AOL Ends Support for Netscape Navigator Web Browsers

AOL is ending product support for Navigator 9 and all Netscape Navigator browsers after February 1 2008. That includes Netscape v1-v4.x, Netscape v6, Netscape v7 Suite, Netscape Browser v8, and Netscape Navigator/Messenger 9. In fact they now recommend you download Mozilla Firefox!

The AOL announcement on Netscape blog says

While internal groups within 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.

AOL’s focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business 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 reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.

Security patches for the current version of Netscape Navigator will be released only until February 1, 2008. After which though you can still download older versions of Netscape, these products are no longer supported. You can download the latest Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.5 as a standalone installation for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Navigator fans can download Netstripe, Netscape Navigator 9 default theme on Firefox to keep the memories going.

I remember my first web browser of choice a decade ago was the Netscape Navigator, which I preferred over Internet Explorer, till Firefox came along and I switched. Its sad to see it go… an era is over.