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.
Mmmmmm, steak.
“Ampar
I thought AOL was dead. They’re not?”
amp, like netscape, AOL has been unofficially dead for years…..
IE won over Netscape because it was lean and quicker, but ultimately, it provided all the swiss cheese holes for all the viruses, malware, spyware, popups, etc. to come right into all you PC weenies lives. History will later say that IE really began the fall of the PC and Micro$oft. IE is a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Ampar,
There you go making me giggle again.
LorD1776:
If you had to choose between your wife in Spandex or a Porterhouse steak, would you shoot the hostage?
More dumb moves by AOL. I remember when AOL was a cash machine and they bought Netscape. I thot, “What a great idea, finally some competition for Explorer.” (At that time, AOL had 30 or 40 million subscribers.) Moving to Netscape would have given MS some serious competition and really helped online standards. Instead, AOL seemed to get cozier with MS continued using a version of Explorer for AOL “official” browser.
So why, exactly, did they spend millions on Navigator?
Ampar,
At this time, Amber Bock is just about my favorite. And I would shoot the hostage just for the fun of it.
IE had a smaller footprint than netscape back in the system 7,8,9 days. Netscape became very large and unusable on my old PPC.
iCab didn’t always display pages properly, but when Apple finally made Safari, it’s was a good day indeed.
Navigator’s intrusiveness has bothered me since AOL took over. However, I did like the browser and still use it on occasion. Sorry someone other than AOL couldn’t have taken it over who really liked it.
“with occasional ongoing Firefox use and some dabbling with Camino, Shiira, Opera, and others for testing and to keep up-to-date”
I have REMOVED Firefox since finding that MacroSloth now owns the rights – after claiming they stole many lines of Explorer Code.
RIP FireFox
@Zune Tang
You make an extremely good point…
and this is why – having a windows perspective on a Mac News site can be helpful.
Fortunately, Apple REALIZES what Zune Tang has exposed.
And Safari is the Browser I prefer.
Besides… FireFox was sluggish in comparison – mo.
d
OmniWeb remains my top web browser of choice. I pay for it, it’s worth it and then some, I love it. It ain’t perfect, but it does cart wheels around the other browsers. It uses WebKit, so it has the basic guts of Safari, then tosses in every wonderful kitchen sink imaginable. Whenever I have trouble with it, the staff at OmniGroup are absolutely great. I even enjoy beta testing for them.
As for memories of Netscape: Version 3 taught me the meaning of ‘memory leak’ day after day after day. OMG what a POS! Don’t fool yourself that it was only Megalosh*t and their proprietary web crapcode infested Internet Excrotum that killed Netscape. The folks at Netscape, from a Mac user’s point of view, were busy cutting their own throats. And I will never forgive them for renaming LiveScript to JavaScript leading to utter confusing in the web user world as to what was actually ‘Java’ and what was NOT.
Meanwhile, we all have to live with the continuing fallout from Megalosh*t’s reckless and proprietary attitude toward the Internet. JScript still infects the Internet. MS anti-HTML still infects the Internet. It is impossible to get a consistent appearance and behavior for poorly coded web pages among web browsers. Essentially the intended universality of the Internet remains a dream. Meanwhile all the ‘safe’ technology it is built upon turns out to be a rat’s nest of security holes, even when you take Megalosh*t’s own outrageously unsafe crapware (ActiveX is my favorite) out of the picture.
Woe is us. But the Internet is more than just clunking along. Yeah, it pays to have lots of different web browsers in your armory. I mainly cycle between OmniWeb, Camino and Safari. But we’re used to it and we get what we want where we want eventually. Well, at least until MS dumps their next round of proprietary code into the mix. Next on the scene: MS ‘Open’ XML, lord help us.
Netscape sucked just as bad as IE. Hmmm, maybe it was the OS I was using.
LOL …. Zune Tang is a great satirist.
MDN Magic Word: “Truth” as in “The Truth is always stranger than fiction.”
@Synthmeister
“So why, exactly, did they spend millions on Navigator?”
Good Question…
Since so many Mac optional browsers are based on Mozilla what will be come of all these… Open-sourced is good but I see that it has already done that. Will this effect all the optional browsers out there?
Thank Steve for Safari
Which Runs on Windows also…
Allowing for ALL Apple devices to be DUO-PLATFORM
iPod for Win/Mac
iPhone for Win/Mac
QT for Win/Mac
Safari for Win/Mac
iMAC runs Win/Mac/Linux
APPLE offers choice where Microsoft offers NONE
wnn
@derekcurrie
Damn Straight…. good advice, keep several browsers handy.
Explorer plays to a different tune.
And it has infected the web far too long.
Hail to WebKit… the new choice of coders.
wnn
“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.”
DO NOT ADOPT FIREFOX !
this is like accepting Microsoft back on the Mac
if you use a Mac – JOIN the CLUB and Stick with Safari or any other browser OTHER THEN FireFox.
Yes, even if you love Firefox… consider dumping it…
Apple will love you… and AOL can rot in cyber-space.
The early days of any industry always have their drama. This story just happens to pertain to the internet.
That being said, Screw Microsoft.
@pfft
Long live eWorld!
I upgraded from Mosaic to Navigator 0.92, probably still got the floppy somewhere. Yep a whole browser fitted on a floppy.
eWorld was cool at the time but so damned expensive, in the UK it was £2 per hour + £4 per hour long distance phone to London. Great to show of my laptop (with internal modem) on someone else’s phone line.
Internet Exploder, barely used it. For a while yes but my Mac crashed a lot, when I trashed it my Mac crashed less. When I finally found some hidden MS libraries and trashed those my Mac stopped crashing at all.
Used iCab for years, it should have got more traction, always did the job for me, interface a bit clunky though. Very flexible.
Safari is pretty good but have been using FireFox for years, Safari doesn’t give me the range of options I want like blocking all those damned Google analytics (run NoScript and see how much they follow your movements) and those adverts. MDN is great – completely ad-free
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AOL, just made the web more bearable for Windozers, I count them in with the anti-virus mafia.
Netscape was great at the time, unfortunately it’s place in history may well be that its decline is the first clear evidence of Microsoft’s dirty tricks. I forgot it was still around.
“That being said, Screw Microsoft.”
I agree but if you do, you should double bag it.
> Then open-source it. There’s bound to be a geek someplace who’ll keep it alive.
It already is, and there is a group of geeks working on it. It’s called SeaMonkey. Go to Mozilla.org to get it.
more blood on internet explorer’s hands?
Jubel,
In case you hadn’t noticed, being associated with Windows isn’t the guarantee of success it once was – in fact, it can be a downright kiss of death after the Vista debacle.
Consumers are becoming more aware and being given better choices. iPhone/iPod touch, Safari and Firefox will continue to take share from IE.
Too bad, sorry to see it go…I still use Netscape Composer as one of the fastest and simplest ways to make my own personal start pages, run from my hard drive…
Gandalf Sez: “Safari is pretty good but have been using FireFox for years, Safari doesn’t give me the range of options I want like blocking all those damned Google analytics (run NoScript and see how much they follow your movements) and those adverts.”
Thanks to Little Snitch 2.x we can watch and stop Google and the other marketing madness mayhem dead in its tracks. I wisely paid for it earlier this year. It is remarkable, as someone posted here previously, what sneaky web calls some site try to pull off. Google is certainly the worst. I definitely don’t recommend Little Snitch to the newbies, technophobic or grannies as dealing with the popping up approval boxes can be daunting unless you understand how useful they can be. Anyway, once you properly train Little Snitch with permanent denials of calls out to marketing URLS you don’t have to worry about it again. Bite me Google et al.
;-D
Microsoft used its monopoly in the OS to leverage IE for free onto almost every desktop in the world.
Netscape was doomed the day the Govt. didn’t stop that and we’ve all spent years suffering in browser hades for the worse.
I agree that OmniWeb is a good browser. But it is a little slower than I’d like now and needs a bit of updating in general. Maybe I’ve been out of the loop lately, but it seems I haven’t heard as much from the OmniGroup as I used to.
Netscape 4.7.9 was the best browser ever in terms of speed for the hardware and OS’s of the time.
Still waiting for that kind of “snappiness” to show its face in Firefox or Safari.
wow…good old ‘nutscrape’ navigator dead…hard to accept but easy to see…
it ruled back when: first mosiac (some of the authors of which went to microsh*t and wrote IE) and then navigator…killed by a piece of crap like IE…it amazing how inferiority wins! How is this possible? Market forces…shows you how truly ignorant and gullible many people are.
Atleast safari and firefox are seriously eating away at the edifice of crap that is IE. We live in hope.
Long live Lynx! First “browser” I used in Fall 1994 on a Mac IIci.
Here is a sad poem I have written for the Netscape Eulogy:
Goodbye Ol’ Netscape, just like Steve Ballmer, you got heavy
You started to crash more than Lindsey Lohan,
And now like OS/2 Warp and Atari 2600 games
You’re in the dead software levy.
We shall miss you Ol’ Friend and shall continue
To bitch slap I.E. as often as possible.
Bitchslapping the ground once for you…
Our “dead homey” Netscape Navigator. Peace Out.
:end poem – the rest is just a rant:
Now if only Safari could learn a bit of functionality from Firefox, then Internet Exploiter would bite the dust once and for all. The world of browsing will be perfect. Just as it was in 1996.
Andrew Hamilton
Video Production Las Vegas
http://www.hiproductions.com
I still use OS 9 on my old PowerMac G3 350 Blue ‘n White, and it only comes with Internet Explorer, which I refuse to use… and the only other browser I can find (that’s free – sorry iCab) is Netscape. I guess I should stockpile some .hqx’s of it then
SBC was nostalgic and kept the name AT&T;. Why doesn’t Mozilla drop the name Firefox and continue their browser as Netscape?
More blood on Safaris beach ball 😀 Now that Safari is on windows it’ll only be the doz fanboys that will be using IE in six months.
Another me sez: More blood on Safaris beach ball 😀 Now that Safari is on windows it’ll only be the doz fanboys that will be using IE in six months.
Me me sez: Yeah, and they’ll all be up to their eyeballs in malware and crashes. IE 7 remains a horrible POS even with all the current updates. Smart business IT pros forbid their users access to IE lately. I’ve been putting my clients on Firefox instead, but will be putting them on Safari for Windows once it is out of beta.
Check out the article here at MDN about increasing Safari market share on the net! Very nice. And it’s being taken away from IE.
(^_^) :-Derek