unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jan Claeys <lists@xxxxxxx>]

Op woensdag 18-08-2010 om 08:38 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Frederik
Nnaji:
> > I don't understand why Firefox (or Internet Explorer) has an offline
> > mode at all.

> it used to be helpful, when users had to worry a lot more about quota
> on their DSL.. 

It's not so much about quota but about expensive[*] time-based internet
plans, and (at least on Windows) trying to access the internet (say,
because Google is your homepage, or a locally saved page refers to an
on-line resource, etc.) would either pop up the dial-in dialog, which is
annoying if you just want to browse local stuff, or just dial in and
make you pay.

Putting the browser in offline mode avoids accessing the network.  It
also suppresses some error messages, and allows you to access pages in
the browser history as long as they are still in the browser cache.



[*] I remember dial-in internet over PSTN costing around 3 € / hour in
Belgium, before cable internet became widespread, so being on-line
1h/day did cost you almost 100 €...  (And that was for a "free" account,
meaning you only paid the phone company and not the provider, so during
"rush hours" the modem pool was often full).

-- 
Jan Claeys