Who owns netscape navigator

Although Netscape Navigator has been discontinued, its spiritual progeny, Firefox, carries on the browser war with Internet Explorer. This time, both are free. Company Profiles. Tech Stocks. Your Privacy Rights.

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Tech Stocks Apple vs. In early , the company announced plans to release the Communicator source code, which prompted the formation of the Mozilla project, an open-source endeavor that would later become Firefox. Netscape's browser development slowed after releasing its source code, but Microsoft didn't rest. By the end of , Microsoft had won the majority of the market.

This shift in browser preference marked the start of a long spiraling death for Netscape and eventually Internet Explorer as well. By the time Internet Explorer 5. Websites were becoming more graphically intensive, internet speeds were faster, but broadband was still a few years away. The Netscape browser was buggier, slower, and more prone to crashes in comparison. By , the former king of the internet was floundering.

However, the opportunity was squandered. Even with help from the advancements gained in the Mozilla project, AOL was unable to release Netscape 6 until , putting it way behind in the browser wars.

For two more years, the browser would struggle in its final death throes. The browser wars were a sight to see during that first and a half decade.

The graph below shows browser usage between and , and how Netscape went from dominance to complete irrelevance. Firefox was originally named "Phoenix," as it would rise from Netscape's ashes after it was killed off by Microsoft. In August , Netscape 7 was released and that was the beginning of a long goodbye. The following year, AOL closed the Netscape division and laid off most of the staff.

Development continued for a couple more years using advances in the Firefox source code, but nothing significant was released under the brand. Mercurial released "Netscape Browser 8" in May Several iterations occurred over the next two years, with version 8. Like the mother who just doesn't want to let her child run off to college without one last kiss goodbye, AOL picked up in-house development again.

It rebranded the browser back to Netscape Navigator and launched version 9 in October AOL then continued support for only a few more months before it would finally let it go. On February 20, , the company pushed the very last iteration of Netscape Navigator version 9. Redmond ruthlessly saw an opportunity and bundled its own browser, Internet Explorer, free of charge with the Windows 95 operating system, in a move that eventually proved to be the undoing of Netscape. Netscape came about when two men, Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark and university graduate Marc Andreessen teamed up and decided to create Mosaic Communications in mid Mosaic was later renamed to Netscape Communications.

This was at a time when the takeup of the Internet was in its early stages, but both Andreessen and Clark realised the potentially of web browser software, and Clark provided the initial seed funding. What started off as a university software project was soon launched to the general public as a fully fledged web browser.

Netscape rapidly achieved success and soon enjoyed an overwhelming market share, with some observers stating it had an 80 percent market share thanks to its promotion by both Internet Service Providers and magazine publishers. It is worth remembering however that was the start of the Internet craze, and only about 1 percent of the world was even online. Even worse connection speeds were painfully slow musical dial up modems anyone?

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