Netscape to die out February 29
Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after tomorrow
In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of people online.Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6% as other browsers such as Microsoft’ Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox have eroded its user base.
The company recommends that users upgrade their browser to either Firefox or Flock, which are both built on the same underlying technologies as Navigator.
Netscape was created by Marc Andreessen who as a student had co-authored Mosaic, the first popular web browser.His company Netscape Communications Corporation released the first version in 1994.
Although this lead to legal wrangles over anti-competitive behaviour, IE now dominates the browser landscape with an 80% market share.
For the past week Netscape users have been shown a message alerting them to the end of support for the browser.
“Given AOL’s current business focus, support for Netscape browsers will be discontinued as of March 1st, 2008,” the message reads.
The open source browser’s development is coordinated by the Mozilla foundation, set up by Netscape staff made redundant in 2003.
It has had more than 500 million downloads worldwide and in countries such as Finland it is the most popular browser.