Neowin Forums > *Firescape* first impressions

PGHammer

Dec 3 2004, 18:52

O have been thrashing this decidedly unusual Netscape browser with Firefox' engine (which I call *Firescape* for just that reason) and have been using it in *newbie mode* ever since, trying to look at it from the prospective OF a newbie (as opposed to most of the previous comments about it, mostly from users that already had their minds made up).
I'm comparing it against the current Netscape, Maxthon (formerly MyIE2), IE, and Firefox 1.0 itself, and so far, for sheer speed, Firescape wins hands down (not just over Firefox, but even over IE). Unlike Firefox, it steals a page from IE by using standard Win32 UI elements (however, the UI itself is more like Netscape (or even a skinned IE) than Firefox).

You can indeed change the engine within a tab (as opposed to the whole browser) so you can do *engine switches* on a site-by-site basis.

Also, unlike the original Netscape, there are no other features (Mail and Newsgroups, etc.): this is a *bare browser*.

bangbang023

Dec 3 2004, 21:35

I wasn't aware of the multi engine capabilities. Thanks.

Ambience

Dec 4 2004, 04:46

What's the design like?

Redestium

Dec 4 2004, 09:42

This has potential but with AOL behind the helm who the hell knows.

stockwiz

Dec 4 2004, 15:35

My initial impressions of the browser were good... although since it's essentially firefox .9.3 with added features I guess that's somewhat expected.

Speedwise I didn't notice much of a difference in speed between the bigbang build I'm using and this netscape browser once I imported my user.js tweaks. It's plenty fast, although no faster then your typical firefox installation. It hogs memory like firefox, because it is firefox.. modified.

Yes, you can alternate between the IE and gecko engines and use one or the other exclusively... the gecko engine makes the IE engine seem ancient when properly tweaked.. as IE waits for all the images to load before displaying the text.. although my connection is only 256k and I'm downloading something at the moment which effects results. Netscape seems to alternate between the two seemlessly without problem.. I'm uncertain as to whether this is a necessary feature or not.. if I want to use the IE engine I'll just use IE.

I like the default theme. I like how they integrated the title bar into the menu bar seemlessly. I think first impressions are big for your typical user, and I think firefox's default theme is ugly and should have been replaced with something like Noia's or Qute's by default. I like the weather bar. The news feeds I didn't like. The scrolling was annoying and the news stories themselves were outdated.. presumably because they are not currently supporting this beta version at the moment.

The form fill and passcard features are nice to have, granted you can just use extensions for firefox to achieve the same effect.

Other then that there is not much to say.. take firefox, throw in a new theme, some added features, and you have this browser. If you take your user profile folder from firefox and throw it into netscape's, outside of a few differences between how netscape designed the menubar, it looks almost like the firefox you are using.

PGHammer

Dec 4 2004, 23:34

QUOTE(stockwiz @ Dec 4 2004, 15:35)

My initial impressions of the browser were good... although since it's essentially firefox .9.3 with added features I guess that's somewhat expected.

Speedwise I didn't notice much of a difference in speed between the bigbang build I'm using and this netscape browser once I imported my user.js tweaks. It's plenty fast, although no faster then your typical firefox installation. It hogs memory like firefox, because it is firefox.. modified.

Yes, you can alternate between the IE and gecko engines and use one or the other exclusively... the gecko engine makes the IE engine seem ancient when properly tweaked.. as IE waits for all the images to load before displaying the text.. although my connection is only 256k and I'm downloading something at the moment which effects results. Netscape seems to alternate between the two seemlessly without problem.. I'm uncertain as to whether this is a necessary feature or not.. if I want to use the IE engine I'll just use IE.

I like the default theme. I like how they integrated the title bar into the menu bar seemlessly. I think first impressions are big for your typical user, and I think firefox's default theme is ugly and should have been replaced with something like Noia's or Qute's by default. I like the weather bar. The news feeds I didn't like. The scrolling was annoying and the news stories themselves were outdated.. presumably because they are not currently supporting this beta version at the moment.

The form fill and passcard features are nice to have, granted you can just use extensions for firefox to achieve the same effect.

Other then that there is not much to say.. take firefox, throw in a new theme, some added features, and you have this browser. If you take your user profile folder from firefox and throw it into netscape's, outside of a few differences between how netscape designed the menubar, it looks almost like the firefox you are using.
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The *engine change* feature is all too useful when you consider how long it takes to load a browser and its ancillaries (whether Netscape, Firefox, OR IE).

I have a fast connection (3 megabit cable) and a gigabyte of DDR400 (along with a P4 2.6C) so I'm not exactly in the slow lane; however, loading a whole browser takes longer than simply loading a tab (isn't that one of the major benefits to tabbed browsing in the first place?). Firefox is a *bare browser* with support for tabbed browsing; however, Firefox in Windows does NOT use the Win32 UI (instead it uses a custom set of UI features that are identical across all platforms Firefox supports). It is for precisely this reason that I compared Firescape to Camino (yet another OS-unique, in this case OS X, iteration of a Gecko-engined browser) as opposed to straight Firefox.

Further, I specifically stated that I am using Firescape the way a newbie would (no extra themes or tweaks), as opposed to reviewing (or viewing) it as a replacement browser for veterans. Also, newbies by and large don't know about themes, tweaks, etc. The issue with IE-specific pages or sites often comes as a *rude surprise* (to the browser user); thus being able to simply swap browser engines in that particular tab saves time and energy.

Also, Firescape does NOT crash as often as IE, Maxthon, or even straight Firefox (which came as a rather rude surprise to me) and thus I find myself using Firescape more often for straight browsing chores (for which I normally use IE or Firefox). So I would award the stability prize to Firescape compared to IE or Firefox (let alone Maxthon or straight Netscape 7.2).