You will feel the absence of Netscape Navigator from 1st February 2008, which is presently owned by AOL. The browser was developed by Marc Andreesen, who penned down Mosaic, the first popular web browser.

You will feel the absence of Netscape Navigator from 1st February 2008, which is presently owned by AOL. The browser was developed by Marc Andreesen, who penned down Mosaic, the first popular web browser. Netscape was doing fine in the mid 1990s, when it recorded about 90% of the total web users. Soon after, the pressure was felt from Microsoft's Internet Explorer and present Netscape's popularity is 0.6% of the total web users. After experiencing serious loss down the years, AOL eventually decided to wind up the company.

To know how it all started – Marc Andreesen set up the Netscape Communications Corporation, and Navigator went on to hit the success chart. The browser savoured the thrill of success for many years in the web world. But soon Navigator lost its magic to the Internet Explorer, which took the web market by storm. Though Netscape made some notable contributions to the web world, but failed drastically to gain back its market share. However, the situation worsened when AOL, which bought the company in 1998, reduced excess staff working on the browser.

After a fair observation of the market, AOL has decided to shut down any previous Netscape Navigator browser and shift the mass interest to Firefox browser by Mozilla Foundation. From now on, Netscape users will also be encouraged to use Firefox. However, Netscape fans should know that you can avail the browser from the market, but the system will no longer be supported. Hence, the users are urged to use Microsoft or Mozilla Firefox, which are the new hype in the market.