Netscape web browser

A time line traces key events in the transformation of Netscape from an Internet-browser upstart to an aggregator of content and services on the Web.A time line traces key events in the transformation of Netscape from an Internet-browser upstart to an aggregator of content and services on the Web.1 March 1994: Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen begin talks on forming a new company.April 1994: The company (first named Electric Media) is founded by Clark and Andreessen.May 1994: Electric Media changes its name to Mosaic Communications.November 1994: Mosaic Communications changes its name to Netscape Communications.December 1994: Netscape Navigator, Netscape Commerce, and Communications Servers ship.August 1995: Netscape's IPO is one of the hottest stock-market debuts ever.December 1995: Netscape and Sun Microsystems announce JavaScript.11 March 1996: America Online agrees to include Netscape in every copy of its Internet-access software.12 March 1996: AOL strikes a deal with Microsoft, giving Internet Explorer the coveted spot as the service provider's browser.May 1996: Netscape announces Netscape Navigator 3.0.October 1996: Netscape announces its server product, SuiteSpot 3.0.October 1996: Netscape becomes enterprise-software purveyor, rolling out intranet- and Internet-server software packages.11 June 1997: Netscape releases Communicator.August 1997: It releases Netcaster, push-media software.18 August 1997: Netscape announces an initiative to retain its browser share by forming 100 industry partnerships. Its new partners agree to package the Navigator browser -- unbundled from the Communicator suite -- with their products. The streamlined Navigator 4.0 includes Netcaster, basic email, and calendar software.3 September 1997: It unveils the Netcenter Web site, transforming the corporate Netscape.com into a site featuring news, software, and chat groups.22 January 1998: It frees Communicator 5.0's source code over the Net.23 February 1998: Mozilla.org launches. A dedicated internal team and the Web site guide the open source code to developers.31 March 1998: Netscape releases programming source code for its Communicator software.10 April 1998: Mozilla.org posts the first version of its source code modified by outside developers.18 May 1998: The US Justice Department and 20 state attorneys general file an antitrust case alleging Microsoft abuses its market power to thwart competition, including Netscape.29 June 1998: Netscape debuts Netcenter 2.0.28 September 1998: According to a study by a market researcher, Netscape cedes browser-share lead to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.19 Octpber 1998: Netscape releases Communicator 4.5, the latest version of its browser software. It features Smart Browsing, Roaming Access, and RealNetworks' RealPlayer 5.0.22 November 1998: AOL is in negotiations to buy Netscape in an all-stock deal.

Sites were incompatible with Netscape and therefore more people switched to IE or alternatives such as Opera. Netscape Navigator was renamed Netscape Communicator for its version 4.0 release. This would be the last commercial Netscape web browser, as dwindling market share forced Netscape Communications Corporation to release the code base for the browser under the GPL open source software license.The Netscape series of web browsers skips over the version 5 designation. This is because version 5 of the browser was in development when the program was GPL'ed. The new developers attracted to the project decided that the underlying code was outdated and decided to rewrite it from scratch. As the new code base shared no componentry with the existing 5.0 betas, it was called version 6.0. Released within months of Internet Explorer's 6.0 release, the matching version numbers assured public perception that the Netscape line was at least as developed as the Internet Explorer line.Questions

Security. Available for Mac and Windows. DEFUNCT BROWSERS Netscape Navigator / Communicator A free download. AOL/Time-Warner owns Netscape now and appears actively engaged in driving this browser into the ground. UPDATE: AOL and Time Warner split. AOL succeeded in shutting down Netscape. NCSA Mosaic - The FIRST web browser. No longer under active development. Last version 3.0 supports WinNT and 2.1.1 for MacIntosh. Hot Java - From Sun Microsystems. No longer under development since Solaris 8 and later are shipped with Netscape. Lynx - Text Only - No graphics, tables or frames, but runs from DOS Browser Functions and Components Render Engine Every web browser has an HTML rendering engine designed to read the embeded HTML tags and use those tags to arrange content and format the text on the web page. The rendering engine is the guts of the web browser and no two browsers will render a web page the same way. This is why any good web developer will test the web page in several web browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla) that run on several different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac). Cache When a web browser downloads a web page, it stores that web page in a special location on the computer called the cache. Storing web pages and the content inside them allows the browser to skip re-downloading that content if the web page have not been changed on the web server. This speeds up the web browsing experience, particularly when hitting the back button to return to the previous web page. The cache contains all the files you have pulled and viewed in your web browser. In most cases, web pages and files are left on your computer until a certain size limit is reached. At that point, the browser will delete older files from previous web sessions and replace them with newer files from whatever web server you are browsing. If your caching functions are set to the defaults, you will have difficulty with dynamically generated pages. Sites such as CNN and CNBC change the content of their web pages several times a day. The default settings in the web browser will result in your seeing the first web page you browse to for as long as the browser is open. You can change these settings so that in just a minute past when the content changed at the site, your web browser will pull the new web page. Bookmarks and Shortcuts To help you find things again later, most browsers offer a bookmark function to allow you to store the address of the page in a list of favorite sites. This list of favorites can be browsed later and when the listed

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser. Many other versions of Netscape can be found on the Sillydog Archive and the Netscape FTP. Some earlier versions can be located on the Mcom.com Archive. Wanted: Genuine floppy/CD dumps - these often differed slightly from the free download versions. Release notes Netscape 4.5x-4.80, branded "Netscape Communicator", was the last commercial release before transitioning to their open source Gecko rendering engine.