Overheard about ... Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0

So, out of curiousity I downloaded Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 just to see what all the hub-bub was about.

Of course, following their strategy of complete (but buggy) integration of desktop applications, IE 3.0 is being built to hook into (and provide hooks for) the desktop, and ultimately make accessing the Web as seamless as printing a page or copying a file. And gosh, we all know how seamless those tasks are under Windows ...

Funny enough, there's a little skirmish brewing over who owns the resources on the desktop. When IE 3.0 installed, it set itself as the browser of choice whenever an Internet Shortcut or HTML file is opened. The setup program didn't even bother to ask if it was okay to relieve Netscape's Navigator 2.0 of such duties, since it was already installed. (I'm sure Microsoft's decision to do this was out of selfless respect of end-users who don't want to be bothered with such trivial little questions.)

This was no surprise to me. IE 2.0 did the same thing, and when I chucked it off my system in favor of Navigator, I had to walk through the file associations and hook everything back up to Navigator. Yeah, I could've just re-installed Netscape, but the pure misery of editing the associations by hand was masochistic self-reinforcement to not install Internet Explorer again.

God, I'm a friggin' glutton for punishment.

However, this time Netscape was prepared. After I played around with IE 3.0 for fifteen minutes or so, I found that it couldn't get past my company's corporate proxy server whenever trying to connect to, ironically enough, Microsoft's web site. (C'mon ... you didn't think I was trying this out at home on my own time, did you?)

So, I fired up Netscape, and lo a dialog box popped up with the question: "Netscape Navigator has detected it is no longer your default browser. Would you like to make it your default browser?" Ah ... the grueling torture of changing file associations was to not be. I clicked "Yes" and did my thing.

I went back to IE 3.0 a little while later, to see what else was great about it, and wouldn't ya know it, it popped up a box complaining it was no longer the default browser. Sorry, Charlie ... you're just not up to snuff yet. I ran my mouse over the "No" button. <Click.>

Looking a little closer, I noticed that the IE setup had discovered my Netscape bookmark file and imported it. As a nice touch, it was displaying the associated icon next to each URL. But, since it was no longer the default browser, Netscape's green logo was splattered everywhere, a sort of Warhol-inspired electronic pop silkscreen.

I'm sick of these guys messing around with my desktop. Will someone port Lynx to Win32 and stop the insanity?