AOL deep-sixes Netscape browser

Fionavar · December 30, 2007

http://www.news.com/underexposed/8301-1358...ml?tag=nefd.top

Any surprises?

for me is that it has lasted this long! I have had clients who still use it and call me with issues on websites - then they switch to FF or IE and all is good again.

Sand · December 30, 2007

What? Netscape was still around?

Fionavar · December 30, 2007

What? Netscape was still around?

hehe Yep! They have tried to patch the FF engine into it, but way too bloated, among other issues ...

jaguars4ever · December 31, 2007

Netscape Navigator had its 15 minutes of fame back in '96/97.

To be fair it's a miracle that it's still around, albeit an unwelcome one.

Gorth · December 31, 2007

Actually, the old Netscape 1.0 and 2.0 browsers (which were the first graphical ones I used after using emacs as a hypertext viewer) weren't so bad.

It was when they started to add all kinds of stuff, like email, newsreader and what have you into it that it started getting bad. You could say, they tried to cram an operating system into the browser instead of the other way around, forcing the browser into the operating system (which is what Microsoft ended up trying to do).

Still, it (netscape) was one of the pioneers in making the internet accessible to the general public.

Dark_Raven · December 31, 2007

Netscape Navigator had its 15 minutes of fame back in '96/97.

To be fair it's a miracle that it's still around, albeit an unwelcome one.

Its good.

Humodour · December 31, 2007

Gorth's correct. It was good back in the day. Is Opera still around?

Dark_Raven · December 31, 2007

Yes. That is the second browser I use.

Humodour · December 31, 2007

Some stats (with about +/- 1 percent error):

IE use 3 years ago: 85%

Mozilla/Firefox use 3 years ago: 7%

IE use now: 55%

Mozilla/Firefox use now: 37%

You're going down, Microsoft.

Reference: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

SteveThaiBinh · December 31, 2007

I used Netscape Navigator when I first got the internet in 1995, I think. I'm not even sure Internet Explorer existed then. We stuck with Netscape as long as we could, but in the end were browbeaten by Explorer's constant insistence on installing itself.

taks · December 31, 2007

hence the term "mozillionaires" from netscape's original IPO. of course, they all got incentive stock options which required that you hold on to the shares for 1 year after exercising, but you pay taxes on the delta between your strike price (um, grant price) and the IPO price. those that exercised their options on the day of the IPO ended up with tax bills that were greater than the value of their stock holdings after a year... it was devastating to many poor netscape employees.

taks

Sand · January 1, 2008

I use IE mostly because it is what is there and it works. I am too lazy to download Firefox. :lol:

Arkan · January 1, 2008

Nutscrape

taks · January 2, 2008

while i prefer firefox, it still has issues with a lot of the pages i go to. my latest install at home is using IE7.0, which i will tolerate for a while before switching back to firefox. i'm on a firefox browser right now (at work), and i use thunderbird for my mailer. that's got some screwy issues, too. of course, outlook express requires that stupid messenger tool, and outlook is just waaaay too excessive for home use. grrr...

taks

$@\NightandtheShape/@$ · January 5, 2008

*shudders* Bloody hate firefox, don't know what it is perhaps I've been using IE way too long but I just can't abide by it.

Humodour · January 5, 2008

while i prefer firefox, it still has issues with a lot of the pages i go to. my latest install at home is using IE7.0, which i will tolerate for a while before switching back to firefox. i'm on a firefox browser right now (at work), and i use thunderbird for my mailer. that's got some screwy issues, too. of course, outlook express requires that stupid messenger tool, and outlook is just waaaay too excessive for home use. grrr...

taks

Really? I've never had any issues with it, in fact I use it for sites which screw up in IE (well I used to except I never use Ie anymore)

Sand: I highly recommend it. There's a reason it's gained in a mere 3 years a 30% market share in a market where IE, a professional, Microsoft backed, OS-integrated programme had an 85% monopoly. That's a mind-boggling user uptake.

WILL THE ALMIGHTY · January 5, 2008

AOL is terrible in itself.

And wasn't Netscape that browser no one has used or seen for the last few years? Isn't that enough to declare it legally dead?

Dark_Raven · January 6, 2008

Nah, its alive and well.

taks · January 6, 2008

Really? I've never had any issues with it, in fact I use it for sites which screw up in IE (well I used to except I never use Ie anymore)

oh, there are plenty of places that require IE and won't even work with firefox or other browsers.

taks

Humodour · January 6, 2008

Really? I've never had any issues with it, in fact I use it for sites which screw up in IE (well I used to except I never use Ie anymore)

oh, there are plenty of places that require IE and won't even work with firefox or other browsers.

taks

Hmm. Can you link to some?

Tigranes · January 7, 2008

Things like Flash, Shockwave, Java and whatnot still seem to have a better chance of working in IE than Firefox. I run into this a lot because many Korean websites, thanks to their superfast broadband network, are overloaded with flashy moving things. (Example: A Popular Music Site)

taks · January 7, 2008

off the top of my head, no. it is complicated by the fact that i recently had to reinstall my entire system so all my history is gone. there were a few places in there that i had to use IE over firefox. problems usually arose when there were forms involved, i.e. you had to fill stuff out. as i recall, flash, shockwave and java stuff was a bit more flaky, too, particularly java since MS has their own version.

taks

Edited January 7, 2008 by taks

SteveThaiBinh · January 7, 2008

I'm always having trouble with Firefox's 'Find on this page' or whatever it's called - other than that, it's a lot more reliable than the version of Explorer I was using when I switched. That was my original reason for switching to explorer - it just caused fewer issues or problems at the time. But my router requires explorer to communicate with it, so I can't uninstall it.

Spider · January 7, 2008

In my experience, FF mainly has problems with anything requiring ActiveX. Ironically so does IE these days.

I've also encountered problems with some videoplayers on some sites. Mostly flash based and it could be ad-block that is causing the problems there. But I do have the add-on IEView that easily lets me open the pages in IE whenever that happen, so it's not much of a hassle. There is also a mod that lets you use the IE engine within FF, but it was a bit flaky when I tried (admittedly a long time ago), so I never cared much for it.

Also, FF has some issues with some banks here in Sweden. Mine works just fine, but I know my mom and a friend needs to use IE for that (two different banks even).

alanschu · January 16, 2008

I remember in the late 90s I had a Netscape Install for the odd website that didn't show properly on IE.

Now, I'm a Firefox person, even at home (where once I was too lazy to bother).

If Google were to make a browser, I'd probably be all over that!

AOL deep-sixes Netscape browser

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