Is Netscape Discontinued? What Happened?

Netscape didn't invent the internet. But it did something just as important. It made the internet feel like a real place — a place worth visiting, exploring, and getting excited about.

The company started on April 4, 1994 as Mosaic Communications Corporation. Jim Clark, a Silicon Valley veteran, teamed up with Marc Andreessen, a fresh 22-year-old right out of the University of Illinois. Andreessen had helped build the NCSA Mosaic browser. Clark wanted to build something big with him. Their first idea was a gaming network for the Nintendo 64. When Nintendo said no, they built a browser instead.

The company changed its name to Netscape Communications in November 1994. By then, its first browser — Mosaic Netscape 0.9 — had already taken over the market. It grabbed three‑quarters of all browser use in just four months. The final name became Netscape Navigator. It was fast. It was stable. It showed images right on the page. And it worked on Windows, Mac, and Unix. For many people, Navigator was the first time the web felt easy.

The company's IPO in August 1995 became legendary. Netscape had never made a profit, but demand was so high that trading was delayed for hours. The stock opened at $71 and closed at $58.25, giving the company a value of about $2.9 billion. To this day, people still call industry‑defining IPOs "Netscape moments."

By 1996, Navigator held about 80% of the browser market. Netscape was everywhere. Andreessen even appeared barefoot on the cover of Time magazine, sitting on a throne.

But elsewhere, Microsoft noticed. It launched Internet Explorer in 1995 and bundled it for free with Windows. Netscape charged for Navigator until 1998. The bundling crushed Netscape's market share. By the time AOL bought the company in 1999, Navigator had fallen below 50%. By 2002, it was under 10%.

AOL kept the brand alive for a few years, but on March 1, 2008, it ended all support and told users to switch to Firefox.

Netscape's legacy still lives on, thanks to a move in 1998. The company open-sourced its browser code to create the Mozilla project. That work led to Firefox, which helped restart real browser competition. Netscape engineers also created JavaScript, SSL, and cookies — tools that still run the modern web.

Netscape lost the browser war. But the web we use today was built on what Netscape left behind.