In a move that ends over a decade of web history, AOL has announced that it will discontinue support of all versions of Netscape Navigator browser after February 1, 2008.
AOL which purchased Netscape Communications Corporation in 1999 had over the years reduced work on Netscape Navigator to making skinned versions of Mozilla FireFox which it helped create by converting the Netscape Communicator web suite into open source software and helping to fund the Mozilla Foundation which is the force behind FireFox, Thunderbird, Bugzilla, and other open source applications.
ComputerWorld has a detailed history of Netscape as a standalone company and under AOL.
I remember the long wait between versions 4 and 6 (they was no version 5) and the disappointment when I realized that the new version preformed very poorly and had little to show for the long wait. This was followed by more disappointment when having crushed Netscape, Microsoft basically shutdown any further Internet Explorer development. We need multiple vendors in the web browser market and its fortunate that while it could not effectively use their Netscape codebase, AOL gave it to a group that could.