AOL, which in 1999 acquired Netscape Communications Corporation, has pulled the plug on Netscape Navigator. AOL will stop supporting Netscape Navigator (all versions) on February 1st, 2008.
A moment of silence, please.
“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. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions,” Tom Drapeau, director of AOL’s Netscape Brand, writes on The Netscape Blog.
“AOL’s focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox,” Drapeau writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Our first real browser, Netscape Navigator, is a fond memory. Netscape got a really raw deal as Microsoft abused their monopoly position to kill them off by bundling the shiteous Internet Explorer into Windows. But, what’s done is done and, really, Navigator’s been unofficially dead for years. We moved to Safari nearly four years ago (with occasional ongoing Firefox use and some dabbling with Camino, Shiira, Opera, and others for testing and to keep up-to-date).
Navigator was da bomb back in the day! RIP
No big deal. Anyone who likes the “all-in-one internet application suite” instead of separate apps can download SeaMonkey from Mozilla.org. It’s the same thing, without the Netscape branding. I don’t think you even need to move your profile folder or do any conversion. And it’s still being worked on and updated.
will internet explorer be next? safari? or mozilla?
either way, less competition means less innovation.
In fairness, Netscape Navigator was just as bad as IE at the time. Both tried to control the web by creating their own HTML tags that the other was not compatible with. IE simply did it more effectivly.
No loss. It was important to have the competition but I would have not wanted them to win as they were.
R.I.P. Netscape Navigator. Long live Microsoft Internet Explorer! Thank you, Redmond for opening up the internet with marvelous innovation and rock solid security. And kudos for freeing us from the tyranny of browsers which don’t support ActiveX. Less Netscape Navigator means more Internet Explorer—and it only runs on Windows. Take that, MAC sheep.
This is precisely why I’m so glad I use a PC with Windows. As you can clearly see, this is yet another developer abandoning toy MACs. What are you MAC lemmings gonna do now? Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Thank you, Zune Tang, for another excellent sampling of “intentional delusion.” You could get a job writing Microsoft press releases (or is that what you already do for a living?).
R.I.P. Indeed.
First time I’ve ever been online was back in 1996 going for 97 when I was about 9y/o at my elementary school. We were using those Macintosh Performa LC550. & guess what, it was on Netscape Navigator. I thought it was so awesome. Though it was so slow, it took over 2 minutes to go into Titanic.com which was the first website we were taught to visit.
Of course we did have apple II’s from 92 that lasted until 98 which were great. I had so much fun playing Oregon Trial, using those 5.25 floppy disks. This was in Southern FLA. There were no PC’s, everything was MAC.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS…..
AOL made a bad move, ns9 was a big improvement and the market did start to grow a little bit. AOL can only destroy, it doesn’t have the mind power to create.
What’s wrong with you kids? Am I that old?
Haven’t you heard of Mosaic for Mac?
E-World?
NetHopper for Newton? (It’s not a mesh toilet!).
By the time Netscape came out, the Internet was a series of tubes.
Netscape? Pfffft…
Bring back Cyberdog!
Zune Tounged In The Butt has a point. Eventually MS will win the Web and consumer market. With the Gov allowing MS to continue to operate as a monopoly they can keep losing billions and eventually win since those products will be tied in to Windows.
I use nethopper on a emate 300 yesterday, wireless no less.
Sooooooo fun.
I am sure someone will produce a Netscape Navigator skin for Firefox for those that feel the need to reminisce.
The biggest competitor for IE is Safari…
On Macs, iPhone and iPods…
I saw my first dirty picture on Netscape. I shall miss it dearly.
Yeah, Netscape is past it’s use by date. It’s good to see AOL has recognised that and is not wasting anymore money on it. It’s very slow for todays standards and offers nothing we don’t already have in than Safari and/or Firefox. The only thing slower than Netscape is IE7, which I am shocked to see people using… The patience of these people – I swear macs have made me impatient! Damn you Apple!
oh my god ZunePoonTang…if you know anything and you clearly don’t, a true Mac user hasn’t used Netscape for years and i don’t see anyone here really broken up about it leaving. OOOOOOOH Explorer can run activeX, WOW! Explorer is the worst browser you can use, SLOW AND CLUNKY AND BUGGY, keeping true to the Microsoft Code of Arms. idiot.
I think ZuneTang is just yanking out chain. No one can be serious about that. And look what he said. He’s a mac user because he know exactly what buttons to puch.
Netscape may have been the shit at one time, but in all honesty it did stagnate and it really did take MS’s Internet Explorer and a tiny push from Opera) to get further innovation. But what goes around comes around and IE wound up in the same trap Netscape found themselves in… too comfortable on top and it stagnated.
I used Netscape alot in the OS9-days and it was a good browser up until version 4.7 I think. The 6.0, or whatever it was, was slow and buggy. Netscape used to be the only browser that could keep you away from the allways horible Explorer.
I used Netscape until MicroSoft released Internet Explorer for Mac. I remember it being much faster and stable than Netscape at the time. I continued to use IE for sometime after Safari came out, and I still have it on my Macs, just in case I want to test sites with a variety of browsers.
I use FireFox with Windows since it is definitely the best. The Safari beta is just too buggy right now. But I think Safari is the only way to go on a Mac. Apple’s integration and refinements only improve with time. We are so darn lucky.
I have a PBS documentary video called “Code Rush”. It’s about the early days of development of Mozilla and Netscape Navigator during the dot.com era.
I’ll watch it again as sort of a remembrance to Mozilla and Netscape.
R.I.P. old friend. You will be missed.
Frak you, AOL.
I thought AOL was dead. They’re not?
Sometimes even a stake through the heart doesn’t end it.
AOL will stop supporting Netscape Navigator (all versions) on February 1st, 2008.
Then open-source it.
There’s bound to be a geek someplace who’ll keep it alive.