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AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development

Posted by Zonk on from the lizard-had-a-good-run dept.

Kelson writes "After years of trying to figure out what to do with it, AOL is officially discontinuing the Netscape browser. In the four and a half years after they dismantled the development team and spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a lost cause, only to see Firefox take off, AOL has tried twice to reinvent Netscape. There was the chimera-like Netscape 8, which used both Mozilla's and IE's rendering engines, and just months ago they released Netscape 9, trying to ride the social networking wave. AOL will release security fixes through February 1, 2008, after which the browser will officially be dead. For the "nostalgic," they suggest using Firefox and installing a Netscape theme."

4 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Already Dead by Nimey · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're kidding, right? Did you *use* 3.0 and 4.x? 4.x was bloated, unstable dreck that was pushed out the door before it was ready--it was one reason, IMO, why Netscape failed (in addition to MS's malfeasance). 3.x was the last "real" version of Netscape, although 7.2 wasn't that bad (IIRC it was based on Mozilla 1.7), just filled with AOL bloatware.

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
  2. Re:Good! by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    > The only smart thing AOL did that had anything
    > to do with Netscape was to create the Mozilla
    > foundation.

    Actually, AOL didn't create the Mozilla Foundation. Mitchell Baker created the Mozilla Foundation and as part of that endeavor she solicited donations from AOL and several other large companies. AOL was convinced to donate $2M over 2 years, a couple of trademarks, and some hardware. Other organizations also donated cash, equipment, bandwidth, and full-time staff to the early Mozilla Foundation. There's no doubt that AOL's donation was significant, but it can hardly be said that they created anything.

    - A

  3. Re:The Daily WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Blake_Ross_on_Popup_Suppression.aspx

  4. Try SeaMonkey by Kelson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Version 6 was a piece of shit. I was using 4.08 at that time. That was the last one I found to be stable until 7.1. I like the email and browser together... but I guess I'm gonna have to go the Firefox - Thunderbird route soon.

    Actually, it sounds like you'd be more interested in SeaMonkey than Firefox+Thunderbird. It's a continuation of the Mozilla suite that was the basis for Netscape 7, and still has the combined browser & email. It's also still being developed as a Mozilla project, so it's current as far as capabilities & security fixes go.