New Netscape 6 is a Unicode-based Browser and an application platform. In this presentation we focus on user-oriented features of this new Browser such as the Extensible and Customizable Character Coding Menu, which can support additional charsets easily via a plugin architecture. Multilingual MySidebar and its various integrated features such as simultaneous multiple search.

Netscape 6 also has free web-based Translation services for major languages. It also includes multilingual Bookmarks and History windows. Netscape 6 also features easily customizable chrome (called "themes") and easy-to-translate menu and dialog UI through XML-based XUL technology.

What makes these new features possible is a componentized, compact, and fast open-source based new layout engine called Gecko. Netscape 6 adheres strictly to international web standards such as CSS1, CSS2 (partial support), DOM1, DOM2 (partial support), XML, RDF, JavaScript 1.5, and HTML 4. In addition, Netscape 6 supports Java 2 by Sun and others via Open Java Interface (OJI). Gecko makes it possible for web site developers to write to standards rather than to a particular browser.

During the presentation, we will cover not only the features mentioned above but samples of web-based applications built on Gecko/Netscape 6 and web standards such as CSS, DOM, and XML. Finally we will discuss what is in store for the next version of Netscape 6 Browser and discuss also the state of Mozilla development and how specifically people can participate.