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Netscape Communicator 4.72 Released
Posted by
Hemos
on Wed Feb 23, 2000 11:46 AM
from the go-out-and-download-it dept.
from the go-out-and-download-it dept.
Quite a number of people have ants in their pants over the latest release of Netscape Communicator. This latest release, 4.72 to be exact, can also be grabbed through their Web site. Here's to hoping it's more stable than my current release. 'Course, Mozilla's getting really really close now...
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doh! (Score:5)
RPMs? (Score:2)
Mozilla?? What are you smoking? (Score:4)
It still has a long way to go. Netscape will crash about once an hour for me when I am doing heavy web browsing.
My longest Mozilla uptime is 5 minutes. No joke. Slashdot is the only site I can use with it. www.deja.com main page crashes it right away.
I'm sorry, but Mozilla isn't useable for me. I remember the early Netscape betas years ago and they wer not this unstable.
And yes I submit bug reports.
I wish all the mozilla developers good luck, but its a long road ahead to the point where Netscape is replaced.
Interesting (Score:2)
seems ok, relatively stable (Score:2)
preliminary testing on linux 2.3.45 seems pretty stable (standalone version). so far i can't really see any differences, other than the fact that it isn't crashing and freezing my X server.
darren
Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? (Score:3)
Yes - I've already downloaded and installed 4.72. Why? Because I'm fed up with having the 4.71 browser flake out every day or so with another error. So far, so good - nothing has died yet :-)
I've been tracking the Mozilla Seamonkey Milestones since M11, and it seems to be stabilizing up nicely but I'm stuck with using it for browsing behind the firewall at work because we use a SOCKS proxy to the outside world. Alas, as far as I can see this is not supported in Mozilla yet. Anyone have any clues on this one - what is needed to persuade Seamonkey to use the SOCKS proxy? Or does some SOCKS expert wish to sign up for this post on the Mozilla team? It was empty last time I looked.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
P.S. If I see any posts with the title 'Shoes?' following this one ... :-)
Netscape rarely crashes... (Score:2)
Bottom line: Browser only without Java is pretty stable.
Release notes (Score:5)
Quick summary:
HOWTO (Score:4)
1) Your distro manufacturer may have packaged netscape incorrectly. See their site for details or upgrades.
2) Turn off Cascading Style Sheets (Style Sheets) support in your preferences. It generally doesn't work well at all and really isn't all that necessary. And IME it makes NS crash. A lot.
3) Turn off Java. Turn off Java. Turn off Java.
4) Turn off Javascript if you don't use somewhat sophisticated sites.
5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.
6) Feed it lots and lots and lots of disk/memory cache, or none at all.
7) Upgrade. 4.7x is much nicer than previous 4.x releases on all platforms, IME.
-------------------------
This is just my experience. With these changes, NS tends to stay up for a few days for me, as opposed to an hour or less previously.
Take this at well less than face value.
Re:too little, too late (Score:2)
Re:Release notes (Score:3)
"Netscape Communicator with 128-bit strong encryption is now available worldwide"
(with the exception of a few countries that
America hates)
Saves having to use Fortify instead.
Re:RPMs? (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand the question ... I mean, isn't it obvious that RH doesn't make communicator and that they have to put the RPMS together themselves from the tarballs Netscape makes available?
Disabling shopping button.. (Score:5)
user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);
4.72? No thanks... (Score:2)
Every time I try to kill a loading page, I find myself whisked away to some "Netscape Store". Sheesh.
43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr
Re:Question (Score:5)
Re:Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? (Score:4)
Some Reasons To Try Out A Nightly Build [mozillazine.org]
Gerv
Navigator is still 4.08!??? (Score:4)
Re:4.72? No thanks... (Score:2)
--
What's New? Who knows? (Score:2)
As of Netscape Communicator 4.72, Enterprise Calendar is no longer included with your download.
I don't see any What's New section. It's amazing how hard it is to find any information about Navigator on Netscape's home page.
Re:4.72? No thanks... (Score:5)
Be gald that the buttons can be disbaled. Since no one has posted how in this thread, here it is, straight from my
Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false
That's it.
To disable the search/my netscape, and add a Find button:
Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled: false
Netscape*toolBar.numUserCommands: 1
Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.commandName: findInObject
Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.labelString: Find
Netscape*toolBar.userCommand1.commandIcon: Find
Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
AOL Takeover (Score:4)
Communicator 4.7 is pretty stable for me under NT, but I have pretty robust hardware (Athalon 550/128MB); it seems much less stable under Red Hat on my K6-II/400. My main gripe is it's speed; it seems to take forever to render a page, even on my Athalon. My other major gripe is that the email and news facilities are annoyingly primitive for such an otherwise mature program. (Plus, PGPFreeware dosn't have a Netscape plugin)
I havn't had a chance to play with Mozilla yet; but I'm looking forward to seeing the final release. Hopefully Mozilla will fix a lot of the annoyances of 4.x
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Re:HOWTO (Score:2)
[snip]
7) Upgrade. 4.7x is much nicer than previous 4.x releases on all platforms, IME.
I've found 4.61 much more stable on both Linux and Windows than 4.7, and it's not as if you really need that "Shop@Netscape" button. I haven't had 4.72 long enough to have an opinion about it.
----
FreeBSD NS v. Linux NS (Score:3)
----------------------------
Thought it was me. (Score:2)
On the FIX [www.fix.no] BBS I recently posted this:
"The problem has oocured in versions 4.6 and 4.7 on Win95, Win98 and NT.
Sometimes, Netscape doesn't allow you to follow links. Like, the pointer will change to the "hand" when you move over the link, but a click doesn't do anything.
The only way to solve the problem is to reboot windows. It's very strange. It's happened to me regularly for about 6 months, I can't be the only one?
I'm considering reporting it to Netscape.
Mo."
I got the following within a few minutes. Come on NS! I'm using IE5 now - it's better, a lot better!
"No, I experience the same thing. Except that sometimes, a click *does* do anything, even when the mouse pointer isn't in hand shape."
"I've experienced this with Netscape for Linux. It only happens when I have two or more windows open at the same time, and another one (than the one I'm clicking in) is trying to load something. If I cancel that load by hitting ESC,things usually "pop" back into working order. Usually, I say, but it's only happened to me two or three times."
"Have the same problem (Netscape 4.6 on Linux and also on Digital UNIX 4.0D), but: It even happens, when there's only one window. And it doesn't change back, only restarting of Netscape is a cure.
Seems to be a coded feature.
Really NS - Can we have our favourite browser working properly in it's next release? You know? Links, that can be followed?
Mong.
* Paul Madley
Coincidence or Conspiracy? (Score:4)
Fixed the JS/CSS bug? (Score:2)
Re:Netscape has SOCKS, Mozilla has ...? (Score:3)
Re:RPMs? (Score:2)
If redhat had official updates before say, debian, can you imagine the amount of complaints netscape would get?
Re:Fixed the JS/CSS bug? (Score:2)
Not likely. That particular bug, after all, is there because CSS support is implemented by translating CSS into javascript. Hence, turning off the latter turns off the former.
We should expect this silliness to end with Mozilla, of course.
Platform support (Score:5)
As if that weren't sufficiently annoying, there's not been a Linux/SPARC version since 4.51, but there are five Solaris versions. Of course, none of those are for current versions of Solaris either. All this, of course, would be excusable if they didn't have any systems to build on or they weren't going to support oddball platforms (I will admit that Linux/SPARC is marginal, though it has multiple supported distributions and a growing user base), but then why oh why are there two SINIX builds??? Most people don't even know WTF SINIX _is_, much less have it.
The point? It doesn't seem like Netscape understands what people are actually using today. If the objective is to be compatible with as much as possible, then not having up-to-date Linux builds for at least Intel, SPARC, and Alpha makes no sense. For that matter, they don't even claim to support Solaris 7 or 8. 2.5.1 is itself archaic. If the objective is instead to support only the most popular platforms, then I certainly don't see the need for five Solaris builds, two AIX builds, anything related to SINIX, or a Linux 2.0/libc5 build. The obvious platforms to support would be Solaris 7, Linux 2.2-intel/glibc, the latest AIX, the latest Digital Unix, and IRIX 6.5.
So what can we do to increase their awareness of this problem? Numerous polite letters have garnered either no response or a polite "get lost" form letter. Ideas?
Alternate paranoid theory: AOL wants all the Unix builds to be against old systems so that people will switch to windoze and buy more aol service. Pretty paranoid, but aol is pure evil after all.
PS: Kudos to the mozilla team for recognizing the value of compatibility and multi-platform support. The Linux/SPARC build works as well as any other.
--TM, still using 4.51 on Ultralinux, the preferred platform of all major deities
Netscape's Great (Score:3)
Well I think Netscape's great- twice the performance and a lot more stable than anything else made by other people who haven't paid me as much cash to say that.
Barry Fishcake
Senior VP, Mindcraft [rinkworks.com]
I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! (Score:3)
I have not had one single crash of the browser. (I have had mail crash on me).
I was anxiously waiting for M14 to clean up some interface/formatting/speed problems, but apparently they aren't going to do one(?)
--
Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
Re:Disabling shopping button.. (Score:5)
I make a xdelta patch so I can apply it on all the linux computers I use. The patch is specific to the build version though (do about: and you will see the version on the title bar). The newest one I have is for v4.7 build [en] 19990915. I have downloaded 4.72, but have not made a patch for it yet. I ran it and played around for a bit, and after seeing that it still displays the same annoying bugs as 4.7 I put off making a patch for now.
Anyhow my navigation bar has the following:
(forward)
reload
casa
search (goes to goole. you can edit the url for this too)
[fm] (freshmeat.net)
print
security
/. (slashdot.org)
halt
Use IE if you run Windows (Score:5)
if you have no other reason to use IE other than Microsoft hatred that's fine. But if you want to see what Mozilla will hopefully eventually being like, just download IE and see for yourself.
Re:AOL Takeover (Score:2)
Did this, in fact, happen? I remember jwz leaving a short time after the take-over, and a few others left when the takeover was still just a rumor. AOL cut a whole bunch of Netscape staff, but that was mostly redundant admin, AFAIK. I would imagine some programmers walked but 95% seems absurdly high. Do you have any supporting references?
4.72 seems better (Score:3)
Re:HOWTO (Score:3)
3) Turn off Java. Turn off Java. Turn off Java.
4) Turn off Javascript if you don't use somewhat sophisticated sites.
5) Don't invoke mystery components like Messenger and Composer and all that crap unless you actually need to use them. They tend to suck a bit.
6) Feed it lots and lots and lots of disk/memory cache, or none at all.
My god man! What's the point? You've turned off everything that makes it worthwhile to install a 4.x generation browser in the first place, haven't you?
If none of the new features work... the solution is: Stick with the old version.
- StaticLimit
Does 4.72 fix the serious Composer bugs? (Score:2)
--
Removing the Evils (Score:2)
Also, I found the best way not mentioned to fix the button toolbar. Go to View, and Deselect Navigation toolbar. You can use alt-arrow to go forward and backwards, ESCAPE stops loading and alt-r reloads. Gives me more desktop and less suck from Net$crape.
Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? (Score:3)
Re:Disabling shopping button.. (Score:3)
! Replace "Shop" with something useful:
Netscape*strings.22495:http://slashdot.org
Netscape*myshopping.labelString:/.
Netscape*myshopping.documentationString:Go to Slashdot
Netscape*myshopping.tipString:Slashdot
Re:Disabling shopping button.. (Score:2)
On another note, can anyone download the 128 bit versions? I keep getting dead links.
The CHANGELOG (release notes) (Score:3)
Go here (Score:3)
javascript sophisticated??? (Score:3)
a) popu-up advertising
b) taking control of the display away from the user in general
c) creating links where a real link would have done at least as well
d) forcing of automatic forwarding to an advertising site
e) a single case where it was used to enable nested choices--choose the textbook then the chapter.
Only e) even vaguely benefits the user, and this is arguable. a-d all either affirmatively harm the user, or are crummy programming.
If your page requires javascript to function, unless you're doing something rather exotic with user data, it's almost certainly wrong. More than that, I'll go to one of your competitors--I used to use foxnews, but they're not enough better than CNN to put up with this.
hawk
Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! (Score:3)
And based on the undisputable truth that Mozilla does crash consistently on some systems, I would have to say that no, Mozilla is not almost ready for primetime. They clearly have way too many bugs that have yet to be tracked down.
Having said that, I would like to point out that I am not saying that Mozilla should be ready for regular use. I understand that it is an Alpha, and I wholeheartedly expect it to get much much better as it moves on. But you can't have it both ways.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Coincidence or Conspiracy? (Score:3)
Just a guess: the Google guys claim that what sets their search engine apart from so many others is that it weights sites based on other sites that link to it - if your site gets linked from one that sells widgets, a search for widgets is more likely to pull your site.
Now, think of how many pr0n sites make you click one of those "I understand and agree with the terms of service" links. Almost invariably, the "I don't agree - I'm under 18" link takes you to Disney's page.
So, searches for some "adult" key phrases bring up Disney, by sheer force of association. (Dear god. I can't imagine what would happen if their lawyers got wind of this.)
Re:Use IE if you run Windows (Score:3)
---
Re:I'm smoking M13--and it tastes great! (Score:3)
It seems they just don't care (Score:3)
"Using the Insert Link command (or the Link button) in Composer or when composing HTML messages may cause Communicator to crash." This is a brand-spanking new bug in Netscape 4.72 Why don't they fix this stuff before they release it? Or, barring that, at least take out the feature so people don't crash Netscape by using it.
"If you attempt to use Messenger the very first time you run Communicator, it may quit with an "Illegal instruction" message."
"If you delete your only IMAP server and then add a POP server, Communicator may quit."
"A previous workaround for Unix systems, to avoid the freezing on startup of the edit or compose window, has been changed." Is it just me, or does this just sound silly? Changing workarounds, why don't they just fix it!?
I wouldn't mind this so much, except they're introducing new features, mostly useless features, before they even bother to fix these bugs.
Chris Hagar