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Netscape The Internet

Netscape 4.7 Arrives on the Scene 362

Posted by Hemos from the hearts-unfold-like-flowers-before-thee dept.
Stephen Donner wrote to let us know that Netscape 4.7 is out and ready for download, albeit for UNIX/Macintosh systems. The FTP server is behaving like a slug so be patient. Here's to hoping that when I download it, it fixes some of these JavaScript "issues".
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Netscape 4.7 Arrives on the Scene More

Netscape 4.7 Arrives on the Scene

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  • While I'm quite impressed that these suggestions were already thought of by one *certain* developer :-), I thought I'd throw out one more flip on/off idea...

    cookies.

    I'd love to turn on cookies for only a few sites (slashdot, Yahoo games, free email account), yet have it clicked off the rest of the time.

    This is different from allowing/disallowing by domain (like kfm does), because 90% of the time I don't want yahoo.com's cookies. Only when I leech off of their free services am I willing to (temporarily) accept the cookie. :-)

    Otherwise, I agree 100% with Tackhead on this one...
  • What's the point of that? The only reason I use Netscape in the first place is for Java (and Flash and whatnot). If it's a plain page, I'll use Opera.
  • Yes, I am aware that cookies can be turned of manually.. but it takes 5 clicks now:

    Edit
    Preferences
    Advanced
    Do not accept or send cookies
    OK

  • Netscape are not going to implement any major layout engine changes in the 4.x line. That's what Mozilla is for.

  • Re:Hope it fixes the BUS ERRORS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In my experience the bus errors were a result of bad/incomplete font information. Redhat had some some documentation on their site a while back about this too. Check your fontpath, and make sure you have the 75dpi font in there for a quick suggestion. have fun
  • See mozilla.org for a rewritten browser architecture that will eventually do this.
  • Just went ot the site to download it for My Mac G4...the Window verion is up
  • ::For the ultimate in window-spawning abuse, go here. [Timex's Internet Time site]::

    Does anyone know if the latest version of internet time is mirrored anywhere? I can NOT find it ANYWHERE in that POS, poorly designed, JavaShit obsessed site.

    Their webmaster, aside from being fired, should be drug out into the street, shot, then roasted over a spit.

    -Lx?
  • Nop
    NS doesn't work for me either. Crashes all the time, etc. The only reason I still use it is because IE's bookmarks are totally stuffed, they are 4kb files, their sorting stuffs up if you move them around in explorer, you can't use separators, you can't use special chars etc etc.

    I'd be happy with NS3.01 if it had CSS support! Right now I use NS for most stuff, and IE for mail etc, cuz NS doesn't want to support multiple pop accounts. I still use NS mail, because that's where I keep subscriptions, so I don't have to copy urls over from outlook X.

    Right now, I have NS open, and a "ns crash" box hidden in the corner, because when you press close, it just pops up another crash message. I can't even open the close prog. dialog to kill that thing...
  • Well, do something about it. Test it with Mozilla and file bugs at bugzilla.mozilla.org.

    Real support for PNGs is coming. Full alpha is due before beta from a non-Netscape developer.
  • Indeed!

    Upgrading to NS3 from 4.x is so great, both memory wise and speed (rendering) wise.

    Too bad developer.gnome.org [gnome.org] doesn't work too well with it :/
  • Actually, Netscape said a while back that they were relying on a feature of that old rev of Mercutio which was removed in the more recent versions, preventing them from simply copying in the most recent revision.
    They requested and received an update to that old version to fix the "freeing GHandle" problem, which is what would cause the crashes. So Netscape is not suffering from that particular cause of crash on the Macintosh, even though they are using an old version.
  • What possible reason should I give a damn? Netscape 4.x is a fat, bloated, buggy and badly designed piece of crap.

    Me, I still use 3.04. Pages that require 4.x, don't bother to read them.

  • I DL'd the HPUX version and tried it for an hour or so. Pretty much the same. New buttons are annoying. Things like font sizing are no more convenient to adjust (under *nix, the <ctrl>-[ and <ctrl>-] controls don't work), and any number of other interface bugs are retained. Session finally died in a blaze of glory trying to navigate through the Swatch site (see elsewhere -- popup windows) with Java and Javascript on but images off.

    Facelift. Nothing new. Sticking with 4.61 (bugs, warts and all). Wish I had something better. Hoping to give Mozilla following a few other system changes.

  • Most of this could be added using Mozilla's scriptable skins so you could you "expert chrome". As to whether the back-end supports this yet, I don't know.

    There are plans to eventually allow this sort of thing to be defined permanently on a site by site basis too (post initial release I think).

    I'll submit bug reports on these things since they make a lot of sense.
  • It crashes with equal reliability on every OS I've used it on - IRIX, AIX, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Windows NT, Win95, Win98, MacOS...

    I guess it's fine if you shut it down and restart it every day. If you forget to, it does it for you!

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Another deficiency in Mozilla is that it doesn't seem to support JavaScript... I've only taken a cursory glance at it, but my JavaScript code seems to be dead... Normally, I wouldn't complain -- Javascript's more hype than substance -- but I've been using JavaScript lately to manipulate layers (a la www.php.net) and I'd like to be able to do that in Mozilla too.

    Linux: n., antidote to the common "Windows" virus.

  • Does anyone know how long it will be until the RPMs will be made available on rpmfind.net? Hrm... I don't know if it exists in the closed source world yet- but a CHANGELOG would also be appreciated if someone would post it here. (Having just downloaded 4.61 two days ago, I need to know if it is worth it right now.)

  • I feel like a sales droid saying this.. (Score:3)

    by LordXarph ( 38837 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @04:46PM (#1651996) Homepage
    IE5 has got it right. First off, the "desktop integration" is down to IE3 levels, rather than IE4. But there are three main reasons I'm using it over Netscape right now:

    1) It renders large tables almost on the fly.
    2) You can customize the toolbar and take out all those buttons you never use (you can have a toolbar consisting of merely back, forward, and stop if you wanted.)
    3) Drop down menu for language encoding. I can go to one of the many japanese sites in my bookmarks and it automatically decodes the JIS. I NEVER got this to work in Netscape.

    -Lx?
  • Maybe now I will be able to install Quick Time 4 in Netscape. I was never able to do it in 4.6

  • In regards to this statement;

    "I've visited all the URLs that people are saying hang their Netscapes, and it seems to be working just dandy for me. I have Javascript on, Java off."

    I suspect that most of the people that are saying this are using Netscape on a Linux platform with Java on. Under those circumstances, it does seem to have a problem with versions 4.5 - 4.6.

    For the most part, I think IE is ugly, Netscape seems to have some issues with DHTML standards, and they both offer little or nothing in the way of customization (skins, themes, etc). I still prefer Netscape for reasons relating to the Windows OS, but neither of them are any good as far as I am concerned.

    Otherwise, I can't wait to see Neoplanet come to the Linux world using Gecko.

    BDKR
  • Press escape. Maybe not obvious, but it works. Man, I've clicked that option by mistake too many times....
  • Found a fix for that annoying new "Shopping" button (under UNIX). It's also possible to disable the "Search" and "My Netscape" buttons (among others, I'm sure).

    Add any or all of the below lines, as you see fit:

    Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false


    Hint to others trying to customize Netscape: Use the "strings" command on the netscape binary!

  • Re:Last chance, Netscape (Score:3)

    by EricMcD ( 83669 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @04:48PM (#1652005)
    The name of the environment variable that turns off the dns_helper is actually MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS

  • good? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I kind of doubt that it's really worth the time I would have to spend on it... Netscape hasn't been very good lately... No, not at all...
  • So, I've been running XFree86 3.9.16, since my multiheaded hardware horribly confuses previous XFree releases. Everything works great, except Netscape. And I can't get Mozilla to compile? Any progress/hacks with 4.7 to make it work?
    ---------
  • Moz is currently partially using GTK but it is moving towards its own widget set before release which is fully styleable using CSS unlike other widget sets.
  • I can't get on to ftp.netscape.com. It times out after my client sends "PASV". Anyone else?
  • Hmmm, no Linux binaries yet as of 16:15 PDT. But the most recent binaries were posted 7 minutes ago, so maybe they're still building them. :-)
  • it looks like they took it off the ftp site. not there now.
  • Sure they haven't spent a whole lot of $$$ on the 4.x line since the Mozilla project began, but why should they?
    I agree. My point exactly. But this doesn't change the number of users complaining about stability.

    You have to keep in mind these (4.5 on, or so- I forget...) are for the most part maintenance/ security fix releases. It would be foolish to attempt to rewrite major parts of the code, such as the rendering engine, multiple POP mailboxes, better CSS support- the list goes on...
    I beg to differ. It would be a good idea to fix the stability problems, whether or not that involves rewriting a large portion of the code. They're BUGS!

    No investment to lose? I beg to differ. While for home users the product is free, it sure isn't for the corporate client.
    Ah yes, corporate users. Alot of corporate users are using M$ everything, including IE. Not alot of corporate clients use *nix, from what I understand. I think knowing the real numbers would help.

    And Mozilla? Cut them some slack. Is the code even alpha yet?
    Okay, okay, but from previous discussions on /. a few have mentioned the mess in that codebase and noone has said otherwise.


  • Grats for the info... but the .shopping.isEnabled doesn't work.. must be under a different name, still trying to get rid of it myself cause it's annoying... also, ns 4.7 adds a "Find" button next to stop..... didn't give it enough screen area before with my netscape and such enabled...

    moderators, up the previous post to at least +2!!! This is good info that shouln't be skipped over...

    back to working on disabling Shop button now, maybe find too...
  • I currently run Debian (potato) and have found that since I upgraded glibc a month or so ago, Netscape has been FAR FAR FAR more stable than it was before.

    It still does crash occasionally, but nowhere near as often as it did before.

    So I guess I'm saying that if you're running a glibc distro, try upgrading to the latest libc version.

    If you happen to run debian, a regular:

    apt-get update
    apt-get dist-upgrade

    should keep your libc updated...

    May be hard to admit, but possibly there are instabilities in libc that are contributing to the problems. It definately improved things for me anyway...

    Doesn't change the fact that its still a bloated pile of uh.. stuff tho, netscape using 20Mb ram as I write.. :)


    smash(currently libc6 2.1.2-2 and netscape-base-4 4.61-21 debian packages installed)
  • Does anyone know how to remove buttons from the toolbar?

    I don't know about removing individual buttons, but I just leave the button bar collapsed since there is too much garbage on there that I don't need. I use the right click menu to get 'stop' and 'back' commands. The 'esc' key does an even better job at stopping a page load.
  • You probably mean this:
    http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/990807-8.ht ml

    A) It is not a fix for the bus errors
    B) It _partially_ fixes some java problems

    Overall, using Netscape is hell, but there is no
    choice at the moment (except lynx maybe :-).
    Regards,
    MK

  • Hi, been playing around with 4.7 for a while...
    It seems much faster than 4.61, Im using the
    Navigator version.

    Cheers,

    Uwe
  • Well most bugs can be attributed to "sloppy coding". Sloppy coding does not mean trouble for future versions - bad architecture does. That's why Mozilla is a near entire rewrite. It bodes well for future versions.
  • Things are much better now that some of those annoying buttons are gone. (Well, all but the security info one, anyone know the resource name for that one?).

    Now if there was only some way to make the buttons be on the same bar as the url entry...
  • Odd thing: run

    /usr/local/netscape/netscape -mail

    and close it by using the fvwm2 Close function, and it finishes with a `Bus Error' (though it seems to clear up after itself OK)

    But: run

    /usr/local/netscape-dynMotif -mail

    with the latest version of LessTif, and it exits cleanly.

    Funny old World!

  • They sure does. It's one of the main objectives to get Purify and friends happy.

    Ironically, one of the biggest contributors in this area is not from within Netscape (Thanks Bruce!).

  • > Call it a troll if you want, but ....

    It's a troll.

    Howard Owen hbo@egbok.com Everything's Gonna Be OK Consulting

  • I use Fortify, it works beautifully. It actually also works better than the 128 bit domestic grade version, in terms of providing better SSL security; go to the Fortify web site and read up on it.
    ----------

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by deicide ( 195 )
    This can be done using Netscape's Client Customization Kit (that's what it is officially called I think). If you search around Netscape's site, you should be able to find it (here actually [netscape.com]).

    It lets you change buttons, menus, default options, throbber and lots of other neat stuff. It's primarily designed for ISP who would like to package their own Navigator versions.

    I also believe they have a different CCK package for every Communicator version, so you'll probably need to wait for 4.7 CCK to come out.

    Alternatively, some hackery can be done using Windows resource editor that ships with most Windows IDEs.

  • Maybe now I will be able to install Quick Time 4 in Netscape. I was never able to do it in 4.6

    Umm, try putting the Quicktime plug-in in the plug-ins folder, if the Quicktime installer hasn't already done that for you.


    --

  • Cool new features also include:

    user_pref("browser.chrome.disableMyShopping", true);
    user_pref("browser.chrome.disableNetscapeRadio", true);
  • You should go to IE5. I'm sorry, but IE5 is so much better than any version of Netscape it's not even funny.

    That's true, of course. But please, please don't forget that it is also a newer version. It is incredibly unfair to compare Netscape 4.7 to IE 5.

    As an analogy let's imagine that Ford had a monopoly in the auto field. They own every auto lot, and it is very hard for Chevy to sell vehicles. Not only that but Chevy doesn't have the R&D budget that Ford does to develop new vehicles so their vehicles are falling more and more behind. They stop development on their current lines to develop a new line. Now Ford has no competition. They *still* sell the cars but don't improve them apart from a bit of needed maintainence. Does anyone buy their cars? Probably, but they are old tech by know with none of the features that Fords cars have. Does that mean that Chevy's new line is going to be bad also? No, when Chevy releases their new line people will be able to decide *then* that it is better then Ford.

    I use IE 5 now. Is that a problem? Of course not. However, when Mozilla is released I'll evaluate whether it's better and then make the decision of whether to use it. I've been following progress and I think it *is* going to be better. So yes, Windows 95 is better then Win 3.1, Caldera 2.3 is better then Caldera 1.3, a color TV is better then a B/W one, IE 5 is better then Netscape 4 *now*. Don't assume that'll always be the case, because that's the way it is in the present.

    But we are all very smart here and already knew that, right? :)

    -Brent
    --
  • I have made debs for netscape 4.7 available. I won't be putting these in potato, until fortify can recognize them.

    The good news, is that my dual-celeron 333, running netscape, and rendering fm, is as fast as a p120-nt box, running IE. Before, it was 1/3 as slow.

    Click here [debian.org] for information on how to use apt to fetch the new debs.

    • Do not load images from other sites as the HTML-page
    /Alex
  • I suspect that the task of bundling it up will take a couple of days, more if it's a challenge to get through to the web site...

    This doesn't sound like it's a "MPL" release, which is really too bad...

    I'm sure with you on the "sure would be nice to have a CHANGELOG " thing. I'll be happy to wait a few days and see if the release is truly an improvement, or if it has any critical bugs that flaw the release.

  • IE 5 hasn't failed -you are lucky (Score:3)

    by scabpicker ( 30933 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @05:35PM (#1652112)
    Well, maybe it is offtopic to compare the two browsers, but I support IE 5, and if it has not failed/hosed the os (if you are on windows) then you are lucky. I get at least one call each day from a tech with a customer that has an IE that will not open- no error, it just does not open. Repair, uninstall/reinstall does not fix it, and since there is no error, there is not really any way to troubleshoot the problem (fourtuneately since IE "becomes part of the OS" we can then refer them to the mfr. who will have them format and reinstall, and this is support for a company that is partly OWNED by microsoft). Add the supremely large acive x security hole to the mix, and I wouldn't install it on my computer, even if they did make one for my OS -which they won't. But I will give it this, IE 5's problems are at least less frequent than IE 4's (I still support it too), and 4's problems gave you a trashed os a lot more often than 5 does. At any rate, if you are using windows, the last thing I would advise is to install an application that makes the os less stable and secure, If Netscape crashes or becomes completely unusable, at least that is all that crashed.

  • I found most of this by poking around in the Netscape.ad file that was in the installation directory (/usr/local/netscape is default, I believe).

    Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.destinations.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.myshopping.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.viewSecurity.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.print.isEnabled: false
    Netscape*toolBar.home.isEnabled: true

    I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me how to get rid of that "What's Related" button.

  • Yes, with X resources (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @05:37PM (#1652118)

    I don't know where the documentation (if any) is, I figured most of this out by reading the XFE code. From my .Xdefaults:

    Netscape*toolBar.search.isEnabled: false
    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*MailThread*toolBar.numUserCommands: 2
    Netscape*MailThread*toolBar.userCommand1.commandNa me: separator

    Netscape*MailThread*toolBar.userCommand2.commandNa me: compressAllFolders
    Netscape*MailThread*toolBar.userCommand2.labelStri ng: Reveal
    Netscape*MailThread*toolBar.userCommand2.commandIc on: Search
    Netscape*MailThread*toolBar.userCommand2.documenta tionString: Reveal filed messages

    I haven't downloaded, but I bet I'm going to be adding a "shopping.isEnabled: false" line real soon now..
  • > Well, all but the security info one, anyone know the resource name for that one?

    Yep:

    Netscape*toolBar.viewSecurity.isEnabled: false

    If you installed netscape via the Redhat RPM, I found these in the file /usr/doc/netscape-common-4.08/Netscape.ad

    I also got rid of the My Netscape button (destinations), Home (home), and Search (search) buttons the same way, replacing "viewSecurity" in the example with the items that are in parentheses. My tool bar looks MUCH nicer now with only 5 icons in it!

    P.S. Also added this one: :-)
    Netscape*blinkingEnabled: False
  • Here's my "All I Ever Wanted From Netscape Or Mozilla" list, for which I've been waiting since Netscape 3.01:
    • Image autoload on/off from the Options menu with one click, like NS3.01.
    • Java/Javascript enable/disable from the Options menu with one click, unlike any Netscape version ever released.
    • GIF animation enable/disable from the Options menu with one click, unlike any Netscape version ever released.

    Heh. I implemented these in the 3.02 codebase years ago. Plus S/MIME. Too bad they wouldn't let me release it as 3.1 back before 4.0 shipped. It would have been a "distraction", apparently.

  • Um, hello? The original poster never said he was running Linux or any flavor of Unix. Not everyone here runs Linux.

  • Re:Wait for Mozilla-Based Netscape (Score:3)

    by MattyT ( 13116 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @09:09PM (#1652130) Homepage
    Layers are non-standard and the decision was made to not support layers through Javascript. Mozilla will not support it. Instead, CSS should be used from now on.

  • Re: async DNS (Score:5)

    by Jamie Zawinski ( 775 ) <jwz@jwz.org> on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @05:39PM (#1652131) Homepage
    Netscape always eats 100% CPU when doing gethostbyname from it's external async DNS process. This happens regardless of whether you type the site name on the command line or in the location bar.

    It isn't really a bug, since it is implemented exactly the way it was designed. It is still a bad design. Maybe you should send them a note.

    The hell it's not. It was not designed that way, it was designed so that both processes would be idle until such time as the DNS server responded. See unix-dns.h [mozilla.org]. Someone must have botched things so that netlib is looping calling DNS_ServiceProcess() repeatedly, even though the fd returned by DNS_SpawnProcess() has not yet been marked readable.

    This isn't too surprising, though, since netlib is such a mess that this "looping" failure mode is one of the most common things to go wrong.

  • > I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me how to get rid of that "What's Related" button.

    This is true under Netscape 4.08, I think it's the same under the later versions.

    Go to Edit->Preferences->Navigator->Smart Browsing and click on the checkbox that says "Enable What's Related". It should be unchecked when you're done. Then just click on "OK" and it should go away.

    When I first got Netscape4, one of the first things I did was search through every menu item until I found out how to disable that stupid thing. :-)
  • Funny. I can't get in through Netscape at all, but the Linux "ftp" command is very responsive. Downloading the Linux glibc2.0 version now!

    Any news on a glibc2.1 version? (Anyone know if it really matters?)

  • Last chance, Netscape (Score:4)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:26PM (#1652144) Homepage
    Yeah, okay, I'll give Netscape one last chance.

    But I gotta be honest -- I'm really unhappy with the last few versions of Netscape. They've been pulling a MS: building tonnes of extra (and, IMHO, unneeded) features in and sacrificing stability.

    Netscape is the *only* application on my desktop that crashes chronically. I have to pull up a command line and kill -9 it at least 3-4 times a day. It's not like I'm doing anything but surfing /. and a few HOWTOs.

    So, if there's anybody out there who has any pull at Netscape reading this: FIX THE STABILITY. This is your last chance with me and (I'm sure) a lot of other users.

    Otherwise, hopefully Mozilla will be good when it finally comes out (anyone have any idea when that'll be?).

    ----

  • Here's how to make Netscape more stable!!!! (Score:3)

    by GooberToo ( 74388 ) on Wednesday September 29, 1999 @06:59AM (#1652149)
    Okay, this has done wonders for me. I was constantly having Netscape puke on me. I turned off Java and Javascript. That help tons. Then, I got tired of not having javascript one day. I turned it back on and found that the majority of my stability issues were related to have Java turned on. So, I went on with Java disabled. Then, I came across this. Make sure you see:
    [root@mouse /root]# chkfontpath --list
    Current directories in font path:
    1: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled
    2: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled
    3: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled
    4: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
    5: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1
    6: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo
    7: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
    8: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi

    If you don't see this, add them! I now have had Java enabled for the last week and only had one crash (async DNS related). In short, I've been much happier. I no longer have to practice yoga for 12-hours a day to calm down and am now back drinking ten pots of coffee per day.

    Hope it helps the rest of you!!!
  • I agree wholeheartedly... I love new releases. And considering how long its been since 4.6, that means they fixed a whole lot right?

    Do I hear Homer?

  • Re:Alternatives to Netscape (Score:3)

    by Raven667 ( 14867 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @09:57PM (#1652163) Homepage
    I use KFM for most of my browsing as well. Except for right now, I'm on someone elses computer using Opera. KFM is pretty cool, I have a friend who made a torture test page that loads frames recursively. It will load a framset that splits the window into 2 sections, the page that it loads is itself. A refresh tag every couple of seconds and it quickly turns into hundreds and thousands of frames. KFM is the only browser that we have seen to handle this correctly, Netscape crashes, IE crashes, KFM keeps working until the computer completely runs out of memory (real and swap) and the process dies. This can take over a half hour, Netscape doesn't last 10min. Only time I saw a load of 16+ on a linux box.

  • 56 bit Standard Encryption. (Score:4)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:31PM (#1652173)
    This appears to be the 56 bit Standard (Exportable) Encryption version. I think I'll put off downloading/using this version until the 128 bit version is released. It will probably be a few days before their web pages are updated; which is too bad because they'll never let you ftp the files straight from them with all the encryption laws.

    Anyone see the 128 bit Strong Encryption version floating around?
  • Fortify's homepage says they don't support Netscape 4.7. So good luck Miss AC.

    Joseph Elwell.
  • Umm... if you're going to threaten them with switching to Mozilla I don't think its going to bother them too much :)

  • Yeah! A "Shop" button! (Score:3)

    by dzerkel ( 89036 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:34PM (#1652181)
    This is the kind of break through we've been waiting for for hundreds and hundreds of days!

    But that's not all! A "Radio" thingy. Of course, the page is not found, but it's definitely a break through in convenience.

    The release notes file is missing, too.

    Upgrade immediately to get the satisfaction of 0.0.9th of a release.

  • Amen to that (Score:5)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:34PM (#1652185) Homepage
    Good point; real PNG support is critical now.

    If they fully implement PNG tomorrow, it'll still be 1-2 years before I can justify using it in site design (because you gotta let the don't-wanna-upgrade sect catch up). I don't wanna use UNISYS's .gifs anymore, but .jpgs don't work in all situations.

    Another thing: let me shut off the ability for sites to spawn new windows. It don't want every damn site I go to sending me to porn sites and casino sites so the damned site owner can make a few cents. Shut it off, I'll turn it back on if I ever feel like smacking gophers.

    ----

  • I used to have the same problem, crashing when closing windows. That actually seemed to be the fault of the mail component. Since I switched to mutt for email, I haven't had a single crash when closing a browser window (it still crashes more than any other non-beta Linux app I've ever seen). I think this has been all but confirmed as a glibc 2.1 issue (I'm also running potato). Perhaps we will be able to get 4.7 compiled against glibc2.1 and fix this mess
  • if by 'hosing' you mean stop the os or stuff it up terribly - NO.
    if you KILL BASH does that 'hose' linux? no.

    1) Setup IE to start up in a new process - enable open folder in new process as well. That way no matter if you're browsing locally or on the internet - and something goes wrong the OS is not 'hosed'
    2) Say you don't do (1), if Explorer crashes it will restart - if it doesn't for some god unknown reason (never happened here) just C-A-D and restart it.
    3) See, no hosing.

  • Re:56 bit Standard Encryption. (Score:3)

    by Isaac-Lew ( 623 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:42PM (#1652202)
    Keep checking ftp://ftp.replay.com (in the Netherlands, not subject to US export laws). Wasn't there yet, hopefully will be in a few days.

  • Use of system Java runtime? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do they use the JRE installed on your linux system, or still include their slow buggy version?

    It would be nice if it would use the JRE that the other java apps on the system used for displaying applets.
  • ok so it's not quite with the topic, but it kinda links with Mozilla.

    Anyone heard of NetCaptor? Win32 only, but it does a lot of the things people have been muttering about here. And it'll be able to use Mozilla's layout engine when it's ready..

    Well, I like like it, anyway (for when I'm stuck in win32 land, that is)

    www.netcaptor.com is where it's at.

    Matt

  • Re:Last chance, Netscape (Score:3)

    by Demona ( 7994 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:45PM (#1652209) Homepage
    The Seamonkey milestone page [mozilla.org] should give you a rough idea of when each upcoming Mozilla version will be released. Currently, they're aiming to go beta roughly in February, with feature-completeness and 100% UI freeze in late December.

  • SlashMirror has glibc2.0 now (Score:4)

    by Slash Mirror ( 88193 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:45PM (#1652210)
    ftp://128.253.254.56/communicator47/glibc20complet e/communicator -v47-export.x86-unknown-linuxglibc2.0.tar.gz [128.253.254.56] (16.2MB)

    more available as I get them . . .

    SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers

  • 4.7 and still the CSS sucks... gods know we can't cascade elements properly!

    And on a Mac note, Netscape still hasn't updated to the latest version of the Mercutio MDEF. Using an old copy of the MDEF with MacOS 8.5 + will cause crashes. It takes like 30 seconds to fix in ResEdit and can be done for free... yet a year later, Netscape still hasn't fixed the problem! Argh!


  • Just put this into your ~/preferences.js file and say good bye to netcenter.
    config("toolbar.places.default_url","http://www. someurl.org/");
    Although on Linux you have to echo that line into pereferences.js everytime you start netscape. The line will be removed when netscape exits.
  • 1. I don't know, but I'm the one providing *any* facts here. Besides, if it works under SP3, why would they have to break it for SP5? Like I said, it's a machine from Gateway that was *designed* to run 98/NT. Hmm.

    2. *I* was commenting on IE5 and ActiveDesktop separately, but if you want a correlation, they're both from Microsoft, they both *eat* RAM, and I'm sure they share DLL's, especially in Win '98. (remember that web-browser-integration-thing?) Also, ActiveDesktop *is* an option. It should be turned off, since it can't be easily un-installed. That was all *I* was trying to say about it.

    3. If they're using IE5, then they probably aren't using Linux too, so if they want something to feel guilty about... :) I agree, it's probably better to browse with IE5, but only because IE5 parses *content generated by Microsoft products* better, and gets a faster connection from IIS, and Microsoft-enhanced pages (like microsoft.com). Surprised? I hope not... Incidentally, I also don't use IE5 because its support for UNIX *sucks*! It only works on one special Solaris configuration with kernel patches, and probably about as well under HP/UX. Also, since they had to rip out all the DLL's separately, you get to see how much RAM IE5 uses by itself. Ugh.

    4. I don't know, but they do it all the time. Why advertise a free product? Why bundle an inferior product with your OS?

    5. Those facts were consistent and in the spirit of your original post. :) If you are indeed the same lame Anonymous Coward to which I was speaking earlier. I *never* said anything about IE5 shipping with ActiveDesktop. Put those words back in your mouth because I don't know where it's been. Anyhow, I've tested RAM requirements for IE, and run ActiveDesktop, and it's *slow* if it isn't on a fast machine. In fact, it's optimized for a faster machine. And if you haven't checked the ATI cards lately, getting that far is good, since they're all like: ATI Rage Pro Turbo AGP Ultra Frickin' Long Named Graphics Card. Maybe if they had a short, simple name for it, I'd remember. If I remembered the Gateway model #, I'd let you look it up. And I'm sure that anyone who followed the chain of original posts can tell who's posting their experiences and who's being inflammatory. I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader. :)
  • "Another thing: let me shut off the ability for sites to spawn new windows. It don't want every
    damn site I go t. . .

    Yeah, they need a big "disable JavaScript" button on the toolbar, so we don't have to dig through menus to find the tabbed preferences dialog to locate the page with the list of checkboxes which contains "disable JavaScript" while a dozen "hot young amatuer shaved asian squirrels soaked in donkey piss" sites load.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."

  • Re:56 bit Standard Encryption. (Score:3)

    by Tim Macinta ( 1052 ) <twm@alum.mit.edu> on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @02:54PM (#1652236) Homepage
    You might want to check out Fortify [fortify.net] if you can't wait. I haven't used it myself, but I know several people who have. It turns a normal version of Netscape into the 128 bit version.
  • glibc2.1 is binary compatible with glibc2.0 (theoretically anyway.. the netscape glibc2.0 releases have sucked on glibc2.1 for me anyway.. YMMV)

    -l
  • ftp://128.2 53.254.56/communicator47/maccomplete/Comm4.7_Compl ete_EX.bin [128.253.254.56] (12.9MB)

    SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers

  • You might want to look at KDE's new browser. (the one that will come with KDE 2.0) When it is released that said they plan Javascript and Java support. Those two things are the only things keeping me with Netscape now. Although it would be nice if we could get Flash and other plugins for Konqueror I doubt that will ever be possible.
    Also Opera for Linux is coming out soon. I've never used it but it is a Web Browser that people are willing to pay for, it must be some kinda good

  • Can buttons be removed from NS toolbar? (Score:3)

    by jbuhler ( 489 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:38PM (#1652263) Homepage
    Netscape 4.7 adds yet another button to the navigation toolbar, which is annoying because it further increases the amount of screen real estate required for me to be able to see the "Stop" button on the right. Right now, the "Shop", "My Netscape", and "Search" buttons are all candidates for removal -- if I could figure out how.

    Does anyone know how to remove buttons from the toolbar? Is there some hack to the preferences.js file that would do it?

  • Mozilla Feature Req: Easy image autoload toggle (Score:4)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:13PM (#1652269)
    Netscape 3.01: Options -> Autoload Images on/off. If off, clicking on the "Images" button in the toolbar loads images.

    Netscape 4.xx and above: The feature is there, but it's buried under umpteen menus and hard to turn on or off.

    That "feature" alone has made me never want to "upgrade" from 3.01.

    Here's my "All I Ever Wanted From Netscape Or Mozilla" list, for which I've been waiting since Netscape 3.01:

    • Image autoload on/off from the Options menu with one click, like NS3.01.
    • Java/Javascript enable/disable from the Options menu with one click, unlike any Netscape version ever released.
    • Pop-up window enable/disable from the Options menu with one click, unlike any Netscape version ever released.
    • GIF animation enable/disable from the Options menu with one click, unlike any Netscape version ever released.

    If I have to download 50M of bloatware to get any or all of those four simple features, I'll do it over a 14.4k link and give you my snail-mail address and all the demographic data your marketers want. If I have to download 3M of the most elegantly-crafted code on God's green earth over a T-1, but lose the ability to easily enable/disable image autoloading that I have with NS3.01, it's still a downgrade, not an upgrade as far as I'm concerned :)

  • Re:Wait for Mozilla-Based Netscape (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, I've been using both the nightly and the Milestone builds for a while, and while it looks great - I won't use it as my primary browser -just yet-. The mail client, which never authenticates my password on my POP3 account, leaves much to be desired. And while Moz should be feature complete by November 2nd, I wouldn't count on that, either. Lots of bux fixes keep going up, but Bugzilla still shows lots more. Also, I think M11 is going to be delayed, I know they were having problems with the XP widgets and what nots. -Stephen Donner who's still waiting for the 4.7 Win binaries.

  • Bless you (Score:3)

    by KMSelf ( 361 ) <karsten@linuxmafia.com> on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:20PM (#1652281) Homepage

    (Sounds better than "me too").

    Each of these options is to die or (if you're thinking more clearly), to kill for.

    <rant> KFM -- the times that I used it -- seemed a nice, minimal, fairly lightweight browser. I use Lynx a fair bit but it suffers grossly from poor page design. Opera is supposed to have a good, clean, client. How about a browser that's just a fscking browser, people? Any other suggestions out there?
    </rant>

  • Official Word from Netscape (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:56PM (#1652287)
    From: Daniel Veditz 7:55 PM Subject: Re: 4.7 Release for Windows? Resent-From: mozilla-builds@mozilla.org To: mozilla-builds@mozilla.org Newsgroups: netscape.public.mozilla.builds Stephen Donner wrote: > > http://slashdot.org/articles/99/09/28/1825256.shtm l > > I posted the release of 4.7 for the Mac and Unix platforms, when are we > going to see the Windows 9x/NT builds? 4.7 has not officially been released. If you happen to have found something calling itself on our servers consider it an early bonus. -Dan Veditz

  • Do or die, Netscape...do it (Score:3)

    by Oscarfish ( 85437 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:22PM (#1652288) Homepage
    In my opinion Netscape has been going downhill fast since 4.03+. I just switched to IE this week after getting sick and tired of the literally dozens of illegal operations and hangs Netscape was giving me.

    The thing that got to me the most was the hanging - I'd close the browser and later start it again, only to find that a ghost had remained resident and prevented my new window to open! Then it would give me that not responding BS...

    I surf with usually more than one browser window open - I'd hit one of my favorite pages and go to visit another window, only to click on the window later and see only a screen with the other window's contents, and the browser hanging on "contacting host." Or how about when you surf to a page and none of the links would be clickable - you try to shut down but it hangs!

    One of my favorite sites, Thresh's Firingsquad [firingsquad.com], would freeze Netscape for about ten seconds while loading! This is on a dual Pentium III system folks, 256mb RAM, NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5, connected to a LAN. I don't think stability and dependability are too much to ask for considering these resources - apparently Netscape does because their software has gone in the crapper once version 4 came out.

    Those damn illegal operations: surf with more than one window and close a window? Maybe it doesn't like that, illegal operation. Add a bookmark? Maybe it doesn't like that, illegal operation. Hell, when I'd finally restart again it would destroy the changes I made to my bookmark file - these past few months I've found myself arbitrarily copying my current URL with CTRL-C just in case Netscape crashes and it would destroy my history, no lie.

    I'm tired of the crap, Netscape. Fix it: make it stable, light on its feet, and get rid of the crap nobody but braindead AOLers want - fix what's wrong with your software or I'll stay away forever.

    I feel like a Nazi using IE5, but it is stable, light, dependable. I'll continue to use it until someone gives me what I want: a clean, sturdy, and stable version of Netscape, whether Netscape is the one to bring it to me or not.

  • If you are really interested, you need to send your bug reports to rocksolid@netscape.com [mailto].

    The Netscape Linux developers were on Slashdot many months ago urging Linux users to send bug reports. They really do want the product to be stable.

    -jwb

  • Wait for Mozilla-Based Netscape (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:23PM (#1652296)
    The Mozilla team is wrapping up M11, which should be feature-complete for the beta version (which should follow not terribly soon after). We're in the home stretch now. Sure, you could download Netscape 4.7, with its wonderful new "Shop" button, but if you want to use an increasingly stable, fast, ground-breaking browser, use the Mozilla nightly builds and report bugs. AFAIK, the only major features we are missing are encryption (because we legally can't put them in at the moment) and OJI (which is implemented for some platforms, but I can't remember if Linux is one of them). New features we have, if you haven't seen the nightly builds, include a Search function which is similar in functionality to Apple's Sherlock (only better) and a whole slew of bug fixes since M9. Common. Go try it [mozilla.org].

    Think Mozilla.

  • I use 4.5 for EVERYTHING! Mail through imap, web of course, newsgroup, address book ... I can't live without it.

    Well let me get this straight, 4.7 doesn't change much. Some bug might have been corrected, a "shop" button added, but that is all folks!

    I have been testing Mozilla M9 for a few weeks now, and this is really neat. 1 hour to compile it (PII 300 - 96 Mb), but it is worth it. I wouldn't rely on it for my e-mail yet, but it sounds really promising.

    For those of you who are having these anoying bus error, there is a doc somewhere explaining what you have to do to get rid of that. If I remember well, it has something to do with the libc (bummer).

    Well, Netscape is as heavy as usual. Netscape is, I think, the only program I use on a daily basis that doesn't use any free in the source code :)

  • Re:Amen to that (Score:4)

    by B.D.Mills ( 18626 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @03:26PM (#1652299)
    I agree, proper PNG support is crucial. We all know how PNG is technically superior to GIF and does not have unacceptable patent restrictions.

    I use the (ick) Windows version of Netscape 4.6, and one thing that I have discovered is that PNG files with transparent areas are not rendered properly: the transparent areas appear as black. It looks horrible on a web page with a light background.

    I hate to say this, but I may have to change to Internet Explorer very soon unless Netscape fixes various unresolved issues, including the following:
    • The basic CSS bugs, such as some styles being ignored after a table appears on a page (when the table ends, many styles are not restored and are lost);
    • Proper PNG support such as recognition of transparency;
    • Resolving stability problems, so that Netscape doesn't crash frequently (yes, it happens on the Windows version, too, and has nothing to do with Windows itself);
    • Fixing the Java/Javascript bug where disabling Java or Javascript also disables style sheets.

    It is unacceptable for a software house with a large percentage of the market share to have such bad quality control, particularly in a market where other companies have competing products. If Netscape does not get its act together and soon, Netscape web browsers will soon go the way of OS/2.

    I will be evaluating the latest version of Netscape to see if these issues have been addressed. I hope they have, because there's really no excuse if they haven't been addressed.
  • Okay, there's tons of golly-gee-whiz features in Mozilla... In fact, I'm using the latest nightly (Win32) build as we speak. But I find it very worrisome that a lot of effort is being put into snazzy features, and very little is being done to make it usable. Like this very text input box, for example. Or the severe lack of basic functionality like user font settings (everything is in Times! augh! Kill it, kill it!) And to this day, nobody has explained that strange whirly spiral bar thing at the bottom of the window to me. I sure hope Mozilla turns out well, because as feature-complete browsers become bloatier and bloatier (NN, NC, IE) they're becoming less and less usable, and with more commerce-driven features, yet fewer useful features along the lines of a "Don't pop up windows" pref, a "Never animate images" pref, and other desperately needed comforts. Mozilla is obviously not there (otherwise it'd be released, neh?) but while it has made great strides this year, it has mainly been in the areas of development that I'd characterize as "fluff." "So go contribute something" you desperately want to say! Um... yeah, I have several weeks of my time to sit down and learn the guts of an enormous application just to add a pref checkbox, and a renderer hook to prevent animation. Right. Sure. I'd kind of think someone who was already working the code could be more productive than I could. The sheer immensity of the source prevents casual contribution such as I'd be willing to make.
  • Netscape always eats 100% CPU when doing gethostbyname from it's external async DNS process. This happens regardless of whether you type the site name on the command line or in the location bar.

    It isn't really a bug, since it is implemented exactly the way it was designed. It is still a bad design. Maybe you should send them a note.

    If you don't want netscape to spin on the CPU, you can export the environment variable NO_ASYNC_DNS with any value. Be warned that this will cause netscape to block for possibly long periods when doing DNS (a la 3.x).

    -jwb

  • "Fixed" in potato (?) (Score:4)

    by Daniel ( 1678 ) <dburrows@[ ]ian.org ['deb' in gap]> on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @04:09PM (#1652310)
    The current potato has a Netscape which is linked against libc5, which has at least substantially reduced if not eliminated this problem for me (it hasn't happened since that change, but that says nothing.. :) ). A bit of a kludge (I think probably the actual problem is binary incompatibility with glibc2.1) but it works.

    You should update your system more often if you want to live on the bleeding edge :-P

    Daniel

  • Am I The Only One... (Score:3)

    by Coda ( 22101 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @04:15PM (#1652318) Homepage
    ... that doesn't have any problems with Netscape?

    I'm running NT4/SP5, 96mb of RAM, dual PPro 200 (yes, old school, I know). No problems. It starts up quickly, it runs well, it's kind of a dog when it comes to rendering pages.

    I installed IE4 a while back to test it, and when it took a full 30 seconds to open, I uninstalled it. I think the main thing would be to only download what you need. If you don't need it for mail/news, DON'T DOWNLOAD COMMUNICATOR. Just download the browser.

    I've visited all the URLs that people are saying hang their Netscapes, and it seems to be working just dandy for me. I have Javascript on, Java off.

    I'm seeing a lot of "Netscape's crap" posts... does it work for anyone else, or am I alone on this one?

  • Re:Wait for Mozilla-Based Netscape (Score:3)

    by MattyT ( 13116 ) on Tuesday September 28, 1999 @04:26PM (#1652332) Homepage
    The new widget set is there so form widgets can be styled as per CSS as they should be. That is not fluff, that's an essential browser feature.

    First beta is about resolving all major usability issues. Whether or not the font is included in this I don't know.

    There are many things like you mention that ppl want, and they will be implemented, but a lot of people who do would implement them are hanging back for beta or release. Be patient.

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