you know, i’ve been living in an alternate browser universe now for some time, and i’m telling you, it’s nice here. IE is a good browser, and i know that there are still eighty some-odd percentage of you out there using IE, and IE only. and that’s just icky fine. just fine i tell you. ok, it’s not. well, i mean, it’s still a relatively free country, and what you surf with is your own business.
however. i feel it’s my duty to recommend breaking away from microsoft shit. i’m not promising it’s easy, then again, it’s not as hard as it used to be. oh yes, it wasn’t long ago i was bitching about the browser wars being over, but i was wrong (and how many times do you get to hear me say that? hmm?). so in honor of me admitting i was wrong, i urge you to check out NS7, or Mozilla 1.1, which are both in beta, and both really nice browsers. opera’s not bad either.
i mean, we all agree we should start backing slowly away from all things microsoft, don’t we? if you don’t keep up on tech news, you may not be aware of some of the cool new ‘features’ ms products come with, and what’s in the works for the near future, but let me assure you they are at the forefront of the movement to revoke every bit of privacy you ever had. trust me on this. microsoft is very, very evil.
wouldn’t it be nice if that ridiculous eighty-whatever percent number got smaller and smaller, day after day? hey, a girl can dream.
MS has bugged me for years and all this time I thought it was my own senseless paranoia. Now I’m paranoid that other people see it, too. Ok, maybe “paranoid” is the wrong word to use, but jeeze, it is starting to remind me of an X-Files episode.
Mozilla is the one if for no other reason than faster load times, the tab feature and because everything runs really nicely on it…especially in the Mac OS X environment.
It blows IE out of the water on a MAC. There are still some things that IE does on a PC that Mozilla doesn’t handle as well but otherwise its vainglorious.
Was just reading about that TCPA stuff.
Scary shit.
the integrated AIM client in NS7 is pretty cool though, and it does the tabbed browsing, has the email client, even has a pretty nice HTML editor.
i go back and forth between Mozilla and NS7, just for fun. and, when i do run into the occasional site that looks like crap because it was only tested in IE, well, i then revert to Konqueror. Konqueror is … different, but good. of course, it’s only for Linux.
and Patti? there’s no such thing as too paranoid about MS.
like the TCPA stuff Eric mentioned. be afraid.
of course TCPA would also affect non-windows computers, but MS is big into this whole platform.
and it’s going to be incredibly invasive.
If it’s enough to spook Jon, it should scare the hell out of the rest of us. Sounds like Big Brother is finally here kiddies… buckle up, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!
yeah, if Jon and a roomfull of hackers at defcon couldn’t think of a way around this — Eric, can you *imagine* what your life might be like right now if this technology were in place and … your own personal team of jackbooted thugs were utilizing it on you?
freedom and security are not things that really complement each other. i like freedom better.
i’m going to miss it.
oh phoooey. i am SO addicted … i don’t know if i can DO it … break away, browse with an alternative universe … help me, obi-wan kenobi, you’re my only hope!
btw, kd, does my site look ok in your other browsers? i have no other browsers on this PC, i hated older netscapes and have never tried anything else … thinking about it, i don’t know why…, i love software, and tweaking, and stuff… hmmmm, i must have been brainwashed during my earliest Windows Whatever 3.1 years …
your site looks fine in Opera, Netscape 7 and Mozilla. and yes, the brainwashing goes deep.
i was just as addicted as you are. and now, even at work when i’m on the windows box, i use Opera and Mozilla for my personal browsing needs. i only use the IE for work and stuff. which is, you know, not much
ns 7 looks ok. it’s weird using something else. i suppose i’ll get used to it. i just dont like how i cant add things to the bar at the top.
I have IE, NS, Mozilla and Omniweb on my Powerbook, and they all do a good job. Remember that NS/Mozilla are really AOL, so it isn’t like they are the little guys. AOL wants to control your computer just as much as Microsoft.
IE is the only Microsoftware I still use on my own computers, and I don’t have a problem using it if it is a better product (which is only true for some sites). I just don’t want to be in a position were I have no choice. Right now I feel like I have plenty of choices for a browser, and with OSX I don’t miss Windows at all.
well, NS7 and Mozilla are fairly feature-for-feature except that Mozilla doesn’t have the AOL chat client which i do use occasionally. mostly i stick with ‘zilla, though.
and the lovely thing about Linux on the home machine is that NS doesn’t put all that extra crud on your computer (eight new ‘free AOL’ icons) like it does to Windows.
and that tabbed browsing sure is cool.
For those mac heads (like me) that use OSX, the next update has AIM built into the OS. It looks pretty cool on the screencaptures I’ve seen.
you know, the Lycoris Linux has an AIM client bundled with the OS, but the NS chat client rocks much harder. and Mozilla comes with an IRC client built in! lots of choices. choice is good.
I use mainly I.E. now, but I am fully cognizant of the EVIL that is Micreshaft. I wasnt to switch. I looked at my site in Opera and in NS 6. In Opera its ok, but the font is too large. Netscape 6 didn’t render my page properly at all. Anyway, I’ll download NS7 and give it a whirl. Maybe I need to start checking which browser the visitor is using and customising my pages to achieve similar looks and feels in each browser. (ugh
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i know this page looks different in different browsers, and most especially on linux where there is no verdana font. there will always be font size differences, as long as there are different browsers.
i find it’s best to find a happy medium that you’re comfortable with the look in different browsers, and just accept it will be different unless you browser sniff and deliver different pages to different viewers. this often backfires anyway, i surf with opera or NS7 and occasionally run into a page that says ‘you’re here because you need to upgrade your browser’ and i think, no, i’m here because *you* need to upgrade your browser sniffer!