Netscape on Athena

Changes in default settings, by version

Questions or comments on this document should be sent to tbelton@mit.edu.


When you launch a new version of Netscape on Athena, you may or may not be given a set of default preferences files in your home directory and your ~/.netscape directory.

This document describes the settings in those files, and also notes which files will be copied to your home locker and in which circumstances.

At present, the 'infoagents' locker supports three versions of Netscape: 4.61, 4.05, and 3.01.


Issues for users moving from version 4.05 to version 4.61

In general, the transition from 4.05 to 4.61 will not affect your settings, certificates, or bookmarks.

Your 4.05 preferences remain in effect; if the 'netscape' script detects that you have already used 4.05 at least once, it will not try to change your preferences, nor will it add any new settings.

You may find some of the 4.61 defaults desirable. Running the 'netscape-fix' script will replace some of your preferences with the default 4.61 settings. All 4.61 settings in the section below will be changed to the default values listed when 'netscape-fix' is run. (A copy of your old preferences will be kept.) Settings not listed below will be unaffected.


Issues for users moving from version 3.01 to versions 4.05 or 4.61

There are several major incompatibilities between Netscape 3.01 and Netscape 4.x that may require a user's action.

Preferences - Netscape 4.x stores preferences in JavaScript format, and does not read or convert the 3.x preferences format (or doesn't do it well, at least).

After running 4.x for the first time, you should check all of your preferences. Many of them will probably need to be reset by hand, especially if you have changed your settings from the 3.x defaults.

Preferences have moved in 4.x - they are now the last item under the Edit menu.

Personal Certificates - If you have password-protected personal certificates to access restricted sites (e.g., WebSIS) you will need to get new ones. It is not necessary to delete your Netscape 3.01 certificates, but if you do not plan to run 3.01 in the future and would like to remove them:

1. Quit Netscape
2. Go to your ~/.netscape directory
3. Remove only the files cert5.db and key.db

For further information about using certificates in Netscape 4.05, please see the document on Web Certificates at MIT.

Java and Javascript - Beginning with 4.05, these are turned on by default. JavaScript must be enabled to use Netscape's Help function.


Default preferences for version 4.61

  1. Default homepage is set to web.mit.edu, and the Netscape Netcenter page will not appear the first time the browser is launched.
  2. Disk caching is disabled. The cache directory is set to /var/tmp/.netscape-cache-USER/, where USER is the user's Athena login. The user may reenable caching by hand; if so, the above directory is the correct location. (In fact the 'netscape' script will generate a warning message if you are caching to a directory under ~/.netscape/.) Note that on public workstations, the disk cache is deleted when Netscape exits, for security reasons.
  3. Email server and identity are set to use the MIT mail system correctly, for those using Netscape's mail feature. The SMTP (outgoing mail) server is mit.edu, and a local version of movemail (/mit/infoagents/bin/netscape-movemail) must be used in order for incoming mail to work properly.
  4. HTML mode for message composition is turned off by default.
  5. The default news server is set to news.mit.edu.
  6. Netscape is set to accept only cookies that originate from the site being viewed.
  7. Smart Browsing, What's Related, and Internet Keywords are all disabled by default.
  8. AutoUpdate is disabled by default.
  9. Java and JavaScript are enabled by default.
  10. The command to use when printing is set to 'lpr'.
  11. The Search button has been reconfigured to go to web.mit.edu/search.html.
  12. Three inapplicable Netscape items on the Help menu have been replaced with items which point to various help sources within MIT.
  13. Default bookmarks, helper apps, and mime types are set to values applicable to the MIT/Athena environment.


Default preferences for version 4.05

  1. Disk caching is disabled by default and the cache directory is changed. See the comments in the 4.61 section, above.
  2. Home page is set to web.mit.edu.
  3. Mail settings are altered for the MIT environment. See the 4.61 section, above.
  4. Cookies are set to only accept those originating from the site being viewed.
  5. Java and JavaScript are enabled by default.
  6. The command for printing is set to 'lpr'.
  7. Default bookmarks, helper apps, and mime types are set to values applicable to the MIT/Athena environment.


Default preferences for version 3.01

  1. Netscape is set to look for the .mailcap and .mime.types files in the user's home directory. In later versions of Netscape this does not need to be specified explicitly.
  2. Mail settings are changed for the MIT environment, as discussed in the 4.61 section above, save that for 3.01 the STMP server was set to outgoing.mit.edu - at the time it was unclear whether mit.edu alone would suffice.
  3. Default home page set to web.mit.edu.
  4. Disk caching disabled by default and the cache location changed; see comments under 4.61 changes, above.
  5. Default print command set to 'lpr'.
  6. Java and JavaScript are disabled by default.
  7. News server set to news.mit.edu.
  8. Default bookmarks, helper apps, and mime types are set to values applicable to the MIT/Athena environment.


File locations

The 'netscape' script and and 'netscape-fix' script are run through symlinks in the /mit/infoagents/arch/@SYS/bin/ directory. The actual scripts are in /mit/infoagents/arch/share/bin/.

The default mailcap and mime.types files for your system type are located in:
/mit/infoagents/share/Netscape/@SYS/

The default preferences files for a given version of Netscape are in
/mit/infoagents/share/Netscape/VERSION/
For 3.01 this file is 'preferences'; for subsequent versions it is 'preferences.js'.

The default bookmarks are at /mit/infoagents/www/netscape/bookmarks.html.


If you encounter problems with the Netscape installation in the infoagents locker, please send mail to the list bug-infoagents@mit.edu.

mit Copyright © 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Last modified 12 August 1999