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First Peek at Netscape Navigator 9
lisah writes "Netscape released a beta version of Navigator 9 (Linux.com shares corporate overlordship with Slashdot) today that includes several new components while giving some old ones the boot. This release will no longer ship with mail or composer but does have URL correction, a pre-populated RSS feed menu, and a neat clipboard in the browser's sidebar that will hold links to websites you want to visit again but not necessarily bookmark."
I don't need another version to bring back sad memories of the 90s.
Honestly, I don't mean this as a troll, but does anyone use Netscape? Even AOL doesn't use Netscape. What's the point?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"For those who remember the Netscape Navigator suite, it's lost a little weight -- Navigator no longer includes mail or HTML composer components, just a souped-up Firefox build with a number of features that integrate with the Netscape.com portal."
I'm glad to hear it's been slimmed down, but really, is integration with the Netscape.com portal a big feature?
I wonder if Netscape still have the brand power to draw in old skool internet users to use their product once again if it turns out to be a good alternative to IE/FF/Opera/etc...
I first started using Netscape back in 95 and used it for years till IE5 came out. After that I just got stuck with IE and used Opera here and there but I always had Netscape in the back on my mind. Hey its its based on FF and works good I'd switch to it just because it was my first browser.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Netscape confirms it.
I agree. Not since the 4.X's have I used or even heard of Netscape from anywhere or anyone. Had a short stint with only IE and Opera and now I'm fully Firefox. I never really even questioned where Netscape went, it just disappeared and I got Firefox and life was good. Thanks Firefox your tabs make browsing fun.
Legalize Green Today!
Netscape 7 really was a nice browser. I can't fault it. It was fast, stable and lean. I actually think it was more stable then Firefox. Just make sure you don't install all that junk that came with it. I used 7.2 on Linux until about 1 year ago. Unfortunately, it became pretty antiquated and started rendering some pages wrong, handling things like google video not very well. Firefox eventually became the better option for me. Now version 8 was horrible. It lasted about 5 minutes on my Windows laptop. This version looks promising. After a brief spin, I like it. Not that it has so many great advantages or anything, but curiosity usually encourages me to change around because things get boring. I think everyone is really starting to get the browser right and refined. I like all the new ones, IE7, Opera and Mozilla. The competition is helping keep quality in check.
I think the correct way to phrase that question is:
WHAT IS AOL????
It's basically a re branded version of Firefox 2.0...
From About: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1
NetWho? Is that some sort of Mozilla knockoff?
Netscape 4.x is what killed Netscape. Maybe the early 4.0 versions were acceptable, I really can't remember, but by around 4.5 it was a bloated, slow, buggy browser. Netscape 4.x is what made Internet Explorer popular. IE 5 was a breath of fresh air compared with Netscape 4. (Personally, I think that IE 4 was also many times better than NS 4, but that's a different argument. It's really unarguable that IE 5 was superior, though.)
Now some people might cry out that IE is a security nightmare and that no one should choose it over Netscape for that reason, but NS 4 was also a security nightmare. It was, simply, a worse browser than IE 5. It was in the NS 4 days that I switched to IE, and it was because IE was simply a better browser.
Netscape died in the 4.x days, when the browser became a large, slow, and bloated piece of crap. Compared with Netscape 4, IE was a fast, light, agile browser with many more features and provided a much better experience. As someone writing webapps around the Netscape 4.5/IE 5 days, I can say that IE provided a much nicer platform to write webapps for.
That changed around the release of Mozilla 1.0; but around the time of Netscape 4.5, IE was simply the better browser while Netscape was simply no longer improving their browser.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Wasn't Netscape a cheap ISP for a while? Now it's a browser again?
I'm confused.
You can't take the sky from me...
Would I ever use Netscape over Firefox or Camino? Probably not. Does it seem like some queer throwback to days gone by? Yes. Does it, on some level, seem kind of pathetic in the same way when A Flock of Seagulls shows up at some local bar/theater for a concert? Yes.
But I quickly realize that, as a web developer I can only stand behind them and cheer them on as a great alternative to IE. There's nothing wrong with another standards-compliant, Gecko-based browser on the market.
I just realized the irony that there is a Gecko broswer called Flock.
Didn't Netscape drop mail and composer a while back? Let's see...
From Netscape's Browser FAQ (emphasize is mine):
If I recall correctly, Netscape 7 was based on the Mozilla suite (now known as SeaMonkey) and included those components, and with version 8, they based it on Firefox (which never included mail and composer) and went back to calling it "Navigator".
You'd think that "journalists" might research their stories a little bit.
How many people actually have commented on this article already without actually downloading and trying the product?
Let's all give it a good shot first before making some quick judgments. Sure it may just be a branded Firefox, but it also may have some great uses. Maybe this is a browser that may be the recommended browser for your aunts and uncles when they get a new system? Who knows.. Let's at least give it a shot before shooting it and leaving it for dead.
h
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
JWZ, of original Netscape, famously referred to AOL's continual efforts to slap the "Netscape" name on something, anything -- a browser variant, a portal, a low-cost internet connection, whatever -- as "brand necrophilia".
You're both wrong. The correct phrasing is: WHAT IS AOL????!!?!!!!111
-William Brendel
What is AOL?
It's the company that makes Winamp. They used to make free backup diskettes that you had to reformat before using. They sent hundreds of millions of them around for free by attaching them to anything that moved. I used to have to peel them off my car each night when I got home from work. Later, they got into the landfill business by making and distributing hundreds of millions of non re-writeable CD's.
This reviewer apparently has not used any recent releases of Netscape (as I have). I am currently using Netscape version 7.2, now, to write this article (I abandoned Internet Explorer a long time ago due to security issues; I only use it when I get a site that will only work with IE). I have Netscape 8.1 installed, but I don't use it a whole lot, because (1) they moved the menus from the left side to the right side (2) they removed the print button, and (most significant) (3) they removed mail and composer. Without mail as part of the program it has reduced functionality. With mail as part of the program I can just click on 'Window' and 'Mail' to send a message; otherwise I have to go to the start menu and find whatever the hell the program is that is the mail suite spun out of Mozilla, Evolution? (I looked it up in the start menu; it's called Thunderbird.) I used to use composer and sometimes I use it when I need to build a table, so while it's unfortunate I can live without it. Mail and composer has been gone since at least 8.1, was this guy unaware of this?
Paul Robinson — My BlogThe lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
The Seamonkey suite is the ongoing project of the original Mozilla Suite. It has the functionality of Netscape 7 (plus some) as well as the updated support of the rendering engine from Firefox 2 and other security updates. (see the news release for more info.
Disclosure: I have been running Mozilla suite and now Seamonkey since about 1999.
Like pi? Try 10,000 digits.
I think Netscape lives on in Firefox and other Gecko based browsers (of which the one currently called "Netscape" is just one). It's just a name change.
Sure, there was a complete rewrite from the original netscape, but at least initially, that was mostly done by employees of netscape (well, the netscape division of AOL).
People get too hung up on the names, in my opinion. If Firefox was just called "Netscape The Next Generation" and this thing was just called "AOL's branded version of Netscape TNG", the only real difference between today would be that no one could claim that Netscape was dead.
Or maybe I'm just an idiot.
It's a bit more complicated than that:
Old Netscape --> Mozilla
Mozilla --> Netscape 6-7 (at the time, Moz was Netscape's testbed)
Mozilla --> Firefox
Firefox --> Netscape 8+
But yes, as far as I'm concerned, the name may have gone one way, but the core of what Netscape signified ended up as Firefox.
Code to web standards, test in IE.
Also, in TFA, it says it's based on firefox.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
Why not use SeaMonkey instead? It's from the same code base as Netscape 7.2 with all kinds of new features and bug fixes, and (most significantly) many years of security vulnerability fixes. It also has menus on the left side, a print button, and mail and composer.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Though I agree that Netscape 4.x was bad in all the ways you say - the major reason IE became popular was because it was installed on most people's desktops as an icon called "The Internet".
You can simplify things a lot by focusing your testing on engines, rather than browsers.
For instance, Firefox 2, SeaMonkey, 1.2, Camino 1.5 and Netscape 9 all use the same major version of Gecko. Unless you're dealing with something controlled by the UI -- extensions, for instance, or the search box on the toolbar -- they're going to treat your code more or less the same. You'll start seeing bigger differences in screen size and platform.
-and-
B) From the "What's new" page on Netscape 9:
That being said, I don't see anything in Netscape that I want that isn't already in Firefox.
Old Netscape --> DEAD, and well-deserved at that.
Total Rewrite --> Mozilla
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
that is written from the ground up in Java to blow away IE 4.0?
The original (think v1.0) code was licensed from Spyglass Mosaic, which in turn licensed the tech from NCSA Mosaic. In other words, no, it's not based on Netscape at all.