January 2, 2008...12:27 pm
Goodbye Netscape
Hurray, Netscape are withdrawing support for their browser from 1st February 2008 and advising people to use Firefox instead. Let’s face it, Netscape was just Firefox in a different jacket so I don’t really see what place it had in the mix of browsers.
Over the past couple years, Netscape hasn’t really been an issue in terms of browser testing. It behaved in the same way as Firefox and therefore didn’t really require any specific testing. I’ve never had a client ask for Netscape testing and now that the makers no longer support the browser I doubt anyone will include it in their suite of tests.
But Netscape’s withdrawal from the browser market does leave one small problem. Netscape 9 was built on Firefox and included automatic updating to patch security issues. Their withdrawal of support means that these security patches will not be delivered automatically via the browser and the longer people choose to continue using Netscape, they risk using an insecure browser.
Hopefully most of Netscape’s users (there aren’t that many) will heed their advice and move over to Firefox or another browser for which they will get regular updates and support to help them stay secure online.
I suspect that 1st February 2008, the day the Netscape withdraw from the fray, will also be the day that Mozilla launch Firefox 3 to the public.
If you want to change to Firefox you can download it here.
You can read the full announcement from AOL at blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers
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