在无缝捆绑IE 4的Win 98上市之后,IE 4已成为Win98用户事实上的缺省浏览器。不仅如此,微软还抢先推出了IE 5开发者预览版。此时,如果网景无所作为,即使未来司法部胜诉,独立发行的IE也将占去大部分市场份额。在这一形势下,网景必须拿出比IE4乃至IE 5预览版更好的浏览器反击微软。人们期待着前一阵爆炒的Communicator 5。然而,在Win 98发布后不久,网景推出的却是Communicator 4.5 PR1 IE 4 has become the de facto default browser for Win98 users after the market for Win 98 with IE 4 bundled seamlessly. Not only that, Microsoft is also the first to launch IE 5 Developer Preview. At this point, if Netscape did nothing, even if the Department of Justice won the future, independent distribution of IE will also account for most of the market share. In this situation, Netscape must come up with a better browser than IE4 and even IE5 preview version of Microsoft counter. People are looking forward to a burst of hype around Communicator 5. However, just shortly after Win 98 was released, Netscape launched Communicator 4.5 PR1