For you not up on browser history, Netscape is based on the original NCSA Mosaic and made by the same people, making it one of the oldest web browsers in history. Netscape Communications Corporation decided to release Netscape’s source code under an open-source license in 1998, the genesis of the Mozilla browser as most users know it. Later versions of Netscape would be repackaged versions of Mozilla. Firefox was designed as a reaction against the creeping-featurism in Mozilla, spinning off the browser from the all-singing, all-dancing package that is Moz. Firefox gained marketshare against a stagnant and buggy Microsoft Internet Explorer, getting the attention of damned near everyone.
Now things have come full circle. The Netscape browser is being revived with an infusion of fresh blood from the Firefox code base. How well this will work is anyone’s guess, but it can only add competition to a market that was a couple years ago owned lock, stock, and HREF by one browser.
(My own experiences with Netscape are minimal, and limited to versions that were ancient when I used them. I refuse to comment on anything I learned from that brief experience, not least because I’ve forgotten most of it. I was an Opera user when I first switched from MSIE, and I used Opera and Mozilla under Linux until I moved to Firefox some months ago (0.9-era).)
Funny. I just downloaded Netscape 7.2 on Sunday night. I was being needled by a friend to stop using eeeevil microsoft products. So I’m just getting used to it right now. I wonder how different the changes will be?
I understood that the current Netscape was using Mozilla/Firefox code, and disabled some of the user-friendly (i.e. advertiser-unfriendly) features such as the popup-blocker, detailed cookie management, and detailed scripting control.
Why would I use a crippled version when I can use the full version for free?
Yeah, AOHell owns the Netscape brand and codebase (not that anyone else would want it) and perverts both to its own ends. And no, the browsers made by AOL aren’t anything anyone who knows about Firefox would ever actually use, at least up to this point.
I posted the OP as a somewhat odd evolution of the Netscape-Mozilla-Firefox entity, as a very old name being (hopefully) revived with some very new code that it has historical connections with. I realize I’ll never switch, nor will most people who care enough about browser history to follow the story. It was just interesting.
Anyway, didn’t AOL dump Netscape in favor of a rebranded MSIE not too long ago? So why is it pumping any new life into a brand it’s already retired? I suppose this is AOL’s way of jumping on the Open-Source Bandwagon. Companies who think that way don’t tend to fare well. (Look at Netscape Communcations Corporation, bought out by AOL.)
Eh? Netscape is free, and the popup blocker and cookie management work just fine. I’m not really familiar with scripting control (and by that I mean wha-huh?), but I’ll bet it works too.
AFAIK, the “advantage” of the open-source browsers is that they have fewer features than Netscape, making them run faster and with fewer bugs or crashes (but I’ve never used one, so I’m really talking out of my ass there).
A major advantage of Firefox (for example) is that it starts off bare-bones but since it’s open-source anyone can make plugins and add-ons for it. The Firefox official website includes a fairly comprehensive list of the plugins made by other people, and so you can download Firefox and then go pick and choose your features. Not only are you using a more streamlined, less buggy, and faster browser, you’re also taking control of your own browser-fate.
I’ve used Netscape as my primary browser for years - 4.6, then 7.0, now 7.1, probably upgrading to 7.2 any day now. Tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, pop-up control.
I also use Firefox at times (including right now). Firefox definitely loads faster, but other than that I don’t find a big benefit, and I’m too used to Netscape to switch completely.
Can’t remember the last time I had Netscape crash on me.
The only time I have to use IE is for certain applications at work. Ugh.
It might have been one of the earlier versions then. But I definitely remember Netscape at one time coming with all the blockers turned off by default, or disabled, and Mozilla coming with them enabled. Netscape also had a sidebar and bookmarks with advertising links. It was then that I switched to Mozilla.
Because they’re a large company (and therefore evil), and because they took the internet from the domain of the few, the proud, the geeks and brought it to the uneducated and unwashed masses.
Well, no. Those are far from the only reasons to hate AOL.
AOL is hated for real reasons relating to the speed of the service (glacial), the censorship AOL imposes on the non-AOL pages you’re allowed to access, the intense frustration involved with cancelling any AOL subscription, the complete disregard AOL has for email standards (MIME, for example, is not in the AOL vocabulary), and the general lack of services AOL offers compared to real ISPs. That, and the immense amount of spam AOL users can expect.
