Which browser do you use for primary?

[azosx]

I understand fully well how AOL profits by me using Netscape. I am directed to their website, portals, shopping, other software, AIM and everything else but how am I supporting AOL by using Mozilla?

Nothing concerning AOL exists in Mozilla. I don't even have the option to file a bug report with the OS X version of Mozilla so how by using it am I really helping anybody unless I go out of my way to file bug reports online?

Bastard child? That's the same as saying Galeon, Chimera and the dozen other choices using Mozilla technology are bastard children as well. It's unfortunate you can't just pick and choose who you support and who you don't. You base something as trivial as funding to alienate yourself from not just Mozilla, but dozens of other fine applications and potentially cause others to do the same by misinforming them.

You said you have a child. I'm gussing he's still in school. Did Windows happen to furnish all the OS's and Office apps he happens to learn on from day to day. By sending him to school, are you not indirectly supporting MS and their dominance in the computer market. Possibly that doesn't apply to you, but it does to many. Should parents yank their children out of school just because MS supports them?

I only use examples like the one above and MS's relationship with Apple because they are essentially they are similiar to the problem you have with Mozilla. Yet you support Apple and I'm gussing education so the line you've drawn is very fuzzy.

With Mozilla you have a choice, you can furnish a bug report via the Feedback Agent or online or not. By using Mozilla you're only taking away from AOL/Netscape's market share. An the reason Netscape uses older builds of Mozilla and takes so long to get their version to the market is because they totally rework it to fit their needs, thus I can understand why you hate them, it's a commercial marketing vessle disguised as a web browser.

Mozilla doesn't work for just one person, AOL, it's trying to work for everyone, and it can only work for everyone if you decide to work for it. If not, then it's just a good browser you've decided to use, no strings attached.

Those 1000s of people didn't work their asses off for 4 1/2 years so AOL could have a web browser. They worked so hard so you could have a choice.

[themacko]

azosx: I'm assuming most of what you just said was directed towards Ed and not me.

[azosx]

I post this question to anybody. How by downloading and using Mozilla are you directly or indirectly supporting AOL. I want to understand. Maybe I'm missing something.

[edX]

ok, a quick set of replies and then i think i'll go hiking in the redwoods with my son -

Originally posted by azosx
I understand fully well how AOL profits by me using Netscape. I am directed to their website, portals, shopping, other software, AIM and everything else but how am I supporting AOL by using Mozilla?

Nothing concerning AOL exists in Mozilla. I don't even have the option to file a bug report with the OS X version of Mozilla so how by using it am I really helping anybody unless I go out of my way to file bug reports online?

correct (unless you count aol's money in the mozilla team's pockets )but the point is that mozilla exists within a concern of aol. as for current ability to file bug reports, i concede ignorance since i haven't allowed mozilla on my HD for quite some time.

Bastard child? That's the same as saying Galeon, Chimera and the dozen other choices using Mozilla technology are bastard children as well. It's unfortunate you can't just pick and choose who you support and who you don't. You base something as trivial as funding to alienate yourself from not just Mozilla, but dozens of other fine applications and potentially cause others to do the same by misinforming them.

as trivial as funding? my friend, money is power. and aol is exercising theirs with their relationship to mozilla. as for the others, i've said it before and i'll repeat - those are the ones we should be supporting. It is time for the children to eat their father, just as the ancient Gods, under the leadership of Zeus, ate their father Cronos. (seems like a fitting analogy given the ancient mythological names of these browsers.)

and i do pick and choose who i will support. all i've ever done is outline my criteria for doing so.

You said you have a child. I'm gussing he's still in school. Did Windows happen to furnish all the OS's and Office apps he happens to learn on from day to day. By sending him to school, are you not indirectly supporting MS and their dominance in the computer market. Possibly that doesn't apply to you, but it does to many. Should parents yank their children out of school just because MS supports them?

I only use examples like the one above and MS's relationship with Apple because they are essentially they are similiar to the problem you have with Mozilla. Yet you support Apple and I'm gussing education so the line you've drawn is very fuzzy.

reallywant me to add my rant about the current domination of m$ and pc's to this thread? Let's just say that if i had the money (power) to do so, my son's school would be all macs. as it is, he has to settle for an old performa at home running os 7.5.x.

as for apple's relationship with m$, i've not been happy with it for many years and would love to see them seperate them selves from each other if there was a way to do it that assured apple would survive. as it is, i rationalize that this is money and support that m$ owes to apple for stealing from them in the first place. it's not the perfect logic i know, but that's where i draw my fuzzy line.

With Mozilla you have a choice, you can furnish a bug report via the Feedback Agent or online or not. By using Mozilla you're only taking away from AOL/Netscape's market share. An the reason Netscape uses older builds of Mozilla and takes so long to get their version to the market is because they totally rework it to fit their needs, thus I can understand why you hate them, it's a commercial marketing vessle disguised as a web browser.

Mozilla doesn't work for just one person, AOL, it's trying to work for everyone, and it can only work for everyone if you decide to work for it. If not, then it's just a good browser you've decided to use, no strings attached.

Those 1000s of people didn't work their asses off for 4 1/2 years so AOL could have a web browser. They worked so hard so you could have a choice.

my feeling is that when netscape sold out to aol, those thousands of developers got sold out in the process. the only real way to make sense of this is to now support those independent projects that have grown out of mozilla and lead them to faster success. take what was good about mozilla and make it better. but do so in ways that protect it from semi-monopolies like aol. that's all.

now is the time to support those choices. they are no longer little playthings, they are full fledged browsers in their own right and need our support and participation to grow into the things we complain they aren't. those who are not willing to make the sacrifices involved are only adding to the chance that we will never see the benefits they could one day provide.

[azosx]

as trivial as funding? my friend, money is power. and aol is exercising theirs with their relationship to mozilla.

This is where FUD, Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt sets in. You think Mozilla is in AOL's back pocket because AOL chooses to support them finacially but you have no idea if that is actually true or not.

You'll continue to tell everybody this though despite every point made on mozilla.org refuting your claims.

You said you once used Netscape and so did I. I loved Netscape, it gave us a choice. But Netscape was Big Business as well, and like every big business, they were in it for a profit. They had to sell to AOL because they just weren't big enough to take on MS. That was devistating to me, and for a time MS was my only alternative. I didn't mind IE, it did what I needed it to, but I would have much rather been supporting anybody but them.

Netscape did one thing though to insure it's legacy before the merger and before AOL could kill it. It created the Mozilla Open Source Initiative. Something to not only combat the corruptness of Big Businesses like MS, but AOL as well. If they hadn't have done this, Netscape might very well be proprietary today, and then what choices might you have?

This is what Mozilla is today, what Netscape once was. The Netscape we remember before AOL made it "evil." If you look at Mozilla in any way, look at it as the final coup de grace from Netscape to AOL and Big Business in general. A slap in the face that not even AOL has the power to destroy.

Like mozilla.org says, Mozilla was bigger than Netscape, Mozilla is bigger than AOL. AOL had no choice but to support Mozilla. Basically, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

Don't you honestly believe AOL would rather have a proprietary browser like IE that it could control? Unfortuantely, before the merger, Netscape gave them no other alternative with Mozilla.

Now because of Mozilla, something AOL doesn't have the power to kill, they have to compete with Mozilla itself, Chimera, Galeon and the many others.

Mozilla is Netscape's legacy, and has more power than AOL or any Big Business. If you truly believed in what Netscape was, then you should whole heartedly support Mozilla.

[googolplex]

I hope everyone knows Mozilla.org is a totally seperate entity with people not at netscape on their staff. The head of the Mozilla project was actually fired by AOL but is still the head of the project. If AOL really had all the controll that person wouldn't be there anymore.

All AOL provides is servers and some Netscape engineers who work on it.

[edX]

azosx - you say FUD like it was some dirty word. Frankly i think not having a little fear, uncertainity and doubt about things is much scarier and much worse. apathy is the disease of our times. when we use our FUD's to inform us, then we can work to make sure they don't become realities. That has been one of my basic points from the start. We could have used a little more FUD when IBM was climbing to power in the 60's. Whenever anyone starts getting very powerful, you had better exercise some FUD or risk living in a world not of your choosing.

so what is your point in insisting upon supporting mozilla rather than the other browsers it has spawned? you keep listing how great they are and i keep agreeing and you go back to defending mozilla like you're the guy that develops it.

and you keep inisisting that aol's funding in no way influences mozilla? do you have any proof of that? I'm not trying to say aol controls mozilla, but let's be real for a sec. If i tell you i'm getting money from a source but that they don't influence me, would you just take my word for it? i doubt it. and if you did, you would probably be mistaken. cause money talks and people naturally listen.

now, off to the redwoods.

[azosx]

FUD can be a dirty word because 9 out of 10 times, the claims that arise from FUD are unsubstantiated.

I guess it all boils down to paranoia.

This debate has lightened up which is good, I think we are both learning something.

My point in supporting Mozilla, is that if you don't, there will be no other browsers spawned from it's efforts. If users hadn't seen Mozilla through to 1.0, Chimera and Galeon would have had little reason to continue. They didn't and still don't have the user base yet to support them on their own or the developers to fix the various bugs and issues Mozilla was plauged with.

People need to realize this is the future, this is what will keep us free and most of all, this is the only way we'll have a choice against Big Business.

Yes, OmniWeb, iCab, lynx and various others will be an option, but let's face it, they are not going to free us from the bonds that MS and AOL have imposed on us.

AOL would just as soon see Mozilla dead and Netscape proprietary once again. This is unfortunately not an option so the only way AOL saw it is, if you can't beat'em, join'em.

Do you think with the money AOL has, they needed to develop a browser from Open Source? They could give a s*it about Open Source. The fact is, they had no other choice but to support it. It would seem that they became the willing pawn of Netscape and Mozilla after the merger. You keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

Like I said before, Mozilla is Netscape's legacy and the final coup de grace to Big Business before Netscape had to bow out and AOL nearly destroyed them.

Other than money, they certainly did nothing to support Mozilla in the begining, letting Netscape die completely at first then releasing a terribly buggy version of Netscape 6 and calling it complete. It would almost seem by doing that, they wanted Mozilla to seem like a faliure.

There is no way you can positively determin whether money is an influencing factor or not, but the way Mozilla has operated pre and post AOL, there is no indication that it is. Absolutely nothing has changed, their mission is still the same, which leads me to believe no influence has been exerted.

One other benefit of Mozilla is that it is not centralized. There is no one determining factor on where the project should head. It's a colabrative effort by 1000s of people. Influencing such an organization with money would be next to impossible. These people would never develop Mozilla for AOL, they develop it for people like you, who want to remain free and have a choice. Even when you don't appriciate their efforts.