Sunday, January 06, 2008

RIP Netscape Navigator

AOL has announced that its discontinuing support for Netscape Web Browser. Though it was just matter of when, somehow I still have nostalgic feelings and fond memories of Netscape. Without Netscape, Internet would not have been what it is today. Some of the contributions from Netscape are good and some are bad but when Internet history is being written Netscape would have a chapter of its own. Remember Netscape used to have "About the Internet" menu item instead of About Netscape?

Its sad that winners are out of business and losers are making Billions. When Microsoft started giving away IE free and embedded in windows it has 2 goals:
1. Destroy Netscape
2. Avoid paying to Spyglass (Spyglass's contract with Microsoft required Microsoft pay to Spyglass for using its code in IE only if Microsoft makes money on IE).
Microsoft accomplished both the goals and got sued by both Netscape and Spyglass. Both Netscape and Spyglass won in the court but are out of business today while Microsoft still makes Billions. The world is a strange place :-)