Editions
Netscape Communicator was available in various editions, such as "Professional" and "Complete". The following components were included in Netscape Communicator (different editions had different components and some components were dropped in later editions):
Features
- Netscape Navigator — Web browser
- Netscape Messenger — e-mail client and (in version 4.5 and above) news client
- Netscape Collabra — news client (merged into Messenger in version 4.5)
- Netscape Address Book — address book
- Netscape Composer — HTML editor
- Netscape Netcaster — push technology client (dropped in version 4.5)
- Netscape Conference — multi-user communication client (dropped in version 4.5)
- Netscape Calendar — enterprise calendar client (dropped in version 4.72 because Netscape's license to use the underlying technology expired)
In 1998, a major update to the program was released as Netscape 4.5. This included many improvements, mostly to the Messenger e-mail client, which now also took on the features of Collabra. However, some of the less popular components, such as Netcaster, were dropped. A feature called "Roaming Profiles" was added in version 4.5 that synchronized a user's bookmarks, address book and preferences with a remote server, so that a user's home and work browsers could have the same bookmarks. By the time version 4.5 was released, Netscape had started the Mozilla open source project and had ceased charging for Communicator.
The term "Navigator" referred to the browser component alone, while "Communicator" referred to the suite as a whole, as established in version 4.0. However, due to user confusion, the names were often used interchangeably. Also, because none of the applications besides Navigator were popular on their own, and because Netscape never produced any other desktop software that approached the popularity of Navigator, people would often refer to both the Communicator suite and the Navigator browser as simply "Netscape". Further complicating the matter was the fact that the command to start Navigator in Unix was "netscape".
In November 2000, Netscape Communicator was superseded by Netscape 6, an almost completely rewritten program based on Mozilla, or what later came to be known as Mozilla Application Suite. However, minor updates to Communicator continued to be issued, culminating in the release of Netscape Communicator 4.8 in August 2002.
The Mozilla Foundation continued to develop the Netscape code base, providing the Mozilla Application Suite as a continuation of Netscape Communicator. The Mozilla Foundation decided in 2006 to discontinue development of the Application Suite. A community-maintained version called SeaMonkey has come to replace the Application Suite.
Read more about this topic: Netscape Communicator
Famous quotes containing the word editions:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)