Netscape recently released version 8.1. Yes, it is shiny-shiny. Yes, it smells new. Yes, the thought of Netscape making a comeback is romantic. But why, oh why would they go completely out of their way to make our (wearing designer/developer’s hat) lives more complicated?

There was a time when Netscape was the leading internet browser on the Internet. I even used it as my email client back in college. It was sick! Then Billy came and took over. For a while both IE and Netscape had version-pissing wars, and in the end, Netscape’s stronger brand and superior product lost to Billy’s market penetration. It was a sad outcome for all avid Netscape fans. But on the flipside, we finally got some standardization (and when I say some, I mean some – which is always better than none)

Netscape recently released a new browser version (NS8.1). They have created a shell that allows users to select either the Firefox or IE rendering engine. From a strategic point of view, this is a very interesting move. They have more or less decided that both IE and Firefox browsers do a nice job rendering web pages and decided not to compete or recreate the wheel. Instead, they decided to differentiate on enhancing the user’s internet browsing experience – which they have done to an extent through the introduction of some nice features.

From a web design and development point of view, allowing the user to select either the IE or Firefox rendering engine is the equivalent of a karate chop to the jugular. This brilliant idea has left us scratching the back our heads – how do we write code that is optimized for a browser that could be running one of two different rendering engines? The problem is augmented when you think about the version of the each rendering engine – so we not only have to keep an eye on the browser, but the rendering engine AND the version of the rendering engine AND the overarching settings Netscape uses to govern the rest of the software!

Admittedly, we have not done enough research to fully understand how deep the problem is and if there is a solution – so I might be freaking out in vain; and at the end of the day, it is our problem to figure out.

I don’t think the browser is going to gain much traction, because it behaves somewhat unpredictably, and its main claim to fame (switching rendering engines) might cause the brain of the “regular user” to hiccup and stall. “I just downloaded Netscape and now it is asking me if I want to use Firefox or IE to browse the internet? Huh?”