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Netscape The Internet

Browser Wars II: CompuServe Strikes Back 462

Posted by timothy from the lizards-are-crawling-everywhere dept.
securitas writes "Today CompuServe (an AOL subsidiary) launched CompuServe 7.0 with Netscape as the underlying browser. CompuServe started testing Komodo, a Gecko-based client, last year, and is now experimenting with Gecko-based AOL clients. CompuServe's 3 million-member user base is seen as a testbed before turning AOL's 34 million members into Netscape users later this year." Update: 04/16 20:54 GMT by T : Also an interesting story at CNN on the upcoming Mozilla 1.0. RC1 is very nice, as have been most recent builds.
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Browser Wars II: CompuServe Strikes Back More

Browser Wars II: CompuServe Strikes Back

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  • Now if.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <.<remove_spam>ju ... spam>gmail.com.> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:10PM (#3353244) Homepage
    ..Apple would switch from IE, there would be some progress away from MS.
    • I don't Microsoft would let their other OS family drop IE
    • Apple probably understands that the browser monoculture may be unpopular with Slashdotters, but the general public just wants to see pages. So until everything's perfect over on the Mozilla/Omniweb/etc end, they're not going to switch.

      This is totally separate from any payoffs from Microsoft which might show up and influence Jobs, of course.

      I've all but switched from IE to Mozilla 0.99 for sites that won't work in OmniWeb. So far, I haven't found a single site that doesn't work in Mozilla 0.99. (OW has the world's best type rendering and saves me from eyestrain, thus winning my best browser crown even though it won't work with all sites).

      So it might be time for Apple to recheck this issue. Maybe when a Netscape version of Mozilla 1.0 is released?

      D

    • Re:Now if.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by turbine216 ( 458014 ) <turbine216.gmail@com> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:16PM (#3353306)
      Why does anyone think that the key to escaping the so-called "microsoft deathgrip" lies in an alternate web browser? It makes A LOT more sense to say "maybe if Apple would port their OS to X86 architecture, there would be some progress away from MS," or even something like "maybe if the Open Source community could come up with a decent office suite that is actually WORTH the $0 price tag, there would be some progress away from MS." But how in the hell does a browser have anything to do with it? I (and many others that I know) use various Mozilla builds on various Windows versions, and we're still hooked on MS because we like the REAL products, Windows and Office.

      I think this whole "browser war" gets way too much emphasis these days. It made sense 7 years ago when Netscape wasn't free and was trying to compete. Today, who gives a shit what browser comes out on top?? Shouldn't you be more concerned about competing with Microsoft's OTHER software?

      • Re:Now if.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:28PM (#3353404)
        > Today, who gives a shit what browser comes out on top?? Shouldn't you be more concerned about competing with Microsoft's OTHER software?

        No.

        Today browsing is absolutely vital for anyone with a computer. If we drop the ball, then the internet will be a proprietary windows-only thing in a matter of years (like dropping html in favor of word format, or that kind of thing).

        No OS will ever be able to take off, as _everything_ that people will use will be totally proprietary.

        Mozilla is the _most_ important application today.

        • Re:Now if.... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by turbine216 ( 458014 ) <turbine216.gmail@com> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:39PM (#3353519)
          You've got the right idea, but you're slightly backwards in terms of the execution.

          I fully agree that Mozilla is probably the BEST open-source project to date, but it is by no means the MOST IMPORTANT. A browser is an add-on, a "helper" application at best. True, web services are becoming more and more vital to computing, and everyone who uses a computer really needs a browser. But a "browser war" is not the way to come out ahead in this arena.

          People generally don't switch browsers. That is a fact - cold, hard, and undeniably true. Microsoft has been onto this trend for at least 5 or 6 years now...that's why they bundle their own. So a "browser war" doesn't help anything, because it doesn't get MS off the desktop. That's what I was pointing out in my original post - I'm one of the rare few who use a non-MS browser in Windows...but Microsoft isn't even SLIGHTLY hurt by this fact, because their REAL PRODUCTS - windows and office - are still the best on the desktop for me and probably 85% of the rest of the world's PC's. So how does the open source community hope to gain anything by fighting a pointless "browser war"? Why not just focus on making a better browser AND a better desktop environment, so they have something to BUNDLE it with? That's what will make MS more competitive. But the open source community is distracted by the pointless bickering over whose browser handles java plugins better.

          My point, to paraphrase once more, is that the "browser war" has been blown WAY out of proportion and is becoming a distraction to what open source SHOULD be doing. I'm not trying to downplay the significance of a solid open-source browser.

          • Re:Now if.... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Publicus ( 415536 )

            SLIGHTLY hurt by this fact, because their REAL PRODUCTS - windows and office - are still the best on the desktop for me and probably 85% of the rest of the world's PC's.

            This is true today, but I think tomorrow, with the possible emergence of .NET and more pervasive web services, that people will be using their browser as a gateway to using office like applications. This is, in fact, the direction Microsoft would like to go. They'd rather get people into a subscription-like system that can be delivered from a central server, instead of having the application installed on the desktop.

            Whether it will ever happen remains to be seen, but I think the reason browsers are so hotly contended is because they determine the protocols that will be bringing these services to consumers in the future.

            If IE dominates, Microsoft gets to choose the standards. If IE does not dominate, perhaps the W3C will, or another more democratic organization. I think that would be better.

      • It does make sense if you think in terms of client-server relationships. If there can be only one client, that client will set arbitrary and selfserving defacto standards. With multiple clients, then open standards can proliferate.
      • What's wrong with Star Office? It seems to work spectacularly for me....

        Kintanon
        • Last time I tried it (I'm not in the habit of installing random pieces of software) it marked all my punctuated works--words with dashes touching them, like this--as misspellings.

          It also didn't provide enough for me to stop using Word and start using it.

          If StarOffice still had a free version of 6, I'd test it and write up a review. *sigh* There's an older review of Staroffice 5.2 on my website, but it won't tell you anything new--everone allready knows that one didn't work.

      • Re:Now if.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:38PM (#3353501) Homepage
        Today, who gives a shit what browser comes out on top??

        I do.

        If one company controls 99% of web browsing, they could eventually move to controlling 99% of webservers by implementing "features" that only work with their server/browser implementation. I believe that's why MS came up with IE in the first place.

        Sounds conspiracy theorist, right?
        Read this [eweek.com], then.

        They're known for this sort of thing. I used to be a huge MS hater, and I've grown to tolerate them over the past 2-or-so years (since Win2000, really), but it's crap like this that puts me back on the skeptic team.

        S
        • Oh, you mean like the phenomenally successful .NET strategy? [nwsource.com]

          You should know by now that any attempts that MS makes in that direction have not and will not be tolerated by their customers. That's why they haven't ever done it.
      • Some history may be helpful here...

        Years ago, our company did all software development on large IBM mainframes. All code storage, design tools, code editors, compilers, test tools, etc. Everything. Every designer had to have an account, storage space, access to a terminal, and processing time on the mainframe. That was reasonable enough.

        But to tie everything together, that meant that everyone else also had to have a mainframe account, many of whom did not otherwise need access to the design environment or need mainframe training. We're talking about sales folk (to check on the projected release date) business managers (availability), technical writers, secretaries (t oaccess email) etc. That was a lot of training, account space, and processing power which could have been better spent elsewhere.

        It was a great boon when we started deploying personal computers (less contention for the 3270 mainframe terminals) and things really took off when we moved to web-based distribution of information. That meant that you could access most of the derivative portion of the environment (project planning, documentation, etc) from whatever computer (PC, Macintosh, UNIX workstationi, VT100) you happened to already have and be trained for.

        You no longer had to have a specific computer running a specific operating system to access the information you needed. Sounds familiar?

        Nowadays, the company has moved back to creating IE-specific web pages. That means everyone in the company has to have a PC running Windows to get any information out of our development environment.

        The funny part is, just after we moved the content to the web, we moved the design tools to UNIX. So now all the designers need UNIX workstations...where IE support is just a bad joke. Care to guess what we do when management says "please review the important corporate information off the (IE-only) web page..."?

        So getting back to the world where you don't have to have a specific application running under a specific operating system to access the corporate information is a good thing. Anything which promotes diversity in that realm is good.

      • who gives a shit what browser comes out on top??

        I care a great deal that IE not come out on top. There is much too much at stake, here, for Microsoft to be given any chance at making the Internet proprietary. In fact, Microsoft taking over the Internet is one of the biggest threats to the future of global society. Microsoft taking over the Internet is equivalent, in principle, to Nazi Germany winning World War 2. Imagine the hordes of software projects that will simply be crushed. How many businesses will simply go out of business? How will anyone succeed in truly exercising their right to free speech? Will computer scientists and engineers be given academic freedom? Would we ever be able to trust anything we see on the WWW again? Microsoft will not be a benevolent dictator. In fact, they could end up being the most horrendous dictator the world has ever known (just think about what is at stake, here).
      • Ok I'll feed this troll...
        "maybe if the Open Source community could come up with a decent office suite that is actually WORTH the $0 price tag, there would be some progress away from MS."

        I canvassed 100 people here at work... of 100 people 2 heard of open office and those 2 were linux users.

        Yeah open office sucks... it sucks so bad that NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT.

        I will bet that if I go and burn 100 CD's with the latest release for windows that I can get at least 50% to like it without doing anything.

        you cant say something sucks when noone knows about it. Open office is every bit as good as MS office XP. the ONLY place it is laking is in import/export filters... just like MS office sucks in it's filters.

        So prove me wrong. give out 100 copies of the latest Open office build for windows.. and tell me how many of those people say "god this sucks, it's horrible for even being free!"

        I'm betting that you wont get one person to hate it.
    • Well, now that their 5-year contract with Microsoft, part of which agreed that IE would be the default browser on Mac OS, is over, we may very well see a change. But for the past 5 years they were obligated to go IE.

      mark
    • Apple would switch from IE,

      Check out a recent Apple Ad [macnn.com]

      Note that there's no IE icon in the dock. I think this is very significant.
      • They are trying to convince Unix users that Mac OS X is Unix. Since Netscape runs on Unix and IE (for the most part) doesn't, it makes sense to have Netscape in the dock.

        If they were doing a "Mac OS X is Windows" compaign it might very well be IE in the dock.

  • I'm 23675.3598@compuserve.com!
    • 73267,2746 for me. A real compuserve user had it _way_ before they had internet connectivity: when the numbers were comma delimited, not periods.
    • 72202,142

      I sadly gave it up a few years ago, when I realized that good, active, moderated, insightful forums were dead...
    • Damn! I had a 7xxxx,xxxx number, but I can't remember it... I dont think I've used it in about 10 years!
    • 103223,3212 ... I came in late in the game.

      Anyone remember when you could get those "Introduction to CompuServe" books off of GO BOOKS for free? They even came with a coupon for a $10 service credit in the back. I think I racked up about $250 in credits, because they didn't place a limit on how many books you could order (just one at a time, but unlimited numbers of orders).

      WinCIM rocked, but nothing beats the ! prompt.

  • Goodbye, ActiveX! Don't let the door hit you in... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:11PM (#3353252) Homepage
    I hope this spells the end of ActiveX website "enhancements." Having a large segments of people using a standards-based, non-Windows-specific browser will definitely improve the usability of the Web
    • Who the hell uses ActiveX? I've gone to all kinds of sites(sans porn...ask me why :P) and some quite the microsoft-oriented POS(iframes, their DOM, etc.) and have yet to install an ActiveX control in at least six months. Seriously, who is really using ActivX controls?
    • The only problem with this is that if people want highly interactive content between pages and active code on the client, there is nothing there. Java is fine and dandy in a 100% isolated environment, so it can't be used as a scripting language.

      ure JavaScript and all extension thereof have the syntax and functionality, but they are missing tons of browser hooks that Microsoft has added to their browser. They are more targeting easy access applications than interactive web sites. Iweb sites were old news with MS long after they ever got traction with web developers. That is why developers use flash for interaction now. It is a lot simpler than java, and a lot more flexable than IE-DHTML..

      On the other hand, the last ActiveX component I DL'ed was Terminal Server Client, which allows anyone to Terminal Server login from a web page. It is very sexy for simple remote network logins.
  • In related news. Prodigy chooses Lynx to form the foundation of it's internet browser. Using Lynx as a client is now in the works

  • I'm not sure... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EvilAlien ( 133134 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:13PM (#3353271) Journal
    ... that compuserve is relevant anymore.

    AOL (I feel dirty typing that) choosing !IE is, aside from logical business-wise, a significant event in the so-called browser war.

    I don't think time is well spent on discussing the "browser war", but our concerns should be focused on standard vs. proprietary tag/feature/etc support, HTML interpretation "correctness" and other metamatters.

    • ... that compuserve is relevant anymore.
      3 million customers is always relevant.
      • They are a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, provide what is essentially a business portal service, as I understand it. That sounds all very uselessly redundant. It caters to people who are business oriented, etc etc etc (COMPUSERVE INTERACTIVE SERVICES OVERVIEW [compuserve.com]), and too "busy" to figure out how to bookmark CNN/Money [cnn.com], MSN Money [msn.com], and News.com [news.com] on their own.

        What I'm trying to say is that the inertia of roughly "2 million busy adults" does not make CompuServe relevant, IMO.

    • they're not. They're a test balloon.


      what's that? you hated Netscape? Oh, that's ok... just come on board to AOL, where you can keep on using that familiar IE interface.


      hm? you loved it? great! keep an eye out for those "New and Improved AOL, now with Netscape!" CD's in the mail...

    • The AOL and CompuServe clients are now basically the same software. Its a great way to test the water. Since they basically aren't promoting CompuServe anymore, and relatively few people actually use it, if users have major problems with integrated Gecko AOL can find out about it without alienting 50 million AOL users first. And if they still are trying to get a better deal from Microsoft to use IE, its a great way to show them that they can switch to Mozilla/Gecko any time they want to, without completely shutting the door on continuing the present arrangement. And when (if) the time comes to switch AOL proper to Gecko, they can do it very quickly and painlessly, having ironed out all of the problems with Compuserve first.

  • From the office of the president (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Let me, Steve Case, thank you on behalf of all the shareholders of AOL/Time Warner for giving us all your work for free so that we can make a hell of a lot of money and stop paying Microsoft.

    As a token of my appreciation, I have purchased a new yacht where I have hung a fine wooden plaque commemorating the occasion. Rest assured that I have it hanging in a very prominent place.

    No, no; no need to thank me. The 10s of millions of dollars of free labor that I received are thanks enough.

    • Re:From the office of the president (Score:5, Insightful)

      by elphkotm ( 574063 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:29PM (#3353421) Homepage
      As much as a troll as this is, you exemplify the wrong attitude that has become dominant in the open source world. Beyond the hype, the purpose of open source is to improve software, period. Open source isn't about defeating the evils in the world or getting things for free, it's about moving technology forward. You don't spend a Saturday in a soup kitchen because you get something tangible from it. If Microsoft decides to take the high-quality TCP/IP stack code written by FreeBSD and integrating it into Windows 2000, then let them. By hundreds of people contributing their effort into that TCP/IP stack, they have made Windows 2000 more stable. That, my friend, is the goal in the end, better software. Not because someone paid for it, but because someone decided it needed to be done the right way.
      • If a large faceless amoral corporation with money to burn wants it "done the right way" they should cough up the bucks. Helping your fellow man one day in a soup kitchen is NOTHING like working for free just so that Microsoft could turn in into CORPORATE WELFARE.

        The BSD license is more like volunteering your free time to a white slavery ring.
      • troll or no, he makes a point.
        Shouldn't the money saved go back into the community?

        We're talking about AOL here, a company that uses propritary protocals to maintain an advertising strangle-hold on its users.
      • You don't spend a Saturday in a soup kitchen because you get something tangible from it.

        MANY things in life are done without regard for *tangible* gain, but people still are motivated out of selfish greed anyway.

        WHY do people spend time helping in a soup kitchen? *BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM FEEL GOOD*. Maybe not *physically* good, but spiritually good. Or morally superior. Or whatever. But we're all always motivated by selfishness.
      • the purpose of open source is to improve software, period

        I think that what is the purpose of "open source" depends on whom you ask it to. Everybody has her motivations to do open source stuff. Somebody might do it, as you say, to improve technology, somebody else "to scratch an itch", somebody else for the ego trip or because it's dandy or because he wants to impress a geeky girlfriend (er...right). Somebody else because it gets stuff done, or because it's just fun.

        We can try to explain what it is, but we should not try to constrain it into a particular vision of it. This is actually in my very humble opinion one of its strongest points against closed stuff: there's no "big plan", no corporate masterminds, nothing to fight against. Just plain doing stuff, as frustrating as it might be sometimes.
    • Erm, troll alert?

      Who do you think pays the salaries of about 95% of the developers that made Mozilla? Answer: AOL

      Without AOL's sponsorship of the project, Moz would still be at Milestone 0.5
    • AOL paid 4 billion dollars for Netscape and then GAVE millions of dollars of development time to Mozilla...

  • Why now? (Score:2, Funny)

    by ShawnDoc ( 572959 )
    I suppose this is just a test, but why force 3 million users to use a piece of software that is really not yet ready for prime time. I can't help but think AOL/TW is jumping the gun, the version 1RC isn't even out yet. Couldn't they have just waited a couple more months until the 1.0 final release is out and incorporated that into Compuserve?

    I just worry that by forcing conversion a few weeks/months early they will put off a lot of people then they would have had they released something based on final code.

    • Re:Why now? (Score:4, Funny)

      by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:34PM (#3353461)
      Hello, we are talking about 3 Million people! Can't anyone else see that this is just a shoot load of beta testers? Compuserve will probably get zounds of customer feedback saying this or that is broken, and by knowing what real users need, the dev teams can fix the bugs really need to be.

      • Comical. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Zico ( 14255 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:51PM (#3353624)

        Yeah, I'm sure that all those paying subscribers can't wait to have their services disrupted so that they can be guinea pigs for AOL. I'm sure they have nothing better to do than send Compuserve "zounds of customer feedback" saying that the things they want to do are now broken.

    • Where does it say force? A Compuserve user is only going to get the new 7.0 client if they install it. In other words it's voluntary.
  • You'll be able to go to web pages hosted by Compuserve using convenient, mnemonic names. For example, you'd type "GO CIS-175" in the address bar to change your password. For the LDOS Forum, you'd type "GO LDOS". For Weather, you'd type "GO WEATHER".

    As an enhancement, there'll be a Java applet with a "!" prompt. For an additional fee, you can type "GO PRO" in the address bar. Doing so will launch a PDP-10 emulator with a full suite of development tools, along with that user-friendly editor, TECO.

  • I submit that Mozilla is the coolest Free software project running today! I've been using it since the first naked Gecko builds were available - almost nothing in the way of chrome, just a raw HTML rendering widget (and not a great one, to start with!) and watched it grow and mature in the last three or four (can it really be FOUR years Well I guess it surely can) years... the satisfaction I feel now that it's about to take over the world and crush the IE like a bug is amplified by remembered all those sad Slashdot flamers... "it's sooo bloaaatttteddd!!" they winged, "oooh, it's not as good as Internet Explorer", "I just want a browwwwwwser" they whined... HA! Well SCREW YOU, chaps, I was right and you were wrong. BAAAAhahahahaaha!

    (Cally wanders away to find his medication...)
    • yep I agree

      I hope they base the compuserve tests on a stable branch hopefully 1.0 and not some random date

      regards

      john jones
      p.s. is it just me or is this graph scary window open [mozilla.org] check out 04/11

  • Forced Download? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:22PM (#3353354)
    Not likely. A staggering number of AOL'ers are still using versions 3.0 and 4.0 of the AOL client, so I can only assume that similar percentages of compuserve users are doing the same thing. I don't think we can count on all of Compuserve, let alone 34 million AOL accounts, to suddenly be running on Gecko code any time in the near future.

    Forcing an update download on customers is possible, however. Certain online games are now in the practice of forcing a patch on users on a weekly basis. This same model could work for the big ISP's to keep their customers updated with the latest technology.

    It could also play into the hands of pushers of spyware and adware. What better way for LEO's to spy on someone suspected of a crime than to 'push' an update to his AOL or Compuserve account?

  • browser marketshare parity is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:24PM (#3353370) Homepage Journal
    While Netscape/Mozilla hasn't been thrilling me of late, I think the only really important thing about the resurgence of the Browser Wars is that with a multitude of truly viable browser options available to users, perhaps we'll start to finally see some adaptation of standards that *work*.

    No, I'm not talking about W3 standards. While those are a good thing in theory, they're only good in practice when BOTH of the major players in the market embrace them in the same fashion.

    For example, while CSS is great for type control (in the main), it sucks for element placement because by the time you go through all of the necessary browser workarounds and browser detects and different versions of the same content, you may as well have just built the damned thing using tables.

    All this talk about how Mozilla rocks and IE blows, or vice-versa, is completely beside the point. We can't have a better Web until the two dominant forces in the Browser Universe start applying standards in the same fashion.

    Of course, O'Reilly would be bummed, because they'd no longer have to publish books like the CSS Pocket Guide (which delineates in great detail the myriad ways in which different tags are supported by different browsers).

    I'm still pessimistic, but overall if Netscape finds a way to regain enough marketshare to become viable again, it may encourage Netscape and IE to compete solely on the basis of features not tied to the rendering engine.

    Hey, a guy can dream, right?

    • Re:browser marketshare parity is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brogdon ( 65526 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @05:13PM (#3353779) Homepage
      A pleasant thought, but the two browsers began on their divergent compatability paths back when the browsers *were* competing with each other. Netscape lobbied like Hell to get layers included in the W3C standard and then, after they weren't approved by the consortium, left them in the browser anyway, making all of us DHTML coders write two sets of scripts to handle them and IE's DIV tags.

      MS had been playing catch up to all of Netscape's quirks up until that point, but when IE 4 came out they knew they were going to take the lead, so they didn't bother worrying about layers. They were too busy planning all the IE-only extensions *they* would make once they held the lead in the race (stuff like those crappy XML behaviors). Now that the browser war has been won (by the bad guys, of course), Microsoft actually does a pretty decent job of sticking with the W3C and maintaining the standards, since they don't have to worry about the competition getting an even playing field so much any more.

      One could make the case that neither company had the time to wait for the W3C to release new, "official" standards when they busy innovating like Hell in order to get a leg up on the competition. In either case the disparity, I feel, is a direct result of having two browsers in direct, heated competition. I'm afraid this would come back if the browser wars were to start back up again. I really don't want to start writing two sets of code again.

  • This is good news! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by n-baxley ( 103975 ) <nate@NosPAm.baxleys.org> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:28PM (#3353405) Homepage Journal
    I don't really expect the brower count numbers to swap over night when AOL throws the switch, for one thing it takes people a while to upgrade, and not all of AOLs users user the default browser. But, what it will do is make developers stop coding stricly for IE and start accomodating Gecko as well. That should help promote good standards based coding and make it easier for other browsers to be able to render pages all over the web.

  • Yeah Right!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by cOdEgUru ( 181536 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:28PM (#3353407) Homepage Journal
    CompuServe's 3 million-member user base is seen as a testbed before turning AOL's 34 million members into Netscape users later this year."

    Would AOL's customer service dept want to receive a million calls the next day complaining of the funny "E" icon missing from their desktops..

  • Bore... but (Score:3, Interesting)

    by josh crawley ( 537561 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:29PM (#3353416)
    This article is somewhat boring. So what about CompuServe (and thier horrid email addys). Compuserve is nearly nothing. There's something bigger behind the story than just a test with a different browser. In news.com.com's words, here's the Big Picture:

    AoL has had contracts to use IE until now. They've bought good media companies (netscape and WinAMP). All they need now is a OS. That's to complete their total Moron-Happy installation. Perhaps Linux may be used, maybe freeBSD... Still if they go that route, then they'll pervert the OS to super-ads that take over everything. Still this does allow more programs to be compatible with linux (as more market-share will use it)

    Of course you'll still have the Win client, but look how it fucks up the system... I've seen/fdisked horror computers. One comp had AIM bound to every instance of anything. You press the start bar, Aim starts. You do anything, Aim starts. Even the normal install puts junk everywhere. And why in the hell does it need it's own adapter??? Installing any AoL software is insta-gib for your system.

    I give it 2-4 years till they come out with "Multi-Media AoL". It'll suck but it'll boost Unix (of whatever flavor).
  • Can we have a new poll option?
    • When Microsoft, having forced Netscape to open-source its browser in order to compete, is defeated in the browser wars by none other than that same open-sourced browser code.
  • imagine getting to be a guine pig for the corporation I pay to provide me with hosting. And I get to pay for the benefit of finding their bugs for them.

    Don't get me wrong, Netscape 6.X has come light years in the past year or so, but I'm still not convinced it's ready for prime time yet... no idea how much better the Mozilla releases have been though, but they sound only incrementally better than the official Netscape releases.
    • I don't know which version they're using for the CompuServe release - AIUI the AOL beta test used a very old version, not much if any more recent than NS6.2. So the following may not apply to the CompuServe release.

      But...

      they sound only incrementally better than the official Netscape releases

      I wouldn't quite say that's true. I'd say, rather, that each Mozilla milestone release is incrementally better than the last. NS6.2 remains based on 0.9.4 (technically 0.9.4.1 or some such but we won't go into that). 0.9.5 was incrementally better. 0.9.6 was incrementally better again. Ditto 0.9.7, 0.9.8 and 0.9.9. At some point, that loose change starts adding up into real money.

      I used each version in sequence, so I can't judge the total magnitude of the improvement I've seen since 0.9.4. And each milestone does, to be fair, introduce its own share of minor annoyances. The likelihood of finding one or two unfinished or regressed features is higher in current mozilla milestones (hopefully 1.0 will be the exception to that... or maybe the difference will come in the 1.0.1 deliberately-bugfix-only release).

      But it can't hurt to try it, can it?

  • Who uses CompuServe? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fumble ( 128295 )
    This is not meant to be flamebait, this is a legit question. *Who actually uses CompuServe nowadays?* Seriously. What does CompuServe's customer base look like? Is it early internet adopters that were too lazy to "upgrade" to AOL (I say upgrade with a grain of salt)? Is it customers that were jaded by poor AOL service and thought that CS might actually be better? hmm ...
  • If the idea is to do an initial test with a fraction of the AOL users, why didn't they wait until Mozilla reaches 1.0 and Netscape releases a version based on this codebase ?. What if the test fails simply because Netscape is still not stable/polished enough ?. Mozilla 1.0 is supposed to be close at this point in time ... what am I missing ?

  • Just a tad too early. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by digitect ( 217483 ) <digitect&dancingpaper,com> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @04:51PM (#3353625)

    <sigh>

    Don't get me wrong, Mozilla is great and I love/use it, but there are still some very serious issues:

    • Bug 89350 -- Home button should appear on main Toolbar
    • Bug 35268 -- Edit Source using External Editor
    • Bug 96877 -- Address book: Lists lose addresses

    Hope those CompuServe users can hang in there until 1.2 or so.

    (I'd link, but they don't take referrals from SlashDot... here's the Mozilla Bugzilla Home Page [mozilla.org].)

  • I suppose that it should technically be Browser Wars VI: Netscape Strikes Back, but for all you Mozilla lovers out there, it could arguably be Broswer Wars II: Attack of the (Mozilla) Clones.

    I know I'm stretching the bounds of humor.
  • A few years ago, AOL bought Compuserve, the place where techies hung out, and turned it into their "value" (read: cheap throwaway) brand.

    They quickly came out with Compuserve 2000 and encouraged all "classic" subscribers to upgrade. CIS 2000 was basically just a repackaged AOL using AOL dialups.

    Compuserve Classic has been left out there to whither and die. I've had a compuserve account since the mid 80s (76347,1163).

    They have no updated their "classic" software since coming out with this bastardized AOL clone.

    I was hoping this was going to be a classic update, guess not. :(

  • Mozilla, Konqueror, IE, et al. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vex24 ( 126288 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @05:00PM (#3353694) Homepage
    I realized last night that I'm now completely dependent on the superior feature set of Mozilla's web browser.

    I ran across a web site which had obviously been written to cater to MSIE browsers, and eschew web standards compliance. The pages didn't load (at all) in Mozilla 0.9.9, so I decided to give Konqueror a shot before giving up entirely. Konqueror rendered the pages (kudos to the K-people!) but made me realize why I like Mozilla so much. Pop-up windows, animated gif ads, and the clutter of multiple windows was enough to make me groan more than once while trying to navigate the site.

    Oh, and before anyone posts "Konqueror does that, you moron!" realize that I'm not trying to rain on the K parade, just extoll the virtues of my fair web browser.

    To avoid the dreaded Off-Topic, I'd just like to close by saying that I hope the experiment works, and Compuserve users get a chance to take control of their web browsing experience. Hopefully the privacy and anti-annoyance controls aren't removed when they turn it over to the consumer users.

  • Slashdot Browser statistics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HitchHik ( 103069 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @05:10PM (#3353762) Homepage
    How about adding a page to slashdot to show current/past statistics of browsers that are used to access SlashDot? A link from the main page would also be nice!

  • Microsoft to start developing new IE things? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Thunderbear ( 4257 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @05:13PM (#3353783) Homepage
    Microsoft Internet Explorer has - seen from the users point of view - been virtually unchanged in terms of enhancements and new developments since version 4.0, where Netscape 4.x was fully cloned.

    I am writing this in IE 5.1 for Mac OS X, where the only facility I have found to be different than 4.0 for Windows, is the ability to track online auctions, which is useless to me.

    Mozilla is a refreshing new product, where the new stuff like the tabs, sidebars and navigation bar mean that I can get rid of some of the things that has nagged me the most in both IE and Netscape 4.x.

    Since Mozilla is going to be basically everywhere, it seems that this is going to prompt the user interface stuff in the browsers again. With the new facilities now available in both the major browsers like XSLT we should see a surge in new XML-based services, and that the rest of the browsers keep up.
  • I hope they start going away now.

  • Where did you get RC1? AFAIK, it doesn't yet exist. The "recent builds" the post mentions are builds of RC1, but it's not out yet.

    Looking at Mozilla.org and Mozillazine.org, I don't see a mention of RC1 being released.

  • Mozilla has NOT hit RC1 yet (Score:3, Informative)

    by Aqua OS X ( 458522 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:27PM (#3354225)
    A minor correction for story on the home page. Mozilla RC1 is NOT out yet. The branch has been cut and there are builds inching toward the release within the next few days. However the latest "milestone" is still 0.9.9.

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