Thank God 4 AOL
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- kpl0
realist to you must mean being a defeatist.
Ok so you didn't get my point, that MS doesn't control the marketplace. You know who does? Designers and developers. We're the ones that made it mandatory that everyone download a flash plugin, we're the ones that made Java irrelevant, we're the ones that got people to use browsers beyond Netscape 1 and Mosaic. And we're the ones that buried VBScript in favor for Javascript.
- ********0
no, realist... you don't control shit... money does.
and uh, yes.... last I checked microshit controls the browser market...
I was not talking about php asp vbscript and javascript to begin with. popularity of those rest with different (yet economic) forces. so your comparision was irrelevant... and I tried to explain that but you obviously missed the point.
again, I am by no means supporting microshit. I am criticizing our system for failing to reign in monopolies like microshit whilst pointing out how useless the battle *at this point* is over browser wars.
- chl0
I've thought for a while now that a big part of the reason the IE dominates, even though Mozilla is around and is clearly better in many ways, is that designers have the attitude "I only care if this works on IE." Just today I have come across three sites that bounced me to "Only works with IE" screens. Incidentally, all three of these sites worked just fine with Mozilla when I tricked them into lettting me in.
If designers start making use of some of the really cool things you can do in Mozilla that won't work in IE then I think there'd be a lot more adoption of non-MS browsers. I also think this might push MS to try for better standards compliance which would reduce everyone's headaches with things not lining up properly, etc.
- ********0
what is better about mozilla any ways? it can render faster? it uses dhtml more elegantly? WTF is really so special about mozilla?
seriously enlighten me.
this is like deja vu. "if designers start using some of the features that dont work in IE?"!? are you newschool or something? did you ever have to bug test for 3 browsers on 3 versions of two platforms?
I think designers just plain got tired of all the crap they had to deal with and just finally decided 'fuck this' I'm going with what's most popular. I know I used to burn a candle for netscape but finally microshit got their act together and made it good on MAC. now we've all agreed by overwhelmingly popular choice to use microcrap. I'm with it. fuck it.
- chl0
Well, yes, Mozilla does render faster, but that's not really an issue for practical purposes.
The first cool thing that comes to mind is all the neat opacity stuff you can do in Mozilla. It supports all the alpha stuff in png files properly which gives you some neat options. It also supports a lot of CSS2 correctly. I use a little of this on my site, and as a consequence it does not render properly in IE on windows.
IE, on the other hand, still does not implement basic things like the CSS1 box model correctly. See here for more info.
http://www.tantek.com/CSS/Exampl…
I believe that IE6 will implement the box model correctly but only with a specific DOCTYPE declaration. I don't remember which one.
Yes, I have spent three days trying to get three different browsers to try and line everything up the same. That's why I really wish that all the browser vendors put as much effort into standards compliance as the Mozilla people do. If that were the case then I'd have to spend a lot less time dealing with these issues.
Now, again, none of this is in reference to NN4.x, which was just overwhelmingly bad. I agree that it's certainly not worth anyone's time to code for it anymore.
But as I noted before, a lot of sites that claim to only work with IE will actually work just fine with Mozilla too. When I started working on NT, for example, it would only allow IE, when in fact it worked perfectly for me in Mozilla.
- dgtl_rchtct0
i like netscape.
- kpl0
Just to make clear, I'm more bothered by your cynical money-rules attitude more than your reliance on microsoft. It's definitely a defeatist attitude, one that stifles progress, makes things harder than they should be, and supports the status quo.
If I may be so bold, there would be no civils rights movement if everyone was a "realist."
and as a side note, ie is probably one of the worst browsers on the mac. safari and camino beat it hands down in standards compliance, speed, and features. It even has trouble rendering colors correctly with GIFs. I'm not going to use IE if I can help it.
- ********0
You've got me pinned a cynical money rules everything guy. which is true of me to some degree I will admit.
but I beg you to show me where the world works different, I'd like to live there...
so what's the plan then? keep developing these browsers and why? what is the business model? how will they make money? how will they defeat microshit?
are safari and camino exactly correct between them? or do they too have differences?
I mean c'mon. let's just get a single standard browser... IE works for me. let's get past the headaches...
- dgtl_rchtct0
i still like netscape.
- chl0
I think the point is more that if all the browsers supported the standards properly, we wouldn't have to deal with the idea of coding for a specific browser or platform. That's the point of having standards.
And no, I don't think the idea of "let's just have one browser and have that be it" is a good one. For example, a browser that you might want to embed into a cell phone might well be characteristically different than on you'd want to use on a desktop computer.
- dgtl_rchtct0
hence the point of standards chl. that wouldn't be a problem if there was a "mega" browser that did all things.
did i mention i like netscape?
- chl0
If there were a mega-browser that did everything, than that would effectively be the standard.
In this case though, there are easily visible published documents that are supposed to define the standards, and which are not under the control of any single entity, which is typically a good thing.
And I'm glad you like Netscape. ;)
- dgtl_rchtct0
haha, well if thats the case then there are standards for standard browsers one might use but not an overall standard that places those sub standards together as one large standard. ??
whatever, to each his own. one browser likes it this way and another likes it that way. one browser has its set of standards the other has its own variation.
i support mega browser. go mega browser go!
- ilmarine0
yep, you're livin in a perfect world. let's say this again, "it would be PURRRFECT if all the browsers supported standards." this won't happen in the near future at least.
to me most of the problem isn't the fact that most new browsers (version 5+) do most of the things jsut fine. to me the problem is that we are still required to code for browsers such as netscape 4. the amount of time one could put making a project truely outstanding is wasted on making simple (by modern standards) things work on ancient browsers. if i wanted kick-ass motions tweens amd howly-god looking menus i would do them in flash.
of course there are still certain aspects. mozilla 1.3 was the first browser besides ie to support good dhtml wysiwyg areas. so, things are getting better.
- ********0
"I think the point is more that if all the browsers supported the standards properly, we wouldn't have to deal with the idea of coding for a specific browser or platform. That's the point of having standards."
no shit sherlock. so now about the reality of the situation... IE runs shit. what you gonna do? what's the game plan here. how are you going to *force* microsoft to conform and follow the standards *without* adding new shit that other browsers don't support therefore making hell upon web designers.
- ribit0
If everyone was to accept a single browser as a standard, and it was to be IE, surely Microsoft should make its innards more available to all developers, and it shouldn't be owned by a single company, and it should be TRULY cross-platform, as part of that standard, etc...
Whatever happened to the idea of the Internet as being independent of any platform/county/company...
- 256greys0
I suppose you heard also the announcement that "IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation" ( http://rss.com.com/2100-1032_3-1… ) and that IE is going to evolve only as a part of the OS.
I cannot see the evil plot... but I'm sure it's somewhere.
Why on earth would microsoft end the development of IE? Enlighten me!
- ribit0
it doesn't say anything about IE on other platforms?
- 256greys0
ribit, I don't have any sure information about this, but I'm quite sure there will not be any new IE for any platform, at least before Longhorn comes out (2005).
But still, I've heard that IE6 for MacOSX was almost there...
( http://slashdot.org/article.pl?s… )
- 256greys0
"Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
( http://www.microsoft.com/technet… )Now, to browse the web, you *need* IE. Soon, to browse the web, you'll *need* a windows machine. :)