> wrote: > > On Monday 22 October 2001 04:07 pm, you wrote: > > > On Monday 22 October 2001 05:11 pm, you wrote: > > > > On Monday 22 October 2001 02:50 pm, you wrote: > > > > > In reply to Eric Baber's words, written Mon, 22 Oct 2001 > > > > > 17:07:10 +0100 > > > > > > > > > > Spoken like a true newbie. Linux and Microsoft do not mix. > > > > > > > > Could we PLEASE be a little nicer to the poor guy. > > > > > > > > They *DO* have IE for non-Microsoft operating systems. I > > > > believe Sun has a variant, and they were doing one for HP-UX. > > > > > > Don't forget MacOS and MacOSX. The latter could qualify as a > > > form of Unix. > > > > > > I wonder why MS sees Linux as a threat and not these other > > > Unices. I suppose since it can run on the x86? > > > > I think a better question is, would Linux users even use a MS > > product, or would they find it too revolting? > > > > I personally believe that Microsoft Internet Explorer is the best > > web browser out there. > > > > For any platform. > > > > Period. > > Perhaps if you like the following: > > 1. The browser is automatically installed and starts up at every > boot whether you want it or not (which explains why it seems to > load so quickly).
If it is your primary webbrowser and you use your computer for webbrowsing a lot, this isn't a problem. Indeed, if you check out what is going on in the Mozilla community there is talk about doing this with Linux by preloading some of the browser into memory. Another alternative is to have the browser run as a daemon so that the benefits are reaped across a multiuser system without redundant setup for each user. > 2. When it crashes (which is quite often), the whole OS crashes. Doesn't happen often in my case. Occasionally you WILL get GPFs. I won't argue with you that Windows memory management is crap. My experience is that Netscape crashes much more often under Windows. > 3. It's closed-source, so you have no idea what's going on > underneath. For example, the 'snapshot' facility used in the XP > products will send whatever is in your memory to Microsoft, even if > it is private. XP does bother me somewhat. > 6. You like an inherently insecure application - one which has many > well-known exploits which can easily compromise your data and > privacy. I've downloaded the 128-bit encryption update. The times I do transmit sensitive information, I feel relatively secure. Unless there is something specific you're refering to. > 5. You don't want to ever use Java. In a move against Sun, Java > support has been discontinued in IE6. You can fix this by upgrading to IE6 from 5.x. It will retain the Java plugins. > 6. You don't want to ever use plug-ins. In a move against Netscape > and other non-IE based browsers, plug-in support has been > discontinued in IE6. Same solution as above. > > I was watching intently in the mid to late 90s, and I can tell > > you right now that MS *DID NOT* attain their position in the > > browser war entirely by unscrupulous means. They were well on > > their way even before they started bundling it with Win98. MSIE > > 3.x would tear anything else apart. And when AOL bought out > > Netscape, the writing was on the wall. Hopefully the Mozilla > > folks can actually turn things around. > > AOL's purchase of Netscape was a major blow for the company. AOL > used MSIE, as part of a Faustian deal to have an AOL icon on the > Windows desktop. They had little interest in developing the > Netscape browser - they only really wanted Netscape's web services. > Hopefully things shall change now that the MS deal was allowed to > expire. Mozilla technology is already being used in beta versions > of the new Compuserve browser. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe it is mostly the Gecko rendering engine that is being used. > If things go well, I think AOL would adopt it for their main > browser. Considering AOL's track record with shoddy software, I remain skeptical. I personally believe going with IE was the only decent decision they made when you consider the alternatives were Netscape and their own proprietary browser. > > MS had the better product. It's as simple as that. MSIE became > > leaner and more stable, while Netscape became incresingly more > > bloated and buggy. > > No, it isn't "as simple as that". MSIE didn't become "leaner and > more stable", it was just 'assimilated' by Windows so that it > looked that way. IE loads up whenever you boot into Windows. When > you want to use it, it will pop-up quickly, since it is already in > memory. This, combined with MS's use of secret internal APIs, gave > MS an unfair advantage over Netscape. Anything that isn't open source is suddenly unfair now? Let's not forget that Netscape's decision to go open source was relatively recent. You simply CAN NOT get source code for anything pre-4.x. All of this seems rather pointless to me because whether you examime pre-open source or after the fact, the IE at the time always seemed more stable than the Netscape at the time. I also doubt the level of integration in IE 3 was as extreme as it was in post-4.x. > Netscape 6 isn't worth using, because it is based on an old version > of Mozilla. Mozilla itself, which is largely developed by Netscape, > is shaping up to be a fine browser, but it still has some issues to > work out. Like the fact that it takes substantially long to load up. Ergo, the temptaion of the developers to adopt a more Microsoft-esque solution in pre-loading the executable. I "like" Mozilla when I get it up and running, but I always try to keep at least once instance in memory so that I can use it on demand. - John -------------------------------------------------------
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