Posted on 12/31/2007 12:17:16 PM PST by GATOR NAVY
NEW YORK (AP) - Netscape Navigator, the world's first commercial Web browser and the launch pad of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run.
Its current caretakers, Time Warner Inc. (TWX)'s AOL, decided to kill further development and technical support to focus on growing the company as an advertising business. Netscape's usage dwindled with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s entry into the browser business, and Netscape all but faded away following the birth of its open-source cousin, Firefox.
"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," Netscape Director Tom Drapeau wrote in a blog entry Friday.
In recent years, Netscape has been little more than a repackaged version of the more popular Firefox, which commands about 10 percent of the Web browser market, with almost all of the rest going to Internet Explorer.
People will still be able to download and use the Netscape browser indefinitely, but AOL will stop releasing security and other updates on Feb. 1. Drapeau recommended that the small pool of Netscape users download Firefox instead.
A separate Netscape Web portal, which has had several incarnations in recent years, will continue to operate.
The World Wide Web was but a few years old when in April 1993 a team at the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications released Mosaic, the first Web browser to integrate images and sound with words. Before Mosaic, access to the Internet and the Web was largely limited to text, with any graphics displayed in separate windows.
Marc Andreessen and many of his university colleagues soon left to form a company tasked with commercializing the browser. The first version of Netscape came out in late 1994.
Netscape fed the gold-rush atmosphere with a landmark initial public offering of stock in August 1995. Netscape's stock carried a then-steep IPO price of $28 per share, a price that doubled on opening day to give the startup a $2 billion market value even though it had only $20 million in sales.
But Netscape's success also drew the attention of Microsoft, which quickly won market share by giving away its Internet Explorer browser for free with its flagship Windows operating system. The bundling prompted a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit and later a settlement with Microsoft.
Netscape eventually dropped fees for the software, but it was too late. Undone by IE, Netscape sold itself to AOL in a $10 billion deal completed in early 1999.
Netscape spawned an open-source project called Mozilla, in which developers from around the world freely contribute to writing and testing the software. Mozilla released its standalone browser, Firefox, and Netscape was never able to regain its former footing.
Unless you need the space on your hard drive, I’d just leave it alone, particularly until you see if there is anything you want to use it for. On my old P1 computer, I had IE, Netscape, Firefox, and Mozilla all available. They used to fight for who would be the default browser, but now I believe you can designate that and it stays put.
Buying Netscape was a strategic move. Everyone thought, back then, that there would be a few Internet providers, and AOL needed to own Netscape so it could compete with MSN, which owned IE. Of course, it didn't work out that way -- there are hundreds of access providers and dozens of browsers that can all get the job done.
Buying Time Warner was a smart move. AOL knew that the world of dial-up was shrinking. They knew their stock price was insanely inflated, and they wanted to get something of real value before the bubble burst.
So they went after Time Warner. Warner Brothers. Warner Records. Time/Life. HBO. CNN. Cartoon Network. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are tested, sturdy and reliable brands. AOL shareholders got a bargain spending fake money. It was the TW shareholders who got scammed.
My first browser was mosaic on a 386. My first picture download took hours. I finally got rid of the 36 this month. My wife was using it as a stand-alone non-web connected genealogy machine running DOS and an old but efficient genealogy program. It is still on a separate machine but it is all updated and unconnected to the web. Information is transferred by thumb drive after being checked for viruses and anything else unwanted.
It could have. But should it?
Browsers are a dime a dozen. Actually, that's a gross exaggeration. They're nothing a dozen. And as real standards take hold, everyone and his brother can write one. I use Safari, Firefox and Opera on Mac, IE, Opera and Firefox on Windows.
Why so many browsers? When I build a Web site, I want to see it in the ways 99% of visitors will see it. I try it from my cell phone, and I used to test them in a WebTV browser window. If I had a screen-reader for the blind, I'd try that too. For me, making sites accessible is a matter of principle.
There is no business case for maintaining a Web browser that can't compete. Navigator is to computing what Nash and Hudson were to automobiles. Good in their time, but obsolete now. The real world isn't a museum. It's time to remember them fondly, tip the cap, and move on.
Yopu can get a firefox extension for looking at IE only websites.
And if you told them, they wouldn't believe you. There is a whole generation today that cannot imagine a 9600-baud modem. When I got one, t was luxury. I was weaned on a 300.
And every day I walked to school in the snow. It was uphill both ways.
I have SeaMonkey and use it for particular sites where it is just easier and faster. Other sites work better with FF. Sites that work only with IE I ignored until I got the FF extension for that.
I was a Compuserve addict in the old days until AOL bought it and jazzed it all up with extra graphics. I have never appreciated the gratuitous graphics.
Steve Jobs is more evil! Crazy left wing control freak monopolist that wants to control what you put on your computer or phone.
I always found netscape annoying.
and now it’s gone. It was perhaps the largest blunder and waste of stockholder resources in the world of business history.
Sugar coating won’t help...... it was plain ol bad judgement.
After using IE since my first computer, I finally installed Firefox and love it. It does make my Hotmail harder to read but no big deal. My dad had Netscape and I never cared for it.
That's way over the top. Netscape didn't make a lot of money, but it didn't lose a lot, either. It moved the industry forward. Netscape took the World Wide Web from a hypertext system into a system to spread any medium imaginable -- sound, pictures, video, VRML, Flash animation, chat, audio chat, video chat, and when a genital interface comes (ahem) available, virtual sex.
Was Philo T. Fanrsworth a failure? He died broke and without renown. All he'd done was invent the television. The Wright Brothers didn't do much; all they did was invent the airplane. When was the last time you stepped on a Wright airplane? Or, for that matter, bought an Edison light bulb or a Bell telephone? A company isn't a failure because it fails to last forever.
A lot of folks made lot of money on Netscape. A lot of folks lost money on Netscape. Buying high and selling low is not a winning strategy in any market.
I've got Firefox v2.0.0.11 and it works just fine except that Drudge doesn't load properly. To read Drudge, I have to fire up IE. Does anyone know what's wrong? My OS is XP pro.
Looks like NCSA Mosiac, remember it well.
Mel
I used Netscape 1996-2002, IE 2002-2005, and Firefox 2005 to present.
I think it still has some minor problems with a few Java aplets.
Thanks! Checking it out now.
OK, I got Mozilla and managed, using your wonderful instructions, to move my bookmarks over there. Now how do I get rid of that hideous Google toolbar at the top. I have uninstalled it several times and it won’t go away. Thank you.
try add/remove programs in within the control panel.
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