Netscape is officially no more

Genghis Khan

Ancient Mariner
Netscape will cease to be released as browser on February 1.  Funny I thought it stopped being released almost a decade ago.  I recall my time in university when all computers ran on Netscape.  Microsoft was the big bad wolf and all computers for public education ran on Netscape.  Even after given special access to Microsoft codes, users would not switch to Netscape.  It seems to me that most users have chosen Microsoft and the accusations of an "unfair" monopoly are unfounded.  There are many who will criticise Internet Explorer users for being computer illiterate and lazy hence the Netscape loss in this corporate battle.  Even though I consider Internet Explorer an inferior product, I'm still computer illiterate.  :D  Since Firefox came out, I've been using it.  (Emphasis in the article is mine).



TITLE: Web icon set to be discontinued

The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users.  Netscape Navigator, now owned by

AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 February 2008, the company has said.

In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of the web population, but numbers have slipped to just 0.6%.

In particular, the browser has faced competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which is now used by nearly 80% of all web users.

"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," said Tom Drapeau on the company's blog.

Netscape was developed by Marc Andreessen, co-author of Mosaic, the first popular web browser.

Mosaic was written while Mr Andreessen was a student at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in 1992.

After graduation he set up Netscape Communications Corporation and began development of the Navigator browser. The first version was released in 1994.

It was quickly a success and dominated the browser market in the mid-1990s.

But other companies followed its success, notably Microsoft, which bundled its Explorer software with its operating systems.

This culminated in a highly-publicised legal battle, which saw Microsoft accused of anti-competitive behaviour.

Although the settlement saw Netscape gain many concessions from Microsoft including the ability to exploit IE code, it has been unable to gain back its market share.

The demise of Navigator was compounded in 2003 when AOL, which bought Netscape in 1998, made redundant most of the staff working on new versions of the browser.

Many of the staff moved to the Mozilla Foundation which develops the popular Firefox browser. This browser has a 16% share of the browser market.

Although a core team has continued to work on the secure browser - it is currently on version nine - AOL has decided to finally pull the plug.

"After 1 February, there will be no more active product support for Navigator nine, or any previous Netscape Navigator browser," wrote Mr Drapeau.

"We feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," he said.

Users of the browser will no longer receive security or software updates after the date.

Old versions of the browser will still be available for download, but will no longer be supported.

Microsoft is expected to launch a new version of IE in 2008, whilst the third version of Firefox is currently available as a beta, or test version.
 
Haha, I remember an old friend of mine, who had a website forbidden to IE users! You could only enter his site if you were using Netscape. I haven't talked to the guy since the nineties, but I would love to see his face now! :)
 
Sometimes people like your old friend develop the attitude "I'll go down with the sinking ship" and even when the proverbial ship sinks they still refuse to acknowledge the fact.  Your Smiley reminded me of such a person. 
 
Well, another giant of the computer history went...to history.

Brings old memories...US Robotics 9.6kbaud modem, Windows 3.11, Winsock and Netscape. A long time ago, when internet was still a nice place with civilized people. No kids dying of exhaustion because of 30-hour long WoW sessions, no Myspace freaks, sites full of shitware etc...that was the first time i've expirienced world wide web in the true hypertext sense. Before, it was either dial-in BBS, or using school's UNIX workstations with Lynx to display the web content in text console.

If you ask me, Microsoft's case vs Netscape was a real itchy one. IE started killing NN when version 4 of IE was released, and that version was bundled together with Windows 95 (from OSR2, if the memory still serves me well). At that time, Microsoft still didn't have monopoly on the PC desktop operating system market, Caldera DR-DOS (OpenDOS), IBM OS2/Warp and others still had an significant market share. If the story played 2-3 years in the future, Microsoft would face an lawsuit if it bundeled IE inside Windows, because it's against the rules to use one monopoly to induce another.

People didn't switch to IE. People stated using IE, newcomers that just bought the computer and modem. Internet was climbing rapidly back then. You had IE as web browser and OE as mail client, and an nifty wizard to configure whole connection right in the system. Anyone with an IQ higher than the usual room temperature could connect himself to the net in 5 minutes. There was no need for these newcomers for another internet suite.

I have never used IE, or Firefox for that matter. I used Netscape until early 2002 or so, then switched to Opera. Using Opera ever since, and i love it.

People started switching to Firefox because IE is too basic, unfunctional, and full of security holes. Still, some people must use IE. Microsoft doesn't follow the web standards, CSS and such, some sites need real CSS wizardry to work in different browsers at the same time. But what's most important, if you have Microsoft's corporate CMS server, it'll only work in IE.

There's an company here that just recently bought a service from T-Mobile for rapid SMS sending. The frontend is web interface, the backend is Microsoft software. Needless to say, it'll only work with IE on the client side, and it requires full permitions to ActiveX and such (minimum security). And needless to say, that browser in that regime is useless for anything else. One wrong click while surfing the web, and you'll get infestated.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Anyone with half an ounce of sense when it comes to the 'net has been using non-MS products for years.

There are dozens of great browsers to choose from, and at least five really good mail clients. Personally, I go with Mozilla products (Firefox and Thunderbird) for their ability to be customized and lack of crashyness.
 
IronDuke said:
Personally, I go with Mozilla products (Firefox and Thunderbird) for their ability to be customized and lack of crashyness.

I don't agree for crashyness, you first have to know how to use it properly (Thunderbird)  :lol:

But I do the same than you.
 
When I started browsing the internet we used a soft called Mosaic. It was as primitive as it could be and I recall being very happy when I discovered Netscape.
old-5ab.gif
 
If I recall correctly Mosaic was proto-Netscape, by the same folks even. Like Zare explained IE was bundled along with Office in Windows 95, thus consumers didn't have to download/buy other products and that is where the monopoly complaints came in. Unfair competition. After being taken to court a judge ordered that Windows stop their naughty business and since then hasn't bundled Office with their OS, but still includes IE as their basic browser. Netscape has been available for free for download since... ever. Sad to see it go the way of the dino...
 
Sad?  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  I haven't used Netscape in a very, very long time.  I don't even have it installed on my computer, and that should tell you something, because I am a bit of a browser freak.
 
NCSA Mosaic was the first usable hypertext browser for PCs, with a real rendering engine for content display. Both NN and IE have parts of this software inside them.
 
LooseCannon said:
Sad?  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  I haven't used Netscape in a very, very long time.  I don't even have it installed on my computer, and that should tell you something, because I am a bit of a browser freak.

It tells me nothing, actually. It can't be that bad of rubbish if IE copied it and badly if that, and it has been around since the birth of the internet along with mosaic... So, yes it is sad, however, if it is outdated, obsolete, well whatever, but still sad. Very sad. Sad? Yes. Happy? No.
 
JackKnife said:
When I started browsing the internet we used a soft called Mosaic. It was as primitive as it could be and I recall being very happy when I discovered Netscape.
old-5ab.gif
And so was I. This takes me back, I had actually forgotten about Mosaic.
 
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