Netscape plans release of new browser with tighter security

• Netscape next month is expected to release a test version of a Web browser designed to resist phishing schemes, taking aim at recent security vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Web browser.
• Netscape--founded 10 years ago by the creators of the pioneering Mosaic browser--once ruled the roost of the browser world with better than 80 percent of the market.
• The advent of Mozilla's Firefox browser, which has seen more than 20 million downloads since its November launch, has pushed IE's numbers down incrementally but steadily in the past several months.
• For example, Netscape is in negotiations with various security companies to supply the Netscape 8 beta with frequently updated blacklists of Web sites that are suspected of purveying spyware, phishing schemes and other hostile code.
• Netscape, which is outsourcing browser development work to Canadian development firm Mercurial Communications after slashing its own in-house developer staff, would not be the first to offer such antiphishing features.
• Deepnet Explorer--a browser shell that relies on the Internet Explorer engine--last month launched its own antiphishing browser.
• Netscape confirmed that it would release the browser and portal betas Feb. 17, but otherwise declined to comment.
• With IE commanding such a huge share of the market, Microsoft clearly has the most to lose in the new battle of the browsers.
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