Netscape to be Euthanised

Posted on by PaulaO

From Wired News:

Netscape Browser to Die a Quiet Death in February 2008
By Michael Calore

The browser that started it all is going the way of the dodo.

Tom Drapeau, AOL’s director of the Netscape brand, announced in a blog post Friday that AOL will cease development on all Netscape web browsers on February 1, 2008. The company will continue to support the current version of the browser, Netscape 9, by releasing patches or security fixes until that date. After February 1, all development will stop.

Drapeau recommends that anyone running a Netscape-branded browser make the switch to Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser upon which the last few versions of Netscape have been based.

(snip)

Originally released in 1994 during the nascent days of the web, Netscape Navigator was the underdog contender in the “browser wars” of the late 1990s, when it faced stiff competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. Even though Netscape championed web standards and was first to market with dozens of new features, Internet Explorer shipped on the desktop of every new Windows computer. So while Microsoft continued to enjoy the larger market share, Netscape, which needed to be downloaded and installed, lagged behind. This issue was central to the United States’ anti-trust case against Microsoft.

Eventually, AOL purchased the Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999 and released its browser code as the open-source Mozilla project.

(link to full article)

In the comments of the article, Asa Dozer, who is quoted in the article, says this:

“Eventually, AOL purchased the Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999 and released its browser code as the open-source Mozilla project.”
Not quite. Netscape released the source code and created the Mozilla project before AOL was even considering acquiring Netscape (April 1998).
– A
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | Dec 28, 2007 4:05:40 PM

And another comment later:

Asa beat me to the punch. get it right Wired… the Mozilla Project was started before the acquisition by AOL was started. I believe it is what saved the Idea of what Netscape was and what FireFox is now. We dreaded it when Netscape was taken over by AOL, but were happy and safe in the fact that the Code was out there and would live on and grow with how the users wanted it. the Real Browser lives on…… ans as for people calling it the Underdog… it always kicked IE’s Arse… hands down… and like Alan, I to always waited anxiously for the next version to release, and laughed as IE tried to keep up…

Posted by: Angus | Dec 28, 2007 9:09:29 PM

I’ve been using Firefox for a while now. I was an avid Netscape (loved the integrated email and browser!) user for years. Then it was bought by AOL. But by then I was using Mozilla for a while until Firefox came out. I highly recommend using Firefox as opposed to IE. I hate sites that are not compliant and must be viewed by IE or webmasters who say “Best viewd with IE”. Snort. Best get a better webmaster.

Linkage:

Mozilla Foundation: