Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet Tools
Netscape Navigator 9 beta is out
There was a time, dear ones, when a giant walked the Web: Netscape Navigator, the browser sovereign, held a massive 80%+ share of the market back in the mid-1990s, until some funny business (where "funny" = "anticompetitive & monopolistic") led to the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The open-sourced core of Netscape 4 led to the development of the Mozilla, Firefox and Camino browsers we all love today.Whence the original Netscape browser? The 8.0 release skipped the Mac, but believe it or not, the big N is back: Netscape Navigator 9 beta is available now as a Universal Binary. Under the surface, Navigator 9 is really a rebranded, tweaked and gracefully skinned version of Firefox 2.0 (including add-in compatibility), but nevertheless it's nice to see the green giant back in the saddle.
Note: TUAW and the Weblogs, Inc. network are corporate siblings of Netscape under the AOL umbrella.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
sladuuch said 2:06PM on 6-07-2007
Looks like a teal Firefox with some extra features here and there and the same ugly, non-Mac-like UI that turns people off Firefox to begin with. Meh.
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Kendal said 2:12PM on 6-07-2007
Well, TUAW had to show their love for Netscape since they are basically owned by the same Umbrella Corp. :P
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Stephen Lang said 2:13PM on 6-07-2007
I remember back in the day, when the little 'N' logo would animate like a starry night while the page loaded.
Now the logo is much smaller and doesn't do as much. But with DSL you don't need distractions while web pages load anyway.
When are they going to come out with a Universal Netscape Communicator with Netcaster? That's what I'm waiting for!
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Brady J. Frey said 2:30PM on 6-07-2007
Let their designers know that if they want to use a lightbox, or slimbox, and need to customize the loader gif without taking the time to redesign:
http://www.ajaxload.info/
That screenshot loader is sad, don't launch professional sites with eyesores like that, it hurts a designers heart...
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Will Royall said 2:35PM on 6-07-2007
A Camino user here but I am giving Netscape a test run for the week. I dunno, but somehow it feels "right" to have it back on my Mac again.
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Brady J. Frey said 2:34PM on 6-07-2007
...tell you the truth, though, I like the simple vector icons in the layout. While it's not that pleasant to coordinate on a mac, it is a nice visual change for the PC users on ugly as sin IE 7.
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Tony said 2:43PM on 6-07-2007
My dad is still using Netscape 8 on the PC. It's actually nice because you can set up, on a site by site basis, which rendering engine to use: Gecko or IE. That allowed me to set up his browser to access his stupid Merrill Lynch account website that requires IE, and the NS 8 way of doing it works while IEVIew in Firefox didn't...Not sure why, but dad is happy...
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runciter said 3:10PM on 6-07-2007
Silly Apple folk. What "anticompetitive & monopolistic did Microsoft do? Bundle their browser with their OS? Hmm, Apple does it too, so what's the problem? People flame Microsoft for bundling apps, then flame them for not having X app (like PDF view) in the OS. Apple had a browser too in the early IE/Netscape days, but it (Cyberdog) flamed out to be replaced by IE (adding insult to injury).
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S.J. said 3:42PM on 6-07-2007
Even though under the hood its a clone of FireFox 2.0 I actually like the smaller refined interface, loads very quickly and for a beta does not crash, yet. I like Camino but am so used to having my bookmarks on the left hand side in the side bar figured I would give it a try. I must say damn me I like it!
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Dextro said 4:02AM on 6-08-2007
@runciter
It's not just the bundling that was the problem with MS. The fact that they were the market leader AND bundling software that was the problem. That gave them a phenomenal advantage over competitors.
I'm not sure, but last time i checked Apple isn't really leading the OS-martket.
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Otsego said 6:30PM on 6-07-2007
big green is kinda more teal... eeew. teal.
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db said 5:34PM on 6-07-2007
#8
It wasn't just that it was bundled with the OS. Windows was tied to it in a way that made deleting IE impossible. The windows that you used to access your files were basically IE browser windows.
Yeah, Apple doesn't do that. Get the difference?
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Bruno said 6:13PM on 6-07-2007
Webkit, which runs Safari is embedded in the OS. You can delete Safari and you still have Webkit. Just like you were able to *ALWAYS* delete Internet Explorer and still leave the core in place.
Netscape got crushed for one reason: it sucked. The first versions of IE were no match, but IE3 put it in the ground to never come up again.
Netscape on Mac OS was always a horrible horrible app. We're talking Mac OS 6.x here. It was a blessed day when Microsoft released Internet Explorer for Mac OS. MS saved the Mac a couple of times in the past 15 years.
And rightfully so, when IE had long been showing its old age and pin-striped ugliness in Mac OS, it too was displaced by Safari. But not until Safari underwent a number of revisions.
Right now the browser of choice is Camino. Maybe in Leopard Safari will be ready to replace it.
Firefox is not usable as an everyday Mac browser. Too much bloat and too many memory leaks. The interface is the LEAST of its problems.
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Ed said 6:15PM on 6-07-2007
The statistics at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp have actually stopped listing Netscape, now that they've reached less than 0.2% of the users...
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Peter Kirn said 7:10PM on 6-07-2007
"Firefox is not usable as an everyday Mac browser."
Huh?
And Camino, while nice, kills the very reason I use Firefox in the first place, which is extensions.
I'm not totally pleased with Firefox's performance, no -- it runs better on Windows and Linux, and I hope that gets addressed. But to say something unusable suggests, well, that something can't be used. And nothing could be further from the truth. Dumping Safari for Firefox's supreme compatibility, the power of GreaseMonkey, slick Gmail scripts that let me power through email, advanced web testing tools for development, etc., is one of the first things I do on a Mac. I've also converted friends and family, including many on later-model G4s. I've never heard complaints about the Firefox browser's UI, and you can skin it to look like whatever you want anyway. (I skin the whole Mac UI via Uno, as do many, and never have to set eyes on brushed silver again.)
Netscape 9 just has no usable feature that I can see. And talk about bloat -- all the meaningless sidebars and other nonsense that are why we dumped it in the first place.
Don't get me wrong. Firefox isn't the right choice for everyone. The Mac has tons of fantastic browser choices, each with strengths of their own: Opera, Camino, OmniWeb, and absolutely Safari. Choice is good. Netscape is, well, still pretty bad.
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Bob Mc said 10:57PM on 6-07-2007
I downloaded it to remind myself of what browsing was like in 1994. To be honest, it is a good, capable browser that didn't crash. Did I stop using Camino? No.
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beken said 5:13PM on 6-08-2007
actually, I'm still using Netscape 7 or Opera on my PC. Safari or Opera on my Mac.
I'm going to put Netscape 9 through some paces to see if it's worth upgrading as recently a few websites have come back and told me they think my browser is out of date and bumps me out. Aurrgh!
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T said 8:26PM on 6-08-2007
Microsoft did not win me over or compel me to leave Netscape. The refusal of Netscape to install on a standard, clean system forced me to use IE on a regular basis. Perhaps Microsoft installed some "make it crash" software to thwart Netscape on my system. Either way, IE did what I needed it to do simply until FireFox came along.
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