As it should be. Mozilla is NOT a browser for anyones grandmother, and Mozilla.com reflects that.
Netscape.com is a lovely site full of unimportant useless information sure to keep grandmothers attention focused on the meaningless drivel they enjoy.

Change Mozilla.com to look like Netscape.com or Microsoft.com or even Opera.com and the lifeblood of Mozilla, all of the independant contributors will run away faster than you can blink.

My point is that this is NOT a wasted opputunity as you have observed, but a way to keep the only people that matter to the Mozilla project interested, the coders, and the testers, NOT the end users who should be using a browser based on Mozilla with all of the niceties they are used to if they are interested in Mozilla.

Posted by: jon on June 10, 2002 12:54 AM

 

As it should be? Only if you want to ensure the primacy of IE. No one is proposing to add links to Entertainment Tonight on the Mozilla web site, only to apply the basic principles of usability to it. Snobbery is the fast track to obscurity, Jon.

Posted by: BeerzieBoy on June 10, 2002 04:01 PM

 

Agreed BeerzieBoy. Why shouldn't my grandmother use Mozilla? She uses IE and Mozilla isn't that much different is it? If the Mozilla Organization truly wants use of the browser to become more widespread, basic usability is much needed. I'm a very experienced web user and found the download page one of the most confusing I've ever come across.

Posted by: Joshua Kaufman on June 11, 2002 12:43 PM

 

Mozilla just isn't for the average end users. I could rattle off a list of reasons why, they are pretty much obvious to anyone who has installed it though. Debug Menu anyone?

The point is that Netscape, Beonex, Mozilla/Browser, AOL 8, and the umpteen derivatives are much more user friendly than Mozilla itself.

Personally I get peeved a bit when people complain about Mozilla being unpolished because finally we have a web browser that isn't dumbed down like IE, and Opera, and I don't want to ruin that.
Mozilla is kinda like someone's messy desk. It may not be organized, but it's the sign of a very productive person.

Posted by: jon on June 12, 2002 05:09 AM