Netscape Communicator and XML

Slow-moving behemoth

Did Netscape 4 miss the boat? With version 4 of its browser, Netscape Communications made some bold statements about the future of HTML that went largely unheard. Its JavaScript Style Sheets mostly disappeared, and its LAYER tag support for Dynamic HTML proved far less flexible than Microsoft's approach. Version 4 is still on many user's desktops, however, since the company's latest version is both very new and pretty buggy.
Mozilla as phoenix As it became clear that Netscape was floundering against Microsoft's seemingly infinite warchest, Netscape took dramatic action, releasing its source code to the public in the hopes of building a better browser. It's taken a very long while, and the new browser has fairly little of the original code, but usable test versions are now appearing.
XML, CSS, DOM, and more Mozilla provides astoundingly complete implementations of XML 1.0, namespaces, Cascading Style Sheets (Level 1 and part of 2), the DOM, and even part of XLink. Better still, the entire rendering engine is built around an XML base.