Netscape 6.1

max2010 writes: "Netscape Browser Version 6.1 is released. Give it a try, grab the 25MByte junk of code for MAC, Unix and Windows at ftp.netscape.com." MSNBC has a brief story about the release.

Comments

25megs includes full Java JRE distrib

[jonabbey]

Which is fairly nice, actually.. finally, a web browser that can run Java 1.2/1.3 applets "natively", using the simple <applet> html syntax for invocation.

Re:Let's start with rendering pages properly

[DrXym]

No, the error handling does not stink. There is no browser in the world which will correct broken Javascript.

Nightly builds expire. Milestones don't.

[yerricde]

Up until milestone M18, both nightly and milestone builds of the Mozilla browser expired 30 days after release. However, milestone releases 0.6 and later (including 0.9.3, which I am using right now) have the nag screen disabled.

Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[KidSock]

... based on the Mozilla.org open-source development effort, ..

I have submitted bug reports for Mozilla and besides the obvious hanger-ons it's very clear that all of Mozilla's developers work for Netscape. Mozilla is not an Open-Source project like everyone's been preaching. Sure people have submitted their own little gizmo to add but thankfully the've abandoned all that crap and are getting down to the metal now. The Open-Sourcing of Netscape was a failure and it's time we fess up and wrote it off as a necessary experiment.

Don't bash Netscape because you'll be bashing Mozilla in the process. The're one and the same.

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[_xeno_]

IE's HTML parser is crap, if the HTML is fscked it guesses what it should look like. it shouldn't do that

Uh, yes it should - it's always a pain when a third-party site doesn't display, and you can't fix it. Although it would be nice to have a mode that did strict testing for your own pages - oh wait, they do. Just add the appropriate DOCTYPE.

try loading a page that is not reachable, not only does the IE window loading the page hang but ALL IE windows are completely locked up

What the hell are you smoking? Are you using IE for Win 3.1? IE 5.0 doesn't do that on any computer I've used, 98SE or 2K. And IE6.0beta on XP most certainly doesn't do it. Granted, if one window crashes the browser, all the windows for that process are lost, but at least with IE you can run multiple processes - which you can't do with Mozilla.

IE is integrated into windows, there is a Mac version but it was developed independent from the windows version. what does this tell us: IE is not at all portable

Uh, so? Very fex applications are really portable, and Mozilla isn't an exception - most of the parsing code is portable, but when you're dealing with GUI code, and not using Mozilla's hideous chrome hack and actually (gasp!) using the native GUI then it'll generally require rewritting large portions of code.

mozilla is WAY more flexible than IE will ever be. a few examples: you can modify the GUI or even build completely different applications based on mozilla in XUL, Mozilla can be easily embedded, and not just through an activeX component, it can e.g. even be embedded in a java app.

This is actually two points, so I'll tackle the first one - uh, first.

You can modify the GUI in IE too - in a sensible way - you can customize the rebars and add buttons and the like. With your mouse. Without restarting IE. Right click on any toolbar and choose "customize." You can't do that in Mozilla, and changing stuff is a damned pain, involving JavaScript and XUL. And if you think changing the "look" is important - you're wrong. Having a consistant look should be of highest importance, but Mozilla decided to go their own path.

And come November when I'm running XP, Mozilla will look really strange in the Luna-scape. Oh well.

Your second point about embedding is interesting, seeing as ActiveX is the way to embed controls in other applications in Windows (not just webpages, any app can embed any ActiveX control). And Moz does this too. I've never seen Mozilla embed via Java though, link anyone?

Microsoft keeps adding useless non-standard features claiming 'webdesigners' want them (marquee anyone?) , but they still don't have decent PNG (alpha transparency) support, something LOTS of designers would like.

It's not like <BLINK>Netscape listened to their customers either</BLINK>.

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[BZ]

I may have to take exception to being called a hanger-on. :)

That being said, there is little difference between current Mozilla and current branch builds. That's the whole point of "rebranding", no?

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[evocate]

By almost any technical measure, IE is a better browser than Netscape/Mozilla (N/M). Opening the source has not obviated the need to program better than Microsoft's IE engineers. Some open-source projects are *going to fail*. If you believe that the mark for which N/M must shoot is IE, then you must also believe that N/M is a failed project. It is also the first high-profile open source project failure

Open source projects usually have simple beginnings and humble aspirations. Most start as hack jobs to "scratch an itch" and grow incrementally to become powerhouses. Linux is a prime example. There are many many others. Mostly, these projects set their own bars. Success is defined from within the community, not by comparison to some commercial competitor. Linux was to be the best kernel Torvalds could write, not a better kernel than NT. Apache was to be the best web server, not a better server than IIS. Perl... well, what are you going to compare Perl to? The point is these projects defined their own success. They didn't let Microsoft define it for them.

The open source N/M project has never defined success for itself. It has been chasing Microsoft the whole way - matching bullet points and comparing market shares. Successful open source projects don't usually work this way. A successful open source web browser will start simply, iterate constantly, have fantastic leadership (like Torvalds, Cox, Behlendorf, Wall, etc.), remain *solid*, and define success on *its* terms, not terms set by CNET or MSNBC or even Slashdot. And what should those terms be? Easy: happy, loyal, rabidly fanatic users. Users who will only give up the product when someone pries it from their cold dead fingers. I mean... isn't that how you feel about the successful open source products you love?

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[tempest303]

uhhh.... Chris Blizzard would probably beg to differ, my friend, along with countless other volunteers and participants from other companies. Netscape is BASED on Mozilla, but don't make the mistake that they're the same.

Furthermore, why was the open-sourcing of Netscape a "failure"? It was a *difficult* task, and the first of it's kind. To say that it was easy or that it's clearly the road to take for all other commercial freeware is obviously not the case, but a failure? Not in the least! Have you tried Netscape 6.1? Give it a shot, a serious try, and then try to tell me it's a "failure".

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[KidSock]

No, you're wrong. Mozilla is CERTAINLY an open-source project.

Well, in the obvious sense of the word, yes, most of the code can actually be downloaded and shared (although there are a lot of modules that are not; e.g. the e-mail spell checker). But the point I'm trying to make is that the benefits of the community process did not bare fruit in the slightest. And yet this was supposed to be one of the primary motivations for companies to share their code. The fact is; a web browser is too sophisticated and the existing codebase was accordingly insurmountable for even the most dedicated weekend code warrior. Had Netscape been constructed of a highly polymorhpic and modular design, the code might have been partitioned cleanly enough for other individuals to participate. But this was simply not the case. Sure, you can download the code, but I don't see people outside of Netscape participating in the development of Mozilla to the point where it would be considered a community process (although I do see a lot of usefull technical discussion). Fortunately the W3C does have a thriving community process and much of their work has been implemented in Mozilla. But this is largely due to the fact that many people from Netscape make up the governing bodies of working groups within the W3C.

And about Cathedrals vs. Bazaars. I don't think either is good. I prefer a dictatorship. Put one person that truely has vision at the helm and follow them unconditionally. Implement their vision. This is something the bureaucracy will not allow in a Cathedral. The Bazaar does not work because no one person is influential enough or has the power to make changes that trancend a codebase and these changes are invariably necessary.

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[BorgDrone]

By almost any technical measure, IE is a better browser than Netscape/Mozilla (N/M)

I have a different opinion.

• IE's HTML parser is crap, if the HTML is fscked it guesses what it should look like. it shouldn't do that
• try loading a page that is not reachable, not only does the IE window loading the page hang but ALL IE windows are completely locked up
• IE is integrated into windows, there is a Mac version but it was developed independent from the windows version. what does this tell us: IE is not at all portable
• mozilla is WAY more flexible than IE will ever be. a few examples: you can modify the GUI or even build completely different applications based on mozilla in XUL, Mozilla can be easily embedded, and not just through an activeX component, it can e.g. even be embedded in a java app.
• Microsoft keeps adding useless non-standard features claiming 'webdesigners' want them (marquee anyone?) , but they still don't have decent PNG (alpha transparency) support, something LOTS of designers would like.

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[Compuser]

Mozilla was supposed to be the most standards compliant browser out there. That was THE goal, AFAIK, at least for 1.0 release (of course being better than 4.7 in stability and usability too). Tell me if these goals haven't already been achieved. How is Mozilla a failure then?
Mozilla was meant to be standards compliant and there is no shortage of web related standards so "start simply" would contradict the goal of the project. As for "iterate constantly", they have produced the first real alpha of Mozilla with 0.9.1 and this is where we should track the birth of Mozilla from. Since then, updates were happening quite often, not to mention nightly builds which as the name suggests are nightly. Leadership is not there now, at least since jwz left. But so long as they make a fantastic browser I don't care if they are monkeys randomly typing code. Mozilla does remain solid since 0.9.1 days and just keeps getting better. Happy and loyal users exist. I am one.

Re:Mozilla ... Netscape ... what't the difference?

[BorgDrone]

Uh, yes it should - it's always a pain when a third-party site doesn't display, and you can't fix it.

Uh, no, it shouldn't.
that error wouldn't have existed in the first place if during testing, the third party's browser would have shown a large, red page saying: "PARSE ERROR ON LINE X, DOCUMENT DISPLAY ABORTED"
too bad mozilla doesn't do this either. imho HTML should be parsed very strictly. luckily XHTML fixes some of this.

IE 5.0 doesn't do that on any computer I've used, 98SE or 2K.

IE 5.5 does on all computers I have run it on.

Having a consistant look should be of highest importance, but Mozilla decided to go their own path.

Mozilla HAS a consistent look, it looks exactly the same on every platform it runs on. people who know mozilla on windows can also use it on linux, mac, BeOS, etc. etc. etc.

And come November when I'm running XP, Mozilla will look really strange in the Luna-scape. Oh well.

I've played around a bit with some XP beta's ,and luna really is butt-ugly, it's a failed attempt to rip off Aqua, the title bars on windows are huge, and take up a lot of screen space. the green start button looks weird and is even uglier when pressed (it 'behaves' like a square button).
that start button really shows that their attempt to make the OS skinnable failed miserably (the startbutton in the 'classic' style feels wierd too.)

Your second point about embedding is interesting, seeing as ActiveX is the way to embed controls in other applications in Windows (not just webpages, any app can embed any ActiveX control). And Moz does this too. I've never seen Mozilla embed via Java though, link anyone?

check here
you can not only embed mozilla in a java app, you can write mozilla plugins in java (pluglets) and write XPCOM components.

It's not like Netscape listened to their customers either.

they do now, check bugzilla.mozilla.org , submit bug reports, feature requests. people will listen. people will discuss it. it might end up getting implemented if there's enough people who want it.

Installer segfaults

[Micah]

I have RH 7.1. Untarred the install file. It ran and downloaded everything. When it was done ... segfault!

If I run the installer again, it does apparently find the files that were downloaded, but segfaults without installing them.

Did that happen to anyone else? Workarounds?

version??

[Punto]

True. This whole story is very nice, but nobody mentions what version of the mozilla code they used for Netcape 6.1

I remember the problem with 6.0 was that they used some milestone, o an early version wich sucked.

Re:version??

[BZ]

This used 0.9.2

Re:Why?

[Simon Brooke]

There are several different builds of IE5 floating about and they are significantly different at least at the HTTP level; I know this to my cost because (at least) one generates incorrect RFC 1967 headers, and this breaks my maybeupload package.

IE 5.5 and IE 6 are much better. While I use Konqi as my browser of choice, there's no doubt that the latest IEs are very good.

Re:Why?

[The Dev]

Well, 6.x is just as slow and bloated as Mozilla, but Netscape 4.7x is much faster than either.

The only reason I upgraded from Netscape 3.02 to
4.xx was to use the IMAP mail client. 3.02 was probably the fastest web browser ever made.

Is there any actual feature advantage to Mozilla/Netscape6.x over Netscape 4.78?

And what is all the fuss over IE? Every once
in a while I hunt down a windows machine to try
it out and it still sucks just as bad as the old
days. I really hate the was it moves things around on the screen as it renders the page. Blah.

Re:Why people use Netscape instead of IE or Mozill

[dublin]

A lot of us stick with Netscape because, in spite of its flaws, it still does a much better job than any version of IE.

There are a lot of things Netscape brings to the table that IE can't match, things like support for roaming profiles, excellent support for large and complex collections of bookmarks, slick javascript programmable "personal toolbar" buttons which can be very handy for instant searches and lookups of any term on any page, a very capable mail client written by people that bothered to read the MIME and MHTML RFCs before writing code, and an open mailbox format that interoperates with literally thousands of mailbox manipulation power tools.

As soon as IE can do all those things, all of which I use and rely on very heavily, I'll *think* about switching - until then, I'll stick with Netscape even though I would love to see a stable version of NS6 that includes all the features above. (Roaming in particular is absent in both NS6 and Mozilla, and there are no plans to fix this glaring hole. Grrrr.)

Re:Freudian slip?

[MindStalker]

I meant to say nonessentials obviously opps :)

Re:Mozilla 0.9.3 = Netscape 6.1?

[josepha48]

mozilla and netscape branched a while ago.. There are features in mozilla that are not in netscape. Image blocking is one of them I think. I am not sure what else. While it is true that they are patching netscape from mozilla patches they are two different branches. Mozilla 0.9.3 != Netscape 6.1 and mozilla 1.0 will probably not = netscape 6.2.

Netscape 6.0(1) was buggy as hell and this is an attempt at fixing that and possibly gaining market share. I.E. Those that like to run it cause it is NOT miscrosoft or those that are using a platform that does not have IE.

The java plugin that comes with Netscape 6.1 ...

[Kynde]

... crashed the Netscape on my well kept and up-to-date linux box. But simply by replacing the java plugin that came with Netscape 6.1 with Sun's very own Java 1.3 plugin things changed. And all I had to do to get that working was a simple symlink which was also well described in their Quick Start guide for the average users aswell.

Now java applets work better than ever in Netscape...

---

Re:Brilliant lead writing...

[sharkey]

That line was probably suggested by Clippy, seeing as how it's MSNBC.

"I see you are writing an article about a product that is not made by Microsoft. Would you like some help in creating confusing^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wcompound/complex-sounding sentences to cloud^W^W^W^W^Wclarify the issues involved with this incident?"

Re:Let's start with rendering pages properly

[DrXym]

Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 render HTML & CSS extremely well. Where there is a problem it usually boils down to broken HTML, CSS or Javascript in the actual content and not a fault in the browser. A common fault is JS with code paths for IE (checking for document.all), Netscape 4.x (checking for document.layers) and other. Since Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 are deemed as Other because they support neither document.all or document.layers, it often runs into untested and broken JS.

Re:I use Netscape 4.7 because....

[ZxCv]

First off, try 0.9.3-- in my experience, it is definitely faster and more stable than 0.9.2. I've been using Mozilla for a while now and while it used to be true that 4.7 rendered faster than Mozilla, I don't think it is any more. At least on my Windows machine, Mozilla is inching towards the rendering speed of IE-- something Netscape 4 hasn't been able to come close to for quite some time. I'm not sure about my Linux boxes because I don't have Netscape 4 installed on those (Mozilla & Konqueror only).

I'd give Mozilla 0.9.3 before sticking with 4.7-- not only is it prettier but its definitely surpassed 4.7 at this point on stability, speed, and rendering accuracy/quality.

Re:Ugh... Netcenter

[dublin]

Sorry, I just plain flat don't believe a word of this. It looks to me like you're just trying to slam AOL.

I've had several netcenter accounts, and know many other with one as well, and I've never encountered any of what you report.

I niether like nor dislike AOL - personally, I've always wanted a real Internet connection, so I couldn't even tell you what the AOL portal looks like. For the record, I have not found them to engage in any of the bad behavior you report, though...

Re:Why?

[DrXym]

The advantages are these:

• Greater quality control. The commercial version is beat on a lot more than any Mozilla milestone meaning it should be more robust.
• Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.
• Instant messenger.. Netscape has AIM built in. Clever people may even figure out how to remove the advert from the bottom by editting the chrome.
• Spell checker.. Moz doesn't have one of these due to the fact that the dictionary is licenced.
• Bundled crap/goodies.. The installer can download and install RealPlayer, Shockwave, Net2Phone, WinAmp and some other stuff if you let it.
• Netscape branding and version. Believe it or not but some people trust something more when its called 6.1 than 0.9.3.
• Netscape Netcentre integration. Register when you open a new profile and the instance messenger, side panels and home page are all customised to your taste.

Obviously some people may not be perceive some of these things as advantages, but that is why Mozilla exists. You're free to choose either. Mozilla is free of the commercialism and out on the cutting edge but you will experience more crashes as a result of that.

Re:notoriously buggy?

[HiThere]

I don't want that IE piece of *** on my Windows system (Win95). When it was installed, things slowed to a crawl. When I removed it, they sped up again. Mozilla may take awhile to start (since I don't compare it against IE, I don't know. Seems pretty quick to me.), but it never did that to me.

I don't mind paying for a browser while I'm using it. But to take that kind of a performance hit all the time is really ... well, it just seems stupid to me. I don't upgrade fast enough to be able to pay that kind of price.

Re:I thought they said they were done with browser

[iceT]

Yeah, no more pesky end-table HTML tags...

we can finally kiss JAVA good bye.. everything will be VBScript!
W3C can finally disband... If people are only writing to the browser, then there's no need for a standard.

They say there's no Netscape Loyalists.. Bullsh*t! IE renders nicely. I'll give it that, but it's everything ELSE that SUCKS, and that's why I can't STAND to use it!

Re:Freudian slip?

[MindStalker]

Well, it uses alot of small .gifs for one thing, But you get a much better picture if you look at the individual packages (which can be downloaded seperatly, so you don't have to get the full 25MB)
browser.xpi = 5.6MB = The main program
jre13i.exe = 7.5MB = Java Runtime Engine
mail.xpi = 1.4MB = Mail program (which isn't standalone btw)
nsrp8.exe = 3.7MB Real Player for netscape
winamp275.exe = 1.6 WinAmp
And another 5MB of 16 smaller packages like PSM, Flash, and spellcheck, many of which are essential like aol's art extention, net2phone, and some plugin for helping identify HP printers.

Not exactly...

[Mustang Matt]

I make sure my pages run in Opera 5.12, IE5+, and Konquerer.

I know IE is loose with html decoding, but I am strict when writing it.

There are certain things that are broke in the new Netscape.

Don't believe me? Load up www.Bridge.com in Netscape 4.72, no problems... Load it up in 6+... Oops!

We spent a whole lot of manpower trying to keep it compatible with 4 to 4.72 and every single freaking release changed the specs and things broke. Granted we were taxing dhtml to the maximum capability it still should have worked fine and it does in NS4.72 and IE4+. Opera still has some problems but I'm working with their developers on fixing them.

notoriously buggy?

[byoung]

No "editorial bias" here:

AOL Time Warner released the first final upgrade to its notoriously buggy Netscape 6 browser, promising a smoother and faster ride for Netscape loyalists.

netscape loyalists?

Are they trying to position Netscape users as a bunch of militia members or something? Wait'll we see Rosie attacking Tom Sellick saying we have no right to keep using Netscape.

Beautiful example of objective reporting there.

Re:notoriously buggy?

[cyberdonny]

> What about the articles that you couldn't read that they chose not to run?

Or articles that you couldn't read because they conveniently forgot to close a <table> tag...

Re:notoriously buggy?

[The Dev]

Um, what exactly don't you like about Netscape 4.x
(now 4.78)? It's stable (as least on windows and FreeBSD), fast and a nice integrated mail client (sucky for newsgroups though).

Re:notoriously buggy?

[Blue Neon Head]

The point is that MSNBC should know quite well that referring throughout an article to the "buggy version 6" of a product competing with its owners' products if going to raise an eyebrow - and rightfully so.

It's also worth noting that there are plenty of other reasons not to use IE. Perhaps, for instance, you are disturbed by some of its more security-compromising features.

Re:notoriously buggy?

[bricriu]

Well, they do kinda have a point, especially if you buy into the "browser wars" buzzword. By this point, if you're on a Windows box -- which most people are, especially those who read MSNBC for their "news" -- the odds are that you're using IE. I use a Windows box, and, honestly, I like IE... and I was one of the most die-hard against it, until it went to version 5.0 (SP1) while Netscape was still wasting away in version 4.x.

The point that he's trying to make is that by now, unless you have a major grudge against M$ (not that anyone on /. has such a thing) or have a Linux box (same difference? ;-)you've probably caved and gone with IE now. So loyalists are all that are left.

Re:notoriously buggy?

[benedict]

MSNBC didn't write the article, they got it from syndication.

I have detected no editorial bias towards Microsoft at MSNBC, and I think I'd notice, since I'm quite biased *against* Microsoft.

Re:notoriously buggy?

[Gleef]

The Dev asks:

Um, what exactly don't you like about Netscape 4.x (now 4.78)? It's stable (as least on windows and FreeBSD), fast and a nice integrated mail client (sucky for newsgroups though).

(Note: I am not an IE fan, in fact I use Mozilla as my main browser; also note: most of my Netscape 4.x experience is with the Linux version, your mileage may vary).

Here's a quick, of the top of my head, list of some things I don't like about Netscape 4.x
* Pathetically non-standard CSS implementation
* Annoyingly quirky DOM implementation
* Crashes more than Mozilla 0.9.2 and above (at least for me)
* Mail client can't handle multiple accounts
* Does not properly handle being executed more than once at a time
* Pointless HTML editor that just takes up space
* Awkward rendering; particularly bad handling of fonts and text placement
* Badly chosen or missing keyboard shortcuts
* Occasionally corrupts downloaded binaries

Yes, some of these gripes also carry over to Mozilla (eg integrated HTML editor), but it's already pretty much surpassed 4.x in features (it's missing a few, but has many that 4.x couldn't even think about), and blown way past it in standards compliance and ease to develop for.

IE 5.x is (mostly) more standards compliant than Netscape 4.x, but at the expense of security (on windows) or performance (on unix). It is also, in my experience, far less stable than Netscape 4.x.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can focus my website development on looking good on IE 5.0+, Netscape 6.1+ (6.0 is best forgotten) and Mozilla 1.0+, and dump support for both Netscape and IE's obnoxious 4.x browsers.

Why release before Mozilla?

[iceT]

Mozilla is still not production? Why would Netscape release their product when Mozilla hasn't released there? Is this just to cover up the SCREWUP with Netscape 6.0(1)? Will there be a 6.2 when Mozilla reaches 1.0?

Re:Why release before Mozilla?

[BrookHarty]

I hope they skip straight to Netscape 7.0 (-;

Re:What's new in version 6.1

[cetan]

you assumed wrong actually. :)

It's based on 0.9.2.

Re:sweet god in heaven

[DrXym]

If you don't want all the value added crap, simply choose not to download and install it when the installer asks you. If you choose just to install the browser the download is only 7Mb.

Netscape 6.1 = (Mozilla 0.9.3 + branding)

[BroadbandBradley]

Branding = AOL/Netscape inspired bookmarks and messenger.
add the AOL messenger in the sidebar, and a dictionary.
oh, and don't forget the product registration and mynetscape account setup. You can bypass the registration, but the myNetscape portal is a nice addition to the browser if only to backup bookmarks and adress book.

Re:Netscape 6.1 = (Mozilla 0.9.3 + branding)

[BroadbandBradley]

god I love the bleeding edge. thanks for the correction, I knew it was 0.9.something.
regardless, Mozilla, is part of our not so evil plan to take over the WORLD!!!! Down with the evil empire!!!!

Re:No it's not...

[cyberdonny]

> To view the image, click on the link and then add a ? to the end of the URL. (If you're using Mozilla, pressing enter in the location bar is sufficient.)

... and if you use Konqueror, just clicking on the link is enough! D'oh.

Re:Why?

[DrXym]

The spellchecker engine in Mozilla isn't just a list of words. I don't know the details but I expect dictionary contains tables and trees to ensure rapid checking and catching of typo errors.

Sure you could write a checker in Mozilla that you read a big .txt file of 150,000 words but it would be as slow as hell. Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.

Re:Why?

[MrBogus]

At least on Windows, Mozilla knows how to pickup known compatible plug-ins from the Netscape 4.x plugin directory automatically.

On my box works for Flash, QuickTime, Real, and Acrobat -- all registered in Help+About Plug-ins, but not in the Mozilla plugin directory. (And what happens if you don't have NS4 installed? Guess everyone needs to update their plug-in installers.)

Re:Why?

[ncc74656]

I'm stuck in a Win2k lab at the moment and the IE5 here must be different from everyone else's IE5. It crashes CONSTANTLY. It abhors PNGs.

It must be a badly broken install for it to behave like that. I use Win2K Pro SP2 and IE 5.5 at home and at work, and it almost never crashes. Come to think of it, I think IE has never crashed. I've had some weirdness at work lately with VC++ and MSDN (gonna try uninstalling and reinstalling tomorrow), but most of the rest of the time, It Just Works. It certainly doesn't have any problems with webpages (mine uses PNGs for nearly all graphics that aren't JPEGs).

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[MrBogus]

Nope, there was an IE 1.0 -- I saw it distributed with a CD collection of MS PR/white papers. (My boss at the time ran out of his office saying "You gotta see this!" so that we could all gather around and chuckle.)

Re:Why?

[GunFodder]

How come zealots of tools that lack major functionality always turn it into a badge of honor? "Plugins? Those are for luzers! Music and video don't belong on a computer!" Why don't you prove you are a real geek and go back to lynx on a vt100?

Please cite authorship correctly

[Jeremy Erwin]

This is not a MSNBC story. It's a CNET authored story-- the original of which is here. It is inaccurate and short sighted to continue to give credit to a Microsoft owned network, but even more so in this particular case, where a conflict of interest might reasonably be suspected.

Re:Mozilla 0.9.3 = Netscape 6.1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see:

• Microsoft changes licensing terms allowing OEMs to install the software they want to.
• WinXP release date approaching.
• New version of AOL coming out any day now.
• AOL making OEM packaging deals fast and furious.
• AOL doomed if Microsoft can keep using IE to leverage MSN.

It's not rocket science, folks...

Re:spell checker?

[stu42j]

Only the spell check "interface" was released. The actual spell check that Netscape uses is "International ProofReaderTM text proofing software, copyright © 1995 by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V." so it's not Netscape's to release.

See this bug for information on work to get aspell in Mozilla.

Re:Why?

[DrXym]

But Asa, nightly releases are even more buggier than milestones (in general). This means to fix one security flaw you're having to run code which is even more likely to contain bugs.

And I didn't say NS came out with fixes any faster than Mozilla, I just said they provided limited support for a release. That means fixing the security holes and crash bugs without dragging in a new bunch of features with their own set of problems. I know Mozilla has come out with plenty of milestones between 6.0 and 6.1 but that's nothing to do with the point I was making.

Re:Why?

[reaper20]

The mozilla nightly's expire after thirty days. They are nightly builds for a reason.

Re:great features, too late

[iceT]

It also doesn't matter how BAD a technology, as long as you don't take too long to produce it, and don't market it.

Look at everything MS does... including the luke-warm reponse to Win2k...

Re:Why?

[DrXym]

You are wrong about this. Netscape 6.1 has been beaten on internally and by beta testers for the last three months to ensure the top crashing bugs are eliminated. No risky new code has been incorporated as is the case with main trunk development.

The net result of this is that NS 6.1 will be an extremely stable product, much more so than Mozilla in the next few milestones anyway. Having said that Mozilla is reasonably robust itself so its horses for courses.

Re:Why?

[DrXym]

This might work with a raw 0.9.2 build, but probably not 0.9.3 or anything later.

This is because changes to string classes, smart pointers, interfaces and so on mean the spellchecker module won't load correctly at runtime. It will fail because some export or other cannot be found in xpcom.dll or it may crash Mozilla outright.

great features, too late

[fetta]

If Microsoft had ever released IE for Linux, this would be even more of a dead issue.

A valuable lesson here - it doesn't matter how good the technology is if you take too long to produce it and don't market it well. (of course, that same principle could be applied to almost any product.)

Re:great features, too late

[Sabalon]

not likely.

IE was out for HPUX and Solaris years ago - and there is still no Linux version. I don't really see MS making anything for Linux. Partially because it would give some validity to the OS, and partially because it runs on the same hardware as Windows - which means if someone no longer had to boot Windows to view a web page or read a doc, there is one less OS sell.

Re:great features, too late

[antis0c]

IE Already exists for Solaris, in fact I'm running it right now on my Sun Ultra5... Which means Linux is probably around the corner. Whats a better way to compete with Linux than to create products for it? Futher pentrating the market.. Sigh..

Re:great features, too late

[antis0c]

5.5 beta 2 or something.

Re:great features, too late

[Sabalon]

I doubt it would. I know the HPUX version came with it's own versions of the X libraries that it was linked to. Mucho extra memory.

Re:New Theme!

[jesser]

Kent Thuresson, the creator of the 6.0 Orbit theme, has released post-6.0 versions at http://www.ninelineman.com/orbit/. It looks like he had it working in builds as recent as Feb 15, 2001, which was around Mozilla 0.8.

Re:I thought they said they were done with browser

[tialaramex]

That's right. So-called "Web" designers want to make "web pages" for IE 5 running on Windows 98 in 16-bit color at 800x600 or 1024x768. (some of them will begrudge you that last choice) You have IE5.5? You run W2K? You like 1280x1024? Sorry, web designers have no time for non-standard setups, it's all about the Average User. If you're paying any "designers" who think along these lines -- fire them, at best they'll buy you an accessibility lawsuit down the line, at worst your customers will upgrade and just stop using your site.

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[DrXym]

Paul Festa has to be one of the most misinformed, biased reporters I have ever read.

I've seen numerous pieces he's written about Mozilla or Netscape where the facts have been grossly distorted and crucial details have been omitted or the wrong emphasis has been place. And all of this with large amounts of negative spin and sometimes even going as far as to accuse AOL of some major conspiracy or other.

Personally I think he's been slighted by Netscape in the dim and distant past and now he has an axe to grind. Certainly it's not about browsers because I get the distinct impression he would print the same mulch even if Mozilla was by far and away the better browser.

Re:Cool, but...

[Helmholtz]

Over a year ago Mozilla was supposed to be put under a dual GPL/NPL licensing scheme. To date absolutely nothing has been done about it. I'm rather amazed that the KDE people recieved such a thorough lashing over the licensing issues with Qt, while Mozilla has been allowed to scamper along for over a year without as much as a whimper.

I'm often amazed when I hear people talking about Mozilla and it's GPL nature. Mozilla is not GPL at all. If it were, Galeon could include the Gecko rendering engine without having to carry along the whole freaking Mozilla project.

I like Mozilla; I think it's a valiant effort, but if the reason you're chosing to use it is because it's "Free" ... well, I think you might be in for a rude awakening.

Re:Why?

[gengee]

There aren't any real advantages. Netscape has some added-value stuff, but none of it is really that important. The jist of it is that Netscape /is/ Mozilla. It's just a branded version. In the same sense that gtk-licq /is/ licq - with gtk. (There are better examples, but I can't think of any right now).

So average joe-blow might use Netscape because he doesn't like Internet Explorer, and has never heard of any other alternatives besides Netscape. Dell might create a Dell-branded, Mozilla-based browser. And Earthlink might create an Earthlink-branded, Mozilla-based browser.

It just nice to see that a company as visible (Albeit, a lot less than they use to be) as Netscape has released a new (Now worthwhile) browser.

Re:How much deeper does this hole get?

[tempest303]

have you *tried* NS6.1? I've been using it since it was "unofficially" released yesterday morning on NS's FTP, and it's *excellent*.

While I won't contest the fact that 6.0 and 6.01 were complete shit, this latest edition does *not* act like beta code. NS6.1 is a real browser, and a serious IE5 competitor, IMHO.

Give it a shot - the integrated AIM alone will be enough to win some favor with a lot of people...

Re:Windows ported to Unix?

[WNight]

They didn't claim IE wouldn't work without windows, they claimed windows wouldn't work without IE...

I do think integrating an HTML renderer is a good idea. The bad idea is taking over all file extensions, putting the icons on the desktop, intentionally 'fixing' your OS so the competitors products don't work, and everything else MS did.

Re:How much deeper does this hole get?

[sharkey]

And hopefully, in a couple of years, you'll get to setup web devices running a version of Netscape for Gates, Ballmer, Allchin and the others to watch through the bars while your guards surf the 'Net.

Re:sweet god in heaven

[sharkey]

25 megs? What the hell did they put in it? Why can't they just release the damn browser by itself?

8.2 MBs of browser, 6.8 MBs of Java and 10 MBs of a video clip of Steve Case jumping around like a monkey, screaming, "WOO! HOO! WAA! HAA! Look at me, I'm Steve Ballmer! HEE HEE!"

Re:Cool, but...

[asa]

a few corrections.

Sometime less than a year ago mozilla.org announced intentions to (begin) work toward a dual licensing scheme with the _MPL_ (not NPL) and the GPL or LGPL. This is not as easy as flipping a switch and saying "done." It will require contacting the hundreds of developers that have checked in millions of lines of code in thousands of files and getting agreement. More than "absolutely nothing" has been done about it. The list of contributors is being constructed. The research and discussions about the options available (dual with GPL or LGPL or modifications to MPL) is happening. Big projects don't happen overnight.

Where do you hear these "people talking about Mozilla and it's GPL nature"? I hear people talking about it and it's MPL nature. You're right when you say "Mozilla is not GPL at all". It isn't. It's MPL and NPL.

If you don't consider Mozilla free then you have a fundamental disagreement with stallman and the fsf who say the MPL is a free software license (GPL incompatable but free).

http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html#So ft wareLicenses

--Asa

Re:Why?

[Tack]

Well, 6.x is just as slow and bloated as Mozilla, but Netscape 4.7x is much faster than either.

6.1 is better than 6.0 in all respects, especially performance. Mozilla has seen amazing performance increases since the branch NS6 was forked from. It's still got some improvements to go yet, but 6.1 (Mozilla 0.9.x) is actually usable, as opposed to 6.0.

Yes, it's true. Netscape6/Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4 (at least as far as the UI goes). For better or for worse, Mozilla really is a platform, and along with it you get all of the overhead. But not only is that overhead seeing plenty of profiling and optimization, but keep in mind processor speed has at least doubled since the project began. And processor speed continues to increase. So while Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4, there will come a time when the performance difference will be statistical noise, and no one will care. Yes, we all want a competitor to IE that can beat it in performance now, but I like to think of Mozilla as the "browser of the future."

Is there any actual feature advantage to Mozilla/Netscape6.x over Netscape 4.78?

I don't know if you deliver web content or not, but the big thing is that Mozilla/NS6 implements the W3C recommended standards like CSS1/2 and DOM. If you're just a normal user, this may not impress you so much, but believe me, this is very significant. The sooner we can bury Netscape4, the sooner content deliverers can start to develop using CSS, and truly cross-platform web applications can be built using the DOM. In other words, there may not be an immediate advantage (at least, a big advantage from a user's perspective), but the real benefit is in the web's future.

And what is all the fuss over IE?

Maybe I'll get tarred and feathered for this, but IE really is a good browser. It implements quite a bit of CSS and DOM, and, while it does have its braindead idiosynchrasies (like all browsers), developing IE-compatable content doesn't make me pull my hair out like NS4 does.

Cheers,
Jason.

Re:No it's not...

[rjamestaylor]

Mozilla .09.3 is superfast on my Toshiba 2805 Celeron 650 with 192MB. Markedly faster than IE 5.5 or 6 beta. Very nice. Oh, I am using the "preload" feature (so does IE).

Too bad it still doesn't render advanced DOM1 and CSS1/2 stuff correctly. For all the touts abouts standards compliance...where's the beef?

Not too late for Unix users at all!

[Baki]

Most Unix users still use Netscape, since IE simply doesn't exist and the alternatives are either still in development or not free, or simply out of habit without one established de-facto standard alternative.

So for Unix users I don't get why it would be too late. Yes it is late and it would have been nice to have a more decent browser earlier, but that doesn't change the fact that finally there is a browser (NS6 or Mozilla) poised to become the de-facto standard browser for UNIX.

Re:I dove in, and found the pool empty.

[Todd Knarr]

That's odd. I find Mozilla 0.9.3 incredibly stable on my systems. Then again, I use it on Linux and Windows NT, which are both relatively stable base OSes. I have crashes in it on my Win98 system, but then I have crashes in IE5.5 on that system about as often. Which implies that it's the underlying system, not the browser, that's unstable. It's hardly news that Win98's not nearly as stable as NT4, and if you've installed any third-party software on that Win98 box, things get really hairy.

Re:No it's not...

[visualight]

Step one - clear your cache
Step two - load up the biggest waste of bandwidth page you can find in IE. Make a mental note of the time it took to load the page.
Step three - repeat with Mozilla.

Even with my cable modem there's a marked difference. When I load /.'s front page IE takes about two seconds to get from the top banner ad to the bottom of the page. With Mozilla I can't time it. The whole page just pops up.

And besides, I think Mozilla looks real cool with the Aqua theme I downloaded. Only problem I have is that it freezes when I try to download 78,000 headers from alt.binaries.images.

Re:Why release before Mozilla? U_dummy_U

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mozilla is still not production.." You dont seem to realize Mozilla will never be "Production" . It will always be "Developmental" that is the reason it exists; to support the spin off of versions that can be polished into production by any Producers..

check out page properties

[BroadbandBradley]

with a list and display of images, this browser has cool stuff in it.

C|Net has a review of 6.1 up

[caferace]

"...the only compelling reason to switch remains the same: Netscape isn't from Microsoft."

Whatever...

Review: here

Re:Why?

[re-Verse]

Its aimed to the great ignorant masses. It hooks in to netscape.com and all of the portal madness that entails.
Its fluffier than mozilla, and unlike mozilla, it won't expire in 30 days, asking for you to download the newest nightly. Yes, i know, it IS mozilla, but its mozilla with a AOL facelift.

You or i will use mozilla, and will probably get violent if someone tried to force us to use netscape ( i went from 4.x to mozilla about 3 months ago in linux and windows), but there are a lot of simpletons who like a browser they can understand.

BTW did you see the advertisment? "Less confusing! Less buttons!"

I think that sums it up.

Re:Why?

[Verteiron]

Mention "Netscape Navigator" to Joe Internetuser and he might have a clue as to what you're babbling about. "Mozilla", while sporting an infinitely cooler name, doesn't have nearly as much recognition. Your average user might be willing to try Netscape because they at least know the name, but why should they try Mozilla? Most people don't know (or care) about the connection between the two.

For us geek types, Mozilla is the way to go. But it's important that Netscape stick around, making these releases, so that the rabble can remember there ARE alternative to the great AIEEE!!

Just out of curiosity

[Swaffs]

Does anyone know what build of Mozilla this is based on?

Re:fp!

[Anonymous Coward]

A.D. 2001
6.1 was happening

CTO: What happen !!
ADMIN: Somebody set up us the crap.

USER: We get web page.
CTO: What !!
USER: Main browser turn on.

NETSCAPE: How are you gentlemen?
NETSCAPE: All your memory are belong to us.
NETSCAPE: You are on your way to crash.

CTO: What you say !!
NETSCAPE: You have no change to shutdown make your time.
NETSCAPE: Ha ha ha ha ....

USER: CTO !!
CTO: Take off every 'IE6' !!

CTO: You know what you doing.

CTO: Move 'IE6'.

CTO: For great browsing.

Brilliant lead writing...

[wrinkledshirt]

AOL Time Warner released the first final upgrade...

If it's the first one, doesn't that preclude the possibility of it being the final one?

I'm so confused.

MSNBC headline is biased/inaccurate

[John Harrison]

AOL releases new Netscape beta
Final upgrade to buggy version 6

The release isn't a beta. The article itself mentions that the beta came out in June. Strange that MSNBC would miss a tiny detail like that. :)

Re:Why?

[NonSequor]

I'm stuck in a Win2k lab at the moment and the IE5 here must be different from everyone else's IE5. It crashes CONSTANTLY. It abhors PNGs. For quite some time it wouldn't let me post to Slashdot for no apparent reason (now its letting me). Mozilla is my normal browser and its much better than what I've seen here. I assume that IE5.5 and IE6 must be much better.

Why?

[Swaffs]

Why would anyone use Netscape when there's Mozilla? What advantages are there?

Re:Why?

[ronny_magic]

A dictionary for one.

Re:Why?

[Karn]

Netscape comes with plugins, Mozilla doesn't. Big deal for a slashdotter? No. For your average user? Yes.

Re:Why?

[abdulwahid]

The only advantage I can think of is when you tell someone what browser you are using they don't say, "Huh, never heard of it!"

Re:Why?

[BeanThere]

With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone

Or just grab one of the nightly builds from the ftp server or from a mirror.

I haven't tried this myself though, so forgive me if its not quite as simple as that.

Re:Why?

[asa]

* Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.

correction, with Mozilla you must wait for the next _nightly_ release. You don't have to wait for a milestone. About avery 12 hours a new build for mac, win32 and linux is made off of the tip of the development trunk. To suggest that updates from Netscape come any faster than updates to Mozilla is plain silly. Even if you were just talking about Milestones, we had about 7 of those between Netscape 6 and 6.1

-Asa

Re:Why?

[ZxCv]

Netscape 3 was so fast because it ignored half of the HTML on the page.
</sarcasm>

The main advantage I'd give to Moz 0.9.3 is that it finally seems faster to me than 4.7. I think it still takes a few more seconds to startup, but once started, it is just as fast if not faster than 4.7. Beyond that, it actually renders correctly and (mostly) according to standards. Try bestowing that distinction upon 4.x.

And if you think IE still sucks as bad as it used to (pre-3.0 days), I certainly wonder what you're actually trying it out on. I've used IE extensively for the past couple years and I can't stop laughing at your assumption that it is still as bad. IMHO, IE 5 is the fastest, most feature complete browser available for any operating system. Maybe one day I'll be able to say this about Mozilla instead (and I hope I do!), but I certainly know that I won't ever say that about Netscape 4.x.

Re:Why?

[shepd]

>Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.

This was done before Linux even existed (I believe I read about ispell in a book that was printed before the Linux "revolution").

Newer stuff like aspell and pspell would be well suited to Mozilla. It should be in there, and I'd help do it, but my skillset is currently limited to simple TurboC, Assembly, Turing, and Visual Basic (and another language I won't speak of). :-/

Re:Why?

[shepd]

>How come zealots of tools that lack major functionality always turn it into a badge of honor?

Because the plugins are separate.

Remember the Unix code of coding: Do One Thing, And Do It Well.

A web browser should browse the web, nothing more. A plugin should plugin to the web browser to add enhancements.

Just like you could (in some strange fashion) consider grep a plugin to find when used like this:

find . -iname blah.txt -exec grep -i hello {} \;

That doesn't mean grep should be embedded in find. Infact, if it was, you yourself would likely cry out in horror (or so we would hope).

Re:Why?

[DennyK]

1) Mozilla's user agent string is easily changed in user.js:

user_pref("general.useragent.override","(insert user agent string here...)");

2) I have never had any problems with the plugins I use. If a plugin doesn't "recognize" Moz, keep an install of Netscape 4 around and copy the plugin files from Communicator/Program/plugins to Mozilla's plugin directory. Works like a charm for QuickTime at least, and I haven't found any other plugins I have a use for yet... ;)

DennyK

Re:Why?

[The Dev]

"keep in mind processor speed has at least doubled since the project began"

True, but Aack! I hate it when developers think
this way. More features are good but there is no way they can justify the performance difference we see today. I'm sure Mozilla will get faster as focus shifts from features to performance.

The other side is what if I want a browser for my Sun3? That is one of the benifits I was hoping for with an open source browser. Maybe Netscape will someday (now!) release the source code for 3.02 so we can port it to older machines that need
(want) a usable browser. I'm sure we could hack in the necessary standards upgrades to it and still have a browser that runs on slow hardware.
Just think, it would also run that much faster on modern hardware too!

Re:Why?

[Paladin128]

Yes, it's true. Netscape6/Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4 (at least as far as the UI goes). For better or for worse, Mozilla really is a platform, and along with it you get all of the overhead. But not only is that overhead seeing plenty of profiling and optimization, but keep in mind processor speed has at least doubled since the project began. And processor speed continues to increase. So while Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4, there will come a time when the performance difference will be statistical noise, and no one will care. Yes, we all want a competitor to IE that can beat it in performance now, but I like to think of Mozilla as the "browser of the future."

Although what you say about CPU's getting faster all the time at a seemingly exponential rate, the same cannot be said for other technologies, such as hard drives. Yeah, my current 7500 RPM IBM 75GXP is probably twice as fast as the 4000 RPM Western Digital Caviar drive in my old system, but my 1.2ghz Athlon is MUCH more than twice as fast as the 90mhz Pentium that was in the same machine. With Mozilla/NS6, things take forever to load, and swap constantly. My paltry 256MB of RAM is evidently not enough if I'm running Mozilla/NS6. That's why under Win32 I use IE, and under Linux I use Konqueror. Neither is perfect, but I run a lot of apps simultaneously, and don't want one app bogging everything down.

Re:Why?

[jovlinger]

absolutely.

M$ almost never gets it right, the first, second, or even third time (it is widely acknowledged even among their most ardent fans, that Windows -- their flagship -- was only usable in its FOURTH incarnation: WfWG).

But they always get it right in the end.

Word is almost half as good as emacs (well, it's not perfect, while emacs only lacks multithreading and per-buffer pixmap backgrounds), which puts it far ahead of everything else out there. (after all, what is a post without a bit of polemic?)

Explorer is no longer Exploder.
Excel and Access are no longer Edsel and Absess.
And One Day, they will even get IIS and Exchange right.

The main difference from other players being that they can afford to get it wrong for a Long Time, both in money and mindshare. By making sure that ever version is better than the last, and making a big marketing hoopla about that, they're all set.

In a way, it suprises me that they haven't spun off their brand management division. These guys are Fscking geniuses.

ramble

rambe

Re:Why?

[shepd]

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.

PROGRAM-ID. SLASHDOT-COMMENT.
AUTHOR. SHEPD.
INSTALLATION. UNIVAC.
DATE-WRITTEN. THE-EPOCH.
DATE-COMPILED. NEVER DID GET IT TO DO THAT.
SECURITY. NONE.

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.

DATA DIVISION.

FILE SECTION.

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

01 PLEASE-GOD-NO.
05 THEY-MADE-ME-DO-IT PIC X(3) VALUE "TRUE"
05 OUTPUT-STUFF PIC X(100000) VALUE SPACES.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.

LET-ME-OUT-PROCEDURE.
IF THIS-LANGUAGE-SUCKS IS GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO TRUE THEN
MOVE "COBOL" TO OUTPUT-STUFF
WRITE OUTPUT-STUFF AFTER ADVANCING 3 LINES
ELSE
MOVE "NOT COBOL" TO OUTPUT-STUFF
WRITE OUTPUT-STUFF AFTER ADVANCING 3 LINES
END IF.
END-LET-ME-OUT-PROCEDURE.

MOVE SPACES TO OUTPUT-STUFF
WRITE OUTPUT-STUFF AFTER ADVANCING 1 PAGE
STOP RUN.

Does that explain it? My College thought that Cobol would be a good skill to have when we graduate in 2002 so they figured they would make it a mandatory credit.

Instead I think it brain my damaged.

*** SNIP HERE ***

Slashdot Fun CounterMeasure-CounterMeasure:

Important Stuff:

Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

Re:Misc Icons

[nomadic]

I've been using Opera for the past few days, and it seems pretty good. More stable than either IE or NS on W98, and it seems to support just about everything I've run into.

Cool, but...

[Carlos Laviola]

Well, alright, Netscape 6.1 has been released. Isn't it much more worthy to keep tracking Mozilla's nightly builds though? I'd rather use it, since Netscape is based on it, and it's code is open, after all.

Freudian slip?

[sheetsda]

25MByte junk of code

Doesn't he mean "chunk" of code? Little Freudian slip there? :)

Re:Freudian slip?

[BZ]

Actually, 6.1 is based on 0.9.2. After some stabilization and major crash fixes, of course. :)

Re:Freudian slip?

[sheetsda]

Thank you. If you like that one you might get a kick out of a couple other ones some other people found.

Re:sweet god in heaven

[Tumbleweed]

25 Megs _is_ rather amazing, especially considering the Mozilla release it's based on (v0.9.2) is only 8.32Meg in size (for the Windows version).

Weird.

I'll be sticking with Mozilla v0.9.3 for now, thanks, though I _do_ wish they'd speed up the bookmarks manager by at _least_ an order of magnitude (at _least_!). Definite bookmark weirdness in v0.9.3 for me (on Windows).

Re:Damn icons

[DrXym]

Netscape 6.1 has hardly any AOL specific extensions. There are a few dotted around such as Print Plus, Shop, My Netscape and in the default bookmark list of course but nothing like in 6.0 when they were hardcoded into the bottom bar. Most of them such as the Shop & My Netscape button can be removed from the UI via prefs.

Using 6.1 is actually quite a pleasant experience.

Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[tswinzig]

No "editorial bias" here

Note that the article was written by Paul Festa of CNET News.com. As soon as I read that article yesterday on CNET (about the upcoming release, with the same wording), I sent him a letter and CC'd Jai Singh (Editor-in-Chief) about it.

Paul Festa has been, throughout the browser wars, firmly on the side of Microsoft. At least, that's the opinion you tend to get after reading his articles.

He also has no memory of history. Here is an excerpt from my letter to him:

Paul writes, "Whether Netscape 6.1 can rally the Netscape faithful remains to be seen. While Netscape 6 encountered first delays and then scathing reviews, Microsoft assembled an overwhelming lead in the browser market."

You know Paul, that sounds strangely familiar. Those that forget history are "doomed" to repeat it. To add a little integrity to your article, you might also point out that the same was true in reverse when Microsoft started out with MSIE: Their first versions received scathing reviews (was usually LAUGHED at), while Netscape
assembled an overwhelming lead in the browser market.

Let CNET know you don't like his biased reporting by emailing their editors.

And just so you don't think I'm some crazy, "Netscape loyalist," I actually use MSIE throughout the day and like it.

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[DrXym]

I've seen plenty of negative reviews of Mozilla and I may not have liked the conclusions I couldn't fault the reporting. If a reviewer doesn't Moz for one reason or another they should say why constructively instead of blanketing it in negative spin.

Mr Festa is certainly not constructive. He takes the known facts, trawls netscape.public.mozilla.general for some inflammatory remarks and sensationalises them into a highly negative article. There is nothing constructive or reasoned about it, it's a hatchet job pure and simple. I have seen it happen time and again which makes me think he doesn't just have opinions, he has an agenda.

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[Jeffrey Baker]

AFAIK IE 2.0 was the first release. It didn't even support tables.

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[tswinzig]

Actually with all the "Netscape sucks" and "Mozilla sucks" every time they are brought up in a non confrontational context with IE (Such as when a new release is announced). You could say that /. is firmly on the side of Microsoft as well.

Considering that slashdot is not a single person, but many different people, in many different roles, I don't think treating it as a single entity is fair.

Why is it that MSNBC is biased when they say that Netscape 6.0 was buggy

MSNBC didn't say this, at least in this article. They posted a CNET article. Probably because they didn't want to appear biased. Strange that they chose a 3rd party review that is so negative towards Netscape, though, eh?

but when everyone on /. (and almost everywhere else on the net) says the same thing they're not?

Slashdot, again, is not a single entity. What's more, even if it were, it is not paid or presumed to be an unbiased source of journalistic integrity. CNET, and yes MSNBC, *are* supposed to be those kinds of sources.

That just shows that comments like the one above are the biased ones...

How exactly was I biased? I read yet another Paul Festa article on how much Netscape sucks, one-sided as usual, leaving out how much better Mozilla is than Netscape, etc. I write Paul Festa and the editors of CNET to complain about this so-called journalism. I see someone on slashdot agrees, and I point out that they should let CNET know how they feel.

You're right -- I guess I'm biased against crappy journalism.

Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC

[tswinzig]

The early version of IE were laughable, but laughable IE is not what allowed Netscape to assemble an overwhelming lead.

Correct. Netscape already had an overwhelming lead. IE's laughability was what allowed Netscape to keep that lead for a long, long time, and make it even stronger.

It is easy to lead when there are no real competitors.

Ahhh, I see you've taken a good lesson from Microsoft's camp. However, Netscape led well after Microsoft released their browser in 1995. Things didn't start getting interesting until well into the 3.x's, and Microsoft didn't match Netscape very well until 4.x. At that point, they took the gloves off, shoved MSIE into every single Microsoft application sold, forced admins to install it at every turn, and embedded it into all their new versions of operating systems.

The race didn't start until the release of IE 2.0 in 1995.

Much like Paul Festa, your remembrance of the history of the browsers is very sketchy...

How much deeper does this hole get?

[shr3k]

The more Netscape keeps releasing beta code, the more users it's alienating. I know it's tough not having the latest and greatest 5.x (err 6.x) browser to market, but come on. By the time we get to 6.2 (i.e. Mozilla 1.0 stable), there will be five Netscape users left.

Re:How much deeper does this hole get?

[cetan]

NS 6.1 is based on Mozilla build 0.9.2 which is pretty darn good. Prior to 0.9.3 coming out, 0.9.2 was my browser of choice for home.

though you may think a x.0 to x.1 step is small, in terms of the mozilla code, it's a huge step.

Netscape is just branded-Mozilla and it's looking pretty good. If it actually makes a dent in the browser "market" remains to be seen.

Re:How much deeper does this hole get?

[TheFrood]

The more Netscape keeps releasing beta code, the more users it's alienating. I know it's tough not having the latest and greatest 5.x (err 6.x) browser to market, but come on. By the time we get to 6.2 (i.e. Mozilla 1.0 stable), there will be five Netscape users left.

Basing 6.0 on Mozilla 0.6 (or whatever it was) was an incredibly stupid idea. But building 6.1 now off the Moz-0.9.2 source is the right thing to do. First, because Moz-0.9.2 is actually very stable -- the Mozilla folks are setting very high standards for Moz-1.0, and Moz-0.9.2 is already better then Netscape 4.x. Second, and more importantly, releasing 6.1 now gets 6.0 off the market and out of sight as soon as possible.

Even if 6.1 isn't a perfect browser yet, it at least gets rid of the abomination that is 6.0.

TheFrood

Re:Misc Icons

[SylvesterTheCat]

I cannot say about the 'OS invasive' part, but I have been using Opera 5.x (both win32 & linux) and I like it a lot...

The free version has a small ad-window, but it isn't too annoying.

Size? If you do not have jde installed, you have to get the larger version (~10M, IIRC), after that updates are small (~2.5M).

Ugh... Netcenter

[PingXao]

I mistakenly signed up for NetCenter years ago. Never thought too much about it until AOL bought them out. At that point, I wanted OUT by the most direct route possible. Heh.

Every month they sent me stuff I didn't want. Mostly drivel, but hardly unsolicited - I mean, I did sign up for it, right? Opt-out time. Yeah, right. I basically sent them 4 or 5 emails a week asking to be taken off their "membership" list. They ignored each and every one. Not to mention that the "Unsubscribe" link on the NutCenter page absolutely never worked, either. I resorted to flaming away at them. I cursed them out and called them every filthy name in the book. I harvested emai addresses from their site and cc'ed every name I had. Multiple times a week!

No response. Then after a couple of "warnings" that my account had expired, it all finally ceased. And that, my friends, is about the closest I ever want to be to *anything* even remotely connected to AOL.

Why people use Netscape instead of IE or Mozilla

[Guppy06]

First off, let me just say that while "Netscape loyalists" may not be all that much of a misnomer, "computer geeks" aren't the only bunch of people still using Netscape. A big group of people who still use it are those who aren't all that computer literate and wish to continue using Netscape because it's what they started with and what they know. The same reasons why my mother still uses Eudora Lite (or whatever they're calling themselves now) since WFW 3.11 instead of Outlook Express. There are also a lot of corporations that use this kind of mentality when deciding on software. "Netscape still works for us, why bother changing software?"

As for the "Why Netscape instead of Mozilla?" group, there are advantages to using a mildly invasive, "shrink-wrapped" piece of software. The fact that it's official Netscape means that customers have a single and (usually) definative source of help and information in the form of Netscape themselves. While Mozilla has Bugzilla and on-line forums, that's not all that appealing to those who view themselves more as "casual computer users" than "participants in the community." And again, this is something the corporate types prefer.

So before you jump down Netscape's throat for releasing this, remember that not everybody is a Free software junkie. Personally, I wish they released this update sooner, and I think it will be interesting to see how Mozilla vs. Netscape works out. This could be the definative closed-source vs. open-source competition, with about as even a playing field between the two as you're going to get.

Re:sweet god in heaven

[Jeffrey Baker]

It comes with some plugins, Java, and a dictionary.

spell checker?

[ehackathorn]

Anybody know if they re-released their spell checker so I can use mozilla again for email?

Re:Choice is bad?

[DrXym]

I said choice was good not bad if you care to read the last paragraph.

Basically Mozilla is for people who don't mind trading off stability for cutting edge features. If a security flaw is found the choices you have are those I mentioned. Yes, you could download a nightly but that would be even more buggier than using a milestone.

No it isn't

[Chuck Chunder]

Netscape 6.1 = (Mozilla 0.9.2 + further tweaking + branding)
Netscape 6.1 comes from the Mozilla 0.9.2 branch, not the 0.9.3 branch.

Re:Why people use Netscape instead of IE or Mozill

[scrytch]

> support for roaming profiles

IE bundled this into windows logins. Different user, different bookmarks, different settings. Not terribly "roaming" unless you have an NT server to to do a domain login on, not the most reliable thing at 28.8 on the road...

> excellent support for large and complex collections of bookmarks

Funny thing that, I use the filesystem to manage my bookmarks, using explorer, which lets me move things around with a more familiar interface than netscape. I can import bookmarks over a remote share or from email with drag-and-drop. Managing my bookmarks doesn't require a modal dialog.

> slick javascript programmable "personal toolbar" buttons which can be very handy for instant searches and lookups of any term on any page

Bookmarklets (as such javascript bookmarks are nicknamed) are also available on IE. In fact there's more of them for IE. And a personal toolbar does exist, in fact it's pretty much the way I manage bookmarks 99% of the time.

> a very capable mail client written by people that bothered to read the MIME and MHTML RFCs before writing code

IE lets me choose my mail client -- I prefer Eudora. In fact, IE for solaris (which manages to be slower, bloatier and crashier than netscape) lets me use dtmail and mutt.

> and an open mailbox format that interoperates with literally thousands of mailbox manipulation power tools.

Whereas windows has MAPI, a standard API for accessing and manipulating mailboxes. Power tools able to understand this API include Perl and Python. It's a windows philosophy -- where unix has file formats, windows has interfaces.

Re:Misc Icons - Opera

[ncc74656]

The feature I liked most about using Opera (when I used windows a few years back) was the ability to have multiple pages opened inside of the main application window.

Ick...I tried Opera a little while back, and while most of it was pretty good from what I could see, that misfeature was a showstopper for me. MDI sux. With all your browser windows in one parent window, you can't easily mix browser windows with other apps' windows, as the parent window is often maximized. Click in one of them and they'll all block other apps' windows. IIRC, you also couldn't start multiple instances of Opera to simulate SDI. Windows apps have been migrating from MDI to SDI for some time now...IE, Nutscrape, and Mozilla are examples of SDI apps (well, IE is anyway...can't speak for Nutscrape or Mozilla, but they behave like SDI apps). I don't know if other versions of Opera behave the same way...haven't tried the Mac version as they didn't have a 5.x for 68K Macs last time I checked, and my Linux box is a server with a TTL mono display (tried X11 and KDE on it once for sh*ts and grins...it worked, but I wouldn't want to use it that way on a daily basis).

If you want multiple webpages in one window, make yourself some frameset HTML and load a different page into each frame. If you always want the same set of pages to load, this will work. Since you mentioned that you use it for searching, the Google toolbar has some nice features that speed up searching (you can set it to spawn a new window for each click, for instance).

Spelling error?

[Basset]

I am sure max2010 meant to say "hunk of code" not "junk of code". Right? The 'j' and the 'h' are right next to each other on the keyboard.

Netscape was once the darling of open source, how times have changed.

Re:No it's not...

[11223]

Actually, it worked just fine for me, so I think the parent is pulling your leg. (Moz 0.9.3+ Slowaris 2.6)

AOL/Netscape had to release v6.1

[abischof]

In a way, AOL/Netscape had to release v6.1 Right Now (TM), since IE 6 is going to be released next Wednesday This isn't to say that I don't like Netscape, though -- I download the Mozilla daily builds every day..

New Theme!

[TheFrood]

Netscape has released a new Toy Factory theme for Netscape 6.1. Big bright buttons!

TheFrood

Re:New Theme!

[Pope]

I wanna know what the heck happened to "Orbit" from the 6.0 preview. That one was cool...

Congratulations on displaying a lack of clue

[Chuck Chunder]

about the meaning of the words "Open Source". I regularly use the source which is available to me in an Open manner to compile my own Mozilla. I regularly compile Galeon against that.

The majority of the core coders may be Netscape employees but that doesn't change the nature of the source. The "Hanger-ons" as you so politely put it should also not be discounted. Among them are some very good people (and some average people, like myself, who occasionally help out by creating test cases or other mundane tasks which may divert core developers from using their time more effectively) who make very real contributions to Mozilla.

Re:Congratulations on displaying a lack of clue

[KidSock]

about the meaning of the words "Open Source".

Answer me two questions.

1) How did Netscape benifit from Open-Sourcing their code?

2) How did the Open-Source community benifit from the Open-Sourcing of Netscape?

[Note: Before you mention Galeon, remember that it was born in response to the poor performace of earlier Mozilla builds.]

I think carrying the burdon of the Open-Source initiative was why the development processed has dragged on as it has. Do you remember the first couple of builds? Is it possible that they would have made more progress without this burdon?

Don't get me wrong (again), I am quite pro-Open-Source and manage two 100+ dl/month OSS codebases myself. I'm simply stating the fact that in the case of Netscape, it turned out to be a poor example of why companies should Open-Source and share their code. Companies should share this code in the name of progress but they should be more sophisticated about how.

Ability to read AOL email

[ayden]

This, one key feature, points to something I haven't seen mentioned, yet.

It looks like this is a migration tool to move AOL users from an IE based AOL client to one based on Netscape (Mozilla) code. Is Netscape's ability to read AOL email confirmation of something only suspected prior to this release?

Re:What's new in version 6.1

[cetan]

Strange indeed.

http://www.mozillazine.org/

indicates it's off of the 0.9.2 branch and that's what the mozilla site said at one point.

Looks like conflicting info.

I thought they said they were done with browsers?

[Mustang Matt]

Didn't they have a press release about two months ago that said they weren't going to release any more browsers?

Web developers rejoiced across the world on that day.

Re:Netscrape

[Glytch]

Try Opera. You won't regret it. Runs beautifully, and doesn't cause the entire OS to crash on the (extremely rare, btw) occasions that it crashes.

Good, hopefully R.I.P. Netscape 4 really soon

[brocktune]

I write web-based intranet applications. The sooner Nutscrape 4 dies, the better. Its proprietary DOM and weak CSS support cause me to write and test all my stuff twice. I had high hopes for Netscape 6.0, but its performance on Windows is abysmal. If Netscape 6.1 performance is close to the latest Mozilla, it will be a lot easier to convince people to dump NS4. None of the IS departments of our customers would ever allow Mozilla or Opera. For the few brave souls willing to venture away from IE, it's Netscape or nothing. A robust mainstream browser on Windows other than IE goes a long way towards keeping browsers standards-compliant. Yes, I realize Gecko is the same on NS and Mozilla, but try telling that to Fortune 100 companies. I'm looking forward to the day when I can write DHTML for one browser and it works everywhere.

Re:Netscrape

[Mike Van Pelt]

I tried Opera.

I hated it.

I spent a while with it, trying to give its "all browsing is sub-windows inside the one "Web Browser" window" model a fair shake. It was no use. I just plain detest that way of doing web browsing. I want separate windows for each web page. YMMV

Other than that, it seemed nice, pretty stable, and I really liked the ability to scale the magnification on web pages. That's a feature I really want to see in a "separate windows" type browser.

Is Netscape 6.1 worth my time? The previous version most emphatically was not. I basically stick with Netscape 4.7x by default, even though it's a buggy piece of crap, because Explorer, of course, is Evil.

Re:sweet god in heaven

[Tumbleweed]

Well, plug-ins are certainly useful, and a dictionary is nice. Client-side Java, however, is hardly worth it's weight in bits, and definitely isn't worth the download time.

Also, I'm still amazed at how bad the bookmark-handling is in Mozilla considering how great most everything else is in it. Very strange. Do the developers not use bookmarks? It's still _way_ behind Navigator in bookmark handling, both in functionality of bookmark UI issues, and in speed.

Mozilla question

[child_of_mercy]

well the only reason i don't use moz for everything is that there's alot of java stuff on web-pages i can't read in the default settings.

anyone know how to turn that on?

i've actually got a java runtime environment on and configurerd on this machine.

Re:Mozilla question

[oseng]

On my RH7.1 Linux machine, I downloaded and untarred the java-2 sdk from Sun (java.sun.com), then I just put a soft-link in the /opt/mozilla/plugins directory to point to the libjavaplugin_oji.so file located in the 'jre1.3.1/plugin/i386/ns600' directory. When I start mozilla, it sees the plugin in the directory

Re:No it's not...

[garcia]

Netscape 6.1 is slow as hell for me right now. 128mb and a dual 400. At least this version will actually run. 6.0 wouldn't get past the download...

I don't like any of the Mozilla builds, they crash constantly and don't work that well. This has been all right so far, but I expect the same problems I always see.

Probably going to be stuck w/4.77 for the rest of eternity.

Congratulations CNET

[icqqm]

An entire article on Netscape 6.1, including references to bugfixing and other elements related to its creation, and the word "Mozilla" doesn't appear ANYWHERE in the article.

BTW: Most of the past nine months' work has been fixing bugs and improving performance and stability, according to sources close to Netscape.

Is it just me, or can any idiot just look at MozillaZine and figure this out for himself?

Re:there's actually a few useful features

[jovlinger]

dictionary?!

when did you last use a dictionary for anything other than an authored document, as opposed to an email or news posting?

Speaking of news, how is it for that? Is NS 6.1 better than the crap 4.7? I swear that thing has an O(N^2) algorithm for loading group overviews. Anthing over 1000 msgs, and you're out to lunch before its done. *mp3 has 60000 msgs these days..

Re:Misc Icons - Opera

[jovlinger]

Multiple Document Interface.

I HATE that. I want the speed and simplicity of Opera, but I just can't use those MDI programs.

Even MS-Word, for which I think microsoft invented/developed the whole MDI thing, has given up on that.

I mean, let the window manager take care of windows. Mind you, I love emacs's buffers, but that's different...

Netscape 6.1, a few thoughts

[shaji]

I just have a few comments regarding netscape 6.1/mozilla.

Standard compliance : Netscape is the most standard complaint browser out there, even the internet explorer 6.0 beta fails to render pages correcly. For example just go to W3 CSS page and compare the pages rendered my mozilla/ns and ie. Note the position of the toolbar as you scroll down the page in both browsers. Also you can choose alternate stylesheets on that site using View->Use Stylesheet

Speed : Performance is comparable to that of IE now.. If you want faster than IE browsers use Galeon or skipstone which are based on mozilla

UI issues : Unfortunately mozilla/ns does not support some features which used to work in NS4.x. Dynamic Font issues bugs 52746 Ugly list items ON LINUX 91816

This guy is completely unbiased!

[e_n_d_o]

What's wrong with you paranoid slashdotters, why can't you see that this article reads the exact same way as THIS ONE? :-)

Who truly needs a dictionary...

[Pollux]

...when we send and receive e-mails like this daily:

duuuuudes!

i's got net61 its 31337 way sweeeeeeeeeeeet

emails cool n i lik its grphx

ttfn l8r

It's emails like that that make Webster turn in his grave.

A Grand Experiment indeed

[Chuck Chunder]

The Open Sourcing of Netscape has been a grand experiment, certainly not without it's hiccups.

Your Question 1 is a very difficult one to answer as it demands some supposition as to what would have occurred had they not opened the source. Possibly the dumping of the "Mozilla Classic" codebase was forced somewhat by Open Sourcing. While this has had both negative and positive aspects, ultimatly I think it was a positive thing. We may have had a browser sooner otherwise, but I don't think it'd be a good idea in the long term

Question 2 is much easier to answer. Code. Forgetting the Browser product itself, Mozilla.org has made available Bugzilla and Bonsai. Components such as Network Security Services (which is being leveraged in Ximians Evolution I believe).

As a grand experiment even Mozillas 'mistakes' are valuable as they can be learnt from.