Pre-installed interent browser

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artguy10
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Pre-installed interent browser

Post by artguy10 »

ReactOS needs a pre-installed browser, for two reasons. One, it can be hard to get one without a browser to begin with. Two, there is an issue of certain programs requiring Internet Explorer.

For the first, I would say, for sure include Firefox with ReactOS. But what is to be done with all the Windows programs which require IE to run? Like Google Earth, Juno Email/Web, etc.? Will Internet Explorer come included with ReactOS, or are you going to make some kind of ReactOS Web Browser? Or perhaps there is some way to have something built-in to ReactOS which satisfies the programs that require IE?
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

We've covered the second problem multiple times. Those are just some DLLs that need to be present and in theory they're already there. The first issue needs to wait. We're not at the point where we absolutely need a web browser. Right now you're not going to convince the devs to add one in.
artguy10
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Post by artguy10 »

So I guess well start seeing firefox or something in the betas?

Could you please explain something to me: Some programs which require IE basically USE IE in their program to bring web content (even MS Word). Are you saying that this is just dlls, and that programs which "require Internet Explorer 6 or above) and seem to make IE part of the program are simply using dlls which we can freely use?
florian
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Post by florian »

Instead of Firefox I would prefer K-Meleon. K-Meleon (GPL) uses native Windows API to create the user interface and therefore it is less resource-intensive than Firefox. Theoretically you can unzip and run it without any installation. Unfortunately it is not yet part of our compability database.

I am just writing this because all people are referring to Firefox although Firefox might not suit that well for people with the intention of running a NT-based/inspired (React)OS on old low-spec computers.
artguy10
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Post by artguy10 »

florian wrote:Instead of Firefox I would prefer K-Meleon. K-Meleon (GPL) uses native Windows API to create the user interface and therefore it is less resource-intensive than Firefox. Theoretically you can unzip and run it without any installation. Unfortunately it is not yet part of our compability database.

I am just writing this because all people are referring to Firefox although Firefox might not suit that well for people with the intention of running a NT-based/inspired (React)OS on old low-spec computers.
Firefox is far superior to K-Meleon and has better support. It isn't resource-hungry enough to worry about alternatives.
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

There are mixed feelings regarding Firefox. Quite frankly, its performance on Windows can be absolutely abominable. I would highly prefer an alternative while other devs think it's fine. It's still being discussed. However, the devs have consistently stated they will not consider bundling FF in the short term.
artguy10
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Post by artguy10 »

I saw a presentation when Apple released Safari 3. They showed the results: IE was slowest, FF was faster, and Safari was quickest. You want to include Safari 3? To tell you the truth, I would feel safest using FF, as that is the browser that is most secure, highly supported, and has a deal-maker add-on called "Adblock Plus". And you can't ignore this poll: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0 and see the poll on the left side of the screen or http://www.surveyware.com/report.aspx?q ... qpcustom=2 .
Z98
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Post by Z98 »

I don't recall ever mentioning Safari.

Popularity does not equate superiority. After all, the iPhone is popular, but technically, it's inferior to most phones of its type released last year.

Hmm, security. Firefox had a bug that allowed people running it as a User on Vista to escalate up to Admin privileges. I also recall an issue Bizzeh found that when he filed a bug report, the FF team removed it, accusing him of revealing a major security hole publicly. And I still don't know if he got them to fix it.

Hype is one thing. If you actually step back, you'll see a lot of issues in extremely popular open source products. Any browsing support we include would have to fulfill whatever requirements we develop once we actually start considering the need to include a browser.
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

Safari 3 engine in Khtml front end is closed source. artguy10 other Khtml browsers have not been on windows in number yet. They will before Reactos default browser has to be set for good.

Besides there is Iexplorer from wine to consider. Native win32 with gecko engine for page rendering.

Basically its too soon to nail anything down about this. For all we know 12 months time Firefox might be a small marked and some of the other ones from KDE and QT are ruling.(ie the Khtml open source browsers)

PS. The bug in Vista was that Firefox stupidly pasted a URI to Microsoft own internal handling without checking it first. Ok they should have know better than trust Microsoft URI processing. It was a little harder fix the Fault in Microsoft URI processing is still there. Biz minorly stuffed up as well there is a security mailing list for firefox security bugs. To give them a max of a month to fix.
artguy10
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Post by artguy10 »

About security: I mean it doesn't let in all those spyware cookies like IE.

Performance or system resources was mentioned, so I brought up the super-fast Safari.

You're right: popularity does not equal superiority. IE has 80% of the market share, but only 12% thought it was best. Where as FF has 14% popularity, yet 60% of those polled thought it was the best. C|net editorial reviews also favor FF over IE.

I'm well aware of the many browsers out there. However, I think other than IE, that FF has the most support of, say, media support and the largest group of add-ins to choose from.
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

Media is wrong on plugins. http://www.konqueror.org/ Its the o my god is that a web browsers/File manager. That thing has the largest ammout of plug ins. The question is what can't konqueror do. Yep edited files view files....

Yet it don't show up on percentages. Reason only on linux. konqueror will be on windows soon and uses same core engine to Safari.

There are a lot of khtml browers that have not been in the open market. And some of them are scarily powerful.

Its basically too soon to call.
artguy10
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Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:20 am

Post by artguy10 »

I actually used Konqueror. Didn't like it much, I didn't find it as intuitive as Firefox. But whatever. I'm not saying that there aren't any other browsers that can do what FF can, there are others. I just think FF is the best choice, that is my opinion.

And I'm happy as long as ReactOS will be able to launch programs that use IE and we eventually get a good browser to come with the OS.
Jawmht
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Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:37 am

Post by Jawmht »

artguy10 wrote:About security: I mean it doesn't let in all those spyware cookies like IE.
Cookies are not spyware, they are just data files, if someone who had a large access to an insane amount of site (Like DoubleClick or Google Ads), the could install cookies and use them to track the sites that they had access to. A better solution would be to just not accept cookies from large advertisers and such....
artguy10
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Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:20 am

Post by artguy10 »

Listen. All I know is that when I used IE, Trend Micro Anti Spyware found security risks in cookies which were from various ad servers and such, where as this didn't occur using Firefox.
Matthias
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Post by Matthias »

artguy10 wrote:Listen. All I know is that when I used IE, Trend Micro Anti Spyware found security risks in cookies which were from various ad servers and such, where as this didn't occur using Firefox.
That's because Firefox stores the cookies in a format that Trend Micro Anti Spyware can't handle. Also, you can disable cookies in every browser, including IE. If you're too stupid to do that... PEBKAC!
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