Yesterday I talked about downloading Netscape 8 and promised to tell you what I thought. I also complained about Netscapes stupid "Outdated" browser message. Well this morning from slashdot comes the story that Netscape released a patch to Netscape 8 so that it had the same security as Firefox 1.04 (the same browser they called outdated yesterday).
I used Netscape for a while yesterday and came away with the conclusion that it is a crappy browser. Netscape has taken the basic Firefox browser and added a bunch of crap to it. This includes being able to use the Internet Explorer display engine (god knows why). The interface is cluttered and crappy. Overall the browser has all of the problems of previous versions of Netscape and very few of the benefits of Firefox. It also use twice the memory of Firefox (both when active and hidden). [Time to buy an insult thesaurus; I used the words crap or crappy three times in that paragraph]
I admit that I haven't kept up on Netscape news much lately, but it appears that Netscape has removed Composer from its browser package. I used to not care about Composer, but it happens to work well with WebCT. I hope that they decide to bring it back, but I don't hold out a lot of hope.
Posted by Noah Brimhall at May 20, 2005 09:15 AMFrom what little I know (and I've been in Hawaii for a week, so I'm not completely up-to-speed) Netscape 8 uses Firefox whereas Netscape 7 used Mozilla. Since Firefox doesn't have a Composer application, Netscape 8 doesn't.
I don't think they'll bring it back, since the Mozilla foundation has stopped working on the Mozilla package. They've shifted their efforts to standalone apps like Firefox and Thunderbird.
Posted by: Eddie Hargreaves at May 23, 2005 01:14 AMEddie is right. Composer is dead. NS8 is just a repackaged ( in the AOL tradition) version of Firefox 1.03 with the immediate update to 8.01 after you just downloaded 8.0. I suppose some of the toolbar stuff is interesting, but I can't stand toolbars. Other than PNH toolbar, that is.
I'm one of the few people I know that actually use the full version of Moz and I love it and will miss it. Firefox is great for surfing, but Moz has been a great workhorse for me. Stability, Composer, Javascript debugger, stability, tabs, flashblock, etc.
Posted by: Andy at May 23, 2005 11:07 AMThe Washington Post agrees with you about Netscape being a crappy broswer; from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052800163_pf.html
"Netscape 8.0 [...] has more in common with 1998-vintage Netscape -- ugly, awkward and unstable -- than with the sleek, reliable Firefox. AOL's developers started with a solid foundation and added two worthwhile innovations, but the results are a mess."
Posted by: xyz at May 29, 2005 01:10 AM