I’m not sure how many other developers/designers are aware of this news but as of February 1st 2008, Netscape Navigator will no longer be supported by AOL.
It’s sad news for the browser with the longest history in the industry but its days have probably been numbered since the browser wars in the late nineties with Internet Explorer, whilst the more recent emergence of Firefox has probably put the final nail in the coffin.
“While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions.”
As a designer it shouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference as Netscape has been using the Mozilla engine for a good few years now and therefore supporting the latest versions of Netscape Navigator has been no more difficult than ensuring it works in Firefox.
Rest in peace Netscape, long live Firefox.
Yeah I think why its not really news is that Netscape was dead long time ago!
I agree and I suppose it’s more of a surprise that this didn’t happen a few years ago. Firefox has been so well marketed and therefore with the amount of extensions for developers and the same rendering engine as Netscape there seems little point in the Netscape browser continuing.
and the only thing that has and is still saving IE is that its packaged on every computer.
Yeah completely, hopefully IE8 will change things and actually be a browser that is up there with Opera, Safari and Firefox.
The news that Internet Explorer passed the Acid 2 test is certainly a step in the right direction.
https://dave-woods.co.uk/?p=136