What Happened to the Netscape Internet Browser? How a Success Story Ended
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Loading ...From a fiery giant of the World Wide Web to a cold, falling star—Internet browser Netscape’s fall from the top of the Internet food chain and has left many fans wondering what happened to one of Web’s pioneers. Its story is seemingly the Internet equivalent of a soap opera, with many twists, turns and surprising climaxes. This detailed timeline will let you in on the story of what used to be the world’s best Internet browser and how it evolved to become the Mozilla Firefox everyone knows today.
1994. Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen establish Netscape (originally named Mosaic Communications Corporation). The first commercial Internet browser, Mosaic Netscape 0.9, is released in October and is renamed Netscape Navigator when the company takes on the name Netscape in November.
1995-1997. Netscape picks up with the public due to its quick releases, new features and developments and because of its ability to display text on the fly. This innovative Internet browser gains as much as 80% of the market share, even with the introduction of Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer in August of 1995. The people behind Netscape also introduce a lot of different features such as Javascript, cookies, frames and plug-ins that push it ahead of the pack. It also integrates three very important tools in one application—email, the web and newsgroups. Netscape also becomes the very first cross-platform Internet browser and works on Windows, Macintosh and UNIX.
1998-2001. Microsoft gains ground and starts grabbing Netscape’s share of users, especially when it starts offering Internet Explorer as free with packages of Microsoft Office and even Apple. Netscape starts to curb its losses by announcing that it will offer the Netscape browser packages for free and even start publishing its programming codes online. This marks the beginning of the open-source Mozilla project. Trouble brews when Netscape announces that the Navigator 4.5 browser release has security issues on shared computers. In November of 1998, America Online (AOL) purchases Netscape Communications Corporation. The succeeding years prove to be more difficult for Netscape, as Internet Explorer starts gaining more users.
2002-2004. Netscape 7.0 is released to challenge the rising popularity of Internet Explorer and to try to regain its hold on the market share. Developed by AOL Time Warner, the new browser is based on the cross-platform program Gecko (which is also developed by Mozilla programmers) and features Quick Launch, tabbed browsing, a download manager and a built-in AOL Instant Messenger. Corporate clashes and disputes that have resulted in AOL’s purchase of Netscape pummels the Netscape name while most of Netscape’s top guns have gone on to pursue other ventures. What was once the world’s best browser continues to struggle against Internet Explorer’s popularity. Meanwhile, Mozilla releases its own browser—Mozilla Firefox—in 2004.
2007-2008. Netscape releases Netscape Navigator 9, which features a new grey theme and is based on Firefox 2. This is to be the last Internet browser version that Netscape releases. AOL announces that it would stop support for Netscape on March of 2008.
It has been a long ride for Netscape since its inception as the world’s first Internet browser. But what started out as a promising business and endeavor turned sour as Microsoft grabbed a hold of Netscape’s market and user shares with Internet Explorer. Its contributions, though, to web browsing and the Internet will not be forgotten.
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