct my ignorance, but please don't do so flamingly.
Is Netscape open source, or is that Mozilla I'm thinking of? I've never been clear on the relationship between the two.
Also, if Netscape is open-source, how can this be happening? Is it because all the code was built onto the Mosaic engine? If so, can similar complaints be leveled at MSIEx.y for the same reason?
Remember, points for decorum and tact.
Sick Sad World (Score:2)
Granted, there have been several projects... but virtually nobody uses them (and thus you have a lack of coders/testers) because they can cop out and use Netscape instead.
In the IE/NS religious war, I have always sided with Netscape (hey, I was an original Mosaic user), but if they (Netscape/Mozilla.org) aren't going to do the job right, then the community needs to step up in its own defense and spawn a new project.
Re:plugins (Score:3)
Blame JWZ. It's his fault. (Score:3)
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YES Free (Score:2)
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/licen se-list.html [fsf.org]
"The Mozilla Public License (MPL).
This is a free software license which is not a strong copyleft; unlike the X11 license, it has some complex restrictions that make it incompatible with the GNU GPL. That is, a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the MPL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the MPL for this reason."
Mozilla provides a good FAQ on why things have to be the way they do (they are contracturally obligated).
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/FAQ.html [mozilla.org]
Re:This isn't grade school (Score:2)
Not to mention their hijacking of the status bar. If that's what the standards body supports, then I'm prepared to abandon standards. Every browser for himself, I say, and let lynx sort them out!
Re:Self-Inflicted Wound (Score:2)
Believe it. I use it daily. I'm using it right now. I doubt I can be the only one.
You're right that it doesn't work perfectly yet, but it keeps getting better and better. It's beginning to approach the stability of Navigator 4.7x (at least in my experience. It's much more stable than Navigator on my Linux box)
Mozilla is not ready for prime time yet, but that doesn't mean it's never going to work.
If you don't feel Mozilla is the right browser for you, then don't use it. If you do, then help us make it better.
Mozilla WILL Change things (Score:5)
2 things actually: embedded apps, and AOL.
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were designing a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
But the real story here is AOL - they are the largest ISP in the world. They bought Netscape for a reason; they wanted to have the best browser available for their customers, without having to be tied to another vendor (who is a competitor, even!). When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
And Mozilla will have saved us all.
Re:Sadly I have to Agree (Score:4)
But alas... I just installed Netscape 4.73 and it's patently worse than 4.72 was. It dies twice as much on my box....
sigh...
Nice to meet you, Mr. Pot, I'm Mr. Kettle... (Score:3)
Only because you apparently haven't grasped the WaSP's point.
Only an idiot would scream for standards -in fact, base their whole mission statement on the needs for open standards- and then bash the developers working on this very request.
But Mozilla developers aren't just working on a 100% complaint web browser. There's all the extra functionality being added (IRC, mail, news, etc.) that is 100% IRRELEVANT to the Web Standards Project's desires.
In their minds Mozilla development is proceeding too slowly, and as a result making it harder on web developers who want to use standards that are 2-4 years old. It's entirely likely that WaSP will review Netscape 6 and, assuming it meets the goal of 100% standards compliance, say "You know what? We're sorry, Netscape, this browser was worth the wait." Then the onus will be back on Microsoft to improve their commitment to open standards.
Maybe AOL will be able to force their subscribers to switch to a Netscape 6/Mozilla-based browser, and trigger the final showdown as to who will control the web (AOL/Netscape, Microsoft, or a standards-compliant compromise between the two). But right now, that's all vapor. I'll believe AOL's commitment to using Mozilla when I see it.
So yes, there is a reason to bitch. Every day people settle on using IE because the one viable competitor has not had a significant functionality upgrade to their product in YEARS. (And fsck you very much, Netscape, for your insipid "Shop" button.) They're switching because IE 5.x does for them, NOW, what Netscape 4.x can't. And unless Netscape 6 is orders of magnitude better than MSIE, they won't necessarily switch back.
And then top it off by endorsing the competition - a compeditor who has absolutely NO regard for open standards in the first place.
They may have no regard for open standards, but their products currently on the market (the 5.x series) support those standards better than Netscape's current offering (the 4.x series).
Maybe people who don't have paychecks depending on what solutions they use RIGHT NOW are content to wait for Mozilla, but not everyone has that luxury.
And for the record, I have every intention of using Mozilla once it's finished. But then again, my business isn't dependant on having that solution right now.
Jay (=
IE isn't everything (Score:3)
while (rant) {
I am so sick of people complaining about something taking a little longer. Do you realize that even in internet time, it is better to build a good base and do it right and standardized? I write java servlets and it takes a bit longer than ASP but in the long run, it's much more competative because it is enterprise capable and extendable. So IE has neat little javascript rollovers, and startsup quicker...so what. What does that do for doing business over the web? The technologies coming in Mozilla and netscape look to be excellent for such things(ie, the java plugin etc.etc.) }
Fuck the WSP (Score:5)
One beautiful example of a heavy-headed hypocricy is this:
This comes AFTER the WaSP (because no single author would take credit for this piece) suggests that Netscape withdraws its browser, had never started working on Mozilla, and should have never tried in the first place. They attribute the lack of support for Netscape products to its lack of standards compliance, NOT the fact that Microsoft used unlawful monopoly tactics to bully it out of the market.
Here is a nicely written counter-attack by Chris Nelson [mozillazine.org], which gives some very interesting counter points. Don't let the WaSP get you down Mozilla, just keep on rolling.
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Re:Sadly I have to Agree (Score:3)
I have never participated in a large-scale software development project like this one. However, it seems to me that a whole lot of effort was spent on unnecessary components such as the mail client and editor app. Mail could have been left to Eudora or a any of a number of existing, quite competent mail programs, and there are more HTML editors available than you can shake a stick at.
At the same time, as everyone who has ever taken a course in project management knows, throwing extra resources at a problem is not always the best way to speed things up, and this is especially true for software (too many cooks in the kitchen, etc.).
Does anyone think that focusing their limited resources on just the browser component would have helped speed this project along? As far as I am aware, there are no controversies over e-mail standards. A standards complient browser is what we need.
Re:Sigh.. (Score:4)
I just went through this with the conversion of a customer's website. Whoever had done the site before designed it with frames, lots of text images, and not an ALT tag in sight. It was pretty scary, especially if you tried browsing it with Lynx.
I downloaded and printed out the HTML 4.01 and CSS 2 specs and went to town over the weekend, redesigning the site with standards compliance in mind. It looked pretty good in IE 4, IE 5, Mozilla M16, and even Lynx...but Netscrape 4.x completely botched the interpretation of the style information. I ended up rejiggering the makefile for the site and cobbling together some awk and sed scripts to convert the entire site from a style-sheet-based, standards-compliant design to a table-based design that Netscrape would display acceptably. Some browser-detection JavaScript redirects people to either the standards-compliant tree or the lobotomized-for-Netscrape tree.
(If you want to check out my handiwork, it's at http://www.thejewelers.com [thejewelers.com]. You can also use this link [thejewelers.com] to go straight to the standards-compliant site or this link [thejewelers.com] to go to the lobotomized site. It's not 100% where I want it (no robot food, for instance), but it duplicates the original site's look and feel in a more standards-compliant (and faster-loading, too) way.) All this is just one more reason why I use Internet Explorer, even under Linux (thank $DEITY for VMware [vmware.com]...). Say what you want about Microsoft, but they did a much better job of sticking to standards than Netscape.
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
Re:What about Macintosh version? (Score:3)
Well, IE 5 for MacOS is actually 100% (or 99.5%, depending on interpretation) standards compliant. Why, then, is using IE for MacOS a problem? It seems like a win on that particular platform.
Of course, it also raises some serious questions as to why IE 5.x for Win is *not* 100% compliant.
Re:Fuck the WSP (Score:4)
They attribute the lack of support for Netscape products to its lack of standards compliance, NOT the fact that Microsoft used unlawful monopoly tactics to bully it out of the market.
OK, I can't let this pass. Face reality: Netscape lost not because of Microsoft's strong-arm tactics (which were there, of course), but because the browser simply sucked. IE has been so much better since version 3.2 that it's ridiculous. Netscape has always been an incredibly slow, buggy browser, and remains so to this day.
If Netscape had really had a superior product, I would have some sympathy for them. But the only reason they had any marketshare at all is because they were first. Netscape would have died with or without the strong-arm tactics -- and deservedly so.
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