I asked my son today if he knew what Netscape was and was really quite surprised to learn that he didn’t have a clue! To me it seems like only yesterday that the Netscape browser was bringing the Internet to the masses with this new thing called the “World Wide Web”. I heard a comment on a podcast today that equated Internet years to dog years, in other words 1 year on the Internet is like 7 normal years. That seems to ring true, especially given that my sixteen year old son doesn’t even know what Netscape is, and its already a long time since Netscape lost the browser wars.

This week AOL the current owner of the Netscape brand has announced that the Netscape browser will be no longer be supported. This sort of makes sense given that its market share is only around 0.5%, and that nearly everyone who would of been a Netscape user, is now probably using the Firefox browser anyway. In fact AOL is recommending that the remaining users upgrade to either Firefox or Internet Explorer, but my recommendation would be Firefox.

Netscape really was the start of the Internet for most people, and it is a shame to see the name finally go. It is the end of a era. For all those Nestcape users who will still need a computer on which to use their shinny new browser, I suggest having a look at the Fujitsu-Siemens AMILO Pro V3515 Notebook!