NetScape Navigator put out to pasture

AOL discontinued support for NetScape Navigator on Saturday. The browser, which gave many people their first experience of surfing the web, is still available for downloaded but will no longer be maintained or developed. Die-hard users will be left on their own without further security updates. AOL will continue to maintain the …

[Jason Harvey]

I remember Mosaic

things were simple then. much more chaos now.

[Adam Trickett]

@Jason

Me too, XMoasic seemed so amazing at the time. Then someone showed by a beta of this thing called Netscape, it looked like Mosaic but didn't crash as much and did all sorts of newer fancy things...

[Edward Miles]

I wish...

...I had experienced Netscape. As it was I was brought up on the evil that is AOL's own browser. Suffice to say the first day I managed to bypass the parental controls and get n to IE felt like an epiphany. You cannot imagine how powerful the move to Firefox was after that :P

Requiem im Pace Netscape. Long life Firefox. (And longer live Lynx!)

Penguin for some open source lovin'

[Kevin Eastman]

Netscape helped kill themselves

It really irks me when I see stories that say it was the bundling of IE with Windows that killed Netscape. It wasn't just the bundling of IE with Windows that helped kill Netscape. Corporate greed on Netscape's part did as well. At the time, I was working for an ISP and part of my job was to but together a disk of software for our users. I really wanted to use Netscape as the preferred browser and contacted them, but they wanted like $90.00 per user to distribute their browser. I then contacted IE who were more than happy for us to include their browser free of charge. Needless to say, the company opted to go with IE.

[George]

I agree with Kevin...

sometimes the "evil" MS just keep going as they are going and the competition falls apart by entrenching themselves further in a 'specialist' or 'expert' product with a price tag to suit.

Netscape was good and definitley my first introduction but by IE 4 the inerface had lost out and just stayed that way a bit too long.

[Tim Bates]

Goodbye

Netscape 4 Gold. That was about the peak I think.

Edward: It's not too late to experience Netscape. By todays standards it'll feel pretty crap though (even the latest one).

And I agree with the 2 people who said it wasn't MS that killed NetScape...Netscape 5 and 6 were basically suicide... At a time when most people still used dialup, it was simply too big, slow and useless. I actually switched back to using IE because of Netscape 6. Thankfully Firefox came along not much later and I've been using that (almost) exclusively since about v0.6

[Dirk Munk]

SeaMonkey is the successor to Netscape, not FireFox

SeaMonkey is the present name for the original Mozilla Internet Suite, which was the Open Source version of Netscape. So if you want to keep using the full Netscape functionality, go for SeaMonkey. Since Netscape V3, I have never been using anything else than Netscape, Mozilla or SeaMonkey (except for IE only websites).

[josh]

SCHOOL DAYS

the first computer i used on the internet was using netscape, cute little thing really, sure it was basic but so was the internet, everyone was using dial up but our school was chosen to test new tecnologies for learning like isdn lines and video conferancing with phones connected to the internet as a means to talk during video conferencing...

netscape will be missed

[ChrB]

4.7 Communicator Suite

Best one **ever**.

Mozilla with the classic 4.7 skin is what I use now.

The worst day was when Netscape went public and the shares skyrocketed through the roof - pity I had no cash then.

I still have a sealed box of Netscape Navigator 2.0 at home (probably a floppy in it, no CDs then). And a Gold Pack!

Those were the days...

[Chris]

A real shame, but no surprise...

TBH I'm surprised Netscape has lasted this long since the rise and rise of Firefox. I feel the problem was that when Andreesen sold (out) to AOL the direction of the browser was chaotic and was no competition for the sleeping giant once it woke up to the internet phenomenon.

I also remember Mosaic and Netscape v1. I agree Netscape Communicator 4.x was the best by far and I used it for a *very* long time on Win98 until Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox appeared and I've used that since about v0.5. After the 4.x series Netscape seemed to be upping the release version, but nothing else, on each release. I lost interest after v7.

I have never (willingly) used IE. Whenever I am forced to use it I am reminded at how woeful it is compared to the competition.

[Chris]

I wonder

If the sites which still 'recommend' Netscape as the only alternative to IE will finally change their tune.

Yes 'Smile'. I'm looking at you...

[Richard Hodgson]

Funny thing...

My local Co-op has a copy of Netscape Navigator on the shelf, selling for just under £3! :)