When Netscape Communications quietly slipped the first beta version of Netscape onto the Internet last October, the company rewrote the rule book, taking the World Wide Web to a new level. Netscape is so superior to the other flavors of Mosaic Web browsers that it has already become the de facto standard for serious Webheads around the world. Most of the more interesting Web sites specifically designed with Netscape's enhanced features in mind now look dull - desperately dull - when viewed with anything else.
What makes Netscape so special? First, the developers have added a series of much-needed extensions to HTML, the Web's lingua franca, bringing desktop publishing one giant step closer to the Web. For example, it's now possible to align an image with text that's wrapped around it. Second, Netscape is fast, and allows files to be viewed as they download without calling up an external application. It also permits the inline use of JPEG-compressed graphics files within HTML documents; doubles as a passable newsreader; implements RSA Data Security's state-of-the-art software; is easily configurable from menus (a big plus for Windows users tired of grappling with those annoying .ini files); and, unlike NCSA's buggy Mosaic, doesn't require Windows users to install those pesky 32-bit extensions.
Drawbacks? There are only a few. Netscape's horrible "Bookmark" method of maintaining a URL hotlist is clunky, and quickly becomes unmanageable, not in the least because there is no way to cut and paste URLs. As for attempting to manually edit a Bookmark file - don't even think about it.
The display quality of graphics is also disappointing. Whereas in early beta versions, an interlaced graphic would begin as a series of horizontal lines and gradually develop into a finished image - a visually stimulating experience - the release version takes a leap backward, displaying the same file as an ugly bitmap until the download is complete.
Any other gripes are relatively minor, particularly when the cost is taken into account: for personal and educational use, the full release version (v 1.0) of Netscape (for Windows, Mac, and X Windows) is available free via the Internet. Commercial users are expected to pay a modest $39 licensing fee, which includes backup support from Netscape Communications.
Netscape: Free to individual users; commercial licenses are US$39. Netscape Communications Corp.: (800) 638 7483, +1 (415) 428 4330, via the Web ftp://ftp.mcom.com/.
STREET CRED
QuickCamNetscape for Serious Webheads
Surfing the Other Internet Wave
