RE: Fresh start? Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities

I take one free browser on each platform meaning that at least one browser
is available free that supports that platform that conforms to WAI
standards.  I do not wholy agree with this as I am not quite sure whether it
really has to be free or reasonably available in comparrison with the cost
of the hardware and network costs.

I would consider that if at least one readilly available for each major
platform ( I do not include people trying to surf the internet on an amstrad
cpm machine etc) which supports access keys,expresses all output in a form
suitible for basic screen readers and supports published grammars and has
been available for at least say one year in the case of free browsers and
works with screen readers say 4 years old we may have a situation that the
platform is accessible.

I define platform as "Intel pentium 1 + IBM compattible comuter, OR  Mac
hardware newer than say 4 years.  OR Net TV based hardware.

I would not count say the AOL browser as being a platform but a browser that
may or may not count towards being a readily available browser depending on
its support of features mentioned above.

I do not count accessible such browsers such as Lynx which if it cannot
connect to it's home page on startup stops working. or count Opera as free
when it requires either payment or the download of additional advertising
messages.

The browser must also self install with no special configuration needed by
the user.

THe user should not have to swap between browsers in order to navigat
diferent types of sites.

Harry Woodrow

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Vadim Plessky
Sent: Friday, 28 December 2001 9:55 PM
To: Jim Ley; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Fresh start? Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities


On Friday 28 December 2001 01:29, Jim Ley wrote:
|    "Charles McCathieNevile"
|   > available in one free browser for each platform? Or does it need to be
|   > avalable in IE (which is not a multi-platform browser - it is
available
|   on two platforms and the versions are effectively different pieces of
|   software)?
|
|   > Or does it need to be available for at least two years?
|
|   I believe it's available on 4 platforms (Win32, Mac,Solaris, and
| PocketPC) but it's also 4 seperate browsers with an entire different
| codebase (unlike NN, or Mozilla) which share only a name.

IE for PocketPC / Windows CE is, in fact, MS IE 4.0.
There were rumors that MS will update it [Pocket IE] to MS IE 5.0, but AFAIK
this hsan't happened yet.
Anyway, as Win CE PDA's do not have Ethernet or Radio-Ethernet connectivity
built-in, I doubt they can be counted as a Platform.

And I can add to Jim's list another 1.5 platforms.
1) WebTV - which is also based on MS technologies
2) AOL browser. AOL (still) uses MS IE codebase (some kind of OEM version of
MS IE), but some web marketers treat it as a separate browser.
So my opinion is that AOL browser should account for 0.5 of "platform" :-)

|
|   Jim.

--

Vadim Plessky
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Received on Friday, 28 December 2001 07:49:22 UTC