O Iceape, where art thou?
Posted: 2013-11-08 17:39
I am an Iceape user and I have always been (through its legacy of Seamonkey, Mozilla Application Suite, Mozilla and Netscape Navigator) ever since I started using a browser back in the days of dial-up connection in the nineties.
I didn't switch immediately from Seamonkey to Iceape, after the branding quarrel with Mozilla, because at the time I was more interested in having the latest version of the gecko engine.
Eventually this priority became less and less important and I switched (I think it was when it re-entered with Squeeze).
Anyway, Iceape's development right now is stagnant and I'm not here to place blames or whine and complain, indeed I am and will always be thankful for the time and effort invested by all those involved in the Iceape project. Also I understand that Mike has more important things to do than follow a niche project.
Nevertheless, the last Iceape movement in any development branch is as old as February 2013 and even by debian standards this means having a browser that is, well, obsolete by today's development pace, not to mention the security aspect although it is not my point here.
Honestly, I am not having too big difficulties in browsing my usual sites and with a little brute force I have been able to install pretty much all the extensions that I wanted (which are mostly just expecting a higher version number), so the general user experience is not the issue (yet).
Still I am beginning to think that in a future not so distant the "going back to Seamonkey" will be inevitable, either because of official discontinuation of the project, or for the practical reason of being unable to properly use most websites even with the useragent switch or other tricks.
Back in the days, I was a stark Web Standards' evangelist, advocating for the outright termination of support for outdated and non compliant-driven browsers (this meant mainly Internet Explorer, but in a way also much older version of the gecko engine and other browsers), even realizing that there were situations where updating/upgrading the browser was simply not feasible.
After parting from the web-development world at the end of the last decade, my views have softened a bit in this regard, but still I think that enough is enough in holding back if there is a fair alternative.
If Iceape is dead or is gonna die anyway, then maybe is time now to say good riddance Iceape and get back to Seamonkey, especially considering that upgrading the official bundle now is immensely easier and quicker than it once was (especially with extensions).
For now, I'm still hanging onto Iceape, but I'm torn.
What about you Iceape users (I mean those who use it for their everyday browsing and love it)?
Are you still using Iceape, are you planning to switch back to Seamonkey, have you already switched back?
I didn't switch immediately from Seamonkey to Iceape, after the branding quarrel with Mozilla, because at the time I was more interested in having the latest version of the gecko engine.
Eventually this priority became less and less important and I switched (I think it was when it re-entered with Squeeze).
Anyway, Iceape's development right now is stagnant and I'm not here to place blames or whine and complain, indeed I am and will always be thankful for the time and effort invested by all those involved in the Iceape project. Also I understand that Mike has more important things to do than follow a niche project.
Nevertheless, the last Iceape movement in any development branch is as old as February 2013 and even by debian standards this means having a browser that is, well, obsolete by today's development pace, not to mention the security aspect although it is not my point here.
Honestly, I am not having too big difficulties in browsing my usual sites and with a little brute force I have been able to install pretty much all the extensions that I wanted (which are mostly just expecting a higher version number), so the general user experience is not the issue (yet).
Still I am beginning to think that in a future not so distant the "going back to Seamonkey" will be inevitable, either because of official discontinuation of the project, or for the practical reason of being unable to properly use most websites even with the useragent switch or other tricks.
Back in the days, I was a stark Web Standards' evangelist, advocating for the outright termination of support for outdated and non compliant-driven browsers (this meant mainly Internet Explorer, but in a way also much older version of the gecko engine and other browsers), even realizing that there were situations where updating/upgrading the browser was simply not feasible.
After parting from the web-development world at the end of the last decade, my views have softened a bit in this regard, but still I think that enough is enough in holding back if there is a fair alternative.
If Iceape is dead or is gonna die anyway, then maybe is time now to say good riddance Iceape and get back to Seamonkey, especially considering that upgrading the official bundle now is immensely easier and quicker than it once was (especially with extensions).
For now, I'm still hanging onto Iceape, but I'm torn.
What about you Iceape users (I mean those who use it for their everyday browsing and love it)?
Are you still using Iceape, are you planning to switch back to Seamonkey, have you already switched back?