RIP Netscape Navigator

Apologies if this is old news

I remember using Netscape Navigator in the 1990s, before they "improved" it and made it unusable

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7163547.stm

RIP Netscape. How I shall miss thee

Wow! I thought netscape was already long gone! LOL!! I think I used that browser once or twice in 1994.

Weird. They had made a comeback maybe a year ago? I thought they had found a new vitality and had the strength to stand on their legs a bit longer.

Too bad, though. This is a direct consequence of Micro$oft's shady practices in the 90s when they put code in Windows to make other apps like QuickTime and Netscape crash so the WinBox users would use IE and Windows Media player instead.

Netscape's main issue was that it was bloated, slow, and then destroyed by AOL when they purchased it. There is no love lost by it's demise.

Netscape wasn't so much killed by IE as it was slowly strangled to death by its younger, better brother...Firefox.

I remember the buzz when Netscape opened on NASDAQ. Jim Clark had a half billion dollars in his share of stock at the end of the day. For a company that gave away its product for free and hadn't made a penny of profit!

My dad and I used to use Netscape back in the day (when we were on 56k). I think we used it until, version 6? The point of where it got bloated and ran like crap because of all the "additional features". At that point we were stuck with IE...until Firefox came along.

I still use Netscape 6.2 Composer on occasion. It's a pretty decent WYSIWYG basic html editor/builder.

netscape used to always be the browser that would 'just work' back in my win95 days....if IE didnt do it, netscape could!
-chris

it was back then what firefox is now. I remember using it back in elementary school on the old macs they had.

I actually did not know it was still around, I thought aol killed it a long time ago.

MY parents are still basically stuck on the late 90's: using a 56k modem (no cable or DSL where they live) and use Netscape to surf the web, Unfortunately, she's had to use it b/c that's the only way she could access her email service provided by the local stone-age internet provider. I wonder what they will do now that it's shut down.

I used Netscape from the beginning. Then AOL took it over and it got a lot more bloated. Then Firefox came out and I switched over to that.

It's sad to see it die but I am not surprised as not many are using it anymore. It was the best browser out there at one point in time.

dtravis7 said:

It's sad to see it die but I am not surprised as not many are using it anymore.

Click to expand...

It's still alive and well. For anyone who might still want to use it (Netscape is rebranded and crippled Mozilla), click here for it under another name, SeaMonkey. (The download link is on the left of that page.)

It's the old suite of browser, email app and Composer HTML editor, but updated, using the Firefox browser and, I think, Thunderbird for email.

That article doesn't mention any of this. Good thing I'm still wearing my anti-MS-conspiracy tinfoil hat.

PowerBookG4 said:

I actually did not know it was still around, I thought aol killed it a long time ago.

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They did. They bought it. It's just that they're now taking it off life support.

AOL has had a long history of buying things and killing them. Actually it's more that they let things die out of neglect or lack of use. Frankly I'm surprised that AOL is still alive.

Good bye Netscape. You were good in your day.

While I did like netscape back in the late 90's, now all I can say is good riddance

In Thomas Friedman's book The World Is Flat he gives ten reasons for globalization that has taken place. One of them is the introduction of netscape. To give you an idea of how huge he considers it to be another one is the fall of Berlin Wall.

I still use Netscape Navigator 9 every once in a while. (The latest version, they just updated it a few months ago.) It is sad to see them go.

PinkLemonade said:

Actually, according to their blog, it was updated on December 10th.


I like their "URL Correction feature, pretty handy sometimes, and I have not found a stable browser that has this option besides Netscape Navigator.

Click to expand...

I use OpenDNS which corrects URLs regardless of browser.