Browserwar turnaround?

[Kusako]

that the only reason IE was the only app bundled with OS X was because there were no others out of beta
The IE that cam with my version of OS X says version 5.1 beta...
Besides OmniWeb is one of the oldest browsers on the market. I've been using it for some 7 or so years now, it's always been slow, slightly instable, and displayed most pages wrongly. That's why I love it.

 

[Natester]

I did say that IE was probably chosen because all the other apps were in beta; however, I also said: "Apple had been working closely with Microsoft on IE, and probably felt that it was the only browser close enough to ready to be bundled." I didn't say that it was finished, though. Cause it sure as hell isn't.

 

[peppo]

natis wrote:

it's slow and almost as bad as Netscape 4.x when it comes to standards.

If you care the least bit about standards, you'd know that Mozilla (Netscape 6) is unparalleled when it comes to standards!

This is really the only valid concern in these times!!! A browser like Mozilla is indeed fast and responsive enough, given today's computer speeds.

Don't be a hypocrite and claim you care about standards, and then go and use IE (even if it is better on the Mac platform -- which goes to show that IE is not the least bit cross-platform!).

 

[kilowatt]

I think it would be cool to port the linux version of Mozilla to Mac OS X and have it run of course under an X display server. I was concidering doing it, but some of the libaries it required would not compile, and, well, its been my experiance that if the supporting libs will not compile, that the application will be even more of a headache.

Anyone up for it... we could start a neat sourceforge project.


PS: I don't use explorer because I don't like Mickysoft. I wouldn't care if every page was designed for it and if it never ever crashed. Its like brand disloality ;-)

 

[AdmiralAK]

upon further consideration I have downloaded and installed N6.1
Amazingly IT WORKS!!!
I am TOTALLY amazed!!! I cant believe it!!!!

Too bad it dont support WML


Admiral

 

[Soapvox]

As a long time Netscape fan ( see the resemblence to Apple pre-AOL) I was mortified when AOL bought them and I told all my friends that the browser war was just won by M$ because AOL would only develop a crappy browser and my prediction was true for 6.0....... Oh MY GOD 6.1 is so stable on the other hand. These guys must've done some true soul searching after they release that piece of crap called 6.0 and they made this beautiful piece of browser called 6.1. Since switching to X I have been using omniweb, mozilla, opera and iCAb just because I hated the Microsoft piece of junk (as well as microsoft, for you guys about the microsoft hatin, so the nurses that worked in Nazi germany were not bad because they helped mend the soldiers right? Microsoft is Microsoft if you support one part you support it all in the financials. The Nazi comment is way over the top but it gets the point across). I am pleased to see Netscape listened and developed a quality product, now if they could only get AOL to sell off Netscape so they can be the great small company they were back in Netscape 2.0 days!

 

[sandbagger]

Originally posted by .dev.lqd
Yesterday I gave Netscape 6.1 and the .92 build of Mozilla for OSX a shot.

Both sucked it hard. To the max.

Mozilla drew a white screen over EVERYTHING and then hung there indefinitely. Netscape just didn't do anything... has anyone had similar problems and if so what are your config/system specs?

.dev.lqd --- you aren't by any chance running a dual processor? don't know about Mozilla, but I don't believe 6.1 will work. Wouldn't on mine, and I think I recall a post on this somewhere else.

anybody else see this?

 

[xphile]

Whoever finally implements a workable JAVA solution, and gives me a browser I can stay in, instead of bouncing around from browser to browser when a site doesn't work will win my unwavering loyalty.

 

[Natester]

Originally posted by xphile
Whoever finally implements a workable JAVA solution, and gives me a browser I can stay in, instead of bouncing around from browser to browser when a site doesn't work will win my unwavering loyalty.

My sentiments exactly.

 

[eric halfabee]

If you get the about Netscape and Mozilla info you will find that they are basically the same.

Netscape 6.1 = Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv0.9.2) Gecko/20010728 Netscape6/6.1

Mozilla 0.9.2 = Mozilla/5.0 (macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rev0.9.2) Gecko/20010702

Now I'm sure some of you enlightened folk will tell me that they use the same engine (Gecko I think) but if so they are still pretty much the same, and is that why when I change the 'theme' for one its automatically changed in the other.

What gives??

eric

 

[hyph-n]

Netscape 6.1 & Mozilla are not the same...

Netscape is full of branding & adverts & other crap
Mozilla is pure.

yes - they are both based on the same engine, but what happens is that Netscape grab a copy of Mozilla at a certain point... then spend a short amount of time buggering around with it & 'Netscaping' it....

I have tried both, but prefer Mozilla over Netscape... I have found that Mozilla builds are always newer & tend to be more stable..

I now use Mozilla 0.9.2 @ work (on NT4) 100% of the time... it's quicker & more stable than IE..(!)

@ home, i use Omniweb.... yes yes,... i know that it is slower... BUT it is the Quality & depth of thought that i've fallen for ....

I find that Mozilla & Netscape for Mac (any flavours) always tends to be slower & more buggy than the Windoze builds (i've no experience of the Linux builds)... this is the reason i don't use it on MacOSX... i can only assume that this is because there are more people coding for the Windoze version...(?)

I know that everyone is putting *alot* of faith in 10.1 speed improvements.. but if they make OmniWeb just that little bit faster... then i will even purchase a License.... I think these guys need all of the support they can get!!!


[the guys & gals who developed OmniWeb so us that there is still a place for revolutionary products that approach a problem from the ground up - thank god for that!!]

 

[free_bound]

I'm using iCab, and it works fine most of the time despite being a beta.
The pages load nice, but sadly it is carbonized and not in all points conform to the display-standarts (like the nice prefs of omniweb).

It has many features I really like (like automatic update of a page whenever I save the html-document - I write the pages in textedit -).

It doesn't update the whole page if you use frames, but only all frames whenever you update the parent-page.
Sometimes it dies (espeacially the new version, I'm using one of the previous ones), but it can always be restarted instantly and only loses part of the history.
I already payed for it because I want to support the company, they have to pay more if I buy later and I already decided, that iCab will be my design-browser.

OmniWeb didn't display the pages as I wanted and was way too slow. so I stopped using it.

Internet(ex)bugger got really on my nerves, because it displays a start-dialog instead of launching silently as all other applications and it always jumped to the front whenever a page loaded successfully. The fact that it is from MS greatly supports my decision.

I will try the other ones instanty, thanks!

Computer: PPC G3 (oldest one possible )266Mhz, 128MB Ram, 6GB; ibook 500Mhz 256MB Ram (can't use it due to the electromagnetic fields, which actually hurt each time I go near it).

 

[ventora]

Originally posted by GrandHighOne
IMO OmniWeb remains the best browser for OS X (actually the best browser on any platform).

Please have a look to http://www.ventora.de/tmp/omniweb_cssbug/. The screenshot you'll see there has been taken from http://www.ventora.de/tmp/omniweb_cssbug/beispiel.html.

OmniWeb looks smart, yes, but if one even can't disable CSS, it's unusable for some sites. Using CSS for invers colors is a common technology and OmniWeb can't handle this.

OmniWeb fails handling separate stylesheets for more than one device. If you declare the stylesheet for screen (media="screen") and later for another device (e.g. media="print"), OmniWeb will only regard (and remember) the recommendations made in the last linked stylesheet.

So tell me, are you still sure OmniWeb remains the best browser? Keep your eyes open.

Bye, Michael
(please excuse my Englisch, it isn't my first language)

 

[Red Phoenix]

Well, I will. Personally, I use OmniWeb almost exclusively (I have a cron job that downloads the latest nightly build of Mozilla every morning, so I check that once a day. Hence, I can't claim to use it exclusively). They've admitted from the get-go for version 4.0.x that CSS support was not their main intent. This is fine for me; I very rarely see any problems. For me, I see OmniWeb as the most stable browser out there, other than perhaps to Netscape 6.1. And in general, I find web pages look better. In fact, the only problems I really ever have with OmniWeb are it's plug-in support (due to the fact Apple did not inform them of a change in how plug-ins were to be designed until it was too late), and also being able to download QuickTime movies (and this is remedied by going to Tools->Show Info, selecting the movie, and clicking "Save As...").

This discussion about browsers has been interesting to read, but it is kind of getting stale. Mozilla is changing daily (last week I could barely use it, it crashed so much. Now it's much stabler); the final version of Internet Explorer will come out with OS X.I; OmniWeb 4.1 will follow soon after, and iCab will...uhm...maybe come out of beta someday? Anyway, I am curious what features it will take to leave their current browser. For example, OmniWeb 4.1 is supposed to have much better CSS support and be faster. And I hear the new IE is supposed to implement the Mac division of Microsoft's latest Doesn't-Suck-as-Much-as-the-Windows-Version Technology (Trademarked).

 

[peppo]

Matrix Agent:

No, I'm completely new here. And I feel very comfortable using words that might be offensive to most people. It's a topic I feel strongly about. It's a topic of extreme importance, and user experience is extremely irrelevant.

 

[Ripcord]

sandbagger quipped:

.dev.lqd --- you aren't by any chance running a dual processor? don't know about Mozilla, but I don't believe 6.1 will work. Wouldn't on mine, and I think I recall a post on this somewhere else.

Anyone else see this?

Sandbagger, here's a quote from the Mozilla 0.9.3 release notes:

"<i>If you have a dual-processor G4 running Mac OSX, Mozilla will stall. There are no problems with dual-processor G4's running MacOS 9.</i>"

Ian