Netscape Communicator

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Netscape Communicator
Netscape Communicator 4.8 under Windows
Maintainer:	Netscape Communications Corporation
Stable release:	4.8 (August 22, 2002) _[+/-]
Preview release:	none (n/a) _[+/-]
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Internet suite
Website:	wp.netscape.com/browsers/4

Netscape Communicator was a proprietary Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation. Initially released in June 1997, Netscape Communicator 4.0 was the successor to Netscape Navigator 3.x and included more groupware features intended to appeal to enterprises.

Netscape Communicator was available in various editions, such as "Professional" and "Complete". The following components were included in Netscape Communicator (different editions had different components and some components were dropped in later editions):

Netscape Navigator — web browser
Netscape Messenger — e-mail client and (in version 4.5 and above) news client
Netscape Collabra — news client (merged into Messenger in version 4.5)
Netscape Address Book — address book
Netscape Composer — HTML editor
Netscape Netcaster — push technology client (dropped in version 4.5)
Netscape Conference — multi-user communication client (dropped in version 4.5)
Netscape Calendar — enterprise calendar client (dropped in version 4.72 because Netscape's license to use the underlying technology expired^[1])

In 1998, a major update to the program was released as Netscape 4.5. This included many improvements, mostly to the Messenger e-mail client, which now also took on the features of Collabra. However, some of the less popular components, such as Netcaster, were dropped. By the time version 4.5 was released, Netscape had started the Mozilla open source project and had ceased charging for Communicator.

Technically, "Navigator" was supposed to refer to the browser component alone, and "Communicator" was supposed to refer the suite as a whole, as established in version 4.0. But due to user confusion, the names were often used interchangeably. Also, because none of the applications besides Navigator were popular on their own, and because Netscape never produced any other desktop software that approached the popularity of Navigator, people would often refer to both the Communicator suite and the Navigator browser as simply "Netscape".

In November 2000, Netscape Communicator was superseded by Netscape 6, an almost completely rewritten program based on Mozilla, or what later came to be known as Mozilla Application Suite. However, minor updates to Communicator continued to be issued, culminating in the release of Netscape Communicator 4.8 in August 2002.

1 Release history
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Release history

Netscape Communicator 4.0 — June 1997
Netscape Communicator 4.01
Netscape Communicator 4.02
Netscape Communicator 4.03
Netscape Communicator 4.04
Netscape Communicator 4.05
Netscape Communicator 4.06 — August 17, 1998
Netscape Communicator 4.07
Netscape Communicator 4.08 — November 9, 1998 (Last release for Windows 3.1x and 68k Macs)
Netscape Communicator 4.5 — October 19, 1998
Netscape Communicator 4.61 — June 14, 1999
Netscape Communicator 4.7 — September 30, 1999
Netscape Communicator 4.71
Netscape Communicator 4.72
Netscape Communicator 4.73
Netscape Communicator 4.74 — July 31, 2000
Netscape Communicator 4.75
Netscape Communicator 4.76
Netscape Communicator 4.77 — dated March 26, 2001 (Linux version)
Netscape Communicator 4.78
Netscape Communicator 4.79 — 2001
Netscape Communicator 4.8 — August 22, 2002

[edit] See also

Firefox Main article
Mozilla
Foundation • Corporation
Community / Customization
Spread Firefox Extensions (category)
Forks and Related Projects
Flock • Iceweasel Portable Edition • Netscape Swiftfox • Torpark
Origins and Lineage
Mozilla Application Suite • Netscape Communicator Netscape Communications Corporation The Book of Mozilla
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