Now that Netscape 6 has been out for awhile in the final version, does anybody use it? If so, how does it compare to 4.75? I have been considering downloading it but so far I have been skeptical. It has been touted as “the cats meow” but like I said, I’m skeptical. Opinions?
I don’t know if this should be here or in IMHO so if it needs to be moved, please do.
I’m using it on the Mac. By and large, I think it’s much more stable than the older versions. It seems a tad slower, but no so much as to be a problem.
The only bugs I’ve seen are:
Twice now, my text colors have gotten screwed up. Quiting and restarting cures it, but I don’t know what the trigger is. Both times it behaved as if the default text color was white… which is not too useful on pages with white backgrounds.
I’ve also found that when I have my mail center set up with the folders in a frame on the upper left only, Netscape doesn’t seem to remember the size of the pane between sessions. It does OK when the folder pane is the entire height of the window.
Also, I had a few minor hickups when Netscape was importing all of my old mail folders. On the larger ones it would only get halfway through and just stop the process. Netscape was still active, but some of the messages were missing. I quit Netscape and restarted and it was smart enough to know that it hadn’t finished the process and restarted the import process. It took me a couple of tries for Netscape to finish all of my folders, but once it was done, I haven’t noticed any other problems with the imported mail.
Finally, I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature or if it’s configurable, but Netscape 6 seems to keep the dialup line active. This won’t be a problem for me when my cable modem gets installed in my new house, but right now it’s a problem because my kids usually just walk away from the computers with Netscape still running…
I’m not overly impressed with “Themes”, but maybe if I see a really cool one, I might change my mind. I also, don’t particularly care for the sidebar, but you can easily resize that out of the way.
The most important thing for me was the integration of Instant Messenger. My kids used to use AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) but it was very unstable. With Netscape 6 I was able to remove AIM and my computers are once again happy campers…
Hope that helps.
I am supprised that Joey is happy with it. I tried it both windows and linux versions. It was junk and did not work correctly at all. Most of the sites that have read have generally called it complete junk.
I’m using the Windows 95 version, which I installed about a week ago. Overall I don’t think it is really ready for prime time.
The main problem I have is that it won’t print. It also sometimes renders simple pages incorrectly. It runs about twice as slowly as the old version, which is an issue if you have a 133 mhz PC like I do. I’ve also noticed a number of annoying omissions and problems – you can’t cut-and-paste URL’s, when one page is loading slowly, it won’t let you switch to another window, etc.
whitetho:
My Mac version prints OK. I haven’t seen any rendering problems other than the text colors those two times. I’m running on a 400MHz PowerPC, so perhaps I don’t notice any drop in performance, since my Mac is usually in a hurry-up-and-wait state anyway. I routinely work with multiple windows and haven’t seen any problems with cutting and pasting or unresponsive windows.
Granted, that most potential users will be Windows users and therefore my opinions bear little weight…