MUSEUM OF THE FALLEN
Dominance is not eternal.
The Wall/ Lost Technology/ Netscape Navigator
A screenshot of Netscape Navigator 2, the browser that defined the early commercial web.

Indolering, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0

Lost Technology

Netscape Navigator

1994 CE 2008 CE

The browser that opened the web to ordinary people, then was crushed by the one Microsoft gave away for free.

Born
1994 CE
Died
2008 CE
Lived
14 years
Dead for
18 yrs
At its peak
~80% browser market share at 1995-96 peak
Cause of death
Replaced
Replaced by
Mozilla Firefox (built from Netscape's open-sourced code) and Microsoft Internet Explorer
The Obituary

Netscape Navigator made the World Wide Web usable for millions. Released in late 1994 by a team including Marc Andreessen, it loaded pages while they were still downloading and supported images, forms, and early scripting, turning the web from an academic curiosity into a mass medium. By 1995 it ran on roughly four in five computers online. Then Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer free with Windows, and the “browser wars” ended in Netscape’s collapse. Its code was open-sourced as Mozilla in 1998; AOL bought the company and finally ended Navigator support on March 1, 2008.

Worth remembering

  • At its 1995-96 peak Navigator held roughly 80% of the browser market.
  • Netscape's 1995 IPO, with no profits, helped ignite the dot-com boom.

Sources

  1. Netscape Navigator released 1994; support ended March 1, 2008 Wikipedia
  2. Netscape's code became the Mozilla project in 1998 Wikipedia

A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.

Buried nearby
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Bethlehem Steel
1857 CE — 2003 CE
Dead Companies
Blockbuster
1985 CE — 2010 CE
Lost Technology
The Game Boy
1989 CE — 2003 CE
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