“Microsoft on Moday released an updated version of its Internet Explorer Web browser software for the Macintosh. Version 5.2 of IE for the Mac is available for free from Microsoft’s Mactopia Web site. New features include better handling of fonts through OS X 10.1.5’s Quartz graphics engine.” Read the report at ZDNews. Our Take:The (since forever) text input/form bugs, are still not fixed though…
Microsoft Releases IE 5.2 for Mac
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
hey flipped a bit and chose different fonts. Woop de freeking doooooooo!
Fortunately or unfortunately Explorer still has the best interface…even after all these years. Crazy nobody can make a better browser.
werent they supposed to de-prioritize features and concentrate on known bugs/security?
My take:
goto http://www.alternate.de (a german pc reseller)
and IE will crash immediately.
…still not fixed….
🙁
on 06-17-02 Ralf wrote:
> goto http://www.alternate.de (a german pc reseller)
> and IE will crash immediately.
>
> …still not fixed…
Mozilla 1.0 RC2 works fine with it. 🙂
My Linux’s Mozilla 1.0 does not work with Hotmail’s front page though.
Eugenia: do you mean http://www.hotmail.com or do you mean the first page you see when you login? Hotmail requires https support, so you will need the mozilla-psm package to solve that. Mozilla 0.9.9 works fine with hotmail allround, i’ve had no problems with it.
I mean the plain http://www.hotmail.com does not work. I use Mozilla 1.0 final, emerged and recompiled by Gentoo Linux last night. Older versions of Mozilla worked for me too.
Eugenia,
FYI, I am using the Mozilla 1.0 final for Win32, here at work and I don’t have any problems with “www.hotmail.com”.
imaginereno
supposedly ie5 (including the new one, i assume) for mac and ie5+ for windows share a bunch of code. I just tried the ‘www.alternate.de’ site in ie6/xp, and it crashed as well. So at least they share the bugs.
I mean the plain http://www.hotmail.com does not work. I use Mozilla 1.0 final, emerged and recompiled by Gentoo Linux last night. Older versions of Mozilla worked for me too.
I am using Mozilla 1.0 final on Debian and it works fine on Hotmail’s site.
I deleted Internet Explorer from my Mac long ago… by now my browser of choice is OmniWeb 4.1 beta 7. It’s compatible with most sites over there, and it’s blazing fast when compared with IE.
Now I got a 100% Microsoft-Free machine, and I’m very pleased with that.
Fortunately or unfortunately Explorer still has the best interface…even after all these years. Crazy nobody can make a better browser.
I disagree. Opera and Mozilla both have better interfaces than IE. By interface, I’m talking about the features (gestures, page recall, add-killing, tabbed browsing, etc.), not the asthetic beauty, although I do think IE is pretty plain compared to the other two.
I use Mozilla as my browser on W2K and OS X. Hotmail works fine except one small problem…clicking the check box to highlight all the e-mails in the list only highlights the first one. I looked through the HTML code for that page, and it is a JavaScript call, so I guess there is a problem in that part of Mozilla. The only real problems I’ve had with Mozilla on either platform are:
1. Can’t log into the MS Exchange web-based e-mail pages
2. Animating pages eat up a lot of processor cycles.
I keep IE installed just for the MS stuff on OS X. I’d like to use OmniWeb, since the pages render much nicer, but they really don’t support CSS well enough on most of the sites I go to.
Thank you for telling me about Mozilla 1.0 and Hotmail, but yes, it works for me under Windows, Mac and BeOS. But it doesn’t work under *Gentoo* Linux.
I’m using Mozilla 1.0 on Gentoo 1.2
Hotmail works ok here.
What problems are you having?
MSIE is a bunch of crap! Mozilla is much better now that it’s 1.0+
‘Fortunately or unfortunately Explorer still has the best interface…even after all these years. Crazy nobody can make a better browser.’
Explorer shure doesn’t have the best interface. In interface-features it loses from Mozilla. In beauty (I’m on MacOS X) it loses from Omniweb, Chimera. No competition. I think fortunately we’re beginning to see the end of the total domination of IE on the web. Mozilla is growing so incredibly fast (in features, speed) that IE can’t keep up with that. Also considering the fact that in the near future MS can’t force IE on Windows-users (no more bundling)I think IE is gonna have a tough time, which sure is good for the web. I’m tired of webdesigners that make sites using IE’s web-incompatibilities (non-standards). They don’t care about other people who don’t use IE or Windows.
The front page of http://www.hotmail.com is rendering to a just 100×30 pixels placeholder, instead of using the whole window (1024×768) to render. It looks like CSS screw up.
Explorer shure doesn’t have the best interface. In interface-features it loses from Mozilla.
Even Konqueror has a better interface! (And I tried almost all themes on Mozilla – and sticked with modern-gray)
I think fortunately we’re beginning to see the end of the total domination of IE on the web. Mozilla is growing so incredibly fast
That’s what you think…
Geez, Windows has had version 6 for like a year now!
1. Can’t log into the MS Exchange web-based e-mail pages.
My company (well, not mine or I wouldn’t know whether Exchange worked or not) uses Exchange and I can log in and participate in all kinds of mail activities with it using Mozilla. The only difference is that it doesn’t bring up a new browser windows when I click on an email to read. Other than that it works about the same.
To be fair and honest my Mozilla 1.0 w/ Flash plugin on win2k work OK with hotmail (except to place/layout the slashed .gif). It still has to improve fonts and layout).
Why don’t this Mac people change to Windows and x86 @1.8Ghz CPU, do they like to use IE 5.2 in 2002 ?
(I guess they do)
Even Konqueror has a better interface! (And I tried almost all themes on Mozilla – and sticked with modern-gray)
So, you’re not talking features, but rather eye candy. Well, if that’s what is of main importance…
I think fortunately we’re beginning to see the end of the total domination of IE on the web. Mozilla is growing so incredibly fast
That’s what you think…
If the browser wars are about market share, then IE wins for now. If the browser war is about which browser is actually better, then Mozilla wins hands down over IE.
There are other nice browsers out there, but none with the features AND support of the vast majority of current web pages that Mozilla has.
Why don’t this Mac people change to Windows and x86 @1.8Ghz CPU, do they like to use IE 5.2 in 2002 ?
I don’t think Mac users (or most users for that matter) base their OS choice upon which browser is prominently available on that platform.
My take:
goto http://www.alternate.de (a german pc reseller)
and IE will crash immediately.
…still not fixed….
🙁
windows xp professional and internet explorer v6.0.2600.000.xpclnt_qfe.010827-1803 (128-bit, Q316059; q319182; Q321232) works without any crash
was solls? könnte schlimmer sein…
gruss
Steve
How are you getting Mozilla to work with Hotmail?
Everytime I try to create an account with Hotmail
using Mozilla it says I have to have IE or Netscape
browser. I do not see a preference in Mozilla to
mimic the IE or Netscape ID like I have in Opera.
Sean
I don’t think Mac users (or most users for that matter) base their OS choice upon which browser is prominently available on that platform.
So do I.
It was just a joke.
Life is good
I have mozilla 1.1 alpha and the are online one site that don’t work with me (http://www.anivelde.com/chat.html), but i enter and leave hotmail once and again and again and again..
Talking about hotmail is very important that if yours have a hotmail email go to yours profile and remove a new tab that microsft put there..that that say by default that you accept that microsft share your information to thirst party…so enjoy…
hello eugene….your great to this comunity..
In reply to all the people commenting on the version #. Look at IE 5.x on MacOS and look at it on Windows, or even 6. The rendering engine between all of these is basically the same. IE hasn’t changed THAT much since 4. And the Mac version is rather different interface and feature wise. When I switched to Mac I honestly was amazed with their version of IE. It’s got a download manager, auction/scapbook/etc tools, a totally different design, and most surprising of all, it uses the netscape html bookmark format. That being said, all of the IEs render BASICALLY the same. And sadly, IE still renders the most sites out there, although this is only due to bad webdesigners, not IE being a compliant browser.
As far as the IE interface. Mozilla, Omniweb, Opera, Chimera, and many others all have WAY better interfaces. They all are basically the same though, just vary on the advanced or lack there of features. Right now I’m still deciding on what my primary browser will be. Omniweb would be my choice hands down except for the fact that it’s still not very compatible. Mozilla is nice but it’s widgets in OS X are practically ugly side by side with the rest of the OS (even with the pinstripe theme, Mozilla is very cross platform and it shows it, it doesn’t look at home on any OS), IE really would be it except it behaves oddly too much. So I haven’t even chosen mine for sure yet. Atleast in Mac trading bookmarks between Mozilla and IE is just a cp away.
just tested.. works fine..
Damn…I love Mozilla and I use a ton of open source software, but some of you need to be a little moew objective. I can’t stop laughing that you say Mozilla wins “hands down” over IE. Please, stop the blind advocacy…
Before you say that I love MS, keep in mind that my true love is BeOS, but I am just realistic. Mozilla is a very good browser, it just is not at the level of IE.
-G
Chimera for OS X rocks! http://chimera.mozdev.org
I really got to wonder, how this forum turned into a Moz thread
MSIE is a bunch of crap! Mozilla is much better now that it’s 1.0+
If you are talking features and standards compliance, you are right. If you are talking speed… well, IE, Opera, Mozilla currently all have relatively the same speed. If you are talking security, Mozilla has less reported ones (doesn’t mean less, guess we would never know), and fix them faster. If we are talking ease of use, Mozilla (and it’s AOL billboard cousin, Netscape 6/7)’s UI was obviously made for geeks by geeks. The UI is great if you are this web designing geek… but for the average Joe, I really got to wonder
Explorer shure doesn’t have the best interface. In interface-features it loses from Mozilla. In beauty (I’m on MacOS X) it loses from Omniweb, Chimera.
Mozilla may look good, but UI wise, it is obviously not made with consumers in mind.
No competition. I think fortunately we’re beginning to see the end of the total domination of IE on the web. Mozilla is growing so incredibly fast (in features, speed) that IE can’t keep up with that.
I don’t know, once upon a time, I was drawn to Linux because everybody was saying Microsoft end of total domination of the desktop market is coming because of Linux.
. And Linux lost 50% of it’s marketshare since.
Also considering the fact that in the near future MS can’t force IE on Windows-users (no more bundling)
Actually, it is bundled, only hidden away from the user. If, say, Dell bundled Netscape 7 with all their computers, and hide IE, for 14 days the user wouldn’t know IE was installed. After 14 days, he would be asked to choose between Mozilla, IE and other installed browsers.
I think IE is gonna have a tough time, which sure is good for the web. I’m tired of webdesigners that make sites using IE’s web-incompatibilities (non-standards). They don’t care about other people who don’t use IE or Windows.
IE has some propreitary web languages and scripts. And as long IE has 93% of the market, web designers would take advantage of the extra goodies.
And as for IE being endangered, as long competitors like Opera and Netscape don’t make a browser for the consumer, I would have to doubt it would ever happen.
Geez, Windows has had version 6 for like a year now!
Actually, for me, there wasn’t much difference in moving from IE5.5 to IE6.0 (as in features). Plus, having 5.2 isn’t Apple’s fault, it is apparently Microsoft’s fault
Before you say that I love MS, keep in mind that my true love is BeOS, but I am just realistic. Mozilla is a very good browser, it just is not at the level of IE.
Well, you are comparing apples and oranges. Mozilla was obviously not made for consumers. Even the Mozilla maintainer admited that. As for feature to feature, Mozilla has more, but most, if not all, of that additional features have practically little value to the average Joe.
Chimera for OS X rocks!
I like interface discussions.
This is my take:
IE interface (Windows) is pretty nice, small and fast. Not many usefull features and confusing sometimes oh and the preference menues are probably the worst I have ever seen, but the basic interface with location bar, navigation buttons, etc is pretty cool. I like how they organized everything without wasting space. Lack of tabs is another breakdown though, although I understand there might be third party shells which fix that.
I can’t comment on any Mac interface unfortunatly because I don’t own such hardware.
Mozilla wins the “gimmicky” race of course with it’s incredible flexible themes. There is no integration with Mozilla because it’s completely toolkit independent. Some like this, some don’t. For me it’s a little bit too unorganized but heck, it would even be possible to completely recreate the IE interface with a Mozilla theme… (I know because I already used such a thing). Downside is, that it can be a little bit slow. Featureset is pretty impressive, although I think it’s often very unflexible and static because of all the XUL stuff. Simple new GUI additions usually suck and need a while to become stable and usable. Maybe this will be different when the API’s are more mature. It’s probably a disadvantage of the platform independence.
Opera: Oh my god! Biggest waste of screen estate I ever saw.
I disliked this interface from the first time I saw it although I understand that some people could actually like it for it’s MDI interface. I don’t… It’s very fast and usefull though. So if screen estate and optics don’t matter to you it might be your thing. I like the idea to replace the location bar while loading a pace.
Konqueror: I think it shows that Konqueror is a filemanager/webbrowser hybrid, much more than IE does. It has a lot of options to rearrange the buttons and location bar but when trying to arrange it similar to IE and other browsers (locationbar on same toolbar as navigation buttons), it constantly screwed up. It also lacks tabbed browsing if this didn’t change meanwhile.
Galeon: This is the one I would hand over my “best browser interface” price.
Fast, integrated, smart, a plethora of usefull features not available in other browsers and not the slightest waste of screen space. Can it get any better? It also probably has the least irritating preference menues of all the browser interfaces. I actually enjoyed configuring this browser. It’s no wonder that the Galeon interface rocks though, they don’t have to do anything else by using the Gecko engine. This really shows the benefits of code sharing. Here we have the most powerfull free rendering engine (Gecko) and the most powerfull free browser interface merged together.
Galeon is really the only browser I would prefer to IE if it would be available for Windows. On Unix systems, I choose either Galeon or Konqueror, depending on the environment I’m currently in.
Hmm … it doesn’t crash on my PC – everything renders fine! (IE5.5 under WinME). But I use Opera 6.03 for browsing and email, so I don’t really care either way. What gives?
BTW, I don’t find Opera’s interface wastes space, but I’m running at 1600×1200, so there’s a lot of space to waste 🙂
“Fortunately or unfortunately Explorer still has the best interface…even after all these years. Crazy nobody can make a
better browser. ”
Voyager for Amiga has a much nicer interface than IE. Unfortunately it
is buggy and incomplete due to shortage of coders, but I still use it
in preference to IE.
If you run the latest Opera version for Windows, 6.x, and try the minimalist button set (which is great), it takes up less screen estate than all the other browsers! The default buttonset is very large though, and default Opera comes with all sorts of taskbars enabled, but turning off the favorites bar and changing the buttonset really does a LOT.
Too bad I cannot run this Opera version on my Mac yet
Chimera is fast, it has (or will have) a great interface, it renders using gecko (i have never seen a website screwed up in chimera) and so and so… The only thing that keeps it from being my full-time browser is that it is a 0.3 version, so, you know, it has a lot of important things missing: ftp downloads, preferences (you can edit .mozilla in your Home directory, but thats not fun), closing tabs without having to use a menu… Many things.
My second choice, Mozilla 1.1a. Too big though.
My third choice is OmniWeb 4.0.6 — too crashy.
My fourth choice (in case NOTHING else works) is the ugly and unusable IE5. I rarely use it.
I don’t know, once upon a time, I was drawn to Linux because everybody was saying Microsoft end of total domination of the desktop market is coming because of Linux.
. And Linux lost 50% of it’s marketshare [sic] since.
Hmmm… /me smells FUD Gee, what kind of people bash anything and everything, having nothing good to say about the product that they’re peddling?
Re: faulty math — 5.2 – 0.1 = 5.1. Funny about how the MS-Apple apologists are afraid to address the real difference, between 5.1 and 6.0! Yes, there are big differences. All is not eye candy. Some people actually use computers to do things…
“If you run the latest Opera version for Windows, 6.x, and try the minimalist button set (which is great), it takes up less screen estate than all the other browsers!”
You might be right here, I just tried 6.x with single window mode (but still tabs, nice) and the “buttons only” toolbar and this is pretty cool. Although the banner ad is still taking up all the space now.
But I can see that it’s cool if you buy it. Doesn’t stand a chance against Galeon though. 
OK – I have to ask this now. What are you guys talking about when you complain about Mozilla’s UI??? I have 4 main buttons (back,forward,refresh and stop) a location bar and a quicklinks menu. In IE I have 11 buttons, most of which are complete garbage (and I cant make them go away like I can in mozilla). All I’ve seen is complaint after complaint about the Interface and not ONE single example of why it sucks. Now I have no problem with constructive criticism, because it usually helps to improve whatever is being criticised (if the people in charge listen of course), but this inane whining is getting on my nerves. This was once a forum consisting of a majority of people who were intelligent and posted meaningful commentary. Now it just sounds like a bunch of second graders whining about their jello salad
I’m a Mozilla contributor, and I can tell you why Mozilla’s UI is considered to still suck, despite a lot of work done in 0.99.x and during final release candidates to improve it.
Firstly there are a lot of users (I’m not one, maybe you aren’t either) who want a HOME button but don’t want a bar full of links. In NS4.x that HOME button is near BACK and RELOAD and STOP and so on, while in Moz it’s on the so-called “Personal” toolbar. There is no way to change that in the default themes (!)
Secondly a lot of Mozilla’s UI is unnecessary. This doesn’t bother power users very much, but it is kind of clumsy and rarely useful. e.g. excessive prefs UI, four zillion ways to search for things. Mozilla’s UI designers are fighting a permanent war just to keep the Preferences dialog from needing a “Rough Guide” to find your way around.
Thirdly there are several trouble areas that long-time Moz users instinctively avoid (memories of warnings from Asa or old crashes) but are commonly used by people trying Moz for the first time. Much of the sidebar is included here, as are DnD on Linux (now mostly disabled to stop bug reports pouring in) and the poor old Composer.
Finally, this forum was never full of intelligent commentary, it’s always been full of whining BeOS users and alternate OS fans trolling. Intentionally or not Eugenia encourages them
I can’t stop laughing that you say Mozilla wins “hands down” over IE. Please, stop the blind advocacy…
I am not participating in blind advocacy at all. I mentioned several of the reasons Mozilla wins hands down already, but here it goes again for the less observant.
Tabbed browsing
Superior png and color support (more on this below)
Closer adherance to the W3C web standards
Requires configuration, but a much cleaner user interface
Here are some features of Opera that make it better than IE:
Gestures
Tabbed browsing
Superior png and color support
Recall of previously opened pages when you launch Opera
Cleaner interface
Various search engine support in the address bar
These are not all the features, but will do for now. I can’t think of a single feature that IE has that the browsers mentioned here don’t.
Therefore, if I can say, “Mozilla and Opera do everything IE does plus…” and name even one thing, then feature-wise they win. Add several things and they win hands down. As a user, I don’t care about market share. I want something that works.
———————–
IE png support: If I create a png graphic using an RGB value in a program like Photoshop, and then specify the same RGB value as the background of my web browser, theoretically if I place the graphic on the page I shouldn’t be able to see it since it should be the same color as the background. However, this is not the case with png files under IE (and perhaps even gifs and jpegs). The colors are noticeably different. Mozilla and Opera don’t suffer from this color deficiency. So either Adobe, Mozilla and Opera all got it exactly the same degree of wrong, or Microsoft did. My bet would be it’s Microsoft.
The main feature of a browser is to render pages. And Mozilla just can’t handle as many pages as IE. Yes, some of this is due to poorly coded pages, but not all.
-G
Your right speed (troll) some of us use our computers to do things… And I think that one of the points of this article is to add to this discussion for the past few months that Microsoft (your favorite) is not keeping Internet Explorer with the same features on the Windows platform and the Mac platform. Maybe you need to do some research, Speed before you comment. Maybe you could try using some of the alternatives that are mentioned in other comments of this forum and many others. As the Macintosh community would like to see Microsoft keep IE for Mac updated for now it has been slow.
I really got to wonder, how this forum turned into a Moz thread
The main discussion was boring so people took it in a direction that was more interesting I would think. Just like a normal conversation.
Mozilla may look good, but UI wise, it is obviously not made with consumers in mind.
I have just the opposite opinion. I think about half of the IE toolbar is useless (like Discuss).
I don’t know, once upon a time, I was drawn to Linux because everybody was saying Microsoft end of total domination of the desktop market is coming because of Linux.
. And Linux lost 50% of it’s marketshare since.
Like I’ve said before. I’m not driven to a tool because of market share. Performance, stability and security are much more important to me.
IE has some propreitary web languages and scripts. And as long IE has 93% of the market, web designers would take advantage of the extra goodies.
Not if potential customers start complaining. What you’re saying is just like a store owner saying, only 7% of the population is handicapped so we’re not going to waste the money on accessibility ramps, handicapped restrooms, braille menus, etc. Designers who wish to please all customers will have to consider Mozilla. My example is kind of a bad one since Mozilla is better and IE is handicapped, but it makes a point.
And as for IE being endangered, as long competitors like Opera and Netscape don’t make a browser for the consumer, I would have to doubt it would ever happen.
Yeah… Whatever you say Mr. Browse.
Well, you are comparing apples and oranges. Mozilla was obviously not made for consumers.
I don’t see a single reason why that isn’t the case other than the install perhaps.
Even the Mozilla maintainer admited that. As for feature to feature, Mozilla has more, but most, if not all, of that additional features have practically little value to the average Joe.
That plain and simply isn’t true. Without exception, everyone who has seen me using Mozilla has rushed out and installed it. Why? Because it has features that are very desirable by most end users.
AOL and that other thing go Mozilla tech.. and then probably OSX in some form or other.. how big a market share would that be? 5%? 25%?
In IE I have 11 buttons, most of which are complete garbage (and I cant make them go away like I can in mozilla)
Sure you can. Just right-click on a button and choose “Customize”. Personally, I use the small buttons, get rid of all but the basics, choose “Selective Text on Right” (so the “Back” button is bigger and easy to hit) and then put the address bar on the same line. Oh, and then I toss the links off to the far right, expandable by clicking on the “chevron.” It’s essentially the same interface that Mozilla adopts, but a little smaller. In my opinion, either is fine.
“In IE I have 11 buttons, most of which are complete garbage (and I cant make them go away like I can in mozilla).”
Are you talking about the Mac version? Because this is definetly not true for the Win version. I have the backbutton (the only button with text besides it), the forward button, the stop button, the reload button and the location bar. Nothing else, all in one line.
I found a Mozilla theme that is basically the same though and pretty nice. The thing is, that you need a Theme in Mozilla do get a different UI, you can’t just move and drag things around. It really seems to be much less flexible and there are not many of those “extra features”. It’s not integrated at all so basically it’s a little bit like StarOffice. While the x-plattform UI is cool and works and has some advantages, most people just prefer an integrated GUI. Add to this that the Mozilla menues are really cluttered. IE isn’t much better in this area though. I’m not saying that the Mozilla UI sucks but I see why people could have this opinion… But there is really no point in getting angry about this. After all, one of the good points of embedding Gecko is, that it allows the creation of “native” browers using the mature Mozilla rendering engine.
The Mac platform suddenly has a plethora of choice for browsers. One thing I can’t understand – after all this time, niether Omniweb nor iCab support Apple’s iTools. I love using Omniweb too. I don’t know why they don’t focus on that though – for Joe Average, Apple’s iTools are a great resource.
Our Take:The (since forever) text input/form bugs, are still not fixed though…
Speaking of forever, what’s taking OSNEWS.com so long to update with new stories.
Would anyone at Osnews like some help? I’d be more than happy to volunteer my time.
I try to post new story ideas when I can. What else can we, the readers, do?
The main discussion was boring so people took it in a direction that was more interesting I would think. Just like a normal conversation.
OIC.
I have just the opposite opinion. I think about half of the IE toolbar is useless (like Discuss).
Actually, I found Discuss quite useful (though complete useless here). However, it is very easy to remove that Post-It Note look alike icon.
But I DON’T use IE. But from experience on trying to get my family (and friends) to use Opera (and recently Mozilla 1.0) shows that they aren’t made for consumers. No, it isn’t because they are used to IE, it is much more easier getting them to use Netscape Communicator 4.x; which has a UI obviously designed for normal consumers. For Net geeks like use, we find IE useless. But to average Joes, they find things like Mozilla overwhelming.
Like I’ve said before. I’m not driven to a tool because of market share. Performance, stability and security are much more important to me.
Yeah, yeah, me too. I wasn’t drawn to Linux because of the sayings “Microsoft, say your prayers. Linux is gonna steal your market share!” I liked Linux first before I like the KDE 1.x desktop, which was highly configuratable compared to Windows 98. Then later on, I became a geek, and became drawn to Linux flexiblity. A month of two from now, I’m moving to Gentoo, and from what I have heard, it has a slow installation, but a mighty fast product afterwards.
Not if potential customers start complaining. What you’re saying is just like a store owner saying, only 7% of the population is handicapped so we’re not going to waste the money on accessibility ramps, handicapped restrooms, braille menus, etc. Designers who wish to please all customers will have to consider Mozilla. My example is kind of a bad one since Mozilla is better and IE is handicapped, but it makes a point.
Potential consumers don’t even know there are altenatives to IE. In fact, they don’t even care
. However, for the 7% “handicapped” people, they wouldn’t use IE anyway. Does it matter what most of the world use? I use Linux. It is way more advance than Windows. But it comes at a price: less ease of use. But I don’t mind it. Same case here. You use Mozilla. It is way more advance than IE. but it comes at a price: less ease of use.
You have made your choice, and obviously happy about that choice.
I don’t see a single reason why that isn’t the case other than the install perhaps.
LOL. There are few nice bookmarks about Mozilla’s and Opera’s usablity, they are on my Linux comp, which is now offed, and having just now on and off it to prove something to Speed, I don’t feel like doing it again (I’m using Windows now because my real modem is burnt. Next month or the month after that, I’m moving to ADSL, so I wouldn’t buy a new modem right now.)
That plain and simply isn’t true. Without exception, everyone who has seen me using Mozilla has rushed out and installed it. Why? Because it has features that are very desirable by most end users.
I have used Mozilla and Opera in front of my brothers, and even once tried to force them to use it.
. Didn’t work. Perhaps your friends is quite computer-sawy. Most computer users aren’t. so, there is much less need for these extra features in Opera nor Mozilla.
Besides, if AOL did push some marketing money behind Mozilla instead of using it as a threat against Microsoft in case they were being rude to AOL’s executives, Netscape could regain some of its market share. Netscape is a much more consumer friendly version of Mozilla; it uses English, unlike Mozilla (jargon).
Oh, BTW, one of these days, I’m moving to Mozilla. I’m getting more and more happy with it. However, if they throw out that ugly tabs support they are having the default installation, and use MultiZilla…. that would be much better. One of these days, just one of these days…. (though there is a high possiblity just going for Galeon; if it is ported to GNOME 2, or going to Konqi, if what they say about 3.1 is true, or just stick to Opera, if they have a new cool version)
Sure you can. Just right-click on a button and choose “Customize”. Personally, I use the small buttons, get rid of all but the basics, choose “Selective Text on Right” (so the “Back” button is bigger and easy to hit) and then put the address bar on the same line. Oh, and then I toss the links off to the far right, expandable by clicking on the “chevron.” It’s essentially the same interface that Mozilla adopts, but a little smaller. In my opinion, either is fine.
What I don’t like is how Mozilla put “Home” on the Links bar. And when you hide the Links bar (which I do on Opera and IE), Mozilla doesn’t hide it completely, but it would be “flat” (sorry, KDE jargon). That means, underneat, there would be this short bar, in which when you click, it would appear again. I also don’t link them putting the address bar and the basic buttons together. Definately not intuitive for me.
just tried it in ie 6.0.2600.0000 and it works fine. Maybe it was a code problem with the site itself (before anyone says ie sucks because it screws up non ie content realize its what most developers code for because its the dominant browser).
Am I the only person willing to put up with a few popups in order to support free sites? I mean I can understand wanting to avoid pop ups (especially on sites that are just redundently annoying, like any cnn page) but isn’t the 2 seconds it takes to close it worth it to support your favorite sites? Especially now with so few companies willing to advertise on the web? btw camel you can block pop ups in ie 6 and later so its not like other browsers are the only way to avoid popups (of course you could use a seperate popup killer while using older versions of ie, most of those use very, very little system resources).
Why do people keep saying mozilla is better then ie? Lets see it doesn’t work with every page that ie works with. It still has more crash bugs (at least the windows version, in 20 minutes I crashed it 6 times on 6 different sites). Its ui is a rehash of netscape (which imo isn’t as nice as ie). As for compliance to w3 standards both are pretty bad, but since most sites don’t comply with w3 standards that doesn’t matter. btw I doubt mozilla will topple ie from the browser hill, because even after ie isn’t bundled with windows they will still have brand recognition and better support, and marketing if need be. Mozilla is nice, but if your using windows or mac theres no compelling reason to use it (omniweb for mac is damn nice from what I’ve seen and if I ever get a mac I’ll prolly go with it, unless they release ie6 for mac by then, then it would be a tough call).
can’t eliminate buttons in ie you say? which version? because as far back as I can remember I’ve only used those same 4 you mentioned for mozilla in ie. btw how’s your jello salad?
Aol doesn’t support moz, they are using it in (or planning on) using it in compuserv. But compuserv is less then 1% of aol subscribers. Also aol won’t put money behind moz because moz is the gpl version of netscape, but if they put money into improving netscape (last good version was 4.7 imo) moz would benefit as well.