<b>Assorted Netscape troubleshooting glitches

GIF issue Joe Gillespie writes that "Netscape Communicator 4.03 and the standalone Navigator have a different GIF drawing algorithm from previous versions of Netscape and from Internet Explorer that severely curtails display on 8-bit systems. The effect can be better demonstrated than described but if you look at my web page about optimizing GIFs for 8-bit display (and the following page) with Communicator/Navigator 4.03 and any other browser (in 8-bits) you will see the difference." He contends that "this is of major concern to web page designers and surfers alike." Jeff Johnson and Tomas Caspers agree and, together with Joe, they have started a web page petition to Netscape. It covers much more details on this matter.

Home page preference not saved? I have now gotten several reports that, with the new Netscape Navigator 4.0.3, after entering a URL for the default home page, the selection is gone on the next launch of the application. Deleting Netscape Preferences does not help. Not every one has this problem (I do not!), but it seems to affect a significant number of users.

Update: Dan Wilga suggests that the source of this problem is that, if you have selected to use Internet Config, the home page selection there will overwrite your Netscape Preferences selection. I tried this and found it to be so. (By the way, when researching this myself, I discovered that I had 6 copies of Internet Config on my hard drive!; each copy had been placed there by the Installer of some other application; this would be a good thing to check on and clean up!)

Security Info crash? Similarly, I have gotten two reports of a problem that has never yet happened to me: After selecting Security Info from Navigator 4.0.3's Navigator icon menu (or after clicking the Security button), a system crash occurs. Not sure if this is relevant, but both users had MacsBug installed.