War of browsers: Netscape raises the bar
The battle of browsers just got bloodier with the reborn
feature-packed Netscape Browser 8.0. We check out the new kid
off the block.
BY JM
March 10, 2005: Hallelujah! The best
browser one waited for is finally here, though in
beta form. Netscape has unleashed the new Netscape
8 browser Beta, designed to suit all your surfing
needs. Move over Internet Explorer, wait a bit
Firefox, Netscape is back with a bang.
Netscape was Titanic. And at the peak of the
dotcom boom, Netscape sank without a trace. The
browser that opened the Web for us had turned old
and fallen behind the times. Internet Explorer
made rapid strides, sewing itself into Windows.
Microsoft won a court case which accused it of
monopoly tactics. At the end of the battle, little
was left of Netscape. Explorer had carved out a
huge market share. Websites turned to making pages
suited for Internet Explorer. Even Netscape fans
abandoned the Netscape Navigator. The old Netscape
browser gradually faded from the collective Web
memory.
But Internet Explorer's built-in problems
always kept surfers on tenterhooks. Half your time
with Internet Explorer was spent downloading
patches, fixing bugs and constantly looking over
the shoulder to guard against worms, viruses and
their ilk. The newer versions of Explorer failed
to excite. Opera made a valiant attempt to chip
away at this market, but did not make a mark. Many
other upstart developers too started seriously
looking at the market. Out of the churning evolved
Mozilla Firefox.
Unlike Opera, Firefox started off as a serious
contender. Developed open-source, Firefox captured
the imagination of all those who were looking for
something "extra" from the browser.
Firefox offered built-in-search, tabbed browsing,
caret browsing, RSS feeds and master passwords for
websites -- all of which made surfing easier. It
came with a download manager, screen font
magnifier, Firefox extensions and - for developers
- the freedom to customise the browser the way
they wanted. Pop-up blocker was standard with the
Firefox. Firefox also had the option to start in a
Safe Mode: So necessary if you are using Windows
:) The browser was nimble, giving a feel of
lightness. No cluttered buttons, no one forcing
you to shop or download unwanted stuff.
(see our report on Firefox here:
www.dancewithshadows.com/mozilla_firefox.asp)
To top it all, the Firefox setup file was a
tiny one, and could be downloaded quickly. Unlike
Internet Explorer which came with Windows, the Fox
had to lure users into downloading him -- the
small size was handy. The Fox hunted Internet
Explorer users all day. In barely 8 months, the
Mozilla Firefox website had clocked over 10
million downloads. After installing Firefox, you
could easily import all bookmarks saved in
Internet Explorer - another bait to lure Explorer
users.
But the Big Brother was on way. Netscape soon
woke from its slumber, getting its act and staff
together. To win the browser war, Internet
Explorer was no longer the benchmark rival. In
terms of features and innovation, Internet
Explorer was ages behind. Though Internet Explorer
still commanded about 90% of the browser market,
sustained mainly by bundling it free with Windows,
it was slipping further and further. The new
browser had to race with the quick-footed,
feature-rich Fox. Out of the realisation that it
had to offer more than Internet Explorer, and more
than Firefox was born the new Netscape Browser 8,
now available in beta form. Download it here:
www.browser.netscape.com
Caveat: Netscape's setup file is big, compared
to Firefox. It is 15 MB in size. Setup and
installation are easy. Like Firefox, you can
easily import all the data you had saved in
Explorer or Firefox and get on with Netscape.
Word of caution: The new Netscape Browser 8
Beta doesn't give you the familiar feel of
Explorer or the light, airy feel of the Firefox.
You immediately get a feeling that you just bit
off something bigger than you can chew. The look
and feel are quite different are different from
other browsers. Netscape's ancient spinning logo
of falling asteroids in a colourful galaxy makes
one feel, umm.. nostalgic. May be all is not lost.
May be we shall overcome, one day!!
The new Netscape browser has almost all the
features of Firefox, plus a lot more. And believe
me, it is not the kind of cute-barking-help-dog
which pops up in MS Office applications. It's not
easy to get used to the new Netscape browser, but
once you get the hang of it, I guess many Net
navigators will find it tough to leave it too.
Tabbed browsing, master passwords, download
manager, RSS feeds etc are standard in the new
Netscape 8.0 beta. The browser has a feature
called multibar. Basically, instead of squeezing
too many buttons and cluttering the toolbars,
Netscape has done the wise thing of making several
toolbars in the same spot and making only your
chosen toolbar visible. Click on "1",
Toolbar 1 appears. Click on "2", it
changes to Toolbar 2. And so on. Since this is a
Netscape novelty, we wonder how many surfers will
easily get used to it.
What really excited me was the facility of
checking mail with a single click. You can set up
your email accounts - Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail,
whatever... - in Netscape. Later, when you need to
check mail, just click on "Check GMail,
"Check Hotmail" etc, and the Netscape
window opens to show the mail for you! No need to
go the mail site, type in passwords etc etc. I
would say this is the most user-friendly and
unique feature on the new Netscape Browser 8.0
beta.
Another innovation in the new Netscape is the
scrolling, built-in newsbar. Headlines from CNN
keep scrolling by. Click on any headline and the
page opens in a new tab with the story. Netscape
and CNN are both owned by the AOL TimeWarner
group.
The button I use least on any browser is the
one for shopping. But even this feature - it drops
down as a menu when you click - on the Netscape
browser is quite innovative and unobtrusive.
Yes, the weather button is another of my
least-used features. For the purposes of this
review, I decided to check out how it functions,
and found it quite informative. Living in India, I
did not really expect it to give the correct
weather figures of Bombay. I was pleasantly
surprised when the small weather, courtesy
Columbus, told me the temperature in Bombay suburb
Ulhas Nagar, with a smiling sun and the centigrade
figure.
The new Netscape's safety functions impressed
us. Tell Netscape if you are unsure of the safety
of the site you are visiting, if you are sure it
is good, or if you are sure it is bad -- and leave
Netscape to set the safety levels for you. High
safety means you won't get flash, Activex, and
many other programming innovations used more by
hackers and malicious websites to infiltrate your
computer. If you trust the site, Netscape will
ease up and let you see all of the site without
blocking any unsafe content. And Netscape
remembers your safety settings and sets it
appropriately the next time you visit the same
site.
Netscape makes this possible with its dual
rendering engines - It has the standard Gecko
engine - which Firefox too uses - and the Trident
engine, which is used in Internet Explorer. Sites
you term unsafe and untrustworthy are displayed
with the Gecko engine while safer, trustworthy
sites are rendered with the Trident engine. Cheers
to Netscape for that!
Netscape continuously updates the browser with
a list of trusted and suspected sites, so it will
automatically apply your security settings to make
you safer and more compatible. Netscape also warns
users of insecure web sites before they enter
them.
Like Mozilla Firefox, Netscape too offers
built-in search capability. Whereas Firefox has
search window where you can choose the search
engine, Netscape has only a single search engine,
that is, Netscape itself! Search results open in
search.netscape.com. Though the results are
courtesy Google, the display is Netscape's.
Netscape search result pages showcase the same
Google results much better, with a preview window
which can show the page in a small preview window.
The search facility in the new Netscape browser is
sure to drive more traffic to the decked-up
search.netscape.com.
In the Firefox search button, there is an
option to add more search engines, but not in
Netscape. But don't lose heart, just copy the
SEARCHPLUGINS folder from Firefox directory and
paste it in the Netscape directory. Voila! You got
all Firefox search engines in Netscape (Tip
courtesy community.netscape.com).
The truckload of extra features in Netscape
comes with a price -- during our testing, the new
kid guzzled more system resources than Internet
Explorer and much more than Firefox. The following
were the system resources consumed when
www.dancewithshadows.com was opened in three tabs
of Netscape, three tabs of Firefox and three
windows of Internet Explorer (Explorer doesn't
have tabbed browsing facility):
| NO OF TABS/WINDOWS |
NETSCAPE |
EXPLORER |
FIREFOX |
| 1 |
35096 KB |
22440 KB |
19036 KB |
| 2 |
37192 KB |
24560 KB |
19284 KB |
| 3 |
38204 KB |
25180 KB |
19668 KB |
Clearly, Netscape sucks up more system
resources. Firefox is miles ahead of its
competitors when it comes to system resource
utilisation.
The "Find" button on Netscape came as
a disappointment. One almost expected Netscape to
turn out something more imaginative than the
Firefox's novel "Find" button, which
searches even as you type, and is located
unobtrusively on the bottom left. Netscape's Find
button pops up on your face just the same way as
its Internet Explorer counterpart, and cannot
search on the fly.
You can set Netscape to open all your favourite
websites together (in different tabs) when you
open the browser. This feature is also unique to
the new Netscape browser.
Verdict:
Netscape raises the bar no doubt, but given the
extra weight - in terms of systems resource
consumption and setup file size, we wonder if it
will be able to cross that bar. During our
three-day test, we could access Yahoo, Hotmail and
Netscape Mail through the Webmail button, but
GMail kept giving problems. Finetuning is required
here. Safety settings are user-friendly and
robust. Setup file is too heavy for ordinary
downloads. The multibar may confuse amateur users.
The CNN news scroll, RSS feeds, MapQuest and
WeatherBug gives Netscape the feel of a "live
and breathing" browser. Dual rendering
engines adds dynamism, but along with it come
pounds of weight. Despite Netscape's best effort,
the toolbars are still somewhat cluttered.
All in all, the new Netscape browser 8.0 beta
is a promising product. We hope the final version
will be nimbler and look tidier. Till then, here
are the DWS ranking of browsers:
Netscape 8.0 Browser beta
-------------- 3.75 out of 5.0
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 -------------- 3.5
out of 5.0
Internet Explorer -------------- 3 out
of 5.0
Netscape Browser 8.0 has shown the promise and
potential of a world leader, side-by-side with
some loser traits mentioned in verdict above. Its
ability to retain its thin lead and race ahead
rests on its ability to finetune and innovate upon
what is fundamentally a very good product. A new
version of Internet Explorer is already on way. We
hope the final Netscape product, when it rolls
out, will be the toast of town. Mozilla, wake up!
BY JM
Full browser features comparison
| Feature |
Netscape |
Firefox |
Explorer |
| Setup file |
Heavy |
Light |
NA |
| Importing bookmarksSetup fi |
Possible |
Possible |
Not Possible |
|
Compact design |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Tabbed browsing |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Caret
browsing |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Built-in
search |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Multiple
search engines |
Manual addition |
yes |
NA |
|
Multi-bar
|
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Shopping
|
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Weather
data |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Map
data |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Messenger
integration |
High |
No |
no |
|
Toolbar
access |
Easy |
Not much easy |
Not much easy |
|
News
scroll |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
E-mail
on click |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
RSS/XML
feeds |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Rendering
Engine |
Dual |
Gecko |
Trident |
|
Code
|
Open source |
Open source |
Proprietary |
|
Known
viruses |
Not known |
Few |
very high |
|
Activex
support |
Optional |
No |
Yes |
|
Safety
|
Dynamic setting |
High |
No |
|
Master
password |
Yes |
Yes |
no |
|
Passcards
|
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Scalability
|
High |
High |
Not scalable |
|
Cool
factor |
Moderate |
High |
Low |
|
Market
share |
Minuscule |
Growing |
Around 90% |
|
Cost
|
Free |
Free |
With Windows |
|
