Netscape dies

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Plug to Be Pulled on Netscape Navigator's Life Support After 13-Year Run
Friday, December 28, 2007



NEW YORK —  Netscape Navigator, the world's first commercial Web browser and the launch pad of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run.

Its current caretakers, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, decided to kill further development and technical support to focus on growing the company as an advertising business. Netscape's usage dwindled with Microsoft Corp.'s entry into the browser business, and Netscape all but faded away following the birth of its open-source cousin, Firefox.

"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," Netscape Director Tom Drapeau wrote in a blog entry Friday.

In recent years, Netscape has been little more than a repackaged version of the more popular Firefox, which commands about 10 percent of the Web browser market, with almost all of the rest going to Internet Explorer.

People will still be able to download and use the Netscape browser indefinitely, but AOL will stop releasing security and other updates on Feb. 1. Drapeau recommended that the small pool of Netscape users download Firefox instead.

A separate Netscape Web portal, which has had several incarnations in recent years, will continue to operate.

The World Wide Web was but a few years old when in April 1993 a team at the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications released Mosaic, the first Web browser to integrate images and sound with words. Before Mosaic, access to the Internet and the Web was largely limited to text, with any graphics displayed in separate windows.

Marc Andreessen and many of his university colleagues soon left to form a company tasked with commercializing the browser. The first version of Netscape came out in late 1994.

Netscape fed the gold-rush atmosphere with a landmark initial public offering of stock in August 1995. Netscape's stock carried a then-steep IPO price of $28 per share, a price that doubled on opening day to give the startup a $2 billion market value even though it had only $20 million in sales.

But Netscape's success also drew the attention of Microsoft, which quickly won market share by giving away its Internet Explorer browser for free with its flagship Windows operating system. The bundling prompted a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit and later a settlement with Microsoft.

Netscape eventually dropped fees for the software, but it was too late. Undone by IE, Netscape sold itself to AOL in a $10 billion deal completed in early 1999.

Netscape spawned an open-source project called Mozilla, in which developers from around the world freely contribute to writing and testing the software. Mozilla released its standalone browser, Firefox, and Netscape was never able to regain its former footing.

Source

[BroTrey]

Finally...... leave it dead this time too...... they had announced that it was going to be killed before, but then turned around and tried something else with it, and it failed again.....

Next to die, hopefully IE, the worst browser out there.....

[MelodyB]

Next to die, hopefully IE, the worst browser out there.....

[jdcord]

Yeah, Internet Explorer is pretty awful.  Besides, I already use Firefox almost exclusively (there's a few work-related web pages I have to use that aren't yet compatible with Firefox, but hopefully they'll "see the light" soon  *L* ).

[Cody P]

I have to disagree I like Internet Explorer alot better than fireforx. I used firefox a few times in the time past and I wasnt real crazy about the design or the workman ship of it. Internet Explorer 7 Is really good.

[MelodyB]

I actually have to say, I re-did my FF settings and made it look like IE, and I even arranged my Bookmarks and all kinds of stuff to be just like IE, and I tried it for a day, and I was getting so frustrated, that I closed the window and went back to IE.

Im sorry, I tried, it just didnt feel right.

[BroTrey]

Well I'm sure that there will be an exception and you can still be saved jk

I have not yet met a person that works in IT professionally that is an IE fan, and I'll take it a step further and mention that they USUALLY end up being either a FireFox (or any of its other Mozilla cousins) or Opera fan....unless they are mac users then they tend to stick with safari........
i have found one exception.... my manager.... because he doesnt like to have to switch over to IE just to use the Human Resources site (its an IE only site), so he sticks with IE at work......

I have found that most non-IT Pros do stick with IE because thats what comes with computers (anti-trust issues anyone?) and thats what they learn and are more familiar with, we as humans tend to resist change lol so its harder to switch after years and years of use...... Just like ppl and the XP vs Vista debate.... most of the most outspoken against vista do so not because its not more secure or a better product, but because its not what they have now and they dont think they need better.... hmmm that might preach lol  speaking of which I am running behind on a meeting with the Bishop.... gotta run..

[MelodyB]

Well I'm sure that there will be an exception and you can still be saved jk

Im glad.

[dnr1128]

I've been using FF for sometime now, and I find that it runs faster and is more stable than IE, even IE7.  Its popup-blocker works better, too. 

[jdcord]

I have not yet met a person that works in IT professionally that is an IE fan, and I'll take it a step further and mention that they USUALLY end up being either a FireFox (or any of its other Mozilla cousins) or Opera fan....unless they are mac users then they tend to stick with safari........

I agree.  I've worked IT for 11 years now and I've yet to meet an IT person that prefers IE.  They all prefer the Mozilla browsers over IE, the usual reasons being for their superior stability (as dnr mentioned) and superior security.  I prefer Forefox for both of those reasons, as well as the "Chipmarks" add-on feature that's available (which is sooooooooooo much better than "Bookmarks") - and the various "Download Helper" add-ons are sweet too.