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AOL kills Netscape Communicator, says use Firefox instead

AOL was one of the first companies to help get people online and one of its largest acquisitions was of Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999.

At one point, Netscape held around 90% of the browser market. Market share numbers show that Netscape currently has a mere 0.60% of the browser market. The industry leader is Microsoft with its Internet Explorer holding 77.35% of the browser market share.

When AOL bought Netscape, the process of converting Netscape Communicator into an open source application called Mozilla had already begun. According to The Netscape Blog, internal teams within AOL have invested time and energy into reviving Netscape Navigator but have been unable to gain any traction. Support for Netscape Navigator was limited within AOL to a “handful” of engineers who were tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions.

The demise of Netscape Navigator is blamed on AOL’s transition to an ad-supported web business leaving little money for the investment required to get Netscape to the point where it is expected to be by its fans and AOL.

AOL says that support for the current version of Netscape Navigator will end on February 1, 2008 and after that date there will be no active product support. Fans of Netscape communicator are encouraged to download Mozilla Firefox and use the Netscape extensions which will provide the same look and feel Netscape Navigator users are accustomed to. While the Netscape Navigator browser will no longer be supported, the Netscape.com portal will continue to operate.

AOL has gone from one of the most popular Internet service providers at the dawn of the Internet age to a has-been in recent years. In October of 2007 AOL laid off 20% of its workforce in attempts to stave the cash loss from the mass exodus of its subscribers.

AOL was also rocked by scandal in August of 2006 when it released the search histories of 650,000 users without permission -- a mistake many see as one of the first nails in the AOL coffin.

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I hate to say this
By Christopher1 on 12/31/2007 3:45:24 PM , Rating: 1
but does anyone really care about Netscape Navigator anymore? I used it for a little while when I first got into the internet 10 years ago, but after that..... I didn't really use it, I downloaded IE and never went back.

Now, I am onto combined Firefox and IE7 (using IE7 for most of my surfing and Firefox for 'sketchy' sites), and hadn't even looked at Navigator until I saw this article.




RE: I hate to say this
By mindless1 on 12/31/2007 6:36:43 PM , Rating: 1
True, but maybe some AOL users?

I can't pretend to know what the crowd around here uses, by percentage, but here are some stats from the top 8 at one 'site. I suspect Firefox has a higher average on technically oriented 'sites, I do vaguely recall it broke 10% usage a while back.

Internet Explorer 81.5 %
Firefox 7.7 %
Safari 3.5 %
Mozilla 3.3 %
Unknown 1.9 %
Netscape 1.2 %
Konqueror 0.2 %
Opera 0.1 %


RE: I hate to say this
By Hare on 1/1/2008 8:16:17 AM , Rating: 2
Tech oriented sites may affect percentages but there are big differences between continents. Firefox is bigger in Europe. According to French web metrics firm XiTiMonitor Firefox has 45.4% share in Finland. In over 30 European countries FF has over 30%.


RE: I hate to say this
By mindless1 on 1/3/2008 3:42:01 AM , Rating: 2
The prior stats from a site I maintain do receive over 40% access from non-US 'sites during a large percentage (roughly 50%) of the year as the 'site pertains to seasonal content... well I mean it pertains to that except for other content I put on that has a more global appeal, (and no, copyright worrywarts, it's not music or warez).


RE: I hate to say this
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 1/1/2008 10:35:46 AM , Rating: 3
Last month was 62% FF, 32% IE, 3% Opera for DailyTech.


RE: I hate to say this
By Nik00117 on 1/3/2008 6:48:04 AM , Rating: 2
Also have to understand the majority of DT readers are not your typical users at all. The typical user (90%) area most likely hasn't even so much as heard of firefox, and simply uses hotmail for e-mail likes to ebay once and a while and occassional get directions for some place. Maybe do a bit of homework for their essays at school etc. But DT users are not typical users.


RE: I hate to say this
By mindless1 on 1/3/2008 3:38:09 AM , Rating: 2
LOL, it's either incredible or damning to those rating posts that I receive a "0" for providing pure scientific EVIDENCE. Yes let's ignore any evidence. I'm not saying it's equal to worldwide averages, just one point that incredibly people thing a downrating will make less effective truth of one server? WOW the system is flawed!


RE: I hate to say this
By Oregonian2 on 1/2/2008 9:28:27 PM , Rating: 2
To me, Firefox + Thunderbird together are pretty much the next-gen version of Netscape.


Mosaic
By Fnoob on 12/31/2007 3:03:50 PM , Rating: 3
I recall beta-testing Mosaic back in 94-95 and thinking "damn, this is some cool ass sh*t!" When compared to FTP, it was. I just knew these folks would make mad money, and when it transitioned from Mosaic to Netscape, that was clear. WHY I DIDN'T BUY IN AT THEIR IPO OF ~7$ ? Oh yeah, broke college student. Sighs.




RE: Mosaic
By Ringold on 12/31/2007 3:39:22 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Oh yeah, broke college student. Sighs.


I bought GOOG's IPO as a broke high school senior -- work and sacrifice.. a lot of sacrifice. Cool kids had Abercrombie, I had GOOG and WalMart clothes. :P

I still have WalMart clothes, come to think of it... but a lot more stock. They still have Abercrombie, though, so hats off to them, heheh.


RE: Mosaic
By Fnoob on 12/31/2007 4:09:26 PM , Rating: 4
Clearly you were a rare HS student with properly set priorites. However - how much was your high school's quarterly tuition? ;)


RE: Mosaic
By Souka on 12/31/2007 6:00:39 PM , Rating: 1
Netscape 3.04g LIVES FOREVER!!!!!
Netscape 3.04g LIVES FOREVER!!!!!
Netscape 3.04g LIVES FOREVER!!!!!
Netscape 3.04g LIVES FOREVER!!!!!


Good riddence
By Locutus465 on 12/31/2007 4:03:11 PM , Rating: 3
Netscape was really never that great of a browser, even when it was the only game in town. I think this is the right choice, FF is much better than netscape could ever have hoped to be.




RE: Good riddence
By T4RTER S4UCE on 12/31/2007 5:33:40 PM , Rating: 2
A few years ago Navigator switched to the Gecko engine.


RE: Good riddence
By Locutus465 on 1/1/2008 1:12:03 AM , Rating: 2
Still felt heavy compared to Mozilla/FF


RE: Good riddence
By SlyNine on 1/1/2008 7:42:14 AM , Rating: 3
I wonder if AOL saved any money by switching.


RE: Good riddence
By marvdmartian on 1/2/2008 10:19:45 AM , Rating: 2
It was, however, much better than IE for a while, especially as it seemed most virus writers were going after IE vulnerabilities that Netscape didn't have to worry about.

I remember when I first went online in 97, my isp gave me Netscape 2.......on floppy!! Woohoo, man we were sailing back then! Wasn't long before i discovered that they had already come out with version 4, so I spent the $5 and got Communicator on cd. Used that for a couple years, then did the same with communicator 7. To me, that was the last good version, likely because AOHell already had their fingers in the pie, screwing things up.

Sadly, many pages I run across are still optimized for IE. Hard to believe, 10 years after I go online, that website page writers are still doing that, but I guess part of that is explained by the numbers.....and the stupid people that automatically use IE because it comes with windows, and never investigate other possibilities.


RIP
By anotherdude on 12/31/2007 3:01:00 PM , Rating: 3
Finally, the plug is pulled.

How long for AOL itself now?




RE: RIP
By Schadenfroh on 12/31/2007 3:37:57 PM , Rating: 2
Sell the ISP business to Microsoft to merge with MSN.


RE: RIP
By anotherdude on 12/31/2007 4:42:49 PM , Rating: 2
I'm guessing MSN would love the AOL content. Though I have not actually sampled the AOL content for many years.


RE: RIP
By eye smite on 1/1/2008 7:43:17 PM , Rating: 2
AOL was a good isp in tne mid 90's, but they turned to absolute garbage just prior to 2000. Opportunistic business people going completely greedy has bad outcomes. I won't miss aol when it's obituary gets published.


Damn!
By T4RTER S4UCE on 12/31/2007 5:31:10 PM , Rating: 2
I actually like Netscape 9! I think it just has a more classy look than Firefox, I've been using it instead of Firefox for about a year. I guess I'll just keep using it until Firefox 3 is released.




RE: Damn!