Peeking at Netscape 8

Andrew Sayers writes "It seems like Netscape 8 has hit blogland, with generally positive review at blogspot.com - although it makes the point that the IE rendering mode could hurt Firefox in the long-run, because it gives sites an excuse to stick with their old IE-only designs." Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

Comments

Well

[oiper]

Who uses Netscape anymore anyways? *duck

Re:Well

[MoonFog]

It still has its name, people seem to have heard about Netscape.

Re:Well

[MtViewGuy]

Who uses Netscape anymore anyways?

Certainly not me. I run either Firefox 1.0.1 or the Maxthon 1.2.00 shell program for Internet Explorer instead.

Re:Well

[mirko]

Yes indeed: Until Netscape 3, it was the reference, then it got equaled by MSIE. It remained used as the non-MS alternative but since Mozilla, Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox and Opera, there's no place for it anymore, also because it's not even supposed to be anything else than a re-branded OpenSource product.
I guess Firefox was the best we could obtain and also the last positive thing Netscape could have done.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I used netsape as my primary browser until 4.76.
6.0 came out and I switched away.

I started this new job (non IT) and found that my work computer has netscape 6.2 installed. I used it to post this.

Re:Well

[Junta]

Nowadays, Firefox has made a name for itself, more so than netscape I would dare say.

Re:Well

[AKnightCowboy]

It still has its name, people seem to have heard about Netscape.

Netscape is that dialup service that competes with Netzero right?

Re:Well

[generic-man]

That's right, it competes with NetZero, which provides Internet access for only $9.95 a month.

Welcome to bizarro-net.

Re:Well

[Myuu]

You are completely correct, I watched my roommate who is not at all a computer science person convince his redneck friend to use firefox last week and I was surprised to see one of his first points was that it is related to netscape.

It helps to establish familiarity I guess.

Re:Well

[ndtechnologies]

I have the impending feeling that this browser will try to give Firefox a black eye. People will say "this is based off of Firefox" and then when the IE rendering engine lets in spyware and malware people will then say "Firefox is a piece of crap!!" when in their ignorance it was the IE engines fault the whole time. Notice that there isn't that much concentration on IE's part of this browser when most articles are run on it, or when people talk about it...but as with anything AOL touches, you can be rest assured that it will follow the same path of other software that has been acquired by them.

Re:Well

[EvilStein]

Dude, it's because you said "fire" to a redneck. That's why he's using it. Duh. :P

Re:Well

[oudzeeman]

some of us remember when netzero was 'free' (you had to give up some screen realestate to some banner adds while you were dialed in)

Re:Well

[wolrahnaes]

and some of us remember getting rid of those ads by either modifying the client or logging the DUN connection, to get the password so you can use a regular dial-in client.

Re:Well

[NaDrew]

and some of us remember getting rid of those ads by either modifying the client or logging the DUN connection, to get the password so you can use a regular dial-in client.

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
(lyrics)

Damned dot-com bust. For a few months in '99-2000, life was really really good.

Re:Well

[fyoder]

I had a friend who'd never heard of firefox or where it came from. I said "Firefox, son of Mozilla, son of Netscape" and I could see the light of recognition in his eyes. Which went out when I added, "son of NCSA Mosaic".

Re:Well

[Lizzy_Bee]

I haven't used Netscape in a long, long time...Mac or PC. I'm currently using IE, which I sometimes "affectionately" call "Internet Exploder." People complained when Netscape starting becoming bloatware, which is kinda funny 'cause, at the same time, people complain about how many MS apps are bloated. Go figure... ;)

Too young?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

No, cant say I do.

Re:Too young?

[erlenic]

I am old enough to remember when they were the top dog, but I still don't remember when they mattered.

Re:Too young?

[MetaPhyzx]

I'm not too young, but the last time I've used a Netscape browser on a regular basis, it was 4.7.I've used several Mozilla implementations, and thank the Gods for Firefox, in which I do most of my browsing (Safari on my Macs) on the office PC and my linux boxen at home.

Pretty ironic though, that Netscape's offering probably won't make any headway, while Firefox has. Maybe they should rename it "Firefox by Netscape" (obvious nod to those marketing geniuses at HP *heh*).

Re:Too young?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when they were top dog as well, which is why this quote amused me:-

They (Microsoft) like to make the web a "better experience" by adding little quirks which only IE understands.

Especially as Netscape were the worst at trying to force their standards as web standards. It seems only natural that a Netscape browser would continue this trend by including the IE viewing engine.

Re:Too young?

[Reignking]

Aren't you contradicting yourself? Being the "top dog" would imply that they mattered, I would think...

Re:Too young?

[smallguy78]

"Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered? "

Ah, remember when the release of a Firefox mattered?

** Runs very far **

Re:Too young?

[andy753421]

Actualy they renamed Netscape to Mozilla, then hacked up the code and and called it Firefox.

Re:Too young?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Not exactly. At the time Netscape was king, the web was just starting to gain some traction. By the time the web caught on, Netscape was quite dead.

Re:Too young?

[calebtucker]

...thank the Gods for Firefox...

Been watching a bit too much Battlestar Galactica, eh? I hope this doesn't turn into a popular phrase.

Re:Too young?

[rolocroz]

How old are you? 13?

Re:Too young?

[Anonymous Coward]

You and I must have a huge difference of opinion on just when the web caught on. I am thinking 1995 . . . and netscape mattered then. In fact, I would say that netscape mattered for a lot longer than that. I was using Netscape Communicator on linux all the way up to 2000 or so.

Re:Too young?

[zeekiorage]

There is an interesting clause in the EULA. From the Download The Netscape Browser, v8.0 BETA page...

...
4. PRIVACY.

(b) AUTOMATIC FEEDBACK. You agree that Netscape may periodically query your computer system, without additional notice to you, for information relating to your use of the Beta Browser, including, for example, information relating to the frequency of your use

(c) BROWSER ID. During the beta testing, your software will contain a specific dentification number for the purpose of tracking the number of unique instances of the Beta Browser being used by our testers.
...

Still too bloated..

[Zate]

I prefer Firefox because of its speed and relatively small foot print.

Also having an IE rendering mode is to me a con, not a pro.

Re:Still too bloated..

[youngerpants]

Also, IE rendering is not needed on windows machines if you install the "view in IE" extension for Firefox. Although i do see its uses if you were developing web sites on another OS where IE is not available.

We must remember that IE still hase 90% (ish, not checked netcraft) and untill firefox spreads, sites HAVE to render correctly in it... apart from /. obviously

Re:Still too bloated..

[WoodieR]

Yes, IE is a complete con ...

Re:Still too bloated..

[Spodlink05]

Also having an IE rendering mode is to me a con, not a pro.

Don't you mean IE surrendering mode?

Re:Still too bloated..

[DavidTC]

If IE is not available, it can't render using IE. That's a pretty silly thing to expect it to be able to do. All it does is embed IE, like dozens of other programs do.

Re:Still too bloated..

[rpresser]

You could always return to Netscape 1.1N. Best .. browser .. evar.

IE only

[Vulture101]

if they are old and are IE only, are they worth to read anyway ?

Re:IE only

[Lispy]

you must be new here. Firefox /. is broken...yadayada... ;-)

Re:IE only

[Vulture101]

well, reading and posting on /. since firefox 0.8 (i think), before that was with mozilla and before, with netscape, so i guess i never saw slashdot how it was meant to be...

Misread it...

[zecg]

...as "Peeing at Netscape 8" and thought how, finally, here's an article that a geek could appreciate.

Re:Misread it...

[Otter]

Perhaps it's a tie-in with the recent interview of "MC Pee Pants"...

Re:Misread it...

[bleckywelcky]

I misread it as Peking at Netscape and thought some sort of Netscape Expo was taking place in Peking. I was wondering why anyone would go to the trouble of making up an expo for Netscape.

Netscape lost

[demon_2k]

Netscape: Can't beat them, join them.

Re:Netscape lost

[SparafucileMan]

Actually, a large chunk of the Netscape source code that was released made its way into Mozilla. You can thank Netscape for the lack of (total) IE dominance.

Sick of that IE look anyway

[schestowitz]

What is the matter with IE layouts? What Web sites are we supposed to navigate to? MSN? As long as you visit the right places, Netscape will do.

Re:Sick of that IE look anyway

[Ayaress]

The only website I've had problems with viewing in Firefox is Slashdot, ironically. Sometimes the stories overlap with the sidebar a bit, and sometimes the comments display off the side of the page in the black margin. That seems to have been largely fixed with 1.0.1, though, I've only had some minor oddities since then.

Re:Sick of that IE look anyway

[Trejkaz]

Slashdot simply uses too many tables for layout. Style guidelines say that you should never use tables for layout, so in the end it's Slashdot's fault for being so retarded.

1.0.1 has fixed the random resizing, but the left column is now way too thin. :-)

Netscrap?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our AOL loving Microsoft Rendering Butt Licking Netscrap overlords

Re:Netscrap?

[haydies]

Halliluya, who cares who renders the page what way, just as long as they all render it the same way....

I honestly don't get why things are not just IE compatible, as most people use IE, and most sites are designed for IE... it seems that not rendering a page properly (that works in IE) is a good reason for people not to use a differant browser....

Re:Netscrap?

[Bert64]

Because the way IE renders things is not documented, changes with each version (even the mac versions render things very differently to the windows version) and has not seen any new features since 2001.
Rendering in an ie-compatible way would mean taking out support for modern standards like png and css2, and replacing them with broken half-assed implementations. Also the only way to do this would be to reverse engineer ie, since there are no published standards to implement against. Reverse engineering like this could be considered illegal and nodoubt microsoft would stamp down on it.
Aside from the fact that ie is NOT designed to be a decent browser, it's NOT designed to advance the web or to benefit the users. It's sole purpose in existance was to bankrupt netscape and increase dependance on microsoft products.

Re:Netscrap?

[haydies]

Reverse engineering is never illegal, for a start MS makes a hell of a lot of money writing software to work on a machine that was origianly reverse engineered from the IBM 8086... Other then that, just because its compatible (as Netscape 8) dosn't mean it can't support other things, oh, and when did IE stop supporting PNG? I'm not sure whats CSS2 and whats not, but didn't MS help in the design of CSS and Netscape do some thing differant? So I would say that at least there MS did contribute to the "advancement of the internet". The last bit, well. I don't agree. Its no more or less enginered to do what it dose then Netscape was. They both diverged from the standard trying to get an advantage. I've used lots of browsers and apart from the tabed browsing you get in every thing other then IE, I still find IE the easiest to get along with. Maybe because I use it the most. Mainly though I hate that CSS classes look differant, the possitioning isn't the same and generaly things look nice in IE, then look nasty in other browsers. Lastly I should say there are things IE does that the others are starting to catch up with. Opera has had more or less IE compatible JS events since last year, how ever Mozilla still dosn't support even basic event handlers very well, and its just such a pain. In the end I don't care if its standard, or not. If its rendered the IE way or not. But I do wish they would all just desicide which way is going to stay and every one stick to it.

Re:Netscrap?

[ryen]

I believe the accepted term is now Nutscrape
*ouch*

Re:Netscrap?

[kerrle]

But I do wish they would all just decide...

They did; the standards body is called the W3C, and of the current major browsers, IE is doing the worst job of actually sticking to the standards. Confusing the history of what happened 6-8 years ago and what's been happening since 2000 is not good; a lot has happened since 2000 (unless you're an IE user, at which point, it hasn't come too far).

If you're seeing a difference between IE and another browser, at least 90% of the time it'll be IE at fault - and you can usually test this by validating the code.

CSS Positioning is almost completely broken in IE - and it has been for 5 years. Likewise, they don't support a ton of CSS 2 - there's even a fair amount of CSS1 that doesn't work like it should.

PNG images don't support transparency or gamma properly in IE - if you didn't know that, you have no idea what PNG is capable of.

I could show you many test designs I've done that have amazing, new layouts - and I can't use them commercially because IE doesn't support CSS well enough to display them. They aren't even that difficult, code wise - just some absolute or fixed positioned DIVs and other elements, a few other things, and you can do some really cool things. And they'll all break on IE.

To me at least, your entire argument seems to come from a superficial understanding of how web standards should and do work. Most professional web designers that I know (I do mainly web applications) currently design using Firefox or Mozilla to test the code, and after they're happy with it, open up IE and tweak until it's acceptible there, too - things like the WebDeveloper extension really make Firefox suited for this.

Every designer I know curses IE's failings.

Re:Netscrap?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's NutScrape to you, buddy.

Great Look

[michelcultivo]

I expect the great look turns into great functionality, but what they done to increase the size from 4MB to 12MB?!?!?!

Re:Great Look

[flumps]

I reckon thats the reverse engineered Microsoft IE rendering DLL matey - 8MB of broken DOM and spaghetti crap ;)

Re:Great Look

[FuzzzyLogik]

that's all compressed. so if by that you mean 8mb of compressed IE rendering dll.. blah blah blah, you'd still be wrong, but at least it might be a bit funny.

IE is built into windows.. which would mean that the IE end of things wouldn't even have to be added to the overall size, other than a bit of code to load the engine, tell it to render pages, etc.. it's trivial to use the IE rendering engine, same as you would with webkit (safari's rendering engine based on khtml). Really is just a few lines of code.

Re:Great Look

[eric_brissette]

Green is a very large color.

Re:Great Look

[WoodieR]

AOHell, AIM, all the extra AOHell icons/menus/file folders ... and the necessaries to tie them together gotta be good for at least 8 meg

Re:Great Look

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they decided to release debug compilatons instead of release ;-)

Re:Great Look

[fireman sam]

Actually green is just #asdf

Re:Great Look

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, get a sense of humour. I was just joking.

The day I take this stuff seriously is the day I need to lay down my mouse forever.

Interface.

[u16084]

I installed it, First thing i noticed is the weather on my browser interface... And then something called weather bug... To ME, The interface is overwhelming. I don want messenger icons, shopping links,and what ever else they sqeezed in to fill the empty spots. Back - Forward - Print is all I need on my browser.

Re:Interface.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah!

Back in my day we would've killed for a print button. But instead we had to sit there with our dull pencils and try to copy the screen onto blank paper.

Re:Interface.

[orasio]

Address bar, Google bar, Statur bar is all I need.
Alt-Left, Alt-Right, Ctrl-P handle the other things perfectly, and they don't force me to use that "mouse" thing I have lying around my desktop.

Re:Interface.

[u16084]

Oh, I'm Sorry, I didnt know *I* was at a tree huggers convention. Thought this was /. I assume you think books are evil also? But the sound of "Evil Bastard", I could get used to that. Thanks.

Re:Interface.

[operagost]

Welcome to the zoo. Don't feed the trolls. Now move along, please.

Re:Interface.

[Angafirith]

The interface is definately ugly, but I guess it fits in with the old versions of Netscape. People who don't want all of the crap will just keep using Firefox or Internet Explorer. Only the people who liked the old Netscapes (like my parents) will be interested in this, I bet. Another problem is that you can't use Firefox themes with it, even though it points you at the Firefox themes page.

Re:Interface.

[martingunnarsson]

I think the interface has some nice advantages over Firefox, but it desperately needs a more minimalistic theme.

Re:Interface.

[fireboy1919]

Interesting point. Personally, there is a veritable plethora of buttons that I'd like to see on my browser.

Of course, the usual buttons must be there: back, forward, reload, stop, home, but that's not really enough, is it?

I think a resize button would be good. You know, to change the size of my monitor. Some pages would be a lot better if the monitor was bigger.

Also, I'd like a "more interesting" button to fix those unappealing pages. If this is unfeasable, I would settle for a "summon magic dancing monkeys" button. Oh, and I think they should move the turn off the internet button into the browser. I'm tired of having to go to that page to do it.

At the very least, there should be a large, omnious red button entitled "TOTAL ANNHILIATION" with the words "WARNING: NEVER PRESS THIS BUTTON" written below so that I can know I'm not just browsing - I'm Extreme browsing.

Re:Interface.

[legirons]

"I don want messenger icons, shopping links,and what ever else they sqeezed in to fill the empty spots. Back - Forward - Print is all I need on my browser."

Ah, so you're the one who's been asking for that print-icon which wastes so much space on a default FireFox install?

Perhaps in future, software will be intelligent enough to remove the print button, the print menu, the print keyboard-shortcut, and the print context menu when it detects that you don't have a printer installed...

Re:Interface.

[david duncan scott]

See, that's why I like flat panel monitors -- it was hell getting a CRT to balance face-down on the Xerox machine, but these LCD screens just slide right on there.

Re:Interface.

[Finuvir]

From the Firefox Manifesto:

The personal toolbar is the personal toolbar, not the whorebar.

It seems all the good Netscape people ended up with Mozilla (or at least not in Netscape anymore)

Re:Interface.

[Neoncow]

How do you click links on slashdot?

Re:Interface.

[Storlek]

How do you click links on slashdot?
What, to read the articles? No one does that, silly.

But in all seriousness, you can either type a bit of the text of the link or use tab/shift-tab to highlight it, and then hit enter to go to it.

Re:Interface.

[orasio]

/repl /subj
type something stupid

Ctrl-W
(I didn't say it's easier, but it's mostly non-modal, so it gets easily automated)

Re:Interface.

[orasio]

(Damn filters)

/repl<Ctrl-Enter>
<Ctrl-PgDn>
/subj<Tab><Tab>
t ype something stupid
<Tab>
<Tab>
<Tab>
<Enter>
Ctrl-W
(I didn't say it was easier, but it's mostly non-modal, so it gets easily automated)

Re:Interface.

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here. Didn't you know that saying anything even remotely critical of firefox will get you modded down as a troll?

[posting AC so as not to give them the satisfaction]

To all webmasters

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that you can use IE conditional comments

<!--[if IE 5]>
You are using Internet Exploder. Please switch to Firefox
<![endif]-->

to Spread Firefox.

Minimal extra work means you can spoof the gold UI bar, which has the advantage of scaring people. Use Internet Exploder's proprietary features against itself. Standards forever!

Re:To all webmasters

[Anonymous Coward]

To any one who creates web pages, don't waste your time, or make a mess of your page with such stupid messages. You want people to switch to Firefox or another standards compliant browser? then provide useful features that are only available in those browsers, while still making your page usable with IE.

Re:To all webmasters

[Gryffin]

You want people to switch to Firefox or another standards compliant browser? then provide useful features that are only available in those browsers, while still making your page usable with IE.

Useful features? Like, say standards compliance?

Re:To all webmasters

[Anonymous Coward]

Standards compliance isn't a feature.

Re:To all webmasters

[earthbound kid]

Point the first, your code will only show up in IE 5. But IE 6 is crap too.

Point the second, that's a hack, and hack's make baby W3C cry. A better way to warn people about the poopiness of IE is to make a div called noie that wraps everything inside your body tag then set the CSS properties you want IE to get by setting them normally in your .css file and set the CSS properties you want everyone else to get by proceeding them with body > noie. Internet Explorer doesn't understand that greater than sign, so it won't display the properties listed with it. Just make another div or p called "firefoxlogo" with the "Get Firefox!" icon and make it display: none in good browsers and display: block in IE.

If by chance, IE 7 understands rudimentary CSS, this hack won't work in that, but of course, the whole point of the hack is to nag people about their browser not supporting CSS. Thus, in such a case it would be OK to stop nagging.

Re:To all webmasters

[coder.keitaro]

Use

IE Sucks change to Firefox!

To make sure that all versions of IE above 5 are included

Gag,

[MindStalker]

Review talks about how pleasing the new toolbar interface is. GAG. Its absolutly horrendus.

Re:Gag,

[FooBarWidget]

This just proofs that Slashdotters know nothing about usability or what average users want.

Re:Gag,

[MindStalker]

I was just being silly honestly, didn't expect it to get modded up. Geez what are moderators drinking nowadays. Anyways I use firefox as my main browser and it is great. The new interface just has too much. Yes I can customize it, but untill I can get rid of the multibar, chance the colors, and have just one centralized tab close button. I'm sticking with firefox.

Re:Gag,

[line.at.infinity]

From the screenshot, it looks like they've combined the stop and reload button into one, which is bad design. This is usually a bad idea because when I press a browser's stop button, the browser can be too busy loading the page to stop, and it only reacts to the mouse click after the page has loaded, at which point the stop button has become a reload button. Instead of stopping a page load, it reloads it. That's like having a volume down button sometimes become volume up.

Re:Gag,

[Aeron65432]

horrendus. just like your spelling.

Re:Gag,

[Bio]

Or a "I agree" and "Cancel" button changing order in a random fashion ...

It can't be all bad

[mr_RR]

Another third-party browser will ultimately help the browser scene, regardless of how widespread its adoption is. At any rate, the release of this browser, especially with the publicity surrounding it, might help bring the need to reform the Mozilla development process (from an article a few hours ago).

Competition never hurt, and whether the new Netscape is a success or failure, its another alternative for users tired of the current selection of browsers for whatever reason.

Ultimately, a wider selection of browsers will benefit the internet as a whole, by encouraging open standards, rather than allowing any one manufacturer to dictate practice with their usage majority.

Re:It can't be all bad

[Laurentiu]

If you want third party browsers, you should look at Opera or Konqueror. This is NOT a third party browser. Contrary to popular belief, if you take two songs and mix them up, the result is NOT a brand new song. It's a (re)mix.

The "new" Netscape just takes either the IE or the FF engine and slaps an interface on top of it. AOL thus tries to ride on Netscape's reputation and make it look like it still has something to say in browser world. It doesn't. This is just marketing.

Your insights are valid, but not applicable for this release of Netscape. Maybe next time?

Re:It can't be all bad

[mr_RR]

Firefox, of course

Re:It can't be all bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I heard Safari is the #1 browser on macosxhints.com. Why bother supporting this "firey fox" crap?

Re:It can't be all bad

[legirons]

"Another third-party browser will ultimately help the browser scene"

Third-party? I seem to recall Netscape being derived from the first ever browser...

What's the point?

[BlightShadow]

If I have windows I have IE(no choices here), if I want netscape rendering I have Firefox/Mozilla. Getting a bloated version of mozilla to replace essentially mozilla seems a little silly.

Having a dual rendering based browser just doesn't make any sence.

Re:What's the point?

[CodeMaster]

May be a little OT, but you might need the "dual rendering" in order to properly view the netscape.com site (or is it just me that it's rendering _sucks_ in Firefox 1.0.1 ...)

Re:What's the point?

[Val314]

Having a dual rendering based browser just doesn't make any sence.

maybe for you at home, but just think about a large corporation with an intranet site that is IE only (quite a few intranet apps are IE only).
if they wanted to switch to firefox they'd had to tell their users to use Ie for intranet and Firefox for the rest. that doesnt really make any sense.
So having a browser that can switch between those two is quite important if you want to get into huge corps.

Blogspot

[Anonymous Coward]

with generally positive review at blogspot.com

Blogspot is not a blog. It is a blog hosting service. Please be more specific next time.

Dude, whats wrong with Netscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though the latest Netscape 8 is a mix between Firefox and IE, I don't see what's wrong with Netscape. It may not be as popular as Firefox or IE, but it is still a full-fledged, fully capable alternate browser. Is it really that bad?

Re:Dude, whats wrong with Netscape?

[iacyclone]

I agree. More competition, in most cases, fosters better products. After all who would have imagined that Firefox would have become the challenger to IE that is has today? It has been helped because of Netscape, Opera and countless others who are still trying to innovate.

Multi-Bar

[ballsanya]

I really like the idea of multi bar. On firefox I have several toolbars that I love and really can't do without, but do not use them all at the same time. Is there a firefox multi bar extension out there somewhere?

But this release DOES matter

[doublem]

Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

Actually, this one matters quite a bit. For example:

the IE rendering mode could hurt Firefox in the long-run, because it gives sites an excuse to stick with their old IE-only designs."

This release isn't a good thing. It's a blow to the progress that Firefox and Mozilla have made, and more to the point, it's a significant FU to the developers, as it reduces all of their hard work to a painfully ugly IE add on.

Re:But this release DOES matter

[mr_RR]

I don't see how an IE rendering mode will have a significant negative impact on Firefox. Sure, it will bring pressure on the Mozilla Foundation to fix those glitches in Gecko that would make a user want to use an IE render mode, but lets face it, IE rendering screws up just as many, if not more, sites than Gecko, especially those using newer CSS standards.

Re:But this release DOES matter

[icebrrrg]

absolutely. this quote

Netscape have attempted to overcome the problem of Gecko not rendering 100% of pages correctly by adding native support for Internet Explorer.

disturbs me. so basically, netscape says, we will now validate the sloppy shortcuts and non-standard code produced by MS-favoring developers. sigh. there's nothing you can do in IE that you can't do in generic code (saving activex integration, but hey, there are ways to achieve the functionality without using proprietary technology.

i was thrilled when IE first came out. i was more thrilled when firefox first came out. i'm less than thrilled this time around.

Re:But this release DOES matter

[jilles]

I think it will only improve firefox adoption. And since you have to manually specify which sites use IE rendering and since users are lazy, this will only increase the amount of sites that will be fixed. Requiring site visitors to override a preference is not an option except for the kind of sites that should already display fine using firefox (i.e. it/tech oriented sites with technically skilled visitors). This is a great feature to shut up all those 'firefox is great but site A & B don't render correctly so I abolutely have to use internet explorer, all the time' kind of people. Effectively this takes away their last excuse to stick to internet explorer. All the other reasons (performance, features, themes, extensions) have already been taken away.

Actually there aren't a lot of sites that can afford not to render correctly on firefox. Even microsoft.com works fine (except for the update stuff). I work for a content management product company and anything we ship absolutely has to work on firefox or otherwise our clients complain, loudly. Anything high profile basically works with firefox nowadays.

huh, netscape still exists?

[xiando]

First of all, I am amazed they still bother to make Netscape. They have what, a half, perhaps one percent market share?

Secondly, Netscape or any other browser really does not matter for idiotic web masters. Those who are untalented, unskilled web masters (i.e. idiots) will continue to make garbage markup code and call it web sites, those with skill will continue to make real web pages in html / xhtml (A real web page validates, everything is just trash..)

Re:huh, netscape still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have a copy of the 4.x.

series just cause I like the MAPI intercept with NT4 (on my PII 233) ...hey it works and is FW'd off.

Re:huh, netscape still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

whats a netscape?

Re:huh, netscape still exists?

[Godman]

Well, firefox started somewhere...they had .5% of the market share at one time. Perhaps Netscape hopes to break back in?

I do remember!

[Faust7]

Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

For me, it went something like this:

Netscape 1.0: Hey, cool! This World Wide Web thing is awesome!

Netscape 2.0: Backgrounds! Word!

Netscape 3.0: Different fonts, better frames, more plug-ins... keep it coming!

Netscape 4.0: Why won't these links work? *click click click click* Grrrr...

Netscape 6.0: Oh God.

Netscape 7.0: Whatever, I'm using IE now.

Netscape 8.0: Whatever, I'm using Firefox now.

Re:I do remember!

[StarWreck]

It took you until 7.0 to switch to IE? Netscape started being based on Mozilla after 4.0

Re:I do remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read more carefully; he switched at 6.0, so that when 7.0 rolled out, he didn't care, as he ran IE not Netscape 6.0.

When Netscape 8.0 rolls out, he'll have already switched to Firefox.

Re:I do remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean:

Netscape 1.0: Cool, if I ignore the W3C specifications, I can get an animated title!

Netscape 1.2: Shit! My titles are screwed up, I'd better fix them. Cool, I can leave off the quotes at the end of attributes and it will still work!

Netscape 2.0: Shit! My non-standard attributes have made half my page disappear, I'd better fix them. Cool, I don't have to encode ampersands any more, Netscape doesn't need them to be encoded!

Netscape 3.0: Shit! All those ampersands have broken my links, I'd better fix them. At least I can skip the semicolon at the end.

Netscape 4.0: Shit! That semicolon was needed after all. But look at the shiny <layer> elements I can use! Who cares if the W3C does things a different way?

Netscape 6.0: Shit! All my carefully coded <layer>s are being completely ignored! I'd better switch to CSS. It's nice how Netscape doesn't make you serve your stylesheets as text/css. Who cares about media types anyway?

Netscape 7.0: Shit! My stylesheets are being ignored! Better fix them...

Netscape is a perfect example of why complying with the W3C specifications are a good idea. And don't think Internet Explorer doesn't have similar problems with invalid code.

Re:I do remember!

[Jugalator]

... and for Microsoft it went like this ...

IE 1.0: Let's get on this intarweb bandwagon! We'll start by taking code from Spyglass' NCSA Mosaic, since we still haven't figured out how to use the "New Project" feature in Visual Studio.

IE 1.5: Introducing HTML TABLE support! Innovating faster than ever before! What, W3C was before us? Well, fuck that competitor to us!

IE 2.0: Let's all welcome MARQUEEs and BGSOUNDs for an improved user experience on beautiful rich media web pages!

IE 3.0: We now support frames! And we reverse-engineered your JavaScript, Netscape... to innovate JScript! We also innovated the new ActiveX technology for an almost unimaginable number of uses -- good or bad. How about that!? Starting to lay the foundation of a web browser the world will come to love.

IE 4.0: Mass proprietary feature implementation! Also, DHTML and lots of CSS improvements! Ooh, a HTML link... *clicky* !L=#$Xz**A@@#__ LOST CARRIER. Ahh well, stability can come later, it's only a good reason for us to make people switch to IE 5 now that we have a decent marketshare.

IE 5.0: We changed how the proprietary features in IE 4, linked to above, should be used to confuse you a bit. Hah! ANYWAY... More stable than ever before, and now supporting so many features that it's having a shitload of security issues so users will have a reason to download IE 6!

IE 5.5: Introducing a great new... bump in the version number!

IE 6.0: More stability improvements, and better standards compliant! At least we'll tell them so since that's becoming common complaints. Oh and fuck PNG! Heck, it's not even a proprietary format, and we refuse to give top notch support for communist technology. And are those W3C guys still competing with us, with their technologies they call "standards"? Damn, they never give up, do they. Security fixes? Hmm, later.

IE 6.0 Ultra Windows XP SP2 Edition Turbo: OK, we'll add the security fixes then... for one specific service pack for a specific operating system.

IE 7.0: This should crush Firefox by maybe innovating tabs... they're still confusing the hell out of us, but whatever. IE fans have asked for it, and we'll deliver by making this one a new version rich in innovations.

Re:I do remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it was version 1.0 distributed by my ISP ons 3.5" disks: please insert disk 21 from 27 ...

Still must have 'm somewhere....

Re:I do remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

N1 had backgrounds, but they had to be tiled image files, N1.1 added background colors and, IIRC, tables. N2 was the debut of frames and opening new windows from a link, JavaScript and on Windows included Java. N3 added background colors on table cells, different fonts and deepend Java support.

N4 was really bad and people started switching to IE3 (light and speedy) and then in droves to IE4. Microsoft didn't steal the browser market with bundling, Netscape handed it to them.

Re:I do remember!

[ggvaidya]

Netscape 6.0: Oh God.
That's funny, all I remember was a stunned silence ...

Re:I do remember!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, so goddamn true.

My hat is off to you my good sir.

Re:I do remember!

[Compenguin]

> It took you until 7.0 to switch to IE? Netscape started being based on Mozilla after 4.0

No, you're just plain wrong

The Netscape source code wasn't even realeased until after 4.0

Ugly Firefow

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox with an ugly theme? What's the point? Netscape who?

Its a imitator!

[solafide]

It is *based* on Firefox 1.0, yet it *imitates* IE, and it has its own new toolbar that is _ugly_. So why is it different from Opera which can imitate any browser, yet looks reasonable?

Even 6.2 is nicer than 7.0, and any new release is a step further on the road to a horrendious browser that might be orange, black, and royal blue for its theme colors!

Re:Its a imitator!

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Opera only imitates user-agent strings, not actual rendering.

Re:Its a imitator!

[JimDabell]

So why is it different from Opera which can imitate any browser

Opera can't "imitate any browser". It can provide arbitrary user-agent strings, but that's nothing like using the Internet Explorer rendering engine.

If it doesn't matter...

[Karpe]

why post it? I thought it was "News for nerds, stuff that matters." There is so many things that matter that are not accepted for post, I think the editors should be ashamed of saying something like "Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?" and then just posting it.

Re:If it doesn't matter...

[ghoti]

And let that witty comment go to waste? Never ...

Re:If it doesn't matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

It matters that it doesn't matters.

Rendering Engine

[StarWreck]

Is there much point to using Netscape since it uses the same engine as Mozilla and Firefox and Camino?

Netscape was more relevent when it based on the old Mosaic engine because that made Netscape unique. I'm sure they could revamp the old Netscape engine if they wanted to, they would just have to put some money into it... and we all know AOL will never do that. Why use Netscape to browse with the Gecko engine, when you can use a more streamlined and optimized Firefox browser. Firefox was designed by people who know the secret tricks to really get the best out of Gecko, because they are the same programmers who actually made Gecko!!

I still keep a copy of Netscape 2.0 Gold - does everything Internet Explorer can do.

Re:Rendering Engine

[Bert64]

Netscape 2.0 gold supports automatically installing spyware too? How?

Re:Rendering Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there much point to using Netscape since it uses the same engine as Mozilla and Firefox and Camino?

Put that another way: is there much point to using Mozilla and Firefox and Camino since they use the same engine as Netscape?

Netscape was more relevent when it based on the old Mosaic engine because that made Netscape unique.

Netscape never used the Mosaic engine. It used the, er, Netscape engine, which just doesn't cut it today. It didn't cut it in 1997, which is why they started NGLayout (now known as Gecko).

I'm sure they could revamp the old Netscape engine if they wanted to, they would just have to put some money into it... and we all know AOL will never do that.

Here's the code: http://lxr.mozilla.org/classic/source/. Knock yourself out. You'll find some docs at http://www.mozilla.org/classic/layout-classic/. Oh, and AOL funded the development of Gecko for five years, so you may wish to reconsider your statement.

Why use Netscape to browse with the Gecko engine, when you can use a more streamlined and optimized Firefox browser. Firefox was designed by people who know the secret tricks to really get the best out of Gecko, because they are the same programmers who actually made Gecko!!

No, they're not. Not largely anyway. Most of the people that work on the Firefox frontend (which is practically the only thing that's different from the new Netscape Browser 8.0 Beta) are not Gecko developers. And anyway, the version of Gecko you'll find in Netscape 8.0 Beta is practically identical to the one in Firefox 1.0. And Mozilla 1.7.5. And some version of Camino. And...

I still keep a copy of Netscape 2.0 Gold - does everything Internet Explorer can do.

Really? CSS? Advanced JavaScript? PNG images? Thought not.

Re:Rendering Engine

[StarWreck]

Yes! But only very very old spyware. Its hard to find websites that still try to load you with such ancient spyware using um... Javascript?

Re:Rendering Engine

[DavidTC]

IE can do PNG images?

I guess it can in the same way it can do CSS. As in, brokenly.

Remember? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

No. And thank God for these magic little pills that let me forget.

Are netscape still relevant?

[ABCC]

FTA: "Considering the recent popularity of Firefox, and the brand name Netscape holds, I can foresee this being a very popular browser. It could not only be a threat to Internet Explorer, as Firefox has been, but also Firefox itself."

Netscape? Strong brandname? Yes people who have been on the net for awhile know of them, but the way I see it the Netscape PR department have their work cut out for them to match the media buzz that surrounded FF 1.0 release, let alone convince people they should switch from IE/FF (back) to Netscape.

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[TuringTest]

The Netscape brandname will still be relevant at the server side. Many websites will be content as long as they support Explorer & Netscape.

Unfortunately, this means that they can program for the IE engine only and still be confident that they "support the web standard".

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[BackInIraq]

"Netscape? Strong brandname? Yes people who have been on the net for awhile know of them, but the way I see it the Netscape PR department have their work cut out for them to match the media buzz that surrounded FF 1.0 release, let alone convince people they should switch from IE/FF (back) to Netscape."

Anybody who has been around long enough to really remember Netscape more than likely has a negative image of them. At best they can hope to capture some users who vaguely remember having heard the name but never actually used it...because if they used any of the later versions of Netscape they will likely avoid this one like the plague.

The two computers at the entrance of my university library for some reason had Netscape installed on them for accessing the online catalog. I would walk right past them and go out of my way to get onto one of the sit-down computers, and instead access the catalog with IE (and now most of those have Firefox on them). Because while IE might be evil, Netscape was just plain bad.

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[v01d]

match the media buzz that surrounded FF 1.0 release

Media buzz? I must have missed it, however I did catch the TV commercials for Netscape. No offense, but you must have a pretty sheltered view of the world if you think Firefox has anything like the brand recognition of Netscape.

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[Kjella]

Netscape? Strong brandname? Yes people who have been on the net for awhile know of them, but the way I see it the Netscape PR department have their work cut out for them to match the media buzz that surrounded FF 1.0 release,

Strangely enough, brandname works even though it has completely lost its meaning or content. Look at Napster. Granted I'm not sure the "new napster" is a success, but I seem to see a damn lot of stories going "Napster revived", "The new Napster", "Napster gone legal" etc. etc., which is press and attention you definately wouldn't have gotten with "$foo new online music store".

Likewise with Netscape. Even though Netscape 1-4 and 6-8 are completely different browsers, the name remains and news sites do post articles about "Netscape". Of course, if you can't deliver it'll ultimately die down, but I think the Moz/FF quality will come to Netscape before that.

As we've seen, you can keep a name around in people's mindshare for years. The press is always a sucker for "comebacks". It is kinda like reporting on Maradona's n'th "comeback", long after most sane people have figured out it's not going to happen. Still makes good press.

Kjella

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but why would I want to download a new Internet service? I mean, I'm happy with my current Internet provider.

Wait, Netscape 8.0 is what now?

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Yeah, you must have.
Google News hits for Netscape: 1550
Google News hits for Firefox: 2500

I admit it's a not reliable metric, but maybe it is data point saying that the Firefox brand is at least comparable to Netscape. Maybe you have other data sources?

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[v01d]

The Netscape brand is advertised on television and in magazines. How many TV commercials have there been for the Firefox/Mozilla brand? How about magazine ads?

Of course people interested in computers are well aware of Firefox. The vast majority of the planet, however, is not interested. If you want an example, ask your dentist to list the web browsers they know of.

Re:Are netscape still relevant?

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

In defence of my metric: Google news is not for "people interested in computers". It just aggregates 4500 news sources from all over the world. I don't understand how Firefox can get a 60% larger coverage and still be irrelevant as a brand?

A brand is not ads, it is mindshare. You said that the majority of the planet is not interested in Firefox. Well, that's probably an understatement (as the majority probably don't even know what a browser is), but in any case it's the same thing with Netscape too...

Firefox has a small footprint?

[fons]

Don't get me wrong, I love and use firefox, but you won't get it installed on an old PI-233 with 32MB RAM.

Internet Explorer DOES install and work on that configuration.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[bhtooefr]

Myself, I'd use Opera on that. After all, with all the spyware, that PMMX@233 will CRAWL...

Besides, I've used as recent Opera releases as 7.60P1 (haven't booted the box since then) on my PMMX@233 with 96MB of RAM and Mandrake 10.0 Community. It's certainly slower than Opera on a modern box, but last I checked, it kicked Firefox's ass (except for the memory leaks, but those have almost disappeared in the later 7.6 previews and 8.0 betas).

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[slim]

Don't get me wrong, I love and use firefox, but you won't get it installed on an old PI-233 with 32MB RAM.

I have a Pentium 233 on my desktop. It runs Debian unstable, and Firefox runs OK. It feels a little sluggish on image-heavy pages, but that's life.

Is the Windows version so much different?

Now, Mozilla on the other hand is unuasably slow on this machine.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[fons]

That's actually a very good idea! Thanks.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[linguae]

My experiences has been different. Firefox runs well on my 266MHz Pentium II with 64 MB RAM running Windows 98 (which I'm typing on now), and even runs well on an ancient 120MHz Pentium I with 64 MB RAM, running Windows 95. (My main machine, a 475MHz K6-2 with 64 MB RAM running FreeBSD runs Firefox even better).

It might be the RAM, though, but I'd rather wait a extra seconds to load a secure, standards compliant browser than to use IE.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a couple of email only PCs at my university that have been around since 1997. They're certainly not faster than P00. Only last year they've exchanged IE for Firefox - and it runs quick and with far less problems than IE.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[WoodieR]

I recently loaded Firefox on a PII 400 Celery, with 32 RAM, runs cute as a button on the 98SE on the system ... don't see why it wouldn't go into a 233/32 ?

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Ayaress]

Just to test things out, I dug my P200 out. It has 16 megs of RAM and runs windows 95. Firefox was a bit slow to load up on it, but works fine once loaded. My laptop is a P166 with 90-some-odd megs of RAM, and it runs Firefox without a hitch.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[SCHecklerX]

It runs fine on my toshiba libretto (P233, 64MB ram).

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[ThJ]

Pentium II Celery??

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[spisska]

Actually, I have Firefox running happily on an old Pentium 133 Thinkpad. It doesn't load very fast, but once it's up, pages load quickly enough

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[SenseiLeNoir]

a Pentuim II based Celeron....

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Really? I started using Mozilla 1.0 on my old K6 300 with 48mb RAM and it ran as fast or faster than IE 4. Beat the heck out of Netscape 4.7, which is what I was using before the Rockwalrus turned me on to Mozilla. That's faster than your machine, but it was a Compaq, which pretty much negates the speed difference.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[ThJ]

Of course I'm aware of that. What would I be doing here on Slashdot in any other case? But "Celery" instead of "Celeron"? Was that just a bad pun?

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[MerlinTheWizard]

Really...? ;-) Firefox takes up more than 32 MB just upon loading. When you say "cute as a button", you mean cute as those ugly spots on the average teenager geek's face? It must take at least 5 minutes to load? :D

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Mishura]

I tried to install firefox on a friend's computer with those same stats.. The thing wouldn't even get past the "Would you like to set this as default browser?" -- and would lock up.

>>Internet Explorer DOES install and work on that configuration.

Sure. IE will install and work on anything, if you can get Win95 on it. But would you really want to use it on an old machine? All you have to do is hit ONE website with the cascading popups feature, and the auto-download of spyware; and your computer is now too slow to run IE.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[DavidTC]

If you're using 98, sure. 98 loads IE automatically, remember. The OS is 12 megs, IE is 16 megs, roughly. In fact, IE is almost entirely responsibly for the difference in memory size required between 95 and 98.

Try Firefox on 95, without IE, with 32 megs of memory. It'll be sluggish, but work okay.

Not that I'm saying, if you have a 233Mhz 32 meg box, you should switch back to 95, or that I have any other solution that would allow Firefox to run. I don't. (Besides pointing out that you can find old memory for free if you look hard for discarded computers.) I'm just saying, be aware the reason Firefox is not working is that Microsoft wanted to make their browser faster by preloading it. And that's not only stopping you from running IE, it probably is stopping you from running any modern program, be it Microsoft Word 2000 or Dreamweaver or even non-IE Java.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[WWWWolf]

Don't get me wrong, I love and use firefox, but you won't get it installed on an old PI-233 with 32MB RAM.

I've used Mozilla 1.0 and Galeon on Pentium 166 with 32 megs (in Debian) just fine... the only snags are that they take a few minutes to start up. I guess Firefox would run too, if I asked it really nicely.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[gl4ss]

which version of ie would that be? some for some windows version that's usable at 32mb? from an era when 32mb was standard.. hmm?

from 1996 or something?

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[bynary]

What kind of nerd are you? I've heard that used in many different settings. The parent was hardly being original.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first off you have an older processor and only 32 mb's of memory.
Think about it...internet explorer is integrated into the operating system, therefore it is automatically loaded into memory when you boot the operating system. Sooo it is using up almost all of your memory. And that is why firefox runs slow....internet explorer is using all the memory!

I'm looking at my windows task manager now, internet explorer is using 20 mb's of ram...firefox is only using 18 mb's and that is with a whole slashdot page full of text.
Eliminate ie and firefox will fly.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[ThJ]

From your question I take it that this is something you took for granted that I knew about? Maybe I don't know about it simply because I'm Norwegian. I don't think I've ever heard it refered to as "Celery". It doesn't work quite as well either, as the Norwegian (and Italian) word for "celery" is "seleri".

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[bynary]

That would be correct. I had assumed you were American. That was foolish on my part. It is a rather common pun used in the U.S. when referring to Intel's "value" line of processors. Either your command of the English language is to be commended, or you use excellent translation software. Having lived in several foreign countries, I can appreciate your misunderstanding of an American slang term. Try http://www.urbandictionary.com/. It provides a bevy of American slang. Cheers!

BTW, I've always wanted to visit Norway (and Finland). My wife's best friend from high school is Finnish and I studied with a wonderful girl from Norway in college.

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[Arcane]

I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird on my old Toshiba Libretto, PI@90 with 32M under Win98. PCMCIA Wireless Lan and it ran just fine. Slow to load (of course), but what's new about that?

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[ThJ]

UrbanDictionary is good, the definitions at times very biased or humoristic, but still a useful tool. I'm also fond of Dictionary.com, Wikipedia and my trusty Clue NO EN dictionary. Didn't occur to me to look up computer slang at the former site, though.

A lot of people have "always wanted to visit Norway". I don't find our mass of tourists overwhelming, though, so I figure we're not that exotic. After all, one does get bored with fjords and mountains after a while, and you can't have a beer in a pub without coughing up $8 for a half liter glass. ;) Oh well...

Re:Firefox has a small footprint?

[ThJ]

Oops! Forgot to thank you for the compliment. No, I don't use translation software. You'd be at a loss about whether to laugh or cry if you saw the online NO/EN translators out there.

Since when?

[DesScorp]

"It's a blow to the progress that Firefox and Mozilla have made..."

Why is it a blow to Mozilla and Firefox? Are Moz and FF copying what Netscape is doing? No? Are Moz and FF still available in configurations you prefer? Then what's the problem?

", and more to the point, it's a significant FU to the developers, as it reduces all of their hard work to a painfully ugly IE add on."

How is this a Fuck You to the developers at Mozilla? I seem to recall that Mozilla wouldn't exist without Netscape, and there's that small issue of Netscape basically paying Mozilla's way when it went independant. If anyone has a right to base a browser on Mozilla, it's Netscape.

Oh, and some businesses NEED a browser that can view IE code, because some business apps require it. You don't have to like that, by way shoot Netscape for providing an alternative to IE that fills a need?

Re:Since when?

[doublem]

Oh there you go ruining a perfectly good troll bait rant with logic. I'd hoped to get a few more zealots foaming at the mouth before someone introduced LOGIC.

It really would have been something of an FU if Netscape's user base was still larger, because then it might actually discourage Firefox and Mozilla migrations. At my company, we recommend Firefox or Mozilla as alternative browsers, not Netscape, and a lot of our customers aren't upgrading to the next Netscape. They're either using Safari or Firefox.

At this stage, Netscape is basically around as a brand name for AOL use, and a bargaining chip in any discussions between AOL and Microsoft. It's also around to serve as an upgrade path for all the Netscape users who don't know about Mozilla, and believe me, they're out there, and they're probably a sizeable percentage of the current Netscape users.

In the end, this is actually a good thing for Mozilla / Firefox adoption. You see, Netscape just added all the IE vulnerabilities to it's product. Everyone switching away from IE because of bugs and security can now be told to avoid Netscape, as at this point it really is nothing more than an IE add on.

Re:Since when?

[rayd75]

"Oh, and some businesses NEED a browser that can view IE code, because some business apps require it. "

Holy crap, that's a good point. I was seriously ready to dismiss Netscape since it's little more than a rebranded Firefox. On the other hand, I have been unable to deploy Firefox in my shop because 99% of packaged intranet solutions seem to be written for IE. Netscape 8 (with a less vomitous theme) could break the IE stranglehold in businesses. Hell, my bosses all recognize the name and I can presumably set it to render intranet pages with the IE engine and other pages with Gecko. There might be redeeming qualities about this release after all.

Re:Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a blow to Mozilla and Firefox?

Maybe because people will hear about this new Netscape that's based on Firefox, give Netscape a go, find that it's horrible, and be put off both browsers.

You don't have to like that, by way shoot Netscape for providing an alternative to IE that fills a need?

If it uses Internet Explorer's rendering engine, it's not an alternative, is it? BTW, you might want to preview your comments, that last sentence didn't parse properly and I can't even guess exactly what you meant to say.

Re:Since when?

[WoodieR]

Oh, and some businesses NEED a browser that can view IE code, because some business apps require it Obviously, these are businesses which are significantly behind the times ( dinosaurs ), and deserve to be extinct ... any business which is still headed by incompetent twits that are unaware of standards, and MS' attempts to bastardise / monopolise / distort that which it can not pwn ...

Re:Since when?

[GeckoX]

It still doesn't matter.

You will still need IE in these cases.

Any ActiveX controls used on a webpage, typically found mostly in intranet sites, will still only run in IE.

Re:Since when?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

since when did having broken, nonstandard HTML, Javascript and CSS rendering become a requirement?!

Re:Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. They should rewrite all their code. It doesn't matter that when the code was written that nary a browser supported the standards very well, so an itch was scratched with non-standard stuff. So now that browsers have finally caughten up, all that code should be thrown and rewritten.

Give me a break. This is exactly why these businesses are still in business. They know what to dedicate resources to, and rewriting working code doesn't sound very profitable.

Re:Since when?

[jellomizer]

Since most of the pages out there use Broken, Nonstandard HTML, Javascript and CSS. Duh. You can't convince web developers to follow the standards you can only convince the people who pay the developers to follow the standards. Because if the developers don't care to follow the standards they won't care that you are complaing about it. But for the people who pay these guys and give them a good buisness reason (10% of potential customers revenue vs. 2% extra development time costs) It comes down to money. If it was like it was the same time 2 years ago. with 98% of all people using IE then the 2% cost to follow the standards wont justify the 2% gain in sales.

Re:Since when?

[MindStalker]

No, the new Netscape can render in IE and use ActiveX. It makes some slightly tighter security choices about it, but they can be loosed on a site by site basis.

IE Rendering

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape may not be the most popular browser, going back to its heavyweight, slow and bulky days. However, it can slow Firefox adoption in Linux down tremendously because it is the alternative Linux browser that can actually render all web pages as they were intended.

I don't really care for that, since IE rendering violates standards. However, the websites with the most problems tend to be the more important ones... from my experience, banks, government, and other forms sites tend to have more problems rendering in Firefox than the majority of simple information pages.

I just wonder how fast the IE rendering engine is, compared to the Firefox rendering engine.

Re:IE Rendering

[linguae]

However, it can slow Firefox adoption in Linux down tremendously because it is the alternative Linux browser that can actually render all web pages as they were intended.

Err, no. This new Netscape browser is Windows-only, so it probably isn't going to affect Firefox adoption in Linux

Besides, just about every desktop Linux user uses Firefox, Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, Epiphany, Galeon, or some other top-notch, secure, standards-compliant browser. Firefox adoption in Linux (or any other *nix) doesn't really matter, because just about everybody is using a really nice browser. There is almost no gain for the Mozilla organization to switch every Konqueror, Epiphany, and Galeon user to Mozilla or Firefox (Epiphany and Galeon are already Gecko-based), kind of like how Debian isn't trying to convince Gentoo or Fedora users to switch.

Things are different on the Windows side of the fence, however. Currently, IE still has a stronghold on Windows desktops. IE is literally falling apart from the seams, yet most users don't know (and don't care), even though their spyware and adware problems have multiplied over the years. However, Mozilla and Firefox are finally available for them, and the reception from users is mostly great.

As for the IE rendering inside of the new Netscape browser, I don't like the idea at all. Every single IE exploit now becomes a Netscape exploit, and we all know how buggy and insecure IE's rendering engine is. Plus, I've never had a problem opening up web pages at all with Firefox/Mozilla. If I needed to enter a site which required ActiveX, and it was important, I can always download a Firefox extension (on a Windows computer) to view the site.

Besides, we should be promoting standards. If we can switch people to Firefox, we can switch people to XHTML, CSS, Java/Perl/Python, and other standards. Developers need to learn the dangers of sticking to MS-only code (insecurity and Windows-lockin; what about the Mac and *nix users?) and learn how to change. Is it that difficult to learn XHTML, CSS, and some programming language that can do everything that ActiveX can do, without the insecurities?

Re:IE Rendering

[Anonymous Coward]

If we can switch people to Firefox, we can switch people to XHTML, CSS, Java/Perl/Python, and other standards.

XHTML is not a standard. If you want a standard markup language, use ISO-HTML.

CSS is not a standard. If you want a standard stylesheet language, use DSSSL.

Java is not a standard. If you want a standard application programming language, use C, C++ or C#.

Perl and Python are not standards. If you want a standard scripting language, use ECMAScript.

Re:IE Rendering

[Anonymous Coward]

CSS is not a standard

As you were saying....
and, oh, XHTML is also a standard.

Re:IE Rendering

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confusing the words "standard" and "specification". Just because something's written down where everybody can read it, it doesn't make it a standard.

The W3C publishes specifications. They are not a standards body, they are an industry consortium. If you read "Weaving the Web", Tim Berners-Lee explicitly states that he didn't want the W3C to be a standards body.

The languages I mentioned have been standardised by organisations such as ISO and ECMA - who publish actual standards.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

and then look at
http://minghong.dyndns.org:8080/OpenWiki/?NoIEInfo rmationBar
which has great IE InfoBar spoofing, including lots of localizations!

Cross platform

[erebus24]

So where does this leave Netscape on Mac or Linux? Will the Netscape 8 become available for Mac using IE5? Dear god anything but that.

funny you mention it not mattering

[minus_273]

imagine if they had not become and open source product and instead mozilla came out later as netscape 6 and only netscape 6, would you use it on linux (given no alternative) and would you say it mattered? this might be an interesting test case for companies that are thinking of open sourcing.

IE Rendering Mode

[kevb]

I wonder if this will only work in Windows (and possibly Mac). Will be interesting to see if it could be done on other operating systems.

Re:IE Rendering Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this will only work in Windows (and possibly Mac). Will be interesting to see if it could be done on other operating systems.

Yes, of course it will only work in Windows. The Windows version can use the IE rendering engine because it's simply a Windows component that can be called by any application (and unfortunately it often is).

For some reason, MS have neglected to release IE as an embeddable component for Linux.

And although I know nothing about the Mac version of IE, I'm going to speculate that that version can't be used in the same way as the Windows component either. Any Mac users that do know about this kind of thing can keep the info to themselves - nobody else is interested, thanks.

Re:IE Rendering Mode

[DavidTC]

Interestingly enough, IE6 works in Wine, which raised the horrible idea that Netscape on Linux could use it.

Lukcily that would probably be some licensing violation.

Re:Gag

[Tavor]

/me peers closely at the teeny tiny image the linked site has.
Ugh. Looks like a cross between AOL-(mis)design tactics, and Windows Media Player 7 for Windows ME.

http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/special/2000/WinMe/images /M-08.jpg
WMP7 Example

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/int/aol8/scrn.gif
AOL Ugliness.

It still matters

[johansalk]

The release of a Netscape still matters; only now we call it a mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird etc).

What FireFox needs to do is

[the_2nd_coming]

when ever a page is rendering bad IE code a box needs to be placed at the top of the page saying "This page is not coded properly in HTML and may appear odd"

Re:What FireFox needs to do is

[entrager]

Then people will complain that the page works fine in IE but doesn't work in Firefox. The average web user doesn't understand that the problem lies with the creator of the web site. I don't think the average user even understands that the creator of the web site and the creator of the browser are different. Or that the web site and browser itself are different.

Re:What FireFox needs to do is

[Neophytus]

WHAT?! I always thought that the interweb was stored in my monitor!

Unfortunately

[fuentes]

Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?

It still does, especially if you're a fed. Many gov't agencies still use Netscape, and will make use of this new release simply because they're all still stuck in the 90's. I don't know firsthand, but I'd be willing to bet Firefox didn't get much attention from the government. Most feds only know "IE" and "Netscape."

Re:Unfortunately

[domefreak]

The Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site's coding standards include a testing suite with the browsers that they test all their pages on (and they have a very non-lenient QA process). This list used to be solid NN/IE, but in the last few months they have changed it:

• PCs:
  • MS Internet Explorer: 5.5
  • MS Internet Explorer: 6.0
  • Mozilla

• Macs:
  • Safari 1.0

Funny, last time i set up a site for them I jokingly asked why the test suite didn't include Safari. This time I just got to complain that their browser detection doesn't show any search box to Mac FireFox - I have to spoof the user agent.

IE-onlyness

[rsidd]

A financial website I use did not work with anything except IE: none of the buttons did anything when clicked on. I complained, twice, and actually got a reply both times saying "thanks for the feedback, we're passing it on to our web team." And now it does work in Firefox, and Konq too. Perhaps others complained too, but it looks like change is possible. (There are a couple other bugs with firefox that I'll tell them about.)

Re:IE-onlyness

[Anonymous Coward]

Works with Netscape 7.2

What exactly are they smoking?

[argent]

it makes the point that the IE rendering mode could hurt Firefox

More than Firefox. The Microsoft HTML control (the IE rendering engine) is inherently insecure by design. It's not possible to use it in a way that doesn't open up cross-zone attacks because "security zones" are such a deep part of its design. The IE rendering mode has the potential of hurting anyone who uses it but think they're somehow safer because they're not using IE.

Does not compute...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slashdot ... News for nerds, stuff that matters"

"Ah, remember when the release of a Netscape mattered?"

Do the math...

Non-windows version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know if this beast is going to be available for non-Windows platform? Netscape usually releases its products for non-Windows. Will this keep up the trend? It would be nice for people on non-Windows platform to finally enter their favourite IE-only websites with Netscape, I suppose.

Young whippersnapper

[nojomofo]

Back in my day, we used Mosaic, and we liked it!

Re:Young whippersnapper

[MissTuxie]

ahh, the good days of Mosaic. I remember "What's the most popular graphic browser these days?" or something being a question on the test I took to get into university!

Re:Young whippersnapper

[AviLazar]

The good old days :) Mosaic was my second coding experience - my first was Logowriter :D

Re:Young whippersnapper

[xgamer04]

Sadly, I'm probably one of the youngest people who used Mosaic. These kids and their demands... "where's the internet on your computer?"

/me beats head against wall

(I'm 18) (I used it in school)

Re:Young whippersnapper

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! My first browser was Cello (followed by Netscape 1.0).

Not on Mac.

[UncleRage]

MS hasn't released an update for the Mac in years. If memory serves correctly*, I believe the last Mac release was IE 5.2.

* I don't have many Mac clients anymore (maybe 5 or 6 out of 60ish), and those I do all use Safari/Firefox/Camino.

Of course... real geeks use lynx/links. ;)

Remember when the release of a Netscape mattered ?

[jpiggot]

Yes.

Milk was a nickle, and cars were called "trolley boxes" And I seem to remember walking five miles in the snow to school. Each way. Even during the summer.

Man, that sucked. I sure am glad we have Firefox now.

"positive review at blogspot.com"?

[Anonymous Coward]

blogspot.com is a free hosting site for blogger.com weblogs. Saying "a review at blogspot.com" is like saying "a review at geocities.com" - it's meaningless, as anyone could have written it. If Slashdot is going to link to random bloggers, at least make it clear that the author is a random blogger as opposed to part of some semi-legitimate sounding site.

At any rate, the reviews by Danial Glazman (author of Nvu and Mozilla Composer) and Blake Ross (of the Firefox team) are far more enlightening.

Blogspot?

[Lshmael]

"It seems like Netscape 8 has hit blogland, with generally positive review at blogspot.com...

Technically, the review is at the blog "Smiler's Scribbles," which is hosted on Blogspot. The post makes it sounds as if the Blogspot staff got together and reviewed the browser themselves, which they did not.

Netscape?

[p0rnking]

What I don't get is why did AOL buy Netscape (other than for it's user's, since netscape.com was one of the busiest sites online at the time), and why is Netscape still around (besides their cheaper alternative to AOL's online service)?

America OffLine bought Netscape, Netscape started Mozilla to be the next version of Netscape, AOL got rid of Mozilla, and the Mozilla Foundation was formed, and AOL was using IE as their main browser.

Now, AOL has made their own browser which is based on IE, Netscape still releases beta browsers based on what was suppose to be their next browser, which is now not owned by anyone.

So why did AOL buy Netscape, and why is Netscape still around?

Netscape 8 Compatible with Solaris?

[Evil W1zard]

Has anyone heard or seen any information on whether Netscape 8 will have a version to work on the Solaris OS? I have been trying to find info on this, but I haven't seen anything saying they will?

Re:Netscape 8 Compatible with Solaris?

[anthropolemic]

Windows only. There are rumors of a Linux version, but I don't know if that'll work out. It's just too tied to the IE engine. I guess they assume you'll just use Firefox.

Re:Netscape 8 Compatible with Solaris?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason why Netscape 8 on Linux couldn't still support the MSIE engine. If mplayer and xine can use Win32 codecs then surely a Linux browser could embed MSIE. Heck, there is even some old code to allow Konqueror to (sort of) use ActiveX. You would have to copy a few dll files from a real Windows box (or get an unofficial package) to use it.

But it's Firefox developed that's messed up.

[gelfling]

I use NS7.2 at home and there is nothing at all about it that's bad. The only site I commonly use that doesn't work well with NS is eMachine's product support pages. It handles profiles better than FF/TB and it installs clean and well. I actually like WeatherBug but remove AIM toolbar and the other gewgaws, Wildtangent, etc. It doesn't crash on XP as much as FF. And in terms of bloat, FF on a low powered Linux machine is painfully slow. Use Dillo if you can, so clearly FF is not all about speed, it's about a balance of speed and function just like everything else.

Insightful

[v_1matst]

does anyone know what that means anymore? Before you mod:

1. insightful -- (exhibiting insight or clear and deep perception; "an insightful parent"; "the chapter is insightful and suggestive of new perspectives"-R.C.Angell)

Thank you.

little warning, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a little warning from me: Reading the page seems as if it still has some problems:

"Current Limitations

May crash - Under some conditions, the bar may crush IE. Reason unknown."

Even tough I think it's good to inform people about other browser, I'd be very careful with this. Unless you don't mind angry visitors, a more subtle way may be better.

I found my frog!

[rkaa]

Him name is Gecko green lizard

Re:How'd you get it to install on win95

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 1.0 I can't get the firefox installer to install under win95, the pre 1.0 installers worked fine.

Any OS projects to embed IE in Firefox

[drmike0099]

I don't believe the Netscape project is open source (which is their right under MPL) and so I couldn't find out how they embedded IE into Firefox.

Are there any other open source projects that will let you embed the IE rendering engine into Firefox? I've seen the Mozilla ActiveX project, but was unable to get that working. It also lacks the simplicity of a toggle to switch rendering modes.

I hate to say it, but like it or not there are a lot of legacy applications out there that require IE, and that we are unable to change without a lot of time, money, and arm-twisting to the vendors who provide them. We would love to switch to Firefox across our enterprise, but the IE-requirement has our hands tied. But a Firefox browser that we could set up w/ a whitelist of what pages should toggle to the IE rendering engine, now that is something we could work with...

Actually . . .

[wakejagr]

. . .where I work (tech support for a major ISP), I am allowed to support netscape, but not firefox, so I recommend it as an alternative to IE.

I figure that less than 5% of the people I speak to (people who are having problems with their internet connection) are using something other than Windows + IE. Most of that 5% are Mac users (and mostly OS 8-9).

I know people use linux/mac/bsd/etc, and firefox/netscape/opera/lynx/etc, but those that do either don't use my ISP, don't have problems, don't call when they do have problems, or some combination of the above.

Re:Actually . . .

[shokk]

What about Mozilla 1.7.5? It's close enough to Firefox, yet it's not that billboard platform called Netscape nor is it IE.

Marketing Suicide

[DanCentury]

I just installed and tested Netscape 8 beta. By default the rendering engine was set to IE, which means that the user agent shows up as IE. The result of this is Netscape 8 won't show up in WebTrends, Hitbox, Sawmill, or whatever other tracking software you use. Good for IE, bad for Netscape. When the marketing people see the stats they won't see Netscape 8 and it won't be considered.

Is this move intentional? Did Time Warner jump the Firefox grenade for Microsoft? Or are they just commiting suicide?

Moron

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an anti-MS idiot.

Re:Moron

[Anonymous Coward]

Look who's calling the kettle black.

Nothing big.

[nova20]

Ok, so it can render pages like IE. It's still a bloated package. When it was just IE and Netscape, I used IE because whenever I install netscape, I also get *all* kinds of stuff from AOL that I don't want/need, and I hate tracking it all down to uninstall. Now I use FireFox because it's more secure than IE, it's got a *lot* of useful features, and it's not bloated with all kinds of crap I don't need.

I'm sticking to Firefox. How about you guys?

Re:Nothing big.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sticking to Firefox. How about you guys?

STFU. Damn karma whores.

I'll stick with IE thank you very much. If you Firefox fanbois could stop sucking each other's ducks for a few seconds you might have time to realize that Firefox isn't God's gift to internet browsers. More like borrowed code from Netscape.

Feature Request for NS8

[4of12]

although it makes the point that the IE rendering mode could hurt Firefox in the long-run, because it gives sites an excuse to stick with their old IE-only designs.

So why not have a small popupbar (just like when FF blocks a pop-up) on NS 8 that says something like...

The web page you are browsing does not comply with W3C standards! Do you wish to email the page author to inform them of this problem?

It should be unobtrusive enough not to annoy the browser users, but get enough users to hit the page authors to change their pages.

While I think it's too hard a problem to solve, if the email not only included the problems with the page but suggested a possible patch to bring the page into compliance, that would be most excellent.

Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

If "speed" and "memory footprint" were your selling points, you'd be using Opera.

Slashdot's status

[Random832]

Slashdot is in the default trusted sites list - though ironically this makes it display in internet explorer mode by default..

So..

[God of Lemmings]

I'm getting just about fed up with Microsoft's practice of standards breaking. Its getting to be so much of a pain in the ass to get everything the same across platforms that I'm seriously considering forcing users to upgrade to another browser before ever giving access to content. Besides, its less work for me, and safer for them.

Who cares if it validates?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you one thing, I write a lot of HTML on my job in between my Java and PHP code and I've never, ever, ever written
. Why? Cause
works. I don't give a shit about that extra slash just to indicate that if you were trying to parse this as XML, not to look for a tag. This is HTML. It's a language for getting a good looking web page slapped together fast so you can get on to your business programming.

Spelling police

[Anonymous Coward]

sence = sense

Just trying to prevent people from learning the wrong word ("loose" instead of "lose" has caught on, don't want any more of those)

You guys are forgetting a major issue

[yoshiyahu]

Most people aren't ready to just drop IE and move to Firefox. Giving the chance to get used to Mozilla while still being able to do things like IE helps the transition.