So Long Netscape

Final goodbye for early web icon
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

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Sad? I don't feel sad about software. What is aggravating is the manner in which AOL dealt with their acquisition. I'm not particularly nostalgic for something like this. Netscape did not handle its financial situation well (read Netscape Time by Jim Barksdale...it's an eye-opener on "why" the company failed) and failed to act quickly enough when confronted by that behemoth, Microsoft. Firefox and Thunderbird do it all well and much better than Netscape ever did. In addition, having them as open source means they can more than handle the challenge from MS as well as newly discovered security issues.

Netscape is part of the internet's history. I started with Netscape 3 GOLD back in 1997. I had every iteration of Netscape and while I would continue using it if it were available in the sense that it was being updated on a timely basis, I'm certainly not going to twist my hands in despair as some on the Netscape blog are doing. Life goes on... with or without Netscape; and in this case... without.

 

I may have posted about this before, so bear with me.
I am not an AOL fan, but, AOL was my ISP for five or six years, so I have a lot of inside info. AOL wanted to break away from the Microsoft stranglehold, and, since its software was based on Microsoft products, they had to come up with an alternative, and purchased the almost dying Netscape. The purpose was not to use Netscape as the AOL browser, but rather to use the Gecko GUI to create a program which was familiar to its users. Remember that, at one time AOL had more customers than any ISPs.
AOL purchased Netscape, and, having decided that the format of 4.x was outdated, pushed for the creation of NS6.x based on the Gecko engine. And, pushed they did coming out with the horrible 6.0. But soon, even 6.01 worked, and AOL started testing AOL Gecko. AOL Gecko was also introduced in Mac OSX . I was one of the early testesr, and, even the version based on NS6.2.3 was not as good as the one based on Microsoft software, but it was threatening Microsoft .
AOL users, overwhelmingly rejected AOL Gecko. I, even, tried Compuserve, an AOL division which used the Gecko engine. But, Microsoft made AOL a financial offer that it could not refuse, to use only the Microsoft-based program, and efforts to create a Gecko-based browser ceased .
AOL was also testing a neat standalone mail client, even before I ever heard of Thunderbird. And, then one day, an update to it, did not allow to use the Gecko address book format. Soon after that, I quit AOL.
Why did AOL resurrected a standalone browser with 8 (not developed by AOL/Netscape) or 9, beats me.
Netscape, through AOL has become meaningless to me, but, in all fairness, under the circumstances, AOL is not to blame.

 

Since AOL has known for a long time that they were not going to use Netscape to become their new embedded browser, and since Mozilla has been fairly active since what, sometime around 2000 or shortly thereafter, I'm surprised that Netscape has continued its life as long as it has. Kind of like that guy in the movies who just won't die, even though he's been shot 10 times...

Personally, I don't feel sad, but a bit nostalgic. Netscape 2.8 was my first introduction to a "browser" that wasn't the AOL window; I really did think that that ship's steering wheel (whatever its called, I'm a landlubber) was a pretty cool splash screen. And in a sense, if we use Mozilla SeaMonkey or Firefox, we're using the next generation of Netscape, code-rewrites nonetheless. So it does live on.

In the "Microsoft is the antichrist" department, I still think its kind of ironic that Netscape charged for their browser when MS was releasing IE for free.

 

In a way. Some people are very adamant in stating that Mozilla was derived from Netscape. But it is a fact that Netscape6/7 were nothing but branded (i.e. AOLized) Mozillas. I started with Netscape, circa 4.0.x, but used earlier version, after they became free.

Not ironic. Netscape was charging, and Microsoft found it a good business move to release a free IE (IE is part of the operating system, and you pay for it, indirectly). Netscape had to rely on someone else's oprating system, being Windows, Mac or Linux. Eventually Netscape, a program only, could not compete with the Microsoft army.
And, guess what, AOL wants to survive financially, and going the Netscape way was not making any money for AOL.

 

Like Paul I started years ago with Netscape Communicator 3.02b, because it came on my first PC. Even tho I did eventually try IE, I found Netscape truly user friendly, and used it up until AOL purchased Netscape.

As Westside explains Netscape 7 was Mozilla, loaded with AOL junk. Altho back in the "old" days IE 3 was free, it certainly didn't stay free very long. Considering the price of Windows, IE is a very high priced browser.

As our man Joe Friday used to say, Just-the-facts, and no inference to any entity that is an embodiment of evil.