Mozilla on AOS4

[gnarly]

mikeymike wrote:
And that's not having a go at the guys who develop IBrowse, it's just a fact.  If one browser has armies of developers behind it, and the other has only a handful, which is more likely to finish first?

A web browser is never finished ;-)

I would love an implementation of Gecko over here on the miggy. I fear that we may need GTK+ or QT first though... (I might be wrong though)

Hey DaveP, didnt you start on a gecko port for OS3.9 a while back? Or was that an April 1st thread? ;-)

[bhoggett]

Well, I'm going to be a dissenting voice and say I still have issues with Opera. It seems to encounter problems with some css formatted pages and also fails to handle javascript which IE, Mozilla (and all Gecko based browsers) and Konqueror all manage perfectly. In fact Opera shares the javascript problem with IBrowse.

Speed is good, but speed is not everything. I use Phoenix on Windows and Galeon or Konqueror on Linux. Opera is installed on both, but will not become the default browser until it handles all the pages the others do with the same results

[mikeymike]

@ gnarly

You *know* what I mean, smarta***! :-)

Erm, what's Mozilla got to do with GTK+ or QT?  I could be very very wrong, and I would be very very surprised, but I thought that was the point of using their own home-grown GUI design standard (XUL is it?), so that it was more open to porting across platforms....

AOS4 needs an up-to-date standards compliant web browser.  Opera 7x, Mozilla or a.n.other Gecko-based browser, take your pick people!

If someone wants to give me the world's fastest crash course in C, I'll help out on the Mozilla/AmigaOS port... I've got as far as successfully writing a few programs with gcc! :-)

(Mozilla 1.3 user here)

[DethKnight]

Once again, I am the odd man out I guess,
 (I did "fail" the eharmony.com psyche eval)
I sit here curently running mozilla 1.3 on my "Marklar compatibe" 750 celeron bx100 board. (suse 8.1)

The browser speed is no different for me regardless of whether I use konq , opera, or moz
And its about the same when I boot into win2kpro and use Instant Net Exploder 6

so, I guess I cant follow along or relate with the issue at hand a.t.t.

so we SHOULDNT make web pages that use advanced features and work flawless with 95% of the public?...and then try to get  them to download Mozilla (big fat app) on 56K ? for what reason?  I think not... IE is pre-installed and FREE... its what people write for....I mentioned some special sites that will make them work good for differant purposes e.g Amiga,Linux,etc...(of course you dont make an Amiga website opted for IE...or netscape)

but for the general public you have to assume their running IE....and from there... avoid doing anything to screw up their IE expierence...

[Quixote]

mips_proc mentioned:

but for the general public you have to assume their running IE....and from there... avoid doing anything to screw up their IE expierence...

;-) No, you want to make your page crash Internet Explorer if you can, then tell the unhappy campers that the incompatibility is their browser's fault.  That's the way Microsoft did it, anyway...

[nyteschayde]

Actually they are slimming down the engine from this point on. So watch the part we need to port get smaller and faster.

[DaveP]

The amount of overall work required won't change
Im afraid just the amount of engine code that sits
on the abstraction layer will be reduced and become
easier to maintain.

[mikeymike]

@ mips_proc

If you want to support/condone some of the worst business practices the world has ever seen, I guess that's up to you :-)

Personally I like to keep the playing field as open as possible, and let the best product get the greatest share of the market.  The only way that can be done is by supporting standards, not only browsers.

Also remember that if Microsoft invented the Internet, like they keep trying to tell everyone they did, the only way you'd be able to connect to it would be (after the complimentary Internet Product Activation, involving the divulging of half your personal details and a chunk of your credit card limit) only through an "MS approved Internet accessibility product".  Is that something you'd like to condone as well, or do you prefer the idea that anyone with any machine that has the capability to access the Internet to be able to?

[cockney_dave]

I agree really, think the fascination with a Mozilla port has probably become blind really (its been discussed for years now), especially in light of the fact we now have an Amiga open source browser project in the form of AWeb, if people want to contribute they should help this project in my opinion rather than starting another.

It would be nice to see AWeb become the YAM of web browsing on the Amiga.  :-D

Then there's the latest IBrowse and Voyager, both of which meet most of my needs, particularly like the latest IBrowse release. But, always thought AWeb was fundamently better some how, its never (4 years of pretty regular use), crashed on me once, complete contrast to Voyager.

But there's still plenty of room for improvement...

All three Amiga browsers need (in my experience of using all 3)
- Better printing support
- Truetype fonts for display
- Shockwave-flash (Voyager's support is still quite limited)
- RealPlayer (lol)

Think it would also be nice to see more collaborations like Apdf's Vpdf module for Voyager, thinking 'embedded' MP3 streaming, avi/qt player, etc.

We don't need another browser, just the one's we've got brought up to speed  ;-)

[L8-X]

I agree with Mips on this one, most knowledgable users might go searching for a better browser, and actually pay for it when they find one they like, but most of the time people will be using a flavour of windows and will just use the built in IE, it's there and it works.

(unfortunately!)

[mikeymike]

@ L8-X

How is that agreeing with mips? :-)

Mips is basically saying why should anyone bother developing for anything other than IE, as 95% of worldwide users use that.

The fact that most people use IE isn't being debated, and it's not something likely to change very quickly.  If the antitrust court case(s) had gone better, then maybe IE would either have been unbundled, (or now thinking about it, preferably...) forced to adhere to the standards 100%.  Then the fact that 95% of people use it doesn't affect the people that don't.

I do support standerds...IE is a standerd... and I would make pages for it... because making pages means making money...I dont make money by giving a client a webpage that uses some standerds they never heard of and loads poorly on their computer but loads nicely on some nerds computer... the world isnt full of nerds its full of average people who want things done and want them to just 'WORK" and dont care if their perfect in every little way...


IE is fine as a browser goes(not saying other browsers are not fine, just saying their not nearly as standerd)... sure Opera has a couple features IE dosent...but IE has more then a couple Opera dosent... and IE is by far the fastest browser I've ever seen.. since its integrated right into windows itself...

I think if they un-bundled IE from windows... it would just add to the cost of IE .. as OEM's like Dell/etc would still put IE onto windows and just charge an extra ammount for it and for doing it...

It's the year 2003 guys... people want more features in their OS...a TCP/IP stack and a browser are 'basic' things...part of the OS itself...this is a networked world...an OS isnt an OS without the ability to get online and browser the web... any court would rule thats the case...

It's sad but there ya go... thats my two cents on it...

[mikeymike]

@ mips_proc

I do support standerds...IE is a standerd...

Yes, about as much as MS Word format is a standard.

I dont make money by giving a client a webpage that uses some standerds they never heard of and loads poorly on their computer but loads nicely on some nerds computer

Erm, if you designed a web page that works in Mozilla, it's a damn sight more likely to work in other browsers.

I think if they un-bundled IE from windows... it would just add to the cost of IE ..

IE is free.

OEM's like Dell/etc would still put IE onto windows and just charge an extra ammount for it and for doing it...

Any OEM that did that would be a dead OEM very quickly, as it would't be the attitude generally taken, as OEMs know their customers want a web browser.  In the old days, Netscape used to be bundled.  Did any OEMs charge for that?  I don't think so.  On the other hand, I think if an OEM were to advertise a registered copy of Opera with their PC bundle, it would receive a warm reception.

It's the year 2003 guys... people want more features in their OS...a TCP/IP stack and a browser are 'basic' things...part of the OS itself...this is a networked world...an OS isnt an OS without the ability to get online and browser the web... any court would rule thats the case...

Which is why I said it would be a preferable solution to force MS to make IE standards-compliant.

Expanding on my opinion about this, I think any software that gets bundled with an OS should be standards compliant, as it only hurts the evolution of the software market to do otherwise.  Standards compliant software 9 times out of 10 is going to be more future-proof. as people coming up with the standards aren't primarily trying to line their pockets with money as a direct result of the standard.  It's like MS's laughable stand on making Office 2003 "open" by using XML, then as usual, going back on what they said because they realise it might compromise their strangle-hold on the office software market.

A world with only one software company is one that receives very little innovation in software design, because quite frankly, why bother innovating when you can just squeeze more money out of your customer base by forcing them to "upgrade" all the time to a virtually identical "new" product.  Look at Office for example: same old security problems since Word 6, and only the most minor changes for the better have come in since.  Microsoft however would very much like you to pay 500 quid for the privilege of the same old security problems, a more bloated product with even more bizarre bugs than previous versions had (let's talk about the Office 2k registration bug shall we?).  Do you think that's innovation?

Most companies or free software movements understand that in order to continue getting revenue, they have to innovate.  Doing the opposite is possible, MS are a testament to that, but it just screws up the evolution of what IT has to offer.

I support free-market...if MS wants to they can market windows with whatever they want...and impose on people all they want...because ya know what? you buy their products... the whole world does...and they do it because its the cheapest/easiest and most widely accepted product... why? because Mac's cost a fortune and hardly anyone is smart enough to use Linux.

MSWord format is a standerd because the market dictates its a standerd... everyone uses it ...so it became standerd...not some evil conspiracy...

IE is a standerd because the market dictates its a standerd... everyone uses it... so it became standerd.

netscape sucked at the time and if you recall was behind other browsers of its era for a while... it sure is now these days... but my point is if there is no 'market' in browser (nobody making money) whats wrong with IE anyway?.... if they charged for it and thus tried to create a market it would be undermined...if they didnt charge for it then of course people would say 'their anti-trustful' or whatever... OEM's these days would be bundleing IE or Opera anyway...

about site design... if I make something 100% Mozilla compliant...and it works with EVERY other browser except IE it dosent matter... I still failed...if it dosent load perfect in windows on IE it's a failure... average joe uses windows or a mac with IE on it...

[cecilia]

and IE is by far the fastest browser I've ever seen.

well, that is certainly NOT  my experience! IE is sluggish pn my system (Dell p4, laptop). i have been using Opera 6.05 for a couple of months and it is SO fast i'm completely spoilt!

i almost NEVER use IE. in fact the last time it was to chat on an msm groups chat room. it was a real horror to see how slow it was. and i had opera open to surf other sites at the same time i was chatting. opera did not slow down at all. IE, slugg, slugg, slugg :-P

i write my web pages to work on as many browsers as i can test on. that means the various linux browsers, opera in both windows and linux and - if i'm in the mood - a brief look in IE. i never use codes that only IE uses.

F IE :-D