AOL, well known for their high quality services and intellectual communities (cough) has just made a series of terrible mistakes that make the late Squaresoft look smart.

First, they announced that they would be working on a new web browser based on Internet Explorer. Let me ask one little question... don't you read the news? Don't you look at the statistics? Use of Mozilla browsers, especially Firefox, has surged tremendously in the last couple of months, and the pace keeps increasing and increasing. Netscape, which is already owned by AOL, is Mozilla, just commercialized. What makes them think that make a new browser based on the mind-numbingly awful Internet Explorer engine is in any way a good idea?

But wait, there's more! Not only have they dug themselves a new grave in the browser market, but they've also completely given up their position in web standards. They used to own a site called DevEdge, which had the official specifications for Javascript and the Gecko DOM, among other helpful developer resources. It was a great site. I had several pages from it bookmarked and used them frequently. But no, says AOL, let's be stupid! As of a couple of days ago, DevEdge is no more. That's right, it's been completely obliterated without giving any prior notice.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've hated AOL from day one. They've always been a corrupt, gimmicky, low-quality company who survive only by feeding on ignorance. But with these latest actions, AOL has reached a new low. I used to be able to say, well, at least AOL owns Netscape, which supports web standards, but now I can't even give them that. At least I'll get a good laugh when they finally realize the mistake they've made, and maybe they'll ditch the new browser and bring DevEdge back. But that might just be wishful thinking. They might turn out like most stupid corporations who see the results of a mistake and try to correct it by taking the mistake and making it bigger. Either way, they're screwed in the long run.