AOL Puts an End to Netscape Navigator

By Dee Chisamera
13:06, December 29th 2007

AOL announced its decision to put an end to the once most popular Web browser, Netscape, due to its failure to recover after Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was launched. The current version of Netscape will continue to run until Feb.1, 2008, and AOL support engineers will continue to develop security patches until then.

Not to worry though, AOL focuses on its Mozilla projects, with the Mozilla Firefox Web browser gaining more and more popularity and creating a competition for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size ofinvestment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," wrote Netscape director Tom Drapeau on an entry blog.

"Given AOL's current business focus ... we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox,” Drapeau added.

This puts an end to many years of continuous struggle from AOL to put Netscape back on the map. The browser was once used by over 80 percent of the Internet users, but it came down to 0.6 in December 2007, compared to the 77 percent Internet Explorer has.

Competition is increasing these days, and AOL wants to get a piece of the pie, focusing on developing the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, which currently has around 16 percent of the market share, followed by Apple’s test version of Safari Web, also available for Windows.

Netscape browser was released in 1994, and it was first known as the Mosaic Netscape, until later becoming Netscape Navigator, due to some legal matters. AOL announced in Nov. 1998 it would acquire Netscape Communications evaluated at $4.2 billion.

The browser continued to lose ground to the Internet Explorer, and most of its employees have already been sent to the Mozilla Firefox project, leaving only a handful to take care of Netscape. AOL’s new project leaves no room for the “old” browser, leading to the decision to put an end to the Netscape Navigator once and for all.