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Netscape and Mozilla both released new final versions of their respective browsers in late August -- Netscape 7.0 and Mozilla 1.1. When I tested the Netscape 7 Public Preview 1 against Mozilla 1.0 and five other browsers back in May, the Netscape product had a significant edge in speed over the others, and I was interested to see if Mozilla had caught up, or if Netscape had retained or extended its advantage. Both of these browsers are big -- some 17 MB for the compressed file, expanding to about 35 MB when unstuffed. However, installation in OS X involves merely mounting the disk image and dragging the browser folder to your hard drive. One frequently voiced complaint about Mozilla and Netscape 6/7, especially in the classic Mac OS versions, is that they take a long time to start up, but in these OS X iterations, Netscape 7.0 comes to life in 10 seconds and Mozilla in 12 seconds on my 500 MHz Pismo PowerBook, which is not too onerous, although still a bit slower than the competition. I timed web page downloads on four pages. Note that I have a slow dial up connection (26,400 bps connection speed), so most users will enjoy faster download times than I do. I'm running OS X 10.1.4 on the Pismo. Browser caches were emptied before each test. Mozilla 1.1
Applelinks home page - 41 seconds
Netscape 7.0 As you can see, Mozilla 1.1 has caught up to Netscape 7.0 nicely, and it's now pretty much a wash, with each browser timing faster on two of the four pages. That's not surprising, as the two products are really fraternal twins. Code from the Mozilla project forms the core of Netscape 6 and 7. Netscape contributes the work product of a set of employees to the Mozilla project. That work product is combined with the contributions of a host of other contributors to create the Mozilla codebase. Netscape then takes most "but not all" of the Mozilla codebase and uses it to create the Netscape product. Netscape adds a set of features to the Mozilla core, such as the AOL Instant Messenger, a Java virtual machine, and a set of plug-ins; Netscape also adds its logos and other branding items, and may set default URLs, etc. Netscape 7.0 is thus a customization of the Mozilla codebase intended for a consumer audience, while Mozilla is described by its developers diplomatically an being targeted at the developer community. However, there's no reason for consumer users to shun Mozilla, especially if they prefer a leaner, less duded up package. The emphasis for Mozilla, both in terms of functionality and of user interface, was to allow Netscape to create a reliable replacement for the Netscape Communicator 4.x series. However, there were profound changes under the hood that specifically relate to the future evolution of the user experience and that set Mozilla up for an exciting and rapidly evolving future: Mozilla.org exists to make Mozilla a successful open source project. It supports the entire Mozilla community and provides a central point of contact and community for those interested in using or improving the Mozilla codebase. Netscape is the largest single contributor to the Mozilla project and has strengthened the community by employing a number of former volunteers, thereby allowing many of them to work full time on the project. Netscape employees have been intimately involved in most aspects of the codebase, usually in tandem with a few key volunteers and an increasing number of employees of other companies who are using Mozilla code. To date, approximately 300 people unrelated to Netscape have made code contributions to the project. In terms of appearance and stability, there's little to choose between the two. Netscape comes with a few more bells and whistles than Mozilla, and I prefer the aesthetics of the Netscape animated logo to Mozilla's big lizard. Both browsers include a Messenger email client module and a Composer HTML authoring module. I have found both to be almost flawlessly stable in daily use in both OS X and OS 9. It's a very hassle-free to switch between the two browsers, as they both access the same Mozilla folder in the Documents folder for preferences; Bookmarks, etc. files, although that means you can't have both running at the same time. Overall, either of these browsers is now a no-excuse his replacement for Internet Explorer. The only areas where I think IE has a significant edge is in the way it handles history, and its excellent Download Manager, but both of these features are even better in little iCab, which is no hardship to keep around as a second browser.
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Mail doesn't work as I described OS X On A Beige 266 MHz G3 DragonDrop Netscape 7.0 Addressbook in Jaguar GyazMail From Charlie M. Charles, One of the reasons I am looking at a new Mac is to improve my office eMail situation. At home I use Eudora 5.1.1 on OS 9.0.4 and am very happy with it. I hoped to use it with OS X on a new Mac at the office. I found this good article from Pierre Igot: http://www.applelust.com/alust/oped/applepeel/archives/peel_38_020830.shtml Pierre's Eudora experience with OS X apparently was not acceptable. He ended up with Apple's Mail, after trying Eudora for OS X and Mailsmith for OS X. The eMail program choice is a universal issue. It apears that it is not clearcut as to which one to adopt with OS X. Do you have any knowledge of where Eudora is going with development for OS X? Recently I downloaded PowerMail4 and am running it on OS 9.0.4. I can not figure out how to Check Mail/Receive Mail. Do you or your son know the secret?! PowerMail folks did not respond to my eMail request for help. Enjoy your writing and reporting. Thanks. Charlie M.
Hi Charlie;
I'm not sure what Pierre's problem was, but I've been using Eudora 5 with OS X from the day I installed X and have found it essentially no different in performance than with OS 9.
Based on my experience, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. One big advantage for me is that it is fully back and forth compatible with OS 9/OS X. In fact, I use the same mail folder with both, and just drop an alias into the Eudora folder in the OS X Documents folder.
I have to confess that I've never used PowerMail myself. My son has switched to the OS X Mail app.
Charles
Mail doesn't work as I described From Wayne Folta Charles, I know I tried it and it worked... But it sure doesn't work now. Search in Mail is just not recursive as I said: it only searches the currently selected mailbox or (if you CMD-click multiple mailboxes) directories. Sigh. From Paul Delcour Hi Charles, I just installed OSX on my beige minitower G3 266MHz 192 MB ram. It is a bit sluggish, but I like it very much.
- Love the Mail program.
So far not so bad. It's all so different, nothing looks familiar, especially inside the system. Now for a Zif G4 500MHz and things should improve. Just tried Mozilla 1.1. It seems a bit snappier than the OS9, but here again it's my machine slowing me down. I'll keep testing. :-) Paul Delcour
Hi Paul;
You can configure the Dock so that it disappears until you mouse over.
You can turn of anti-aliasing ("font-smoothing") in the General Preferences panel, or specify a point size cutoff below which anti-aliasing will not be applied ("Size" pop-up menu).
Some older printers are supported. Look in the Library>Printers.etc. folder to see if there's a driver for your LW 360. I found eight LaserWriter 360 files in the fr.lproj folder. I'm really not up to speed myself on printing issues. My only printer is definitely not supported by OS X (ImageWriter II). Perhaps some of our readers can help.
Charles From David Adamson I just now read your May 24 article on DragonDrop. I'm glad my toy has been well recieved. If you don't know already, DragonDrop was recently updated, with significant changes. Most noticeably, the windows are now crowned with real, lickable tabs (NSTabViews inside of borderless windows), and respond to single clicks (as you wished, unbeknownst to me) for minimization. There are a bunch of other, smaller improvements, of cosmetic and under-the-hood varieties. And I've open sourced the project, and a volunteer is localizing DragonDrop to French as I type this. While the angelfire site is still there, http://sourceforge.net/projects/dragondrop and http://cs.oberlin.edu/~dadamson/DragonDrop are probably preffered download sites. Versiontracker has a current entry, as well. (I've also moved away from .dmg in favor of Stuffit, for hopefully less troublesome downloads) Anyhoo, thanks again for reviewing DragonDrop. If you happen to revisit the topic, let me know. I'd like to be able to point my friends toward it and gleam with pride.
regards,
Thanks David;
I'll try to check the upgraded version out soon.
Charles From Duncan Holley Hi Charles, How's the speed compared with Chimera? I'm really enjoying Chimera right now, the speed is by far the best I've found on OS X, but the stability is killing me. I realize that it's a 0.4 build, and so I keep a couple of other browsers on my machine for purposes where stability matters more (or for when I surrender in frustration). If 7.0 is both fast and stable, I might just be in.
Take care,
Hi Duncan;
I haven't tried Chimera 4 yet. However, when I tested whatever the current version of Chimera was at the time against the Netscape 7.0 PR1 when it came out in May, Netscape proved significantly faster, and has been very stable as well.
As you can see above, there isn't much speed diference now between the Netscape 7.0 and Mozilla 1.1 final releases. I suspect that Chimera 4 is in the same ballpark.
Charles From Peter Howson Have to tell you that I am amazed that there is not more excitement about the new addressbook. It has some shortcomings but the bluetooth connectivity alone has convinced me to switch from Entourage. Here is a brief synopsis of the 4 things that really impressed me and this is before iSync and iCal are available: 1: Dialing from the computer - Click on a phone number and choose dial from the pop up menu and the phone calls the number. 2: Sending SMS from the computer - Just like dialing from the computer. Choose SMS Message and you get a little dialog box that lets you type in the message and even tells you how many characters you have left. You can see the whole message and use the computer keyboard which is much easier to use than the keypad on the phone. 3: Checking SMS from the computer - I can check my SMS messages without having to read them on the tiny little phone screen. Then i can delete them. 4; Caller ID - When there is an incoming call I can see who is calling on the computer screen. Then I can either answer the phone, send the call to voice mail, or send them an SMS message. This is really handy when the phone is downstairs and I am upstairs. All this with about 2 seconds of setup. I plugged in the d-Link bluetooth adapter and clicked on the bluetooth button on the addressbook screen and i was done. It simply started "talking" to my Ericsson T-39 phone. This is just another example of the fact that Apple "gets it" more than anyone else.
Peter Howson
Thanks for the report, Peter.
Charles From Demetrius Hi, In case you didn't know, there is a simple/clean emailer for OS X that few people talk about. It is called GyazMail, and even though some features are still missing I think it has a lot of potential. I've been a Eudora/Nisus user for a while now, but GyazMail looks like something I think most people can really learn to enjoy. I just wanted to spread the "Good News" to all.
take care
http://homepage.mac.com/gooichi/GyazMail/
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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