Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory / Ram for your Mac. Top Quality, Competitive Prices, Lifetime Warranty. Expert Support and Video Installation Guidies too! 4.0GB Matched Sets from $87.99, Options up to 32GB. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Welcome to Macintosh

Netscape Is Dead, but Its Children Live On

Bookmark in del.icio.us Suggest to Slashdot

- 2008.01.07

Bong! . . . :-) . . . Welcome to Macintosh!

I'd like to take the time to wish everyone all the best in 2008! May the new year find you in great health and prosperous.

With a new year, we find we must say good-bye to the pioneer of web browsers. Netscape Navigator will take its last breath on February 1st. AOL officially stopped development on December 28 and will support it via updates until February 1st.

This is truly a sad day for the computer industry. (For a complete history of Netscape, see the Wikipedia article on Netscape Navigator.)

For a short time, Netscape was the standard in web browsers. As Netscape was the first commercial browser, it brought to market the things we now take for granted when it comes to browsing the Web.

Alas, its day in the sun was not to last. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which would eventually crush Navigator, came along in 1995 and began to catch up to Navigator with version 3.0 in 1996, the year Netscape's usage share peaked. Netscape was to become just another unfortunate victim of Microsoft's tyranny and wrath.

Apple helped matters along when it replaced Netscape Navigator with Internet Explorer 3.0 as the Mac's default browser in 1997. And once Internet Explorer 5.0 was released in 1999, it was clear Netscape would never regain its former glory.

Netscape user share since 1994

In 1998, Netscape made much of the code open source. This led to a new project by the open source community which was called Mozilla.

AOL bought out Netscape (the company) in late 1998, and that pretty much cemented what would become Netscape's long, slow death. Although AOL did attempt to bring back Navigator this past year, it was a halfhearted effort at best.

This spells the end for the pioneering web browser.

Netscape Navigator's legacy continues to live on in other browsers, most notably Firefox, which is slowly but surely eroding Internet Explorer's dominance.

I'd like to thank Mark Andreessen and the whole team at Netscape for creating Navigator. Thank you for the hard work that pioneered what we now know as web browsing. Internet Explorer may have become the most popular, but we'll never forget who was truly the innovator.

I ask all Low End Mac readers to continue to support Firefox and Camino (which is like Firefox only more Mac-like in it's operation) and any browser that uses the Netscape code. Together, we can all do our part to drive out Internet Explorer the way Microsoft drove out Netscape.

R.I.P. Netscape Navigator: 1994-2008.

Editor's note: Our site logs for December show 35.2% of our visitors use Firefox, 31.3% Safari, 24.2% Internet Explorer, 2.7% Mozilla, 2.0% Opera, 2.0% Camino, 0.5% Netscape, and no other browser breaks the 0.1% mark. 51% of these users were on Macs, 42.9% Windows, and 3.6% Linux. The Mozillas (Firefox, Mozilla, Camino, and Netscape) have made a real dent in IE's user base.

The last major update to Internet Explorer for the Mac came in March 2000, and it is no longer available from Microsoft. The Safari browser replace IE as the Mac's default browser in January 2003 and has been available for Windows XP since June 2007. dk

Recent Welcome to Macintosh articles

IBM Model M: The One True Keyboard, 05.12. Many consider the IBM Model M keyboard the finest computer keyboard ever made. Here's why.
I Still Use My LC, 02.20. An interview with Scott Baret, who has been using the same Macintosh LC since 1991.
Hooked on Classics (Classic Macs, That Is), 02.02. An interview with John Meshelany Jr, who has been hooked on Macs since kindergarten.
25 Years: The Macintosh Legacy, 01.23. On January 24, 1984, the world said hello to a new kind of computer that reshaped the personal computer industry.
More in the Welcome to Macintosh index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

This article copyright ©2008 by Tommy Thomas. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.