Making a list, checking that we’re not on it

MozillaZine reports that the next Netscape 8 beta will have a blacklist of known bad sites, where active content and cookies will be disabled by default, and a whitelist of known good sites, where as NetworkWorldFusion reports, not only will scripting and cookies be enabled, but ActiveX will be enabled, because the good sites will display in the embedded IE control, rather than in Gecko.

In some ways, I’m sympathetic to the pragmatic idea of having an embedded IE control for those times when it’s easier to switch than fight, but then I remember a few years back, when MozillaZine reported on how Netscape wasn’t going to include popup blocking in 7.0, because, well, they were a bunch of dirty popup-spewing lowlives themselves. That was when Netscape employed a mix of marketers and engineers. Now? To the extent it can even be said to exist, it’s marketers who’ve employed some contract engineers. I just don’t think I want them making a list of who can start IE wide open on my computer. Wonder how much it will cost to buy your way onto the whitelist?

8 Comments

Comment by M #
2005-02-02 00:33:49

Actually, from my point of view, I’d prefer my site to appear on the *blacklist*. If I understood well, this would trigger Gecko RE, would it not?

I wonder how long it is before someone figures out how to force N8 to always trigger the G mode instead of IE mode…

Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2005-02-02 00:57:27