Netscape Navigator 9 beta is out

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.

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!

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.

"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.

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...

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.

#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?

big green is kinda more teal... eeew. teal.

@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.

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!