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]

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.

Already Dead

[rudy_wayne]

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.

.

A bad way to die

[Just Some Guy]

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.

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

[elrous0]

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.

To be honest...

[jd]

...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:So, did Microsoft really win?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape is dead, and IE is still around. You certainly have a funny definition of "win".

Good!

[Dracos]

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:I remember NS8

[tnk1]

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:Already Dead

[BeanThere]

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.

soon to be followed by another death

[circletimessquare]

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]

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.

Re:Version 4 is still useful

[tepples]

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

How can testing be done apart from any implementation? The only way I can think of to "test against standards" is to test against some peer-reviewed reference implementation of the standards.

Re:To be honest...

[Sax Maniac]

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!!