Nostalgia

Netscape Navigator was one of the first WWW browsers I ever used, both on genie junkie's 486DX and my PowerMac 6100. Although I'd played around with BBS's and such during my Apple IIe days, going online and seeing all that HTML goodness was pretty awesome. 'Course, there wasn't much to actually DO, but still, cool stuff. So reading this produced a slight twinge of nostalgia:

AOL has released its last ever update for Netscape Navigator and is encouraging its remaining users to switch to Flock or Firefox.

[. . . ]

"When the Netscape 9.0.0.6 upgrade is accepted and run, the following notice will appear, denoting the end of support date and the recommendations of Flock and Firefox."

Not that I've actually used Navigator in many, many years, nor do I know anyone who does, but I remember the first browser war and Microsoft deeply embedding IE in Windows (thus beginning my dislike for Microsoft; that and IE3 - what a piece of crap that was) well. Navigator lasted way longer than I ever thought it would. Netscape is a great example of how fast the Tech world can change; one minute Navigator has 80%+ market share, the next, BOOM, IE kills 'em. Oh well. At least we got Firefox out of the deal. Hooray Free and Open Source Software, a cross-platform browser, and user-created browser extensions. Talk about making my life better.

Now I wonder whatever became of my first two Apples? Now THAT takes me back. . .