Rob Pegoraro

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Fast Forward: Web Browsers and Mozilla
With Personal Technology columnist Rob Pegoraro
Monday, June 17, 2002; 2 p.m. EDT

Should you care that a bunch of programmers, after starting work in the middle of the second Clinton administration, finally shipped an open-source version of a Web browser that most people abandoned years ago?

Yes. Mozilla 1.0--a vastly improved successor to the Netscape of old--offers most of the same browsing convenience as Internet Explorer, plus a host of features unavailable in IE, such as tabbed browsing and pop-up-window blocking. It is also available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and its source code is available for anybody to inspect and edit. That makes Mozilla an enormously appealing choice for a technically inclined user. Read the full story, Mozilla, an Old Browser New Again (Post, June 16).

But is it the right choice for every user? Talk about Mozilla and other Web browser issues with Fast Forward columnist Rob Pegoraro on Monday, June 17 at 2 p.m EDT.

Below is the transcript.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Rob Pegoraro: Greetings, and welcome to our fortnightly personal-tech discussion. We've got a lot of queries about Web browsers today, but first this public-service announcement:

USA! USA! USA! WE WANT GERMANY!!

(Yes, I am still hoarse from yelling at the TV with several hundred other people this a.m. :)

So let's go to the first question...

Alexandria, Va.: What is the relationship between Mozilla 1.0 and the most recent version of Netscape? Do they use the same code?

Rob Pegoraro: The current "shipping" version of Netscape. 6.2.3, uses code from beta versions of Mozilla and isn't that good. The 7.0 preview release is based on Mozilla 1.0, but leaves out the pop-up-stopping capability and a few other options. It also dumps AOL marketing links all over your system.

Winchester Va: Rob, Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the article on Mozilla. We are not worthy. Just that lack of popups is no less than the 8th wonder of the world. Do you think Bill Gates or the industry will figure out a way to defeat mozilla's crushing the popup monster?

washingtonpost.com: Mozilla, an Old Browser New Again (Post, June 16)

Rob Pegoraro: I think the company's already tried. The Department of Justice was not too pleased with its conduct.

Somewhere, USA: How does Mozilla know whether a pop-up window is "requested" or not? If a pop-up doesn't show when you expect it do, how can you "get it back"?

Rob Pegoraro: The exact preference option to kill pop-ups tells the browser to ignore any site scripting commands that would open windows unrequested by the user. (Pop-up windows are usually executed with basic JavaScript code, which tells your browser to open a second window when you load a specific page.)

Maryland: Does Mozilla fully implement the World Wide Web Consortium's style sheet standards? I run into constant headaches trying to design pages that render the same on both Netscape and IE.

Rob Pegoraro: Which version of Netscape are you writing for? If it's 4.anything--forget it. Those old versions don't implement the Web standards very well at all. Mozilla's support is as good as you'll find anywhere, from what I've read. (See www.webstandards.org and www.w3c.org for more info.)

Chevy Chase, Md.: I'm desperate to get rid of these pop-ups or pop-under ads. If I download Mozilla, however, will my Internet Explorer still be available to use? Or will it override it? How will it affect my Outlook Express which I use for e-mail? I'm not a techie, so you'll have to explain it very simply. Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: Yup, IE will still work. It will even remain your default browser unless you select otherwise (you should get a window asking if you want to switch browsers the first time you run Mozilla).

You can also still use Outlook Express if you'd prefer that to Mozilla's e-mail/news module. But if you are going to use Outlook Express, for pete's sake, *make sure you have downloaded and installed all the security patches for it*. I don't need any more copies of the Klez worm, thank you...

Washington, DC: Good afternoon! I'm researching web browser usage and would like to find out the latest stats. Are there Web sites or other resources you know of that can provide a detailed breakdown of not only who's using what, but how the browsers compare (including version numbers, variances in CSS support, etc.). Please help - thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: I haven't seen recent numbers on browser usage, but the general picture is the overwhelming dominance of Internet Explorer. As for how browsers compare for standards support, the Web Standards Project (www.webstandards.org) is probably the best place to start. Its latest report says that both IE and Mozilla do a great job with standards; Mozilla is just a bit better.

Alexandria, Va.: The Mozilla development took years to complete, and it was mostly done by AOL/Netscape. Few volunteers contributed to the effort.

Is Mozilla an open-source success story or an open-source failure (because of the failure of the development community to volunteer to help it.)

Rob Pegoraro: In that it took so long for this project to hit 1.0, sure, you could say it doesn't say wonderful things about the efficiency of open-source development. But when you consider that the browser was rewritten from scratch, while the sponsor company was bought out and radically transformed by the new owners--I don't think it's a disastrous performance.

The big picture, though, is that the browser's here, and it works.

Alexandria, Va.: I don't understand why different browsers read Web pages differently. Is the problem javascript or HTML?

Rob Pegoraro: Both! But this situation has vastly improved since the bad old days of '95 to '99 or so, when both IE and Netscape kept coming out with their own proprietary HTML tags (anybody remember "blink" or "marquee"?). JavaScript itself was originally a proprietary project of Netscape's, which didn't exactly scramble to make the specifications an open standard.

Arlington, VA: How was the Mozilla project financed? Did AOL put $$ behind it?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes. AOL/Netscape underwrote a lot of the development (and is making good use of the resulting code not only in Netscape, but also in the newest version of CompuServe and in the latest test releases of AOL for Mac OS X). About 300 programmers with no ties to Netscape also contributed code in some manner (the number comes from Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's "chief lizard wrangler")

Bethesda, Md.: What are the advantages of using Mozilla besides blocking popup ads? If this becomes the preferred brower, how will web sites make money?

Rob Pegoraro: With inline ads, subscriptions, whatever. Mozilla does nothing to block those.

Look, I know that a large chunk of the Web, this site included, rely heavily on pop-up ads. I am not insensitive to the dilemma browsers like this place on people. But--well, this kind of feature would never have been so popular if so many Web sites hadn't abused their "pop-up privileges" so badly already.

Why use Mozilla besides blocking pop-ups? Tabbed browsing, the best standards support around, fewer security holes, better bookmarks management options.

Portland, Ore.: It seems to me Mozilla is dead on arrival. Internet Explorer rules on Windows systems and until a consumer version of Linux rises up as a competitor, all other browsers are irrelevant.

Also, the Mozilla project is "way" late and hasn't seemed to me to attract the high profile developer interest other open source projects have. Do you agree/disagree about this? Any ideas why developers have had disdain for Mozilla?

Rob Pegoraro: You may be right in your first contention. I don't know how far Mozilla will go in the market--it's a long download over a modem, and many users won't bother. It will be interesting to see which manufacturers bundle Mozilla or a Mozilla-based browser with their PCs this fall.

As to your second point about "developer interest"--what?! What is AOL, chopped liver? I haven't seen any of this "developer disdain" you're talking about.

Washington, D.C.: Hey Rob,
There are lots of blind and visually impaired computer users out there who would love it if when you do these kinds of
reviews, you could throw in a sentence or two on how accessible they are to screen readers.
Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: I did not test Mozilla with a screen reader, but I can tell you that its support for the full set of Web standards is going to help ensure that Web pages *are* accessible to everybody.

(Why do I keep harping on Web standards? Here's a good case: They split presentation--font sizes, indents, etc.--from content, allowing alternative display devices, from a handheld organizer to a screen reader, to still get the full content of the site.)

Arlington, Va.: Very impressed with Omniweb for MAC OS X. Although I do like Netscape 6.2. Omniweb is very simple clean and fast.

Rob Pegoraro: OmniWeb (www.omnigroup.com) is a popular browser among OS X users--it's written in the "Cocoa" programming environment to take maximum advantage of the operating system's features. But it's also not the most compatible thing out there, as far as displaying Web pages up to spec.

Falls Church, Va.: How does Mozilla do in rendering PDF documents and flash files?

Rob Pegoraro: Same as any other browser--I had no trouble using the Adobe PDF plug-in and Macromedia's Flash plug-in. (Both these technologies have nothing to do with HTML; they're just formats that are commonly used as part of Web sites.)

Alexandria, Va.: I am a web developer and I want Mozilla to fail. Why? Because now I only need to develop and test my pages for one browser, IE.

Does the public really want two browsers?

Rob Pegoraro:
I'd like to say this politely, but--what the heck. You don't appear to get the concept of Web standards at all. If you write for the real standards, you only will have to test your site once--any standards-compliant browser (which includes both IE and Mozilla in all but the finer details) will display it properly.

Columbia, Mo.: Hi Rob. The company I work for uses mostly PCs, but our publications division (predictably) uses Macs. I
need to check e-mail at home a lot and use Web mail based on the Microsoft Exchange server. Oddly, most of us who use
the Mac have trouble getting the exchange server to work properly with Internet Explorer for the Mac, even though these are
both Microsoft products. IE won't accept the certificate from the exchange server.

Even more oddly, Mozilla accepts the certificate and works perfectly to establish a secure connection. What the heck is
Microsoft doing?

Rob Pegoraro: That's quite odd. But this isn't the first complaint I've heard about using Mac clients with Exchange server--it's just that the usual gripe is about mail programs, not Web browsers.

Speaking of Mac Web browsers, Microsoft released an update of its already excellent IE for Mac OS X today. It's supposed to make text look sharper on the screen. I'd love to hear if anybody's tried it so far.

Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C.: First, a browser comment: Based on your generally favorable review, I'm now trying
out Mozilla on my iMac (running OS X 10.1.5) LOVE it. I don't require that much of a browser, and just the pop-up ad
killing qualities alone make me happy. And I like using products that are unusual (thus, my having a Mac in the first place!)

Second, an o/t question, and possibly a story idea: Since AvantGo doesn't seem to want to support Mac OS X, I've switched
to another program called iSilo, which converts Web pages into a PDA readable format. (That might be the story --
alternatives to AvantGo) When will The Post offer an iSilo friendly (lo-graphic) Web site? The New York Times does, so
does The Onion.

washingtonpost.com: Mozilla, an Old Browser New Again (Post, June 16)

Rob Pegoraro: How lo-graphic is lo-graphic? The Post does offer a WAP-accessible version of its site (www.twp.com), and individual articles always come in printer-friendly formats. OTOH, I haven't tried out iSilo myself--I haven't even used AvantGo in a while. (I'm just not disciplined enough to hotsync the Palm every morning, and my commute's not long enough for me to get in any more reading than I can do by grabbing one section of the analog, dead-tree edition of the Post.)

Washington, D.C.: Rob, are there other open-source browsers other than Mozilla? How do they compare?

Rob Pegoraro: Most of 'em are based on Mozilla itself. Here's one list.

A lot of these applications are in earlier stages of development, though; they're less stable and their user interfaces may need some more work yet.

Maryland again: "If you write for the real standards, you only will have to test your site once--any standards-compliant browser (which includes both IE and Mozilla in all but the finer details) will display it properly."

Preach, Brother Rob! Thanks for taking my question.

Rob Pegoraro: Heh. I thought that one was a strawman...

Alexandria, Va.: What about QuickTime and Windows Media Player? Does Mozilla work with them?

Rob Pegoraro: Yup, although it took some minor twiddling to get Windows Media Player to work inside Mozilla (it may have been something as simple as quitting the browser, then restarting it).

Washington, D.C.: If you set Mozilla to block pop-up/under ads, will it stop you from launching pop-up screens that you actually request? Some sites launch multimedia players in a separate, smaller pop-up.

Rob Pegoraro: No, that will still work. The key concept is "requested" (although you can block that JavaScript element as well in same preferences pane).

Boston, Mass.: Do you think that Mozilla's ability to block images by site (like all of doubleclick.net) will cause a backlash by advertisers?

Rob Pegoraro: Possible. It's not turned on by default, though, and most people will just leave it be. I don't have a problem with inline ads, really; it's just the pop-ups that bug me to no end.

Bethesda, Md.: What about embedded multimedia? How did Mozilla handle embedded players?

Rob Pegoraro: You mean like watching video on this site? Or are you talking about embedded Web audio or video (like those annoying MIDI files some sites greet you with)?

Arlington, Va.: So will AOL use the Mozilla code to improve Netscape products for PCs? I'm no fan of Netscape, but I'm compelled to use it at work and would love a better experience.

Rob Pegoraro: Yes--Netscape 7.0 preview is based on Mozilla 1.0. You'll also see the Mozilla "Gecko" HTML renderer used in the latest CompuServe. It *may* show up in AOL 8.0, but has yet to appear in any test releases.

This, incidentally, is why this browser does matter here and now. CompuServe isn't the biggest ISP ever, but it does number 3 million. If you're trying to do business on the Web, can you afford to make those folks feel unwelcome with a "best viewed in IE" sticker on your site?

Reston, Va.: How is Mozilla when it comes to managing cookies?

Rob Pegoraro: It's got about the same features as IE 6.0, which are pretty good overall. You can block cookies by site and edit your blocked-sites list; you can also tell Mozilla to accept cookies based on a site's "P3P" ("platform for privacy preferences") settings.

Arlington, Va.: I'm looking for good information on digital cameras. I don't trust the user reviews on a lot of mainstream commercial sites. Where can I find strong info. on the latest digital camera models?

Rob Pegoraro: Can you wait until the 30th of this month? We may have some more info for you in print at that time...

Philadelphia, PA: not quite a question,
Rob Pegoraro: With inline ads, subscriptions, whatever. Mozilla does nothing to block those.

This isn't completely accurate, you can right click images and select block server which would allow you to eventually block doubleclick and other major ad image sources.

Rob Pegoraro: I mean, Moz does nothing to block them "out of the box." It doesn't advertise this option in the way that, for instance, it asks if you'd like the browser to store a site password for you.

Philadelphia, Pa.: Have you tried Chimera?

It's mozilla.org's answer to omniweb (chimera.mozdev.org), it feels like a well behaved Cocoa app, but unlike Omniweb it has good DOM and CSS support.

Rob Pegoraro: I haven't--I keep hearing it's not exactly stable yet. Until it hits 1.0 itself, I'd rather stick with IE for OS X and Mozilla.

Washington, D.C.: I'm using IE 5.2 under Mac OS X at the moment, >and it seems to work just fine. I've been using the haxie called "Silk" that allows for antialiased text in Carbon applications, and although that made the text in IE 5.1 look almost as good as the text in OmniWeb or Chimera (based on the Mozilla source), the native support in IE 5.2 gives better text rendering, as you might expect.

Of course, it also resets your default page to www.msn.com, which is awfully annoying.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the report. Very cheeky, that MSN home-page trick...

New York, N.Y.: I've downloaded the new Mozilla. I'll give it a try. I still use Netscape 4.79 without javascript on (no popups, no worries). Too much javascript is in use anyway. For example, on the French Open web site, when javascript is used, the text is too small too read; without the javascript, scores still update and the article text size is easy to read without having to make adjustments. I don't want to have to change my configuration for each web site. Also, I still hate IE. I can't figure out why people like it so much. It's too slow on my system.

Rob Pegoraro: If you've got an older machine, you might want to try out Opera (www.operasoftware.com). Good: It's fast and efficient and allows really precise control over JavaScript. Bad: It's not as good as Mozilla with standards, can be intimidating with all those techie preference settings, has a cluttered interface and, not least, costs $39 if you won't want a big banner ad right in the browser toolbar.

Mountain View, Calif.: What's with Netscape 7.0 not including popup blocking? Why would I use it instead of Mozilla?

Rob Pegoraro: If you don't need to have an integrated AOL instant-messaging client or some better-written help files--I can't see any reason to use Netscape at all. It strips away some of the more helpful options and tries too hard to promote its corporate ally, but doesn't offer much in return.

Virginia: Sometimes, I have to copy twice since the first copy click won't work. Is this normal?

Rob Pegoraro: Um, click twice where? When? How?

San Francisco, Calif.: Many have accused Mozilla of simply being the same as Netscape because of the lack of contributors that are not Netscape employees? Do you think this will change now that 1.0 is out?

Rob Pegoraro: I highly doubt anybody's going to make that accusation stick. The Mozilla project definitely has a life of its own--especially since a lot of its programming framework has been "frozen," so to speak. A developer can tinker with how things work without having to worry that the next revision will break, say, Mozilla's support for customizable user interfaces.

Mountain View, CA: Are most of the original Netscape employees still working on Mozilla? I have been looking through Bugzilla and I don't recognize too many of the names. One name that keeps popping up is Blake Ross, though -- he seems to be an amazing developer.

Rob Pegoraro: A lot of people have come and gone with this project, and I would guess that some of the delays have to do with people bailing on the project after awhile. But others have jumped in since then--one advantage of open-source development here is that there's less risk overall if one developer gets hit by a bus.

At least, in theory :)

(BTW, "Bugzilla" is Mozilla's system for tracking bugs and ensuring they get fixed. It's since been adopted for a lot of other complicated open-source projects, like the OpenOffice productivity suite I reviewed a few weeks ago.)

Shepherdstown, W.Va.: What about a mention of Opera as another alternative browser? It has a number of features that Mozilla has not included. Though I don't think one can turn off only unrequested pop-ups. You can turn off pop-ups but it seems I may have had Opera-related probs when trying to open some pop-up type windows.

Rob Pegoraro: I gave Opera its mention a few questions ago--I was susprised I hadn't gotten any questions about it until now. (My inbox has acquired a bunch of messages from Opera fans, inquiring why I didn't mention the browser in my review.)

Rob Pegoraro: Well, that's all for today. My apologies for that marquee-tag fiasco. (I had no idea IE still supported that awful little feature. Boy, do I feel dumb now :) Thanks for dealing with the interruption, but if I did miss your question, you can reach me at rob@twp.com.

See you in a couple of weeks...

- R

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