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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Netscape R.I.P.

Chances are you’ve heard this already, but Netscape is no more. MozillaZine are reporting that AOL has cut or will cut the remaining team working on Mozilla in a mass firing and are dismantling what was left of Netscape (they’ve even pulled the logos off the buildings). Today is a truly sad day.

Thankfully the Mozilla project will continue under the wings of the Mozilla Foundation, a new non-profit organisation headed up by the leaders of the current Mozilla project. The press release has the details: AOL have pledged $2,000,000 over the next two years, Mitch Kapor (of the OSAF) has donated $300,000 and Red Hat and Sun Microsystems are planning to follow suit. The foundation have a new site, which is mirrored on Mozilla.org (and surprisingly still uses a layout table).

Now more than ever, the web standards movement needs to make itself heard. With Netscape dead, less enlightened web developers may be tempted to drop all pretences at cross browser compatibility and go back to targeting Internet Explorer. This would be a folly: even without Netscape, the browser ecosystem is thriving now more than any time before in the history of the web. The browser wars are dead and gone, and with due attention to standards they need never come back. Let’s hope this truth is not lost in the media barrage we can expect over the next few weeks.

Posted 15th July 2003 at 11:49 pm

This is Netscape R.I.P. by Simon Willison, posted on 15th July 2003.

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20 comments

  1. With Netscape gone Mozilla really needs a much better design to attract potential switchers (whether the developers like it or not Mozilla is now *the* end-user Gecko browser to promote for mass use). This reminds me of the recent W3C redesign and the ensuing redesign contest. Perhaps another redesign contest is in order? [Shameless self promotion: Zenzilla]

    MikeyC - 16th July 2003 00:40 - #

  2. I disagree; I would much rather see a major marketing effort behind FireBird. Mozilla just isn't suitable for end users - it's a great tool for power users and web developers but it suffers greatly from an overengineered interface (way too many preferences) and the bloat caused by coming bundled with a mail client, chat client and editor.

    Firebird on the other hand is small (6 MB to download), sleek, fast and extremely user friendly. It has all of the core features that make Mozilla such a good browser (tabs, popup blocking etc) and the default settings are much friendlier. I stopped using Mozilla several months ago and now use Firebird exclusively, and have converted a number of other people to it as well. Once you've got it running it pretty much sells itself.

    There are only two things holding Firebird back in my opinion: the first is the version number - 0.6 screams "beta" to many users, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to a 1.0 release as I'm sure it will improve the perceived stability and maturity of the browser (try getting a big corporation to agree to support a 0.6 browser). The second is it's lack of an installer: unzipping in to a directory just doesn't cut it for many people, and upgrading from a previous version of Firebird is a nightmare (you have to manually delete profile directories, risking the loss of bookmarks and other settings in the process).

    I really hope the new Mozilla Foundation concentrate their efforts on getting a rock solid Firebird 1.0 release out. It's the best browser on Windows already, it just needs that bit of extra polish to make it easier to sell to the unwashed masses ;)

    Simon Willison - 16th July 2003 01:00 - #

  3. "I disagree; I would much rather see a major marketing effort behind FireBird."

    I am under the impression that Firebird (along with Thunderbird) will supplant the current Mozilla application suite. When I said "Mozilla" I meant the "New Mozilla" which will essentially be Firebird. Firebird would then take Mozilla's current role as the "developer's browser".

    But either way we are in agreement that there needs to be some sort of mass appeal marketing effort.

    MikeyC - 16th July 2003 01:09 - #

  4. Simon, there is an unofficial win32 installer build for Firebird. With any luck something similar will become official.

    Tom Gilder - 16th July 2003 01:23 - #

  5. Doh I forgot about the roadmap turning Firebird back in to Mozilla (shows how confusing all these name changes can be). Personally I'd rather the names stayed separate, if only so there can be a big splash when Firebird hits 1.0 (Mozilla hitting 1.6 and losing half of its functionality by changing in to a standalone browser seems much less likely to make a big marketing impact).

    Simon Willison - 16th July 2003 01:24 - #

  6. Tom, do you know if that installer deals with the tricky problem of fixing the old profile directory / deleting it while preserving bookmarks?

    Simon Willison - 16th July 2003 01:25 - #

  7. "Personally I'd rather the names stayed separate, if only so there can be a big splash when Firebird hits 1.0"

    According to Dave Hyatt there will indeed be a Firebird 1.0 and he claims it will be the best damn browser for Windows--too lazy to dig up the quote but its somewhere on his site.

    Essentially we'll have a situation quite similar to last summer when Mozilla hit 1.0 and Netscape hit 7.0...in this case we'll have Mozilla 1.7?? and Firebird 1.0...

    MikeyC - 16th July 2003 01:32 - #

  8. It's a shame people have to loose their jobs, but I couldn't be happier to Netscape go. First, maybe now Joe Sixpack will hear Netscape is no more, and using something other than Netscape 4.x. Plus, I was never to fond of Netscape 6/7 that piled on the branding and more 'features'. I say good riddence.

    Chris - 16th July 2003 02:06 - #

  9. There it is! I've been waiting for this ever since I heard that Microsoft paid AOL 750 million a few weeks (months?) ago. I should have made a prediction on my weblog...

    Keith - 16th July 2003 05:11 - #

  10. First, maybe now Joe Sixpack will hear Netscape is no more, and using something other than Netscape 4.x.

    This is already happening, I’ve already seen this* spark discussion about dropping support for Netscape 4 at a few commercial new sites.

    *Although “this” hadn’t happened yet as the conversation was on Monday, some were under the impression it had, so…

    Craig - 16th July 2003 05:38 - #

  11. … do you know if that installer deals with the tricky problem of fixing the old profile directory / deleting it while preserving bookmarks?

    The most recent Win builds of Firebird 0.6 (beginning about one month ago) claim to have plugged this usability barrier, but we won't be able to experience that until 0.7, I suppose.

    While I care little about it and know to avoid it, form field auto-complete in 0.6/Win is extremely volatile, particularly if the user selects from the offered dropdown list with a mouse. This is an acknowledged bug, yet a very consumer-sensitive problem: one crash while exercising a common convenience task can scare users away for a long while.

    That said, Firebird (the name will change again, unfortunately) 0.6/Win is remarkably stable. It does need an installer option, but more than that it needs well-considered marketing and buzz. The main hurdle going forward is that ordinary users will not perceive a need to switch. Many don't appreciate that Web browser applications, even MSIE, in fact exist -- MS and AOL's psychological lock-in efforts have been extraordinarily successful at the consumer level.

    So, a truly stable 1.0, an installer for the unwashed, strong "switch"-type promotion, a button I can offer that leads to clear materials ... then we've got something. The standards are in serious peril. Much is at stake.

    Let's not forget Government. Push hard for adoption there, as they're the largest institutions with a disposition toward open-source.

    Lou Quillio - 16th July 2003 08:18 - #

  12. That auto-complete bug (bane of my life) is allegedly fixed in the latest nightly. Haven't checked yet, but it is marked as fixed, so fingers crossed.

    Paul Freeman - 16th July 2003 09:37 - #

  13. "Let's not forget Government." - coincidentally, I just noticed that this weblog is linked to from the weblog of Richard Allan, MP for Sheffield Hallam.

    http://www.sheffieldhallam.co.uk/blog

    Phil Wilson - 16th July 2003 11:07 - #

  14. good riddens.

    Tim 'huckan' Jackson - 16th July 2003 17:46 - #

  15. That auto-complete bug (bane of my life) is allegedly fixed in the latest nightly.

    Scares me every time it pops-up. I've found, though, that you can safely cursor down through the picklist, right-cursor once on your selection, then Enter or Tab. It's the mouse that fouls things.

    Lou Quillio - 16th July 2003 18:14 - #

  16. Actually, I've crashed it using the cursor keys :). That said, I've been running the 12th July nightly build for 2 days now with no problems.

    Neil T. - 16th July 2003 21:11 - #

  17. Netscape 5 (various versions of Mozilla?) has been the top non-microsoft browser for a few months now at the Counter.com.

    I'm not sure if that includes Netscape 7, but thank god it's ahead of NN4!

    The one thing I would miss from Mozilla (in Firebird) is the CSS/HTML sidebar. Is this replicated in Firebird somewhere I haven't seen?

    alastc - 16th July 2003 21:43 - #

  18. "I'm not sure if that includes Netscape 7, but thank god it's ahead of NN4!"

    Yes it does. UserAgent string still identifies itself as a version 5 browser.

    The one thing I would miss from Mozilla (in Firebird) is the CSS/HTML sidebar.

    According to "mozBlog" chatter, the sidebar will be re-introduced into Firebird in 0.7...probably...for awhile there the builds did contain a "web panels" sidebar (it did nothing, btw) which has disappeared on recent nightlies.

    MikeyC - 17th July 2003 03:25 - #

  19. Though I doubt anyone here has missed it, Tim Bray has made a call-to-arms against the MSIE/AOL power grab, and is nurturing the seeds of an educational campaign.

    Lou Quillio - 19th July 2003 21:42 - #

  20. Firebird the "the alternativ" browser and have the potential to move MS IE from the 1st position.

    reinhard - 1st October 2003 16:08 - #

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