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).
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…