Netscape.gifWe all knew it would happen as soon as Microsoft made a deal with AOL and as part of the deal was that AOL would purchase the Netscape browser and cancel all future versions. That was a couple years ago. It seemed pretty obvious to most they would eventually just stop[ development and stop offering Netscape as a download.

Well they finally announced they are doing just that.

Tom Drapeau, AOL’s director of the Netscape brand, announced in a blog post Friday that AOL will cease development on all Netscape web browsers on February 1, 2008. The company will continue to support the current version of the browser, Netscape 9, by releasing patches or security fixes until that date. After February 1, all development will stop.

Drapeau recommends that anyone running a Netscape-branded browser make the switch to Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser upon which the last few versions of Netscape have been based.

read reference news story