Netscape 4.x?

Just wanted to see what everyone thought should happen to Netscape Communicator 4.x...

Post ya thoughts... and hit the poll...

This is just for fun and is a good place for Netscape fans and haters to meet and discuss the issue.

Keeping in mind that O/S arguments no longer seem to have any real importance in browser support anymore... you can get 6.1 on almost all O/S's now and the same with Mozilla.

Bin it, scrap it, hide it away do whatever just dont bring it near me!

Having just spent the past few months designing a site for a computer company it was a long time before i was actually happy with what i had created.

Shortly after completion I found out that a handful of the users of this site (on intranet i might add) will be using Netscape. Not being totally aware of the problems I opened my site in Netscape and have spent the last month fixing all the problems and sorting out all the netscape bugs that i have come a cross

My apologys to anyone who likes it but I think it sucks

make it a federal offense to use netscape

No disagreement here Al.

Put the source code in a museum as a perfect example of what happens when you try to put a few thousands monkeys in front of computers and wait for them to write the complete works of Shakespeare.

was wondering why the string "bananannnnaaa" kept appearing in the javascript console.....

Sorry, I have to dissent (kind of).

It's not our choice what browsers users are going to view our pages with, it's our job to make sure their experience is a good one. Therefore, the impetus is on web designers to design for your audience- if folks come to your pages with Netscape 4.x, you better design for it.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get good looking pages, but the fact that there are bajillion different ways to get web content is a strength, not a weakness.

While I'm annoyed at a lot of things about having to design for the quirks of 4.X, (like the fact that CSS font elements don't inherit in tables, in fact tables overall with netscape) let's face it- the browser has been a huge success. Plus, the quirks aren't that hard to code around, as long as multi-browser testing is part of your process from stage 1. Scoobs, looks like you should be breaking out the old browsers once in a while.

Look how old the damn thing is, and then look at how many people, of the non-IE crowd, still use it! Plus, you HAVE to give props to Netscape for porting the thing to *nix early on.

I guess my point is that I hear a lot of bitching from designers about Netscape 4.x, but let's face it, for the foreseeable future we're stuck with it. If you're looking to code in a homogenous environment, the web ain't it.

For anybody interested:

Nutscrape 4 came out in 1996 though it is based on technology that came out 2 years earlier. It is essentially Mosaic with a few add-ons (very few to be honest). Up until 95 Mosaic/Netscape was the browser of choice (being the only one that was easy to use), then IE came about. IE was an instant hit being free and (by 1996) better than Nutscrape. The reaction took 2 years, to make the Nutty one available for free, no success though as by 1998 it was miles behind the competition of IE.

GayOL bought Nutscrape in 1998 and decided to ditch the code and use the Mozilla project as a source for its browser. It took 2 years (almost 3) before it the resultant Nutscrape 6 came about (why not 5? supposedly because AOL thought IE would be up to version 6 by then, so they made up some crap about V5 being an in-house edition that didn't see the light of day).

Only at the end of last year was a semi-reliable version 6.2 released. Rumours abound that 6.3 is already ready to roll. Anyone in their right mind wanting something other than IE would just go to www.mozilla.org and download the last milestone build.

Saying that, Mozilla has on average about 30 new bugs found every day. Is this reliable?

On subject again:

I wish, I wish, I wish that Netscape 4 would just be updated by people. Why use NS4 when NS6 is free? I mean, if you had a 1994 Ford and someone said 'here, have this 2002 model for free.' would you blindly refuse? Suppose some people would, they'd say 'but a '94 Ford is a classic' when everyone in the world knows that 2002 Fords aren't 'classics' never mind the '94 attempts they produced.

I think all older browser should be done away with, IE 6 and Netscape 6.2 (it works quite well compared to 6.1) should be almost the only browsers that we have to make our sites work with. Ones like Opera can be left but only the newest working versions of browsers.

Keep the dream alive kid!

i think unless browser programmers make their crappy piece of code work, you should not support it.
make pages for ie4+ (since MS somewhat owns the ´net) and alternative pages for all others.
no js on those, no nice layouts and it should be readable even using a braille display. you do a big favour to disabled people and people that insist on using lynx for accessing your pages (i do quite often!)

Netscape 4 should be considered "experimental work with web technologies"

... just my 2ec

Some of you need to re-evaluate your stance on this issue -- particularly the "Netscape must die" coterie of posters. You're referring to a piece of software that was written to comply with the standards of four years ago -- not those of today.

Should Netscape 4.x be retired? Yes. Has Netscape done a desent job of retiring it? Yes. Do you see them promoting their communicator browser any longer? I think not. Netscape 6.2 is at the forefront now, and is the most compliant browser available besides.

If you're going to insist on whining about Netscape 4.x, why not whine about Internet Explorer 3.x as well? It only makes sense. Everyone should simply code for Netscape 6.x/Mozilla, Internet Explorer 5.x and 6.x, and Opera 5.x and 6.x. It's really quite a simple solution.

Besides, Netscape 4.x is one of the most efficient error-catching devices I've used. If something as simple as a closing tag is left out of coding, it will fail to render. I do not know about you, however, for validation purposes, Netscape 4.x is sometimes invaluable.

-Colin

i disagree on the validation thing. since nn4 has quite some non-w3c-conform tags, it cannot be used for this purpose.

and yes, you should only code for today´s browsers. anybody still using NN4 should get a page black-on-white where he/she has to reload 100 pages for the purpose of getting a result that can be archieved using today´s browsers in only one javascript.

why not do this:

<a href="#" onmouseover="document.location='page_with_mouse_over_myimage1.html'"><img src="..."></a>



to really annoy them and make them upgrade?

Netscape 4 has never and will never comply with any standard. Just look at the www.richinstyle.com for the bug list of the so-called "CSS support".

As for validation, there is a perfectly good tool available at http://validator.w3.org