Browser follies
For whatever it’s worth......
-Or perhaps I should slug it “Netscape follies,” since that’s mostly what it’s about, although there is a comment about Firefox at the end.....
As I recall I upgraded to 7.0 two summers ago, mostly because my old NS (4.73) was becoming an antique. (There was apparently a 6.0; but reportedly it was horrible, so I passed.)
As you know, NS also has an e-mail function, but it was so old my brother in Boston couldn’t open anything without disabling his security-barricades.
I briefly considered switching to Outlook, or OE (the Messenger had Outlook), but as far as I could see the only advantage to that was Auto-Sign and “Out-of-Office.” I couldn’t justify 89 bazilyun dollars for bells and whistles I don’t need.
4.73 was also a browser, which would fire up if a web-site in an e-mail was clicked. I also was updating my famblee’s web-site with it, but that tanked when the web-site reconfigured for IE, making NS unworkable,
I also had IE (5.1 for MAC), so started fiddling the famblee web-site with that, but unlike NS it put in hard-returns as word-wrap at the end of lines.
With hard-returns my posts were showing up on the famblee web-site well short of the window.
I found I could get around that by HTML-ing my posts; but that was an extra step.
7.0 was free, so I downloaded and installed it. My first download also picked up my old address-book — others didn’t; see below*.
But there were other issues with 7.0 e-mail; primarily that it couldn’t send characters like apostrophes and m-dashes without defaulting to the Unicodes.
Well, no problem if you’re only e-mailing to a person — you can make sense despite the Unicodes.
But what I was e-mailing was stuff to print in the paper — my giant AppleWorks “Night-Spots” file.
I didn’t have time to fix all the Unicodes, even with a find-replace.
So I hung onto 4.73 — never threw it out. It didn’t Unicode stuff, so I e-mailed my Night-Spots with it.
*Later installations of 7.0 failed to pick up my address-book, which was another reason to hang onto 4.73. I didn’t have all day to set up a new 7.0 address-book, even with a copy-paste, especially when 7.0 was Unicode-ing my stuff.
Now we have switched my e-mail to MyWay, sort of like Yahoo without the pop-ups, so that it can be easily accessed from a ‘pyooter anywhere in the world.
MyWay doesn’t work with NS (a cookie issue), but does with IE, so it’s my IE home-page.
MyWay also has an auto-sign — I don’t know about “out-of-office;” although there’s apparently a “vacation” function. But it doesn’t do formatting, so I still have 4.73. I can access my Road-Runner e-mail with MyWay.
No doubt you could also access your e-mail from anywhere on the planet too — I could with Road-Runner. www.myway.com then “myEmail.” Fired up IE in Boston on the motel ‘pyooter, and then www.myway.com
I also transferred my 4.73 address-list into MyWay, and made up a new “ne’er-do-well” list (which you’re a part of).
I don’t know if it’s Unicode-ing stuff — maybe that was Outlook — but I’m retired; I ain’t e-mailing stuff for print.
Firefox:
I don’t think I have Firefox on this rig.
We’ve heard wonderful things about it. Apparently my brother in Delaware uses it, as does his ‘pyooter-engineer wannabee son.
Linda downloaded it and installed it long ago on her PC. But it was displaying web-pages half-screen, and we don’t have time to dick around in the preferences.
7.0 is also a browser, apparently based on most of the Mozilla code in Firefox.
The motel pyooter in Delaware last October had Firefox (I think) — although I think it may have been some generic part of its Red-Hat operating-system.
I found 7.0 was better than IE for what I needed to do. Copy-paste IE and it grabs all the formatting. 7.0 grabs just the text. IE copy-pastes have to be fiddled.
And 7.0, like 4.73, isn’t installing hard-returns as word-wraps. No extra step on the famblee-site.
So I use 7.0 as my browser-of-choice, although many Froogle-sites want IE.
I suppose now I’ll at least install Firefox, since I no longer have the motivations to use 7.0. But if Firefox wants dicking around, 7.0 it will be.
-Or perhaps I should slug it “Netscape follies,” since that’s mostly what it’s about, although there is a comment about Firefox at the end.....
As you know, NS also has an e-mail function, but it was so old my brother in Boston couldn’t open anything without disabling his security-barricades.
I briefly considered switching to Outlook, or OE (the Messenger had Outlook), but as far as I could see the only advantage to that was Auto-Sign and “Out-of-Office.” I couldn’t justify 89 bazilyun dollars for bells and whistles I don’t need.
4.73 was also a browser, which would fire up if a web-site in an e-mail was clicked. I also was updating my famblee’s web-site with it, but that tanked when the web-site reconfigured for IE, making NS unworkable,
I also had IE (5.1 for MAC), so started fiddling the famblee web-site with that, but unlike NS it put in hard-returns as word-wrap at the end of lines.
With hard-returns my posts were showing up on the famblee web-site well short of the window.
I found I could get around that by HTML-ing my posts; but that was an extra step.
7.0 was free, so I downloaded and installed it. My first download also picked up my old address-book — others didn’t; see below*.
But there were other issues with 7.0 e-mail; primarily that it couldn’t send characters like apostrophes and m-dashes without defaulting to the Unicodes.
Well, no problem if you’re only e-mailing to a person — you can make sense despite the Unicodes.
But what I was e-mailing was stuff to print in the paper — my giant AppleWorks “Night-Spots” file.
I didn’t have time to fix all the Unicodes, even with a find-replace.
So I hung onto 4.73 — never threw it out. It didn’t Unicode stuff, so I e-mailed my Night-Spots with it.
*Later installations of 7.0 failed to pick up my address-book, which was another reason to hang onto 4.73. I didn’t have all day to set up a new 7.0 address-book, even with a copy-paste, especially when 7.0 was Unicode-ing my stuff.
Now we have switched my e-mail to MyWay, sort of like Yahoo without the pop-ups, so that it can be easily accessed from a ‘pyooter anywhere in the world.
MyWay doesn’t work with NS (a cookie issue), but does with IE, so it’s my IE home-page.
MyWay also has an auto-sign — I don’t know about “out-of-office;” although there’s apparently a “vacation” function. But it doesn’t do formatting, so I still have 4.73. I can access my Road-Runner e-mail with MyWay.
No doubt you could also access your e-mail from anywhere on the planet too — I could with Road-Runner. www.myway.com then “myEmail.” Fired up IE in Boston on the motel ‘pyooter, and then www.myway.com
I also transferred my 4.73 address-list into MyWay, and made up a new “ne’er-do-well” list (which you’re a part of).
I don’t know if it’s Unicode-ing stuff — maybe that was Outlook — but I’m retired; I ain’t e-mailing stuff for print.
I don’t think I have Firefox on this rig.
We’ve heard wonderful things about it. Apparently my brother in Delaware uses it, as does his ‘pyooter-engineer wannabee son.
Linda downloaded it and installed it long ago on her PC. But it was displaying web-pages half-screen, and we don’t have time to dick around in the preferences.
7.0 is also a browser, apparently based on most of the Mozilla code in Firefox.
The motel pyooter in Delaware last October had Firefox (I think) — although I think it may have been some generic part of its Red-Hat operating-system.
I found 7.0 was better than IE for what I needed to do. Copy-paste IE and it grabs all the formatting. 7.0 grabs just the text. IE copy-pastes have to be fiddled.
And 7.0, like 4.73, isn’t installing hard-returns as word-wraps. No extra step on the famblee-site.
So I use 7.0 as my browser-of-choice, although many Froogle-sites want IE.
I suppose now I’ll at least install Firefox, since I no longer have the motivations to use 7.0. But if Firefox wants dicking around, 7.0 it will be.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:15 PM
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