Netscape Mail & Newsgroups

Last updated

Netscape Mail and Newsgroups
Developer(s) Netscape
Initial release2.0 (September 1995)
Final release 7.2 (August 17, 2004) [±]
Preview release n/a [±]
Written in C, C++
Operating system Cross-platform
Available inEnglish
Type E-mail and news client

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, it was bundled with the web browser. In the 4.x series, it was rewritten as two separate programs known as Netscape Messenger and Netscape Collabra.

Contents

Features

Netscape Mail & Newsgroups features support for relevant protocols such as IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, a built-in Bayesian spam filter, support for multiple accounts, etc. Released in 1995, [1] [2] it was the first mail reader (or Usenet reader) to support native display of HTML messages. [3]

Initially its development was overseen in-house, but following AOL's purchase of Netscape in 1998, its codebase development was handed over to the Mozilla Foundation, originally initiated by Netscape, and therefore became based upon the Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups component of the open-source Mozilla Application Suite. Mozilla ceased development of the suite between 2004 and 2006 in favour of stand-alone applications, and as a consequence Netscape's series of suites were also discontinued. In 2005, Netscape released Netscape Browser 8, based upon Mozilla Firefox, which did not include an email client, therefore the latest version inclusive of a mail client, version 7.2, became unsupported.

The development of Mozilla Mail and Newsgroups has now been continued as SeaMonkey Mail and Newsgroups.

Re-generation

In 2007, after the release of stand-alone browser Netscape Navigator 9, Netscape confirmed that it would once again develop an e-mail client, now named Netscape Messenger 9. The new release was to be based upon Mozilla Mail's successor, Mozilla Thunderbird. [4]

Additionally, after an official poll posted on Netscape's community support board in late 2006, speculation arose of the Netscape 7 series of suites (including the Mail client) being fully supported and updated by Netscape's in-house development team once more, including major bug fixes and security issues. [5] [6] [7]

However, development of Netscape Messenger (and any speculation of an update of Netscape 7) was ended when AOL announced they would end development and support of Netscape Navigator and Netscape Messenger. [8] Support ended on March 1, 2008.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Navigator</span> Web browser by Netscape released in 1994

Netscape Navigator is a discontinued proprietary web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s, but by around 2003 its user base had all but disappeared. This was partly because the Netscape Corporation did not sustain Netscape Navigator's technical innovation in the late 1990s.

Netscape Communications Corporation was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was once dominant but lost to Internet Explorer and other competitors in the so-called first browser war, with its market share falling from more than 90 percent in the mid-1990s to less than one percent in 2006. An early Netscape employee Brendan Eich created the JavaScript programming language, the most widely used language for client-side scripting of web pages and a founding engineer of Netscape Lou Montulli created HTTP cookies. The company also developed SSL which was used for securing online communications before its successor TLS took over.

Gecko is a browser engine developed by Mozilla. It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, and many other projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Communicator</span> Discontinued Internet software suite

Netscape Communicator is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in June 1997. Netscape Communicator addressed the problem of Netscape Navigator 3.x being used as both the name of the suite and the browser contained within it by renaming the suite to Netscape Communicator. It included more groupware features intended to appeal to enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla Thunderbird</span> Free and open-source email client by Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, personal information manager, news client, RSS and chat client that is operated by the Mozilla Foundation's subsidiary MZLA Technologies Corporation. Thunderbird is an independent, community-driven project that is managed and overseen by the Thunderbird Council, which is elected by the Thunderbird Community. The project strategy was originally modeled after that of Mozilla's Firefox web browser and is an interface built on top of that web browser.

An Internet suite is an Internet-related software suite. Internet suites usually include a web browser, e-mail client, download manager, HTML editor, and an IRC client.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape 6</span>

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 Communicator 5 was scrapped. Netscape 6 was the first browser of the Netscape line to be based on another source code: Mozilla Application Suite, an open-source software package from the Mozilla Foundation, which was created by Netscape in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups</span>

Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups was an e-mail and news client that was part of the Mozilla Application Suite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Browser</span> Internet browser

Netscape Browser 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, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SeaMonkey</span> Internet suite with web browser, mail and news client, HTML editor, and IRC client

SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape 7.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape 7</span> Discontinued internet suite

Netscape 7 is a discontinued Internet suite developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the seventh major release of the Netscape series of browsers. It is the successor of Netscape 6, and was developed in-house by AOL. It was released on August 29, 2002 and is based on Mozilla Application Suite 1.0.

The history of the Mozilla Application Suite began with the release of the source code of the Netscape suite as an open source project. Going through years of hard work, Mozilla 1.0 was eventually released on June 5, 2002. Its backend code base, most notably the Gecko layout engine, has become the foundation of a number of applications based on Mozilla, including the Mozilla Foundation's flagship product Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. While the suite is no longer a formal Mozilla product, its development and maintenance is continued as the SeaMonkey community project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla Application Suite</span> Discontinued Internet suite

The Mozilla Application Suite is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It was based on the source code of Netscape Communicator. The development was spearheaded by the Mozilla Organization from 1998 to 2003, and by the Mozilla Foundation from 2003 to 2006.

Cyberjack was a Web browser application created by Delrina in 1995. It was sold as a stand-alone product, and was also bundled as part of Delrina's CommSuite 95 offering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape (web browser)</span> Family of web browsers

The Netscape web browser is the general name for a series of web browsers formerly produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, which eventually became a subsidiary of AOL. The original browser was once the dominant browser in terms of usage share, but as a result of the first browser war, it lost virtually all of its share to Internet Explorer due to Microsoft's anti-competitive bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Navigator 9</span> Last version of the classic web browser, essentially rebranded Firefox

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 outsourced the development of Netscape Browser 8 to Mercurial Communications in 2004, Netscape Navigator 9 marked the first Netscape browser to be produced in-house since the Netscape 7 suite. It also saw the return of the classic Navigator name, which was previously used during Netscape's heyday between versions 1.0 and 4.08 in the 1990s. Netscape Navigator 9 is based on Mozilla Firefox 2.0.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netscape Composer</span> Computer software

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 view and edit HTML code, preview pages in Netscape Navigator, check spelling, publish websites, and supports most major types of formatting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla</span> Free and open-source software community, developer of Firefox and Thunderbird

Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.

References

  1. "Netscape Introduces Netscape Navigator 2.0". Netscape. September 18, 1995. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  2. "Netscape Navigator 2.0 Release Notes: Reading Mail and News". Netscape. September 18, 1995. Archived from the original on July 27, 1997. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  3. Zawinski, Jamie (November 20, 2017). ""HTML email, was that your fault?"". jwz.org blog. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  4. Netscape Mercury/Messenger 9 in progress Archived October 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2007-06-11
  5. Netscape Community Announcement - Netscape 7.2 Archived January 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2007-02-08
  6. Netscape Community poll - Should Netscape continue to update 7.2? Archived January 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2007-02-08
  7. Mozillazine - Netscape 9 announced Retrieved on 2007-02-08
  8. "End of Support for Netscape web browsers - the Netscape Blog". Archived from the original on December 29, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2009.