Netscape Navigator 4.xx - Stand Alone | Home

In order to address requests for browsers for public access computers in places that only allow web-based access to e-mail, Netscape offers a version of their software called at Stand-Alone edition. Patrons access their web-based e-mail accounts by typing in the URL the location of their web-based mail server. This browser does not require, as earlier versions or other browsers, that the basic e-mail component be locked down or disable. Prior to this version, our library system had disabled the mail function using another program called IKIOSK.

We chose this option because too often we discovered a patron would change the mail server options to check their ISP e-mail and then forget to delete the information from the workstation upon leaving. Sent mail was saved on the local drive and any subsequent user of the workstation could read their sent e-mail. If the "remember password" option was selected, subsequent patrons could also read the incoming mail of another patron. So, for their privacy protection, as well as to eliminate more workstation maintenance for the library staff, we don't allow e-mail unless it is web-based. It should be noted that there are commercially available products that will automatically erase files left by patrons such as NSClean, IEClean and Cover Your Tracks

The latest version of Netscape Navigator (currently 4.05 which includes the nice feature of automatically affiliating .pdf files on the web with an Adobe Reader) does require a set-up option change in order to eliminate a page printout problem. (See fix) And also one final reason we selected a Netscape browser was the ability to allow patrons to do a print preview of their file in order to determine the number of pages before printing. Since our library charges 10 cents per page, this is a very important feature for many of our patrons.