The Browser Den

When creating the Browser Den I didn’t think I needed to create a ‘Netscape’ category, but it turns out that I do

According to the Netscape Blog, Netscape 9 is under development, like verson 8 it will be based off Firefox but will include a number of extensions to integrate it with the Netscape portal. As Netscape 8 also included IE support it was only available for Windows, however, version 9 will also be available for Mac OS X and Linux. Also according to Netscape Champion Jay Garcia this release will be developed in-house by Netscape rather than outsourced like version 8.

What’s even more surprising is that Netscape is also considering reviving support for Netscape 7.2 according to Jay’s site. Netscape 7.2 was the last version of Netscape to be based on the Mozilla Suite and so included support for mail, newsgroups, HTML editing and AIM. However, I do see some merit in them resuming support for Netscape 7.2. Although the market seems small for an integrated Internet communications suite, it is one area that is being currently neglected by both Mozilla and Microsoft. I’m assuming that any future releases on the 7.x line of Netscape would be based on SeaMonkey - which is what became of the Mozilla Suite.

Personally I think Netscape has already damaged their name and reputation too much to make much difference in the browser market, I can’t see them managing to regain much more than 1% market share. However, choice is good and if people use this browser then it means they’re at least using a browser with decent standards compliance.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Mozilla, Netscape. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.