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Firefox’s Monster: the Netscape Browser
The Netscape browser has been resurrected and the limited beta was released today. The good news: it still uses the Gecko rendering engine and is based on Firefox 0.9.3 — the final will be based on Firefox 1.0. The bad news: its interface is horrible, and has mangled everything usable and friendly about Firefox.
The most surprising development is the Netscape Browsers�s ability support ActiveX by switching to IE’s rendering engine. While this does expose the browser to similar security problems found in IE, it also means users won’t have to launch another browser to use IE-only sites.
The browser development was outsourced by AOL to a little Canadian company called Mercurial Communications. Previously, Firefox was offered to AOL. Ironically, the company rejected it.
MikeyC:
about:configto change simple settings like tab behaviour. It's all there under Tools>Options. - Built in sidebar. Nice! - Built in scrolling newsfeeds. Nice! - Per site settings. Nice! - Form Fill feature. Nice! - Viewing local drives like Windows Explorer. Nice! (Although very crash-prone). Will I switch from Firefox? No. But, you know what, this browser is fun to use.... at least it has been for the last 15 minutes. The thing with Firefox is: if you follow the nightlies you're never actually surprised by new features... but this browser offers plenty of surprises... which I'm sure will soon grow tiresome... but right now this is the most exciting test-drive of a new web browser I've had in a long while.Nov. 30 2004 at 7:56 PM EST
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MikeyC:
Dec. 5 2004 at 1:23 AM EST
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Craig Saila:
That interface is subsantially better than the previous one. I like the security indicators on each tab.
Dec. 6 2004 at 8:46 AM EST
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