AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development


Recommended Posts

Please observe a moment of silence for the Netscape browser. Netscape Navigator, the browser that launched the commercial Internet in October 1994, will die on February 1, 2008. AOL, which acquired Netscape in November 1998 for $4.2 billion, will announce today that they will discontinue development of the browser, currently on version 9.

In an email exchange yesterday with Tom Drapeau, Director of AOL/Netscape development, he said that only a handful of AOL engineers are still tasked with keeping the browser updated. Most of their efforts have been aimed at creating a Netscape-skinned version of Firefox with the Netscape look and feel.

The team has been unable to gain any significant market share against Microsoft Internet Explorer. In fact, recent surveys suggest that Netscape currently has only 0.6% market share among browsers, compared to IE?s 77.35% and Firefox?s 16.01%. This, of course, is the same browser that once claimed more than 90 percent of the market, sparking the browser wars of the 1990s and the subsequent Microsoft antitrust trial.

Drapeau says AOL?s transition into an ad-supported web business leaves little room for any real effort at maintaining and evolving the Netscape Browser.

He also points to the success of the non-profit Mozilla foundation, which spun off of Netscape in February 1998 with $2 million in funding from Netscape and an additional $300,000 from Mitch Kapor. Firefox, which is part of Mozilla, brought in nearly $70 million in 2006 revenues, mostly from a search deal with Google. In a sense, Netscape lives on through the open-source efforts of Mozilla and Firefox.

Support for existing versions of Netscape Navigator will cease on February 1, 2008. After that, users can visit the UFAQ and the Netscape Community Forum for support.

AOL is also setting up a Netscape Archive where users will be able to download old versions of Netscape, without any support.

[Source[/b]ce]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it was dead years ago,,, their just deciding to take that vegetable off life support

Pure Legend: i remember that also, i still called it that,, also remember when it first came out

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was actually starting to look pretty good recently. I hear it was a little faster then Firefox these days.

FX3 is where it's at though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

great browser when it was netscape communicator and early navigator, but really lost its edge years ago once IE was bundled with windows. The idea of using a secondary browser didnt really catch on until a few years ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does AOL kill everything they buy? They've dismantled the Nullsoft team when they bought winamp, and now this.

What do they gain by doing this?

Heck, what products do they even offer anymore?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does AOL kill everything they buy? They've dismantled the Nullsoft team when they bought winamp, and now this.

What do they gain by doing this?

Heck, what products do they even offer anymore?

Well, they still offer Winamp, though it's developed in-house, now. Also, there really wasn't a point in keeping Netscape going. They have their AOL browsing solution and Netscape was little more than a skinned Firefox with a few extras thrown in. I can't see it as having been a financially sound decision to continue development of the software.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, they still offer Winamp, though it's developed in-house, now. Also, there really wasn't a point in keeping Netscape going. They have their AOL browsing solution and Netscape was little more than a skinned Firefox with a few extras thrown in. I can't see it as having been a financially sound decision to continue development of the software.

With Firefox basically taking up the torch, what's the reason for Netscape itself to remain extant? Lest folks forget, Mozilla (the core of what we know as Firefox) was developed as an open-source browser core. With Netscape itself being basically a skinned Mozilla (and, other than that skin, no differnet from the Foundation-branded Firefox), why would AOL need a ton of engineers to develop a skin for an already-solid extensible browser core (especially since, for some odd reason, nobody else has decided to use the Mozilla core for anything outside of certain Linux-based projects and the Penelope Project (an open-sourced Eudora))?

Also, the reason why *Communicator* hung on was because it had features that IE lacked (especially Usenet support); however, the major battle was Navigator 3.x vs. IE 3.x, and Netscape got pummeled badly, especially when Macromedia loudly castigated a then-still-independent Netscape for savaging their own plug-in standard just to roadblock IE (IE 3.x was directly compatible with plug-ins developed for Navigator 2.x, which Navigator 3.x was not).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This does not surprise me at all, they should be dead long time ago

exactly ;) ... cause it's pointless to try to make another browser in todays world... cause u already got 3 major ones (IE - Firefox - Opera) and a few side ones already.

and besides netscape was good back in the day but now it's just not cutting it since Firefox seems to be the main alternative browser most people use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ad-sponsored spyware?

I have never seen an AOL product with spyware, yes when you used to install some of the stuff you had loads of processes but thats been taken away now so you have just one process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

exactly ;) ... cause it's pointless to try to make another browser in todays world... cause u already got 3 major ones (IE - Firefox - Opera) and a few side ones already.

and besides netscape was good back in the day but now it's just not cutting it since Firefox seems to be the main alternative browser most people use.

So when you sign in with their software you don't get those annoying offer pop ups anymore? I remember that was so annoying.. paying for Internet access and getting tons of offers as soon as I signed in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So when you sign in with their software you don't get those annoying offer pop ups anymore? I remember that was so annoying.. paying for Internet access and getting tons of offers as soon as I signed in.

I'm not sure if they do or not, but that's still not spyware. That's simply adware.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.