netscape 4.79

I presently have netscape 4.78 for my browser---I wonder does anyone out there have netscape 4.79 for browser in use now---I'm wondering if the up grade from 4.78 to 4.79 is worth the time it takes for the download---I tried netscape 6.00 but didn't care for it at all---Thanks for the help and Happy 2002 to all----

 

I'm using 4.79 - have been for months, pretty much since it first came out. It seems to be fractionally more stable than 4.78; I had problems with certain webpages causing Netscape to either spawn multiple invisible copies of itself that didn't go away when you closed the one I was using, or just freezing up my entire computer (including the mouse and keyboard, so the only way to get out was to shut the machine off with the power switch). 4.79 doesn't do this as often.

If and when I hear (probably here, now that the board is back online!) that they've solved the mail and news problems in 6.x, I guess I'll start using it then.

 

Hi Connor,

These are the enhancements of 4.78 and 4.79:

What's New in This Release (4.79)

Improvements accessing subfolders under the Inbox on certain mail servers.
Performance improvements when accessing pages with nested tables and style sheets.
Win2K Only: Improved performance when using certain pages with JavaScript and document.write.
Mac Only: Sizing when printing problem on certain Epson printers fixed.
Mac Only: Composer now retains the default URL of the edited document.
Unix Only: You can now add multiple personal address books.
Improved support for dual processor machines.
Win2K Only: Improved Performance when contacting a server on the same machine.
Fixed incompatibilities which caused Communicator to quit unexpectedly while viewing certain web sites.
Upgrades to Components: Netscape AOL Messenger version 4.3 (Mac only)

What's New in Previous Releases (4.78)

Link failure during long browsing sessions has been fixed.
Ghost processes present after shutdown problem has been greatly reduced.
Performance problem with "Mark As Read" option in Newsgroups has been fixed.
Entered URL in Netsite is no longer wiped out during autocompletion.
Improved Mousewheel support on Windows platforms.
Improved support for Sun Java plug-in.
Support for Solaris2.8.
Support for AIX5.x.
Updates to components:

Netscape AOL Instant Messenger version 4.3 (Windows only)
Flash Player 5 (Windows only)

Ace,

The 6.2.1 Mail is buggier as ever! I'm hearing reports that the Mozilla0.9.7 has improvements in that area, so hopefully the engineers are getting there.

Ramona

 

I don't see much point for upgrading from 4.78 to 4.79, unless you want to keep to the latest, or the news features Ramona listed are important to you, OR you are looking for Netscape Communicator 4.79 with Calendar.

If you are using WinXP, then Netscape 6.2.x will suit you better than 4.7x.

 

[size=+1]I'm using Win95b, not XP - I've heard far too many bad things about XP! I want to keep using Netscape for mail and news, as well as Web browsing. As I said, I've found that Netscape 4.79 is marginally more stable than 4.78 was. (And I'm waiting to see if there's going to be a 4.8, and what it will offer.)
[/size]

 

Netscape 4.79 in my opinion is an improvement over 4.78. In the "real world" use of it, I have seen much increases in speed--pages load quicker than with 4.78, and the browser itself starts up quicker. That, in my mind, is reason enough to move to it.

Acelightning: Forget all you've heard about XP. Take it from a computer professional who is very anti-microsoft: XP is the best of the lot. It's the most stable thing Microsoft has ever put out. But it's not for the faint of heart. Be sure to make sure all your hardware passes the hardware compatibility list, and update/upgrade all your software to compatible versions (if not, you can make it run as if it was on a previous platform). The only reason why I can see of some opinions of XP being bad is because they don't do stick to the hardware compatibility, and there is a steep learning curve. For all it's look, this is not a Win98 Clone O.S. It's not even really NT (though based on NT) and you really need to learn again how to tinker with the O.S.

 

reply

Thanks everyone for your answers---I can now make a decision about upgrading to netscape 4.79

 

Conner,

If your decision is to upgrade, I think you will be pleased!

Ramona

 

Ace,

I thought this Walt Mossberg review of Windows XP, (Wall Street Journal) was informative, and unbiased:

http://ptech.wsj.com/report.html

Galdor, you certainly give a good review on your experience with XP. I think the negative reactions, for the most part, have been to the security problems associated with the OS.

 

My computer is over five years old. Some of my hardware is even older than that, and I've got a couple of software apps that I carried over from Win 3.1x! (Well, they aren't THAT important to me...) In order to move up to XP, I'd have to buy a new computer anyway. Alas, not this year, I don't think...

But thanks for the information, Galdor and Ramona.