Netscape 6: At Long-Awaited Last

On November 14th 2000, Netscape Communications finally launched the new version of its browser, called Netscape 6. The last version to be released was Netscape Communicator 4.76, which was the umpteenth minor upgrade to Communicator 4.0, which has been around for... oh I don't know how long. About three years, give or take a century of "Internet Time."

This is news, of course. Netscape was once the king of browsers, even though it has been pushed out of the way by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the last couple of years. And of course, Netscape 6 is the first Netscape browser to be developed as part of the open-source Mozilla project, and is also the first Netscape browser to use the incredible new Gecko engine for page layout.

So what's the score? Is Netscape 6 a revolution in the making, or is it too little too late? Is it any good for users, and will it make developers' lives easier? Read on and find out what I discovered after playing around with it for a few days.