Still having problems with Netscape

[Mike Cunningham]

At the risk of appearing to be an eejit, I'm still having problems accessing the forums when using Netscape. The forums aren't updating for me and the most recent threads that I can see are more than 24 hours old. Yesterday evening it updated but has again left me in limbo.
I checked the Support forum and saw a post suggesting that Netscape users update their bookmark. I've done that to no avail.
Right now I'm using IE and I'm not experiencing problems, however I prefer to stick with Netscape. So, has anyone resolved this apparent Netscape bug?
Paid my dues, have the decoder ring, unfortunately the hoodwink is back in place......help and thanks for indulging me.:confused:

[Ken Salisbury]

I discussed this with Keith this morning via private messaging. A lot of folks are having problems. I think Keith is having Aaron look into sending a blanket e-mail to all members explaining the problem - and hopefully a solution. The Admin folks are working on it --- bear with them -- their plate (so to speak) is pretty full.

[Mike Cunningham]

Thanks Ken........I was beginning to think that all of those guys that have been talking about me hatched some sort of evil plot.....Afterall that's what's happened to Howard!;)

[Jason Roehl]

Mike,

What version of Netscape are you using? I use 7.01 and only had problems when EVERYONE was. Now it works fine.

Jason

[Lee Schierer]

Maybe I should knock on wood or keep my fingers crossed, but I use Netscape 6.2 at work and 7.0 at home and have no problems updating at either place.

My decoder ring doesn't get much of a work out....

[Mike Cunningham]

Jason,
6.1

[John Miliunas]

OK folks. NOT looking to start a flame war here, but just trying to present some observations. Working at one of the largest university campuses in the Country, I get to support an awful lot of folks in widely varied environments. By and large, when it concerns Web access and compatibility, there are far, far fewer issues with the folks using IE as opposed to Netscape. Even some of the more high-end Web development apps, such as "Dreamweaver" and such, are more compliant with IE rather than Netscape. This is a rather liberal campus and has its share of anti-Microsoft sentiment. But even many of those admit that a large portion of the Web community is putting more effort into making their Web-based apps and sites to play nicer with IE than Netscape. It's even gotten to the point where some of the Web client apps don't even strive for any compliance with Netscape. Their take on it is, "If it works OK with Netscape, great. If not, too bad. Use IE." Personally, I use IE and have for many years. I find it more user-friendly, more compatible, better features and faster than Netscape. I have also not run into any compatibility issues. At the same time, I firmly believe people should use whatever app they feel more comfortable with. Sadly, personal comfort and usability don't always meet on the same grounds.

Oh, and before I DO get flamed by those saying that Web developers should go by "standards" which work with both browsers, IE is indeed much closer to those "standards" than Netscape, though neither of them is 100%. I think that may be why so many developers steer more toward IE than Netscape. Just my $00.02. Now I have to go and setup PC's for a group of folks who use any one of two Web browsers and any one of about three email clients! Sheeeesh! :cool:

[Howard Acheson]

I'm using NS 7.01 with no problems whatsoever. Version 6.0x has some serious flaws and most folk abondoned it and went back to 4.0x until the 7.0x version appeared.

If you are using the v6.0x try downloading and using the 7.0x version. It may clear up all your problems.

[Ken Salisbury]

Originally posted by Howard Acheson
I'm using NS 7.01 with no problems whatsoever. Version 6.0x has some serious flaws and most folk abondoned it and went back to 4.0x until the 7.0x version appeared.

If you are using the v6.0x try downloading and using the 7.0x version. It may clear up all your problems.

The problem (I think) is a cache problem - the folks who are having the problem can't even get in here to read these messages.

[Lee Schierer]

My settings are:

Memory Cache 4097 Kbytes

Disk Cache 50000 kbytes

Again no problems here with 6.2.2 and 7.0 at home. Only Ken's email background give my netscape any problems.:)

[Jim Izat]

Originally posted by John Miliunas
I think that may be why so many developers steer more toward IE than Netscape. Just my $00.02. :cool:

Definitely have to agree with John here. Having worked in the same environments (and others) the whole IE/Netscape issue is becoming like Betamax vs. VHS. Say what you want about Microsoft, a standards compliant browser would be nice but market dominance eventually creates the standards. Mozilla 1.0 is completely compliant but, to be honest, not very many people are ever going to use it. The last survey I read had something like 95 or 96% of all surfers using some variant of IE. Web developers pretty much just lost the motivation to write for Netscape since it got bought out by AOL and it lost most of its remaining market share.

Having said all that I have used Netscape since I switched over from LYNX many years ago. I finally gave it up about six months ago and went completely over to IE. There were just too many sites I had to go to IE to see. Times change and technology marches on......

Jim Izat

[Stan Smith]

I am using a mixed system. Opera for the web and Netscape for e-mail. My server won't let me send e-mail with opera. I can't print out e-mails with Netscape. I'm wondering if I should just switch to IE and be done with the whole mess? Looking for advice from a guru. Thanks.

Stan

[John Miliunas]

Originally posted by Stan Smith
I am using a mixed system. Opera for the web and Netscape for e-mail. My server won't let me send e-mail with opera. I can't print out e-mails with Netscape. I'm wondering if I should just switch to IE and be done with the whole mess? Looking for advice from a guru. Thanks.

Stan

Stan, "guru" might be a bit overstated, but take this for what it's worth in the "real world" experience. As Jim stated, the market pretty much creates the "standards" and IE is a leader in the market. Will IE solve 100% of your issues? Probably not. I don't know of any single app which will. Whether it makes your life easier or not, may also be subject to debate. For me, it works and it works well. The single greatest caveat to consider is, given that it's a Microsoft product, it is indeed more subject to "hack attacks". MS has been a favorite target for worm & virii creators. Again, personally, I don't see this as a problem, but more so, a constant reminder to be vigilant. I pay closer attention to how I handle my emails, keep my virus protection up to date, as well as make sure I'm on top of any security patches. I actually see this as an "advantage". Why? Because folks using other systems seem to get into a routine of complacency. In my way of thinking, a false sense of security. One of these days, a nasty virus will hit them and they won't even realize it until it's too late, because they haven't payed too much attention to the security practices one must engage in nowadays. Just my $00.02 and, as always, YMMV. :cool:

[Rod Peterson]

<BR>
Stan, try <a href=http://pmail.com/>Pegasus</a>. It's the only e-mail client I've used from the beginning, but it's free, very powerful, free, lots of functionality, free, relatively immune from Klez and other worms that eat Lookout Depress for lunch, free, and great support, if needed. And dirt simple to print your emails; I do that all the time.

Re: browsers: I'm one of those M$ haters and resisted internet exploder for years. From the very first, my web browsing was with Netscape. I'm not a <i>latest and greatest</i> type person (I have a couple of friends who do all the leading edge testing for me), so I'm hopelessly mired in Version 4 of Netscape and 5 of exploder.

However, of late (last six months or so) Netscape seems to be having more and more difficulty processing some sites. I, too, have had the experience of having to use exploder to view some of them as Netscape would hang. And others seem to cause Netscape to wait a seemingly interminable 15 or 20 seconds (internet time is like traffic light time; each second is like 8 or 10 real life seconds).

SawMill Creek was the last straw for me; there was no way I was going to be able to function here the way Netscape acted. I wrote a note of frustration to my friend (one of the above vanguards I mentioned) explaining my plight. He wrote back suggesting Mozilla, which he said is what Netscape used to be.

I tried it. It was awful. It was slower and clunkier than Netscape had gotten to be. So, I've been trying exploder for the last month or so. The good news: it doesn't seem to cough on any sites like Netscape did. The bad news: It doesn't have a <i>Go</i> button on the toolbar like Netscape does; oh, you can click on <i>View</i>, then click on <i>Go To</i> and get the same functionality (better, actually; Netscape gets lost after 15 or 20 histories), but clunky, clunky, clunky--all those extra keystrokes.

So, I tried Netscape again. It seems to fly compared to the others since I've been away, but it still doesn't do SMC well and it still hangs on certain sites.

Like Jim says, this is starting to play out like VHS and Beta.

Jim, here are some statistics from my website, based on more than 31,000 hits:

<table border="0" align="center"><tr><td align="right">Browsers
<tr><td>Internet Explorer 6.x<td> &nbsp; &nbsp; <td>43.8 %
<tr><td>Internet Explorer 5.x<td><td>30.1 %
<tr><td>Netscape 4.x<td><td>9.6 %
<tr><td>Netscape 7.x<td><td>4.1 %
<tr><td>Opera 7.x<td><td>2.7 %
<tr><td>WebTV<td><td>2.7 %
<tr><td>Netscape 3.x<td><td>2.7 %
<tr><td>Mozilla<td><td>1.4 %
<tr><td>Internet Explorer 4.x<td><td>1.4 %
<tr><td>Netscape 6.x<td><td>1.4 %
</table>
The totals are: IE = 75.3%, Netscape = 17.8% Other = 6.8%

For me, I'm still going to have to be a two browser user; neither of them being <b>the One</b> for me.

[Mike Cunningham]

Here I thought that 6.1 was the latest! Anywho, I downloaded 7.0 and all is well. Thanks much!!
I've used Netscape since my first Pentium and have just stuck with it. The only other problem I've had was accessing my bank, I've had to use IE for that.
Thanks again everyone!:D

[Jim Izat]

Rod's post got me wondering so I looked for the most recent compilation stats I could find and found these from 3/7/2003 ( I tried to put the below into a table but everytime I do it ends up way down the post out of site, takes up too much room on the page.


Browser Source 1 Source 2 Source 3

IE6 54% 61% 48%

IE5 39% 25% 25%

IE4 1.6% .55% 1.1%

Gecko-based 2.1% 5.5% 14%

NN4 1.7% 2.9% 1.9%

NN3 - .05% .15%

Opera .5% 1.6% .95%

other - 1.4% .3%

unidentified 1.2% 1.6% 9.2%

Jim Izat

"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything" - Gregg Easterbrook
~
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli (quoted by Mark Twain)

[Keith Outten]

To All,

There are just too many variables for us to say what the problems are with so many members using Netscape. We recently dropped the original domain we started with woodenthreads.org. Some of you may have bookmarked that domain and when we eliminated it from our DNS records it could have caused the problem.

Warning!!!!!
Check you bookmark and make sure it is set to sawmillcreek.org and NOT woodentreads.org.

Our System Administrator has setup woodenthreads.org again but only for a few days, this should give everyone the opportunity to read this post and make the appropriate adjustments.

If you are using a very old browser whether it be IE or Netscape check to make sure the digital certificate has not expired. Browsers do expire folks and when they do you cannot connect to sites using SSL and this might be why some of you are experiencing problems with so many web sites.

[Stan Smith]

We just got a new system to be at 32 bit. The tech suggested Opera for a browser. Man I love this pgm because you can have the whole screen with nothing on the right or leve by hitting the hotlist button. However, my server won't let me send e-mail with it. Netscape 7.01 won't let me printout my e-mail. Who knows why? I can copy and paste into wordpad and then print it out if I have to. It's a minor convenience. Am I being naive in thinking that there must be 1 pgm that will do all including browser and e-mail? I don't mine using IE; I just never have given it a thought until now. Thanks

Stan

[Keith Outten]

Stan,

I have been using Opera since version 2, it is much faster than any other browser but less popular since you have to pay for the software. In earlier versions is was a real pain to get all the plugins installed and even then a lot of web sites would not load since so many are not designed in accordance with the standards.
Opera has come a long way.

Pegasus Mail might be something you should look into, Pegasus is free software and it is commercial quality. I have been a Pegasus user for as long as I can remember. I never liked Outlook or any of the other email clients. Pegasus has improved as well through the years and I just can't wait to see the next version from David Harris. Someone else suggested Pegasus and confirmed what I know...lots of virus and trojan problems don't affect Pegasus and its multi user as well.

[Stan Smith]

I'm going to find it and check it out. I don't mind paying for software if it works. For example, I have ACDsee which is the best image viewer I have tried.

[Stan Smith]

I ended up on this site. I think it's called CDnet. You probably know about it. It's where you can download software, both free ware and shareware. One nice thing is that you can read the customer reviews. I checked into Pegasus, Eudora, Foxmail, and others. You can read all the pros and cons. I opted for Foxmail since I wanted something simple. I used to be a computer geek, but now I'm just a novice ++. Foxmail has worked and is very fast. So far no glitches. Oh yeah, did I say that it's free with no ads showing? I'm sure a more experienced user would opt for Pegasus. Thanks for your tips.