The new look MSN homepage

[manwah]

Anybody else seen the new MSN homepage?

All nice and new and xhtml. And it's nigh on impossible to read on my machine.

<edit>For some reason it reset my font sizes so the page came out REAL small. I hate it when that happens :) </edit>

M

[ihelpyou]

Yuck. Why do big companies think that everyone likes a "busy" page?

I also do not like links that are not links when you look. You have to search for them with your mouse. sheesh.

[MsSearch]

I saw it yesterday ...sometimes when I'd go to MSN I'd get the new layout...and sometimes I'd get the old one. I'm not thrilled with it...i guess it'll just take time to get re-acquainted with their new layout. It seems very busy...information everywhere...

[MsSearch]

Doug...once again, you're too fast for me....;)

[JuniorHarris]

LOL!~ *Busy* is the same word I would use to describe it!~

[MsSearch]

Took me a little while to find the sign-in to check my hotmail acct...:rolleyes: The sign-in is no longer on the homepage :mad:

oh well...i guess that's what i have to go through for my free account....

[Perfection]

I wonder if we will all get less MSN traffic now, considering that the long search box that used to be in the middle of the page and was usually the first thing you noticed, is now a search box about half the size of the old one (maybe even smaller?) stuffed into the upper right corner of the page where it even took me a second to find it.

Makes you like Google.com more and more and more...

[ihelpyou]

Good point perfection! Now I know why referrals have went down from MSN lately. sheesh.

[manwah]

Apart from the extremely small font size (doh!), the moved and reduced search box was the first thing I noticed too. :(

And just when AV started to move away from the 'busy' look MSN goes the other way. *sigh*

M

[MsSearch]

Good point Perfection! :up:

Everything is just a little bit harder to find on their site now....I don't think it'll last long.

Could someone please invite the 'MSN guy' (or if anyone has a contact over at MSN) to take a look at this thread?

[markymark]

Well, msn.co.uk looks the same. And this change at msn.com only happened today so it shouldn't have effected referrals too much yet. Hideous, though.

[lots0cash]

msn.com has also stoped allowing access to any browser except IE. I have tryed opera and netscape 4.5 and can't get in.

[ihelpyou]

oh my. The little kiddies must play their big .com games.

[MsSearch]

I can access MSN through Netscape 6.....

...but not allowing traffic from other browsers and other versions of browsers will surely cut back on the number of traffic they get and in turn, the amount of traffic we will get from them.

Why must we suffer while they play games with each other?!:steaming:

[ihelpyou]

Yes. Hard to believe it would be some kind of mistake as their designer might be one of the best? You would think anyway.

[markymark]

There's a thread about this over at webmasterworld that is saying the same things, but I am wondering if there is not some confusion. The page is created in xhtml - are the problems with other browsers a result of this ? This may explain why NN6 and 6.1 are fine and NN4.x and Opera have problems.

[lots0cash]

I have been looking all over for this, here is an article about msn.com shutting out browsers.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20011025/tc/msn_com_shuts_out_non-microsoft_browsers_1.html

[ihelpyou]

Totally unbelievable. I am appalled at their smugness, their daring, and their obsolute no regard for their fellow human beings. WOW.

[lots0cash]

I guess ms feels perty ballsey after the us government backed down.:horns:

[ihelpyou]

With me, it started with "smart tags". If this becomes what I think it will.......... too upset to think about it.

[Blue]

Amazing........The gall.......I, too, am simply astounded at M$'s latest "us or nobody else" attitude.

"Microsoft is seeing (that) it is an Opera browser and shutting it out," said Tetzchner, whose team was testing the problem Thursday. "If you change the Opera string by one letter, it is letting us in."

The software giant admitted that it is watching for Opera strings--but only because it wants to encourage people to use standard-compliant browsers.

"We do identify the string from the browser, and the only issue that we have is that the Opera browser doesn't support the latest XHTML standard," said Visse. "So we do suggest to those users that they go download a browser that does support the latest standards."

Some years ago (mid nineties), I made the conscious desicion to migrate to mostly M$ products as they were obviously VERY good and they worked well not only together, but with other products (browsers, other apps, etc.)........but now???

I recently bought a UNIX book that has somewhat been gathering dust.....guess I'll now have to think about dusting it off and migrating that-a-way......maybe. This will take some serious thought as well as research. :steaming:

<edited for spelling>

[Mel]

Hi all:

I too am amazed at the gall and sheer lack of expertise that MS has come up with.

For a bit of fun try viewing the new site with NS6.1 and look at the text and images that are overlaid by adjacent components.

Sheesh - and I thought some of my efforts were bad!

[Mel]

Hi Blue:

Amazing - I just had the same thought ....lets see what I need to buy to completely dump all MS products Hmmmm costs less than an upgrade to the newest MS crap and runs five time faster. Now if there were only more user friendly Unix programs out there, but perhaps the solution is to use the program that allows you to run windows programs on unix.

[Blue]

Hi Mel,

but perhaps the solution is to use the program that allows you to run windows programs on unix.

Do you have more info on this? Am I correct in my assumption that you are referring to a certain "flavor" of UNIX? Or is it something else?

[Advisor]

So now there's talk of antitrust action against MS for blocking out other browsers!

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7667367.html

I've got to say, I think that any company should be able to make their web site compatible or not compatible with any browser they want. It seems like it would be their loss, not the user's loss. But maybe I'm missing something.

J

[bkztx]

I tend to agree, Webwhiz. But I despise the new MSN page and I'm probably going to change my homepage to something else. The whole look is very annoying to me for some reason. I agree that searches on MSN will now drop. That was my first thought when I saw the changes.

[ihelpyou]

Yes, but it is the way they are doing it. They are trying to force other browser users to switch to IE. Simply the way, which is always the MS way. Trying to bully again.

[ihelpyou]

They gave the excuse of non-compliance with W3C.
Turner also faulted Microsoft for saying one thing but doing another. "They announce that they're only going to support W3C standards-compliant browsers, and then they fail to write a W3C standards-compliant web page."
Their site is NOT compliant either.

[Advisor]

I find the whole thing rather amusing!

J

[MazY]

I kinda like the concept if I am reading it correctly. Though it should be stressed that there is very little that Billy boy and his MS clan can ever do that I object to.

If they are indeed turning away older browsers then all I can say is about time!

It needs a few big corps to make the likes of NS4 not worth having. Can anyone tell me why people still use it in 2001?

Even NS themselves are trying to "get rid" of it as almost all imcompatibility problems that they get constantly slated for are referring to their old NS browsers. However, it is the Netscape name that gets slated, not the specific version of product.

It is nobodys best interest to maintain such an old browser. The sooner it goes the better and if it takes MS to help things along a little, ya get my vote as always, Billy boy...

<Returns to his Bill Gates' - "Teach Yourself World Domination in 21 Days" book.>

[Advisor]

It needs a few big corps to make the likes of NS4 not worth having. Can anyone tell me why
people still use it in 2001? It's like a security blankie kinda thing. I like my NS 4.7. I drag it around and **** my thumb...so what of it?

J:tongue:

[MazY]

OK. I'll try again...

Can anyone give me a technical reason for using NS4 in 2001?

Don't give me that tired and worn out "Disk Space" excuse either. Disk space has never been so inexpensive.

So, any takers?

BTW. I don't much care for the new MSN homepage either. Far too cluttered. Looks like a poorly formatted spreadsheet.

I'll call Bill in the morning.

[markymark]

Maz,

You know Bill as well ? Small world, isn't it. What with this wonderful new Worldwide Internet Web thingy everyone's talking about.

I agree though - NN4.x should be consigned to the dustbin of history. There is no reason to use it - it is an awful product. I have friends and relatives at Microsoft and they agree, too.

[MazY]

What I find completely perplexing is the "vicious circle" of it all.

Web designers don't lilke having to cater for NS 4 and yet they say "oh, must be NS compatible."

NS 4 users then retain their old and frankly, next to useless browser because they can still view web sites with it, thanks to the designers who blindly maintain NS 4 compatibility for reasons that they can never quite explain.

Whilst the NS 4 users can still view web sites with it, thanks to the designers above who still can't quite figure why they insist on maintaining NS4 compatibility, the same designers can then be heard with their "Oooh. Three NS users a week so I better make sure I'm NS 4 compatible."

Absolute and total madness. If it wasn't quite so absurd, it would be painful.

[Mel]

Hi Blue:

I am referring to a program wcich is a "windows emulator" I.e. YOU run the program on lyour unix box and while it is running you can run your windows programs normally.

I'll sniff around a bit and try to get the URL for you, or you may find it on one of the Unix sites.

[Mel]

Hi All:

As I understand it there is more to this than just "old Browsers". If you look at the MSn home page using the latest copy of Netscape 6.1 which is supposed to be a fully W3 compliant browser, you will find that the MSN home page does not format properly ......


Now what the H*** is going on? I just went to the MSN search page to list the problems in NS 6.1 and got the old page version. Have they changed back or what?

[Mel]

Blue:

the Program in question is WINE, which I believe is developed at the Universityof Californai at Davis.

Here is an exerpt from one of their pages:

Wine is an implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs on top of X and Unix. Think of Wine as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine provides both a development toolkit (Winelib) for porting Windows sources to Unix and a program loader, allowing unmodified Windows 3.1/95/NT binaries to run under Intel Unixes. Wine works on most popular Intel Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

More info is avaiable at http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml

[ihelpyou]

Yes, this is just not a NS past browser issue. This also involves opera, and all the others, as well as lower versions of MS. More issues are involved and this is why anti-trust talkings are imerging again. Whatever spin MS is giving, why they are doing this is simple..... they wish all to use MS 6, the XP version. This way they can get the most browsers possible using the "smart tags", so they can rip off as many of our web sites as possible and sell them out to their own advertisers. Bottom line.

[markymark]

Maz,

Agreed re: Netscape compatibility. Bet you do it, though. I know I do. Why ? Well, until Yahoo moves past NN 4.08 to review sites, I will keep making them Netscape compatible. As soon as they move on, so will I.

[MazY]

Strictly speaking, I don't. If it ends up NS 4 compatible that is a bonus for me. But I never, ever go out of my way to make a site NS 4 compatible, unless the client demands it.

I'm sick of catering for the minority. "I can't see your site proplerly in my browser." Well then move in to the 21st century with the rest of the world.

[Blue]

Thanks Mel! Keep me apprised of your progress on this issue, if you would be so kind. I'm just taking my first babysteps in this direction, but it should be fun.

**************

I think a lot of us designers (though most that I know, including myself, originally tended to go with the "step into the 21st century, why dontcha!" logic) held back and designed for older browser compliancy due to the fact that Netscape simply dropped the ball in not "keeping up with the Joneses" AND that there was still a significant number of folks not only loyal to them, but had no choice in using an old version simply because there weren't any upgrades available. Don't forget that Netscape HAD no "5" version paralleling M$'s product.

**************

Yes, this is just not a NS past browser issue. This also involves opera, and all the others, as well as lower versions of MS. I'm with ya all the way on this, Doug.

[MazY]

LOL So the fact looks as I thought it to be.

The reason that people still design for NS 4 is that each designer looks to the other one and sort of says "Well he's still doing it."

The defence rests. Netscape, you are guilty of hanging on to technology that is way out of date and killing your own name in the process. Ditch it.

[Advisor]

Ok, you've shamed me once again, Maz. Tomorrow I load my NS 6 on my regular computer. I'm using it right now on my lap top at this very moment and it is very nice!

Jill

[I.M.Eminem]

I don't see any problem about all this matter. Microsoft has earned the right to act with decision, if Billy feels like it. And we all gave them that right.

It is no problem to fool MSN into thinking you are browsing with Opera or your ole buddy Netscape. Just set your user-agent as IE and it'll work fine.

As to MSN's new look and feel, it is definitely less accessible than it used to be. It looks like a portal rather than SE. After 1st million of user complaints they'll probably stop this experiment.

[markymark]

MSN is a portal rather than a search engine, isn't it ?

[JuniorHarris]

It looks like a portal to me...seems as if I remember AV attempting a portal as well, let's just hope MSN has better results.

[markymark]

No, what I mean is MSN is and has been a portal for some time or did I miss something. After all it is a lot of people's ISP.

[JuniorHarris]

Right you are markymark...I knew that!~;) It just looks even more like one now with all those confusing links...where is that darn search box...lot to be said for Google simplicity...let's hope they don't start to clutter their page as well.

[Glyn]

The new MSN.com is horrible, I hate it. All that portalised content can't click anywhere for fear of opening something I don't want to read!

Give me white space and clear navigation, oh sorry I forgot the search engines need to make money.

Rant over.:hi: