Netscape's folly

Salon (yes, an actual worthwhile article from Salon) ^ | March 14, 2002 | Megan McArdle

[JURB]

I used to use Netscape, but tried Explorer at release 3.0, and switched exclusively to Explorer 4.0 once it was released. I was sympathetic to Netscape, but it was an inferior product, pure and simple.

But depite Microsoft's market hegemony, I currently use neither Microsoft nor Netscape, but Opera as my primary browser. While not perfect (it's not perfectly compatible), I find it far superior to Explorer.

You can bemoan Microsoft's market dominance all you want, but there are alternatives out there. The free market works.

[Post Toasties]

I switched from Netscape to IE because Netscape had a nasty tendency to lock up the PCs i used with 98 and newer Window OS's while browsing. When I contacted Netscape about this, they didn't bother to reply.

I root for (& use) the products of a good competitive underdog whenever I can. Problem is, Netscape couldn't cut it & didn't seem to care that they didn't.

[snopercod]

Not a bad article, even with that snotty "I'm so superior" tone one finds in liberal rags. Also, the article made no mention of why one browser was better than another. (But it looked pretty good on my Netscape 4.08)

[goldstategop]

Netscape 6.2.1 (the latest version) is pretty good. I simply downloaded the spare browser without all the add on bloat. Its pretty much what a browser should be for web surfing and chat room buzz.

[dts32041]

Tried Netscape 6.2.1 IE 6.0, no thnak you will stick with Opera 6.

Puts the other two to same.

[dts32041]

same=shame

[DB]

Opera 6.01 is out. Still has a few problems. I don't like how it renders FR threads for example. It uses a funky font and it places no space between posts like Netscape or IE does. Strange... On some pages it doesn't work right at all. That said, if it continues to improve like it has it will be ready for prime time soon.

As far as Netscape and Microsoft goes, any company can be destroyed if its competitor give the company's core product away for free.

[JURB]

Yes, a company can be destroyed if its rival gives away its core product for free, but since when is it bad for the consumer when a product is too affordable, or for that matter, free?

[Quila]

Oh man, where do I start?

Yet users keep right on switching to AOL, because it's better.

He was doing okay until here. We're talking browsers, not a service. And AOL just plain sucks.

that Microsoft's technology was inferior to Netscape's

It was. A guy from MS did put out an article a while ago that did lay some blame at Netscape's feet: they made a fatal mistake by skipping a version and doing a total rewrite. It allowed MS's IE5 to finally be a superior product while Netscape users were still stuck with Netscape 4.x.x.

But I'm not building myself a heart/lung machine. I'm building an application server for Marketing. And your design costs five times as much

I think the point is mission-critical. Can you afford for it to go down? Admittedly, Windows is coming up to par here, but Windows is stuck into many server applications where it just isn't very good because of people like this who think it's a cure-all and as good as UNIX in every way.

The funny thing is that now you can still use a Linux system and get all the performance at a fraction of the Windows price (I remember a comparison for a mail server, the Windows price was extreme and needed several servers).

You just can't buy a system from either company for $1,000 -- but you can buy a really decent PC.

Graphite iMac, $999.

Many critics go further, alleging that Windows programmers deliberately inserted code to sabotage Netscape's performance

They modified a DLL and installed the new version over the old one when installing IE. Netscape would not work anymore. This could be conspiracy, or simply another in a long list of "DLL Hell" episodes.

[bimbo]

… in 1995, Netscape had 70 percent of the market for Web browsers. This fact is reiterated in an indignant tone, as if that share is no more than Netscape's right.

I’ve heard that argument, too. If it were to hold, then IBM, GATEWAY2000, DELL, COMPAQ would have to yield to the likes of TANDY, COMMODORE, APPLE, and SINCLAIR. They, in turn, would have to yield to ALTAIR, IMSAI, and SOUTHWEST TECH. And since they are already out of business, we’d all have to give up our PCs and NETSCAPE loses anyway.

[DB]

It's bad for the consumer who wants more than free trash because those consumers are apparently a small minority. The old adage you get what you pay for is still true.

I never said the government should be involved. I just don't like MS dumping and trashing the alternatives. I'm still free to not like that aren't I?

[billbears]

I use Opera on my home computer and haven't had any problems with FR. A few quirky things but far and above superior to IE

[DB]

When you view "Latest Posts" does each post/reply have any additional space between them so they don't simply look like one continuous post(other than different colors)? The standard sentence line spacing is all that I have between posts/replies. I all runs together. If your does have additional space then I somehow got something configured wrong.

[billbears]

Yeah it does and yes I know the problem you're talking about. It happened to me once when the cat walked over the keyboard!! LOL!! Can't remember which key it is, but I think it's in the help. Also best results for me was to make sure it is identified as IE 5.0 in the menu

[DB]

Oh great... Now I'm going to push all the keys one by one to try to fix it and really screw things up... ;-)

[aMorePerfectUnion]

It's never bad for a consumer until the other competitor has been driven out of business - then significant innovation ends and incremental change crawls along. In the long run this always hurts consumers.

ampu

[billbears]

Hey I didn't say it was perfect!! I just said it worked for me!! Whatever you do, just don't push the + or - keys several times in sucession!!

[Mr Rogers]

Opera looks fine on my machine. For what that is worth. I use it because I live at the end of a bunch of very old phone lines - download speeds average less than 1K/sec - so I need something that gives me the option of downloading pictures with a seperate button. The old Netscape did, and Opera does. Won't us IE because it is too awkward to shift between pictures / no pictures.

[BJungNan]

Presumably the lawyers are hoping we won't notice that they haven't proved the one thing they need to: that the dirty tricks caused the collapse.

What caused their collapse was when they made Netscape look and feel like AOL. Yuck! Netscape went from the only browser I would use to now never touch it, actually unistalled it from my system.

They had a quality product. They have only themselves to blame for their present woes.

[Brookhaven]

Opera 6.01 is out. Still has a few problems.

I use Opera because of the way it handles pop-up windows. You can easily turn them on and off. They also pop-up within a larger frame making it easy to handle. When browsing with IE its not unusual to have 5 or 6 instances of IE running at the same time due to pop-ups.

Opera is also the hands down best choice if you are going to be downloading a lot of files.

I test a web site against opera to see how it looks. For the most part, it acts like IE, but it acts like Netscape just often enough to make it not really compatible with either one. This seems especially true with CSS stuff.