NS 6.01 - Is it used or only beta

[stringman]

I have been trying to develop a Web site and have been testing with NS 4.7, 6.01, 6.2, 7.1, IE, and the most recent Opera and Mozilla browsers. I am having considerable trouble with NS 6.01. I was informed that this was a beta version and has significant flaws. Since it was available from NS as an archive download, I have assumed it is a fairly recent browser that should be tested.

My question is this: Is this only a beta version? If so, can I abandon using it as a testing browser. Are people using NS 6.01 in any significant numbers? Any stats? Maybe more are using NS 4.78/9 if NS 6.01 is just a beta?

Some problems I am encountering are alignment and font property recognitions within tables and divs and a memory leek that will not allow my "cool menus" to display, even w/ the developers addin to fix the leek.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Stringman

[spufi]

I do not know if 6.01 is a beta version, or not, but if it is, then I wouldn't worry about it. I think very few people would download the beta version and then not download the alpha version. Seems kind of silly not to doesn't it.

Here's browser numbers from the 19th. This is the first time I haven't see Netscape in any form within the top 7. It really is a dying broswer with just about all of it's users going to Mozilla/Firebird.

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox26.html

For older reports go here to check out trends in usage.
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox.html

[stringman]

Interesting article. I had no idea NS has slide so far into the chasm.

I have already made up my mind to blow off NS 6.01. However, if people are using it, they probably have no way to tell wether it's a beta or not since NS doesn't post that info on their archive download site. My assumption is that they would not archive a beta version for users to download, but logic may not dictate their actions.

Stringman

[Hurstool]

I used 6 at work for a very short amount of time because it seemed fairly buggy overall. We stuck with 4.7x until 7 came out, and the whole office made the jump then. I did the same at home. If the art dept. gets new macs and goes to OS X this summer, we'll be using Safari.

[spufi]

I believe Netscape 6 had it's fair share of issues and thus it went to 6.2 rather quickly. I should point out that looking at the stats of your own site will in the end be far more important than what stats from another source says. I checked my numbers last night and I'm around 13%-14% usage of Gecko browsers and that's really high compared to most sites. I do know why it's that high though.

[stringman]

Agreed. Although my client uses NS 4.78 and ultimately decides which browsers should be tested. They are probably unaware of the difference between NS 6.01 and NS 6.1+. Stats are not maintained for the directory I have been allocated and to get meaningful data would take longer than I have to finish development. The Dept of Defense (DoD) is still using NS 4.78 so I expect that most users hitting my pages will be using some version of NS.

Stringman

[Robert Wellock]

DoD is using Netscape 4.xx I knew they were strapped for cash but they probably could use a lite Gecko engine like K-Meleon, which can run on i486's.

[stringman]

They are in the process of switching to NS 7.1, although they have been talking about a switch for a couple years. I think it will actually happen sometime soon.

Stringman

[Robert Wellock]

Though Netscape 7.1 is a discontinued product so they might as well jump straight to Mozilla 1.6 or Firebird 0.7 for the workstations that can cope.