IE For FreeBSD 33
Moderator writes: "Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft ported Internet Explorer to FreeBSD? Apparently, someone else thinks so, and set up a petition for Microsoft to port IE to FreeBSD. Hey, I'm no Microsoft lover, but IE is better than Netscape." Hmm. Personally, I'm more of a "xterm -geometry =120x50 -e w3m" man, but to each his own I suppose.
Bugging Microsoft is useless. (Score:2)
A: BSD threads seem to get about 2 moderator points, total.
B: this is off from the home page.
That being said..
Microsoft didn't really port IE to anything but Windows or Mac; they use MainSoft's Win32 port to port it to Solaris. MainSoft does not support Linux or FreeBSD (last time I checked). Therefore it would take a great deal more work to port.
So it seems unlikely Microsoft is going to go out of their way to support FreeBSD or linux and time soon. The only reason they ported it to Solaris is because MainSoft made it relatively painless for them.
People should petition for MainSoft to port their Win32 layer to other unix's, instead.
-Jon
Re:What? Hell no... (Score:1)
Oh please! There's no contest! For loading pages, they might be fairly even (not that it matters on fast connections anyway) but for rendering pages, IE is *MUCH MUCH MUCH* faster.
Even a Netscape coder working on Mozilla answered a question regarding Mozilla's speed vs IE's speed with:
"When is Mozilla going to be faster than IE? Probably never.. Why? Because of the full standards support."
So yeah, while Mozilla is going to have better support for standards than the current IE versions, as far as speed goes - there's no question about which browser is the fastest one at the moment.
BTW, the new IE for Mac OS X seems to be very solid both in terms of speed and standards support! This is good news because it further forces Mozilla into harder competition and it gives some hope that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is going to release a browser that supports standards after all.. at some point...
Re:I hate to say it .. (Score:1)
Re:*This* is a load of crap (Score:1)
Re:Bugging Microsoft is useless. (Score:1)
Netscape is ok for the graphic/media browseing, however, I like lynx. IE can burn in hell.
-d
I hate to say it .. (Score:2)
Netscape is total crap, and Mozilla M15 runs like a dog. And this is on a Dual PIII-500 w/192mb ram !!!
(I'm not even gonna mention how mozilla runs on my P166 Laptop w/32mb ram, except that it took 10 minutes to start!)
I'm really looking forward to improvements in Mozilla, and hopefully by M16/M17 it will be faster and more usable (at least the crashing has gone away), but IE for FreeBSD (and Linux) would be pretty good. ATM it is the only decent browser available.
The chances of this happening, however, is slim. MS apparently refuses to develop software for alternative OS's that run on x86. (Maybe FreeBSD/Alpha, FreeBSD/ppc and FreeBSD/IA64 have a chance...)
D.
Re:I hate to say it .. (Score:2)
Whuuu? M14 runs like a champ on my PII-233, even with Windows on 64 MB. Suffice it to say that your experiences don't jibe with mine. Have you tried looking at Opera [opera.com] as an alternative? I know that quite a few people are very pleased with it.
Almost on topic (Score:1)
No thanks (Score:2)
If they want to port it thats fine with me as long as it runs at comparable speeds to the windows version or at least faster/more reliable/less memory than Netscape. I doubt it will ever happen.
Andrew
Re:This is a load of crap (Score:2)
Re:Almost on topic (Score:2)
No, not really. Part of the problem is Netscape won't offer an ELF binary of Netscape for FreeBSD.
Try the Linux Netscape under FreeBSD's Linux ABI Compatibility or try the BSD/OS version.
I've tried the former, and it works great. It's a better choice since you can use all the plugins for Linux then too.
I don't know how well the BSD/OS Netscape runs, but someone's working on getting it into the Ports Collection.
Make Mozilla go fast, disable debug (Score:3)
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
Re:Almost on topic (Score:1)
crashes. But of course no Java. Which maybe a good thing
-Scott
Re:I hate to say it .. (Score:1)
After the MS breakup is complete, MS-Apps is going to be able to, nay, encouraged to port their software to other platforms. And where do they go after they make the IE MacOS port? If there's already a petition and demand for the product, MS-Apps would probably be more than willing to write the port to BSD. Especially if they could put it under some sort of semi-restrictive open source licence so that the community would maintain it, at no cost to them. Same with ISS (Gotta love BSD TCP stacks), Word (Bring all of those Microsoft users over to a stable platform), etc...
Don't use CSS (Score:1)
Netscape 4.72+ are much stabler than any prior version provided you don't leave CSS on. (sometimes JavaScript crashes the browser, but I haven't seen this happen in 4.73)
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
Bad original subject line! (Score:3)
Re:Bad original subject line! (Score:1)
What? Hell no... (Score:1)
Re:No mentions? (Score:1)
Making an application work with an OS and its base is the best way of development. My statement illustrates that bringing in a port of a huge bloated static IE is pointless. Using a browser built with our libs and toolkits is the *idea*.
IE for Unix is a pointless exercise and is as much a kludge as the old Netscapes have been, most likely even worse.
Other Alternatives to Netscape/Mozilla (Score:2)
On a side note, a update of how the software is going can be found on http://www.operasoftware.com/linux/ind ex.html [operasoftware.com]
This isn't ment to be flame or anything, its ment to be informitive. It would be nice to see more options available for any OS.
Re:Why would they port it? (Score:1)
alpha quality code (Score:1)
Re:What? Hell no... (Score:1)
Re:IE for OS X port to FreeBSD?? (Score:1)
Since chances are those people who have the money to go for Macs instead of cheap PCs wouldn't be swayed by a mere browser, MS is just tossing in their support in hopes of getting more IE users so they can control the internet. that's secondary to getting everyone to run Windows though. If MacOS ran on Intel (and it won't as long as MS is a unified company, since they would threaten to pull Office) you can bet that MS would pull the IE port faster than you can say monopoly.
Re:Netscape is faster than IE on Unix (Score:1)
Re:Almost on topic (Score:1)
Even 4.73 still dies on me. It is sad that Netscape won't compile an ELF version. Anyone know why they won't?
Re:*This* is a load of crap (Score:1)
FUD, again (Score:1)
Really there are too many troll on slashdot to be interesting any more.
Why would they port it? (Score:1)
"If only IE ran on {Linux,FreeBSD,OpenBSD}, I could ditch that crappy Windows {98,NT,2000} for a REAL operating system!"
Well, let's do the math here: gain a non-paying IE customer and lose a paying Windows customer, or keep the paying Windows customer?
I think it's clear they aren't going to port. Which of course, blows the whole IE-on-Mac argument out of the water...
--jeddz
No mentions? (Score:1)
Mozilla has made amazing leaps towards stability, and with Konqueror from KDE2 on its way...
We'll be in good shape soon, and with something that is our own and not a kludgy port and a static bin.
Re:Bad original subject line! (Score:1)
M$ != Free (Score:1)
(I mean Free as in Speech, that is)
(-;
Netscape is faster than IE on Unix (Score:1)
Face it. The only reason IE runs well with Windows is because it is so tightly coupled to the OS. Port it to any other OS, and it's a dog.