Recommend NS 7 or earlier for older user?

I am just getting ready to ship my old Dell computer to a clients parents back in Illinois who are both in their late sixties. The client requested the latest browsers be installed for his parents which I did, but now I am looking at NS7 and wondering how they will do with it. They were originally on an ancient Win 95 machine and my client replaced it with a new Macintosh iBook which was a disaster and far too big a change for this elderly couple. I sold him my Dell with Windows 98 as the least difficult transition for them from windows 95, after considering new machines with Windows XP this seemed the best choice. Any thoughts or recommendations concerning the best Netscape browser to install for them will be appreciated. I used the latest Internet Explorer and Outlook clients for security considerations.

BTW: a big hello to my old Netscape buddy Dreambird

 

Hi tortoise,

If the couple is fairly inexperienced, my recommendation would be Netscape Communicator 4.79. It has all the bells and whistles that they will need, whereas, Netscape 7.0 is still lacking quite a few of the components we all loved in Communicator.

With Windows 98 installed on the Dell, I can't think that they would have any problems using 4.79.

Ramona

 

O.K., I bit my tounge but it didn't help.

Being on the sunny side of 65, I resent the implication made about "older" folks having to have some watered down version of software that they might be able to handle.

I hope my Aunt Joyce doesn't see this. She is 76 and grooves on the internet as good as anybody can. She first put fingers on a keyboard about 2 years ago after Uncle Harrell died. She would probably blow a gasket at your suggestions.

I will now have a diet 7up and try to seal my gasket.

 

no disrespect intended

Sorry Bill;

I am no spring chicken myself, having turned 58 recently. I guess I should have left the age out of it and just said they are rather inexperienced users with only minimal skills and usage requirements. The point is I am trying to help my client, (their son) who with the best of intentions replaced their ancient but working Win 95 box with a brand new Macintosh iBook at considerable expense and with disastrous results. They were totally lost with the Mac OS, and he turned to me for help in recovering from this error in judgement. After looking at NS 7 and considering Ramona's advice I decided to take a chance and leave NS 7 installed as it seems to be working quite well and seems rather easy to navigate. I also have Timbuktu remote control installed so that I can assist them in the transition and if necessary can uninstall and then reinstall the older version for them if they don't like 7.

 

Not a problem

I thought about a Mac once until I saw the price for the equivalent computer.

I have found that most new software is pretty easy if you read the if, ands, and buts and follow directions.

Also I have found it much easier to learn Netscape if you take IE completely off. If there is nothing to fall back on, you have to find the answer with what you have.

Anyhow, I'm not one of those people who are constantly looking for political correctness. I should have had my 7up first.

 

Hi tortoise!!

Nice to see you again...

Have been trying the Mac version of NS7... I'm impressed! Not too bad at all, except for a few little glitches.

I thought the hardest part was going to be the lack of "Helpers Apps" being configured... but when I installed NS7 it just picked up everything I had set in the Applications in NS4.76 and put it all in the prefs.js and it's all been working fine so far.