Friday, March 04, 2005

New Netscape release

Netscape has released a preview version of their new browser Netcape 8.0. I'm very excited about trying it, but I won't. They admit that this preview version is buggy, and I don't have the heart to replace my very stable 7.2 with it.

Sorry, Firefoxers. I just never really took to your browser. It crashed more than Netscape did, and that has been my #1 pet peeve since the days when you couldn't use Netscape 5.x for longer than 5 minutes without it crashing.

3 comments:

Chris said...

Really I have been running the Fox on two different puter for over 6 months not a lick of trouble. in the end anything but microsoft and your a winner

regards
GBfan

RPM said...

Btw, blogger sucks. It took me 20 minutes after clicking on 'post a comment' to see the comment window. Hmph.

Anyways, about Firefox - not sure how you define a 'Firefoxer', but as a Firefox user for about 4 months (default browser on home machine, not on office laptop because of incompatabilities with office stuff), I can tell you that I have *never* had a crash. I use it quite extensively, with about 3-4 extensions installed at any given time. I have 'SingleWindow', 'ForecastFox', 'FoxyTunes' and 'BBCode' installed right now.

I am also a very loyal (compassionate) Netscape fan. To the point that I downloaded the beta as soon as it became available. One big big thing in its favor is the fact that it renders pages like Netscape or like IE, per your choice. I tried some of the office related stuff, and it works exactly like IE. So I don't have to open a new IE window just to get my time sheet entered. At the same time, I am using a better browsing engine in the same application and am completely getting rid of IE. Could not be happier.

But there are so many downsides:

1. The interface is too busy. There are so many things moving, scrolling, clickable, movable, etc. that it almost becomes overwhelming. That was in fact my reaction to Opera too. Too much stuff.
2. Search is restricted to Netscape search only. I am a compulsive google-r. I need to have google as one of the options in the search engines. It is absent and cannot be added.

So if they either make the user interface simpler and cleaner, or let me do it (sad option), I will entertain it when it becomes final release. Otherwise, it is going to have to be Firefox and IE6 combination.

Strangely, in 3-4 days testing, rather infrequently, I found no crashes of Netscape. Which is a great thing.

Jib said...

Heh. Nobody seems to believe the darn thing crashes on me, but it does. When I finally gave up on it, it crashed about once a night, usually in conjunction with my use of Gmail or Blogger.

As for the new Netscape, I've been so pleased with 7.2 that I think I'll hold off until they have a final version. Your notes on it still get me itchy to try it, though.