Dec 30
AOL to Discontinue Netscape Navigator
Dec 30, `07 — The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users. Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after February 01, 2008, the company has said.
Netscape’s usage dwindled with Microsoft’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. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions.” 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.
Browser Wars
Netscape was developed by Marc Andreessen, co-author of Mosaic, the first popular web browser. Mosaic was written while Mr Andreessen was a student at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in 1992.
After graduation he set up Netscape Communications Corporation and began development of the Navigator browser. The first version was released in 1994.
It was quickly a success and dominated the browser market in the mid-1990s. But other companies followed its success, notably Microsoft, which bundled its Explorer software with its operating systems.
People will still be able to download and use the Netscape browser indefinitely, but AOL will stop releasing security and other updates on Feb 01, `08. Drapeau recommended that the small pool of Netscape users download Firefox instead.
Microsoft is expected to launch a new version of IE 8 in 2008, whilst the third version of Firefox, codenamed Minefield, is currently available as a beta, or test version.