Subject: Re: www browsers under [Mac]BSD X
To: None <port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG>
From: David Bushong <dbushong@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 12/01/1996 11:19:11
> 
> i've had the same experiences. arena is OK. if it was compiled for amiga it
> should work. I use lynx because arena's missing some features; like forms.
> I should have lynx2.6 on my web site; ftp://macaroni.cs.wits.ac.za
> 
I will be the first to sing the praises of lynx-2.6!  Arena (at least the 
version off of the amiga site) *has* forms, but the fatal flaw of arena 
is it's *incredibly* picky about html, so the forms on 99% of pages don't 
work b/c they're "Bad HTML" to arena.  

So, here's my summary of graphical web browsers under X:

arena:	The one I usually end up using.
	PROS: fairly fast, does tables pretty well, handles jpegs & pngs
	CONS: overly picky about HTML, buggy forms, crashes a lot

chimera:  Just tried this one recently.
	PROS: fairly fast loading
	CONS: no backgrounds, jpegs (by default), tables, slooooooww, no cache

mosaic:	Tinkered w/ it from time to time.
	PROS: the best looking browser.  Does backgrounds, tables (i *think*),
		jpegs, forms, fairly fast running
	CONS: the version off the amiga site doesn't have that cool features.
	      	if you compile a new, cool version yourself, it requires Motif
		(which is commercial)..  if you use Lesstif instead 
		(which is free), then it crashes *constantly*

phoenix: used it once
	PROS: ?
	CONS: lots of unnecessary features (for a browser), didn't do *anything*
		that I use a graphical browser for (tables, imagemaps, etc)


Summary: I use arena for its table support, the one thing lynx doesn't do 
	well (lynx 2.6 *does* actually have rudimentary table support!!)  
	But sad to say, the fastest, most stable graphical browser I've 
	used on my Mac is: Netscape 2.0 on the mac side. <sigh>  Otherwise,
	what I'll do if I really *need* Netscape, is run 3.0 off of one 
	of my campus's 500MHz alpha cpu servers and display on my machine..
	be warned, tho.. over 28.8 it takes **6 minutes** to load, and 
	uncached pages can be slow...

Until a better solutions comes along, keep on lynxin` !!!


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     _/   _/ _/   _/ _/   _/  David P. Bushong -- (510) 845-3271         _/
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