A Cats View: Netscape Vs Google

Netscape once was the leading name in web browsing. Before Internet Explorer hit the big time, and Firefox wasn’t even a baby cub, Netscape was the thing to have on your computer.

It was the mascot of web 1.0, a revolution in using the web, and interacted with others. Netscapes main point was the web browser (Neyscape Navigator) as it was new, fresh and took everywhere by storm.

 The company was a success, the business took off, and though initally the browser was just a trail and was to be paid for eventually. Although eventually dropped, so the browser was free. The e-mail was originally free, but when the demand became so high after a couple of years there was a charge to use the service.

 The thing that was so special about netscape was the “on-the-fly” display of webpages, this is where the text and graphics of the website appeared on the screen as the web page downloaded. This feature is very common now, when you load web pages up they always load bit by bit and you see a little bit first, and it builds up. Before netscape did this users would stare at a blank white screen until the page was 100% loaded. Which could be fairly tedious and annoying, and made browsers less user friendly.

To keep on top of competetion netscpae continued to improve the browser, eventually including new features such as Important new features included cookies, frames, and JavaScript.

On thing that went against netscape was the fact they were more concerned with adding new features and constantly improving it to what they wanted, that they did not take the time to iron out the bugs, so the products, although fancy, sometimes did not work very well.

Eventually a combonation of netscapes own arrogance and microsoft feeling threatened, netscape became less reliable and lost the vast majority of its market.

Google is not a web browser, its not a software program, it is just a website. Or it was..

Google is mainly known for its search engine, but it has many more features. Another thing google is big in is online advertising. This is where google makes most of its money.

But to see google as a web 2.0 trendsetter, you would have to look at all the applications and extras it has.

Google maps is a very well know side part of google, with online maps available to look at and search. The map is in the middle of a webpage and anywhere in the world can be looked at, with roads, trains and other transport shown, along with road names and travel directions.

Google earth is an amazing program, where you can view a virtual 3D form of the earth, zooming in and out, rotating the global, and looking anywhere you want, with satelite images on the globe, it truely is an amazing technology.

Another thing google offers is its gmail account, which is a free email service, which has a massive space for saving messages, and groups together emails as convosations. It really is advanced e-mail.

The chance to change the browser to iGoggle is also a relativaly new technology. You can put any application you come across on there, as long as it is compatible. This gives the user a new control over the web, allowing them to view and use the content they want, not what they given.

I have used both google and netscape in the past.

Well actually I didn’t “use” netscape, i bought a CD years and years ago which has bonus content on it, which I really wanted to view and use, but you need to install netscape (which came with the CD I think) but it wouldn’t work and kept crashing and i never got to use the bonus content. Since then I’ve had a really bad view of netscape, and i’ve never gave it the chance (and now it looks like i will never have the chance.. not that i’d want to).

Google is my homepage, and it always has been as far as i remember, i have a gmail account, i have iGoogle, i’ve used googlemaps, google earth, google videos.. I can see google going even further, exploiting the web to its full potential, as the web is still growing..

Bring on web 3.0..