Internet Explorer 5.2 is here!

[icetraxxg5]

http://www.microsoft.com/Mac/default.asp :)

[icetraxxg5]

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/IE/ie52.asp

[MacAztec]

QUARTZ TEXT SMOOTHING!!!

Weee!!!!

[Grokgod]

didnt we all have quart smoothing with the new silk, what else is new on this thing, sides new way for M$ to try to own us?

[macstudent]

It changes your homepage to msn.com too, those dirty diry bastards.

[Grokgod]

THats one of the things I meant, next thing

[AlphaTech]

A BETTER place to get the ie update is here (http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10902&db=macosx). You don't have to deal with the m$ web site and such...

[edesignuk]

Well, I've got the update, but not noticing anything much straight off.
I allready used Silk for AA text, so I haven't benifited from that enhancement.

[Mr. Anderson]

and note, no upgrade for OS 9, looks like that we'll be stuck with 5.1 with OS9 for good.....

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by dukestreet
and note, no upgrade for OS 9, looks like that we'll be stuck with 5.1 with OS9 for good.....
heh! OS9 isn't missin out on much, this update seems to me to be pretty minor :(

[Inhale420]

Originally posted by Grokgod
didnt we all have quart smoothing with the new silk, what else is new on this thing, sides new way for M$ to try to own us?

what number was that in your maclot list of canned responses?

[syntax]

While I like the Quartz support, since they didn't actually update the browser in any other appreciable way (um, that rendering engine is over two years old now) ... it's back to Moz for now.

Here's hoping IE6 is less anticlimactic.

[dantec]

Hell, I was impressed when I used IE 5.1 for OS 9. The speed of the tabs on the left, the smoothness of everything. The speed of the pages. With the IE version for OS 10, I was amazed. Everything got 75% slower! More unsmooth, and horrible. After seeing how omniweb and chimera work with drawers it makes you wonder wtf did M$ do?

Lets hope this 5.2 update will bring us something good. I mean I've been using Omniweb & Mozilla mostly. Netscape is just a copy of Mozilla, Chimera is cool but has tons of bugs and IE frankly sucks in OS 10.

[sjs]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!

[dantec]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!

Exactly how I feel. Sjs you took the words out of my mouth/keyboard/head whatever!

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!

Actually, from everything I have experienced OmniWeb, Mozilla, Chimera and those crash tons more then IE has on me. I can't remember the last time I had IE crash (more then a few months ago). Then again, I don't get many software crashes on my TiBook (preventative maintenace, do it or shut the F up).

I won't purchase any software from M$, but free is still free.

Oh btw, I don't use beta software...

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!
I use mainly OmniWeb and IE, occasionally Mozilla and OmniWeb crashes on me quite regularly, IE very rarely crashes, and so as a result I use it most of the time...

...unless...I know I'm going to be browsing a site with loads of popups, then I use OmniWeb because of it's feature to prevent windows from opening themselves.

[sjs]

OW crashes almost never. I wonder if you have the latest beta? It has made big improvements just in the past several weeks.

IE crashes almost ever time I use (or so it seems!)

Anyway, don't use IE. Trust me on this. You'll feel better about yourself:D

[sjs]

I get my pm advice from some blunt guy from Mass and I use Norton. It helps.

[dantec]

Originally posted by sjs
OW crashes almost never. I wonder if you have the latest beta? It has made big improvements just in the past several weeks.

IE crashes almost ever time I use (or so it seems!)

Anyway, don't use IE. Trust me on this. You'll feel better about yourself:D

yeah OW NEVER CRASHES! The few times are when you have over 7 windows open with me and that was with sneakypeek 16, now were at sneakypeek 90 (last time I checked).

Omniweb is great. You can't really call sneakypeek's beta's. They are just as jammed packed as the others and they don't crash unlike beta software. Mozilla doesn't crash often but more than OW. But the engine is very fast now, beats M$ anyday in speed and in JS.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by sjs
OW crashes almost never. I wonder if you have the latest beta? It has made big improvements just in the past several weeks.

IE crashes almost ever time I use (or so it seems!)

Anyway, don't use IE. Trust me on this. You'll feel better about yourself:D

I've said it before, and I will say it again, I don't use beta software. It's beta for a ******** reason (unfinished/unstable).

Maybe you have some deeper issues with your system then just ie... on the computer that is, I don't even want to think about your other issues.

Trust you??? LMAO!!! yeah, right, NOT!

Oh, and I use ie for the web mail system we have through work, since it works no problem with it... I installed the new ie earlier today, and guess what, no crashes. :p

[Backtothemac]

Well, I hate to say this, but I think they got it right. Pages are loading very fast, the css support is second to none the Mac. The scrolling is now very fast on my machine. This was not the case with 5.1 and silk. In fact, I uninstalled silk right afterward, because scrolling was a nightmare.

Anyway, the MBU doesn't do things the way that the rest of Microsoft does obviously, so, be open minded, and try it. It ain't that bad.

[dantec]

Originally posted by AlphaTech


I've said it before, and I will say it again, I don't use beta software. It's beta for a ******** reason (unfinished/unstable).

Maybe you have some deeper issues with your system then just ie... on the computer that is, I don't even want to think about your other issues.

Trust you??? LMAO!!! yeah, right, NOT!

Oh, and I use ie for the web mail system we have through work, since it works no problem with it... I installed the new ie earlier today, and guess what, no crashes. :p

Sneakypeeks are not like Beta software. Doesn't crash and full features. You don't find that in beta software!

[sjs]

Alpha, you don't trust me? I am so hurt. And that remark about "protruding eyebrows"... I resemble that remark. Here I thought we were friends. I forgive you cause I know its just your yankee upbringing.:D

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by dantec
Sneakypeeks are not like Beta software. Doesn't crash and full features. You don't find that in beta software!

Not 'like beta software' does that mean it's a full release?? :p I have plenty of bookmarks in ie that I don't want to go through the hassle of transferring, as well as more then a few other items stored there. It does everything I ask of it, and doesn't ***** up on displaying sites (like omnieweb and chimera do). The webmail system for work ONLY work with either ie (official company endorsed browser) or netscape (none of the others are supported, period). That has become a major feature for me, since I don't need to ask for a RAS account to get email while I am at home now. Nor do I need to hope that the forwarding rules I set in place are going to function.

If you want to use the other browsers, go right ahead. There is nothing you can say that will get me to switch to what you are using. When you have something that does what you tell it, and you don't have to grab a beta version just to get the features available in another (free) browser, you tend to stick with it. I have much better things to do with my time then to d*ck around with alternate browsers.

[peterjhill]

Wow, I thought that the Quartz text smoothing would'ng be that much of a big deal, but damn, MacRumors.com has NEVER looked better than it does now. This **** actually works.

As for Omniweb, feel free to use it if you want to, but I will stick with IE. I have Mozilla on my computer, but don't see any reason to use it. IE works great for me, I have no problems with it, including accessing kerberos protected web sites, which I don't think Mozilla has support for the plug-in I need.

Anyway, Go Quartz Text Smoothing, Woot!

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by sjs
Alpha, you don't trust me? I am so hurt. And that remark about "protruding eyebrows"... I resemble that remark. Here I thought we were friends. I forgive you cause I know its just your yankee upbringing.:D

Well, I wasn't calling you Bubba, Sparkey.

Yes, I am from up north, where the country started :p :D. There are also more then a few companies in my area that make products for the Mac you know... How many do you have down there?? :D

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by peterjhill
Wow, I thought that the Quartz text smoothing would'ng be that much of a big deal, but damn, MacRumors.com has NEVER looked better than it does now. This **** actually works.

As for Omniweb, feel free to use it if you want to, but I will stick with IE. I have Mozilla on my computer, but don't see any reason to use it. IE works great for me, I have no problems with it, including accessing kerberos protected web sites, which I don't think Mozilla has support for the plug-in I need.

Anyway, Go Quartz Text Smoothing, Woot!

Well, I will use IE for everything I am affraid except *cough* adult *cough* surfing because Mozilla can kill pop ups. I wish that IE had that ability.
Overall a good job my M$.

[peterjhill]

Wow, Let me just say again, the text smoothing is incredible. I just took a quick jaunt around the "Information Super Highway" ;-) and the difference is incredible. There is a night and day difference with the smoothing on vs. off.

[sjs]

I know you werent calling me Bubba, I was just identifying...

How many companies do we have down here that make stuff for Macs? Lets see...that would be zero, I expect. We're not exactly a bunch of non-conformists, you know.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by peterjhill
Wow, Let me just say again, the text smoothing is incredible. I just took a quick jaunt around the "Information Super Highway" ;-) and the difference is incredible. There is a night and day difference with the smoothing on vs. off.
Where do you turn it on and off? I couldn't see an option in the preferences for it?
Not that I'd ever want ot turn it off of course, I just wondered.

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by verbose101

Where do you turn it on and off? I couldn't see an option in the preferences for it?
Not that I'd ever want ot turn it off of course, I just wondered.

I think he is talking preupdate.

[dobbin]

Originally posted by verbose101

Where do you turn it on and off? I couldn't see an option in the preferences for it?
Not that I'd ever want ot turn it off of course, I just wondered.

Its in the Interface Extras section of Preferences in the Explorer menu.

IE 5.2 looks great, and so far I've had no spinning beach balls either!

Cheers,

Dobbin.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by dobbin


Its in the Interface Extras section of Preferences in the Explorer menu.

IE 5.2 looks great, and so far I've had no spinning beach balls either!

Cheers,

Dobbin.
Ah huh! I see it! I can't believe I missed that :rolleyes:

Thanks dobbin :)

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by dobbin


Its in the Interface Extras section of Preferences in the Explorer menu.

IE 5.2 looks great, and so far I've had no spinning beach balls either!

Cheers,

Dobbin.

Your right! I just noticed that! Great news, and a great post. I did not realize that it wasn't doing it until you said something.

[edesignuk]

eek! :eek:
I just turned off QE text smoothing and it looked bloody awfull!
It was turned back on again faster than you can say 'quartz extreme' ! :D

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by verbose101
eek! :eek:
I just turned off QE text smoothing and it looked bloody awfull!
It was turned back on again faster than you can say 'quartz extreme' ! :D

Looks fine either way for me, on or off. With it off, then fonts have thinner lines, which makes it all look more like 5.1. Since you can do it either way, it's one of those options that is up to your own personal prefernce.

[dobbin]

Originally posted by Backtothemac


Your right! I just noticed that! Great news, and a great post. I did not realize that it wasn't doing it until you said something.

No problems, its nice for a lurker like me with only 10 posts in 6 months to find something useful to say!

I find it so much easier on the eye that I have changed my display settings to a higher res!

Cheers.

[drastik]

great now I have to wait untill I get home to use it. Sounds nice though.

No harm being a Bubba SJS, I moved to Boston for five years and came right back to Nashville. Loved Mass, but Natick ain't exactly Metropolis, ALpha, oh well.:D

[blackpeter]

Quartz text smoothing. Yet another reason to stick with the undisputed leader in Mac web-browsing, IE. Good job M$!

[bretm]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!

Omniweb? It doesn't support dhtml (nearly all modern sites) and still doesn't support css fully. Other nuisances are it's way of using drawers. When I position and size a window, I don't want it to move when I open a drawer. IE has got that down pat.

And bookmarking in IE is a wonderful thing. Mozilla and netscape could take some lessons on this from IE. Customizing the the top bar and the folders of bookmarks across the top is great. And what is with the OS9 look and feel of mozilla? At least IE is trying to integrate OSX. Omniweb of course wins the OSX compatibility war, but on looks alone.

A little more rendering speed (although I can't tell the difference really) and some tabs and there would be NO reason to use anything but IE.

And I despise microsoft! But hey, when it works it works.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by drastik
great now I have to wait untill I get home to use it. Sounds nice though.

No harm being a Bubba SJS, I moved to Boston for five years and came right back to Nashville. Loved Mass, but Natick ain't exactly Metropolis, ALpha, oh well.:D

Never said it was... Bubba... :D

I don't go for large cities. In the six years since I moved back to MA, I have been into Boston about six times. I might need to go there from time to time for work, but that is all.

Natick started off as a nice Jewish town, hence the reason there are so many Chinese restaurants... Us Jews love to eat Chinese (actually we like all oriental women :D ;) ).

[eyelikeart]

it looks like I'll be one of the last to catch the update...

I cannot do any X updates while at work since we still use OS 9...ugh...:rolleyes:

[groovebuster]

I like the update! :) Just the text smoothing is worth to have it installed. And it also seems to be faster.

groovebuster

[icetraxxg5]

Personally I still use OmniWeb. Please, Please download OmniWeb 4.1 SP91 and use it for a week then use IE again and you will notice that OmniWeb is MUCH nicer in every area. OmniWeb has 100's of more features also. I am going to use IE more now that it has AA text though! ;)

[cb911]

someone mentioned that Mozilla kills pop ups? i've never heard of it before, but i'm guessing that Mozilla is a browser? no pop ups eh? where can i get it!!!!:D

[cgmpowers]

Aside from the text smoothing, which i believe makes the text look just fantastic compared to before! Yippie. Anyway, I've also noticed that one web site whose java never seemed to work finally works.. Try www.fox2ktvi.com, they have a scrolling news thingie up in the right hand corner. Before, that never worked. Now, it works!!!

Christopher

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by cb911
someone mentioned that Mozilla kills pop ups? i've never heard of it before, but i'm guessing that Mozilla is a browser? no pop ups eh? where can i get it!!!!:D

www.mozilla.org

[AmbitiousLemon]

and once again ie is the very LAST browser to inccorporate AA. ie is just so far behind its not funny.

and dont bother letting alpha know there is anything better. he is like the peecee user who refuses to look at mac. "its a mac" its a mac." as if the refrain means anything.

this is the way it has always been. those who know computers will search out the best solutions and those who dont will just use what is installed. but it looks very likely that 'what is installed' will change in august.

[AlphaTech]

You know something AL... I never told people to NOT use any browser they chose to, just don't say that ie or netscape are crap and to avoid them like the plague. IF you want to use one of the others, fine, do so. Just don't go telling me that because I prefer to use a browser that displays ALL the pages I go to PROPERLY that I am "like the peecee user who refuses to look at mac". I have tried the FULL releases of the alternate browsers and honestly found them lacking.

Considering how it's all a matter of what you choose to use, the point is rather moot. You use what you want, and I will use what I want.

btw, AL, try to cut down on the novel length postings... You get more people to NOT read them when you do that.

[AmbitiousLemon]

Alpha i do not wish to get into this with you again. im sure the regulars around here are tired of it and we have all already embarassed you enough.

i did not mean my comment to attack you but merely to try to warn the less frequent posters here that it is not worth it to try to convert you as you have told us many times that you will not try anything new. let us not drage yet another browser thread into a browser war.

and the novel length comment, you are going to confuse people... :) he is referring to another thread folks, in case you were wondering what he meant by it.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
i did not mean my comment to attack you but merely to try to warn the less frequent posters here that it is not worth it to try to convert you as you have told us many times that you will not try anything new. let us not drage yet another browser thread into a browser war.


There you go again with the wrong info. I never said I won't try anything new. I have, in fact, tried the other browsers, and, as I stated, found them lacking.

[AmbitiousLemon]

:) cant give up can you. for those of us we are regulars here we know what versions you tried and when and know that you have NOT played the field. dude there is nothing wrong with just bsticking with what you got. i just dont like how you have to comment on what other browser can and can not do when you havent tried them. Alpha, really lets let this go so the other kiddies can keep talking about the new ie. we really do not need EVERY broswer thread to get hijacked in this manner.

[3G4N]

enough, both of you.
go to your rooms.
no dinner for you tonight.

and if you keep this up, I'm gonna have to
take away your computer priviliges...

[syntax]

Originally posted by Backtothemac


Your right! I just noticed that! Great news, and a great post. I did not realize that it wasn't doing it until you said something.

Um, sorry to burst your beachball, but pretty much any page with a javascript popup (specifically valid non-commercial popups, like TV Guide listings and weblog comments) still makes IE hang.

You know, when the current generation of IE was released two years ago, I adored it. Until MS hits us with a totally revamped v6, however, it's Moz time. For all it's foibles, Moz is a more solid browser at this point. Hopefully the rumors will hold up and IE6/Mac will be out by summer's end/Jaguar's release. Fingers crossed.

[bretm]

Originally posted by icetraxxg5
Personally I still use OmniWeb. Please, Please download OmniWeb 4.1 SP91 and use it for a week then use IE again and you will notice that OmniWeb is MUCH nicer in every area. OmniWeb has 100's of more features also. I am going to use IE more now that it has AA text though! ;)

I did. And when I switched back to IE I realized that most the sites I visited had twice as much content as I was seeing.

Like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't fully support dhtml. If at all. That is what powers the little sub menus you see all over the place these days. Example. Macmall. Seems like a good place to test an all mac browser. Mouse-over the main menu items across the top. See the big menus that pop-up in the upper left hand corner of your screen? Yeah, that big mess. Those are supposed to be BELOW the menu items. Like pull down menus.

And hey, while we're at it let's test mozilla. Hmmm.... Same issue. At least mozilla puts a line underneath the links as you mousover. Omniweb does not support that. That's because it's css support is 4 years behind.
But on that page mozilla doesn't support css in the dhtml layers. That's why the links across the top are godawful godzilla-like huge.

Fontreserve.com has the same issue. There are pull-down menus that popup whenever you mouse-over the tabs. Those tabs should also highlight as you mouse over. Same page in mozilla... The menus come up, but they're a complete mess. Mozilla just make's a complete mess of this whole page.

Product pages at adobe.com like http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/main.html don't work right either in omniweb. As you mouse over the vertical list sub menus should pop-up to the right. Mozilla does a good job at this one. But their default text is huge once again.

I didn't design those sites, but as a pt time web designer I want my pages to look the way they were designed. Netscape/mozilla, chimera, icab, omniweb just can't do that. Any web designers out there disagree?

[Backtothemac]

Originally posted by 3G4N
enough, both of you.
go to your rooms.
no dinner for you tonight.

and if you keep this up, I'm gonna have to
take away your computer priviliges...

Really guys, the newbie is right. Go to the private forum and create your own Bit*h thread. Have Arn set it up so that no one can post but you two. That way you can work it out, or kill each other :D ;)

Anyway, the new IE is better, but it is not as fast as Mozilla. Noway as fast.

[eyelikeart]

well so far I'm liking it..

fonts look killer!! :D

and in reference to the flamewar...he he he...u guys make me laugh... ;)

[sjs]

but IE really looks pretty good now. It always displayed pages best (until it crashes), but now the pages actually look good. I am also very impressed with Mozilla.

In the seven months since I became a mac user there has been tremendous improvement in several browsers. Considering that the average consumer spends more time using their browser than any other app, this has got to be good news for Apple. I just got done doing some things with my daughter in iPhoto, and thats just one more reason why I love my mac. The future is bright, with all the progress that is being made in so many different areas. When Jaguar arrives, along with the new PowerMac and a host of other upgrades, we may look back at the year from MWSF 02 to MWSF 03 as the most exciting year for Apple ever.

Wow, what am I on, anyway?

[Rajj]

IE is a little faster but it stills blows compared to windows' IE.:mad:

[AmbitiousLemon]

i think we all see the potencial for a revived browser war. with moz hitting 1.0 AOL/Time Warner churning it into Netscape 7 and changing AOL's browser to gecko based. OS 10.2 coming with Netscape, things could heat up quicker than Alpha's and my comments to eachother.

AOL/TimeWarner is looking for a war and with IE falling behind quickly it might be a well matched war. the clashing fo two evil empires like AOL and MS could be interesting, especially with Apple caught inbetween.

[sphereboy]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!

You probably go to alot of boring text filled sites. Omniweb doesn't do to well with flash. Go to espn.com.. it don't even work.

As far as IE .. i hope IE 6.0 improves.

[digitalbiker]

I don't understand why no one is talking about the IE 5.2 performance boost? For me it was like night and day. I would estimate at least a 3 fold performance boost over first time page loading and a 5 fold performance boost on cached pages.

I am using the 800 mhz TI PB 32 MB Radeon. Maybe the quartz engine really makes a big difference on screen redraws. Scrolling is much smoother. I am impressed!

Good job MS!

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by xrhajj
IE is a little faster but it stills blows compared to windows' IE.:mad:

so what is so much better about the Windoze version??

[eric_n_dfw]

Now that it's got AA fonts, I prefer IE on Mac OS X but I use Mozilla on Windoze! Go figure! (We haven't upgraded our work, Win 2K, desktops to IE 6 though, still on 5.5 which blows chunks all over a lot of pages... literally!)

[Rajj]

Originally posted by eyelikeart


so what is so much better about the Windoze version??


Speed....... can't you read?:confused:

[dantec]

Yeah, IE for windoze is amazing at speed. Also IE pretty much 'works' on windows.

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by dantec
Yeah, IE for windoze is amazing at speed. Also IE pretty much 'works' on windows.

ah...forgive me for being ignorant...since I don't have a peecee and all... ;)

[j763]

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
the clashing fo two evil empires like AOL and MS could be interesting, especially with Apple caught inbetween.

Well, as the apple pr stated "This is the first time that AOL has opened up the AIM protocol"... Surely, there has to be something for AOL/Time Warner in that. and i hate to fuel speculation, but I think Jag will come out after august :)

Alpha, you say that you find all browsers other than IE "lacking". Dude, what's lacking in Mozilla?

[3G4N]

j763 said:
"Dude, what's lacking in Mozilla?"

Moz doesn't properly support Flash, Shockwave,
and a few other technologies (dhtml, java, etc.)

From a UI developer POV, Moz hijacks your mouse
events. That ain't cool. Try a drag and drop "app"
made in flash or java. Moz thinks you are
trying to drag and drop it off the page and to the
desktop or something... Screwy... Irritating.

[Rower_CPU]

3G4N-
Care to point us to some examples?

I haven't heard of any bugs like this, and it may just be a case of designing to IE.

[Foocha]

There's no doubt that IE for Windows is better than IE for Mac - and speed is just one of the advantages. JScript is also way ahead on Windows - for example, vBulletin, the messageboard software used on this site - it has substantially more features on IE for Windows than on IE for Mac. That is why Windows IE is on v 6 while the Mac version is only described as v 5.2.

I love OS X - and I like Internet Explorer - I just wish Microsoft would get their act together on this issue and release IE6 for Mac.

[PCUser]

I've never seen any problems with Mozilla's playback of Flash. But if there is any problems, it's Macromedia's fault, not Mozilla's. Flash is a plug-in. That means that that Macromedia writes the support for Flash, not Mozilla.

[Grokgod]

I dont think that this version is running any better, I am still getting images that dont load and the beachball, and it seems more than ever now!

ANyone have the same experience?
Or am I merely unconscious and this is a bad M$ commercial where they try to get even at Apple for their new commercials that have a guy that looks like Gates talk about what he uses at his work desk at his software company

I heard that gates has a Ti on his desk.!

[littlejim]

I've just given this version a try. The speed when resizing a window is still awful. Must be half the speed of Mozilla 1.0 (try www.bbc.co.uk (http://www.bbc.co.uk) )

Back to Mozilla + Silk for me and use IE for the few times Mozilla falls over.

littlejim
---------

[dekator]

Well, hit me, but two months ago I would have sworn I'd never use Mozilla. Now, it's my default browser.

Moz doesn't properly support Flash, Shockwave, Java ?

Never had *any* prob with those. Java actually works much better than with IE (usually crashes of leaving e.g. Yahoo games).
Cookie management is better in Moo etc. etc.
Even Quartz looks better in Moz.
True, Moz has to speed up mouse events. Besides it just plainly works good (and better than IE) for me.

[Foocha]

It's fascinating to read about different users experiences of browsers. There appears to be no consensus on what constitutes the best Mac browser, and I conclude from this that what suites you best depends entirely on your individual needs. For example, I use IE because I'm a Web developer, and so I want to optimise my code for the most popular browsers & platforms - and JScript support is important.

If you tend to visit sites not optimised for Microsoft browsers and you want a cocoa app (understandable), then OmniWeb or Chimera are the obvious choice.

If you're a free software fan (who for whatever reason is using OS X rather than Linux) then I guess Mozilla is the obvious choice.

It all comes down to different horses for different courses.

[dantec]

What the hell is with the flash plugin and Mozilla. I've never had problems with it. Besides as explained before, the developer, in this case Macromedia is responsible for making everything work.

Besides, Macromedia's TOP priority should be Mozilla, because that is the package that supports the Netscape browser, the god-father of all plugins.

[dantec]

Originally posted by dekator
Well, hit me, but two months ago I would have sworn I'd never use Mozilla. Now, it's my default browser.

?

Never had *any* prob with those. Java actually works much better than with IE (usually crashes of leaving e.g. Yahoo games).
Cookie management is better in Moo etc. etc.
Even Quartz looks better in Moz.
True, Moz has to speed up mouse events. Besides it just plainly works good (and better than IE) for me.

From my experience Javascript works faster with Mozilla. For what that 'does' work, it's great and really speedy compared to IE for OS 10.

This one site has an info on each gallery, that follows the cursor of the mouse. In IE it doesn't follow smoothly, only updating every second or so. With Mozilla, however it moves smoothly accross the screen and updates itself every time the mouse moves.

[peterjhill]

Ya know, Mac IE rarely crashes on me. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the sites that I go to don't push the button on some bugs in the code. All in all, I see no reason to switch to another browser. I still Mosaic and MacWeb on a floppy disc somewhere. I used Netscape until IE 4 came out, once it did, I started using it, as it was way better than N4. Then Netscape 5 came out and it got worse, while IE5 got better. The ONLY annoyance I have with IE right now is when I try to click on a toolbar link, it sometimes brings up the contextual menu, when I LEFT-click on it.

So, yeah, I am liking 5.2, I'll keep trying alternative browsers, but IE right now is my favorite.

[dantec]

Originally posted by peterjhill
Ya know, Mac IE rarely crashes on me. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the sites that I go to don't push the button on some bugs in the code. All in all, I see no reason to switch to another browser. I still Mosaic and MacWeb on a floppy disc somewhere. I used Netscape until IE 4 came out, once it did, I started using it, as it was way better than N4. Then Netscape 5 came out and it got worse, while IE5 got better. The ONLY annoyance I have with IE right now is when I try to click on a toolbar link, it sometimes brings up the contextual menu, when I LEFT-click on it.

So, yeah, I am liking 5.2, I'll keep trying alternative browsers, but IE right now is my favorite.

Um... Netscape 5 was never relased officially. Only a Unix port was available to some testers. Your refering to Netscape 6 right?

[AmbitiousLemon]

i dont think any osx apps really crash often. so when people say that ie is unstable or crashes often i always assume they mean relative to other apps. i have never had mozilla 1.0 crash on me. the new releases of omniweb also have never crashed on me. chimera... well lets just say its in early development and leave it at that. but what i do notice is that ie will occasionally go down. certainly not often, but and unexpected quit in osx is so rare that it leaves an impression. osx is so stable and ie is the ONLY non-beta app i have had unexpectedly quit.

if you like ie, say stick with it. but most people who use ie IME are very unhappy with it, but are not willing to try other browsers because of all the misinformation about 'alternative' browsers.

mozilla has the biggest problem with this sort of thing because early versions were not complete. people got tastes of an unfinished mozilla from netscape 6, and early mozilla builds and it left a bad impression. the first builds of mozilla were slow, unstable, and had rendering issues.

but those days are long gone and anyone who has tried mozilla lately will tell you that mozilla has finally come of age. i have never found a site mozilla can not render (not saying the dont exist im just saying they are just as rare as the sites ie has problems with).

i suspect omniweb will have a similiar problem. the current omniweb has lots of rendering problems. but the omnigroup has recognized this and are completely rebuilding the rendering engine for version 5.0 taht should come out in 1st quarter 2003.

[bretm]

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon

but those days are long gone and anyone who has tried mozilla lately will tell you that mozilla has finally come of age. i have never found a site mozilla can not render (not saying the dont exist im just saying they are just as rare as the sites ie has problems with).

i suspect omniweb will have a similiar problem. the current omniweb has lots of rendering problems. but the omnigroup has recognized this and are completely rebuilding the rendering engine for version 5.0 taht should come out in 1st quarter 2003.

Yet another site that sucks with mozilla... sony.com Like other sites I've mentioned, the biggest issue is with pull-down menus. On this site they don't even show up. Which is better than them showing up in the wrong place or with incorrect imaging like the sites below.

I've added that to my short list so far. macmall.com, fontreserve.com

These aren't lame sites. These are professional sites designed to work cross platform. These are companies that are trying to make their sites work so they can sell you stuff. Yet, they don't work correctly in mozilla or omniweb.

Go for it mozilla/omni. Kick IE's a**. But hurry up with it already. Why don't these sites work? This is basically early dhtml and javascript. Standards that were set years ago.

Yes yes yes. Tabs and speed. Wow. I can tab through sites that don't look right very quickly. Still not impressed.

[pbrice68]

I read through most of these posts, but I didn't notice any mention of a rather sublime point:

All previous updates to IE were available through Apple's System Preference Software Update. This is the first one that was not not. This is the first time I actually had to go to MS's site to download an update to IE.

What does it mean? I don't know. BUt the IE-as-default-browser agreement is obviously coming to an end...

BTW, I've noticed speed improvements with IE, but my favorite UI is still OmniWeb. I find that I can surf *better* on OmniWeb even though it is not the fastest to render.

Ciao!

[Foocha]

When developing Web sites, I always take care to establish a detailed technical specification at the beginning. When using things like JScript to create menus, it is possible to debug them to be cross-platform compatible, but there are greater costs associated with doing this, and there are some platforms that will not be able to support some functionality (the Mac has very limited scripting functionality in any of its browsers).

On many occasions, I have deliberately disabled dropdown menus for Mac users because my client could not justify the additional cost of debugging for platforms that represent a very small proportion of their customers. In these instances, where functionality is limited on certain platforms I always ensure that the experience of Mac users is as good as possible, and that the page displays correctly, but it does mean that some functionality is not available. In some instances this is a deliberate and legitimate design decision, and cannot be considered a bug.

I've used Macs for years, and OS X and reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the Mac. However until Microsoft brings IE up-to-date and delivers feature parity with the PC version, there will always be an need for a PC as well as a Mac on my desk - and sites I develop will continue that additional functionality for PC users that is not available for the Mac.

[blakespot]

Originally posted by sjs
Not to put too fine a point on it, but except for a very few exceptions, I cannot imagine why anyone would be using IE:

a) its MS...nuff said
b) it crashes more than every other mac program combined
c) OmniWeb and Mozilla are good enough to wean you off IE for 99% of tasks.

Who cares if they fixed a few leaks. Its garbage and you shouldn't be using it!!!
Here's some reasons, coming from a web applications developer (me):

a) Over 80% of users use IE - the browser war is long over, folks
b) It's adequately stable, far more so than Mozilla, Chimera, and OmniWeb
c) OmniWeb and Chimera lack satisfactory javascript and java support. They all render certain pages incorrectly. This is because web developers oftern favor IE in their sites / applications since it won the browser war. Yes, yes -- pox on them, but that's the way it is and that's the web I'm out there moving around on. You get the truest rendering of pages w/ IE. Do I wish this were not the case? Sure. That seems of little consequence though.

I run Chimera and OmniWeb for fun occasionally. Mainly for Quartz rendering (I do like tabbed navigation, I must say) -- but now that IE has it...

Am I the only one who takes this realistic, if not defeatist, approach?



blakespot

[littlejim]

a) Over 80% of users use IE - the browser war is long over, folks

Less than 10% of computer users run any flavour of Mac OS ... is that war over too?

littlejim
He's fallen in the water.

[Grokgod]

IE has tabbed navigating, well thats just another thing I am obvously missing!

[dekator]

Originally posted by blakespot

Here's some reasons, coming from a web applications developer (me):

a) Over 80% of users use IE - the browser war is long over, folks
b) It's adequately stable, far more so than Mozilla, Chimera, and OmniWeb


blakespot

Never seen any survey aut sim. that points to 80% ! That number seems to be a fantasy number. And, obviously, the browser war is far from over. In fact, it was just rekindled. Just because some real alternatives have (re-) emerged.
IE is not more stable than Mozilla, at least not for me. Indeed, IE is the most crashing app in OS X (again for me, that is).

[dantec]

You might think the browser was is over, but AOL does not. It is about to stirr Netscape back into the whole picture vs. IE. This time with Apple maybe, and we might see some viable solutions down the road...

Oh, and to my knowledge and trying for the past 10 minutes, I can't seem to find tabbed navigation in IE.

[pimentoLoaf]

Installed X.1.5 yesterday and IE 5.2 just a few minutes ago...

Haven't noticed much with osX but text is now a bit fuzzier and boldfaces bolder under IE...

And IE is noticeably faster, too. :cool: ...

Will have to get back to y'all regarding crashworthiness at a later date. Used to freeze up from time to time back under X.1, but haven't had any problems since X.1.3.

[blakespot]

Originally posted by littlejim


Less than 10% of computer users run any flavour of Mac OS ... is that war over too?

No, but it's not a parallel issue. It can be argued that a computer using Mac OS (X in particular) is more "powerful" than one running other OS's. It cannot be argued that Netscape, Mozilla, Chimera, or OmniWeb render pages more accurately or in a better way than IE. (Especially now that we have Quartz rendering under IE.)

I'm a web app developer by trade and all of my co-workers agree with me on this. I don't think a compelling argument can be made against this point.


blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by dekator


Never seen any survey aut sim. that points to 80% ! That number seems to be a fantasy number. And, obviously, the browser war is far from over. In fact, it was just rekindled. Just because some real alternatives have (re-) emerged.
IE is not more stable than Mozilla, at least not for me. Indeed, IE is the most crashing app in OS X (again for me, that is).
I hear 80% bounced around in the trade journals from time to time, and I run a number of personal sites (the most popular with ~25,000 pageviews/day) and a site professionally as my day job (with about ~100,000 pageviews/day) and all the metrics from these sites indicate 80% or just above for IE.

80% is the reality.


blakespot

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by blakespot
…
I'm a web app developer by trade and all of my co-workers agree with me on this. I don't think a compelling argument can be made against this point.
…

So how do you design your web apps? Do you check performance and compatibility on several browsers, or do you just throw your hands up and not try to give every browser an equal opportunity to render your pages correctly?

I'm torn on this issue. As a web developer I would love to not have to consider multiple browsers; it would make my job so much easier. But as a Mac advocate, and someone who believes that your content should be made available to anyone on any system using any browser, I refuse to design just for IE.

So where do we as developers make our stand? Do we push for a "one browser web"? Do we try to stick to standards, such as the W3C's, that may or may not be properly implemented by a user's browser?

[AmbitiousLemon]

blake i think the thing you forget is that most mac users dont use IE. so if you are building or managing a mac oriented site you need to keep other browsers in mind. take a look at the polls around here. i think everytime lately ie has taken less than 50%. also you have to remember that many alternative browsers identify themselves as ie. so if you are looking at your website's stats they are skewed. you need to ask the people and see what they are using. any serious web developer that does not test for other browsers is just plain sloppy, period. and saying 80% use ie is simply an excuse for poor work, especially considering that there might be a 5% chunk of that 80 that are using browsers that simply identify themselves as ie. although the browser wars are over, i would have to say that things are heating up again. mozilla is a contender. and aol is pushing moz as far as they can. maybe this will end all the sloppy programming out there.

[dekator]

Originally posted by blakespot

I hear 80% bounced around in the trade journals from time to time, and I run a number of personal sites (the most popular with ~25,000 pageviews/day) and a site professionally as my day job (with about ~100,000 pageviews/day) and all the metrics from these sites indicate 80% or just above for IE.

80% is the reality.


blakespot

Well, firstly, I think I didn't make that clear enough: I was talking about Macintosh users here. 2) As AmbitiousLemon has pointed out, weblogs hardly give an accurate picture. It even happens that browser identification is plain wrong (not because the browser pretends to be something else).
And even if these numbers were correct. One out of five is quite a lot and I think should not be made light of...

[firewire2001]

hey... jus wodering.. im not chure if its my machine or not, but 5.2 doesnt work with jaguar properly -- when you highlight text it totally messes up... any comments?

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by firewire2001
hey... jus wodering.. im not chure if its my machine or not, but 5.2 doesnt work with jaguar properly -- when you highlight text it totally messes up... any comments?

I'm seeing some weird stuff too, now that I've updated jag w/IE5.2...

Lots of text disapperaing on rollovers...ewww. But I'm not that surprised or upset about it.

[gandalf55]

alrighty... the Quartz smoothing is nice. Most pages can take advantage of it. It does make things easier to read. It is a little quicker.

:mad: however, ive been surfing pages that 5.1 dealt with just fine - and i've been crashing a whole lot. i mean WAY more than i ever did with any NS. To me, mozilla is sweet. ya its not all there yet, but its a 1.0 developed by caring, living people ;)

5.2 looks nice when its not crashing. i kinda wish i hadn't updated.i'm sure apple didn't include this in a software updater because they probably didn't want to back the install (seal of approval). could be wrong, but i'm glad i didn't see it in my software update panel.

[blakespot]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


So how do you design your web apps? Do you check performance and compatibility on several browsers, or do you just throw your hands up and not try to give every browser an equal opportunity to render your pages correctly?

I'm torn on this issue. As a web developer I would love to not have to consider multiple browsers; it would make my job so much easier. But as a Mac advocate, and someone who believes that your content should be made available to anyone on any system using any browser, I refuse to design just for IE.

So where do we as developers make our stand? Do we push for a "one browser web"? Do we try to stick to standards, such as the W3C's, that may or may not be properly implemented by a user's browser?
I describe the time and effort that will be taken to do this or that on the web, supporting both browsers. In certain cases, the people I work for opt to support only IE. It is not my decision, but they pay me, and so I do it.


blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
blake i think the thing you forget is that most mac users dont use IE. so if you are building or managing a mac oriented site you need to keep other browsers in mind. take a look at the polls around here. i think everytime lately ie has taken less than 50%. also you have to remember that many alternative browsers identify themselves as ie. so if you are looking at your website's stats they are skewed. you need to ask the people and see what they are using. any serious web developer that does not test for other browsers is just plain sloppy, period. and saying 80% use ie is simply an excuse for poor work, especially considering that there might be a 5% chunk of that 80 that are using browsers that simply identify themselves as ie. although the browser wars are over, i would have to say that things are heating up again. mozilla is a contender. and aol is pushing moz as far as they can. maybe this will end all the sloppy programming out there.
Not to offend, but I trust web stats from 5 of my sites over polls posted here asking which browsers are used.

If the people I work for don't want me to take the time to entirely recode all of my DHTML to get it working on Netscape, I don't. If you're telling me that following the project manager's wishes on coding a product (sure, I voice concerns along the way) is sloppy, then that shows me what you know about the world of professional development.


blakespot

[sjs]

Blakespot. You have to design your sites to work on IE period. No denying it. My point, back on the first page of this thread, is that the rest of us shouldn't be enabling Microsoft by using their products.

MS can defeat every other browser by designing IE to require you to write to it alone. Since they don't follow the code standards themselves, if you design web sites correctly to (theoretically) work properly on any browser, then it doesn't work properly on IE!

As a consumer, that makes me mad. My response is I use other browsers as a matter of principle.

PS: IE DOES crash more than OW or Mozilla and that alone is enough to make me stay away from it.

[me hate windows]

whoopdidoo. IE 5.2. Who gives a crap

[pbrice68]

The browser war is not over! Although MS wants you to believe otherwise. Didn't anyone her e of the story of David killing Goliath. The American Rebels against the British Empire...?

A war is not over until there is no opposition standing. Even then, others may be inspired by the struggle of those in the past to rekindle the fight.

Even a monopoly (if there is such a thing) can be beaten. It's just a more difficult fight.

[blakespot]

Originally posted by sjs
Blakespot. You have to design your sites to work on IE period. No denying it. My point, back on the first page of this thread, is that the rest of us shouldn't be enabling Microsoft by using their products.

I certainly voice an opinion much the same as that when the issue is discussed in project meetings, but is that the ultimatim I should lay down to my project managers? Do you have any notion of business practice??

MS can defeat every other browser by designing IE to require you to write to it alone. Since they don't follow the code standards themselves, if you design web sites correctly to (theoretically) work properly on any browser, then it doesn't work properly on IE!

As a consumer, that makes me mad. My response is I use other browsers as a matter of principle.

PS: IE DOES crash more than OW or Mozilla and that alone is enough to make me stay away from it.
The W3C chose IE's DHTML model to be the "standard" over the one implemented by Netscape 4. Netscape 6 tried to adhere to this now-set standard...but still fails to a large degree. IE's DHTML model _is_ the standard, officially. Whether or not this should have been the case is debatable, but what is not debatable is the fact that it was chosen as the standard.


blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by pbrice68
The browser war is not over! Although MS wants you to believe otherwise. Didn't anyone her e of the story of David killing Goliath. The American Rebels against the British Empire...?

A war is not over until there is no opposition standing. Even then, others may be inspired by the struggle of those in the past to rekindle the fight.

Even a monopoly (if there is such a thing) can be beaten. It's just a more difficult fight.
Your zeal is admirable.


blakespot

[PCUser]

I respectfully disagree. A search on the W3C's website (http://www.w3c.org) provides the fact W3C didn't use IE's DHTML http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-dom/1999JulSep/0002.html

I was in error, they do have a "DHTML" standard (they refer to it as DOM), but nobody, not even Microsoft, is fully compliant with it.

[jipper]

Guys and gals,
I'm not seeing any noticeable speed increase with ie 5.2. I'm now absolutely addicted to omniweb, however after installing 5.2 i was more than willing to give ie another try before disregarding it again. however, there was no noteable speed-up and i am well and truly over the now defunct os9 interface of ie 5. I like everyone else would like to see microsoft taken down a notch or two, but in reality all I want to use is the best possible browser for macintosh. If this was ie I would use ie, if it were mozilla i would use moz. However, presently omni does everything i NEED it to do, and whatsmore does things i don't need it to do--but LIKE it doing. No more pop-up ads for me.
To see a good example of ie's deficiency with speed try http://www.afl.com.au on ie and omni. Omni is much faster.
I can't wait to see what the ms macbu do with ie 6 and omni do with ow 5, because i can be easily persuaded to use another browser. I just want the best surfing experience possible on os x.
Cheers,
Tim

[dekator]

Originally posted by blakespot

I describe the time and effort that will be taken to do this or that on the web, supporting both browsers. In certain cases, the people I work for opt to support only IE. It is not my decision, but they pay me, and so I do it.


blakespot

I wouldn't blame you. But if these people think that of 100.000 visitors 20.000 (+) just don't matter, then... wow ! Strange company! :eek:

[Foocha]

IE is a very standards compliant browser, both on Mac & PC. In many areas I think you'll find that Netscape is less compliant.

From my experience, Netscape is less reliable in rendering than IE.

With such an overwhelming number of users on the IE bandwagon it *is* the standard anyway.

I simply do not believe that most Mac users do not use IE - every guy who buys a new iMac has the IE icon already in the dock, and I doubt the average user is going to question that or look for an alternative to something that works adequately. This is exactly the reason why Netscape lost market share to IE on the PC platform as well. I recognise that this situation is likely to change in the future as Apple reviews the situation, and I would not be at all suprised to see a Netscape icon in the dock in the near future.

I'm entirely with Blakespot on all his points - it's just a factor of the real world we live in. Anyone I work with would tell you that I'm a nutcase because I'm so obsessed with Apple, but I routinely use Windows and Linux in my business because it's not always possible, appropriate or practical to do everything the Apple way. Equally, just because you may prefer one browser over another does not mean everyone else is wrong in their choices.

Finally - an observation: it's the support of developers like Microsoft and the existence of products like IE for Mac which differentiates OS X from Linux, and it's key to the future and survival of OS X. Microsoft is unlikely to ever develop for Linux because Linux users don't like to buy software ;) This leaves OS X as being in the enviable position of the only credible Unix desktop OS - a nice niche to be in.

Long may MS on OS X continue!

[sjs]

Blakespot, I think you missed my point. I have an excellent notion of business practices, that is why I support you in the fact that you have to design your sites to work on IE. That's what I stated.

But consumers who only USE browsers DO have a choice and that choice is to support the up and comers like OW and Moz while they are developing. Its not a big sacrifice...for 95% of the sites I view they work perfectly well. I bought a seat form OW so they can afford to come out with the next version (5) which should solve most remaining issues.

[gandalf55]

Mozilla 1.1 Alpha rendering of text FAR exceeds that of IE 5.2. Mozilla effects all the text, not just some of it like IE. Its not a fast as IE yet, but i'm sure that will come with time. Mozilla is on an agressive timetable too.

go to www.mozilla.org and try it out yourself!

[bretm]

Originally posted by sjs

MS can defeat every other browser by designing IE to require you to write to it alone. Since they don't follow the code standards themselves, if you design web sites correctly to (theoretically) work properly on any browser, then it doesn't work properly on IE!

As a consumer, that makes me mad. My response is I use other browsers as a matter of principle.

As a designer that doesn't hand code I get just the opposite impression.

In either GoLive or Dreamweaver, you can set the alignment of text, cells, tables etc. I'm guessing that both programs are forced to adhere to accepted standards of html, javascript, and html. A little cutting edge elements, but not much because they'd have consumers all day long calling them up and complaining that their site looks wrong in this and that.

With that in mind, my sites WORK right in my target browsers that I set in the apps. But they don't always LOOK right. DW and GL wysiwyg matches IE almost always. I usually end up having to muck with the code or add some bizarre tag to get netscape/mozilla to comply. Usually the issue is tables. They don't seem to follow the alignment rules unless I do it precisely the way they demand. On the other hand, IE displays it correctly whatever way I do it. It's much more lenient.

So on a coding perspective I don't know which is adhering to what standards, all I can tell you is which is easier to design for and which represents pages better and more accurately. Shouldn't that be the judge of the better browser? An analogy: Which is the better printer... A) the printer that prints what you see in your word processor exactly as you see it... or B) the one that, well, doesn't

[Foocha]

Hi bretm,

Both Dreamweaver & GoLive can from time-to-time produce malformed code, like unbalanced tags. The chances are, if you produce your code entirely in a WYSISYG environment, their is a fair amount of malformed code in your work.

In my experience, IE is substantially more advanced in "interpreting" malformed code vs Netscape/Mozilla, which is more pedantic. For example in the tables you describe, if one tag is in the wrong place (which easily happens if you do a lot of cutting and pasting in WYSIWYG mode) Netscape will stop rendering the table altogether, whereas IE will soldier on and make the best job it can under the circumstances.

I think the difference your describing relates to IE's superior HTML interpretting rather than its adherence to standards.

It's worth getting your hands dirty with the code - once you get used to it, you'll find it's easy to fix the majority of these issues yourself.

[blakespot]

Originally posted by sjs
Blakespot, I think you missed my point. I have an excellent notion of business practices, that is why I support you in the fact that you have to design your sites to work on IE. That's what I stated.

But consumers who only USE browsers DO have a choice and that choice is to support the up and comers like OW and Moz while they are developing. Its not a big sacrifice...for 95% of the sites I view they work perfectly well. I bought a seat form OW so they can afford to come out with the next version (5) which should solve most remaining issues.
Yes, I misread your first sentence in the message I responded to. Apologies.


blakespot

[bretm]

In light of Apple taking some minor shots at windows, and not including IE in their recent software update I think it's clear that Apple must design or purchase a browser.

What do people do with their computers 99% of the time? Send email and surf the web. Apple couldn't go without email for OSX so they implemented their own program. How would they have marketed OSX without email? Sure since it's release osx emails programs have come out, but they needed one right there in the dock. email has become such an integral part of the computing experience. As a computer manufacturer I don't think apple wanted to rely on other companies for updates, beta tests, etc. That would have led to a poor user experience and compatibility issues. There still isn't an outlook or entourage express for OSX and there may never be one. Apple has always been about compatibility. They make the hardware, the os, and much of the integral software.

For the software they didn't make microsoft has always filled a large part of the void. On paying ventures (office mostly) MS probably always will. MS wants to make and sell software to everyone they can. Mac or Windows. But on the IE issue they are giving away software to Apple users. If you look at it from a possible MS point of view... switching people to windows will make more money for MS. Giving mac users a great browser is not helping that, and it's not making them any money. Why hurry with it? Why make it as good as the IE 6 version? There isn't a huge compelling reason for them to do so. And without any other fully-operational non-beta browser out there they can take that attitude.

So that leaves apple with a problem. If apple can't advertise that browsing the web is fluid, quick and compliant on the mac, all their os, unix, itunes, iphoto, etc. means nothing. Apple harps on windows and how poor the user's experience on it is, yet at the same time they RELY on windows to update their IE browser for mac. That's a precarious position to be in. What if Bill just get's pissed and decides to not update IE for a year while his new IE 7 does all sorts of miraculous stuff? Where would that leave apple's "everything is easier" claims? My feeling is that Apple would like to have a relationship with microsoft as a premier software vendor but Apple doesn't want to RELY on microsoft. Their email and appleworks programs are examples. The digital hub contines this theory. Apple wants to sell hardware by marketing it's platforms user experience. Microsoft just wants to sell software for the most part. Apple is trying to wean themselves off of Microsoft without burning any bridges too quickly. Thier latest ad campaign shows that they are getting more their legs back. With their own browser they could afford to burn some bridges.

So maybe I'm exaggerating. But it would be in Apple's best interests to purchase/develop a cutting edge, completely OSX native, browser and integrate it into the system like IE is on windows.

So what browser out there fits the bill? Omniweb. It's the only one that completely looks and feels like Apple's email program. From drawers (which I dont' like in the email program) to the customizeable bar to the prefs pane. They have followed Apple's specs to the letter. Except for the fact that omniweb still doesn't support much of what's out there on the web. A little cash from Apple could solve that. A little more cash could make it apple's own.

Call me crazy.

[bretm]

Originally posted by Foocha
Hi bretm,

Both Dreamweaver & GoLive can from time-to-time produce malformed code, like unbalanced tags. The chances are, if you produce your code entirely in a WYSISYG environment, their is a fair amount of malformed code in your work.

In my experience, IE is substantially more advanced in "interpreting" malformed code vs Netscape/Mozilla, which is more pedantic. For example in the tables you describe, if one tag is in the wrong place (which easily happens if you do a lot of cutting and pasting in WYSIWYG mode) Netscape will stop rendering the table altogether, whereas IE will soldier on and make the best job it can under the circumstances.

I think the difference your describing relates to IE's superior HTML interpretting rather than its adherence to standards.

It's worth getting your hands dirty with the code - once you get used to it, you'll find it's easy to fix the majority of these issues yourself.

I agree almost completely. But of course that brings me back to the question what makes the better broswer? Sounds like from your description IE easily wins. It can display correctly formed code AND does an incredible of piecing together my malaligned code. :)

I do get my hands dirty with cleaning up code and tags but that's about it. I alter some script and an item or two in cgi scripts but i wouldn't know how to code at all from scratch.

IMHO DW does a great job at cleaning up code with it's clean up html command. I can't seem to find a simple way to do it in GoLive. Both programs have their benefits and have developed quite differently. GoLive seems to make messier code.

[tk-421]

Has anybody else had problems with IE 5.2 preferences being reset? It seems everytime I log into my machine, my IE preferences are reset, homepage set back to msn.com. etc...

Also, ever sinceI installed the OS X update, the font for the toolbar links got squished together. An I and F next together looks like a bolded F on the right.

I'm not sure if this is just something screwy with my X or if other's may have had the same problem.

I've tried deleting IE 5.2 and it's pref files and reinstalling but it continues.