Back in the days when they were clearly the best browser, I used to love Netscape; it was Dorothy’s Kansas. I never thought IE would lure me away … but they sure did. I’m feeling a similar warm, fuzzy feeling these days over the sexy allure of Firefox and its myriad of cool plugins. If only Firefox was ink-enabled, I probably would be using that more than IE these days.

But what happened to Netscape?

Finally got around to downloading and checking out the new Netscape 8 browser. The RSS auto-discovery looks cool but I couldn’t figure out how to actually view the RSS feeds I’d added without hunting down this explanation in the help docs. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to adust the space on the toolbar section to make a whole row of bookmarklets like I have in IE. I learned how to add an all new toolbar, but what about adding RSS feeds or links to it? I didn’t seek out the help docs for this one.

Note to browser makers: if it’s not intuitive, people won’t use it. There’s just too much browser competition out there. The Netscape team should check out how Safari worked in RSS with Tiger. Come to think of it, I thought AOL had thrown in the Netscape towel? Ok, yeah that was nearly two years ago … time’s change. My first impression: unimpressed. Sorry.

I sure hope IE7 does a better job.

Update 5/27/2005: The IEblog is reporting a blank page issue when trying to view XML pages in IE when Netscape 8 is installed and offers step-by-step repair instructions:

1. Uninstall Netscape 8
2. START->RUN
3. Type: regedit
4. Hit ENTER
5. Navigate to the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Plugins\Extension
6. Highlight and right-click the node titled “xml” and select delete.
7. Restart Internet Explorer

Note: there doesn’t appear to be a fix yet which allows Netscape 8 to stay installed without this problem recurring.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Firefox gaining market share vs. IE
• Search PHP manual via MakeYouGoHmm toolbar
• Microsoft Watch bets on Internet Explorer upgrade before Longhorn
• Search MakeYouGoHmm and other sites inside Firefox
• MakeYouGoHmm Firefox Toolbar now available [site news]
• No more Netscape upgrades