Netscape 7 is a discontinued

Internet suite An Internet suite is an Internet-related software suite. Internet suites usually include a web browser, e-mail client (often with a news client and address book), download manager, HTML editor, and an Internet Relay Chat, IRC client. The diversit ...

developed by

Netscape Communications Corporation Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

, and was the seventh major release of the

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

series of browsers. It is the successor of

Netscape 6 Netscape 6 is a discontinued Internet suite developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the sixth major release of the Netscape series of browsers. It superseded Netscape Communicator (4.x), as the release of Netscape Communicato ...

, and was developed in-house by AOL. It was released on August 29, 2002 and is based on

Mozilla Application Suite The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite) is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition ...

1.0. The browser in Netscape 7 was originally superseded by

Netscape Browser Netscape Browser (or ''Netscape 8'') is the eighth major release of the Netscape series of web browsers, now all discontinued. It was published by AOL, but developed by Mercurial Communications, and originally released for Windows on May 19, 20 ...

(version 8) in 2005, which like its name suggests was simply a web browser and not a full Internet suite. Netscape 7's Mail & Newsgroups client was succeeded by

Netscape Messenger 9 Netscape Navigator 9 is a discontinued web browser that was produced by the Netscape, Netscape Communications division of parent AOL, first announced on January 23, 2007. It was the ninth major release of the Netscape (web browser), Netscape line ...

in 2007. As of version 7.2, it consisted of the following major components: * a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

* an

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

and

news client A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet distributed throughout newsgroups. Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), to download articles and post new ar ...

, ''

Netscape Mail & Newsgroups Netscape Mail and Newsgroups, commonly known as just Netscape Mail, was an email and news client produced by Netscape Communications Corporation as part of the Netscape series of suites between versions 2.0 to 7.2. In the 2.x and 3.x series, ...

'' * an

address book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone n ...

* a

HTML editor An HTML editor is a program for editing HTML, the markup of a web page. Although the HTML markup in a web page can be controlled with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HT ...

, ''

Netscape Composer Netscape Composer is a WYSIWYG HTML editor initially developed by Netscape Communications Corporation in 1997, and packaged as part of the Netscape Communicator, Netscape 6 and Netscape 7 range of Internet suites. In addition, Composer can also vi ...

'' * an

IRC client Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...

* an

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client, ''

AOL Instant Messenger AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. AIM w ...

'' * Radio@Netscape

History and development

Netscape 7.0 was released in 2002. It was based on a more stable and notably faster

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

1.0 core and bundled with extras like integrated

, integrated ICQ, Radio@Netscape, and new features such as tabbed browsin

The market responded to what was essentially a repackaged version of

(swollen with integrated tools to access proprietary services owned by AOL) by ignoring it (partly because the initial Netscape 7.0 release removed the popup blocker from Mozilla). Competition from mature and competent non-Microsoft alternatives such as the Opera (web browser), Opera browser and the regular Mozilla distribution was a major factor. A point release of version 7.1 (based on Mozilla 1.4) was similarly ignored. AOL announced on July 15, 2003 that it was laying off all its remaining development staff working on the Netscape version of Mozilla. Combined with AOL's

antitrust case In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of mostly federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of businesses to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies. The three main U.S. antitrust statutes are the Sherman ...

court settlement with Microsoft to use Internet Explorer in future versions of the AOL software, this seemed to mark the effective end of development on Netscape Navigator, the open source projects notwithstanding. Many believed that no further versions of the browser would be released and that the Netscape

brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

would live on only as the name of AOL's low-cost

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

internet service. Netscape 7.2 was released on August 17, 2004, though AOL did not restart the Netscape browser division (instead, they developed it in-house). It was very similar to Netscape 7.1 and the only new feature in it was the Netscape Toolbar, which was developed by

mozdev.org mozdev.org was a website that offered free project hosting, and software development tools to the Mozilla community. Site hosted extensions for Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey and stand-alone Mozilla-based applications. It was free to set up a ...

. Though many had believed Netscape 7 would be the last version of Netscape to be released, AOL, in May 2005, released Netscape Browser version 8. It included improved security and the ability to natively use the

Gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos ar ...

layout engine used by Mozilla and its derivatives. It also has Internet Explorer's

Trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other marine ...

as a possible rendering engine to use, which enables the user to switch to its rendering system to display web pages that do not work well with Gecko. This use of the Trident engine allows the use of

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...

controls and brings all ActiveX security problems associated with Internet Explorer.

Netscape 9 Netscape Navigator 9 is a discontinued web browser that was produced by the Netscape Communications division of parent AOL, first announced on January 23, 2007. It was the ninth major release of the Netscape line of browsers. After AOL outsource ...

superseded Netscape 8 in October 2007, but Netscape's browser was discontinued altogether on March 1, 2008.

Release history

* Netscape 7.0 PR1 – Preview Release 1 * Netscape 7.0 – August 29, 2002 (based on Mozilla 1.0.1) * Netscape 7.01 – December 10, 2002 (based on Mozilla 1.0.2) * Netscape 7.02 – February 18, 2003 (based on Mozilla 1.0.2) * Netscape 7.1 – June 30, 2003 (based on Mozilla 1.4) * Netscape 7.2 – August 17, 2004 (based on Mozilla 1.7)

References

{{Timeline of web browsers, 2000s Netscape Discontinued internet suites Gopher clients 2002 software ko:넷스케이프 (웹 브라우저)

History and development

Release history

See also

References