Netscape navigates to exit

NETSCAPE WILL fade to black tomorrow when AOL ends support for the Navigator browser. And yet it seems like yesterday that Netscape was the hottest company in tech.

A little over a decade ago, with fewer grey hairs and a 32-inch waist, your reporter worked for ZDnet and everybody used Netscape. Microsoft was just beginning to get its act together with IE but the iconography of the Netscape brand (‘N’ letter with shooting stars and the ship’s wheel) was everywhere.

Anyone remember the days of Netscape domination and the following splash screen?

Netscape Navigator 2.0 logo from mid-90's -- the good old days of the web

Netscape was the Google of the Nineties, a revolutionary force born in the smoking cauldron of software wizardry, to mix up the metaphors. It was the on-ramp to the Internet and, for many, the Netscape front-end *was* the Internet.

How could something so strong go so wrong? Plenty of reasons. Netscape was unconvincing when it said it would monetise its popularity by selling complementary server software. Microsoft was happy to give away rival programs. Netscape never did enough to push itself as a portal and it sold to the wrong company, AOL.

At some point, most of us tried out IE and never went back, or else we later moved to Firefox and liked it. AOL tried to revive Netscape as a browser-cum-portal but it was a case of too little, too late.

Today, Netscape has less than one per cent market share and the end of support will soon erode that yet further. With Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera and the rest around, Netscape is no longer necessary. Still, plenty of us will remember the first times we clicked on our favourite internet destination, waiting ages for images to appear at 38 kilobits per second, having paid a tenner a month to a friendly ISP for the pleasure.