After I came back to Poland my computer was working slowly so after some time I decided to reinstall windows. I’ve copied important things from C disk to D disk and put the xp installation disk in the dvd drive, than I’ve formatted the C disk and then I’ve run the installer.
Last years I’ve used Firefox, and before that Netscape. I’ve switched to Firefox because it was installed on the computers that I was using and it was related to Netscape. But this time when I was planing on installing a browser I said to myself ‘No, install Netscape, the older brother of Firefox whom you used so much in the past’.
Right after installing Windows from scratch I opened home.netscape.com in IE. First thing to surprise me was that it redirected me to netscape.aol.com. Even if AOL bought Netscape and it may have happened long time ago why would they change the address now? What is the change for?
Than I looked for link saying Netscape browser and I’ve found it and clinked it. I’ve scrolled the page down and there was option of downloading 4 different applications. I didn’t see Netscape over there…
I used internet for the first time when I was about 12 and I was a Virtua Fighter fan. Most probably I did it with IE. But it was just once or twice when internet was practically unknown. It was 96 or 97. Year later I started to use the web more in a Jewish computer center. People in charge were Netscape inclined. I’ve picked up on this quickly and became a big Netscape supporter. Throughout the years I’ve mostly used Netscape and over time my emotional connection with the program grew.
At that point (beginning of 4) Netscape was subjectively better. It was more secure and showed more of HTML, JavaScript and so on. I also preferred the way it looked and some things in IE annoyed me.
Till 1997 Netscape won having at certain point close to 90% of the market. Than the browser war started and eventually Netscape lost. Microsoft was giving IE with every Windows and integrated it as part of the system, so most people just stayed with that. Netscape didn’t change so much within the version 4 and between version 4 and 6 (5 was skipped) more than 3 years passed and at certain point IE was more functional than Netscape. Also AOL made a mistakes and at certain point added a lot of external programs to Netscape installer. All that resulted in that new people used IE and a lot of old Netscape users switched. It ended up that only hardcore users stayed with Netscape. So did I.
Announcement on the AOL website said:
Official support ended on March 1st, 2008.
Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded software. Read the history page for more details about this decision.
That what it said. They don’t care that the program existed for close to 14 years, people grew up with it, changed with it and matured with it. Like me, I’ve changed completely during this time. But taking into account their business plan they don’t care. I felt sadness and injustice.
What could I do? I could install Netscape theme for my Firefox.
So I did. At last that way Nescape will stay alive. And I’ve singned two petitions.
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