Netscape integrates Firefox and IE
Just when we thought Netscape was dead, having
been crushed on the one side by Microsoft's painfully ubiquitous browser
Internet Explorer and finished off on the other by Firefox, Netscape's own open
source progeny, it arises from the ashes to make one last stand against
IE.
A new Netscape prototype allows users to browse
most of the time using Firefox, which is hands-down a better browser than IE,
but also gives the user the option of switching to IE for those websites
designed with either Frontpage or Word that don't render well in Gecko-based
browsers. Even better, you don't even have to change windows or applications.
The page rendered with Internet Explorer appears right in the Netscape window.
It even supports tabs, so you could, as it were, use tabbed browsing with
IE.
Will this be the browser to take
down IE? Probably not. Most users are too computer illiterate to try a new
browser. So they wind up using the default browser, which, on computers infested
with Windows, is IE. Never mind the security problems with IE. Never mind that
your computer can be infected merely from visiting certain websites. The
majority of computer users are computer illiterate. They don't even know what a
browser is, or that when they surf the internet they are using a Internet
Explorer.
Just remember: no one ever
lost money underestimating the stupidity of the American public. That is one of
the secrets of Microsoft's great success.
Posted: Fri - December
3, 2004 at 06:04 PM