AOL to discontinue Netscape web browser

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AOL to discontinue Netscape web browser

Postby MJR » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 3:44 pm

It's morning here in Sydney. Actually, it's more of "mourning". It's a very sad day, indeed.

It's on Netscape blog:

End of Support for Netscape web browsers

(Moderator edit: Modifying thread as an announcement. -Edward)
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Postby Dr Lobster* » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 4:38 pm

not before time in my opinion. i wished that instead of aol wasting resources on netscape they had actually been adding to the seamonkey/firefox/thunderbird codebase which would have benefited many more people. i can't imagine there is any more than a few thousand people using netscape anyway. good riddance.
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Postby Don_HH2K » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 5:06 pm

So long as Navigator 4.08 and Communicator 4.8 aren't taken off their FTP servers, I'd have to agree with Dr Lobster. Netscape was still a decent product all the way up through 7.x, while Mozilla Suite wasn't the most user-friendly browser out there, but times have changed.
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Postby Edward » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 5:11 pm

A news article is here.

They pulled the plug on Netscape once before and look what happened...it came back.

Then again, it will live on in Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and anything else "Gecko". :)
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Postby iJohnE » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 7:38 pm

Only one word I can say........Damn.
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Postby James » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:43 pm

Well... I expected as much but I allowed myself to be talked into "trying" the browser and fell for it. Oh well... back to Firefox. I hope AOL is finished with its asinine machinations. I'm sick to death of them. :evil:
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Postby Edward » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:57 pm

James wrote:Well... I expected as much but I allowed myself to be talked into "trying" the browser and fell for it. Oh well... back to Firefox. I hope AOL is finished with its asinine machinations. I'm sick to death of them. :evil:


Although ever-so slightly off-topic, I'm still surprised that AOL is still selling dialup services...
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Postby iJohnE » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 9:27 pm

Well, it looks like it's Firefox from now on. Oh well.
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Postby beanboy89 » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 10:39 pm

I can honestly say I'm not surprised by this move. AOL has been slowly killing Netscape off for years now. Under AOL's reign over Netscape, the name Netscape has changed from king among browsers to the bottom ring, laughing-stock among them (thanks in part to Netscape 8). I was 100% surprised we ever saw Netscape 8 and Navigator 9, because I thought AOL was going to kill off the Netscape name in early 2004 after the lukewarm, bug-ridden release of Netscape 7.1. I don't really see any reason for anyone to be using Netscape-branded browsers anymore; I haven't used Netscape regularly since mid 2004. If you liked the suite-based Netscape 7.x, use SeaMonkey. If you liked the standalone Netscape 8 and 9 series, use Firefox.
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Postby James » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 11:00 pm

Well... it was a bad joke... this Navigator 9. Evidently AOL can't see past their collective noses. Surely they were looking a year down the road and yet they pulled the plug after just a few months. They bring out the alpha for their e-mail client and then... pull the friggin' plug. Geeze, I'm ticked that I was allowed to get sucked in yet again. Well... that's the last time and may Netscape Rest In Peace for good. I've uninstalled it and cleaned every last vestige of it from my hard drive. Back to FF and Opera and to heck with AOL.
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Postby profman » Sat 29 Dec, 2007 12:41 am

Time Warner/AOL has not been known for their "good" choices when it comes to the Netscape Browser. The Netscape browser, in their hands, just became a trademark to pump for money.

(Although not in the same ball park, I would still worry, for other reasons, about the future of the SeaMonkey project and the Thunderbird mail client.)
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Postby Mandrake » Sat 29 Dec, 2007 4:23 am

Netscape has been dead for years - ever since the last Netscape engineers that were working on Mozilla were fired. The only thing of note now is that AOL have finally admitted it.

AOL bought Netscape in a stock worth over $9Bn USD when the deal completed. They bought one of the most innovative companies ever known and squandered the massive potential the combined company had. That's just sad.
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Postby Antony » Sat 29 Dec, 2007 6:07 am

Thanks for the message MJR.

SillyDog701's Netscape Browser Archive started at the end of browser war, been through the downhill of Netscape. We were here when Netscape came back from inactivity, not just once. Netscape Browser Archive will still be here after the end of official support from Netscape.com and AOL.

I've been running Netscape Browser Archive since 1999. I immediately noticed in The Netscape Blog page that Netscape Browser Archive is the only one not linked.

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SillyDog701 will continue to have Netscape Browser Archive (link: http://sillydog.org/narchive/ ) and a support forum section running after 1st February 2008.
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Postby JayGarcia » Sat 29 Dec, 2007 11:11 am

Just wanted to enter a minor clarification. AOL did not pull the plug on Netscape development. That choice was made solely by Tom Drapeau, Netscape Director. Tom's vision of the future of Netscape was apparent as funding by AOL was at a bare minimum which caused the staff to be short-changed with only a few engineers on the payroll, not nearly enough to produce a quality product in a reasonable time period. The decision to end development was based solely on this situation as it really would have resulted in a disservice to the users.

Also, Antony, the Netscape Archive is linked in my announcement on the Community Forum.
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Postby James » Sat 29 Dec, 2007 11:39 am

Jay, I noticed that there was no possibility yesterday to begin new threads on your forum. Why? Furthermore, if AOL underfunded the project, then they are indirectly responsible for its demise so what does it really matter if Drapeau made the actual decision or not. The bottom line is: it's dead and done with. And frankly, it should have remained dead and done with. And you have to admit that just a few months ago you were going on about its bright future and that we were to just wait and see all the exciting things coming our way. Well... I was skeptical then but I thought... what have I got to lose? Give it another chance and let's see what is in store. But deep down I did not really believe it would last. It couldn't last with a few developers. It should never have been started with such under-funding. It's another example of the short-sightedness of AOL. I sometimes believe they are run by complete idiots.

Bottom line: who really cares? Netscape is yesterday's news. Firefox, Safari, Opera and yes... even IE 7 are where it's at today. And should T-bird bight the dust as some have suggested, I could care less. I thought when I heard about the big plans for Eudora that it was nothing more than a pipe-dream and I still believe that. I've dumped that from my system as well.
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