New Netscape can't woo IE users

NS's march to oblivion continues

[cyril kearney]

According to Frank Barnako of CBS Market Watch Netscape's v6 browser is a flop. He quotes a WebSideStory study that says that NS now only holds a 3.4% market share.

Here's the url. [marketwatch.com]

In the article it points to the NS v7.0 pre-release 1 is now available. I didn't see anything in the explaination of the next version of NS that would lead me to believe that Netscape can reverse the downward spiral.

Here's the url to the NS site.
[channels.netscape.com...]

[edited by: littleman at 11:03 pm (utc) on Aug. 28, 2002]
[edit reason] Killed the scroll [/edit]

[Knowles]

If AOL switches over to the gecko engine then this will shoot up the netscape share. These AOL users as they leave AOL will be used to the way it renders pages and will not like IE so they will download NS or Moz. I think the browser wars are going to come back but unfortionatly it all hinges on AOL!

[rcjordan]

>I think the browser wars are going to come back but unfortionatly it all hinges on AOL!

In the US market, I would agree. Though I wouldn't categorize it as a "war" anymore, but more like a significant battle that's unlikely to have any long-term effect on the control IE now has.

[Knowles]

War is probably the wrong word, one of them flash back things from way back you know?

I think it will have an effect on how IE controls things in some aspects. More in our line of work than for the average joe. It will force a greater push for compatibility. Think how many sales will be lost due to your site not working with the gecko engine? This will all in all force things to change, possibly even pull IE back into the W3C standards again. I think it will cause a lot of changes once AOL goes to gecko for all OSs.

[rewboss]

These AOL users as they leave AOL will be used to the way it renders pages and will not like IE so they will download NS or Moz.

Some will, but I think a large number will simply not want to download and install anything. We work with computers all the time, we're used to downloading and installing. A lot of people go white whenever they hear the words. And they won't know that NS or Moz "renders the page the same way as the AOL browser did", they'll just get used to something different. In the past, I have made the mistake of asking people what browser they were using (actually online at the time!) and got the answer "I don't know, it's just a browser" or even once "What's a browser?"

[Learning Curve]

If NS 7 would give you the option of disabling pop-ups, it would get a love fest of free media. But they don't.

[tedster]

I think a large number will simply not want to download and install anything.

That's the key. For any browser to be a significant challenge to Microsoft it needs to come as the default on the computer people buy, or as a part of a service they install (such as AOL).

This is a key piece of business in the MS anti-trust results. If Netscape, or Opera, or some upstart company wants a piece of the browser action, they need to have arrangements with manufacturers and/or retailers so that new computers come pre-configured with THEIR browser and IE is invisible. MS has made a few gestures in the direction of allowing this, but so far nothing much has happened in a real way. I assume they will not make it easy.

A related problem is that even though IE can now be made invisible on Win2K (and soon on XP) it's still there, and still has all its file associations, and still launches in the background along with the OS. This means that some security liabilities are, unfortunately, still very much with us on a Windows OS.

IE didn't "win" because the browser is superior, it "won", for now, because it's made by Microsoft and much of the world is in their pocket. So, where's the leverage for a company to get a piece of the main action when MS has such dominance? This is not a case of the market choosing the best product by natural selection.

The time frame for any shifts in the browser market will be quite long term, I'd say. Nothing like the way MS stole the stage from Netscape.

[moonbiter]

Well, according to the Netscape Gecko Compatability Handbook [devedge.netscape.com]:

The goal of this handbook is to help you create and update websites that work with standards-based browsers and properly detect Netscape Gecko. Netscape Gecko is the name of the browser engine embedded in Netscape 6 and 7 (in beta), Mozilla, AOL for Mac OS X, CompuServe 7, a Windows version of AOL (in beta), as well as other browsers.

Emphasis mine. Not that I want to start any rumors or anything ...