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AOL Considering Dropping IE

By Nate Mook and Craig Newell, BetaNews

April 25, 2001, 3:12 PM

BetaNews has learned that America Online, Inc. is seriously considering ending its use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the Web browser in AOL software. AOL had agreed to use Internet Explorer in exchange for being pre-installed on Windows desktops.

Microsoft's Jim Cullinan informed BetaNews that the agreement to carry AOL on Windows installations in exchange for AOL making Internet Explorer the internal browser in its software ended January 1, 2001. AOL and Microsoft did discuss renewing the agreement, but nothing was formally agreed upon. Sources close to both companies blame the other for a breakdown in talks.

"AOL can use any browser technology they want in their client. There is not [a] current contractual relationship between the companies," Cullinan writes. This would also mean Microsoft has no obligations to promote AOL in future versions of Windows.

An AOL spokesperson seems to disagree, disputing the possibility of ending the use of Internet Explorer and tells BetaNews, "We continue to believe that carriage (sic) in Windows is important."

However, an internal AOL e-mail provided to BetaNews asks various departments to submit information about how Microsoft may have affected AOL's software development timelines and violated service level agreements. Several other issues were made key points, such as Microsoft's reluctance to bundle the AOL Hong Kong client with Windows Me. All of this information was to be forwarded along to AOL's legal counsel, possibly as reasons for ending any agreement with the Redmond giant, contractual or implied.

Many believed AOL would make the switch to Netscape after it purchased the company in 1999, but opted instead to extend it's contract for Internet Explorer. Microsoft Vice President Brad Chase stated at the time that he believed AOL would eventually use Netscape, but not during the heat of the government's anti-trust case.

AOL holds the most power in the browser war, as its 30 million users comprise the world's largest online service. Changing the software's browser would dramatically shift market share, giving Netscape new life. Internet Explorer currently controls approximately 88 percent of the browser market.

This information coincides with news that an alpha version of CompuServe 2000 7.0, AOL's newest CompuServe client, operates with Netscape's Gecko browser engine in lieu of Internet Explorer. Internal documents state that Komodo, the new beta, will be available for AOL as well as CompuServe in August 2001. Documents regarding Komodo indicate that the software will be browser agnostic, and that users may be able to select whether their software will use Internet Explorer or Netscape to render Web pages.

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By Toughroad

edited Jun 15, 2006 - 7:04 PM

Thanks alot.Well done for your experience but I only need to now how I can get to netscape in my pc because Iam trying to configuarate my router.If you can help lovely and if otherwise, peace

Score: 0

By afmdkqc

posted May 6, 2001 - 1:49 AM

Score: 0

By afmdkqc

posted May 6, 2001 - 1:49 AM

NOTE: My English is bad. This text is being translated by Globalink Power Translator Pro, forgive any mistake!

Hello All!
Is caused indignation with all that situation. I think you will find my interesting point of view...

I am Brazilian and I have some things to say on MS, Netscape and AOL. I won't waste time explaining each one of them, but I intend to try! Here we go with some truths

1 - the Netscape 6.0, is the best browser actualy, he is not still totally finished, it possesses some graphic and technical bugs, and still delay a lot to start, besides consuming many system resources, even so, nevertheless, your features does the most efficient and SAFE (128bit encryption) browser already developed. IF ITS FAVORITE PAGES don't APPEAR CORRECTLY ON NETSCAPE, it is FOR 2 SIMPLE REASONS:
A) These pages were created with Front Page, and Front Page is owned by Microsoft, that doesn't care in creating codes HTML that work with the standards, but that work well just in IE;
B) The pages that you access is not built the standards of W3C o'clock accordingly.

2 - AOL, here in Brazil, takes advantage of the ignorance of the population to transmit "malicious" advertises that induce the consumer to sign AOL at any cost! AOL distributes installation Cd gratuitously (I have more than 20 Cd of AOL, I never installed any). I don't know if the services of ISP of AOL themselves are satisfactory, actually me nor I want to know!! Just the fact of AOL to want at every cost to firm here like a GOOD ISP, ally to the fact that the browser used by her is based on MS IE (SUX), already gives me chills...
I will NEVER INSTALL ANY BROWSER IE ON MY MACHINE, of the last time that wanted good to install, besides dozens of DLLs they have been installed in my PC, when I went uninstall, IE didn't want to leave!! Summary: IE = virus, only that worse, because there is not cure!

3 - "The MS is The Best" is there is not she doubts of that, but why do you know I don't still use Linux or same own UNIX?? Simple, because the software desenvolvedores is being to every day more accommodated with the noticed facilities of Windows. One of those means is the possibility to use APIs of IE in the construction of applications, what accelerates the process of development of softwares...

If you were not still convinced than I am speaking to it, I have a very simple form of doing you to understand once and for all that the browsers Netscape/Mozilla is the best ones and more " standardized " (W3C)...

TYPE IN THE PLACE OF THE URL OF your IE THE FOLLOWING:

javascript: navigator.userAgent

PRESS " enter " AND SEE THE RESULT!!!

did you see, idiot?? Your IE is " Mozilla compatible ", that is to say, wanting or not, your IE has part of Mozilla inside it, but it is not the original! ( only compatible, how a soundBlaster Compatible - SUX!).
See as it is the exit in the Netscape:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010131 Netscape6/6.01

Pretty good, not?
The Netscape is an original Mozilla, therefore, not to exist Netscape or Mozilla, IE doesn't also exist....
Did you like the logic exercise??
8 ^) heheheeh

------To Heaven------
Gecko Rules
Netscape Rules
Mozilla Rules
W3C Rules
JavaScript Rules (DHTML Rules)
CGI/PERL Rules
C++ Rules
Delphi Rules
Home Site Rules (www.allaire.com) - The best web development tool!
Spwolf Rules (I don't know who he is, but he only spoke what I wanted to hear!!)
Linux/Unix Rules (AntiWindows Rules)

----- To Hell-----
MS SuX
Bill Gates SuX
Internet Explorer SuX
Front Page SuX (non Standard development tool)
Windows SuX
Everybody that disagree of me SuX
VB SuX (it doesn't allow creation of DLLs)
ASP SuX

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted May 2, 2001 - 7:03 AM

ok, lets spare new readers of reading 130 posts... short version is that basically everyone agrees that Mozilla is superior product, and that one can only benefit from having such superb piece of software in their computer hence we applaud AOL for making plans of including it in their next release...

'nuff said...

Score: 0

By Kayler

posted May 1, 2001 - 2:53 PM

AOL has a deal with MS to use IE. The deal cannot be broken, unless AOL wants to spend a couple of billion just to use a different browser. This is just a roumor. AOL does own NS, but can get rid of the MS browser.

Score: 0

By jungleboy69

posted May 2, 2001 - 3:45 AM

The question is though, has the deal expired? Or is about to expire? Or has it been renewed??.Mind you i need to point out the AOL clients that came with 95 and 98 (one that comes with WINME works as it should have) never worked properly for creating AOL accounts other than american ones - you had to have an existing AOL account to use them thanks to a MS c***up lol.

Score: 0

By jungleboy69

posted May 1, 2001 - 2:14 PM

Ok AOL isnt the best thing in the world. Mind you MS is even worse.And since when has MSN been an ISP as someone pointed out.You have to remember AOL is aimed at first and foremost the first time user- families etc and as someone pointed out the dumbies. Anyone else would kno better and look for a service much better for there purposes ie: they are comp lit and just want straight internet access and know to set it up without much fuss.Not every computer out there is exactly set up the same way ie: hardware software, type of modem and a pieces of software whole lot of factors and for anyone piece of software to take all that in and work perfectly is impossible just like windows and as we all know windows spits the dummy as much as it works. And to keep this thread related. i personally used to use netscape but always found ie faster and from what ive seen of netscape 6 in action (dogslow on a 700mhz machine with 128ram)..AOL ought to stick with IE unless IE 6 is worse (was 5.5 that much better than 5.0?). Having said that i use AOL60 aussie version on my comp with no problems at all AND Opera v5.11 (shame AOL cant use that browser!!)as a few other guys do since aside from all the IE and Netscape variants its the only other option in browsers - works like a charm and doesnt chew up that much resouces when opening multiple windows unlike IE etc. All bow to Opera!!!!. LOL. Btw if people have problems with AOL connections/disconnections - advice is get a real modem and not the piece of unowhat software modem inside their computer when they buy their X brand comp.:)

Score: 0

By cap737

posted Apr 30, 2001 - 2:31 AM

I agree with the many people who responded to this article saying that this is a good move for aol. I, personally, do not use AOL and never plan on using after encountering bad experiences, but I do enjoy using AOL Instant Messenger because all my friends are on it. Reading a comment from someone complaining that netscape 6 sucks because it's unstable, which is true but it's got more features than the IE5 series. Wouldn't you think that the people at AOL are smart enough to already know that Netscape6 is unstable and instead use Netscape 4.7? When netscape can offer aol a built-in browser with the Gecko engine I'm sure AOL will jump to the offer. On another note, working in retail i hear so many complaints by my customers that they have a hard time trying to get on AOL and when they get on they get booted off 30mins later. Most of the users of aol are the computer "dummies"/novices and are brainwashed by aol and say they use it because it's easy, they get their email, and surf the internet. The other reason why it's slow is becuase they always have the chat feature on and they are highly exposed to Advertisements. I have just recently signed up with Earthlink and I get faster connections then those of aol, i don't get kicked off, my payments are 2 dollars cheaper (and don't reply saying that you can sign up for $19.95 because that only happends when you sign a 1year contract with them), i don't have any ads, and i don't get bugged by people who "just want to stop in and say hi" (that really annoys me). If you want to chat with your aol friends you can download AIM for free and chat with them and others still. if you want to respond to this person with me send me an email about your opinion at capsaddress@hotmail.com . It's time to wake up and smell the color 9

cap737

Score: 0

By NightWing

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 11:04 PM

do you think the teenage and some adult fools will actually know wether AOL has IE strapped on it or Netscape? common, i use AOL, but not it's services. that's cause i am smart. most of AOL users only chat and send e-mails. people do use AOL browsers, but IE and Netscape really have no compeiton xcept for a few defects. AOL can sell itself to a 2nd-rate ISP the AOL users wont know the difference!

Score: 0

By wuliang

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 9:55 PM

I dislike AOL because of its bad inner operation. I don't think the AOL developed on Intel Pentium system.

Score: 0

By Me2You

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 11:47 PM

Wow, this is cool if aol ditches IE, only because aol will surely then be THE single most unstable bug-ridden app available, and at least some people will be more encouraged to finally give up aol for good. hehehe

Score: 0

By BillyG

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 11:35 PM

Dear Web surfers,

I strongly encourage you to try Opera web browser:

www.opera.com

Yours truly,

Billy G.

Score: 0

By franzj

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 8:33 PM

I am more than happy with my FREE copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer, thank you. IE 6.0 is working really well for me, as did IE 5.5.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 6:32 AM

opera is free since few months ago, dumba** (ad supported)

Score: 0

By franzj

posted May 2, 2001 - 5:38 PM

Boy, you really showed this dumba**. IE doesn't have ads either.

Score: 0

By stubear

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 5:57 PM

IE has been free always, non-ad supported :)

Score: 0

By funkervogt

posted Apr 30, 2001 - 1:39 PM

IE is supported by nothing other than your life.. (you know, M$ is big brother........ hahaahahha)

will try opera :)

~DaNi~

Score: 0

By dr4gn

posted May 1, 2001 - 9:13 PM

true, true but opera still blow monkey nuts

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 11:48 AM

But who actually uses the ad-supported version?

Score: 0

By yourgod17

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:22 PM

This is a BAD move for AOL. Netscape 6 is a crappy browser, and many people know it. Most of the internet users use Internet Explorer. If most of the AOL users are those IE users, they will probably quit using AOL and get a new ISP once they have to use netscape, which means that AOL's user count will go down and so will the money they make. They should keep using a browser that people don't mind using...

Score: 0

By i387

posted May 2, 2001 - 1:48 PM

Who said that the new version would be based on Netscape 6? AOL would not be stupid enough to use the codebase from Mozilla circa September 2000.

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 10:09 AM

Wrong - very few people here are putting themselves in the shoes of an AOL user. I doubt very many people reading this site use AOL. AOL users are not using AOL because of the browser they're using. They don't know and they don't care. If AOL switches the browser on them, 90% won't know and 99% won't care just based on the "politics" of the situation. The only reason they'll care is if their online experience suffers for it. So if websites don't start accomodating Netscape 6 (which very few are right now since it *sucks* so hard still and is still "in flux"), then we just might see AOL users reacting to this. Otherwise, they won't.

Score: 0

By MahirSayar

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 6:21 PM

how can it be a mad move? and how can users not care about teh politics? anyone who is half compitent on the net, using AOL, logs on, minimizes and uses IE. not because its better, or because its Ethically Correct - .. but just because its the efficiant way to do things. Netscape 6 is not crap. its alot better then its forfathers... it just takes about 30 seconds to load up. and crashes alot. that doesnt make it crap. what makes AOL crap, is teh fact that i have to waste 32 meg of ram, just having the s*** open on my desktop. if we are talkin about share prices and ways for AOL to stay on top, is to screw their CLIENT, and have a DUN adon - that would make them alot of money, keep people commin onto aol. it would for sure keep me on aol, if they decided to change to netscape.

reply if u wish
juddaszacharia@aol.com
no emails
only im's
thankyou

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 3:21 PM

I disagree. Most AOL users do *not* open AOL and minimize to use IE unless they've been instructed to do so by somebody that is more technically aware of how that process works. AOL is for people that don't care about the technology. They don't care about the politics. They want simplicity and that's what they get. They open up AOL, read their mail and browse the web all within the AOL program. That's a typical AOL user - not "dumb," just no interested in the technology itself.

And as for Netscape 6, please...

"it just takes about 30 seconds to load up. and crashes alot"

...that's *exactly* what makes it crap. If that doesn't make it crap, then what would? Not working at all?

Score: 0

By BEG

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 9:02 PM

Netscape right now may be slow loading and crash prone, but it's ignorant to think it will always be, Netscape right now is about 4-5 milestones behind Mozilla so saying Netscape 6.5(or whatever) will suck because of the current version of NS6 does and not looking at current versions of Mozilla isnt being very fair.

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 29, 2001 - 11:23 AM

I stopped being "fair" to NS6 when the 3 year mark rolled by and the thing still sucked. I'm not judging the final version by the current ones because (a) I don't think there ever will be something they consider "final" and (b) even if it is, something tells me it still won't have the quality one expects of a released product. It sucks. And until they prove otherwise, I'll stand by that.

Score: 0

By drxym

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:14 PM

Score: 0

By TeamMembers

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 11:57 AM

I am a Software Developer...
Also a full MCSE and beta tester for Microsoft.
I have been a AOL Beta User / Tester for years... blaa blaa... Always learing something new.
I know a few things... But they will never be said here... not in this /msg.

And as to "NDA"

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 9:14 AM

if I had to vote for most uselest post in history of betanews, yours would probably be one of the top 10...

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 10:10 AM

And your double-post comes in second. :-) heh heh

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 3:05 PM

hey , aint my fault, that bnews is crawling once in a while :)

Score: 0

By franzj

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 8:36 PM

It's amazing how easy it is to hit the "Submit Query" button once. You should try it.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 6:35 AM

geez, ur really smart one, got a degree or something?

ahh, ur major for agriculture u say? sweet. we need to eat...

Score: 0

By franzj

posted May 2, 2001 - 5:41 PM

I'm just really bad at making jokes. I'm a computer engineer BTW.

Score: 0

By franzj

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 8:37 PM

By the way, I purposely hit it twice.

Score: 0

By rodneyreid

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:39 PM

So why did you bother to post?

Score: 0

By TeamMembers

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 11:47 AM

Let’s just look at this shall we.
How many of you are AOL users… and How many of you know AOL users in real life and online.
If you think about it, AOL doesn’t open the doorway to knowledge like having a normal ISP.
I know many AOL users. I use to be one myself. Until I got off of AOL I didn’t know what FTP (file transfer protocol) was. Just like all the members of AOL I know today… The only way to send someone a file is by means of sending that person an email.
I find it funny.
Also when I was an AOL’er I didn’t know about any other way to communicate with other over the Internet. IRC (Internet relay chat), what was that. I never knew.

Now AOL is gonna change their browser… I find that very funny. Seeing that those members of AOL today are close to mindless at solving there own problem and AOL’s tech support system sucks.
And what is the deal with calling their AOL hotline for help when they stupid adds running telling a person to goto “keyword” whatever when you are calling because your having problems getting online in the 1st place.
So as for AOL. I still have an account my for mom/dad/girlfriend to use casue unlike me… They need their AOL (you got mail) and good old AOL Chat rooms with colors and stuff.

But for me… I need not… So AOL I got a big keyword for you and its “F_CK YOU”.

Score: 0

By danurve

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:44 AM

I hope that they do switch to netscape, it should generate more job security especially for our tech / IT departments. Since the general bulk of tyrAnny On Line users are generaly not inclined to know any better and are willing to pay for being treated like the sheep they are.
[ This would also mean Microsoft has no obligations to promote AOL in future versions of Windows ]
perhaps there is a god...

www.thedge.cc/wizzer.html

Score: 0

By sirhardi

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:43 AM

I also fix computers, and the most common complaint is STILL to this date the connection, busy dial ups, actually it has gotten worse.
And lets not use the standard complience always, lets focus on what users want, and that is what usability right ?

In usablitlity AOL is the easiest, as they have all the links right there that most people use, they do switch once they talk to a webdesigner or PC tech, what most dont know is that their internet content is number one filtered through the AOL network, second its totally unsecure, third its slower than direct access, fourth it is limited in funtionality, "open_new", meaning, try to have two browser windows open on AOL, yes i know, minimize AOL and use IE itslf, so whats the sense than to have AOL in the first place ?......for the you got mail ?......well we have windows sounds right ? thats what they use only their own wave file...so there is absolutly NO benefit to use AOL whatsoever, i see only drawbacks, and with NS integrated, they will loose even more integration with MS products such as office items on web sites, auto update features.....I was a GOLD member NS3.0, i switched at version 3 from IE over.

Score: 0

By TeamMembers

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 11:33 AM

Well my 1st Internet experiences started with AOL (Baby Internet). I learned a lot from AOL I must say.
Then I think I got around to know too much and go myself kicked off from AOL.
Moving on…
I moved over to dial up and that was better… But then I discovered the world of muti-linking a dial up connection… Now that’s what I call a freaking dial up. If you don’t know what miti-linking is! Just think 2 phone lines, with two 56K-v.90 modems both hardware on one PC and dialing up to you ISP and a joined connecting… Improving the speed you connect at.
Now I am a DSL user… and Life is good…
But one thing I did enjoy on AOL is the email. Just think… Having an email box that can store 500 emails… Each with a max file size of 14megs. Now do the math…. Thinking…. Thinking. Ah I got it.
That’s 7000 Megs of file info, all in the email.
I don’t know of any other ISP that gives you that.
Well that my one good thing about AOL.

:)

Score: 0

By nicarley

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 5:07 PM

Multi-Linking is also referred to as Shotgunning!

Score: 0

By sirhardi

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 8:38 PM

Hey ,
with the amount of spam you get as an AOL member, you better have this amount on standby, otherwise AOL would crash with all the bounces :-)

Score: 0

By ataferner

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 8:21 AM

Not only have i been saying that this will eventually happen for over a year now. But logically it makes sense.. AOL OWNS Netscape. Why else would they have bought the company if they hadn't intended to use it for something down the road.

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 8:31 PM

Wow... you're freakin' brilliant. I can't believe you're the only one that thought of this. Good for you to take credit for this "prediction."

Score: 0

By draco517

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 6:01 AM

Searched and found that Active State.com has a product that provides a platform independant development environment called "Komodo 1.0". Perhaps this is part of the secret.

Score: 0

By juggleme

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:18 PM

I think they're just confused. If you look at http://www.mozilla.org they do mention a product called Komodo (at 1.0 even!) but it's just an app that uses the Mozilla XUL framework to make an IDE (well, they don't use that acronym...) for Perl and Python. Not quite the next gen browser, eh? Anywho, using Gecko and Necko isn't the same thing as using Mozilla anyway and they could easily do it anytime soon...

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 3:09 AM

Now AOL will require an extra 20+ MB of RAM to run, and will take an extra 10 or so seconds to start. The average user, who could care less about "standards compliance," will hate that. Unless some *major* code optimization is done -- which I don't see happening -- I don't see it working out.

Score: 0

By brista

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 8:26 AM

Excuse me sir, but when was the last time you used Mozilla, I'm running a P-166 and a K62-4000 for systems. Both run and start Mozilla with ease and speed. And the best for that has yet to come, I'd suggest taking a look at the Mozilla 0.9 Builds when they come out in a week or so.

Score: 0

By thebigbad

posted May 2, 2001 - 8:22 PM

a k62-4000?

I WANT ONE

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:41 PM

A couple of weeks ago I timed the latest Mozilla build for Win32. It took 7 seconds to start for me on my Athlon 900.

Don't even *try* to claim that Mozilla starts quickly, because it certainly doesn't and this is easily proven.

Score: 0

By ataferner

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 8:25 AM

By the time this actually gets implemented none of these things will be an issue.
Mozilla is getting a quickstart like IE. Users will be able to choose whether certain parts of mozilla should be lloaded whenever windows starts (just like most parts of IE get loaded) making the startup speed much faster.
Performance work and lessening the memory footprint is being worked on now. Again. it may take forever for Mozilla to become a great browser, but Awesome things don't get built in an Hour.

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:51 PM

What makes IE so fast to start is NOT because it is loaded "whenever windows starts." If you install IE 5 on an old Windows 95 or NT 4.0 system -- where there is no shell integration -- it still starts *much* faster than Mozilla.

Mozilla suffers from stupid design, plain and simple. Mozilla 0.8.1 is comprised of over 100 DLLs and 2813 files! It's little wonder why it takes an eternity to start and has such a large memory footprint.

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 12:30 PM

Out of curiousity I timed it myself. On NT 4.0, IE 5.5 -- with NO shell integration -- takes 1 second to start on my Athlon 900. On Windows 2000, it starts in slightly under 1 second.

So clearly, integration into the OS is NOT the explanation for IE's fast load time. It still loads very fast without it.

... And I'll take 1 second over Mozilla's 7 seconds any day.

Score: 0

By djtansey

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 11:22 PM

You have got to be kidding me. All of you. The point the first commenter was trying to make (and may not have realized) is that a good portion of the IE code is started up with windows. No, now shell integration. With windows. So the only real test would to be to time WINE (www.winehq.com) loading mozilla and loading IE. MS has things loading in windows bootup that allow for the quick start up. Do this test. Get a new Win 95 system without IE and time it's bootup speed. Then install IE and see if it slows down. But even with that, IE replaces explorer.exe with it's own version so it would be very hard to have an accurate timing since you can't not load explorer.exe.

Get wine and try it.

Score: 0

By CPUGuy

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 2:19 PM

Uhh... you CAN not load Explorer.exe, in Win9x, you just have to have another shell in it's place (you can even use Program Manager if you so desire).

In Win2k, you can use no shell at all.

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 12:13 AM

Oh, and by the way, installing IE 5 does *NOT* replace explorer.exe on Windows 95 or NT 4.0. Reason: There is no shell integration on those OSes!

Shows how much you really know about what you're talking about...

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 12:09 AM

If you think "a good portion" of IE is loaded with Windows you are sadly mistaken and need to do some actual research into the issue.

And I hope you aren't serious with your suggestion to use WINE. WINE is a Windows emulator (despite what the acronym claims); you can't possibly expect to get the same performance on WINE as with "real" Windows.

Score: 0

By Rich_777

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 12:05 AM

Can Netscape integrate its own shell into Windows? Does Microsoft allow for this? It may load just as fast then.

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 10:13 AM

Didn't you read the post? Integrating into the shell is not what makes it fast. That makes it "faster" perhaps (which is debatable) but IE in a non-shell-update environment can will whip the pants of Mozilla.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:27 AM

Wait a second, I can understand that people dont like Netscape... I can understand that people dont like AOL (ISP), however, do not claim that you use MS IE and MSN Messenger cuz your are a power user, thats just plain funny...

thats comparable to AOL user saying he uses AOL as his ISP since he is power user...haha....

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 10:18 AM

Well, I think only ICQ can be considered the "power users" instant messaging client but in my opinion, there should be no such option. IM clients should do several things *only* - provide presence information, transfer messages (rich with photos, even), files, voice would be bonus. Anything more than that should be left to some other program.

As for IE - hells yeah that's for the power user. Why not? From a web developer's point of view it's a ferrari and has an incredible amount of power. When viewing sites that take advantage of this, the user has a richer experience. Now, if you mean "power" for the "end user" I'm assuming you mean customizability, flexibility in browswing, etc... and IE provides all of this (customized toolbars, fullscreen browsing, dozes of settings controlling how the browser works, the ability to skin with 3rd party tools, etc...).

So... why not a power users tool for the browser? Care to explain?

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 6:43 AM

btw, what actual advantages for developers does IE have over Mozilla? And facts please, dont write something out of your head...

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 3:24 PM

First, I'm really comparing IE to Netscape 4.x - not 6 - 6 is simply not in the arena yet. It's not stable and it's not widely in use. When that changes, this conversation could take it into account.

As for IE, the advantages it has over NEtscape 4.x is real DHTML support, CSS, etc... compared to Mozilla, while Mozilla has some of these things now, it's simply an unreliable program. Slow, buggy, and noe in wide use. Simple as as that.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 9:24 AM

Right now...the MAJOR advantage for we developers is the knowledge that 88% of the public use IE, meaning they know exactly how their pages are going to look. Of course most web developers try and keep everyone happy and as a result either write seperate versions of their web pages specific for each browser, or increase the size of each of their pages by 30%? to handle each browser, yes Netscape 4.7, IE, Netscape 6.0 and some even try to handle Opera and a few others. And to make it worse each of those has a different implementation of javascript to make it even more fun!

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 6:41 AM

hmm, you think IE is powerful since you can change its toolbar? hmm, think again, you can re-create whole user interface with mozilla, and yes thats what I call powerful, not buch of wizards

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 9:20 AM

skinning/themeing/whatever you want to call it does not make Mozilla 'powerful'. It's just the latest fad that as many applications as possible are trying to implement. No 'power user' or anyone that isn't a newbie gets overly excited about being able to skin their browser! Yes it might be a nice addon but that's it...you're using the browser to view web pages not to view those webpages with your favourite icons and border colors, give me a break.

Score: 0

By ShafuyZ

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:58 AM

Who will benefit from this switch? Hard to tell. Even IF Netscape becomes stable and fast, it's doubtful it will be near-100% compatible for "made-for-IE" (mostly personal/quickie) webpages - and those are growing fast in numbers.

This means that even AOL users will use IE5.5+ to view those pages, and eventually forget about browsing inside AOL if it gets too often. If they don't have IE55 handy (still with Win95) - I'm sure MS will be happy to spam every household in America with their MSN CD in the spirit of good-ol'-AOL.

The ad could read "never get errors when visiting webpages with AOL! Try MSN Explorer today free for 90 days and end the frustration."

I personally hope IE gets 95% of the browser market as soon as possible. I don't fear that "innovation will die when competition dies". Fact is, most cool things in my IE are outside plugs such as Powermarks for my bookmarks/favorites and Flash/Acrobat for rendering new exciting formats. IE5 is that good, that if it doesn't get improved for the next 5 years I wouldn't be so worried about it.

Score: 0

By drxym

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 9:58 AM

Fortunately AOL have been smart enough to ensure that all the AOL content, plus all of their partner's content is browser neutral. This should make it straightforward enough to switch across.

If a few home user's sites don't work any more then that's too bad, they should learn to program HTML properly.

Score: 0

By rodneyreid

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 10:47 PM

Ahhh, but this is _EXACTLY_ the point!

Many ppl who make web pages don't know a head from a body tag. If they export from office they'll get a nicely laid out in IE page, but a gee ugly netscape page.

The public doesn't care that you coded your page to one browser over another. If it doesn't work, they want to see it working and will switch to the browser it works in!

Why is this hard to see? Cause we (the ops, designers, and programmers) see browsers/browser-users as they 'ought' to work not how they really do.

Score: 0

By chrismarts

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 11:07 AM

I can honestly say I doubt "user's homepages" not being rendered right is going to be the first thing on the list of "oops's" - e-commerce sites, banking sites, etc... need to support Netscape 6 if they want to pull this off and right now, many don't.

Score: 0

By drxym

posted Apr 27, 2001 - 10:14 AM

Yes, they might blame AOL if the pages don't look good anymore, but I expect it will be a rare enough occurence. Home pages built with AOL's tools probably look the same on any browser. Even 3rd party authoring tools such as from Microsoft tend to look good on any browser. I use FrontPage all the time and it's fine.

The stuff likely to cause Gecko to puke are those pages with IE specific content, such as proprietary DOM calls, VBScript, ActiveX and so on. I have no idea what AOL will do about them, but it could certainly notify the author and leave it up to them to decide whether to update their page or not. Perhaps AOL will even produce some tools to automatically fix some of the most common problems.

Score: 0

By stubear

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:42 AM

AOL has been planning on this since they purchases Netscape. The reason they have waited until now is because their case against, oops, I meant the givernmetn's case against MS would have gone belly up if they couldn't prove that MS IE had the lion's share of the browser market. Once AOL switches over to Netscape the browser share will tip in favor of Netscape, though it will probably be close to 50/50. MSN is fast becoming the largest ISP and will help keep the browser share numbers a lot more even.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:45 AM

fast becoming what? They are still not 2nd even...while AOL is growing faster and faster.... me defending AOL sux, but thinking that MSN is better is even worse... if you want really good ISP, get some DSL based ISP (through covad)... and that should be more than enough....

Score: 0

By stubear

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:35 AM

I wish someone would, for once, list some examples of MS' proprietray HTML code along with this accusation. While they might not have complete HTML compliancy, the only differences I see are in interpretation of the standards. In this case no one is to "blame" when having different opinions on as loose a standard as HTML. I find IE works in the way most people expect it to work. When I define a table to contain three rows, the top and bottom being x pixels high and the middle being the remaining percentage high Iexpect the middle table to expand automatically. Netscape 4 and 6 both choke on this simple table while IE renders it as I nvision it to work. I'll take this over so-called standards compliancy anyday. Once IE 6 comes out with full compliancy to the standards what will you people find to b**** about? MS has added extar functionality and it's unfair?

Score: 0

By BEG

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 1:58 AM

"When I define a table to contain three rows, the top and bottom being x pixels high and the middle being the remaining percentage high Iexpect the middle table to expand automatically. Netscape 4 and 6 both choke on this simple table while IE renders it as I nvision it to work."

I imagine this is because the height and width attributes in cells have been deprecated by the W3C. So in this case Mozilla is more compliant even though it "seems" like its wrong. I haven't looked but I guess you would use CSS to assign height and width measurements to table cells?

Score: 0

By stubear

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 9:49 AM

Actually height, and this is one of my major complaints of the W3C, was never considered part of the standard. Why the **** not? What the hell were they thinking when they pulled that concept out of their ass? "Table height is not important, let's just not support it even though MS IE uses the attribute and it works rather well. Let's give Netscape a break because their implementation, when implemented that is, sucks." Now most table attributes have been depricated though this does not mean eliminated altogether, it just means they would prefer they new browsers focus on CSS implementation of these older "standards".

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:14 AM

he's not smoking anything....yes the rendering engine still is buggy as hell and it has nothing to do with IE-only standards. Simple things like having an image and text in a cell of a nested table is enough to screw up the rendering engine. So until the rendering engine does it job properly how about you drop the whole 'it's 100% standards compliant' crap....it can be 200% standards compliant, but if it can only render 90% correctly it's not much use!

Score: 0

By quackhead2001

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 10:29 PM

Let's not forget the fact that AOL sux anyway. Of the few things that AOL could do to make its service worse, this is one of them. I personally feel that, as a power user, a person should have a lean, fast, efficient browser that supports every format I have ever seen, and, you guessed it, it's IE. Netscape does not even support layers correctly, or Macromedia Flash transparency. I was a Netscape person until IE 4.0 came out and realized that something better was already on my machine, after upgrading. I could now go on and on about my loathing of Netscape, but I won't waste any more of your time.

Score: 0

By Ragga

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 7:17 AM

AOL sux full stop. I am in the UK and enquired about using them as my ISP, I was sent an installation disc, couldnt even sign up!

The software took over my computer completey!

Never again! and I will continue to use IE above all other browsers.

Ragga

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 10:38 PM

? By any means, Mozilla is the browser that supports standards more than any other browser, including MS IE... this has been tested by numerous labs and published... however Mozilla is not finished product yet, so it is not better than IE right now... but you can rest assured that by the time they release new AOL 7.0 it will be more than good replacement for IE... and no, I do not intend to use AOL ever, but definetly will use Mozilla 1.0 (btw, I am not linux freak either, it seems that most people around here forgot that Netscape was once power users choice, and it shall be again)

Score: 0

By theancient1

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:16 AM

I switched to Internet Explorer in version 2, I believe. The only version of Netscape I used seriously was 1.1. Everything after that was too bloated for my taste. Your "power user" statement is a quite a generalization.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:10 AM

if you switched to IE 2.0, something had to be wrong with you... hands down, Netscape was 3,000,000% better then... now if you said that you switched at 4.x i would believe you and if you said 5.x I would support you... but 2.x? thats kind of funny

Score: 0

By DryLegHumper

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 9:43 AM

IE 3.0 was the real turning point for IE. While it still didn't support JavaScript, it supported CSS, a better Java interface and finally had a slick interface along with some neat new things (like ActiveX which let us install plugins without having to reboot or restart the browser...see: Netscape). NS's 3.0 was decent at best and I did use it alongside IE3, but it had nothing incredibly compelling. NS 4 provided the same thing with a new interface and added an even longer startup time (while IE4 added an even longer bootup time due to the UI interface change...).

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 3:00 AM

I think IE 3.0 was when it really started to surpass Netscape. That's when I made the switch.

Score: 0

By quackhead2001

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 10:49 PM

TO which so-called standards do you refer? I would like to see a list of standards that Netscape supports but IE does not. I can give you a slew of standards that go the other way.
If Mozilla ever gets finished, and I find it to be better than IE, than I will donate my entire paycheck to any charity you desire.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 10:59 PM

read around i guess, u cant spend ur life with your head in the bad...

here are few:
http://www.webreview.com...charts/mastergrid.shtml

dont have too much time to respond now, but if you do a search on any engine, you will find 10+ articles about it...

Score: 0

By MST3K-rules

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 11:35 PM

Okay, we all agree that AOL is terrible, but this would just make them absolutely horrific. The load time of Netscape 6 is impressively bad.

Oh, and as for that compliance webpage, I looked at it. It really is full of crap. As someone who actually writes webpages I know that the important stuff that actually needs support only gets it from IE. Netscape promised me good xsl/xml support, but guess what, my xml pages only work in IE. In fact, my css doesn't even load properly in Netscape 6, 4, or any other version number. Also, the pages take a lot longer to load and the initial load time for the software is terrible. I looked at a lot of the css stuff in that article, and some parts that they listed as buggy for IE5.5 work flawlessly for me, and other parts that they list as Perfect for Netscape 6 I have first hand experience in witnessing it fail to render. All those reports are biased towards N6. Now, perhaps Netscape 6 does actually render absolutely perfect code better, that's hard to say, but actual code that is used in websites is only supported well by IE.

The so called greatness that is Netscape 6, can't load simple non-css tables correctly on my pages.

AOL is much more insideous than Microsoft. People spend tons of time complaining about how the incredibly complex software that runs every inch of their computer costs a hundred bucks, but aol charging nearly double the U.S. national norm for monthly access and popping up almost as many ads as NetZero is no big woop. AOL does a lot more of the spying stuff that MS is always accused of. AOL's only power lies not in services, dependability, or reliability; their power lies simply in sheer bulk and user numbers.

Their greatest skill is at signing up early net users. I myself first got onto the internet (well not the net, aol didn't have full net access at that time) using aol because it was the simplest game in town. Aside from that AOL really is a horrible company that makes Microsoft look like a damned puppy dog. The only reason I use Aol Instant Messenger is because all my friends have it; I've tried MSN messenger and feel it is superior. Sorry for dragging on and veering off, but I do get annoyed by the double standard applied against MS.

Score: 0

By Ender

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 4:35 PM

Now, perhaps Netscape 6 does actually render absolutely perfect
code better, that's hard to say, but actual code that is used in
websites is only supported well by IE.

This should have been: code written to bypass all the bugs, quirks, mis-interpretations, faults... in IE rendering engine will display well on IE but will fail on Netscape 6 because it is COMPLIANT to the standard. Microsoft is compliant to ONE standard: World Domination.

Score: 0

By jr

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 2:52 AM

Eh, no... When pages fail to display on Netscape 6, they are usually caused by errors in the HTML code. IE is simply more forgiving to such errors.

And there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't say in the HTML spec that if a page contains bad HTML, the entire page layout must screw up.

Score: 0

By Ender

posted Apr 29, 2001 - 4:28 PM

And if a program contains a bug... it is not supposed to crash???

Score: 0

By drxym

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:14 PM

Do you honestly believe that MSN, or Yahoo!, or Excite etc. does not gather as much data about users as AOL?

Think again. In fact AOL has some pretty anal policies for their employees to protect customer privacy. It's grounds for instant dismissal to look up someone's account without good reason, or to reveal anything about the. I can't recall the link but Slashdot carried a link to an essay by someone who worked in their abuse department which showed how strict they were about it. Bad for employees, but good for customers. As for popping up adverts, I suggest you change your prefs and it won't happen.

As for your other complaints about Mozilla, I suggest you raise bugs on the issue. If your XML & CSS is compliant with the spec, there is no reason why it should not work. Mozilla also has XSL support but it's a build flag.

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 2:20 AM

MSN mesenger more powerful than what? AIM? I could care less...but more powerful than ICQ? you got to be kidding me...

Score: 0

By BenGoodger

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 1:01 AM

"my xml pages only work in IE."

Sigh. Another excuse for a web developer claiming that Netscape breaks their pages written to "standards." (And why not, IE may as well be the de-facto standard). But it is nothing more than that, a de-facto standard. A pseudo-standard if you will. And when it comes to supporting a cross platform application, pseudo standards don't mean jack. Yes, Netscape 6 has bugs. Yes Mozilla still has bugs. But the two layout engines exhibit a fundamental difference in philosophy: one is to support standards and developers (and thus end-users by proxy), and the other to simply support end users at the expense of developers who are willing to do the job that they are getting paid for.

Score: 0

By seany187

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:04 AM

For your information Mozilla is most standards compliant. If you are wondering what the real defination is of what we are talking about. W3.org makes the web standards. When we mean most compliant it means mozilla support over 1,000 more features which are web standards on w3.org then IE. IE has some of its own standards that is why some of its extra features are not compatible in mozilla. The mozilla team is very picky about these standards by the way and will not add features that work in IE and not mozilla unless they are on w3.org. Anyways, thats my ramble.

Score: 0

By viowatch

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 11:16 AM

Netscape is just awful in standards, i have seen several popular sites that just look like s*** in netscape. This is a pure netscape issue, the browser just does not render things like it should. I have seen internal emails from the netscape dev team where a website was 100% standard compliant and it didnt load right in netscape, i hope that settles the issue.

I have used the komodo client, the browser is pretty much external, you can run it without even signed onto aol. I have a feeling aol with netscape is gonna cause havok on peoples systems.

vio

Score: 0

By spwolf

posted Apr 28, 2001 - 6:47 AM

huh? what are you talking about? you saw "internal" emails from netscape where sites didnt look right? hmm, okeeeey... why dont you go and play with your mom...

Score: 0

By stubear

posted Apr 26, 2001 - 12:38 AM

These web standards that you place on high are interpreted by the companies that use them. They are not a set of rules set in stone, they can breath a little bit. I ran IE 6 through a few of the online compliancy tests that Netscape users scream about and it passed with flying colors. You are running out of BS complaints, better start looking for more.

Score: 0

By zts

posted Apr 25, 2001 - 9:53 PM

That would be a huge mistake on AOL's part. IE engine is much better, faster, and stable. Netscape simply doesn't cut it any longer (actually that's the only grievance I have about my other, Linux machine). AOL should also be concerned about how th