| Netscape 8.1.2 | |
|---|---|
| HOME PAGE: | http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/ |
| DOWNLOAD: | Netscape 8.1.2 http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/download/default.jsp FTP PUBLIC ARCHIVES Netscape 8.x directory (All version 8 releases) Netscape 7.2 Full Installer (24784 KB) Netscape 7.2 Basic Installer (11825 KB) Netscape 7.2 directory (Mac, Unix, Windows) Netscape 7.x directory (All version 7 releases) Netscape 6.x directory (All version 6 releases) REALLY OLD VERSIONS ALL OLD NETSCAPE VERSIONS 2.x THROUGH 4.7 |
| LICENSE: | Freeware |
| FILE SIZE: | 18.3 MB |
| SYS REQ: | Windows Windows 98, 98SE, Me, NT, 2000, XP Pentium 233MHz (Recommended: 1 GHz processor or greater) 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater) 35 MB hard drive space |
| LIMITATIONS: | None |
Overview
Netscape —the most popular browser back in 1995— is actually in danger of being delisted from the W3C browser usage report in 2007 since it has retained the required minimum of 0.5% of browser users for only two of the last nine months in 2006. So I guess I'm listing this midwife of the internet as an "essential web browser" entirely for historical reasons but be well aware that Netscape browser usage is in a steady decline (and shows no sign of recovering). In fact, from a web designer's point of view, the number of Netscape users can now be considered negligible. (For the record, my own web stats reveal that 2.4% of visitors used Netscape in September 2004, 1.3% in September 2005 and 0.3% in September 2006. W3C showed 0.4% Netscape users in September 2006).
Now for those who don't know, Netscape has —starting with version 8.0— undergone some major revisions and has essentially turned into a browser of many colors. More precisely, Netscape is now based on Mozilla Firefox albeit strangely endowed with the option to use the Internet Explorer rendering engine on top of all which is slathered a thick layer of Netscape branding.
Some other major changes from the version 7.x predecessor include dispensing with built-in web page editor and replacing the built-in mail client with a dropdown option to automatically load a pre-defined AOL webmail account. Some interesting additions to the browser interface include live news feeds, auto form fill features and the so-called Multibar.
Netscape 8.1 additions include a new dynamic roll-up Security Center which allows quick and easy access to the current site rating (according to Netscape), site settings, popup blocking, id theft protection and spyware protection.
As of this writing, Netscape 8.1.2 is the latest offering from AOL (the mother company) and is basically just a security and bug-fix update. This addresses —among other things— an issue with version 8.1 that made it appear Symantec was blocking certain sites when in reality it was just a false positive resulting from a bug in Netscape.
Review
Huh boy. (Where's my red marker?) ..Okay so since Netscape usage is negligible, you're probably wondering, "Should I install it?" and "What's in it for me?" to which I can only respond "Just for posterity" and "Not much".
In a nutshell, Netscape 8.1 is getting blown out of the water by other major browsers because it has:
- No themes
- No extensions
- No built-in mail client
- No built-in web editor
- No future
- Some Flash-generated images will malfunction when moving the mouse pointer around the page (a glitch which is not reproducable when viewing the same page in Firefox).
- The tab title text frequently tends to jump around during page loads (which is a real eyesore).
Here are the results (I ran the Netscape spyware scan first and then AdAware):
| Netscape | 130,698 files scanned | found 1 problem |
| AdAware | 217,773 files scanned | found 21 critical objects |
Not to mention that AdAware performed its scan in about 1/3 the time it took Netscape. Soooo... uhhh.... (enough said).
Moreover, I wouldn't recommend using this behemoth of a browser unless you have at least a 2 GHz processor on your computer (although Netscape's recommended is 1 GHz) and you have high-speed internet access. Some say Netscape is actually ideal on dialup internet since it reportedly loads pages faster than Internet Explorer but my personal experience using Netscape on a 1.2 GHz processor with dialup internet access could be summed up as [insert expletive] downright frustrating. On a 2.8 GHz processor with high speed internet access, however, the browsing experience was "passable".
Admittedly, I like the news feeds and I also like this feature where a context menu pops up whenever you highlight text (which saves me a lot of time when copying-and-pasting). But all in all, the extra little bells and whistles that Netscape offers don't hold a candle to the customization and extensibility of Mozilla Firefox (or even Seamonkey for that matter).
| Last updated: Tuesday January 06, 2009 |
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