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Netscape Releases 6.01

Posted on February 07, 2001

in Software

by James Aylard (jaylard)

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James Aylard

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User since: November 18, 1999

Last login: November 18, 1999

Articles written: 7

Netscape today quietly released version 6.01 of its Netscape browser. My initial — and very cursory — analysis of the revised browser:

  • Somehow, the full download has gained an extra five megabytes of digital girth (approx. 30 MB for 6.01 Win32 vs. approx. 25 MB for version 6.0 Win32).
  • The AOL branding is a little more heavy-handed: the install plunks an application named "Stamps.exe" onto the desktop, even though I instructed the Custom setup not to install the Stamps.com add-on (whatever it is). Presumably, the appearance of the executable on the Desktop is the result of an installation bug.
  • One of my favorite quirks of the Netscape 6 installation options has been its curious English-language offerings, traditionally English (Germany), English (France), and English (Japan). Now they've added one that actually makes sense: English (Great Britain). Cheers!
  • The browser still has crippling problems with the display of background images in tables and table cells. It appears that combinations of background-attachment and background-repeat properties are at the root of the problem. The net result is that background images on <td>s often appear as though they are applied to the entire table, and backgrounds on a table appear as though they are applied individually to the <td>s. I will study this further.
  • Problems with sluggish image rollovers and broken pixel-precise table layouts remain in this release.

Offhand, I don't see any changes to the user interface or any new menu or preference options. Presumably, the bulk of the changes are bug fixes. Its userAgent string (running under Windows NT with US English as the default language) is as follows:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010131 Netscape6/6.01

At the moment, the download is available only via the Netscape FTP site. Full downloads are available as follows:

Additional information about the download is available in an article on CNET.

5 comments on this article. Log in to add your comment |

Alternate download and the upcoming mozilla..

Submitted by djc on February 8, 2001 - 17:37.

Had a chance to get the three versions above in our browser archive if you're having trouble getting the binaries from the Netscape FTP servers.. Also of interest, the .8 release of Mozilla is expected to be released next week. Mozilla development work now is focused on bug squashing, improved stability, and better performance.. I've been using .7 for about a month now, and I'm interested to see if .8 fixes the few remaining quirks I notice on a daily basis..

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Submitted by nastySprite on February 10, 2001 - 08:27.

agree to djc - I don't see why anyone would download and install the commercial 30mb monster that is Netscape 6 when there's a nice "lil" mozilla with all the same functionality - additionally it's more stable w/o crappy addons

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Submitted by bheerssen on February 13, 2001 - 11:28.

I concur. I find myself using Mozilla 0.7 much more often than Netscape 6.1. I just can't stand those marketing 'features' that AOL insists on. I really only use the Netscape version for testing. I have also found Mozilla to be faster and more reliable, although it does share many of the same faults as Netscape (for obvious reasons).

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tables and Netscape 6

Submitted by andlang on March 13, 2001 - 01:22.

Netsacape still hasn't fixed it's fundamental problems with tables:- - no background colour shows in cells that contain no data - so the transparent.gif STILL has to be placed in these cells (c'mon - this bug is as old as the hills!). - background images of cells give unpredictable results. - the background colour of a table doesn't show up if you give the cells of the table colour (and give the table cell spacing to see the background colour of the table) - if you use a form in a table that has no cell spacing, you will see some cellspacing in the table, so the table looks "broken" with an ugly line running down it. Did the testers of Netscape 6 see these problems? Surely they must have! They MUST know that tables are a fundmental part of HTML and they MUST know that their product gives different results to Explorer for tables, yet they haven't done a thing about it!

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Netscape 6X

Submitted by freoninferno1 on November 26, 2001 - 14:04.

NS6X is slow, clunky & more bloated than IE5x thru 6. I have for a long time searched for an alternative browser to the default one shipped with Windows, and I've yet to find any that are as feature rich, quick & easy to use. I am a home user, not a programmer. i approach this from the viewpoint of uncompromising utility, nothing else. I'm not ga-ga over anything that comes from Redmond, but the simple fact is, they do what they do very well. Netscape 4.7 didn't thrill me either. There are the Surftabs Browser, Enigma, and my favorite is the New Mozilla. At least it was new on thanksgiving day, that's the build I downloaded. I do not understand why it looks like Netscape, or uses Netscape software. I do not know the politcs behind that. But I do know is that it flys past IE6 and unlike Enigma & Surftabs, doesn't crash my w98se (with 98Lite), and while it looks like Netscape, there the similarity ends. Netscape, in any build, has by far been the slowest browser I've ever seen. I use a 56k v.90 intel modem on a regular dialup connection through a Netzero platinum account. True, I could have better, but this is what I have for the moment. If Mozilla could get some of it's bugs (like using resumable download managers that are integrated as easily as in Netscape or IE, then Mozilla would have my vote. Not Netscape. Another thing, just out of curiosity, could anyone explain to me in layman's terms why Mozilla loads MSN & Hotmail pages faster than IE? IE pretty much holds its own, except when loading Microsoft pages, including Windows Family, Critical update, etc. Why is this?

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