Netscape 6

[Floppyman]

Hi all

Downloaded Netscape's latest the other day and so far it has been nothing but a dissapointment. It crashed on both my win2k dual PIII machine and my dad's PII win98 machine. It did seem to load pages faster but's its full of bugs and not even close to stable. I've gone back Nescape 4.7x since on my machine it's the only thing that will run halfway stable.

[Xayd]

Yeap, same here. It corrupted itself on my work machine (p2 333 64 megs of RAM, 98FE) right after the install and therefore hasn't graced my home machine with it's presence ;).

It had promise, but they blew their one chance to catch up to IE big time.

Believe it or not, I've been using 3.04 Gold here lately.

Maybe Opera...

Xayd

[mairving]

I have tried most of the combinations. 6.0 with NT, ME, 98 & Linux. It works awful with NT and I would assume 2000. Not too good with 98/ME. With Linux it appears so far to work better than 4.7. The jury is still out on that one. I think it is a matter of too little, too late for Netscape to remain in the game.

[PeteS99]

I like it, a little. Its just way too nitpicky. The skins are cool. Till it decides to really screw up a perfectly good table. Or when echo.com thinks its below 4.0.

[reboot]

I tried to down crash load Netscap crash e 6.x
I finally go crash t it all.
I tried ins crash talling it, and got to crash about 63 crash percent, when it crash crashed ag crash ain.
I restarted my computer and op crash ened Nets crash cape, and it cr crash ashed just openi crash ng my home crash page. crash
I deleted it, wiped my reg of the stupid thing, manually removed the bane of my existence (AIM), and reset the reg to my known good working backup from 2 days ago.
Guess what? No more crash, thankyou IE5.5SP1

[audiyoda]

I must be the only person on the planet that has not had Netscape 6 crash. Hasn't happened once since I downloaded it two days after it was in full release. Even if it does, I'll be damned if IE ever graces itself on my HDD again.

-Craig

[fredwest]

Hi guys,
NS6 (full release) on my NT4 SP6 box at work has been OK. It seems to use the best bits of PR1 which I like....but it does have a few basic bugs/problems which really should have been ironed out before release..

It's stable and hasn't crashed yet but I still find myself using 4.75 from time to time. I like the idea of NS6 but the execution of this idea is a little 'rough' around the edges. My main gripe is not being able to minimise the download window (without having to first minimise ALL windows).

I mailed Netscape with my gripes and said that I hoped that they'd sort them out soon. I don't know if this will happen before 2001 but at least I told these guys direct.....

I still like NS. If NS6 flops then I'll still use 4.75 or the later 4.76. I hope it won't but NS6 needs to have an iron run over all the creases......and those creases are quite apparent!

IMO, I'm a bit disappointed with NS6 overall. It's quick and fast but it seems to lack any 'major' user feedback....like when d/ling things....the cursor doesn't turn to 'busy' momentarily (as you would expect). It's as if it's working outside of the 'laws of how a browser should behave'.

I, for one, hope NS6 becomes as slick as 4.75....


Yours

Declan (aka fredwest) :)

[mairving]

It seems to have some rather severe bookmark problems. I have had bookmarks not show up and then voila they are there. Very weird problem.

[OOPS!]

Hi!,

Been using NS6.0 for about a week. I still think that for Windoze ME5.5 is more stable and slightly faster still, though the speed is getting close.

On Linux NS6.0 beats my old 4.75 flat out. More stable and even faster than ME5.5 on Windoze98.

I agree with fred, NS6.0 is still rough around the edges. I hope they can hang around to get it slicked up. I think that it shows potenital. But execution is a little lacking. It should be a better browser than it is.


OOPS!

[mairving]

It does seem like they could have produced a better browser in all the time that they had. I definitely think that they should have put out some versions between 4.7 & 6.0. They lost a lot of people just because they couldn't keep any interest. It's true though that AOL hurt Netscape as much or more than MS.

[Statica]

NS6 has no bugs, and is a decent performer .. but I still kicked it out of my Windoze systems. It doesnt have anything that really appeals to me that I couldnt do without adding in the new JavaRuntimeEnvironment.

Basically my Win2K system is so bundled with IE that I cant justify carrying a browser that though is pretty to look at, lacks much professional functionality. Here's why in all fairness I feel that IE is a lesser evil

* It may be faster, but it comes with AOhelL & no matter how much I loathe the M$ juggernaut, I hate AOhelL more. <b>At least M$ makes s/w that half works .. cant say the same abt the latter</b> All they have done is repacke mozilla and made it really bloated with crap like AIM & CNN.

*All it is is: it doesnt crash .. but Hey even my IE doesnt crash [PS: I am well aware of the security flaws of IE & am meticulous at patching it :)]

* Simplicity isnt a hallmark of the new NS, the installation process is cumbersome beyond belief, and whats more, it decides to clog up the drive with the setup files. Ok so one would argue that a custom setup of IE5.x would also keep a local copy of files cept make a text file that reads THIS FOLDER IS SAFE TO DELETE.txt [or thisfo~1.txt :p]. The point being .. if you were to try to resetup IE, you could reuse the same downloaded components .. NS6 is so blind that it insists on looking to its FTP mama for help.

* Ease of use again isnt quite on this street, notwithstanding a gazillion changing components all over the page ESPECIALLY for sites that are optimized for it [Time Warner sites :rolleyes:], components like auto-filling of webforms are entirely unintuitive.
[from what I researched & experimented with - do correct me if I am wrong]
While IE uses generic conventions [for example the form element "phone" throughout the web would be generic with your fone number] NS6 INSISTS that it store the form data as <I>site_IP/directory/form_script/form_element_name</I>data. That to me is the brainchild of a guy who had too much glue to sniff!
Of course the nice thing abt NS is that they encrypt pwds [but only if you decide to ask it]

* IMO The bane of IE, has and always will be VB & ActiveX, but at least I can tell it to go to h*ll and IE behaves a Netscape 4.x browser without looking stupid when coming across newer HTML tags.

So unless AOhelL, can really pull out a product that will do beyond what IE does for me .. there isnt any way it stays in the long run. Mozilla fits the bill a lot better.

Again as Mairving pointed out the lack of ANY development after 4.0 hurt. Every release after 4.0->4.x was simply an (unsuccessful) attempt at bug fixes NOTHING more. Every release from 6 is just an integration of crapware with mozilla project/gecko engine. Ask any wannabe hacker/script kiddie .. they know how to wrap BOservers with <A HREF="http://www.messagemates.com">messagemate</A> email fwds. NONE of it is their development. All they'd done is wrap AOhelL advertising with a perfectly serviceable OpenSource project. <b><font color="red">& when they've succeeded in getting even M$ haters & detractors to switch to IE & be happy, they've relegated themselves to another Corel Corp.</b></FONT>

Why the long rant? .. out of curiosity I tried uninstalling NS6, just for the heck of it .. and wait let me put this picture to show u what I feel like : <IMG ALT="Middle finger Extended UP. gif">

My 1.3cents US

[Edited by Ex-Static-Cling on 12-06-2000 at 10:57 AM]

[reboot]

LOL static. You said what I said, you just used a lot more words.

The uninstallation is an unbelieveable joke, and even more cumbersome than it's install procedure.
At least with IE, I can get (and keep) what I want, WITHOUT AIM, CNN, and whatever else it dumps in my lap, even if I don't want, nor have any intention of using.
Then if I want to peruse a few different websites, NS goes "running home to mama" for another plugin or java package, just to view a new font. THEN I have to restart the computer to view it after the install, and have long since forgotten the URL of whatever it was I needed the plugin for.
On a 56k (or less) connection, this procedure is downright painful!
NS still insists on creating an HTML file to store bookmarks, instead of the (MS) .lnk type, and try manually editing that HTML, and see what happens to your bookmarks.
Last time I tried it (NS), I deleted EVERY bookmark they shoved down my throat (I guess all those sites donated money to AOL for development), half were dead links, or led to even MORE advertising.
I can't agree with you about the lack of bugs though. My computer(s) found their share, and then some. Even a freshly formatted/installed Win95B crashed on trying to run NS6. Maybe if we all had perfect hardware, with a perfect OS already running (yeah right!), then NS 6 would work without flaw. As it stands, I consider it version 4.8 not 6, because (other than the skins) it's still the same. Here's MY version number:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; m18) Gecko/20001108 Netscape6/6.0
Kinda sounds like AOL5 don't it?
Biggest pet peeve: NS6 insists that it wants to act as a server, every time I start it. WTF is that all about?
The ONLY reason I have it, is to check my websites. NOW I need 6 browsers to do that. NS6, NS4.75, IE5.5, Opera, Mosaic, and the poor excuse they call WebTV.
Check out http://www.dynamicdrive.com and see how many scripts they have that WON'T run in NS6, but will run in all the others. And they (AOL) tell us that NS6 is compatible?

[Statica]

Hey Jim:
Your the reason I had that long rant! :D I read your post& decided to see what would happen when I tried to uninstall that POS. Boy did that ever ruin my day. I dont know abt you folks, but I suppose am one of those anal-retentive freaks who after uninstalling a program wants to go scouring through the registry for nonexistent references! [and meticulously doing make cleans & mrpropers on NIX] The whole experience made me feel like I fell on my face in the Sahara & was trying to spit out ALL the sand from my mouth .. an imposibility.

I suppose the platform had a lot to do with differences in performance. I ran it on a Win2K machine. Its rock solid as far as Im concerned.

Now here's something that I havent been able to test fully, and maybe someone could verify it as well. Try doing an NS install on a system with MVM and on a fresh system without the updated MVM .. any version of netscape... the comp that didnt have the MVM is a lot stabler on scripts, applets & such. I've never ever allowed M$ to put in MVM.

All the evils in that N are from Netscape Corporation .. the good from Gecko ... hope everyone can give credit where credit is due.

Cheers

[fredwest]

Hi guys,
Well, I have to say that I must agree with all of the comments made about NS6. It hurts me and it's sad that this new browser (Blame AOL!!) hasn't yet turned out like I had hoped.....

I had hoped that NS would have gone from 4.76 to 'Fantastic' in one leap and bound. Lord knows they had enough time to do so. Having said that I have yet to have it crash on my NT SP6 box.

I don't like NS6...or NSsick as I call it. I know there are a lot of you guys out there just rubbing your hands with glee saying 'I told you so' or 'What a fool (for want of a better word!) to even believe in them!

I still use NS 4.76. I still hope that NS6 will get its' act together and release a 'complete' browser. One that did everything that NS4X did.

Perhaps AOL has ruined it all......perhaps not.....I can only hope!

Does doubting what you believed in based on others info make you a 'bad' person????

May God help us all and Happy New Year!! :D


Yours

Declan (aka fredwest) :)

[eshort]

Hi Guys..

from my sickbed (terrible cold)..interesting comments re: NS 6--I tried three versions: the beta/the finale/ and beonex...all 3 worked OK for me for routine wen browsiong but i ended up removing all as they seemed to be sluggish..i liked NS 6's ability to remember paswords but agree it has many "issues" needing correction---

I use NS 4.7/ IE 5.5 and Opera..all work fine..on some notebooks, IE seems to present a smoother image for weather graphics..Netscape used to be fastewr but now I think its a dead tie--

Happy New Year ----)

PS-the uninstall for NS was a nightmare-had to manually deleate --incl all the registry settings (my fingers hurt!!)

[mikeL]

eshort, have you tried going to http://www.mozilla.org same exact browser as NS6 with out all the baggage works alot better then NS6

[M. A. Dockter]

mikeL: WOW! I'm on Mozzilla right now! It was a small download, and didn't come with all of that AIM crap that Netscape does. It also looks JUST like netscape. Very cool!

I suggest anyone that likes NS, but hates AOL download Mozilla Seamonkey!