Today I finally stopped using Netscape. It didn’t come easy. Netscape was my first Internet love – a little window to the world, right on my desktop. And for free!
My Netscape loyalty stretches back to when there were only a handful of websites in the world. Okay, maybe not that far, but close. Mosaic was first, then came Netscape.
It was one of the few browsers to cover all the platforms I did. I could always find the stylized “N” on the desktop of whatever computer platform I chose.
But times have changed, and Netscape hasn’t kept pace. After years of neglect from Netscape itself, and then from AOL, it’s beginning to show its age. It frequently crashes on me. At least once a day.
So, I officially retired the Big N today. It’s been fun.
You might want to know, however, what I’m using to post this message. It’s Mozilla, the son of Netscape. You might remember that Mozilla was released as Open Source to much fanfare, only to see it’s development fizzle. Well, that was then, this is now. Unenumbered by pesky MBA’s pushing for impossible release dates, Mozilla has moved at its own pace.
And it’s beginning to pay off. Mozilla is closing in on it’s first official release. While it hasn’t been the smoothest sailing, at least with public expectations being so high, it has been a course of steady improvement.
I am now completely comfortable using Mozilla day to day. And I marvel how this open source project has quietly become the state of the art in web browsing.
Mozilla is a lesson in doing it right, without worrying about deadlines. It has aged like fine wine – slowly, but with exceptional taste.