Netscape 9 – A Better, Faster Firefox?

For kicks I tried out the new Netscape 9 web browser. Remember Netscape? Yeah, that one.

Netscape uses the Firefox 2.0.0.7 engine, so if you’ve been using Firefox, Netscape is almost identical to the Firefox interface.

Except for one thing:

Netscape uses far less system resource. I don’t know how Netscape did it, but this browser actually uses less memory than Firefox does even though they’re both “powered” by the same engine.

When I installed it I was able to import all my Firefox settings so there was absolutely no learning curve whatsoever. In addition this browser is fast. I like fast.

For those interested, there are absolutely no Flash issues in this browser. It’s a seamless transition from Firefox to Netscape.

It’s also been reported this browser runs super-smooth on OS X as well. I’m using it on XP and it runs flawlessly.

Check it out, you may like it.

Here’s a screen shot of PC Mech in Netscape 9 (click the image for larger view.)

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Rob
My friend, you have ashamed yourself and the rest of the technical community.. that sceenshot shows you have a peice of malware called “weatherbug” installed…
any self respecting “tech” knows spyware at thrity paces, how can you expect people to take you seriously
IT guy
I am having trouble taking you seriously with this review, when in your screenshot it shows that you are using WeatherBug. Weatherbug is a known piece of spyware. Common programs like Adaware and Spybot both pick that up as spyware. A google search will show that it is not only spyware, but also adware. Most people in the IT field have come to accept that it is spyware, and recommend the removal of it. There are reviews on the web that say it is not spyware, but when you take a look at what it does, it fits in with spyware. Even Windows Defender picked it up as spyware, but due to complaints to Microsoft from AWS Convergence Technologies, Microsoft removed the classification from the program. When several different unrelated anti-spyware programs pick it up as spyware, then it must be spyware. “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it must be a duck”.
darkstar3D
WeatherBug is malware. When you block its ability to talk to its malware servers, it slows your system down to being unusable. That was two years ago.
Not taking him seriously because of that! Wow, some tough nuts around here.
http://www.frostedside.com/blog/ Rich Menga
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2455
Complain to Mozilla. It’s listed in their directory. That’s where it comes from.
IT guy
Just because it is listed in their addons list, does not mean it needs to be installed. There is a lot of junk in there addon list, but most respectable tech guys won’t install it.
http://www.frostedside.com/blog/ Rich Menga
Wow, thanks for inferring I’m not respectable. You rock! No, really.. seriously.. you do. Your little nit-picking really helps out. Please continue to do so. I enjoy it.
Here’s a screen shot without the weather add-on:
http://www.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ns9_pcmech2.jpg
Are you happy now? Well, I guess not.. being that I can’t be respected.
And on inspection using NETSTAT.EXE -B, I found that there was…
wait for it…
No spyware. No “phone home.” Nothing. It turns out it’s just a regular ol’ safe web browser.
Amazing, eh?
Don’t forget to subscribe! Have a nice day!
Macguybrazil
Rich don´t waste your time with lammers. Good review for NS 9. I´m using smoothly in my PC and MAC.
Thanks for the tip.
darkstar3D
Agreed. My experiences were two years ago. Products do clean up there act sometimes.
Great tip though! It is using a fraction of space that FF took up on my system!
PhilT
But Netscape is owned by AOL! I’m not sure I could live with that. I stuck with Winamp for as long as I could but they are gradually ruining it and I’m now using … wait for this … Windows Media Player!
I might check it out anyway though
PhilT
Ok so the AOL website shows one version and Netscape Comms show another. I know Netscape has had a rough ride but what is the current state with them and AOL?
darkstar3D
Does it matter? I mean, I use a product until it doesn’t do what I want or something does it better. This so far seems better to me because of the smaller footprint.
PhilT
I’m not seeing this claim about less resources.
I just did a clean boot loaded up Firefox and Netscape (using the same homepage) and Firefox shows 16mb while Netscape shows 21mb. If I then browse to a couple of other websites and check memory usage again (admittedly on the flawed Task Manager) I see Firefox taking 36mb and Netscape shows 40mb. I used a new profile and removed any plugins from both browsers. Obviously, 5mb is not a lot to worry about and I do like the linkpad thing so I might use it anyway as long as it supports the plugins I’m using.
So is there something I’m doing to be missing out on the resource saving?
darkstar3D
I have an enormous 24 tabs open to various sites. FireFox is running at 318mb while Netscape at 265 with the exact same pages. Admittedly, I didn’t do a subjective comparison with a fresh, unmodded FireFox.
http://www.frostedside.com/blog/ Rich Menga
You won’t see the memory difference on first startup. You will see it later on.
Firefox is well known to have memory leaks..
http://www.google.com/search?q=firefox+memory+leak
..and this is what causes that browser to balloon up in system resources exponentially by using it for an extended period of time.
To recreate the leak, just open the browser and use it as you normally would. After a while check the Task Manager. The memory usage gets higher.. and higher.. and higher.
Several web sites suggest running Firefox in “safe mode,” but sometimes that doesn’t even cure the memory leak ill.
Netscape 9 in my experience does not do this. Granted, it’s not the “leanest” browser, but it doesn’t have the leak problem FF does for whatever reason.
PhilT
Firstly, some consider the Firefox Leak to be a myth. I’m undecided on this but…
I suspect the differences are down to different settings in about:config. http://internetducttape.com/2006/12/02/how-to-fix-the-firefox-memory-leak-firefox-hack/ shows some ways to ‘fix’ this ‘bug’ in Firefox and if you look in Netscape some of these settings have already been changed.
It would be nice for another browser to be smaller, faster and better but Netscape 9 is Firefox with different icons. Nothing wrong with that per say but not exactly groundbreaking and I don’t see how they could make it use less memory other than tweaking a few config settings. That seems the simplest explanation. Occam’s razor as they say.
darkstar3D
Did these quite some time ago. Dead end discussion.
raihan hasnain
WeatherBug? LOL
it comes with netscape. to close it, just right click and uncheck from display option. this is not a malware.
syrco
Weatherbug isn’t installed, it’s just like a stream from their website.