AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development

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."

Comments

Nostalgia

[truthsearch]

For my nostalgia we have the old Netscape icon as a slashdot category image. That's more than enough for me.

So, did Microsoft really win?

[SpaceLifeForm]

I'd have to say no, and in fact, their attack on Netscape
probably woke up a lot of people, and Microsoft may regret it.

Days gone by

[Pojut]

I will always remember sneaking into the "study" super-late at night, dialing up, and going into chat rooms with Netscape Navigator. I will never forget viewing my first porn website (don't know if it's still around, Babylon-X) using Netscape Navigator. I remember receiving my first email using Angelfire and Netscape Navigator. I even remember the very first file I ever downloaded (a printer driver for an old HP) using Netscape Navigator.

Yup, many of my firsts on the internet involved Netscape Navigator...I haven't used it in years, but I am still a little bit sad to see it go. Goodbye, comet-flying-over-a-global-sized-N...you were the gateway to a hell of a lot in my youth.

Re:Days gone by

[mnmn]

It's not necessarily gone.

Someone could buy the Netscape brand name and donate it to the Mozilla foundation.

We'll all get a kick out of Netscape (previously known as firefox) kicking the ass of IE.

Heck if someone setup an organization to buy that brand name to give it to firefox, I'm paying big $$$

Re:I think I'm too young to care.

[Morky]

Maybe that's true if you only associate with 10-year-olds. But as recently as 1996, it was the only browser worth using, created by one of the most innovative tech companies around.

Re:To be honest...

[cp.tar]

What did Netscape do that Mozilla/Firefox did not?

Have collapsible toolbars.

Really, the only thing I miss in Firefox that was in Netscape since 4.something.
Seamonkey has it, though.

Re:Version 4 is still useful

[hairyfeet]

You aren't the only one that keeps an old browser for that trick, although I've since moved to Offbyone. It is great for those sites that even noscript throws its hands up over, without just letting who knows what run on the site. The best part is it is available without an installer, just a simple 839Kb zip file which means you can just carry it on a flash or even a cd, and if I want to clear out the history I simply toss the old one and unzip a fresh browser. And if someone needs a sweet rendering engine there are links on the site to speak to the developer directly. I bet this would make a great engine for other apps, as it is VERY fast and has support for OpenSSL.

And on the topic of Netscape, IMHO they were dead when they released that horrible version that was so buggy and slow( I believe it was NS4). And let us not forget that Netscape was as bad as IE for using their own proprietary hooks which made it hard to render in other browsers. I am so glad that now we have so many choices like Firefox, Seamonkey, Safari, Opera, Kmeleon, etc. Instead of the "Coke VS Pepsi" that was NS VS IE.

And for those that want a "Netscape like" browser, there is always Seamonkey, which is much better and supports most Firefox extensions, including the important ones like noscript. It also makes a great browser for those older folks that are still stuck on older versions of IE and Outlook. I can't count the number of folks I've switched with Seamonkey due to the convenience of being able to check their mail just by clicking on a tab.

It is sad to see a once great come to the end, but IMHO it died a long time ago, and now they are simply pulling the life support. It does make me look back on the good old days, When Peter Norton made great tools and everyone had their own favorite DOS hacks. Now Get Off My Lawn!