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rhsunderground
12-12-2004, 11:05 PM
all i can say is......:eek:


AOL To Create Own Browser (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=1&u=/ap/20041212/ap_on_hi_te/aol_software)
Jick
12-12-2004, 11:14 PM
It's going to be built on IE technology? *runs away crying*
MstrBob
12-12-2004, 11:16 PM
It's doomed to fail. They've picked an archaic, clunkering rendering engine over the sleeker, more up-to-date Gecko engine. As long as they don't start fiddling with the IE engine core, though, it shouldn't make much of a difference in webdesign. But if they throw in their own quirks, its yet another browser I'll have to test in, as there will be millions of users. *sigh*.
rhsunderground
12-12-2004, 11:18 PM
i think i'm going to move this to the general forum, because Bob's point with testing is bound too affect web developers.
David Harrison
12-12-2004, 11:46 PM
OK, while it looks like a crushingly bad thing that their gonna use IE, maybe there's an upside.

It says the engineers are gonna work in tabbed browsing, maybe they might also bring in standards compliance (at least to a degree). After all, like it says in the article, they were behind Netscape and that was fairly standards compliant.
MstrBob
12-12-2004, 11:47 PM
Originally posted by lavalamp
OK, while it looks like a crushingly bad thing that their gonna use IE, maybe there's an upside.

It says the engineers are gonna work in tabbed browsing, maybe they might also bring in standards compliance (at least to a degree). After all, like it says in the article, they were behind Netscape and that was fairly standards compliant.

Heh, you're funny. Using IE as an engine and then making it standards compliant. Heh. Come on now, let's all be serious.
David Harrison
12-12-2004, 11:51 PM
It's better than the alternative:

AOL use IE as base browser.
AOL gains more popularity.
Mozilla stops gaining popularity.
Mozilla dies a death.
We're left with nothing but an unsecure, crappy browser.
the tree
12-13-2004, 11:37 AM
Originally posted by lavalamp
Mozilla dies a death. This is unlikley, so many people already have copy of the FF source that if the mozzila site went down then all that would happen would be that FF would split into loads and loads of peoples personal takes on it.
ray326
12-13-2004, 01:38 PM
AOL gains more popularity. Actually that one's not very likely either. Or if they DO it still won't be enough to keep them from their slow death. AOL is laying off 700 more people by the end of 2004.
Jona
12-13-2004, 01:42 PM
I hope they don't add any CSS support to IE6 or the new AOL browser. Why? Because none of my current CSS hacks will work, and the CSS I use for Mozilla will still most likely fail.
Ben Rogers
12-13-2004, 05:02 PM
As long as it imagines an element containing <html>, I'm good. ;)
PeOfEo
12-13-2004, 05:07 PM
I would have thought for sure they would have just taken ns and made a skin for the thing. What they are doing sounds pretty pointless.
Jona
12-13-2004, 05:27 PM
AOL/CompuServe at one time used the Netscape 7 engine, but apparently they switched back to the IE-core, hmm? Stinks...
Stephen Philbin
12-13-2004, 07:38 PM
It raises the question of: Should we even support it? I'm not sure if I would.

If it is a straight out re-skinned IE, then yeah, it'll get the same limited concessions I make for IE. When the web dev community should be fighting hell for leather to get away from the joke that is IE, I don't see why we should make any exceptions for the stupidity of a dying company.

I certainly won't be helping web dev creep even an inch back closer to the bad old days just because some failing company made yet another school-boy error.
Ben Rogers
12-13-2004, 08:42 PM
Originally posted by Mr Herer; edited by Ben R.
<rant>It raises the question of: Should we even support it? I'm not sure if I would.

If it is a straight out re-skinned IE, then yeah, it'll get the same limited concessions I make for IE. When the web dev community should be fighting hell for leather to get away from the joke that is IE, I don't see why we should make any exceptions for the stupidity of a dying company.

I certainly won't be helping web dev creep even an inch back closer to the bad old days just because some failing company made yet another school-boy error.</rant> Much better now. :p

I see what you're saying, and for a webdev site: that works. However, for a "real" site, that isn't an option. Maybe sites should just sniff for IE, and deliver it a page with a Firefox button and naught else.
Jona
12-13-2004, 08:55 PM
Originally posted by Ben R.
Much better now. :p

I see what you're saying, and for a webdev site: that works. However, for a "real" site, that isn't an option. Maybe sites should just sniff for IE, and deliver it a page with a Firefox button and naught else.

You get a wiff of IE and you'd be dead! :p

I'd say sniffing is the best way to go if it arises that AOL's browser looks different than IE.
steelersfan88
12-13-2004, 09:09 PM
The browser, like AOL, will start off well, but start to regress. Regardless of the browser, AOL is a hasbeen, although I admire the quote that it is better to be a hasbeen than to never be at all.
ray326
12-14-2004, 12:33 AM
Originally posted by Jona
AOL/CompuServe at one time used the Netscape 7 engine, but apparently they switched back to the IE-core, hmm? Stinks... It was done for business reasons. MS required them to lock into IE in exchange for content.
Jona
12-14-2004, 01:55 AM
Originally posted by ray326
It was done for business reasons. MS required them to lock into IE in exchange for content.

Figures MS would do something like that. :rolleyes: I can understand it from a business point of view, but when you have such a low-quality product, you shouldn't expect anyone to use it. Unfortunately it seems as though they do not understand that IE is such a low-quality product. Hopefully other browsers, mainly Firefox, will take into account MS-proprietary technologies so that it is more compatible for people that visit web sites that make use of MS-proprietary technologies. Non-recommended technologies aren't a bad thing, after all. In fact, the W3C recommends the addition of new ideas and technologies in user agents. But MS should have gotten the basics right in the first place.
scragar
12-14-2004, 06:47 AM
what do you think the Gbrowser will be like? It's suposed to use the mozila engine with a slight take to opera and IE(I said slight) with all their own features and stuff.

and miscroslop arn't going to get anywhere by refusing them the right to change the core engine, if they don't change it the odds are it won't get changed and IE becomes worse than ever.
Stephen Philbin
12-14-2004, 11:19 AM
Ok. Obviously I can see the reason for supporting IE on paying projects. It's only one reason, but it's an annoyingly solid reason. But what I'm saying is why on earth should we support the AOL browser if it does turn out to be as bad as IE and differs in how it would need to be coded for?

As far as I can see it'll have many reasons for not supporting it (which can be bundled up into one good reason: It's an IE core) and won't have any reason for support. Like I said. There's only one reason for supporting IE on paying projects: It's the majority browser. Without that reason (which AOL most certainly won't have), why the hell should we bother about a non compliant minority browser. I don't see anyone making special allowances for Netscape 4. If nobody makes pages that make special exceptions for that, why would we be expected to do it for any other bad browser that will be in the minority?
Jona
12-14-2004, 12:47 PM
Originally posted by scragar
what do you think the Gbrowser will be like?

You mean the browser that supposedly Google will make? There's no gaurauntee that they will make a browser -- the whole thing is a rumor, just like the Google OS.
David Harrison
12-14-2004, 01:07 PM
Originally posted by Jona
You mean the browser that supposedly Google will make? There's no gaurauntee that they will make a browser -- the whole thing is a rumor, just like the Google OS. Lol. Google OS, that's a good one. :D

They'd never stand a chance.
Reli4nt
12-14-2004, 05:19 PM
Perhaps if we just ignore it, it will go away.
Jona
12-14-2004, 05:35 PM
Originally posted by lavalamp
Lol. Google OS, that's a good one. :D

They'd never stand a chance.

No really, man, I'm not kidding. They even have fake "screenshots" of the Google OS! :p

There never will be a Google OS - at least, the likelihood of that happening is very, very slim - but in the event that there was, I'm sure it'd be a high-quality product like all of Google's other services.