Ugliness Creeps Across the Web

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So after letting the Netscape brand languish, firing the Netscape development team, and letting their browser division go to seed, AOL/Time Warner/Who-the-fuck-knows-what-the-name-is decides it wants a new browser. So they hire a team and today they released a public beta.

Naturally as a denizen of the world weird web I want to keep tabs on things. After all, some poor schmoe might actually install this software and access sites I design. Except for one problem. I don't use Wintendo, err, Windows. What's a geek to do?

Then I remember, I have WINE installed on my Linux workstation. Now WINE Is Not an Emulator, it is a software compatibility layer that lets Windows programs natively run under linux. This is a very cool thing indeed. So I download Netscape 8 beta and try to install it. Hey, it installs just fine. So now I am excited, maybe I can even use the Trident rendering engine Internet Explorer uses and test more web sites.

After installation finishes I get this as my first glimpse:

Netscape 8 Beta 00

At this stage my eyes spontaneously exploded onto my screen and keyboard. After picking up the pieces and getting myself patched up I came back to my computer, sat down and very quietly and reasonably started to curse the fucking hell out of the designer that created the user interface for that piece of shit. Oh my fucking god what were you thinking? I understand that some jobs we do because we get paid for them, but jesus! What demon did you sell your soul to in order to create such a monstrosity? Rot your eye and may your finger turn to rubber so that you never ever touch a keyboard or a mouse whoever the fuck you are.

Next I calmly checked what happens after I click on the dialog button:

Netscape 8 Beta 01

Ok, so I get an error dialog. Something about files missing. Hey considering that this is a Windows program running on Linux I ain't complaining. So what happens next?

Netscape 8 Beta 02

So it appears that Trident is not packaged with Netscape 8 but that it uses the IE rendering engine present on a Windows system. That makes sense. If you had to bundle IE with Netscape you could come up with installer sizes that are bigger than whole operating systems. As it is the installer for Netscape 8 exceeds the size for Firefox by about three megabytes. For what? For a UI that'll make your eyes bleed like pigs at the slaughterhouse. I digress and all that.

After I cleared the last two dialogs Netscape 8 crashed and spared my eyes the last of the strain.

My advice is if you are looking for a browsing experience on Windows the get Firefox. Fast, secure, and much more professional looking than the franken-browser called Netscape 8.