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Netscape 9 to Undo Netscape 8 Mistakes?

Posted by Zonk on from the goin-back-in-time dept.

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?"

6 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. There's a Netscape 9? And 8? 7? 6? by DogDude · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow. I had no idea that there were still "Netscape" browsers being made today. That's cute.

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    I don't respond to AC's.
  2. Who cares? by joeystitch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean, let's be honest here. We have Firefox and Opera, plus Safari if you're a Mac user. Netscape is irrelevant.

  3. Re:There's a Netscape 9? And 8? 7? 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  4. Brand power by telso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  5. Yes the Netscape Dev Team is working on Netscape 9 by f()bz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  6. Re:Is Netscape still taken serious? by dcam · · Score: 5, Funny

    To me it seems Netscape has lost his reputation as best browser.

    Wow. Welcome to 1999.

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    meh