Netscape 8.0 Beefs Up Mozilla Firefox
Based on Mozilla Firefox 1.0, this beta of Netscape’s newest browser offers support for both the Gecko and Internet Explorer rendering engines. A new Site Controls feature lets users enable and disable features like ActiveX, JavaScript and cookies on a site-by-site basis (the browser includes self-updating whitelists and blacklists of safe and dangerous sites). The new Multi-Bar functionality lets users have more on-screen widgets than ever before, including Live Content like RSS feeds, weather forecasts and map searches.
The new Netscape Browser 8.0 is a more commercial, Netscape branded, heavy version of the open source Firefox browser which has taken an impressive market share with the target of reaching 10% by the end of the year. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still holds a large chunk of the web browser market.
However, latest stats show that the growth of Mozilla’s Firefox browser has slowed down. In the duration of five weeks leading to 18 February Firefox growth was quite modest at 15% compared to earlier growth rate of 22%. That growth was helped when the Mozilla Foundation launched the GetFirefox initiative, which gained amazing support from the web community. Donations were used to start a massive publicity campaign, which included full-page ads in national newspapers.
Critics and market analysts say that the slump in the growth rate is quite expected considering most of the users expected to switch have already switched to the alternate browser. And with the recent announcement from the software giant Microsoft regarding the upcoming launch of the Internet Explorer 7 version, it might take more efforts from the Open Source Community to generate more excitement in the segment. Showcasing the Firefox browser in Netscape’s newest offering may just be one step.
I think the headline should be “Firefox beefs up Netscape” not the other way around. Netscape 8 relies heavily on Firefox, while the reverse is not true.
Also while Firefox’s growth (shown as a percentage) has slown down, downloads have continued at a steady clip. The percentages can be deceptive as almost any download rate is phenomenal when the product is new, but even the most insane download rates can seem meager when compared to a huge population many months later.
the question is:
what is microsoft’s next big move?
ok, so microsoft is battling google and yahoo! on one front and netscape and firefox on the other… i’d like to suggest the possibility that google swallows up firefox – which would give it a larger brand identity and really hurt ie.
is the mozilla engine really safer, or do the hackers just like picking on the big M? makes me wonder.
Microsoft’s Bling Bling
No way!
I have Mozilla Suite 1.7.5. Mozilla Firefox Foundation has developed the best browser that exist on the internet. I’m sticking with this browser because it’s is a browser of excellence for my business and home. Thanks Mozilla.