AOL Pulling Plug on Netscape Browser

American Online announced it will no longer support its Netscape Internet browser as of Feb. 1, citing a declining share of the browser market.

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, lead developer for Netscape Tom Drapeau wrote on the Netscape Blog Friday.

Given AOL’s current business focus … we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox, he said.

Firefox leads Web browsers in its tabbed browsing features, integrated news reading and security features, the San Jose Mercury News said in its farewell to Netscape Saturday.

Netscape opened the Web to widespread consumer use in 1994 and paved the way for the Firefox browser.

Windows Internet Explorer, which successfully challenged Netscape, still holds the majority of users with 77 percent of the market, but Firefox continues to gain momentum with just over 16 percent, PC World said Saturday.

Netscape claimed just 0.6 percent of the browser market.