Netscape Unveils a New Look

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by Aaron West

The long-awaited Netscape 6, also known as the Mozilla project, looks like it is nearing completion. Preview Release Number 3 sports a brand new look, some brand new features, is much faster than previous releases, and has some significant improvements to the rendering engine. This browser, as it stands now, is fit to take on Microsoft's behemoth, Internet Explorer 5.5.

Introducing The New Netscape

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As you can see, the look has been almost entirely redesigned, although some elements have been carried over. The new look is much cleaner, and I really like the metallic dark blue.

The new sidebar also follows the sleek redesign and has a tabbed navigation panel to get you through all the built-in features. They implemented this very well. In fact, this is probably the first browser I will use and leave that sidebar open.

Search is built into the browser, as would be expected. Users can enter their keywords into the search field in the sidebar, and results from Netscape Search will appear on the page.

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Another new feature on the sidebar is the 'What's Related' tab. This will look familiar to anyone who has used Alexa before. This panel will display information about the site that is being viewed, for example, the amount of traffic, related links, site stats and information and more. This data appears to be directly from Alexa's database, and is much more convenient than using the Surfing Companion itself.

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My personal favorite feature is the integration of AOL's Instant Messenger into the browser. Instead of having it reside in the taskbar, it lives in the browser. With a click of the button, you can load your buddy list and communicate directly from the browser.

If someone sends you a message, it appears in the Netscape look and feel.

You can also get stocks, news, weather, entertainment and more with the click of a button.

Good News for Web Developers

I can't count how many times I've heard web developers curse at the name Netscape. With the ever increasing popularity of Internet Explorer, which renders pages so well, Netscape has become a thorn in many developers sides.

As everyone knows, Netscape 4+ has a lot of trouble with table structures, nested tables, table borders, scripting and the list goes on. That isn't the case with Version 6. Pages, for the most part, appear the same in Netscape 6 as they do in Internet Explorer. Netscape 'broken' designs work fine in version 6.

Netscape 4+ is now being used by approximately 15% of the web surfing population. When the new version is released, there is a good chance that many of those loyalists will move on, and that number will decrease in the months to come. It might finally be feasible for developers to isolate the old browser.

When, When, When?

There has been no announcement on when the full version will be released. But I think the wait is close to over. Public Release 3 appears to be much closer than previous releases. I think there is a chance it will be available by the end of 2000.