"Netscape is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Netscape Navigator 9.0 Beta 1. The release is now available for download from browser.netscape.com for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some of Navigator 9's new features are listed here; for a complete list, see What's New in Netscape Navigator 9? at browser.netscape.com."
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Member since:2005-07-06
Some stat pages (and we all know how reliable they are, but still somewhat useful for seeing just how little used NN actually is):
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/ (effectively 0%)
http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm (~.15%)
http://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html (~1.77%)
Stats from my own personal site from the last 10,000 hits (first column is hits out of 10,000, last is version #):
7 0.07% Netscape 7.2
3 0.03% Netscape 7.1
1 0.01% Netscape 8.0.4
That's 11 hits out of the last 10,000...and going back further yields more of the same type of trend.
The point of this post isn't to bore anyone to tears (sorry if it does) but it is to point out that by and large NN has well under 1% market penetration. Which begs the question...who the hell over at AOL keeps signing on to develop new versions? And why are AOL shareholders (err, Time Warner I guess) standing for this humongous waste of money on what is effectively a DEAD platform? Firefox would have been long gone, and IE replaced years ago by either a rewrite, or with MS endorsing a different platform and branding it out under the MS trademark.
I mean seriously folks...what gives here?
Member since:2005-07-06
My guess is that the development is only continued so that AOL can have their "own" browser to bundle with the AOL client software (assuming it's still using Netscape these days). I think that's partly due to the whole AOL-Microsoft history - it does have the feel of an (increasingly-futile) "screw you" gesture to Microsoft, since the whole "AOL uses IE in exchange for MS bundling AOL with Windows" deal went sour.
Almost a little sad that AOL has declined so far in relevance - I kind of miss the good 'ol days of alt.aol-sucks (and alt.usenet.kooks, alt.fan.karl-malden.nose, etc - good times).
Member since:2005-07-06
Well, there is the Nestcape ISP:
http://getnetscape.com/
http://isp.netscape.com/
I think they bundle the Netscape browser on a CD when you sign up for their service. My guess is that's the biggest driver of this.
Also I seem to recall that back in the day Netscape 7.x had quite a few followers (I was one of them), thanks to its extra sidebar features (including built-in AIM without ads). Maybe they're hoping for a return to glory.
Of course as I recall the main problem with the last release (Netscape 8, based on Firefox 1.x) was that it took too damn long before a lot of extensions and themes were compatible, which damaged its potential as a Firefox alternative. And that probably had something to do with its very unconventional interface.
http://www.codeweavers.com/bin/img?id=1429;size=full
Seeing as the new version has a considerably more normal-looking interface, hopefully extension compatibility will be better this time around.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Do they even have a browser presence anymore? I don't have any of the numbers (and nor do I feel like tracking any down), but I would assume they are somewhere behind Opera in the market penetration segment.
I would suspect that there are probably more people still using Netscape 4 than there are users of current versions of Navigator. Last time I saw any stats, around 2000-2001 or so, the breakdown was along the lines of NS: 15%, IE: the rest.
I like to imagine that the imagine that the current Netscape development process is similar to that old Dilbert strip - "Sure boss, I can remove the URLs from all our webpages. I'll just replace them with Uniform Resource Locators - but it will take six months."