RIP Netscape

Netscape Oh, how the mighty have fallen (not even Jason Calacanis could save you).

AOL will keep delivering security patches for the current version of Netscape until Feb. 1, 2008, after which it will no longer provide active support for any version of the software, according to a Friday entry on The Netscape Blog by Tom Drapeau, lead developer for Netscape.com. The Netscape.com Web site will remain as a general-purpose portal. [PC World]

On a more serious note, this is rather sad news. Back in the day, Netscape was the best browser around, and I was a Netscape evangelist from stem to stern (funny how I’ve never really used that idiom before). Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond their control, Netscape lost the “browser wars” and even the AOL buyout didn’t provide them with enough juice to recover. Fortunately, all is not lost, Firefox has picked up the baton that Netscape dropped and we still have a solid alternative to IE (well, more than one actually).

PS Did you know we were on Netscape 9.0?
PPS Who knew Calacanis was the CEO of Mahalo.com?