Netscape gets brief stay of execution

The Netscape browser has been granted one more month of support by AOL just days before it was due to be killed off.

Netscape director Tom Drapeau said in a blog posting that AOL would extend official support of the browser to 1 March. AOL had originally designated 1 February as the last day.

Drapeau did not provide reasons for the decision, but said that Netscape will continue to work with Mozilla and Flock during February to migrate remaining Netscape users to the alternative browsers, which share a common code base.

AOL plans to issue one final update for Netscape which will help users migrate to either Flock or Firefox.

The success of the browsers spawned from open sourced Netscape code was a major factor in AOL's decision to shut the operation down.

When Firefox emerged as the major competitor to Internet Explorer, the company saw little need to push its own alternative to the Microsoft browser.

AOL's business plan has also made the Netscape operation impractical. The one-time ISP king has remodelled itself as a web-based business supported by advertising revenue, leaving little room for a browser operation.