Netscape Returns to Naming Roots: Netscape Navigator v9

Third Eye · 07-06-2007, 05:10 PM

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Today, a little bit of web browser history... It started as NCSA Mosaic, turned itself into Mosaic, then Mosaic Navigator and after some legal fighting, finally settled on Netscape Navigator in 1994 for the 1.0 release. It shifted to Netscape Communicator at version 4.0 with the addition of mail, newsgroups and a WYSIWYG web page editor and enjoyed that name through 1998 an acquisition by AOL, and a cancelation of development (v5.0 never saw the light of day).
In the midst of the 5.0 debacle, the browser resurfaced as the Mozilla web browser, which was mostly rewritten, abandoning now ancient 5.0 code that never saw the light of day. In 2000, AOL took the Mozilla 0.6 code, tossed in AOL Instant Messenger and launched the product as Netscape 6 (dropping any mention of Navigator or Communicator). Netscape 6 though was not ready for prime time when it released and flopped. Netscape 7 (Mozilla 1.0.1) came in 2002. In 2003 AOL shut down the Netscape division, and Mozilla continued on with the Mozilla Foundation. 2005 rolled around and Netscape Browser ( v8 ) was unleashed upon the world, and was a derivative of the Firefox browser.
Early this year, it was announced that the next version (9) would be named "Netscape Navigator", returning to the original name from over a decade ago.
Netscape Navigator -> Netscape Communicator -> Netscape -> Netscape Browser -> Netscape Navigator.
We come full-circle.
If you're still interested in this piece of Internet history, you can check out the first beta version of the newly renamed Netscape Navigator at the link below. 9.0b1 is available for all major operating systems.

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