From: www.itworld.com

Testing Netscape 6

by Joshua Drake

March 23, 2001 —

 


When Netscape finally released version 6, I immediately offered to write a review for LinuxWorld.com on the new flagship browser. We are not the first out the door with our review of Netscape 6, but I wanted to take my time; I wanted to be objective about my thoughts.



I have been following the Mozilla development closely for almost two years. I am a consistent user of nightly builds, as I download and try them out at least twice a month. I have read every article I can find on the differences between Mozilla and Netscape.



I remember when Netscape first released Gecko to the public. I remember downloading it and thinking to myself how nice it was to have a Web browser that could fit on a floppy. I remember being thrilled at the features that the new Mail and News programs were going to offer.

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In fact, I was very happy about the Mail and News programs because Linux does not have any good KDE IMAP email clients. Before you get up in arms, I am talking about a product that is as feature rich as something like Eudora. Yes, Evolution for GNOME is a good start, but it is still very much a beta product.


All the rambling aside, I was excited to see Netscape 6 finally ship. My company has been using Netscape 4.7x for a long, long time. It is slow and buggy, doesn't do fonts very well, and takes forever to draw nested tables -- but it was the best we could do at the time. Netscape 6 promised a new era of compatible, efficient browsing ... or so I thought.


How we tested


Hardware


Processor: AMD K6/2-550

Memory: 256 MB

Mass storage: 15-GB 7200 RPM UDMA 66



Platform


Operating System: Red Hat Linux 6.2

Kernel: Unmodified 2.4.0-test4


After two days of unsuccessfully trying to use the Netscape Installer for Linux, I decided to just FTP it down to my machine. The first thing I noticed was the size of the beast -- a 30-MB download. It was unbelievable. Luckily, on a 768-Kbps connection, it only took a few minutes to retrieve the product. I downloaded, installed, and executed.



I performed three tests. They were in no way scientific, but represent to me a real-world situation from which a user may draw an opinion. I called the first test the Startup Test: it times how long it takes a particular program to start and display its first page. I timed each program on its second startup so there would be no delay from copying initial preferences and such.


The Startup Test




As you can see, Netscape 4.75 is a clear winner over its newer sibling. I was disappointed. Netscape 4.75 is statically linked to Motif, and has traditionally been bloated and buggy. Even so, the real surprise here is that WordPerfect 2000 for Linux loaded faster than Netscape 6.



No, WordPerfect 2000 for Linux is not a Web browser, but I thought it would be an interesting benchmark. At home, my wife, whom I adore, runs Windows 98 with WordPerfect 2000. I installed Netscape 6 on her machine to see what the Windows version was like. I started it, and, just like its Linux cousin, it took a while to load. When I was done, I fired up WordPerfect to finish some correspondence. The first thing I noticed was that WordPerfect started more quickly than Netscape 6. I could not believe it. Just to make sure, I closed all the programs that were running, then started Netscape 6 and timed it. It took 23 seconds. It made sense that it would be slower than my test time, because my wife's machine has less RAM and a slower CPU than mine. The shocking thing was that WordPerfect 2000 loaded in 12 seconds. WordPerfect 2000 is a huge program, much larger than Netscape 6.



Since I was writing this article, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of times I would get with WordPerfect 2000 for Linux. The Linux version is basically similar to the Windows version, but lacks some features and runs with WINE, which will slow things down a little. Usually the delay is not noticeable unless you have a lot of documents open or are running more than one application with WINE. The point is that WordPerfect 2000 for Linux, running through an API translation package, is faster than native Netscape 6 on initial load.



The other result to note in this test was Mozilla's performance. Netscape 6 is founded on the Mozilla codebase. One would think that the two programs would be closer in efficiency than they are. Yes, they look similar and behave similarly, but the Mozilla nightly build is clearly faster.


The Base Memory Test


The second test was the Base Memory Test. I performed this test in a very simple fashion: I loaded each program and then used the top program to check the memory usage. The results:




Once again, Netscape 6 failed to provide a decent experience. If you include the Java VM that it loads on startup, you are using 45 MB of RAM just to start Netscape 6. That does not include the amount of RAM you use performing actual tasks; every time you load a page, Netscape 6 will increase the amount of RAM it uses.


The Growth Memory Test



I tested the growth of Netscape 6 by loading five pages. I intentionally loaded LinuxPorts.com twice to see if it increased memory usage. It didn't, which means that Netscape 6 loads pages into a RAM cache rather than a hard-drive
cache. That's great if you have 256 MB of RAM, but not so good for the user that only has 32 MB. I did not load the five pages in new windows; rather, I just browsed the Web. The pages I loaded were:




After loading those five pages, the memory usage of Netscape 6 had increased to 31 MB. Just for grins I loaded five more pages:




After loading the additional five pages, the memory usage increased to 32 MB. As a final test of memory bloat I loaded three more pages:




All of the above pages are heavy on eye candy. After viewing the additional three pages, Netscape had moved up to 34 MB. It is important to note that I was not loading those pages in new windows, but typing each URL into the URL location bar. Therefore, each page loaded by itself without the additional memory requirements of a new window.



I could understand a little memory increase on certain sites, especially those that use JavaScript or are heavy on graphics. However, the memory usage should not continue to go up as much as it did after each page loaded.



I performed the same test using Netscape 4.75. The initial footprint was 16 MB and the final memory footprint was only 22 MB.



I then performed the same test using the Mozilla nightly build. The beginning footprint was 22 MB and the final memory footprint was only 29 MB. The Mozilla program also has a nifty option to "flush" the memory. When I did this, Mozilla's footprint dropped to 28 MB. The Mozilla open source browser seems to perform better in terms of memory use than the Netscape 6 commercial version. Imagine that.


Strong points



It appears, for all of the bashing Netscape 4.75 receives from the Linux community, that Netscape 6 loses to its older sibling, at least in the efficiency department. Version 6 is a product in need of some slimming down, and it falls desperately short in many respects. Despite those failings, though, there are some very nice features to Netscape 6.



The Mail and News programs are good. Netscape 6 truly supports multiple accounts and has a pleasing interface. Unfortunately, it is still a little shaky with stability and does not provide for workgroup-oriented features such as a calendar.



The almost complete adherence to the W3C HTML and CSS standards is also nice. Netscape 6 doesn't reach the level of the Opera browser, but it has much better standards support than Netscape 4.75.



The latest release is also faster at rendering pages than previous versions, even if it is slower to load and use. On the other hand, Netscape 6 uncompressed is 70 MB. Yes, you read correctly, 70 MB. Netscape 4.7 was only 27.5 MB.



In closing, I don't suggest using Netscape 6. It appears that the Mozilla version is simply more efficient. If you use KDE2, you can also use Konqueror, which supports Netscape plug-ins as well as Java.



If it all comes to loss, stick with Netscape 4.7. It uses less memory, and works very well for what it is.


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