Say some kind words ... - Page 2

powermac · #9 January 4th, 2008, 03:57 AM

I used to love the Netscape Browser without the email app. It certainly brings back memories of the early internet. In fact, I still used Netscape until Safari. Too bad to see it go, I guess it was no surprise to read that news.

Mikuro · #10 January 4th, 2008, 04:41 AM

I liked Netscape 2 and 3. Netscape 4 was a bit bloated and had some very questionable interface design. I switched to iCab as soon as it came out and used it until I moved to OS X.

In a related matter, iCab 4 was recently released. The first version seems a bit buggy (especially with text fields), but I have high hopes. The new rendering engine is fast and accurate. I never would have stopped using it except that the rendering engine fell behind the times; version 2 didn't support CSS well, and version 3 was very slow. If the bugs are ironed out in version 4, I'll switch in a heartbeat. iCab puts everything else to shame in terms of features and interface. Heck, iCab from 5 years ago puts most modern browsers to shame. Man I miss iCab. I look forward to the day when I can use it as my primary browser again.

nixgeek · #11 January 4th, 2008, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikuro

I liked Netscape 2 and 3. Netscape 4 was a bit bloated and had some very questionable interface design. I switched to iCab as soon as it came out and used it until I moved to OS X.

In a related matter, iCab 4 was recently released. The first version seems a bit buggy (especially with text fields), but I have high hopes. The new rendering engine is fast and accurate. I never would have stopped using it except that the rendering engine fell behind the times; version 2 didn't support CSS well, and version 3 was very slow. If the bugs are ironed out in version 4, I'll switch in a heartbeat. iCab puts everything else to shame in terms of features and interface. Heck, iCab from 5 years ago puts most modern browsers to shame. Man I miss iCab. I look forward to the day when I can use it as my primary browser again.

Yeah, NS3 was much nicer than the 4.x versions.....ran very lean IMO.

BTW, I heard on another forum that iCab 4 now uses the WebKit framework for rendering pages. Kind of a shame if it's true since iCab would lose its uniqueness, but I guess going for an HTML rendering engine that works well (as in Safari) was probably the better, practical decision. Still, it would have been nice to see them further enhance their own rendering engine as seen in previous versions.

Mikuro · #12 January 4th, 2008, 09:50 PM

Ah, that would explain why iCab 4 is OS X-only. I noticed the rendering was very similar to Safari, but I didn't run any tests to tell for sure. I agree, it's a shame, but really, it's hard for a small group of people to develop a first-rate browser engine these days. That's what held iCab back for years, so I can't blame them. I think WebKit is quite good, so if they can switch to it without sacrificing the excellent features I've come to expect from iCab, that's fine by me.

reed · #13 January 5th, 2008, 09:37 AM

What? Netscape is going out the "Windows?" I'm still using it with my old G3. What is going to happen before I change my Mac? Soon I hope. Yikes.

Grisly · #14 January 5th, 2008, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikuro

The first version seems a bit buggy (especially with text fields), but I have high hopes.

If you have difficulties with text fields, I assume that you've installed the beta version of Safari 3 in the past and you're still using MacOSX 10.4.10. Updating the system to MacOSX 10.4.11 will replace the beta stuff that was installed with the Safari 3 Beta by the "final" components and this will probably fix all these issues.

Mikuro · #15 January 5th, 2008, 05:51 PM

Thank you, Grisly! You were right on all accounts. I just updated to 10.4.11, and now iCab's text fields work just fine (well, as fine as Safari's, anyway, which are a little quirky).

Ferdinand · #16 January 6th, 2008, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nixgeek

Yeah, NS3 was much nicer than the 4.x versions.....ran very lean IMO.

I use Netscape v.9 and that works great and it's really fast!
The only thing I dislike, is that there are always tabs. In Safari if you have 2 tabs and close 1 then your first tab will also go away and it becomes a normal browser window with the website you had opened in the 1st tab.
In Netscape, when I have 2 tabs and close 1 then the first tab stays - so even though I only have 1 browser window with 1 website there is still a tab - even if I quit and open the app I always start off with 1 tab. Thats a little annoying - but otherwise I love Netscape. Also the whole interface looks better, it always used to look so dull and old.