Comments on Netscape is Dead

AOL still exists? Why?

Netscape was so cool back in 1995.

Netscape was never cool, Greg. Ever.

I feel kind of nostalgic:/

Ah, my first web browser! Such memories!

wow, when I think of all the gay porn netscape helped my closeted 20 year old self discover... I'm gonna need a minute here.

brian - Is that why Savage is posting this?

I really liked Netscape back in Ye Olde Day, but I thought it had disappeared at least 5 years ago. Along with AOL.

@ 1...to keep IRL spam alive. Those AOL Disks that came in the mail every single day for 15 years are finally slowing up.

Does this mean I won't be able to redeem my 100 free hours?

I still use Netscape at work, primarily because it defeats my employer's Explorer-based software that tracks what websites I go to. Will probably end up switching to Firefox eventually.

Netscape engineers are weenies

Netscape's original browser technology lives on in Firefox. Mozilla.org was spun off from the company to develop open-source technology that would later be used in Official Netscape. Didn't quite work out that way though.

Netscape hasn't been updated in a long time though, and the brand has mostly just been a web portal like Yahoo for the last 5 years. It's been dead for a while, this is just the funeral.

Netscape WAS cool though. It beat the pants off IE back in the early days. And yes, my 14 year old self found the fountain of gay porn that is The Internet using netscape. Porn was so much more exciting back then.

where does that $8B figure come from?

wiki has a different figure:

"America Online (AOL) on November 24, 1998 announced it would acquire Netscape Communications in a tax-free stock-swap valued at US$4.2 billion at the time of the announcement. This merger was ridiculed by many who believed that the two corporate cultures could not possibly mesh; one of its most prominent critics was longtime Netscape developer Jamie Zawinski.[7][8] The acquisition was seen as a way for AOL to gain a bargaining chip against Microsoft, to let it become less dependent on the Internet Explorer web browser. Others believed that AOL was interested in Netcenter, or Netscape's web properties, which drew some of the highest traffic worldwide. Eventually, Netscape's server products and its Professional Services group became part of iPlanet, a joint marketing and development alliance between AOL and Sun Microsystems."

AOL killed Netscape a decade ago when it licensed IE for its "AOL browser".

I didn't expect it would take THIS long to actually get around to burying it tho.

Poor old netscape. I feel sorry for it. It was such a trooper. The only major foe against internet explorer for so long. Plus it was always nice to us mac users who had a shitty time with IE. Now no IE for mac AND no netscape for mac! Wow. I think netscape needs a proper burial...maybe a wake or some kind of service. :(

@11: Get a life. Stop looking at porn at work.

Firefox is basically the same as netscape, if netscape had continued on, especially for us mac users.

Mr. Poe, you have no idea how cool Netscape was in 1995. You were a fucking child back then.

Reply to Post 13 "Netscape's original browser technology lives on in Firefox."

Netscape's original technology was trashed. Netscape 6.0 and up is a totally different browser from Netscape 4.0.

Nyetscape killed themselves 10 years ago when they followed Microsoft's play book and chose to compete on features instead of stability and performance. The browser arms race of the mid to late '90s was an embarrassing debacle for both parties. Both browsers became garbage-ware. But IE won due to the momentum of Windows.

Mr. Poe, you don't know WTF. Mosaic was the cat's PJs.

I didn't mean the same engine was literally used in Firefox, just some little bits. Maybe I should have said Firefox is the spiritual successor.

People should realize how good Netscape was compared to earlier browsers (i.e. Mosaic). Mosaic had
no forward or back button, no stop load button. Every page had to be loaded from a link on the current page
(or typed de novo). Pages had to be completely loaded before rendering started. One bad link killed your entire session. Netscape made the Web browser a usable tool for non computer geeks.