Netscape 7 is good, but still no threat to Explorer

By Matthew Fordahl

Associated Press

Long after Microsoft’s Internet Explorer won the browser wars, AOL’s Netscape Communications division is launching another volley in its battle to stay relevant.

Netscape 7, now available for downloading as a preview release, is more defensive than offensive: It fixes the bugs and the speed of its predecessor while adding features others already have.

That’s not to say that Netscape has nothing new to offer. Like no other browser can, it closely integrates with services and content from the AOL Time Warner conglomerate, including instant messaging, music and news.

But ultimately, a browser is just a browser.

You download pages, click on links and look at pages. It’s good if it doesn’t crash. Better still if it makes Net surfing at least seem faster. Better yet if it doesn’t attract worms like a dog attracts fleas.

Browsers are now evolving like word processors. New releases are greeted with more yawns than cheers as developers pile on more mostly unused bells and whistles.

That’s a far cry from the mid-1990s, when users eagerly awaited the next release of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Back then, basic functionality was still being defined and refined.

Now, users have a good idea of what to expect.

Microsoft — legally or illegally — built its browser into its operating system, and most users find that it works well enough.

And after America Online bought Netscape in 1998, the company seemed to give up as the flagship AOL service continued to use Internet Explorer.

Now, Netscape has about 7 percent of the browser market, compared to Explorer’s 91 percent share, according to WebSideStory’s StatMarket, a research firm.

The Netscape 7.0 preview, a free download that works on Windows, Mac and Linux systems, looks like version 6.0 but fixes bugs, starts faster and renders pages more accurately than its predecessor. A final version is expected this summer.

Installation was simple on both Windows and Macintosh systems. It dumped seven icons on my Windows desktop, including an incredible offer — surprise! — for free hours on America Online. I quickly trashed them.

The browser window itself is very clean, though it can quickly fill up screen real estate with tabs and other features. Different themes, not yet available, can be applied to change the looks.

A "Sidebar" column, which fills up a bit less than a quarter of the browser screen, contains tabs for news, shopping, movies &music, bookmarks, maps, directions and buddy lists. Many of those features can be found on many Web portals such as Yahoo! There is some convenience in having it readily available, but for the most part it’s about selling AOL Time Warner or its partners.

Netscape 7.0 also incorporates AOL Instant Messenger for real-time chat.

And it borrows heavily from other players in the browser world:

A new download manager is basically a list of downloads in progress. Users of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh will be familiar with this.

Netscape includes a music service with its browser. The sound quality is slightly better than AM radio. It doesn’t work with Mac OS X because the Real Network player for that operating system is not yet available.