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Netscape finally put to the sword

By Guy Dixon
23 February 2008 09:56AM
Tags: netscape | finally | sword

AOL has released its last ever update for Netscape Navigator and is encouraging its remaining users to switch to Flock or Firefox..

"Users will see the following major upgrade notice, released as Netscape 9.0.0.6," said Tom Drapeau, director of AOL's Netscape brand, in a company blog.

"When the Netscape 9.0.0.6 upgrade is accepted and run, the following notice will appear, denoting the end of support date and the recommendations of Flock and Firefox."

The pop-up offers users download links to a choice of the Flock or Mozilla's Firefox browser.

Netscape diehards will be able to stick with the browser by clicking 'Remind me later' and 'Stay with Netscape' buttons. But as of the end of February no further updates or security patches will be added.

Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise.

Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within three years.

At the end of 2007, Drapeau announced that AOL would stop development of the browser and would end support on 1 February.

Drapeau gave Netscape a one-month reprieve at the end of last month citing the need for more time to finish migration tools.

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Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.

Comments: 6

"brought stiff competition"?!??

Microsoft's behavior in that "competition" constitutes _felony_. You can read it yourself: whoever behaves as they did "shall be deemed guilty of a felony":

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=browse_usc&docid=Cite:+15USC2

Posted by Jim Hill, Feb 23, 2008 4:20 PM

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LOL, you think people are going to read that? Wise up. Besides, it was Microsoft whose free browser made us stop having to pay for the things. Firefox ftw.

Posted by Brian Manahan, Feb 24, 2008 1:59 AM

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"Microsoft whose free browser" ...?

Free, that is, once you've paid, directly or indirectly, a couple hundred bucks for Windows.

Posted by Joe Decker, Feb 24, 2008 11:52 AM

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What, so u want to run IE on Linux joe? Seems 2 me you're just a whinger that wants to be part of the Microsoft lynching party and yes, my bet is, u also run windows as you're primary opperating system, why do u think that is? maybe because overall microsoft products are (regrettibly in the knockers eyes) better, more compatable, and enjoys better support than the oposition. Yes Microsoft has been guilty of many things, but when I boot-up, I'm not thinking about any of them, all the majority of people are thinking about is getting up and running with a stable operating system and software that they can understand and does the job that they need to do. Snide remarks such as these are counterproductive and show that the writer realy has little or no substance behind their opinions.

Posted by cobrasixtysix, Feb 24, 2008 5:36 PM

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"The pop-up offers users download links to a choice of the Flock or Mozilla's Firefox browser."

Why don't the offer SeaMonkey as a choice? It's closer to Netscape than the other two.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Posted by Paul Dubuc, Feb 25, 2008 5:15 AM

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Brian said: "Wise up. Besides, it was Microsoft whose free browser made us stop having to pay for the things. Firefox ftw."

I'm sorry, but Microsoft's concept of free was basically to (legally) steal IE from Spyglass corporation. They licensed the code/technology for IE from Spyglass with an agreement to pay them a royalty on each individual copy of IE *SOLD* -- and then proceeded to give it away. I feel sorry for Spyglass -- they got shafted royally.

On the other hand, I feel not one iota of sympathy for Netscape. I sat across a table from Andreeson in 1996 where we tried to get him to license the Netscape code for a project I was working on -- and he said basically "we don't need you". A year and a half later, Netscape came back asking if we were still interested -- which by that time we were not!

Posted by mdburkey, Feb 25, 2008 2:48 PM

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Netscape finally put to the sword

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