Looking through web logs from a few sites I have access to, it's a wonder, but people still do use NS. And even older 4.x versions. Uuuughhh. I stopped using Netscape back at version 2.something. When IE 3.0 came out I started using it full time - even though it had some quirks until 3.1. And I've never used it for email or news - that would be just torture.

Now IE just beats the pants off any NS version, including 6. NS have never had a clue about interface and the new techno-inspired graphics don't cut it. As far as stability goes, NS has always been a bad performer under every version of Windows and Mac OS I've tested. Unfriendly draw routines and other bad practises don't help.

As Mail clients go, I prefer to use Forte's Agent. I'm using a pretty old version, too. It's rock-stable, pure Ascii with no scripting (so not chance for email viruses), and incredibly configurable

I've been using Agent since summer 1995. At home for both news and email (though I've been without a news provider for a few months, I still use it for email). Version 1.9 is about to be released, and believe it or not, they're actually working on a 2.0 version (details yet to be announced). The only thing I've ever seen cause Agent to crap out are some other 3rd party programs that do bad things to winsock or a few that just plain conflict in a way I haven't identified (have always been little applets that get installed with other programs that I've easily disabled from the registry.)

If I had to pick a new email client it would probably be The Bat - however the only reason I didn't switch last year was because a new editor was promised - the defualt one wasn't anything like a standard text editor IMO and a pain for me.

There are no shortage of email clients to look at. Certainly enough to warrant immediately abandoning Netscape. You should be able to find mail converters to handle all your archived mail as well. Don't know if that was the type of suggestion you're looking for. But if it dies on different machines and OSes, it's probably not a good sign that the software is worth its price (in this case, nothing :)

Bruno