Trev wrote:
I wouldn't buy a browser, for what it's worth. Web browsers have always been free (or bundled) on modern systems
To an extent true. But Opera for one was at a premium to begin with, true there was a free version, but it was limited, and had ads.
For the Amiga back in 98-99 I bought IBrowse1, upgrade to IBrowse2, Voyager3 and Aweb-II.
No matter how you look at it, mozilla.org has made a business of it's free FireFox. Opera has a business with their Opera Browser. And Microsoft and Apple must have their IE and Safari for their OS'.
Amiga Inc and Hyperion should have made a browser for OS4, and Amiga Inc should have made a browser for OS3.5 and OS3.9. But they didn't, because they didn't and still don't have the resources.
So this leaves enthusiasts, and third party developers.First ones will work for free, but it requires a certain level of dedication, motivation and free time. MorphOS and AROS seems to bring that to the table, so one day we might have Traveller and Sputnik. Certainly OS4 with OWB also has provided the needed spiff to a developer.
Now for third parties, money is needed. And for it to be money in it. There needs to be users willing to pay. And the majority of Amiga OS 3.x users are voicing that they are not. IOSpirit probaby felt this when they were selling IBrowse, and this is probably the reason to why they aren't anymore.
The only scenarios that hold any hope for OS3.x users are:
- A port of Traveller
- A port of OWB
- A rejuvenated IBrowse with a release 4(3 is already stated not to be a "perfect modern browser", and noone knows if or when that will be).
Traveller is the one hope I think that has most substance. Because it's being made for AROS which to some extent is OS3.1 compatible. But it's the one which is least complete atm.
So if you want to do it all, and an Amiga is your only computer, you need to learn how to code then... And you need to learn to do it well.
PS: I'm not asking for trouble, just calling it like I see it.
