WebProNews

Nine years and well over $4 billion later, AOL is dumping Netscape. The company announced today it will no longer support the first web browser many of us ever used.

Tom Drapeau, director of AOL/Netscape development made the announcement at the Netscape blog. He writes, "AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be.

"Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."

Mozilla was formed when AOL acquired Netscape in 1999, and provided the open-source technology behind several versions of Netscape browsers. AOL will continue to release security patches for the latest version until February 1, 2008. After that, Netscape will be filed into Internet history.

Though there will be no support, die-hard Netscape fans will still be able to download old versions of the browser and find related information at the UFAQ and the Netscape Archive. Netscape.com will also continue on as "a general use Internet portal."