Why I use Netscape

OK ... stop the hate mail. This post is old old old.

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It boils down to laziness. When I surf, I'm generally kicked back on the couch, feet up, arm resting on a coffee table. Seldom do I want to get up and type anything.

The "Tools" Menu ...
Visibility while Scrolling ...
The "GO" Button ...


The GO button

I copy and paste URLs into the address field a lot (with a mouse). I need a GO button to actually get somewhere or I have to reach out and hit the ENTER key.

I use an IntelliMouse Optical with 4 buttons and a scroll wheel (which acts as a 5th button). The inside, left button is set to CUT; the outside, right button is set to CMD-W; the scroll wheel button is set to PASTE. After years of working this way I am still pleased with how cool and efficient it is. It deserves its own blog entry.

Visibility while scrolling

Netscape is the only browser that doesn't hurt my eyes when scrolling a page. Other mice (besides my trusty IO) may behave differently, and I know there are smooth scrolling preferences but I can't make them work to my satisfaction.

Safari seems to leap frog all over the place. I have to read ahead, make mental notes, hold my breath, and then retreat before I scroll ahead ... to maintain cognitive continuity.

Firefox blurs the text somehow; it does a little shimmy-shake. Weird. Unacceptable. (Could anything take longer to launch than Firefox?)

Camino is bad. I could live with its scrolling, maybe, but the scary-stupid looking buttons on the toolbar hurt my eyes. Camino is one ugly browser. Go home, go to bed, Camino.

Internet Explorer is, well ... Microsoft Internet Explorer. Let's move on.

Shiira behaves much like Safari (as one would expect). When not jumping around in fits and starts, it does the Firefox shimmy-shake-blur. Neither of them show format buttons when working in MovableType, or format buttons in my friends' hotmail interfaces. How many years did it take to get Back in the contextual menu? It still doesn't have separators in the Bookmarks menus. Cocoa goodness, schmocoa goodness.

I've just begun playing around with Opera. The scrolling isn't up to Netscape standards, and my initial impression is that it feels like trying to remove a hangnail with a crowbar. For a browser that lets you customize it in places you have not thought possible, it's a mistake, an error, to hard code that disaster. I can't imagine the lifestyle of someone who would use this browser. Who could live with the window tabs above the address field? It's unsettling.

The Tools Menu

I despise popups, but sometimes you gotta have 'em. I loathe cookies, but all too often we need them. I login to a lot of web sites with different usernames and passwords. I want fast access to controlling these things. I want them controlled on a site by site basis.

Some sites want to set cookies from sites that Netscape hasn't seen yet. Fire up IE, take the cookie, copy the URL back into Netscape, accept the cookie. It's a hassle but I feel good about having figured that one out ... so it's a wash.

A Keychained Safari does a half-assed job with passwords, allowing only one per site. And it's like no one at Apple has even thought about cookies or popups yet ... just like Back.

Opera looks promising on passwords and cookies, but I don't get it's popup policy. There is a preference for blocking unwanted popups or all popups. Who makes the distinction.

I may be wrong or blind to some of the things other browsers offer, but that's my point. In Netscape it all just makes sense. Everything is right there where it should be and acts like you would expect it to act, usefully.

Some 'bookmarklets' work in Safari, but not with the drag and drop simplicity of Netsacpe ...

Netscape has looked like iTunes 5 for years, although more quiet and unassuming. It's simple interface design works for me. I don't love it, I'm used to it. Nothing about it bothers me.

I want to leave Netscape (just like I want to leave Eudora, but that's for another time). It's so last century, it's got AOL connections. Firefox is hip and the search extensions are almost bookmarklet worthy; Opera's power-user capabilities intrigue me ... if I could just find an attractive skin for it and move the window tabs below the address bar; Something about Shiira. I want to pick that one, but ...