I just read on Boing Boing that Netscape Navigator will no longer be supported by AOL after February 2008. There was a time that Netscape actually charged money for their software, and thought they could make a viable business on it. I know, because I was one of the rare individuals who actually shelled out money to buy Netscape. But alas, as we know now, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer eventually took over the world and Netscape crashed.
Nowadays, I use Firefox, which I guess in a way is the descendant of Netscape Navigator. But I don’t know if the $49 I paid for Netscape Communicator helped fund what would become the open source Mozilla and later Firefox. Netscape Communicator, for those who don’t know, was the “total package” version of Netscape’s consumer software that included Netscape Navigator (the web browser), Netscape Composer (the HTML editor), and Netscape Messenger (the email and news client), plus some other stuff I never used. What a deal for less than fifty bucks! 🙂
To help honor the passing of Netscape Navigator, I decided to upload my email receipt for Netscape Communicator. In the summer of 1997, it was the hottest thing around. Check it out.