NC6PR3

Let's put all the cards on the table for this one.

Get It Try It

• IE is a monster. It went from a bad and slow client based on a really dorky system architecture to a pervasive vampire, and now that 5.5 is out you can finally see the blood dripping from Bully Billy's fangs, and you'd think he must have a plan for whacking TP or something the way he is carrying on. IE is not a good browser.
• Opera is fast, but it looks like a Model T and it costs too. What makes matters worse, the Opera team has this great marketing idea that if they align themselves with the open source movement they can make big bucks. But the open source movement basically means free software, and Opera sure isn't free - and it's never going to be open source either. Norwegians have every right to be ashamed of this despicable crew. Scratch Opera.
• Netscape 3.03Gold was the last good and fast browser anywhere. Thanks to the Here Comes Billy Boy Let's Protect Ourselves By Adding Some Bloat Syndrome, no successor to 3.03Gold has been particularly good. Granted, several follow ups have been at least more stable than IE, but they still are not what people need.
• Moz milestones have been horrendous. Moz is definitely dead - the stench is enough to knock your socks off.

So the expectations - the need - as AOL/Netscape unveil their latest attempt at a web client, although not necessarily high given all that has gone before, ironically must be high. And given all the eye candy the reviews promise, it's almost a certain download for most of the world's netizens.

So - once again, and definitely not over lightly - what happened? For once the eye candy has been subtracted, this 'release' is worse than any of the others.

The poor thing crashes your OS as soon as you try to re-size its windows, it takes over one minute realtime to move from the web client to the email client - these guys at AOL/Netscape still haven't got a clue, have they?

It even corrupts your GDI! Now no program on earth has ever done that before, but the wizards working for Steve Case have carried it off where everyone else failed! Look at this screen shot of marlett.ttf in action - and ponder the fact that as soon as NC6PR3 loads, this happens to every window in your system! Software engineering at its very best.

And while Moz milestones were pretty good about uninstalls, you can forget about this one - or rather be very wide-eyed. It will leave junk everywhere on your disk. You thought the 'Temporary Internet Files' idea was a dumb idea? Watch out! This genial program will add about FIFTY similar directories to your profile under 'Application Data' - and of course leave it all hanging there once it has completed your uninstall to its satisfaction. Also, look around on your boot disk for files matching the regex 'moz*.*' - you should find a few in your 'Windows' directory.

The final word? Find a site that has the screen shots. That's all you really want to do with NC6PR3. Don't bother downloading it. You have better things to do with your time - like playing Solitaire on Red Hat.