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Netscape Finally Put Down

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the gone-the-way-of-old-yeller dept.

Stony Stevenson writes to point out that Netscape has finally reached end of line with the release of version 9.0.0.6. A pop-up will offer users the choice of switching to Firefox, Flock, or remaining with the dead browser, but no new updates will be released. "Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise. Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within three years."

3 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They should keep the name ... by deblau · · Score: 5, Informative

    Step 1: about:config
    Step 2: general.useragent.extra.firefox=Netscape/6.2
    Step 3: reload
    Step 4: profit!

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    This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
  2. Re:IE was competition? Not from what I saw... by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are correct.

    I have downloaded the code to NS4 when the source was first released (was it 1999?) I remember reading through the pages and pages of code and I remember feeling amazed at the terrible quality of what I saw. One very striking example of that is still in my head: it was a sorting routine. A number of pages were commented out with a comment on top, which read: 'trying to implement quick sort. Too hard. Use bubble sort instead (for now.)'. And yes, the quick sort was commented out and the routine implemented bubble sort and that was that.

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    You can't handle the truth.
  3. Re:Just Deserts by Bedouin+X · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microsoft knew exactly what Netscape was up to; they understood that eventually the www wasn't going to be a globally distributed hypertext document, but a software deployment platform. Netscape was on track to owning that platform, and Microsoft, whose business was built around owning the platform everybody used, decided to displace them.


    Uhhhhh, the only reason Microsoft "understood" this was because Netscape was shouting it from the rooftops. They went as far as to say that the browser would make Windows obsolete. It was Netscape's bold vision on the web as an app development platform that woke Microsoft up from their delusions of using The Microsoft Network to co-opt the Internet.

    There is nothing in this whole "Web 2.0" hype that Netscape wasn't talking about in 1997.
    --
    Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...