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What Ever Happened to Netscape?

⁨275⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Rekall_Incorporated@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.techspot.com/article/2077-netscape-navigator/

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  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before its acquisition by AOL. Firefox was created in 2002 under the codename “Phoenix” by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle.

    The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. The nascent browser was originally named Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor (in this case, from the “ashes” of Netscape Navigator, after it was sidelined by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the “First Browser War”).

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox

    On January 23, 1998, Netscape announced that its Netscape Communicator browser software would be free, and that its source code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape registered mozilla.org. The project took its name, “Mozilla”, from the original code name of the Netscape Navigator browser—a portmanteau of “Mosaic and Godzilla”, and used to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite, the free software version of Netscape’s internet software, Netscape Communicator. Zawinski said he arrived at the name “Mozilla” at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordinating the new community.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla

    Everything that was useful in Netscape became the basis for Firefox.

    See also the documentary.

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    • Thaurin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I could’ve sworn that the browser was also called just Mozilla at one point, or was that just always the suite it was part of?

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      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        My memory is hazy, but I’m pretty sure Mozilla was a package and most people just didn’t install the rest of the package. Everyone called the browser Mozilla because they didn’t use the other parts. I could definitely be wrong, though.

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      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        could’ve sworn that the browser was also called just Mozilla at one point

        If I remember correctly, at one point Mozilla referred to itself as “the godzilla of Mosaic” or something like that.

        Mosaic being the first widely available web browser.

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    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator

      False. SEAMONKEY is the actual successor of Mozilla, the software which is the actual successor of Netscape Navigator.

      Everything that was useful in Netscape became the basis for Firefox.

      False. Thunderbird is a thing and an important part of Seamonkey.

      See also the documentary.

      Ready on the (x)-to-doubt button.

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      • archonet@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Image

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  • frunch@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I loved Netscape as a kid. I would stare at the little Netscape icon with the shooting stars while waiting for pages to load… Funny how little things like that seemed so magical back then ✨🖥️💖

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    • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They were magical.

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      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        One can occasionally see things which are just as magical in our time.

        It’s just that - the Web is like Coruscant, what was magical is the lower levels, abandoned, decaying, full of predators and infections and barely supported ; people like on the middle levels, which are full of usual life with all kinds of stuff, and upper levels, which are heaven, but for few.

        These things still happen. Just mostly not in the Web.

        We have forgotten, but most of the magic is created by separate human beings, and it was a very rare situation where corporations would help it, in the 90s.

        But then talking like that is a pretty tired cyberpunk trope. We’ll see something good. Humanity finds new pits and stinky places, as the time goes, but these are not the only kind of things it finds.

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      • Meltrax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The third of Arthur C Clarke’s three laws:

        “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

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  • fulg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They became a poster child for why you should never “start over from scratch” even if your current codebase is awful. Because when you do that your competitors keep going, then they have years on your now stale product. Netscape lost all on their own…

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    • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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 ⁨weeks⁩ 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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      • fulg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I was being a bit facetious, thanks for the corrections and insight. Cheers!

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      • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Opera was a paid browser till it started going bad.

      Never paid for it though, and started using it when it was free, so can’t complain.

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      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        till

        This is a farming implement or a cash drawer.

        Did you mean " 'til " ?

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    • aleq@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Didn’t the refactored netscape eventually evolve into Firefox though? Not disputing the poster child status or the fact that it’s a terrible business decision, but the project did not really go stale I think?

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  • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Now that splash screen, with its pixelated gradient of the 256 color palette brings back some nostalgic memories.

    It’s funny because we can see pixelated stuff today mostly in shitty jpeg artifacts, but those follow the jpeg algorithm for how to best conserve file size within their compression scheme, so they look different. This splash screen seemingly has every pixel meticulously chosen so that it’s in the right place, and working with only the limits of the color space.

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    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Dithering, it’s a lost art. It always reminds me of Monkey Island.

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      • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Best game. You post like a barmaid.

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    • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In the Windows 3.1 days I made my own icons. Yes, a single pixel out of place or wrongly colored would throw it all off.

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      • Mercuri@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Oh shit… core memory unlocked. I forgot I used to do this. I forgot there was a time you would do this otherwise everything just had the same icon.

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    • moody@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Even better, that splash screen was only 16 colors.

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      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Saved a lot of memory. Even though we had upgraded to 24mb in our Mac Performa at the time.

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  • militaryintelligence@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I was there, 3000 years ago

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  • ColdWater@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It became Firefox

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    • Psythik@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah I thought everyone knew this. Netscape became Mozilla Browser, which became Firefox.

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      • Dlayknee@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        TIL!

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    • tb_@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s a bit reductive

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  • stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I have allways loved the Netscape logo

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    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      allways loved

      In all ways? Ewww.

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  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It was always my understanding that much of the core of Communicator eventually became early Firefox, but I’ve never really fact-checked that, just kind of read it here and there anecdotally on forums.

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    • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And Thunderbird for the email portion. Yes, web and email were in the same application.

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      • turmacar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Image

        Vivaldi

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      • DJDarren@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        And with GMail and Chrome, it is still.

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      • ace_garp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        4-in-1 🙃

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  • KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Earth is riddled with empires who thought they would last forever.

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  • vxx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Netscape got a serious case of Windows’ forceful and illegal monopolisation of Internet Explorer.

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  • marker2002@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    isp.netscape.com

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    • CptEnder@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Holy shit someone still operates this?!

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  • icogniito@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Isn’t Netscape just Mozilla at this point? At least tech wise

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    • xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes, but no.

      The source code for Netscape Navigator was open-sourced and has become Mozilla Firefox. The company Netscape is now a mostly defunct brand while Mozilla is a non-profit, public benefit company in service to the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla community.

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  • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I been using it for a while, it became MoIlla Firebird

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    • AsudoxDev@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      bird?

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      • Verito@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        For a short time.

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  • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Aah the joys of 256 color video cards.

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    • frunch@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If you could afford one! CGA/EGA were the best we had for a while. VGA/256 color was the stuff dreams were made of (and boy were we excited to finally get a computer that had it!!!)

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  • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It is now in heaven.

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  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Can you still use or get Netscape?

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    • bigredcar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The closest you can get is the Seamonkey browser, which forked off the old Mozilla Application Suite that Netscape 6/7 was based on. The last version of Netscape 9 was just a rebranded Firefox 2.x.

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      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        … and a discrete mail app is a wonderful thing.

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  • sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Holy shit I forgot about netscape

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  • eleitl@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I used to download the source tarball for each new version and build it on the SGI Indy.

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