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21 Linux Web Browsers?
Posted by
Roblimo
on Wed Dec 01, 1999 04:48 AM
from the more-than-you-imagined dept.
from the more-than-you-imagined dept.
brazilian brain writes "There's an interesting article at trix.net called "browsing the browsers". It's a quick review of 21(!) web browsers already available for Linux or being ported for this platform. From Lynx to Communicator, from Amaya to Mozilla, they are tested or briefly commented. Whenever possible, screenshots are provided.
It's an original article by Ricardo Y. Igarashi, published by Linux in
Brazil and now translated to English in order to share the data with the international Linux community. I hope you enjoy it."
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21 Linux Web Browsers?
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The Dynamics of the Linux browser market (Score:3)
I think it is important that Mozilla eventually becomes a good/solid browser because it is the showcase for what open source can (or can't do). Looking at the usability of the last few mozialla builds, I can say that IMHO it's moving along OK and seems to be more stable everytime I download it. As such, I believe that the mozilla folks will eventually release a good, standards compliant browser. The key question here is: when? We have to run as fast as we can to catch up to MS and deprive them of the opportunity to bend the web to their own designs and currently Mozilla is the showcase product of that.
While I think the success of the Mozilla project is important for the obvious reasons (visibility, Linux should have an open source implementation of a key technology for the web, etc), I am not all that worried about the availablity of a proper browser under Linux. See, Linux right now has somewhere between 15-20 million users (as far as we can guess) and is doubling every year (even if it's not quite doubling it's growing like crazy). This means, that even should mozilla fail, there will be (in a year or so) a market of about 30-50 million potential users. I think this in itself will attract corporate interest: if you can get 20% of those users to pay you $20 (which is pretty reasonably for a decent browser if you have no alternative), you'd make somewhere in between $120M and $200M. Surely a potential customer base of such a size will continue to attract development efforts (if no decent free implementation is available).
Opera currently seems poised to become the alternative, commercial Linux browser if what I've heard about them holds true on their upcoming Linux port. I think Linux is big enough to attract software companies which can deliver a browser. Yes, it should be open source and this is where Mozilla comes in. I think however that no matter what happens, Linux will be able to operate on the web.
Lastly a few comments (responding to other posts):
I'd use it too. (Score:4)
I share your grief on the Netscape issue, though. Its error handling has got to be the worst of any program I've ever seen. I, too, am getting fed up with typing "rm ~/.netscape/lock"; I might as well set up a cron job to do it for me every 30 minutes. The problem, however, is that it's not just Linux that it sucks on. Netscape crashes reliably for me on every OS I've used it on: Irix 6.5, Linux 2.0 and 2.2, FreeBSD (both the native binary and a Linux binary running under emulation), Solaris, Windows 95, 98 and NT, and MacOS. Sometimes it'll take X with it (segmentation fault in the server on Irix), other times it'll cause the entire OS to slow to a crawl (Windows NT) and require a reboot. Other times, it'll just cause the machine to reboot (Mac OS 7). I'm convinced that nothing will save Netscape short of a complete rewrite; its code would simply be too buggy to be of any use without major walkthroughs and audits (which would probably take longer than rewriting the damned thing.)
I would love it if Microsoft ported IE properly to Linux. If it proved to be better than Netscape -- which it would not have a hard time doing, I daresay -- I'd use it.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Internet Explorer on Windows 2000 Professional (Score:3)
I want a browser, not the kitchen sink (Score:3)
I had hope for Mozilla, but it looks just as bad. I have hope for Opera, but it is not out. Can't we get some of these browser writers together to write a browser and not a full apps suite? And maybe the memory footprint won't be totally silly ...
it still boils down to one (Score:3)
Re:This is a comparison of irrelevancies (Score:4)
Ever since I got involved (about 1993), the Web has been based on "it seems to work, it'll do" - and Mosaic and Netscape are partly responsible, by being so liberal with the HTML they were willing to accept and (attempt to) render.
Don't blame Tim Berners-Lee, his HTML was designed for a specific type of structured document. Tables, frames, BODY BACKGROUND=, these were all snuck in by Netscape, whereupon the W3C had their hand forced into including these features in later HTML specs.
I remember early CERN documents, which discussed the attribute=value pairs within an HTML tag. (to paraphrase) it said "In future, the <A$gt; tag might have an attribute which indicates whether the link is the next page, a footnote, an image, a reference to another part of the document, etc. A browser would do certain things with these attributes, whereas an application printing the document would use the information in a different way."
Has the HTML standard fulfilled that kind of promise? Nope. It's been shoehorned into a layout language, which is something it was never intended to do.
Here's hoping that XML fulfills its promise, and once again structure and layout are properly separated.
In the meantime, though -- formal "standards" don't matter one jot in the current browser market. While there's so much non-standard-compliant junk being spewed out by http servers, to succeed in the marketplace a browser has to accept it. Since a de-facto standard is no standard at all, I guess we have no standard.
(My apologies to the few sites still using pure, W3C compliant HTML. I salute you.)
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Re:MS IE for Linux - I'd use it, wouldn't you? (Score:3)
I almost thought you weren't ignorant. For the umpteenth time: Mozilla is not Netscape. In fact, there is virtually 0 shared code between the two. Additionally, Mozilla (which should be considered a completely new application) is still in a pre-alpha state -- probably will be "alpha" in a couple of weeks -- and crashes about as much as Communicator 4.7 (a ".7" release of a RELEASED product).
I agree that Communicator is garbage. I don't agree that Mozilla is. Mozilla may not be a panacea, but it will expose Communicator and IE as the worthless crap they are.
MS IE for Linux - I'd use it, wouldn't you? (Score:4)
Netscape is just so full of bugs it's unreal. It crashes a lot. Every time a page contains a java applet or attempts to use a plugin you're sitting there with fingers crossed wondering if Netscape's going to crash.. again.
rm ~/.netscape/lock seem a familar command to anyone? And why does Even when it works, it's dog slow. It's table rendering takes forever. The java VM is so slow as to be unusable. And it really would be nice if the entire Netscape program (i.e. all the windows it might have open) didn't freeze up while it's waiting for a DNS lookup.
The fact is that Netscape is an embarassment to the Linux world. We tell people about this solid, reliable, crash-free computing environment, which it is, and then we sit them down in front of Netscape. And it crashes. And they give us strange looks, and decide to stick with Windows.
I would like to see Internet Explorer for Linux. IE is a fine web browser. It's not perfect, but it's vastly more stable than Netscape, and very much faster. And there are already Solaris and HP versions, so porting it to Linux would be the work of a few days.
Just think of the good publicity Microsoft would get if they released it. All us die-hard geeks would have to pause for a second and reconsider our feelings towards them. It would help in the ongoing anti-trust case. And people would use it.
Of course, there isn't much chance of Microsoft ever doing such a thing... which is exactly why they should. They should do it to prove that attitude wrong. If it is wrong of course...
Re:Internet Explorer on Windows 2000 Professional (Score:4)
Navigator is "good enough" for me, and since I need xterms, bash, vi, cron, mutt, etc to get my job done efficiently, I stick with Linux and therefore Navigator.
However, this means I have to put up with frequent hangs and crashes and "killall -KILL netscape; rm ~/.netscape/lock"s, when the Java VM ain't up to scratch. And this is on content that I *should* be able to view. I can do without ActiveX etc, since usually if the site requires ActiveX, it's of no interest to me anyway.
Browsing using IE *is* faster than Nav4.7, more reliable, and altogether an easier and more pleasurable experience (once you turn off that dreadful smooth scrolling).
Hopefully, Mozilla/Netscape 5 will fix a lot of these issues. I'm hearing hints from various places that Nav5's XML support won't be as complete as IE5's (anyone know?), and this worries me a little.
Two (almost opposite) things I hope happen:
does not rely on Java/Flash/DHTML/etc.
Perhaps browsers should have a button in the corner which automatically brings up a form email adressed to the current page's maintainer, making it easy for the irritated Dreamcast user (for example) to send "Dear GamesIsUs, I attempted to reach your Web site using the Dreamcast's browser, because I was eager to buy $300 worth of goods online. However, I was informed that the site required IE4 or greater and that I needed to upgrade my browser. Since there is no browser upgrade available, I was forced to order the goods from another company over the phone".
Enough letters like that ought to wake a few Webmonkeys up. BTW http://special.reserve.co.uk has already done the right (ish) thing and launched a sister site with the same content optimised for 640x480 TV screens.
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This is a comparison of irrelevancies (Score:4)
I'd like to know which render the pages correctly, according to spec. Which support CSS (according to spec)? Which allow the user to specify their own style sheets, overriding the pages' layout? Which support content negotiation? These are the questions I'd like to see answered, since those are the things that are important for the advancement of the Web.