onto Netscape's FTP servers earlier today, albeit just a 261Kb "net installer", I've had
a look and so far I've found the following points . . .
For the first time in years, RealPlayer is not bundled with Netscape. Instead, it
appears to have been replaced with "Radio@Netscape Plus". Winamp is still a
part of the full package, and Winamp v2.8 was bundled with this initial build,
even though the most recently released 2.x version of Winamp is v2.91.
The bundled version of Sun Java 2 is 1.4.1_02, so at least that's up to date!
Looking at the about:plugins page, somewhat disturbingly, there are at least two
entries labelled "Microsoft DRM". I sincerely hope Netscape are not dipping their
toes in to the murky waters of Digital Restrictions Management.
The Mozilla ActiveX Control Plugin is included. As I haven't tested this item as a
seperate plugin for builds of Mozilla, I cannot really comment on the inclusion of
this with the latest Netscape. I hope this doesn't mean that Netscape will end
up subject to security problems similar to those related to ActiveX in MSIE.
As I mentioned in the UA thread, the Classic theme has a slightly revised throbber
based upon the "shiny lozenge" logo used as the NS7 application icon in Mac OS X.
At this time, the Modern theme still uses the throbber introduced in Netscape 7.0.
A new bundled extra with the new NS7.1 suite is the "McAfee Clinic Activator". The
official description for this on the setup wizard is, "for VirusScan Online installs and
updates." This item is probably not needed unless you use the antivirus software
made by McAfee. If you're using Norton, Grisoft AVG, Panda, or other antivirus
software products not made by McAfee, it's probably best not to install this.
There is another new entry on the Setup wizard (if you select Custom Setup) that's
labelled "Developer Pack". This installs the Venkman add-on normally bundled with
most Mozilla builds, for de-bugging JavaScript code. This is probably not needed
unless you're a web developer. Casual users need not bother with this item.
The mysterious Viewpoint Media Player is still included. I still don't know exactly what
this item is for, and whether it's of any real use to the average Netscape end-user.
AFAIK, or from what I've read, this item is for delivering some kind of advertising
content to your desktop. I could be wrong, but until we can find out exactly
what the purpose of this item is, I'd say it's probably best avoided for now.
As this leaked build is unlikely to be the official final "gold" release, some
or all of the abovementioned issues are of course, subject to change . . .
This concludes my findings so far. If I find anymore interesting aspects
of the new, and as yet unreleased, Netscape 7.1, I'll add them here.
Edit Subject renamed from "Netscape 7.1 - My findings so far . . ."
unsticky by Admin 12.7.2004
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)
