Netscape Founder Helping to Make New Browser

News
By Marcus Yam
published

New browser might be a social networking tool.

The modern day web experience all started with Netscape 15 years ago. Since then, Netscape has fallen due to Microsoft's aggressive hand with Internet Explorer, but in its place have been alternatives such as Firefox.

Netscape's original father, Marc Andreessen is making another stab that changing the web market again with the secret development of another web browser.

Andreessen is backing a start up company called RockMelt. Little is known about the company and its products at this time, but the New York Times reports that a now-removed privacy policy on the RockMelt webpage indicated that there would be some link to Facebook.

This leads some to believe that the RockMelt browser would tie in closely with social networks.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • grieve
    The more the merrier...

    Never know might turn out OK. I used to love Netscape (A very long time ago)
    Reply
  • hellwig
    When the choice was between IE4 and Netscape, you had to use netscape. I remember my first laptop (Compaq Presario) actualy came with Netscape 4.8 installed, which seemed odd since it already had IE4 too (oh, to be young and naive again).

    It will be interesting to see if this new browser makes it to market, and if it gets the same hype Firefox did. Chrome didn't do so well for Google.
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    It's gonna have to be something amazing for me to even consider ditching Firefox.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    I wouldn't mind more browsers!
    Reply
  • climber
    Well, I still have a functioning Netscape 7.2 working on my laptop, although I use Chrome 2.x for most everything except when I need to use IE because a site requires it. Chrome is so much faster than IE, I never really liked Firefox, even though essentially it grew out of the embers of Netscape.
    Reply
  • WheelsOfConfusion
    Isn't there already a social networking web browser based on Firefox?
    Reply
  • LOL, I remember when monster was known as careerbridge, and it didn't work with Ie3, only NS3
    Reply
  • lifelesspoet
    Anything that helps reduce the market share of IE. Its not that I care what people use as it is their preference, I don't like the idea of using market share as an excuse to blatantly disregard web standards.
    Reply
  • I loved Firefox, until I used Chrome. Chrome smokes all other browsers when it comes to speed--its a perfect example of less is MORE.
    Reply
  • blackbyron
    I'm very impressive on the performance of netscape browser back in 1997 when I was 7 years old. It was great for the Netscape founder to be back.
    Reply