The Death Of The Netscape Browser!

It may not be surprising to you but it was a surprise to me!

Netscape is currently owned by AOL and its stock has dropped to a low point.

There is a lot of speculation on what caused the downfall of the once very popular browser. For a time having Netscape as one's browser was a very popular choice.

Since the very popular windows operating system came with the Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft was pushing their Internet Explorer browser very hard. Then there came Firefox and other browsers as well.

The latest update from AOL will be the last for Netscape: AOL officially ends support for it on March 1, meaning it has no further plans to ship security updates for Netscape or otherwise maintain the browser.

AOL is urging Netscape users to consider switching over to Firefox, which is similar in look and feel, by including the Netscape 9 Migrator, to this final, patched version of Netscape. The migrator tool manifests itself as a red exclamation mark in the lower right hand corner of the latest Netscape browser window, which when clicked pops up a box displaying installer links for both Firefox and Flock, another browser based on Firefox that emphasizes blogs, news feeds and social networking sites.

source
The Washington Post

Here is a link to an article that explains more about it.