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My entry in the Browser Wars

I’m sitting alone in a suburb of Denver tonight, and I didn’t have anything to do, so I decided to create my own custom browser for entry into the Great Browser Wars.

I mean, with all the announcements about IE 7, Firefox downloads, and other assorted crapola from companies like AOL, I thought, “Hey – the market is totally saturated and people are angry – now is the perfect time to get involved!”

So I did.

What my browser has to offer that other browsers don’t:

– Automatic conversion of all paragraph and anchor tags to marquee tags

– A witty “office assistant” style helper named “Sticky”

– A dazzling array of options, allowing you to customize your browsing experience

– A lack of all the “confusing” features of modern browsers – you won’t find a “back” button here (I was going to make a “diagonally-up-and-to-the-right” button, but I couldn’t figure out what it should do)

To be honest, this application really is very stupid. It is the product of loneliness and boredom. Keep in mind that these are two qualities which often drive individuals to do things like commit arson and rob 7–11s for the fun of it.

Also, some pages don’t load very well, but that’s not my fault. Some pages are just stupid.

Oh, and because all links have been converted to marquee tags, they won’t work.

Click here to download the application. Have fun.

And don’t report any bugs back to me. I don’t care.

Published Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:13 AM by Rory

Filed Under: ,

Comments

 

Dean Harding said:

Can I make feature requests?

Instead of converting to marquee tags, it should randomly choose either <marquee> or <blink>. I think that would be far more useful.
February 17, 2005 5:23 AM
 

Paolo said:

Geeze, you must be lonely. One request though - can you turn this into an avalon app and make the whole thing spin on the z axis?
February 17, 2005 5:33 AM
 

Aaron B. Hockley said:

I once worked with a guy who wrote a XXX-rated web browser. No, it wasn't just for browsing porn sites.

It had a "back" button... with a nice bare ass picture. Didn't have a "forward" button but there was one labeled "frontal" which has a nice set of DD breasts.

That was the same job where I once had my boss (the owner of the company) call me into his office to tell me that he needed me to spend the next three weeks sorting porn. I had to tag thousands of images... which were lesbian, oral, threesomes, etc.
February 17, 2005 6:22 AM
 

Benjimawoo said:

That really is teh r0xx0rz.

Is that freeware? or shall I register in 30 days with my credit card?
February 17, 2005 6:50 AM
 

John said:

Haha! That's awesome! :)
February 17, 2005 7:43 AM
 

John said:

Aha! I spy easter eggs!

Navigate to "sellsbrothers.com", "hanselman.com", "slashdot.org" and "neopoleon.com".

February 17, 2005 7:53 AM
 

Daniel Renshaw said:

OMG! That is the best rendition of BBC News I have ever seen!

Just try it: http://news.bbc.co.uk
February 17, 2005 8:45 AM
 

Ian Darling said:

"(I was going to make a “diagonally-up-and-to-the-right” button, but I couldn’t figure out what it should do)"

The same as "Forward", but it also takes you up a level on the site you're going to (unless you're at the top, in which case it takes you to neopoleon.com, being the root of thar intarweb).

Duhhhh, it's like, soooo obvious :-D
February 17, 2005 9:14 AM
 

Ian Dixon said:

Nice browser, looks like I am going to switch all 100 of my users to it. Do I have to disable all my network security too to make it better? I could take all the password of the network too
What about a desktop search Rory?
February 17, 2005 9:59 AM
 

Dan F said:

Feck thats funny! Although, your default webcam image is a little disturbing when it pulsates from side to side :)
February 17, 2005 10:37 AM
 

Rick H said:

I was wondering why you didn't have time for DNR. Now I see that you must have been putting in too many long hours developing this _great_ browsing experience. (I know the DNR thing is more about _schedule_ than _time_). Maybe for version 2 you can skin it like IE so that we can play tricks on our friends by making it their default browser!
February 17, 2005 10:57 AM
 

Rory said:

John -

"Aha! I spy easter eggs!"

Whoah.

You found those in 10 minutes.

I guess I didn't hide 'em well enough :)
February 17, 2005 1:08 PM
 

nonone said:

Can you make one handed browsing easier?
February 17, 2005 2:13 PM
 

Hermann Klinke said:

It doesn't matter how crappy it is, it's blazing fast!
February 17, 2005 2:29 PM
 

George said:

doesn't your "Slashdot" easter egg work? or is it just me?
February 17, 2005 2:51 PM
 

George said:

my bad. first i reported a bug, which Rory said specifically NOT to do, then i reported a non existant bug. i kept typing .com, it likes .org for that easter egg which is obvious when you look at the code.

February 17, 2005 2:55 PM
 

George said:

ok, found another easter egg! if you leave the browser running for 2 hours, your harddrive catches on fire and your monitors explode! awesome!!! how did you do that??
February 17, 2005 3:01 PM
 

Randy said:

Someone remind me to stay out of Denver :)
February 17, 2005 4:26 PM
 

Ralph Loizzo said:

Seriously Rory, how long did it take you to do that?

I'm sorry but you must learn to release on the Microsoft timeline. You said you were "bored one night?

Let's see here,

1) You released the software, then announced.

2) You didn't make promises for fancy features before the software release (see item #1).

3) You admitted it might be buggy.

4) You did it in a day. (you must learn to coax your efficiency down to MS level - announce the software, then release it sometime in the summer.

Rory.Thread.Sleep(10000000000);
February 17, 2005 4:35 PM
 

Andy Gaskell said:

Nice! It needs to be more resource intensive though. It keeps my CPU pegged at 100% but doesn't chew up enough memory.
February 17, 2005 7:48 PM
 

Andy said:

I love how popups come up in an IE window. Heh it's funny but d@mn you must be bored.
February 18, 2005 1:59 AM
 

Judah Gabriel said:

This is the funniest thing in the world. Haha awesome, best browser, hands down. Firefox better look out. :-)
February 18, 2005 2:11 AM
 

Judah said:

For anyone too lazy to disassemble it, there's the following event handler, called when the browser finishes loading a page:

private void web_BeforeNavigate2(object sender, DWebBrowserEvents2_BeforeNavigate2Event e)
{
string text1 = e.uRL.ToString().ToLower();
if ((this.lastUrl != string.Empty) && (text1 == this.lastUrl.ToLower()))
{
e.cancel = true;
}
else
{
if (text1.IndexOf("sellsbrothers.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToSellsAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("hanselman.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToScottAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("slashdot.org") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToSlashdotAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("neopoleon.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToNeoAction();
}
this.ImprovePageStart();
}
}
February 18, 2005 2:25 AM
 

StuFF mc said:

Maaaan.. Rory... All my colleagues asked herself why I started laughing like a 13 years girl, followed by crying, and almost finished joying ;) THANK YOU RORY for this wonderfull moment ! shiiit ;) Too funny !
February 18, 2005 2:56 PM
 

George W. Clingerman said:

Rory,

"And don’t report any bugs back to me. I don’t care."

Since when don't you care? Nice front, but you can't hide from your fans. We all know you agonize every second of every minute about us all. How to best entertain us and please us, so don't try to act all tough and pretend you don't care.

So having said that here's my list of bugs:
1. The squiggly helper guy swears at me when I go to certain sites. I wouldn't mind so much, be he gets kind of abusive.

2. The browser sometimes launches right in the middle of an intense round of UT2004 Onslaught. Seems to happen every time I'm about to get fragged. People don't believe me when I tell them my crazy web browser just minimized my game and they never would have pwnd me if that hadn't happened.

3. At midnight, the browser starts talking with a demonic voice, it does this for about 7.6 minutes and then turns my monitor screen blood red. I have to reboot to fix it.

4. If I have the browser open while I'm programming, it constantly changes my VB code to C sharp. I can't read it because it keeps throwing in all these complicated "{" things.

5. Every time I try to search for porn, it just takes me to your Moblog.

If you could correct these issues for me, that would be great. And I have faith that you will because I know you, if anyone, care.

February 18, 2005 4:33 PM
 

Drake said:

Wheres all the info about Anal Leakage?
February 18, 2005 4:36 PM
 

TomB said:

Is it available for the Scoble Phone?

What about Sticky...that's all I really want.
February 18, 2005 6:06 PM
 

Rory said:

Dean -

"Can I make feature requests?"

Absolutely, but they won't be implemented.
February 18, 2005 6:15 PM
 

Rory said:

Benjimawoo -

"Is that freeware? or shall I register in 30 days with my credit card?"

Just send me your credit card (not the number - the *whole* card), and we'll call it even.
February 18, 2005 6:16 PM
 

Rory said:

Rick H -

"Maybe for version 2 you can skin it like IE so that we can play tricks on our friends by making it their default browser!"

I don't want to resort to tricks like this. I believe in NeoFox's strengths, and that the browser will, over the next six months, demonstrate its superiority over other browsers through the MEGA DOWNLOADS that will occur.

Of course, if that doesn't happen, I'll look into this cruel little plan you've described.
February 18, 2005 6:18 PM
 

Rory said:

nonone -

"Can you make one handed browsing easier?"

Do you have fifty bucks?
February 18, 2005 6:19 PM
 

Rory said:

Andy -

"Nice! It needs to be more resource intensive though. It keeps my CPU pegged at 100% but doesn't chew up enough memory."

I was having the opposite problem. It seemed to only nail my CPU for about 75% of what it had to offer, but used up anywhere from 40-60 MB of RAM.

I was proud of the memory consumption. Maybe you just need to leave it running longer.

The CPU usage, by the way, is due to an extreme absuse of the ThreadPool.
February 18, 2005 6:21 PM
 

Rory said:

Drake -

"Wheres all the info about Anal Leakage?"

http://www.cspinet.org/olestra/
February 18, 2005 6:23 PM
 

Rory said:

TomB -

"What about Sticky...that's all I really want."

Sticky is actually part of the OS and can't be removed, isolated, or otherwise manipulated without breaking the following applications:

- Exchange
- BizTalk
- Internet Explorer
- Solitaire

I hope you understand, but my application is more than it appears. It's also a platform, providing services to other software. That's not something we want to go tinkering with.
February 18, 2005 6:28 PM
 

Alex James said:

Rory

you should talk to Hugh 'Gaping Void' MacLeod about using your assistant as means for delivering his 'scribbles on the back of business cards...'

Excellent stuff...
February 20, 2005 9:04 PM
 

DeepICE said:

It's called reflector -

string text1 = e.uRL.ToString().ToLower();
if ((this.lastUrl != string.Empty) && (text1 == this.lastUrl.ToLower()))
{
e.cancel = true;
}
else
{
if (text1.IndexOf("sellsbrothers.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToSellsAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("hanselman.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToScottAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("slashdot.org") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToSlashdotAction();
}
if (text1.IndexOf("neopoleon.com") > -1)
{
this.helpForm.SurfToNeoAction();
}
this.ImprovePageStart();
}
February 22, 2005 1:26 AM
 

Raj Chaudhuri said:

Wonderful. Could we please, have a SurfToNeoWikiDikiAction? I mean, that site is crying out for NeoWikiDikiSticky (or is it NeoWikiDikiSticki) ?
February 22, 2005 11:18 AM
 

Jeff Atwood said:

This is really much funnier than it has any right to be!
March 2, 2005 6:54 AM
 

TrackBack said:

Rory Releases a Browser
February 17, 2005 3:05 PM
 

TrackBack said:

Rory Releases a Browser
February 17, 2005 3:05 PM
 

TrackBack said:

Move aside Firefox AND IE
February 17, 2005 9:05 PM
 

TrackBack said:

Move aside Firefox and IE
February 20, 2005 3:30 PM
 

TrackBack said:

NeoFox Aftershocks
March 5, 2005 10:11 PM
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