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Netscape Navigator

Summary

Netscape Navigator was the web browser of Netscape Communications, released as Mosaic Netscape 0.9 beta on October 13, 1994 and as Navigator 1.0 on December 15, 1994. Netscape engineers created JavaScript, the HTTP cookie and the SSL encryption protocol that led to TLS, and Navigator 2.0 added frames and plug-ins. America Online bought Netscape in 1999 and ended support for its browsers on March 1, 2008.

Web Building Encyclopedia · Software and platforms · Last reviewed October 22, 2026 · 7 min read

What Netscape Navigator was

Netscape Navigator was the web browser made by Netscape Communications. Marc Andreessen, one of the programmers of NCSA Mosaic, formed the company with Jim Clark, and it was incorporated in Delaware in April 1994.12

Navigator 1.0 shipped on December 15, 1994, for Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh and Unix computers running the X Window System.3 The trial court in the U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft found that it began to enjoy dramatic acceptance by the public as soon as it was released.4

Netscape engineers created several technologies the web still uses: JavaScript, the HTTP cookie, and the SSL encryption protocol that became the basis for TLS, which protects HTTPS connections.567

Navigator lost most of its users to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Its share of the hits recorded by the firm AdKnowledge fell from 77% in January 1997 to 48% in August 1998, and by late 2007 Netscape had 0.6% of browser use by Net Applications’ count.89

The contest with Microsoft and the antitrust case it fed are covered in the entry on the browser wars. This entry follows the product.

From Mosaic Netscape to Navigator 1.0 (1994)

Andreessen left NCSA for California, where he and Jim Clark formed Mosaic Communications.1

The first public release, Mosaic Netscape 0.9 beta, went out on October 13, 1994. Andreessen’s announcement called it a “built-from-scratch Internet navigator” tuned for 14.4 kbps modems, with built-in support for JPEG images.10

The announcement said version 1.0 would be free for personal use over the internet, subject to license terms, and that a commercial version with technical support would follow.10

In November 1994 the company renamed itself Netscape Communications and its browser Netscape, saying it wanted an identity separate from NCSA’s Mosaic. TidBITS reported that NCSA had also raised trademark concerns.11

The 1.0 press release of December 15, 1994, claimed performance up to ten times that of other browsers and promised the same interface and features on all three platforms.3

A commercial license cost $39 per user, including 90 days of support. Students, faculty, staff and nonprofit employees could use it free, as could anyone evaluating it, and copies could be downloaded from Netscape’s FTP server.3

Netscape released Navigator 1.0 together with its Netsite server line. The press release said the Netsite Commerce Server, priced at $5,000, used Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), based on technology from RSA Data Security, to encrypt transactions and verify the server’s identity with Navigator or other browsers that supported SSL.3

New features for web pages (1995 to 1996)

Netscape added features to HTML faster than the standards process moved. Dave Raggett’s history of HTML, published by the W3C, says Netscape began inventing its own tags without first discussing them openly with the web community.1

Tables and backgrounds

The first beta of Navigator 1.1, reviewed by TidBITS in March 1995, displayed tables and custom page backgrounds, based on the HTML 3.0 proposal, which was not yet final.12

Tables later became part of HTML 3.2, which the W3C endorsed in January 1997 after review by its members, including Netscape and Microsoft.1

Navigator 2.0: frames, JavaScript and plug-ins

Netscape announced Navigator 2.0 in September 1995.13 Its frames split the window into independent, scrollable areas, each with its own address.14

Raggett notes that Netscape implemented its frames proposal in Navigator before anyone really had time to comment on it.1 Today’s HTML standard lists frame and frameset as obsolete and tells authors to use the iframe element and CSS, or to generate complete pages on the server.15

Navigator 2.0 also carried a scripting language for page authors. Brendan Eich, who joined Netscape on April 3, 1995, built the first prototype, called Mocha, in May 1995.5

The language first appeared in public as LiveScript in the first Navigator 2.0 beta in September 1995. Netscape and Sun Microsystems announced the name JavaScript on December 4, 1995.5

Plug-ins, small programs that display other kinds of content inside the browser window, were a third addition. Plug-ins for QuickTime movies, Adobe Acrobat documents and Director content were said to be close, and Navigator 2.0 could also run Java applets inside a page.14

The sources differ on when Navigator 2.0 was finished. TidBITS reported the final release in its issue of February 5, 1996, while Eich’s history with Allen Wirfs-Brock dates the production release to March 1996.165

Navigator 3.0

Navigator 3.0 followed in August 1996, carrying version 1.1 of JavaScript.5

Cookies and SSL

Two Netscape technologies worked out of sight, in the exchange between the browser and the server.

Cookies

Lou Montulli, an engineer at Netscape, created the cookie in 1994. It let a website recognize a returning visitor, which made features such as saved shopping carts and automatic log-ins possible.6

Quartz reported that the team rejected the idea of a permanent unique ID for each browser, because that could have allowed tracking across sites.17 Montulli told AFP in 2022: “Cookies were originally designed to provide privacy.”6

Netscape’s preliminary specification, titled “Persistent Client State HTTP Cookies,” had the server send a Set-Cookie header with a name and value, plus an optional expiry date, domain, path and secure flag. The browser stored the cookie and sent it back with later requests that matched.18

A cookie marked secure was to travel only over HTTPS, which the specification described as HTTP over SSL.18

The IETF’s first cookie standard, RFC 2109 of February 1997, was written by David Kristol of Bell Laboratories and Montulli. It calls itself a combination of Kristol’s State-Info proposal and Netscape’s Cookie proposal, and it kept the word cookie because Netscape had used it first.19

Within about two years, Quartz reported, advertisers had found ways to use cookies to track people across sites, and Netscape learned of this in 1996.17

SSL

SSL encrypts the connection between a browser and a server. Netscape’s December 1994 release paired Navigator 1.0 with the SSL-based Netsite Commerce Server.3

Version 3.0 of the protocol, dated November 18, 1996, was written by Freier and Karlton of Netscape Communications with Kocher, an independent consultant.7

The IETF republished it in 2011 for the historical record, calling SSL 3.0 a pioneer in secure communications protocols and the basis for Transport Layer Security (TLS).7

Communicator and Navigator 4 (1997 to 1998)

Navigator 4.0 was sold as part of Netscape Communicator, a suite that also included email and other business software.20 Its first beta came in December 1996, and production releases began in June 1997, carrying version 1.2 of JavaScript.5

Netscape released a stand-alone Navigator 4.0 on August 18, 1997, with the Netcaster news service and HTML email. CNNfn reported that the bundled suite had alienated allies such as IBM, the maker of Lotus Notes.20

Style sheets

Netscape proposed its own way to style pages. Its JavaScript-Based Style Sheets (JSSS) proposal of August 1996, by Lou Montulli, Brendan Eich, Scott Furman, Donna Converse and Troy Chevalier, set styles with JavaScript instead of a new style language.21

Navigator 4 did support CSS, but the W3C’s history of CSS says Netscape translated CSS rules into JavaScript internally, that the implementation was not fully tested, and that many CSS properties could not be used in Navigator 4.22

Netscape and Microsoft also gave up one tag each. Raggett records that BLINK was removed at an HTML Editorial Review Board meeting after Netscape agreed to drop it if Microsoft dropped MARQUEE.1

Free, then open source

On January 22, 1998, Netscape made Navigator and Communicator Standard Edition 4.0 free to all users and announced that it would publish the source code of Communicator 5.0.23

Chief executive Jim Barksdale said: “The time is right for us to take the bold action of making our client free.”23

The first developer release of that code came on March 31, 1998, through mozilla.org, under the Netscape Public License. It covered the next versions of Navigator and the Composer editor for Linux, 32-bit Windows and the Power PC Macintosh.24

In October 1998, mozilla.org began replacing much of that code with a new design built on a layout engine called NGLayout.25 The project’s later history is told in the entries on the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Firefox.

The AOL years and the end (1999 to 2008)

America Online completed its purchase of Netscape on March 17, 1999, under a merger agreement dated November 23, 1998. Each Netscape share became 0.9 of an AOL share.26

Netscape 6, built on the open-source Mozilla browser suite, was released at the Fall Comdex trade show on November 14, 2000.27

It used the Gecko layout engine, the part of a browser that turns HTML and CSS into what appears on screen. Gecko was designed to follow W3C standards strictly and kept a quirks mode for older pages.27

By late 2007 Netscape’s share had fallen to 0.60% of browser use, against 77.4% for Internet Explorer and 16% for Firefox, by Net Applications’ count for the month before AOL’s announcement.9

On December 28, 2007, AOL said it would end development and security updates for Netscape browsers on February 1, 2008, and urged users to switch to Mozilla Firefox.9

Tom Drapeau, director of AOL’s Netscape brand, said “we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape-branded browsers.”9

The last Netscape browser, Netscape Navigator 9, had appeared earlier in 2007.28 In January 2008 AOL extended support by one month, to March 1, 2008.29

Timeline

  1. AOL ends support for Netscape browsers after a one-month extension29
  2. AOL announces the end of Netscape browser development9
  3. Netscape 6, built on Mozilla and the Gecko engine, is released27
  4. America Online completes its acquisition of Netscape26
  5. First developer release of the Communicator source code on mozilla.org24
  6. Netscape makes Navigator free and announces its source code release23
  7. Stand-alone Navigator 4.0 released20
  8. Production releases of Navigator 4.0 in Communicator begin5
  9. Navigator 3.0 released with JavaScript 1.15
  10. Navigator 2.0 final release reported (March 1996 by another account)16
  11. Netscape and Sun announce the name JavaScript5
  12. Navigator 1.1 beta displays tables and page backgrounds12
  13. Netscape Navigator 1.0 ships alongside the SSL-based Netsite Commerce Server3
  14. Mosaic Communications renames itself Netscape Communications11
  15. Mosaic Netscape 0.9 beta released10

What it means for your website

Netscape is gone, but several of its inventions run on almost every small business website. A few checks follow from that.

  • Use HTTPS on every page. Netscape shipped SSL with its first products in 1994, and SSL 3.0 became the basis for today’s TLS.37 As of October 2026, W3Techs found that 90.3% of websites send visitors to HTTPS by default.30 If yours does not, start with our entry on the SSL certificate.
  • Know what your cookies do. Cookies began as a way to recognize returning visitors.6 The EU’s GDPR and ePrivacy Directive and the California Consumer Privacy Act all cover cookies, with requirements such as telling visitors your site uses them and letting them opt out of some or all.31 Our guide to website laws in the U.S. covers the American side.
  • Protect login cookies. A cookie with the Secure attribute is sent only over HTTPS, and one with HttpOnly cannot be read by JavaScript on the page.31 Ask your developer or plugin vendor whether your site sets both.
  • Count your scripts. The language Netscape first released in a 1995 beta was used by 98.9% of websites as of October 22, 2026.532 Every script and plugin you add is code each visitor’s browser must download and run.
  • Retire frames and old markup. The HTML standard lists frame and frameset as obsolete.15 Start every page with <!doctype html>: without a standard doctype, browsers fall back to a quirks mode that imitates Navigator 4 and Internet Explorer 5.33 If a site still relies on frames, our redesign guide helps you decide between repair and rebuild.

See also

References

  1. A history of HTML (chapter 2 of Raggett on HTML 4). W3C. 1998. accessed October 22, 2026.
  2. Netscape Communications Corp., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1997. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). 1998-03. accessed October 22, 2026.
  3. Netscape Communications ships release 1.0 of Netscape Navigator and Netsite servers (press release posted to www-talk by Marc Andreessen). www-talk mailing list archive, University of Calgary. 1994-12-15. accessed October 22, 2026.
  4. United States v. Microsoft, Court's Findings of Fact. U.S. Department of Justice. 1999-11-05. accessed October 22, 2026.
  5. JavaScript: The First 20 Years (Allen Wirfs-Brock and Brendan Eich), Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4, HOPL, Article 77. Association for Computing Machinery. 2020-06. accessed October 22, 2026.
  6. Web Tracking Cookies Meant to Protect Privacy: Inventor (AFP). SecurityWeek. 2022-01-28. accessed October 22, 2026.
  7. RFC 6101: The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Protocol Version 3.0. RFC Editor. 2011-08. accessed October 22, 2026.
  8. United States v. Microsoft, Findings of Fact, section V.H (paragraphs 360 to 377). U.S. Department of Justice. 1999-11-05. accessed October 22, 2026.
  9. R.I.P.: AOL kills Netscape (Gregg Keizer). Computerworld. 2007-12-28. accessed October 22, 2026.
  10. Mosaic Netscape is out the door… (Marc Andreessen, www-talk mailing list). W3C (archived copy of the www-talk list). 1994-10-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  11. Mosaic Name Changes (Adam Engst). TidBITS. 1994-11-28. accessed October 22, 2026.
  12. Revving Your Browsers (Geoff Duncan). TidBITS. 1995-03-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  13. Netscape Announces Navigator 2.0 (Geoff Duncan). TidBITS. 1995-09-25. accessed October 22, 2026.
  14. Latest software from Netscape. Tech Monitor (Computer Business Review). 1995-10-20. accessed October 22, 2026.
  15. HTML Living Standard, section 16: Obsolete features. WHATWG. accessed October 22, 2026.
  16. Netscape 2.0 Released (Geoff Duncan). TidBITS. 1996-02-05. accessed October 22, 2026.
  17. The inventor of the digital cookie has some regrets (Nicolás Rivero). Quartz. 2021-04-25. accessed October 22, 2026.
  18. Persistent Client State: HTTP Cookies (Netscape preliminary specification, copy hosted by the curl project). curl. accessed October 22, 2026.
  19. RFC 2109: HTTP State Management Mechanism (David M. Kristol and Lou Montulli). RFC Editor. 1997-02. accessed October 22, 2026.
  20. Navigator to stand alone. CNNfn. 1997-08-18. accessed October 22, 2026.
  21. JavaScript-Based Style Sheets (JSSS) initial proposal. W3C. 1996-08-22. accessed October 22, 2026.
  22. A brief history of CSS until 2016. W3C. accessed October 22, 2026.
  23. Netscape Announces Plans to Make Next-Generation Communicator Source Code Available Free on the Net (press release, comp.os.os2.announce archive). MIT (Usenet archive). 1998-01-22. accessed October 22, 2026.
  24. Netscape Accelerates Communicator Evolution with First Release of Next-Generation Communicator Source Code (press release). Cover Pages (OASIS). 1998-03-31. accessed October 22, 2026.
  25. history (Mozilla developer day 2001 presentation). Mozilla (www-archive.mozilla.org). 2001. accessed October 22, 2026.
  26. America Online Inc., Form 8-K (completion of the Netscape acquisition). U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). 1999-03. accessed October 22, 2026.
  27. Mozilla Browser Suite (Mike Angelo). Linux Journal. 2000-11-29. accessed October 22, 2026.
  28. Netscape Browser Finally Officially Dead (Sean Michael Kerner). InternetNews. 2007-12-29. accessed October 22, 2026.
  29. Netscape gets last-minute reprieve (Gregg Keizer). Computerworld. 2008-01-31. accessed October 22, 2026.
  30. Usage statistics of Default protocol https for websites, October 2026. W3Techs. 2026-10. accessed October 22, 2026.
  31. Using HTTP cookies. MDN Web Docs. accessed October 22, 2026.
  32. Usage statistics of client-side programming languages for websites (as of October 22, 2026). W3Techs. 2026-10-22. accessed October 22, 2026.
  33. Quirks mode and standards mode. MDN Web Docs. accessed October 22, 2026.

Web Building Encyclopedia. First published October 22, 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026. Every fact on this page is linked to a source we opened. Spotted an error? Write to [email protected].