AOL will officially pull the plug on the Netscape Web browser next week, which raises the question: Netscape is still alive? The rise and fall of Netscape is a reminder of just how quickly technology changes – and a warning to approach battles against Microsoft cautiously. Netscape was founded in 1994, and quickly won customers by providing software that made it easy for people to navigate the Internet. Netscape went public a year later and saw its stock price nearly triple on its first day of trading. At one point, the company had an $8 billion market cap and 90% of the Web browser market. But soon it all went south. Microsoft introduced its Internet Explorer browser and began eating into Netscape’s market share. Microsoft later paid AOL, which bought Netscape in 2000, $750 million to settle antitrust charges.
View: Netscape 9 Users
Link: Netscape
By the late 1990s, the handwriting was on the wall, and for the last several years the company has been little more than a footnote. Today, Netscape has less than 1% of the browser market. At the end of December, AOL announced it would stop supporting Netscape on February 1, but ended up giving the browser a one-month stay of execution. This week, the diehards who still use Netscape’s browser received a notice telling them it was time to start using either the Firefox or Flock browsers — for some reason Netscape didn’t suggest switching to Explorer – officially marking the end of an era. I remember using Netscape back in the old days when noone cared about IE, but the times of glory are definitely over.

RIP Netscape.. but the spirit still lies in Firefox..
so all-in-all it was a good thing they shut it down.
cause nowadays Firefox is where it's at cause netscape got to bloated.
Last edited by ThaCrip on 23 Feb 2008 - 20:26
but this news is old, we knew it was going over a month ago
Fixed.
Tell you what, if I just got my new computer, I'd kick whoever's ass for putting Netscape on there. Hell, I don't even want IE for that matter either, but having TWO browsers I don't want would be worse. I still need IE for some websites as well as downloading Firefox anyhow.
Once upon a time Netscape was good. IE3 was over blown, and the first incarnation of IE4 was a bloated bug ridden disaster. I well remember a Journalist making the most grovelling retraction after he warned "your computer will crash and burn if you install IE4...". The retraction started: "I would like to explain, under no circumstances will your computer catch fire if you install IE4..." and another half a page of repeated apologising.
Sad to see it go, seeing is that if it weren't for Netscape, there may never have been an Internet, as we know it today anyways. Alot of people probably don't realize that though.
I remember when Internet Explorer first came out, and was absolutely useless compared to all the Netscape browsers that had been out befor IE even existed. IE actually never came close to being usable until IE 6.
Oh well. I gave up on Marc Andreesen bringing us back a great browser many years ago now, was just a hope, lol.
Microsoft killed it off long before AOL... spent for ever, turning it into bloat.
The Netscape Navigator that is dying next week is actually nothing more than a port of Firefox (ironic since Firefox itself was based on the old Mozilla Suite, which was based on Netscape Communicator). It's a nice browser, the first good version of Netscape in years. The problem is it's a bit redundant since you can just use Firefox instead.
Wow, that was a long time ago.
ill bet your friend was happy that day
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me personally, i think the last time i used netscape (and it was not for to long from what i remember) was i 'think' version 4.7 (roughly 1996 ish, im thinking)
EDIT: Look at the "related" news, some of it's from 2002!
Last edited by Tha Bloo Monkee on 24 Feb 2008 - 06:28
I remember the first thing I ever downloaded, FTP'ing "The Terrorist's Handbook" from the University of Michigan. How life has changed!
I remember the first thing I ever downloaded, FTP'ing "The Terrorist's Handbook" from the University of Michigan. How life has changed!
I didn't even have Netscape originally, I used Lynx and a shell account on escape.com for about a year because I was still using an Amiga 2000. I'd FTP through the shell account and then download using the sz command AFAIK (memory is getting foggy). Eventually I bought a PC. The internet was a large part of the reason I dumped the Amiga.
http://lynx.browser.org/
And who hasn't downloaded the Terrorist's Handbook? Probably real terrorists.
R.I.P Netscape..
Netscape was pretty much the beginning battle with IE. Remember, Netscape was still shareware at the time of
Win95, while IE was free as a download, as well as integrated with 95.
And with the herd, it was "Do I download a shareware app on my (then common) 14.4, or do I use what's already
on my Win95 computer?" I think we can all see the results. Didn't matter that IMO Netscape was far better than IE
at the time, too many people will put up with mediocrity as long as it's free.
Navigator 9.0.0.6 was released a few days ago.
Great analogy.
Navigator 9.0.0.6 was released a few days ago.
Great analogy.
err..actually, Netscape Navigator browser was released long time ago (it was version 4.6 I think around 1996), so it's been years
Navigator 9.0.0.6 was released a few days ago.
But nobody used both for the past 10 years...
Anyway, learn to take a joke...
Navigator 9.0.0.6 was released a few days ago.
Great analogy.
err..actually, Netscape Navigator browser was released long time ago (it was version 4.6 I think around 1996), so it's been years
Netscape Navigator 9.0, the browser, is what this article is about.
next apple ? would crack me up lol
next apple ? would crack me up lol
not funny
next apple ? would crack me up lol
not funny
Internet is serious business, apparently.
Not officially like this, but I had Compuserve as my first ISP in '94 and had a eg: 1234567890(similar number)@compuserve.com for e-mail address.
I eventually switch and moved to Netscape from Mosiac which was bundled with CS software. I stayed with Netscape until IE4.0 came bundled with Windows NT4.0.
Thank god it's dead... I could never bring myself to using Netscape ever again in my life.
ME! It was the bomb lol. I actually had some of my suggestions used in future releases. Good times good times.
I'm not firefox fan but i need to use it because netscape is closing.
Firefox is good but it does eat the memory sweetly. I had so many bad incidents with firefox. Sometime crash, sometime hung sometime close automatically.
Firefox was introuced in replacement of Nescape couple of years ago.
Nevermind. They did made a big change. After 6 months, i felt comfortness when using it.
Overall, Internet Explorer is the best in my point of view. I dont use it quite often.
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