Good-bye Netscape

Posted by Bart Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:50:00 GMT

Today is the first day that the Netscape browser will not be supported by it's founder Marc Andreessen, Netscape the company, or buyer AOL.

Why is this significant? It's the first time in the internet's history, as most end-users know it, that Netscape will not be officially supported. Netscape was the first big commercial internet browser when it came out in beta back in 1994. It made the internet available to millions of people, removing it from the restriction of the dorm-rooms, research labs, news-groups, and of course military. It gave the rest a new way of doing business, connect with others, share information, learn, discover, and yes, find porn.

Netscape's decline in popularity was set in stone a long time ago, when Microsoft bundled it's own browser, Internet Explorer, with it's operating system Windows. Their monopolization tactics are still costing them serious money in Europe. But Netscape's essence will continue to resonate through the growing popularity of Firefox, and the new kid on the block Flock, which are both based on Nestcape's original Mozilla code base. Mosaic (the original Netscape) left, but can be brought back from here to a computer near you. Opera is a powerful browser, and I encourage everyone to try it.

Thankfully for Netscape's many loyal users, support will still be available through the user maintained support on the net, which we've all become dependent on.

Netscape Skin for Mozilla:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/56836

Support:
Netscape Archive UFAQ
Netscape Community Forum