Tech doesn't buoy Netscape browser

CNET News.com ^ | August 28, 2002, 9:32 AM PT | Matthew Broersma

[Bush2000]

Tech doesn't buoy Netscape browser

Despite new technology, Netscape continues to lose ground to Internet Explorer, which now has well over 90 percent of the market. A twice-yearly study from StatMarket, a division of WebSideStory, showed that despite recent technological advances, AOL Time Warner's Netscape Communications browsers, which use technology from the open-source Mozilla project, have ceded more ground to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

According to the study, Netscape browsers are losing market share at a steady clip, falling to a new low of 3.4 percent as of this week. A year ago, Netscape' market share stood at 13 percent, but fell steeply to 7 percent by March as IE 6 gained popularity.

"The newest versions of Netscape have failed to win over users so far," Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket, said in a statement. "Unless AOL makes a move soon, Netscape may find itself battling Opera for the last 1 percent to 2 percent of the market."

IE has now reached 96 percent market share, according to StatMarket, up from 87 percent a year ago. Mozilla gained some market share when it finally launched a 1.0 release earlier this year, but browsers such as Mozilla and Opera still only accounted for less than 1 percent of the market, StatMarket said.

AOL's plans for boosting Netscape market share hinge on the possibility of introducing Netscape as the basis for the integrated AOL Web browser, which would put it into the hands of tens of millions of consumers. AOL has taken steps toward this end with a version of its CompuServe service that uses Netscape's Gecko Web-page rendering engine, and a new test version of AOL for Mac OS X that also uses Netscape technology.

At this point, however, competing browsers face an increasingly difficult task in battling the IE monolith. Because of its market dominance, Web designers generally test their pages on IE alone, with the result that pages sometimes do not render correctly in other browsers--even if those browsers are more standards-compliant than IE.

Netscape has begun actively tracking down popular Web sites that do not render correctly in its browser and encouraging the sites to fix the errors. The company said it has now eradicated errors from most popular sites.

StatMarket gathers its figures from more than 125,000 sites that use its services.

[discostu]

That's why it would have been a "good" solution. Remember most of the "monopoly solutions" have the real goal of destroying MS.

[AdA$tra]

But you could run it on decent OS's, like Linux.....

As a desktop, Linux is just a toy. As a network tool/server it is maturing quickly.

[shadowman99]

"One of the problems is that Netscape hasn't really changed much since version 4 came out"

Unless of course you count that it has a completely different code base, rendering engine, vastly improved support support for CSS, support for local scripting, ability to bring new pages up in tabs rather than windows, ability to cripple pop-ups, compliance for WWWC standards, support for themes/skins, bug fixes, backdoor fixes, e-mail reader, newserver client, support for multiple OS platforms, support for multiple user profiles...

Oh no, nothing new here. Move along to IE, sheeple. Bitch about the monopoply, but don't actually do anything about it. Sleep...sleep...

Netscape 6 is based on recent Mozilla code. Netscape 4.7 was based on code with at least a three year legacy.

[Cryptic_One]

It may be new code but (and I hate to use these management catch phrases) it doesn't add any value. There is only so much you can do with a browser, but it seemed to only a pretty, new package, but pretty much the same otherwise.

I used to be a big Netscape fan. But now I prefer Opera because of the way it handles. It's just has much more features.

[Cryptic_One]

Are you talking about MOZILLA or Netscape?

I'd hardly call using Opera as being "sheeple".

[pt17]

Same story here. I cut off Nutscape development and support for all of our internet apps over two years ago. As much as I would like to see IE given serious competition in the business world, my customers won't pay for the care and feeding of a zombie and if they won't, I sure won't.

[Blue Screen of Death]

my customers won't pay for the care and feeding of a zombie and if they won't, I sure won't.

All your railroads are having the same size tracks.

I share the same experiance as you. I am not going to spend my time and money to support Netscape(AOL).

[Cryptic_One]

For IE just add the feature to the site or app and go. With Netscape tweak the code for hours just trying to get a table or some other simple feature to display just how you want it. Netscape lovers, Opera lovers, Mozilla lovers, Gecko lovers....FLAME AWAY!

If you're a professional web developer (so am I) then you know the reason IE works so easly is because it allows BAD CODE to pass. At least netscape didn't let you get away with that, which I think was a GOOD thing. The problem with both browsers (although they've all gotten better) was adhering the the W3C standards.

[isthisnickcool]

As a network tool/server it is maturing quickly.

I kinda agree as far as the desktop but having IE opensource and running on Linux would change that a bit.

On the server end of things I agree. But I'd say Linux matured about 24 months ago in that regard. Today, it's much different than it was even back then and certainly very different from when we first ran across Linus in 1991.

[AdA$tra]

It may be "ALL NEW, IMPROVED, CSS SUPPORTING" and everything else....but it still sucks from a web developer's point of view. It is mostly stupid little things they could easily fix if the would open my emails and bug reports.

[Cryptic_One]

I use Opera. You are correct that some sites do not make themselves totally compliant. I therefore hold Internet Explorer in reserve for such sites.

However, I find Opera is *so* superior to IE or any other browser that I find it worthwhile to use Opera as my standard and use IE on those less than 5% of the sites that do not render correctly with Opera.

Me to...I use it on both Linux and Windows. And most of those sites can be rendered correctly if you change your browser identity to MSIE 5. Some sites that have a hang up when they see Opera work just fine when you change that setting. (And like many of these settings you can do it from the menu Quick Preferences...on the fly!)

[AdA$tra]

Hey IE works with complex Lotus/Domino apps without javascript errors. Netscpe 4.7 works OK as well for most of my needs. Who needs to charge clients 150/hour for several man days worth of work so it can work with a crap browser like Netscape 6 or 7. If that is a W3C compliance issue than we need new standards from somewhere else. IBM used to tell us none of the WebSphere/Net Dot Commerce/Lotus configuration stuff would work with IE. They were lying. Now none of them work in new Netscapes...window resize issues. IBM has even jumped ship.

[AdA$tra]

However, I find Opera is *so* superior to IE or any other browser

For surfing the web......a browser is a browser is a browser...mostly. Except Netscape has trouble rendering certain cool features.

[APBaer]

"I've heard [Opera} is very good. And since they actually charge for it, they can exist at a fairly low level of acceptance as long as they offer some competitive advantages (such as speed)"

One of the features that I like is the ability to open many browser windows. It is not unusual for me to have 40 windows open. That is a feature that differentiates it from IE and even were that the only feature it would be worthwhile for me.

[Bush2000]

Not the same thing, AOL will now be integrating Netscape into their software, they had previously integrated Internet Explorer into the AOL software. It is as if Microsoft had previously been integrating Netscape into Windows and had then started integrating IE instead.

Let them. AOL is finished, in my opinion. Their subscriber base is shrinking, not growing, and they don't have many ways to grow revenues.

[InfraRed]

I cut off Nutscape development and support for all of our internet apps over two years ago.

I use Mozilla. When presented with a website that does not render properly - an occurrence that has lately become quite rare - I do not go out of my way to load IE. I have absolutely no desire, or need, to jump through hoops. Instead, I simply take my business elsewhere.

I don't expect a 'webmaster' to develop custom pages to support every possible browser, but I do expect adherence to industry wide standards and the avoidance of unnecessary proprietary cra features. For the same reason, I am also not likely to do business with a store that employs no English speaking sales people. Spare me the Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Ebonics, MS specific tags, etc.

I have personally cancelled thousands of dollars in purchases from unfriendly websites, and have instead done business with their competition. I have also recommended the competition to a significant number of other buyers. Driving customers away is no way to run a business.

It has become very easy to find multiple sources for products. If you cannot, or will not, produce a website that caters to all of your customers, your competition will (and is).

[Wonder Warthog]

"Personally, I want something to be competitive to IE. When Microsoft has no competition, they get sloppy. When there is a serious competitive threat, they produce much better software."

GET sloppy!?!? The ONE application that I can count on to lock my system up "tighter than a bull's ass in fly season" is good old Internet Explorer. This didn't start until Microsoft's "strategic decision" to "merge" the browser with the operating system.

I am test-driving Opera, but I can't rate it on a par with IE as far as usability goes--clunky is being kind.

I've used Windows since pre-version 1.0 (i.e. actually ran the runtime version that shipped with Micrografx "In-a-Vision"), but DAMN, Linux is looking better all the time.

[Once-Ler]

It is not unusual for me to have 40 windows open.

My wife can do that with IE.
Then the computer locks up.
Then she asks me why it happened.

[A CA Guy]

Netscape and AOL are both going to be going for 1% of the market soon.

[Consort]

It is not unusual for me to have 40 windows open.

That creates a cyber fenestration problem.