>FWIW, over in the iCab Y!Group we had a recent discussion of OS 8/9 >vs OS X. Turns out the download stats from sites like VersionTracker >show that the classic version of this NEW wonderful Mac-only web >browser is MUCH more popular than its OS X vers. Now, +/- data >gathering methods etc, this still says quite a bit.
This does not surprise me in the least. Safari comes with OS X, most people don't change the status quo. Its there, it works (sort of), and they don't look any further. If people changed what they were handed, MS would not have taken over the web browser and email markets on Windows. But most people don't change, so why would anyone download the OS X version of iCab? The only people that would are those that are dissatisfied enough with what they were handed to bother seaking out an alternative. And Safari isn't that bad. And for those that are unhappy with it, you have Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera and iCab (and I'm sure I'm forgetting others). So the already minimal OS X market is broken among at least 5 additional products. But have you seen the OS 8/9 offerings for Web Browsers? You have Nutscrape and Internet Exploder that come with the OS... both are horrible and unstable. So from there, what other choice do you have? iCab or Mozilla really. Neither are perfect, but both are far better then Netscape and IE (and yes, I'm aware Mozilla is the heart of Netscape... but Netscape is unstable, slow bloatware, while Mozilla sticks to being a reasonably lean mean web browser). Many MANY more OS 8/9 users will be unhappy with their web browsers, so they will hunt down an alternative, and find that iCab is really about the only choice out there (Mozilla exists, but is harder to track down). I would not take iCab's download stats as proof that Classic is important. After all, just as you point out, it is the OS 8/9 version being downloaded... if people were running it in Classic, wouldn't they just download the OS X version? >LOW END MACS ROCK! :) I agree... I run my email servers off Performa 640's with SIMS. And my web/ftp servers are Quadra 610's running NetBSD (I'd have run the Mac OS as well, but I couldn't get a decent web browser that was stable and allowed me to run the CGI's that I needed... whereas Apache on NetBSD would do the job nicely). And then of course, you just have my "collection", but that doesn't really count, because none of them are in regular use any more (I did until not too long ago have a room full of Mac SE's running as a fax pool for sending large numbers of broadcast faxes... but we don't do that any more, so they were finally shut down and removed). -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
