[harnet]

Waite and See, Netscape all the time.. better
that IE 5.we don�t want to give Bill Gates
our Mane Page ...Netscape all the Way !!!!!!

[wlonh]

don't hold yer breath, nothing netscape has done gives me any hope that it will displace IE and iCab on my Mac...

Haha, dinged by an Admin, I love it...

I wish. Remember, it's not Netscape anymore; can you say AOL?

[the Rebel]

Are you all talking about Netscape 6 or Mozilla?

Netscape is AOL, but Mozilla is NOT controlled by AOL.

AOL's Netscape will gain market share when it goes "Golden" but until then IE and other browsers will continue push Netscape down. Preview Release 1 was given too much fanfare and it severely hurt Netscape's image, but I'd be surprised if AOL does not make it their default browser once Netscape 6 is truly ready. AOL's version of IE is counted in with the MS IE numbers in many of the browser polls. So if AOL switches to Netscape then IE will drop apparent marketshare overnight.

However, the real sleeping giant is Mozilla. No matter what AOL does with Netscape, Mozilla will ultimately be the best browser. If you do not know the difference between Netscape and Mozilla, go to mozilla.org and check it out.


------------------
Mark Bitterling
[email protected]

[RWoelk]

I am still using Netscape Communicator 4.61 almost exclusively, and I won't try Netscape 6 until some of the known bugs are worked out. I am not so anti Microsoft that I wouldn't use IE5. I tried it for what was probably too little time to give it its fair due. I didn't notice a great deal of difference in speed or rendering of Web pages but that might be more due to the fact that I'm on cable modem. Not unlike Netscape, it crashed on a couple of sites including Microsoft's own.


I like many of I E 4.5's features and still use it from time to time. I loved IE5's auto-fill feature, but to be perfectly frank , and me thinks I must be the only one... I simply could not get past IE5's user interface. With its muted color choices and those god awful crackerjack toolbar icons, it looked to this user as if the UI was designed by three year-old former crack baby. No doubt there are some modifications available, and I might be persuaded to make the switch if I could somehow return to the old 4.5 user interface. I have similar issues with iCab's UI. Perhaps, this user is just too wedded to Netscape's UI's form and function.

More importantly, however, an absolute MUST READ is Reader50's post entitled "Interesting article on IE(4 Windoze) taking over the Web" He suggests, as do I, to read the following article.

"Pride and Prejudice: The Platform War Comes to the Web" which can be found here:
http://caspian.twu.net/tech/writing/...rejudice.shtml

It's a very thoughtful, well written and fair minded expose of what we know to be intuitively true and should be of real concern to us ALL.

------------------
Rocke "Why yes, I have brought our
network down." Woelk

Only the educated are free!-Epictetus

[the Rebel]

I just read the article mentioned in the previous post and I am in complete agreement that everyone should read it.

One thing that it fails to mention though is that one of the big reasons that there are so many browser specific websites is because people are using platform specific web development tools. MS Frontpage is one of the worst because not only does it generate MS specific HTML when new pages are created with it, but if you open a cross browser compatible website in Frontpage, it will often rewrite the code so that it can no longer be viewed properly in non-MS browsers!


[This message has been edited by the Rebel (edited 07-24-2000).]

[Cipher13]

I was a Netscape person through and through, but, to put it bluntly, Netscape 6 sucks. Not worth the HD space it takes up.
Unless Netscape turn it into something real special, I'll stick with IE 5.
Too bad IE doesn't have a built in mail client (Outlook sucks), and is M$...

Cipher13

[AAPl Shareholder]

Netscape 6 = The Mozilla browser, Rebel.

The mozilla project however does not equal Netscape 6. Mozilla.org is building an environment in which to quickly create cross platform apps. Netscape 6 is the first test of this new tool that is being produced.

The Mozilla browser milesones and nighlties are going to be netscape 6. It is the SAME deal, same code, same damn chrome gifs. You should read up on this a bit more at mozillazine.org.

Netscape 6 final should run just about identical to the last Mozilla milestone. Netscape is, for the most part, going to take the final mozila milestone change the throbber, add AIM, and add its favorites.

Ohhh and one more thing... mozilla.org is 100% owned by AOL. AOL has not f'ked with them too much...but they have from time to time. I think I read some place that the modern chrome was made by AOL.... but don't quote me on that.

AOL could very well shut down the mozilla project if they wished...however it is working and it will pay off big.

[the Rebel]

Originally posted by AAPl Shareholder:
Netscape 6 = The Mozilla browser, Rebel.

The mozilla project however does not equal Netscape 6. Mozilla.org is building an environment in which to quickly create cross platform apps. Netscape 6 is the first test of this new tool that is being produced.

The Mozilla browser milesones and nighlties are going to be netscape 6. It is the SAME deal, same code, same damn chrome gifs. You should read up on this a bit more at mozillazine.org.

Netscape 6 final should run just about identical to the last Mozilla milestone. Netscape is, for the most part, going to take the final mozila milestone change the throbber, add AIM, and add its favorites.

Ohhh and one more thing... mozilla.org is 100% owned by AOL. AOL has not f'ked with them too much...but they have from time to time. I think I read some place that the modern chrome was made by AOL.... but don't quote me on that.

AOL could very well shut down the mozilla project if they wished...however it is working and it will pay off big.

No offense, but you are wrong.

Netscape 6 is NOT = The Mozilla browser.

As you state in your post, Netscape 6 is based on the code from the Mozilla project, but that does not make it the Mozilla browser. AOL's goals and Mozilla's goals are not the same and therefore it is highly unlikely that the Netscape browser will ever be identical to the Mozilla browser; in fact they are likely to diverge even more as time goes on.

I can take the Mozilla code and compile it with my own options and release a browser, but it would be different from Netscape 6 and it would not be the Mozilla browser either.

Netscape 6 is AOL's first public test of a browser using the Mozilla codebase, but as I am sure you know, it is hardly the first test
browser for Mozilla.

Netscape 6 will be based on the results of the Mozilla nightly builds and the milestone builds, but those builds will not be Netscape 6. The Mozilla builds will have features that Netscape 6 will not have and vice versa.

AOL absolutely does NOT own Mozilla.org and can not shut them down. AOL acquired the Netscape development team, but they did not acquire Mozilla.org because Mozilla.org is a separate independant entity. AOL is paying several programmers to work on the Mozilla project and so if AOL were to stop supporting the Mozilla development then it would be a significant blow, but it would not stop it.

Perhaps you should read some of the following pages before you start making claims about AOL's fictitious ownership of Mozilla.
http://mozilla.org/editorials/mozilla-overview.html http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease577.html http://mozilla.org/NPL/FAQ.html http://mozilla.org/about.html

Mozillazine.org is a great website and it has lots of up to date information about Mozilla, but unless it has been changed in the past week, it has very little information about the Mozilla projects formation or its relationship with AOL. Mozillazine is also its own independant entity separate from AOL or Mozilla.

Originally posted by the Rebel:

AOL absolutely does NOT own Mozilla.org and can not shut them down. AOL acquired the Netscape development team, but they did not acquire Mozilla.org because Mozilla.org is a separate independant entity. AOL is paying several programmers to work on the Mozilla project and so if AOL were to stop supporting the Mozilla development then it would be a significant blow, but it would not stop it.

If AOL did layoff all its "Netscape" developers, development on Mozilla would basically come to a stop. The overwhelming portion of the work has been done by Netscape employees, and while there have been some worthwhile outside contributions, it's basically a Netscape project that has been opened up so that the rest of the world can see the process.

You do NOT need to be a programmer to work on Mozilla. The team is desperately short on Mac testers and bug reporters (and developers too). You can help to improve Mozilla for the Mac (and by extension, Netscape 6) by going to http://mozilla.org and perusing the bug lists, or by downloading a milestone build and testing it out, or helping with documentation, or any one of several tasks that need assigning. Also, bear in mind that there is a port called Fizzilla whose networking code will run natively under Mac OS X.

Please don't give up on Mozilla just because of a preview release. There is still a huge amount of work that needs to be done before its release, and if everybody who downloaded it filled out just one bug report, or even voted for their favorite bug, it would make the lives of the developers that much easier. This is your chance to shape YOUR browser! We need your help!

[wlonh]

http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/000069.html


do not EVER forget that NETSCAPE could NEVER deliver a version of Mercutio (within the application called Netscape communicator) that would even allow for the PROPER display of MENUS in MacOS!!!!!!!

Originally posted by wlonh:
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/000069.html


do not EVER forget that NETSCAPE could NEVER deliver a version of Mercutio (within the application called Netscape communicator) that would even allow for the PROPER display of MENUS in MacOS!!!!!!!

That's a little one-sided, isn't it? Netscape did not write the
Mercutio MDEF, Ramon Felciano did. They requested a special feature
for a version, so the menus would pop up in a certain way; this
feature wasn't incorporated into later Mercutio versions (although I'm
sure Netscape asked for it). Short of writing their own MDEF, which
would be a huge time sink for a product that was basically dead, I
don't think having to look at menus with a white background is so bad.
If you even read the Mac news sites, you would have seen this posted a
number of times.

How about some encouragement for a change? Netscape 6 is not
finished, destroyed. There's a huge amount of good work in there, and
now that most of the feature work is completed, optimization is a high
priority. Read mozillazine.org, or the mozilla.org status reports, or
the mozilla.org newsgroups, you'll see that in performance criteria,
Mozilla is put up against Netscape 4.x and IE5 constantly. Nobody at
Netscape wants the browser to suck, either.

IE5 is not the be-all and end-all of Mac browsers. It has some Java
problems that are very significant and don't show any sign of being a
priority, it crashes a lot, and it hogs the CPU to the point that you
can't run server software in the background. And what if Microsoft
changed its mind and stopped improving IE5? There would be no
alternative. iCab is terrific, but it doesn't have JavaScript, DOM,
CSS, or XML support, and those are very difficult features to get
right - they took Mozilla and IE5 almost a year each (and IE5's XML
support isn't there yet). OmniWeb - same thing, it's nice, has
innovative features, and is pretty in Aqua, but also a memory hog and
doesn't have much support for current Web standards. Opera is
full-featured and standards-compliant - when it comes out, you'll have
to pay for it, though. Most people don't want to pay for their
browsers - just look at Opera's market share on Windows, where it's
been out for several years.

So Mozilla is very important. If you have some time to contribute to
the project, in any way - you certainly don't need to be a programmer,
please volunteer. File a few bugs or feature requests, document
something, or if you can grok HTML, JavaScript, XUL, or C++, then dive
in. Take a look at some of those 3300 files that got installed with
Netscape 6 PR2 - they define the behavior of most of Mozilla. Want
your mail client to behave differently? Change a couple of lines and
you're on your way, no CodeWarrior required. Try _that_ with IE5/OE5!

[wlonh]

i am very much aware of netscape's claims made some time (year or two) ago regarding the MDEF issue and am also aware they did not write that code... but rather than giving us something in this regard, they gave us nothing! and so, users with less savvy were wondering what to do, why the menus were non-compliant to platinum (i always patched mine, though i do not allow netscape on my Macs anymore except to peek at it) try downloading the latest so-called finished version of netscape and yo umay well have the same experience as so many others do, it will not complete the download! grrrrr!

and it is and was high-handed of netscape to not use whatever was available in the way of MDEF resources rather than give us no compliance...

i despise MS but the fact is that regardless of IE5's faults of which i am also aware, it is the best browser out there now and for the forseeable future and the fact that an upstart like iCab, a Johnny-come-lately puts netscape to shame in a certain undeniable sense (look what a few people have done in such a short time, iCab) begs the question of the relevance of the mac platform to netscape/mozilla developers (and do not state the obvious, i know the two are not the same, mozilla/netscape but for convenience i lump them together here)

let us not forget that netscape/mozilla runs faster on a PC, or so i am repeatedly told as i would not use that platform, there is but one choice for me and that is Mac and MacOS, all are welcome to use what they like, by all means, but i still consider netscape/mozilla to be a slap in my face as a dedicated Mac user!

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 08-08-2000).]

I have both IE5 and netscape 4. IE is slicker
looking and has nicer features, but it's also the only app on my machine that when it crashes will freeze my computer forcing me to shut down and restart. Needless to say I am not imressed!

I still use Netscape 4.6 for my primary surfing, but nothing I have tried compares to OmniWeb on OSX, once they both go final, I will not use NS or IE again if I have my way. OmniWeb is IMHO, the BEST browser available.

[suhail]

I tried IE5.5 on my computers a few times, and it sucks. Netscape is much better than IE, most websites display much better in Netscape 7.74. Try highend3d.com, in IE the menu does not pull from the titles, wereas Netscape pulls menues fine.

Also IE5.5 eventually locks-up my PowerBook. Netscape never locked up my PowerBook, I have my PB running without a single restart or shutdown for the past 2 months. With IE5.5 I had a lockup twice a week. I'm not saying Netscape does not crash, but when it crashes it just quits.

I'm very suprised to see that many Mac users prefer IE. It does have some nice features but it does not display sites good, and locks-up the system.

[Evangellydonut]

IE crashes with much more glory than Netscape. Just last night, I was making a disk-image, installing UT update, and surfing the web when IE crashed, and brought 3 major errors to disk header files of the three partitions I was working on. Good thing neither was my OS partition...damn IE! Netscape crash as often as IE, if not more, but it just goes away and Finder spit out an error.
Since I've heard horror stories of PR2 won't bother trying it...
Oh, I thought it was funny how with iCab, there's a preference section that says something to the effect of "unchecking these boxes will make the browser behave more like IE and Netscape. Checking these boxes will adhere to the standards." I have yet to try OmniWeb as someone recommends, but currently, i prefer iCab. (though still uses IE for certain compatibility issues)

[Ununnilium]

OmniWeb is IMHO, the BEST browser available.

OmniWeb has absolutely no support for CSS. It is not the best browser available, especially from a web developer's perspective.

[This message has been edited by Ununnilium (edited 08-08-2000).]

[suhail]

Hey Evangellydonut, try using Netscape 4.74 and give it around 25MB RAM. Its working solid with me.

[kps111]

suhail wrote:

}
}Try highend3d.com, in IE the menu does
} not pull from the titles, wereas Netscape
} pulls menues fine.
}

That's probably due to sloppy web design and poor Java programming rather than the browser. With version 5, IE is/was more web 'standards' and java complient than NS.

I used NS since 0.96b (or some such) and was a strong supporter until recently. I have NS 4.73, NS 6PR1, IE 5, iCab-pre-2.0 installed and I find I use IE the most. On MY system(G4) I find it faster and very (yes, VERY) stable --your milage may vary. As a Mac and Linux user,I put my personal feelings about M$ aside when it came to this issue.

I really, really like iCab and it has the makings of an excellent browser. I just hope they'll do a MacOSX port.

I've said this in one of the MacFixIt forums and I'll reiterate here, NS 6 pre should be quietly burried in the desert. From what I've experienced so far, I doubt the final version will be that much better.

When I'm in linux, my only 'realistic' choise is Mozzila, and since it's mostly a volunteer effort I have nothing but respect for those involved in the project. I would, however, like to see plug-ins support implemented.

Well, that's about it for my spin on the subject...nothing earth shattering I'm sure

[AAPl Shareholder]

Netscape 6 will be a decent browser in a few months. However it will really shine in a about a year.

Mozilla is a new cross platform app building environment. Netscape 6 is the first result of this project. Understand this. It takes time to refine something this huge....but the pay off will rock.

Hopefully nightly's of mozilla for OS X (fizilla) will start showing up. I bet this this would rock on OS X.

[suhail]

Yeh sure KPS111,
MS is all about standards, especially when PC's IE displays the same websites just fine. And tell me how many extensions does it take to run IE on the Mac, and how many does it take to run Netscape.

I'm not saying Netscape is a good browser, but it is more stable and does not bring the OS down. I'm getting almost no lock-ups on my Macs now that I went Netscape.

However, I do agree that iCab kicks ass, and I'd love to see it on OSX too.

[harnet]

Netscape on this Monitor
http://mwny.macnn.com/mwny/appleinsi...1/DSC00012.jpg

[AAPl Shareholder]

"MS is all about standards"...What?!!!

IE 5 for the MAC is fairly standards compliant...but NOT IE 5.x for windows. They do not render the same and IE 5.x for windows is getting a lot of heat right now because it is such a POS.

Moreover... it is a well known fact among site designers that Netscape is (was/will be) more standards compliant. Netscape is still THE tool to create java scripts.

The mozilla browser / Netscape 6 is something that currently beats Mac IE's standards compliance and destries Win IE's standards compliance. Trust me. Netscape 6 even supports image opacity! Finally a browser does this!! This means site designers can now use transparency on web sites.

Even consumers don't like this browser web designers and web masters will love it and will probably tell users to view there sites with it.

As Jon "Caspian" Blank states in the aforementioned article "Pride and Prejudice: The Platform War Comes to the Web", the problem with IE is not that it supports standards (which is does, fairly well) but the fact that it supports a huge amount of useless MS-specific features which will make viewing web-pages implementing these features with other browsers impossible. Nice for MS but very bad for the so-called platform-independent web.

[macvillage.net]

If you look closely, even though Netscape is somewhat outdated, it still comply's with more internet standards than any microsoft product (IE or OE).

Netscape is clearly the better product

------------------
MacVillage.net CEO
http://www.macvillage.net
Macintosh Portal
Email, Free Tech Support, Web Space, Search, Directory, and MUCH MORE!

[jholmes]

Indeed Netscape is SOOOO much easier to develop web content for. I rewrite pages time and time again to get thing that work easily in Netscape to display decently in IE5. It's a major pain in the caboose. My guess is that it's built to display all the extraneous crap that gets loaded in from FrontPage or the demon Word's 'save as HTML' feature.

[Zarafa]

Originally posted by Ununnilium:
OmniWeb has absolutely no support for CSS.

Provably wrong. Have you used beta 6 at all? CSS support is there -- not even close to complete, but it's started, and Omni has said it'll support CSS by the time it ships as a full release. Which I'd guess would be at about the same time as OS X final, so they have a while.