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Netscape Mozilla The Internet America Online

Firefox-Based Netscape 8 Beta Goes Live 320

Posted by CowboyNeal from the fox-eating-lizards dept.
pigmelon writes "According to BetaNews, 'America Online's Netscape team has opened its doors to the public, releasing the first beta of the revived Netscape Web browser. (screenshot) Based upon Firefox, Netscape version 8 focuses on security and user privacy, and supports rendering with both Mozilla's Gecko and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser engines.' Before downloading the beta, remember that it uses Firefox 1.0, which contains some vulnerabilities."
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Firefox-Based Netscape 8 Beta Goes Live More

Firefox-Based Netscape 8 Beta Goes Live

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  • Does it fix the shyte rendering of slasdot? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:05PM (#11839295)
    Does it fix the shyte rendering of slasdot?

  • Extensions (Score:5, Informative)

    by BobPaul ( 710574 ) * on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:05PM (#11839299) Journal
    Unfortunately you can't install extensions cause they all say they don't support Netscape.

  • one word (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:06PM (#11839305)
    Ugly.

    Horrible color scheme and very cluttered.

  • Merged Menu Bar (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:06PM (#11839308) Homepage
    One thing caught my eyes is the merged top menu bars, so the page title and file menu options are on the same line now.

    Is there such plug-in for FireFox?
    • Could probally be done with a userchrome file.
      I'm not at my home computer right now so I can't test it.

    • Re:Merged Menu Bar (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:49PM (#11839663)
      Probably not. In case you're interested, this effect is probably achieved by either a) overriding the paint routines for the non-client areas of the frame window or more likely b) producing a title-less frame window and handling mouse down events in the top area of the frame to simulate dragging the window around.

      I was going to suggest you load view-source:chrome://browser/content/browser.xul to see how the chrome does that top part, but their view-source: code seems to be broken. Ooops! Still, you could probably browse the .jar files if you were interested.

    • Re:Merged Menu Bar (Score:5, Funny)

      by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:51PM (#11839681) Journal
      Is there such plug-in for FireFox?
      No, but for a similar effect you can pick up your keyboard, and bludgeon yourself in the face.

  • LOUD (Score:5, Funny)

    by captnitro ( 160231 ) * on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:07PM (#11839318)
    Jesus, that screenshot [betanews.com] is like the browser version of my grandfather's "retirement shirts". Except, only if he lived inside Spencer's Gifts, and was a science fiction drama from 1963, and had ADD. And rabies.

  • why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mohrt ( 72095 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:08PM (#11839324) Homepage
    What is the advantage of a separate browser? Why not make an AOL theme for firefox, drape it with AOL extentions/plugins and just use firefox?

    • Re:why? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Low2000 ( 606536 )
      The advantage is brand recognition. There are still a lot of people out there who know who Netscape is (or think they know who Netscape is and aren't aware of the AOL purchase).
      • not just recognition, my company ( a typical hot shot financial company), with idiots working as security advisiors, won't allow me to install firefox as it is not a recognised software.

        But I can install Netsacpe though. Almost every one exclusively uses IE and these guys waste half their budget fixing PCs , removing spyware/adware , trying to contain worms etc.

        You won't belive the idiocy found in some of the coroporate sector. So I am content using atleast netscape instead of IE.

    • Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:15PM (#11839405)

      What is the advantage of a separate browser? Why not make an AOL theme for firefox, drape it with AOL extentions/plugins and just use firefox?

      Supposedly the netscape version has built in the IE rendering engine for compatibility, while still maintaining the security of Firefox. We shall see. This may mean a browser that is vulnerable to every exploit. If done properly, however, it could be a very nice feature.

      • I looked through the prefs in the browser (I installed it a little while ago) and I can't find one to turn on the IE rendering engine. It's not in the view menu either. I stopped looking there, so maybe it would have been in the third place I looked.
        • I looked through the prefs in the browser (I installed it a little while ago) and I can't find one to turn on the IE rendering engine. It's not in the view menu either. I stopped looking there, so maybe it would have been in the third place I looked.

          I'm guessing that like most of the Mozilla browsers, you might be able to adjust it using about:config

          However, I haven't downloaded this and am only speculating.

        • Re:why? (Score:3, Informative)

          by kerrle ( 810808 )
          Right click on a page. Select "View like Internet Explorer" from the menu. I agree, it should also be under view.

      • Re:why? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Octagon Most ( 522688 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @08:09PM (#11839795)
        "Supposedly the netscape version has built in the IE rendering engine for compatibility, while still maintaining the security of Firefox. We shall see. This may mean a browser that is vulnerable to every exploit."

        According to Walt Mossberg's review [wsj.com] in the WSJ:

        "If a site is considered trustworthy, Netscape automatically renders it using the Internet Explorer method, for maximum compatibility. Internet Explorer's method for rendering Web pages opens security vulnerabilities that Firefox's doesn't. Netscape figures that, at trusted sites, it's OK to take that risk."

      • Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MustardMan ( 52102 )
        Supposedly the netscape version has built in the IE rendering engine for compatibility, while still maintaining the security of Firefox.

        This is a dangerous statement to be making. A large number of the security flaws in IE lie within the rendering engine itself, not in the surrounding wrappers. There was a big stink with yahoo messenger, because it uses IE mshtml.dll to render text, and was thus vulnerable to the iframe exploit. If a program renders in mshtml.dll, no amount of wrappers are going to sud

    • brand recognition (Score:5, Insightful)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:20PM (#11839453)
      One of the higherups where I work sent an email a couple months ago out complaining about this or that vulnerability in IE. He finished the email with "I guess that's just one more reason I should be using Netscape." Not Mozilla, not Firefox, but Netscape. Switching to Netscape is something I told him to do. In 1995. Ten years later, not only hasn't he switched yet, but he still thinks the only choice is between IE and Nutscrape. I don't think most computer users pay that much attention to new software (though Firefox and Mozilla are hardly new) nor to the technical aspects of software (the claim that Firefox and Netscape are both based on Mozilla will be met with a blank stare, followed by, "so I should use Netscape, and I'll be secure, right?" (and then followed by continued use of IE, because finding and downloading a new browser is still too much to deal with).
    • I don't use AOL myself, but there are ~20 million people who do, including my mother-in-law. Including Netscape/Zilla/Firefox on the AOL coaster would help get those people off IE.

  • Custom widgets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Koyaanisqatsi ( 581196 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:09PM (#11839330)

    What's so wrong with using standart window captions, buttons and so on? There's a reason for that: consistency ammong applications.

    Leave themes and eye candy for the OS level, and obey it if present; but please, not a single application should implement it's own custom UI controls, that's just wrong.

    • Re:Custom widgets (Score:2, Insightful)

      by soupdevil ( 587476 )
      Wait a minute, not a single application? I agree with you on the browser and other mainstream apps, but audio, video, design and other types of apps require their own paradigm for UI.

      • but audio, video, design and other types of apps require their own paradigm for UI.


        No they don't. For some strange reason the producers of those apps like to make their apps look like the physical counterparts but they just wind up producing unusable pieces of crap. A knob, for instance, makes sense on a physical device but is difficult to use on a computer screen.

    • Re:Custom widgets (Score:4, Funny)

      by Rorschach1 ( 174480 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @08:09PM (#11839799) Homepage
      Use the operating system's default widget set? Pffft. That is SOOO 1993.

      Can you imagine how boring it'd be if you already knew where to find, say, the 'minimize' button on EVERY application? Where's the fun in that?

  • My eyes! The goggles do nothing! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Osty ( 16825 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:10PM (#11839340)

    Holy crap! [betanews.com] That has to be the worst browser interface I've ever seen. Awful color scheme, buttons everywhere, three different input bars (one for searching, one for addresses, and one for "shopping"?; worse, the most important bar, the address bar, is too small to show even the domain portion of a normal URL, and is not in a properly prominent position), funky menu positioning (by putting the menu in the title bar, I suppose you can no longer grab that part of the bar to drag the window), etc. Netscape really needs to invest in some competent UI designers ASAP.

    • Netscape is a shell brand. This work was done in-house by AOL or contracted out to someone.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:22PM (#11839462)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I doubt much of anyone is using a 600x800 resolution. Tablet PCs tend to be higher resolution and I doubt you could even get a driver for the ISA VGA card that ran the old 15" radius pivot monitors.

        • I doubt much of anyone is using a 600x800 resolution. Tablet PCs tend to be higher resolution and I doubt you could even get a driver for the ISA VGA card that ran the old 15" radius pivot monitors.

          I dunno, my nVidia card can rotate the screen, and my LCD monitor can rotate (meant for access to inputs on the back of monitor). I don't think I'd actually use my monitor that way, but I could if I wanted to.

          • Sure, my ATI card can rotate the screen, and I can put my trinitron on its side, which is flat along one edge and would probably tilt my screen at just the right angle given the position it would hold on my desk. However, I haven't yet found a good use for a 1200x1600 display...
    • Yeah, how on earth are you meant to spot spoofing/phishing attempts if you can't even see the damn URL at all?
    • I can't even count the number of times that I've opened IE or Explorer on clients computers only to find that the address bar has been removed. After seeing this and 'fixing' it on one occasion, the user of the particular computer asked me what I did to his web.. confused, I asked him what he meant. He apparently didn't want that on. I asked him how he got to different web sites. His reply, he just typed where he wanted to go in yahoo.

      After that I realized, the address bar, is mainly a power user feat

  • Had to use a screenshot with Microsoft Headline... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:11PM (#11839352) Homepage
    Ok, so who's the brainiac that figured it would be a good idea to take a screenshot with a "Microsoft is making progress" headline/news item?

  • windows only? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymousse Custard ( 864188 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:11PM (#11839354)
    Sadly it seems to be a windows only release.

    • Re:windows only? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by betaguy9000 ( 863878 )
      Sadly it seems to be a windows only release.
      I'm willing to bet they couldn't figure out a way to implement that abortion of an interface design on other OSes.

  • The goggles! They do nothing! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evn ( 686927 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:11PM (#11839366)
    Just when you think the Internet can't get any uglier or more difficult to use we get another browser with piss-poor interface.

    Why the heck do I need the weather below my address bar?

    Why is the menu bar over by the close/minimize/maximize widgets (don't miss click the help menu or your window will vanish to the task bar)?

    I /love/ the way they use completley non-standard UI elements throughout and the grace us with the standard windows scroll bar on the right.

    I think i'll leave my family/neighbors/girlfriend with Firefox or Mozilla thank-you. They may not be the perfect interface but they're an order of magnitude more useful than this monstrosity.

    And no, it doesn't run on Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, or anything but Windows. I guess that's a good thing in this case.

  • Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tevenson ( 625386 ) <tevenson.gmail@com> on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:13PM (#11839377) Homepage
    Someone please explain to me why, if you knew of the existance of Firefox 1.0 (or 1.0.1 now), you would still choose to download a bastardized version of it from Netscape?

    Let's be honest. You're going to get the same rendering engine (at least for the most part, probably with more problems though) but with a bloated skin, no theme support, no extension support, and the Netscape icon.

    I think it's totally worth it, ha.
    • More average joes who have used computers for the past years would most likely know more about Netscape than Firfox. A few reasons I can come up with is that websites of various companies will state in the bottom "Compatible with IE x.x and Netscape x.x". Also, I remember the installation cds of some ISP's like videotron and Bell Sympatico would provide Netscape.

      It may be a theme fully bloated without extensions support but the Netscape name and logo have been more around than Firefox.

      Silly marketing stra
      • More average joes who have used computers for the past years would most likely know more about Netscape than Firfox.

        I'm sorry, but this is crap. Netscape slid from the consciousness of 99% of the "average Joes" several or more years ago, and this version will have an equally weak to non-existent effect on most of the surfing public. The "average Joe" is now only vaguely aware that something called Netscape ever existed, and though they have heard of this new "alternative" browser called FireFox, they are

  • Finally! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:14PM (#11839386)
    A browser with the security of MSHTML and the sleek looks of a morbidly obese person's arse.

  • Best Review So Far (Score:2, Interesting)

    by autosentry ( 595252 )
    "All Mozilla Products are great for me but when Netscape touches it, it turns to crap. This kept opening IE over and over. I had 30 windows open for IE. Firefox still rules!" Wonder how long they'll keep that on the front page?

  • Typical AOL-ish Theme (Score:3, Insightful)

    by linguae ( 763922 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:25PM (#11839481)

    The new Netscape browser is based on Firefox, but it looks, well, awful. It doesn't look as bad as some of the previous betas, but it still doesn't look good. It breaks many of the Windows design standards, such as its substandard menus, windows, icons, and title bars. Secondly, when I'm browsing the Internet (or doing anything else with my computer), I don't want to be looking at all of these flashy icons and weather and shopping and all of this other stuff. Why is the RSS icon on the URL box blocking the full URL? Where do AOL hire its UI designers from?

    Next, another feature about this browser is that it can switch its rendering engine from Gecko to IE's rendering system. Well, why? IE's rendering system doesn't support the latest web standards, and even for web pages that uses a lot of IE-only extensions (ActiveX, for example), Firefox handles these situations with a couple of extensions.

    Besides that, this will hurt in trying to remove substandard and nonstandard technologies from the Internet, such as ActiveX and non-standard HTML. Windows-only web developers need to get out of their Microsoft-funded cave and hop on the nearest bus to Standards Land and start dumping MSHTML, their Visual Basic-designed ActiveX programs, and ASP in favor of CSS and XHTML (standard web pages), Java or Perl/Python (standard programming languages), and PHP (to replace ASP). It will make the Internet a better and safer place for the rest of us.

    In short, what's the point of this Netscape release? Firefox and Mozilla is spreading like wildfire, and they are better browsers. Safari, Opera, and Konqueror do their jobs nicely, too, so what's the point of Netscape?

  • Meanwhile at Beijing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cyfer2000 ( 548592 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:26PM (#11839484) Journal
    Mitchell Baker [mozillazine.org] is opening Mozilla China Center [mozilla.org.cn]. FYI, English translation is here. [google.com]

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:26PM (#11839489)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:And so it comes full circle. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Octagon Most ( 522688 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:55PM (#11839716)
      There is no "5) Profit!".

      Profit is exactly the motive behind such UI-hostile interface elements as a permanent shopping search bar. AOL is throwing in several ways to get the user directly to AOL's own web properties. It looks as if they already pre-installed a few of those spyware toolbars.

    • don't look a gift-horse in the mouth (Score:4, Insightful)

      by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:58PM (#11839730)
      Netscape's name-brand recognition among the great uneducated masses of Internet users might actually convince millions of otherwise-competent people to use this abomination.

      The old Netscape might have been junk. This new Netscape might also be junk. But who the heck cares? You don't need to like the smell of manure to appreciate roses at the flower shop.

      Netscape's decision once upon a time to release the source code gave us an excellent browser. The license for that browser is such that anybody can take it and release their own abomination, so if Netscape itself wants to do that, more power to them.
    • I thought Netscape was an ISP [netscape.com].
    • think that the only two browsers out there are IE and Netscape.

      Unfortunately, no one can be told what Firefox is. You have to see it for yourself.

    • Return on investment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @09:01PM (#11840141) Homepage
      Okay, agreed -- the UI is pretty over-the-top. I won't even argue that.

      However, I think that the general attitude on ./ is that Netscape has somehow "wronged" the Firefox team and the Firefox community by releasing this product, or that they don't "deserve" to rebrand firefox in such a way. I probably wont use it (the GUI hurts), but I don't have a problem with Netscape/AOL releasing it, considering:
      Netscape not only opened the source code, they also provided manpower, hardware , and cash. AOL was the single largest donor to the Mozilla foundation (2 million cash, but also assets such as webservers and bandwidth). Without Netscape and AOL, Firefox would not exist.

      Netscape is abiding by the mozilla public license, right? If so, what's the problem? Why do so many open source zealots villify large corporations for engaging in behaviour that is expressly condoned (even encouraged)?

      Though standards zealots will disagree, at least some people will like the dual rendering engine feature. So it's not like they didn't bring anything to the table and shamelessly replaced all the firefox logos with netscape logos.

      Isn't this really an open source success story? "If you open the source code to your product, other developers will extend it and improve it in ways that you couldn't dream of (let alone afford), and you will be free to incorporate these improvements back into your product!". Isn't this the return on investment that the OSS community talks about?
      Netscape's name-brand recognition among the great uneducated masses of Internet users might actually convince millions of otherwise-competent people to use this abomination.

      If we're talking about the same uneducated mass of Internet users that were convinced to use IE because of Microsoft's brand recognition, isn't that a good thing?

  • The UI really is something (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:30PM (#11839509)
    It's like someone in AOL said:


    "this Firefox UI is great and easy to use, so let's add a bunch crazy buttons and just generally shit all over it! Oh and throw in a theme that makes our customers want to claw out their eyes. And for extra confusion, make sure some of the pages load with IE so people are never sure what behaviour they're going to get!"

  • Shock! Horror! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Netscape releasing an ugly, bloated browser with millions of useless features that nobody in their right mind would use? Now there's a surprise.
  • Really, what retard decided to use cyan in the coloring scheme? That's been my biggest beef with Netscape since day 1.

    • Cyan did that?! Ah, should have guessed - that interface looks confusing like a puzzle from Riven!
    • Cyan and orange, the classic color scheme of spazzes.

      Me. I demand some hazard yellow added to the interface immediately! Perhaps in some sort of warning box. A big caution sign, that's the ticket.

      And then, on to the neon! Wheeeeee! Neon green, neon blue (Do they make neon cyan?), maybe we can even get some neon yellow and use that instead of hazard yellow.

      And, dare we dream it? Yes, we dare.

      Pink. I said it. PINK. BRIGHT PINK ALL OVER!

      But don't worry, all these bright colors will be balanced out by the

  • Cool! (Score:2, Funny)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 )
    (Not.)
    The worst of all worlds.
    (Now that was serious.)
    I've been hoping someone would do this.
    (Unserious, more like fearing someone would do this.)
    I guess I'll switch.
    (Nearly coughing after fit of maniac laughter.)
    No, not really. Sticking with Firefox. It seems to be what Netscape could have been had Netscape not believed its own hype and what IE should have been if only MS could see past proprietarily customizing everything that doesn't move fast enough.
    (Looks like that IE-based browser that came wit

  • One question (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't know much about the Mozilla license, but could AOL (AOL did buy Netscape right?) (a) stop the development of Mozilla (change the license to closed source/proprietary) or (b) sell Netscape (Gecko engine of coruse)?

  • Bad user skin (Score:2, Insightful)

    by thomasdn ( 800430 )
    I think that the user interface is really bad on this one. The buttons for search fields/etc. is too large. I personally do not like the light green/blue color they have given it. Combined with orange buttons just makes the contrast too high.
    The menus in the top are located on the right unlike their usual place on the left. This is something that will cause irritations.
  • This version implemented something new called "Site Controls," or at least a better version of them. It also implements that master list of trusted sites you guys might've heard about a while back.

    Well, it turns out that ANY site that is on the 'trusted site list' is set to display like IE. I don't know what's on this list, but I can tell you that's a LOT of sites this browser is using the IE engine for. It only defaults to Gecko when it's an "I'm not sure of this site" or "I dont trust this site" setti

  • License (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sploo22 ( 748838 ) <dwahler.gmail@com> on Thursday March 03, 2005 @07:48PM (#11839656)
    Now, I'm no expert on the Mozilla Public License [mozilla.org], but it seems to state pretty unequivocally that if you make modifications you have to release them under the same license (just as with the GPL) including source code. Whereas the Netscape browser license says:

    3. RESTRICTIONS. Except as otherwise expressly permitted in this Agreement, you may not: (i) modify or create any derivative works of the Beta Browser or documentation, including customization, translation or localization; (ii) decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code of the Beta Browser, or in any way ascertain, decipher, or obtain the communications protocols for accessing the AIM Service, or the underlying ideas or algorithms of the Beta Browser (e.g. in an effort to develop other applications or services that provide similar or substitute or complimentary functionality to the Beta Browser);

    and so on. There is no mention of the Mozilla license and no source code. How is this legal? Did they buy special rights from the Mozilla Foundation or something?

    • Remember that there's a difference between Mozilla and Netscape

      Netscape has some proprietary components that are Netscape-only. Those parts are under a completely different licence than Mozilla is; therefore, the source isn't available. All of the Mozilla sources that they used is already open and widely available, and Netscape must not had changed the Mozilla sources; therefore, Netscape didn't have to re-release components of the broswer that were borrowed from Mozilla.

      • All of the Mozilla sources that they used is already open and widely available, and Netscape must not had changed the Mozilla sources; therefore, Netscape didn't have to re-release components of the broswer that were borrowed from Mozilla.

        Sorry, that doesn't make sense. Whether or not it's already available makes no difference to Netscape's responsibilities. In fact, the license also says about binary distributions:

        You may distribute Covered Code in Executable form only if the requirements of Sections 3

  • ...to destroy the Netscape brand, becasue they don't have the will to escape from Microsoft's nutgrip on them. First they ignored that they even owned Netscape (7 year option deal to use IE), then they try to turn it into a low cost ISP, now they are wasting time and effort on a hybrid browser. This browser is doomed to fail for a number of reasons:

    • Not only do web developers have to detect what browser is loading their page, we now have to detect what rendering engine it's using
    • The UA string is worthle
  • Just went and checked the prefs -- the install defaults to the IE rendering engine. You can change the rendering engine to "Netscape" (Why not Gecko?) without a restart.

    Which all begs the question, what the hell is a browser based on Firefox, branded with Netscape, rendering with IE? Hey, at least it's modular!

  • Netscape? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by p0rnking ( 255997 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @08:19PM (#11839875) Homepage
    What I don't get, is other than the amount of users that used to go to Netscape's portal (it was at the time, one of the busiest sites on the net), why did AOL buy Netscape?

    They bought Netscape, continued to use IE, started Mozilla then let Mozilla go (to become the Mozilla Foundation), and now they are developing their own browser, which is based on IE .... so I ask again, why did AOL buy Netscape, and why are they continuing to pump out Beta versions, but never use it?

  • Impressions (Score:3, Informative)

    by skt ( 248449 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @08:27PM (#11839926)
    I can only imagine that Netscape wants to use Netscape 8 to help market its ISP. After using this browser briefly today, I can not really understand who their target audience is. Is it power users? It seems to be intended for power users, it offers a level of control I have never seen before in a browser, multiple rendering engines, user-trust levels and containers, very detailed, site-specific settings. Also, check out the toolbar configuration GUI if you get a chance.. yikes. However, I don't think power users will touch this because they are already aware of firefox and Mozilla. Even though firefox does not have the level of control that this Netscape 8 beta has, who really wants to configure and manage all of that when firefox works perfectly well (minus IE-specific sites) without it?

    As far as regular users go, I can not think of any reason why they would prefer this browser over something like IE or firefox. I have thought that for a while, IE has been so popular because of its simplicity. Even though it doesn't support features like tabbed browsing and typeaheadfind and RSS.. your average user doesn't want that stuff anyway, thus IE meets their needs so why change to anything more complex?

    So, unless I am missing something, we have a browser here that power users will not use and average users will not use. Perhaps Netscape can get some people to use it if they bundle it with their ISP. It is only beta though, maybe it will get better..

  • I'm quite disapointed really... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NoMercy ( 105420 ) on Thursday March 03, 2005 @09:02PM (#11840145)
    I was so hoping netscape would put there name behind Firefox, instead of butchering a decent browser and making a mess of it again.

    Firefox could grow by at least 10% if netscape proclaimed it as the next version of there browser and included download links on there primary netscape download page.

  • I understand that this is a beta version, but if they're embedding the IE rendering engine, I can't imagine that this browser will be cross platform. This is significant because it will be the first Netscape which is not cross platform. Seems like a giant step backwards.

    Also, does the MPL (Mozilla Public License) affect their ability to close the source? I'm not that familiar with the MPL, but I think it's more BSD-ish than GPL-ish.

    Finally, I can't think of a greater disservice to those of us interested w

  • and supports rendering with both Mozilla's Gecko and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser engines

    I guess I'll have to add Netscape to my list of banned applications, along with IE, Outlook, Windows Media Player, and Realplayer... basically, any application that uses the MS HTML control to render outside-sourced documents.

    After seven years of exploits and failed fixes, why does anyone outside Microsoft still use this "Typhoid Mary" of the software world?

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