AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development

Kelson writes "After years of trying to figure out what to do with it, AOL is officially discontinuing the Netscape browser. In the four and a half years after they dismantled the development team and spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a lost cause, only to see Firefox take off, AOL has tried twice to reinvent Netscape. There was the chimera-like Netscape 8, which used both Mozilla's and IE's rendering engines, and just months ago they released Netscape 9, trying to ride the social networking wave. AOL will release security fixes through February 1, 2008, after which the browser will officially be dead. For the "nostalgic," they suggest using Firefox and installing a Netscape theme."

Version 4 is still useful

[davidwr (791652)]

From time to time I drag out NS version 4 for lowest-common-denominator quick-and-dirty compatibility testing or to use websites whose active content mucks up modern web browsers.

Active-content blockers like NoScript have reduced the need for this but I still keep it around.

Disclaimer: For "real" standards-compliance testing you should be testing against standards not a particular implementation.

Re:

[eln (21727)]

Netscape 3.0 was the pinnacle of the Netscape browser. The standard edition (not necessarily the Gold edition) was light weight, fast, and standards compliant. Of course, it also marked the point at which IE really started to catch up with Netscape in terms of stability and performance. Netscape 4 was big, bloated, and marked the peak of Netscape's attempts to "embrace and extend" the standards. It also helped accelerate Netscape's decline.

Of course, I still think the best browser "busy" logo was the mu

Re:Version 4 is still useful

[hairyfeet (841228)]

You aren't the only one that keeps an old browser for that trick, although I've since moved to Offbyone [offbyone.com]. It is great for those sites that even noscript throws its hands up over, without just letting who knows what run on the site. The best part is it is available without an installer, just a simple 839Kb zip file which means you can just carry it on a flash or even a cd, and if I want to clear out the history I simply toss the old one and unzip a fresh browser. And if someone needs a sweet rendering engine there are links on the site to speak to the developer directly. I bet this would make a great engine for other apps, as it is VERY fast and has support for OpenSSL.

And on the topic of Netscape, IMHO they were dead when they released that horrible version that was so buggy and slow( I believe it was NS4). And let us not forget that Netscape was as bad as IE for using their own proprietary hooks which made it hard to render in other browsers. I am so glad that now we have so many choices like Firefox, Seamonkey, Safari, Opera, Kmeleon, etc. Instead of the "Coke VS Pepsi" that was NS VS IE.

And for those that want a "Netscape like" browser, there is always Seamonkey [seamonkey-project.org], which is much better and supports most Firefox extensions, including the important ones like noscript. It also makes a great browser for those older folks that are still stuck on older versions of IE and Outlook. I can't count the number of folks I've switched with Seamonkey due to the convenience of being able to check their mail just by clicking on a tab.

It is sad to see a once great come to the end, but IMHO it died a long time ago, and now they are simply pulling the life support. It does make me look back on the good old days, When Peter Norton made great tools and everyone had their own favorite DOS hacks. Now Get Off My Lawn!

I remember NS8

[ducomputergeek (595742)]

I set my dad up with the browser when it came out until he finally replaced his PC with a Mac. It served him a couple years and he was able to surf most pages okay and then use the IE engine on webpages that required it.

I'm not sure what AOL as company is really going to do. Most people have figured out that they don't need AOL to get on the internet and have moved on to broadband solutions. My father used Netscape dial up until he got his Mac and switched to a Phone/DSL/Sat. TV bundle last year.

Re:

[elrous0 (869638)]

My first browsers were Cello and Netscape 1. Before MS came along and killed it, Netscape was the king of the internet. I'll never forget how sad it was having to abandon it, as fewer and fewer websites worked properly with it.

Re:

[aardwolf64 (160070)]

Yeah... Using Netscape 8 would pretty much make anyone switch from PC to Mac.

Re:I remember NS8

[tnk1 (899206)]

AOL isn't selling access anymore, so the point is moot. They're doing content work and online advertising. The access business will probably still exist for a few more years before the lights are out, but they already fired all the marketing people, most of the customer service people, and many of the access tech people too.

AOL can easily fail, but they already canned the dial up model a few years ago, so the client and all the old AOL stuff isn't the problem any more. Too late? Maybe, maybe not.

That said, they really didn't have much they could do in terms of broadband. By the time broadband was big, the people who actually owned the lines for cable and fiber realized they'd make more money if they kept it to themselves and made sure that you would have to pay very well indeed to run a billion dollar business on their lines. Today, with their calls for tiered access, they are continuing that trend. Google is basically the AOL of this decade, a company whose value is based on their ability to deliver fast search results over someone else's physical connections. Should tiering become commonplace, Google and other content providers could be in a very different world.

Re:I remember NS8

[RobertM1968 (951074)]

I'm not sure how many of those people actually worked (or work) for AOL. The DialUp team did NOT. We worked for UUNet, then MCI/Worldcom. Who AOL used after that I dont know... but I doubt they installed the tons of access numbers needed when MCI/WC went under. AlterDial (and UUDial) was owned and operated by UUNet, and used mostly for AOL and MSN. Authentication and such were done by us too. Support was handled by a different group.

Damn it, for a second I thgouht

[microbee (682094)]

AOL was shutting down!

Re:

[cp.tar (871488)]

AOL was shutting down!

... shutting down, shutting down
AOL was shutting down
my fair lady...

Already Dead

[rudy_wayne (414635)]

Netscape died years ago.

Netscape 4.7x was the last decent version. Netscape 6 was a horrendous piece of crap and every version since then has just been a crappified version of the Mozilla Suite.

.

Re:Already Dead

[Nimey (114278)]

You're kidding, right? Did you *use* 3.0 and 4.x? 4.x was bloated, unstable dreck that was pushed out the door before it was ready--it was one reason, IMO, why Netscape failed (in addition to MS's malfeasance). 3.x was the last "real" version of Netscape, although 7.2 wasn't that bad (IIRC it was based on Mozilla 1.7), just filled with AOL bloatware.

Re:Already Dead

[BlueStraggler (765543)]

Netscape 4.x was the last version that was widely released for the Unix crowd. I think it was more "native" on Unix workstations (coming from the NCSA after all) and I never had any problems with stability - despite being forced to use it up to v4.8 because there was no alternative until Mozilla started to become available. Considering the number of platforms they were supporting, I'm not surprised that some were not particularly stable, but fortunately for me, SGI was not one of them, and it's was pretty easy to dismiss Windows 95 and Mac OS users complaints about stability as clearly being related to their choice of OS.

I perused the Xdefaults file for Netscape 4 one day, and it was full of fascinating comments from the developers. A lot of them were expressing bitterness about arbitrary, non-standard, and downright buggy differences between various platforms that they were supporting, which evidently led to a lot of pain and suffering. No surprise that after Netscape 4, the Unix crowd was left in the dustbin - it was the easiest way to cut the number of supported platforms by 80% and focus their development on the PC market.

Re:

[wattrlz (1162603)]

I believe most people started using IE because it was an integral part of the operating system. At least I know that's why I did. Why wait all those precious seconds openning up another browser when you have one already running in the background?

Re:Already Dead

[BeanThere (28381)]

Uh, right, and preinstalling IE with Windows, forcing OEMs to make IE the default, and distributing IE on millions of CDs etc. had NOTHING to do with it. And it can't be that Netscape 'started sucking' because their "air supply" (remember those words?) had pretty much literally been cut off - hard to develop software without money. Puh-lease. I remember those days, and IE3 and IE4 were horrendously crap for years - they only started becoming remotely usable and stable by about version 5, long after the Netscape company had pretty much bought it.

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

Again, I wonder if you actually *used* 4.0x. I was one of the early adopters who grabbed 4.0, 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, and maybe 4.04, and they were all slow and unstable (Windows 95 versions). I was disgusted enough to buy a copy of Opera 3.x, which I never regretted. I stopped buying Opera upgrades after 5.x and switched to Mozilla and then Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.

I suppose I could have used IE3... no, I couldn't have, and I kept hearing about stability problems with IE4 and Active Desktop.

Try SeaMonkey

[Kelson (129150)]

Version 6 was a piece of shit. I was using 4.08 at that time. That was the last one I found to be stable until 7.1. I like the email and browser together... but I guess I'm gonna have to go the Firefox - Thunderbird route soon.

Actually, it sounds like you'd be more interested in SeaMonkey [seamonkey-project.org] than Firefox+Thunderbird. It's a continuation of the Mozilla suite that was the basis for Netscape 7, and still has the combined browser & email. It's also still being developed as a Mozilla project, so it's current as far as capabilities & security fixes go.

Nostalgia

[truthsearch (249536)]

For my nostalgia we have the old Netscape icon as a slashdot category image. That's more than enough for me.

Re:

[SeaFox (739806)]

For my nostalgia we have the old Netscape icon as a slashdot category image. That's more than enough for me.

In a few years, we can get that same warm feeling when we look at the the AOL icon.

So, did Microsoft really win?

[SpaceLifeForm (228190)]

I'd have to say no, and in fact, their attack on Netscape
probably woke up a lot of people, and Microsoft may regret it.

Days gone by

[Pojut (1027544)]

I will always remember sneaking into the "study" super-late at night, dialing up, and going into chat rooms with Netscape Navigator. I will never forget viewing my first porn website (don't know if it's still around, Babylon-X) using Netscape Navigator. I remember receiving my first email using Angelfire and Netscape Navigator. I even remember the very first file I ever downloaded (a printer driver for an old HP) using Netscape Navigator.

Yup, many of my firsts on the internet involved Netscape Navigator...I haven't used it in years, but I am still a little bit sad to see it go. Goodbye, comet-flying-over-a-global-sized-N...you were the gateway to a hell of a lot in my youth.

Re:Days gone by

[mnmn (145599)]

It's not necessarily gone.

Someone could buy the Netscape brand name and donate it to the Mozilla foundation.

We'll all get a kick out of Netscape (previously known as firefox) kicking the ass of IE.

Heck if someone setup an organization to buy that brand name to give it to firefox, I'm paying big $$$

Perhaps

[WindBourne (631190)]

if AOL had not been pushing MSIE at the same, they might have been able to take it someplace. As it is, they could have expanded into cable or sats when they have money, but are slowly watching themselves die.

Long live..

[loconet (415875)]

Long live Mosaic and the N. That 8bit pron you delivered on my desktop during the mid 90s opened the door for many good times. You shall be missed old friend.

A bad way to die

[Just Some Guy (3352)]

I haven't used Netscape in quite a few years, but I hate seeing it die like that. It used to be a proud trademark - it stood for something - and ended up as yet another AOL castoff. I wish they'd transfer the name to the Mozilla Foundation. While I'm sure they wouldn't use it, at least it would be next to its child where it belongs.

Christmas comes late

[Sentry21 (8183)]

That's awfully nice of them. Now if they'll just do the same to their other offerings, the world would be a better place.

Ah well, one thing at a time.

Good!

[Dracos (107777)]

AOL bought Netscape as bargaining power against MS, but then never actually used it that way. Instead, they mistreated what is arguably the most well known brand from the early days of the net in ways that only AOL could. Any other company would have built up Netscape. AOL lets it rot, then bastardizes it with every hare-brained scheme they can think of (dialup ISP, frankenbrowser, lame Digg knockoff), each further damaging the brand. The only smart thing AOL did that had anything to do with Netscape was to create the Mozilla foundation.

Now AOL is just as weak, having abandoned their walled garden, missed broadband altogether, and their only relevant public service is AIM, which has taken off to such a point that they simply aren't capable of killing it, no matter how incompetent they are.

Rest in peace, Netscape. Your long suffering at the hands of your caregiver is at an end.

(Why do I suspect zombie Netscape will rise from the grave in a year or so, when some new executive needs a name for a new pet project? BRAAAAIINNSSS 11.0, now with 250 gazillion free hours of shambling!)

Re:Good!

[asa (33102)]

> The only smart thing AOL did that had anything
> to do with Netscape was to create the Mozilla
> foundation.

Actually, AOL didn't create the Mozilla Foundation. Mitchell Baker created the Mozilla Foundation and as part of that endeavor she solicited donations from AOL and several other large companies. AOL was convinced to donate $2M over 2 years, a couple of trademarks, and some hardware. Other organizations also donated cash, equipment, bandwidth, and full-time staff to the early Mozilla Foundation. There's no doubt that AOL's donation was significant, but it can hardly be said that they created anything.

- A

Re:

[ClosedSource (238333)]

AOL bought Netscape because they wanted access to the economic value Netscape's alleged victim-hood at the hands of MS would bring. That was the only value the company had. After MS lost the government anti-trust case, AOL got their payday. Their only mistake was that they paid way too much for Netscape, so they lost money overall.

The Daily WTF

[tieTYT (989034)]

I once read this interesting Daily WTF/Worse Than Failure article about Netscape and how AOL's marketing team was screwing with it. For the life of me, I can't find the article. But one of the things they did was realize that pop-up blocking was one of the new cool things for browsers to have. But the marketing team stepped in and said, "Hold on just a second. We can't have the browser blocking OUR pop-ups." So they added rule to block all pop-ups except those that came from the netscape web page.

The netscape homepage happened to have a pop-up on it and of course, this is the default home page of the browser. When you initially ran netscape, first thing you saw was a pop-up and the page behind it claiming, "New Feature: pop-up blocker".

Re:The Daily WTF

[swillden (191260)]

When you initially ran netscape, first thing you saw was a pop-up and the page behind it claiming, "New Feature: pop-up blocker".

What would have made that perfect is if the pop-up itself was advertising the pop-up blocking feature.

Re:The Daily WTF

[by Anonymous Coward]

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Blake_Ross_on_Popup_Suppression.aspx [thedailywtf.com]

blink

[dgun (1056422)]

<blink>:(</blink>

Netscape is not dead

[BenoitRen (998927)]

It lives on in SeaMonkey. Not only in the concept, but also the default theme, which looks just like Netscape 4.

I actually paid for it

[jbrower (775624)]

I distinctly remember buying Netscape Navigator (or was it Communicator) from a local "Stop 'n Save Software" store which later turned into an EB Games. I suppose it was back in 1996 and the price was something like $40-$60. I still have the 5 diskettes it came on stuck in a drawer somewhere. Prior to that I used Mosaic.

soon to be followed by another death

[circletimessquare (444983)]

netscape's death will soon be followed by the death of another relic of the early internet

namely, AOL

AOL Needs to Loosen Their Grip

[Jekler (626699)]

The one time they let one of their projects breathe, it turned into Mozilla. Once they realized it wasn't their property that was inherently faulty, they tightened that grip right back up figuring if they just squeezed hard enough maybe they could make another diamond. They're so desperate to turn everything they own into a revenue generator, they'll do it at the expense of the product itself. Yes, every company needs its projects to make money for them, but you can't sacrifice your racing horse for good luck in the race.

They only think of their products in terms of themselves, they don't look at them from a customer viewpoint. I don't think the people in charge at AOL ever stopped to ask "Why would someone want Netscape?" they ask "How can we make Netscape represent us?"

It's like they think of their products as sales reps. Forget that big deal you landed 5 years ago, how are your numbers this week? They want it to make another big score, but without any resources. Coffee is for closers.

Netscape had numerous chances to work its way into people's hearts and minds but they never added a single feature people would actually want. Every feature they added was self serving. The company is just all backwards; they don't want to make great products, they want their products to make them great.

AOL = King Anti-Midas

[theurge14 (820596)]

Q: When you're the largest ISP in the nation and you acquire both Netcsape and Winamp and all the developers from Mozilla and Nullsoft, how is it that you manage to monumentally fuck it all up?

A: ?

Re:I think I'm too young to care.

[Morky (577776)]

Maybe that's true if you only associate with 10-year-olds. But as recently as 1996, it was the only browser worth using, created by one of the most innovative tech companies around.

Re:I think I'm too young to care.

[elrous0 (869638)]

You speak blasphemy, sir! Netscape was a GREAT browser in its heyday (how quickly people seem to forget). In fact, it was pretty much the ONLY browser for a time. People would say "open up Netscape" instead of "open up your browser" just ten years ago.

Re:

[Amouth (879122)]

god i remember that - and sitting on a 2400 baud modem.. what a wonder the web was at that time..

Re:

[Penguinisto (415985)]

god i remember that - and sitting on a 2400 baud modem.. what a wonder the web was at that time..

Heh - I recall being stuck with a 2.4k modem once (my 'fast' 14.4 had busted for some odd reason and I was waiting for its replacement to ship to the local geek shack I'd bought it from).

I clocked this version [archive.org] of www.discovery.com loading in just under 42 minutes.

...and to think of all the FPS gamers today whining to the Heavens about, oh, ~40ms of lag... Heh.

/P

Re:I think I'm too young to care.

[Daniel Dvorkin (106857)]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Slashdot user WizMaster, who is Exhibit 193062847 in the series "What's Wrong With America Today."

To be honest...

[jd (1658)]

...I'd say they should give it to someone and that might well be you. The code probably has no significant IP value, there may well be code that could be usefully recycled in Firefox or other Open Source browsers, and it might be the perfect project for someone to gnaw on in their spare time. Abandonware is a pollutant in the IT environment - AOL should "go green" and hand the source to someone who is interested.

Re:To be honest...

[cp.tar (871488)]

What did Netscape do that Mozilla/Firefox did not?

Have collapsible toolbars.

Really, the only thing I miss in Firefox that was in Netscape since 4.something.
Seamonkey has it, though.

Re:

[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

I remember there used to be an extension that added grippies to collapse the toolbars, that was a long time ago tho, back when it was called firebird and came in a zip file with no icons. I have no clue if there is anything like that still about.

Re:To be honest...

[Sax Maniac (88550)]

That's a feature? How many times has this happened to me:

Go to click send or File - off by one pixel.
The icon toolbar collapse.
Try to expand the toolbar, off by one pixel.
The next toolbar collapses.
Try to expand the toolbar, off by one pixel.
The next toolbar collapses.

Dammit!!

Re:

[Z00L00K (682162)]

Just download the code for Mozilla...

Anyway - the era of Netscape is over.

Conveniently killed by Microsoft and reborn into Mozilla/Firefox.

Today the alternatives to IE; Firefox, Opera and Safari are the most well-known and supported by web developers. Yet another alternative is the Lynx [isc.org] browser for those with pure text terminals. (you may think it's masochistic trying to use a text-only browser in today's web but sometimes it's helpful or the only resort left.)

Safari for Windows is still beta (and h

Re:

[jonbryce (703250)]

AOLers don't use Netscape, they use AOL browser, which is a re-skinned IE with extra bloat.

Re:

[Kelson (129150)]

I didn't even really think AOL was still around in any meaningful context... who uses them these days, anyhow?

Think beyond the dial-up service and AOL application. Those are declining, but people still use other services owned by AOL: MapQuest, Moviefone, etc. And of course AIM.