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Netscape Communicator 4.72 Released

Quite a number of people have ants in their pants over the latest release of Netscape Communicator. This latest release, 4.72 to be exact, can also be grabbed through their Web site. Here's to hoping it's more stable than my current release. 'Course, Mozilla's getting really really close now...

369 comments

  1. Haven't... by jawad · · Score: 1

    Haven't the last few releases of Communicator been just throwing more crap into the package? Little has been done since Navigator 4.08 has been released...

    1. Re:Haven't... by rcw-work · · Score: 1
      Haven't the last few releases of Communicator been just throwing more crap into the package?

      Yeah, but at least you can disable the Netscape Shop button and the Communicator Radio.

      Really peeves me that you can't get Navigator &gt 4.08. Oh well, even if they don't ship Mozilla like we want, it can be pared down easily enough. :)

    2. Re:Haven't... by Axiom_D · · Score: 1

      Well, the problem is, there is so much junk on the internet and IE supports almost all of it.

      Netscape has got to keep up and try to implement the same features. Personally, I don't use or want most of them as they tend to slow down surfing speeds. But if they don't keep up, they'll lose even more ground to IE.

      Axiom

    3. Re:Haven't... by hey · · Score: 1

      I heard there's an easy way to remove the stupid "Shop" button - does anymore know how?

    4. Re:Haven't... by Lxy · · Score: 1

      More or less, yes. More crap, more bugs, less browser IMHO. I'm still running 3.04 Gold as my default browser, I find it to be the most functional with the least amount of bugs. Nav 4.07 is decent but the whole Communicator series killed Netscape for me. Mozilla is in Alpha, go open source :-)

      --

      There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
      :wq
    5. Re:Haven't... by captredballs · · Score: 1

      I just moved from 4.5 to 4.7 a week ago and noticed a profound performance increase in the linux version. It springs to the screen immediately without a pause.

      Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot this was slashdot and that everything sucks.

      (ammendment)

      I moved from 4.5 to 4.7 and noticed a profound lunk of crap had been moved into the software. There was no performance increase. Boy, this would all be better if it was open source. I would fix bugs all the time!

      Mozilla source? No, I keep meaning to look at it...

      --

      I suppose I'm not too threatening, presently, but wait till I start Nautilus
    6. Re:Haven't... by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 1

      Ya but the Mozilla project is throwing in all the extra crap too. I want just the browser and make it functional, configurable with a low bug count.

    7. Re:Haven't... by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2

      It reminds me of the 4.0 browser wars ... and the old java support wars, and then the push technology wars (which are now removed from browsers).

      One of the above (ahem, Mozilla?) should remove support for extraneous garbage and make a browser, not an operating system.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    8. Re:Haven't... by puetzk · · Score: 1

      OH, then you probably want simplebrowser...

      Since everything in mozilla is modularized, it's just a matter of doing ./run-mozilla.sh ./simplebrowser and you have a browser with back, forward, and a URL-bar. Oh, and any feature (js, etc) that the page asks for will load then.

      Or use a chrome for mozilla that doesn't refer to things and they won't load. though there aren't very many chromes for mozilla right now, I'm sure there will be.

      --
      The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
    9. Re:Haven't... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The reason you noticed a speedup when moving from 4.5 to 4.7 was PROBABLY the same reason I occasionally (every month or so) quit netscape, mv .netscape .netscapeold, start netscape, quit it again, then mv .netscapeold/bookmarks.html .netscape, etc. Netscape keeps this history and some other crud around, and after a while it gets kinda big and netscape takes longer and longer to load. Following the above process seems (to me) to make it far more stable and faster loading.

    10. Re:Haven't... by lunatik17 · · Score: 1

      The beauty of Open Source: don't compile it in!

      --

      Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

    11. Re:Haven't... by lunatik17 · · Score: 1

      dude, that is probably the hardest way of doing it. Here's how I do it: delete the cache folder, and create a new one. then delete history.dat and history.list. That's all there is to it!

      --

      Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?

    12. Re:Haven't... by SMT · · Score: 1

      Yeah, maybe IE supports some junk technologies, but it also supports some really usefull ones that as of yet NS doesn't. I work for a small company which produces distributed applications which use the browser as a front end and its been our experience that almost everything we ever want to do is easy in IE but almost always aggravatingly difficult in NS. NS does what it does well, which is flat pages, but try and do anything interesting and NS soon becomes a hinderance.

      Despite my feelings about MS in general I think they have some smart people working for them. I also think that MS has put a lot more thought into where browsers are headed than anyone else.

      I certainly hope that the Mozilla/NS group get their act together and put out a stable, robust and feature rich platform or its going to be a MS world.

      Steve

    13. Re:Haven't... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the tip - now that we know AOL has a shopping button on 472, we can stick with the shite we have. Really - thank you.

  2. anyone know of the changes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    whats the diff? ;)

  3. doh! by Caspuh · · Score: 5

    I was going to post a more insiteful comment, but then Netscape crashed.

    1. Re:doh! by Coniagas · · Score: 1

      What do you mean "Crashed"?

      Thats a key feature of Netscape 4.7x......

      What did you expect?

      The shoppig link and the AOL Messanger are improved.

    2. Re:doh! by theMAGE · · Score: 1

      The previous comment is Misrated!
      I don't understand why this article is "Funny" instead of "Insightful".

      With Netscape 4.7/Win98 I used to have an uptime of roughly four hours before it would chew all my
      system resources and I had to kill it (or Windows).

      The new version, however, freezes my machine every 15 minutes.

      #$%#$@%#$%#$@%#$%$#... NO CARRIER

  4. RPMs? by Robotech_Master · · Score: 2

    What I want to know is, when will the netscape-common & netscape-communicator RPMs for Red Hat be out? Why do they always lag behind the "official" releases, anyway?

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
    1. Re:RPMs? by arthurs_sidekick · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure I understand the question ... I mean, isn't it obvious that RH doesn't make communicator and that they have to put the RPMS together themselves from the tarballs Netscape makes available?

      --
      "Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
    2. Re:RPMs? by cmg · · Score: 2

      Probably because they get the new release around the same time you see it on slashdot and they probably have to do some amount of quality testing on it before redhat releases a package.

      If redhat had official updates before say, debian, can you imagine the amount of complaints netscape would get?

    3. Re:RPMs? by thue · · Score: 1

      ftp://ftp.falsehope.com/custom/Netscape/

    4. Re:RPMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      rpms available @ ftp://ftp.falsehope.com/custom/Netscape

  5. first post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    whats the point of bugfixing the communicator, it's already bloat enough .. what did they add, some new button perhaps ?

  6. Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by SETY · · Score: 4

    Mozilla might be getting close for some people, not for me.
    It still has a long way to go. Netscape will crash about once an hour for me when I am doing heavy web browsing.
    My longest Mozilla uptime is 5 minutes. No joke. Slashdot is the only site I can use with it. www.deja.com main page crashes it right away.
    I'm sorry, but Mozilla isn't useable for me. I remember the early Netscape betas years ago and they wer not this unstable.
    And yes I submit bug reports.
    I wish all the mozilla developers good luck, but its a long road ahead to the point where Netscape is replaced.

    1. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by blackc · · Score: 1

      Of course you reported you problems to bugzilla.mozilla.org, didn't you? Mozilla guys are pretty responsive especially to crashes.

    2. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, you mean like iframes? They had them working in m12, but broke them in m13. With all the back and forth it doesn't matter how many bugs you identify.

      Hey, but at least the tag works!!! (Not html 4.0, but who's counting???)

    3. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd have to ask you what _you're_ smoking. Mozilla is considerably more stable than Netscape 4.7 here.

    4. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been running Mozilla M13 for a week now. It smokes pretty good in my pipe! I like it!

    5. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Frac · · Score: 2
      I remember the early Netscape betas years ago and they wer not this unstable

      cha-ching! That's why Mozilla is still considered alpha. When you try out the early Mozilla betas, they might be more on par with what you had before.

    6. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by BRSQUIRRL · · Score: 1

      I'm going to have to agree with you here...I've got Mozilla's latest, and although it is definitely a vast improvement over the last version I tried (M12 I think), it still has a long way to go. 3-4 of the sites I visit regularly don't render correctly, and the interface still seems a bit flaky.

    7. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by MrEfficient · · Score: 1
      If Netscape is crashing once an hour for you, you've got some serious problems that have nothing to do with your web browser. Are your other applications unstable as well? I use netscape on windows 95 at work and on macos and mklinux at home and it rarely crashes.

      What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito? :)

      --
      Check out AbiWord.
    8. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      > And yes I submit bug reports.

      No you don't. at least not under your email address above. if you are going to bitch, haul your arse over to bugzilla.mozilla.org and do it there.

    9. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by davie · · Score: 2

      Some of the sites that aren't rendering correctly may be using non-standard HTML to make them render correctly on non-standard browsers--IE and Netscape. The goal of Gecko is a high level of standards compliance. When/if mozilla goes for bugwards compatability, the non-standard stuff will begin to render better.

      If you want to be standards compliant AND compatible with non-standard implementations, it would seem wise to aim for compliance first, then try to accomodate the broken stuff.

      --
      slashdot broke my sig
    10. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by My_Favorite_Anonymou · · Score: 1

      m13 worked fine for me, but when I set the font in 8pt, I can set it back up. the background color can't be set back either. I'll stick with Netscape 3.04 for me.

      btw for those die hard IE defender, IE5 can't set up with junkbuster at all. I get all my other 3 browser set up.

      CY


      /_____\
      vvvvvvv../|__/|
      ...I../O,O....|
      ...I./. .......|
      ..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
      ...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|

    11. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by cxd204 · · Score: 1

      Hee hee. "When they do betas it might be on par with what you had before." I've always said that Netscrape 4.x was beta quality, no more ;)

      --
      -- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    12. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My other applications are stable. Whatever happens an applications MUST NOT crash for f???s sake! They got no error checking whatsoever.

    13. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by CrAlt · · Score: 2
      Did you compile your own version or just install the binary/RPM? That made all the diffrence in the world for me. Also, are you running some cheap 300mhz cele thats O/Ced to 550Mhz or something?


      I run a old K6-2 300 w/48megs RAM and Slackware 7. I have had very little problems with Mozilla M13 ever since I compiled my own version.

      --
      I have to return some videotapes...
    14. Re:Mozilla?? What are you smoking? by GregWebb · · Score: 2

      Oh, I'd have to disagree there.

      4.5 was bad, 4.6 was so unstable it made me move to IE - which I hate. Not just philosophically, I don't like the program. 4.6 was perfectly capable of totally locking up Windows and forcing a reboot, so I had to change IMO. 4.7 is back at the 4.5 level IMO - and I'll have to try 4.72 later.

      But 4.0x was beautifully stable. Don't remember it crashing more than anything else. I'd change back if I could...

      Greg

      --

      Greg

      (Inside a nuclear plant)
      Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!

  7. Interesting by slashdot-terminal · · Score: 2

    I really hope that this works as well as other releases. I have seen less and less of Netscape lately but this could be something of a turning point.

    --
    Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
  8. seems ok, relatively stable by dlc · · Score: 2

    preliminary testing on linux 2.3.45 seems pretty stable (standalone version). so far i can't really see any differences, other than the fact that it isn't crashing and freezing my X server.

    darren

    --
    (darren)
    1. Re:seems ok, relatively stable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, does it include the dynamically-linked-againts-Motif version? How does it work with the latest LessTif?

  9. Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? by tjwhaynes · · Score: 3

    Yes - I've already downloaded and installed 4.72. Why? Because I'm fed up with having the 4.71 browser flake out every day or so with another error. So far, so good - nothing has died yet :-)

    I've been tracking the Mozilla Seamonkey Milestones since M11, and it seems to be stabilizing up nicely but I'm stuck with using it for browsing behind the firewall at work because we use a SOCKS proxy to the outside world. Alas, as far as I can see this is not supported in Mozilla yet. Anyone have any clues on this one - what is needed to persuade Seamonkey to use the SOCKS proxy? Or does some SOCKS expert wish to sign up for this post on the Mozilla team? It was empty last time I looked.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

    P.S. If I see any posts with the title 'Shoes?' following this one ... :-)

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
    1. Re:Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? by Gerv · · Score: 4

      Is this what you want?

      Some Reasons To Try Out A Nightly Build

      Gerv

    2. Re:Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? by MindStalker · · Score: 3

      Mozilla has had socks support for a while now, you can setup proxies manually by editing the prefs50.js file. Also in the new nightly builds I believe its possible to configure proxies in the mneus. Well m14 should be out any day now, so you can wait untill then if you want.

  10. Question by ShelbyCobra · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know how to disable that annoying SmartDownload thing that forces me to look at ads while I download files?
    This is perhaps the most annoying feature of the previous version.

    --

    -ShelbyCobra

    Living life in the right side of the s-plane

    1. Re:Question by grarg · · Score: 1

      Still kind of handy when your ISP spontaneously and frequently decides to drop your connection though...I'd never have got 4.5 otherwise (lucky me) :-)

      --
      The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
    2. Re:Question by zilym · · Score: 5

      I just don't use Netscape for downloading files now. What I do is right click the download link, copy link to clipboard, open an xterm, and then use wget to download the file. That way, if netscape crashes (like it always does), the download is unharmed. Plus, wget is smarter than netscape. If the server isn't letting anyone in at the moment, wget keeps trying. If the connection gets dropped, wget keeps trying and will resume where it left off as soon as it can get reconnected.

    3. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you use Gnome you can drag and drop the URL into a terminal instead of copying to the clipboard etc. I would guess that KDE also allows drag and drop from Netscape.

    4. Re:Question by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1


      Would junkbuster filter out the ads?

      www.junkbuster.com

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    5. Re:Question by maniack · · Score: 1

      Whenever I download a new version of netscape, I use the "Download without SmartDownload" link. No SmartDownload, no ads.

      --

      "Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal

    6. Re:Question by ShelbyCobra · · Score: 1

      For those who care...

      SmartDownload is a plug-in that comes along with Netscape, it is often overlooked during the installation process. To remove this, simply un-install it.

      --

      -ShelbyCobra

      Living life in the right side of the s-plane

  11. too little, too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    netscape's browser has been a piece of poo since 4.5......the lack of backward compatabilty in the javascript interpreter has been an endless headache for anybody that does front-end work. as bad as i hate M$, it cannot be argued that ie's browser is (and has ben) FAR superior since 4.0.....the slowness of the rendering engine alone made me switch a year back. lets hpoe mozilla gets it right.

    1. Re:too little, too late by Lxy · · Score: 2

      I agree whole-heartedly that IE5 is in every aspect superior to Netscape Communicator. I just don't like IE5 putting its fingers in places it shouldn't be.. like on my server!!! In terms of a latest and greatest web integration tool, IE5 beats Netscape. I use Netscape only for the fact that I install a browser, and I get a browser. Not a "whole new computing experience".

      --

      There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
      :wq
    2. Re:too little, too late by grarg · · Score: 1

      This brings back fond memories I have of finally purging IE3 from the C drive and suddently getting "access denied" messages from the Temporary Internet Files folder...at least Netscape keeps itself to itself in one tidy folder and doesn't sprawl all over your stuff like the house-guest from Hell...

      --
      The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
    3. Re:too little, too late by Helge+Hafting · · Score: 1

      I agree whole-heartedly that IE5 is in every aspect superior to Netscape Communicator.

      Except for those that don't use windows. IE is of no interest, netscape is usable although it could be better of course.

  12. gifs by grarg · · Score: 1

    But will it show gifs properly, this is the question. /. looks particularly stoopid with all these little black blobs all over it. Or am I the only one who had trouble with 4.7 on NT?

    --
    The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
    1. Re:gifs by north.coaster · · Score: 1

      I'm running Netscape 4.71 on NT and have no problems with /. It sounds like you have a config problem. /Don

    2. Re:gifs by grarg · · Score: 1

      College account, floating profile, but then there's a lot of stuff screwed up on these comps, not least of which is the sysadmin's insistence of running setiathome by default in the background of every machine!

      Not like I have a choice of browser anyway; IE was dumped from every computer in our college when they ditched 95 for NT (boo..no more nuking) but discovered that IE5 had a little problem as regards temp internet files eating up user profile caches. Upside of this: "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down".

      Very fucking irritating...

      --
      The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
    3. Re:gifs by homer_ca · · Score: 1

      Same problem here. Netscape 4.7 on NT. Gifs are either all black or if there's an overlapping Netscape window behind, that page bleeds through to the front where the gifs are. Strange.

    4. Re:gifs by Dman33 · · Score: 1

      Whoah! I have been running 4.7 on NT 4.0 sp3&4 and 4.7 on Win2000. I have never seen that problem...

      I wonder what makes this version so inconsistant?

  13. Netscape rarely crashes... by Psiren · · Score: 2

    ... at least for me. I'm running Netscape 4.7 (browser only, Communicator is huge and pointless, other tools do a better job) and its not crashed on me in months. I have had to disable Java though. Not that thats particulalry upsetting for me...

    Bottom line: Browser only without Java is pretty stable.

    1. Re:Netscape rarely crashes... by JohnnyCannuk · · Score: 1

      I have to agree with you. For me NS 4.7 rarely crashes and i leave the java turned on. I find it much better thann 4.6 mainly because 4.6 wouldn't allow me to see the java interface for the documentation and administration of IBM Websphere 2.03 I installed.

      Maybe I'm just not surfing to the correct sites...

      --
      Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
    2. Re:Netscape rarely crashes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here... I fixed the font problem (check the linux netscape FAQ.. it's floating around somewhere) and it's really not that bad. It helps if you run junkbuster too. Junkbuster will prevent Netscape from hanging while trying to connect(probably blocking in a socket read somewhere).

      It takes a little work, but you can make it more stable if you put forth the effort

  14. most stable? by nicedream · · Score: 1

    We all know that Netscape for Linux is buggy and crash prone. Has anyone found out which (if any) of the linux versions is the most stable?

    The "supported" linux20_glibc2?
    The "unsupported" linux20_libc5 or linux22?

    Is the unsupported freeBSD version any better than Linux versions?

    I need as much stability as I can get. Turning off Javascript helps, but it really isn't a very good solution.

    1. Re:most stable? by DGolden · · Score: 1

      What is unsupported-linux22 supposed to be linked against, glibc2.0 or 2.1 (or even libc5?)? Mandrake ships with a wrapper script to ensure that Netscape is linked against glibc2.0 libraries, which makes sense, since they ship supported-linux20_glibc2 in their RPMs, but if there is a Netscape compiled to link to glibc2.1, I'd rather use that.

      --
      Choice of masters is not freedom.
    2. Re:most stable? by DGolden · · Score: 1

      Well, I just installed linux22, and it's running linked against glibc2.1 atm. Don't know if that's how its supposed to be run, but it hasn't crashed yet... IT also seems to be pretty damn fast compared with 4.7(0) anyway.

      --
      Choice of masters is not freedom.
  15. Release notes by AT · · Score: 5
    The release notes are here.

    Quick summary:
    • Global IME support: users of Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 can now download Global IME modules that enable input of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters into mail messages and web forms. For more information on using Global IME under communicator, choose International Users from the Help menu. Windows 2000 users should use the fonts and IMEs available on the installation CD. If you're running Windows 98, just select the Windows Update icon in the Start menu. From there, select Product Updates, and download the language support and IMEs you wish to use.
    • User agent support for Windows 2000

    1. Re:Release notes by philj · · Score: 3

      Don't forget:

      "Netscape Communicator with 128-bit strong encryption is now available worldwide"

      (with the exception of a few countries that
      America hates)

      Saves having to use Fortify instead.

    2. Re:Release notes by fsck · · Score: 1

      All the links to the 128 bit version are hosed.

      --

      Lars - ...I could always phone Linus when I had a problem.
    3. Re:Release notes by habig · · Score: 1

      > Saves having to use Fortify instead.

      In fact, the Fortify website says that since netscape can now distribute 128-bit enabled browsers themselves, the Fortify people won't bother making patches for versions of netscape past 4.7.

      Oh, and netscape's links to the 128-bit versions are somewhat hosed - but I found that hitting a combination of back buttons and "referring page" links when sitting on the error page got me a form to fill out to verify that I wasn't in a scary country. After doing this, things worked properly.

    4. Re:Release notes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's irritating. The 128-bit export version is still a different file to the 128-bit domestic version. Makes me wonder what backdoors the NSA has strongarmed into it. I'd rather have a Fortified export version than a 128-bit version the NSA have decided is O.K.

  16. here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    heh, i'm gonna answer my own question... here@netscape .com

    1. Re:here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only issue that is actually tagged as "new" in 4.72 is that composer should now translate URL's to links all on it's own. This to avoid the more or less guaranteed crash you encounter with "insert link". And - it doesn't work lol. It does NOT convert URL's to anchor tags. Not Not Not! I just tested it. But "me oh my" does it crash when you "insert link". My monitor never refresh more quickly than when Netscape suddenly vanish from the battlefield.
      I'm fond of Netscape and won't ever give it up, but the term "bloatware" does comes to mind...

  17. HOWTO by Jikes · · Score: 4

    Keep Netscape/Unix From Crashing Like the Overextended Hack Job Piece Of Crap Code It Is - HOWTO

    1) Your distro manufacturer may have packaged netscape incorrectly. See their site for details or upgrades.

    2) Turn off Cascading Style Sheets (Style Sheets) support in your preferences. It generally doesn't work well at all and really isn't all that necessary. And IME it makes NS crash. A lot.

    3) Turn off Java. Turn off Java. Turn off Java.

    4) Turn off Javascript if you don't use somewhat sophisticated sites.

    5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.

    6) Feed it lots and lots and lots of disk/memory cache, or none at all.

    7) Upgrade. 4.7x is much nicer than previous 4.x releases on all platforms, IME.

    -------------------------

    This is just my experience. With these changes, NS tends to stay up for a few days for me, as opposed to an hour or less previously.

    Take this at well less than face value.

    --
    -troll taker
    1. Re:HOWTO by Gleef · · Score: 2

      Jikes wrote:

      [snip]
      7) Upgrade. 4.7x is much nicer than previous 4.x releases on all platforms, IME.


      I've found 4.61 much more stable on both Linux and Windows than 4.7, and it's not as if you really need that "Shop@Netscape" button. I haven't had 4.72 long enough to have an opinion about it.

      ----

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
    2. Re:HOWTO by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

      Your distro manufacturer may have packaged netscape incorrectly. See their site for details or upgrades.

      Does this explain why Netscape/Linux seems so much more cruddy (in my experience) than Netscape/Solaris? Or is it something more basic (libc bugs, XFree bugs, Lesstif bugs, etc.)?


      --

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    3. Re:HOWTO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And finally, don't use shift-insert to paste (linux-only bug - haven't downloaded latest release, so don't know if that one's fixed)

      HH - posting as an AC so I can still moderate

    4. Re:HOWTO by StaticLimit · · Score: 3

      2) Turn off Cascading Style Sheets (Style Sheets) support in your preferences. It generally doesn't work well at all and really isn't all that necessary. And IME it makes NS crash. A lot.

      3) Turn off Java. Turn off Java. Turn off Java.

      4) Turn off Javascript if you don't use somewhat sophisticated sites.

      5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.

      6) Feed it lots and lots and lots of disk/memory cache, or none at all.

      My god man! What's the point? You've turned off everything that makes it worthwhile to install a 4.x generation browser in the first place, haven't you?

      If none of the new features work... the solution is: Stick with the old version.

      - StaticLimit

    5. Re:HOWTO by grrzes · · Score: 1

      5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually
      need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.

      Anyone can recomend better X11 IMAP client?

    6. Re:HOWTO by Frac · · Score: 2
      Keep Netscape/Unix From Crashing Like the Overextended Hack Job Piece Of Crap Code It Is - HOWTO Continued:

      8) Turn off Netscape.

    7. Re:HOWTO by seanb · · Score: 1

      In all honesty, I had completely forgotten about the "shop" button. A peek at my .Xdefaults:

      Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false
      Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
      Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled:false
    8. Re:HOWTO by The+Man · · Score: 2
      1) Your distro manufacturer may have packaged netscape incorrectly. See their site for details or upgrades.

      Well, I use the latest one from SGI with their own customizations. Neither it nor the standard Netscape-supported version seems to be immune to the typical crashes and hangs. On Linux, AKAIK RedHat just sets it up to use the libraries it was linked against if they're available. See my other post on Netscape not supporting current platforms properly/at all.

      2) Turn off Cascading Style Sheets (Style Sheets) support in your preferences. It generally doesn't work well at all and really isn't all that necessary. And IME it makes NS crash. A lot.

      Do not do this. CSS is a good idea. The separation of content from layout is both necessary and good. Now, it shouldn't be harmful to your ability to glean content from sites while browsing without CSS; however, without CSS it's assumed that you don't care what the pages look like and thus you might as well just use Lynx. CSS support in Mozilla actually looks good. Somebody there read the standard, which I can't really say about Netscape. Anyway, turning off CSS just encourages webmasters to use other methods, like crufty HTML or "that other browser's" proprietary extensions. Much like the lack of CSS in the first place caused Netscape's extensions to become de facto, and later, real, standards. Bad, bad. If CSS causes crashes, file bug reports or complain to the webmaster in question.

      5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.

      Agreed. If you don't use them, consider Navigator instead of Communicator. Quicker to download as well.

      The bottom line is, whatever you do, Netscape is still a crufty, bloated piece of crap on any platform they bother to support. Part of the problem is probably library and kernel version mismatches; since they refuse to support the current versions of most platforms, it's no real surprise that random crashes happen. Fixing this would go a long way toward improving stability. Aside from that, most problems seem related to either Java or Javascript. I agree with this poster; disable them if you can.

    9. Re:HOWTO by kip3f · · Score: 1

      No Lesstif, it uses statically-linked Motif.
      --
      Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.

      --
      ****Gfx Scrollbar Special case hit!!*****
    10. Re:HOWTO by Ded+Bob · · Score: 1

      Anyone can recomend better X11 IMAP client?

      Pine works quite well within an xterm. You can even turn on the feature to use the mouse.

    11. Re:HOWTO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mail also works great in an xterm, but I don't think that's what he is interested in.

    12. Re:HOWTO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      turn of javascript, css and java and you are left with a 1993 mosaic browser. might as well turn you computer off with it.

      I recently recommended to my company that we stop supporting netscape because it is flaky and doesn't support half the css and scripting that ie does.

      I used to be the strongest advocate for ns and against ie, now I am pushing ie because netscape is such a piece of grabage, and writing work- arounds just to support netscape has became a much larger task than it used to be.

      I hope mozilla is not like netscape and is a better competitor to ie, or that Linux can get a decent compliant browser that can support at least most of the w3 stuff.

    13. Re:HOWTO by Elbereth · · Score: 1

      Yeah, turning off everything but HTML rendering does sort of suck. However, you have the benefit of HTML4 support. Or most of HTML4, at least.

      If you use Lynx, you get a great browser, but it's easy to create a page that Lynx can't navigate. Put in four or five frames, a bunch of images with no alt tags, and extensive use of Javascript. Voila - totally incomprehensible mess to the Lynx user.

      If you use Mosaic, you don't even get HTML3.2, which is pretty sad.

      If you use Grail, you get HTML3.2, but it's very slow. It's also not maintained any more, so you'll never get HTML4 support.

      I don't think the first alpha version of Mnemonic has come out yet. It's only about 5 years late. Maybe they all started running IE instead.

      Amaya is cool and all, but it's mostly useless when you try to navigate poorly written HTML pages (and that's most of the web). If you only go to sites that are HTML4 validated, then it works great.

      Mozilla... maybe it's just me, but Mozilla seems about ten times as buggy as Netscape 4.x. I don't think it's going to come out this year. And, yes, I've used the latest milestone *and* the latest CVS source. The CVS source didn't even compile. Maybe in 2001.

      Konqueror sounds interesting, but it's only in the unstable KDE builds, as I understand it. I already had one bad experience with CVS. I don't need another. I like source code to either compile or be easy to fix. Hundreds of .c and .h files distributed across dozens of directories is not easy to fix.

      On the other hand, Netscape 4.7 isn't all that bad for me. It hardly ever crashes at all. I keep Java, Javascript, and CSS on almost all the time. When I hit a site that's so poorly written, it crashes Netscape, I don't ever return there.

      I'm using XF86 3.3.6, a Matrox G400, dual P3 450s, 256MB RAM, Squid, and Mandrake 7. Works for me.

    14. Re:HOWTO by subimage · · Score: 1

      I think you should just change that to read... 1) Use IE 5. Netscape sucks. Get over it.

    15. Re:HOWTO by poink · · Score: 1

      Try using IE 5 on Solaris or HP/UX. Watch how fast you run back to netscape. Seriously. I don't know how they did it, but IE 5 is sluggish on an Ultra 30 w/ 256mb ram.

    16. Re:HOWTO by vanyel · · Score: 1

      4) Turn off Javascript if you don't use somewhat sophisticated sites.

      That's what I have to do because every time I come to Slashdot, netscape immediately crashes with it turned on. Unfortunately, all too many sites are abusing javascript and don't work properly without it turned on, so I'm constantly turning it off and on...

      Unfortunately, 4.72 didn't solve the problem.

  18. java by kapper · · Score: 1

    I haven't used netscape much lately, whats the status on Java in this new version? straight by plugin, or still including their own version?

  19. Disabling shopping button.. by Joseph+OConnor · · Score: 5
    Put this line in your preferences.js file:

    user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);

    1. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by ixx · · Score: 5

      better yet use a hex editor or something such thing (i like bvi since it uses vi commands) and change the the "Shop" string to "/." and the url to slashdot.org. The string "Shop" can be found by searching for "toolBar*Myshopping.labelString:" and the url netscape shopping url can be found my searching for "tshop.html" Be sure you just replace and do not enter more characters than are already there or you will the binary will be useless. Make a backup and work on a second copy.

      I make a xdelta patch so I can apply it on all the linux computers I use. The patch is specific to the build version though (do about: and you will see the version on the title bar). The newest one I have is for v4.7 build [en] 19990915. I have downloaded 4.72, but have not made a patch for it yet. I ran it and played around for a bit, and after seeing that it still displays the same annoying bugs as 4.7 I put off making a patch for now.

      Anyhow my navigation bar has the following:

      (forward)
      reload
      casa
      search (goes to goole. you can edit the url for this too)
      [fm] (freshmeat.net)
      print
      security
      /. (slashdot.org)
      halt

    2. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by Traal · · Score: 3

      Why disable it? Change it to something cool instead! Add to your ~/.Xdefaults

      ! Replace "Shop" with something useful:
      Netscape*strings.22495:http://slashdot.org
      Netscape*myshopping.labelString:/.
      Netscape*myshopping.documentationString:Go to Slashdot
      Netscape*myshopping.tipString:Slashdot

      --
      "People are stupid." /Isaac Asimov
    3. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by fsck · · Score: 2

      I use the win32 version of netscape when im windoh's, and the file(s) is called prefs.js and liprefs.js and adding that line to either file doesn't get rid of the "Shop" button.

      On another note, can anyone download the 128 bit versions? I keep getting dead links.

      --

      Lars - ...I could always phone Linus when I had a problem.
    4. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cool

    5. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where can I learn more about other options that I can enter into my .Xdefaults for Netscape? Dennis L.

    6. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by tigerand · · Score: 1

      Check out the Netscape.ad file usually found somewhere in $MOZILLA_HOME ... like, /usr/lib/netscape or whatever. It's got them all listed.

    7. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by bilenkey · · Score: 1

      Thank You!

    8. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by philtH_ · · Score: 1

      Is it possible to replace the icons on the buttons with the same/similar method? Cos, custom icons would be real cool.

    9. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by bcilfone · · Score: 1
      An even easier way to do this exact same thing is to add a few lines into your ~/.Xdefaults file.

      For example, I just added the following:

      • *myshopping.tipString: Go to Slashdot

      • *myshopping.documentationString: Go to Slashdot
        *toolBar*myshopping.labelString: Slashdot
        *strings.22495:http://www.slashdot.org/
      and now I have a Slashdot button instead of a Shop button. No hex editor necessary!

      For a list of other properties you can customize, take a look at jwz's file: /usr/local/netscape/Netscape.ad

      Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin.

    10. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by Dave+Walker · · Score: 1

      I tried using the strings from the Netscape.ad file, and they didn't work. A straight cut'n'paste from the above reply did.

      What's the difference between the two?

    11. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by ixx · · Score: 1

      I personaly turn icons off, but I would not think you could anyhow. The image is somewhere in the binary and it would be hard to find it and know its exact size etc. I imagine you could do it if you really tried. Figure out the image format and then pull the thing into an external file, but then you would need to put a new image back in there in a way that would not mess up the binary.

      Messing with button string and the urls is fine since its stored as text.

    12. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by ixx · · Score: 1

      Hmmm, thats much better. Unless I figure out how to binary edit the icons then I will not have to go edit the file every new version.

      Well after going through the file... its BIG so I have not finished, but I went searching around and such for strings that I am replacing and I can not find any for the "my netscape." If I can figure out what string replaces that link this will be the way to go, else I may still edit the binary for my freshmeat.net link.

      Anyhow thanks for the info!

    13. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by bcilfone · · Score: 1
      Hmmm... the name of the resource for the My Netscape button is "destinations", so you can change its appearance by doing:
      • *destinations.tipString: Go to Freshmeat

      • *destinations.documentationString: Go to Freshmeat
        *toolBar*destinations.labelString: Freshmeat
      BUT... its url (http://home.netscape.com/bookmark/4_7/tstart.html ) is nowhere to be found in the resource file! They apparently don't want you to change this button very much. Maybe the hex editor isn't all that bad.

      Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin.
    14. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by ixx · · Score: 1

      There is probably some string.# that will let you do it, but I do not know what it is.

      Anyhow here are my changes to .Xdefaults:

      *Navigator*viewSecurity.tipString: insecurity
      *Navigator*viewSecurity.documentationString: insecurity
      *toolBar*viewSecurity.labelString: security

      *Navigator*stopLoading.tipString: stop this infernal beast
      *Navigator*stopLoading.documentationString: stop this infernal beast
      *toolBar*stopLoading.labelString: halt

      *Navigator*back.tipString: get back jack
      *Navigator*back.documentationString: get back jack
      *toolBar*back.labelString:

      *Navigator*reload.tipString: reload and fire
      *Navigator*reload.documentationString: this looks funny... restart this bugger
      *toolBar*reload.labelString: reload

      *Navigator*home.tipString: go to your van down by the river
      *Navigator*home.documentationString: go to your van down by the river
      *toolBar*home.labelString: casa

      *Navigator*search.tipString: find it
      *Navigator*search.documentationString: find it
      *toolBar*search.labelString: hallazgo

      *Navigator*destinations.tipString: freshmeat app index
      *Navigator*destinations.documentationString: freshmeat app index
      *toolBar*destinations.labelString: [fm]

      *myshopping.tipString: Go to Slashdot
      *myshopping.documentationString: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
      *toolBar*myshopping.labelString: slashdot
      *strings.22495:http://www.slashdot.org/

      *Navigator*print.tipString: kill a tree
      *Navigator*print.documentationString: kill a tree
      *toolBar*print.labelString: print

      When I tried using something similar to the shopping lines then it did not do anything. I had to add *Navigator*...

      This might mean communicator does not work with this, but maybe the browser portion would respond to *Navigator...

    15. Re:Disabling shopping button.. by m3000 · · Score: 1

      Add "Netscape" to the front. I think it tells it to affect Netscape-Navigator and not something else when you add that.

  20. Still no good fixes by Dysan2k · · Score: 1

    I saw the release this morning earlier and I checked ye olde' changelog. Still there's no real fix for the uncountable java problems that I have with Netscape under Linux. In fact, this morning I just went and grabbed the latest Milestone of Mozilla. It's usable, but still buggy. (For instance, the area around this reply textbox is totally black). I'd just as soon contend with this since Netscape just hasn't really fixed the bugs it needs to IMHO.

    If you're wondering which java problem I'm referring to, some of the banners on Freshmeat will crash Netscape. Most evil!

    --
    -What have you contributed lately?
    1. Re:Still no good fixes by puetzk · · Score: 1

      black text is fixed in CVS, get a nightly (or, probably better) M14 will be out soon.

      --
      The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
  21. 4.72? No thanks... by MrHat · · Score: 2

    I've been royally pissed at Netscape ever since they added the stupid "Shop" button in 4.6. "Shop" differs from "Stop" by one letter - and they put it right next to the "Stop" button. At 1600x1200 with text-only toolbars, I can never tell the difference between the two.

    Every time I try to kill a loading page, I find myself whisked away to some "Netscape Store". Sheesh.


    43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr

    1. Re:4.72? No thanks... by sterwill · · Score: 2

      You could just hit "Escape" instead.

      --

    2. Re:4.72? No thanks... by Junta · · Score: 5

      There are plenty of criticisms that are valid against netscape, and the shop button seems silly to me too, but your criticisms are a bit unjust. If your resolution makes things unreadable, why use it? it seems counterproductive.

      Be gald that the buttons can be disbaled. Since no one has posted how in this thread, here it is, straight from my .Xdefaults:
      Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false

      That's it.
      To disable the search/my netscape, and add a Find button:
      Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled: false
      Netscape*toolBar.numUserCommands: 1
      Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.commandName: findInObject
      Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.labelString: Find
      Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.commandIcon: Find
      Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    3. Re:4.72? No thanks... by norom · · Score: 1

      Hey, cool. I am having fun messing with the icon bar now. By any chance do you have a link with more things to change? Guess and check is kind of slow.

    4. Re:4.72? No thanks... by Matt · · Score: 1
      How do you also nuke the ``Security'' widget from the toolbar? Since it does exactly the same thing as the padlock icon in the lower left corner, having it in the toolbar is a waste.

      Also, the most crucial Netscape customisation,

      Netscape*blinkingEnabled: false

      hasn't worked since I switched from version 3.04. FWIW, I use the communicator-smotif-47 package in the Debian Linux distribution.

    5. Re:4.72? No thanks... by whoop · · Score: 1

      Um, search slashdot. ;) When the shop button came out, v4.7 I think it was, someone put up a link to a huge document at netscape.com that explained many of the .Xdefaults/preferences.js settings. Also breaking a hex editor out on the netscape bin can find many of the settings strings.

      The downside is Netscape (Linux) always wants to rewrite the preferences.js and do away with my modifications. A simple chmod a-w took care of that, and now I know Netscape always starts with the settings I want.

      Anyway, it's possible to change many of the buttons. I have the search button going to google's linux search, and the "guide" button (replacing My Netscape) bringing down a droplist of Linux sites.

    6. Re:4.72? No thanks... by gargle · · Score: 2

      I've been royally pissed at Netscape ever since they added the stupid "Shop" button in 4.6. "Shop" differs from "Stop" by one letter - and they put it right next to the "Stop" button. At 1600x1200 with text-only toolbars, I can never tell the difference between the two.

      Every time I try to kill a loading page, I find myself whisked away to some "Netscape Store". Sheesh.


      That's sort of like the whole idea.

      P.S Another Netscape grouse: why can't NS copy and paste the text without breaking the lines at the wrong places?

    7. Re:4.72? No thanks... by orabidoo · · Score: 2

      cat >> $HOME/.netscape/preferences.js
      user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);
      ^D

    8. Re:4.72? No thanks... by pli · · Score: 1

      The security button is removed with:

      Netscape*toolBar.viewSecurity.isEnabled: false

    9. Re:4.72? No thanks... by norom · · Score: 1

      I searched that story, and I found a lot of interesting stuff. I could summorize here, but the most important detail is the file Netscape.ad.

      This file lists all the stuff you can change. I found it in the default install location for the 4.72 tarball, /opt/netscape/Netscape.ad

    10. Re:4.72? No thanks... by Zan+Thrax · · Score: 1

      Anyone want to tell me how to do this sort of thing in Win?

      --

      Intolerant people should be shot.
    11. Re:4.72? No thanks... by IkeTo · · Score: 1

      Hey... do you guys know whether this kind of things will be possible with Mozilla? I've heard that Mozilla uses Gtk+, and Gtk+ doesn't allow for resource files.

      But of course, maybe themes and XUL are better.

    12. Re:4.72? No thanks... by joepeg · · Score: 1
      um.

      close netscape, edit, reopen netscape.

      you are going way out of your way to prevent netscape from overwriting your preference file. If you close it first, then edit, netscape will read from your newly edited pref file.

      --

      ZEN is a prime number in base-36

  22. You can get all browsers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You just have to know wherre to look. All of the verification certificates expored in the older software. For "demo" or "testing" go get the older browser versions off of: http://download.cnet.com -Dante

  23. Navigator is still 4.08!??? by eriks · · Score: 4

    Looks to me like Navigator (The only useful part of Communicator IMO) is still 4.08... which has been out for months... Unless they actually modified it and didn't change the version number.

    1. Re:Navigator is still 4.08!??? by snubber1 · · Score: 1

      Nope, netscape's homepage has confused many. I just downloaded navigator 4.72 (through WWW, ftp is way to slow right now) by clicking through to the downloads. Only when you get to the end, after pick your operating system (UNSUPPORTED!) do you get the option of communicator or navigator, and 56 or 128 bit.

      ----------------------------------------------

      --
      I don't really mind double posts on //..
    2. Re:Navigator is still 4.08!??? by Fiore2 · · Score: 1

      Where? All I keep getting is 4.08. :(

    3. Re:Navigator is still 4.08!??? by singularity · · Score: 2

      At least on the Macintosh, development of Standalone/Navigator stopped at 4.0.7 (I think that 4.0.8 brought a bug fix and "What's related"). The reasoning is that (right or wrong), there is no reason to go with a standalone client. If all you do is browse on the Mac (and not use Composer, Messenger, and others), the RAM requirements and speed are the same as the standalone. The only real difference, then, would be in HD space wasted (which they argue is not that important in the days of 40gig IDE drives).

      My opinion? Netscape is really missing out. At least on the Mac, iCab is really hot right now. There is a market for standalone clients out there, even if you argue that the all-in-one is better.

      --
      - (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
    4. Re:Navigator is still 4.08!??? by Zan+Thrax · · Score: 1

      Could you maybe find that again and post the URL? I can't find any such thing, and I'd love to have the stand-alone, but I'm not about to go back to 4.08.

      --

      Intolerant people should be shot.
    5. Re:Navigator is still 4.08!??? by Cameroon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but there are really good reasons that iCab is doing better and it isn't just 'cause it's a standalone.

      Small memory footprint. It's tiny compared to ie4.5/ie5/ns4.x/moz
      Fast. Even without sucking up memory its fast.
      Standards compliant (and you can force it to act like ie/ns)
      Stable. Sure you get some odd crashes, but it's preview, I'll cut it some slack.
      Prefs: This is probably one of my favorites. Someone actually put thought into the modification of plugins, filters, etc.

      Now javascript and CSS just need to work ;)

  24. What's New? Who knows? by GeekLife.com · · Score: 2

    Well, besides this:

    As of Netscape Communicator 4.72, Enterprise Calendar is no longer included with your download.

    I don't see any What's New section. It's amazing how hard it is to find any information about Navigator on Netscape's home page.

  25. AOL Takeover by Tassach · · Score: 4

    The quality of Navigator/Communicator seemed to be going downhill long before AOL took over Netscape; the fact that 95%+ of the original Netscape programming staff left after the takeover isn't going to help any. Given the quality (or lack thereof) of AOL's software, I shudder to think about the future of Navigator. I really don't want to have to switch to M$ Internet Exploiter, nor would I want to see a Navigator dumbed down to the level of the AOL client.

    Communicator 4.7 is pretty stable for me under NT, but I have pretty robust hardware (Athalon 550/128MB); it seems much less stable under Red Hat on my K6-II/400. My main gripe is it's speed; it seems to take forever to render a page, even on my Athalon. My other major gripe is that the email and news facilities are annoyingly primitive for such an otherwise mature program. (Plus, PGPFreeware dosn't have a Netscape plugin)

    I havn't had a chance to play with Mozilla yet; but I'm looking forward to seeing the final release. Hopefully Mozilla will fix a lot of the annoyances of 4.x

    "The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

    --
    Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
    1. Re:AOL Takeover by AT · · Score: 2

      the fact that 95%+ of the original Netscape programming staff left after the takeover

      Did this, in fact, happen? I remember jwz leaving a short time after the take-over, and a few others left when the takeover was still just a rumor. AOL cut a whole bunch of Netscape staff, but that was mostly redundant admin, AFAIK. I would imagine some programmers walked but 95% seems absurdly high. Do you have any supporting references?

    2. Re:AOL Takeover by caferace · · Score: 1

      The original poster was, in fact "talking out his ass". That being said, I'd love to see him/her attempt to come up with any valid facts that would support the claim.

  26. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    disapearing stories and typos have been around /. for a long time. I was hoping all their new money might buy them some copy editors and some other chimps to run editing, but I guess not. Hey /. keep doing the same work, but hire some lackeys to do the crappy uninteresting work, like editing and consistancy.

  27. ohh.. Howto, are you a crack baby? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Howto: What on earth are you talking about? "Turn off javascript" "Turn off java" "Turn off CSS" etc. Man, why don't you just go download an old version of Masaic 1.0 and cruise around for a little while... real cool huh? The web is a visual and stylistic medium for better or for worse. The days of the traditionalist "text based" web are dead, get used to it. If, as you suggest someone performed these actions they would not be able to: - use 50% of the navigation out there - purchase goods at 90% of the sites out there And all around would have a fairly miserable experience. Thr problem isn't the technology or the conventions, they don't make the browsers unstable. What makes the browsers unstable is that fact that they (ms and nn) haven't rebuilt their basic engines in YEARS. Hell, mozilla hasn't rewritten the kernel EVER (waiting for m14) Additionally, what we REALLY need is a frigging death squad to back up the w3 and send the fear of god into nn and ms. If those companies didn't branch off in the 4 level browsers with their "proprietary spec versions" we couldn't be facing the incompatability and instability issues we have today. *grumbles* But then again, I'm just an:

    1. Re:ohh.. Howto, are you a crack baby? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem that I see with most software being released today is that it does too much. It is too complicated and big for any reasonable company to maintain the software and fix bugs. Windows is such a big piece of crap now not because all the programmers are idiots, but because no one is left at the company that understands the workings of the kernel. It has gotten so huge that the best thing they can do is kludge around a hopefully stable solution and pray to the Intel gods for faster processors. I think that the open source community needs to learn from this and veer away from the trend of including EVERYTHING into their programs, and instead work on smaller, more efficient programs that can be linked together via some kind of standard interface. Programs that are designed to do "everything" on a computer are doomed to failure because they can't be maintained.

    2. Re:ohh.. Howto, are you a crack baby? by PerlGeek · · Score: 1

      "The days of the traditionalist "text based" web are dead, get used to it."

      Really now? I routinely turn off css, javascript, java, most cookies, and sometimes turn off auto image loading. What am I supposed to get used to, again? :)

  28. Navigator beyond 4.0x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's there. It's not hard to find either. There are like 3 versions of it available too.

    The filenames:

    navigator-v472-export.x86-unknown-linux2.0.tar.g z
    navigator-v472-export.x86-unknown-linux2.2.tar.g z
    navigator-v472-export.x86-unknown-linuxglibc2.0. tar.gz

    1. Re:Navigator beyond 4.0x by rcw-work · · Score: 1
      It's there.

      ...but not for all platforms.

  29. FreeBSD NS v. Linux NS by mosch · · Score: 3

    The Linux NS is much more stable than the FreeBSD NS (scary, eh?). I'm posting this from Linux NS running on FreeBSD 3.4, a common enough option that there's actually a port for linux netscape in the freebsd ports collection.
    ----------------------------

  30. Thought it was me. by mong · · Score: 2

    Slightly offtopic...

    On the FIX BBS I recently posted this:

    "The problem has oocured in versions 4.6 and 4.7 on Win95, Win98 and NT.
    Sometimes, Netscape doesn't allow you to follow links. Like, the pointer will change to the "hand" when you move over the link, but a click doesn't do anything.

    The only way to solve the problem is to reboot windows. It's very strange. It's happened to me regularly for about 6 months, I can't be the only one?

    I'm considering reporting it to Netscape.

    Mo.
    "

    I got the following within a few minutes. Come on NS! I'm using IE5 now - it's better, a lot better!

    "No, I experience the same thing. Except that sometimes, a click *does* do anything, even when the mouse pointer isn't in hand shape."

    "I've experienced this with Netscape for Linux. It only happens when I have two or more windows open at the same time, and another one (than the one I'm clicking in) is trying to load something. If I cancel that load by hitting ESC,things usually "pop" back into working order. Usually, I say, but it's only happened to me two or three times."

    "Have the same problem (Netscape 4.6 on Linux and also on Digital UNIX 4.0D), but: It even happens, when there's only one window. And it doesn't change back, only restarting of Netscape is a cure.

    Seems to be a coded feature. :)
    "

    Really NS - Can we have our favourite browser working properly in it's next release? You know? Links, that can be followed?

    Mong.


    * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *

    --

    *...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
    Remember: Nothing is Cool.
    1. Re:Thought it was me. by drwiii · · Score: 1
      Sometimes, Netscape doesn't allow you to follow links. Like, the pointer will change to the "hand" when you move over the link, but a click doesn't do anything.

      As far as I've been able to pinpoint, this is some sort of problem relating to JavaScript. Every time this has happened to me, JavaScript was lurking around on the page.

      There's also a bug related to Java which causes the netscape process to not exit when you close all of its windows.

    2. Re:Thought it was me. by cperciva · · Score: 1

      I have had this problem with 4.08, and it looks to me like it is the result of having orphaned threads lying around. (this in under both 95 and 2000).
      Sometimes when I exit netscape, it doesn't close down all its threads, and I can still see the process "running" even though all its threads are frozen. When I open up netscape again it creates a new window under the old process, but then can't load pages because all its page-loading threads are stalled.
      Until I noticed the zombie netscape running I always rebooted to solve this problem, but now it seems fine if I just kill the process from task manager.
      I don't know if this is the same problem, but try looking for zombie threads.

    3. Re:Thought it was me. by mong · · Score: 1

      Makes perfect sense, it's pretty much what I guessed. Wish I'd thought to kill the process, instead of rebooting.

      Thanks.

      Mo.

      * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *

      --

      *...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
      Remember: Nothing is Cool.
    4. Re:Thought it was me. by mong · · Score: 1

      And more comments from FIX...

      "This happens to me rather often. Sometimes, the problem isn't solved at all,and I actually have to shut down NS. But even then, the damned program keeps floating around in the background, invisible, and I have to manually shut it down with ctrl-alt-del.

      Another thing that annoys me is that it closed itself with the message "This program has cused an illegal operation...[bla bla]". The program closes, but the message box just seems unable to bugger off! I then just move it down to the bottom of the screen, so that the start bar overlaps it when I make it inactive, and start NS again. It then works perfectly, but has a larger chance
      of shutting down with the same message, refusing to go away, again.

      I was hoping that NS would fulfill all of my needs as a browser, but now it's clear to me that MicroSoft actually has produced a superior product. It's sad but true, but in any case, I'll wait for the next version of NS too see if the
      problems are fixed before I convert to the dark side.
      "

      Mo.

      * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *

      --

      *...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
      Remember: Nothing is Cool.
    5. Re:Thought it was me. by wherley · · Score: 1

      i've been able to recover from the "hand over link appears but click doesn't do anything" by toggling JavaScript off and back on.
      Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> "Enable Javascript"
      (but i do see the orphaned threads mentioned here.)
      jrw

      --
      Did you like this post? Then pay the writer two cents!
      Go: http://rootworks.com/twocentsworth.cgi?j rw

    6. Re:Thought it was me. by look · · Score: 1

      I used to have this problem when I used Windows (haven't had it in Linux). My solution was to _right click_ on the link which wasn't working, and select "open in new window". That would solve the problem, usually, especially allowing you to go on to the new page. :)

    7. Re:Thought it was me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sometimes, Netscape doesn't allow you to follow links. Like, the pointer will change to the "hand" when you move over the link, but a click doesn't do anything.

      For Windows:

      Close Netscape, wait for disk activity to cease

      Do CTRL+ALT+DEL, select Netscape, and End Task

      Restart Netscape.


      Wingnut

    8. Re:Thought it was me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be broken from your evil windows reboot habits.

    9. Re:Thought it was me. by LukeyBoy · · Score: 1

      I've seen this behaviour on my Windows box. You don't have to reboot, Netscape screws up some data and when you close the window it doesn't actually unload the executable from memory. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete and force the task to end, then restart Netscape. It's great what we have to do to avoid using IE. :-)

  31. Coincidence or Conspiracy? by GeekLife.com · · Score: 4

    I headed over to Google and searched for "Netscape Navigator 4.72"... Check out who comes up 1st (and 2nd, and 3rd, and 6th) with Netscape.com nowhere to be seen.

    1. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by snubber1 · · Score: 1

      Thats seriously messed up. How could that even occur without someone tampering with some system on the search engine. Its not like www.microsoft.com mentions Netscape Navigator more on their page then NETSCAPE does....

      Mabye they'll get split and we'll get more competitive browser options for linux.

      ----------------------------------------------

      --
      I don't really mind double posts on //..
    2. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by irix · · Score: 3

      What do you want ot bet that MS has hundreds of GeoCities pages with the words "click here to download Netscape" and a link to the Microsoft homepage :)

      --

      Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
    3. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Accipiter · · Score: 2
      While searching for the origins of a very funny German ad to learn english (A family is listening to a very vulgar song, and enjoying the hell out of it) I stumbled across something interesting from Google when doing a search of the song's lyrics:

      Do a Google Search for: I wanna fuck you in the ass
      Have a look at the first result on THAT one.

      After seeing that, I tried a variation. The first few search results are QUITE amusing:

      Fuck you up the ass - Amusingly, those few search results DO JUST THAT!

      Here's a well known search: More evil than the devil himself


      -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

      --

      -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
      (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

    4. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by NickHolland · · Score: 1

      Wow...Those are very funny...

      I'd love to hear an official explaination of those search results.

      Nick.

    5. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Shadowcaster · · Score: 0

      A Metacrawler search for "netscape navigator 4.72" turned up Netscape's own site as the first link, but Microshit's site as the second..
      I seem to remember some noise about loading a page with misleading words just to get an engine to list it first... Wasn't it decided that this is bad practice?
      Oh wait... this is Microsoft we're talking about afterall... silly me.

    6. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by sammy+baby · · Score: 3

      Hey. That's pretty funny. :)

      Just a guess: the Google guys claim that what sets their search engine apart from so many others is that it weights sites based on other sites that link to it - if your site gets linked from one that sells widgets, a search for widgets is more likely to pull your site.

      Now, think of how many pr0n sites make you click one of those "I understand and agree with the terms of service" links. Almost invariably, the "I don't agree - I'm under 18" link takes you to Disney's page.

      So, searches for some "adult" key phrases bring up Disney, by sheer force of association. (Dear god. I can't imagine what would happen if their lawyers got wind of this.)

    7. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by romco · · Score: 1

      I would guess microsoft is using cloking..

      i.e. using a script to server one set of pages
      to surfers and another set of pages to search
      engines by checking ip #s.

      This is a common technic for porn sites and is
      becoming common for larger e-commerce sites.

      However it is really in poor taste to use it
      to steal hits from your competitors.

      --
      AdFuel
    8. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The internal version number of one release of IE is 4.072xxxx. Maybe that's the problem.

    9. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about "likes to fuck mother"? A little stab at the competition?

    10. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by DennisZeMenace · · Score: 1

      The reason you get all those Microsoft hits is because of the 4.72 word. There are several Microsoft releases that have the 4.72 version (IE 4.72, Microsoft Express 4.72). You have to remember that Google searches, unlike AltaVista's, are AND searches, so only pages that contain all three keywords are showed. If you try Google with simply "Netscape Navigator", you get the expected results.

    11. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by whatever3 · · Score: 1

      Well, duh! 4.72 was a version number for IE some time ago. Since Netscape 4.72 just came out, it seems pretty obvious that combining "Netscape", "Navigator" and "4.72" is going hit Microsoft's pages.

    12. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by SPK · · Score: 1
      While searching for the origins of a very funny German ad to learn english (A family is listening to a very vulgar song, and enjoying the hell out of it) I stumbled across something interesting from Google when doing a search of the song's lyrics:

      Just a note -- it's a Dutch ad -- not a German one. (regarding both the people who did it and the 'location')

      However, it is a hilarious video.

      --
      Regnant populi. (The people rule.) Pregnant ropuli. (The snake will soon lay eggs.)
    13. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Mondo54 · · Score: 1

      Here's another...<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=suck+my+cock<nobr>&<wbr></wbr></nobr> num=10&sa=Google+Search">suck my cock</a>

      --

      But isn't the purpose of the Doomsday machine lost if you keep it a secret!
    14. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by anim8 · · Score: 1
      This is certainly appalling. I viewed Google's cached version of MS's home page and there is not a single instance of the word 'netscape' or '4.72' on the page! And the only time the word 'navigator' appears is in the javascript for browser detection -- which shouldn't be indexed by their engine.

      However, if you simply enter 'netscape navigator' without the version number you will get what you would expect.

      Still, it makes me wonder how the hell MS pages could get such a high listing when the keywords aren't even present. That pretty much rules out 'coincidence'.

    15. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Bastiaan · · Score: 1

      Funny thing is that Google supposedly caches the pages it retrieves and that the cached version does not mention Netscape anywhere either. If M$ would be 'cloking' it would show in the cached page.

  32. Fixed the JS/CSS bug? by barzok · · Score: 2

    Have they finally fixed the bug where turning off JS disabled CSS even if you have CSS enabled?

    1. Re:Fixed the JS/CSS bug? by hanche · · Score: 2
      Have they finally fixed the bug where turning off JS disabled CSS even if you have CSS enabled?

      Not likely. That particular bug, after all, is there because CSS support is implemented by translating CSS into javascript. Hence, turning off the latter turns off the former.

      We should expect this silliness to end with Mozilla, of course.

  33. Re:Cherchez la moolah by unitron · · Score: 1

    Actually the disappearing story didn't become a regular feature until money started heading Slashdot's way, around the time of the Red Hat IPO.
    Anybody besides me feel like there's a considerable difference between pulling a story and explaining why and just "disappearing" it?

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  34. Re:MEEPT!!!!! by unitron · · Score: 1

    Hope this is the return of the one, true, original MEEPT!!!!!

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  35. Strong Encryption? by Zefram · · Score: 1

    Anyone else having problems downloading the strong encryption version? Seems like they're not only have problems with the stability of the browser, but with basic server adminstration. The redirect script that figures out where you're coming from... isn't there. Fun.

    Well, at least MEEPT!!!!! is back. I can rest easy. But, seriously, someone needs to compete in the browser market.. IE is becoming a much better product. What other browsers are there? The only one I can thing of is Opera, but it's lacking in too much functionality. I haven't played around with Mozilla yet.

    --
    What about MEEPT?!?!
    1. Re:Strong Encryption? by trupoet · · Score: 1

      Yah I have had trouble trying to dl the Strong Encryption before with 4.71. They did finally get it to work right after a month or two! Must be AOL's doing....they will be Netscape's UNdoing. Anyways, just my opinion of course. :-)

  36. Platform support by The+Man · · Score: 5
    Netscape/AOL's choice of platforms to support makes no sense to me. Figure this: Linux 2.2 is the current version; most people have stopped using 2.0 by now. Libc5 hasn't been supported by its authors in almost three years. So why is it that the Linux 2.2/glibc version is a) still unsupported, and b) linked against not-even-current versions of those libraries, especially when they still support 2.0/libc5???

    As if that weren't sufficiently annoying, there's not been a Linux/SPARC version since 4.51, but there are five Solaris versions. Of course, none of those are for current versions of Solaris either. All this, of course, would be excusable if they didn't have any systems to build on or they weren't going to support oddball platforms (I will admit that Linux/SPARC is marginal, though it has multiple supported distributions and a growing user base), but then why oh why are there two SINIX builds??? Most people don't even know WTF SINIX _is_, much less have it.

    The point? It doesn't seem like Netscape understands what people are actually using today. If the objective is to be compatible with as much as possible, then not having up-to-date Linux builds for at least Intel, SPARC, and Alpha makes no sense. For that matter, they don't even claim to support Solaris 7 or 8. 2.5.1 is itself archaic. If the objective is instead to support only the most popular platforms, then I certainly don't see the need for five Solaris builds, two AIX builds, anything related to SINIX, or a Linux 2.0/libc5 build. The obvious platforms to support would be Solaris 7, Linux 2.2-intel/glibc, the latest AIX, the latest Digital Unix, and IRIX 6.5.

    So what can we do to increase their awareness of this problem? Numerous polite letters have garnered either no response or a polite "get lost" form letter. Ideas?

    Alternate paranoid theory: AOL wants all the Unix builds to be against old systems so that people will switch to windoze and buy more aol service. Pretty paranoid, but aol is pure evil after all.

    PS: Kudos to the mozilla team for recognizing the value of compatibility and multi-platform support. The Linux/SPARC build works as well as any other.

    --TM, still using 4.51 on Ultralinux, the preferred platform of all major deities

    1. Re:Platform support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Read My Lips, I'll talk REAL S-L-O-W. I'll even spell it out for you:

      M-O-Z-I-L-L-A

      The Navigator/Communicator software releases are simply just bug fixes on and old code base which is not going to remain in production much longer. So of course it is linked to old libraries, etc. Nearly all of Netscape's development efforts are focused on the newer Mozilla browser which is now at Milestone 13 and is approaching a beta release status.

      Keep up with the times.

    2. Re:Platform support by The+Man · · Score: 1
      This argument does not make sense. The fact that a codebase is old and nearing retirement does not mean that its builds have to be linked against old libraries or only made available for old operating systems. It's obviously possible to build communicator against glibc 2.0 on Linux 2.2/Intel. So what's stopping them from going to glibc 2.1? Or Linux/SPARC? Or Solaris 7? Or ...? If the Mozilla codebase were intended for release as Netscape 5 within a few months, I probably wouldn't consider this a big deal. But seeing as how it's going to be NS 6 and is probably a year or more away from release in that form, I consider this a serious issue.

      How much more ground is Netscape willing to give up here? Will NS5 work on modern platforms? Or will Microsoft take the opportunity to crush Netscape for good, before Mozilla has any chance to make an impact?

      I know Mozilla won't die off completely, a nice benefit of Open Source and all that, but there are already pages that will only work in IE (just as there were mages that Navigator but not Mosaic could display, and this eventually killed off mosaic). How long until it's a choice between security fixes and a working web browser? I know which I'll be forced to choose if it comes to that, and the thought of losing like that is unpleasant.

    3. Re:Platform support by Ded+Bob · · Score: 1

      I am waiting for an ELF FreeBSD version. I guess I will have to wait until Mozilla is out.

    4. Re:Platform support by powerlord · · Score: 2
      Will NS5 work on modern platforms? Actually NS5 will never see the light of day. NS5 was the code they had started on that they handed over to the Mozilla group originally. After about 6 months of trying to get it to work, the Mozila group decided it would be better/faster to scrap it all and start from scratch, hence NS6.

      I bet NS6 is out before the year is up.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    5. Re:Platform support by The+Man · · Score: 1

      Yep. Sorry I sort of left the BSDs out of the discussion, mostly because Linux emulation is available. Certainly it would be nice to see native ELF BSD versions as well however (as well as versions for xBSD/y, where x != Free and/or y != Intel). Especially since there's absolutely no reason it can't be done. Just one flag is all it takes... That's what burns me about the whole thing. It takes far more effort to keep obsolete systems around for the purpose of doing builds than it does to just use up-to-date systems and support the software people are actually using. Your annoyance is justified. :)

    6. Re:Platform support by guacamole · · Score: 1

      Uh whats wrong with communicator being built on Solaris 2.5.1 ? It is binary compatible with all current versions of solaris (2.6,7,8). If fact many vendost use Solaris 2.5.1 as their reference platform, since they are all upwards binary compatible it makes sense to build on 2.5.1 to make sure that folks that still run 2.5.1 or 2.6 have no problems with this software.

      Same with linux. Are you claiming that linux programs compiled on 2.0.x systems won't run on
      2.2.x systems? Glibc is a bigger issue. Sometimes glibc2.0 programs do not run correctly on glibc2.1 systems, but this is nature of linux. I doubt that commercial software vendors are thrilled at the idea of making new builds just because there a new incompatbile library every six months.
      Linux2.0glibc2.0 version works good enough for me .. my linux distribution is Linux 2.2.x/glibc2.0 based

    7. Re:Platform support by Alex · · Score: 1

      Sure it is a bit silly with linux, but only solaris 2.5.1 makes perfect sense. Solaris has 100% binary backwards compatibility. ie 2.5.1 binaries will work -> 2.6 -> 7 and 8. 2.6/7/8 add no new major features affecting netscape. So why bother to maintain 4 versions, when maintaining 1 will be perfectly adequate? Solaris systems, are upgraded far less frequently than linux or windows, I know of companies running 4.1.4 (SunOS) in production STILL. The view netscape have, is if it ain't broke don't fix it.

    8. Re:Platform support by pb · · Score: 1

      Actually, "upgrading" from Solaris 2.51 to 2.6 broke a lot of stuff here. Proprietary software, free software, you name it, it's not happy.

      For whatever reason, building on later machines as well is a good idea, because some people have problems. Some distributions don't have the glibc2.0 support. (and I've seen commercial software with A.OUT / "Z-MAGIC" Linux binaries, still in use, so...)

      Eventually these huge companies will have to run builds on some newer machines, so why not bite the bullet? I think they can handle it. If something breaks, they'll have to fix it eventually, anyhow.
      ---
      pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

      --
      pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  37. Re:What was wrong with slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it should in the faq, they are having database problems...
    I'm not saying it's not lame heheh
    with all that money why not use oracle instead of the shitty mysql ?

  38. Netscape optimized RPMS by johnnyb · · Score: 1

    RPMs of Netscape built with GCC-2.95 with i686 optimizations available at

    http://members.wri.com/johnnyb/netscape/

    1. Re:Netscape optimized RPMS by Schifter · · Score: 1

      And you got the source code where, exactly?

    2. Re:Netscape optimized RPMS by johnnyb · · Score: 1

      I feel very sheepish..... The .src.rpms are only for building RPMs, not containing source. Very sorry.

      Jon

  39. Netscape's Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    Well I think Netscape's great- twice the performance and a lot more stable than anything else made by other people who haven't paid me as much cash to say that.

    Barry Fishcake
    Senior VP, Mindcraft

    1. Re:Netscape's Great by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I Will not flame. I will not flame. I will not flame.

      I don't think you can look at me with a straight face and say that Netscape is faster than IE. I further doubt that you can claim that it's more stable. It does run on a whole heck of a lot more platforms, though.

      I'm still waiting for navigator five. I use Pine for email on both Win2k and on OpenBSD so I'm not too concerned with the mediocre mailer built into communicator.

      Also, netscape STILL doesn't have a build for OpenBSD. You have to install the BSDi which gets run through purify. It crashes a lot. I hate it. To echo a previous post about versions for linux, why is netscape always behind?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  40. I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by FascDot+Killed+My+Pr · · Score: 3

    I've been using M13 as my ONLY browser (at work) for two weeks. I use it pretty heavily, and I go to Deja approx once per day.

    I have not had one single crash of the browser. (I have had mail crash on me).

    I was anxiously waiting for M14 to clean up some interface/formatting/speed problems, but apparently they aren't going to do one(?)
    --
    Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.

    --
    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
    (Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
    1. Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by Foogle · · Score: 3
      Why is it that everyone that Mozilla works fine for thinks that everyone that Mozilla does not work fine for must be suffering from delusions. Mozilla may in fact work fine for you. It doesn't work fine for me though. It crashes ALL the time for me. It crashes all the time for a lot of people, actually.

      And based on the undisputable truth that Mozilla does crash consistently on some systems, I would have to say that no, Mozilla is not almost ready for primetime. They clearly have way too many bugs that have yet to be tracked down.

      Having said that, I would like to point out that I am not saying that Mozilla should be ready for regular use. I understand that it is an Alpha, and I wholeheartedly expect it to get much much better as it moves on. But you can't have it both ways.

      -----------

      "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

    2. Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by SEAL · · Score: 1

      I haven't even used Mozilla long enough to determine if there are crash problems. The RENDERING problems are enough to keep me from using it as my primary browser.

      Try browsing through a few cnn.com pages lately? Getting closer, but still no cigar.

      Don't get me wrong... I'm not bashing on Mozilla here. I'm just pointing out that it is still alpha, and people shouldn't expect more. If it works for you, great. If not, then either help them out, or wait for a few more releases.

      SEAL

    3. Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by kevlar · · Score: 3

      Wow! That amazes me! I'm wondering how you're actually using the program! I had it crash 4 times in under an hour just surfing sites, so I stopped using it. I have respect for the Mozilla team, but they've got a long way to go from what I've seen by using the browser. I dunno, maybe they're all trivial fixes.

    4. Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by matsh · · Score: 1

      Try http://www.dn.se

      Mozilla, from M11 and on, always blows up on
      this daily swedish newspapers site.

    5. Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! by Romen · · Score: 1

      www.dn.se works great for me. Of course, I am using the build from Monday, and not M13. But I like Mozilla, and find that it is _much_ faster than regular old Netscape.
      Sam TH

      --
      Sam TH
      AbiWord Developer
  41. Use IE if you run Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    I've been using netscape since it was version 1.x but finally this week, i got too pissed off at navigator for crashing, etc, i downloaded internet explorer 5.01 for win98 and it is just sooooo much faster and better than ns 4.7. almost nobody can deny it is a better product. the rendering speed alone is worth the price of download. i don't think i am ever going back unless i am using linux or on a school computer.

    if you have no other reason to use IE other than Microsoft hatred that's fine. But if you want to see what Mozilla will hopefully eventually being like, just download IE and see for yourself.

    1. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by Refrag · · Score: 1

      The main problem with running IE in Windows is that because it is now "part of the OS" whenever IE crashes, Windows crashes. I much prefer Netscape crashing and Windows staying alive.

      --
      I have a website. It's about Macs.
    2. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by gargle · · Score: 2

      That's rubbish. An IE crash doesn't flinch NT. Unless you're using Windows 9X, in which case, I pity you.

    3. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by Zan+Thrax · · Score: 1

      Yeah, pity people who play games on their home computers. Poor, poor us.

      --

      Intolerant people should be shot.
    4. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by exekewtable · · Score: 1

      Also keep in mind that IE renders kewl stuff like CSS much better than Netscape. CSS is a standard, there is version 1 and 2, neither of the browsers support it fully, but IE IMO does a better job. I think you will find the css site backs me up on that. As a web developer, using css came make some really funky things happen, which for some reason netscape hasnt supported in ages. You would think that it wasn't that hard to add support for things like the hover css tag and a few other kewl things. Yeah so get some decent support for CSS up ya netscape and don't be so big and buggy and I might switch back when in windows. exe

    5. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by gargle · · Score: 2

      I guess you do have to use windows 9x to play games, but trying to use 9x to do much else is asking for pain. Things may be better with windows 2k (play games and have NT like stability), who knows.

    6. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by Sethb · · Score: 3

      Run Win2K, best of both worlds. I'm running it on my home machine, played Unreal Tournament and Age of Empires II: Age of Kings for several hours last night without so much as a hiccup. Most games run on Windows 2000, at least most good ones :) I wanted to slap the local Software Etc. punk when he told me that they weren't supposed to sell Windows 2000 to anyone other than small-business customers "Because you can't play any games on it" I told him I had the beta version, and it had worked just fine for my games for the last 6 months. He told me he had it, and not only couldn't he play games, it didn't work with his cable modem either. I promptly decided he was a retard and left. Useful link: http://ntgamepalace.3dfiles.com/ That site will tell you which games and hardware have been found to work with Windows 2000. Of course, it says that my HP Digital Camera C200 works with Windows 2000, and I can't get it to, so your mileage may vary.
      ---

      --
      When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
    7. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by TummyX · · Score: 2

      IE replaces Explorer, just cause Explorer crashes doesn't mean "windows" has crashed.

      If X or KDE crashed, would you say Linux crashed? Nom ofcourse not.

      Just restart Explorer.

      Ofcourse you could just be smart and turn on "Browse in New Process" in IE to make sure IE instances are opened up in their own process - a crash from a bad applet won't crash your shell explorer process.

    8. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by norkakn · · Score: 1

      if you want a fast, low memory, browser than check out http://browserwatch.internet.com/ for 1X... it is still in beta, but it is only 1.4 megs and is the fastest browser i have found. It can't run java or javascript, but hell, who really needs those?

    9. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by RottenApple · · Score: 1

      You are right. But the explorer crash often causes the Windows' crash.

      And although the explorer can restart, the programs run as tray mode, can't run correctly in many cases.

      Even when the Windows itself does not crash, the explorer can block users' interaction with his/her computer. "ctrl+alt+delet"? It sometimes doesn't work.

    10. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by TummyX · · Score: 2

      That's why i suggested the "browse in new process" option in IE. That way an explorer window will load up in it's own process.

      I've never seen explorer take down windows 2000, can't say the same for win9x, but win9x is a load of crock compared to windows 2000 (which can do everything win9x can do, but better).

    11. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by RottenApple · · Score: 1

      Well, you mean a process? not a thread?

      There is an easy way. Just run the Netscape browser. It runs as a new process.
      - Well, each window of the browser do not, though.

      Anyway, I've seen many times that the crash of the IE makes the Windows 2000 crash.

      Windows 2000 doesn't look as stable as the 98.

      And maintenance of the W2K is not as easy as the Linux. ( in some way. )

      People at a network lab., which is 5th floor in our building, told me that the W2K is stable.
      So, I tried it, and I found that it was not.
      So, I asked them if you try this, this, this?
      They told me, "No, we just make the W2K server
      run and there was no regular frequency of user interaction." So.. it means that they didn't use the W2K as a client machine heavily.

      So, my experience with it is more accurate than theirs.

    12. Re:Use IE if you run Windows by TummyX · · Score: 2

      *rolls eyes*
      for the third time yes, look in the damn options for IE, and you'll see that you can configure IE to start up in a new process every time.

      You can use netscape if you don't want speed or stability or anything that works properly.

      And your suggestion that W2K is more unstable than Win98 is laughable. I've had no windows 2000 crashes since the release over 2 months ago.

  42. Mirrors?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone care to post a mirror for us mortals? ftp.netscape.com is unresponsive for me :(

  43. Re:java plugin by Mazzella! · · Score: 1

    The Java plugin has been available for a little while. However, many websites still use the <applet> tag instead of the
    <EMBED
    type=application/x-java-applet;version=1.1
    java_docbase=file:///none
    width=123 height=123
    code=whatever.class>
    Use Javascript to probe for the plugin, if it exists then print the embed tag, otherwise print the applet tag.
    You can get the plugin here or off of http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/mirrors.html

    --
    1.3L, 3 moving parts, 280 HP, no Turbos, wanna Race? RotaryNe
  44. 4.72 seems better by Niomosy · · Score: 3

    After installing it I launched it... comes up much faster than 4.7 (on NT). Certainly faster than Mozilla or IE. Also, for those that haven't tried... copy your Netscape plugins directory contents into the Mozilla plugins directory. Quicktime works pretty well (it skips a little but wasn't that noticable on the X-Men preview). Flash is... "not entirely stable" (to steal from C3PO). Works on some sites and doesn't work on others (shockwave.com of all things)

  45. Re:Cherchez la moolah by rbf · · Score: 1

    I agree. Things started going down hill when they started getting money. The most noticable was when Andover bought them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put down Andover, but that's when things started to go down hill...

    Yes, there is a big difference between the "disappearing" stories and explaining why it was pulled IMO.

  46. Re:MEEPT!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hope this is the return of the one, true, original MEEPT!!!!!

    I hope it isn't. In fact, I hope I have never seen the "Real MEEPT." If I have, then it just says you people will laugh at anything.

    an innocent bystander

  47. Wget... by Ka0s · · Score: 1

    *fondles wget* i've been doing the same for around a year :-) wget owns.

  48. I switched... by Cyclope · · Score: 1

    I'm fed up with Netscape. The damn thing takes forever to open and it takes an eternity to open a new page. Oh and if you actually want to have more than 2-3 windows open at once, better make your prayers cause Netscape won't like it and will go down.

    That's why I switched. I was tired of waiting and I just wanted access to some content and get to it fast.

    Microsoft wasn't an option so I tried Opera which I must say just fills up my internet browsing needs. Of course, it doesn't have those stupid little utilities that makes IE and Netscape really heavy but who cares when all you want is to view some content.

    By the way, I'm not trying to promote Opera and I don't have any financial gain with this. I'm just speaking from the heart :)


    *******************************
    This is where I should write something
    intelligent or funny but since I'm

  49. what the heck for? by Jose · · Score: 1

    rm -rf /path/to/previous/version/of/netscape

    tar -zxvf new_version_of_netscape.tar.gz
    cd new_version_of_netscape
    ./nsinstall

    hit enter a few times
    and you are done.

    too hard for you?

    for reasons why the rpms aren't out. read the other replies to your comment.

    --
    The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
    1. Re:what the heck for? by NCFlipper · · Score: 1

      "What the heck for?" is not a useful reply. RPMs are a lot cleaner than tarballs, and make the maintenance of a system much easier. If you are happy using tarballs, then fine, but it's wise not to mix them with rpms on a system.

      RPMs don't need to be made by RedHat. You can roll your own, or, as is often the case, the program author can produce them, PGP sign them, and hence make the binary that much more trustworthy. In this instance Netscape haven't produced them, so I expect Redhat or another contributor will probably produce them in the near future, and put them in their updates directory.

    2. Re:what the heck for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ****RPMs are a lot cleaner than tarballs, and make the maintenance of a system much easier. If you are happy using tarballs, then fine, but it's wise not to mix them with rpms on a system. ****

      Amen to that my brother. My system running RH6.0 for about a year... is a total friggin huge colosell balls-to-the-wall full blown hyperspeed extended out of control mess. It's a mess. I know I know..it's all my fault too. But I've got so much crap around that I never know what is what and what is where. ARGH. The main problem is RPM's will put the file in one spot and you can gunzip/tar a file just about anywhere... and if yoyu want to *try* something to see if you like it, well it's eays to grab the tarball and put it in some funky spot, then completely forget about it. If you do this for a year you will have a maxed out hard-drive that resembles Viet-Nam.

      Anyways... to try to be in-topic a little.. I'm not gonna mess with another Netscpae download. I'm done.. through.. kaput.. with chasing my own tail. Besides... Netscape works pretty well for me. I can go a week or so between crashes and I use it a lot. If it's blowing up for you once an hour then you need to do some tweaking. It sucks... but it doesn't suck THAT bad.

  50. Why don't WE make a better browser? by pancakex · · Score: 0

    I think it would be great if a bunch of us smart slashdotters got together and actually made a decent web browser. I mean, Microsoft sucks, so does Netscape and Mozilla and every other poorly-performing browser out there. There should be an easier way for us to view web sites, considering the long and prestigious history of the great operating system that many of us choose to run. And face it, there are some really smart, capable people that read this website regularly. if poeple got together, either in local groups of people physically near them, or collaborating over the internet, it would be great! and we wouldn't have to deal with pooooor browsing due to the fact that we have to turn off every "feature" of our browser just to see basic websites. If people in this industry actually want any alternative to Microsoft and Macintosh as a desktop OS, you're gonna need some web support. I mean browsers that are capable of easy viewing of plugins and java and CSS and whatever else is being used online these days. It sucks to have to say that yes, indeed, Microsoft IE is the best of the bunch.

    1. Re:Why don't WE make a better browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, but it is not going to happen without people that take their time to do the job right. Things take time. You can download a browser. From KDE, Mozilla, NetPositive, Internet Explorer, OmniWeb, w3m, lynx, Opera and use it now. But ask yourself how did someone make this?

  51. New feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How about HTML support? Did it make it into 4.72?

    1. Re:New feature? by BrookHarty · · Score: 0

      Ya know, I actually laughed when I read this. (: -IronWolve- Brook Harty

    2. Re:New feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Flamebait? Wow.

    3. Re:New feature? by BrookHarty · · Score: 1

      As a html coder that started in VI, I can tell you that Netscape has had problems with HTML. And when IE entered, writing pages with standard HTML that would work on both, took alot of effort.

      OFF Topic and Flame bait tags? Bull..
      The current group of moderators should be tar'ed and feathered.

      I suggest you read "Post funny comments" as acceptable posts in the moderator guide lines...

      -Brook Harty

      waiting for troll and flamebait tags to be added.

    4. Re:New feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time for some new moderators with a sense or humor!

    5. Re:New feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time for some new moderators with a sense or humor!

  52. Does 4.72 fix the serious Composer bugs? by Johann · · Score: 2

    For example, in Composer 4.71 (glibc 2.1.2, Linux 2.2.12), I highlight text and click on the link button to change text to a URL link . I insert the URL into the link dialog and hit either 'Apply' or 'Finished' and the entire application crashes.

    --

    --
    "You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
  53. Hmmm... Netscape 128 bit link broken by Zen · · Score: 1

    I just tried to download the 128 bit version from within Netscape, and every time I get a Not Found page when it tries to redirect to the download page. IE forwarded through perfectly tho :) Weirdness...

    1. Re:Hmmm... Netscape 128 bit link broken by fsck · · Score: 1

      Netscape in windoh's wont even open the 128 bit link.
      IE5 in windoh's opens the link but the file dl is fucked:

      Access Problem

      ------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------
      Access to the Strong Encrypted Version failed.
      There may be a problem with the verification system or product availability. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.

      ------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------

      RHOST:
      RADDR:

      --

      Lars - ...I could always phone Linus when I had a problem.
    2. Re:Hmmm... Netscape 128 bit link broken by caferace · · Score: 1

      Netscape uses several round-robin servers to deliver the strong encryption bits. One (or more) of them was horked this morning. I gave a heads up to the proper folks and it seemed to be fixed.

  54. Removing the Evils by Zule_Boy · · Score: 2

    Yes, many of the above points are true. If I even attempt to start JAVA, communicator crashes. JS is okay, and the Style Sheets suck. I have this problem with netscape sucking up between 64-96 MB of physcial memory after extended surfing and making my PII run like a 486 with a hardware conflict. Does anyone have any experience making netscape behave like this? I have Communicator 4.71 on RH6.1 kernel 2.2.13 (patched for JFS).
    Also, I found the best way not mentioned to fix the button toolbar. Go to View, and Deselect Navigation toolbar. You can use alt-arrow to go forward and backwards, ESCAPE stops loading and alt-r reloads. Gives me more desktop and less suck from Net$crape.

  55. So-called "Smart Update" by jlv · · Score: 1
    Just for kicks, on my 4.7 Communicator I enabled JavaScript, Java, and "Smart Update". I then selected Help->"Software Updates" to go to their "SmartUpdate" pages. Selecting step 1 shows me:
    Communicator Update Your current version is Communicator 4.7 - 128 bit encryption.

    Congratulations, you already have the latest Netscape browser software
    Smart? Nope, more like useless. Why is this bloatware included in Communicator anyway?
    1. Re:So-called "Smart Update" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had similar problems with smart update when I tried to update an earlier version. I think I had 4.08 and was trying to go to 4.5. Smart update checked to see if I had a version greater then 4.07. If I did it insisted that I already had the latest version installed. I exchanged several emails with netscape support about this. Finally they recommened forgetting about smart update, just downloading the new package and reinstalling. Talk about a waste of time.

  56. Re:What was wrong with slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shitty MySQL? I'd use MySQL over Oracle any day. Besides, L.E. is an idiot.

  57. Agreed.... by k00lg00z · · Score: 1

    Tell me all about it.. I kept holding on, hoping netscape would get better, in complete denial that IE was a better browser (Under the Win9x Platform)..
    Guess what? I use IE on my work machine runing 98 now and love it. Netscape is complete garbage.. More built in advertising, less stability, more HTML 4.0 incompatibilities -- It's a bit better under *nix, but not by much. I even hex edited my win9x copy so it wouldn't give netscape/aol/time warner/emi/world domition corp a page view every time I tried to check my godamn mail
    Mozilla? Yah... It's real good at segfaulting, but not much else.. And development is SLOOOWWWW! M12 only took what, a year? And still isn't stable? jesshh..

    I'm finished ranting.. I'm going to try my best to friggin uninstall AOL Instant messenger.. HA!

    --
    "..Just because you put a flag on the moon doesn't make it yours, it just puts a hole in the moon..."
  58. The CHANGELOG (release notes) by Rayban · · Score: 3

    If you want to see what's changed, check out the Release Notes! Looks like a lot of changes, few fixes.

    --
    æeee!
    1. Re:The CHANGELOG (release notes) by cmpute · · Score: 1

      Try this instead, and this for Windows.

    2. Re:The CHANGELOG (release notes) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the release notes for 4.70 not 4.72, you ninny.

      Look at the first line:

      Last updated: October 8, 1999

      Try this link instead.

  59. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by bluebomber · · Score: 1
    Keep Netscape/Unix From Crashing Like the Overextended Hack Job Piece Of Crap Code It Is - HOWTO

    How about giving me a browser that just does browsing? I know it's a novel concept, but why should my WEB BROWSER do Usenet and email? That's why I have slrn and mutt... I know, I know: "use lynx". But the formatting and graphics are tough to do in a tty...

  60. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twice the performance of what? Compared to what?

    1. Re:Huh? by p.oshea · · Score: 1

      I bet they don't even use monkeys or chimps or anything "snazzy" or "cool".... Shipping lots of simians from some sort of rainforest would probably cost a lot, as would the cost of living for them.... i bet they just have cats and/or dogs tapping at the keys here...

  61. Do we vote with more than our mouths? by Isao · · Score: 2
    One has to wonder how many of the complaining hoards here have actually PURCHASED a copy of navigator.

    If each of us had paid $25 for it, I think there would be a better product.

    Alternatively, what can one expect for free?

    Find a browser and BUY it, or contribute code if you are able. Anything else is pathetic.

    1. Re:Do we vote with more than our mouths? by Zelphyr · · Score: 1

      IE is considered to be a superior product to NS Navigator in many circles and its free. I don't think the cost of the product has anything to do with it (i.e. Linux). As far as I'm concerned, Netscape is devoting resources to a outdated product. Why?? Who cares if its unstable. Get Mozilla working completely and Nav 4.x's instabilities will quickly become a non-issue!

    2. Re:Do we vote with more than our mouths? by thebruce · · Score: 1

      IE is considered to be a superior product to NS Navigator in many circles and its free

      Sure, but you buy Windows don't you? (or do you?) Microsoft can afford the loss off a free browser. Netscape isn't so lucky. They have a free fully functional browser, no income off that and that's their main product. Not so with IE.

    3. Re:Do we vote with more than our mouths? by slim · · Score: 2

      Netscape make money from their portal site (which the browser is effectively an ad for) and for their server software (which, again, the browser is an ad for).

      Widespread use and admiration for their (free) browser is definitely in their interest: the toilets in pubs are free, but you don't drink there if the toilets are revolting...
      --

    4. Re:Do we vote with more than our mouths? by thebruce · · Score: 1

      Netscape make money from their portal site (which the browser is effectively an ad for) and for their server software (which, again, the browser is an ad for).

      Widespread use and admiration for their (free) browser is definitely in their interest: the toilets in pubs are free, but you don't drink there if the toilets are revolting... But advertising is the way of anything free now. If you want to give out good free product, you need to get some kind of revenue, and businesses are realizing that including an advertising spot gets the income they need. I never said Netscape didn't make any money, but they make nowhere near enough to compete with MS. IE doesn't advertise for anything - they can still focus on making a good browser. Personally, I couldn't care less about Netscape's advertising schemes, I never go to the website, I just use the browser. But Netscape needs some form of income to balance their costs. The server? Pfft! Most agree it can't stand up to the other major servers out there. They've got to rely on their browser for income, unlike MS.

      If Netscape had another excellent product outside of browser and/or internet, they could afford to continue improving their browser to compete. They're in a rut now because of all the problems they've had keeping up with MS and their internal problems. Many factors have led to Netscape's loss, but now because MS kept up with IE it's raised it's quality over NS. I feel completely that if NS had released NS 5.x to match IE, it would still be a better browser. A step over IE even (like IE4 matched NS3)

      oh well. Until a new, better Netscape or Mozilla comes out, unfortunately it's IE for me...

  62. Re:Question -> bad moderation by eAndroid · · Score: 0

    the post should have been moderated up. Where are MY moderation points when I want them??

    --

    I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
  63. Prior comment is what's wrong with Linux today by SpiceWare · · Score: 0
    I'm quite competent with computers. I taught myself 6502 machine language on a VIC20, wrote BBS software for the Vic/64/128. I added new BASIC commands for doing music, sprite animation, and such on the BBS(had to use my MusicTerm program to receive it).

    I've run Amiga, OS/2, Macintosh, and yes, most versions of Windows(but not on my own time!) I've also some experience with VAX and UNIX. I've even written software for Xwindows for a 3-D graphics class at U of H.

    I'm interested in Linux, but find that whenever I have a problem I get this same type of response. Quite frankly it's turned me off on Linux and I'm now looking at other systems such as Be where the user base doesn't seem to have such an attitude.

    1. Re:Prior comment is what's wrong with Linux today by sterwill · · Score: 2

      Watch out for BeOS! It's a user's worst nightmare! They even expect you to unzip your own packages when you install them!

      --

    2. Re:Prior comment is what's wrong with Linux today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm interested in Linux, but find that whenever I have a problem I get this same type of response. Quite frankly it's turned me off on Linux and I'm now looking at other systems such as Be where the user base doesn't seem to have such an attitude.

      Please look into FreeBSD unix. You'll find all the power and flexibility of Linux, but it's more refined, coordinated, and mature. I recently switched from Linux to FreeBSD and am loving it.

    3. Re:Prior comment is what's wrong with Linux today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > > I'm quite competent with computers. I taught myself 6502 machine language on a VIC20, wrote BBS software . . . [blah blah blah]

      Have you done anything that anyone today would care about? All you've managed to communicate to us so far is that

      A.) You're old. And,
      B.) You could, maybe, program for a modern pocket calulator.

      > > I added new BASIC commands for . . . [blah blah blah]

      Who cares about BASIC? Even in "its day" (literally, it if even lasted that long) it was only used by weenie kids on C64s. You can't gain any useful experience from that, except typing practice.

      > > I've run Amiga, OS/2, Macintosh, and yes, most versions of Windows(but not on my own time!)

      No one here cares about Amiga, Macintosh, or Windows. Shut up. God, you old people are senile!

      > > I've also some experience with VAX and UNIX.

      Ohh, you sound sooo knowledgable! Fucking granny...

      > > I've even written software for Xwindows for a 3-D graphics class at U of H.

      You probably wrote it in BASIC and had a real programmer do the translation.

      > > I'm interested in Linux, but find that whenever I have a problem I get this same type of response.

      You're old and annoying. Who would to talk to you?

      > > Quite frankly it's turned me off on Linux and I'm now looking at other systems such as Be where the user base doesn't seem to have such an attitude.

      They don't have a userbase, that's why. Moron.

  64. What is SINIX? by cpeterso · · Score: 2

    Most people don't even know WTF SINIX _is_, much less have it.


    Ok, I admit I have never heard of SINIX..

    1. Re:What is SINIX? by lqd · · Score: 2

      SINIX is the System V.4 complian UNIX variant jointly developed by Siemens (the third largest company in Germany) and Nixdorf Computer Systems, a pioneer hardware manufacturer in Germany in the 70's and 80's -- hence the name SINIX. Nixdorf was bought by Siemens in the late 80's though when they steered into financial troubles after their PC division (sic) wasn't doing as good as they thought it would ...

      There's a manual of SINIX online here for your enjoyment.

      Oh and BTW, SINIX did enjoy its share of popularity in Europe (especially Germany) during the 80's and even into the 90's. I don't know though if its still under active development. Oh, and there's a 386/486 variant available for you to install over^H^H^H^H besides your Linux partition :).

    2. Re:What is SINIX? by flawed · · Score: 1

      Siemens seems to be phasing out their MIPS-based RMxxx series of workstations and servers, and is switching to a UltraSPARC-based server line developed together with Fujitsu which will be running Solaris.
      (announced end of last year, Fujitsu and Siemens work together quite a bit, e.g. in the PC market as well)
      I guess SINIX will die along with the MIPS-based RM machines.

      Is the x86 variant of SINIX really running on PCs?
      I always thought is was running exclusively on the MX300, a 386/486-based machine form Siemens which is not PC-compatible.

      BTW: Thanks for the pointer to the online manual. I happen to have a RM400 running SINIX V5.42 at home, but I didn't have a manual.
      (So at least I am glad about a SINIX version of Netscape Navigator, too :-)

  65. Thats an easy fix by ArchieBunker · · Score: 0

    It happens to me often enough. If you exit Netscape after this happens do a CTRL ALT DEL and see that its still in memory. Just kill the process and start Netscape again, no reboot needed.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  66. Go here by MatriXOracle · · Score: 3

    You can download Navigator standalone 4.72 for *nix here. I don't think there's a Windows Navigator 4.72 though, that's probably still at 4.08. Oh well.

  67. Re: no other reason to use IE other than MS hatred by CodeShark · · Score: 1
    No, my main reason is that I have to use it on an M$ operating system. With all of their associated FUD, poor programming, etc.

    IMHO without Netscape to compete with IE would have started out and stayed a huge joke. By the way, I do use IE5 at work (stuck on an NT box) so I'm not completely against it, but the moment Mozilla stabilizes and is considered not alpha, not beta, but production I will be forever and irrevocably getting rid of all Microsoft software on my home machine.

    --
    ...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
  68. Re: what's an Athalon? by CodeShark · · Score: 1
    Geez, I thought everybody new that.

    It's one out of ten events in that thingy in the Old Retired Minicomputer Oo-Lympics.

    Ya'know? the DEC-Athalon? ;-)

    --
    ...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
  69. javascript sophisticated??? by hawk · · Score: 3

    I'm certain that there are valid uses for javascript out there. So far, though, the only uses I have seen are
    a) popu-up advertising
    b) taking control of the display away from the user in general
    c) creating links where a real link would have done at least as well
    d) forcing of automatic forwarding to an advertising site
    e) a single case where it was used to enable nested choices--choose the textbook then the chapter.

    Only e) even vaguely benefits the user, and this is arguable. a-d all either affirmatively harm the user, or are crummy programming.

    If your page requires javascript to function, unless you're doing something rather exotic with user data, it's almost certainly wrong. More than that, I'll go to one of your competitors--I used to use foxnews, but they're not enough better than CNN to put up with this.

    hawk

    1. Re:javascript sophisticated??? by powerlord · · Score: 2

      Well, at the company I'm at we use a webserver as a presentation mechanism for our customers.

      In order to give them access to reports. This allows a central repository, password control and a relatively easy to program GUI.

      At one of the customers we use Javascript quite intensely to give the site the navigation they wanted. When you have multiple frames within a page that need to update themselves in response to a user selection, Javascript seemed the only way given the screen layout they demanded (if the frames would have lined up better we could have just refreshed the lot of them). It also allowed us to blank out the unused frames if the user started changing critera for a new report. Lastly, that anoying feature of poping up a new window was quite usefull for displaying the report they picked while leaving their sellections and other choices intact (and thus allowing them to easily select another report).

      I'm not saying the site was 'gorgeous' or a 'paradigm' that all web sites should strive to emulate :) (god knows it was a cobble together of CGI, Javascript and HTML). All I'm saying is that there are some cases where a smattering of Javascript will let you do something that would be much more convoluted without.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  70. Look at it this way by MatriXOracle · · Score: 1
    Would you rather have all the Netscape engineers try to fix all the problems in 4.x (and we all know there's a ton of em), or try to get Mozilla finished as soon as possible? The last few 4.x versions have just basically been service releases, fixing major stability and security issues. This is how it should be, we're just going to have to put up with the crap for now, knowing that in a few months we'll all be able to delete 4.x and never hear from it again.

    Whenever a Mozilla story is on Slashdot, people are always yelling, "why don't they have everyone working on Mozilla?", and now you're asking, "why doesn't 4.72 have big changes?" C'mon people, it's one or the other, make up your mind. Personally I think they're doing it the right way.

    1. Re:Look at it this way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fixing stability? are you nuts? the highet x in 4.x Communicator thingy,the less stable it is. In fact it is disgrace that this piece of shite made out of their "QA".

  71. Quite a number of people have ants in their pants by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 1
    Quite a number of people have ants in their pants

    Oh, no ! Now you have started a new form of Trolls: "Pour Hot Ants down your pants !!!!".

    --
    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
  72. M13 works for me by SilentReproach · · Score: 1

    Since the release of M13, I have been using Mozilla as my only browser on Win98 at home. It has not crashed on me once yet...really.

    --
    Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
    1. Re:M13 works for me by gargle · · Score: 2

      You're probably visiting the 'wrong' sites. Mozilla doesn't crash if you stick to nice sites like www.mozilla.org, but if you try visiting fancier sites, it does crash,usually quite predictably.

  73. You can get Navigator >4.08 at least for Linux by Steelehead · · Score: 2

    At least this is how I got mine for my SuSE 6.2 system.. Get a hold of a RH GPL CD. The Navigator and netscape-common files are there along with the communicator files. I am running Nav 4.61 NO COMMUNICATOR this way. Anybody want to moderate this up as "usefull"? Greg

    --
    -- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
  74. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by tjwhaynes · · Score: 1

    How about giving me a browser that just does browsing? I know it's a novel concept, but why should my WEB BROWSER do Usenet and email? That's why I have slrn and mutt... I know, I know: "use lynx". But the formatting and graphics are tough to do in a tty...

    Someone should write a patch for lynx to use the ascii graphics library - aalib to render web graphics as ascii text. Anyone who's missed this gem should check out ttyQuake. :-) Or maybe not ...!

    Cheers

    Toby Haynes

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
  75. God damn it. by screeching+weasel · · Score: 0

    Another Slashdot headline announcing a 0.01 version number increase on an already shitty product. And to top it all off, another jackass chanting the Mozilla mantra "it's getting really really close now" (which is only slightly less annoying than the other Linux mantra "it's coming along nicely").
    Fuck this site.

    1. Re:God damn it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...

    2. Re:God damn it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quit bitching like a 10 year old girl. What fucking kind of sissy ass are you? If you dont like the site then leave instead of moaning about it. Dumbass.

  76. Netscape 4.72 and Mozilla by Listen+Up · · Score: 1

    Where are some of you people getting your ideas about Netscape and Mozilla? I have been using Mozilla M13 since it came out with full-circle software and it doesn't last longer than 5 minutes NO MATTER WHAT. I know that this is the Windows version, but what's the difference? I've been filing bug reports until my arms fingers fall off, but it seriously sucks. It may be alpha quality, but it sucks horribly compared to other alpha quality software. And Java doesn't work in Mozilla without major fucking around with files normal users would never touch. Now, Netscape is a hell of a lot more stable. Usually what brings down Netscape is it's helper apps and plugins. But, it does just crash on me out the clear blue most of the time. Oh well. Mozilla still have a LONG way to go to replace Netscape.
    And on a side note, for people who don't like SmartDownload (like me) go to http://www.gozilla.com . This is a seperate downloader that kicks ass. You can even download files for Unix with a dozen a.b.c.d.e.f.t.tar or whatever and it keeps the name intact, unlike Netscape. And it resumes downloads even if your turn your computer off and continue downloading a week later. It rocks, try it out.

  77. astroturf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Excuuuuse ME! There is a TINY DIFFERENCE between bugfix and feature add.

  78. No Reboot Solution for NT by bughunter · · Score: 1
    I've experienced this quite a bit, myself, running 4.7 under NT 4.0, it usually happens after a lot of heavy browsing with lots of windows open.

    Quit Navigator and launch the Task Manager. You will see that there is still a "Netscape" task running. Don't ask me why. Kill it and relaunch Navigator.

    Voila.

    Now if I could just figure out why Netscape 4.7 regularly goes psycho and loads carp from the cache that isn't even related to the page I asked it to load... the only solution I've found to that is to reboot. I'm beginning to think 4.7 is less stable than 4.5 was.

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  79. Nothing new. by drag-po · · Score: 1

    Got all excited, just as I have many times this year. New version of Communicator, Yeah! Ants in my pants.

    Took a little looking - but found not one change to Navigator, which is the part of Communicator I, and everyone else, actually use. Damn. I was had again.

    --
    Its 192000 and I feel fine.
  80. You're a dumbass. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Mabye they'll get split and we'll get more competitive browser options for linux.

    Why don't you code one yourself, you moronic, freeloading piece of shit? "Waaaah, I hate Microsoft and all their software sucks -- but I sure wish I could use it on Linux!" Dumbass.

    1. Re:You're a dumbass. by snubber1 · · Score: 1
      Well, coward, I'm sorry if I seemed to imply that I hate microsoft and want to freeload their shit.
      My Reasons for saying that were:
      • Internet explorer generally is a more stable, reliable browser that has better support for things like java and css.
      • Netscape for linux is a pice of shit.
      • Microsoft in its current state will never release a browser for linux... It would take a split to get anything out of them for linux.
      • I happen to prefer linux for most other stuff, but it would be nice to have a little more competition in the way of end-user software.
      I dont have anything against Microsoft the company. I would like to see them support *nix because for general applications (not operating system) you get a well rounded, feature packed, user friendly program that wouldn't hurt linux one bit.

      The split wasn't a wish of hatred, it was a wish for an event that might yeild a desirable result, without getting into the deep politics and bussiness aspects of why it is good/bad overall.

      Sorry I steped on your anonymous toes.

      ----------------------------------------------
      --
      I don't really mind double posts on //..
    2. Re:You're a dumbass. by TummyX · · Score: 2

      Microsoft use one of those windows->unix porting tools to get IE working on Solaris.

      I'm 50% sure that once the kit is ported to support Linux Microsoft will release IE for linux.

      Ofcourse everyone here would take the oppotunity to run around saying NT sucks, not even microsoft is sure of NT. Microsoft will release MS Linux!!! and other crap.

  81. Most stable Netscape on Debian/unstable by Adnans · · Score: 1

    Hasn't crashed for a couple of hours. 4.71 and earlier used to "bus error" frequently when closing windows. Or, it could be that Xfree 3.9.18 fixed some stuff. Oh well, it's good, it's free, enjoy!

    --
    "In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
  82. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by Quintin+Stone · · Score: 1
    Hear hear!

    How is including news & email readers with Navigator any different than including Internet Explorer with Windows?

    --

    "Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."

  83. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "How about giving me a browser that just does browsing?"

    Historically, the idea that one program could handle most URL types is one of the big reason Netscape became popular to begin with. But, the main reason Netscape 4.x includes a bunch of clients (Java 3270 terminal?!) because it's also sold as the front-end for Netscape's server products.

    Be assured that someone will package a 'minimal download' version of Mozilla that leaves out the extras.

  84. Re:What was wrong with slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you would really choose MySQL over Oracle any day, you're the fuckin' Slashdot Moron Of The Month.

  85. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? Neither. by Chagrin · · Score: 1
    Not very interesting. Now try searching for "Netscape Navigator 4.72" with quotes.

    Try your local community college - they likely have classes on the Internet that will help you out a lot.

    --

    I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation

  86. *That's* good??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're celebrating that it's gone a couple of hours without crashing? No offense, but you Netscape fans have some pretty damn low standards, and must have an absolute shitload of time to waste.

    1. Re:*That's* good??? by swingerman · · Score: 1

      No, we just don't have any alternatives to a good browser.

  87. "More Evil Than Satan" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like Sergei Brin needs to work on his little search algorithm. It does come up with the right results sometimes, though!

  88. cnn.com also works for me by FascDot+Killed+My+Pr · · Score: 1

    I just checked CNN's front page with M13: No problem.

    BTW *pointed look at Foogle*, no one is saying you are lying or stupid if Mozilla doesn't work for you. They are just saying "It works for me, so there is no fundamental reason it couldn't be MADE TO work for you." That is, since it works for (at least) one person, the bug must be in some other area.
    --
    Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.

    --
    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
    (Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
    1. Re:cnn.com also works for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "BTW *pointed look at Foogle*, no one is saying you are lying or stupid if Mozilla doesn't work for you. They are just saying "It works for me, so there is no fundamental reason it couldn't be MADE TO work for you." That is, since it works for (at least) one person, the bug must be in some other area."

      Contrast this with how zealots view Microsoft...

      "if it doesn't work for me, then you must be lying if you say it works for you!"

      &sign($AC[0]);

    2. Re:cnn.com also works for me by Foogle · · Score: 2
      Sure, it could be made to work for me. Maybe if I constructed my system in the *exact* same manner as you did. But my sytem (to the best of my knowlege) is likely quite different from yours. Still, most of my applications will run in the exact same manner as they do on your system. Why? Because they are fairly bug-free, and are written in such a manner that they depend only upon features of the system that they know are there.

      The problem is not in "some other area", the problem is in how Mozilla deals with "some other area". My system is almost a stock RH6.1 full install; there's no reason it shouldn't work. And rather than work my tail off trying to *make* it work on my system (which has nothing wrong with it otherwise), I will simply continue to use Netscape, in the knowlege that Mozilla is Alpha-software.

      -----------

      "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  89. New feature ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which netscape will include the Slashdot button ?

    Hot ants down my pants ! Ouch ! Ow ! Yay !

  90. On Hacking the prefs.js file by Kozz · · Score: 2

    Check out this link. Lots of interesting tidbits & tips. It doesn't cover some of the newer options (like disabling the shopping button), but covers a few other interesting things.
    http://www.inmind.com/p eople/phrank/commonly/userprefs.html



    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

    --
    I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
  91. That's not "insightful", it's incorrect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    Hey, not a slam on you, Sammy Baby, just trying to straighten out the moderator. Google's searches are weighted, but not quite the way you stated. Disney would get a boost from having all those porn sites link to it, but only for search terms which actually appear on Disney's home page. So, if I do a search on "assbucket," Google might return 1000 pages that link to Disney.com, but unless www.disney.com's index.html (or whatever) page itself contains the word "assbucket," Google's not going to return it as a result.

    Not that I'm a big fan of Google (I think it's wayyyyyyy over-rated), but it's smarter than you're giving it credit for.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  92. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? Neither. by GeekLife.com · · Score: 2

    Actually, in Internet 101 they taught me to try something out myself before I suggest it to someone else.

    Like this.

  93. Arggggggg!$@#!$#$! by vicviper · · Score: 1

    I just upgraded to 4.7 YESTERDAY$#%@%%

  94. Netscape is dying... If not dead already... by Ektanoor · · Score: 2

    For all those who criticized 4.71. That the is broken. Seriously broken. It was on their sites for a few days and a lot of people fell in this trap (me one). Unfortunately information didn't reach many. I managed to hold it for a week and have a few hundred students to fell the "beauty and the beast". The result was linux boxes crashing every hour, mail broken, news in Hell.

    We had to turn back fast. But at the same time we managed to seriously upgrade the system. 4.61 worked no more (and we were holding the upgrade due to this... :( ). 4.7 glibc2 didn't go. It wrongly called NIS+ data. We turned to libc5 one and almost everything worked. Except Java. Due to the huge delays in the upgrade we sticked to it.

    Sincerly, my experience with Netscape has been, for the last year, desilusion after desilusion. Their closed source, their huge delays, their lack of intermediate patches, their lack of support for most of the new standards, has turned its use into a growing Hell. What mostly admires me is that, among all this, they started to add more and more "features", scrapping stable old code and creating more problems. If anyone has traced it on Linux he can understand what I mean. I have been doing this and I'm admired that calls, that worked well in RedHat, Slackware and Mandrake, now are changed and Netscape horribly crashes in these places. They don't follow the libraries and sometimes mix them with beta and alpha versions from rawhide libs (some of which don't manage ever to reach RedHat dists). Use code that everyone has dropped long ago. And the most worrysome is that their support and documentation from miserable has been turning to none.

    Hope that Mozilla comes soon. I have tested it and liked a lot. Really I don't want to go back to MazDie only because I want to roam the net...

    1. Re:Netscape is dying... If not dead already... by Kilzall · · Score: 1


      I sure as hell hope it's dying. I installed 4.72 around an hour and a half ago and it just died for the first time, taking an hour and a half of physics homework with it. Now there's no way I can get the assignment done in time. Thanks a lot, guys. I looked at what has been fixed in this version (using IE because I'm pissed), and I see little things like the spell checker in Composer and other things that 90% of Netscrape users never use. The big error that causes it to crash out randomly and take the rest of my machine with it that everyone I know hates isn't even on the list even though I've submitted it multiple times. I'm not so pissed anymore so i'm posting this using Netscape; please don't make me permanently switch to IE.

      --

      --
      Win98 sux without these 1337 toolz !!
    2. Re:Netscape is dying... If not dead already... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't think of any reason why anyone would want to do their homework using Netscape, especially if they know that it's unstable as you appear to. Face it, buddy, you lost your own damn physics homework.

  95. any other bugs fixed for unix netscape 4.72? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anyone know if any other bugs were fixed for unix besides the composer link bug? Security bugs?

  96. Re:MEEPT!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > I hope I have never seen the "Real MEEPT."

    I don't even know what "MEEPT" is. Anyone wanna enlighten me?

  97. Netscape and Memory (was: Re:Removing the Evils) by Kymermosst · · Score: 1

    After about an hour of heavy surfing, Netscape 4.7 likes to suddenly request more memory than I actually have (64MB Phys, 64 MB Swap)... the system slows to a crawl, virtual memory thrashes, can't even type or move the mouse. Eventually, (I assume after all memory is used), the Linux VM subsystem kills it.

    I once managed to get to another VT while this was happening, and I couldn't log in due to lack of memory. Finally I got "VM: killing process netscape"... at least the Linux kernel is smart enough to do this. I can't imagine what NT does.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  98. Netscape Download by CC · · Score: 0

    For all you *nix wannabes who have trouble downloading Netscape 4.72.

    Two things: Do a man ftp
    The addy is ... ftp.netscape.com

    Sheeesh ... browser poodles.

    CC

    --
    "Pray arm me further by your reply" Winston Churchill
  99. Snooze for Dorks, Stuff for the Crapper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    Snooze for Dorks, Stuff for the Crapper.

    Another fine "news" story about nothing.

  100. It does have uses - compression is one by Bjarke+Roune · · Score: 1

    I the past, I've run an E-zine for about a year. I was the editor and did all the html.

    Anyway, the main complaint people was giving me was that the whole thing was loading way to slowly. I didn't know exactly how to fix this, as the thing had only ONE picture: the logo.

    Anyway, I used Javascript to "compress" the html, and it worked like a charm. For example, someone sent me a raw text (ie, no formatting, just plain ASCII) file, and after having applied all the (non-trivial - lots' o' tables and the kind) formatting, the file was a bit *smaller* than the original ASCII text file...

    What I did was to simply make javascript functions for things I did alot. For example, instead of writing all the html for required for a newsitem for each and every news item on the page, I had Javascript function that took as its arguments the name of the news item, the date of it, it's actual text and who contributed it.

    Doing this actually makes the raw html much, much, much easier to read.

    I got ONE complaint from a person who couldn't view the thing. I told him to turn on Javascript, and then it worked perfectly. After adding a "you need Javascript" note to the page, that would appear if someone had turned it off, I didn't get any complaints at all about either the use of javascript or slow loadtimes.

    I wonder why no one has made a Javascript decompression script, and then you could actually compress all you pages (and have them decompressed when the user gets them), without the user ever seeing it, and you could do this with access to nothing but the raw html. This would of course require a fast Javascript implementation by the browser to make it feasible to write a decompressor in Javascript and have it run fast enough to actually give a benefit.

    1. Re:It does have uses - compression is one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While the compression idea is interesting, doing HTML formatting on the client side with JavaScript is totally retarded. This could easily be done with server-side scripts, or if the page isn't too dynamic, just a one-off perl script.

      I do a bit of DHTML development at work, so I have a pretty good idea of where javascript can be useful. I also surf with Javascript off, especially with Crashscape. If I page won't render because it uses script, I don't complain, I just leave.

    2. Re:It does have uses - compression is one by jacobito · · Score: 1
      Let me get this straight---you have a page with only ONE graphic, so the rest of it is just text, and you had to "compress" it because otherwise it loaded too slowly??

      It sounds like your pages were just too LONG. Chunk them into smaller pieces. It's absurd to require someone to use Javascript just to display text.

      It's generally a good idea to strive to make your content as accessible to as many people/platforms/browsers as possible. People using the latest browsers w/ the latest features can get all the bells and whistles, but you shouldn't lock out everyone else.

      Just my $0.02...

  101. Mozilla is NS6? by cpeterso · · Score: 2

    Actually NS5 will never see the light of day.

    So there will be no actual NS5 release? Do you have any links to more information?

    thanks!

    1. Re:Mozilla is NS6? by spathi · · Score: 1

      I remember seeing this on /. actually, so maybe do a search here for the links and so forth :)

      --
      -- spathi.net: My Corner of the Universe
    2. Re:Mozilla is NS6? by powerlord · · Score: 2
      here

      This is an article written when the Mozilla project was 1 year old (april 1999), at the top of the 'HIGHLIGHTS' section they mention how the code was originally the 'work in progress' code for Communicator 5.

      If you then skim down to the 'LOWLIGHTS' section they talk about the decision to jetison the code and start over. When rereading this all I'm not sure if they will be naming the next Communicator 5 or not, the code rev for Mozilla I believe refers to it as 6 (rev5 being the code Mozilla.org started with, and their 'from scratch' rev6).

      This doesn't mean that Communicator will be numbered 6, but I can't see Netscape not using the opportunity to 'lap' IE, much as Microsoft is known for doing.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  102. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by datazone · · Score: 2

    I second that, god, i would pay good cash for a stand alone browser, that looks good (not you opera), and is faster than greased lightening, or some similar fast thingee and is cross platform, and did i mention that it is JUST a web browser?

    ALSO, it has to have a REAL preferences menu, where you can disable ANY HTML type, (blink comes to mind), and ANY feature in the browser, and can be completly controled from the keyboard if need be.

    Is that too much to ask for?

    --
    Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
  103. Hope those memory leaks are fixed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The biggest bug since Netscape 1.x is the horrid memory leak. I hope they are doing something aboot it. Mark

  104. IE better? by cout · · Score: 1

    My experience:

    - Netscape crashes. I restart Netscape. All's well except I have to find my place and/or retype any lost email. 1/10 this results in a BSOD, and hence a reboot.
    - IE4 crashes. More often than Netscape. About twice a day, in fact, it gives me a message that seems to be related to the pwl files, but isn't. It takes down Explorer with it, no wait, it is explorer. 1/10 this results in a reboot.
    - IE5 crashes. About once a week. 10 times out of 10 this results in a reboot. So about the same amount of lost data as the previous two.

    TANSTAFWB (there ain't no such thing as a free web broser), I suppose.

  105. Re:My last post and moderation by Shadowcaster · · Score: 1

    Okay.. so now I'm a troll? This has little or nothing to do witht he original thread but that does not make it any less worthy of comment. Read and ye shall see...

    Am I a troll for using the term "Microshit"?
    If so, then be advised that it is an expression of personal opinion. I have little to no esteem for any Microsoft products after DOS 6.22.

    Am I a troll for pointing out that the most likely reason MS' site comes up on a Navigator search is that they loaded their page(s) with misleading keywords?

    Maybe I'm a troll for commenting on Microsoft's demeanor in practices. This is not allegation, no matter what anyone says. You can see what they do to push their products. Granted it *may* not be the end-of-all-things scenario that some paint, but the fact remains they *DO* do some unscrupulous things.

    Or maybe I'm just a troll because that particular moderator is defensive of Microsoft. If this is the case, then you might try a bit of objectivity when moderating others' opinions. Tossing my post down a notch out of spite is not exactly cool.

    If none of these are correct, then please post why, I am genuinely curious. And don't post AC, I'll simply ignore it. An AC post could be just about anyone couldn't it?

  106. Crashing on Password Dialogs under Linux by Omegaman · · Score: 1

    Didn't see in the Changelog that they had
    repaired the problem of crashing with a "bus error" on password dialogs -- usually the 3rd or
    4th time I hit a password dialog. This has been
    every 4.xx version I've used on every system I've
    used.

  107. [OT] With All Due Respect by MikeV · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with Linux or it's quality. Linux by no means has a monopoly on assholes for users - you'll find them where-ever you go. If that is a determining factor in what OS you choose, then you will _never_ be happy. Ignore the kids and smart-assed remarks and use Linux because _you_ like Linux, not because we're a bunch of nice guys...

  108. IE and Netscape *are* the standards. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If there was a version of IE for Linux I'd be using it.. IE5 is GREAT and very stable for me compared to Nutscrape. If your browser doesn't render sites that IE and Netscape do, then you need to fix your browser. As much as we'd all like to believe the W3C has anything to do with making standards regarding HTML it doesn't. The market dictates the standards.

  109. It seems they just don't care by CentrX · · Score: 3
    They just don't seem to care. There are too many unfixed bugs in Netscape, some of which are actually new, introduced in 4.72 A few highlights from the Linux/Unix section at http://hom e.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.7/relnotes/windows-4. 72.html#unix

    "Using the Insert Link command (or the Link button) in Composer or when composing HTML messages may cause Communicator to crash." This is a brand-spanking new bug in Netscape 4.72 Why don't they fix this stuff before they release it? Or, barring that, at least take out the feature so people don't crash Netscape by using it.

    "If you attempt to use Messenger the very first time you run Communicator, it may quit with an "Illegal instruction" message."

    "If you delete your only IMAP server and then add a POP server, Communicator may quit."

    "A previous workaround for Unix systems, to avoid the freezing on startup of the edit or compose window, has been changed." Is it just me, or does this just sound silly? Changing workarounds, why don't they just fix it!?

    I wouldn't mind this so much, except they're introducing new features, mostly useless features, before they even bother to fix these bugs.

    Chris Hagar

    --

    "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
  110. heh by CrAlt · · Score: 1

    Ya but unless you got win2K for free or something who would pay for it? I could see may be on a real bad day paing $89. But the $200+?!? Hell no. Betweem the evilness and shit software they put out I dont want to give them one more red cent. And for those of you who say win2k is the best thing since toast...well they said that about Win95, had all the same hype around it. Only time will tell.

    --
    I have to return some videotapes...
  111. Re:Strong Encryption? Here! by rickmoen · · Score: 2

    Anyone else having problems downloading the strong encryption version?

    Go to http://www.netscape.com/download/ unsupported.html, and pick the Linux 2.2 / 128-bit Communicator 4.72 link. It works.

    Rick Moen
    rick@linuxmafia.com
  112. Thats why god made /tmp by CrAlt · · Score: 1

    Might want to intall crap you dont know if you will keep in /tmp. If you forget about it most systems will delete what ever is in there anyways.

    --
    I have to return some videotapes...
  113. Japanese Input by Kanasta · · Score: 1

    OK this is slightly offtopic, but I wondered how many Japanese users there were here.

    Have you noticed on English Windows that all MS programs stuff up JIS/EUC encodings when you try to copy them to the clipboard? You end up with ?????????? when you do a paste.

    NS was the only program you could read Japanese on AND copy text off. I wondered if anybody knew a fix for the IE bugs, since I have to use outlook express to collect my mail from many pop accounts. (which NS doesn't seem to want to implement)

    1. Re:Japanese Input by brusk · · Score: 1
      Have you noticed on English Windows that all MS programs stuff up JIS/EUC encodings when you try to copy them to the clipboard? You end up with ?????????? when you do a paste.

      I have had the same experience (using Chinese text rather than Japanese. But it is not a bug, it is a feature, and a good one (sort of...). What's happening is that Windows (96/8, at least, and in some respects NT; 2000 is different, they say) is sort-of Unicode-compliant, but not entirely. What happens is that when you copy the text out of IE (4 or 5) it sits in your clipboard in Unicode rather than in pairs of bytes representing each kanji. This is ia good thing. It means that if the application into which you are pasting understands Unicode encoding, it will treat the kanji as individual, two-byte characters rather than pairs of characters that happen to get rendered on your screen/printout as a single kanji.

      The problem is that most Windows software doesn't deal with Unicode properly. It can't handle the string it's getting from the clipboard, and can only render it with ????s. At the moment, Word 97 and all the Office 2000 apps can handle Unicode, so if you paste from IE into one of them it should work fine (assuming you have Japanese fonts installed; in Access you need to specify an alternate font to display mixed text). You can also test this by pasting text from one IE window into a form in another (e.g., on a Japanese site).

      Overall, it's a good thing that the newer MS apps support Unicode. They've now outpaced MacOS in some respects (Worldscript is dead). And Linux is still finicky about Unicode (I've given up on Redhat 6.1 and am going to try Madrake 7.0 which seems cleverer about it). But the downside is that older apps won't understand text from the newer ones (be it pasted from the clipboard or imported from a file). There are workarounds (usually involving 3rd parties or roll-your-own).

      --
      .sig withheld by request
    2. Re:Japanese Input by RottenApple · · Score: 1

      Well, even the MS visual C++ editor can't handle the Unicode well.

      I can't compile any QuickTime sample codes due to the problem. ( not really. )

      But there are more problems in addition to it.

      The ASCII table of the Windows platform is not so good or well organized as that

      of Apple's. The umlaut characters conflict with the Korean characters.

      Not only it makes the characters displayed broken, but also it makes real problem when

      the C++ compiler tries compiling codes containing the chars. ( ref. http://soback.kornet21.net/~tomahawk/QuickTime/Qui ckTime.html )

      It's not only due to the Unicode.

      MS uses their own code for Korean. ( maybe similar situation with the Chinese, Japanese )

      For example, the MS assumes that the encoding/decoding format of Korean is ISO
      22something. It's not the standard for Korean. The standard code is KSC 5601 (old)

      and the unicode, EUC-KR, So, when you write e-mail with the outlook express, or make

      html page using the MS front page, you will sometimes have problem. There is no problem

      with the Netscape. You can read any e-mail/webpage with any Unix e-mail/web client

      if the message is written using the Netscape products. The Netscape even can read

      characters encoded with the MS standard.

      MS even can't handle the Unicode in standard way. I suffered it when I wrote

      a Java program due to the problem. Only MS IE, and MS products caused problem.

      The stability of the web browser? I don't think the IE is more stable than the NS.

      The IE is even worse. It is more probable that one crash of the IE make my PC crashes.

      The only drawback of the NS Communicator is that it tries reaccess - although it

      accesses the cache - the network when the window is resized. So, the IE is faster in

      drawing the web page when the window is resized.

      It's very good news tha the NS supports the GIME. ( I submitted it to the Mozilla team.

      They just replied "Why use the GIME instead of the system input method?", though. )

      But, be careful! The GIME can be corrupted easily.

      Although there is "recovery" button in the installer, it doesn't be recovered well, when

      it is corrupted. To recover it, uninstall it, "restart your computer" ( if not, it's not recovered. ), and reinstall it.

      The IE has similar "recovery" problem with encoding method. I can't recover Korean

      encoding option.

      I think the NS is much easier to maintain and troubleshoot.

      Cheers!!!

  114. NS hit or miss? by CrAlt · · Score: 1
    I have a little old POS K6-2 300 o/ced to 375 with 48 megs of cheap ram, Slackware7. And i NEVER have any of the problems that most of you guys are having. The only hang up is bad JAVA. For the most part JAVA stuff works fine. But sites like BoB's Big Ass Website with tons of bad java will hang NS in no time. And with running plain old WM with no GNOME/KDE this little box doesnt hit swap much at all. Hell even the FLASH plug-in works good.


    PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT LIB %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
    731 cralt 2 0 17176 16M 8140 S 0 1.5 36.6 0:33 netscape
    126 root 16 0 17324 13M 4068 R 0 27.8 28.8 7:17 X
    732 cralt 0 0 3716 3716 3148 S 0 0.0 7.9 0:00 netscape

    --
    I have to return some videotapes...
  115. Irony at its best: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Make the shopping button point to SpamCop :-)

  116. I might be wrong...but by CrAlt · · Score: 1

    "NS5" Is on www.mozilla.org. Its the real early milestones. Pre M9 I think.

    --
    I have to return some videotapes...
  117. Netscape and Infoworld by Dave+Walker · · Score: 1

    I haven't downloaded 4.72 yet, and I'm not sure I want to.

    I've noticed, just in the past month, that I can no longer access any pages on either Infoworld or Computerworld, or, seemingly, any page that includes XML in the URL, using Netscape 4.7. Am I missing something here? Is there a plugin I need to retrieve?

    I also find it interesting that Netscape is the ONLY browser so affected. Mozilla, StarOffice, lynx and (shudder, I tried it once just to check) IE all load the pages with no problem. And what really puzzles me is that when I view the page source, the content is all there. Have I missed something obvious in the Netscape setup?

  118. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    So what you're saying is 'Someone should write a good browser!'

    And you think that this is a new and insightful idea which hasn't happened yet because nobody has thought of it?

  119. Agreed. My tips are: by Wench · · Score: 1

    - don't even try to use Java unless you're sure it's quite small. (I seem to be OK with small applets)

    - Exit and restart every couple of hours. Check for leftover processes and kill them to get the memory back.

    I'm an intensive user (web developer) so YMMV on the time needed between restarts.

    --
    No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
  120. don't forget fortify! by toppk · · Score: 1

    Are you suggesting that there is no difference?

    Are you saying that netscape doesn't realize that people are not using redhat 4.2?

    Please, there are many issues going into a moving a platform of a huge app, then just recompile.

    Forget all that, let's put it like this: would you rather them fix 4.x or fix mozilla?

    go to fortify to secure your browser, and for a kick, plug into: tool!

  121. Cannot convert string "false" to type Boolean by Wench · · Score: 1

    Tweaked my .Xdefaults; relaunched Netscape:OK, but prefs have no effect. Launch new browser window: I get a little popup window titled "Netscape: subprocess diagnostics (stdout/stderr)" with the message in the subject.

    Poot :-(

    Does anyone have a URL with references to what I can set & how?

    --
    No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
    1. Re:Cannot convert string "false" to type Boolean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had a similiar experience, and had to su, and give myself permissions to /sbin/pidof and /sbin/killall5

  122. dammit! by Mondo54 · · Score: 1

    Here's another...suck my cock
    just wanted to see it work right oh well some more: I would fuck her

    --

    But isn't the purpose of the Doomsday machine lost if you keep it a secret!
  123. You can do most of this via prefs.js, but... by ixx · · Score: 1

    The problem w/using prefs.js (preferences.js) is that it seems to lose some changes you manually add in there. Using .Xdefaults (or binary editing) ensures that the changes will not go away.

    I can never get the navigation bar to stay where I want it (the bottom most of the three).

    1. Re:You can do most of this via prefs.js, but... by bicho · · Score: 1

      Hey. Can you point me to a place where i can see ALL the options I can use with netscape, both usable in the resources.js and .Xdefaults please? Like using buttons 4 and 5 to scroll up and down and so. Thank you. I would be even more glad if you e-mail me since i read the thread only once. davidgn@servidor.unam.mx

      --

      errera hunamum ets
    2. Re:You can do most of this via prefs.js, but... by ixx · · Score: 1

      Check out my reply above for a link on prefences.js. On the scrolling you would have to mess with the X config. The X input extension most likely.

      Try help.com (CNET) go into the linux section. Do some searches in there for maping mouse buttons to scrolling.

  124. Re: There's a W2K games patch too by TummyX · · Score: 2

    You can get it her e

    Ofcourse most of the games on that list are quite old :). All new games support Windows 2000 properly (at least all the ones I've tried. Most old games don't work cause they try to detect the OS and say NONONO if you are running NT. You can use appcompat.exe on the windows 2000 support CD to trick the apps tho :).

  125. Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? BUT by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1

    O, the irony...

    But try "Netscape Navigator newest" and all is right with the world.

    :-only kona in my cup-:
    :-robert taylor-:
    --
    -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  126. Re:Coincidence/Conspiracy? Neither. LUSER by anim8 · · Score: 1
    Sheesh ... remove the quotes.

    Like this

    not this

  127. google search for MS-IE yields Netcenter by legoman · · Score: 1

    google directs searches for both Netscape 4.72 and for MS-IE to their opponents. Try a google search for:microsoft internet explorer

  128. I thought it was Windows 98 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    well.. since upgrading to '98 I've noticed that this happens a lot more... I always thought it was a "feature" built in to Win98... well I guess not if it works (doesn't work) in *nix . .. but hey...
    Netscape is the best browser... I don't care what anyone says... IE5 bookmarks (favorites) blow big donkey balls... I mean... you can't even have a question mark!... or a slash... hmm... and have you ever tried to organize the bookmarks in IE5... it's almost impossible... I mean.. I've seen M$ do a lot better than that.. Frankly I'm really concerned why Microsoft has many great programs... and IE really stinks... I mean.. if Netscape is better than.. that's pretty bad.. (according to most people)... and another thing... OUTlook... oh man!... that is the single worst program I have ever seen... I can't amagine anyone using that..
    Plus... 8.5 megs for a browser with no E-mail client... No JAVA engine.. No goodies... that's bad...
    another thing... Since when is not one concerned about their security... I mean... damn guys... you're trusting your life with IE5... that's wrong..
    Why is it that I can't *View an Image* with IE? Is that too risky... I can't right click and see what the filename of an Image is? Oh.. no.. MS wouldn't want to let you know what the filename is.. no way... and no.. you can't view an Image and print it... nope.. you must SAVE the image first... and print it from another program...
    where's my e-mail notification? and a single click to check my mail? How about a toolbar who's settings don't change those my File Menu? and possibly some Personalized settings... (profiles, prohaps)... nope... you need to restart windows.. log in as a different user.. or, Better yet buy winNT IE profiles work better there.. give us $500 more ... yeah..
    Maybe an easy to use HTML editor that I don't have to buy? how about some Easter eggs that don't show off the massive ego of the programers who built it? Or maybe not having to restart your computer after installing the browser... and waiting for some "Security" and "Personalized settings" things to load for an hour...
    Hear me Microsoft... Hear me IE5 user...
    Netscape Communicator is better...
    Netscape Communicator makes me proud
    Netscape Communicator has BALLS
    IE5 is a kid...
    IE5 is a show off
    IE5 is makes feel like the Web controls me
    Use Netscape Communicator... you can control the WEB! how about a stock quote?
    IE5 users without Web smarts must find 'em... Netscape users: type quote <symbol> here>
    isn't that easier?
    Why are IE's settings the same as my Computer's internet settings?
    If I open a file in my Browser.. I expect it to open in my BROWSER...
    hmm... let's see.. I want to open the HTML file newuser.reg..
    double click in IE... your Registry becomes corrupted with HTML text... open in Netscape... ahhh pure HTML
    I say, fine, use IE... use the child's browser.. use the toy browser... When I want a Powerful Browser.. I reach for Netscape...
    100% Pure Browser! (and a damn good E-mail client)
    When I want I virus.. I reach for ActiveX and Outlook... there's no easier way to get infected...


    New, improved! Damitol... Now in non-perscription strength. Damitol.. when you just don't give a damn anymore!

  129. Nonsense :) by / · · Score: 2

    Javascript is useful for lots of stuff. Like check out the link in the middle of this page. You don't even have to click through, yet it will take you to the next page. Think of the ramifications for ad forwarding. Oh wait, that was (d). You're right; javascript is useless.

    If you're running Windows (which I wouldn't recommend), then you can run Proxomitron which is a stupidly named yet sublimely wonderful non-caching proxy server (like the Junkbusters one) that you can run on your own client side which will let you strip out all the annoying javascript crap you hate (in addition to filtering out ad banners). You'd actually be able to go to Geocities websites without that stupid branded logo in the corner, that is, if there is anything at Geocities worth seeing. The friend whose computer I set it up on has had only good things to say about it.

    --
    "If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
  130. You forgot "FILTERS FILTERS FILTERS" by / · · Score: 2

    You didn't actually forget to say "filters", but you forgot to say it in bold and say it repeatedly: Filters Filters Filters. Filters are the single biggest reason to use iCab over Netscape.

    For those of you who don't already know, iCab has (built in) many of the features that normally require a non-caching local proxy like Junkbusters to achieve, and even then iCab usually does better. Image filtering by host (up yours, doubleclick.net), path name, file name, dimensions (ever notice how most ads are 468x59 or 468x60?), etc. Control over which cookies to accept and keep, which to discard, all done without the annoyance of "Don't you want to accept this cookie? If you want me to stop asking, you'll have to turn all cookies off or accept them all regardless."

    Technically iCab isn't even a standalone, since it will let you send email. It sure is lightweight, though.

    --
    "If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
  131. NS sucks!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NS sucks. IE rules.. Long live MS. Down with Linsucks

  132. Annoying bug still not fixed by supz · · Score: 1


    I just downloaded the new version, and as a matter of fact am using it to post this message, but the Messenger component of Netscape still has a nasty bug in the mail filters (that I have reported many-a-time), that crashes Netscape immediately. The bug being that you cannot set a filter to move mail older than X number of days into another folder. It's been a couple months since the release of 4.7, and I'm sure I reported the bug before it was released, and still in this version it's not fixed. Shouldn't they at least put a tiny bit of effort into fixing the maybe 2 or 3 lines of code that are causing this error? I don't get it... they release it with new features, that no one gives a damn about, but don't fix the problems that are in current versions.
    </rant>

    Well none the less, I still prefer Netscape over IE anyday.

  133. M13 Works Great?! Tell me your secret! by Epitaph · · Score: 1

    I'd really like to know how you got your M13 stable, because I've gotten so fed up with Communicator that I've switched to Netscape v3.04 (IMHO, their most stable Linux browser so far. :)

    I've tried the precompiled Mozilla, and I've tried building it with a recent version of all of its required libraries, and I still get an unstable version, even without compiler optimizations.

    Now, I'm thinking that the instability is caused by the fact that I'm removing components in the hope of added stability (Mail & News, for example). I'm very interested in how you got your copy stable.

    It may be that you're running a Windows copy, which I've noticed are much more stable than the Linux ones. Is this the case, or have I overlooked something?

    I'd be very appreciative of some help, since I use Linux full time, and this browser fiasco has gone on long enough.

    - Epitaph

  134. How to disable Shop button and My Netscape by bcilfone · · Score: 1
    Ok, I posted a couple of other messages, but this is the whole shbang... if you want to turn the My Netscape button into a Freshmeat link and the Shop button into a Slashdot link, you put the following lines in your ~/.Xdefaults file:
    • *myshopping.tipString: Go to Slashdot

    • *destinations.tipString: Go to Freshmeat
      *myshopping.documentationString: Go to Slashdot
      *destinations.documentationString: Go to Freshmeat
      *toolBar*myshopping.labelString: Slashdot
      *toolBar*destinations.labelString: Freshmeat
      *strings.22495:http://www.slashdot.org/
    and then the following line in your ~/.netscape/preferences.js file:
    • config("toolbar.places.default_url","http://www.fr eshmeat.net/");
    Yes, every other line in that file says "user_pref", but this one has to say "config".

    There is also a similar entry for the search button, but I'm tired of typing and no one is going to read this anyway.

    Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin.

    1. Re:How to disable Shop button and My Netscape by -Walrus- · · Score: 1

      >There is also a similar entry for the search button, but I'm tired of typing and no one is going to read this anyway.

      If anyone wants to change the search button, put something like this in your ~/.Xdefaults file:

      • Netscape*search.tipString: Search with Google

      • Netscape*search.documentationString: Search with Google
        Netscape*toolBar*search.labelString: Google

      and add this to your ~/.netscape/preferences.js file:

      • config("internal_url.net_search.url","http://www.g oogle.com/");
    2. Re:How to disable Shop button and My Netscape by ixx · · Score: 1

      I had problems with netscape "loosing" the entries in preferences.js which is why I started editing the binary. I would like to do it in .Xdefaults since it does not mess with that. I have hope that that is possible since the shop url can be changed there.

    3. Re:How to disable Shop button and My Netscape by ixx · · Score: 1

      Btw the my netscape change for freshmeat is:

      config("toolbar.places.default_url","http://fres hmeat.net/");

  135. Re:RTFM by fR0993R-on-Atari-520 · · Score: 1
    Actually, on some systems it still does use Motif', and I think it may actually look for it on Linux, either before looking for GTK or upon not finding GTK.
    Refer to http://www.mozilla.org/community.html under GTK:
    GTK is a Motif-like GUI toolkit for Unix; some people prefer it to Motif for various reasons, and would like to make Mozilla work with GTK. This forum is for discussions about that effort.

    --
    There are 11 types of people in the world: those who understand unary, and those who don't.
  136. 2.0 vs 2.2 (Was:Platform support) by Mop · · Score: 1

    The reason big software companies are still using glibc 2.0 is that glibc 2.2 rock sucks. It's much too buggy to get workaround or fix for all bugs (this assertion is only valid for big software, which use a wide range of the API).

    If you want Netscape to use 2.2, writing a letter is not a solution. Go fix glibc bugs. If enough people do it, Netscape will switch.

  137. Who cares about Netscape anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let Netscape and its associated direct marketing machine die its natural death. IE has been a better, less annoying, browser since ie3.01. Let it go the way of Mosaic. Who's even interested anymore?

  138. I've been buying it for the last 3 versions by gruntvald · · Score: 1

    I have been buying 30 copies each of the last 3 versions and have finally given up (except for the Linux version). It's gotten worse. If Netscape had not abandoned the CCK, I would still be interested in rolling it out on my 30 NT workstations. But they didn't, so I'm now stuck, ironically, with IE 'cos it's more manageble on 'doze, and IE is relegated to Linux. At the time I was doing prep work, Opera didn't have a JVM, and we needed that too. Of course, if IE5 *hadn't* been a better product than Comminicator 4.5-4.7 it would have been moot.....but to my amazement, it is/was.

  139. Get nightly builds is a little more stable by Sleepy · · Score: 2

    Don't use M13 unless you're happy with what works and what doesn't. If you really want to use Mozilla, get daily builds. On my Linux box I have cronned a small script that cd's to my cvs/mozilla directory and runs gmake. I may have 56k, but that's what's so cool about cron... builds automated to occur at 4AM - sweet.

    I can't get Mozilla to build on Win32 using just Cygnus as an environment. The Mozilla pages assume you know a lot more about build debugging than I do, or maybe it really does require MC VC++? Oh well.

    It's real nice to try Mozilla every day and see what's new, like the new "Sherlock-like" Search bar -- WAY COOL.

    I can get about 20 minutes uptime in Mozilla vs. 30 mins in Netscape on Linux and Netscape/W32 an hour. I can extend my Linux uptime of Netscape by typing by Slashdot replies in Gnotepad and using cut and paste :). The promising bit is Mozilla uses *Linux* as the reference platform so we can be sure the bugs will be fixed. I hope the Win version is stable enough that it's widely adopted there.

    The road is not that long though. We'll have a good Mozilla before the summer. Too bad no PC vendors will bundle it, and Apple probably won't either because of the UI design "violations" (I'll bet MS has Apple under contract to not 'support' Mozilla with code contributions, like they have supported Apache. This is pure speculation however).

  140. Qtscape by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You could always try Qtscape.

  141. Netscape is not free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When using Netscape I see the ISDN line is going up all the time. Each time it cost med NOK 0.45, about 4 pence in connection fee and then extra for the uptime.
    This is unnecessary for a browser and if not sorted out within a short time I will probably transfer to the new Opera browser for Linux.
    A pity really, but as I see it, when Netscape are spending real money on their browser they need something in return and that's causing all the undesired web-traffic.
    Also to all the foul language about stability: For most use it is good enough, but I agree, higher uptime would be greately appreciated.

  142. Remove Bill Gates' cock from your rectum please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would you care to remove the ramrod that M$ has been shoving into your poop shooter. IE is nothing but a piece of shit. And the only reason why IE5 supposedly renders things properly is because of all the M$ cockersuckers who thing that HTML is programming and that FrontPage is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Don't forget about those Active Shit Pages that M$ wants everyone to use to.

  143. I've fscking had it with Netscape. by phee · · Score: 1

    Years now, YEARS, I've been using it, and every new release brings (a) no bug fixes that I can see and (b) nothing else. Every time you open a new window it allocates a few more megs of RAM, but for some reason the programmers didn't see fit to DEallocate that memory when you CLOSE the window. I've seen the netscape process take up 250 meg of memory, real and virtual, after just a few window opens and closes. It still remains to this day the only application that has managed to completely crash my system just because it sucks up ALL available memory if you let it run long enough. But it doesn't end there... oh, no...

    • Javascript. I know of at least one glaring nasty bug in its Javascript implementation, one that should have jumped right out at them when they were building it: the click() method for the checkbox object does NOTHING. Nothing. I mean, it doesn't even generate an error. Works perfectly in every version of netscape except Linux. Pretty suspicious, eh?
    • Java. Ever since about version 4.0, Java has not worked. At all. Period. All I get are two little windows that say "jit interpreter not found" and "security classes not signed" and that's it. And no, I can't count the number of times I've wiped all trace of both the JDK and netscape off my system and then reinstalled to no avail. No Java for me.
    • Personal Toolbar Folder. Why the HELL doesn't it have any kind of scroll function when the toolbar is wider than your screen?? This applies to ALL versions of netscape for ALL platforms, by the way. And in Windows, no matter how many links are in your PTF, it will only display a certain number of them, leaving acres of toolbar space totally blank.
    • Shop button. My undying thanks to Joseph O'Connor, who detailed how to get rid of that god-forsaken blight of a waste of space. (I didn't want to redefine what it did, I just wanted it out of my sky.) That button's existence just smacks of a Microsoftian abuse-of-power scam to make Netscape's own little store the one more people go to. I don't put up with that crap from M$, and I'm not going to put up with it from NS either.
    • Source View Frame. Jesus christ, is it bad. If you scroll around using the scrollbar arrows, or your four arrow keys, the fonts just disintegrate. I can't count the number of times I've thought a " was a ', or missed a | completely, or wondered why that comma looks like a period, or etc. The "find" function does nothing in this window either, although it (of course) works perfectly in Windows.
    • History "tool." No find function in this, either. For the love of God, why not?? "Yes, I would like to spend 57 minutes scrolling through miles and miles of links to find the one I want instead of just using the 'Find' feature, please; can you arrange that for me? Please?"
    • Address Book. I've had this destroyed on me about half the times I've "upgraded." How hard is it for them to import the old one into the "upgraded" version?
    • PNGs. Why, oh WHY, will Netscape display PNGs that are embedded on a page perfectly, yet you cannot set "Handled by" to "Navigator" in the preferences and thus any LINK to a PNG you click on will have to be handled by some external app like XV? WHY???
    • Find tool. Why is there no button on the main toolbar for "Find"? There's a "Search," but that just takes you to Netscape's own little lame-ass search engine. Why?? If I want a link to a search engine (of my choice), I'll put it in the personal toolbar.
    • Fonts. They suck. Enough said.
    • Forms. Pages with form fields do very odd things. Sometimes, at random, after clicking on one or two select boxes or text fields, one or both of these things happen: all the Xwindows meta keys just stop working, and/or when you click on a text field and start typing, nothing happens and your cursor doesn't blink. To fix either of these occurrences, you have to click on the window's title bar for a brief reprieve from it.
    • Tech support. There isn't any. Period. I've sent countless letters to them (with decreasing politeness) and have to date received, let me count them..... ummmm, 0 replies. Is there anybody in there??
    • "What's Related" button. What is it? Why is it there? It's basically just another version of the "Search" button, because the links in it all go to (something).netscape.com. Totally useless.
    • More about forms. Oddly enough, this bug only happens in Windows, not Linux. If you use the scrollbar to drag a window down, all form elements on that page usually just vanish completely. You have to "pageup/pagedown" real quick to get them to reappear, assuming of course that there is enough page above or below your current view to scroll enough to hide everything that vanished; otherwise you have to reload the page.

      I could go on... but what's the point? They're obviously never going to fix any of this stuff; they've had years to do it and haven't. God only knows what if anything changes between versions other than adding a button or two to the toolbar and changing the version number. But there really are no alternatives, are there? Once again, the lack of choices screws the consumer. How long will we go on paying for their apathy? It's not just Netscape, it's damn near every software manufacturer. And not just M$ stuff, either. Am I the only one who's very very very disappointed with the latest Samba implementation? No longer can you set what user.group to mount a share as. No longer will it automatically reconnect a share that's timed out. Software whose version number has increased should, IMHO, be BETTER than the earlier versions, but more and more these days I'm seeing new versions that are far worse than the previous version. What gives, O great developers? Why hast thou forsaken us?? Won't somebody please think of the children???


    "All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; next it is violently attacked; finally, it is held to be self-evident."
    --

  144. Apple contributions to Mozilla by Colin+Simmonds · · Score: 1
    Too bad no PC vendors will bundle it, and Apple probably won't either because of the UI design "violations"

    I suspect that Apple will ship Mozilla, at least when it's the official Netscape release. Despite Steve Jobs proclaiming his love for Internet Explorer, MacOS 9 does install Netscape as well, but just not as the default browser. The current Mozilla builds are pretty hideous on the Mac from a conformance to the Human Interface Guidelines view, but with Mozilla's themeability that could be cleaned up quite a bit.

    (I'll bet MS has Apple under contract to not 'support' Mozilla with code contributions, like they have supported Apache. This is pure speculation however).

    Probably wrong. According to the Fizzilla (MacOS X port) page, Apple has already contributed patches to Mozilla to help get it running on OS X. I don't know if Microsoft has committed to a Carbon version of IE yet, so Mozilla might be the only way that MacOS X gets a native browser.

    In snooping around the Mozilla home page to check on the status of the Mac FE, I also discovered that Apple is helping add ColorSync support to Mozilla.

  145. Re:Huh?/Netscape's Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OK, OK, Maybe whoever wrote this was a little foolish thinking that most people would grasp the joke...

    The mail is a dig at Mindcraft and likens Netscape's new stuff to M$ software. Do you think that a Senior VP of Mindcraft would really say 'cos you haven't paid me enough cash'....?

    I found this mail really amusing (check out the link!) and would ask both reply-ees to turn off their Windblows boxes and go back to picking fleas out of your relative's fur.

    Way to go Barry!

  146. It was an XFree86 bug! by alecf · · Score: 1

    this turned out to be a bug in XFree86's Xlib implementation of all places. The next 3.x version as well as XFree86 4.0 will fix this problem. Thanks goes to Keith Packard of the XF86 team for helping Netscape track this down!

  147. Re: Overextended Hack Job Piece of Crap by medcalf · · Score: 1
    ALSO, it has to have a REAL preferences menu, where you can disable ANY HTML type, (blink comes to mind), and ANY feature in the browser, and can be completly controled from the keyboard if need be.


    This is my number 1 feature wish for a web browser! I would really like to be able to turn off the ability of web pages to control the Netscape window sizing/position, the BLINK tag (and a few others) and so forth. Turning off JavaScript would then be equivalent to turning off a tag; same with Java itself.
    --
    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
  148. Why even use the navigation bar? by au3 · · Score: 1

    I don't even display the navigation bar. All the buttons can be accessed through keyboard shortcuts and the pop-up menu (when you right click). It's loads faster to right-click and move mouse 2 pixels than to move the mouse allllll the way up to click the back button.

    I do however, have the Personal Toolbar. For my "special buttons" it goes: Slashdot, Dictionary.com (javascript window pops up and asks for word, then searches dictionary.com for it), TechWeb (same as dictionary.com but TechWeb is a little more "techish"), Google (again, window pops up and asks for words and then searches google with 1-100 results), Search /. (again, window asking for words), and finally, BabelFish (window thing too, but it only translates phrase from French to English (can be customized))

    You don't even need a hex-editor for these. Simply find the folder called Personal Toolbar Folder, and create bookmarks with these URLs:

    http://slashdot.org/

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Search word:',''))}if(term)location.href='http://www.dict ionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term='+escape (term)

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Search word:',''))}if(term)location.href='http://www.tech web.com/encyclopedia/defineterm?term='+e scape(term)

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Search word:',''))}if(term)location.href='http://www.goog le.com/search?q='+escape(term)+'&num=100 &sa=Google+Search'

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Search word:',''))}if(term)location.href='http://www.slas hdot.org/search.pl?query='+escape(term)

    javascript:{void(t erm=prompt('Translate:',''))}if(term)location.href ='http://babelfish.altavista.com/cgi-bin /translate?jss&lp=en_fr&urltext='+escape(term)

    Now, isn't that easier than having to drag out your hex-editor?

    1. Re:Why even use the navigation bar? by ixx · · Score: 1

      haha! those are great.

      I personally use alt-left and alt-right often. I would rather do that than right click or go to the navigation bar.

      as far as the personal toolbar goes, i have many links under diff categories. my bookmark file is huge so i use the toolbar for links to places i want to go (other than freshmeat, slashdot, and google). I have a search folder with web search, auction stuff, and other things... then a linux folder which is actually just there because debian put it there and i have not had time to move useful links else where.... and well it does not take up much room :) i have a news menu with several news sites (linuxfocus, gnustep newswire, black.box, openbsd security, etc), a reading menu with some sites with online books and stories, a audio/video menu with some shoutcast and icecast servers...

      Anyhow I do not want to put single click links on there.... Though I must have these javascript links! I will figure out somewhere to put them! Thanks.

  149. A few modifications to your javascript... by ixx · · Score: 1

    First here is a CNet linux section search:

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Searchword:',''))} if(term){ re= /\ /g; location.href='http://www.help.com/cgi-perl/search .pl?catpath=%2F2%2F191%2F226%2F537&query ='+escape(term.replace(re,"+"))+'&num=100&sa=Googl e+Search';}

    notice I have the term.replace stuff. Thats so spaces are turned into + rather than %20 via the escape. I added the replace stuff to the google and slashdot search. The re= and the {} need to be added along with the replace.

    Oh yeh here is a search for eBay Computer section:

    javascript:{void(term=prompt('Searchword:',''))} if(term){re= /\ /g;location.href='http://search-desc.ebay.com/sear ch/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult& ht=1&ebaytag1=ebayreg&srchdesc=y&category0=160&min Price=&maxPrice=&ebaytag1code=0&SortProp erty=MetaEndSort&st=0&query='+escape(term.replace( re,"+"))}

  150. made a slashdot thread for netscape mod discussion by ixx · · Score: 1

    http://slashdot.org/sid=netscape If anyone cares to continue with tips, etc.

  151. Rblah... make that link article.pl?sid=netscape by ixx · · Score: 1
  152. correct link by ixx · · Score: 1
  153. The REAL correct link :) by ixx · · Score: 1

    href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl? sid=netscape i guess i should preview more often

  154. Thanx for proving my point by SpiceWare · · Score: 1

    on the way non-Linux users(even those attempting to learn Linux) are treated by a rather vocal component of the Linux community.

    By posting as AC, you've also proven that you don't have the balls to stand behind your statements.

    I have received a lot of offers of help due to my original post. Quite a few were rather embarrassed and apologetic that I had to experience this side of the Linux community. Thanks to the help I should have my Linux problems solved soon.