What Ever Happened to Netscape?

[mlauzon1976]

'...but broadband was still a few years away...'

You really need to be specific here, as consumer broadband was a few years away, however, most colleges, universities and big businesses were already using broadband Internet access.

 

[mlauzon1976]

I first heard about the Internet & World Wide Web in late '95, then first surfed the Web using Netscape Navigator on November 4th of that year. I was still in highschool [WTCS] in Toronto, but went to UofT's Robarts Library as a classmate who'd go there told me it's where I could get online. Surprisingly, one of the webchat sites I discovered that year and used until some time in '98 is still online, it's called Alamak Internet Chat, it was extremely busy as well as popular back in the '90s.

 

[ZedRM]

Interesting article. One could easily just sum up by saying Netscape became Mozilla/Firefox. Edit, Looks like this article was done 4 years ago and is just being refreshed and republished. I commented on it 2 years ago! LOL!

 

[Axeia]

Fun read.

My short version if I were to write this article would have been:
Microsoft killed it by including Internet Explorer for free with Windows. As IE got better and better less people bothered switching to Netscape which fell further and further behind due to a dwindling user base. It's hard to compete with subsidized 'free',
It spun off into Phoenix (later renamed to Firefox) whilst AOL took over the mainline just to let it die.
Firefox later took over massive amounts of market share from age-old rival Internet Explorer by offering tabs and extension support.

and if you want to continue to the current time line:
Due to Firefox gaining marketshare Microsoft finally started working on Internet Explorer again, it it been neglected for years at the point, this gained then back a few percentages. However it's Google with Chrome that seems to have the last laugh as they marketed on being a faster browser and pushed it heavily on their own platforms that almost every internet user visits daily. Although Firefox nowadays is also very performant its small market share will make it hard to keep up with Chrome.

It might also be worth to mention that the perceived speed advantage might not have been as relevant as it actually was as Google on YouTube for example used a deprecated API that performed 5 times worse on Firefox then it did on Chrome.
--

This is from someone who has used Phoenix and Firefox since day 1 and still uses it. In my personal opinion (as a web developer) Google using a deprecated API for YouTube was purely to push people onto Chrome.
Step 1 of enshittification
Step 2: Make adblockers worse by forcing developers onto Manifest v3.
Step 3: ??? My guess is: Make adblockers even worse or ban them entirely like they're trying on YouTube at the moment.

My advice: Use FireFox, it has a long history of putting users first unlike Google. Non-profits are easier to trust than for profits.

 

[wizardB]

Actually, Netscape Communicator became Mozilla Seamonkey which they scrapped the browser out of and it became the Phoenix browser then because of trademark issues they renamed it Firefox.

 

[wpontius]

I remember surfing the internet on an original IBM PC using Gopher, an all text browser of sorts. Before that dialing into the Unix system at the college my Dad taught at on an Apple II, with blazing speeds of 600 - 900 baud.

Did not read the article as the browser wars of old are irrelevant and the status or popularity of browsers nowadays has no comparison. Only Microsoft still controls a slowly declining majority of the PC market desperately trying to make Edge the new Internet Explorer, using many of the same tactics as they did 30+ years ago.

 

[comnut]

Andreessen was a fool. Browser was not a part of Windows OS yet. The internet was practically all dialup only. When Microsoft was giving it away on each and FREE cd included with every PC magazine Netscape expected each and every user to download and install it. So if I had 50 machines I had to download it 50 times. On the other hand I did not even need an internet connection to install Internet Explorer from the CD. People simply gave up on even trying to download over unreliable dialup and frequent breaks in connection which required one to start from scratch. Netscape just died.

Without a doubt MS knew its business to make installation of its OS as well and applications absolutely trouble free. OS/2 Warp was excellent and far better than Windows in every aspect only if you managed to install it in the first place. That is where IBM fell on its face & failed to cash in.

If you had 50 PCs, then you are in a college or company, so most likely had a good Internet connection provided by a big company..
That would be me and another lab tech, updating the software and updates ready for class..
I soon got sick of this, and invested in a **portable hard disc drive* * so I did not have to rely on overloaded internet due to thousand of students...

 

[comnut]

I remember surfing the internet on an original IBM PC using Gopher, an all text browser of sorts. Before that dialing into the Unix system at the college my Dad taught at on an Apple II, with blazing speeds of 600 - 900 baud.

Did not read the article as the browser wars of old are irrelevant and the status or popularity of browsers nowadays has no comparison. Only Microsoft still controls a slowly declining majority of the PC market desperately trying to make Edge the new Internet Explorer, using many of the same tactics as they did 30+ years ago.

So I guess you do not bother with internet these days... I remember the old days, where you could make a whole web page just using notepad... not so nowadays..