Like most college students, I am mildly addicted to the Internet. I have 750 MP3s, receive twenty-five e-mails a day, make lunch plans over IM, and refer to weather.com every morning to decide what to wear. Therefore, when Netscape 6 was released earlier this month I downloaded it almost immediately.
Netscape 6 is the first new major version of Netscape to be released in two and a half years. The software possesses several advantages over both its previous versions and the current version of Internet Explorer. The most noticeable change is the ability to customize the look of Netscape with themes in a fashion similar to the way Winamp is customized with skins. The default theme has a sleek, modern look that is sure to raise eyebrows. In addition, a brand new rendering engine called Gecko powers Netscape 6. In English, this means that the browser can load web pages faster than previous versions.
However, the shortcomings of Netscape 6 outweigh the benefits. The software is an unfinished product oozing with bugs. Some of the features do not work properly; others cause the program to crash.
Almost immediately after opening Netscape 6 for the first time, I noticed that it lacked the smooth feel of a well-polished, professional piece of software. The previous version of Netscape, version 4.7x, is like a worn-in baseball glove. From the easy slip of your hand into the glove's buttery leather to the familiar feel of the oomph as a baseball smacks into the deep-well pocket, you know that your mitt is tweaked and broken in to perfection.
Netscape 6 is like a mitt straight of out of the store - before you get to tie it up with a baseball, before you put it under your pillow and sleep on it, and before you drive over it five times with your dad's Honda. I am not complaining because Netscape 6 is a new product that I haven't yet gotten used to, I have no problem adjusting to change. I am complaining because Netscape 6 is unrefined and downright shoddy.
A CNet.com review, which confirmed my personal experience, writes that under tests, Netscape 6 "crashed a bit too often." Well, that's just wonderful. I can just picture what would happen if the standards of software spread to, say, the car industry.
"Hey Steve, how's your new car, man?"
"Not bad. I like it a lot. Only problem's that it crashes a bit too often."
"Really? It crashes?"
"Yeah, I'll be driving and all of the sudden it'll crash. POW! Like into a tree or something. I wouldn't care so much if it weren't for all the cuts and bruises."
The Internet is no longer a nascent technology that merely hosts silly, little websites for companies that want to show off. Just as people rely on their cars to get them from point A to point B, people rely on their e-mail messenger program to communicate and on their navigator program to browse the Internet. There is no reason for our standards for software reliability to be lower than they are for everything else in life.
Having taken four semesters of computer science between high school and college, I completely understand that software cannot be 100 percent bug-free. (Hell, half the time I wrote a program, I was lucky if it worked at all.) But I am convinced that software programmers and beta test organizers could work a lot harder.
Aside from the major unreliability problems, Netscape 6 touts a slew of "little things" that just plain aggravate me. A quick glance at the 14-page list of known problems (accessible from the Help menu), reveals hundreds of screw-ups, imperfections, and malfunctions.
For example, in just about every program I have ever used on my laptop computer, I can scroll by gliding my finger down the right edge of my touch-pad. Does this convenience work in Netscape 6? Not a chance.
Another pain is that aside from the loading of web pages, the software is ridiculously slow. From starting up the program to editing my bookmarks, Netscape 6 creeps along at the speed of a sleeping turtle.
My biggest complaint is the three-second delay between clicking the button to compose e-mail and seeing the window appear. (Actually, it takes a full six seconds the first time after starting up the program.) This isn't the kind of computation-intensive task that takes time to process. It's a simple e-mail program, it's not calculating complex weather patterns or satellite orbit paths. The compose e-mail window should take a millisecond to appear. The brakes on cars certainly don't take three full seconds to kick into effect! It is inexcusable that a flaw like this could work its way into the final version of a software application.
I'm sure there are some people who think that I am being nitpicky. Of course, we could all e-mail and browse the web to our hearts' content with all the little imperfections. But why should we have to?
I have chosen Netscape 6 as the focus of this outburst. However, I could have written about many other software applications. Windows crashes, Microsoft Word crashes, and even Winamp crashes on occasion. My CD burner software is so bad that I had to trash 15 CDs last week.
The point I am trying to make is that today's software could be much better. People tend to be forgiving of the imperfections because modern computers and software are a new technology. Moreover, because computers offer spectacular and revolutionary features that were never even dreamed of fifteen years ago, it is easy to say, "Hey, we should be thankful we even can do this at all." It is important not to fall into this mentality. In a world of increasing reliance on computer software, we need increasing software reliability. In the mean time, I'll be using the older version of Netscape.
Justin Golub is a junior majoring in biology. He is a photo editor for The Tufts Daily.
