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Comment on What Ever Happened to Netscape?

BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

That’s rather simplifying history and not the main reason Netscape failed.

Netscape lost because Microsoft used it’s dominant monopoly position to bundle Internet Explorer with windows. By 1999 the writing was already on the wall - IE had already overtaken Netscape market share and was growing rapidly.

The Mozilla project and code base change was a gamble to try and fix the problems. When Microsoft released IE6 2001 they didn’t bother releasing another major version for 6 years as they were so dominant.

So while the code base change was arguably mishandled, at worst it accelerated the decline. Instead the whole story is a poster child for how monopoloes can be used to destroy competition. The anti trust actions in the US and EU came too late for Netscape.

Ironically Microsoft was the receiving end of the same treatment when Google started pushing Chrome via it’s own monopoly in search. They made a better product than the incumbent but they pushed it hard via their website that everyone uses.

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million@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The monopoly position helped for sure but I think it’s glossed over that at one point Internet Explorer was simply the best web browser on the market. It’s was only after years of mismanagement by Microsoft that it gained the reputation it has now. But there was a point in the late 90s early 2000s where Netscape was a super buggy mess and Internet Explorer was the best browser on the market.

That was true for Chrome as well, when that first hit the market it was a light and amazing browser. There were a lot of technology savvy early adopters for Chrome.

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- GamingChairModel@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, Netscape 4.0 was simply slower than IE 4.0. Back then, when a browser was a program that would actually push the limits of the hardware, that was a big deal.
  
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- rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  But there was a point in the late 90s early 2000s where Netscape was a super buggy mess and Internet Explorer was the best browser on the market.
  
  Lemme guess, one was super buggy and the other the best browser on websites using non-standard functionality of the latter.
  
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fulg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I was being a bit facetious, thanks for the corrections and insight. Cheers!

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homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

When Microsoft released IE6 2001 they didn’t bother releasing another major version for 6 years as they were so dominant.

They were also, eventually, much too late to matter, convicted of being a monopoly as a result of the IE money grab.

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