Netscape 8 beta for win32 is out

Author: bruceg
Date: Wed Apr 27 14:27:42 2005
Subject: Netscape 8 beta for win32 is out I hate to admit this, but I actually *like* the new Netscape 8. Although I am trialing the beta, so far it seems stable. Also, it renders pages much faster than Firefox, Mozialla, or IE on the same XP machine. I have no idea why, since according to the Help-About, it is based on Firefox 1.0. The pages just seem to load in much quicker, with hardly any redraw.

The look is much different than previous Netscape versions, which is a welcome addition. The tool bars are fully configurable, which is nice feature. Since it is a beta, I have had some minor issues with the toolbar, but nothing show stopping. I have actually made it my default browser on my XP machine!

There are some neat toolbar features, one of which can be used to log you into a webmail account, like Yahoo, or Netscape. There are other Web mail services that it supports, too. There is also a neat weather icon for the toolbar, and when you run the setup for Netscape 8, it asks for your Zip code, so that the current weather can be displayed. Of course, all of these features can be turned off. That is the one thing I like about this version, is that the toolbars are all customizable. You can make it look exactly the way you wish, and get rid of any bloat. Speaking of bloat, the binary comes in at around 10MB, so many of the features in past Netscape versions are gone, like the mail, web editor, etc. It is just a plain browser.

You can also configure for multiple toolbars, and multiple "trays" within each tool bar, so there is limitless configurability for the toolbars, which is great. The tabbed browsing also has many more configuration settings over previous versions, and that is also a welcome addition.

I can honestly say that I am looking forward to the OSX, and Linux versions of Netscape 8, since I really like how Netscape has given the user more power over what is displayed in the toolbars, and how to arrange things.

Only the win32 version is available, and I have only tested on XP machines, including my Wife's laptop. Although she is usually against change, she likes the new version much better as well. Good work Netscape!

Give it a try, and head over to: ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape8/english/8.0/windows/win32/NSB-Install-BETA.exe

- Bruce Garlock



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