Miscellaneous Netscape Rants

The BBQ Pit
1

I hate my browser.

I’m using Netscape 4.7 (coincidentally, 4.7 is also the average number of errors per minute experienced during normal usage of the program).

Lately, Netscape just seems to crash totally at random every now and then. It’s not under any apparent duress either; no fancy java appelets, nothing else big that would choke the 15mb behemoth, just simple text and graphics. Of course, in typical Netscape fashion, it takes Win98 down with it EVERY DAMN TIME!

Also, Netscape really loves to lose cookies. Half the time when I come to the SDMB, I can’t tell if there have been any new posts, and my l/p are gone from the handy little form. I have to type and retype my zip code at tv.yahoo.com and weatherchannel.com because Netscape just sorta forgets them every now and then.

So tonight, after losing 15 minutes worth of a half-written SDMB post upon Netscape’s crashing, I got to thinking that perhaps they ironed out a few bugs and released an update. (As if a company now owned by AOL gives a rat’s ass about bugs.)

I first check ftp.netscape.com, then realize the downloads available on the ftp are only updated to ver 4.6. sigh Probably a ploy to go to their site and look at advertising.

So I go to netscape.com. And I immediately get a pop-up window for something called shop@netscape. Disgusting. I close the window and look at the actual page. Ummm Auctions, Celebrities, an article about the Hubble telescope, 5 cents a minute long distance, Online Personals, Stock Quotes Flight Reservations, “What’s Cool,”
etc, etc, etc … SO WHERE THE HELL DO YOU DOWNLOAD THE BROWSER!!!

And then I see it! A grapic of an arrow pointing down, approx 40 pixels square in size and the word “download” below it in plain, 8 point text.

Still 4.7 sigh

IE sucks too.

2

Let me tell you my sad story. I was a loyal Netscape user. “Netscape only, IE sucks.” I would lock up my computer all the time. You see that scroll bar to the right? If I clicked on it just right, I’d get a GPF and a message telling me to reinstall windows. My father-in-law, a web page designer, told me to dump Netscape and get IE, since he designs mostly to IE these days. Since I completely remove netscape and got IE up and going, my machine has become stabile. I telecommute 100% of the time, and need my browser to work with my client’s apps. IE fills that need for me. I also have high praise for Outlook Express. Since I have 4 different email addresses (3 ISPs in different states), it was a pain to check more than one at a time with Netscape. I had to set up different accounts (in Netscape), and jump from one to another. In OE, I can set up as many accounts as I need, and OE can check them all at the same time.

3

Puffington, I’ve just downloaded 4.7 and the goddamn thing keeps crashing. I was beginning to think it was a virus so in a way, I’m relieved. ::grumble::

Some drink at the fountain of knowledge…others just gargle.

4

Sadly, I need to add my voice to the chorus. I held out as a Netscape user for years, operating under the generally sound principal that selecting a microsoft product when an alternative is available is analagous to entering indentured servitude.

Netscape used to crash windows 95 (&98) daily. It also used to occassionally corrupt my registry so that my machine would lock on reboot. I have never had that problem with IE. Now, it is not surprising that microsoft’s browser integrates more smoothly with microsoft’s OS, but it is also not acceptable that Netscape interfaces so poorly with the OS that it brings down your system.

OTOH, I use netscape on Unix all the time and I have never had a problem with it.

Maybe a robust operating system is a good thing after all. :wink:

5

Well, kids, I hate to buck the trend, but I’ve been using Netscape since 1.0, and while the hideous code bloat really irks the hell out of me, I haven’t had any problems lately. I’m on 4.7 at home, Win98, and it runs like a champ (of course in a year of running Win98 I’v never had a BSOD–go fig).
I use 4.5 at work on Win9x, NT, and Linnux plats and have been fairly happy with it (although MS Outlook97, 98, and 2000 all like to crash Netscape, I can’t really blame that on anything but Outlook).

Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky. All I know is, Netscape treats me well and doesn’t sink its claws into my OS like MSIE does . . .

-andros-

6

I’m using Netscape 4.5 at work, and 4.0 at home; I can’t remember crashing either computer with Netscape. (Had plenty of crashes, especially at home, due to other causes.) I think the moral may be, avoid Netscape 4.7.

7

I’m not the only one “losing” important cookies while using Netscape? Oh, happy day!

Every time I reboot, Netscape erases the cookie information – not the cookies, they’re still there taking up space, but the information (like posts read, passwords, usernames, etc) are just … gone.

Yuck.

8

The problem is that you guys are using the newest version of Netscape. New doesn’t mean better. I’m still using Netscape 3.04, and so are all of my computer-knowledgeable friends. Windows 98 comes with IE 4 and I use that in the rare occasions when Netscape 3 gets java errors.

Netscape 3 is faster, easier to use and more reliable than 4, AND it doesn’t have those annoying ads when you get your email.

9

This is weird. I prefer Netscape, (currently using 4.6) and always have. I have it on my Win98 machine, and it rarely crashes. I always tell myself, if Netscape crashes, it just crashes, whereas IE takes Windows with it. But Netscape does crash now and then. I also have (somewhere on my cluttered hard drive) Netscape 3, which also runs just fine. Also, on my ailing 486 Win95 laptop, Netscape 3 runs MUCH faster and better than IE4.

However, I just got an old PowerMac running OS 8.1 (cross-platform gal that I am ;)) and it seems to hate Netscape. It wasn’t so bad when I had Netscape 3, but I “upgraded” to Netscape 4.07 for Mac, and it immediately crashes (and takes the whole OS with it) when confronted with RealAudio. I have signed up for a PowerMac mailing list (being a Mac newbie, I thought I might need a little support from other Mac users) and many Mac people on the mailing list use IE. Also, a few Mac books I’ve read recommend IE over Netscape. (They say “it’s one of the few Mac programs Microsoft got right.”) I am a Netscape gal all the way, so it irks me to use a Microsoft product (especially on a MAC!! but I feel I have no other option!

10

I must say that I have Netscape on my computer for one purpose only…To download the plugins I need to use Opera. It uses the same plugin format but no site recognizes thatso I need to periodically download the stuff with netscape and copy the plugin directory to the Opera plugin directory. Now, I might use Netscape more often if it could manage to actually consistantly browse through the three pages it takes to get and download a plugin without crashing…But no such luck. Thus I avoid it as much as I can. The downside to all of these troubles is the fact that when I’m using Linux Netscape is my only real choice for graphical browsers. I figured that it couldn’t be that bad because on the UNIX machines at my school I need to use Netscape but I was wrong. First the download was very screwed up and after wading through what felt like 10 screens of choices to get the browser I needed it would download the wrong one. When I finally got the correct one it installed itself so that it was not in a directory in the path. So I had to copy a link to the binary to the /bin directory so that I could actually run it from the command line. Once I finally got it working it manages to crash at least once a day and leave core files all over. It’s the only program that manages to make Linux completely unusable that I’ve ever seen. Also the font in Linux is very screwed up and I have it on 14 point to even be readable (although this may be my problem not Netscape’s). And finally it keeps popping up windows telling me to download plugins to view and hear stuff but none of the plugins have Linux versions. Why couldn’t it take 2 seconds longer and query the damn site to actually make sure that the fucking plugin existed? Anyway, I’m just waiting for Opera to be ported to Linux and I’ll be all set…as long as the plugins are downloadable.

11

I’ll heartily second Spiritus Mundi’s speculation - blame the OS, not Netscape. It used to give me trouble because of some complex stuff having to do with virtual memory; I got (someone else to get) that cleared up, and it hasn’t given me a problem since.

Mac OS 8.6. Apple might not have a future, but then, it hasn’t had a future for a really long time and that hasn’t hurt it.