AOL 6.0 Released Today

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AOL 6.0 Released Today

Anybody see what browser their using?

seth_wilde

4:06 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

Just saw a press release that AOL 6.0 was released today but couldn't find what browser their using anywhere. Anybody have the lowdown?

tedster

4:57 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

I just spent a chunk of time poking around the AOL webmaster section, but I saw no updates -- everything there still refers to AOL 5, not 6.

NFFC

5:25 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

>what browser their using

IE, they are tied in to the deal long term I believe.

seth_wilde

6:27 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

Tedster here's the article [news.excite.com]. There's also a link on the AOL homepage for a free download.

NFFC - Have you seen an actual copy or an article?

NFFC

6:39 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

This article seems to sum the situation up:

[vnunet.com]

seth_wilde

6:54 pm on Oct 25, 2000 (gmt 0)

Thanks NFFC! It must be hard to have to stick to that type of contract with your arch rival....

gmiller

4:44 am on Nov 27, 2000 (gmt 0)

Actually, they're using the agreement as a weapon against MS. It expired in January or so, and they reupped for a year in order to argue in court that MS is strong-arming them into not promoting their own browser.

Indications seem to be that they'll switch early next year, which gives them time to do the 6.01 bug fix/optimization release before giving out insane numbers of copies of the browser to new users.

This reminds me of the old Gartner Group studies of browser usage... Before they stopped tracking browser usage, they indicated that almost 50% of MSIE users said they used it because AOL gave it to them. Apparently, more people use what their ISPs give them than what their OS vendor gives them.

tedster

6:49 am on Nov 27, 2000 (gmt 0)

>>Apparently, more people use what their ISPs give them than
what their OS vendor gives them.

That's got to send a chill down Bill Gates' back.

gmiller

3:59 am on Nov 28, 2000 (gmt 0)

Not necessarily. AOL is the biggest dog in the pack, but there are lots of ISPs that ship MSIE.

An interesting question is how MSN Explorer fits in. Will MS's increased ISP push alarm other ISPs into dumping their MS deals?

And how concerned is MS with the browser market? Controlling the most widely used browser is nice, but it hasn't produced a lot of concrete benefit for MS so far.

And then there's the embedded market. This seems to be going overwhelmingly to Mozilla, but it isn't a huge market so far, and we don't know for sure that it ever will be. Things are getting interesting lately.