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My Evolution from Netscape

Posted on February 10, 2000

in Commentary & Society

by Daniel Cody (djc)

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Daniel Cody

Member info | Full bio

User since: December 13, 1998

Last login: September 17, 2007

Articles written: 146

Being an avid Linux user, I've always used Netscape as my browser of choice. Even on my gaming machine at home that runs Win98, I still use Netscape. It's always seemed to crash less frequently than IE on my systems and, coupled with my general loathing of Microsoft, using Netscape was always a natural choice.

The 4.x versions of Netscape Communicator aren't the best pieces of software, to say the least. Many times, people complain just as hard and loud about Netscape crashing on them as others do about IE crashes.. It's well known that its code was really more of a set of bug fixes, hacks, and some UI improvements more than a new version of a browser. But something was needed to combat MS's release of IE4.

As those of you who use Linux know, when something crashes on our systems, it gets noticed. In a Windows environment, a reboot or re-installation of an application are somewhat commonplace to fix problems. With us, if a program even so much as lags in re-drawing its panels, we take notice..

Lately, I've started to take notice of Netscape.

It's been locking up on about 25% of the Flash sites I visit, but works for the other 75%. It's been barfing on my email folders. Its standards compliance really sucks. It freezes for about 30 seconds upon startup when you're behind a proxy (has anyone else ever noticed that?). Java support is somewhat lacking. So I'm moving on. Farewell, Netscape, dear friend....

...Mozilla here I come!!!

With the announcement of Milestone 13, the Mozilla Project has released what they're calling an Alpha version of the final Mozilla browser. Indeed, after using it for a couple days now, I'm convinced that it's not only more stable than Netscape 4.7, but also faster, doesn't lock up on me, is 100% standards compliant, has customizable chrome, and is just so much cooler. It's been a long time since it has felt 'cool' using a browser.

Check out how they compare:


(Click for a larger image)

In the upper left of my screen, you can see the evolt.org page rendered in Netscape 4.7. The lower right is the straight m13 build (not a nightly build). The first thing you might notice is that the font is much easier to read in Mozilla. Thanks to the standards compliant screen resolution, Unix and Mac users will no longer see smaller fonts than their Windows counterparts. Quicker load times. Multiple POP and/or IMAP accounts from the email client. No more page reloads when you resize a window. The list goes on and on...

The point is though that this alpha release of Mozilla is ready for primetime use. Personally, I'm ready to move on to this exciting new browser for the majority of my web surfing and email. The Mozilla milestones have always been fun to play with, report bugs on, and even use casually to surf -- m13 really makes a serious case for how great the final Mozilla and Netscape 5.0 releases are going to be.

Next time, I'll give a preview of the tons of new features that you'll find in the latest Mozilla milestone. In the meantime, its time for 4.7 to start collecting dust :)

Dan lives a quiet life in the bustling city of Milwaukee, WI. Although he founded what would become evolt.org in 1998, he's since moved on to other projects and is now the owner of Progressive Networks, a Zimbra hosting company based in Milwaukee.

His personal site can be found at http://dancody.org/

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Submitted by isaac on February 11, 2000 - 20:00.

News.com is reporting that AOL/Netscape/whatever are going to skip Netscape 5.0 and jump straight to 6.0. They're aiming for a spring release (why can't they just speak in terms of months or quarters so as not to alienate those from the southern hemisphere? They do have a fucking .com after all...), and will integrate AOL Instant Messenger with the browser, as well as enabling Web sites to offer branded versions of Netscape for download. There was no mention of standards compliance in the article.

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Submitted by olineham on February 12, 2000 - 03:51.

*jumps up and down*

Ooh, ooh. I knew it, I knew they'd pull a "Microsoft Office" and skip version 5! <whiney>Told ya so!</whiney>

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Submitted by damclean on February 12, 2000 - 04:09.

I don't know. It's not like you're really saying goodbye to Netscape. But it's funny, now that you mention it, I have started using other browsers just out of the frustration that NN was holding me back. I guess it's time to give Mozilla another try. Will Netscape have 6 before IE5 comes to the Mac? In the Mac world one must remember that we are still using 4.x browsers on both sides of the fence. Anyway, enough of my rambling.

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Submitted by MartinB on February 12, 2000 - 05:43.

96dpi standards compliant? The typographic standard is 72, which everything except Windows followed.

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Submitted by bobdavis on February 12, 2000 - 10:49.

The Macintosh build is still far from ready for prime time. There are a number of issues that will keep me from using it as a primary browser for now.

It is slow and sometimes doesn't render pages. It seems to have trouble with forms (I wanted to do this with Mozilla, but couldn't get past the login form), and lacks the look and basic user functionality that we've come to expect from Mac software (like dragging URL's to another application).

As Martin pointed out, the switch to 96dpi is an issue as well. I understand that there is something from the W3C regarding this, but it seems to be far from standard (if anyone has more info on this, please share!). Besides - it doesn't look right.

I know it's Alpha ware, and I know there is a lot yet to do, and I'm looking forward to the complete version, but, for now, I can't use it on a day to day basis.

What I'm going to do though, is go to the Mozilla.org site and read what I can regardign the Mac build and make suggestions where I see somethign that needs to be addresses. I really want this to be a good browser. It kills me that IE is the (IMO) best browser for Mac out there at the moment.

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Submitted by isaac on February 13, 2000 - 17:33.

Bob, IE5 is the best browser for Win9x/NT too. I have tried Mozilla M12, but (having had a number of problems) don't think I'll bother downloading it again until they say it's really finished.

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