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Netscape Turns 10

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the almost-a-teenager dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Today marks ten years since the first public beta of Netscape Navigator was released. Both CNet News.com and MozillaZine have full coverage, with the former revealing that AOL is planning to release a new version Netscape in the New Year (thankfully separate from the IE-based version of AOL's browser). Even the Netscape portal (which never mentions the Netscape browser) is celebrating the anniversary. A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the last decade (especially since AOL bought Netscape) and the baton has now passed onto the Netscape alumni-filled Mozilla Foundation, but it's still worth remembering that Netscape changed the world not once (by making the first really good browser), but twice (by being the first major commercial program to go open source)."

81 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. How can it be 10? by JazzXP · · Score: 5, Funny

    Didn't it die when it was 5?

    1. Re:How can it be 10? by secretsquirel · · Score: 4, Funny

      Couldn't have, it never even was 5. Somehow it went from 4.* to 6. So I guess now its really like 11 or something.

    2. Re:How can it be 10? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Our browser goes to 11.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Cool, cool, cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hard to believe it's been 10 years. Time flies when your having fun! I don't remember which version of Netscape I used first, but I remeber downloading the code when it became available. That was one cool day for me.

    1. Re:Cool, cool, cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I was kind of surprised to see it's been ten years. It seems longer ago than that.

      I guess the IE years haven't been much fun ;)

    2. Re:Cool, cool, cool by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I remember the hype surrounding the 2.0 launch. It was going to be 8MB, and considered hugely bloated at this size (considering that at the time, my hard drive was 60MB, and a full install of MS Word took 10MB including clipart). After Netscape 2 was launched, no one was going to care what OS they were using. All software was going to be run through the browser.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Netscape portal is like a domain squatters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful


    98% advertising, 2 % content
    why anyone would visit it by choice is a mystery

    1. Re:Netscape portal is like a domain squatters by skitzoid+(moomoo) · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hi! I'm an AOL user Where can I download it from?

    2. Re:Netscape portal is like a domain squatters by It's+People! · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because it's the default home page for Safari.

  4. The old netscape by thedillybar · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I remember the old Netscape. Really bulky and yet I still ran it over IE. Took what seemed like forever to load with 16(?) MB of RAM.

    Props to how far Mozilla has come. I guess the increased computing power helped them a tad :) Salute to our pioneers as well.

    1. Re:The old netscape by SmilingBoy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are lucky! I ran Netscape (3.something? Gold?) on a 486/33 with 4 MB RAM... That was in the beginning of 1998 (when the computer was already 5 years old). I did have a 14,400 modem, and at times the computer would take longer rendering sites than it took for the data to come in. Seriously though, for WWW, this setup was pretty unusable, but it was fine for E-Mail.

    2. Re:The old netscape by FrankHaynes · · Score: 4, Funny

      BAH!

      When I was your age I had to paint the web page on cardboard with watercolors using my fingers...uphill--BOTH WAYS!!

      Young whippersnappers!

      --
      slashdot: A failed experiment.
    3. Re:The old netscape by singularity · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ehh, If you are talking the same time as IE, you are not thinking old enough. Once Netscape 3.x came out (which, if I remember correctly, was about the time IE was first released), it was pretty bulky.

      Back when you were able to get just Netscape Navigator (the stand-alone browser without the HTML editor, mail client, and so on), it was pretty smooth. I remember running 2.2N on my Mac for a long time (up until about Netscape 4.1.7 or so)

      Of course, that was some time after Netscape hit the scene. I remember downloading Mosaic for the first time sometime around Christmas break of 1993-1994. Netscape 0.9 was sometime after that.

      I liked to tell my students (when I was working in a high school) that there used to be a page called "What is new on the Internet" that would list all new pages to go up.

      Netscape started out a good browser, but the 3.x bloat really slowed progress down. That was back when Netscape seemed on top of the world, though. Portal, web server, web browser, mail client, news client, you name it. For the briefest amount of time, before Microsoft woke up, they seemed to control the Internet.

      It is interesting to see projects like Firefox finally getting back to the simplicity of the original Netscape browsers.

      --
      - (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
    4. Re:The old netscape by metlin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dad?

      Is that you?

    5. Re:The old netscape by gmajor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Started off using Lynx on 2400 baud :-)

      A few months later I finally got my hands on a PPP connection and used Netscape 1.1. Still remember the animated shooting star Netscape that would display when a pag was loading.

      Back in the day... when Geocities was called "Beverly Hills Internet" and Webcrawler was the alternative to Yahoo.

      Curiously, I also remember when Netscape began to offer serious cash bounties (~$1,000) for anyone who discovered security holes in their browser. I wish Microsoft would do that.

    6. Re:The old netscape by SolvayGuy · · Score: 2, Funny

      You were lucky to have cardboard. When I needed to see a web page, I remember waking up at 4AM, walking 15 miles down a gravel road, barefoot, to the nearest telephone pole, climb up to the top, and absorb the data through me tounge, walk the 15 gruling miles back home and spit on some worn cloth.

    7. Re:The old netscape by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Dad?

      Is that you?"

      Asking somebody on Slashdot if they're your father... That raises some interesting questions about your mom.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    8. Re:The old netscape by bursch-X · · Score: 2, Funny
      Curiously, I also remember when Netscape began to offer serious cash bounties (~$1,000) for anyone who discovered security holes in their browser. I wish Microsoft would do that.

      Microsoft, even with all their money, would be bankrupt in no time if they did that.
      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
    9. Re:The old netscape by Angostura · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's new on the Web was hosted as SAIC, I think, required daily reading. Ah yes, I remember when the Cambridge University Trojan Room coffee-pot cam was put on-line, how cool was that?

      I'd like to take issue with the original poster's assertion that Netscape was the first major piece of commercial software to go Open... It may have been available for sale, but Netscape would never reveal how many licenses were sold. I don't think you could call it 'major commercial' judged from the commercial revenues.

    10. Re:The old netscape by JudgeFurious · · Score: 2, Funny

      No metlin, that's not your father. I knew your father during the Browser Wars.

      A young hacker who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the CEO of Microsoft hunt down and destroy developers working on "other browsers". He betrayed and murdered your father.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
  5. Still why not base AOL on Netscape? by chrispyman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm serious, why on Earth does AOL even bother with Netscape when they, despite being perfectly able to, not just put Netscape into their flagship AOL software? There's already a million browsers that use the IE rendering engine, so why not do something new for a change!

    1. Re:Still why not base AOL on Netscape? by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 4, Informative

      Because by shipping/using IE, AOL becomes one of their "premier partners" or whatever it is called.

      A company I once worked for reaped the benefits of choosing to distribute IE over Netscape. While the Netscape people wanted $45 a copy from us per customer, Microsoft agreed to give us their browser for free and entered into an advertising partnership which reaped us millions in revenue. I can only imagine how well this works out for a company of AOL's size. Amazingly, our technical support costs went down. The statistics we gathered of our 700,000 customers showed both Mac and PC systems had less trouble with IE than Netscape. Less calls to suppport equates to saving lots of money for the company.

      Then you have to look at what is to gain by an ISP/content provider to spend enormous time and resources developing their own browser in house. It isn't like they would make any money with it. This, I think, has a lot to do with the status of mozilla source. They threw it to the open source community, now it is us to make it better.

    2. Re:Still why not base AOL on Netscape? by EnronHaliburton2004 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Remember that when AOL and MS made this agreement, Mozilla wasn't very good (Slow, bloated, buggy-- but I still used it).

      Today we have a very different situation. Firefox rocks my world. My 60 year old father switched a few months ago ON HIS OWN ACCORD. He actually said "Hey Son, you should try out Firefox, it's pretty cool".

      The MS/AOL decision might be different if it happened a year from now, when Firefox is even better.

      --
      94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. The First Netscape was revolutionary by dancingmad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While the older versions of Netscape is the butt of many a joke, nothing beats the electricity I felt when I first started browsing the web with Netscape. I mean, back then, browsing with Netscape, I knew that the web was going to be something huge (I remember playing silly games on Nintendo's web site). Netscape had a huge hand in creating that and the web as we know it. There were browsers before (not to mention IRC, Gopher, etc.) but Netscape helped bring the WWW and the Internet to the masses.

    More power to Netscape's heir, Firefox, which is set to take the web crown back and help perfect the web experience Netscape pioneered.

    --
    "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
    1. Re:The First Netscape was revolutionary by metlin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, reminds me of the line from JWZ's website -

      When we started this company [Netscape], we were out to change the world. And we did that. Without us, the change probably would have happened anyway, maybe six months or a year later, and who-knows-what would have played out differently. But we were the ones who actually did it. When you see URLs on grocery bags, on billboards, on the sides of trucks, at the end of movie credits just after the studio logos -- that was us, we did that. We put the Internet in the hands of normal people. We kick-started a new communications medium. We changed the world.

      Indeed. They very much were the ones who brought the WWW to the masses.

  8. First?!? by bay43270 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but it's still worth remembering that Netscape changed the world not once (by making the first really good browser)...

    What was wrong with Mosaic?

    1. Re:First?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      What was wrong with gopher??

    2. Re:First?!? by typhoonius · · Score: 3, Interesting

      NCSA Mosaic was programmed by Marc Andreessen, who, of course, created Netscape Communications, so I guess it's all in the family.

    3. Re:First?!? by Mr.+Hankey · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apparently nothing as far as Microsoft was concerned. IE was originally a customized version of Spry Mosaic, as a part of one of the most monumental fleecings of all time (Altamira notwithstanding.) Microsoft promised to pay a portion of their profits to Spry in return for the browser code, and then gave it (IE) away. Any percent of zero is of course still zero.

      To answer your question though, I do remember Netscape having far more rendering features than Mosaic. I seem to recall that background images especially were more interesting in Netscape. A fair amount of the features were non-standard in the same manner as IE's MSHTML extensions though. Many a webmaster would say that we're still recovering from Netscape-specific tags.

      --
      GPL: Free as in will
    4. Re:First?!? by grotgrot · · Score: 4, Interesting
      What was wrong with Mosaic?

      The single biggest problem with Mosaic was that it wouldn't display any of the page until it had downloaded every single image and worked out what size they were. IIRC it also only used one network connection to do the image downloads. The big thing that made people say "wow" about Netscape was it showing you the page and then filling in the images, reflowing the page as necessary. That resulted in people dropping Mosaic real quick.

      Mosaic was also most at home on Unix. That was all fine for people like me who used Sun Workstations at work, but most didn't have that. The Windows and Mac versions lagged the Unix version, and had to have a lot of different code due to OS differences (those were the days of Win16 for example).

      IIRC Netscape was also the first browser to implement tables and do a decent job of it. Within a month or less of the first release of Netscape, I didn't know anyone who used Mosaic any more. There were some more releases of Mosaic by uiuc, but most of their browser and server people had gone to Netscape.

    5. Re:First?!? by Marlor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apparently nothing as far as Microsoft was concerned. IE was originally a customized version of Spry Mosaic, as a part of one of the most monumental fleecings of all time (Altamira notwithstanding.) Microsoft promised to pay a portion of their profits to Spry in return for the browser code, and then gave it (IE) away. Any percent of zero is of course still zero.

      It was Spyglass Mosaic, rather than Spry Mosaic that licensed their code to Microsoft.

      It is a shame that they settled with Microsoft (for $8M) in 1997, becuse MS started claiming that IE was an intrinsic part of Windows soon afterwards, so Spyglass would have had a case that they deserved royalties from all copies of Windows sold.

    6. Re:First?!? by Trejkaz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Indeed. The name Mozilla is a contraction of "Mosaic killer."

      --
      Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
    7. Re:First?!? by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Netscape didn't reflow the page as needed. Instead, it started simultaneous downloads and would put an appropriate sized box in place once it knew the size of the image.

      Try it for yourself, this behaviour was still present in Netscape 4.

    8. Re:First?!? by Albanach · · Score: 2, Informative
      You'll still find Mosaic credited if you loook in 'help > about' on Internet Explorer

      Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  9. Go Gopher! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Netscape? World Wide Web. Bleah. I remember the good old days when Gopher was king. That was perfect -- none of this graphical mumbo jumbo and "tags". No Septembers that never ended.

    1. Re:Go Gopher! by RLiegh · · Score: 2, Informative
      Your memory is either fucked, or you are just pretending to have been "in the scene". ARCHIE and Veronica, not Jughead, moron. And if you weren't on the 'net back in the BITNET days, you are a fucking newbie so shut the hole in your head, bitch.

      Le sigh

      Just on the very off chance you were correct about my memory, I did a very quick google search and, lo and behold:

      JUGHEAD

      Jughead is a version of Veronica that has been designed to search gopher menus at a restricted set of gopher holes (e.g., only documents located on the home gopher or only a collection of gopher servers at a particular University). Jughead has many selective uses on gopher, but unlike Veronica, you won't find his name on a Gopher root menu. He is what Ed Krol likes to call "the searcher you never see." He's usually there, however; just look for a search option labeled something like this:

      Search all the Gopher menus at this site

      That's Jughead, Archie's good buddy, (or, if you prefer, Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation and Display -- another "stretch"). You'll see Jughead implemented all over gopherspace, because he allows quick and effective searching of specific sites.


      Now, tell me again, who wasn't where my flame-spewing pal?
    2. Re:Go Gopher! by danheretic · · Score: 2, Funny

      You strange people. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll just post on my BBS and see if the dozen "home computer" users in my area know anything about this.

  10. for nostagic purposes... by trance29 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    is there an netscape archive of all the netscape versions released? it would be interesting to run the old version for memory sakes...

    1. Re:for nostagic purposes... by aftk2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Check it out.

      A lot more than just Netscape in there. Very, very fascinating.

      --
      concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
    2. Re:for nostagic purposes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      it would be interesting to run the old version for memory sakes...

      I believe you meant memory leaks.

    3. Re:for nostagic purposes... by zogger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I still run a quadra (mac 7.5) and a 280c powerbook (7.0) that have netscape 2 on them*. But I have since added iCab, which is a much better browser on those old 68k machines. I also have a couple of IIcis I think they are, but been so long since I booted them I forget what's on them now, but I know they surfed when I was using them. I even used to get decent real audio on the quadra back when that app was fairly new, nowadays though no one streams any real audio 2 I think it was. And IRC and FTP and gopher always worked fine.

      *once in awhile, they are old machines I gave to my GF after I cleaned them up and tweaked them a scosh. The quadra with 64 megs ram is quite a decent surfer really as long as the pages aren't too javaised or scripted to timbuktu. I even ran it as a server for a while using quid pro quo server software. The 280c PB I use as a "storm" computer when the power goes out, all I have for it is a car batt adapter so I run it off an old truck battery with it's built in 19.2 modem. it works fine for that purpose the few times a year I have to.

      I *like* hanging on to my nostalgia, I still have my 512k and it still boots! The floppy based OS still works! Well, last time I tried it, I admit it's about 9 months now since the last time.

  11. To commemorate Netscape's 10 year anniversary by FunkyRat · · Score: 4, Funny

    perhaps we could all encapsulate our websites with the tag?

    1. Re:To commemorate Netscape's 10 year anniversary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, there is one valid use of the Blink tag..

      Schroedinger's cat is <blink>not</blink> dead.

  12. I forget if we're supposed to hate them by genericacct · · Score: 5, Funny
    Is Netscape evil or saintly? I can't keep it straight. They broke W3C standards and are owned by AOL, but Mozilla doesn't suck anymore.

    If only Slashdot could tell me what to think.

    1. Re:I forget if we're supposed to hate them by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mozilla's source code was released in March 1998 (Or around that time). Before then, mozilla.org existed for a short length of time (i.e. a couple of months).

  13. DevEdge is offline by Codeala · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just in time for DevEdge to be shutdown too...

    http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article =5 381

    Whats up with that?

    --

    Codeala - Just another mindless drone
  14. Found the original program by tao_of_biology · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For those who haven't seen it, or those who want to relive it, I found Netscape 0.9 beta (from 10-27-1994) here.

    I haven't actually tried running running it, but the links seems to be working.

    I wonder if slashdot is renderable under Netscape 0.9...

    --

    -- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."

    1. Re:Found the original program by number · · Score: 3, Informative
      Might want to link to a few mirrors.

      --
      - HOORAY!
    2. Re:Found the original program by mixmasterjake · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I just tried it. Ah, the memories. I remember downloading this along with trumpet winsock - it was like a new world!

      I just gave it a quick trial and here's some interesting results:

      slashdot.org - doesn't work (promps for a file download)

      netscape.com - loads, then immediately crashes the browser

      microsoft.com - loads fine, but looks plain !!

      --
      TODO: come up with a clever sig
  15. 10 years, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps its time I updated.

  16. The Giant Pulsing "N" by rueger · · Score: 2

    God I loved it! For me that was the Internet!

    --
    Three Squirrels
  17. Feel the Original: Dejavu Emulator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For the youngins, you can use a Netscape emulator (and Mosaic and early IE) to feel what it was like. It's fun to see what sites do and see if they even load.

    I'm probably /.'ing it with this, but it does say "Sorry, due to heavy load on the server, browsing is quite slow. On the positive side, it makes the experience even more authentic.."

    I especially love "You probably forgot the "http://" part. Remember: the old browsers did not provide that service... Give it another try!" when you enter a URL without the http:// component.

  18. Evil company... by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    AOL completely killed any glimpse of hope Netscape had to win the 'browser war'... imagine if Firefox came with AIM, ads that pop up everywhere, installed 2-3 advertising gimmicks, put links everywhere about itself... and didn't have any features over IE. I completely stopped using Netscape, which was by far my favorite browser at the time, when they released the AOL version (6 I think?).

    Netscape is dead, long live Netscape! (in Firefox's form!)

    --
    Eureka Science News - automatically updated
  19. We need to keep re-inventing the browser by Eloquence · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Firefox is gaining some momentum - maybe enough to make web developers take note. The Mozilla project also has two other great Firefox-like (small single-purpose applications) initiatives, Sunbird and Thunderbird.

    The important thing right now is that we use this momentum, and that we continue to innovate. Here's some issues I believe are important:

    • SVG support. It's incomplete - but I think it is unwise not to have at least some level of SVG support in mainline Firefox 1.0 builds. "Build it, and they will come": both web and Mozilla developers. SVG is really a key technology for next-generation web design based on open standards. As an example, Wikipedia has a nice extension called EasyTimeline for rendering graphical timelines. These are currently ugly, non-zoomable PNGs -- SVG would be perfect here, as it would allow timelines with a changing level of detail as you zoom in. Much of the stuff that is currently being done with Flash can be done with SVG.
    • Leverage XUL. Whenever I show people demos like MAB and Robin, they tend to be impressed: easy, powerful, instantly deployable web applications. In my opinion, XUL should get a lot more exposure within Firefox - both the product and the website. Make a promise to XUL developers: If you use XUL to write open source applications, and it meets our quality standards, we will add it to the default Firefox bookmarks, and promote it on our website.
    • New UIs. Tabs are great, but they're not the Holy Grail of UI design. For example, they don't scale - managing more than 20 or so open documents in one browser is not feasible because you just have lots of "..."s. At this point, I would rather have a vertical, scrollable list of open documents with a nice, dynamic (incremental) title search to instant-switch to a window of your choice, and some other cool navigation tools ("skip to next website from another domain than the current one" etc.). There's no reason why a modern browser shouldn't make it easy to manage 50 or 100 open documents.
    • Better editing controls. Yes, I know what you're thinking: Keep Firefox lean. But having a good integrated text editor for things like wikis or even this form into which I'm typing into right now makes life a lot easier for the average user.

    Now, if you really want a glimpse of the future, imagine, if you will, that a HTML textarea worked like SubEthaEdit and allowed you to invite other users to edit with your collaboratively, in real-time, a wiki page or weblog entry. But even this really just scratches the surface. The point is, the browser is an immensely important platform. With Firefox, we now have the chance to give an incredible amount of real power to end users. It's not "just a browser" - it's one of the key components of future information and collaboration devices.

    Congratulations to the Mozilla project for getting us where we are right now. We still have a long way to go. I hope in 10 years, open source technology will be used by virtually everyone to access the rapidly growing digital commons.

    1. Re:We need to keep re-inventing the browser by WankersRevenge · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Firefox is gaining some momentum - maybe enough to make web developers take note

      Just to let you know ... I work in the internet division of a major sports network. Let me just say, that in my department all developers and engineers are not only aware of Firefox, but use it primarily as their browser of choice.

    2. Re:We need to keep re-inventing the browser by Brandybuck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Whenever I show people demos like MAB and Robin, they tend to be impressed

      Except that it only works on Mozilla browsers. I don't care how open source Mozilla is, these kinds of applications only perpetuate the idea that one must standardize on a particular browser. This application-is-the-standard mindset must go.

      Right now my work is deploying IE web apps as fast as they possibly can. It's not annoying that I have to switch over to IE to use these, it's annoying that I have to switch over from my currently open browser to begin with, regardless of brand or openness.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  20. Netscape Navigator 2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If memory serves, that release introduced the world to Java (browser integrated), JavaScript, plugins, frames, SSL, and cookies, all about a year and a half after the founding of the company.

    Now *that* was a major feature release.

  21. Re:speed... by Alien+Being · · Score: 2, Informative

    One of the big advantages Netscape had over Mosaic was multithreaded page downloads.

  22. Screenshots and a Mirror by Adam9 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Screenshots: 1 2 3

    Mirror: nscape09.zip

    Ah, the good ol' days..

    1. Re:Screenshots and a Mirror by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

      .

      http://users.tpg.com.au/meglet/nS09b.jpg

      When I'm not using Linux, I use Windows 3.11
      It's the most stable version of Windows I have ever used. And I have tried most versions...

      ;-)

  23. The funny thing is by BCW2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When I go online in Windows at home (rare) I still use Netscape, even upgraded it to 7.1, because I'm a cantankerous old fart. At work or in Linux I always use Firefox, never liked IE, never thought Gates had the right to tell me what had to be on a box he didn't pay for, running on an electric bill he didn't pay. That feeling hasn't changed. The average user couldn't find a way to start it on my machine (XP). Hell, I used Lotus Smart suite for 8 years, just to avoid office, at less than half the price. Now? OO, no matter which OS is running, WinXP/RH9/Suse 9.1.

    --
    Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
  24. netscape page doesn't render in firefox? by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it bad that the netscape page:
    http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/storymain.jsp?num ber=1 doesn't render correctly in the latest firefox?

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
    1. Re:netscape page doesn't render in firefox? by rainman_bc · · Score: 2, Funny

      Now that's pretty ironic eh...

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    2. Re:netscape page doesn't render in firefox? by The+Wicked+Priest · · Score: 2, Informative

      Looks good in Firebird 0.8...

      --
      Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:netscape page doesn't render in firefox? by PoprocksCk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Firebird 0.8? No such thing.

  25. Let us not forget CERN and NCSA Mosaic by davidwr · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let us not forget CERN's early work with the www client and wwwd server. In particular, the work of Tim Berners-Lee. That link includes some web history.

    Let us not also forget NCSA Mosaic, which became a "killer app" in the early/mid 1990s, before being spun off as SpyGlass.

    My memory is faulty, but I believe more than half of the NCSA team left the project and formed NetScape. Can anyone correct this?

    The web as we know it also owes a debt to previous research in hypertext systems dating back decades, as well as existing document-markup systems.

    To those who keep Mozilla alive today:
    I salute you, but do take too much pride in yourselves:
    Never forget that you stand on the shoulders of giants.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  26. Netscape Dorm by Mr+Fodder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't forget this little jem: NSCP Dorm (Netscape Dorm). Jamie Zawinski kept a diary of sorts about Netscape starting up. Some off-topic but almost always interesting nonetheless.

  27. Happy birthday Netscape! by hai.uchida · · Score: 2, Funny

    I remember when you were [BUFFERING... BUFFERING...] Oh, wait. That's Real. Sorry, wrong joke.

    --
    my password is private, but unchanged.
  28. Safari startpage URL for non Safari users by Sophrosyne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://apple.netscape.com/apple.adp
    Apparently Apple will be switching to this page:
    http://www.apple.com/startpage/

  29. Mozilla was not the first. by jbn-o · · Score: 2, Insightful

    GCC was free software and commercial software well before the Netscape browser was written. GCC predates the open source movement by many years and served as a means for some consultancies to have so much business they had waiting lists (according to Brad Kuhn when he visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and gave a talk on the free software movement). GCC qualifies as open source software, but since it was initially written by RMS (the founder of the free software movement) for the GNU project, I think it's fair to say it is a free software program.

    --
    Digital Citizen
    1. Re:Mozilla was not the first. by SvendTofte · · Score: 3, Insightful

      GCC is not commercial. Netscape was owned by a commercial entity, which released the source. That was, AFAIK the first time that ever happened with a big profile product.

      GCC may have provided other people with a living, but that doesn't make it "commercial", in the same sense Netscape was commercially owned.

  30. SSL and JavaScript by upside · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...two things introduced by Nutscrape. These were a huge boost for the Web, particularly commercial applications like online shopping.

    --
    I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
  31. Netscape Mosaic v 0.93 Beta/Scrnshots/Easter Eggs by jeremie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://jeremie.com/misc/moz/ is a page I put together some time ago that has a slightly newer rev of the original with some screenshots and as much as I could dig out of the executable as far as easter eggs, the about:authors is pretty cool IMO :)

    Man, I spent so much time in awe in front of that thing, last time that happened was OSX... the net really needs something cool again.

  32. Best Netscape innovation by lothar97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I remember beta testing Netscape 0.9. At the time, my college only had Mosaic, easiest to use on Unix terminals. Netscape brought better browsers to the Mac and PC, and also had a really novel innovation: the stop button. I remember how much it used to suck going to a website (using Mosaic), and having to wait for a massive page to load. With Netscape, I could click the stop button, and move about my business. That's what changed the web...!

    --

  33. Re:looking back.. by nmk · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, I remember the first time I used the Internet as well. I remember thinking, just one more line and I'll be able to see her nipple.

  34. Netscape Portal by lavar78 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's outstanding news! On another note, the Netscape portal made a key contribution of its own. Remember, it was the first major site to use RSS. I used "My Netscape" for a long time just for that reason.

    --
    "Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
  35. Not meaning to spoil the party, but ... by Post · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox has come a long way, but IMHO Opera got there faster.

    Not meaning to rant, but the permanent high-fiving of the Firefox crowd is getting on my nerves a bit. Every two months or so for the last years, I took Mozilla/Firefox version for a test drive, while at the same time using Opera as my main browser. Now - after ten years of development and admittedly some enormous achievements - I find that Firefox is a decent, though underpowered tool compared to the Opera browser. It has a great renderer, but there's more to a browser than that.

    I know Opera isn't that popular with the /. crowd as it is closed-source, commercial software, but it had so many features before Mozilla & IE that make my life easier that the price seems ridiculous compared to the time it saved me: Mouse gestures, SDI/MDI browsing, customizable searches, customizable UI (menus, key combinations, mouse gestures - you name it), a very efficient cookie/password manager, the ability to re-open a session (set of pages) at any time, tools to filter links on a page, "predictive" browsing (Fast Forward), spational navigation (use Shift + Cursor Keys to reach links accorcing to their position), the ability to combine several user stylesheets on the fly, a 20% to 800% zoom feature including images and other objects on a page ... I could go on.

    To me, the Mozilla/Firefox seems like a grass-roots effort to build a car - a Beetle, for example. After putting an emormous amount of manpower in it, the team got it right: a working, reliable product for the masses, and it's *free*. Opera in comparison is a very slick machine built by a small, dedicated company - more like a Ferrari. And in comparison to what my hardware and other software packages I'm using cost me, the price of $39 seems even more ridiculous.

    I do not want to spoil the party. It is a good thing that Mozilla/Firefox exists. But as a tool for daily work, I prefer something with a little more power under the hood.

  36. Mosaic by shokk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mosaic changed the world and introduced us to the WWW. Netscape, Mozilla, and IE just improved on what had already been launched.

    --
    "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
  37. Re:Netscape people take credit for Mozilla to? by KillaKen187 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You apparently don't know your history. Netscape founded Mozilla. Netscape released it's code to Mozilla and got them started. Today, Mozilla is now a foundation that accepts donations and Netscape no longer owns Mozilla, but they still should take the credit. Mozilla wouldn't be were it is today without netscape. Educate yourself read the wikipedia and shut the fcsk up.

  38. Oh, how we hated it! by cgreuter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We used to love to hate it, back in the early days of the Web.

    It was awful. It was even less stable than Mosaic. It was slow, ugly and a memory hog that brought our multi-user Unix boxes to their knees, something which sucked mightily if you were trying to compile your assignments.

    But that wasn't the worst of it.

    HTML used to be a content-based markup language. It was there to tell the browser what the text meant and deciding how it looked was the job of the browser.

    But Netscape went and added all of these formatting features to make the desktop publishing people more comfortable. In the process, they completely screwed things up for non-graphical browsers or, since the extensions were proprietary, pretty much any other browser as well.

    And because Netscape was there just as people were getting onto the Web, it became synonymous with the Internet in the minds of the general public so everybody had it and most web designers used the Netscape-specific tags. It got to the point where all the non-Netscape user could see was the little blurb telling you you should switch to Netscape. They were well on the way to locking the entire Web into their proprietary standards.

    Then, Microsoft noticed the Internet and showed everybody how it's done.

    The End.

    On the other hand, Firefox is pretty good.