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What Ever Happened to Netscape? (www.techspot.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] million 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The monopoly position helped for sure but I think it’s glossed over that at one point Internet Explorer was simply the best web browser on the market. It’s was only after years of mismanagement by Microsoft that it gained the reputation it has now. But there was a point in the late 90s early 2000s where Netscape was a super buggy mess and Internet Explorer was the best browser on the market.

That was true for Chrome as well, when that first hit the market it was a light and amazing browser. There were a lot of technology savvy early adopters for Chrome.

[–] GamingChairModel 5 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, Netscape 4.0 was simply slower than IE 4.0. Back then, when a browser was a program that would actually push the limits of the hardware, that was a big deal.

[–] rottingleaf 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But there was a point in the late 90s early 2000s where Netscape was a super buggy mess and Internet Explorer was the best browser on the market.

Lemme guess, one was super buggy and the other the best browser on websites using non-standard functionality of the latter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

non-standard functionality of the latter.

My guy. In the 90's ALL browsers were non-standard. Even at the protocol level.
http/0.9 - 1991
http/1.0 - 1996
http/1.1 - 1997

html/1.0 - 1991
html/2.0 - 1995 revised in 1996, and 97.
html/3.0 - 1997
html/4.0 - 1997 revised in 1998, 99, and 2000.

Then comes all the add-ons like flash, shockwave, etc... Nothing was standard at this time-frame. We threw everything possible into browsers. Toolbars for literally everything (I remember even having winamp controls in my browser).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Evolution_of_HTTP

Between 1991-1995, these were introduced with a try-and-see approach. A server and a browser would add a feature and see if it got traction.

Literally sites and browsers would just implement stuff just to implement and see if it became used.

A lot of recent times (2010's mostly) has been back peddling the mad rush of just shoving EVERYTHING into browsers. Now I actually fear we're going to far though... With google removing useful backend stuff for plugins and such. I just hope Firefox never follows suit.

[–] rottingleaf 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Hokay.

About try and see - I actually liked the way it was with HTML 4.0 , Macromedia Flash, no JS and no CSS.

ADD:

I remember a Shaman King fansite where I would watch all its episodes in Flash in atrocious quality.

Would like to see something like Gemini, but with tables and other formatting being more customizable in the page, like it was back then. And a choice between a link that is just a link and a link that should be displayed inline if possible.