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Netscape 7.2 Released
scottfi writes "America Online has just released Netscape 7.2. Based on Mozilla 1.7, this latest version features better popup blocking, vCard support, an improved junk mail algorithm, better standards support, performance enhancements and several hundred other bug fixes. It also includes patches for recent security vulnerabilities. It is a little over a year since AOL shut down the Netscape browser division, laid off or reassigned the remaining engineers and withdrew from the day to day running of mozilla.org. At the time, they said that new versions of Netscape were unlikely. Earlier this year, they changed their minds and announced Netscape 7.2. More details about Netscape 7.2 are available at Netscape Browser Central, together with download links."
This is probably the last, dying gasp from the browser & brand that really did change the world.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
With the success of the Mozilla project, I fail to see why anyone would bother running Netscape anymore....
Don't Tread on Me
If AOL laid off all the Netscape engineers, then who made this release?
Releasing new versions from beyond the grave!
this latest version features better popup blocking, vCard support, an improved junk mail algorithm, better standards support, performance enhancements and several hundred other bug fixes.
But alas, all of the other AOL "bonuses" counteracted the new features.
I jumped the gun when I saw the article display. It installed quickly, renders pages quickly, but - just like Mozilla or Firefox - runs into all the same problems for sites designed with IE in mind (missing menu bars, etc)
However, it's VERY lightweight (11.5MB installer for Windows), and the memory footprint is about 35% smaller than IE for the same page.
Nice.
Aside from being a propreitary product, what does netscape bring to the table that Mozilla does not?
I say, jones, this article sounds kind of familiar...
This is good. There is still a lot of brand recognition left with Netscape (suprisingly). Sometimes people feel happier using a newer version of a product they know (Netscape), as opposed to a product they _think_ they don't know (Mozilla / Firefox).
The release of Netscape helps in moving these people to a decent, secure browser. I think that Netscape no longer justifies the Nutscrape moniker it aquired in the later 4.x days.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
While Netscape is in my heart (well prior to AOL corrupting my teenage fav program) unfortunately netscape 4.7 was the last decent netscape. IE was so integrated that it flew past netscape :(
But in all honesty -why would I use netscape over firefox? Is there an advantage?
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
If a tree falls in the forest, and there's nobody around to hear it...
If a browser is available for download, and nobody downloads it, it is really released?
Netscape family is like the Griffeys of baseball, the offspring is infinitely better then the parent.
Probably some of the smartest and most capable engineers and designers in the industry, who produced probably the most famous and symbolic product of the early Internet, and all that's left is a web page of farewell messages.
It isn't hard to notice the first priority was that everyone should be fired. THEN and ONLY then was the next version of the browser considered, after all the logos were taken off the buildings and the desks moved out, of course.
I find it very interesting how the early Internet is always referred to as "dot com", as if business and the media are straining to make it a pejorative. All that creativity and CAPITALISM generated great wealth for dozens of economies. Ebay, Amazon, etc. are all publically traded, profitable companies that wouldn't exist without the Internet.
But it seems that now since the checks have all been cashed, there's no room left for the people who built it, and that's a shame.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I'm still using Firebird, because I've been too preoccupied to keep up. Wasn't there some issue with one of the names conflicting with the database system? Is it Phoenix, or has that been confused a BIOS of the same name and they're moving on to another?
Here's a thought! They just found a a previously undiscovered bird species in the Philippines, they could name it after that and beat every other software product!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Finally, a browser that can defeat reigning champs NCSA Mosaic, Arena, and Cello! *Anything* that breaks their monopoly-like dominance of the Web browser market will be welcomed!
...features better popup blocking
How'd they do that? My Mozilla 1.7 blocks 100% of pop-ups. You can't get much better than that.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
However, it's VERY lightweight (11.5MB installer for Windows)
I just grabbed the full version (what NS calls the 'offline installer'):
The Win32 installation .exe weighs in at ~24MB
The Linux/686 installation tar.gz is ~16MB.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Most of the people who built Netscape, who were there from the old Mosaic days, left a long time ago, and many of them are fabulously wealthy. Neither Marc Andreessen nor Jim Clarke particularly need to work in the future to support themselves, and jwz took his money and is doing a semi-business/semi-hobby sort of thing by running the DNA Lounge nightclub in San Francisco (just to pick three examples).
And even to the people there at the end, AOL was quite helpful. First of all, they vastly overpaid for Netscape, since they were sold it on the basis partly that they could use it as an embedded browser for he AOL client, while technically Mozilla was always too bloated and un-modular to do that well (maybe just now it's starting to get to the point where that'd be possible, but it wasn't when they bought it, or even a year or two after they bought it). Once they realized it wasn't much use to them, they didn't even just say "well, fuck you guys": they transitioned it to a new Mozilla.org foundation, and became the single largest donor (by far) to that non-profit foundation, giving them all the equipment they had previously been using (webservers, test build machines, file servers, etc.) and $2m cash.
All in all I don't think AOL are really the evil ones here. You don't see any other major companies donating $2m cash to mozilla.org.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Mosaic 9.0 has been released. The browser that really changed the world. Thank you Mr. Andreason.
... With netscape. This browser is either a lot faster then IE or it just gives you that feeling. I'm very pleased so far.
One would hope the latter...
There is at least one nasty bug that got fixed between 1.7 and 1.7.2.
-- This
I listen to Neal Boortz. Before you start booing, let me finish. He recently had a problem with his computer and spyware bringing it to it's knees.
He actually said that computer nerds can hold their calls with advice and "told-you-sos", he bought the computer into the shop where he purchased it (and hawks continuously on the air).
A couple of days later he was back on the air talking about what a great job they did cleaning off all the junk - and installing Firefox to keep it from happening again. He went on to talk about how great Firefox was, and that it was free, and why would anyone want to keep using IE, etc., etc.
AFAIR, he even included a link on his web pages to the Mozilla site.
Pretty good publicity from a famous talk show host, even if you don't like him...
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So I find sites all the time that still do not work with Mozilla. Usually I go somewhere else. I haven't really encountered one where I had to switch to IE. In fact, the HDD on my Windows box crashed, and even though it's been replaced I've just been using my Linux box exclusively (and enjoying it greatly).
So here's the problem: I work for AOL/TW, and in order to access our paystubs (which they no longer send to us in paper form), we need to access an internal website. It doesn't work with Mozilla.
So I complained (email to site admin).
I got the generic response that the site only works with IE. So I wrote back asking why the browser WE release doesn't work on OUR own internal site... (sound of crickets... took two days for the first reponse, been waiting over a week for a second one).
It's not the first internal site that doesn't work with Mozilla, but it's the most frustrating... I've found work arounds for the ones I care about, except the one I mentioned above.
So why, after all the posturing about Netscape and Mozilla, after all the testifying we did against MS during the antitrust hearings, after realizing we are in direct competition with MS in many areas, WHY WHY WHY did we make the IE deal with them?
What's funny (or sad, depending on how you look at it), while people in my company are entitled to FREE AOL, hardly anybody uses it - it's that bad, we'd rather pay someone else. The only people I know that use it have another ISP and only let their kids use AOL for the content filtering.
Oh yeah, my bother uses it, too, but he was never the sharpest tool in the shed anyway.
Stupid sexy Flanders.