denial
helleano)))rno one has ever surpassed the animated netscape logo's ability to make the internet feel majestic and awe inspiring
i wouldn't really want to *return* to this era of the internet, but i long yearn for my web browser to have some personality instead of dozens of features bloated on every 3 months and an ever-present dread Logging Online
"eleanor, why do you use linux?" because i can make my computer cute and fun that's why
kasran, fourier transfemme@listeninggarden i once made an addition to my .bashrc that gave my terminal a cute little face that does a frown when a process exits with a nonzero code. at this point, destiny 2 is the only thing keeping me from completely switching over
💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱@listeninggarden
Really? I enjoy the fact that Mastodon (partly) takes us back to that era. e.g. no ads.
Really? I enjoy the fact that Mastodon (partly) takes us back to that era. e.g. no ads.
Nathan Schneider@SmartmanApps @listeninggarden animated logos > animated ads
google chrome logo buried amongst 17 different ads: the modern internet
the idyllic netscape navigator icon: what the internet could be if carl sagan was still alive
the idyllic netscape navigator icon: what the internet could be if carl sagan was still alive
Todd Vierling 
@listeninggarden
And he actually was alive when Netscape Navigator first appeared as a replacement for NCSA Mosaic
And he actually was alive when Netscape Navigator first appeared as a replacement for NCSA Mosaic
acb@listeninggarden @jwz Be careful of what you wish for, lest some ghoul acquire the rights to the logo and revive it as a NFT wallet or something, à la Winamp
Ariane 
Noxie@listeninggarden I'd say the microsoft video at the start of FS98 :
edit : It counts because it's the first FS with online multiplayer 
Flight Simulator 98 Intro
Karpour
Linebyline→mastoart.social@listeninggarden The 'e' turning into Earth with the comet orbiting it was a not-too-distant second. As glad as I am that we don't use the word "throbber" anymore, I do miss these little indicators.
@linebyline "throbber" sure was an off-putting choice of word, wasn't it
but their spirit is unmatched
Andrew White@linebyline @listeninggarden My favourite was always the Mosaic Netscape c1994 spinning glass panes. https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/netscape-browser#s2
Felix Bernoully@linebyline @listeninggarden Hooboy, this reminds me… weren’t those animations (at least the ones for Internet Explorer) not simple loops but had a (number of) static poster frame(s) at the start and *then* the actual loop started? Took me ages to figure that one out when I had to make a „throbber“ for a custom ie build for a client sometime around… 1996? Ah, just found the files (minus the poster frame(s)).
@linebyline @listeninggarden Oh dear, my crisp GIF of 38x38 exquisite, handcrafted pixels appears to have gotten converted into a scaled-up mushy video… anyway you get the idea.
Charles Randall@listeninggarden @BrendanSinclair you know, in retrospect, the logo could also be interpreted as apocalyptic, and that fits too
@charlesrandall
prophetic...
prophetic...
Calamity Beast Seydlitz@listeninggarden hang on is that an orbital bombardment 😮
@pynkbites buh gawd is that the apocalypse's theme music?!
Kevin Karhan 
concoloris@listeninggarden the comets are all of the posts slamming in to the ground and bringing about an ice age (of posting)
Gigawatt121@listeninggarden Geez, that takes me back
hotsoup@listeninggarden N for Nostalgia
lorddimwit is now @
Zahrdie@lorddimwit @listeninggarden what that throbbing means?
Throbbing means beating. Like when you have a headache and can feel your heartbeat in your head.
@lorddimwit @listeninggarden thank you for sharing this info! ☺️
El Brown@listeninggarden True story
Mark A. ⏏️ {FalconMarkSix}@listeninggarden Reminds me that the Netscape Homepage is still up and it loads super fast since it's basically unchanged: https://isp.netscape.com/
Janet Vertesi@listeninggarden honestly I thought nyancat came pretty close…
Kshitij Aggarwal@listeninggarden sadly we don't do animated logos anymore. It's all just flat and minimal
Tom Harrington@listeninggarden @MrRooni I always thought one of the meteors might hit the N
Billiam@listeninggarden simpler times...
Historian1661@listeninggarden And the lighthouse also.
Shane Celis@listeninggarden Then they ruined it with long loading java wait time.
Char@listeninggarden billions spent deploying millions of km of transoceanic telecom cables and this is what we do with them
enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉@listeninggarden I remember it well. And all the times it would freeze signifying the browser had just hung up again.
Brian Kendig@listeninggarden As a former Netscape employee, I thank you for warming my heart tonight. :)
@bkendig thank you and your former netscape family for opening up a whole universe of possibilities for so many of us. as far as the internet has come since then, i will always look back fondly!
André Claaßen@listeninggarden Good old times
SmashedRatOnPress@listeninggarden "Honk if you used Netscape." beep-beep
James Garry@listeninggarden Always reminded me if the late heavy bombardment.
Gideon Hallett@listeninggarden It was certainly better than v1.0’s purple N, which pulsed disturbingly!
jwz@jwz @listeninggarden Thanks for the link - I remember that when we got to beta test Netscape 1.0 back at uni (on RS/6000s running AIX 3.2.5!), it was definitely faster and swisher than Mosaic, but the logo was just ugly.
And gosh, yes - the compass! I haven’t seen that in decades.
Mike Knell@gmh @listeninggarden The 1.0 logo was responsible for all of those animated browser "loading" icons being known as "throbbers" and.. well, you can see why..
Brian Good@listeninggarden I always wanted to see the N stride forward towards me while the Earth spun beneath it
Mark Gardner@listeninggarden But #Mozilla was always lurking, ready to strike
KazinatorI remember how some early-ish #Linux kernel versions updated the struct timeval with the time remaining, in the select() call. This caused the Netscape logo to spin really fast, at 100% CPU, since it was relying on the select() call to preserve the timeout value, making it unnecessary to reinitialize it on every call.
Andrew Todd@listeninggarden As bad as software bloat has made Web load times today, things could be *really* slow back in the dial-up days, and the animation was something you had plenty of time to enjoy...
Hunter King@listeninggarden It never really occurred to me how similar the names of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer are. They're both tools to find your way around the net. Then Firefox, Opera and Chrome come around with these single word nothing names. I guess Safari at least suggests that you're going on an adventure through unknown lands.
@listeninggarden Today I look at that and think "ah look, an otherwise placid planet being bombarded by meteors of bullshit"... so yeah, it's still accurate today!
Evert-J█ ██⭕██@listeninggarden
Back then the internet really felt majestic and awe inspiring.
Now it's just a bunch of URLs where I can give cookie preferences and click away the newsletter popup.
Dec [{(
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In the early days of the Opera browser, the installer was small enough to fit on one floppy (that's the entire browser, not an installer stub that usually required a long dialup session to complete the install).
One of the ways that they did this was by *not* having a cute custom animation.
In the early days of the Opera browser, the installer was small enough to fit on one floppy (that's the entire browser, not an installer stub that usually required a long dialup session to complete the install).
One of the ways that they did this was by *not* having a cute custom animation.
spookyfish@listeninggarden I saw a real production system using the Netscape logo unironically on.. *checks calendar* last Wednesday. Nice and up to date! Can’t say where I saw it, but it was a strong nostalgia trip!
TomUrban Dictionary: throbber
Scots. A derogatory term for a contemptible and stupid person. It's origins derive from the aroused state of the penis and hence is used only as a term of abuse for males; although as the genders are becoming harder to distinguish in certain housing schemes in and around the city of Glasgow this can no longer be guaranteed. If one is behaving in a ridiculous manner, and apparently irritable to everyone in the vicinity, one can expected to be denounced as a 'throbber'.