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Firefox-Based Netscape 8 Beta Goes Live
pigmelon writes "According to BetaNews, 'America Online's Netscape team has opened its doors to the public, releasing the first beta of the revived Netscape Web browser. (screenshot) Based upon Firefox, Netscape version 8 focuses on security and user privacy, and supports rendering with both Mozilla's Gecko and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser engines.' Before downloading the beta, remember that it uses Firefox 1.0, which contains some vulnerabilities."
Does it fix the shyte rendering of slasdot?
If needed.
s cape_Browser_80_Beta_Goes_Live/1109870204 l /Netscape_Browser/1101836316/1
http://www.betanews.com.nyud.net:8090/article/Net
http://fileforum.betanews.com.nyud.net:8090/detai
In case of Slashdotting, break mirror.
Unfortunately you can't install extensions cause they all say they don't support Netscape.
Ugly.
Horrible color scheme and very cluttered.
One thing caught my eyes is the merged top menu bars, so the page title and file menu options are on the same line now.
Is there such plug-in for FireFox?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Jesus, that screenshot is like the browser version of my grandfather's "retirement shirts". Except, only if he lived inside Spencer's Gifts, and was a science fiction drama from 1963, and had ADD. And rabies.
What is the advantage of a separate browser? Why not make an AOL theme for firefox, drape it with AOL extentions/plugins and just use firefox?
What's so wrong with using standart window captions, buttons and so on? There's a reason for that: consistency ammong applications.
Leave themes and eye candy for the OS level, and obey it if present; but please, not a single application should implement it's own custom UI controls, that's just wrong.
Holy crap! That has to be the worst browser interface I've ever seen. Awful color scheme, buttons everywhere, three different input bars (one for searching, one for addresses, and one for "shopping"?; worse, the most important bar, the address bar, is too small to show even the domain portion of a normal URL, and is not in a properly prominent position), funky menu positioning (by putting the menu in the title bar, I suppose you can no longer grab that part of the bar to drag the window), etc. Netscape really needs to invest in some competent UI designers ASAP.
They couldn't wait 1 freaking week to change to code base 1.0.1?? This is not the way to regain Netscape market share.
Ok, so who's the brainiac that figured it would be a good idea to take a screenshot with a "Microsoft is making progress" headline/news item?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Sadly it seems to be a windows only release.
Please give me your name and address so I can sue you :)
Just when you think the Internet can't get any uglier or more difficult to use we get another browser with piss-poor interface.
/love/ the way they use completley non-standard UI elements throughout and the grace us with the standard windows scroll bar on the right.
Why the heck do I need the weather below my address bar?
Why is the menu bar over by the close/minimize/maximize widgets (don't miss click the help menu or your window will vanish to the task bar)?
I
I think i'll leave my family/neighbors/girlfriend with Firefox or Mozilla thank-you. They may not be the perfect interface but they're an order of magnitude more useful than this monstrosity.
And no, it doesn't run on Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, or anything but Windows. I guess that's a good thing in this case.
... To release yet another bugged piece of software. I wonder if this has AIM built in so someone can write a browser-based IM punter???
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Someone please explain to me why, if you knew of the existance of Firefox 1.0 (or 1.0.1 now), you would still choose to download a bastardized version of it from Netscape?
Let's be honest. You're going to get the same rendering engine (at least for the most part, probably with more problems though) but with a bloated skin, no theme support, no extension support, and the Netscape icon.
I think it's totally worth it, ha.
A browser with the security of MSHTML and the sleek looks of a morbidly obese person's arse.
"All Mozilla Products are great for me but when Netscape touches it, it turns to crap. This kept opening IE over and over. I had 30 windows open for IE. Firefox still rules!" Wonder how long they'll keep that on the front page?
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
Maybe it's just me (or the theme). Anyway, no extensions means I'm never going to use it.
Netscape is a shell brand. This work was done in-house by AOL or contracted out to someone.
Then again thats what happens when you feel you need to make a browser that complies with most websites and not standards.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
One of the higherups where I work sent an email a couple months ago out complaining about this or that vulnerability in IE. He finished the email with "I guess that's just one more reason I should be using Netscape." Not Mozilla, not Firefox, but Netscape. Switching to Netscape is something I told him to do. In 1995. Ten years later, not only hasn't he switched yet, but he still thinks the only choice is between IE and Nutscrape. I don't think most computer users pay that much attention to new software (though Firefox and Mozilla are hardly new) nor to the technical aspects of software (the claim that Firefox and Netscape are both based on Mozilla will be met with a blank stare, followed by, "so I should use Netscape, and I'll be secure, right?" (and then followed by continued use of IE, because finding and downloading a new browser is still too much to deal with).
Here you go
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To alienate the hordes of mac/linux users on AOL unable to use this browser is unconscionable. This is not the AOL we know from commercials on TV.
That theme looks like a Howard Johnson's had sex with my clock radio.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
AOL gets to hedge against Microsoft's IE dominance in the browser wars.. I say Netscape 9 gets bundled as the default browser on AOL 10 or 11, anyone wanna make a bet?
-
The new Netscape browser is based on Firefox, but it looks, well, awful. It doesn't look as bad as some of the previous betas, but it still doesn't look good. It breaks many of the Windows design standards, such as its substandard menus, windows, icons, and title bars. Secondly, when I'm browsing the Internet (or doing anything else with my computer), I don't want to be looking at all of these flashy icons and weather and shopping and all of this other stuff. Why is the RSS icon on the URL box blocking the full URL? Where do AOL hire its UI designers from?
Next, another feature about this browser is that it can switch its rendering engine from Gecko to IE's rendering system. Well, why? IE's rendering system doesn't support the latest web standards, and even for web pages that uses a lot of IE-only extensions (ActiveX, for example), Firefox handles these situations with a couple of extensions.
Besides that, this will hurt in trying to remove substandard and nonstandard technologies from the Internet, such as ActiveX and non-standard HTML. Windows-only web developers need to get out of their Microsoft-funded cave and hop on the nearest bus to Standards Land and start dumping MSHTML, their Visual Basic-designed ActiveX programs, and ASP in favor of CSS and XHTML (standard web pages), Java or Perl/Python (standard programming languages), and PHP (to replace ASP). It will make the Internet a better and safer place for the rest of us.
In short, what's the point of this Netscape release? Firefox and Mozilla is spreading like wildfire, and they are better browsers. Safari, Opera, and Konqueror do their jobs nicely, too, so what's the point of Netscape?
Mitchell Baker is opening Mozilla China Center. FYI, English translation is here.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
1) Netscape releases source to Netscape browser, which by that point really sucks.
2) This source spawns Mozilla, which becomes pretty good.
3) This source spawns Firefox, which becomes even better (and actually popular)
4) Firefox gets used as the basis for a new Netscape browser, which (if the screenshot is any indication) really sucks...
There is no "5) Profit!".
The sad thing is that a lot-- and I mean a lot-- of users (particularly Windows-only folks, which is still 90+% of the population) think that the only two browsers out there are IE and Netscape. When I say "I don't use IE", I sometimes get a response like "So you use Netscape?"
Netscape's name-brand recognition among the great uneducated masses of Internet users might actually convince millions of otherwise-competent people to use this abomination.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
"this Firefox UI is great and easy to use, so let's add a bunch crazy buttons and just generally shit all over it! Oh and throw in a theme that makes our customers want to claw out their eyes. And for extra confusion, make sure some of the pages load with IE so people are never sure what behaviour they're going to get!"
Netscape was dead years ago. Someone just forgot to tell the fossils who forgot how to innovate that it's over...
Netscape releasing an ugly, bloated browser with millions of useless features that nobody in their right mind would use? Now there's a surprise.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
now theres irony :)
pointing it out for americans who fail to grasp advanced literary techniquues such as irony and sarcasm.
I'm worried about the use of the MSIE rendering engine. I'm worried because a lot of clueless webmasters will say "We only support Netscape and MSIE". E.G. the sorts of idiots who design the web site you must use to apply for governments benefits or for classes at your school. Now, if the people design a MSIE-only web site, and use Netscape's MSIE engine to test rendering of said site, said cluless webmaster may force you to use Windows to get gov't benefits, apply for class, or what not.
(Not.)
The worst of all worlds.
(Now that was serious.)
I've been hoping someone would do this.
(Unserious, more like fearing someone would do this.)
I guess I'll switch.
(Nearly coughing after fit of maniac laughter.)
No, not really. Sticking with Firefox. It seems to be what Netscape could have been had Netscape not believed its own hype and what IE should have been if only MS could see past proprietarily customizing everything that doesn't move fast enough.
(Looks like that IE-based browser that came with Flyswatter prominently packaged, but forget the name of it off hand...)
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
On a 830 pixel wide screenshot, look how much of the you got:
BetaNews | Inside Information; Unrele...
Sometimes the title bar text gives you useful information. Why would you want to see only the first 38 characters of it?
I don't know much about the Mozilla license, but could AOL (AOL did buy Netscape right?) (a) stop the development of Mozilla (change the license to closed source/proprietary) or (b) sell Netscape (Gecko engine of coruse)?
I think that the user interface is really bad on this one. The buttons for search fields/etc. is too large. I personally do not like the light green/blue color they have given it. Combined with orange buttons just makes the contrast too high.
The menus in the top are located on the right unlike their usual place on the left. This is something that will cause irritations.
thomasdamgaard.dk.
.. why I hate and will NOT use netscape:
1. It looks crap
2. It used to be slow.
3. Its probably still slow now.
4. I dont like the spinning icon in the top right. Its annoying.
5. I dont want all all these extra applications, I just want a good browser.
6. I still think it looks crap. I know you can change the theme, but I can't be bothered; I want something good looking NOW. Like Firefox.
Why give us another Netscape? Unfortunately its like Skoda, they'll never get away from their badge now.
Give it up, eh?
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
I doubt much of anyone is using a 600x800 resolution. Tablet PCs tend to be higher resolution and I doubt you could even get a driver for the ISA VGA card that ran the old 15" radius pivot monitors.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That they would include the MS ActiveX plugin with this browser?
ActiveX is one of the major attack points against IE/Windows.
Assuming that report was true, and considering how slow AOL has been to address prior NS vuln's, there's really no point in switching from IE.
I'll stick with mozilla.
I don't use AOL myself, but there are ~20 million people who do, including my mother-in-law. Including Netscape/Zilla/Firefox on the AOL coaster would help get those people off IE.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
More average joes who have used computers for the past years would most likely know more about Netscape than Firfox. A few reasons I can come up with is that websites of various companies will state in the bottom "Compatible with IE x.x and Netscape x.x". Also, I remember the installation cds of some ISP's like videotron and Bell Sympatico would provide Netscape.
:o
It may be a theme fully bloated without extensions support but the Netscape name and logo have been more around than Firefox.
Silly marketing strategy but it seems to work from time to time.
On a side note who else agrees that the theme might somehow remind you of Neoplanet
remember that it uses Internet Explorer, which contains more than some vulnerabilities
This version implemented something new called "Site Controls," or at least a better version of them. It also implements that master list of trusted sites you guys might've heard about a while back.
Well, it turns out that ANY site that is on the 'trusted site list' is set to display like IE. I don't know what's on this list, but I can tell you that's a LOT of sites this browser is using the IE engine for. It only defaults to Gecko when it's an "I'm not sure of this site" or "I dont trust this site" setting.
I dunno, my nVidia card can rotate the screen, and my LCD monitor can rotate (meant for access to inputs on the back of monitor). I don't think I'd actually use my monitor that way, but I could if I wanted to.
Now, I'm no expert on the Mozilla Public License, but it seems to state pretty unequivocally that if you make modifications you have to release them under the same license (just as with the GPL) including source code. Whereas the Netscape browser license says:
3. RESTRICTIONS. Except as otherwise expressly permitted in this Agreement, you may not: (i) modify or create any derivative works of the Beta Browser or documentation, including customization, translation or localization; (ii) decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code of the Beta Browser, or in any way ascertain, decipher, or obtain the communications protocols for accessing the AIM Service, or the underlying ideas or algorithms of the Beta Browser (e.g. in an effort to develop other applications or services that provide similar or substitute or complimentary functionality to the Beta Browser);
and so on. There is no mention of the Mozilla license and no source code. How is this legal? Did they buy special rights from the Mozilla Foundation or something?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
[obligatory Simpsons reference]
Ouch my freakin' eyes!
[/obligatory Simpsons reference]
Designed by AOL, FOR AOL users...
File menu placement: Ignorant
URL bar W and Y-Loc: Obtrusive
Netscape search bar: Product Placement
Designing a browser only AOL users will love: Egomania at its finest.
Some things only only a mother could love, for everything else there's Linux.
Just like the sun, boys and girls, don't look directly at it.
Inject.
...to destroy the Netscape brand, becasue they don't have the will to escape from Microsoft's nutgrip on them. First they ignored that they even owned Netscape (7 year option deal to use IE), then they try to turn it into a low cost ISP, now they are wasting time and effort on a hybrid browser. This browser is doomed to fail for a number of reasons:
I looked at the screenshot, and it seems that whoever designed this theme made every effort to make it cluttered, unnecessarily move things around (what other Windows app has the main menubar aligned to the right?), design icons whose meanings are difficult if not impossible to discern, and pick a color palette that is garish and unsettling.
Netscape is dead. Microsoft killed it, the (Bush) DOJ prevented it from getting a proper burial, and AOL is raping the corpse.
Making things look cool is important. Even if most of the time people suck at it.
wud
Netscape's name-brand recognition among the great uneducated masses of Internet users might actually convince millions of otherwise-competent people to use this abomination.
The old Netscape might have been junk. This new Netscape might also be junk. But who the heck cares? You don't need to like the smell of manure to appreciate roses at the flower shop.
Netscape's decision once upon a time to release the source code gave us an excellent browser. The license for that browser is such that anybody can take it and release their own abomination, so if Netscape itself wants to do that, more power to them.
All they had to do was merge the 'search' and the 'search dns' inputs and it would be great.
as it is there are two inputs, one called 'search' that umm searches, and one called go that umm... searches in a different way.
One 50Char box that searches unless you type in a domain name, or news:// etc.. or two 20 char boxes, the choice isn't yours.
Take a look
Wow, just notices the extra shopping, searches in a different way box, good thing it's bigger than the other two on a consumer product.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
While I've never been a Netscape fan, I have to give them credit for such a totally unique browser. If a page doesn't display properly, it's a simple matter of telling it to switch rendering engines. That's pretty ingenious! I've never heard tale of a browser capable of using both.
I may in fact start using this when testing pages, just to keep from having to have both IE and Firefox open when testing code. Still hafta open Opera, but I don't see them ever integrating that into it.
So kudos to Netscape, this time.
You know what this means, right?
Every disreputable site out there is going to specifically target the Gecko engine and scour it for vulnerabilities.
AOL users are intentionally kept ignorant about the real Internet (some actually refer to it as AOL), and are therefore highly likely to "just click OK," rewarding this behavior and destroying the reputation of Gecko along with their infected machines.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
I'm sorry, but this is crap. Netscape slid from the consciousness of 99% of the "average Joes" several or more years ago, and this version will have an equally weak to non-existent effect on most of the surfing public. The "average Joe" is now only vaguely aware that something called Netscape ever existed, and though they have heard of this new "alternative" browser called FireFox, they are for the most part ignorant of any connection at all to Netscape.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Just went and checked the prefs -- the install defaults to the IE rendering engine. You can change the rendering engine to "Netscape" (Why not Gecko?) without a restart.
Which all begs the question, what the hell is a browser based on Firefox, branded with Netscape, rendering with IE? Hey, at least it's modular!
If someone could explain me why they had to redesign the beautiful UI interface of
Netscape4 or Firefox into something ugly like Netscape6, Netscape7 and now Netscape8!
Please, if you want to add features that's fine,
but please use the default OS-centric GUI widgets.
The chevrons on the right side are an indicator that they are optional. Likely the "shopping" on is a quick-nav bar of some kind and could be easily removed.
still ugly though.
So they took Firefox, moved the menubar to the right side, changed the color scheme, made the URL bar so short it only has space for "http://www.betane", and added more cryptic icons?
I think I can safely ignore this, and tell everybody who asks me to do the same. Firefox isn't perfect, but this doesn't seem to fix any of its deficiencies.
It seems to harken back to the Netscape 6 days, when they didn't know a decent user interface from a hole in the ground, but they knew that it must be blue-green. I guess some things never change.
Some people just don't know what's new anymore....those security issues were fixed in 1.0.1 even before that slashdot article was placed. Those issues were just reported to urge users to update their ff....even though they are minor security issues (just allows someone to send false information to the user).
That's funny. Firefox, you have to dick around a lot, downloading extensions and whatnot. Opera is good to go from the get go.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Turns to shit and fails.
What I don't get, is other than the amount of users that used to go to Netscape's portal (it was at the time, one of the busiest sites on the net), why did AOL buy Netscape?
.... so I ask again, why did AOL buy Netscape, and why are they continuing to pump out Beta versions, but never use it?
They bought Netscape, continued to use IE, started Mozilla then let Mozilla go (to become the Mozilla Foundation), and now they are developing their own browser, which is based on IE
Seems to me there will be more virus/spyware stuff aimed at firefox because of this. I dont think that if I was a firefox user that I'd be excited about this.
WoW: Scheod 70 orc warlock on Shadowmoon
I can only imagine that Netscape wants to use Netscape 8 to help market its ISP. After using this browser briefly today, I can not really understand who their target audience is. Is it power users? It seems to be intended for power users, it offers a level of control I have never seen before in a browser, multiple rendering engines, user-trust levels and containers, very detailed, site-specific settings. Also, check out the toolbar configuration GUI if you get a chance.. yikes. However, I don't think power users will touch this because they are already aware of firefox and Mozilla. Even though firefox does not have the level of control that this Netscape 8 beta has, who really wants to configure and manage all of that when firefox works perfectly well (minus IE-specific sites) without it?
As far as regular users go, I can not think of any reason why they would prefer this browser over something like IE or firefox. I have thought that for a while, IE has been so popular because of its simplicity. Even though it doesn't support features like tabbed browsing and typeaheadfind and RSS.. your average user doesn't want that stuff anyway, thus IE meets their needs so why change to anything more complex?
So, unless I am missing something, we have a browser here that power users will not use and average users will not use. Perhaps Netscape can get some people to use it if they bundle it with their ISP. It is only beta though, maybe it will get better..
Oh my god, Netscape started writing spyware!!!
I've a screenshot with the windows update downloader making progress - the integration with the IE engine works great, I updated my voodoo3 drivers without even clicking in the IE icon.
Because despite all the pro linux rhetoric on slashdot, the developers develop for IE apparently.
Could that thing have more ugly-ass chrome on it? It looks like Windows Media Player after sniffing spray paint.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
However, I think that the general attitude on
Isn't this really an open source success story? "If you open the source code to your product, other developers will extend it and improve it in ways that you couldn't dream of (let alone afford), and you will be free to incorporate these improvements back into your product!". Isn't this the return on investment that the OSS community talks about?
If we're talking about the same uneducated mass of Internet users that were convinced to use IE because of Microsoft's brand recognition, isn't that a good thing?
I was so hoping netscape would put there name behind Firefox, instead of butchering a decent browser and making a mess of it again.
Firefox could grow by at least 10% if netscape proclaimed it as the next version of there browser and included download links on there primary netscape download page.
Sure, my ATI card can rotate the screen, and I can put my trinitron on its side, which is flat along one edge and would probably tilt my screen at just the right angle given the position it would hold on my desk. However, I haven't yet found a good use for a 1200x1600 display...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nick Berg says: "Oops, lost my head!"
I understand that this is a beta version, but if they're embedding the IE rendering engine, I can't imagine that this browser will be cross platform. This is significant because it will be the first Netscape which is not cross platform. Seems like a giant step backwards.
Also, does the MPL (Mozilla Public License) affect their ability to close the source? I'm not that familiar with the MPL, but I think it's more BSD-ish than GPL-ish.
Finally, I can't think of a greater disservice to those of us interested web standards, than for AOL to embed the IE rendering engine, and especially using it by default for "safe" sites. Anyone want to bet that "safe site" status is available for purchase, regardless of how evil a site may actually be?
The only good thing that might come of this, is that people might finally abandon Netscape for good, and hopefully migrate to the "real" Netscape, aka Mozilla/Firefox.
Yeah, how on earth are you meant to spot spoofing/phishing attempts if you can't even see the damn URL at all?
Am I reviewing this beta from my own perspective or trying to consider the value to other types of users as well. As a person that installs betas, am I the type of user that will benefit most from the "Netscape features".
As someone that volunteers at a literacy center, I look forward to recommending the final release. Literacy centers and many others are dependent, for better or worse, on IE rending of many sites. Site controls will also help to protect and educate myself and people of different literacy levels. It looks like there is also an anonymous user mode, which would be useful in a public setting.
It also seems that if I want to see Netscape improve something than I should be as specific as possible, otherwise why am I trying the beta.
and supports rendering with both Mozilla's Gecko and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser engines
I guess I'll have to add Netscape to my list of banned applications, along with IE, Outlook, Windows Media Player, and Realplayer... basically, any application that uses the MS HTML control to render outside-sourced documents.
After seven years of exploits and failed fixes, why does anyone outside Microsoft still use this "Typhoid Mary" of the software world?
Looks interesting, but I'm wondering about its speed. NS 6 & 7 took about a fortnight to load apiece. Those wait times took about 6 months off my life! Let's face it, kids: Netscape peaked at version 5. Firefox is still the boom-diggety.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
As far as I can tell they spent most of their time on the UI and they fucked that up horribly. Yeah you can switch to IE quickly now but for those of you who wanted that there was a firefox plugin that didn't destroy your health.
At netscape, we don't make a lot of the programs you use. We make a lot of the programs you use uglier.
-- lol pwned
Why wouldn't I just used firefox instead?
Actually it's not nearly so distracting when maximized. And just for kicks, I compared the available space on Firefox with the bookmarks bar open and tabs vs. Netscrape 8... and they're almost identical. I think the Netscape content area starts 1 or 2 pixels lower, but that's it.
Whilst the idea of having a browser that flips between different rendering engines so I can have all my windows open in one session (with multiple tabs, of course) has appealed to me for some time (I love the speed of Gecko, but the insecurity and poor standards compliance of MS make me gip), why did it have to be built into the daftest UI conceived?
I think what would be great would be a clone of the Firefox UI, minus the XUL, with the ability to flip between as many rendering engines as are reasonably available on the host platform. So, say, Gecko and khtml on Linux, Gecko and mshtml on Windows, and Gecko and Safari (can Safari's engine be embedded? I don't know) on OSX. If I had the skills, I'd do it myself :/
Do you see what I did there?
Best Browser on Windows... more fun than Apple's Safari (but a memory hog) on Mac's and a damn good reason to think of the browser is the OS. Kudos to this team for bringing functionality and productivity back to users.
People need to look at this differently. To us it's bad design and flashy, to the average idiot it's eye candy and "more cool things!"
If they go "look what all these buttons can do!" then people will go out and use it (I'm talking AOL users here).
They hit their market on the head, it's the opposit to the Slashdot market.
I like muppets.
Ever use Bryce3d? God that was an awful piece of shit. It didn't help every control was a low-contrast 3d-rendered widget that tried to map 2d dimensional mouse motion un-intelligently into a 3d operation.
Garrrh....
I'd rather use AutoCAD.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
No they're not using 600x800, they're using 800x600 and there's a lot of them. I work as the IT manager for a small travel agency (5 offices, 25 employees). I have tried to convince the agents to move to 1024x768. They refuse. "It makes it too small." I have convinced maybe 2-3 people to move to 1024x768. (OT*: I am also working on them to move to Firefox/Thunderbird; another difficult process)
I seriously fail to see the relevance: "Tablet PCs tend to be higher resolution and I doubt you could even get a driver for the ISA VGA card [WTF? you don't need an ISA or VGA for 800x600] that ran the old 15" radius pivot monitors [ditto]." Guess I'm just dumb... =)
*Oops, guess not OT to main topic, just OT to this post...
Read my blog: HansMast.com
Not to beat a dead stick, but maybe if enough people say it, Netscape will realize that this browser is FUGLY!!!!
FUUUGGGLLY!!!
In fact it's so fugly, that I had an involuntary WTF reaction before the screenshot even fully loaded. I don't care if this was the fastest browser on the planet (unlikely), I would never use it based on ugliness alone.
Newsflash Netscape. It's the 2000s and busy browsers, and indeed busy anything are definitely NOT the way to try to look "fashionable." Even though I'm slightly embarassed at writing such a statement, it's definitely true.
I can't even count the number of times that I've opened IE or Explorer on clients computers only to find that the address bar has been removed. After seeing this and 'fixing' it on one occasion, the user of the particular computer asked me what I did to his web.. confused, I asked him what he meant. He apparently didn't want that on. I asked him how he got to different web sites. His reply, he just typed where he wanted to go in yahoo.
After that I realized, the address bar, is mainly a power user feature, that many web users don't understand, and don't care to use. I say don't complain, they are making a browser for a certain demographic, the AOL user, the CEO. They aren't hoping to get us to convert.
My point was that people are using 4:3 aspect, not 3:4. I was being snarky. As for the other part, don't hurt yourself or anything. I used to sit at a 386SX with a radius one-page pivot that would do 1024x768, and which had an ISA VGA card with a couple megs of ram that would detect the tilt. It had a windows 3.1 driver that would handle tilting the monitor, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, I got it shortly after I hit submit. My point remains, but my sarcasm should be directed at grandparent... Sorry. =)
Read my blog: HansMast.com
I like 2048x786 m'self, but that 1200x1600 sounds good for reading pdfs.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'd download it if it wasn't the clunkiest looking interface I'd ever seen...
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Is there a place I could get the Netscape theme separately, and install it on Firefox? I know, I know, I've seen a lot of negative comments about how it looks, but I'd still like to see how it looks firsthand... without actually installing AOL's evilness on my machine.
~ Aero
You sure you're not from the middle of Electronic Arts?
Based solely on what I saw in the screenshot, I'll paraphrase two of the detectives here at work:
Det. 1: "Hey Netscape! I like your moves..."
Det. 2: "...I like your style..."
Det. 1 & 2: "You're my kinda browser!"
Yes, it gets annoying somewhere around the tenth time they hit someone with that.
easy money man
"these guys waste half their budget fixing PCs"
That's not "waste" to those guys it's "job security", busywork they can do blindfolded. 50% of the windows work out there is because it supports this humongous multi billion dollar a year "busywork" industry. From hard ware to software to admining, it's 1/2 busywork. Tons 0 loot.
It helps the big box vendors, they sell more machines as the old ones "break" because they get so hosed. software, the never ending no warranty perpetual beta. that's all software is any more. perpetual never quite right beta ware. Admining-no money in making it rock solid and bullet proof, is there? Really, people think their computers are 'broken". The IT guys love it, the admins love it, the vendors love it, the security guys triple plus bonus love it, E-Z money. It's big time folding money cashola by the bucketful to have stuff that is *broken* and remains voodoo to 99% of the people who use computers. There's very little money in selling functional hardware or software, there's TONS and TONS to be made selling almost functional and in constant need of fixes, tweaks,"upgrades" and etc hardware and software.
The computer world could eliminate half the jobs right there, and who wants to actually give up their job? That's why you see it, and why you will always see it, especially with the double whammy scam of software patents plus no warranties. Consumer fraud with a wink wink nod nod all around.
someone had to say it
This horse isn't dead enough... lets beat it some more..
"This browser is tied in directly to the heart of your OS, so whenever a vulnerability is discovered for it, unlike other browsers, those doing the cracking now have free reign on your entire system."
One solution, beside plugins (that do the same thing for you automatically, if I'm not mistaken) is to increase or decrease the font size in Firefox, then return it to normal. (CTRL+= or CTRL+- then CTRL+0)
Whatever part of the rendering causes the bug is not recalled when fields are resized for text size changes.
I hope this helps, it's what I use when Slashdot becomes completely uninterpretable.
so the thing will ovetake the freakin screen with all the eye candy and no room for the address bar or webpage content will be left
No. Not eye candy. Eye wounded-koala-vomit.
Let me get this strait. Netscape source was GPLed Netscape begat Mozilla which begat Firefox. New Netscape is Firefox-based. Is Netscape now GPL? Should I write demanding the source code?
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
am I the only one who thinks it looks pretty nice (considering the design specs require jamming in all those input bars)
The Mozilla code came from Netscape. Therefore, Netscape is the copyright holder. Therefore, Netscape can use THEIR code how they see fit, including licensing it with restrictions.
Unless I am wrong, in which case, ignore this comment.
My dad has had AOL for almost 15 years now and he is quite attached to the special content and just doesn't want to drop his e-mail address (he switched to the bring your own ISP thing and uses it with DSL now even.) But his laptop we got him last year keeps getting cluttered with spyware and all that garbage.
AOL releases a security edition but they still use IE to render the pages when they own Netscape.
AOL used to have a keyword that allowed you to switch your browser to Netscape (before they bought netscape) and I wish there was a way to use something like this as the default browser inside of the AOL application so when all that crap pops up with AOL content it doesn't load IE and lead him off into malware city somewhere.
It has a whole bunch of nifty little additions. I am still getting my head wrapped around the "auto-fill" feature. I like its implementation of tabbed browsing (i know, there's an extension for Firefox out there that has the same functionality). It just seems to have a lot of tiny enhancements that i wish Firefox had.
Steps 1-4 are the main justification for a software company to open-source its code. (I mean the main business case, not ethical reasons or side benfits like good PR.) The whole point of opening up Netscape was to attract a lot of developers to work on it for free. (They were upfront about this, and the same license is open to everyone.)
Step 5 originally had something to do with selling Web servers, but they found a better way to profit: Get bought by AOL, then Time-Warner. It worked out quite well (but not for Time-Warner...)
Firefox seems perfect. Mozilla is top-notch. Internet Explorer is the old but still capable dog...Opera is also a very good underdog...why yet another browser?
People don't fire up a browser to view the browser. People fire up a browser to view a webpage. Get me to the webpage quickly through a simple interface, and stay out of the way.
Simplicity is the key. Google, Firefox, iPod, even television... all amazingly simple things that became wildly successful by doing one thing, and doing it very well, very simply.
This too, will end.
One could have assumed that it was based on Firefox 1.0.1, which has those vulnerabilities fixed. So actually, the notice that Netscape 8 is not up-to-date with Firefox is a valuable one in this case.
I agree, they are catering to their market. Personally, I hate the Netscape browser and hope that it dies a slow horrible death, along with AOL. But, there are always things you can't have. I don't let it bother me. The trash out there like that, just makes the stuff I use look even better. Good to have something crappy to comapre my mediocre stuff to.
The RPM link is bad, the browser homepage is hard wired to tubgirl!
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http://betanewscache.iad.cachefly.net/betanews/art icles/1109870204/netscape8beta.png
:(
*weird sounds*
Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth
SIGFAULT
> I doubt much of anyone is using a 600x800 resolution.
At my estimates, 800x600 just overtook 640x480 as the most common individual
resolution circa 2001 (a few months after XP shipped with no support for
640x480, probably not a coincidence), and the latter resolution is still
(albeit a bit distantly now) in second place. Quite a lot of people use
resolutions higher than 800x600, but no *single* higher resolution is very
common, as near as I can determine, perhaps due to the plethora of resolutions
availble. Probably if you put 1024x768 and 1280x1024 together they would be
almost as common as 800x600. The resolutions in between those two are not
terribly common, and resolutions between 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 are not
very common, and, except among professional graphics artists and extreme
geeks, resolutions over 1600x1200 are utterly rare.
One of the reasons the lowest-supported-resolution sees a lot of use is
that there are huge numbers of computer users out there over the age of
fourty, with bad eyes and worse glasses, and they don't like squinting.
There are two major ways to make things on the screen easier to see:
get a bigger screen, or cut back the resolution. People with good eyes
usually crank the resolution as high as it will go, but that varies so
much from one graphics card and/or monitor to another that they don't all
end up with the same resolution. OTOH, the people with bad eyes all set
the res as low as it will go (unless they're using an LCD display, in
which case that just makes matters worse), and because Windows does not
support arbitrarily low resolutions, they all land on the same one.
Users with bifocals skew things even more, because they deliberately purchase
small monitors, 16" viewable or even smaller, not because it's cheaper, but
because the screen is smaller, and they don't want to be tipping their heads
all the time forward and back. Then they definitely need the lowest-possible
resolution, so they can read the print. If I could find a 13"-viewable
monitor and get windows to support 320x200 resolution, my bifocal-wearing
mother would think it was the best thing since 16-point fonts.
Of course, if you lump all the resolutions higher than 800x600 together,
then it's very common to have a resolution higher than 800x600. (There are,
on the whole, more people with decent eyes than not.) But as far as specific
settings go, 800x600 is the most common one.
Also, resolutions smaller than 640x480, while still a tiny percentage, are
now on the rise. This is due to various tiny devices (cellphones and junk)
now becomming cheaper and being more likely to have internet connectivity.
There's also the it-came-from-the-factory-this-way factor; several major
manufacturers ship with the minimum-supported resolution as default (except
for LCD displays, where the native res is default for obvious reasons).
Users with bad eyes are probably most of the reason; I don't think it's
down to laziness in changing settings, because they seem to do trainloads
of that, adding all sorts of goofy dross and hokey malarke to their standard
image, so I'm sure they'd change the resolution if they thought their users
would on average prefer a different one.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> I have tried to convince the agents to move to 1024x768. They refuse.
.gif and .jpeg images of text.
> "It makes it too small."
Don't pester them. If stuff looks to small to them at that resolution, then
they *shouldn't* use that resolution; it'll only strain their eyes, give them
headaches, and make them need to take more breaks away from the screen to
recover. If you want them to use a higher res, try requisitioning larger
monitors for them; otherwise, leave them be.
And no, increasing the font size is NOT a solution. There are just too many
things it doesn't help with. For starters, entirely too large a portion of
the web these days consists of
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
It reminds me somewhat of Windows Media Player. I wonder if this is on purpose?
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
But it's not too small. They have 19-inch monitors! I use 1600x1200! It's not too small for the agents whom I convinced to do it; they just don't like change. "It looks different."
Read my blog: HansMast.com
> But it's not too small.
For *you* it's not too small, and maybe for the people you've convinced.
Not everyone has the same eyes. Their use of a lower resolution does not
hurt anyone. Leave them be.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Amazingly, it didn't even do that. Just its own icon in three places (desktop, quick launch, start menu), no more than Firefox does.
I can only assume they'll "fix" this in the final version.
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It won't install Adblock. There's no way I'm using it. I mean, how can I be expected to read Slashdot with ads?
I had that happen so many times when I used to do creditcard customer service for NextCard... I would tell people to go to our website, and they always ended up typing everything into Yahoo. I had to explain to them to use the address bar above the page, and they seemed to have never used this thing before, ever. At least a couple of calls a month from people like that...