The end of support [1] for the Netscape [2] browser shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise. The software’s user population has dwindled to almost nothing, and the dropping of support was long overdue.
But for me, I have very fond memories of this browser software that is soon to be a footnote in web history. For many of us early web users Netscape was the first quality graphical browser we used — Mosaic was pretty good, but Netscape made our mouths drop.
For myself, the software progression went from gopher [3] browsing, to Lynx [4], to Mosaic [5], and then finally to Netscape 1.0 [6] around Christmas of 1994.
The arrival of Netscape’s predecessor Mosaic had probably more impact, technology-wise, than any other career event for me. I remember dialling in via my 2400 baud modem, and waiting minutes for images to come down. And I must tell you, it was awesome! I remember calling my wife over and trying to explain how amazing, how revolutionary, this was! … No dice. :-) … unfortunately her husband was as much a web-geek then as he is now.
So, surprised? no. A little nostalgic? You betcha.
Here’s a screen shot from Netscape 1.0: