Hello! You've got competition now.... (Netscape Navigator 4.7x)

Member Name: slackjack

Product:	Netscape Navigator 4.7x
Date:	05/07/00 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not a bad browser.

Disadvantages: Just not quite as nice as Internet EXplorer.

I've been on the internet for a good while now, and when I started there wasn't much of a choice when it came to browsers - everyone I knew used Netscape. I stayed loyal to Netscape for quite long time after Internet Explorer arrived - basically because IE just seemed to be a copy of Netscape and had no real merits of it's own. Slowly though this has changed, and even though I'm all for Microsoft not entirely taking over my PC, I've found that IE is now the superior product. It started with Outlook Express, an altogether slicker package than Netscape mail, and one that was the first free package which met all my requirements for reading mail and newsgroups. And now Microsoft's browser just seems that little bit nicer to use than Netscape's Navigator. It's only tiny things - and I dare say if Microsoft had not entered the browser arena, I'd still be quite happy with Navigator. Netscape seems a little slower than IE, it's annoying when it refuses to load the text on a page until it's loaded all the graphics, and simple things such as not being to just press enter to submit a form, but having to either tab to the submit button, or point the mouse at it. Not big faults in themselves, but when there's another free browser that is so much smoother to use, it must be time for Netscape to realise they have some competition.

Netscape are promising big things from Navigator 6 (it's so good they've abandoned version 5 altogether, so they tell us), and I really would like to be able to go back to them. I just downloaded the preview version of Netscape 6. I know it's not finished yet, but being dumped out of the installation program with only an unintelligible error message and no option to either continue or remove the files already installed hasn't encouraged me to download the product when it's finished.

Summary: