“While we will no longer support the Netscape web browser as of [March 1], 2008, Netscape.com will still continue to serve as a general use Internet portal.”

Less than two months after AOL released it, Netscape Navigator 9 was on its death march and today it is no longer supported. With it hopefully the Netscape Browser and Netscape Navigator brands will now stay dead and live on in Mozilla Firefox and the many other Netscape derived products, projects and communities.

Personally, I’m really happy that the monstrosity Netscape 8 Browser was created and I had the opportunity to be a small part of it. I think the project started sometime in the summer of 2004 for Mercurial not long before Firefox 1, and I joined up in Feb of 2005.

I was told that Mercurial Communications had to convince AOL for it to be based on Firefox, and that AOL originally wanted it to be a skin on Microsoft Internet Explorer, not unlike AOL Explorer. It was a bizarre software project with awkward communications and misplaced priorities.

There were quite a few calamities, that can now be laughed about including:

• “[Crammed] all of the exciting new features into the toolbars.”
• Netscape 8 Browser being overly pitched as the most secure browser is is unsafe and patched the next day.
• Netscape 8 ‘breaks’ IE

Netscape 8 Browser was a horrible beast, but there was brilliance buried within. Its a shame that as far as I know AOL has never made the source available. Alex Vincent (weirdal) asked almost 3 years ago where’s the source?

It was an awesome experience working with many of Victoria’s software superstars. The experience is directly responsibly for me hooking up with the amazing people that started Flock, and becoming friends with people in various Mozilla communities. I then opened the door to many of those Mercurial colleagues joining Flock. From there I went to the best job I’ve every had, where I am today working on WordPress for Automattic.

“In the mid-1990s [Netscape] was used by more than 90% of the web population” Today, it isn’t even worth measuring.

From the same BBC News article titled “web icon set to be discontinued“, “although a core team has continued to work on the secure browser – it is currently on version nine – AOL has decided to finally pull the plug.” The author (no by line included) seems to have a confused history of the browser. The Netscape browser has had many… handlers.

One of the most amazing discoveries for me working on the Netscape 8 Browser was how important Netscape Communicator was and still is to many people. What a legacy.

It is no surprise that Netscape brand is still powerful today. The Web is sticky with nostalgia with Michael Arrington’s headline calling it “a sad milestone” to Roland Tanglao‘s lament ending with “Good-bye Netscape, I’ll miss you!”

It is incredible how many people after all these years still have netscape.com (one of the first news portals) set as their home page. The loss of the ad related revenue seems like the likely reason why Jason Calcanis’ Netscape Digg clone died, well limps on as propeller.com, and old was new again on netscape.com. I will never get back those days of my life spent testing the Netscape 8 Browser to make sure it worked with the Flash heavy, often male chauvinistic netscape.com.

Sorry, back to the legacy and the people. It was amazing interacting with people like Netscape Champaign Jay Garcia and the reasonably-initially-hesitant Mozilla community members. No other technology company has a greater legacy than Netscape. And so many of these amazing people continue to create choice and innovation on the Internet with Firefox, Thunderbird, and many other open web pursuits.

The recent updates to http://blog.netscape.com/ — by Tom Drapeau and Richard Klein demonstrate AOL supporting that legacy and being class acts as the curtain drops for a last time on Netscape software It is sometimes easy to forget that AOL donated $2 million to the Mozilla foundation ((Mozilla Organization entry on Wikipedia).

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.” The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

I’m going to go watch Code Rush again now.