Mozilla on AOS4

[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

[mikeymike]

I support free-market...if MS wants to they can market windows with whatever they want...

You can't say you support a free market if you refuse to support standards-compliant browsers.  You only support MS.

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

I never suggested an evil conspiracy at any point.  With HTML, MS adheres to the standards only as far as it has to, then does its very best to derail other browsers by parting from the standards.

You have the word "standard" conveniently confused.  What most people refer to as standards in this context are *open standards*.  Ones that anyone can write software that adheres to them without having to pay a license, because quite frankly, most software vendors compete on the notion of the best product getting the greatest market share.

I'm not against the idea of an operating system or any piece of software having 95% of the market share.  I'm only become against it when it is employing tactics that should be downright illegal to enforce its market share.

Netscape didn't "suck" at the time, Netscape 2 and 3 wiped the floor with the competition, and IE4 swang the balance in its favour because it was a better overall product (I say product because of Outlook Express as well, on merit).  Netscape should have responded with a significantly better Netscape 5 but for some reason didn't, entirely their own fault.  However, MS at the time were busy with their usual tactics to enforce IE usage, so that didn't help either.  I suggest you go read up on your browser history.

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...

Unless you try your very hardest to make a site non-IE compatible, I'd like to see you manage such a feat.  If you actually TRIED Mozilla for website browser testing it might help, because, quite frankly, you're talking out of your hat, practically speaking.  In theory of course, you're perfectly correct here, but the theory doesn't match the reality.

Website design and browser testing, if you do the job the way it should be done, has its PITA elements sometimes, but quite frankly so does every other techie job on the planet.  I could get away without the PITA elements of my normal job, a Windows sysadmin, if I chose to be totally ignorant of everything I know about Windows and just do default installs all the time, but I know that to do the job properly sometimes it requires those kind of annoying times.  How many web designers believe they can get away without proper browser testing is beyond me, people like that command about as much respect as Long John Silver's parrot.

I test sites... I test with IE and forget it... but if as you said it's hard to make a site non-mozilla compatible then why is there an argument? if mozilla supports all these standerds 'perfectly' then whats the problem?

[Ilwrath]

@mips_proc

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...

This is one of the few statements in the arguments here that I agree with.  As a developer, you must target browser market-share, as well as you can.  You can't ignore the massive market share that is IE (though different versions and different platforms of IE behave differently, so simply testing on one IE is certainly not near enough...)

I test sites... I test with IE and forget it...

Pretty shoddy work.  You really should make sure your site is ALSO standards compliant.  (Not in place of IE functionality, but in addition to it!)  At this stage, that doesn't mean going back and trying to get it to work on IBrowse, but there is no excuse for not being HTML 4.01 clean.  Gecko-based browsers and Opera should be able to handle it....  The fact is, IE is not available and impossible for some of your viewers to obtain.  And not just viewers who are M$ paranoid.  You have a large band of corporate users who surf at work (>35% of legitimate e-commerce traffic, according to some optimistic surveys) and due to some of the latest security problems, there are workplaces that went as far as removing IE's access through the firewall.  Telling people who can't use IE to use IE isn't going to make them happy, and they're not likely to come back...

[mikeymike]

I test sites... I test with IE and forget it...

Funny.

but if as you said it's hard to make a site non-mozilla compatible then why is there an argument? if mozilla supports all these standerds 'perfectly' then whats the problem?

For the fiftieth time... IE doesn't adhere to the standards!

No product is perfect.  Even if all browsers were up-to-date and adhered to the standards, you'd still have to do a bit of cross-browser testing to make sure, because the standards don't write everything in stone down to the last pixel, what they do try to do is make sure that you'll get a pretty damn close approximation between all standards-compliant browsers.  Oh God, you have to do some tedious testing, that little bit of extra work, let me just find the world's smallest violin to play for you and every other lazy-ass web designer on the planet.

[Tomas]

mips_proc wrote:
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 ?

Is 6-12megs a BIG FAT APP?? Including both mail and irc client!! How big do you think your beloved IE is?? If webmasters did follow the standards, instead of coding just for IE, then it would work perfectly in all browser, instead of ONLY working in the buggy "browser" IE... This would force Micro$oft to follow the standards themself, if not.. then they would loose userbase... But i guess you like supporting their monopoly and make the internet only work for ppl running windows... I bet you work for them.

[Tomas]

L8-X wrote:
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!)

Yep... cause stupid webmasters like mips make it work, though the browser crappy.

[Tomas]

Quixote wrote:
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...

Actually.... thats the way to do it.. MS has used those dirty tricks for years now, to ensure that their monopoly grow.
We should act back to fight their dirty monpoly before its completly too late...

[Tomas]

mips_proc wrote:
I do support standerds...IE is a standerd... and I would make pages for it...

They use their own standards, which other web browser developers cannot even implement, cause of legal issues... Which means that those sites that use those so called IE standards, wont work on other browsers, unless they make another version for the real browsers.  :-x

[mikeymike]

You mean like this? :-)

[gnarly]

mips_proc wrote:
I test sites... I test with IE and forget it...

Thats not testing in any real sense, but thats another argument altogether :-)

but if as you said it's hard to make a site non-mozilla compatible then why is there an argument? if mozilla supports all these standerds 'perfectly' then whats the problem?

The problem comes when your sites totally ignore the standards!

What REALLY pisses me off is ignorant web designers who STILL put effing stupid browser detect scripting into sites. Its fecking stupid.

Write semantically correct xHTML, written to W3C Standards. Lay it out and style it using CSS2, written to W3C standards. It will work perfectly in Mozilla, Netscape 7, IE 6 and Opera 7. It will work acceptably in IE5.5, Opera 6 and Netscape 6. It will degrady nicely onto older and/or non css supporting browsers. It will be inherently accessible content (a convenient side effect of xHTML/CSS)

ITS THE WAY FORWARD!

oh, I'm using 1.0.0, the one that comes with Debian,

If you are using Debian, you should type "apt-get install galeon".  Best browser on earth.  It uses the Mozilla engine with a GTK+ interface.  Very fast it is.

[poweramiga2002]

I am using an ibook had ie installed but was painfully slow i actally thought it was my ibook playing up then i was told to try netscape and low and behold the ibook came alive on the net so i promptly deleated ie it is #### complete and utter crap !!!!!!!!!!!! sucked in to all those dopy pc users who know nothing else but what comes installed on there systems its a sad world when you realise how crap ms realy is

I wouldnt go to any extra trouble just to make a few people happy...it would be foolish if I wasted my time like that...and nobody has explained how that 5% or less that dont use IE matter when sites are supposed to be made for the masses?.... I dont even bother screwing with standerds or W3C there is no point...if the site works and the clients likes it...its done! thats it...done...I test with old IE on a Win95 box and I test with the latest version...it looks good in both then its done...

I dont see any reason to develop to 'standerds' because IE itself is a standerd... and if it works with IE and dosent work well with the others...then thats (at most) 5% who cant view the site...

I dont see any reason to develop to 'standerds' because IE itself is a standerd... and if it works with IE and dosent work well with the others...then thats (at most) 5% who cant view the site...

Just to be a pain.........

Why develop software for Amiga? "Noone uses it" ;-)

It's not bieng a pain... you have a point... but Amiga is an alternative... it's something people do for fun and also out of love for the platform..

developing a website for the masses is differant then developing a site for a spacific alternative segment...