[AlanApple]

What is the better browser: IE5 or Netscape Communicator 4.77?

[poocat]

hi.

since no one has responded to this, i can give you some thoughts that will probably be seconded by others (except cipher, who likes his mac ooooold-school)

first, almost everyone (myself included) agrees that ie5 is by far superior to anything netscape has put out. while there are people still hoping that netscape 6 is one day useful, most of us have agreed that simply by churning out updates to 4.x, netscape has admitted the failure of 6.

second, despite it's maker, ie5 is a great browser. it's fairly fast, quite standards-compliant, fairly configurable, and simple to use. it works most everywhere, and if it doesn't, it's usually the site's fault, not ie's. although i avoid it when i can, it's definitely my fallback browser.

now, having said this, let me point you towards some other options.

my personal browser of choice is icab ( www.icab.de ) and i highly, highly recommend that you check it out.
(if you already know of the options and were just looking for a specific ie vs. netscape debate, my bad).
it's smaller (takes less memory) much more flexible, and soon will be more standards-compliant than ie. it is still in beta (though the wonderful germans who i love and who are writing it call them 'previews') but it's almost done, and each release (about one every other month) is a great step forward. highly recommended.

there are other options: fizzila (the open source project that ns6 is based on), opera (in beta) and omniweb (if you're using osx). all of these are worth checking out if you're looking for good options. however, i have less experience w/ them, and will let someone else write about their benefits.

good luck.
poocat.

oh. one other tip. if you have a question like this, which probably comes up almost once a week in these forums, you may want to try a search (there's a button up in the upper right of the forum screen) for something like "ie5/netscape 4.77" or somesuch. it will often save you both the waiting for someone to reply, and the hassle when they do reply with "darn it i just answered that question yesterday!" but don't sweat it. welcome to the fora.

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: poocat ]

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by poocat:
<STRONG>second, despite it's maker, ie5 is a great browser. it's fairly fast, quite standards-compliant...</STRONG>

not at all standards-compliant.


The best I have seen is Mozilla. While a "beta" I have had maybe 5 crashes after about 36 hours of actual use (time used, not time I had it) and it renders quicker than anything else (except Opera, but opera has problems with proper rendering).

Mozilla is technically Netscape 6, but Netscape 6 is modified by Netscape for commerical purposes, and in that process bugs are added by AIM and other garbage. Mozilla contains a rock solid browser, email, newsgroup reader, IRC client, and composer.

[iMacMike]

Originally posted by AlanApple:
<STRONG>What is the better browser: IE5 or Netscape Communicator 4.77?</STRONG>

I put them about equal, depending on your browsing habits. I personally prefer Netscape for it's integrated email and newsgroups, Java and Javascript (more stable than MRJ on most internet apps), colored link history (IE resets every day at midnight which is a pain on forum boards), and overall stability. Netscape also supports LiveConnect (the ability to talk to plug-ins via Javascript) while IE doesn't.

I use IE, however, for printing complex pages and the few pages that won't work right with Netscape, like monster.com. IE has a better cache system, but it gets corrupted very easily. Most functions are on par with Netscape. The one thing that IE has over Netscape is CSS support, but I've also read that even that is marginal overall.

I tried Mozilla 0.9.2 and liked the interface, but it's slow even on my 600 Mhz iMac and crashed constantly with a Type 3 error. I gave it up to 48 Megs of RAM with the same results. Mozilla 1.0 should be a really great browser and I'm looking forward to checking it out when it's released.

[macvillage.net]

I to use IE 5 for printing, but Mozilla seems to be fine with printing.


BTW: use the talkback version so that they get data on your crashes. It helps when they fix bugs.