[diamondsw]

I love how everyone keeps refusing to use IE just because it's Microsoft. Never mind it's a Mac application through and through. Never mind the innovative features they've added with each release (as opposed to zip for Netscape - unless you think the "shop" button is a feature). Never mind the speed to launch, the stability, and now, proper rendering of almost everything. I can't find a single site that is messed up or unaccessible (thanks to Tasman and proper JavaScript support).

Folks, we use the Mac for one reason - it's just a better system. Why avoid IE, when it's just a better browser?

- Joshua Ochs

[AArthur]

I have several problems with Internet Explorer:

- IE 5.0/Mac more unstable on my machine then Netscape 4.5.1/Mac. Webpages reguluarly cause IE to die with bus errors.

- It's non-standard. IE on the Mac feels much different then on Windows, and IE only supports Windows, Macintosh, Solaris, HP/UX. Good luck finding IE for AIX, PowerPC Linux, BeOS, or even Linux x86 (becoming one of the hotest new x86-based OS's -- with 4% desktop market share in 1999 -- the Mac is at about 5%).

- Internet Explorer 5.0 is still slower rendering pages on my 603ev compared to Netscape 4.5.1/Mac OS -- and Netscape 4.7/PPC Linux belows it out of the water.

[orlgummo]

Aarthur,

For what it's worth, IE's availability on other platforms doesn't really matter. THis is a MAC forum.

Touche!

I have to agree. IE has pretty muched rocked netscape 4.7 in terms of features, speed, usability, appearance since IE 4.5.

IE 5 just furthers the lead. It's got so many useful easy to use features that netscape simply lacks.

Netscape 6 seems like a big step backwards. I renders fast, but I can wait an extra 1/2 second if it means not having to use a an ugly unuserfriendly piece of junk browser.

[Millennium]

Because there are better things still than IE.

iCab renders even more correctly, is less bloated, and far more stable.

Mozilla/NS6 is still more standards-compliant than IE (when it renders the page at all; it's still spotty there), and is approaching decent application speed and compatibility. Its rendering engine is faster and embeddable, the browser is Open-Source, and despite the atrocious default interface it is skinnable. NS6PR1's release was that it isn't ready, not even for a Preview Release. This thing should still be considered alpha, if not pre-alpha.

Now, one big strike against Mozilla is its disregard for Mac users. I've seem mostly positive reviews of NS6's Windows and Linux counterparts. It should be noted that those two are now the real releases (or "reference releases" as Netscape calls them). MacOS is only a "port." It's a slap in the face to the Mac community, and probably one of the big reasons why Mozilla is so un-Maclike.

That, frankly, is one of the reasons I've considered ripping out the engine and forking the tree to make a real Mac app with the Gecko engine. The problem is, Mozilla could have been as real Mac app, but chose not to when the little things, things which could have improved it on other platforms too...

1) Drag-and-drop installation. A certain other browser fakes this. But Mozilla is, in fact, self-contained; everything can fit into one folder. No "First Run" junk which just moves the installer into the app itself.

2) OS-native widgets as default. Even with the cross-platform GUI libraries, this wouldn't have been too hard to do. You could even have kept skins. And the speed increase would be dramatic; look at how much just reverting to OS-native scrollbars does. It speeds up those parts of the app by at least ten times.

This one actually might be semi-possible; that's the good part. The Sullivan skin, for example, exposes many OS-natie widgets, abandoning Pixmap Hell where it's not necessary. I just wish I could get the thing to work.

3) Excise the Mail and News stuff if it's not installed. Sticking references to them in when Navigator's all you have just confuses things.

Now, two things I take issue with. Mainly, your talk of IE5's "innovative" new features. I'm looking. I see nothing I couldn't do before. They certainly pumped up the interface and made it look pretty (though they also made the sidebar more intrusive than before even in its collapsed state). And Tasman is nice, though Gecko edges it out. But most of the stuff is little more than very nice-looking interface fluff (as opposed to Gecko's default interface, which is very bad-looking interface fluff). The difference is that M$ already had a semi-solid codebase to add this to. Mozilla tried doing this from the start; talk about mixed-up priorities.

Now, there is one intriguing possibility. The Mozilla "Classic" (meaning OS-native) GUI still exists. It was pulled out of CVS long ago, to make room for the XUL-based GUI. But what if someone were to try sticking Gecko into that?

An interesting possilibity, to say the least...

I can't even get Netscape 6 to launch. It f*cking hard crashes my G4 450 every time. Sorry to say but IE has worked perfectly with the exception of one crash probably due to me running out of memory ( I had Photoshop, Image Ready, Illustrator, IE 5, Outlook 5, Transmit, AIM and Hotline all going at once ).

[macman]

People who say that Netscape 6 is slow and crashes and are going to IE should slap themselves. Netscape 6 is in beta. When the real version comes out I'm positive that it will be much much better.

Also, IE 5 really sucks. IE 4.5 was better (if that's possible). And, no it's not because Microsoft makes it (I use OE and love it). It crashes loading any pages with Java and some Javascript. It doesn't render everything correctly. It seems more like a beta release than a final product. I am scared to use it. So, I am sticking with Communicator 4.7.2 for now.

Hopefully, Netscape 6 will come out with different "skins" as I've heard people say it will. The only thing I don't like (given that it's a beta release) is the interface, it's not Mac like.

"Also, IE 5 really sucks. IE 4.5 was better"

no way.

IE 5.0/Mac more unstable on my machine then Netscape 4.5.1/Mac. Webpages reguluarly cause IE to die with bus errors.

I don't think this is the typical experience. I can't remember the last time I saw a bus error, in any application.


It's non-standard. IE on the Mac feels much different then on Windows

And this is a bad thing?


Good luck finding IE for AIX

Right. There are a lot of people browsing the web from AIX.


...PowerPC Linux, BeOS, or even Linux x86...

So one shouldn't use MSIE on Mac because it's not available for Linux. Huh?


iCab renders even more correctly

Right. Unless the page contains CSS or JavaScript. That it doesn't render it at all. And I don't want to hear the "we don't need CSS" line. How long until iCab has XML or DOM1 support? Heaven forbid we even consider CSS2 or DOM2. That would make the web really useful and practical to develop for.


But Mozilla is, in fact, self-contained; everything can fit into one folder.

One folder... with 1700 files in it. It's great. Just like the good old days. And if even one of those files get damaged, Mozilla will automatically heal itse.. err wait, no. Nevermind.


And Tasman is nice, though Gecko edges it out.

People sure like to say it, but I think that something that the Mozilla group has convinced people of. I'm waiting for some proof. Tasman appears to render everything perfectly. I can say nothing even close to that for Gecko. Sure it's modular, but I don't have time to go write another web browser.

- Scott

Two comments on these IE vs. N6 postings: 1) Your browser should never crash. Version 2 browsers were SEVERE crashware, but I 've used Netscape 4.0.3 on an 8100/80 (OS 8.1); 4.0.3 on a 7500/100 under OS 8.0 and 8.1: and 4.7 on a G4/350 OS 9.0. If your browser crashes YOU probably need to do some system maintenence. Buy more memory-- or if you don't have the buck, turn VM on-- or move to a solid ISP. Connection interrupts or line noise might be doing you in.

Second Comment: A good reason to avoid IE 5 is that it defaults to a 96dpi standard. That's gonna make most pages look like crap.

[Misha]

96 dpi doesn't make pages look like crap... it rarely alters any page's appearance at all versus 72 dpi, except for CSS pages (which usually use fonts that look too small at 72 dpi).

Plus you can toggle between 96, 72 or whatever dpi you like.

See the IE 5 forum for more info. on the dpi issue.

Ok, here's my two cents after giving N6 a try. First of all, the installation process was a royal pain in the ass. 1700+ files?

Yes, it's true, it renders fast - IF and WHEN it connects to a page. I couldn't even connect to my hotmail account because N6 stalled trying to "resolve" my security code etc etc. It took a force quit for me to regain control.
When I finally could connect to a page, I came straight to this site to see what others were saying, and N6 couldn't even render text correctly. A post would start out in what looked to be about 18 point type and then halfway through would suddenly switch to 12 point. These inconsistencies in such simple things as font size occured on pretty much every page I tried.

The user interface is ugly. Ok, the top bar looks kinda nice, but the widgets, windows, menus, etc look like crap. I know it's still a preview, but skin changing is poorly implemented, although it does look to be a promising feature, one that should satisfy the Kaleidoscope users out there. One aspect I DO like about the default UI is that it seems to leave more room for page viewing than IE5 does on default, although IE5 has taken care of that by allowing you to collapse the top bar to the side.

Also, like IE5 on default, the font sizes are too big. An easily changeable problem though.

And to the last guy who actually used "it's default resolution is 96dpi" as a reason not to use IE5, please. Are you too lazy to open preferences and change the resolution to 72? I've actually kept mine at 96dpi and you know what? Overall, pages look much BETTER this way. I've yet to see a page load incorrectly with IE5.

And one last point. Crashes with IE5=0. Crashes with N6=5 - in under 2 hours! Until they work out the bugs, inconsistencies, etc of N6, I'm staying with IE5, thank you very much.

[wlonh]

unfortunate, but true... Netscape has had the poop kicked out of it, it has become irrelevant to so many... and though the only MS product i allow on my Macs is IE, it is a very welcome product that absolutely slays Netscape in every way that matters to me

A good reason to avoid IE 5 is that it defaults to a 96dpi standard. That's gonna make most pages look like crap.

Unlike Netscape 6 which defaults to a 96dpi standard.

Many sites (ZDNet) makes fonts so small that they are only viewable on Windows machines. They are completely illegible on the Mac. 96dpi is also the W3C standard.

- Scott