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Netscape 9 to Undo Netscape 8 Mistakes?
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine reports that Netscape 9 has been announced. The most interesting thing is how they seem to be re-evaluating many of the decisions they made with Netscape 8. Netscape 9 will be developed in-house (Netscape 8 was outsourced) and it will be available for Windows, OSX, and Linux (Netscape 8 was Windows only). Although Netscape 9 will be a standalone browser, the company is also considering resuming support for Netscape 7.2, the last suite version with an email client and Web page editor. It remains to be seen whether Netscape will reverse the disastrous decision to include the Internet Explorer rendering engine as an alternative to Gecko but given that there's no IE for OS X or Linux, here's hoping. After a series of substandard releases, could Netscape be on the verge of making of a version of their browser that enhances the awesomeness of Firefox, rather than distracts from it?"
To me it seems Netscape has lost his reputation as best browser. Mozilla Firefox is the more used browser these days. For Netscape it is very hard to gain market share with a suit. Still brave of Netscape though.
Just my 2 cents.
Daxy's Networking Blog
Wow. I had no idea that there were still "Netscape" browsers being made today. That's cute.
I don't respond to AC's.
With Firefox and all those other browsers out there, exactly why should we care about a new version of Netscape? Especially since most of the versions I've tried have seemed rather, well, sucky.
Firstly, that's some quality writing. Secondly, the only thing I see Netscape 9 enhancing is the memory usage. Holy crap, people call Firefox a memory hog. Are they planning on including a discount on a 1GB DIMM with every download?
I gave up on Netscape after 4.72. I recommend the tag 'clusterfuck'.
I mean, let's be honest here. We have Firefox and Opera, plus Safari if you're a Mac user. Netscape is irrelevant.
It would take something truly remarkable for this to have any impact, with Netscape's repeated failed starts over the last few years I can't see many people being willing to give them much of a go.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
Of course there is! Where have you been? You probably didn't notice that there is an Amiga OS/4 either, a 2008 Fortran standard, or a late 2005 release of the TinyCOBOL compiler. I'm sure a revised Gopher client is in the works, along with some juicy updates for our favorite C64 BBS program, Color64. It's great to live in the past!
Back in the netscape 4 days, some months after the source release, I remember a coworker having just heard of this new "gecko" rendering engine, and coming excitedly to my desk to show me how amazing it was. He pointed me to where to grab the nearly-naked engine, and then told me to render the same page in it and in my existing netscape window, and marvel at how much faster gecko was.
I opened up some moderately complex page in gecko, and it seemed kind of normal-ish to me. I opened up the same page in a new netscape window, and it was perceptibly faster. He was confused for a moment. "It was way, way faster than netscape on my machine..."
I tried the comparison again with a few other pages, with similar results. Finally he notices something: "Hey, what version of netscape are you running here?"
"3.04," I said. "4 is just a lot slower and crashier than 3, without adding anything worthwhile."
"...oh," he said, disappointed. He had just figured out that this magical open-source revamping of the netscape 4 source had managed to produce something that was... nearly back to as good as netscape 3.
Sadly, I think this situation persists through today. The whole family tree of netscape/gecko browsers seems to have only continued to get worse since 1998, adding nothing that I find desirable, and removing more and more performance and stability.
I remember Netscape like it was yesterday. *** assumes the foetal position, in a dark corner. ****
The only reason to keep Netscape alive is brand recognition. Look at how many websites are still "best viewed"/"tested" or have bookmark or printing directions for only Netscape and IE, or just haven't been updated to say anything different: NOAA, part of NASA, NIH sites, govts of Utah and Minnesota, the IOC, a Consumer Reports site and college after college after college. If people keep seeing these notices, especially on government sites, there's no way they'll switch to some "other" browser, and keeping Netscape as a brand will be worthwhile. I mean, do I really have to mention AOL?
"It remains to be seen whether Netscape will reverse the disastrous decision to include the Internet Explorer rendering engine as an alternative to Gecko"
Hold on... what exactly whas so disastrous about that? If I'm not mistaken, you got the choice of using either the Gecko or the IE rendering engine. What exactly is so disastrous about that? I thought we were supposed to be all -for- choice?
"a version of their browser that enhances the awesomeness of Firefox, rather than distracts from it?"
I'm not sure if the poster really meant "distracts" there.. it is quite apt, given what a gizmo-ridden POS Netscape is these days.. but I suspect they meant "detract".
What about punchcards? I want to be able to punch out "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" on my IBM 029 and get the result back on a line printer...
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
It remains to be seen whether Netscape will reverse the disastrous decision to include the Internet Explorer rendering engine as an alternative to Gecko but given that there's no IE for OS X or Linux, here's hoping.
Why? Why do you think it was a "disastrous decision"? What was the disaster? Why are you hoping this feature isn't included?
Look, I'm a web developer. I hate Internet Explorer with a passion. But this just screams out as blatant fanboyism. Including Trident for particular websites that don't work so well in Gecko wasa fairly sane decision, and really didn't affect anybody negatively. Grow the fuck up if you can't handle that and still feel the need to whine about it after years have passed.
IMO Netscape 7.2 is better than Netscape 8. I try to install Netscape 8 in Windows ME but it doesn't works right :-(
eval($i);$i="',rekcah 6lreP rehtona tsuJ'tnirp=_$";
In a word... NO.
Netscape ceased existence with the last vestiges of the 4.79(?) version; as long as AOL controls it, it will be filled with automatically installed spyware/adware and AOL cruft.
Unlike the Mozilla Suite Releases the AOL releases not only added crapware, they could barely get fixes out. Nutscrape is dead, long live Mozilla.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I just can't bring myself to care. AOL has done nearly everything possible to ruin the name, reputation, and legacy of Netscape. If the next version of the browser doesn't continue this grand tradition, then they must be out of ideas.
I'm not sure why the cryptic title was chosen, of course Netscape 9 will be better than Netscape 8. *smile* The new browser will be integrated with our social news system that has been live on Netscape.com since July 2006, and yes, the browser will run on Linux (as well as Windows and Mac).
I am one of the Anchors on Netscape http://www.netscape.com/about, and not directly part of the dev team, but I am sure members of our dev team will have plenty to comment on this thread once they are awake.
Fabienne Serriere
Netscape Anchor
Oh, man, that'd be awesome! If they could just add JavaScript to Gopher, it'd be perfect! And image support. And Flash. Yeah, that's all Gopher really needs to succeed. But that would be a pretty l33t Gopher, so we should probably spell it g0ph3r to save confusion. Either that or Bruce (since Archie and Veronica are already taken).
Actually, C*Base is the preferred flavor nowadays, and 3.3 was just released:
C*Base 3.3
You gotta move with the times, man.
READY.
#
It looks like it is essentially a mozilla addon that allows rss feeds and blog syndication. Latest API News
We've updated the Friends' Activity Sidebar Firefox extension to include the option to be notified of your friends' votes (in addition to their stories and comments). To use this new feature, install version 1.1 of the extension from Mozilla Addons, and... Netscape 9, might be a need to have mozilla addon. I will definitely be watching this.
the disastrous decision to include the Internet Explorer rendering engine as an alternative to Gecko
Uhm, what disasters were caused by having an _alternate_ rendering engine which most people would not know how or why to use?
What is the point of making a new, separate browser instead of joining forces with the Firefox development and just distributing a re-branded Firefox with a new theme and a couple of pre-installed extensions?
What differences will there be that are not just another theme or preinstalled extension? Is there any coordination going on with the Firefox developer community (since FF this is supposed to be an open community, obviously not).
Will Firefox extensions and themes work with NS9? Why won't it run on Solaris?
What will NS9 that Firefox, maybe with one or two extensions installed, cannot do?
Why should I bother to try yet another browser that maybe has a few little improvements and at the same time lacks other things I get in other browsers?
Um, there's still a big market for Fortran compilers... and F2003 has lots of "modern" features, so it's not really living in the past.
At one stage the Netscape browser was actually worth using because it was Mozilla + extra QA + some minor and useful extras like IM panel and spellchecker. These days I simply don't see the point.
If AOL really want to revamp it, I suggest they consider throwing a million at Mozilla.org to produce a version of Firefox with different bookmarks & search set to AOL links and maybe some cool Time Warner themes that people might actually want (e.g. Superman Returns, Lord of the Rings, 300, Harry Potter, Sopranos etc. etc.)
Did not even realize they still exist.
Kind of missed the train, havent they? So why do they even bother?
Sorry, Net Who?
I think many people get excited about Netscape news because many of us want them to win a battle they lost a decade ago.
I was lulled into Internet Explorer from the start, because that's what my ISP's software shipped with, and at the time, the browser and the ISP software were synonymous to me. I didn't have any technical knowledge, my girlfriend had to explain to me how to open an .mp3 file. If my computer didn't natively handle a format, end of story.
Anyway, I digress. A lot of us have fond memories of Netscape, including myself. I remember when I switched to using "Netscape.net" email, and the Netscape web browser. It was an exciting time for me, because I felt like I had a choice in the software I used to view the web. Even though my choices are greater still (Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, Kameleon, etc., my perception was different. The nostalgic feeling of discovering there was another option felt so much more important at the time. Now, I can switch between browsers and Operating Systems easily, but back then, Netscape represented a diversity that scarcely existed.
In 1995, Widows and "internet" were synonyms to me. It was only in discovering Netscape that the idea of modularity even occurred to me. That I could view the internet in a different way but still have the same computer.
Netscape has made no small number of mistakes over the years, but all that is forgivable because of the moment of clarity they afforded me. Will the next version of Netscape be a technical rival to IE or Firefox? Maybe not, but I'll try it anyway. Benefit of the doubt and all that.
Just to add to this, for anyone who hasn't upgraded from 1.5 to 2.0 yet, you don't actually "lose" extensions that haven't yet been upgraded for 2.0. These extensions are disabled, but still appear on the list, and will be reactivated automatically once a compatible upgrade is detected. That said, if an extension is still living in 1.5 limbo, it may be dead.
Browsers are getting worse, not better.
I love the privacy and security features in FF 1.5, where you can easily disable images or cookies from external servers, without having to manually edit the config file. Those options are missing in FF 2.0.
Mozilla and Microsoft are "borrowing" more features from each other's browsers, which means that, instead of having two individual browsers, FF is becoming shockingly similar to IE, with the only significant advantage of FF being the lack of OS integration.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
I remember reading an old O' Reilly book on HTML which covered both the browsers. At that time there were certain tags that were rendered differently on the two browsers. The book strongly advised that whenever this be the case, design your pages keeping Netscape in mind since this is the dominant browser nowadays and will continue to be so - a prediction which is nowhere near to reality now.
Of course it can be worthwhile to start from scratch or branch a successful application.
My point however is that in the concrete case of Netscape 9 it is hard to see what the benefit is. As I said, it seems all of what NS 9 improves could have been made by extensions or themes and a tiny bit of rebranding.
So, I simply cannot see how a separate NS9 browser that is officially based on Firefox either does anything "better", or does it "with more or better features" that could not just as easily have been done by contributing to FF in the first place.
Was Netscape 8 better than Netscape 7? Following that assertion, all sequels would *of course* be better than their predecessors.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
So who is Fabienne? "Multichannel audio specialist and futurist Fabienne Serriere is a Franco-American hardware, software and embedded interaction designer. She believes in a gorgeous technologically morphable future. Her interests include hardware hacking, wearable computing, and large scale music system design." Wow. Maybe there's hope for Netscape 9 after all? (Although she says she's not directly part of the dev team, although I haven't a clue what an "anchor" is or does.)
NS7.2 is extremely servicable is very stable and works well. NS8 - the dumb choice they made to end the mail client just stupid.
But - FF/Thunderbird REALLY DO have their own problems.
a) Lots of bloat & overhead for both. FF/Thunderbird work ok but are sluggish. The fast launch STILL doesn't work right, combining it with the Google accelerator is even worse.
b) STILL has compatibility problems with many websites. Ergo the IE Tab extension which is an absolute necessity.
So - Seamonkey is a good middle ground. It works more or less ok, has a lower overhead than FF/Thunderbird, works like NS7.2 but allows for extensions. Now there are still lots of warts with Seamonkey but it's good enough for now.
NS8 should be bypassed as it really doesn't bring anything to the table. It's bloated and slow, doesn't have a mail client. Maybe NS9 will do........what? Exactly? Be a lot like FF? A lot like Seamonkey? I don't know.
Considering how much COBOL code is still running, this seems quite a relevant project.
Since my dad refuses to grow up and use Firefox, he'll at least have something descent to use! Now when he screws something up, I wont have to put up with tons of crap to fix it.
Why? Commercialism killed Netscape. Let it die. There are so many better options today.
perhaps your problem is your company ?
The idea that americans are more creative, or whatever, is just nonsense - they said the same thing about japanese drones 30 years ago (sony) korean drones 15 years ago (hyundai, samsung), indian drones today....
how this sort of racist, idiotic drivel gets to be accepted is beyond me.
what is really say is your company paid for bottom of the barrel programmers and got just that, if you paid 8 bucks an hour in the us, doubt you would find a whole lot of creativity in your programmers.
"Of course Netscape 9 will be better than Netscape 8"? Oh, right, like Netscape 7 was loads better than Netscape 6. I didn't think it could get worse than Netscape 7. Then came Netscape 8. Boy, was I wrong!
You say the newest edition of the abortion is "integrated with [y]our social news system"? What a joke! A browser shouldn't be integrated with one single website anywhere. That's not the bloody point of a web browser. A browser is a method of serving web pages to an end user, not to increase a company's advertising ratings. Do you think anyone would use Netscape if they didn't know better?
I doubt there's one feature in Netscape that both a) doesn't suck, and b) wasn't created by someone else. Nutscrape 8 was a joke, and to be honest I severely doubt that anyone Netscape has in-house can do anything that Firefox hasn't already done without sucking.
You're outmoded. The web passed you by quite some time ago, and trying to make a quick buck off people doesn't work so well anymore. And just for fun, Ms. Serriere, let's take a look at your little news portal (with all your image/ad sources blocked, thank you very much).
"She believes in a gorgeous technologically morphable future." And you're a futurist too! Well, hell, let me just genuflect right here!
God, I hate PR flacks.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Netscape 8 was actually a pretty interesting browser. It came preloaded on my laptop, it seemed pretty nice in several ways. I only used it to download seamonkey, but it did it really well.
Diane Simmons: And in computer news, Netscape has announced another release.
Tom Tucker: Really? Another release?
Diane Simmons: Yes!
Tom Tucker: Now I thought they were dead.
Diane Simmons: Nope, they're alive.
Tom Tucker: Fantastic! And now this...
Rather than feed the trolls here, I am going to ask the reader to please see Christopher Finke's comment below. Christopher Finke is the lead developer for Netscape 9.
I tried turning off tabbed browsing in Netscape 8, and was not successful. The obvious menu choices simply did not work dispite looking like they should. Appearently it can be done, but is burried deep deep in the menu maze and multi-user multi-profile crap. There should be a "screw multi-profiles, just turn off the damned feature" option.
Table-ized A.I.
My family uses NS7.2. Maybe there are some pages that don't work right. Not sure. I do know I don't want to freak anyone out by 'changing' anything. That would be a disaster.
I had a lot of trouble making Profile Manager working correctly in FF 1.5 and T-Bird so I dropped it as a replacement for their NS7.2 I thought the bloat and sluggishness in T-bird was unacceptable for a mail/NNTP reader. And if I was going for 2 seperate apps then I didn't need T-bird at all. But if the GUI differences between FF and a mail app were significant enough then it would create its own problems. Right now there's no reason to move off it but if there was I'd probably put in Seamonkey. The latest version is really a security fix for 1.0.7 but it introduces its own problems and instabilities. I might still go with 1.0.7 and not worry about the security nits so much.
You probably didn't notice that there is an Amiga OS/4 either
It's half as good as IBM's OS/2, but way better than Tandy's OS/9.
I recently redesigned a website and removed all the old Netscape 4 compatibility cruft. I still wanted the site to work in older browsers, though, so I reinstalled Netscape 4.8 to test it.
On reinstalling 4.8, I was reminded of the main problem AOL had with trying to promote Netscape the Browser: They couldn't resist turning it into an advertisement delivery platform. It installed "Get AOL!" icons on the desktop, came preloaded with a full set of links to partner sites on the bookmark toolbar, and even put a link to AOL on the IE links toolbar. Netscape 6 went even further, prompting the principle, "The personal toolbar is the personal toolbar, not the whorebar" in the Firefox Manifesto.
So on reading that the main selling point of Netscape 9 compared to Firefox is integration with the new Netscape website, it seems like more of the same stuff that drove people away.
Site integration in a browser needs to be unobtrusive, configurable, or both. Flock is somewhat better, because most features let you choose between at least two services. Their blog tools are even better, based on open APIs.
The Firefox/Opera/IE search field is a better example: There's only one site-integration item on the default toolbar, it's trivial to select another preset provider, and it's easy to add alternate services. Even Opera's context-menu encyclopedia/dictionary lookup, though it isn't configurable, is still unobtrusive.
Extensions are even better, because you don't (necessarily) have to convince the user to switch browsers. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if Netscape wants to provide browser tools that integrate with their website, I think it's time for Netscape to just create a pair of extensions, one for Firefox and one for IE, and retire the Netscape browser.
What i find funny is that the international version of netscape 8.1.2 is Canadian English.
Faster than a Speeding Byte!
I'll try out the Netscape version when v5.2 hits... That's right, no AOL version number inflation stupidity for me, thanks.
Ditto for Winamp... I'm still awaiting Winamp v3.1, or perhaps 4.0.
Maybe when they come to their senses about version numbers, they might come to their senses about all the other stupid crap and other restrictions they include in all their software.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm pretty dissapointed in the overall negativity aimed at this new release. Granted the last few Netscapes have been pretty poor. Heck going Windows only pretty much was the last straw for me (as an OS X user). Still I think the more interest generated by ANY Gecko power browser will help all us non-IE users. Netscape still has a name to the masses. If they can create something that is decent and stable with features the average joe wants, heck they might even get a few share points. On another note I'm glad to see the project back on-site. The crew who handled NS 8 clearly had no clue how to make something that people actually wanted to use. Atleast now there will be accountability which generally leads to a better product. I'm not sure if NS9 will be good, ok or terrible, but I wish they the best and hope that they can further diversify the web.
While I am personally strongly opposed to outsourcing this case is hardly common. The company who created NS8 were Canadian a country where wages and cost of living are comperable to the US.
The new browser will be integrated with our social news system that has been live on Netscape.com since July 2006
Please take that out, along with the other great features that you added, then I might give it a try.
It really amazes me that some people *STILL* don't get it after years and years of trial-and-error.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
wow racist and xenophobic.
AOL bought Netscape just for their portal. They didn't want to force their users to website incompatibilities so thats why they never changed their browser from IE, that and I believe they had an agreement. Just let Netscape die already, even version 6 was nothing but Mozilla with AOL Spyware and every version after was like that as well.
I was wondering about this myself, reading the synopsis. I must admit I pretty much ignored Netscape 8 post-beta, but the idea of offering users the ability to render a page in another browser if it doesn't work in the default engine seems inspired to me. Considering the alternative is to either a.) just embed the IE engine or b.) just use Gecko, I can't see how this was disastrous.
Has the air of spin to it, if you ask me. Could the original poster explain what they meant?
troll????? are you kidding me? jeez! some people have no sense of humor.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Question: After a series of substandard releases, could Netscape be on the verge of making of a version of their browser that enhances the awesomeness of Firefox, rather than distracts from it?
Answer: NO
...but the unilateral decisions of Jason Calacanis and the "New Netscape" team destroyed that, along with a thriving Netscape portal, and caused the company to lose insane numbers of viewers in the process. The new browser would have been built in-house, utilizing Gecko and AOL's slick new Boxely UI framework. It was designed as a suite of tightly integrated communication, sharing, and storage tools. Instead, it's going to be a Firefox clone aimed at Netscape.com.
Because of Calacanis' bad decisions, hundreds of people at AOL's Columbus, OH campus lost their writing, editing, design, development, and management jobs. The aforementioned loss of portal viewership has also cost AOL (with its new advertising-heavy revenue model, mind you) untold amounts of money. The "New Netscape" is, and has always been, a colossal mistake -- a "me too" effort on a grand scale.
Jason Calacanis is gone. Jon Miller, his idol and strong supporter, has been "warmly" shown the door. AOL now needs some serious focus and innovation to gain audience, not more halfhearted "Web 2.0" efforts that nobody is going to use.
When Linux 2.8 comes out, you can't upgrade until Linus releases 2.7
Seems to me that the odd versions of Netscape are the good ones. And that this is why they had to skip 5.