A mere eight years ago, this announcement was made about a Daria-themed web browser (created by NeoPlanet) that could be downloaded from the Daria section of the MTV site. What was up with that? I've been seeing reports about this browser for some time (see here, here, here, here, and here), but of course they are all old news. Some links about it are given in the Daria Directory at left.It appears that the NeoPlanet web browser can be downloaded from this old NeoPlanet website (click on "Downloads" at the top), but to be honest I've had enough trouble with my computer after catching that rootkit, and I'm less than excited about messing my system up any more than it already is. Does anyone know if this browser works for IE6 and Windows XP? Or is it too primitive to bother with unless you are a trufan and want Daria on everything? Inquiring minds want to know.
Now over 31,000 hits on DFB2! Woo hoo!
FF.net
- Box to the Future, by Smileyfax (Part 8): "Dad, it's me. Daria. From the future." [I don't want this story to end, but it probably will soon. Damn.]
- Jane Lane: Ace Attorney, by Lorenzo Sauchelli (Part 1): Jane's a lawyer. Jane's boss is Jim Vitale. THE Jim Vitale. Jane must win her first big case . . . or else.
- LLH Mini: The Artist as a Young Woman, by Roentgen (COMPLETE!): "The artist refuses to apologize for this work." [Pure Jane.]
- Unnamed ficlet, by TheSecretSharer (COMPLETE!): OMG. This one was good!
- Unnamed fragment, by Ranger Thorne (Part 1): And then there's the AU in which Veronica Morgendorffer (who has a Rita vibe going) has a little secret that only her big sister knows. (See artwork here. Leave art comments here.)
4 comments:
What's most notable here, o'course, is that this was a product licensed and sanctioned by MTV itself.
The "Daria browser" seems to be a "skin" on top of the NeoPlanet customizable semi-browser, which itself fit over and reworked the interface on Internet Explorer 4 or (possibly) higher.
It offered chat and e-mail as well. From a summary of such "integrated applications" — a long-vanishing net.concept — in Smart Computing In Plain English, December 2000:
[The skin] features several tiny images of Daria characters sprinkled throughout the browser screen, plus animated buttons (forward, back, stop) that turn into the faces of Daria characters when clicked. Warning messages or system alerts are announced in the voices of Daria characters. [...]
You'd have to first install NeoPlanet's semi-browser, for which you had to already have IE4. Only then could you access their on-line skins archive. (The Daria skin apparently was once available as a separate download at MTV.com, but no longer.)
I downloaded that semi-browser file, and it appears to be clean as to virii and such. What isn't shown is whether a Daria skin, or any of them, still exists on line for download. Until that's known, even for those who do use IE (I don't), it's not worth installing even the semi-browser.
This NeoPlanet/skin combination might not be recognized by the current IE6 or IE7 on your system — or, more likely, vice versa. Windows has been fickle that way.
Even if it works, you'd be unable to view many newer Websites with it. Or those like YouTube that use tools such as Flash, themselves often updated since 2000.
It doesn't appear that NeoPlanet, Inc., of Tempe, Arizona, even exists any more, except for its domain name, and that's held by a party in upstate New York.
The site is dead, except for that one semi-browser download. All links to the "Skins Gallery" are defunct. Nothing appears to have been updated since 2001.
Why that download is still on line at all is beyond me, apart from the cobWebs gathering a few scraps of Google AdSense revenues. But I'd have to say that as far as getting any skins for it, "It's dead, Jim."
Unless, that is, some 2000-era fan has the Daria-skin package on an old hard drive — and somebody then wants to experiment, at a risk that could extend up to having to reinstall Windows.
Greybird, thank you! :)
Post a Comment