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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.
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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.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
- 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.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!
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
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.
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.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
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?
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.
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.)
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
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.
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!"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.
Step one - clear your cache
/.'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.
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
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.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Whatever...
Review: here
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!!
End of lesson. You may press the button.
If it's the first one, doesn't that preclude the possibility of it being the final one?
I'm so confused.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
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. :)
Lasers Controlled Games!
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.
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.
A dictionary for one.
Doesn't he mean "chunk" of code? Little Freudian slip there? :)
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).
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:
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.
"And like that
Netscape comes with plugins, Mozilla doesn't. Big deal for a slashdotter? No. For your average user? Yes.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
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.
It comes with some plugins, Java, and a dictionary.
* 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
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.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
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.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
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..
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
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
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
>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).
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
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
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.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
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.
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.
I have a different opinion.
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?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
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
...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.
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.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park