SillyDog701

[James]

I'm opening this thread in order that you might put in your first impressions on the new Netscape 9 browser. These are first impressions simply indicating what you find interesting and or missing from the browser. How do you think it compares with Firefox? SeaMonkey?

As for myself, I've been messing with it for the past hour. To open new tabs, I use a "New Tab" button in my tool bar in Firefox. This is not available for the Netscape browser and while I can open them with ctl/T I don't like using keyboard shortcuts. So that is a definite minus for me. I don't like the idea of "Share" nor the "Social" button. It seems to me that a good deal of this browser is built to take you to the Netscape portal and of course to generate income for the parent company (AOL). There are no such attempts with Firefox to do this. Another minus as far as I'm concerned. Of course, you can strip the button(s) from the tool bar (which I've done) and strip it down. McAfee's site advisor will not work with this browser (at least I've been unable to make it work) nor will several extensions that I use with Firefox such as Forecast Fox. So, while it claims to use the same extensions as FF it seems to be playing "catch-up". Another minus as far as I'm concerned.

It has URL correction but I rarely if ever mistype URLs so that is somewhat meaningless to me. The G-filter for Adblock Plus is not yet compatible so that is also another minus.

In short, what do you have with this new browser? Well... I'm not sure what it has to offer that cannot be had with Firefox. I'll continue to mess with it and I'm curious as to what others here think about it. I suspected that it would change my mind about keeping FF as my default browser and so far my suspicions have proven true. We'll see how thing pan out by tomorrow.

Any other impressions?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[Mandrake]

On the plus side the user interface is minimalistic, like Firefox. The download size is small as well, just over 5.5 MB. It's not bloatware and they don't seem to be shoving features down my throat (aside from all the links to the Netscape portal!).

The problem is, I don't really see anything that would be useful to me that I can't already do in Firefox 2. There should also be the option of importing my Firefox data. I was only given the choice of importing my Internet Explorer settings and data.

I'm going to keep playing with this for a while. AOL gets a 9/10 for effort but the whole thing really only gets a 7/10 IMO. There's just not enough to differentiate between this and Firefox.

P.S James, there is a create new tab button. It's on the same row as the Back/Forward etc. buttons by default. You can drag it to the tab bar though.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[Fulvio]

I am still with it, but I noticed a few minuses, when compared to Firefox.
1. I could not find any way to import settings from Firefox, but it cleverly did from Seamonkey.
I selected Netscape, Mozilla, and I got a list of the available profiles. I imported the settings from the Moz1.7.12 profile, which I am using now for SM1.0.9. It gave me error 404 for the Tabs, I guess trying to plunk all three Tabs into one.
2. Addons were very disappointing. None was imported from SM, and several which I take for granted were not compatible. It installed IE Tab, and surprisingly Prefbar, so that's good.
But even Mr Tech Local Install was not compatible, and that's a large minus.
3. I don't care for the social stuff.
4. Big minus that it allows icon, such of IE Tab only in the Personal Toolbar.

Grade: Very passable.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[James]

Ah... Mandrake... I now see the Create New Tab button... right in front of my face! Thanks for the wake-up call. Well, that makes things a bit better. I'm still miffed that I can't import the G-filter for my Adblock but I suppose this will come in time. I've noticed that when I go to Yahoo several ads pop up that do not pop up in Firefox.. ads with Macromedia Flash.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[Ramona]

I've been using the browser for several hours, and it is acceptable, most definitely an improvement over Netscape 8.x, but just that. However, I would never trade it for Firefox! I don't like the "Share" and "Social" options at all, but as this application is created by AOL, I understand it is a marketing ploy.

I have been unable to migrate my passwords from either Firefox or SeaMonkey, but my next try will be Netscape 7.2. Hopefully that might work. I didn't opt to migrate settings from any other browser, as I wanted to go through all the options, to see what was there. They seem to be almost identical to Firefox.

The Mail access works flawlessly, for AOL WebMail.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[vipergg]

Been playing with a little and i have to say I like it . It is a lot better than bloatware version 8.X . It renders almost as fast as NS 7.2 . It imported all my ns 7.2 bookmarks without any problesm except it did not put my personal toolbar up, but it was easy to fix just had to drag and drop the personal toolbar out of the bookmarks on to the new toolbar . So far I haven't found any pages it isn't rendering correctly . They seem to have gotten a lot closer to the old 7.2 , even has that kind of look to the interface . Doe it break any new ground , not so much but i like it .

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[SSS]

I'm testing out Netscape 9 in a virtual machine with Windows ME. So far, I seem to like it. It's definitely a LOT better than version 8 was, that's for sure. Although, there aren't too many features in NS 9 that aren't in Firefox, so I'm going to stick to Firefox for my main browser.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[James]

Played with it all day and while (as Ramona mentions) it is an improvement over NS 8, it will not supplant Firefox as my default. I found that it did not keep all of my passwords (I had trouble retrieving my Yahoo Home Page) and it would not open Previews on Netflix, whereas I simply hopped over to FF to complete the failed action. In short, it is an interesting browser and a decent attempt.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[richard mitnick]

There really is nothing new here for a FF user. It is FF re-skinned and with some Netscape.com site specific extras. But you have to give Jay Garcia props for sticking to his guns and his job.

Hey Jay!! I know you read this. Good luck, you deserve good luck. maybe you can get some of those Netscape 7.x people who won't go to SM to something secure and 9 with TBird would do it. We need 7.x burried.

>>RSM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[Antony]

I haven't installed Netscape 9.0 Beta 1, (they insist on calling it "Netscape Navigator"). I have two comments before I install it.

My first comment and the most important one... this is the first public release of Netscape browser in Universal Binary. Finally! This means both Intel-powered and PowerPC-powered Mac can use the same application at native speed.



The second comment is... unnecessary lengthy teasing period. Based on our records (SillyDog701 Message Centre and MozInfo701), news about Netscape 9 first started on 24 January 2007 by Chris Finke. It was finally released on 5th June. That is 133 days (at my calculation) or almost 5 months. At first, it was said that there will be a weekly teaser, however, such teaser ended in around mid March.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[James]

Completely agree with the comment, Antony, regarding the weekly teasers. Really, it was somewhat juvenile. They should have taken a page out of Firefox's book and in terms of trying to generate interest. The problem is... Netscape is now viewed (and has been for some time now) as old. I know... it's essentially FF re-skinned as Richard says with add-on Netscape proprietary things (all of which I do NOT want) BUT it is "viewed" as yesterday's news for the simple fact that it has been out of action for so many years. It has less that 1 % of the users and I can't see that changing based upon the advertising, the lack of anything exciting about this browser and the fact that it will NOT do what my FF will in terms of extensions and the other complaints I've already mentioned.

Hey, I don't wish Jay bad luck. In fact, I don't wish anyone bad luck. I hope that he keeps his job and that things work out. But I can't see this browser going anywhere based upon what I've seen. It's just not that exciting. In truth, Netscape 8 was more exciting, albeit it didn't work.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[ajhaze3]

I'll be using it!!! I know this may be stupid but I used Netscape 2.0 way back when and I'm nostalgic about it. I hated what Microsoft did to Netscape and the tactics they used to end the browser wars. The only thing good that came from it is it drove me to a mac!!!

Thanks to all the developers of this fine browser!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[n301]

If you want to keep using FireFox by all means to do so but there's no need to degrade a perfectly reliable edition of Netscape

Just admit that Netscape Navigator 9 is good alternative to FireFox unlike the predecessor Netscape 8 series

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1

[James]

Whoaa. No one is degrading NS 9. We're simply giving our first impressions. Please, don't turn this into something ugly, okay. Everyone here is entitled to an opinion and that's really all it's about... opinions.. impressions. I haven't read anything in this thread that could be construed as degrading. No browser is perfect including Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

[Antony]

The problem is... Netscape is now viewed (and has been for some time now) as old. I know... it's essentially FF re-skinned as Richard says with add-on Netscape proprietary things (all of which I do NOT want) BUT it is "viewed" as yesterday's news for the simple fact that it has been out of action for so many years. It has less that 1 % of the users and I can't see that changing based upon the advertising, the lack of anything exciting about this browser and the fact that it will NOT do what my FF will in terms of extensions and the other complaints I've already mentioned.

Good point, James. Netscape (browser) has certainly lost its momentum. Technically, it is only a re-skinned Firefox (plus a few add-ons/integrations), but there's always something Firefox does not have... Netscape brand name.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4