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Netscape 6 Preview Release
deadpixel writes, "The Netscape 6 preview has been released. Really small download. No more Mozilla, sniff.
" Kinda sad, but I think I'll use the Mozilla icon for this just
as a tribute ;)
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ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6_PR1 /windows/win32/sea/NetscapeSetup.exe
It works from behind a socks/proxy!
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
Well, my Linux box is at home, and I have to use the NT4 Server here at work to test the build.. here're a few brief experiences so far:
Using the 260k installer, and only grabbing the executable and the (7 megs?!) Java2 stuff, the install went fairly speedily (45 mins) over a 56k connection (13mb in total, without any of the feedback agents, Net2Phone, etc). No reboots were necessary, which is a nice step up from the 4.x releases, and of course IE. (although IE, to be fair, 'upgrades' a lot of system files under Winx)
Ok, first run. No, thanks, I don't want to sign up to Netcenter. And yes, I really really don't want to. I'm sure you nice Netscape, er, AOL guys would never do anything bad with my name and email address, but I just want to browse.
Here it comes up, loading it is a bit faster than the 4.x tree. On we go to the Netcenter N6 page, ah, Dynamic HTML, finally implemented, nice moving 'Netscape' writing, fully selectable, etc. It's just eyecandy, but proves standards compliance. Wohoo!
On we go.. let's see how fast Yahoo loads, my 'bare-bones' example for comparing IE and Mozilla so far. Ok, it's fine, not as speedy as IE5, but it's not an 'integral part of the OS', is it?
Now the real test.. slashdot.org, loads fine, I enter my name - NO, I don't want you to remember my password, Moz.., er, Netscape - and on we go.
Ah. Hmm. Well, either Slashdot isn't regularly tested with Mozilla, or it's _supposed_ to look this way. Most of the 'spacing' between objects is gone, i.e. the banner at the top of the screen is now touching the actual page instead of having a bit of space between the two of them. Since I turned the icons off, the slashboxes are now vertically sligned against the very top of the actual page, whereas the 'default' page has the icons in the top right corner aligning the slashboxes with the rest of the main page at the top. Ah well, broken HTML it ain't (unless you try to validate it
[Side note: Copying text from Mozilla/N6 and pasting into Windows apps doesn't seem to work right now, neither using the right-click menu, nor the Edit menubar. Hmm. It lets me paste, but never copy. Especially since it blanks out the 'Paste' option after pasting, clearly thinking it has something buffered in the paste clipboard. Odd, but fixable.
Anyway, let's see what Netscape has to say about it on their main page. On we go, www.netscape.com... err.. crash. Hmm. Now, I'd have thought that they'd test their own homepage with their own browser? Nevermind, let's load it back up again - sigh, I didn't download the feedback client, so this bug will probably go unnoticed - and try it again.. and the page loads just fine. Odd. Very odd.
Anyway, let's have a look at the memory footprint.. task manager.. netscp6.exe..
29752k ??
I guess this is the memory footprint of a modern cutting-edge app.. but what were the two years of propaganda about 'small, fast app', 'efficient modular coding' etc. all about? I understand that IE5's memory usage (6megs right now) is partly due to the fact that a lot of its engine and parts are pre-loaded by the OS during startup.. and maybe under UNIX a lot of Netscape's code will reside in code already loaded by the X wm (widgets, etc).. but 30 megs? I just started the thing, it's not like hours of use have led it to leak memory like a bastard, accumulating dozens of megs of cached pages, etc, etc?
The actual netscape executable is 356k large, probably so it can start fast and give a speedy impression. The 'components' dir, full of to-be-loaded
And the 'theme'-ability (i.e. skins, etc) aren't even included! I even disabled the sidebar, and reduced most options like What's Related? and Internet Keywords to a minimum, so I'd have a bare-bones, speedy browser, and nothing else. I'm guessing that part of it is the Java2 stuff that's loaded at startup - but the memory usage still baffles me. If it preloads all it needs, I'd at least expect it to be as fast as IE, if not better, seeing how IE5 is at its core based on a browser MS bought from Spyglass which in turn was a rebranded NCSA Mosaic licensee from 5++ years ago. (Check 'About' in IE5 if you don't believe me.)
Ok, this is a pre-releases, still Alpha, not to be used widely, etc.. but seeing how the final
Ok, so in the time I needed to write this, (5 mins?) Netscape seems to have assimilated more memory for its personal needs. It now occupies 35 MB of RAM, and all I did to make it grow by 5 megs is to type some text in this textfield. Either it's doing funky stuff, or NT hates its guts. (and I'm waiting for people to post saying it's all NTs fault, and they've had Mozilla running on their 386 Linux boxes for months without crashes or memory problems
I'm sure this isn't the fault of Gecko, the rendering engine at its core, but the browser built around it seems to have a few architectural issues. I hope the Mozilla guys will be able to give it a swift kick in the pants before the Netscape6 release. Press coverage of a sluggish Netscape that doesn't match IE's capabilities would probably kill it off for good on non-UNIX platforms. I think I better go and kill off all Netscape-related processes now before it sucks up the remaining memory and I have to reboot the machine.
Apart from the memory issues, though, the Lizard seems to be a capable beast. Especially since this a pre-release do Slashdot Netscape's servers, grab the thing, and test it. With enough bugzilla reports, I'm sure the issues can be fixed in time for the release.
Alex T-B
PS: This post is coming to you courtesy of the fourth 'Submit' attempt. The Lizard keeps popping up a little box saying 'Connection refused by slashdot.org.. is that a HTTP error code. Which one? Please talk to me, Mozilla.
First of all, this is listed as Netscape 6 PR1, so its not gold or anything. Its just a prerelease version of there normal buggy .0 releae.
It looks just like mozilla m14. This should not come as a surprise to me, but I didn't know what to expect.
Does it leak memory? After an hour or so, three windows were using 45K of free memory, slowing my meager 64K laptop to lots of grinding.
Otherwise, despite the ugly N logo replacing the cute Mozillasoar, it looks pretty solid.
A final word about the integration. I have a netscape webmail account that uses the name "peteshaw". I stopped using it some time back when I accidentally posted it once on the usenet and found I was getting inunspamdated.
When I started up N6, it went through this whole routine told me that I would have to change my easy to remember name to something abstract and bizarre to satisfy its corporate renaming requirements. I think Netscape is merging the webmail name lists with AOL IM Service, which is integrated with Netscape IM. So now instead of "peteshaw" I need to come up with PeteShawSpankMyMonkey or something long and stupid.
So far its just annoying, but after trying 3 or 4 times to come up with a reasonable username, it gives me this error "Too many logins from this IP address, please wait 24 hours before logging on." On top of that, the only button I have to choose is marked "retry". What's a guy to do? Sit here staring at the retry button for 24 hours? It wasn't that hard to eventually work around, but its like ??????
So, needless to say I am skipping the netscape bundle of features for now, or at least for the next 24 hours. I might just stick with M14.
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
This is the third time that slashdot has posted a story that got this wrong: Netscape 6 is NOT the final "Mozilla" browser. Netscape 6 incorporates some parts of the Mozilla efforts, but NS 6 is still a commercial product with proprietary code put out by Netscape Incorporated. Mozilla is not complete, and is still in testing. When it is finished, it will not be called "Netscape" anything, it will be "Mozilla." Please try to get this right.