Netscape was NOT a POS except in the eyes of those trying to get web sites to work in it that worked in IE. Microsoft created IE with various APIs that only worked in IE but would fail in Netscape.
Based on your down-thread comment, I'm guessing that you never actually developed for Netscape 4.x (or 3.x for that matter) and are basing this entirely on a single comment from a non-technical person at a single company. Keep in mind that it's quite possible that Scottstrade's tech team was crap, and that's why they were having issues. It's also quite possible that you're talking about "Netscape 6.x vs IE 6.x" instead of "Netscape 3.x/4.x vs IE 5.x".
I strongly doubt you ever tried to make a site work in Netscape 3. If you'd nest layers (yes, the <layer> tag) more than 2 levels, random stuff would break.
You talk about APIs but really, if JS compat was your only problem you were a happy developer. It was the markup engine itself that was crap. IE's was simply also crap, just in a different way.
In 1998 or so, Scottrade, my broker, advised me to quit using IE and only use Netscape because of all horrible issues they had making their code work with it and that they advised all their clients to do the same. That's almost a quote.
No, Netscape was a total POS. The definition of bloated buggy software. A huge number of features that web developers take for granted originated in IE.
As Marc Andreesen told Charlie Rose on his PBS show last year, the code he wrote that was used in IE was "horrible" and they re-wrote everything for Netscape.
try not to look at Marc Andreessen's comments in the context of 2014. Remember that at the time NOBODY was making a reliable browser -- not Netscape and certainly not Microsoft. Ecommerce was in it's infancy. Web sites were hand-tooled, un-ready to handle, let alone scale, secure internet transactions. Every browser had severe programmatic flaws. By today's standards, yes, the browsers of the time were POS, as were the web apps being constructed. No kidding... I'm surprised no one has mention "the main thing" (Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale's favorite phrase) here: Netscape leadership team's panicky decision to sell out to AOL in November of 1998. That decision, not any technological shortcomings, is what ruined the Netscape browser, and doomed the company. I remember pulling into the Netscape parking lot on Ellis St in Mtn View and hearing the news that AOL had purchased us. My heart sank to the floor of the car. To their eternal disgrace, Netscape's leadership sold the company to Steve Case's glorified sales marketing firm at a time when Netscape's browser still had 40% market share and an incredibly loyal customer base. They took the money and they ran, making pathetic reassurances of how it was the best thing for the company and the only realistic option, given Microsoft's competitive market advantage. It was an act of cowardice -- there's no other honest way of framing it. The disappointment inside Netscape headquarters following the sale was tangible. Despite Andreessen's and Jim Barksdale's backpedaling, we knew that AOL was buying Netscape to remove it, so they could go toe-to-toe with IE in the nascent ecommerce market without dealing with a trouble-making, nimble firm that had the technological chops to survive, and perhaps prevail. The technologically illiterate AOL chumps from Virginia who descended on Netscape (wearing ties, being douches) quickly confirmed our suspicions. To overcome the disillusion and resentment brewing inside Netscape, AOL paid us two months salary to stick around. Most of the technical talent I worked with took the money and started looking for the next gig -- but when it's over, it's over... trust me, Netscape alumni still contemplate the "what if" scenario -- what if Netscape's leadership team had shown some backbone, hadn't succumbed to their own greed (AOL purchased Netscape for $4.2B and they got most of it). At the time of the AOL purchase, the Netscape browser had an extremely loyal user base, a dedicated and talented technical staff, and a very good fighting chance against the MS behemoth that has rarely been anything more than a mediocre innovator.
I worked at a company that built a web app. We recorded 50+ separate crashers for various version of netscape 3-4. There was a running internal contest about the shortest html that could crash netscape. And the funniest. And the most interesting. It was utter shit software.
Comments
Netscape was NOT a POS except in the eyes of those trying to get web sites to work in it that worked in IE. Microsoft created IE with various APIs that only worked in IE but would fail in Netscape.
Based on your down-thread comment, I'm guessing that you never actually developed for Netscape 4.x (or 3.x for that matter) and are basing this entirely on a single comment from a non-technical person at a single company. Keep in mind that it's quite possible that Scottstrade's tech team was crap, and that's why they were having issues. It's also quite possible that you're talking about "Netscape 6.x vs IE 6.x" instead of "Netscape 3.x/4.x vs IE 5.x".
I strongly doubt you ever tried to make a site work in Netscape 3. If you'd nest layers (yes, the <layer> tag) more than 2 levels, random stuff would break.
You talk about APIs but really, if JS compat was your only problem you were a happy developer. It was the markup engine itself that was crap. IE's was simply also crap, just in a different way.
In 1998 or so, Scottrade, my broker, advised me to quit using IE and only use Netscape because of all horrible issues they had making their code work with it and that they advised all their clients to do the same. That's almost a quote.
No, Netscape was a total POS. The definition of bloated buggy software. A huge number of features that web developers take for granted originated in IE.
As Marc Andreesen told Charlie Rose on his PBS show last year, the code he wrote that was used in IE was "horrible" and they re-wrote everything for Netscape.
try not to look at Marc Andreessen's comments in the context of 2014. Remember that at the time NOBODY was making a reliable browser -- not Netscape and certainly not Microsoft. Ecommerce was in it's infancy. Web sites were hand-tooled, un-ready to handle, let alone scale, secure internet transactions. Every browser had severe programmatic flaws. By today's standards, yes, the browsers of the time were POS, as were the web apps being constructed. No kidding... I'm surprised no one has mention "the main thing" (Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale's favorite phrase) here: Netscape leadership team's panicky decision to sell out to AOL in November of 1998. That decision, not any technological shortcomings, is what ruined the Netscape browser, and doomed the company. I remember pulling into the Netscape parking lot on Ellis St in Mtn View and hearing the news that AOL had purchased us. My heart sank to the floor of the car. To their eternal disgrace, Netscape's leadership sold the company to Steve Case's glorified sales marketing firm at a time when Netscape's browser still had 40% market share and an incredibly loyal customer base. They took the money and they ran, making pathetic reassurances of how it was the best thing for the company and the only realistic option, given Microsoft's competitive market advantage. It was an act of cowardice -- there's no other honest way of framing it. The disappointment inside Netscape headquarters following the sale was tangible. Despite Andreessen's and Jim Barksdale's backpedaling, we knew that AOL was buying Netscape to remove it, so they could go toe-to-toe with IE in the nascent ecommerce market without dealing with a trouble-making, nimble firm that had the technological chops to survive, and perhaps prevail. The technologically illiterate AOL chumps from Virginia who descended on Netscape (wearing ties, being douches) quickly confirmed our suspicions. To overcome the disillusion and resentment brewing inside Netscape, AOL paid us two months salary to stick around. Most of the technical talent I worked with took the money and started looking for the next gig -- but when it's over, it's over... trust me, Netscape alumni still contemplate the "what if" scenario -- what if Netscape's leadership team had shown some backbone, hadn't succumbed to their own greed (AOL purchased Netscape for $4.2B and they got most of it). At the time of the AOL purchase, the Netscape browser had an extremely loyal user base, a dedicated and talented technical staff, and a very good fighting chance against the MS behemoth that has rarely been anything more than a mediocre innovator.
What on earth are you talking about.
I worked at a company that built a web app. We recorded 50+ separate crashers for various version of netscape 3-4. There was a running internal contest about the shortest html that could crash netscape. And the funniest. And the most interesting. It was utter shit software.
I think OP might have only remembered Gecko based Netscape. As a side note, I wonder how many of the crashes would be considered exploitable nowadays.