Netscape Browser To Be Phased Out By Febuary

[GhostShip]

Yes folks, the well known Nescape is to finally be dropped.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140903-pg,1/article.html

An historic name in software will effectively pass into history in February as AOL discontinues development and active support for the Netscape browser, according to an official blog.
AOL will keep delivering security patches for the current version of Netscape until Feb. 1, 2008, after which it will no longer provide active support for any version of the software, according to a Friday entry on The Netscape Blog by Tom Drapeau, lead developer for Netscape.com. The Netscape.com Web site will remain as a general-purpose portal.

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," Drapeau wrote. "Given AOL's current business focus ... we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," Drapeau wrote.

As of this month, Netscape had only 0.6 percent of the browser market, which was still dominated by Internet Explorer with more than 77 percent, according to Web application and analytics firm Net Applications. Firefox was gaining, however, with market share just over 16 percent.

Software products invariably mutate and change into completely different offerings than the original release, its a good thing to remember that this browser spawned some of the Mozilla codebase, its a proud legacy and whislt its always hard for companies to lay a product to rest this one has had its day.

Farewell Netscape.

[SamSeeSam]

Too bad... i tried it a long time ago.. don't even remember how it was.
But mozilla's share has skyrocketed...

I remember reading veviews of it when IE had market share of some 93~95 % of the market...

Cheers

[White Stripes]

i remember using NS 2.02 gold on my windows 3.1 box....

may the good ol NS rest in peace


if anyone is feeling nostalgic; http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=Netscape

...strange they dont have versions 2 and 3... O.o

[GhostShip]

There is a large quantity of older versions her,e but not as old as your mentioning Stripes 

http://browser.netscape.com/downloads/archive/

[Cobra]

I started using Netscape with version 2, I think. It came on a disk right beside IE when I first got online (since computers obviously did not have browsers built in before that time).

I stuck with it until version 7.2. The only reason I did not go beyond that version was 8.0 and above began adding a ton of crap that added bulk but I never used. I have tried a dozen different browsers over the years and have personally liked none other better than Netscape. It was just right for me until version 8 came along, then it felt like "all of the others" trying to add everything people may possibly use but not giving you enough customization for completely removing them without bugs.

Rest In Peace, Netscape.