Report: 'Unofficial' Netscape 6 beta hits the Web

According to the Windows enthusiast site Betanews.com, an "unofficial" pre-release of the long-awaited Netscape 6 Beta 1 client was available for download briefly late Wednesday night.

Betanews reports that Netscape has since removed the software from its FTP servers. Included in the first beta, which isn't due for public release until mid-April, is a new installer, Netscape messenger (an AOL Instant Messenger clone), Net2Phone, a new HTML engine (code-named Gecko), Sun's Java2 and a spell checker, says Betanews.

Netscape officials contacted for comment did not return calls by press time. Last week, Betanews and sister organisation ActiveWin.com were the first to report that an unauthorised version of pre-release Microsoft Whistler Windows code was winding its way across the Web.