SillyDog701 Message Centre

[profman]

Below is the reply from my ISP after I complained that their home page was not rendered properly in Netscape 6/7, but did display properly in Netscape 4.7 or IE. I think it is a very sad commentary on the current state-of-affairs.

>>>>>Quote Follows>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We have put a lot of work into fixing the problem from our end. However,
after much time and thought, we are unable to arrive at a fix which
satisfactorily addresses the individual image rendering problems in Netscape
6.x, 7.0, Mozilla, and other Mozilla derivatives such as Galeon, Konqueror,
etc. Unfortunately, each of these render the images on our home page
slightly differently when looked at from a pixel-by-pixel basis, so if we
"fix" it for one, it breaks worse for another. Whether we all like it or
not, the web is becoming and to a large extent has already become
"Microsoftized". A mulititude of sites will not render at all in non-IE
browsers, and many others lose vital functionality. So, while we will
continue to fight this trend, we recognize that we are fighting an uphill
battle.

Also, while I personally still use Mozilla (I am almost as uncomfortable
with some of the hidden "features" in the AOL-driven new Netscape versions
as I am with Internet Explorer), the glaring fact remains that Microsoft has
won the browser war, and that by most studies around 95% of the computing
world uses I.E. For this reason, it was unwise for XXXXX to continue to
attempt to force or entice users to go against their own wishes by
distributing Netscape. In addition, it does not make much business sense
for XXXXX to drive the adoption of a browser which is currently being
commercialized and subverted by one of our main competitors (AOL). Finally,
XXXXX no longer distributes software of any kind via CD. We have found
that it is in our best interests, as well as those of our customers, to use
whatever browser they are comfortable with rather than force or subtly
coerce them to install a "XXXXX" browser. Since all new computer operating
systems (since Win95, and including MacOS, Linux, BeOS, etc.) come with one
or more browsers pre-installed, it is unwise and redundant of XXXXX to try
to distribute browser(s).

If I had my personal opinion, and I think many of our other engineers and
technical specialists would agree, we would begin to distribute Mozilla,
Opera, or one of the multitude of open-source Mozilla-based browsers, but
unfortunately, this is simply not what the majority of our users wish to
use.

Thank you for your input and thoughtful opinion. It is always great to hear
feedback from our users, and we really do listen to it to shape our policy.

Thank you again,

XXXXXX
XXXXX Operations Manager
>>>>>>>>>>End of Quote>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (nscd2)

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profman, the mad chemist
Moderator of SillyDog Forums
User of Thunderbird 2.0.0.x & Firefox 2.0.0.x
Try Forum Search or Visit NETSCAPE (+ more) SOLUTIONS

[JennyCraig]

Looks like a standard 'copy and paste' response. The letter -------------------... while at the same time telling you that NS/Moz will not be supported.

[Warning, use clean language.]

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98) Opera 6.05 [en]

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(removed)

[DJGM]

One thing I noticed, is that "Operations Manager" pointed out that Konqueror
is a derivative of Mozilla. That is not true. Konqueror does not use the Gecko
rendering engine usually found in browsers derived from Mozilla. If it did, it
would contain the word "Gecko" in it's user agent string. Although Konqueror
does have the ID "Mozilla/5.0" in the first part of it's UA string, that does not
mean it is built upon the Mozilla codebase. Even Internet Explorer has the
word "Mozilla" in it's user agent string, and so to does Opera. The only
thing that technically ties Konqueror to Mozilla now is that the KDE
people that make the Konqueror browser as well as the KDE user
interface for Unix based OSes, is the fact that KDE is now sharing
the resources of Mozilla's bug tracking system, BugZilla, for
squashing any bugs found in it's own software.

In the meantime, seeing as profman took the time to write to his ISP to point
out that there website is broken in Mozilla based browsers like NS6.x and 7.x,
seeing that response from the ISP in question, I would recommend filing a
"tech evangelism" bug report on BugZilla, so that web standards advocates
can contact this ISP and help them to fix their site to be more compliant to
recommended web standards, and get it to work in all Mozilla based web
browsers, as well as the non Mozilla based browsers like IE and Opera.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

[Josh]

Sadly MS has 90 something % of the market. If you have the share, you make the rules.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.2a) Gecko/20020910

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Josh
SD701 Moderator
User of 2.0 on
HoshieMix on iTMS (USA)

[Ramona]

[Hendikins]

Just a note, Konqueror *can* use Gecko if kdebindings and an appropriate version of Mozilla are installed, although it does use KHTML by default.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2b) Gecko/20021004 Phoenix/0.3

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Michael Hendy
Mozilla PluginDoc - http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/
Hendikins - The Lurking Wolfox

[praggers]

In my humble opinion, web developers who take the easy way out by not bothering to write conditional, browser-detecting code to cater for browsers other than MSIE are too lazy and unprofessional for their own good. They have surrendered themselves to Microsoft; with competition, fair play and freedom of choice the biggest losers.

There are two main reasons why MSIE-only coding irritates the hell out of me. The first is that if developers have to write for one browser, it should be Mozilla, not MSIE; because Mozilla, unlike MSIE, IS 100% web standards compliant.

The other reason why MSIE-only coding is the pits is that writing browser-detecting, conditional rendering code is actually very easy, so there's no excuse for not doing it - other than limp-wristed indolence.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

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Do not adjust your mind; reality is at fault

[Fulvio]

Praggers,
"In my humble opinion, web developers who take the easy way out by not bothering to write conditional, browser-detecting code to cater for browsers other than MSIE are too lazy and unprofessional for their own good." is pretty much the text of an e-mail which I sent to my ISP (minus the IMHO). They must have not liked because I received no stock reply this time.
But, it is encouraging to see that I can get more and more of their website, with the exception of some critical warnings which are accessible only via IE. That's laziness if I have saw it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 9.0; Windows NT 5.1; BCD2000; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.18, FF3.0.4 portable, Flock2.0.2, TB2.0.0.18, IE7.0, Opera9.52, SM1.1.13, Sygate5.6; AVG8.01, JRE1.6_07

[profman]

This is a rather old thread, and the situation for my old ISP has changed. They currently say on their website: