Netscape 8 Beta available to public

[Andrew T.]

Oddly enough, as problematic as the "view in IE" feature is, it is one of the few truly unique features that Netscape 8 has compared with its competition.

Without it, Netscape 8 seems to be nothing more than a variation of Mozilla Firefox available only for Windows with a cluttered and confusing user interface and a restrictive installer.

To which I ask: What's the point?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.1

[Don_HH2K]

Oddly enough, as problematic as the "view in IE" feature is, it is one of the few truly unique features that Netscape 8 has compared with its competition.

Without it, Netscape 8 seems to be nothing more than a variation of Mozilla Firefox available only for Windows with a cluttered and confusing user interface and a restrictive installer.

To which I ask: What's the point?

Well, AOL has decided that Netscape should live on, and since Firefox is being developed to a greater extent than the Suite, they chose Firefox. But remember, Mozilla is Netscape's base, and chances are they'll keep on going like that unless something even better comes out.

Besides, to say the least, the same is true with Mozilla Suite and Netscape 6/7, they're just customized versions of other products that have a ton of AOL junk thrown in. This was good during the 6/7 days since Mozilla was really for developers while Netscape6/7 were designed for consumers, but since Firefox is already designed for the consumer, Netscape doesn't have anywhere to go besides loading it with AOL's whatever.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Donzilla/0.6PR1 (like Netscape/7.2; wml/1.3)

[James]

Agreed, Andrew... the IE view "is" a unique feature. BUT I'm troubled by it being the default setting for "trusted sites".

And I continue to ask the question (similar to your own): What's the point? What is their agenda here? To "keep it alive" is fine, but why bother?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050223 Firefox/1.0.1

[Andrew T.]

The Netscape 8.0 Beta officially supports being installed and run on Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP.
When attempting to run the installer on an unsupported Windows version such as Windows 95 or NT 4.0, the following dialogue immediately appears:


However, earlier I found that I was actually able to successfully run the first Netscape 8 prototype on Windows 95 OSR2 by installing it on a different system meeting the published requirements, packaging it into a ZIP archive, copying it across, and unzipping the archive:


Since I was naturally curious and still use Windows 95, I decided to do some experimentation and hacking to see if I could "fool" the installer into working. I opened the Registry Editor, and after making a backup of the branch I edited several strings in [tt]HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion[/tt]. I changed "[tt]ProductName[/tt]" to "[tt]Microsoft Windows 98[/tt]," "[tt]Version[/tt]" to "[tt]Windows 98[/tt]," and "[tt]VersionNumber[/tt]" to "[tt]4.10.2222A[/tt]." I rebooted, then tried running the Netscape 8 Beta installer.

The result was slightly interesting. The installer no longer prompted me with the "Netscape will not run on Windows 95" dialogue, and the "Please wait while setup is loading..." message actually appeared. After that, however, nothing happened and no further dialogues appeared; the Netscape installer file remained present in memory until I killed it through the Close Program dialogue box.

Perhaps it is actually the installer that requires Windows 98 (and 64MB of RAM, for that matter) to work.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.1

[Andrew T.]

Well, I finally got to try the Netscape 8.0 Beta out. As with the earlier prototype, to run it on Windows 95 I needed to have it installed on a different system, compress it into an archive, and copy it across.



My impressions:

First of all, I do think the new theme is slightly cleaner and easier on the eyes than the old one, although I would have still preferred for the program to use system colors. And the menu bar can now be positioned toward the left edge of the screen, where it belongs. Overall, the software looks much more "polished" than it did when the very first prototype was released to testers in December.

Unfortunately, I still find that the plusses are overwhelmingly outweighed by the minuses. The toolbar and overall user interface are still extremely cluttered and confusing. There are lots of extraneous and/or non-intuitive controls and widgets, such as this bank of mystery buttons in the upper left corner:

In terms of performance, Netscape 8.0 Beta remains a bit more sluggish than Mozilla Firefox in most ways.
I find it annoying that by default new tabs automatically go to Netscape.com when opened. Netscape 8.0 Beta contains a full-featured sidebar like the Mozilla application suite does, but the capability of adding tabs (such as the SillyDog701 Sidebar) is broken.
I find the whole notion of "trusted" versus "untrusted" sites confusing, and it's irritating that a few dozen sites were pre-configured in Preferences to "trusted" status and, thus, be rendered with the Internet Explorer rendering engine.
Needless to say, the IE rendering feature does not work on a system such as mine that does not have Internet Explorer installed.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Firefox/0.9.6

[orizng]

new netscape 8.0 b really gets some pretty positive views(search google news for netscape).
One problem, however, i found, when i have 3 passcards remembered for a certain site, sometimes netscape 8 cant remember them correctly, whichever passcard i choose, it always fill in the certain one, but not as i chosed. Thats weird.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Netscape/8.0 Beta

[tcbbsb]

Since this computer is so fast, it’s hard to gauge the difference between IE, Firefox 1.0.1 Netscape 7.2 and the new Beta 8, though my initial impression is that 8 is very speedy.

I notice that like Firefox there is no built-in (POP) E mail capability with 8.
(I use Communicator 4 with 7.2 to facilitate NSnotify)

If Mozilla plans to permanently stay away from integrated POP capability or offers something akin to Thunderbird, that’s too bad, since “Messengerâ€

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Firefox/0.9.6

[Fulvio]

NS8 beta, just like Firefox can place an icon, available in View|Toolbars|Customize. The same function is handled by Tools|Mail stuff, and it opens the default mail clients.
To Andrew: I was taken aback by the Tabs defaults. It is so mindless, but correctable. One can select also to open in Blank, as I prefer. And I selected to open in a selected Tab or window, and unchecked everything except for the warning on closing Tabs, which is handy. Now, I am down to three of the buttons, and my bookmarks are number two. And, no larch Search in the middle. Everything can adjusted in the localstore.rdf file. But, the fact that there iare so many ridiculous default makes this browser a problematic choice. It almost seems as if AOL almost succeeded in killing Netscape with the regrettable 6.0 version, and are continuing their job with 8.0.
Needless to say, AOL never intended this to happen .
Cluelessness to nth degree prevails.!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

[Fulvio]

Something bizarre just happened, in my quest to have a browser which I like.
Now, I am down to two buttons, One is "Bookmarks", and, the other is "Others". It is neat how much customization is possible. But, I did not like the Add Bookmark button, which I have not tracked down, and, all in a sudden the Top toolbar has moved to the left. Amazingly, I feel crippled by this. I got to like the stuffto the left.
So, what would one do. Right Click on Add Bookmark, and what could possibly be? Toggle menu bar p[ositions, perhaps? You better believe, that what it is. I like the choice.
But, I got 15 folders and individual bookmarks in the bookmarks folders, and I am a happy camper. Almost everything else can be accessed from the >> on the far right. And, not that I care, but there is no Imported IE favorites.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Firefox/0.9.6

[tcbbsb]

Anyway Fulvio
I suppose one can read and compose mail with Beta 8, but things like address books, sent etc do not have URLS to associate with so email capabilities are limited….I guess that’s what Outlook and Messenger are for
As usual, thanks
t

Edited to include:
Actually, with Outlook as the default mail client, I see there is more functionality….I guess I have to do some more work re Messenger

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

[James]

I've never really understood the argument against Thunderbird/Firefox versus the so-called suite. To me... they're interconnected enough. As Fulvio says, you have the mail icon which sits in the tool bar and to which you can refer to "see" if any new mail has arrived. Granted... you don't have the NS notify icon but so what? Is it really that necessary? I suppose for business applications it might appear limited but for the average home user it seems to me to be adequate. So... with the beta browser why not simply run Thunderbird for your email client? It has a great address book, a newsreader and appears reasonably integrated through the icon.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050223 Firefox/1.0.1

[tcbbsb]

James
Thanks for reply
I have been a Messenger Nut ever since my first computer in 95.
Primarily due to NSnotify
Since Netscape Messenger (7.2 via Communicator 4) is my primary Email (for business) it is only for the sake of experimenting with Beta 8 that I bring the email issue up.
As for Thunderbird, I could never it get it to work with NSnotify
There might be a bug in Beta 8 since no matter what I do it always defaults to Outlook 2003.
Thanks again
t

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

[rphunter42]

First of all big thanx to the Netscape team for keeping Netscape alive. My first impression of the Netscape 8 public beta is that it is still using this awfull Comet skin and I cant turn the search field off, I cant install Firefox extensions or themes too.
But the most important thing for me is that it is using the IE engine as default for the trusted sites, this is insane. You are degradating Netscape too a IE launcher with awfull skin, IE engine should be limited to a number of sites which are known to make problems with Gecko. It is a secutiry risk, insult to the heritage of Netscape and also a stepback for those lazy developers not respecting web standars -STOP THIS, LIMIT IE ENGINE.
Why do you think that a Netscape user who can learn what a passcard is and manage those million setting for tabs and so cant switch to IE for himself when it is necessary? And where is the information which engine I am currently using in the tab as it was in Prototype and Protype 2. I am really sorry but when this issue is not fixed I will stick with NN 7.2 and also not "evangelize" people to use Netscape 8.

I agree with all your comments. It seems to me to be a giant step to the rear to default to IE. Worse, if one labels a site 'trusted', then it sets it to use IE. That's downright insulting. Just because I trust a site, WHY does Netscape assume I want to use the IE engine to display it??? The engine in use should ALWAYS be prominently displayed on the status bar!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Firefox/0.9.6

[Pu7o]

Oddly enough, as problematic as the "view in IE" feature is, it is one of the few truly unique features that Netscape 8 has compared with its competition.

Actually Netscape weren't even the ones to first come up with the idea to use a double Gecko/MSIE engine... At least Maxthon and IEMozilla (a very clumsy browser with IE's interface, which on load asked whether you wanted the Trident or Gecko engine...) already had such a thing...

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050219 Firefox/1.0+ (JTw)

[groingo]

Something bizarre just happened, in my quest to have a browser which I like.
Now, I am down to two buttons, One is "Bookmarks", and, the other is "Others". It is neat how much customization is possible. But, I did not like the Add Bookmark button, which I have not tracked down, and, all in a sudden the Top toolbar has moved to the left. Amazingly, I feel crippled by this. I got to like the stuffto the left.
So, what would one do. Right Click on Add Bookmark, and what could possibly be? Toggle menu bar p[ositions, perhaps? You better believe, that what it is. I like the choice.

Yes, fickle me, I went back to the Beta and was impressed at the flexibility to move things around(buttons etc).
I like the Bookmark Sidebar but I can't save a bookmark to it...then I found the Ctrl-D shortcut (add bookmark) and that got more junk off the desktop.
As far as if something mysteriously dissapears (buttons etc), I have been able to flush them out by adding the Custom Spacers which tend to shove things around, if there is something in there they will force them out.
Also, I managed to drag the SEARCH bar down into the Personal bar so it is out of the way now.
The only thing I would like to see now is the sidebar activated by a cursor sweep rather than having to physically click on the sidebar button itself.
Just got an auto update this morning then immediately lost my ability to see which links had been visited, so had to remove Netscape and re-install which did the trick....no more auto updates.
All in all I must say it is really looking quite good.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050302 Firefox/0.9.6