Netscape 6.0, 7.0 and Mozilla 0.9, 1.0

As anyone who has downloaded the "beta preview" of Netscape 6 (NS 6 PR1) already knows, it's a botch. Many of the "modules" aren't anywhere near finished yet, causing frequent failures of many JavaScripts and most DHTML. Most plugins either don't work anymore or malfunction and cause crashes and system freezes. Since Netscape invented JavaScripting and plugins, this is a true mystery. The active install method of acquiring Netscape 6 is also flawed. Took three tries to get it installed--first try installed so dirty my system crashed; second try selfaborted just as it was going to unzip the cabjar; third try actually worked. The one bright note is that the graphics render at a blistering pace, about twice as fast as IE5. Hopefully Netscape (and Mozilla) will get their act together and fix this monster of a mess before the official release. On a side note to webdesigners everywhere, it is handy to see how your pages look with near total compliance. We fixed most of the "goofs" on our sites by adding in .css files on most pages, just to control backgrounds, text colors and text sizes.

The "second beta" of Netscape 6 is so flawed I doubt I'll ever turn it on again. Yes, it does have a PlugIn folder (much easier than all that command line prompts from NS 6 PR1) and you can partially control the look--Classic looks very similar to the current NS 4.7, but that huge memory leak when it runs is unacceptable. I can easily imagine older computers having their harddrives damaged by it, the memory leak is that severe. And Debug in Preferences no longer has a Dump Memory Bloat option, so you have no control over it ('course you really shouldn't need to--properly  written software doesn't have memory leaks). My advice is to totally skip NS 6 PR2, and when the official version comes out, pay attention to people if they say the official one has a severe memory leak and just go with IE 5.5 or IE 6 Beta. Near as I can figure, Netscape 6 will finally do what MicroSoft was never capable of, kill Netscape dead.

Mike

PS: The new Final is here on Netscape 6 and it addresses a limited number of the problems in PR1 and PR2 (note, I've seen NS 6 Final called NS 6 PR3 on some sites, but at the official Netscape site it shows as a "final"). The backward compatibility issue has been addressed (ie, most JavaScripts work again, though DHTML and Layers still fail). The browser loads slow and dirty. In addition, Java is now so buggy that it either freezes the system or the browser ignores it. Not once have I been able to get Java to work correctly in this "final" version. The memory leak is still present, though not as severe as in PR2. A strange new wrinkle is the "five page freeze". Depending on what is on a page and how fast you hit a link, the browser crashes every five pages or so. When it crashes it is likely to freeze the system, so the memory leak problem is probably at work, but since running ScanDisk erases the evidence while fixing your files, who knows for sure. Netscape 6 Final is as big a load of garbage as NS 6 PR1 and NS 6 PR2 were. Highly NOT recommended--it's actually dangerous to use. Please note also that Mozilla M-18 (Sea Monkey) suffers from these same problems.

PSS: There's a new NS 6 out there, NS 6.01 and it addresses virtually every problem I had with all the previous builds. It no longer crashes every five pages (when it did crash, it crashed cleanly), it readily accepts almost any plugin (JRE 1.3 is still buggy, but JRE 1.3 really is buggy--can't blame that one on NS 6). It views VRML and most Flash without crashing, and if you've kept up on the serious memory overrun alerts about Flash, this problem is something that either MacroMedia or Adobe will have to address (please--where's the new plugin for Flash that doesn't cause memory overruns?). Still not as good as IE 5.5, but very much improved. The newer Mozilla build (version 0.7) is similarly good. Now if the design community can just get Netscape to admit that abandoning DHTML and Layers is a very bad thing and have them implement the same kind of backward compatibility that was done for most other JavaScripting, I'd actually be pleased with the direction NS 6 is taking.

PSSS: Just downloaded Mozilla 0.91 a while back and except for it's buggy implementation of Flash (it can only see Flash and Director when they're uploaded and viewed as part of a site, but NOT on local--???) and it's totally defective VRML association (can't see it at all, it starts to load, then just stops) I can almost recommend it over NS 4.7x, NS 6.x and IE 5.5 builds. I'm very excited about what the first Mozilla 1.x is gonna be like. Considering how bad NS 6 is, might even start recommending Mozilla over Netscape once all the exotic graphic bugs (Flash and VRML) get worked out of Mozilla. If you're looking for standards compliance (HTML 4 and CSS2), try Internet Explorer 5.5 (or 6) or Opera 5. Netscape 6 and Mozilla 0.9 fail in multiple compliance areas.

***STABLE FLASH***  The current Mozilla (0.92) has stable Flash (runs local and Internet--it misinterprets the size of the Flash panel by about 10% in width--no idea why), though VRML is still very glitchy. Small files load correctly, but larger worlds and scenes hang in the "tempmemory bin" and create amazingly humungous leaks. I've had the leaks exceed 2G's, so I'd advise NOT viewing VRML in Mozilla 0.9x nor NS 6.x at this time 'til the leak problem is properly addressed. Obviously, a machine with a smaller harddrive could have its files seriously damaged.

PSSSS: Then - on a total lark - I downloaded the PR1 version of Netscape 7 and the stable build of Mozilla 1.0 (they're nearly identical, by the way). I was beyond amazement that the Smart Download feature correctly found the files to download, and began performing perfectly, just like it used to in NS 3 and 4. Fill out a quick questionnaire about what I wanted (just the browser, I use other things for news and mail) and the entire browser downloaded and installed correctly the very first try. Mozilla made it very easy also, find the current stable version and download it and doubleclick the .exe to install.

I usually no longer get involved in PR versions, but NS 6 was so nasty I figured anything was better. NS 7 (even if it's a PR1) is a wonderful browser, definitely world class and Generation 6 mature. In the next few quarters, about 30-million AOL users will be offered the next version of NS 7 as their standard browser. This made it imperative that a really nice version (both for consumers and developers) be brought out. NS 7 and Mozilla 1 are light on their feet, they're quite fast. Plugins install like a dream (even VRML and other exotic graphics). While Netscape has definitely lost the market-share race, they once again are cranking out superb browsers - and who knows, maybe the AOL ranks will shift the balance back to Netscape as the premier choice?

CSS2 and HTML 4.01 compliance is impressive. Only found a few minor glitches in the really weird and rarely used CSS tags - things like dotted underlines and borders spaced oddly, and similar. These CSS tags are almost never used however, and are largely there for SGML and XML compliance. Great strides have taken place in form button tags in CSS, fully colored form buttons now display correctly when carefuly crosscoded. Though not much more than eyecandy, this is part of CSS2 compliance and previous NS versions lacked it, forcing developers to code multiple CSS files or pages with elaborate JS sniffers, which fail very easily. Expect a tidal wave of colored form buttons to appear across the 'Net with this improvement.

Netscape 7.x and Mozilla 1.x are both highly recommended.