[quote]I'm glad you guys liked my "browser capabilities test page"... don't blame me; blame your browser for not properly handling the code!<hr></blockquote>
So if I were to, say, take a baseball bat to your shins you should blame your nerve endings and fragile bone structure instead of me?
<strong>Once I'm on-line I find that most pages load fast given that I have 56K. The problem though is getting on line. There is a lot of problems with OS X and Internet Connect. AOL sucks and Earthlink is not far behind.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've found EarthLink to be excellant. What problems are you having with it?
I've found EarthLink to be excellant. What problems are you having with it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not connecting any faster than 40 BBS, but AOL connects about 44, which is still slower than I used to connect. I'm not sure if it's my new iMac or 10.1.3. I also disconnect a lot or have problems connecting in the first place. Earthlink tried a few things but none of them worked and they said then it had to be line noise.
I had an Earthlink dial-up for 2 years and had my problems with them, but still kept them when I upgraded to a DSL in January.
They like to boast a dedication to Mac, but I'm not sold. Does anyone have a DSL provider who doesn't disconnect them and spend a ridiculous amount of time "looking for" pages?
I guess you guys dont get it. Here is my point, with an example:
Have you ever tried to connect to a web site, and while the page is loading your entire Mac is locked? I mean not only does IE (or whatever browser) lock under the requests, but ALL your apps are 'locked' until that particular page finally loads? I hit sites all the time that require me to basically sit there and stare at a blank page (and get no work done in other apps) until the page loads 100%.
I thought maybe this was a threading issue with OS 9, but it happens in X too! This does NOT happen on the Windows platform!
I have used Macs for almost 10 years. I am not dreaming here. The PC is a better web computer. Period. I hate to say it, but its true!
That happens in OS 9, but I can't say that that has ever happened to me in X. If IE is freezing up OS X, then you probably have bigger issues going on.
But you're right; the PC *is* a better web browsing platform, simply by virtue of the fact that many (most?) sites are never tested on a Mac, whereas most sites actually created on a Mac do get tested on PC's.
Occasionally, I do see a page where the Javascripts will bring a Mac browser to a crawl, but will fly on a PC. You could make all kinds of arguments about something lacking in the Mac browser, but it really comes down to not being tested on a Mac before going live.
One thing i find that helps is turning off java. I use AOL and I have java turned off and it speeds things up somewhat. You can turn it off in IE also.............................
<strong>Have you ever tried to connect to a web site, and while the page is loading your entire Mac is locked?</strong><hr></blockquote>In OS9, yes. Any activity in any app will often lock up the machine.
In OSX, never. Not in OmniWeb, not in Mozilla. Of course, I can't speak for IE because I so rarely use that garbage.
<strong>Does anyone have a DSL provider who doesn't disconnect them and spend a ridiculous amount of time "looking for" pages?</strong><hr></blockquote>I never get disconnected and have no idea what these "looking for" pages are you're talking about. Everything is nice and speedy here on my BellSouth DSL (Ethernet modem, not USB).
to whoever was complaining about the 'looking for pages' on their dsl wait time... sounds like you've got a bad dns server, i'd make a hosts file that directs dns requests away from your dsl providers servers to another free dns server. you'd have to look both of those up, along with how to create host files in osx... check out <a href="http://www.macosxhints.com"; target="_blank">mac os x hints</a> because i honestly haven't learned how to yet so couldn't post you instructions if i wanted
Pages (after loading) "snap" back fast in IE on OS 9.2.2 and in OS X for me. I have had some Windoze friends who were surprised about this. I am also still on a dial-up 56 kb modem. Pages load pretty good in my opinion.
Another point that should be made are that many web sites are still designed and programmed on Windozes computers and software. Many companies don't or won't design/program/test their sites for Macs. I have worked for only one company that did. Another company told me "F*ck Macs"...
Then there are the sites with:
1. Half MB Flash intros.
2. Bad Java or too much Java programming.
3. Horrible color and image optimization.
4. Untested (uninvited!) sites for Macs.
4. Cold Fusion or ASP garbage.
5. IDIOTS who have absolutely unnecessary pop-up windows or resize my browser!
6. Poor CSS or even HTML.
The Web to me has become a vast waste of talent and code honestly...But IE is still my browser of choice. All the others are still catching up. When a final build for Mozilla, Omniweb, iCab and others are available then recommend them...I ain't touching them now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ye gods, thank you. I'm enthralled and surprised and shocked (pleasantly) that there is SOMEONE here with more brain cells than can be counted on one hand, and you're discussing this issue as well. (Just kidding, no flames.)
Anyway, IE is a finalized version of the most popular browser in the world. It has a very decent and pleasant interface, it has great standards support (yes, it falls short in several areas, but most browsers are worse), and it supports quite a bit of non-standards or "unofficial" web features which some web developers still decide to use, it is stable about 99% of the time, and it is NOT horribly slow on ANY machine I've ever used it on.
Mozilla is unfinalized, everlasting, and has really failed to deliver a final and USABLE browser in the YEARS it has been in development. Official standards support it is very decent with, but there are still bugs. The rendering engine is very fast, but the browser is not. It is mostly very slow to load, slow to customize, slow to do things not dependant on rendering with. This is has been the case for years, in all sorts of builds and midnight builds and versions and releases and ports. It is not very customizable at all in comparison to IE, and the preferences are badly organized, badly designed, badly worded, it's a bad interface, and half of the time they don't even WORK. Unacceptable. The schemes are just plain horrible, especially the Aqua one.. and all of the other schemes available just really suck and are problematic and difficult to use/install/customize. Have been since their induction. Mozilla has also been less than stable on several occasions, far more than IE has. And I have way more experience with IE than I do Mozilla, in comparison.
Chimera shows a lot of promise, though at the moment it seems to be having issues. The interface is really incomplete, but it is decent. The rendering engine, which is the same as Mozilla's, is lightning fast by itself, and that's enough to forgive the shortcomings/bugs with standards AND non-standards support.
OmniWeb is a great browser, the interface is a work of art. It's highly customizable, and it has a ton of great and useful features. It doesn't even feel like a beta or a 'sneakypeek' 99% of the time. The rendering is significantly less 'snappy' than any other browser, no doubt due to the heavy Quartz usage and beautiful antialiasing. It really doesn't handle standards like CSS 1 and 2 or Javascript very well, but they say they will improve so we can only hope. It really gets slow when you start doing highly nested and complex tables. It is also unfortunate that it is not free, but maybe in the future Apple will strike a deal with Omni to make it free (hey, a guy can dream, right?).
Overall I'm just glad IE is by default the Mac OS browser of choice, and the ONLY one that comes with Mac OS X. For both my sake, the Mac community at large's sake, and all of us webdesigners' sakes... if everybody used a single browser that we could handle the features, quirks, advantages, disadvantages, and even shortcomings of, the web would be a better place for users in general, and we would all have less headaches and time wasted on the little things.
Oh yes, and Mozilla has done far more detriment to the browser industry and situation than whatever good you think it has done you. It's told Microsoft and other companies that you can't stay afloat financially trying to make the perfect browser that has perfect standards support and all of the good features... and you especially can't do it with the help of open source ideas and principles.
Email I sent to someone who replied via email to what I had said in this thread...
[quote]On Saturday, April 6, 2002, at 10:35 AM, Rich wrote:<strong>
I hope you don't mind me sending you this message directly but I had a question regarding internet browsing on the mac. You seemed to be knowledge on this topic from the AI site. I'm considering leaving the windows world and buying my first mac (ibook or powerbook.) I'm choosing a mac for all the obvious reasons (ease, build, itunes, iphoto, etc.) I do however spend a lot of time (probably too much time) surfing the internet. I currently use IE.
Â*
From most posts on Appleinsider there seems to be a general acceptance that macs are slower for surfing. I think I can get use to that - I have a cable modem and will probably get enough ram. My concern, and I've heard it brought up several different times, is with companies not testing their pages for the mac and the pages looking like crap.
Â*
My long winded question is what does that really mean and how much of a problem is it? If I surf 3-4 hours a day will some pages (most pages) be unreadable? unattractive? Is it obscure sites or will amazon and ebay look different? Since I spend a lot of time surfing this is obviously a concern of mine? Should it be and what is your experience?
Â*
Sorry to write so much. I appreciate any thoughts you may have.
Â*
thanks
Rich</strong><hr></blockquote>
...greeting/banter/etc...
I should start off by saying that most people (hell, myself included) really blow things out of proportions on AppleInsider... but it isn't just AI. It seems the Mac community as a whole are a bunch of exaggerative, nit-picking, high-strung, Micro$oft-hating, whiny, demanding ingrates. But we do love our Macs, don't we. So basically you should take all of these huge detriments to the Mac you hear about on AI as a grain of salt... people like to vent and bitch, and a lot of AI'ers seem to think that Apple (and Steve Jobs himself) like to browse AI for great new hardware/software ideas (they probably have in the past.. but if only I could do a in an email), thus they try to influence the future of the Mac by influencing AI and its members. Through acting like everything is a big deal. Mac users as a whole are generally never satisfied, maybe it's why we're so great, or why we're considered to be so annoying. But I digress.
I consider myself a very good critique of websites... and believe me, there are some really crappy websites out there. But 99% of the time they're just as crappy on Windows. There is little to nothing that is supported on Windows IE that is not supported on Mac IE. Those people that are saying "oh, my little shit company nobody cares about doesn't test on Macs! Mac webbrowsing sux!!" do NOT say why webbrowsing sux or just what isn't supported or causes any "problems" on Mac webbrowsers. To tell you the truth I've encountered FAR less issues with Mac IE than Windows IE... and almost ALL of those had to do with CSS (IE supports it, yes.. but misuses it and ****s it up.. yes again). CSS positioning (in different situations things may be a pixel or twenty off.. that's more of a Win IE thing than anything though) and the size of single-line text entry boxes (they're a bit bigger or smaller in different browsers/platforms) are about the ONLY halfway serious problems between Mac and PC webbrowsers, other than like microseconds of speed + perceived speed (which, apparently, is a lot slower among AppleInsiders).
Big sites like eBay and Yahoo and most every useful site I go to supports Macs just fine. Smaller or more apathetic sites that don't test their stuff on Macs very rarely have any issues. If they do have issues, they are seldom serious or anything that could possibly make the site unreadable. And if it does, they're probably using some crazy Microsoft-invented VBscript for displaying shit. If that wasn't something I've just heard about that I accidentally stored as a memory, I've only encountered that like.. once or *maybe* twice, in my 4-5 years of having a net connection at home (and probably more than 3-4 hours a day.. eek , and it was far from anything important.
So basically, no, this should not be a concern... IE is really a great browser. Plus, things are getting better everyday... IE 5 was released like a year and a half or two years ago (I think), and when OS X shipped it came with IE 5.1 which solved a LOT of little minor annoying issues (annoying for us web developers at least.. most users don't seem to care or even notice the small stuff). This is true especially with great browsers like OmniWeb maturing more and more every day. Try it (but I don't suggest using it as your main browser until it's fully finished), I guarantee you'll see the web and web browsers in a whole new light.
Wired News reports on iMac slowdowns and complaints by Windows converts about the sluggishness of the computer when performing routine tasks:
"Tests conducted by Wired News confirmed reader complaints that a new 800 MHz iMac takes an average of twice as long to render Web pages as a comparable or cheaper PC running Windows XP. Even on broadband networks, the iMac's default Internet Explorer browser took an average of 10 seconds per page to render several popular sites, including CNN.com and the Apple Store homepage. ...Slashdot discussion pages and some weblog sites took even longer, despite their lack of fat graphics. The diagnosis: The problem is not a bandwidth issue caused by fat HTML, but an annoying delay in actually drawing the page onscreen after its components have been downloaded."
Wired News reports on iMac slowdowns and complaints by Windows converts about the sluggishness of the computer when performing routine tasks:
"Tests conducted by Wired News confirmed reader complaints that a new 800 MHz iMac takes an average of twice as long to render Web pages as a comparable or cheaper PC running Windows XP. Even on broadband networks, the iMac's default Internet Explorer browser took an average of 10 seconds per page to render several popular sites, including CNN.com and the Apple Store homepage. ...Slashdot discussion pages and some weblog sites took even longer, despite their lack of fat graphics. The diagnosis: The problem is not a bandwidth issue caused by fat HTML, but an annoying delay in actually drawing the page onscreen after its components have been downloaded."
Sorry for double posting. The Mac has been slower than Windows for web surfing for quite a while now. Even Apple admits now, that some performance fields of OS X are only 20% optimized. That sucks! But I think we'll see a substantial change in OS X 10.2 . Well, hope so.
Comments
[Q
Besides, if you don't like the other parts, just don't use them.
it adds to the bloat
So if I were to, say, take a baseball bat to your shins you should blame your nerve endings and fragile bone structure instead of me?
Damn fragile bone structure...
You take the concept of "personal responsibility" to a whole new level!
<strong>Once I'm on-line I find that most pages load fast given that I have 56K. The problem though is getting on line. There is a lot of problems with OS X and Internet Connect. AOL sucks and Earthlink is not far behind.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've found EarthLink to be excellant. What problems are you having with it?
<strong>
I've found EarthLink to be excellant. What problems are you having with it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not connecting any faster than 40 BBS, but AOL connects about 44, which is still slower than I used to connect. I'm not sure if it's my new iMac or 10.1.3. I also disconnect a lot or have problems connecting in the first place. Earthlink tried a few things but none of them worked and they said then it had to be line noise.
They like to boast a dedication to Mac, but I'm not sold. Does anyone have a DSL provider who doesn't disconnect them and spend a ridiculous amount of time "looking for" pages?
Have you ever tried to connect to a web site, and while the page is loading your entire Mac is locked? I mean not only does IE (or whatever browser) lock under the requests, but ALL your apps are 'locked' until that particular page finally loads? I hit sites all the time that require me to basically sit there and stare at a blank page (and get no work done in other apps) until the page loads 100%.
I thought maybe this was a threading issue with OS 9, but it happens in X too! This does NOT happen on the Windows platform!
I have used Macs for almost 10 years. I am not dreaming here. The PC is a better web computer. Period. I hate to say it, but its true!
But you're right; the PC *is* a better web browsing platform, simply by virtue of the fact that many (most?) sites are never tested on a Mac, whereas most sites actually created on a Mac do get tested on PC's.
Occasionally, I do see a page where the Javascripts will bring a Mac browser to a crawl, but will fly on a PC. You could make all kinds of arguments about something lacking in the Mac browser, but it really comes down to not being tested on a Mac before going live.
<strong>Have you ever tried to connect to a web site, and while the page is loading your entire Mac is locked?</strong><hr></blockquote>In OS9, yes. Any activity in any app will often lock up the machine.
In OSX, never. Not in OmniWeb, not in Mozilla. Of course, I can't speak for IE because I so rarely use that garbage.
<strong>Does anyone have a DSL provider who doesn't disconnect them and spend a ridiculous amount of time "looking for" pages?</strong><hr></blockquote>I never get disconnected and have no idea what these "looking for" pages are you're talking about. Everything is nice and speedy here on my BellSouth DSL (Ethernet modem, not USB).
If you reaaally want to know why, you'd have to ask the Redmond guys. Afterall, they're the ones that built it.
<strong>
Pages (after loading) "snap" back fast in IE on OS 9.2.2 and in OS X for me. I have had some Windoze friends who were surprised about this. I am also still on a dial-up 56 kb modem. Pages load pretty good in my opinion.
Another point that should be made are that many web sites are still designed and programmed on Windozes computers and software. Many companies don't or won't design/program/test their sites for Macs. I have worked for only one company that did. Another company told me "F*ck Macs"...
Then there are the sites with:
1. Half MB Flash intros.
2. Bad Java or too much Java programming.
3. Horrible color and image optimization.
4. Untested (uninvited!) sites for Macs.
4. Cold Fusion or ASP garbage.
5. IDIOTS who have absolutely unnecessary pop-up windows or resize my browser!
6. Poor CSS or even HTML.
The Web to me has become a vast waste of talent and code honestly...But IE is still my browser of choice. All the others are still catching up. When a final build for Mozilla, Omniweb, iCab and others are available then recommend them...I ain't touching them now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ye gods, thank you. I'm enthralled and surprised and shocked (pleasantly) that there is SOMEONE here with more brain cells than can be counted on one hand, and you're discussing this issue as well.
Anyway, IE is a finalized version of the most popular browser in the world. It has a very decent and pleasant interface, it has great standards support (yes, it falls short in several areas, but most browsers are worse), and it supports quite a bit of non-standards or "unofficial" web features which some web developers still decide to use, it is stable about 99% of the time, and it is NOT horribly slow on ANY machine I've ever used it on.
Mozilla is unfinalized, everlasting, and has really failed to deliver a final and USABLE browser in the YEARS it has been in development. Official standards support it is very decent with, but there are still bugs. The rendering engine is very fast, but the browser is not. It is mostly very slow to load, slow to customize, slow to do things not dependant on rendering with. This is has been the case for years, in all sorts of builds and midnight builds and versions and releases and ports. It is not very customizable at all in comparison to IE, and the preferences are badly organized, badly designed, badly worded, it's a bad interface, and half of the time they don't even WORK. Unacceptable. The schemes are just plain horrible, especially the Aqua one.. and all of the other schemes available just really suck and are problematic and difficult to use/install/customize. Have been since their induction. Mozilla has also been less than stable on several occasions, far more than IE has. And I have way more experience with IE than I do Mozilla, in comparison.
Chimera shows a lot of promise, though at the moment it seems to be having issues. The interface is really incomplete, but it is decent. The rendering engine, which is the same as Mozilla's, is lightning fast by itself, and that's enough to forgive the shortcomings/bugs with standards AND non-standards support.
OmniWeb is a great browser, the interface is a work of art. It's highly customizable, and it has a ton of great and useful features. It doesn't even feel like a beta or a 'sneakypeek' 99% of the time. The rendering is significantly less 'snappy' than any other browser, no doubt due to the heavy Quartz usage and beautiful antialiasing. It really doesn't handle standards like CSS 1 and 2 or Javascript very well, but they say they will improve so we can only hope. It really gets slow when you start doing highly nested and complex tables. It is also unfortunate that it is not free, but maybe in the future Apple will strike a deal with Omni to make it free (hey, a guy can dream, right?).
Overall I'm just glad IE is by default the Mac OS browser of choice, and the ONLY one that comes with Mac OS X. For both my sake, the Mac community at large's sake, and all of us webdesigners' sakes... if everybody used a single browser that we could handle the features, quirks, advantages, disadvantages, and even shortcomings of, the web would be a better place for users in general, and we would all have less headaches and time wasted on the little things.
Thanks, Netscape. (not)
[quote]On Saturday, April 6, 2002, at 10:35 AM, Rich wrote:<strong>
I hope you don't mind me sending you this message directly but I had a question regarding internet browsing on the mac. You seemed to be knowledge on this topic from the AI site. I'm considering leaving the windows world and buying my first mac (ibook or powerbook.) I'm choosing a mac for all the obvious reasons (ease, build, itunes, iphoto, etc.) I do however spend a lot of time (probably too much time) surfing the internet. I currently use IE.
Â*
From most posts on Appleinsider there seems to be a general acceptance that macs are slower for surfing. I think I can get use to that - I have a cable modem and will probably get enough ram. My concern, and I've heard it brought up several different times, is with companies not testing their pages for the mac and the pages looking like crap.
Â*
My long winded question is what does that really mean and how much of a problem is it? If I surf 3-4 hours a day will some pages (most pages) be unreadable? unattractive? Is it obscure sites or will amazon and ebay look different? Since I spend a lot of time surfing this is obviously a concern of mine? Should it be and what is your experience?
Â*
Sorry to write so much. I appreciate any thoughts you may have.
Â*
thanks
Rich</strong><hr></blockquote>
...greeting/banter/etc...
I should start off by saying that most people (hell, myself included) really blow things out of proportions on AppleInsider... but it isn't just AI. It seems the Mac community as a whole are a bunch of exaggerative, nit-picking, high-strung, Micro$oft-hating, whiny, demanding ingrates. But we do love our Macs, don't we.
I consider myself a very good critique of websites... and believe me, there are some really crappy websites out there. But 99% of the time they're just as crappy on Windows. There is little to nothing that is supported on Windows IE that is not supported on Mac IE. Those people that are saying "oh, my little shit company nobody cares about doesn't test on Macs! Mac webbrowsing sux!!" do NOT say why webbrowsing sux or just what isn't supported or causes any "problems" on Mac webbrowsers. To tell you the truth I've encountered FAR less issues with Mac IE than Windows IE... and almost ALL of those had to do with CSS (IE supports it, yes.. but misuses it and ****s it up.. yes again). CSS positioning (in different situations things may be a pixel or twenty off.. that's more of a Win IE thing than anything though) and the size of single-line text entry boxes (they're a bit bigger or smaller in different browsers/platforms) are about the ONLY halfway serious problems between Mac and PC webbrowsers, other than like microseconds of speed + perceived speed (which, apparently, is a lot slower among AppleInsiders).
Big sites like eBay and Yahoo and most every useful site I go to supports Macs just fine. Smaller or more apathetic sites that don't test their stuff on Macs very rarely have any issues. If they do have issues, they are seldom serious or anything that could possibly make the site unreadable. And if it does, they're probably using some crazy Microsoft-invented VBscript for displaying shit. If that wasn't something I've just heard about that I accidentally stored as a memory, I've only encountered that like.. once or *maybe* twice, in my 4-5 years of having a net connection at home (and probably more than 3-4 hours a day.. eek
So basically, no, this should not be a concern... IE is really a great browser. Plus, things are getting better everyday... IE 5 was released like a year and a half or two years ago (I think), and when OS X shipped it came with IE 5.1 which solved a LOT of little minor annoying issues (annoying for us web developers at least.. most users don't seem to care or even notice the small stuff). This is true especially with great browsers like OmniWeb maturing more and more every day. Try it (but I don't suggest using it as your main browser until it's fully finished), I guarantee you'll see the web and web browsers in a whole new light.
...closing/sig...
Wired News reports on iMac slowdowns and complaints by Windows converts about the sluggishness of the computer when performing routine tasks:
"Tests conducted by Wired News confirmed reader complaints that a new 800 MHz iMac takes an average of twice as long to render Web pages as a comparable or cheaper PC running Windows XP. Even on broadband networks, the iMac's default Internet Explorer browser took an average of 10 seconds per page to render several popular sites, including CNN.com and the Apple Store homepage. ...Slashdot discussion pages and some weblog sites took even longer, despite their lack of fat graphics. The diagnosis: The problem is not a bandwidth issue caused by fat HTML, but an annoying delay in actually drawing the page onscreen after its components have been downloaded."
Article:
<a href="http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51926,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51926,00.html</a>;
Calvin has a new post on this issue:
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=001398"; target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=001398</a>;
<strong>This was my point EXACTLY!
Wired News reports on iMac slowdowns and complaints by Windows converts about the sluggishness of the computer when performing routine tasks:
"Tests conducted by Wired News confirmed reader complaints that a new 800 MHz iMac takes an average of twice as long to render Web pages as a comparable or cheaper PC running Windows XP. Even on broadband networks, the iMac's default Internet Explorer browser took an average of 10 seconds per page to render several popular sites, including CNN.com and the Apple Store homepage. ...Slashdot discussion pages and some weblog sites took even longer, despite their lack of fat graphics. The diagnosis: The problem is not a bandwidth issue caused by fat HTML, but an annoying delay in actually drawing the page onscreen after its components have been downloaded."
Article:
<a href="http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51926,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51926,00.html</a>;
Calvin has a new post on this issue:
<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=001398"; target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=001398</a></strong><hr></blockquote>;
Sorry for double posting. The Mac has been slower than Windows for web surfing for quite a while now. Even Apple admits now, that some performance fields of OS X are only 20% optimized. That sucks! But I think we'll see a substantial change in OS X 10.2 . Well, hope so.