[austeros]

i am an ie user, but i need to use netscape for some web based homework that ie is historically unrelyable with. I have heard some bad things about netscape 6, but i would like some first hand opinions before i reinstall.
TIA

[Hobbes]

I'd stay away from 6 if I were you. Its buggy as can be, has a slow interface, and it still doesn't work with a lot of sites, such as iTools. In adddition, there's concerns about whether or not its spyware, based on the number of TCP connections it makes, far more than any other browser.

4.76 may not be as flashy or have as many features, but its more reliable, stable, and its tried and true.

If you want to throw in compliance to standards then 6 is the way to go. Although, it itself is nothing in comparison to Internet Explorer 5. If compliance is really important to you then drop Netscape altogether. I've given up hope for their promises of compliance any time soon.

If you're really dead-set on using Netscape, then I suggest 4.7.6, as it at least doesn't crash on a whim, and it's not as ungodly slow as 6.

But I heartily recommend Internet Explorer 5. I converted to it from Netscape with version 5 and there's no way I'm going back any time in the future.

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/phloppy :: [email protected] :: sasquatchamo

[austeros]

thanks guys, i do use ie 5 all the time, but i just need netscape for some classwork. i guess i will be downloading 4.7.6.

Neither, use Netscape Navigator 4.08 Standalone. Well written code, stable ,compact, does the job.

[Hobbes]

The only problem with 4.08 is its age. It was released around 3 years ago. Since then, there have been quite a few updates Netscape has made do to security issues. However, all of those updates have been made to Communicator, not Navigator stand-alone. Navigator 4.08 stand-alone has not gone up one version number since its release. And its not like all of those security updates were just for the Messenger or Composer modules of Communicator. They were security updates for the Navigator module.

This leads one to believe that Navigator 4.08 has been left untouched, and not updated, since its release. Therefore its logical to conclude that it may have serious security flaws, flaws that were addressed and updated in Communicator.

Just my two cents...

[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 01-19-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 01-19-2001).]

[typoon]

My Choice is also with Netscape 4.76 if I had a choice. I decided to go to Internet Explorer 5 instead. I found it to be a better browser (yes, I can;t believe I said that)

[austeros]

if it makes you feel anybetter typhoon, it took me along time to get over that. ohwell. (doesnt it just make you feel all dirty and cheap?)

hahaha, maybe one day netscape will make a comeback, i can only hope,

[Cipher13]

4.75 is the best Netscape release theres been. 4.76 was annoying. More bugs, less stable.
4.75 is as close to perfect as they get. Especially coming from an AOL owned company

Cipher13

[Gregory]

I keep hoping the next iCab will do the job. Mozilla 0.7 looks nice but a lot of stuff isn't functional. clicking on buttons (script? java applet?) nothing happens.

Mac OS 9.1 CD (full) comes with NC 4.75 but I wish Microsoft would update IE 5 - until OS X 1.1 comes out I don't think X will be able to live alone

Anyone ever noticed some web pages/sites that can totally hog system and not allow anything else to happen? Can't stop whatever it is? Tons of memory allocated. New SCSI disk drive, 450mhz, dual 56k modems. And sitting there helplessly held hostage.
http://www.vitaminshoppe.com when it creates a page with tables - searches, ordering, etc. can take MINUTES to load. Yuck.

Mozilla, Opera, iCab, OmniWeb, Netscape, but unfortunately there are times IE is only one - and there are only a couple things bad about IE, cookies, can't disable "send email address on anon ftp" (and there are malicious sites that don't have ftp, but do have ftp command embedded to trick the browser into providing your email address).

Apple made so many forays into new technology like Opendoc, killed it, and wasted so its human and financial and good will resources. If they could have done a good email and browser and shown how to keep improving AppleWorks rather than kill it too (by remvoing features etc) so as NOT to "challenge" M$ Office and all for couple dollars?

end soapbox.

gregory

Yes, yes, until iCab is finished, Netscape Navigator 4.08 Standalone is my browser of choice.

Netscape 6 is extraordinarily CSS-compliant: as much or moreso than IE 5 for the Mac. (And definitely more than IE 5.5 for Windows) Designing sites professionally is fantastic with Netscape 6 -- and by extension, recent Mozilla builds -- CSS support just works, with no bizarre platform-specific bugs.

JavaScript support however, especially for legacy code, is Netscape 6's weakness.

[Bmeteor]

In OS 9, I switched over to IE from netscape 6. why? because it's faster, in general. I do still keep 4.76 around though, since it renders slashcode much much faster than IE. ( everybody knows when there's an apple article on slashdot, it gets some of their largest responses, particularly because of OSX.macnn :-) iCab suffers from poor javascript support still.

In OS X, however, I've been very satisfied with the Fizilla build. It's reasonably on par with OmniWeb, which is far, far better than IE for OS X. Still, I gotta say I'm a big fan of OmniWeb, more than any of the others. number one reason? It has a feature where it disables the java script for opening new windows. ( yeah I get lonely too. :-)

[Bmeteor]

Oh yeah, by the way, if performance is what you're looking for go Lynx on OSX.

:-)

[tbraun]

As someone who works for the Calculus & Mathematica lab at the University of Illinois, I too recommend Netscape version 4.76. We tried 6 but it was so slow and crashy that we got rid of it completely (kinda sad for a computer lab at the University where Netscape got started, huh?). I personally use IE 5 and have it installed on all the machines in the lab, but you're right, some of the homework systems the University has don't work very well with it and do much better with recent versions of Netscape (like 4.76, which we also have installed).

Despite what a previous poster recommended, avoid Netscape standalone 4.08. It was good in its day, but all its security certificates expired quite some time ago. This prevents you from using many secure servers, including some of the homework systems on this campus.

[macvillage.net]

Netscape 6 is good with a few mods, but with just a raw installation I would go with Netscape 4.x

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people have seen my posts since 10/7/00

http://www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/

[Lint]

Well heres what I have to say,

NS 4.7.x is like beating a dead horse.. ther are numerous bug in both the windows and macos versions. The main one on both is the fact that it likes to stop loading pages. Very irritating

NS 6 is just plain slow. In addation it has a raather nasty problem with proxy auto config scripts... something that works *fine* in 4.7x. And this topic has been hashed out several times on the NS newsgroups, and yet not a single bug fix has been issued.

In conclusion i have defected with much trepidation but with much pleasure in the outcome to MSIE. At the very least the mac team (while it existed) at MS cared that it worked.

[Danometer]

Netscape 6 still won't start on my iMac (rev B, 160 MB).

Mozilla 0.7 works fine and faster than Netscape 4.76, but wants 30 MB, plus it makes the OS takes up yet another 20 MB (reason unknown). Surrendering 100 MB (50 for OS + 20 MB extra by Mozilla + 30 MB to run Mozilla) for a web browser is beyond absurd.

Netscape 4.76 is only on my iMac for https: access. As soon as Apple gets the URL Access fully functional (v 2.2.1 in OS 9.1 still does not access all https: sites), Netscape is leaving my computer.

iCab pre-2.4 now runs Shockwave Flash plug-ins. All that's left is implementing CSS-2 support and polishing Javascript. iCab is the wave of the future, waving bye-bye to IE and Netscape/AOL/Time-Warner/Turner/next-week's-buyout.

[austeros]

hey tbraun the reason i am asking is because i am a student @ the university of illinois trying to use mallard. do you know which version of netscape is most compatible?
thanks

Netscape 6 is horrible. Try Mozilla. It's more stable, much faster, and you dont have to worry about AOL spying on you.

If you need to use a version of Netscape, I'd recommend v. 4.76 I tried using Netscape 6 on my G3 (266 mHz, NS6's minimum), but when changing settings in the Preferences, I couldn't get out of Preferences; I'd get a freeze and couldn't escape.

Also promising as an alternative is the Opera browser. It's been up on the Wintel platform for a while, and the Mac version is nearly finished. I finally gave up on Netscape's instability, and IE makes me feel... icky. Opera or iCab, I'll just be happy to get off of M$.

Check it Opera at http://www.opera.com/mac/.

-Vince.

[ddukes]

Mozilla is probably the way to go if you want an alternative to IE. What I did is grab the latest nightly mozilla build from: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/MacMozillaInstaller.sea.bin

It's compiled nightly with newer bug fixes. I've found a good way to increase performance with Mozilla by going into Edit -> Preferences -> Debug: Enable Mem Cache. Why it's off <again!>, I do not know! After you do that you can go under Advanced -> Cache: and set Memory cache to something like 4096 or 5192. If you want top performance you can turn off Disk Cache in the Debug preference.

Works beautiful for me now!

Netscape 4.08 is better than 4.7x in my experience, it doesn't break some JavaScript code I have, which works in Netscape 3-4.08, all tested versions of IE for Mac and Windows, but breaks in Netscape 4.7x. I haven't even bothered testing Netscape 6, just waiting for iCab to get finished.

For working with foreign languages and scripts, I have found IE5 to be totally useless, while Netscape 4.76 works extremely well.

Unleash Your Multilingual Mac http://hometown.aol.com/tg3907/mlingos9.html

Slightly OT: Is there a Navigator or Communicator available (above 3.x) for the Quadra (with 7.6.1) ? Can't find anything... TIA, folks.

[Fyre4ce]

I use Netscape 4.76. It's a great browser. I've never had problems with it.

------------------
Fyre4ce

"I need a vacation." - Terminator robot

[Gregory]

If someone has a 68030/68040 and/or running pre-8.1 I think iCab 2.4 is the only real option out there. it lacks https but that's about it. Netscape 3.08 or 4.0.x probably.

Greg

First I can not use MSIE because it makes me sick. Really! Apart from being the most buggy, unsecure, not following commands...etc. It gives away your identity to anyone.
On the other side NS47x-476 is reliable and you can customized to do almost everything.
For speed here is a TS info.
If you like using proxy's but also use IPNetMon...! Dont put the address-IP on http-or-ftp...just use the gopher box only..and you will still go fast and with a transparent connection. I mean youll not see only your PRX-in the remote list.
Tip2:USE ANY (IP-URL) :eg:myproxy.faster.com:1972/2222/3333/....
There's more but not now!

Netscape 6 is nothing more than a slightly modified Mozilla 0.6 i.e. not a final product. For my money, it still has the look and feel of a beta version so I suggest people hold off until Mozilla is finished before going the 'upgrade'.

IE5 is a fairly good web client, but it just doesn't support the standards correctly - Microsoft seem determined to do it their way which is a nightmare for content creators.

Meanwhile, Netscape 4.7.6 does everything it's meant to even if it's a getting a little old. I use Netscape 4.7.6 as my default client and use IE5 if someone hasn't designed a page properly for cross-browser functionality.

Netscape 6 is the most ambitious standards-complient browser project in history. It's a complete rewrite of Netscape Communicator; itself a flawed browser-cum-app-suite that all but handed the Web to Microsoft. Netscape 6 is the best browser in history. It has bugs, and it needs performance optimization. Nevertheless, download this browser. Run this browser. If Netscape 6 fails, the Web will die. Microsoft will own the web, and it will deliver nonstop spam marketing advertisements to your desktop 24-7-365. There will be no escape. Resistance will be futile.

There are four choices for browsers today:

�MSIE 5: The best for almost everything. Fairly fast and renders most pages properly. If it really bothers you that they give away your e-mail address, don't put in the the preferences. It's not used for anything else.

�Netscape 4.76: Slowest, biggest, ugliest. There are a few sites that will work in this but not in MSIE, but they violate W3 specs. And they all render in Mozilla.

�Mozilla 0.7: The core of Netscape 6, but faster and more stable. Available in a non-bloatware version. If you're on top of things, the daily build is nice, but otherwise stick with the release. With 0.7 I think this is now better than Netscape 4.76.

�iCab: Still in beta, it doesn't do alot of javascript and also doesn't do CSS. Basically at the Netscape 4.08 level. It's the fastest and most stable however. It has many nice features that make it useful on some websites.

There are others, but they are either still in pre-development or on X only.

Well for what it is worth I actually quite like Netscape although there are indeed some problems. I look forward to future versions. Standards compliance is sorely needed out there.

My reason for posting is, however, to draw your attantion to another Mac browser which I do not see listed here. This will not suit many but, if it is speed you are after, nothing touches the text browser WannaBe. I have no connection or involvement with the product whatsoever.

The WannaBe home page is located at http://mindstory.com/wb2/.

I was extremely disappointed in Netscape 6. It's a real train wreck of a program. It should have never been taken out of beta status.

[chris v]

I tried to use Netscape 6 for about 10 days when they released it in Nov.

I had multiple complaints, and had to go back to 4.7.

e-mail in 6 was a joke. you cannot attach files, from what I could tell. My machine would freeze whenever I tried for a while. When it didn't freeze, it just gave me an error message. I emailed tech "support" about this, and never recieved any response.

The address book in 6 is, in my very humble opinion, idiotic.

The installation process was a mess- had to download it twice and install it three times before it ran, and I'm one of the many who got the desktop full of random files (hundreds!) instead of an installed program the first time I ran the installer.

Once I finally got it successfully installed, it proceeded to crash every 30 minutes or so, for a multitude of reasons, which seemed random.

Then after about a week, some, then all of the buttons in the toolbar degraded from cute little arrow icons into html text (?)

Also, one of the alternative skins Netscape posted on their site caused an immediate crash whenever I attempted to use it.

I am doubly appalled that Netscape hasn't gone so far as to even acknowledge the bugs and suggest they might be working on fixes, or an updated version. Their website will still tell you that 6.0 is THE browser for the Mac.

I wonder, along with others apparently, if AOL is planning the demise of Netscape as standalone browser.

Mind you, I'm not a webmaster and dont understand the "open scource" issue properly, but for the end consumer, Netscape 6.0 is buggy and almost worthless.

And, of course, I may be totally wrong....

but I'm sticking with 4.7 for now.
CV

[macvillage.net]

I think a big thing to remember is the many security bugs in IE (Mac and Win).


Most of credit cards pirated are from IE users (mainly through AOL). Netscape has a much better record.

Also note that servers play a role to as UNIX is much more secure than NT.

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Macintosh Portal
Email, Free Tech Support, Web Space, Search, Directory, and MUCH MORE!

I'm using Netscape 4.76, and I get an occasional Type 11 error. Anyone know what that means, and how do I correct it?

[euro]

Naton,
Netscape Communicator 4.0.5 runs fine on my Quadra 605 (sys 7.5.5).

The latest issue of MacWorld gave a very poor review to Netscape 6. Well, we all already knew that anyway, didn't we?
I have IE 5.0, Netscape 4.76 and Netscape 4.08 with OS 9.0.4 and have compared them all extensively. IE 5.0 bombs and freezes a lot and has lots of javascript conflicts, even with latest version of MRJ installed. Netscape 4.76 is more stable than IE, but I still get occasional type 11 and type 9 errors and an occasional weird freeze. I truly prefer Netscape 4.08 Standalone. Who cares about all this nonsense about old Security Certificates -that means nothing to me. 4.08 does what I need, it browses the Internet. I don't think I can recall it ever crashing. So what if its a few years old. I'm thinking about trying iCab, but I'm seeing more and more posts about the problems with it, so I'll hold off for now.I'm also considering upgrading to OS 9.1, but am waiting to hear more about ARA problems.

[Gregory]

The latest Mozilla builds are getting very good on the browser side, secure, stable. Mail isn't ready but Eudora 5 works fine for me.

<ftp://ftp.mozilla.org>

<ftp://ftp.mozilla.org//pub/mozilla/nightly/latest/MacMozillaInstaller.sea.bin>

With any browser, plan on allocating and using lots of RAM.

Gregory

Another user suggested I increase the memory of the Netscape 4.76 application to eliminate Type 11 errors. I did and it worked!

[artman]

Straight up here...IMHO. I only use Netscape for testing. If it works in both browsers/platforms I use it. If it doesn't,I don't use it (code that is). I've always hated the way Netscape looks on a Mac too. IE 5.0 for the Mac is what I use to surf and it's my primary browser for web design. I've seen no major weird formatting and rendering issues with IE on Windows and Mac. It's the coding that drives you nuts!

IE 5.0 hands down for me.

------------------
The Artman @_@
http://www.artshack.com

[vsurfer]

Although austeros question has long since been answered...

Here's another 2 c in an already full cash register.

I tried the incredibly slow Netscape 6 and Mozilla 7 and was very disappointed (train wreck as one reader described it sounds apt) with it in every regard except for it's amazing ability to make it easy to bang out more sophisticated html emails. Which is one reason to keep it hanging around, ...except that the mail program doesn't want to recognize other address books and refuses to map fields.

So it's back to IE 5 for me for everyday use, which deposed Netscape 4.7 as my default browser yesterday, after too many 4.7 shenanigans.

[valentino135]

Netscape 6 is superior from a developer stand point. Let me explain.

Internet Explorer on Win 32 uses plenty of operating system modules specific to Windows. When IE sets transparency on an element inside a web page it uses a VB control or some other chmancy thing the OS spits back out to IE. When IE is ported to MAC the code used must be patched and redone using emulators and other crazy things like that to spit things out the *same* way. This causes frustrations to developers like myself because creating an effect does not work the same for IE 5.5 on Windows 2000 and Windows 98. But its supposed to be the same browser right?

Just play with style="filter:alpha(opacity=50);" in a div and try putting onmouseover="this.filter.alpha.opacity=80" in it. Works in IE 5.5 on Windows 2000 but not in Windows 98. Using exactly the same IE 5.5.

Now with Netscape the underlying engine (called the Gecko engine) is the same everywhere. This means, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, Windows and soon your palm. It doesn't use plenty of VB specific to windows to do its job. It does the same thing on all platforms provided you can run Netscape 6 on it.

Therefore when I code for Netscape I do as follows : style="-moz-opacity:50%;" and mouseover="this.MozOpacity=80%" and it works on any Netscape 6 regardless of platform.

And despite what people think Netscape 6 has better support for Javascript and DHTML. But it isn't backward compatible with any proprietary code like Netscape 4 DHTML or IE. This is both good and bad but when you consider that it uses a new DHTML that is a standard set by a third party (see www.w3.org) forcing IE to do the same so you code only once without 1000 if (netscape4) {}else if (ie){} in your code. This makes faster page development that works across platforms.

For the moment I surf with whatever browser I can get my hand on where I am at the time. But I create pages that work in Netscape 6 so that standards are respected.

Gary "xutopia" Haran