Netscape 4.6

Netscape 4.6 has silently appeared on the netscape ftp servers. Looks like a bugfix release. D00D! sent us the release notes.

Comments

Me Too! 3.04 was Netscapes Last Stable Browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know of comparable

and stable

alternatives for IMAP4 email client

and Browser?

Re:Me Too! 3.04 was Netscapes Last Stable Browser

[Anonymous Coward]

I use fetchmail to download the mail, exim to filter it, and mutt to read it on Linux. It works fine. But, then again, I've never had to reboot on the occassional times Netscape goes beserk (just killall -13 netscape)

Opera is a small, fast browser that has worked quite well for me when I was using Win9x/NT. Outlook Express is nice, too, but it needs the massive IE core to be installed. Have you tried Eudora Light?

Re:Me Too! 3.04 was Netscapes Last Stable Browser

[webslacker]

Maybe on Linux. I think the Mac and Windows versions had java memory leaks because they'd always crash on me after being open for a certain time.

not a replacement, mozzilla not quite there yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Though some day it may be

My Solution: Two accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

Sick and tired of my browser choking on some JS and killing my email. Notice that this is not a problem with MS products.

My Solution: I create a 2nd account just for browsing. That way when my browser crashes it does not interfere with the messenger email client.

Hey, does Mozzilla recover from crashes any better than NS? For example, do you have the option of recovering the lost emails you were composing?

Re:My Solution: Two accounts

[efil4zaggin]

Hey, are you allowed to say anything positive about Microsoft products in here? Anyway, agreed. Outlook's UI is completely functional (despite the nay-sayers) and its integration with contact lists and the calendar WORKS. Plus, who's complaining about exchange and why? Exchange has acceptible performance and offers great corporate email accessibility. This is certainly not say Outlook is without faults but if you want rich features, ease of use, and adequate performance and stability for the complexity of the product, it's great. Take away some functionality and you'll probably get a more stable product but you get, well, less functionality.

And has anybody noticed troubles with netscape's VM? IE's has given me no static. I don't know what 4.6 is adding but it should be an improvement anyway.

Re:G2 player?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've probably upgraded their RealAudio Player to version G2 (I think it is supposed to be so revolutionary it is "Generation 2"....more marketing hype

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

So far 4.6 hasn't crashed on me, which is much more than I can say about 4.5/4.51. The memory leaks may still be there. But... when Netscape is leaking too much memory, you should still be able to kill it or at the very least reboot gracefully.
This would prevent the fsck.

M$ produkts crash on me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, I guess your lucky. M$ produkts crash on me.

Re:Netscape 4.6 Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

adding MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS=True to your profile fixed the dns helper issue in version 4.5.

Re:new browser...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why HTML4.0 is such a nice thing: Finally they've started decoupling the content model and the layout again.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't get NT 4 SP3 to be stable, what makes you think you can make Linux+VMWare stable? Crashing 3 times a day is abyssmal and that's not NT's fault. Learn some basic sysadmin skills and then ALL of your OSes will be stable.

Chris Allen
mtnbkr@mindspring.com

True, but IE crash does not kill OE

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the point, there is no reason why your browser should kill your mail.

BTW, IE has an option: Browse in separate process, witch will even protect browsing sessions from each other. When NS crashes all 10+ windows I have open go with it....

Re:True, but IE crash does not kill OE

[arielb]

heh when IE crashes the OS goes down too

Reboot?!? Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to know why you have to reboot and fsck if you run a buggy userland program.

You *are* running some kind of Unix and not NT, aren't you? :-)

Re:Reboot?!? Why?

[InvisibleCraterFunk]

You must be running as root. Remember Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work in X (for me at least). Try switching consoles for that or better killall -9 netscape (or whatever the netscape binary is called on your distro).

Re:Reboot?!? Why?

[PenguinII]

I know what you mean (killing the process) but
when i need images and stuff on my crummy machine
which is a 486 with 8 meg of ram and 200 meg disk
space maximum sometimes it freezes to a halt-
even ignoring ctrl-alt-del (and i didnt turn
the syskey thing on in i think)
kfm also does similar things, but only on BIG
sites
And btw i do /not/ run some other sort of unix
or Win* :) i just cant afford high end computers

My Solution: Don't use Netscape for mail!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why on earth anybody uses Netscrape for mail.

Netscape's messenger is the second most ugly mail- and news-agent I know (second only to the M$ range of "products", Exchange, Outf*ck etc.). If you see an ugly mail or article there's a 80% change that it's written with Outf*ck and 19% that it was sent by Netscape.

It's bloated+slow+crashy, does't run in shells, lacks features, forces you to use it's stupid inbuilt editor, doesn't support pgp/gpg - or I didn't get it to run. I don't trust it's own encryption system wich is not compatible to pgp anyway AFAIK.

Use mutt or mush or ... err, pine.
Even elm is a better MUA.

Re:My Solution: Don't use Netscape for mail!

[poink]

...(second only to the M$ range of "products", Exchange, Outf*ck etc.).


I find that referring to it as OutHouse is a more effective, and an appropriate analogy.

gzilla

[Anonymous Coward]

just use gzilla - http://www.gzilla.com
with the binary 1/10000th the size of netscape,
and add table support so we can all be happy.

Where is Navigator 3.04 gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Communicator is really buggy. I need Netscape Navigator 3.04 gold for Solaris 2.7 but i can't find it anymore :( It's not on the netscape's ftp site either. Any idea where to get it?

Re:My Solution: kmail

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree about KMail. I also use v. 1.0.17 and
only have good things to say about it.

Re:Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be dismissive (well, okay, I am being dismissive), but I don't think you even understand your own suggestion.

I assume by 'regular' Netscape, you mean the actual source code that compiled into 4.6, for example.

1. what's the point. There are no magic secrets contained in that tree, that aren't already published in the Mozilla trees.
   
2. "I don't see the hassle". I suppose you don't, as long as you don't have to expend any of your time. But Netscape would have to commit time and effort to do this. Given (1), once again, what's the point.

However, I'm glad to see that there are no shortage of second-guessers and 'true, hard-core, software geeks' here on good 'ol Slashdot.

Re:What are Netscape doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare this statement ...

... can they not leave it alone now and put all their efforts into Mozilla and only work on the old browsers if they have to plug a security hole or something as urgent. Mozilla will never get released if they are keeping their developers on the 4.x series.

... with this statement ...

Also why 4.6? I can't see anything different to 4.5 so it should have been version 4.52

So, you want all their developers working on Mozilla, but you're underwhelmed by the lack of new features in 4.6.

Okey-dokey.

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

That line is pure genius. Bravo.

"Various bug fixes"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my favorite release note! Maybe this is the big fix for that insidious (or is is "Darth Sidious") bug that screws everything up. Worth a download and install!

Re:"Various bug fixes"

[davie]

It (4.6) does seem to have fixed the extremely broken dropdown menus on forms. Selecting an option from a dropdown no longer prevents subsequent text box input -- that alone was worth the price I paid -- oops, it was free, wasn't it (gratuitous barb at people who gripe about the quality of software for which they are expected to pay only the time required to download and install it). 'twould have been nice if they'd have included that nice little tidbit of information.

Re:"Various bug fixes"

[biafra]

I found a workaround for that bug... Useing Window Maker just switch to another workspace and text imput works again.

Re:"Various bug fixes"

[Pudding Yeti]

Selecting an option from a dropdown no longer prevents subsequent text box input...

Thank god someone else noticed that. I thought I was alone in the world. Once I figured out what was going on, I just learned to skip drowpdowns until I'd filled all the text boxes in, but I'll never forget the night I stumbled across the bug. I was trying to fill out the form to download a newer version to get around the bug that kept me from filling in text...

----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net

Re:"Various bug fixes"

[Pudding Yeti]

I found a workaround for that bug...

Well, thanks for posting that, because I just discovered that dropdowns are still broken in 4.6 (at least on my machine), and your workaround works for Enlightenment/GNOME, too.

----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net

What are Linus doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that development on the 2.3.x series has started, why is Linus wasting his time working on 2.2.x? 2.2.x isn't perfect, but it's certainly usable. Can't they just leave it alone and put their efforts into 2.3.x and only work on stable kernels if they have to plug a security hole or something as urgent? 2.4 is never going to be released if they keep working on 2.2.x.

Re:What are Linus doing?

[linuxci]

As well as JWZ who said he thought that it was a mistake working on 4.5 rather than putting all their efforts into Mozilla 5.0 one of the developers who still works on Mozilla said the same see http://www.mozilla.org/mozilla-at-one.html

As soon as they switched to Mozilla they should have made all future releases of their product based on their open source work. When Netscape are trying to make a success of their open source efforts it makes no sense to plough all their money into a closed source effort.

And to add to your point about Linux. There are a lot more developers in the Linux community than Mozilla have got and all Linux kernels are open source so work on the 2.3 series can get integrated in the 2.2 series if the feature is too important to wait until 2.4

Put it this way: no one (well not many people) complain about Linux having both a stable and development kernel but even the Mozilla developers consider it a bad idea wasting their time on 4.x as the layout engine used in this browser is going to be replaced with NGlayout (Gecko) with the Mozilla release anyway.
--

Re:FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what you're talking about. I run FreeBSD and Netscape is the ONLY unstable piece of software on my system. It core-dumps regularly, maybe as often as once a day.
I've heard other BSD users recommend emulating the Linux version because that gets more development time (thus more stable), but haven't tried it.
Bottom line, I think the Netscape 4.x chain is buggy no matter what platform you use. Let's hope Netscape drops 4.x and throws all their efforts on Mozilla and produces a truly great browser.

Release Note "updates"

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't tried it yet, but I got a kick out of the notation on the release notes:

Communicator 4.6 Release Notes
Last updated: May 13, 1999; previous update May 4, 1999
[These notes are updated as we receive feedback, so please check back for new information.]

Now, the usual point of release notes is to describe changes (ie, bugfixes) between this and the previous version -- which they then proceed to do. So it's as if they're saying "these notes are updated as we receive notifications of other bugs going away." Sheesh. :)

*BSD + linux

[Anonymous Coward]

On NetBSD/i386 I've tried the BSDI(BSD/OS), FreeBSD and different Linux version. AFAICT Linux2.0/glibc5 runs best.

Well, there's a native version for NetBSD underway...

Re:*BSD + linux

[Dr. Sp0ng]

On NetBSD/i386 I've tried the BSDI(BSD/OS), FreeBSD and different Linux version. AFAICT Linux2.0/glibc5 runs best.

Ummmm.... don't mean to be nitpicky here, but if you want other FreeBSD users to know which version is most stable for you, you really have to clarify this. glibc5? You have two choices. glibc or libc5. Pick one. Not both. :-)

"Software is like sex- the best is for free"

Re:2000x1500

[Anonymous Coward]

On my Laptop, which is 640x480 pixels only (old
laptop) I run X at virtual 640x960. It's far
better than 800x600, because you don't get dizzy
from from the screen swaying both vertically and
horizontally.

The virtual desktop capabilities in XFree86 are
far more versatile than it seems at first.

Re:new browser...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're designing a page for a specific
platform with a specific display resolution,
you're misusing HTML. There are other
presentation tools you should be using instead.

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape is a much, much better browser running
on Windows than any of the X versions.

There are just more little features on the
Windows version. i.e. you can specify where you
want 'bookmarks' to go at the point when you save
them.

About the only thing missing on the Windows
version that's present on the X versions is
printing to postscript files (great way to save
an image of a page that you want without loosing
all the little bits linked into it).

Where's that "open source" Mozilla everybody was
balleyhooing about awhile back? Is it still
foundering in open-source-hell? (where all really
big Open source projects end up)

Re:2000x1500

[Anonymous Coward]

If you set your fonts up right, then high resolutions should look exactly like small resolutions, only sharper.

The fact that this doesn't work in practice means that not only is HTML written badly these days, but so are general GUI-based applications.

Re:What are Netscape doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sigh). Okay, I personally agree that this probably should be '4.52'. But that's not the point (pun intended), and the decision to call it 4.6 was made somewhere in marketing land.

However, you keep making grand statements about 'Netscape should be putting all their resources behind Mozilla' while (intentionally?) overlooking the obvious: THEY ARE.

That is unless you want to imagine that the critical path in finishing Mozilla 5.0 is somehow routed through a few engineers doing some bug fixes.

Of course, this may not fit your idealized view of software development or business.

Sorry.

p.s. Netscape, in the past, licensed large numbers of clients to certain organizations. Pondering the wisdom of leaving them 'high and dry ' is left as a exercise for the reader.

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using the libc5 version, aren't you?

How's your eyesight?

[Anonymous Coward]

1280x1024 seems small on a 19" monitor, how can you read stuff at that resolution?

Re:How's your eyesight?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1280x1024 seems small on a 19" monitor, how
> can you read stuff at that resolution?

What has font size to do with screen resolution? Nobody says you would have to use the same pixel size for fonts in every resolution...

Re:How's your eyesight?

[iocc]

I can read it fine. I feel it very annoying if the
text is big, I think "waste of space" ..

But I had to change the fonts in netscape.
From 12 to 14 and 10 to 12.

Yeah, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just go to an xterm; type "ps" , look for the
PID of netscape and type "kill -9 ".

Re:What are Netscape doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: crashing every five minutes

At work I've been using an older libc5-based Slackware system, and 4.5 is pretty stable, crashing maybe once a week. When I upgraded to glibc-based Debian at home, the same release was so unstable as to be almost unusable (both libc5 and glibc linked Communicators). Anyone else noticed this?

It is a memory pig on both systems, of course.

Mozilla At One and what it says ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"As well as JWZ who said he thought that it was a mistake working on 4.5 rather than putting all their efforts into Mozilla 5.0 one of the developers who still works on Mozilla said the same see http://www.mozilla.org/mozilla-at-one.html"

Please don't misrepresent someone else's statements to buttress your own argument.

What Frank Hecker said in http://www.mozilla.org/mozilla-at-one.html was "Were there any ways things could have been done differently? Here are two possibilities (if nothing more) and some of the thoughts and debates around them: ..." and follows on with an outline of the issues surrounding development roadmaps.

However, it is useful to mention this document because it is a frank, honest and clear assessment of Mozilla so far. Everyone should read this (carefully ;).

p.s. small nit: Frank Hecker is not a developer, but then he has never made that assertion. (Nonetheless, he is a very thoughtful and insightful person, and he does have a particular positive influence on the direction of Mozilla.)

Re:Mozilla At One and what it says ...

[linuxci]

It wasn't my intention to misrepresent what he had said. I just agree with that particular argument and that is how I interpreted what he had written. The bit about him being a developer was just an assumption.
--

Ugly mail = Outlook NOT Outlook Express

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook eXpress is perhaps the best mail client on any operating system. Too bad they screwed it up w. version 5.

Problem Because:

[Anonymous Coward]

They (you) actually paid for netscape pro browser for every single desktop (20,000)!

Netscape Server Software sucks. Most of it was written by 3rd parties (messenger was post.office) and does not work well together.

Regarding office software. Fact of life is you need MS Office to survive and Quatro Pro will never compete with excel. SO You (tax payer) now pay for two office suites on every desktop. Word Pefect and MS Office.

Finally. NETSCAPE is UNSTABLE counting in countless hours of lost productivity.

And NO linux is not an option until something gets done about WP's font situation

Any questions?

You just said it:

[Anonymous Coward]

You need both WP and Office to survive, so Gov ends up paying for 2 licenses on most desktops.

And, WP fonts suck under linux.

Re:You just said it:

[arielb]

so there really is a MS tax

Earth to Planet Windows (was Re:url completion)

[Anonymous Coward]

by Anonymous Coward Anyway, I remember a discussion on slashdot around the time either a 4.0x or 4.5 was released, with someone saying that url completion was removed on UNIX versions of Netscape because it didn't fit the 'user mentality.' Anyone has any thoughts on this?

by Raul Acevedo (raul@cantara.com): Anyway, yes, I'd love to see it. I think removing it from the UNIX versions is STUPID. Didn't it occur to anyone to make it an option in the Preferences, perhaps disabled by default if indeed it didn't make the UNIX "mentality"?

by !IH: I personally like url completion, and I have no idea why they removed it from the unix versions - maybe because "unix" people like command lines, etc?

Somedays, I can't believe this is Slashdot anymore. Perhaps I've slipped into some alternate reality where auto-completion is a new or foreign concept to Unix systems. [Is this what they mean by (cough) 'innovating on behalf of consumers'].

When was it that 'set filec' was added to csh -- any ideas? 1982? 1985? Whatever.

Re:Earth to Planet Windows (was Re:url completion)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the reasons I've been puzzled by Netscape's omission of url completion from its UNIX versions. Whoever is/was in charge there obviously believes that this feature involves a 'lack of control' acceptable only to Windows or Mac users. If properly done -- IE5 imho, or shell tab completion as you point out -- it's a great thing, whatever your environment.

I guess Netscape folks are really the ones living in some kind of alternate reality. The shoddy quality of their products seem to attest to that fact.

AC

Re:My Solution: Don't use Netscape for anything!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use Linux of BSD, etc., use kfm for all net browsing and
kmail for composing and sending individual mails and reading
individual mails. Maybe for mass mailings and processing use
something else - the traditional unix tools which are more scriptable.

The new version (1.1.1) fixes some bugs and performance problems,
but kfm was execellent even before these improvements.
Kfm is a fun browser, has a modern look and feel (unlike Netscape's
ugly, awkward motif), is faster, and uses a *lot* less memory.
Kfm doesn't handle some cgi and javascript as well as Netscape,
but even when pages don't display perfectly with kfm it's
just cosmetic and affects less than 1 in 100 pages. Unfortunately
one of those 1 in 100 situations is the buttons used to change
display settings here at Slashdot. Probably because non-standard
html or netscape-specific code is used here, but I hope not.
Still, one can read the comments and post fine with kfm.

Using Kfm may also put pressure on AOL/Netscape/Mozilla,
Opera, and Gnome/Gtk to develop decent browser products for
Linux. The Gnome email applications may already be pretty good
but Gnome is nowhere near having a web browser - I don't even
know of plans for one. Opera for Linux is just a lot of hype at this
point, it seems.

Mozilla-Linux is a lie. Mozilla for Windows is a very usable
browser. The SeaMonkey releases include all the necessar
libs. Just unzip and run the Windows version. Some of the buttons
don't work yet but the basic browser sure does.

Mozilla doesn't tell anyone that the tarballs and rpms they supply
for Linux won't work without two additional netscape library packages
not included - nspr and idl - and you must have exactly the right
versions of these libs for you version of Mozilla. Even after I figured
that out, finding the libraries was next to impossible using
several search engines, and then Mozilla segfaulted after a few
seconds of use on a local page. Mozilla is a Windows product
with a Linux version as an afterthought.

Please note that neither the Windows nor the Linux versions of
Mozilla come with any documentation whatsoever, even a plain
text README. Mozilla treats people like if they do not compile
everything from source they don't deserve to get the scoop but
very few people, even experienced programmers, have the time
or the disk space for the intermediate files required to build this
monster. It seems that if AOL/Mozilla really wanted people
to test their product and provide feedback, they would make
it a little easier for us to use the binaries they provide
instead of throwing something at us with a "here, take it or
leave it" attitude.

Compare this arrogant attitude with the excellent html help provided
with kfm and kmail, which can be easily read with the browser
itself! What's more, the source code is small enough and well
organized enough that it's accessible without having to dedicate
hundreds of megs of disk space to keeping it on hand for reference.

It never ceases to amaze me that the politically correct effete
snobs of the Linux community shun kde because of possible
contamination with "non-free" qt, yet are enthusiastic about the
*really* non-free Netscape 4.x. Netscape is even *hard coded* into
Gnome's help system, to such a degree that online help requires
loading a separate instance of the 25 meg Netscape pig just to
view html help on non-web Gnome applications and applets.
Talk about bloat. Why Gnome does not use its own relatively
light-weight html help viewer for applicaton help is beyond me,
but the Gnome help viewer is in no way a web browser like
Kfm, or Netscape.

Ok. For certain transactions with a browser using cgi you may
need Netscape with Linux. Well, keep it on hand for those rare
events. For routine browsing have fun with kfm. (For routine
WYSIWYG composing of web pages try Amaya. I know it uses
motif but it's a lot smaller and more flexible than Netscape's
Composer and abides by *standards*).

Conclusion: Use a modern browser and email client. Currently
kfm/kmail is your best choice - for experienced users as
well as for newbies.

RPM's

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone have any RPM's for this yet? If so where can I find those?

- A.C.

Re:OPERA IS COMING

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera is a Windows company. They have been promising
Opera for Amiga or making a lot of noise about it for longer than
they've been doing the same for Linux, and what is there to show?

Even when a Linux version finally rolls out for your grandchildren
to use, Opera is a closed, proprietary product. It will cost you
$35 US. No source code, limited compatibility with other Linux
desktop products, and all the other problems that come with
proprietary Windows products ported to Linux.

Use Kfm. It's here, it's free and it's good. Yes, Opera is a very
good browser. I used it with Windows but really find few advantages
in using Opera over MS IE5 (except that Opera is not made by
Microsoft for those who care). There are several third party
shells for IE 4 or 5 that provide mdi (multiple browser windows for
each instance of the application) just like Opera, and most of
these are also free. Believe it or not the AOL broswer is one,
probably the only one that costs money, but there are several
others like NeoPlanet which also allow spiffy skins.

If you have not tried kfm as a web browser then please give
it a try. It keeps getting better and better, and the other just
stay the same or get more bloated.

Re:Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

> However, I'm glad to see that there are no
> shortage of second-guessers and 'true, hard-
> core, software geeks' here on good 'ol Slashdot.

Not to mention the anonymous cowards...

Problem? What problem. (Re:My Solution: Don't ...)

[Anonymous Coward]

Kfm doesn't handle some cgi and javascript as well as Netscape, but even when pages don't display perfectly with kfm it's just cosmetic and affects less than 1 in 100 pages. Unfortunately one of those 1 in 100 situations is the buttons used to change display settings here at Slashdot. Probably because non-standard html or netscape-specific code is used here, but I hope not.

You seem to "assuming away the problem".

On the one hand you admit that kfm can't perform deliver basic functionality, while on the other hand you toss off the usual canards 'Netscape is too complex, it's bloated, it uses too much memory'.

The funniest part is your conclusion: 'use a modern browser ...'

Right. The modern browser that can't handle CGI forms and javascript.

p.s. I looked at the Slashdot form code. It's standard HTML, no browser-specific tags or attributes, although it has one trivial syntax ambiguity. Not a really tough problem, but it would take some additional code to handle.

Oh, wait -- that would be bloat. Yes, you're probably right. Better just to ignore the problem, and not deliver any functionality to the end user.

Hey, Mony, Mony ... (was Re:Mozilla! Baloney!!)

[Anonymous Coward]

People who say they are happily using the supplied SeaMonkey binaries with Linux are, hmm.., let's just say trying to make the right impression in certain circles to put it in the most diplomatic terms possible.

Or you could just say what you mean, and call them liars or delusional or misinformed, or ...

Regardless of the hype, Mozilla is not free software. It's an AOL subsidiary. Yes, *some* of the code is truly open source and free, but other code is not, such as the Netscape support libs needed to run Mozilla that AOL conveniently provided for it's Windows binaries and conveniently forgot for it's Linux binaries.

You mean nspr, libidl, and the gtk stuff, right? You're suggesting that these are somehow not free software, or are not easily available, or ...

Well to put it diplomatically ...

Re:Alternatives to NS...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Lynx when I want really fast access to information. I use Netscape when I want to look at por^H^H^Hgraphics.

Re:128 bit version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately not _all_ builds for _all_ platforms in a timely manner. Communicator 4.51 was released months ago but they never put up builds w/ 128-bit encryption for unsupported platforms. I sent them e-mail about this a long time ago... but no reply. I haven't dug very deeply but I couldn't find any obvious mention of who to contact who could actually handle this issue.

Re:Use the glibc2 version if you can!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the not-too-distant past, it had also been recommended to stick w/ the libc5 builds, even on glibc2 distributions. I guess a major part of that were the initial growing pains w/ glibc2. Now will they ever offer a 128-bit glibc2 build of 4.6?

Re:Mozilla! Baloney!!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, these libs are not standard gtk libs. In what package are
they included - glib, gtk+???. Maybe they are part of gnome.
I removed gnome from my system and good riddance! To put
it in less diplomatic terms, where are these libs and in which
package. Perhaps you could kindly direct me to a url for what
is compatible with the latest Seamomkey. They certainly do not
come with Seamonkey!

If, in fact, Mozilla Linux worked out of the box almost everyone
currently using Netscape 4.x would now be using it. They
are not. The minor problems with jerky scrolling, etc., are
not enough to prevent the more widespread adoption of
Mozilla especially after the latest SeaMonkey release.

I think you will find almost all the people using Mozilla for Lunux
are building from source, and that rules out most people who
do not have the time or inclination to make a career of helping
AOL make even more money by being guniea pigs in the
development of this commercial product.

Re:G2 player?

[Anonymous Coward]

All I could find under plugins was realplayer v5, which doesn't have G2. Did I miss something?

Bring it on (was Re:Mozilla! Baloney!!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I read your comments and thought to myself "where does one begin?".

Your statements are such a mix of valid statements, half-truths, falsehoods, dogma, and lies, that I can't quite figure out what I should respond to.

But that is the genius of propaganda, isn't it.

So, I'm simply posting this so that you can have another opportunity to display your lack of knowledge for everyone to see.

Re:Mozilla Features

[Anonymous Coward]

Just try File/Edit Page/Save As...

M$IE was in version 2 or 3 when this was possible...

have a nice day
d;-)

What a crock of BS

[Anonymous Coward]

The ADI 6P lists it's max res. as 1600x1200.

2000x1500=3000000pixels
3 million pixels x 8 bits = 24000000

And you say you are using a 8meg card?

Re:What a crock of BS

[iocc]

> The ADI 6P lists it's max res. as 1600x1200.

Yes.. but I overclocked it a bit :)
Changed HorizSync 30.0-95.0 to 30.0-96.0 instead. Working fine.

> And you say you are using a 8meg card?

Yes. 2000*1500*16/8 = 6000000 bytes of memory.

Is there a netscape mail file converter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I Have been using Netscape messenger as my mail program, just for the practility of not having to open up another program to get my mail, considering how often I get it. Now I have came to a point where it is hard to manage all my email comming in with messenger. Is there a program to convert a netscape mail file to that of a another mail program, such as Balsa? Thanks.

Jeff Knox
(slashdot wont send my password to my email!!)

Re:2000x1500

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be blind or something :). I wouldn't use anything under 75 Hz. Even with 72 Hz my head just feels like it's going to explode. Try to look at a white screen @ 62 Hz or better yet look just past the screen and your eyes will probably die. I have a 19" monitor as well (1600x1200x32 @ 75 Hz).

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"i.e. you can specify where you want 'bookmarks' to go at the point when you save them."
Do you mean the 'File Bookmark' option? Because if you do then you obviously haven't been paying attention because Linux/X version has this option as well.
Java/Javascript seem more stable with the windoze versions although I maybe wrong because I haven't used windowze lately.

Re:Stable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not him, but I use the libc5 version of Navigator 4.08, and it hasn't crashed in about 7 months....

Re:Redhat 6.0 and Netscape (Specifically glibc2.1)

[Anonymous Coward]

The flash plugin is working fine for me here on RH6.0. Java and the Java plugin work fine too, its only RealPlayer that seems to be broken (but thats it's fault, not netscapes)

Re:Redhat 6.0 and Netscape (Specifically glibc2.1)

[Anonymous Coward]

Any reason why 4.6 might be crashing every time I try to open Messenger? Running on Mandrake 6.0 distribution (RedHat6.0-based), under KDE.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Anonymous Coward]

You *can't* get NT4 stable - it's closed source, and thus not possible to fix the bugs. SP4 in particular is lethal - when using 3com cards, the systems all periodically slow to a crawl and blue-screen frequently. We nearly had a major disaster with shipping kit using it half-way round the world, but spotted the problem in time and reverted to SP3. Subsequently, we found out MS have buggered about substantially with the NDIS driver layer in SP4 (see www.ntmagazine.com for details) which probably explains it.

The point is, no matter how good you are as a sysadmin, you *can't fix NT*. And an "Enterprise OS" that typically can't even handle hot-plugging the *mouse* is just a joke.

Mozilla Features

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a copy features I have wanted netscape to have for a long time. The first is the ability to print only what you selected with your mouse cursor, instead of being forced to print the whole page. The second is the ability to save a whole page, not just the html, but any graphics displayed as part of that page. I guess IE5 can now do this. Does mozilla support these features? If not, they seriously should. BTW- Has anyone confirmed whether or not there is a g2 player with netscape for linux?

Re:Mozilla Features

[Anonymous Coward]

Useful features to be sure. I can't comment on whether either is on the feature list. However, with the new emphasis on scriptability in Mozilla, feature two (save entire page) is just a Simple Matter of Programming(TM) [insert winking emoticon here].

The odd thing I find about 'print selection' on IE5, is that while they have added this feature, they still have no print preview. Puzzling.

I also note that IE5's implementation of 'save web page' is _evil_. First off, they rewrite (pretty-print) the HTML page that you save, and that is the wrong thing to do (by default).

However, worse: in doing the re-writing they add a DOCTYPE to the page whether or not the page qualifies for that DTD -- the average user will not know what the DOCTYPE means, and for the most part will adopt it, thus propagating meaningless DOCTYPE around the web -- very evil.

And, in doing the re-writing, they add:
|META CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252" HTTP-EQUIV=content-type|

Pure evil.

Mozilla Features

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a copy features I have wanted netscape to have for a long time. The first is the ability to print only what you selected with your mouse cursor, instead of being forced to print the whole page. The second is the ability to save a whole page, not just the html, but any graphics displayed as part of that page. I guess IE5 can now do this. Does mozilla support these features? If not, they seriously should. BTW- Has anyone confirmed whether or not there is a g2 player with netscape for linux?

Jeff Knox
(Why does slashdot keep logging me out, and it wont mail me my password)

url completion

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just wondering how others here feel about url completion. I used to disparage the feature in its early stages, since it seemed to distract from typing the proper url by somewhat randomly cycling through available choices. IE5, however, introduced a very interesting improvement -- namely a pull-down list of urls in the user's history. Without forcing a random completion on the user, it serves as a bookmark scratchbook of sorts, which I've found extremely convenient for getting back longish urls with, let's say, perl or ColdFusion parameters. Convenient to bypass annoying, graphics-laden front pages on some sites.

Anyway, I remember a discussion on slashdot around the time either a 4.0x or 4.5 was released, with someone saying that url completion was removed on UNIX versions of Netscape because it didn't fit the 'user mentality.' Anyone has any thoughts on this?

AC

Re:url completion

[whoop]

... until it decides to overly autocomplete a site. Like typing "slash" then it fills in the dot.org/comments.pl?sid=... So I continue typing to the .org, then hit delete to remove everything after the /. Then if I don't hit return withing 1 second, it re-completes the whole freakin URL deep into comments. Personally, I have no problem just typing "slashdot.org" and being done with it. I know where I'm going, and how to type it ;).

If it were added, I'd allow it if it was shutoff-able in preferences...

Re:url completion

[Vulture-X]

It seems to me that if Netscape wanted to fit the "UNIX Mentality" well enough, they would include autocompletion, bash style. It would be nice to hit tab once to fill in the name, and if it doesn't have a match, you can hit tab again and get a drop down menu of choices. It would be similar to the IE5 version, with a bit of a UNIX twist.

Ah well, we can hope that future browsers (cough, cough, Mozilla or Gzilla developers) will do something similar to this.

Re:url completion

[Raul Acevedo]

I'd love to see URL completion. I don't understand what the complaints are about. The last time I used it on Lose95/98, it worked beautifully, because it automatically highlights the "inserted" text, so if it's not what you want, you just ignore it and keep on typing right over it.

So, if autocomplete guesses correctly, you're golden and hit RETURN. If it doesn't guess correctly, you just ignore it and keep on typing the URL, i.e., it's exactly as if it weren't enabled. So what's the problem?

Anyway, yes, I'd love to see it. I think removing it from the UNIX versions is STUPID. Didn't it occur to anyone to make it an option in the Preferences, perhaps disabled by default if indeed it didn't make the UNIX "mentality"?
----------

Re:url completion

[Dr. Sp0ng]

I'm just wondering how others here feel about url completion. I used to disparage the feature in its early stages, since it seemed to distract from typing the proper url by somewhat randomly cycling through available choices. IE5, however, introduced a very interesting improvement -- namely a pull-down list of urls in the user's history. Without forcing a random completion on the user, it serves as a bookmark scratchbook of sorts, which I've found extremely convenient for getting back longish urls with, let's say, perl or ColdFusion parameters. Convenient to bypass annoying, graphics-laden front pages on some sites.

The completion feature in IE5 is very nice. Saves a lot of time, unlike Netscape's version which seems to pick at random a page on the site and refuses to change it, so if you don't want to go to that exact page you have to retype it. I'm not normally one to praise Microsoft for *anything*, but I think, for once, they have a very good product with IE5.

Anyway, I remember a discussion on slashdot around the time either a 4.0x or 4.5 was released, with someone saying that url completion was removed on UNIX versions of Netscape because it didn't fit the 'user mentality.' Anyone has any thoughts on this?

Oh, is THAT why the Linux version didn't have it??? I always wondered about that... I figured it was just another thing Netscape was too lazy to port :-)

"Software is like sex- the best is for free"

Re:url completion

[IIH]

I personally like url completion, and I have no idea why they removed it from the unix versions - maybe because "unix" people like command lines, etc?

With IE4, the autocomplete works fine for me, if it gets it right, I hit return and I'm happy.
I don't like the IE5 version, because it's now changed, I looked at it, started a url "slash" and it gave me a drop down list including slashdot. True to habit, I hit return, but it didn't autocompete! you had to manually select the option from the drop down.

It's the fiddley changes in user inerface that really gets to me about some MS products, especially when you have to alternate between them. you get used of doing things quickly, and changing things makes it worse
Two examples (apart from the autocomplete above)

to logout (win 95) (ctrl-esc U - l) in win98 logout is now a top level option
in the dos editor a search replace under win95 is
alt - s - r (alt search replacE)
under NT it's alt - s -c (alt search change)

grrr

--

OPERA IS COMING

[Anonymous Coward]

Project magic, a linux-unix port of opera is underway (and has been for what seems like ages). If it has Java support, it will be a netscape killer.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with WordPerfect? I use WordPerfect 8 patched to SP5 AND Word '97 from the Office '97 suite. I have to use both due to the fact that they refuse to understand each other's formats (well, the Office '97 one refuses and the WordPerfect one has not sufficiently reverse engineered the Word fformat properly yet :)). I started out on Word and used that for about two years preparing small memos and large documents. When I first used WordPerfect, I hated it. Now, I only touch Word when I have to ( reading in a Word file and changing it). Preparing formatted documents in WordPerfect is a dream compared to the nightmare and manual labour of Word. In my opinion, WordPerfect is a wordprocessor while Word is the big-daddy of wordpad and a wordprocessor wannabe. On stability, WordPerfect has yet to crash on me while Word has to be handled gently. BTW, I am talking about the win32 versions. WordPerfect for linux needs some serious attention before I would use it as my main tool. On that topic, I really wish the X ppl would sort out their font rendering. Scalable fonts should not be THAT jaggified. Just my 0.000002c ;)

Re:128 bit version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Fortify. Netscape doesn't seem to have any glibc versions of its 128 browsers out anyway, so those with glibc systems are stuck with either 40 bits or Fortify if they want a relatively stable browser.


Then again, don't take my word, I haven't downloaded a copy since 4.51 came out.


AC

Re:Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the main reson that I think Linus should just ignore MS/Mindcraft for the time being.

Excellent point!

Pardon my ignorance, but I can't see what's so difficult about writing a browser. It's basically a TCP/IP client with an HTML parser and an image renderer. What's the hard part that takes so long?

There's a classic design rule-of-thumb: "Be strict in sending and tolerant in receiving". The problem (to some degree) is that the 'strict in sending' part of the bargain has been dropped on the floor by various WYSIWYG HTML editors, and well-intentioned authors. Given user expectations, this forces a parser/layout engine to be extremely (even perversely) tolerant. Hence, not as easy as it seems.

It's those pesky users. If nobody used the product, then nobody would expect it to work ;).

xzoom

[Yarn]

that program rocks.

Also, if you get really bored you can get nifty hall of mirrors effects with it.

Re:G2 player?

[palpatine]

They already have a player. Wait about a month for the public beta of G2 for Linux.

Re:Netscape 4.6 Release Notes

[Eric S. Smith]

My few cents, running on Linux, libc5:

Bozos still haven't got the graphics right under monochrome X. They're negative, so, for example, pictures of Tux show him with a black tummy and white wings. Every other X app I've got exhibits the proper behavior in this regard.

Two binaries with standalone? Looks like it: netscape and netscape-dynMotif. The latter won't run on my (Motifless) system, so I've bzip2'd it to save space. If everything's still working in a week, I'll rm the thing.

Speaking of space: with netscape-dynMotif compressed, df is showing that my Navigator standalone installation is taking up about 15 000 blocks.

Re:G2 player?

[HeUnique]

Sorry, check your sources again...

There WILL be soon a G2 Player for All Linux/Unix variants.. (but sadly, no G2 Plus version)

Hetz

Netscape 4.6 Release Notes

[davie]

For anyone wondering what's changed in NS 4.6:

http://home.netscap e.com/eng/mozilla/4.6/relnotes/unix-4.6.html

For what it's worth, it does seem to render a little faster, but then I'm an impressionable litte sprite.

Re:Netscape 4.6 Release Notes

[_Stryker]

It looks like they have removed this link... it now gives a File Not Found error, but did work earlier.
---

Re:netscape

[whoop]

whatever you don't, don't go and write one. Instead put AC posts on various web sites, whine, moan, etc. That'll get something done. Yeah...

Two things

[Mike Hicks]

Two things for y'all..

I get the most crashes (well, hangs actually) when I have Java enabled. I have decided that having little scrolling news items and whatnot aren't worth it, so I disale that..

Also, make sure you are running the correct version for your distribution of Linux! The libc5 version probably won't work very well on a glibc2 system, and vice-versa. You have to go get the 'unsupported' Linux 2.0 version..

but at 62 Hz?

[Wakko Warner]

Good God, I'd get a headache in 5 minutes at such a low refresh rate.

- A.P.
--

"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

Re:new browser...

[Tony Shepps]

makes me laugh... sites that set their sites up for 640x480 screens.. then running them in 1280x1024 or so...

What makes me laugh is people who seem to WANT their eye to travel 16" back and forth across a screen while reading. Until most people have 19" monitors, please keep your browser windows at about 800x600, unless you find sites that are broken at displaying text, such as the new DejaNews.

Netscape Product Archive

[caferace]

My little gold mine (OK, it helps that I'm the lead QA engineer for all the download stuff here...)

Netscape Product Archive

We keep *almost* everything available.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep as my grandfather did...

Re:128 bit version?

[caferace]

Actually, there are 128 bit versions for all platforms. It just takes a few days to wire these into the secure servers (as I'm heading off to QA these in a few minutes). Wise slashdotters in the past have found them prior to general announcement. Think of it as a treasure hunt, it ain't that hard.

FWIW, if you poke around you might notice that the "export" version is no longer 40 bit encryption.

It's now 56bit...

I want to die peacefully in my sleep as my grandfather did...

Re:Stable?

[gavinhall]

Posted by stodge:

"So I stick to Netscape. Not only because they got the perfect browser which has made my life perfect, but because the brand new halo they bought looks so good on them that I just can't resist "


Huh? You call Netscape perfect? (I'm presuming you mean the Linux version) It's horribly bloated and unstable. Hmmmmmmm. Were you joking?

Re:Memory usage

[gavinhall]

Posted by Fleeno:

As a proud Maytag shareholder, I resent seeing "Hoover" and "Microsoft" in the same .sig! ;)

Spell checker?

[gavinhall]

Posted by Fleeno:

I just noticed the spell check button is not available when composing a message. Did I mess something up, or did they change this?

Re:Spell checker?

[Pudding Yeti]

This is from the README. I've been told it applies:

Starting with 4.0, we strongly suggest setting the MOZILLA_HOME environment variable to point to the Communicator installation directory. Many Netscape Client components now look at MOZILLA_HOME as a fallback or default mechanism in addition to the existing mechanisms from previous releases.

csh, tcsh:
setenv MOZILLA_HOME /path/to/install-directory
sh, bash, ksh:
MOZILLA_HOME=/path/to/install-directory
export MOZILLA_HOME

Hope this helps.
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net

Re:Spell checker?

[_Stryker]

You must have messed something up because it still shows up fine on my 4.6 version.
---

More browser bloat! bleah

[gavinhall]

Posted by The Incredible Mr. Limpett:

What I want is a graphical browser that has java capabilities, can do frames and secure transactions. That's all. fast and furious.

No spell checking, no email, no newsreader, no html editor, no graphics editor, no auto complete. Does anyone make this?!?!?!?

Why do they just keep getting bigger and slower? Is it that hard to program a small FAST browser?? without all that intgerated crap?

I've tried Opera, Lynx (too hard to find text only web pages anymore), netscape, explorer...are there any others out there for Windows/Mac/Linux that fits this bill?


----
"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a
villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."

Re:Mozilla!

[zerblat]

Or is it because Mozilla isn't even beta yet? Also, Mozilla's UI is/will be customizable. So if you don't like the way it looks, change it.

Re:G2 player?

[ironhide]

I had G2 running once under WINE a while ago. Full Screen mode crashed X but the video played nice most of the time.

Re:My Solution: kmail

[TedC]

Sick and tired of my browser choking on some JS and killing my email. Notice that this is not a problem with MS products.

My Solution: I create a 2nd account just for browsing. That way when my browser crashes it does not interfere with the messenger email client.

I started using kmail (version 1.0.17 is stabe enough to use) so that when Netscape crashes it doesn't trash my email. I also wrote a shell script that cleans things up after a crash to make things easier.

You're right about MS -- credit where credit is due, IE is a better browser. It has some annoying features, but at least it works.

TedC

Re:Mozilla!

[TedC]

And on this front, I would say that Mozilla SeaMonkey is currently our best (and maybe our only) hope of getting a better browser for Linux.

It sounds like they're doing it right, which is a good thing. Netscape got so caught up in competing with MS that their product suffered. This is the main reson that I think Linus should just ignore MS/Mindcraft for the time being.

Pardon my ignorance, but I can't see what's so difficult about writing a browser. It's basically a TCP/IP client with an HTML parser and an image renderer. What's the hard part that takes so long? I know the people working on it are all good programmers, so there must be some hidden "tarpit" that I don't know about.

TedC

Do this.

[Groucho]

Add this to your .bash_profile

MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS=True
export MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS

More info in the readme in /usr/doc/netscape-common-4.xx, also with instructions for tcsh etc.

This stops the dns helper from starting. When I did it, Netscape got a LOT faster at dns lookups. Now I guess it just uses the nameservers I specified in /etc/resolv.conf, which is kinda what I wanted in the first place. :-)

If you still think Netscape sucks, try the latest KFM which is not too shabby and renders pages very quickly. Look at Freshmeat on Netscape then try it with KFM. All those bloody tables render faster in KFM. Gawd, I can't wait for Mozilla. :-)

Groucho

Re:Do this.

[plm]

Thank you! Works fine.

Paul

Why 4.0x?

[hawk]

It took out features I use, so I'm still using 3 . . . But then, the only reason I don't use lynx all the time is that it can't launch extra browser windows . . .

new browser...

[smash]

heh...

what we need is browser makers to stop trying to make HTML do exactly the same stuff as you can do with DTP programs (ie get pixel perfect layout control).

HTML isnt meant to look exactly the same on every computer. it is meant to lay content out in the best way for your system.

makes me laugh... sites that set their sites up for 640x480 screens.. then running them in 1280x1024 or so...

smash

Re:new browser...

[EJB]

What we need is to seperate the logical markup from the display stuff. We need a browser that understand XSL flow-objects for the display engine, and XSL stylesheets to tranform a logical document into a well-formatted display document.

And you can be concerned with pixels and at the same time allow the page to stretch when the browser window is stretched. That's what a good display language does.

Re:new browser...

[scrytch]

what we need is browser makers to stop trying to make HTML do exactly the same stuff as you can do with DTP programs (ie get pixel perfect layout control).

What we need is for people who don't need it to not use it. When you're designing a page for a kiosk with a resolution like a Palm Pilot, you start to appreciate pixel-level control. "give or take a pixel here or there" is not acceptable behavior.

Re:new browser...

[scrytch]

Guess what: people "misuse" tools all the time. People "misused" the telephone according to Bell's original intent for it.

I need to mix graphics and text with a format that can be output with a text editor and display on a widely available tool. Gee Beav, I wonder if such a thing exists?

Don't presume to tell me that I'm misusing anything unless you want to write and maintain my application for me.

Re:new browser...

[symbolic]

If every web site were composed of a few static images and plain text, using HTML "properly" wouldn't be an issue. From a design perspective, HTML has some glaring weaknesses, and "misusing" it is the only way around them.

Re:Mozilla!

[drunken monkey]

With all due respect to the programmers at Netscape, the Communicator code just isn't worth it. It needs to eventually die away. That's why mozilla has been designed from the ground up.

The early code for communicator 5 was what was first released so some of the code from version 4 should be there. It's still downloadable as 'classic Mozilla'. I believe it had the configurable chrome too. But it was than replaced with the current incarnation of Mozilla and the chrome had to be built into it again.

Anyway, everything seems to be heading in the right direction. Outside development is starting to pick up in addition to the steady development going that's going on. For example, a new project has been started to add MathML to mozilla. Cool! We just might get MathML, finally.

narbey

NS is a good alternate to NS

[boc]

A couple weeks ago just for kicks I downloaded Netscape 2.0x. WOW. It was so fast. Unfortunately, /. and freshmeat rendered horribly. So I tried 3.04 and have been using it ever since. Some pages don't render completely right, but I am more than happy with the speed and memory usage improvements that I've gotten.

Re:NS is a good alternate to NS

[PimpBot]

Wouldn't you expierence some problems viewing some pages?(I'm thinking things like CSS).

BTW, noticed your email addy...I'm a CMU student too ;-)

128 bit version?

[Leebert]

Netscape's "Latest Browser Software" download "wizard" does not list 4.6, therefore I assume there is not / will not be a 128 bit version?

It IS stable.

[Outlyer]

For the first time, I've got a stable version of mozilla. I'm running the libc5 version on my glibc2.1 version, and magically, it loads faster, renders quicker, and has generally not crashed even once in the last 24 hours. The mem usage seems a little down.
Yes, I wish a mozilla beta was out, but this is finally usable, and I don't have to use that ugly
kfm browser, which fills my home directory with junk, and can't handle cookies properly.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Gregg M]

Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
(I'm starting to believe it...)
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.
Nt is stable, it's my fault it crashes.

Use the glibc2 version if you can!

[alecf]

If you have a Redhat 5.x system, or another Linux distribution that has glibc, use that version!

the glibc2 version will be much more stable on these systems than the libc5 version.

I'm not sure why it's still in the unsupported section - it works better than the libc5 version.

Mozilla has nothing to do with Communicator 4.x

[alecf]

First of all, Netscape has contractual (customer) obligations to continue to fix bugs in the 4.x series, so Netscape will continue to put out new 4.x releases on a regular basis with more and more bugfixes. Secondly, the team that works on 4.x is a TOTALLY different team than the Mozilla/5.0 team. The Mozilla team is NOT distracted by 4.x work.

Re:Redhat 6.0 and Netscape (Specifically glibc2.1)

[alecf]

No - not in 4.6, MAYBE 4.7. And yes, that's an official response :) - I worked on 4.5 and currently work on 5.0

Re:Netscape 4.6 Release Notes(Not faster?)

[way_out]

Uhhm. Here it does run faster.

Re:What are Netscape doing?

[linuxci]

What I mean is they should just give up on 4.x and concentrate on Mozilla as nothing from 4.x is in Mozilla (Mozilla has a new layout engine, new front end, new everything). So NO I don't want new features in 4.x but they shouldn't up the version numbers to 4.6 to make it look like it has new features either. 4.52 is what it should be called.

Now please Netscape give up on 4.x before everyone starts looking elsewhere for their browsers.
--

What are Netscape doing?

[linuxci]

It is considered one of the biggest mistakes of Netscape to have released version 4.5 of their browser instead of concentrating on Mozilla. So what do they do? They release a 4.6 version of their browser. Mozilla has a lot more potential than their current browsers so AOL/Netscape should be concentrating on getting Mozilla usable. Although 4.5 isn't perfect it's OK and is certainly usable (I don't know how people say it crashes every 5 minutes) can they not leave it alone now and put all their efforts into Mozilla and only work on the old browsers if they have to plug a security hole or something as urgent. Mozilla will never get released if they are keeping their developers on the 4.x series.

Also why 4.6? I can't see anything different to 4.5 so it should have been version 4.52
--

Netscape is pretty stable for me

[R. Paul McCarty]

I am running netscape 4.51 and 4.07 (I think) and they are both pretty stable considering how much I use them. Generally I only crash them once a week, if that often, and generally it's something weird about the page.. I'm having a hard time believing you guys are crashing netscape every few minutes. :) Although a couple versions crashed on me whenever I hit a "mailto" link, but they're gone now.

Ja.
-Paul

Re:Stable? Clearly more stable than your IQ

[THX1138]

Don't you know sarcastic comments when they hits you between the eyes.

Sheesh!. Sad. So VERY sad.

BTW, the idea is to walk WITHOUT dragging your knuckles along the ground.

Re:Nix on base64!

[THX1138]

I suspect that this is due to those pusbuckets at AOL trying to start dictating things to the NS programers.

A pathetic attempt at trying to force eveyone to use NS for their email (much like Eudora tried which Eudora Lite not doing UUEncoding but Eudora Pro doing so.

My recommendation: use a proper email program, instead of a monstrosity that tries to everything at once and fails miserably.

Re:Mozilla! Baloney!!

[HipPriest]

You're insanse. The Mozilla binary releases do include all the necessary libraries out of the box.

The real problem is that there are still two major areas that need fixing in the Unix version before it is usable:

1. The scrolling performance is utterly horrible, with lots of gray flicker and flashing.

2. The form widgets using Gtk have major problems. I don't blame them, sometimes it's hard to get Gtk to behave in some way other than its hardcoded defaults, but in any case this needs a lot of work.

I've heard that neither of these problems exist on the windows version, although I've never seen it first-hand.

I personally can't wait to dump netscape and use start using mozilla.

Re:ns 4.6

[cout]

Opera isn't too bad. I haven't tried Trollio yet, but it looks decent.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[cout]

WordPerfect's not such a bad thing. MSWord conversions on large files could use a bit of work, but the same could be said of MSWord conversions of large WordPerfect files.

Messenger replacement

[cout]

I've been using messenger for quite some time now, and I'm very pleased with the interface. But recently it has developed a quirk that won't let me access my IMAP folders. Kind of defeats the purpose of using IMAP!

Anyway, I've been looking for a new mail client. It should handle attachments properly (that means Eudora is out!), should have IMAP4 functionality, and be compatible with PGP. Some clients I've looked at:

XFMail
Postilion
Pine
Mahogany
Vienna
Embla
Simeon
Mulberry

Of these, Mahogany looks really cool, but I can't find the Win32 version! Any comments?

Re:If you are looking for a good Win32 email clien

[cout]

Oh cool! They finally have IMAP support! This could definitely be a good thing.

Pegasus just ain't what it used to be

[cout]

It looked impressive at first, but I'm afraid there are too many problems. The IMAP configuration was awkward at best, Pegasus had trouble communicating with my server (kept closing the connection), and it crashed within the first five minutes. Sigh, I will keep looking/trying, though.

Redhat 6.0 and Netscape (Specifically glibc2.1)

[smackdaddy]

Does anyone know if they are planning on releasing a glibc 2.1 release in the unsupported section? I am running the glibc2.0 version but ever since I upgraded to redhat 6.0 (which has glibc-2.1.1) I find that netscape crashes if you try to run java or plugins. It used to work fine with macromedia flash plugin and java enabled, but it seems that the new glibc broke that.

Jeff Haskovec

MathML in mozilla

[arielb]

this I think is more interesting news than a bugfix for Netscape 4.5. People are working on MathML support in mozilla. Join them http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/

Re:My Solution: Don't use Netscape for anything!

[arielb]

kfm is a file manager like windows explorer which has a web view. It isn't a serious real-world browser.

Memory usage

[plm]

netscape 4.6 on my linux notebook:
USER PID %CPU %MEM SIZE RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
plm 889 5.4 24.5 24172 15572 p4 S 15:52 0:28 /usr/local/netscape/n
plm 890 0.0 5.5 16416 3540 p4 S 15:52 0:00 (dns helper)

I am actually running a nameserver myself anyway. How can the (dns helper) process be removed?

Paul

Re:Memory usage

[Mr Foobar]

Leave those (dns) processes alone. They came from NS. You can kill them, but they'll just come back like a bad stomach virus. They should disappear when you exit NS properly, but sometimes they hang around after NS dies a fiery death. My 0 1 (two bit)

Re:Memory usage

[mpe]

I am actually running a nameserver myself anyway. How can
the (dns helper) process be removed?

This is one of the many "Windowsisms" in Netscape. The
other place is where Netscape cannot handle Unix mailbox
formats nativly (hence the movemail kludge.)

Hopefully these sort of things will be addressed with
Mozilla

Re:G2 player?

[plm]

Apparently, real.com has no G2 player for linux yet. Could it be netscape integrated the player into the browser?

G2 player?

[plm]

In the release notes, I see a new feature is the G2 player... I am now running netscape 4.6 but did not figure out what this means. Anyone?

Re:G2 player?

[Steve Bergman]

I have never understood why they don't make Plus available for Unix/Linux. They will do all the major work to make a free version available, but they won't add the finishing touches (and that really *is* what they are) to make a saleable version. I mentioned the fact that I would be willing to pay for the Plus version and also mentioned winelib in the same email as a way for them to easily sync their Win32/Linux versions and got back a reply asking how much money my origanization (?) would be willing to contribute to the development. Hey, I'm just a home user that would like to be able to pay $29.95 for the detail (but important) additions that make it RealPlayer Plus.

-Steve Bergman

Re:G2 player?

[webslacker]

It's a plugin.

Re:G2 player?

[MindStalker]

They are only refering to the win9x version of netscape. It comes with Realplayer G2 (which for plm is a multimedia player for viewing many streaming audio/video sites) This player does not exist on the Unix/linux platform though it may soon if there is enough support.

Re:G2 player?

[mircea]

No way...RealNetworks representatives stated to me in 2 different messages that they've dropped all work on a Linux G2 player. Poor bastards. And the irony is they _did_ make a G2 producer.

Re:G2 player?

[mircea]

Hmmm...if they do, it's kinda' strange they keep denying it with such force. Most of my emails went unanswered, and the two replies I got stated that the development of a Linux G2 player was completely stopped sometime in february.

Re:G2 player?

[mircea]

Yeah, they keep saying that on their web site...but when you ask them, they deny it.

Bug Fixes

[BuzCory]

Are the two most egregious bugs in previous versions fixed? (For my purposes, nothing but Linux-2.0 + glibc-2.0 are important).

• css1 -- has not worked stably or reliably in any version of NetScape-4.x. It worked briefly on Navigator-4.6 but mostly gets ignored. Some may say it is dead, as far as I can see, it has simply not worked reliably on *any* Linux browser that is otherwise useful.

  All work on my web site has ceased until I get a browser that will recognize and properly support css1. Then I can use HTML-4.0 for all new pages and gradually convert old pages to HTML-4.0. If it breaks IE, that's fine. If M$ can't or won't implement industry standards that are several years old working, that's their (and their foolish customers') problem, not mine. I, for one, do not care at all about XSL, nor for the moment about XML; and all my pages are and will remain Java-free.

• Java junk -- Java and JavaScript are inherently insecure on the InterNet. I have no use for sites that insist that I enable one or the other to view it. I will not run any browser that does not let me disable them.

  NetScape-4.5 has disable options, but the JavaScript button, at least, does not work. The ideal browser, for me, would not in any way depend on Java, would use plug-ins for it and simply ignore all Java stuff if the plug-ins were not present.

"> Buz Cory at buzco.ddns.org
"> write for FREE help with:

• Installing/Configuring Linux
• Getting started with the Ada Programming Language.

Bloated, glacial, crash-prone system got you down? Linux to the Rescue!
Programmer? Drowned in bugs? Ada is the answer.

Communicator wasRe:Stable?

[JanneM]

I've found that the stability seems very dependent on two things: whether you are running Communicator (with mail, news, etc.) or the stripped down Navigator; and whether you insist on allowing for Java and Javascript. Me, I have these turned off by default, and turn either on only when I view a site where I really need it. I sure would wish for some way to dynamically reconfigure Netscape depending on the URL I'm viewing.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[poink]

In FreeBSD, I just restart moused.

What video card do you have !?

[i]

??

Re:2000x1500

[Freshman]

Good grief, that sounds like overkill.

800x600 is fine for me most of the time on my 15"

Re:netscape

[Athos]

Uh.... www.mozilla.org?

--

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[IntlHarvester]

You're hitting the nail on the head - NT stability is highly dependant on what hardware you are using. So your "sysadmin" skills really need to be to know what hardware to requisition.

Note that this is similar to Linux's hardware support problem, except that the linux community is more honest about what hardware is "supported" (although much of that supported hardware has beta level drivers). Microsoft is totally willing to hand out hardware certifications and the "Designed for Windows NT" sticker to unstable platforms.

I was under the impression that you shouldn't hot plug PS/2 mice under any OS...
--

Use junkbuster.

[mrsam]

Another way to avoid having NS block on DNS lookups is to use the Junkbuster proxy, and you get to filter out banner ads as a bonus.

One word of caution, though, manually bind Junkbuster to 127.0.0.1 - this may have changed, but previously the default setup you get by following README binds junkbuster to any IP address, resulting in an open proxy invitation to script kiddies.

Re:Stable?

[Azul]

Perfect? Didn't you just say it crash all the time? Whatta silly concept of software perfection. I find it completely unaceptable to have it crash on me.

It *IS* Netscape's fault. They have not stick to the standards that much (until now). MS Inept Explorer 4, released at the time Netscape 4 was released, conforms to standards such as CSS1 more than does Netscape. MS Inept Explorer 5 is by far more standards compliant than the current Netscape version, 4.6.

Besides, the HTML standards out there by the W3C say that if your browser comes across a tag it does not understand (ie. a non standard tag) it should just ignore it. Not crash.

And what have the hangs related with NSLookups to do with standards?

On the other hand, it is just a free product, we are not (directly) paying them to develope it. So it is not appropiate to discuss wether it is their "fault" or not.

However, you are doing well staying with Netscape. Its just a matter of time until a usable version of their free version gets ready (something we will know as Netscape 5). Everything will change. It will never crash. It will fully support far more standards than MS Inept Exporer. And you will be happy.

Alejo.

Re:Mozilla!

[Kyobu]

I agree that mozilla is a worhty project, but why can't they just release the code for regular Netscape? I understand that they have to take out all the roprietary stuff, e.g. Java, and the crypto, but other than that, I don't see the hassle.

Go back to 4.0x

[joshv]

I am running 4.03 under linux and it seems to be quite solid. It crashes relatively infrequently, It is certainly much more stable than the 4.5 version I downloaded.

It also renders most everything I throw at it perfectly. What's the need for the later versions?

-josh

Re:Go back to 4.0x

[mircea]

Correct. I went back to 4.07 after trying 4.5, and, at least, now it crashes only ~once/week, as compared to every couple of hours. I'm hoping for Mozilla.

I hate huge downloads...

[Graymalkin]

So I still have Navigator 4.01 (I have communicator 4.51 in linux). I dispise it at times and love it at times. I cant think of a time it hasn't crashed when it's loaded a Java applet. Suprisingly I have had very few problems with IE 4.whatever.version.i.have, although IE doesnt like to read CSS scripting in DHTML pages very well. In Win98 I use Outlook98 for mailing purposes. I rather like it dispite what many people have said about it. It handles mutiple accounts decently and is rather stable. In linux I use Communicator for the web and Messanger to mail. When Opera comes out for linux I'll be very happy. It's one of the best browsers I have ever used. It's truely a browser, it doesnt have al lthe superflous crap that makes IE and Communicator into bloatware packages. It's a browser plain and simple. If they decide to add Java support and an XML parser to it...it will be perfect IMHO.

Mozilla!

[SuperDee]

Well folks, I would say this is not completely unwelcome--4.6 does seem a little more stable than 4.51 was, although even so, I still can't get it to run more than a few minutes without crashing. And worst of all, unlike the current Mozilla SeaMonkey project, 4.6 is still proprietary, so don't even think about trying to go into the code and trying to fix the bugs yourself... If you don't like the bugs, tough--you'll have to live with them. Personally, I think Netscape has got to be the most unstable, bloated piece of software I've seen for Linux yet. I think the Linux platform is desperately in need of a better browser. I say, while 4.6 is a nice interim measure, at the same time, I hope Netscape isn't spending too much in the way of resources on the 4.x line still, for as Jamie Zawinski said, Netscape sunk a huge amount of engineering effort into the 4.5 release in 1998, and that was a huge blow to Mozilla.

And on this front, I would say that Mozilla SeaMonkey is currently our best (and maybe our only) hope of getting a better browser for Linux... And what could be better? It is even open source! I therefore would like to call to all of you to help with the Mozilla project. Let us prove to Jamie Zawinski that all Mozilla needed was a little time.

I am one of the people who is contributing. Admittedly, I am not much of a coder--I only just completed some introductory C/C++ courses. But you do not even have to know C/C++ to do things like file bug reports, or even just give tips. For example, check this out. These open source tools were suggested to them by me.

Or, check out bug reports, like this. I submitted the patch that fixed that bug.

My point is, you don't have to know much about programming to help. And I think Mozilla deserves all the help it can get right now. So please, let us help Mozilla.

In case you people want to know what Mozilla is like... Let me say:

1) It is a radical departure from the old Netscape, and about time, too.
2) It is STANDARDS based. Example: ALL CSS1 properties are now supported.
3) It is truly cross-platform, unlike IE. Cross-platform UIs are built using a form of XML, in .XUL files. These are really cool.
4) It will support Skins (or Chrome), much like WinAmp. Skins anyone??
5) Also please check out MozillaZine. They have some chrome available there.

Re:Mozilla!

[MindStalker]

Have you even tried the new M5 yet.. its quite stable on a decent machine.. (crashes my p75 though.. which runs netscape fine) but works wonderfully in a 166 or higher it looks like they should be comming out with M6 any day now give it a try when you they do.. I think you'll be happily surprised.. (note I'm basing that guess on the fact that in the last couple of days the nightly releases have have next to the date named directory the extention M6 guess its the code they want to release for M6 just cleaing it up)

Re:Mozilla!

[Scientist]

Have you seen mozilla? Its just as unstable as netscape and is uglier. Or is it just me?

Re:Mozilla!

[Scientist]

seems its been pre alpha code for a while, but for now it still seems netscape is the best choice.

Re:Mozilla!

[jmauro]

They did release all the code, that was the initial Mozilla release. It contained all the code for Communictor that belonged solely to Netscape. The old code should just be bug fixed. The rendering engine on the 4.x series is just too slow and large.

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Dredd13]

I don't understand why this is a problem...?

It allows them to run Linux desktops/laptops instead of being slaves to MS's operating systems, paying fees for something they don't need.

We should be happy about that, not upset.

4.6 and Encryption

[X-Type]

No domestic encryption version as of yet.
I am still using 4.04 here. I will try
4.6 when the 128-bit encryption version is
uploaded.

Re:4.6 and Encryption

[Raul Acevedo]

As was already stated, you should check out Fortify. It can take any 40-bit encryption Netscape browser and convert it to 128-bit safely and reliably.

I don't know if it will work with this new 4.6 version, but I'm going to try it. I'm sure they'll add official support for it soon enough.
----------

Re:ns 4.6

[Lennie]

yeah...
but, it's not like there is anything better out there, is there ?

ok, Lynx is pretty good :)

Here's How! Re:128 bit encryption version?

[TeknoDragon]

ok, first go to this link then select the options as if you were downloading netscape 4.51

BUT as soon as you click on the "US and Canada Customers: Download for Free" button

change the url to read
"...pdms_dnstest.cgi?PRODUCT=communicator4.6-lin ux2.0-en-..."

instead of "...communicator4.51..."


It seemed to work for me...
I got a file called "communicator-v46-us.x86-linux-unknown-linux2.0.ta r.gz", but haven't installed it yet (UGH! only 6 megs free on /usr !!!)

what about the KDE "exporer"?Re:Alternatives to NS

[TeknoDragon]

I haven't used it yet... but from screenshots etc etc it looks pretty good...

or if you do really like NS maybe when Mozilla comes out with a stable enough product KDE might integrate it?

yeah, i can dream...

what about TAB rather than AUTO?Re:url completion

[TeknoDragon]

This gets me... I mean bash is great... i love command line completion... so why not use some key (like TAB or that useless windows key!) to complete the url... it could look through the global history and complete the next common match... or perhaps you could cycle through all the autocompleted choices by pressing that "tab-like" key...

128 bit version here...

[Anonymous Shepherd]

128 bit version

For those looking for it... For whatever reason, the link above doesn't work correctly; an extra space is inserted between the 'e' and the 'n' in the term "win32-en-complete"

https://wwwus.netscape.com/usdl-bin/pdms_dnstest .cgi?PRODUCT=communicator4.6-win32-en-comp lete-128&COMPONENTS=CLIENT&TEMPLATES=NSCP
Copy the link, paste it into the correct place, delete the extra space, and grab the 128bit copy!

Found this at Ars Technica

Hopefully this doesn't get lost in the thread


-AS

Re:Stable?

[DGolden]

It seems, subjectively, to be working better than 4.51 for me. (N.B. I'm using the glibc2 version)

Slashdot seems to render faster, as do other sites, and it hasn't hung yet - though 4.51 hadn't hung in a while since I setup squid as a local proxy for my machine. (most of the hangs I used to get appeared to be blocking dns lookups and the like, so by using squid locally, squid deals with the dns lookups + data download, and always gives netscape something to chew on - even if it's a page of html saying "not found").

Using the computer as its own proxy server may seem like overkill, but it's definitely upped the responsiveness of my machine. Squid is pretty good at downloading stuff :-)

Using Netscape + fetchmail + procmail

[DGolden]

Here's the way I get my mail. Note that fetchmail supports IMAP as well, AFAIK. This isn't any use with the remote message storage features of IMAP, though. However, it may be useful to some people, so i'll post it one more time.

By a little constructive work, you can get netscape's "MoveMail external program" option to use procmail.
First, I set up fetchmail to check my mail every few minutes, by calling it in .bash_profile, and putting this in my home dir:

> more ~/.fetchmailrc

set postmaster "myusername"
set bouncemail
set properties ""
set daemon 600
poll my.pop3.server with proto POP3
user "mypop3username" there with password "my password" is myusername here

fetchmail loops mail from my pop server into my linux box's internal mail system (sendmail) Sendmail is set up to use procmail on my RH6.0 box, anyway, so I didn't need to use the .forward mechanism to use procmail.

Procmail can accept a list of rules for what to do with your incoming mail, _in addition_ to the system wide rules. These are stored in .procmailrc

I added this rule ("recipe") to my ~/.procmailrc

:0c:
$HOME/nsmail/.netscape.mail-recovery

This tells procmail to move a _copy_ of all my system mail (including the external mail looped in by fetchmail) to a file in the netscape mail directory called .netscape.mail-recovery This happens automatically whenever mail comes in.

Then, within Netscape, I went to Edit/Preferences Mail&Newsgroups/Mail servers.

I changed the server to (Using MoveMail), and changed the movemail preference to "using external application"

Now's the tricky bit - netscape calls the external movemail program with a few parameters, which are supposed to tell it to get the mail from /var/spool/mail/myusername, and put it in the (undocumented, AFAICT) file ~/nsmail/.netscape.mail-recovery

However - procmail's already done that bit! So, we don't need to do it again. I changed the "external movemail program" to "echo" with no parameters, as a sort of dummy command - netscape returns an error if no command at all is present.

So now, when I click on "get mail", netscape goes off and finds a copy of all my mail.

This is dead handy. note that a backup of all the mail could be kept by the procmail recipe (eg.):

:0c:
$HOME/mail.backup

This rather convoluted sounding approach is the one I've found to be by far the most flexible. It allows me to use any combination of mail readers, by distributing copies of all messages between them, and allows me to use procmail's advanced filtering functions. It also neatly gets round netscape's "only one pop3 host" limitation, since fetchmail can poll as many as you like, and allows me to read all my system internal mail in the comfort of Netscape Messenger.

Note also that, for security, the .fetchmailrc and .procmailrc must have restricted permissions set as documented in the fetchmail+procmail manuals.

There - that wasn't so hard now....

Nix on base64!

[Black Parrot]

So what's with the base64 encoding? Under any version of NS >= 4.5 (now including 4.6), if I send mail from home to anyone on our CS machines, the message shows up as base64. Not nice for those who don't read it under Netscape. I assume the problem is with NS rather than the CS machines, since the conversion never did (and still doesn't) happen with versions = 4.08.

Any suggestions/explanations?

There's a 4.x?

[Ellis-D]

Eh.. When did this happen.. J/k.. I still run Navigator 3.04 gold. =>
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.

128 bit encryption version?

[Checkered Daemon]

Anyone know how to get ahold of the US only version? The one with strong encryption?

Damn the US and the EAR.

Re:Problems with addressbook

[muppet]

i've had this problem as well... the addressbook created several list items for the same entry, and i could delete none of them. eventually, it came up with blank, empty entries, and started crashing at random.

i pretty much had to resort to blowing away my ancient .netscape directory and rebuilding the whole thing from scratch, addressbook, bookmarks and all.

it made me not very happy.

and i couldn't export the addressbook, either. it would crash (silently) when trying to export. i think there were null pointers in the linked list or something...

but how can i tell? it's closed-source...

FreeBSD

[balrog]

I've been using Linux before, mostly SuSE, and I experienced that Netscape was (just like many of you guys said) extremely unstable. I've been using FreeBSD for some time now, and it's much more stable, crashes very seldom. Thats funny because the Linux version is under "supported" and the FreeBSD version is under "unsupported".

I'm not trying to start a flame war here, just pointing out the irony. :)

Re:FreeBSD

[Gid1]

Oddly enough, Netscape runs much worse on FreeBSD for me than it did when I was using Linux.

Y'know, that's the main reason I started using a desktop environment. I use KDE's browser thingy instead.. much less crashy than Netscape =)

Still doesn't come close to IE5 for stability for me, and I thought I'd *never* say something like that.

Balrog's response

[balrog]

Hmm, I've seen this before. Computers are personal things, programs respond differently! ;)

Problems with addressbook

[Mammouth]

Am I the only one with this problem? I am unable to delete entries in the addressbook (using "ALT-D" or the pop-up menu)?
I also had this problem is 4.5
(I am using the glibc version)

If you are looking for a good Win32 email client

[david_g]

Pegasus is the one to get. At tucows.
Otherwise, for Linux, Mutt is da mua! :)

Re:Alternatives to NS...

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Although I know I'm gonna get flamed for this, IE is remarkably quick and stable on my NT box, and I've been kinda hoping that MS ports their browser to Linux (please spare me the childish "Micro$haft sux0rs, Netscape ru1es!" comments).

Same here... IE5 under NT is the quickest browser I've ever seen, and I'm waiting for a crash (VERY big surprise when I upgraded from 4.0... I've never seen a fast or stable MS product before, and I wasn't expecting it :-) Although if IE for Solaris is any indication, IE for Linux would be big, slow, bloated, and unstable because Microsoft wouldn't have access to their "undocumented" APIs that they use in their code.

"Software is like sex- the best is for free"

Re:2000x1500

[Mr. Tinkertrain]

wow, that's my dream resolution. :) i have this 17" monitor i want to replace with a 19". heh, you probly don't even need more than a single 2x2 virtual desktop!

btw, where'd you get that monitor? and for how much?

--
hellraiser ( @linuxfreak.com || @nac.net )
awk 'BEGIN { printf "Just another %s hacker\n", ARGV[0] }'

Re:Stable?

[segmentation fault]

Huh? You call Netscape perfect? (I'm presuming you mean the Linux version) It's horribly bloated and unstable. Hmmmmmmm. Were you joking?

Continue this sequence:

Goldy - silvery - i....

Re:Stable?

[segmentation fault]

Do I really have to start skipping a users guide with my comments?

Re:Stable?

[segmentation fault]

Well, I have run it for...lets see...6 minutes, and about 20 seconds, and it has only crashed 4 times (one on slashdot), so I guess it's pretty stable. It has some minor flaws, like crashing deterministic on sites like http://www.mp3search.com/ or http://www.pcworld.no/, but 4.5 did that as well.

I guess that's not Netscape's fault. After all, it was not their fault that that everyone startet to ignore all standards while the nice guys at Netscape, who just wanted to follow every standard they could find, just had to stand there and look at it, not beeing able to do anything about it. So, well, I guess it's only fair and square that the nice guys who tried to keep the web clean so that everyone could compete, now prevents me from ever seeing that part of it. When I think of it, I don't really need MP3s. Give me a can of Battery or Red Bull and shiny buttons I can press randomly, and I'll be as happy as I ever will be.

So I stick to Netscape. Not only because they got the perfect browser which has made my life perfect, but because the brand new halo they bought looks so good on them that I just can't resist

Alternatives to NS...

[PimpBot]

There are a whole bunch of complaints here about Netscape being buggy and crashing constantly...so why aren't there more alternatives?

Opera seemed really nice when I used the Windows version of it, but the Linux port isn't out yet...I haven't had the opportunity to try out Mozilla, but heard it was so-so. Although I know I'm gonna get flamed for this, IE is remarkably quick and stable on my NT box, and I've been kinda hoping that MS ports their browser to Linux (please spare me the childish "Micro$haft sux0rs, Netscape ru1es!" comments).

Are there any other browsers out there that I'm not aware of? If so, are they any good? If not, why not? :-)

Re:Alternatives to NS...

[PimpBot]

hehe....yeah, I use lynx occationally...mostly on pages that don't have frames...using it on those can be *messy*

Re:Alternatives to NS...

[PimpBot]

CMU(my school) does have iexplorer installed on its Solaris boxes...it did seem kinda clunky when I ran it, but then again, I was ssh'd in, so I thought that maybe had to do w/ the transfering of all the images, widgets and other stuff(I guessed that becaue XEmacs also seems noticably slower). But if MS ever *did* wind up porting IE to Linux, they might find ways to speed it up...

Re:what about the KDE "exporer"?Re:Alternatives to

[PimpBot]

i wouldn't think that NS would do this...that then kinda implies that they are throwing their weight behind KDE, and the GNOME peeps are gonna get upset ;-)

Re:Stable?

[zaks]

Of course he was joking. Are you familiar with the concept of irony and how it applies to daily human interaction? Do I have to draw a picture?

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA standardizing on NS

[mpe]

If you can't get NT 4 SP3 to be stable, what makes you
think you can make Linux+VMWare stable?

A VMed version of NT crashing is a lot less destructive
than the thing crashing nativly.

Crashing 3 times a day is abyssmal and that's not NT's
fault. Learn some basic sysadmin skills and then ALL of
your OSes will be stable.

This comment comes up quite often ignoreing that
a) MS specifically markets this product as not needing
a trained admin.
b) information on NT admin is not always easily available

Re:G2 player? - Try this responce.

[__aahyzr9271]

This will only work if enough people participate, but it's worth a try.

Reply back to them and mention that you're willing to contribute $29.95 to the development in extange for a Linix/Unix version of Real Player G2 Plus. Don't forget to also mention that there are other Unix/Unix clone users who may be interested in a Unix/Linix version of Real Player G2 Plus.

You're running into a bureaucratic problem rather than a technical problem. They don't know if there is enough of a demand for a Unix/Linix version, so they're not interested in devolping one.

Maybe when they see that there is a demand for a Unix/Linux version, they'll develop one.

Stable?

[PenguinII]

Just wondering if anyone knows if this is worth
getting, im getting a bit sick of having to reboot
and fsck my filesystem when the memory leaks get
out of hand on ye' old version.
PenguinII- just cuse im paranoid doesnt mean
they're not all out to get me!

Re:2000x1500

[Berry]

800x600 is a bit too small for comfort; even on a 15" I think I'd use 1024x768 to stop myself feeling cramped.

2000x1500 is very much the other extreme, but I don't think I'd use it unless I could run it at 70Hz or higher. 62Hz tends to make my eyes ache after 15 minutes or so. Mind you, I'd love the hardware to be able to use 2000x1500 if I ever needed/wanted to...

Re:HTML pickiness

[ufdraco]

Then why do so many standards people keep insisting that the standard does specify where things are to go, pixel by pixel? Wishful thinking?

Boy do I feel misled ;-)

Re:Too bad USGOV/NOAA "standardizing" on NS

[Harvester]

I work for the House of Representatives and all we run is MS Office products, Exchange email servers, and NT Servers. It bites. My f'ing computer (running NT workstation 4 SP3) crashes so hard at least 3 times a day that I have to cut the power. I can't wait until I can install Linux on that puppy and vmware NT.

I would rather everybody was standardizing on Netscape than MS. At least my boss hates MS too...

2000x1500

[iocc]

And Im running in 2000x1500. Sites looks really
funny in that resolution :)

(2000x1500x16 @ 62 hz, 249.60 MHZ RAMDAC, 19")

Re:2000x1500

[iocc]

You can have a look on one of my screenshoots at:
http://frodo.campus.luth.se/~iocc/2000x1500.gif

Its a ADI 6P 19" monitor. I bought it for 7200 SEK
(867 US $) but I've heard that it's down at 4500 SEK (542 US $) now.

Re:2000x1500

[iocc]

I tried to run a maximized xclock in 2000x1500 @
62 hz. I can't see any flicker..

But maybe I'm a bit strange :)
My eyes is synced at 62 hz :)

Matrox Millennium II, 8 MB WRAM, PCI.

[iocc]

..