As Microsoft takes the market lead, Netscape stumbles with its next-generation browser. Is Netscape still in the race?
For: Windows 95/98/NT.
From: Microsoft www.microsoft.com/ie
Price: Free
Pros: Simple installation (and uninstallation); improved FTP services, better support for XML. Smaller, faster and less memory-hungry than Netscape's offering.
Cons: Read our review
For: Windows 95/98/NT, Mac (PowerPC only), Unix
From: Netscape
Price: Free.
Pros: Security fixes, improved "What's Related" search, offline browsing, NetCenter integration and sync to Palm Pilot. Support for multiple mail accounts, LDAP, IMAP, parental security, "Smart Browsing," a "Shop@Netscape" button, WinAmp MP3 player, and more.
Cons: The Mac version installs some obsolete components and lacks some features, such as MP3 support (which may be added separately via Apple's QuickTime 4). We found the Windows release less stable than Microsoft's browser offering.
Although there is, as far as we can tell, no truth to the rumor that Microsoft's motto while developing Windows 98 was, "It ain't done 'till Netscape won't run," we had a bit of trouble getting Communicator 4.5 running on our Windows PC, although nowhere near as much difficulty as we have experienced with Netscape's throwaway 5.0 "milestone" efforts. That version was, to put it politely, awful. But our first few moments with the Windows version of Communicator 4.5 didn't inspire a lot of confidence. First off, the Communicator 4.5 installer complained that a user profile was not where the program expected it to be. It asked if we wanted to delete the offending profile. We clicked OK. It still didn't work. We restarted. Still no dice. We searched the drive for the allegedly offending file.... nothing. To make a long story short, we had to manually hack around inside the Windows registry, deleting the spurious remnants of a previous Netscape release -- not an auspicious start. (What's that sound? Oh, it's just the Mac users laughing.) Fortunately, our installation of Communicator 4.7 went far more smoothly.
We did, however, have trouble with the Instant Messenger service. We couldn't find a name and/or password combination it would accept and the Help file was useless. We tried names with no unusual characters, no spaces, lower-case, long passwords, short ones, you name it -- all to no avail. So, that's all we can tell you about Instant Messenger. The good news for ABM ("Anything but Microsoft") fans is, Netscape's browser is available for PowerMac (v4.5 for the Mac added a feature already available in the Windows 4.0x releases, that autocompletes typed URLs) and Unix. And despite what some paranoid PC users (or those who experience problems like the ones we had) might believe, Communicator 4.7 works just fine on Windows 98, or any other 32-bit version of Windows -- and you can easily select Communicator instead of the built-in Internet Explorer functionality as your default web browser.
There were a few annoyances, though. We found the program's propensity to pop its intrusive NetCenter panel overtop of our pages as pesky as it was unpredictable. And we weren't at all impressed with the Composer feature of Communicator. This feature, which allows you to create, edit and/or upload web pages to a web server, makes an absolute mess of the tables and spacing on some pages, but is adequate for basic pages. Although the FrontPage Express program that ships with IE4 (and Windows 98 and IE5) isn't perfect by a long shot, it sure beats this. And FrontPage Express is better at copying and pasting URLs, tables and links to graphics as well. Communicator pastes hypertext links and fancy formatting as plain text only. At least the Composer function doesn't crash as often as it used to, back when it was known as Netscape Navigator Gold.
However, on the brighter side, several new features, such as LDAP, IMAP and support for multiple mail accounts brought Communicator 4.5 up to par with IE. For example, a new icon in the lower right area of the browsing window allows you to easily switch between online and offline browsing in a way similar to that of the offline mode of IE. Netscape finally began providing parental controls in Communicator 4.5 -- a feature Internet Explorer has had since version 3.0 -- at least partially shielding children from pornography on the Net. PC Magazine has more info on other solutions to this problem on its web site.
Happily, there are some features that show that Netscape hasn't forgotten how to innovate, either. The so-called "Smart Browsing" function is an interesting, but controversial example. It helps novice users get to the sites they are looking for when typing names like "White House," "Cinderella" or "Bambi." Smart Browsing redirects the browser to sites other than the porn sites that unfortunately happen to own those ".com" domain names. It is controversial because, as critics point out, it quite often directs users away from its competitors' sites. For example, typing "news" doesn't lead you to "news.com", but directs you to Netscape's own NetCenter news pages. A minor crime, perhaps, but this is the very sort of anti-competitive behavior that got Microsoft in hot water with the U.S. Department of Justice. Fortunately, this feature can be turned off, and then accessed by typing the word "go" before the topic you want Smart Browsing to guide you to. But absolutely the best feature is a little panel in the toolbar labeled "What's Related." We're not sure how it works, but it almost instantly lists a dozen or so other web pages related to the topic on whatever page you are currently looking at. It's a great feature that places Netscape firmly ahead of Microsoft, at least until MS brings its pre-announced "fuzzy search" technology out of the vapor and into a product.
Like Microsoft, Netscape has put a lot of work into providing a set of useful tools on a customizable personal home page that we think will appeal to novice users. Netscape calls it My Netscape and provides a button right on the toolbar that takes you there. Although it's not yet available, the company says you'll be able to set up your own dynamically updated news and sports stories, stock quotes, e-mail account, favorite links, and many other services for free - simply by becoming a Netcenter member. Microsoft has a comparable Start Page feature -- currently available -- at home.microsoft.com
Communicator's ability to exchange data with Palm Pilots (on the Windows version only. Sorry, ABMers!) could be a boon for users of those increasingly popular handheld units. We'll report on this feature in a separate report soon.
Netscape still has work to do, of course. Java speeds, while faster than the last release (particularly on the PowerMac), remain a lot slower than those from Microsoft's Java interpreter and just-in-time compiler. Indeed, although overall performance is better than previous Netscape releases, IE4 and IE5 remain the speed champs when it comes to loading pages.
Conclusion
Version 4.7 of Communicator is a more mature release than the 4.5 or 4.6 releases, so we weren't surprised that it fixed a few problems. However, we find it disturbing that the 5.0 release -- in development for over a year now -- is still a complete mess. This doesn't bode well for Communicator's future. We also find some of the "improvements," such as the "Shop@Netscape" button, more of a marketing ploy than a consumer benefit. And its DHTML and CSS support now lag far behind the standards attained by Microsoft. However, we like the direction some of Communicator's other features are going in, with features like the "What's Related" button. Although Microsoft made huge marketshare gains during 1998 and 1999 with its excellent IE4 and 5.x releases (as of Oct. 1999, it held a 65% market share, up from an estimated 48% share, as of July 1998), Netscape continues to hold onto a loyal group of users -- and a significant percentage of overall numbers. 4.7 proves it is still in the race.
Mail Tip: An advanced property sheet value of objectclass="person" is necessary to search some LDAP directories. Enter this value in the "Search Base" area on the page accessible by clicking the Directory Service's "Advanced" tab.
For Further Reading
Post new comment