End of the road for Netscape

 

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By Tim Danton

Posted on 29 Dec 2007 at 12:54

As of 1 February 2008, AOL will stop supporting Netscape Navigator - the iconic web browser that ruled the internet in the late 1990s.

"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator," writes Netscape director Tom Drapeau on his blog, "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," he adds.

This comes as no surprise: when PC Pro reviewed the latest version of Netscape Navigator, we were left with a hollow feeling.

Our verdict: "A solid offering, but ultimately there aren't enough reasons to use this Firefox clone over Firefox itself."

As the image above shows (source: Wikipedia Commons), Netscape was fighting a losing battle by the time AOL took the company over in 1999. Despite a lot of investment, and the inherent flaws of Internet Explorer at that time, it never made an impact. The arrival and success of Mozilla Firefox showed it was possible to create a credible alternative to Microsoft's offering, and many felt AOL should have terminated Netscape at that point.

Nevertheless, Netscape still has many loyal followers, and although February will mark the end of official support - and thus security patches to fight the latest threats - many will continue to use the browser.

Drapeau's advice is to switch to Mozilla Firefox, but unofficial support will continue via forums such as as the Netscape Community Forum.