If you noticed when using Netscape Navigator 9 and running the update for version 9.0.0.6, a notice will appear, stating that support for the browser will be terminated on the 1st of March 2008, urging users to switch to Flock and Firefox. After about 14 years since the first version came out in 1994, AOL who bought Netscape in 1998 decided to put an end to it.

If you remember the 90s, when dial-up was still the norm, Netscape was the leader in the web browser business. One of the key features I still remember that Navigator brought was the on-the-fly display of webpages, where text and graphics appeared on the screen as the web page downloaded. Browsers like IE in those days would wait for the whole page to load before displaying anything, which was seen as very slow especially with dial-up connections.

By the late 90s though, Netscape lost its dominance in the browser market simply because the the subsequent versions were, in many ways, poorly designed. As a result, IE overtook Netscape in the web browser market and still is the most widely used web browser until this very day. Even as Netscape decided to release a free version somewhere around 1998, it was unable to regain the dominance it once had. Further efforts to revive Netscape’s glory days were done, up to version 9 currently and I must say that for many years now, seemed like it has been struggling to even keep up with the competition.

That said, I think that Netscape (at least the earlier versions) should go down in history as one of the most influential web browser ever created. So long to the big N, and thanks for the memories.

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