Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Mozilla: signs of impending death

Author:Andrew Z
Posted:7/31/2000; 7:27:49 PM
Topic:Mozilla: signs of impending death
Msg #:19335 (In response to 19326)
Prev/Next:19334 / 19336

Feature creep and the platform approach has driven me away from this, accelerating rapidly the past year. Here's my biggest gripes:

  1. e-mail client: Not needed. Despite protestations to the contrary by Mozilla advocates. If IE doesn't need one and can hook into my default e-mail client why can't Mozilla? Who doesn't have an e-mail app? Why have multiple ones? And what about the rise in web-based e-mail? If the market demands an e-mail client integrated with the browser wouldn't it be better to release the browser and get marketshare before complaining about a lack of same?
  2. newsreader: not needed. I have a plethora of options - some free.
  3. HTML editor: Not needed. Sending HTML formatted mail is a sin IMHO. Besides, even if I demanded the feature, my mail client can make HTML format mail. Of course, being a web developer, I could just as easily use my copy of BBEdit.
  4. Skins: I thought this was a great idea at the time. I thought it'd be a great marketing gimmick and way to distribute a customized interface for our web based learning clients. Then I tried milestones (Starting with 7). Gone were my native widgets sacrificed for cross platform parity (which as a Mac user, is simply not true). It was slow, and very un-Maclike - a kiss of death to many Mac users (a good anti-MS market segment). Maybe it'll improve, but why would I need a feature that 99% of general Internet people won't ever use?
  5. XML parser: I also liked this when it came out. Then Mozilla wanted to add CSS to XML and now XSLT. This is great, but how many poeple use XML? Especially in the general market.

Now, what would I like to see?

A browser with the following support:,/p>

That's it. Add the other stuff as they become available. This would put the browser on a par with IE5 and make web site development much easier. As for MathML etc, being added by outside developers, add it, but don't make a 1.0 release depend on it. Is it hard to write to a moving target?

As a Mac user, I know I won't be able to run everything Windows does. And when I can it may be a year later. I'm sure BeOS and OS/2 users feel the same. A simple browser released for Windows a year ago would have at least got the ball rolling, encouragement from web developers and allowed the public to know that, yes, Mozilla would release a product.

I would love to code to standards. But the reality is peopel code to the dominant browser. Its simple econimcs n the business world and the egernal public knows no better. If Mozilla was being used now at least I could code to standards and let the chips fall on IE where it is deficient. But right now I don't even have that option.



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