Thursday, October 25, 2007

New kid among old friends on the web browser scene

Well, I still have yet to fix MS XP, I working on it. In the mean time I fell into an interesting entanglement. I've been using Firefox as my browser of choice for some time because I value my freedom from Microsoft Internet Explorer. It's more than a security question to me. Before that I entertained myself with Netscape which I thought came to an end after competing with Internet Explorer. I thought all development had stopped on Netscape and that Firefox under the hand of Mozilla took over. I was looking at a web site which said it was compatible with Internet Explorer and Netscape version 8. What, Netscape didn't die? It just so happened Netscape version 9 has also been compiled for Linux. I had to have it. I found out that it is a twin to Firefox, there is no apparent functional difference between the two except for the obvious brand name which shows that Netscape is in cahoots with AOL. Now that's a twist. I don't know all the background details but it leaves me to wonder why there should be two web browsers so alike under development. Kind of redundant, ya think? Now in this new kid on the block called Flock. Yeah, it's sort of like Firefox and Netscape only it is a little more in your face. Its claim to fame is that it has a social focus. There are direct links to blogs and Youtube and other interactive social web sites. Being a little better and a little different than Firefox, you'd think it would be better received by the user community. Time will tell I guess. I like Flock because it offers a little more access, but it's not a giant leap forward by any one's standard. So why would you need or want more than one web browser on your computer? My thought is that there is always one pesky web site that just won't read right in my browser of choice. I need another point of view. Alas, there are still some web site builders who think MS Internet Explorer is the standard. Not so folks!!

No comments: