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The Icon Bar: News and features: ArgoNet ditch Ant software
 

ArgoNet ditch Ant software

Posted by Richard Goodwin on 10:32, 4/11/2000 | , ,
 
After months of failing to secure updates and support for the Ant Suite from Ant themselves, ArgoNet have finally bitten the bullet and decided they can't support the suite.

Posted recently on comp.sys.acorn.announce was this message:

As ANT are no longer developing the ANT Internet Suite, coupled with the growing support demands of the software, Argo will sadly no longer be able to support any ANT software products as of 30th November 2000.

Any customer with technical support queries, that Argo are able to help with, should contact us before that date, thereafter, all support will only be available from our web site at: www.argonet.co.uk/ant/

ANT's web site is:
http://www.antlimited.com

Although on some mailing lists it has been rumoured that later versions of the Ant software exists, these new versions have not found their way to ArgoNet who were supposed to be the front line support and sales for the desktop version, so it can only be assumed that Ant is concentrating totally on the thin client market.

This will be good news for R-Comp however, as they have just released what is now the only real commercial alternative to the Ant suite (Voyager being tied to ArgoNet's ISP service).
 

  ArgoNet ditch Ant software
  (12:16 4/11/2000)
  Gunnlaugur Jonsson (18:22 4/11/2000)
    keith dunlop (18:29 4/11/2000)
      Stephen Courtney (19:21 4/11/2000)
        Steve Scott (00:06 5/11/2000)
          Michael Stubbs (12:38 5/11/2000)
            John Duffell (10:41 6/11/2000)
              Rob Kendrick (12:54 6/11/2000)
                Richard Goodwin (13:49 6/11/2000)
                  Rob Kendrick (19:48 6/11/2000)
                    Richard Goodwin (11:30 7/11/2000)
                      Rob Kendrick (16:07 7/11/2000)
                        Justin Fletcher (14:02 9/11/2000)
                          Rob Kendrick (15:20 9/11/2000)
                            Toby Hunt (20:07 18/11/2000)
                              Gareth Cumella (00:59 21/12/2000)
 
Rob Kendrick Message #88152, posted at 12:16, 4/11/2000
Unregistered user The ANT Suite basically had one good thing in it; Fresco. Everything else, IMHO was not good. I used to own the ANT Suite, and Fresco was the only program I used from it. Everything else there are free better alternatives. RComp's Internet suite does't offer value for money IMO, because the only superb product in it is MessengerPro. MPro with Oregano, and Socketeer or similar will get you something very nice. And having seen !DialUp, I would give it away free if I wrote it.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Gunnlaugur Jonsson Message #88153, posted at 18:22, 4/11/2000, in reply to message #88152
Unregistered user I gave up on ANT's Suite nearly two years ago because already then the signs where all over the place - it was dying. Since then I've been using a PC for internet access.

I think it's time for a decent dial-up with PPP support (I haven't seen !DialUp) to be distributed with RISC OS, then others can concentrate on writing browsers, e-mail programs etc. That can hardly damage any companies since as I understand !DialUp is only available for certain customers so it will hardly trouble many people, better to have one available for all than only one available for only a few.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
keith dunlop Message #88154, posted at 18:29, 4/11/2000, in reply to message #88153
Unregistered user Agreed with Rob, !Fresco is the best thing about the suite. What we need is for it to be made available & runnable independent of the suite.

So who's up to the challenge...?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Stephen Courtney Message #88155, posted at 19:21, 4/11/2000, in reply to message #88154
Unregistered user There are already versions of Fresco that don't need the rest of the suite - it is possible IIRC to use the version supplied with Voyager in this way (after a tiny bit of fiddling)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Steve Scott Message #88156, posted at 00:06, 5/11/2000, in reply to message #88155
Unregistered user Well, I can't say I'm totally shocked at the decision. But I agree, Fresco was, and still is, a good browser. It did provide healthy competition to Browse while that too was being developed.

In a sense, I believe Fresco is still being developed as part of ANT's thin client solutions, so if the market expands (assuming the current crop of manufacturers does something new to the RISC OS world - it's called marketing) then perhaps, like Oregano, Fresco will make a comeback.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Michael Stubbs Message #88157, posted at 12:38, 5/11/2000, in reply to message #88156
Unregistered user Can't see who'd want to pay over £100 for an out-of-date Internet suite anyway. It was far too expensive - certainly out of my reach.

I haven't used WebsterXL but I can highly recommend Oregano - it has it's quirks, but it's overall performance is impressive.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
John Duffell Message #88158, posted at 10:41, 6/11/2000, in reply to message #88157
Unregistered user The terminal, ANTTerm is very good IMO, I have used Freeterm as well but I still prefer the ant one.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rob Kendrick Message #88159, posted at 12:54, 6/11/2000, in reply to message #88158
Unregistered user I've been after a decent telnet client for ages. FreeTerm is buggy, and doesn't do all that I need (colour for a start) and ANTTerm is too inflexible. Any offers to write a decent one? (I can provide a nice library for doing scripting ;-)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Richard Goodwin Message #88160, posted at 13:49, 6/11/2000, in reply to message #88159
Unregistered user ...and SSH!
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rob Kendrick Message #88161, posted at 19:48, 6/11/2000, in reply to message #88160
Unregistered user Oh; I'm not interested in that; I'll just telnet to the handy Debian box to my left.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Richard Goodwin Message #88162, posted at 11:30, 7/11/2000, in reply to message #88161
Unregistered user 'salright for some, innit?

Anyway, I'm suprised there hasn't been more of an outcry on this news; everyone seems resigned to it already! :)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rob Kendrick Message #88163, posted at 16:07, 7/11/2000, in reply to message #88162
Unregistered user It was perfectly bloody obvious that ANT were not interested in developing the ANT Suite anymore. They products consist now of Fresco and SimplEmail, from which I understand are near complete rewrites. They don't have the time or the need to keep up to date such a minor income. Plus, they could have done something similar to what they did with their original FTP client; loose the source. ;-)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Justin Fletcher Message #88164, posted at 14:02, 9/11/2000, in reply to message #88163
Unregistered user Help, no, no! Everyone flee, the source is loose!
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rob Kendrick Message #88165, posted at 15:20, 9/11/2000, in reply to message #88164
Unregistered user This alphaboard thing promotes typos. Bloody PHP ;-)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Toby Hunt Message #88166, posted at 20:07, 18/11/2000, in reply to message #88165
Unregistered user Hey! I like PHP :-)
Anyway, I reckon that !Connector and the Telnet block driver are a pretty good bet for bug free telnet.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Gareth Cumella Message #88167, posted at 00:59, 21/12/2000, in reply to message #88166
Unregistered user Okay, before I begin, I would just like to ask:
what is all this support for Fresco?
I wouldn't mind and I hate to go against the many who favour it, but it does happen to be the most irritating browser I have ever used (next to Internet Explorer).

It does not cope terrifically well with Javascript for a start, and what are all those 'Internal Errors' that seem to appear out of nowhere?
Furthermore it constantly seems to store the web cache even when the option is turned off, which can be a real problem if you are downloading a 74 Mb file believe me!

Is this the mark of a good browser?
I don' t think so.

Finally, I agree with some people on the Ant Suite, I have never really been that enthusiastic about the Ant Suite, I have always preferred Voyager myself.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 

The Icon Bar: News and features: ArgoNet ditch Ant software