Talk:Netscape Navigator

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According to MozillaZine, the development of Netscape has ceased. Could someone update to the article that 7.1 was the last release?

This is what the article says:

"It has been learned through public and private sources that AOL has cut or will cut the remaining team working on Mozilla in a mass firing and are dismantling what was left of Netscape (they've even pulled the logos off the buildings). Some will remain working on Mozilla during the transition, and will move to other jobs within AOL."

-- Hank Powers


The release dates I added to the list are based on Netscape press releases [1]. If someone know better feel free to edit them. -- Peter Winnberg


The "7" in the text is linking to an external source. Is it OK according to Wikipedia standards? Shouldn't the link be at the end of the article instead? - Olivier

Any chance we can cut down the size of this picture? It's spreading the page across the right margin. -- Zoe

Ive tried to resize the pic it doesn't give a good result. Ericd

How to link the big image ?

This latest one looks good, thanks, Ericd. -- Zoe

It's still too large for a float and doesn't provide enough information to seem to justify a full-width inline. Any objection to scaling it down more? --Brion 00:22 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

I have no objections. -- Zoe

Isn't it more appreciate to have a separate article about Broser war and the article should contain much more explanasions about Netscape Nagivator itself. -- Taku 04:32 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

That's a fair question, Taku, but my take on it is that it's not possible to describe or understand Netscape (the browser) without also describing the social context. Commercial products do not evolve in isolation, they shape and are shaped by the world around them. How else is it possible, for example, to understand the sale to AOL except in the context of the way that MS "cut off their air supply". (Not my words - Bill Gates. Or maybe it was Balmer - I forget.) Or to understand the huge difference between 4.x and 6.x without knowing about (a) the browser war and (b) the Mozilla project. Or (p[erhaps most of all) to understand about the reasons for the various proprietary extensions and their consequences for web users - an area I have barely touched on. If you have more detail to add about the programming side of things though, that would be great. Tannin 04:42 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. -- Taku 04:50 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

Should we dump the image of Navigator 1.xx and replace it with an image of Wikipedia using Navigator 7.xx instead??? Comments? - hoshie

Yes, but not 7.xx. 7.xx is atypical and just a niche market product of little interest to anyone - least of all AOL, they have 87 billion other problems right now! The illustration ought to be one of the definitive versions of NN from its golden era - i.e., a 4.x or close to that, I think. If pressed to pick one particular version as "most typical" I guess I'd go with Navigator 4.08, the last one before Commmunicator, but anything from about that time would do. Tannin 14:53 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)
I think this article is long enough that it could live with more than one image. I'd say 3.x was the golden age, but 4.x was the version that went on for ever, so I guess we should use 1.1, 4.08 and 7.0 or something like that... --rbrwr
Sounds good. Tannin
Having said that, I don't actually have any version of Netscape installed at the moment - just Mozilla and IE. So I can't provide screenshots for any version, at least not without some trouble. Anybody here running Netscape? --rbrwr
I think the current screenshot of Netscape Navigator 1.xx should be replaced with a better picture of Netscape Navigator 1.xx, for a historic record shouldn't show it with that horrific blue/green background colour on webpages:-) Crusadeonilliteracy 13:57, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments everyone. On one of my backup CDs, I have NS versions from 0.9x to 7.01. I would be happy to take screenshots of any NS version. - hoshie

I think it would be a good idea to have pix of more than one version as it could be interesting to see how the interface evolved over time. How about 4.08 on this page with a link to Versions of Netscape Navigator or something similar with pix of the others? Tokerboy
If we do, we should call it History of Netscape Navigator, in line with the already existing History of Microsoft Windows. Gaurav 13:23, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As a Netscape user (v7.0?) I have to agree that this is now more a niche product. I only use netscape since it's what I was accustomed with through my "childhood" (and particular Netscape Mail). I think the article lost one of the nice features with v7.0?. I refer to the tab functions. So instead of having a lot of tabs down at the start bar, you have tabs inside netscape. But I guess this has nothing to do with a wikipedia entry.. ? :) Mendalus 20:07, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Only in the last year or two has the rise of alternatives like Mozilla and Konqueror given it strong competition. How does ~2% market share translate to strong competition? Crusadeonilliteracy 13:20, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Context is Linux, where it's all Mozilla/Firebird/Konq/Opera. (In the Windows world estimates run up to 5%, woohoo.) - David Gerard 14:28, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)
Netscape Navigator is a web browser that once dominated the market but is now hardly more than a niche product.

Am I alone in finding this a little POV? I mean "...hardly more than a niche product". How about "...but now has only a very limited base of users." or something like that? - IMSoP 03:56, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hm, no overwhelming agreement, but no objection either, so I'll change it. - IMSoP 10:27, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
A "niche product" is a product which has a very specific and limited use. For example, a collection of Photoshop filters can be said to be a niche product, or an application which can read data from a chemical sensor peripheral. Netscape Navigator isn't a niche product. It would be more correct to say that it once dominated the market but now has lost all but a trivial share. Brian Kendig 14:53, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This article is far too broad. It contains (and duplicates) information which belongs in the entries for Netscape Communications Corporation and Browser wars. I intend to edit it soon to move information into those two articles and restrict the focus of this article to Netscape Navigator itself. Brian Kendig 06:47, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How do you plan to convey this subject with all the browser war content removed? That's the very heart of the matter. It seems to me impossible to provide any useful understanding of this topic without dealing with the commercial context. Your plan sounds to me like a sure-fire way to rob this entry of most of its useful content. (But if you can prove me wrong, then I'll be the first to applaud.) Tannin 15:06, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Information relevant to Netscape Navigator would include the release dates of different versions, its changing market share, its features and when they were added, its aspects which were especially lauded or hated, and the way it changed as the web evolved. Topics such as Netscape's purchase of AOL and Internet Explorer's features and strategies aren't as applicable to this particular article. Brian Kendig 04:45, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps the state of the competition (i.e. "the browser wars") and the fate of the corporation (i.e. its decline, takeover by AOL, and eventual dismantling) could be mentioned to provide context to the development of the product, but in such a way that the reader is referred elsewhere for details? I haven't time to work out specifics right now, but I've put it on my to-do list if you don't get round to it. - IMSoP 22:49, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Which version of IE was the NS killer?

There appears to be a row between an anon user holding it was IE4 and Tannin holding it was IE5. Watching the slow trainwreck at the time, I do recall it being IE4 - the layout in IE3 was horrible, the layout in IE4 was excellent; IE4 came with Windows 98 so was instantly everywhere; IE4 started getting really heavily into the non-compatible extensions; IE4 had CSS that worked, rather than crashing the browser like it did on NS 4.x. Tannin, what was your perspective that leads you to discount IE4? - David Gerard 13:01, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

I just want to say that I agree that IE4 was the breakthrough version, and IE5 the one that was barely noticeable. (I was waiting for Tannin to add the justification he seemed to promise in his edit summary) One thing that bears on this is that people talked (and still do talk) about "version 4 browsers", referring to the generational jump represented by both IE4.x and NN4.x. Of course, the phrase "version 5 browsers" would make no sense, since NN5.x was never released, but the phrase's existence seems to support the idea that by version 4 IE was a major competitor. - IMSoP 13:09, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Let's get this straight.

First, this is an article about Netscape - not Internet Explorer. It is not appropriate to go into any detail bar the minimum required to explain properly the development of Netscape.

Second, let's deal with some of the nonsense spouted on in edit summaries lately:

  • remember that the most popular OS on the planet, Windows 98 came with IE4 integrated. Nonsense. 98 first edition came with IE 4. 98 first edition was a short market-life product that was rapidly replaced by 98SE (second edition), which (of course) has IE 5.0 - as did Windows 2000, and Windows ME also had a 5.x. The only two Windows versions ever to ship with 4.0 were 95C (very small numbers compared to A and B) and 98 (small numbers compared to 98SE). In any case, hardly anyone retained IE 4.x any longer than needed.
  • IE5 was a bug fix release. IE 4 was the one that really got Microsoft on the internet trail Well, it certainly fixed some bugs - there was no shortage of them in IE 4! IE 4 demonstrated that Microsoft had a fair idea of what was required to make a decent browser - and also demonstrated that they couldn't make one just yet. IE 4 was unable to overtake Netscape, but IE 5 did it, and did it with ease.
  • IE 4 was a marketplace dud; bloated, slow very buggy. No-one uses it anymore ad it was swiftly forgotten.IE 5, in contrast, was a huge success Exactly.
  • V4.0 was the version when Microsoft devoted vast resources to the project. Irrelevant. V4 went nowhere in the marketplace. V5 was the significant one - it is still the most common of all browsers on the web today. (Or was the last time I checked, which was not so long ago.) MSIE 5.0 was evolutionary, v4 was revolutionary. Irrelevant. 4.0 was buggy, slow, and bloated. Many users hated it, and very few retained it once 5.0 was available. and led to the exodus from Netscape Nonsense. That was 5.0.

Tannin 13:10, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think one of your main stumbling blocks is that IE5 is immensely popular now, because it is essentially the current version (IE6 is only bundled with Windows XP as far as I can make out). Pointing out that "very few retained [4.x] once 5.0 was available" is completely beside the point - nobody is denying that 5.0 wasn't better than 4.0. The fact remains that the "version 4"/"4th generation" (see my earlier comment) was where the browser wars hotted up. It may have been extremely buggy, but Microsoft made up for this in convenience, by bundling it with every copy of Windows and endless ISPs' free trials. It may not have deserved to challenge Netscape, but challenge it did. - IMSoP 13:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What has "IE5 being better than IE4 got to do with which one first posed a challenge to Netscape?" Everything! It is precisely because IE 4 had so many problems, was so buggy and so slow, that it failed to meet with market acceptance. IE 4 shook the Netscape tree, sure, that is obvious. But it was IE 5 that cut the tree down, and it was IE 5 that became the most popular browser on the planet - not IE 4.

Your point about Microsoft bundling IE 4 with every copy of Windows holds no water. They bundled IE 3 with every copy of Windows too (95B), and IE 5 (98SE, 2000 and ME), and 6.0 (XP). Why are you making 4.0 out to be special? Tannin

As final proof, note that Microsoft didn't establish numerical market leadership (i.e., greater market share than Netscape) until the middle of 1999 - i.e., until after the release of V 5.0. In other words, Microsoft were number 2 to Netscape during the entire time that IE 4.0 was their flagship browser. Within months of the release of 5.0 they became number 1, and have remained so ever since.

"IE 4 shook the Netscape tree, sure, that is obvious" - precisely, so that is where the challenge really began. IE4 was a real contender for Netscape, and IE5 had no real contender from Netscape.
My point about bundling IE4 was that by version 4.0 it was good enough that people just carried on using it, rather than going out of their way to install Netscape. That was a major blow for Netscape, and arguably a major abuse of monopoly by Microsoft.
Perhaps we should say that "...by version 4, it was a strong competitor." and leave the fact that Netscape had no answer ready when 5.0 came along for further down. Because I think Netscape could have had a competitor for IE5, to the same extent as they had one for IE4, but for the events explained further down the article. To be honest the whole section needs serious work, and a lot of it should be taken out and covered by browser wars anyway, but this seems to me to reflect the basic situation. - IMSoP 14:00, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC) (via edit conflict with your last para)

Good edit, IMSoP. It reads better now. Tannin

Yep, the current version looks about right to me too - David Gerard 17:44, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshot

Please do not use the JPEG format for screenshots. Thanks. — Timwi 13:32, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The program I use, PhotoStudio, cannot save with a PNG format. JPEG and PCT are my only options. --Mr. Grinch 15:06, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Then use a different program. I see you're on a Mac - GIMP is available in a Mac version (not very well ported, but it exists, is free and works). See also PNG applications and PNG converters - David Gerard 15:38, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Go to macupdate.com and download GraphicConverter. It's shareware, but it'll do the conversion for you even if you don't pay. - Brian Kendig 00:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. I am glad we could settle this in an adult manner. —Mr. Grinch 17:00, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Release date of 1.0

Your September 12th page lists that date (1994) as the 1.0 release, yet this page says December... which is it? It's frustrating when two pages inside wikipedia have conflicting information. JoeHenzi 10:27, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] BeOS

The article mentioned Netscape for BeOS. While a port of Mozilla to Be is now available, to the best of my knowledge, Netscape classic was never ported. 'twas a bleak, bleak world of Opera 3 and NetPositive...

I can't find a source for it now, but I'm pretty sure you could get Netscape Navigator 4 for BeOS. I'm pretty sure I remember running it on BeOS years ago, except at the time I really disliked Netscape and actually <intense shame>was rooting for IE in the browser wars</intense shame>. AlistairMcMillan 00:40, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Historical footnote

I guess there is some dispute over my removal of this phrase: "this marked the effective end of Netscape as an entity and its relegation to little more than a historical footnote". This type of value judgment is POV and doesn't belong in any Wikipedia article, whether or not it's true. It is my opinion that Netscape is not currently, and will not be a "historical footnote" (a term of derision) for a long way into the future. It is no more of a "footnote" than WordPerfect, or the IBM PC, two other discontinued computing products of a similar scope. My opinion aside, this phrase is POV and I removed it again. Rhobite 02:46, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't put it in originally i don't think but to me it is true in comparison with before the browser wars when Netscape was dominant and IE wasn't - maybe there is a more neutral way of stating the same thing? PMA 03:33, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I guess I'm not sure what we're trying to say here. There is a whole "fall" section documenting Netscape's fall from dominance. The difference is that speculating on historical significance isn't encyclopedic, especially when it's such recent history. Rhobite 03:47, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Popularity of NN

A point release of Netscape 7.1 (based on Mozilla 1.4) was similarly ignored. However, Netscape is still the most used distribution of Mozilla.

This section seems to be contradicting itself by saying that NN is the most-used distribution of Mozilla while also saying everyone ignored the Mozilla-based versions of NN (because they were no better than NN).

Also, the last statement is untrue because the Mozilla Foundation's browsers (especially Firefox) are now more popular than NN according to most stats. Having said that I don't see that it is ever possible to be sure who is the most popular and IMO the article would lose nothing by not bringing up this subject.

[edit] Reorganization

As Netscape Browser 8.0 is coming out, I suggest the following reorganization:

Plan A 
NS 1-4 -> Netscape Navigator; NS 5-7 -> Netscape/Netscape Suite; NS 8+ -> Netscape Browser
Plan B
NS 1-7 -> Netscape Navigator; NS 8+ -> Netscape Browser

The point is that Netscape Browser 8.0+ should stay in its own article page as it is a very different product: current Netscapes are application suites, but Netscape Browser 8.0 is just a web browser, aka poorly-bloated Firefox. --Minghong 20:18, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just a very quick flying comment that the correct name for the Netscape suite is Netscape Communicator. [Don't take this as a judegement for or against any reorganisation, I haven't really got time to think about it right now.] - IMSoP 20:01, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You're partially right. It is the name of the Suite for version 4 or lower (perhaps only version 4? when did it change from Navigator to Communicator? I had only used version 4. :-S) For version 6-7, it is simply referred as "Netscape"... And now it is known as Netscape Browser (but also "Netscape" in short) Nah... --Minghong 20:37, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Netscape Communicator only existed in version 4 (and arguably version 5 but that's another story). Prior to version 4, Netscape consisted only of a browser (with mail and news groups capabilities), and the software was called "Netscape Navigator." However, from Netscape 4 to 4.08, Netscape offered both Communicator and a stand-alone Navigator as separate products.
I don't really care whether or not the Netscape Browser article is merged or kept separate, but if it is kept separate, then the current Netscape Navigator page should probably be split between versions 1-4 and 6-7. Please just make sure that if the page is split, it A) doesn't happen until after Netscape 8 is released and B) is done in an organized manner so it doesn't scare away people who aren't familiar with Netscape's odd naming sequence. If the latter can't be done, then IMO this the Netscape Navigator and Netscape Browser articles should just be merged. Aoi 08:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did that. Now the structure is basically like this:

--minghong 18:22, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I have another suggestion. Please see Talk:Netscape#Names_and_version_numbers. – Smyth\talk 09:57, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New criticism section

I just added a new criticism section, as I think the frustration of web masters about Netscape 4's often strangely and incorrectly implemented standards should be mentioned here, along with their own invented standards. Because it's about Microsoft, I'm sure the Internet Explorer has long had such a section, although both parts used these dirty tricks in their browser war to make something the other vendor couldn't and gain an upper hand. :-) Feel free to correct it of course. I don't want to come off as NPOV, but rather try to inform about these opinions that do indeed exist, and I think quite widely too.

As I wrote that section, I also started wondering about the Netscape Communicator article and if/how this criticism should be mentioned there too, but I chose to not do anything for now. It *is* mostly a branding + bundling change though, so the criticism here should apply there as well. -- Jugalator 15:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of mozilla/Firefox in the intro?

I understand they're not the same thing, but without Netscape there wouldn't have been mozilla.org. Xiner 01:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

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