July 15th, 2003: Netscape Corp shuts down

Netscape the company that opened up the internet was put out of its misery

Before Netscape browsing the Internet was kind of difficult and bland, being mostly text based. If you wanted to read a document or see a picture you had to know how to find it, then know how to download it.

In 1993 Mosaic, which became Netscape, made all of this far more user-friendly and became the foundation on which the browser design and technology we use today was built.

By 1996 almost 90% of internet browsing used Netscape Navigator and the company's IPO in 1995 remains the stuff of legends and is credited with launching the Dot.com boom.

But with the money came stiff competition.

By ‘99 Internet Explorer, which had the advantage of shipping with Windows, had become the dominant browser. When the US government’s attempt to break Microsoft up into pieces failed in late 2002 it was clear that it had decisively defeated Netscape and won the Browser War.

In 2003 with the user base gone, AOL Time Warner, which had acquired Netscape in a $10 billion dollar deal just 4 years earlier, finally pulled the plug on the short lived by revolutionary company

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