# Netscape Turns 10


By Ben Ramsey

Published on October 14, 2004


Ten years ago, Netscape launched their Navigator Web browser. [c\|net](http://www.cnet.com/) is celebrating with [special coverage](http://web.archive.org/web/20041015035615/http://news.com.com/A+decade+on+the+Web+with+Netscape/2009-1032_3-5406640.html).

I remember my first Web browser, back in 1995, was the Internet Chameleon, which apparently many early <abbr title="Internet Service Providers">ISPs</abbr> distributed to their customers. Chameleon supported standard HTML (back in the day when it was an [infantile 2.0](http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/) that, for the record, I did use to create Web pages); however, it did not support colors or the FONT tag, so for a while I didn't know that pages could have any background color other than the default gray. Soon, though, I found [Netscape Navigator 2.0](http://web.archive.org/web/20041022184933/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease82.html) and began using a nice, colorful and easy-to-use browser.

So, I'm a Netscape user of eight years, now—or, I should say, I'm a [Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/) user. In 2003, [Time Warner](http://www.timewarner.com/) helped launch the [Mozilla Foundation](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/), which continues the development of the browser engine.

I always find it interesting to find old press releases and early Web pages on the Web. It's sort of fun because I can say, "I remember when the page looked like that," or, "I remember when that came out." In keeping with this sense of nostalgia, take a look at the original [Netscape Navigator press release](http://web.archive.org/web/20020614041310/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease1.html) from October 1994, and take a glipse through the eyes of the [Wayback Machine](http://web.archive.org/) at the [Netscape Web site](http://web.archive.org/web/19961020015116/http://www3.netscape.com/) as it appeared in 1996 (the earliest version available).