IE5.5: First LookFriday December 3rd, 1999I've done some preliminary CSS testing of IE5.5 (available through Betanews.com). Specifically I ran IE 5.5 through the battery of David Baron's CSS tests, and found some interesting results. IE 5.5's CSS support has undergone very little change from 5.0, and some regressions were noticable. IE 5.5 seems to pass test 5.3 (CSS2 Universal Selector) that IE 5.0 did not, but it fails two tests in section 6.4.4 (Parsing Test 4 and Test 5) that IE 5.0 apparently passed. There was one other that *may* have passed (9.1.2) where 5.0 failed, and one test in 10.7 *may* have failed where 5.0 passed, but I can't determine these for a certainty. Finally, IE 5.5 still does not pass the Box Acid Test. According to MS's "What's New in Internet Explorer 5.5" page, IE 5.5 handles more "CSS styles" such as first-letter and first-line, but they don't go into any more detail. From these results, I'm wondering if MS is giving up completely on significant advances in the CSS support in their current rendering engine. IE on the Mac is supposedly being developed to utilize a new rendering engine, codename "Tasman". Maybe Microsoft is planning something similar for their 6.0 Windows version. In any event it does not look like the next version of IE will have significant CSS improvements as many hoped and expected. This sounds like how Windoze 98 was to Windoze 95, trouting it up bigger than it really was. IE 5.5 sounds much better as IE 5.02 at this point. <:3)~~ Well at least THAY HAVE A BROWSER! Comm. 5.0 has been delayed past the thin line of death unfortunately... AOL always sucked but THIS is the PITS! Does this sound familier to anyone? *cough* Netscape 4.5 *cough*. Got to get in those new releases, even if they don't actually add any functionality (Netscape 4.6, 4.7) Well Netscape 4.5 was somewhat significant since it marked the introduction of talkback to report crash data, it was noticeabily faster (I had a slower computer back then so I'd notice any speed improvement), and they got Communicator's weight down a little . . . although they decided to add AIM and RealPlayer to counter the smaller download size. Well nevermind that, labeling by version number has been abused to death. <:3)~~ Netscape 4.7 was a major upgrade. They added the Shop@Netscape button. Maybe Netscape 4.71 will have a Shop@AOL button too. How is Microsoft going to compete with that? Sigh, Y'know, this site used to be a little bit informative. However, it's now turning into a bash Microsoft site. You guys berate the press for any critical points about Microsoft. What does all the negative press in the right news stories have ANYTHING to do with Mozilla? It smacks more of jealousy than anything else. IE 5.5 is in "Developer Preview"...in other words--ALPHA. Maybe 5.5 will kick butt by the time it's released for real. The core truism is this. Mozilla is late. VERY LATE. A bug free browser won't do much good if you can't get it out the door. Something tells me Netscape 5.0 won't be out until this time NEXT year. While nobody likes buggy software, I'll bet getting it bug free may take more time than a market will bear. Even organizations like the Web Standards Project are frustrated. And real consumers and businesses are being left in the dust while the open source movement of hackers continues to turn into a virtual compound of paranoid users who spend more time hating microsoft that producing the product. Man, I wish people would be more mature than forming a cult around a particular minority platform. It seems Mozilla is now stuck with the same fanatics who rallied around OS/2, Amiga, and the Mac. Yeah the bugs are still high but they should eventually hit a peak before dropping. In the past few days the M12 open bug list was driven down a few hundred. Yes, Mozilla is late but there is nothing we can do but make our contributions (bug reporting, submitting code, etc.) and follow the schedule which is looking at a release well within the first half of next year. MS Bashing? I have not been with MozZine since the very beginning but I just MS bash just as a venting cap. I'm more concern with, and tired of, the endless debate over the definition of alpha and its contrast with a final release product. <:3)~~ It's funny that you mention 'what the market will stand'. It seems like I'm the only one I know who takes the position - 'who cares - when we launch, if we have a better product, the market will follow'. IE could be at 80% on windows by the time we launch. Then, we drive it down to 50% when people realize how easy it is to build your own applications on top of mozilla. Don't take a short-sighted view of mozilla. quite whining about being a month or a few months late. We're setting the technologies (DOM, CSS< XML) up for the next 5-10 years of the internet revolution. It's more important to get this right now, than to rush it because of theoretical market shares. Standards are based on what consumers and businesses need, not what the W3 sets up. If you wait too long, Microsoft will become the defacto standard, like Netscape once was, and then all the support for standards won't matter one bit. It will be the users who dictate. Power Users may have fun with Mozilla, but the people who just wanna surf or purchase things on Amazon or do research will use the easiest to configure browser. I'm not trying to say that Mozilla doesn't have a chance, but don't fool yourself into thinking support for the "web standards" is all that matters. Microsoft has become the "de facto" browser for one of two reasons: 1) IT departments converted from netscape to IE for one reason or another, especially around the time IE was initially offered for free. 2) Users got IE on their computer. For example, I'm using IE right now (Mozilla is too buggy for me); it's not that I like IE, but rather that I'm too lazy to download the much-larger-than-mozilla NS 4.5. I do believe that keeping Mozilla's size down is an extremely wise idea; IE 5.01 is supposedly 20-some megabytes large--at least!! Mozilla's alpha version pans out to be one quarter of that. Getting Mozilla into the home market will be an uphill battle; so much damage has already been done by Microsoft's insistence that IE be installed and available on the desktop in OEM computers. But web developers and IT employees in the know will likely be Mozilla's greatest allies, and I think that if employees at corporations use Mozilla at WORK for a while, they'll come to choose Mozilla at HOME. The person that posted before me made a good point. If one browser supports a feature that users like then inevitably web developers will include that feature in their pages. Standards are a good way to bring consistancy to the web, but if enough people use something "nonstandard" then the standard evolves. It is my hope that Mozilla will be the browser that can evolve with the standards by extending it's capability through plugins and extensions to a well writen code-base. You can be as standard-based as you want, but things will change. Mozilla will be the true browser of the future if it can readily adapt to changing standards. Did that make any sense?? I disagree with the idea that "If one browser supports a feature that users like then inevitably web developers will include that feature in their pages." normal end-users really don't care about what features their browsers support. I know a few *normal web surfers*, friends, family... What they only want is that the page they fetch shows up, is readable and doesn't start complaining because plugin "blah" is absent or component "X-scronch" insults them with technical terms ! Normal end-users like simple pages, they don't demand complex features, complex pages and all that stuff that *webmasters* try to force them to use... In my opinion, too many webmasters are dictators ! (and i am one webmaster too, so i'm allowed to say that). Too many web sites try to force the visitors to tweak something in their configuration whereas it's completely useless, given the content they have. Look at this web site, mozillazine.org, don't you think that we love it because it's *clean* and *simple* ? Actually the above article/comment mention nothing about Mozilla. As for the Developer Preview, Mozilla actually did have one using the new layout engine a while ago. with another coming sometime soon. How about maturing yourself. I just can't understand why you even bother to read MozillaZine. Or to put it in another way, "Shut up and code". "I just can't understand why you even bother to read MozillaZine". I bothered to read MozillaZine because I have an interest as a web developer in supporting what I feel would be the major platforms for my business. I can't "code a browser". My assumption is that MozillaZine was something that was aimed at this audience, not just a private e-zine for developers of the actual browser. Judging by the following story: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1478567.html ...I'm now considering removing support for Mozilla, and recommending that we use IE. It's hypocritical to accuse CNet, ZDNet, and even Slashdot of bias and FUD when they are making serious concerns. If Microsoft took this long to build a browser, people would be calling it "bait and switch vaporware". Jeremy Allaire once made a comment about Netscape "not supporting DHTML" enough so they couldn't use it for certain technologies in their Spectra system, and then everybody here accused Cold Fusion of being a poor product. So, if this is a sign of maturity, some people are in the loony bin. It's the immature people who can't stand any criticism. The point is that not all of us are immature and cannot take criticism. What many of us cannot stand for is criticism based on misinformation. The news organizations are starting to get a clearer idea about Mozilla but before they said things like "Mozilla will not support XML" (ZDnet) and "Mozilla beta by summer" (various, how could they reach beta after starting from scratch and release a beta in much less than a year?). Things like that we cannot understand. For as long as I can recall, the milestone schedule at Mozilla.org set an alpha release for around this time, with a beta release in a few months after. I am not sure where some of these news sites are getting their information from but Mozilla did not suddenly decided to delay beta for another two months. This information has been around for at least a few months and CNET finally realizes it but mislabeled it as a sudden delay. I understand the frustration since I'm a web developer myself and I'm getting gray hairs over the incompliance of standards. But what do you expect when a year ago Netscape decided to rewrite the whole browser from scratch and use a stricter and more challenging coding philosophy (extensive cross-platform coding, etc)? If Netscape decided from the very beginning to be standards compliant and write very portable code then the browser would have been out already. But you can't blame Mozilla for that since they did not make that decision. I am waiting, just as you, and rather impatiently. But I am not expecting a mircale, but a damn good product when it finally ships. <:3)~~ PS: Removing support for Mozilla will be your decision, not anyone elses. True, in this aspect you're correct. It's just that some clients are demanding support for Dynamic HTML, and the advanced features you can only do with JavaScript and the stuff that IE supports and supports well, but Netscape hangs. (This is for intranets, which are more demanding. We're likely to be stuck with HTML 3.2 plus a few bells and whistles for most commercial sites, since there are still a lot of Netscape 3 and 4 users out there). It's not like you are the first to criticize Mozilla. It has been a constant flood of similar complaints like yours since about a year ago. At least I am getting fed up with people like you. If you want to help the Mozilla project or is interested in Mozilla in general, stay an read MozillaZine but otherwise people here will see you as a Troll. Despite the fact that the original article wasn't MS bashing, but expressed genuine dissapointment that IE5.5 didn't improve, you go on to try and piss off alternitive OS users. I sincerly doubt that any additional features compatability will be added to IE5.5, and to call it Alpha is highly deceptive as to my knowledge MS has never previously equated "Developer Preview" with "Alpha." As far as Mozilla being late, late for what? It will be done when it is done, people are working dilligently on it, I don't know what can be achived by complaining about its lack of completion. The thought that MS is going to take over the world because Mozilla isn't out yet is stupid. If MS can take over marketshare with a (qualifiably) superior product, why can't Mozilla do the same. Of course in order to do so, it must be better. That takes time, I'm willing to wait. In the mean time I continue to build cross compatable sites and curse IE and NS for thier quirks and pray that Moz' gets it right. For that matter I hope IE does too. Also, calling someone who believes in an alternate OS a fanatic is so lame, you want to use Windows, good for you. Just don't shove your religion up my ass. Bakafish "Also, calling someone who believes in an alternate OS a fanatic is so lame, you want to use Windows, good for you. Just don't shove your religion up my ass." Hey, I don't care if you use an alternate OS. But instead of making it better, people just sit around instead and spew hate and retoric against the "enemy", then THAT's a problem. And that is what a lot of people are doing. I have no problem with people taking an alternative. I just have a problem with people who are bitter with the alternative not being the standard. You call people who use alternate OS's zealots and fanatics, and then you wonder what they are getting upset about. You are just a OS racist, wondering why them colored computers can't just be happy that Microsoft allows them to ride in the back of the bus. I am not bitter about not being the standard, I am bitter about being repressed. It's a free country, if you want to suffer using inferior products, by God, you have that right. But when Microsoft tries to distroy anyone that attempts to compete or coexist with them, that is wrong. You are the one with the problem, Microsoft IS the enemy of freedom. You can call me a zealot, but how do you intend to defend MS's actions? The world dosen't need a "standard operating system" it needs standards of interoperability. Microsoft will do everything they can to defeat that, but the people will prevail. The standards of the web are the greatest threat to them now. Software like Apache, Perl, Sendmail and Bind will not succumb to the evil empire. Mozilla will play a part as well. You racists who, through ignorence or desire to be "on the winning side", hide behind Bill Gates chanting your mantra of "innovation" need to take a closer look at what you are defending. OS Racist??? An Operating System is not a race, dude. Man, you should worry more about REAL racism, rather than whether or not a browser should win. I don't defend Microsoft's actions. See, the thing is, I don't care whether MS wins, Mozilla does, etc. I care about whether or not a product does the job I want it to. The reason I get mad at fanatics is that they take a little widget or gadet, and get mad that it's not as popular, they just focus on their enemy rather than their own flaws, and they spew comments like your own about "the Enemy of Freedom". (Gosh, I guess we should worry about the human rights violations and the nuclear asernal Microsoft has). Do I think Microsoft abuses their position? Yes. But I'm more concerned about Microsoft exploiting workers than whether or not there are two browsers. I don't see a need to get emotionally attached to a software product. Yep, I am not interested in forming a relationship with a software product, or a computer operating system. They're tools. And right now M$IE is FAR superior, whether you like M$ or not. Meanwhile, it is apparent that the loose cadre of mozilla developers is beginning to spend more and more time bashing the "enemy", and less and less time building a product that can compete. Too bad. They have become zealots. It's the beginning of the end, I think, for moz. If people are concerned about the actual work being done on this project, tehy can take a look at checkins to the tree through Bonsai or Tinderbox. It is pretty obvious that developers are doing just that. I understand concerns about the rate progress on this project . My suggestion is that they actually take a look at the work that is being done before they make comments about what developers are spending their time doing. If anyone needs help finding or using tools like Bonsai or Tinderbox, please post here or come visit on IRC and I'll be glad to help. Ever hear of an analogy? That is what I was using, did it smack of too much truth for you? The fact, is I don't care who "wins" either. I never said I did, I just don't want Microsoft calling the shots, which is all they are interested in doing. Do you think that they are really giving away IE out of the goodness of their hearts? No, they want to get enough market penetration that they can be in the position to bastardize the standards into their own proprietary methods. Before you go off and say NS did that too, I agree, they did, it was wrong. When I said that Microsoft was the enemy of freedom, it should be obvious that I am not implying that they shoot small children who disparage Windows, I am saying that they want to prevent us from having choices, limiting our freedom to choose alternatives. By there anti-competitive behavior with IE they made the concept of browser development unprofitable, would Mozilla be doing better if it had a possible return on investment? I suspect it wouldn't hurt. You say you don't care who makes the product as long as it does the job you want it to. Well, you are being short sighted. If everyone all of a sudden says, "Gee Bill your browser rocks, we will all use it and it's free, you are so great!" Then what? Without competition Microsoft "innovates". That's a code word for make it proprietary. Let's start "innovating" the markup language, let's make it so our "superior media streaming technology" and application object environment are the only ones available, we feel that they are the best choice for our customer. And wow, since we have done so much "innovation" we should make a IE Professional and start charging for this and of course everyone has to buy Windows 2000 to support all of this wonderful "innovation" on the server side. I am glad that Mozilla is coming, it will keep Microsoft honest. This is a war, there will be no winner from Redmond or Santa Clara. The best result will be a wary peace based on open standards, it is only through vigilance that Microsoft will be held in check. If this seems too overblown for you, fine. You can call me a Microsoft basher, but people who know that Microsoft "abuses their position" yet seem to forgive them out of hand... well you are part of the problem. You say you don't defend Microsoft's actions, but by using IE you condone them. I think the analogy to racism was possibly too much since nobody from Microsoft has lynched any Mac, Linux or Netscape users... have they? Still, I think their is some unnecessary bias against non-Windows software. Internet Explorer is free because Microsoft could not have sold it while Netscape was wildly popular. I think if Netscape dies, Microsoft will find a way to make us pay for web browsing. Well... Netscape was originally designed to make money by selling the browser. Would moving back to the paid updates be so bad? Revenue, outside of competition, is the way to keep innovation working. I know if people were gonna pay for my browser, I'd be more motivated to continue it's development. I never called /you/ a microsoft basher. You, however, did call me a "racist". And all I know is your particular posts right now seem more like trolls than my initial one did. Others here are making good pro-Mozilla points. This isn't a war, it's natural selection and competition. I don't care if Mozilla wins or IE wins. If it's a good product, I'll use it. If it's a popular product, I'll build for it. If IE became proprietary, I think either it wouldn't be too bad, or there would be an acceptable alternative. I just have trouble belive Mozilla is that alternative with the delays, and the fact that you are treating it more like a war rather than doing a job. I was reading an article about a business and how both businesses became more concerned about "beating the other guy" than producing the products. And that's the whole reason I wrote a wake-up call. But is it possible to revive a dead thing? I can see the day when the world is dominated by MSloth and it's Internet Exploiter... We've been waiting FOREVER for something to come.. Now my corporation is trashing Communicator in favor of IE... that's 20,000 licenses in a single shot... I happen to agree fully with your statement. Mozillazine is nothing more than an M$ bashing club that does a lot of abshing for M$ and a lot of excuse making for Netscape/Mozilla. Make no mistake, though, I use and prefer Netscape for a variety of reasons that some may or may not appreciate... however, I do not associate Netscape with Mozilla in the least bit. In other words... I'm a Netscape fan and always will be... but Mozillazine is so completley unfocused if it were human it couldn't hit a bull in the ass with hand full of gravel. Well YES, I'm no hacker or codesnob, but I do answer webmaster@ mail at a F500 company -- I live in the trenches just grinding out web pages, templates, and little applications for a living, and I have to agree with the post "better than NOTHING". Seems to me this whole mozilla snobbery is pretty childish. Meanwhile, your average, garden-variety web developers like myself have to laugh it off and spend literally half our time making cross-browser patches. That has always been the case, yes, but we now (apparently more so soon) watch IE5.5 come out and prepare to ratchet up to that while we watch 4.5/4.6/4.7 (hehe) just sit there. mozilla has begun to really irk me -- they're now a nuisance and a detriment to my work flow. Get competitive or GO AWAY...ah, well, the market will take care of THAT, I guess. You guys are getting slaughterd by M$ -- get off your asses and BUILD! "It seems Mozilla is now stuck with the same fanatics who rallied around OS/2, Amiga, and the Mac." Interesting that you mention those. . .I do believe that all 3 are very happily still being used today; Guess what? You can even use Mozilla on them too. ;) Yes, but the platforms MIGHT have done better if their prospective companies did the right thing and kept up with the competition. Mozilla is not doing that, IMO. That's sort of confusing, though. How is Mozilla not 'keeping up with the competition'? Mozilla is a browser in progress with new technology far different from what its competition is doing in the first place. hu? how does a platform "do better"? Sure, the companies went down, or almost under, but when a hammer company goes out of business, it has little effect on the hammer you bought. Sure, thats a bit simplified, but for a *LOT* of people, computers are tools. They aren't religion, they aren't "the home team" in some sports like competition, they just do their job. I hope IE 5.5 fixes the bug with a photo aligned left and a UL bulleted list to the right (it drops the bullets). That a is very very frustrating bug with our developers here. Every other browser in history has supported that. I hope Mozilla doesn't make any retarded mistakes with common html elements. IE 5.0 introduced the bug, and ie 5.01 still contains it. "it does not look like the next version of IE will have significant CSS improvements as many hoped and expected." Hoped, perhaps, expected, not I. No way. Again, M$ just does not have the gumption to spend the money on a product that has done what it was intended to do (kill N$) and will never rake in a dollar. Honestly, I expect them to use Mozilla just like they used Mosaic and add the obligatory "based on Mozilla" tag in their help file and have done with it. Actually, I hope so. It would be an improvement and a win for Mozilla. I think IE5.5 is as far removed from Mosaic as the Mozilla is from NS 1.1. BTW, I doubt that MS will ever use Mozilla simply because, they don't want to be dependent on an outside source to do something that they do themselves pretty well. This is obviously not a full release, but my guess is that they will be concentrating more on the 'improvements' to the OS than on standards compliance. It doesn't look like too much has changed, but I guess the 'centers' will be implemented in a future beta release. Has anybody noticed the thing with the help menu in Windows Explorer? Most of the people on this website seem to be angered when people criticize Mozilla in its early stages, but most people seem to think it is ok to criticize Internet Explorer 5.5 in its early stages. To me, that seems more like bias than logical thinking. Die Microsoft. I tend to think both web browsers are worthless trash, but I think Netscape 5 will be good if it is ever released. Die Microsoft. I think it would be less abrasive to call Mozilla defenders "advocates" instead of "fanatics". It is necessary to defend the Mozilla web browser to compete against Microsoft's advertising. Die Microsoft. I like Macintosh computers and I think they will always be better than "PC's". "PC" makers are trying to emulate Macintosh. What in the world is an iPaq? Also, iMacs are cute. Die Microsoft. As another poster said all we see now is constant MS bashing and more MS bashing. And then all the MS haters and NS loyalists chime in "Yea, what else can you expect from MicroShit." I really hate to sink to this level but at times I really hope that Microsoft catches Netscape again with its pants down and just crushes Mozilla into the dirt with IE6. And don't even think that it won't happen because you'll be wrong. Microsoft has been busy while Netscape has been playing the "a dollar too short a day to late" game. IE4 had been in development long before Netscape 4 came out, so after seeing how unexciting Nav 4 was what they do. They got the 1 up on Netscape ( and dont give me that "but it came out 1 year later" bs, because Netscape had a chance to come back with a new version, but only months and months later did they realize they had crap at the Nav 4 core.) So what did the do, well they scrapped it and started a new. Well thats all good and dandy but Microsoft *hasnt* stopped to smell the roses. They've been barreling along with more features and tricks and toys to draw in more developers. But thats not all... While all the little pigmes have been circling and chanting to the green Mozilla dino, Microsoft has scrapped their rendering engine too and its new one has been in development for 1.5 years now... Bah, The sad thing is that Im not a MS supporter, far from it. But yet seeing all this MS bashing and the horrible hypocritical attitude just makes me sick. How many people here get stark raving pist when places like ZDNet post BS about Mozilla, everyone. Everyone goes out and yells "What misinformation .. or Dont they know its still an alpha." But yet you take MS's alpha version of 5.5 and run it through the stress tests and then turn around and say "Well its shit... See it even failed some tests it passed before." As a web developer I want the best browser... It could come from MS, it could come from NS, it could come from Santa Claus for all I care. Right now no matter how hard you try to beat MS, they have the best browser, hands down. In the end I hope the best browser wins, but sometimes coming here makes me wish MS would grind you all under its heel. ... including the emotions expressed. I think Mozilla has a slim chance of becoming any important a browser. Then don't come here, smart guy. You're not going to make any one of these open source developers that put their time and effort into Mozilla voluntarily to support the open source movement and the acceptance of standards happy by posting anti-Mozilla posts here. #45 HA HAA *nelson* (MS Bashing is such a waste.....)by stoecker Saturday December 4th, 1999 12:20 AM get a life, kid! Microsoft never ever invetend anything, they just steal ideas, technology and even code (reverse engineering, that is!) - but then the products just don't progress any more. They don't have own ideas and only polish up interfaces and effects. Never technology. Mozilla or not, Linux or not, BeOs or not, StarOffice or not - in the (near?!) future Microsoft will kill itself (!!) because users will (hopefully) demand progressive and advanced technology. MS is not able to provide that. Period. I'm replying to this fairly late, so I doubt anyone will read this but,... I do agree that the Mozilla (and hence Netscape 5.0) delay has moved the pendulum towards Microsoft and arguably hurt the credibiility of the project [yes, I know about the complete rewrite, but an extra year is an eternity in the browser world]. However, to me MSIE 5.X looks pretty well the "same" in terms of user interface and standards (or lack of) adhered to in the browsing engine as the MSIE 4.X series. You say "as a Web developer, I want the best browser", but this is a closeted view - it doesn't matter how much you prefer one browser over another, you've still got check out your site in any browsers that have >= 5% of market share otherwise you risk alienating a part of your target audience. Hence, *both* MSIE and Netscape have to fully support the open standards that W3C have been pushing for several years now. Sadly, *both* MSIE 5.X and Netscape 4.X are so poor at obeying standards that Opera 3.60 is actually better than both of them in this respect ! Also, don't forget the holy grail of a cross-platform browser. Microsoft have released MSIE 5.X on PC (a pretty good browser, apart from poor standards compliance I mentioned), Mac (apparently also quite good), Solaris (dismal - a botched Win<->Unix API port that is a pig) and HP-UX (see Solaris). Let me see, Mozilla has been ported to Windows, MacOS, BeOS, OpenVMS and about a DOZEN flavours of UNIX. MSIE hasn't even ported to Linux yet and is unlikely to in the future because it sees Linux as by far the biggest threat to NT/ Windows 2000. Yes, Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 has taken too long to come, but when it does come out, it should regain some of its market share. As other people said, AOL need to bundle it with their placemat CD-ROMs to truly get back on an even keel with MSIE - if AOL doesn't do this when their contract with MS expires (2001 ?), then I think we can conclude that AOL wants to bury the Netscape/Mozilla browser... Having browsed documentation, I can say that new features are significant, at least for a product my team is working on. They have added exactly what we needed: popup windows (for popup menus), customization of scrollbars, etc. I haven't studied HTML+TIME, so I can't comment on that, but we already use IE's behaviors (htc's) and like it. IE 5's XSL support has been very important to us too. From what I saw it brought quite a few new scripting features. One that the article probably left out on purpose was the new printing features. Even if IE isnt all aways following the standards path, they are definately covering a lot of features that developers want. Mozilla and Nav 4 arent even close to providing all the other nice features ie has... I guess thats why IE is the intranet/internet browser of choice, but dont take my word on it just look at IE's staggering market dominace. Having browsed documentation, I can say that new features are significant, at least for a product my team is working on. They have added exactly what we needed: popup windows (for popup menus), customization of scrollbars, etc. I haven't studied HTML+TIME, so I can't comment on that, but we already use IE's behaviors (htc's) and like it. IE 5's XSL support has been very important to us too. I was looking at the MS dev. CD's at work today and I came across "Windows 2000 Beta 3 (Alpha)" um... is this the first alpha of the 3rd beta? :) At least mozilla is keeping it simple. First you have an Alpha and then a Beta and then a v1.0 :) You all are hip to the tactics of trolls. Don't let 'em get to you. We come here because we want mozilla to succeed. We post here because we want others to want mozilla to succeed. We have the best of intentions and we are on the side of good. There is nothing wrong with defending something you believe in, even if it means being a little fanatic at times. I love a particular football team and have no problem supporting them, through a bad quarter, a bad game, and even a bad season, because I have confidence in their program and in their people and I know that soon it will pay back my investment. I believe in mozilla. I will defend it when I feel that my defense will be productive. I will support it even if it is moving toward the goal slower than I would wish because I believe in the philosophy and I think it is a solid program. I am through responding to the trolls and will save any more words for situations in which they will be productive. I encourage others to do the same. And don't forget BugDay. It's every Tuesday on IRC at #mozillazine. Come check it out. Be a part of the solution. :) Asa Good points, Asa. I would like to use this oppourtunity to give some of my thoughts: - Yes, Mozilla is late. - Mozilla is pretty much a complete rewrite of the browser. It does not rely on 4.x code as IE does. Microsoft shipped IE4 late, and came up with a better foundation than Netscape 4.x upon which to build (something Mozilla is trying to make up for now). - Mozilla engineers are BUSY. Its not like they've been spending the last two years loafing around and playing PSX games. Some people work six or seven days a week, until late at night. - Mozilla engineers are driven, passionate human beings. - The Mozilla Community is typically friendly and values contribution, whether it be code, bug reports, or just ideas. - The Mozilla Community cares not for whining, unless it is constructive whining. (the latter often leads to useful bug reports). You can't file a bug on "your browser is late" - we all know its late, we're all working on it in our own ways (me, I'm trying to make the UI suck less ;). In other words, we value your constructive criticism, ideas and advice. As a Mozilla hacker, I make this plea, for those who are skeptics, give us a chance! We're doing our best to make sure that even after the long wait, you'll end up with a browser that you'll want to use. For how long has ALL the news links in the quick news side bar been all anti Microsoft. Until recently its hard to remember the last time other tech news has been posted that wasnt anti micrsoft... Like these for instanse... How long have they been there, Since Nov 5 Id guess.. What the heck is... the Chicago School? The Register Instant messaging war: Did Microsoft blink? CNet's News.com MSNBC blunders over poll position The Register Zona says MS browser war victor: Oops! Another monopoly... The Register Before the 2 new ones all 5 slots had links to anti microsoft news. And I must say that either they must be rather picky on the news they publish ( and theres been plently on non Microsoft news) or theyre just of the mind to bash MS all the time. Oh Asa when does defending something call for bashing on something else. I'd call unprovoked MS bashing "ATTACKING" and not defending. When ZDNet messed up then protest was defending. But when IE 5.5 came out basically saying it sucked is not defending. Using that kind of thinking is a kin to attack first ask questions later. Even if MS keeps up with Mozilla as far as standards, etc, etc, it is only going to be for Windows, and maybe Mac OS if MS - Apple relations are good. Mozilla is all about providing a great browser on many platforms. I am thrilled to see a BeOS port of Mozilla keeping up with the M releases. I see Troll 95 and Troll 98 have come to say that people are wrong to say bad things about Microsoft. I do not criticize Microsoft because I like Netscape. I criticize them because they have constantly produced a series of worthless software packages, which I kindly refer to as trash. People complain about Mozilla being delayed for too long, and I have as well, but at least they are not releasing something that is unfinished. Microsoft products are a joke. The only ones that approach being useful are given away for free. I wonder what these poeple who defend the ancient piece of crap piles of cobbled together code, have used to compare it to. You put down OS/2, AmigaOS and the MacOS, all of which are clearly superior to anyone who has bothered to use them. Name one recent article that portrays that giant f*ckjob of a company in a good light. They deserve to be distroyed, their shoddy programming exposes their users to viruses. They constantly are being caught violating peoples privecy. They use their power to stifle competition, wake up you lamers. Hi All.. this is the first time i write to MozillaZine. Man.. i must say i am disappointed.. i am disappointed that my favourite browser has lost the war.. and i see little hope of it ever bouncing back. This is not to say that you guys are not working hard.. you are! and i am very happy with all these people coming together to do something they love.. and the standards thing is very as well.. we should have more standards and make web developer's lives easy. What annoys me most is the lack of industry support behind mozilla. It seems that the delays have put them off as well. Almost all software could do with a lean browser instead of using the bulky engine of IE. So are we gonna lose the war? Well yes.. but there may be some hope. but things have to change fast. 1-10. Mozilla needs to come up with the browser PDQ (pretty damn quick).. 11. The mozilla marketing effort has to be strengthened.. Software companies are need to be told that mozilla can do wonders for them. The likes of IBM/Lotus, Corel and many others can use mozilla to strengthen their products. 12. ISPs should be targeted and asked to develop GUIs for mozilla that would give them a browser that is made by them and not just customised with their logo. 13. Expand.. our lives on the net are not limited to browsers.. we use, FTP software, Download managers, Organizers, E-mail clients, Search Software. Mozilla/NS/AOL need to ask companies to develop these products that INTEGRATES with mozilla. I use Lotus Organizer and it does not work well with Communicator.. In fact there is not even a single PIM that integrates with Communicator. Here we should take a leaf out of MS Outlook's book. Now to Microsoft Bashing.. i think it is a waste of time.. sure we all enjoy it, but it should divert us from our main goal. Finally, in any war, the best strategy is to know the weaknesses of your enemy and attack them. But what is more important is to know his strengths and doing something about them. NS has been stubborn in the case of communicator. They had added some new features.. but not those in available in IE or Outlook (Multiple POP servers support in one profile, Automatic Bookmark import, Offline browsing etc.) WHY? I don't know.. but i know one thing.. only market leader can afford to be stubborn. And if it is stubborn for too long, it can't stay on the top (and communicator is the textbook example of this). Last but not least.. I love my Netscape, even after all its flaws.. and unless it is completely destroyed... i will always continue to use it. Mozilla still needs some "polishing up" and we can start doing the things you suggest. I can't wait for beta. By the way, mozilla's performance is getting better and better each day with each new build (M11 was slow, but it's bounced back since. And it's UI is more responsive than before.) Lets make this the coolest XP-browser yet! As for multiple-pop check this "bug" http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16410 PS: I'm currently juggling between IE & NS (IE for browsing because NS's redrawing is too annoying, and NS for email because OE is too dangerous), when Moz is out I will have not reason to juggle between these 2 :) Hey! thats a good suggestion! Someone can write an XUL based PIM! As for looks, why worry? We have chromes (XUL). As for style, we have skins(CSS). Asa, Ben_Goodger: I only can agree with you. I also DO believe in Mozilla. I like testing it, using it, reporting bugs and seeing how thea are resolved and fixed. And I hope once the skin definitions will have stopped changing, I will be able to make my own skin(s). And I do not want to make a devil out of MS. But there simply some points I don't like. The main point was enough to start a trial against MS - forcing people to install some product they perhaps don't want and almst removing a competitor this way... (I still like using Windows and Office, though.) And there's a point I simply do NOT understand: Version numbering. MSIE 5.0 could have been 4.1, judging by the changes - then 5.5 would be 4.2 and nobody would complain if it wasn't that much better than 4.1 ("5.0") or 4.0 - do you know what I mean? Of course, from this point of view, Netscape 4.5 should have been 4.1 or 4.2 - then the step to 5.0 would be what it is - "a big leap for mankind". From 4.7 to 5.0 it's not a big step... But that's a different discussion. And hey, all you out there complaining about Mozilla - did you notice most of those people "bashing" MS, which you think are "immature" do show their names here but those Mozilla-complaining MS-fans (are they?) don't want to show up their names here? Is that less "immature"??? Please do a constructive discussion. We are able to deal with critics (positive AND negative) but let it be constructive. In opposite to a lot of others, here you have the chance to tell developers what you think of their product and even to help them making it better. That's what this site is all about. And I think that's (one point) what Open Source is about. Maybe some people liked posting anonymously because they had an opinion to express, but didn't want the hassle of signing up. Outside of that--my original comments WERE meant to be constructive. I don't see why IE 5.5 has to support full standards. Stop pointing out MS's flaws and just build the thing, and the late comment is meant as a wakeup call. There is a big diference in the crash mode between IE 5.01 and Communicator 4.7 (the released products after all): When IE crashs (which is very infrequently but happens) it takes the OS with it... one has to restart! When Communicator crashs it takes only itself... and one only needs to reopen it... My two cents... "Netscape 5 will have to be much better than Internet Explorer to win". I've heard people say things like this a million times. It's true, yes, but everyone knows that. And that's what the Mozilla team is trying to do. Make a much better browser. Commenting on Netscape 4 market share and MS innovations is, however tempting it may be, completely useless. Netscape 4 does not support standards very well, and MS has been able to take advantage of this to win the hearts of a few Web developers. Now, that doesn't matter. Netscape 5 shouldn't have to rely on Netscape 4's userbase to get popular. It should be able to become popular by itself, as I'm sure it will. Rushing things wont help, let it take as long as it has to. Okay, I've made some anti-MS comments before but whatever happen to "a little humor"? Yes I use Windoze and quite bitter that it will be a while before I can make a switch away from it, but some of my past "bitter" and "jealous" comments were intended just to spread around a little bit humor. Sure, I would like to see Gates' grave but can we still mix some real discussion as well some funny ones as the same time? Who knows when IE6 with full standards compliance will be released. It might be just around the corner. I REALLY doubt it. Setting aside the arguments about how it's not in MS's best economic interests to actually support platform-independent technologies, why would MS demo a preview (non-beta) version of 5.5 and then immediately release 6.0? While it is true that Netscape's browser has little market share now, how fast do you think that will change when Netscape 5 (rather than IE) begins shipping with AOL? If AOL is on Netscape's side, why did they distribute Internet Explorer 5? Because of a small thing called a contract, wherein they ship Internet Explorer to keep their slot on the Windows Desktop. When they don't need that anymore, then I'll bet they drop IE pretty fast. (And that day is coming; the Online Services folder is getting less and less attention on the desktop in new MS OSes). Add to that the fact that Netscape 4.x isn't embeddable, and IE is. (Mozilla really isn't quite ready to support a multimillion user backend yet. A few months, sure.) Netscape's browser might "need" AOL's help to increase "market share", but Mozilla needs to be good to increase the number of Mozilla users. Regardless of whether AOL will ship NS5 or not, when Mozilla is ready, and if it is good, many people will use it. But it would be hilarious if AOL turns out to be the last one who uses Mozilla. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. It will NEVER EVER happen. AOL will NEVER ship Netscape. Well, not until 2001, and by then it will probably be far too late. MS will probably have us all using MSML (Microsoft Markup Language) and MSTP (Microsoft Transfer Protocol). Let's hope that I am incredibly short-sighted and wrong. But I fear I may be right .. Right now Im on the mind set that I hope the best browser wins. Right now MS has the title of the best browser and rightly so. Now Im sure we have IE6 and Mozilla in the works. Who will win, well who knows. Of course we know what Mozilla will be offering but yet we don't know what IE6 will be offering. And this to me makes it seem foolish to be jumoing up and down saying the Mozilla will kick IE's ass, because just like Nav 4 is not a example of Mozilla's features, nor is IE5 an example of IE6's featues. I guess what Im saying is that Im all for Mozilla and Im all for IE6. And after the dust settles we might have two good browsers or we might have one, but the Wise Man will be backing BOTH. I'm not going to reply to all the posts here. However, the fact that IE 5.5 didn't take mozilla's lateness to crush it in CSS support means that mozilla still has a chance to succeed. Once again it simply proves that Netscape skipped a generation in order to give us a better browser I have ie 5, ns 4.6 and mozilla M11 on mysystem. In my opinnion, mozilla M11 definately beats NS4.7 and though I don't use IE very often I think that mozilla M11 already beats IE5. I personally wonder why the whole world doesn't own a copy of M11. The only complaints I have about mozilla are the speed and missing of some basic features like cut and paste. I would like to congratulate everyone who has contributed to mozilla, i think that if netscape can rease v5.0 within the next few months it will definately win the browser war. Damn right. Mozilla is getting to be very useable. I use a nightly build from yesterday, and it's pretty stable. Bit slow, I think because maybe the Networking library is not threaded. I don't know - it seems the whole app is locked while Mozilla hits the network. And there is no cache. When will that be online? I NEED a cache, and one that works offline like IE. Hey any chance we could get moz to read IE's cache?? i mean.. well why do i want 2 20 or 40 meg portions of my web going to the same images :) any chance. I know it's probably raises a whole bunch of problems, but it'd be nice That would be great. But then Microsoft could just change its cache configuration and Netscape 5 would stop working. It would be similar to the way AOL changed when Microsoft tried to leech off of the Instant Messenger. There's one way to do this - install a caching proxy server, disable both browser's caches. Then only one proxy cache will hold everything. But that takes up system resources and adds latency to the request (must check proxy, then possibly forward it) Off topic, you say "It would be similar to the way AOL changed when Microsoft tried to leech off of the Instant Messenger.". How can you say MS leeched off AOL? AOL PUBLISHED THE FUCKING SPECS PUBLICALLY. Geez I wish people would see past "MS is bad, AOL rule because they own Netscape" Troll, if you paid more attention to other things I posted, you would realize that I do not like America Online any more than I like Microsoft. Microsoft did that only with the intention of stealing America Online users. Are you Troll 95, or Troll 98? Maybe you are Troll 2000. Are you an alpha Troll or a beta Troll? I never used profanity to express myself at MozillaZine. Troll. Please refrain from labeling other posters "troll". It doesn't help. I have no respect for people who have no respect for me. The all-uppercase letters implied yelling. That, in combination with the profanity directed toward me and the unjustified implication that I typed without thinking, constituted disrespect. The disrespect prompted my response. I think you're the troll. MS have just as much right to use public source code as anyone else. And AOL sent messages to MS users abusing them. To get people off MS and onto AOL. Quite frankly, I think you should research more before you accuse companies of 'leeching'. Even one with the record of Microsoft. Wasn't the "leeching" the fact that microsoft leeched off AOL network rather than setting up their own server? Seems a pretty clear case of leeching to me, had they set up their own server using these protocols that would be a completely different matter. That is right, and they tried to steal the AOL users instead of getting their own. Now who has not done their research? So Red Hat are 'leeching' off Linux are they? Didn't AOL want to use AT&T's cable? (I may be wrong about the cable) This isn't 'leeching' But MS using a public protocol is classed as 'leeching'? No. I don't think so. This is totally irrelevant to the topic. This was supposed to be about ie5.5, and caches. So I will shut up now. MS does have as much right to public source code as anyone else (at least that's my take on teh few public liscenses that I've taken teh time to read). But the truth is that MS has no right to use a private network that they are not invited to use. And just because AOL decided for a time to let others use thier _private_ (built, paid for, maintained by AOL)network does not mean that they must forever do so. Just because I let some people in my house some of the time does not mean that I have to let the guy trying to steal my wife have a key to the front door. and boy am I regretting it! I like the M12 nightly builds, although the only way I could use newsgroups is by importing my Communicator profile..... Quite usable, although I preferred the purple colour scheme :) That's interesting: Whenever there is an article about MS in here, you get some 100+ responses. But now lets face it. Most people compare IE5.x to Navigator 4.x; but that is unfair; That is like comparing Win95 to Win98. You must compare two similar versions. And from this point of view, NN4.x beats IE4.x For IE5 I must say, MS did a good job, but I don't compare it with NN4.x or Gecko, cause the NN4. Is an “old” version and Gecko is Alpha/Beta (whatever). All I can say for now is, that the people working on Mozilla should take care of the following: - Companies must have the possibilities to change to look and fell of NN5 to match their needs without any programming knowledge. XUL is very good! Every company that can add their logos and buttons and whatever will distribute NN5. Thats what we need! - NN5 must be faster and easier to handle then IE5, so users are willing to switch back to NN. Plus it must be able to display anything, IE does. (OK, that's hard, but lets say most of it) - -And finally: AOL must stop distributing IEx with their Software. OK, so far for this. Take care p h i l I was just browsing my mozilla m11 directory and what must i see???? Most of the html docs where created using Microsoft Frontpage Expres 2.0 MAN MAN MAN !!! FP is not better then YOUR OWN COMPOSER TOOL! phil Um, I looked and didn't find any trace of MS Frontpage. How about giving a specific document? Or, perhapse you are using a PC, don't understand how extension mapping works, and got excited? Hey, I realy don't care about it. But for example check out <gecko-dir>/bin/res/MozillaControl.html I allready use Mozilla as my default browser, on a Linux 2.2.13 System. take care and keep up the good work! p h i l I did searches through the Mac and Linux distributions and found no instances of "Microsoft" or "Frontpage" in the context of being created by said application. Nor could I find that specific file. I have yet to find any evidence of what you are saying as true, how are you determining that it was created by MS FrontPage? This is contributed code. If it's what I think it is (just looking at the file name and not actually investigating) then it is code contributed by a 3rd party to build an active X wrapper for gecko. If that 3rd party likes front page then so be it. You do a disservice to the effort when you suggest that there is something wrong with the work contributed because of the tool used to make it. Judging from the feedback on this post, MozillaZine needs to start moderating messages - regardless of membership or not. Restricting feedback possibilities to members only a) doesn't seem to work and b) is not fair c) will not make it sufficiently easy to join the mozillaZine community for newcomers. "Vertical text, made possible by using the writingMode property" ...and apply with blink tag. Wow, a whole new realm of possibilities! </sarcasm> "Vertical text, made possible by using the writingMode property" ...and apply with blink tag. Wow, a whole new realm of possibilities! </sarcasm> Philosophy and religion aside, I would just like to thank everyone for a very entertaining read. I look forward to the next debate. ...hilarious... |