[arachne] Re: User-friendliness or lack thereof in Arachne

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!


On Sat, 28 Jan 2006, Udo Kuhnt wrote:

If you would have read my next post, you would know my answer. I have
used Linux long enough to realise that it is *not* the glorious
next-generation OS that some people proclaim it.

Since you didn't address the point, I can only assume then that you never took the time to really learn the difference between Unices and Linux distributions, or even the differences between a few out of the plethora of Linux distributions.
Whatever, I'm no evangelist. If you're happy within the constraints of Windows/DOS, happy trails.

That said, (now addressing everyone else) I've developed a fondness/respect for FreeBSD. It has the organization and singularity of focus that the hodgepodge Linux distributions lack, yet the BSD licence is even less restrictive than the GPL. While there are scores and scores of Linux distributions, there are about 4 FreeBSD distros. (I've just finished downloading PC-BSD to put on my wife's new computer, which shipped with XP preinstalled. PTUUUII! We'll fix that in a right hurry.)

old-fashioned and awkward as any kind of Unix I have encountered so far.

I wouldn't put all the unecessary eye-candy on my machine, but check out what I'm putting on my wife's: http://www.pcbsd.com/index.php?p=pcbsd
I'd hardly call it old-fashioned or awkward. Pointy-clicky for her, CLI for me when I need to "administer" it. She's used Xandros, Ubuntu, and Debian w/Gnome, and played with the Knoppix liveCD a bit. I think Xandros was the one she liked most, so PCBSD should fit right into her comfort zone.

IMO, it is an OS of the past, not of the future, and while I will
probably continue to use it once in a while for some time to use
software that only exists on Unix, I will stop using it once this
software has been ported to DOS.

Well there you go. You obviously don't want to use your computer for the same kinds of things I use mine for. To each his own.

   I do wish that I could do secure transactions with Arachne,
and if it could do Javascript then life would be easier.

I was going to mention the first time around that links does https, and limited JavaScript. One of the things I love most about this browser is that it pops up in less than two seconds on my CyrixIII-750. IMO, it's the ultimate in combining minimalism and functionality. (all screenshots use "links -g", the graphical option. In plain mode, links looks pretty much like lynx)

Links does paypal (JS + https):
http://wizard.dyndns.org/links-https-popup-paypal.png

links does dreamhost (https + forms):
http://wizard.dyndns.org/links-https-dreamhost.png

links does links (hit "g" to pop up "Go to URL" dialog):
http://wizard.dyndns.org/links-links-g.png

links does arachne II (just because):
http://wizard.dyndns.org/links-arachneII.png

 - Steve

Arachne at FreeLists
-- Arachne, The Web Browser/Suite for DOS and Linux --

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