America Online is delaying the release of the first public test version of a new Netscape Web browser until the end of the month so that it can fix some last-minute bugs, the company said today.

The beta version of the Netscape 8 browser had been scheduled for public release tomorrow, but that date will slip by a week or two, an AOL spokesman said in a statement sent via e-mail. An early version of the browser that the IDG News Service saw late last month crashed many times under normal use.

Netscape 8 is based on Firefox but also supports the IE browser engine. AOL released a preview version of the browser to a select group of testers in late November. The Netscape browser doesn't include the IE engine but it uses the engine that is incorporated in Windows. As a result, the Netscape 8 browser works only on Windows computers.