Het nieuws kwam al eerder naar buiten, maar Netscape heeft het nu ook in een officiële aankondiging verpakt: de eerste beta van Netscape Navigator 5.0 kunnen we eind deze maand verwachten. De uiteindelijke release staat gepland voor februari 2000. Betanews heeft er een artikeltje over geschreven:
Code named "Gecko" and "NGLayout" (Next Generation Layout), Netscape 5.0 will finally be able to offer the same support as Internet Explorer 5.0 offered one year ago. After many delays, the latest build of the Gecko Project can be found at Mozilla.org.Offering HTML 4.0 support including forms, and style support for HTML 3.x and limited HTML 4.0 support, Netscape is catching up to Windows after a year without releasing a new version. Full CSS and some CSS 2 support is also available with Mozilla 5. The newest web language, XML will also be supported along with W3C Java and C++ compatability. New rendering capabilities such as alpha blending and double-buffered rendering ensure that Navigator will be able to handle the latest HTML tags and dynamic content.
It is said that the engine for this newest version from Netscape Communications has been completely rewritten, making it incredibly fast, as fast as it could possibly be. Its full compatability with older versions of Netscape make it versatile and flexible. With a new plug-in named "WebWidget" developers will be able to embed Netscape 5.0 in their own custom applications.
Fully outsourcing the code for Mozilla 5 again, Netscape Communications offers developers the ability to fully customize what they want and add features and plug-ins to make this the best engine on the market.
