Okay, I've pretty much had it with ignorant b#st#rds who cannot seem to make a site that can be viewed with indie (read: better) browsers. Although the site shows in Netscape (which is getting crappier by the version--Netscape 6 really licks a$$), I cannot access the site with the browser of MY choice, Opera! Why the f##k is that?! Opera is significantly better than either of the Big (literally) Two. It was designed with the user in mind. And it's the only way to maintain your hardware investment and have a browser that can understand the latest features. And Opera 6 and 7 are free!
They just want me to switch to either of the Bloated, Lame, and Virtually Worthless Two. But I almost certainly won't.
I have moved to Mozilla since this was written, but these sentiments should still hold true for all you Opera users out there.
Indie browsers have distinct advantages over the Big Two:
- Most, if not all, are smaller. For instance, Arachne's self-extractor is about 1MB. Opera has a
2MB3MB installation file without the Java plugin (9MB11MB with the plugin). Compare that to Netscape Communicator's20MB27MB installation file, and Internet Explorer's 8MB BASE INSTALLATION (browser-only, no Java support). Mozilla is one of the few exceptions, weighing in at around 10MB. - Many are less bloated. Browsers like Opera and Mozilla were designed with the user, rather than the shareholder, in mind. One element of this is good programming. For instance, Mozilla was designed mainly for standards compliance and speed, while Internet Explorer was designed to be just good enough to not make people go find another browser.
- Many are more user-friendly. Opera caters to the user and made sure that the user was first by including features such as fixed-font forms (that is, the font size and style in forms are always the same), excellent cookie management (block cookies from *.doubleclick.net, allow cookies from login.yahoo.com, etc.) and even the ability to disable frames (because they waste memory, or people don't like them)! No wonder they call it
the browser made for you.
- Blind people surf the Web, too. But they can't use Internet Exploiter, and some can't even use Opera! (BTW: you can zoom pages in Opera up to 10x -- for those almost-legally-blind folks out there.) So they depend on a text browser, such as Lynx, that can't display graphics, font sizes, etc., and a voice synthesizer that reads Web pages to them. And I bet a blind guy (or someone listening to a web page from his Mercedes (as if cell phones were bad enough!)) would not like to hear
netscape sucks get link!
That's what the ALT attribute in the <IMG> tag is for. You would rather hearnetscape sucks get opera, the browser made for you,
wouldn't you? - Indies suit peoples' needs. It's like the Sprite commercials. Image is nothing, needs are everything. Joe Surfer hates frames, but likes style sheets, so he gets Opera so he can disable frames! N.A. Luser's Windoze installation is messed up, so he gets Arachne and surfs the Web in DOS! Mr. I-Poked-My-Eyes-Out-With-A-Rusty-Awl can't see, so he gets a speech synth and Lynx, so he can surf the Web! And the list goes on...
And so you see why people might say F##k the Big Two
and use indie browsers. So get off your lazy Web-trasher a$$, stop telling people to get a real browser
and learn real HTML!
Notes:
This was written way back in late 2000, when I used Opera 4 (and later 5). I used Opera partially because I had a WinME machine with 32 megs of RAM (upgraded to 128 in September 2001). This fact tints my rant about Netscape 6, as well.
Once Mozilla 1.0 came out, I ended up switching. But still, there's sites that'll lock me out because I don't have Microsh!t's finest or an ancient version of Netscape. If your site requires Internet Exploder or Crapscape 4, I'll give you some advice: get with the 21st century for once, and take notes on my HTML and CSS code (but don't rip them off, pantywaste!). Then rewrite your site to conform with standards so IE 9, Netscape 10, Mozilla 2.0, and Opera 11 (running on ReactOS, I hope :-) don't rip your page up like a dog on a baby possum.