[NCLUG] Netscape Instability

adj at ccltd.com adj at ccltd.com
Mon Nov 20 16:05:03 MST 2000


> Actually, I do this as well.  The "dns helper" has always made me
> suspicious.  What exactly is its function in Netscape?

The name lookup functions in libc are synchronous.  They don't return
until they get an answer or a timeout occurs.  Netscape's having DNS
lookups done in another process allows the main Netscape program to
still do stuff while a DNS query is in progress.  Rather than netscape
going to sleep waiting for a reply, it sends a query to dns-helper
(which will sleep) and goes off to do other stuff until dns-helper has
a response.  squid (web caching software) uses a similar architecture.

> > Turning off java is a given. I'd turn off javascript too, but for
> > some inexplicable reason if you do that, you also lose CSS
> > support(!!).
> 
> I have Java turned off, but I can't live without javascript and CSS
> while I am making pages.

Javascript hasn't caused me too many browser lock up type problems
aside from the odd infinite loop in the javascript itself.  And
Netscape's CSS support is implemented in Javascript.

> Your response as well as the others definitely confirm my
> experiences with Netscape.  I thought I was missing something
> obvious.

Nope, nothing obvious.  Web browsers all seem to suck.  Netscape has
some nasty memory leaks in it, too.  Though Mozilla's nice enough that
I've been using it almost exclusively at home for the past few months.

Aaron
--
MTS, tummy.com, ltd.
Linux and UNIX Consulting and Software



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