Well, it really comes as no surprise, but Feb. 1, 2008 marks when development of Netscape Navigator ends.

While the Netscape browser (now part of AOL) has pretty much slippped off everyone’s radar over the last few years (down to a market share of 0.6%, if I recall a recent article correctly), this is the browser used by just about everyone first peering into this new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web. Heck, for most folks Netscape was the vehicle for their first trip on the internet.

Microsoft’s IE browser put the brakes on Netscape’s popularity; the acquisition of Netscape by AOL helped this decline. With the rise of the open-source Firefox and the newly resurgent Apple and its Safari browser, Netscape was relegated to the “remember when?” scrapheap.

Still, this is a piece of internet history that’s going away. It won’t be missed, but its legacy shouldn’t be forgotten.

Update: Netscape does have a 0.6% market share.

Update 2 (12/30/2007): – Henry Blodget, who’s usually pretty down to earth on such matters, suggets the Mozilla foundation buy Netscape and rename the browser Netscape Firefox, among other suggestions.

While he’s correct that the Netscape brand has a certain cachet, so does the Chevrolet Corvair, and that’s not coming back.

Blodget’s totally wrong on this one.

The people today who are familiar with Netscape are those pretty much familiar with the whole Netscape story, which includes the browser no longer relevant since version 4.2 or so. And AOL is up to version 9 of the browser.

And if the name is so valuable and a so-called selling point for (in Blodget’s view) a combined Netscape Firefox, how come only 0.6% of browsers in use are Netscape? Doesn’t seem all that valuable, now does it?

A Netscape Firefox browser would be a combination of a once-powerful but long-since-relevant tool with one that is on the ascent, and highly regarded by the geeks that help drive adoption of certain standards (in some cases).

It would hurt both names; let Netscape die in peace.