Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
I expect the great look turns into great functionality, but what they done to increase the size from 4MB to 12MB?!?!?!
http://www.michel.eti.br
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!
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.
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?
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*).
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
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.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
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.
nothing worth possessing isn't possessed. or something.
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?
Just
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.
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.
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.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
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."
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.)
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.
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.
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.
forget it.
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.
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?