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Author Topic: What did happen to Netscape?  (Read 4456 times)

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Geek-9pm

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What did happen to Netscape?
« on: November 30, 2016, 05:57:36 PM »
Please share your thoughts. Some younger ones don't know the story.
Even recently it is still a subject of interest to computer students.
Like this:
Whatever happened to Netscape?

I used the 4.7 versions for many years and was happy with it. But now it does not do so well with some web sites. There are up to date versions of Netscape.
http://filehippo.com/download_netscape/
Quote
AOL stopped development of the Netscape browser in February 2008 so is no longer officially supported.
Netscape Browser provides more security options, streamlines more standard browsing tasks and arms internet users with more timesaving solutions to their browsing needs.

Do your remember Netscape?
Do you think Windows 95 killed Netscape?
Would you like to talk about it?   :) 

DaveLembke



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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2016, 11:06:55 PM »
My first experience on the internet was Prodigy ISP in 1994 on a 386 computer in Highschool.
I got internet summer of 1995 when I won a raffle at work where they had 5 Gateway 2000 386DX 33Mhz 8MB RAM computers to give away ( decommissioned by Allen Bradley/Rockwell ) and I was 1 of 5 lucky people to get one for free. I got AOL 2.5 and installed a 14.4 modem a friend gave me that wasnt plug n play but required a bunch of jumpers set for IRQ and baud rate etc. I used that AOL 2.5 with built in browser on Windows 3.11. Then I got a deal for $40 to buy a 486DX 33Mhz from a friend who upgraded to a Pentium 166Mhz MMX and was looking to sell his old board. I bought a computer case and built up the 486DX 33Mhz and installed 12MB of DIMMS, and moved the guts over from the Gateway 2000 to the 486 build and found a Windows 95 upgrade for cheap ($50), so I pivoted the Windows 95 install off of the Windows 3.11 install from the prior system to save money. Windows 95 seeing Windows 3.11 on that drive installed Windows 95 clean to it and I then had a decent Windows 95 system although the 486DX 33Mhz struggled with some games that called for a Pentium processor but barely ran on a 486DX 33Mhz. I had a 4MB Video Card in it as well. I had a soundblaster 16 sound card in which the SONY 4X CD-ROM was connected to the sound card as with special SONY PORT as seen here when there were many different types vs just IDE etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_16#/media/File:KL_Creative_Labs_Soundblaster_16_CT2230 .jpg

I had Internet Explorer 3.0 on a CD and installed that to Windows 95. IE was solid and worked flawless. It worked perfect for my early HTML whereas Netscape gave me troubles with my HTML, so I stuck with Internet Explorer and only used Netscape at the time for testing on Netscape to make sure that my web pages HTML was browser friendly to both. Other than that, I didnt care much for Netscape, so my use of Netscape was only for testing really so that others using it would see my pages properly. I was using free web hosts back then vs my own domain name etc. I used WS_FTP to upload latest HTML content on one of the freebie web hosts.

I used IE for years until I was introduced to Firefox and then I made the switch to Firefox 3.0 in 2008 when IE was getting hit with one security flaw after another with Windows XP. Today on Firefox version 50.0.1 on Windows 7 and Windows 10. I don't care for EDGE browser.

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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2016, 11:49:52 PM »
I  found Netscape to be pretty awful. It seemed to get worse through the versions as well. IMO The company was the victim of their own mediocrity as they were of any alleged Anti-trust actions by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.

The closest thing to Netscape today is probably Firefox, given it can be traced back to the original Mozilla source code release of Netscape's source code.
I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

patio

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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2016, 07:13:31 AM »
The beginning of the end is when it was bought by AOL...

The rest is history.
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

DaveLembke



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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2016, 08:35:16 AM »
Curious now as to if it was blended in with the AOL browser in AOL 2.5. I used AOL from versions 2.5 to 7.0 and left them to switch to Juno for free dial up internet. In AOL versions 3.0 to 7.0 I am pretty sure I was using Internet Explorer for all those, but 2.5 which I ran on a Windows 3.11 system, I am thinking that might have been Netscape or AOL's browser prior to merger with Netscape. Thinking back 21 years ago... I just remember using lots of the internal functions of AOL back then. The chat rooms mainly and downloading free DOS games to play on my 386 computer and a pile of 1.44MB disks that I saved all the games to.

The $25 a month for 33.6k connection was too expensive and I was looking for a cheaper internet option. 33.6k was the fastest I could get over crappy old copper phone lines that the local telephone company Fairpoint refused to fix because they claimed it wasnt their problem that I wasnt getting 56k connection. They pointed finger at the ISP as the cause, yet from other locations locally to same dial up numbers others were getting 56k connections. Stuck in the middle of their blame contest when i knew it was junk copper wire that they refused to fix because voice was ok according to them and so dial up should be too, I left AOL in early 2002 when I dropped from the unlimited $25 dial up service to the limited $15 a month service and found a free internet option to dial into Juno which was a local call. Friends were suggesting NetZero and some others but I liked Juno which was free. The biggest pain was trying to get AOL to stop hitting my credit card for $15 a month. It took almost 3 months to get that cleared up. I called them multiple times to stop them from billing me when i cancelled. Final action was taken when I contacted my credit card company that I do not authorize these transactions and I cancelled with AOL 3 months prior. I was then credited for the 3 months that they pretty much refused to stop charging me. And I called them A O (4 letter word starting with H and ending in double L's )  ;D

Juno was ok, and I liked the e-mail account they set me up with. I then tried out BlueLight the K-Mart advertising sponsored free internet but didnt like that, and so I stuck with Juno. I then landed a job that the employer was paying for IT employees internet service fees as a means of setting up the employees with remote access to the workplace to be remote admin for the network and systems. Others were able to get DSL but I was on crappy copper still and DSL unavailable in my area due to crappy copper and distance from telephone company DSL backbone. I ended up using two dial up connections then to be able to surf the web with one dial up connection while remote admin over another dial up connection when my employer bought me an additional phone line. This allowed for me to connect over 33.6k on one line and surf the web on another line if needing to research stuff without trying to do both on just 33.6k bandwidth with 2 computers with 56k modems in them. It was a very laggy remote connection of do something and wait for the refresh. And it was easier to just drive 10 miles to work and work on site, however some issues needed to be fixed fast such as Point of Sale issues in which you have customers in lines and the whole front end going down and so I had to fix that over dialup once which was painful using PC Anywhere to a system that acted like a back door and then from that back door system yet another remote connection once authenticated onto the network to then remote using VNC to connect then to the protected secure P.O.S network to fix the issue. PCI Compliance killed off the remote connection stuff.  ::)

Finally in 2005 I heard rumors that Adelphia was running broadband through my area. I went to the local building and asked if they had broadband in my area because I need it for business use. A tech or engineer came out and chatted with me and told me that its not really available yet large scale, but that if I want to be a test subject for it that I can get set up with broadband but that there is no guarantees that its going to be problem free, it was just rolled out and its up, but that I should expect issues with it because its not really officially available yet, but its up and running. So I agreed to be a tester for its infancy in my area and they set me up with a 4meg connection and $45 a month for the service in which my employer paid for it all. They just needed to come out to my home to replace a old coax cable that they said is from the 1980s with a new cable from the pole to the home and they drilled a hole and fed in the new cable and everything was solid working for the most part after that.

Its been years since I have used a dialup connection. Last time I can recall using dialup was in 2008 when broadband was down because my wife forgot to pay the bill for 2 months. I ended up using the dialup service that my employer had available to SoverNet to get onto the website and pay the bill over dial up and then had to wait almost 24 hours for them to activate broadband again to Adelphia/Comcast.

Its nice that these days you can just find a wifi somewhere and do what you need to for the most part and broadband or DSL is just about everywhere. I dont miss dialup at all.

soybean



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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2016, 10:02:58 AM »
The beginning of the end is when it was bought by AOL...
Same for Compuserve. 

Regarding Netscape's downfall, I agree with comments about Microsoft and IE.  By bundling IE with Windows, starting back with Windows 95, if not earlier, Microsoft had an advantage that Netscape could not overcome.

patio

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Re: What did happen to Netscape?
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2016, 02:21:30 PM »
I;ll have to disagree with the negative comments on Netscape... i found it to be a rubust browser with many features lacking in others...
Many of my 1st web pages were built with their built in WYSIWYG editor...which was far more user friendly and powerful unless you were going to pay for an HTML tool at the time...
I continued to use it for years after the AOL fiasco and still have it on my XP rig...

" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "