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Netscape Finally Put Down
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."
And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.
But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.
The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire
and thunder upon them. For the beast had been
reborn with its strength renewed, and the
followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
How many times is Netscape going to die?
"And there be unix which have made themselves unix for the kingdom of heaven's sake." - Matt. 19:12
Maybe the US government is sponsoring them. You need IE or Netscape to get a US visa. So if, say, you have a Mac or run Linux, then Netscape has a monopoly.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
This reminds me, I wonder what Lycos is doing these days.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Horseshit! Are you saying that people eat animals?! We need to get this onto the front page of Slashdot, neigh, the Times!!! Is there a gallop poll regarding Japan's or the United States' horse meat consumption? And does it give you the trots?
For Barbaro's sake... the horse had a good run. Making hay from an article about web browsers is to saddle the issue with an agenda; please do not bridle our argument by being a horse's ass. This is a discussion about software, and to jockey animal rights into it is just putting the cart before the horse. So slow down there, cowboy... Reign it in. While I am sure you're chomping at the bit to get this kind of information out, I am fresh out of insensitive horse puns and we will have to put this discussion out to stud.
Polo!
FairTax baby!
Step 1: about:config
Step 2: general.useragent.extra.firefox=Netscape/6.2
Step 3: reload
Step 4: profit!
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Back in 1995-97, I was working for a major European media/publishing company. We were one of their (Netscape's) largest customers having bought around 200 Netscape Publishing System Licenses (NPS) for around USD 80k each! - well those were the good ol' days.
... no, not slap, a fist? A hit with a 10-ton-fist in the face... I was so furious that I stood up and said: "You know guys, with this attitude I think you'll be dead as a company at latest within two-to-three years." - and immediately left the meeting.
... I dunno, it was the httpd-server, which was the basis for Apache later on (a-patchy server); we dumped all Netscape software, even including the browser.
The software was very primitive but it was a solid basis for what we needed - in our company I was responsible for the platform so I came up with a solid specification of what we needed and how Netscape should add this to NPS. We had a meeting on a very high level with Netscape management in Mountain View in September 1996(!) to discuss my paper, which I had already discussed in with Netscape Europe and managed to actually get through to Netscape US.
The meeting was a revelation for me. By that time, the term "Intranet" was becoming a hip-term. There we were, three or four people from our company (by that time, I was "Director International Technology Co-operations" - what a title, isn't it?) - and about five or six people from Netscape.
We explained all our needs again and told them, that we would be of course willing to pay for all these enhancements. I specifically had collected input from another ten or fifteen other media companies from Europe to come up with a neat spec for Netscape - i.e. I did all the job, which they should've done in the first place.
After the explanation and discussion of the paper (three hours or so), one top Netscape manager said: "You know, there are only about 20-30 publishers around the world - but hundreds and thousands of companies needing Intranet solutions. So, therefore, we have decided to go for the Intranet market and thus will drop the media/publishing business. I'm sorry, but we can't implement the spec because it's just a too small market!" (not withstanding the fact that there are hundreds and thousands of media companies around the world...)
I was furious - it was like a
My boss came after me and tried to convince me to come back to the meeting (though not wholeheartedly as I could see he was furious as well). So, I actually left the office, the building and waiting outside of the Netscape building in the sun - waiting for my colleagues to come out.
In the end, we left Netscape, went home and I and a small team have implemented what we needed by ourselves and completely dumped Netscape software, including Netscape Web Server (what was it's name), switching to
That was my experience with Netscape... It was not Microsoft, it was not AOL - it was their arrogant, stupid, high-horsed, customers-don't-count attitude that killed them. It was their f***ed-up management!
Mozilla = Mosaic Killer. The original codename for Netscape Navigator. Mosaic was public domain and Netscape Navigator was closed source until JWZ persuaded Netscape to open the code as a way of countering MSIE's burgeoning dominance. Irony eh?
Basically, Netscape was executed the "embrace and extinguish" strategy on Mosaic; although I preferred Mosaic's simplicity, eventually so many web pages depended on Netscape's non-standard (and largely half-assed) extensions people had to use Netscape.
Of course, Mosaic may have been too purist.
In any case, Netscape was taking a page out of Microsoft's book. 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. Neither party was particularly virtuous here.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.