Comments on: HP to ship Netscape browser on new PCs

HP and Compaq consumer PCs and notebooks in the U.S. and Canada will come with the browser starting next year.

[agent V]

wow

hp is installing freely available software on their computers, brilliant. its only going to serve to confuse already befuddled users and turn them off of alternative browsers altogether. But i guess it is a first step in the "wean from Microsoft" movement.

[Lynn_S]

Non-installed software is non-confusing?

So, people will only understand a freely available piece of software if they download it and install it themselves?

Did you download and install Windows and that's how you came to understand this point so well and become an expert user? Lucky your operating system didn't come pre-installed or you might be one of those befuddled users, huh?

[agent V]

wow

hp is installing freely available software on their computers, brilliant. its only going to serve to confuse already befuddled users and turn them off of alternative browsers altogether. But i guess it is a first step in the "wean from Microsoft" movement.

[Lynn_S]

Non-installed software is non-confusing?

So, people will only understand a freely available piece of software if they download it and install it themselves?

Did you download and install Windows and that's how you came to understand this point so well and become an expert user? Lucky your operating system didn't come pre-installed or you might be one of those befuddled users, huh?

Yeah right!

Keep one thing in mind with this story, it is all fine, nobody EVER said you had to use IE, and you have always been able to use any browser you felt like downloading and installing, but one thing to keep in mind, 90% of the people reading this today are doing so on Internet Explorer. Just remember, nobody ever forced you to do it, you chose to.

[DarkHawke]

You're missing the point.

Sad though it may be, most folks who buy PCs either aren't savvy enough to want to change browsers or are confused enough by their machines and don't want the hassle. So they take the course of least resistance, whatever's on the desktop or set as the default on the machine. In simple terms, folks is lazy, and that laziness is costly for all of us, in terms of the perpetuation of viruses, spyware and the spam that easily hijacked 'puters pump out all over the world.

Now if you give the lazy a different default, a browser & mail client that are inherently less vulnerable to attack, and thus make their computers less vulnerable to being either besieged or taken over, the computing world is suddenly a better place. Not that just one manufacturer giving folks the [i]option[/i] to get Netscape instead of IE is by itself going to do the job, but like all great groundswells, it's gotta start somewhere.

Yeah right!

Keep one thing in mind with this story, it is all fine, nobody EVER said you had to use IE, and you have always been able to use any browser you felt like downloading and installing, but one thing to keep in mind, 90% of the people reading this today are doing so on Internet Explorer. Just remember, nobody ever forced you to do it, you chose to.

[DarkHawke]

You're missing the point.

Sad though it may be, most folks who buy PCs either aren't savvy enough to want to change browsers or are confused enough by their machines and don't want the hassle. So they take the course of least resistance, whatever's on the desktop or set as the default on the machine. In simple terms, folks is lazy, and that laziness is costly for all of us, in terms of the perpetuation of viruses, spyware and the spam that easily hijacked 'puters pump out all over the world.

Now if you give the lazy a different default, a browser & mail client that are inherently less vulnerable to attack, and thus make their computers less vulnerable to being either besieged or taken over, the computing world is suddenly a better place. Not that just one manufacturer giving folks the [i]option[/i] to get Netscape instead of IE is by itself going to do the job, but like all great groundswells, it's gotta start somewhere.

BEWARE Netscapes EULA - SPYWARE!

For those who never take the time to read EULA's (who does), this latest one from Netscape in their latest browser makes for very intersting reading ...

While I don't have it in front of me any longer, at last glance (prior to aborting the install), it stated something to the effect that you (the user) grant that 'Netscape has the right to MONITOR online user activity'!

:-|

Read it for yourselves!
IMHO, Netscape is now Corporate SPYWARE !!!

Go Firefox!

BEWARE Netscapes EULA - SPYWARE!

For those who never take the time to read EULA's (who does), this latest one from Netscape in their latest browser makes for very intersting reading ...

While I don't have it in front of me any longer, at last glance (prior to aborting the install), it stated something to the effect that you (the user) grant that 'Netscape has the right to MONITOR online user activity'!

:-|

Read it for yourselves!
IMHO, Netscape is now Corporate SPYWARE !!!

Go Firefox!