Boy, between Bill Gates and Steve Case, Netscape is almost on its deathbed. I know I don't use it any more. I mostly use Opera and Mozilla these days.

I find it hard to believe that IE's penetration is as high as they claim, though. Are there still really that few desktop Linux users? May be.

IE integrates well with Windows, which, unfortunately, is the de facto standard. I've tried Opera, but it offers no real advantages over IE and they charge for it.

Most computers come with Windows, IE and some Microsoft Windows-based applications already installed. Linux is great if you want to spend the time to install it correctly and don't mind being cut off from many of the better applications that only run under Windows.

All that other stuff is ok for you techno-types. Most of the rest of us buy a computer like we buy cars and refrigerators. We want to take it home and use it. We don't want install a bunch of stuff,work out bugs etc.We don't buy cars, install a new stereo,change tires and put new seats in them. Likewise we don't really care how a fridge works,we want cold beer on demand. I know complete packages take the fun and exclusivity out of computers for you guys, but XP and 2000 work and anyone can bring home a complete package for $800. If the choices were between paying for a Mac or screwin' around with Linux there would be no mass market for computers. Even when Windows didn't work (9x)almost all mass market purchases were windows. I want apple and linux to remain viable, mainly to keep big brother off microsoft's back.I want a computer in every house and microsoft made it possible.

Opera is faster, and more secure. People find security holes in both Windows and IE on an almost weekly basis. Also, much of the brainpower of the virus and trojan writing community is focused on those programs, and Outlook.

But I wasn't selling Linux--just expressing surprise that more people aren't using it. It's getting foolproof enough that the only thing holding it back is lack of applications, and living down its reputation as only for geeks. I expect this to change in the next couple years, now that installs and updates are relatively painless.

Netscape took a gattling gun to their own feet with version 6.0, which pretty much had a nervous breakdown just trying to multitask between reading e-mail and browsing, let alone anything more complicated.

Netscape 7.0-Preview 1 seems to be far more user-friendly, but we still have to see what the final release version ends up doing. Supposedly, if it actually continues to run the way it has so far (at least at our office) AOL will pair up 7.0 with AOL release version 8.0. Not too many people who spend extensive time online rely exclusively on the system (I like it as an alternative mainly for having local phone numbers in more places than any other, which saves me some ridiculous hotel long distance charges when I'm on the road, but once connected, use 7.0 or Opera), however, if AOL switches over to using their own browser it will balance out the percentages a bit.

Lol, Rand exactly the two browsers I use. Which stripe of Mozilla exactly, I have found Chimera the best. Mozilla does blogger.pro very well I might add. I really never liked IE, partly due to its interface and partly because it is a so unstable in OSX.

IE works best on Windows, I think. Netscape 6 looks good but it's a memory suck. Don't expect to be able to use any other programs unless you have more than 64 megabytes of RAM -- I realize most people do these days but I am not one of the lucky ones (yet). I've had some (minor) problems with Mozilla, it works okay, but has remnants of Netscape-type features that irritate me.

Linux isn't quite there yet. I've used Linux as my sole desktop off and on since RedHat 6.0 and still run into some mind numbingly fustrating behavior. Printing is a good example, one shouldn't have to spend hours trying to get a pair of HP printers working. Put XP back on the machine and spent a minute installing the driver. That is as it should be. I wonder if Apple isn't going to strangle the nascent Linux desktop market before it ever takes off?

If it isn't there yet, it will be within the next year. I just did a complete setup of a RH 7.3 system from scratch, including an HP Deskjet 845C, and the install and printer setup were painless. I'm just having a problem saving files in OpenOffice.