Netscape 7.0

There's something magical about the number seven -- take, for example, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Will Netscape 7.0 benefit from that number's lucky reputation? In short, no. Netscape 7.0 delivers reliable, fast performance, ease of use, competent email and IM support. But the new browser spoils the soup with too many ad-related glitches. We're deeply disappointed that Netscape crowds its browser with AOL ads and, worse, omits one of Mozilla's best features: a pop-up-advert suppressor. At present, give or take a feature or two, Netscape 7.0 and Internet Explorer 6 are created just about equal, so version 7.0 offers no compelling reason to switch browsers or upgrade from version 6.x. Current Mozilla users should stick to Mozilla 1.1.