Netscape

There's a new version of the Netscape browser, based on a 0.9.3 branch of Mozilla/Firefox. It seems that they have taken the lean and mean Firefox and created a browser that's just not as good. They've added far too much clutter and features are less streamlined and more confusing than their standard Firefox equivalents. The decision to offer Internet Explorer's Trident as an alternative rendering engine, while pragmatic, is an insult to the heritage of Netscape and may set the cause of standards evangelism back years. In short : better use Firefox.

The latest Netscape browser development has been outsourced to a Canadian firm called Mercurical Communications, whose domain is mcomi.com; anyone remember that Netscape used to be Mosaic Communications, or mcom.com for short?

Very surprisingly, Netscape has already released the eagerly-awaited Netscape 7.1 (previously known by its codename, ''Buffy'') for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The new version is based on Mozilla 1.4, which is due out later today. Netscape 7.1 features many improvements over 7.02 including even better CSS support, spam filters, find-as-you-type, automatic image resizing, more customization via about:config, Web development tools, Palm synchronization and more. More information can be found at Netscape Browser Central and in this MozillaZine article. The release is available from Netscape''s download page, via FTP or on CD.

I'm quite surprised that Netscape released that quickly their browser successor, and that they didn't label it 8.0. If you're using Netscape 7, you really should consider the upgrade. The spam filters are wonderfull in the mail client !