Retire Netscape 4.x, Upgrade to Mozilla!

Recommended Browsers: Mozilla, Netscape 7, Opera 6

Instructions to Install Mozilla 1.1a

Importing Netscape 4 Address Book into Mozilla

Setting different icons for Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail

A workable browser-email application suite has been finally released. It is Mozilla 1.

The time has come to retire your Netscape 4.x browser-email application.

Netscape 4.x is incapable to properly display the web sites of modern design. It does not support link hovers (when the links change appearance once the mouse pointer touches them) that are very frequently used in the web sites. Netscape 4.x crashes on some CSS-enabled web sites (modern way of designing sites)and even freezes the computer.

In other words, Netscape 4.x does not comply with the modern Web standards (W3C) and expectations.

Internet Explorer 5.5 and below does not comply with the standards either. IE 6.0 may operate in the standards compliant mode but is very insecure to use on a computer connected to the Internet. You will find a new warning like this appearing every week. The University Computing Services does not recommend using IE.

This June the Mozilla browser has been officially released and a pre- release version of AOL's Netscape 7 based on an earlier version of Mozilla made also available. AOL intends to distribute Mozilla-based Netscape 7 for its clientele in the nearest future and has already shipped it in Argentina and to the Compuserve subscribers in USA. This means that the user base of Mozilla-based standards compliant browsers will expand to more than 35,000,000.

Mozilla browser and email programs have much the same feel as Netscape 4. The transition to Mozilla from Netscape 4 will be very easy. We have tested out the transition to Mozilla in the Administrative Division.

Mozilla imports automatically the bookmarks and, with a few mouse-clicks, the messages and address books from Netscape mail and Outlook/Outlook Express.

Mozilla borrowed from the Opera browser its most appealing feature, the tabbed browsing. In tabbed browsing, when, for instance, reading through a long list of links (a search results), holding CTRL and SHIFT keys depressed you may click on many links one after another. Then, while you are still reading this listing, the content of the selected links will download in the background. These invisibly downloaded web pages do not clutter the tray bar but show as tabs in the same browser window you are working with.

In Mozilla you may right-click on an annoying commercial banner and tell: do not load images from this server anymore! In advanced features, you may tell the browser not to display annoying pop-up windows that frequently are used by many clueless commercial and non- commercial web sites.Netscape 7 is different from Mozilla as it is a product of a commercial company, AOL, and is intended to promote AOL. It comes with more bells and whistles than Mozilla that has only the functional components. For office use, Mozilla has all necessary features without the redundancy of Netscape 7 such as RealOne player, reporting your searches to AOL, etc.

If you have Netscape 6 installation on your computer, it should be uninstalled before the Mozilla installation because they may come to a conflict if existing on your computer in the same time. Nescape 4.x and Mozilla peacefully coexist on the same computer.

There is another browser/email suite that may be recommended for use by the DOIM faculty. The Opera suite. Opera takes much less computer resources than Mozilla and may efficiently operate on a computer that cannot even load Mozilla. It is configurable and flexible, maybe even too much. Mozilla and Opera may be compared like Lexus and Ferrari automobiles. Ferrari cannot drive on certain roads Lexus is able to. Not everyone likes and can manage to drive a sporting car, either.

Opera also has a decent email client that has been tested by me and proved satisfactory.

For Opera installation is recommended version 6.05, Build 1140.

Recommendations

1. Install Mozilla 1.1a (Uninstall Netscape 6 if existed before the installation)
2. Leave Netscape 4.x stay on your computer as a backup browser. You may have to use it or even IE on the web sites that practice the browser discrimination policy.
3. Import email and address books from your previous applications into Mozilla.
4. Set Mozilla as your system default browser and email application.
5. Leave Netscape Calendar workable if installed.
6. Patch IE browser with the latest security upgrades frequently.
7. Uninstall Outlook/Outlook Express (May be near to impossible in Windows 2000 and XP - at least make sure it is deactivated)
8. Regularly--weekly update your antivirus program database.

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