Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 05:17:15 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: dev-null@no-id.com Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Web Browsers (is there hope?) Message-ID: <15222.22443.450757.18367@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <101196476@toto.iv>
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dev-null@no-id.com types: > Hello > Is it just me or do the web browsers under FreeBSD > (and Unix in general) just SUCK? No, it's not just you. Of course, I think the popular web browser all pretty much suck, no matter what platform you're on. You get to choose between things that don't follow the standards, like MSIE or NS4, or things that are pre-release and crash, like Mozilla. > Why can't I surf the Net without a damn browser > crash every 5-20 minutes? The only browser that crashes on me with any regularlity is Skipstone - and that uses the pre-release Mozilla rendering engine, so this is halfway expected. On the other hand, it's generally a lot more usable than any other GUI browser I've found, so I put up with that. > This is where I'm at now. Confused. Looking > for an answer. I need a browser that is > actually STABLE and supports the following > features minimally: > > o HTML (duh) > o Images (to preempt the lynx smartass) > o JavaScript > o Java (ESSENTIAL) > o CSS > o SSL/TLS Leave JavaScript off unless you absolutely have to have it. It's a a major source of bugs, crashes annoyances and security holes. Personally, I leave linux-netscape47-navigator installed to run if I have to have Javascript, then rm -rf ~/.netscape every time I run the damn thing. Except for java, try w3m-image. > I'd also like it to have plugin extensibility > for stuff like flash, but that's not essential. > > I can use Internet Explorer or the win32 version > of Netscape for hours on end without so much a > blink, but that is an unacceptable solution. Gee, I can't use *Windows* for hours on end without it crashing. I guess crashing the entire system doesn't count, eh? Maybe if I did nothing but the web browser, it would work better - but if that's all I wanted, a WebTV is a lot cheaper. I'm a bit surprised you don't have more troubles with Netscape. Site developers tend to fix the crashes that JavaScript causes for MSIE users, but ignore NetScape users. Possibly you're using 6, as 4 doesn't meet your requirements list. Oh yeah, while speaking of the idiots that design most web pages, you'll find that a lot of things simply don't work properly because you aren't using MSIE on Windows. That's what they run, that's what they test on, that's what most of their customers on, and they don't care about loosing a few million potential customers. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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