[thelist] AOL/netscape was:Netscape 6 loads page twice

Daniel J. Cody djc at five2one.org
Fri Dec 8 13:11:06 CST 2000


jeff wrote:

> :~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> : From: Jacob Stetser
> :
> : I don't believe Netscape deserves a horrible death;
> : while I may prefer IE as my main browser (and
> : Macintosh as my main OS ;) that doesn't mean that
> : Netscape is itself a bad browser. Considering the
> : number of people using Netscape is still significant
> : and eventually many will upgrade, it's a fair bet you
> : do want to fix things.
> :~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> according to thecounter.com they logged a total of 554,519,878 hits for the
> month of october.  approximately 13% of those hits were from nn4 users.  an

I'd be a bit leary of quoting stats from a site like that as gosphel. If 
you think about the websites that thecounter.com gets its stats from, 
they're more than likely the kind of sites that beginning 'webmasters' 
are making. If they're using a free counter like that, their site is 
more likely to be hosted on a free hosting provider lke geocities or 
xoom. The kind of people visiting sites like that(heres my dog spot and 
linkz to K00l G at m3z!!!) are novice - beginner web users that are 
interested in pictures of dogs named spot, or k00l g at m3z. Statistically, 
those types of users tend to use the browser(Internet) that came with 
their computer.

I'll bet if you pulled the logs from more mainstream sites like yahoo, 
amazon, ebay, and altavista you would see some different numbers.

> 
> :~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> : As someone once said here: AOL owns Netscape
> : now.  What would happen to your site if the internal
> : AOL browser used Netscape instead of IE?
> :~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> what does aol honestly have to gain by bundling their software with netscape
> as the browser?  if they skip on their licensing agreement with microsoft
> then they lose the portion of that agreement that places their icon on the
> desktop of all new pc's.  not only that, but they run the risk of losing
> placement on new pc's entirely.  that's not a smart business move on their

you ask what they have to gain, but instead point out things that they 
would lose. Pointing to the licensing agreements with MS is a bad call 
because everyone knows that they got forced into using IE so they could 
get the icon on the desktop. You're defending Microsofts position of 
blackmailing and intimidating AOL in this case. If AOL weren't in a 
positiion to get fucked by MS, they sure as hell would use netscape as 
their browser, and i'll share some things they could gain. 1.) better 
standards complaince 2.) smaller footprint 3.) more integrated AOL 
features(the whole XUL thing) 4.) they could draw on the open source 
nature of the browser to deliver a better overall product for its 
customers. 5.) they wouldn't have to wait on MS's schedule for when 
they're going to release a browser.

> 
> part.  furthermore, why would they switch their customers away from a
> browser that has such a large market penetration to something that has next
> to zero market penetration, potentially inflicting unnecessary errors, as
> the ill-web-educated aol user will see them (but you and i know are related
> to a site not being w3 compliant), upon their users?  (deep breath).


Choosing not to use a new technology because there might be interferance 
from older technology is completly backassed. Thats like saying cars 
should never have been used because they'd fuck up the roads that horses 
used. And, should AOL stay with the status-quo because people didn't 
code pages correctly and it breaks standards complaince? The education 
of the developer that wrote the pages should be represented as 
'ill-web-educated' not that of the user.

If anything, you should be pissed at IE because it is so lax on coding 
technique that developers started using shitty coding standards as 'the' 
standard when they wrote pages.

> 
> bottom line - you should be coding to standards, but don't do it for the nn6
> users cause they're not likely to be around terribly long.  do it for the
> future of your work, but don't do it to the point of giving yourself ulcers.

umm, sorry to be blunt :), but thats BS. The fastest growing market for 
web viewing isn't windows. its handheld devices and dedicated internet 
appliances and set-top boxes. Last time I checked - this morning - 
smaller faster rendering engines like what NS6 are built on is the way 
these companies are going, not the MS route. Thats a whole different 
topic, but my point stands.

Further, this is just reinforced by the dropping sales of home PC's. And 
sorry to say, but if people stop buying new PC's, new people stop using 
IE. As I said, the long term market is moving away from PC's as the one 
way to connect to the web.

Finally, you're ignoring the huge amount of people out here - myself 
included - that don't use windows for an operating system.

Seriously, its really arrogant to say that people like me aren't going 
to be around 'terribly long'. If anything, we're the groups that are 
growing the fastest and will be around the longest.

.djc.





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