When I bought my first notebook computer in 1995, an unwieldy Compac that weighed a ton, had limited memory and the speed of a tortoise, it was pre-loaded with Windows 95 and Netscape Navigator 2.0, the inaugural version of what would quickly become the first widely used Web browser.Not that I had any choice. The release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser was still a few months off, and I disdained using it until I bought my second notebook, an IBM ThinkPad, a couple of years later.
I made the leap because Netcape was already falling behind and IE was improving by leaps and bounds as Web browsing became more sophisticated.Bigger in this instance was the purchase of Netscape by America Online in 1999, which blew a golden opportunity to put the big bucks and imagination into the browser that would keep it competitive with IE.
That Netscape continued to lag and never got its mojo back is a cautionary tale that bigger isn't necessarily better.
So it comes as no surprise that AOL has decided that it will discontinue development and active support for the Netscape browser on February 1. The Netscape.com Web site will soldier on as a general-purpose portal.Meanwhile, the folks at Microsoft did not lack for money or imagination with each new IE upgrade, but I've been using Mozilla's Firefox since shortly after its initial release in November 2004 because of its ease of use.
A lot of people agree: Firefox has captured a healthy 16 percent of the browser market, while Netscape has barely one half of 1 percent.More here.
Firefox is a true descendant of Netscape by way of the Mozilla Applications Suite and Netscape Communicator. I understand that AOL may be unloading it, but I think Firefox is reviving it.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason that other browsers can't keep up with IE is that Microsoft has the complete, and IMO unfair, monopoly of the desktop. People are even, to this day, paying good money for MS Office and its components when perfectly good alternatives are available free from open source suppliers. There is simply not enough public understanding and appropriate resentment of MS to restore sanity and justice to the computing world.