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The New Browser Wars

graystoke4 said:
Hi, i really don't get people not using a mouse, its faster along the page, les movement needed, and I'm no banging my laptop to get on or change things, as for touch screen, you try as you might to keep the screen clean, not an easy task, then you get some sweaty greasy jamy guy who wants to rub his fingers all over it, crazy :eek: never got touch screen,
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Because a lot of computing tasks are mostly about manipulating text and/or issuing commands which is just much better done with a keyboard than a mouse. You keep your hands on the home row of the keyboard and can do everything directly without moving our hands. And where you are doing this for many hours a day (i.e. a job) you are just going to get incredibly proficient at this very quickly in the same way a joiner gets very good at hammering in 6" nails. This applies in generic applications like word processors and spreadsheets and more specialised things like engineering or graphics programs and so ends up being an important thing in many professions.

In this context picking up your mouse to select a menu option and clicks a few things is incredibly disruptive and very slow.
 
Hi, i guess your right, everyone i know, that stares into a computer all day prefers not to use a mouse, me i just doodle, a few sites, insurance, and the like, general stuff,
To be honest when i read your first post i could not make head or tail of it, IT talk, its all Greek to me, thank god, o_O
 
Joe P said:
You blokes had modems?!?

In my day we mailed 5-1/4-inch floppies to each other if we wanted to be on the Net, except it wasn’t the Net. It was guys mailing discs to each other in some sort of loosely affiliated network.

Joe
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Joe,

When I did my time in Waterloo, I regularly used a computer connection between UofW and WL. This, via a dumb terminal with acoustic coupling modem adapter and rotary dial telephone. Even the libraries were so connected between to two campuses. The library database system records consisted of the same Dewey Decimal Classification info as the cards, only one could check to see if a copy of a particular publication was available, and, more importantly, reserve it.

Craig

P.S. ISTR one of the two campuses computer systems having had an 8" floppy drive, 237KB SSSD. Obviously, one could store the sum total of all human knowledge and experience on one of those.
 
Craig,

I was thinking of my high school computer days. Not much existed in the way of computer systems and networking, at least as it’s understood now, at my school back then.

But I now realize that I should have said that we mailed each other cassette tapes. It was in the days before floppies. Unless I’m hallucinating I played Space Invaders on a Commodore PET, loaded from cassette tape. I’m sure someone can confirm whether such things were happening in the very early 1980s.

Joe
 
Old blokes reminiscing about the early days...

Started a Computer Science degree in 1974, programming coursework was submitted on punched cards prepared on a hand punch. First job I had a DEC VT100 attached to a PDP11 running RSX. In 1985 I started working on an Alvey (the UK's bid to stave off the feared Japanese 5th Generation onslaught) project in Cambridge. We were well funded. Our desktop machines were Xerox 1108s and everyone had Internet access. The 1108 had big high resolution B/W screens and the first commercial multi-windowed office system, the developer side being InterLisp, still the finest software development environment I have ever used. Earlier versions of these systems were what Steve Jobs saw at Xerox PARC which led to the creation of the first Macintosh. Then an 1108 cost about 1/2 the price of the terraced house I bought the following year, our project had about ten.

Sometime in the very early 90s when we were on Sun workstations I can remember someone at Cambridge University Computer Lab asking me to "look at this". It was a web browser, probably within days or weeks of CERN going public about the WWW, I was underwhelmed.

Currently have an oldish 27" iMac with an oldish MacOS and use Safari or Firefox. Doubt if I've used Windows for more than about 3 hours total in my whole life. Prefer keyboards and use a trackpad rather than a mouse.
 
I remember when I first got dedicated 512k internet (as opposed to the bonded 2x 64k over the phone line I had been using - which i mostly used just at 64k as the call costs were horrendous). It felt like traveling at the speed of light in comparison
 
Joe P said:
Craig,

I was thinking of my high school computer days. Not much existed in the way of computer systems and networking, at least as it’s understood now, at my school back then.

But I now realize that I should have said that we mailed each other cassette tapes. It was in the days before floppies. Unless I’m hallucinating I played Space Invaders on a Commodore PET, loaded from cassette tape. I’m sure someone can confirm whether such things were happening in the very early 1980s.

Joe
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My first experience of computing was at school. The teacher was a Maths teacher as "computer science" teachers didn't exist (at least not in my school) at the time. We wrote flow charts then marked the instructions on "punch cards" (can't recall what they're actually called - bit like filling in a lotto ticket) which then got sent off somewhere. We had to wait till the next class to get a printout that just showed the result of our programming attempt. :)
 
matthewr said:
-- Floorp is currently my daily driver...
-- ... but now using Arc which I like a lot.
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OK, I’m following this so far…
matthewr said:
The shitely named floorp is a fork of Firefox and is AFAICT one Japanese bloke making the browser he wants. Pretty cool and ticks most of my boxes.
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The first part is an excellent tongue-twister - I’m hanging in there, just…
matthewr said:
Arc is the achingly hip browser that was Mac only but is now in beta for Windows as MSFT types smarten themselves up…
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Right, got it… er, you are referring to the people that recorded TSOP, yes?

Do I get any old person kudos for remembering my first browser was Cello?
 
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I remember using a search tool that you had to install, it used to search the handful of search engines that existed on the interwebs at the time (Ask Jeeves was one of them, and I think AOL?). I can't for the life of me rememeber what it was called now though.
 
Arc is now available on Windows without a beta invite.

arc.net

Arc from The Browser Company

Experience a calmer, more personal internet in this browser designed for you. Let go of the clicks, the clutter, the distractions.
arc.net arc.net
 
For work, the usual: Edge and Chrome. But on my phone and tablet I use Duck Duck Go for reading - does a great job of ad blocking
 
Firefox for many years. Tried many others but really see no benefit to change.
What does Arc offer above and beyond?
 
I still can’t imagine why anyone would want to use anything other than an iPad to browse the internet. It’s Picard’s tablet rather than Scotty shouting at a mouse, as I’m sure Joe P would say.

PS See, I actually did a Star Trek!
 
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