The evolution of the Web and the corresponding development of
Netscape's Navigator Web browser have been exciting and fast paced. Holding the
coveted position of industry leader, Netscape has been able to easily redefine
the Web at will. Some say Navigator 2.0 put the Web in a position to enter pop
culture.
Navigator 3.0 is the latest incarnation of Netscape's trend-setting and
industry-leading Web browser. Facing sudden stiff competition from Microsoft,
Netscape piled on the features to turn an otherwise minor update into a
full-blown, major upgrade.
Usability
For familiarity's sake, Netscape chose to not revise the UI in Navigator
3.0. So if you've used Navigator 2.0, you'll feel at home with Navigator 3.0.
Unfortunately, Navigator 3.0 also inherits the previous version's UI quirks and
flaws, such as inconsistency with the underlying OS's menus.
Although the UI remains the same, Netscape added functionality and tighter
integration within the browser. Navigator consists of three applications (the
browser and Netscape's mail and news clients) that share an interface, right
down to the menu options. The line between the browser and the mail and news
clients is blurred with this latest release. For example, you can now view HTML
documents, which retain all HTML formatting codes, in email messages.
As for customizing the browser, however, Navigator 3.0 is downright
medieval compared to IE3. Whereas IE3 lets you customize the entire browser UI
from a central dialog, Navigator's options are in several dialogs and menu
options. You can resize and remove Navigator's toolbars, but you can't move or
minimize them.
Navigator is also inconsistent with regard to the Windows OS menu paradigm.
For example, the context menu behavior lacks common features (such as the
ability to copy data from a Web page to the clipboard). Although this design
goes against Microsoft's UI guidelinesand could possibly extend the
learning curvethe inconsistency is understandable considering Netscape's
cross-platform support. Netscape also wants you to spend most, if not all, your
time in Navigator, which diminishes any concern about UI inconsistency.
Navigator 3.0 also includes a universal resource locator (URL) helper,
which is useful if you frequently access a site in one session. With this tool,
you can simply type a domain name (such as winntmag), and Navigator 3.0
automatically places the www and com tags around it.
Speed
For HTML rendering, Navigator 3.0 is probably the fastest Web browser for
NT. Graph 1 in the main article compares Navigator's and IE3's load times.
Although testing performance measurements is difficult because of the number of
external variables (such as connection speed and video performance), Navigator
3.0 was clearly faster than IE3 across the board on a local intranet. Navigator
was approximately 30% faster than IE3 in rendering seven pages of text and
images (JPEGs). If you connect to the Internet with an analog modem, differences
in speed will be less dramatic because bandwidth becomes a bottleneck.
Of course, speed is moot if the browser monopolizes your CPU time. Earlier
versions of Navigator could use 100% of the CPU time during page loading and
rendering. I monitored Navigator 3.0's CPU usage with NT's Perfmon. Navigator
never claimed more than 25% of the CPU during complex page rendering.
Extensibility
With Navigator 2.0, Netscape pioneered the third-party plug-in extensions
model for Web browsers. Its support for infant Java scripts and plugins proved
to be a turning point in Web browser development. Third-party developers quickly
jumped on the plug-in bandwagon and released a lot of plug-ins that extended the
browser's capabilities in ways that even Netscape couldn't have imagined. From
address books to interactive chat to time schedulers, plugins revolutionized the
Web.
As an example of how the Web has changed from a static hybrid of text and
graphics documents to a multimedia interactive environment, Navigator 3.0 now
ships with plugins that support several external media types: Live3D for Virtual
Reality Modeling Language (VRML) browsing, LiveAudio for playback of embedded
audio files, and LiveVideo for inline QuickTime and AVI video support. All three
plugins seamlessly integrate with Navigator in a way that's similar to the
integration of IE3 and ActiveX controls.