New From AOL: Netscape Terminator 9

Netscape’s long day’s journey into irrelevance is nearly over. Come March, the storied browser–born in 1994 out of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications’ groundbreaking Mosaic–will be officially pensioned off, a paltry 0.61% share the only testament to its long-faded market dominance.

After extending support for Netscape for an additional month after first declaring it EOL last December, AOL is finally pulling the plug and recommending that users migrate to Firefox or Flock. “AOL’s focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be,” the Netscape team explained. “Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape-branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.”

Netscape users who can’t bear the thought of surfing the Web without that inconic “N” in the upper right hand corner of their browser window can reskin Firefox with a retro Netscape look if they’re of a mind to.