Go download Netscape Navigator 9 now! The screen shot above shows one of my feature requests (click for huge version taken in Feb.). On a 1920×1200 monitor the maximized browser window is wide enough to display two full pages side-by-side. I asked the devs to remove the width limitation on the sidebar. They ended up building full browser controls into the sidebar. On the left is Google Reader showing Techmeme’s feed linking to Engadget and on the right is Engadget showing the full story. The default behavior is to open every clicked link in the sidebar in the main window, but that can be changed as well.

Now you can drop your RSS reader, Digg, Craigslist, anything where you expect to open a lot of new pages from one single page and browse without having to open a bunch of tabs. Lately I’ve been setting the sidebar just wide enough for a YouTube video and then sending videos there using the “Open in Sidebar” right-click menu so I can watch the video without having to stop surfing. Make sure you check out the other features like Linkpad, a place for dropping links you plan on looking at but don’t want to bookmark.