As usuall this agains spawns heavy discussions on Netscape addicts and IE
addicts.
I guess this is the problem (as Michael pointed out) : both browsers are the
worst implementations of a software application. They are doing things they
shouldn't do (email, news, etc..) And the things you use them for (browsing
the web) aren't being done in one normal standard way.
Everyone is raving about Netscape keeping up with standards, but those
standards are worthless seeing as more then 90% of the people browsing the
web are using a non-standard compliant browser like IE. So while Mozilla is
trying to be standard compliant (to W3C standards, who seem to release new
versions of there standards before the old one is actually useable or
standard for that matter).
If there was only one browser (I don't give a damn on who creates it at this
point) things would be alot easier, and Mozilla is making that harder then
it already was with introducing yet another browser which works almost like
IE but because IE is not standard compliant, they both differ in small but
important areas.
Ofcourse we also have Opera going at it, but it's Javascript support (which
in my opinion is a key-component for web-browsing) is not really upto it and
therefor not yet a key player (although making it free proves that they are
still a player).
And sure the DynAPI is a cross-browser library, but would you also still
support DOS applications? At one point things are just outdated and in a
library like the DynAPI these browsers might actually hold things back for a
small group of people that are using this library. Netscape 4 might still
be a large area to support (with Linux users) but IE4 is also being outdated
(seeing that Microsoft stuffs the auto-update junk on your screen many
times, I can't imagine even the dumbest pc users haven't upgraded somehow
using the download option or any random pc magazine's cover CD). Looking at
my site's access logs most users (98%) are already using a Windows based
platform with an IE5+ browser.
To make it even worse, Netscape is now officially dead, there will be an AOL
browser available... will this be "based" on Mozilla, or will AOL add things
that will add to the "AOL experience" which will most likely spawn some
other hot features not found in the standards.
Don't get me wrong, I'm definetly not pro-microsoft (I'm already terrified
by the .Net idea which hopefully will fail) but at this point I wouldn't
mind MS having a monopoly position in browsers.. it would simplefy things so
much that it could even open up for other developers to create new and
compact browsers that can show all websites because they are IE compatible.
How long would we keep support for these older browsers in the DynAPI, and
shouldn't we be looking forward. We might actually be making things worse by
giving people a reason to not upgrade to a "better" browser.
Pascal Bestebroer ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Software ontwikkelaar
Oberon Informatiesystemen b.v.
http://www.oibv.com
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