Is Netscape 6 any good?

[cloud9]

I personally don't like Netscape 6. Lots of websites don't seem to work with it. What ever happened to backward compatibility?

I know what would be good, IE with a NS skin for people who like the look of NS. I bet I cause lots of contraversy by posting this. The Microsoft product is better in my opinion.

What does everyone else think?


c

[R_Russell]

I personally hate Netscape, I used it once, and deleted it.

[Wabanaki Web]

I agree with Ryan, but I didn't delete it. I keep it just to check to see how BAD my pages show up in it, if they show up at all---because it is so darned slow! I can't say that I am always thrilled with IE either. I have problems with it stalling. It begins download of a page, but if the page is really long with alot of graphics or music etc, I will have to reload. Since it has cached the rest of the page that goes quickly and then it finishes the download---usually. It won't when it is an incredibly long page. On another thread, I mentioned my annoyance with people who don't know how to make more than one page and make one endless page instead......

[jollyfactory]

Well, I presonally like Internet Explorer better. I don't know, maybe it's just me but when I use Netscape in conparison to IE, it seems much slower.

I decided to delete it but found Netscapes built in WYSIWYG editor fairly nice. I have Dreamweaver and Net Objects cold fusion and Cofee Cup HTML editor, found them nice in ways. But Netscapes editor is fine for me, so that's why I kept it.

But really, I just use Netscape for testing purposes to see how my site looks in both browsers.

:)

[cloud9]

I don't like the fact that Netscape is so fussy. You miss out one tag and the whole page doesn't show. It's so stupid.

[Dr. Web]

Netscape is supposed to require developers to write CORRECT code. That means, if the standard says you must include a ending table tab...Netscape won't display it if your missing the ending tag. I test 100% of my pages in N4.whatever because it still has almost a 30% market share. IE is very forgiving...you can leave stuff out, mess some things up, and it will still work. But that makes us worse programmers.....not better. I wouldn;t mind if N was a little faster...I mean from launch to full page render. And N6 has that huge flaw: it is not backward compat. I have stated this before, but who really cares if N6 is so super compliant with standards...if it takes forever to view a webpage? Everyone wants more speed on the net. Microsoft never has had the most STABLE browser...hence the blue screen o' death. But IE is easy to use, runs fast, and has a true advantage.....backward compatible. Plus it does have the big marketing advantage. Still, I hate N4.7, but have become quite good at programming for it. And for that, Netscape has made me a better developer.

[Jason]

Moved from General Discussion

[Wabanaki Web]

Originally posted by Dr. Web
Netscape is supposed to require developers to write CORRECT code......

I just found this website surfing last night and was wondering if anyone has ever tried out HTML Tidy? It seems to be a program that checks your tags for you and also will rearrange your html so that it is more readable. If you are interested check it out here:
http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/

Hmmmm does this mean that Jason has to move this thread over to Website Tools & Services?

[Jason]

Hey, are you guys here to help, or to make things tough for me :p

[whkoh]

Check the following search to find out more:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Netscape%22+vs+%22Internet+Explorer%22

[Marlboro]

Doctor -

I beg to differ with you on your stats of usage of NS. According to echoecho.com NS commands no more than 11% total usage of the net users out there. (survey of over 500k sites hit 5M times)

I have also found that NS6 is not as compliant as the folks at NS/AOL want us to believe - you wouldnt believe some of the bugs documented over at bugzilla.

But I am happy now - I can FINALLY stop supporting 42 gazillion versions of NS 4.x and only code for NS6 and IE5.x. While I dont like NS6 any more than the rest of us - it does provide some incentive to stop coding for NS4 (or drop complete support for NS LOL ;-0)

But wait until you see the surprises IE 5 and IE5.5 have in store for a lot of developers! We have to still spork code if we want truely dynamic sites cuz IE 5/5.5 have some major diffs in the DOM that make scaling DIVs an issue. As well as some other quirks.

ps: btw - NS6 'does' supposedly work on NS4.x code, it is reported to have a "quirks" mode that allows it to use older NS code - but i have to see how to activate "quirks" mode...command line???



Originally posted by Dr. Web
I test 100% of my pages in N4.whatever because it still has almost a 30% market share.
<snip...>
but who really cares if N6 is so super compliant with standards

[Dr. Web]

ok heres some of my stats list...........

http://webdesign.about.com/compute/webdesign/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fbrowserwatch.internet.com%2Fstats%2Fstats.html

http://webdesign.about.com/compute/webdesign/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fdreamink.com%2Fdesign5.html

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905355180&rel=true

http://webdesign.about.com/compute/webdesign/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nua.ie%2Fsurveys%2F

as for Netscape 6 being more compliant with standards? It is. Doesn't make it better, but it follows the rules better. As programmers....we break the rules quite often........and get away with more it when viewing in IE.

I wouldn't code just for IE5.0/ 5.5 and N6 yet..........as N6 has not been regarded...as.....uhm, well....a great browser to use. People are still using N4.7. I am still coding for N4.7, and N6....well thats an afterthought.