"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
Actually, AOL uses the IE Trident engine for its renderer, even in its new "OpenRide" software (which seems to have gone nowhere, btw). Only Compuserve (yes, it still exists) uses the Mozilla engine, but they haven't updated their software for the past 7 years or so, so we're talking Mozilla 1.0-era rendering.
Member since:2005-07-06
That's pretty amusing, but not too surprising. AOL never could get themselves pointed in any consistent direction. In the late 90s, I worked for a company that was an "AOL content partner" - around the time they ended that program, 2000 or thereabouts, the big hype was that they had started beta-testing a version of the AOL client that used Netscape as its internal browser. IIRC, there was a big rush to "eat their own dog food" after AOL bought Netscape.
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2006-10-12
(Counting by number of paid-up subscribers)
It was the biggest ISP in the world. I don't know if it still is.
Until Freeserve came along, it was also the biggest ISP in the UK as well as the US.
That was a little while ago, mind. They still have lots of customers, though. In the consumer e-mail handling space, they're still a major player: the amount of e-mail traffic they process every day is immense.
Member since:2005-07-06
They did okay in Canada for a while, and I seem to recall the same about the UK version until the free dialup ISPs came along and ate them for lunch.
Many of their problems breaking into non-US markets were directly due to their own miss-steps, though. E.g., when they started moving into Canada, they sent out tens of thousands (if not hundreds or millions) of their install diskettes, had a big TV ad campaign, etc - while they only had 4 local dialup numbers for (geographically) the second-largest country on earth.
That semi-directly lead to a class-action suit: quite a few customers missed the fine-print saying, essentially "But it's $18/minute if you don't live in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver" and then rung up several-hundred dollar connection bills within a week.
And I'm sure that having "America" in the name didn't help them much outside of the US - although they were quite anal about calling it just "AOL" outside the states. Incidentally, I always found it amusing that "You've got mail" was grammatically-incorrect, but not the "new mail" notification in the UK version ("You have EMail").
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).