“Here comes Netscape, Phoenix-like, rising out of the
supposed ashes of what the press once gleefully termed the browser
wars. When IE 5.0 drove the point home, Netscape didn’t just
roll over, though it might have seemed that way. The company took a
pass on Netscape Communicator 5.0 — the version that would have
been a major upgrade, but would have been based on the large,
monolithic, over-bloated code base that had evolved as far as it
could in Netscape 4.x. And it took an incredible chance that going
the open-source route with Mozilla.org would deliver the goods it
needed to not only hold onto its markedly smaller marketshare, but
eventually recapture the flag….”
“The biggest news about Netscape 6 isn’t the raft of new
features, which include user interface skins, My Sidebar, a new
customizable search facility, integrated AOL instant messaging, the
ability to send and receive AOL Mail from Netscape Mail, and an
automatic Web page language-translation facility supplied by Alis
Technologies. The real boon of Netscape 6 is smaller download size,
a truly customizable installation, faster page loading, and deep
Internet standards support.”
“That last point translates into something that’s become
increasingly important both for you and me, and for Netscape the
company: Page fidelity. For the longest time Netscape preached
support of Internet standards, but when it came to Navigator 4.x,
that just wasn’t the case. What’s more, Microsoft nimbly took the
lead in some standards areas, and was very quick about implementing
standards support. Netscape 6 strikes back….”
“Going along with Netscape 6’s XML support is the new XUL
(XML-based User-interface Language, pronounced “zool”) XML
application that is one of the niftiest behind-the-scenes aspects
of Netscape 6. XUL (which sounds like some sort of D&D god)
makes possible both the Netscape 6’s skins (or user interface
themes) feature as well as making it easy for developers to create
cross-platform versions of Netscape 6.”