There's a new Lizard in town.
February 8, 1999
The big news in the browser world these days is
Gecko, or as the
more technically-inclined prefer to call it, NGT. Not exactly a browser,
but a sort of framework for building a browser, or for incorporating the
ability to browse Web content into any application. Gecko is awesome. It
conforms to the HTML 4.0 spec beautifully, and fits on a floppy.
Apparently the folks at Netscape decided to try letting the
technical people design a "browser engine" this time, instead of
letting the marketing department call the shots. The result is a
program that is lean, stable and flexible - in fact "flexible" is
far too mild a word. "Constantly evolving" might be better, as
Gecko is an open source project. The source code is available free
to whoever wants to tweak it. Don't worry, Netscape intends always to
have a tested "release" version as well as the free-wheeling development
versions.
The most important thing about Gecko is the fact that it conforms
very closely to the HTML 4.0 standard. No more proprietary tags or
weirdness. Although Gecko itself isn't a browser as such, it would
seem logical that it will be incorporated to some extent into
Communicator 5.0 when it appears. This could make Netscape the
company of the hour, and Explorer 5.0 a lame duck.
After all, Web developers are tired of writing for two platforms,
and itching to use the new tools that have been suspended tantalizingly
out of our reach for so long. Let me at those style sheets! A browser
that finally conforms to the standard has got my vote!
Of course, since the source code is freely available, Microsoft
could presumably just incorporate the Gecko way of thinking into
Explorer 5.10 or whatever. Or come up with a competing deal and
call it Arizona or something. In any case, the Gecko has opened
the door to a new standards-compliant world, and that's good news
for Web users of all classes.
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