Firefox now vies with IE alone, Netscape is dead

December 28, 2007 |

Firefox now vies with IE alone, Netscape is dead

By Matt Jansen

Firefox now vies with IE alone, Netscape is dead Seeing its core ISP service flailing and losing market share, AOL has cut the cord on further Netscape development.

When AOL bought the smaller company in 1999, Netscape had already begun work on an open source version of its software called Mozilla, according to Netscape.

For a couple of years following the acquisition, AOL continued to fund development of the Mozilla browser which was the software powering Netscape Navigator.

Groups inside AOL have “invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions” Netscape posted on its blog.

AOL’s focus now is transitioning to a business supported by advertising (a la Google). And that “leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.”

Netscape was a driving force on the early Internet and was one of the first browsers to display web sites on the fly. Text and images appeared on the page as they were downloaded rather than waiting for the whole page to load.

Though it’s sad to see the Netscape brand repurposed and die, from its ashes Mozilla rose, and it continues to innovate and gain popularity.

Far from over, the browser wars are entering a new phase with Opera pushing into mobile devices, Safari marketing its slick interface recently made available for Windows and Firefox’s customizability through its vibrant add-on community.