Shed No Tears For Netscape

When I first hit the Internet, there was no World Wide Web! Websites were textual affairs with named structures like Gopher, Archie and Veronica.

The world changed when Mosaic and then Netscape Navigator were released. The web became more akin to the printed page. Over time, Netscape Navigator dominated… until Microsoft caught on.

Ciao Netscape.

Yesterday, AOL (the current owner) announced it was the end of the line for Netscape Navigator. A few friends wrote to make sure I knew. And, they all wondered if I would shed a tear?

Nope.

Actually, I see Mozilla Firefox as the natural successor to NN. As long as Firefox stay’s in production I’m a happy guy.

Unfortunately, in the time between Internet Explorer’s ascent and Firefox’s birth, Microsoft decided not to bother following standard HTML and CSS protocols.

Things look different in Internet Explorer than other browsers… because IE does it wrong. But, since they have the vast majority of market share, the other browsers (doing it right) are looked upon as inferior.

Pretty sneaky.

Where was I? Oh, Netscape. Thanks for blazing the trail. I actually already thought you were dead.

3 thoughts on “Shed No Tears For Netscape”

  1. The latest version of Netscape actually is a branded Firefox, with weatherbug built in, so they died long before AOL announced it. (I’m actually using it right now as I write this).

    As a web developer, I’ve been dealing with the IE incompatibility issues for years, and although it’s more manageable lately, it’s still far from perfect, and still requires me to write special code to accommodate IE. And, this special code is incorrect code according to all web standards. Firefox, like most other browsers except IE, fully comply to all coding standards, and I’ve yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to why Microsoft is still resistant.

  2. right, and they keep promising the next version will meet all w3c (world wide web consortium) standards, but they never come through. combine this with the constant security flaws of the various microsoft web server platforms over the years, it makes me wonder why they even bother, they seem to have blinders on when it comes to the web.

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