So far this year over 10 million versions of Opera have been downloaded from www.opera.com. This new record is in addition to the many millions more copies of Opera that are downloaded from other download sites around the world.
Press reports indicate that Microsoft will not further develop Internet Explorer, instead integrating it fully into their new upcoming 'Longhorn' operating system to be released in a few years. Press reports also suggests that development of Netscape has been largely abandoned. Opera therefore foresees continued strong and increasing demand for its desktop browsers.
News source: Official Press Release
Press reports indicate that Microsoft will not further develop Internet Explorer, instead integrating it fully into their new upcoming 'Longhorn' operating system to be released in a few years. Press reports also suggests that development of Netscape has been largely abandoned. Opera therefore foresees continued strong and increasing demand for its desktop browsers.
News source: Official Press Release
Some of the more interesting newsgroups that were exposed today:
Longhorn =890
directx9 SDK =943
windows update =708
VS preview = 984
office 11 = 792
wm5 = 973
VS Whidbey = 983
Cobra = 968
Everest = 963
Yukon = 969
Adam Beta = 974
Srv2003 SP1 = 991 -w2k3 sp1
reporting services = 978
Mediacenter Partner=979
Security Configuration Wizard = 985
OfficeISV Tech SUpport = 986
Jupiter One Partner Program = 988
Officexp sp3 = 990 softwareupdatesvcs = 994
unix sa = 995
MOM 2004 = 1011
Securing WLANs v1.2 =1013
vfp8 sp1 = 1015
MSN Beta = 1020
MBSA V1.2 = 1021
Ozone Update = 1022
windows installer = 1023
Microsoft Speech Server = 1024
[sarcasm] There has been 10 million versions of Opera this year! Holy Crap! [/sarcasm]
er..some sites are designed by dumb webmasters with no clue about standards and errors in code, which IE completely ignores.
I guess it's just me, but I like IE. I've tried just about every other browser, but I always come back to IE. *shrugs* Different strokes for different folks I guess.
However, this represents an opportunity to raise the level of awareness with compliant sites that run on every platform / browser rather than the lock-in that exists at present. The more there are of them, the more likely it is that lazy developers will either 1)get off their arse and develop sites properly or 2)lose their jobs. Either way, it's a winner.
Opera is a bit clunky. It's cool though.
Only reason I haven't used firebird more is that it's still being developed
but, I find the sites that I have to use IE for, work fine with Firebird.
I've been developing a site, IE and Mozilla display it just fine, but opera.... ugh... it just won't display <button> right. What's the point if it won't display sites like they are designed.
<button>?? Why not just an <input type...> tag?
Andit does display the sites as they are designed... just because the major player has taught evryone some bad methods, doesn't mean its the correct way (no matter what the market share is).
If you design you sites properly, they will display properly.
Actually, just like I state... that button, as well as the majority of sites on the net use the <input type=submit> tag. To be honest, in my many years, and many websites..I've have never onced used, or even known anyone to use, the <button> tag.
I don't even see the use of <button>, aside from a quick search that yeilded nothing but sloppy/ugly newbie techiques.
Last edited by 10547 on 07 Aug 2003 - 12:16
i prefer firebird
Why would anyone install a separate browser when IE delviers a clean, stable, simple, powerful, fast, full-featured, and integrated solution?
Err, because it doesn't. The correct adjectives in that sentence were simple (new users need to use it without digging through any amount of help manual), fast (because it's integrated into the OS), and integrated (which is tautology).
As for the others:
"clean"
The rendering engine has been hacked around ever since it was released, years ago. It's an ugly mess and needs rewriting from the ground up as it can't be patched any more. This is exactly what Microsoft are doing for IE7.
"stable"
Here's a one line HTML file that will crash ALL known versions of Internet Explorer (all open windows as well):
<input type>
Most of the stability is based upon the the OS it's installed in. However, being able to crash the application with a 12 character string seems a bit crap to me...
"powerful"
Simply having the largest market share doesn't make it powerful. It just means that more people use it (as you have to deliberately choose another browser). Until the new version is out we can only speculate how powerful it will be, but we can hope it is 100% W3C, CSS1, 2, 3 compliant and runs like Ed Moses with dysentery. Until then, other browsers are more powerful. IE isn't compliant, and version 6 will never be. The time between now and Longhorn's release will see more users shifting allegiance to a more compliant browser, and possibly staying with it if IE7 isn't compliant either.
"full-featured"
How do you mean? It comes with a pathetic email and newsreader. Even Netscape Communicator was more fully-featured than that (and is immune to all these dumb worms that Outlook Express users continually send to each other)
In any case, people will install a separate browser because they want to, possibly having been told about it, or having seen one in action and thought "Ooh, Internet Explorer doesn't do that, maybe I'lll give it a try", where "that" could be rendering correctly, some feature like tabbed browsing / selectively blocking popups / sidebar etc.. Even maybe just because they like the desktop icon more.
As for the others:
"clean"
is correct. I meant a clean visual interface. You get a status bar, address bar, and toolbar with large buttons. Anyone can navigate with ease and there is *no crap* cluttering up the screen. Netscape and others have useless buttons or toolbars that add no genuine value to the web browsing experience.
"stable"
is accurate. Who in their right mind would publish a webpage that consists solely of that tag? Obviously this is not something you would find on the Internet, you would have to intentionally crash the browser with a custom-built file or be the victim of a hacker.
"powerful"
is not incorrect, I never said anything about market share contributing to power. IE can do virtually anything one might need a web browser to do at this point in time.
"full featured"
is defiantely correct. e-Mail, newsreaders, and webpage construction programs are just that - spearate programs. A web browser is for (get this) browsing the web! If you want e-Mail, get an e-Mail program. If you want to build a webpage get Dreamweaver. Netscape's webpage builder is sad to say the least. IE is built for web browsing and it does it well.
You are right about one thing - people are free to take the time to try new browsers and if they like them, use them. I was stating a personal opinion. There is no reason to go anywhere else when you already have the best.
When I start netscape on the morning, a simple click will open my favorite 30 weblogs in seconds in tabs, closing all of them after reading the new posts is also a simple clic. If I had to do it in IE, it would take at least 5 minutes just to search in the favorites for the URLs and click on them, and I would waste my time closing them one by one when I am done. I don't even talk about the dozen of popup windows opened with these sites which were gently blocked by Netscape or the fact that my desktop is cluttered with IE windows. This simple browsing operation that takes seconds in Netscape (or Opera, or Mozilla, or any other browser but IE) takes minutes in IE. Powerful isn't how I would define IE in this respect, instead the adjective "primitive" came into my mind :-)
As for the free webpage creation tool included in the Netscape suite, it is capable of producing valid HTML 4.01 code, something I have never seen from MS Frontpage despite its price ;-)
I use 7.2b2 and even though its a beta, it runs like seasoned competitor!
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.