Netscape 7.2 Released 412
scottfi writes "America Online has just released Netscape 7.2. Based on Mozilla 1.7, this latest version features better popup blocking, vCard support, an improved junk mail algorithm, better standards support, performance enhancements and several hundred other bug fixes. It also includes patches for recent security vulnerabilities. It is a little over a year since AOL shut down the Netscape browser division, laid off or reassigned the remaining engineers and withdrew from the day to day running of mozilla.org. At the time, they said that new versions of Netscape were unlikely. Earlier this year, they changed their minds and announced Netscape 7.2. More details about Netscape 7.2 are available at Netscape Browser Central, together with download links."
How sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How sad... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How sad... (Score:5, Funny)
I come to bury Netscape, not to praise it;
The evil that AOL does lives after it,
The good is oft interréd with their bones,
So let it be with Netscape....
Re:How sad... (Score:2)
Re:How sad... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How sad... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How sad... (Score:4, Funny)
s/Mozilla/Netscape/g
Re:How sad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How sad... (Score:3, Informative)
And, for what it's worth, I believe one problem Mozilla has with many users is its constant revision. A new point release every few months.
This just in. (Score:5, Informative)
Why though? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Insightful)
And it doesn't help that the Mozilla project has changed the name of it's products several times now.
Name Game (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still using Firebird, because I've been too preoccupied to keep up. Wasn't there some issue with one of the names conflicting with the database system? [sourceforge.net] Is it Phoenix, or has that been confused a BIOS of the same name and they're moving on to another?
Here's a thought! They just found a a previously undiscovered [usatoday.com] bird species in the Philippines, they could name it after that and beat every other software product!
Re:Name Game (Score:4, Funny)
And may a recommend the firesomething [mozilla.org] plugin?
Re:Name Game (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why though? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla still has a reputation of being a part time hobby for coders, rather than a serious corporate product.
That sentiment is not universal.
Also, I think it was more applicable several years ago than now.
After all the exploits and stagnation in development associated with Internet Explorer, my corporation's IT department is definitely past the stage of getting over the stagnation from Netscape 4 and looking quite favorably on Mozilla and its advantages.
Windows Annoyances (Score:5, Interesting)
He actually said that computer nerds can hold their calls with advice and "told-you-sos", he bought the computer into the shop where he purchased it (and hawks continuously on the air).
A couple of days later he was back on the air talking about what a great job they did cleaning off all the junk - and installing Firefox to keep it from happening again. He went on to talk about how great Firefox was, and that it was free, and why would anyone want to keep using IE, etc., etc.
AFAIR, he even included a link on his web pages to the Mozilla site.
Pretty good publicity from a famous talk show host, even if you don't like him...
Re:Windows Annoyances (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure I'm not alone when i say, Who?
The Liberal Media [airamericaradio.com] Finally a response to ignorant hatemongerers."
+1 Funny
At any rate, he's more or less one of the "ignorant hatemongerer(ererer)s" you refer to, a conservative libertarian talk show host on AM radio. In a nutshell, imagine if Rush was against the War on Drugs and in favor of gay marriage.
At any rate, a quick search on Google [google.com] turns up these:
Re:Why though? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people say this? At every computer-related forum I know, almost everybody complains (or used to complain) about how slow and bloated and unstable Netscape 4.x and 6.0 was. When 6.5 and 7.x were out, people didn't even bother to try it. Netscape kept it's repuation of being slow, bloated and unstable.
And these days, almost nobody knows Netscape anymore. Most people who do fall in the "I-hate-Netscape" category.
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
Though I do plan to switch to Netscape because it is, of course, 1.2 better than IE.
why? its all about the name (Score:2, Interesting)
having said that netscape is a bloatware. It used to be gold so to speak.
Re:Why though? (Score:3, Informative)
At my place of work we have recently flushed Netscape 7.1 for Mozilla 1.7. Users mostly don't notice a change and except for some caveats (like address books disappearing) for the most part the profile from netscape can be used with mozilla. You have to switch themes, too, because the classic themes in mozilla and netscape are not compatible. Also sometimes email disappears but if you grab the last digit of the X-Mozilla-Status: header from the emails, convert it from a string value to a number value, and
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
And somebody mods this as informative, rather than funny?
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
Could you just scribble it in the margins of this page? Thanks, that would save alot of us about 300 years worth of pain.
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh ok ok, here is my script. Please be warned that I am not a programmer (I am one who programs, but not as a vocation) and this is probably the absolute worst way to do this. It's just something I tossed together.
Note also that Slashdot may have inserted whitespace. I tried to replace all my greater than and less than symbols with the appropriate HTML entities but I might have missed something, so don't try this on your only copy of something and delete the source file before examining the output.
And finally, I LOVE PERL, MWAH!
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh and I forgot to mention, your* tax dollars paid for this, so I hereby release it into the public domain. I hope that's not exceeding my authority but I doubt anyone will care because it's not patentable.
* If you live in the US, especially California.
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Informative)
A migration from NS7.1 to mozilla does not cause data loss in the address book since they both use the same, new mozilla address book format. If I am migrating from Netscape 4 to mozilla, I usually export to LDIF from NS4 and then import it back into mozilla using the LDIF converter.
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well funnily enough when I was looking at the Netscape home page [netscape.com] I was redirected here [netscape.com]. They're now using the Mozilla brand to push their browser:
Download the NEW Netscape® 7.2 browser (built with Mozilla) to take advantage of the latest security and popup blocking features and enjoy the best from Netscape.com.
Re:Why though? (Score:3, Interesting)
It covers both bases. Management sees the word "Netscape" while the IT lackeys see "Mozilla."
Re:Why though? (Score:2)
OK. If you're using Mozilla 0.93, you have to be retarded. A person would think that when Mozilla went to the 1.0 release, you would have downloaded and been running that.
If you are serious, you can download Netscape 7.2 using lynx of all things.
Re:Why though? (Score:3, Insightful)
From the <title> on mozilla.org:
I blame the Mozilla organization for creating such a convoluted naming scheme, but people should try to be more clear, because there's a world of differnce between Fi
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla = Netscape.
The latest versions of Mozilla and Netscape are virtually identical, except Netscape has extra crap (like AOL IM).
You are using a beta version of Firefox. Not the same.
Re:Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
A message from the slashdot compiler:
Thanks a lot, you've just overwritten all the fixes in mozilla since the last AOL fork.
Next time please pay more attention and write the proper Mozilla == Netscape statement
Re:Hey Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
So here's the problem: I work for AOL/TW, and in order to access our paystubs (which they no longer send to us in paper form), we need to access an internal website. It doesn't work with Mozilla.
So I complained (email to site admin).
I got the generic response that the site only works with IE. So I wrote back asking why the browser WE release doesn't work on OUR own internal site... (sound of crickets... took two days for the first reponse, been waiting over a week for a second one).
It's not the first internal site that doesn't work with Mozilla, but it's the most frustrating... I've found work arounds for the ones I care about, except the one I mentioned above.
So why, after all the posturing about Netscape and Mozilla, after all the testifying we did against MS during the antitrust hearings, after realizing we are in direct competition with MS in many areas, WHY WHY WHY did we make the IE deal with them?
What's funny (or sad, depending on how you look at it), while people in my company are entitled to FREE AOL, hardly anybody uses it - it's that bad, we'd rather pay someone else. The only people I know that use it have another ISP and only let their kids use AOL for the content filtering.
Oh yeah, my bother uses it, too, but he was never the sharpest tool in the shed anyway.
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Funny)
I have to admit, I was wondering the same thing too, time to go check those timestamps.
Re:Um... (Score:2)
Dey took er code!!!!
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Netscape is like Tupac... (Score:5, Funny)
However (Score:3, Funny)
But alas, all of the other AOL "bonuses" counteracted the new features.
....and I'm posting from it. (Score:5, Informative)
However, it's VERY lightweight (11.5MB installer for Windows), and the memory footprint is about 35% smaller than IE for the same page.
Nice.
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:5, Interesting)
compared to what? The latest Opera is 3.4 MB
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:2)
On the bright side I'm one G5 away from tossing the PC and running a Windows emulator, as soon as Microsoft release the next version.
Funny how it all comes around huh.
That must be the Navigator-only version (Score:5, Informative)
However, it's VERY lightweight (11.5MB installer for Windows)
I just grabbed the full version (what NS calls the 'offline installer'):
The Win32 installation .exe weighs in at ~24MB
The Linux/686 installation tar.gz is ~16MB.
Re:That must be the Navigator-only version (Score:3, Informative)
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:5, Informative)
One hopes that Microsoft follows through and removes ActiveX and other idiocies from their web-page building tools.
-- Rich
Re:....and I'm posting from it. (Score:2)
Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Because it isn't run by a major corporation that they will be able to sue should there be any problems.
AOL puts a face (granted, a big, ugly one that makes most Slashdotter's teeth itch) on Mozilla that is recognized by technophobes as user-friendly. Additionally, AOL gets free advertisement out of it through name placement, and gets to take credit for a high-quality product. Netscape draws the previously mentioned crowd away from the Evil Corporation Which Must Not Be Named.
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:3, Informative)
Why?
Because it isn't run by a major corporation that they will be able to sue should there be any problems.
That makes sense. And certainly is part of the reason FOSS is not more widely accepted in business. But it's an unwarranted idea. EULA's usually say that the software is used at your own risk and the vendor cannot be held responsible for coincidental, accidental, anecdotal, and total disasters.
So even if there software is being written by a megasup
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:2)
It would be really nice if AOL would release AOL mail code to the Mozilla team, that's a nice feature that lets me maintain an AOL mail account without maintaining a Windows or OSX box.
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:2)
A familiar/recognizable name. Many people still know who Netscape are. Ask them about Mozilla/FireFox, etc and they'll be like, "Who?"
Re:Why use NS instead of Mozilla? (Score:4, Informative)
The core software is essentially Mozilla (less ChatZilla). The only big differences are the introduction of profiles for storing multiple configuration settings (for all those home users that have several people using the same user account, I s'pose), an "activation" process (yadda) that sets you up with a netscape.net webmail account (which I imagine is the same domain used by customers of that new Netscape-branded ISP, if such customers exist) accessable through Mail. Netscape Mail can also do a few things that Mozilla Mail can't do because of licensing issues, such as access AOL e-mail accounts and import mail from Netscape Communicator 4.7 directly.
In lieu of ChatZilla it comes with an integrated AIM and ICQ client. Among other bells and whistles the client can be in a stand-alone window or in a sidebar. The only real downside is that you can't be in both AIM and ICQ at the same time (or has that been fixed in 7.2?). Note also that during the "activation" process that they'll use your pre-existing AIM handle as your user account name for your netscape.net webmail address.
On top of that there are some other bundled apps, mostly other things that AOL also now owns. There's a Radio@Netscape ("Plus") client (think "Radio@AOL") that's still based on the old Spinner software as opposed to the Real stuff that you get as the stand-alone product (unforunately I could never get it to work). WinAmp 2.8 is included, along with a default "netscape" skin that tries to match the "Modern" theme in Mozilla (but fails, IMO) along with changing the title bar to read "Netscape Winamp."
(I find it interesting that the versions of Spinner and Winamp included with 7.1 were both older versions that happened to be the last versions where they didn't suck, at least in the opinions of most people I've seen.)
They also try to bundle a RealPlayer client, but I'll be damned if I'll install that. I'd assume that it's also been massaged to look like Netscape.
And, because they're AOL, "Free AOL for (pi)e7 hours!" links will magically appear on your desktop and start menu, but they go away upon deletion.
At any rate, it's probably not worth the download for you, but it might be worth sending your parents/grandparents/other people that get free tech support from you. Now when is AOL going to make Netscape its default browser? They saw the light in their CompuServe acquisition, so why not for their core customers?
Article Text Stolen! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Article Text Stolen! (Score:2)
Re:Article Text Stolen! (Score:2)
a lot of the blurbs/'article texts' in slashdot are just the same thign rewritten from other sites for the sake of rewriting it - and end up being confugins, inaccurate and sensationalistic.
"New Netscape release, straight out of nowhere aol resurrects the netscape line, in a shameless rebranding of the mozilla browser and dumbing it down for the common people, why don't they just submit patches to the original mozilla rather than make their own?" - now, that's an example
Re:Article Text Stolen! (Score:2)
Poor writing skills do not justify plagiarism. If you can't digest an article's point and accurately summarize it in your own words, you probably shouldn't be subitting stories.
I wish the editors would better police these posts... one of these days something like this is going to get them in big trouble.
Coppied you fool.... (Score:2)
'coppied by a potentially unauthorized source'
Could be that the mozzine post and the
You should also note that if you remove the words 'better' and 'improved' is becomes a statement of fact, and so can't be copyrighted.
COPIED you fool.... (Score:3, Insightful)
"...a statement of fact, and so can't be copyrighted."
What rubbish! Are you saying that newscasts, newspaper and magazine articles, and any other publication with factual information can't be copyrighted? You need to go back to pretend law school, mate.
That's good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The release of Netscape helps in moving these people to a decent, secure browser. I think that Netscape no longer justifies the Nutscrape moniker it aquired in the later 4.x days.
Kicking a dead horse... (Score:3, Insightful)
AOL's token finger still in the pie... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nostalgia (Score:5, Interesting)
But in all honesty -why would I use netscape over firefox? Is there an advantage?
Re:Nostalgia (Score:5, Insightful)
Does.... not.. compute...
NS 4 was the reason I landed on Mozilla back in those rough pre 1.0 days. Anything * was better than having a crash on every other page. If I had to pick a favorite version of NS, it would have to be pre 4. *(Other than IE, I never trusted activeX, seems I was right.)Re:Nostalgia (Score:2)
I did use Mozilla prior to Netscape (i remember being given the mozilla book with the disks to install)
Then came I.E. shudder...now I am back to Mozilla (except at work, which I use IE for work reasons BLAH).
Re:Nostalgia (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Google in Search tab? (Score:2)
Apperently 7.2 only knows about Netscape's engine.
DG
Re:Google in Search tab? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google in Search tab? (Score:2)
The drop-down in "search using" only has Netscape Search in it, and seemingly has no way to customize in new search engines.
DG
which begs the question (Score:5, Funny)
Netscape family is like the Griffeys of baseball, the offspring is infinitely better then the parent.
Re:which begs the question (Score:3, Informative)
See here [wikipedia.org] for information on what "begging the question means".
Sorry, a recently completed english class is still haunting me.
Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't hard to notice the first priority was that everyone should be fired. THEN and ONLY then was the next version of the browser considered, after all the logos were taken off the buildings and the desks moved out, of course.
I find it very interesting how the early Internet is always referred to as "dot com", as if business and the media are straining to make it a pejorative. All that creativity and CAPITALISM generated great wealth for dozens of economies. Ebay, Amazon, etc. are all publically traded, profitable companies that wouldn't exist without the Internet.
But it seems that now since the checks have all been cashed, there's no room left for the people who built it, and that's a shame.
Re:Shame (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the dot com's were directly related to the 2001-2002 recession and 2003 slow growth. Although 9/11 had some small impact, the fact that billions of billions of billions "disappeared" due to dot coms being overhyped and over valued and going bust destroyed huge ammounts of investment capital. That capital that was infused into the "dot coms" was capital that was not invested into more "worthy" bussiness ventures. Sure many dot coms did/are successfull but not nearly in comparison to the over all failure.
Re:Shame (Score:2)
Welcome to how the world functions. The key is to remain competitive and not dwell on the lack of rewards of past efforts.
I think these things as I guide this broken body through an imperfect world.
I think you're being a little over-dramatic (Score:5, Informative)
And even to the people there at the end, AOL was quite helpful. First of all, they vastly overpaid for Netscape, since they were sold it on the basis partly that they could use it as an embedded browser for he AOL client, while technically Mozilla was always too bloated and un-modular to do that well (maybe just now it's starting to get to the point where that'd be possible, but it wasn't when they bought it, or even a year or two after they bought it). Once they realized it wasn't much use to them, they didn't even just say "well, fuck you guys": they transitioned it to a new Mozilla.org foundation, and became the single largest donor (by far) to that non-profit foundation, giving them all the equipment they had previously been using (webservers, test build machines, file servers, etc.) and $2m cash.
All in all I don't think AOL are really the evil ones here. You don't see any other major companies donating $2m cash to mozilla.org.
Re:I think you're being a little over-dramatic (Score:2)
handed them their hats
became the single largest donor (by far) to that non-profit foundation, giving them all the equipment they had previously been using (webservers, test build machines, file servers, etc.) and $2m cash.
writeoff
other major companies donating $2m cash to mozilla.org
Nobody's offering them jobs either.
All right! (Score:5, Funny)
Better than perfect? (Score:3, Insightful)
How'd they do that? My Mozilla 1.7 blocks 100% of pop-ups. You can't get much better than that.
Re:Better than perfect? (Score:3, Funny)
What I want to know... (Score:2, Interesting)
Some sites outdated (Score:3, Informative)
Also I've noticed English is the only language 7.2 is available for, will others be added?
First post ... (Score:5, Informative)
no OS9 version (Score:3, Interesting)
Although IE is the best browser for 9, it is lacking some more modern features (tabbed browsing, etc).
oh well...
Umm... based on Moz 1.7 or 1.7.2? (Score:4, Insightful)
One would hope the latter...
There is at least one nasty bug [mozilla.org] that got fixed between 1.7 and 1.7.2 [mozilla.org].
Re:great (Score:2, Funny)
Yep, they did, and it's only US$9.95 per month. I use it at home, and I'm fairly happy with it. They did screw up on one billing by charging twice, but they fixed it before I even noticed, and they credited me with three free months.
I'm hoping they don't fire the person in Accounting responsible. I want it to happen again!
Re:Right mouse button? (Score:2)
You can get around this in two ways:
View->Page source and then cut/paste the images/text you want.
Or you can also copy the current http page, and use it as input into an command line utility such as "lwp-rget".
Re:Right mouse button? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does it matter? Opera's still the best browser. (Score:2)
You're probably a web developer, which means Opera probably is best for you. But it wasn't even worth the Google ads for me. I'll hang onto Firefox for my customizable tabs and memory.
Re:Does it matter? Opera's still the best browser. (Score:3, Informative)