Netscape Communicator
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Template:Infobox Software Netscape Communicator is a proprietary internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation. Initially released in June 1997, Netscape Communicator 4.0 was the successor to Netscape Navigator 3.x and included more groupware features intended to appeal to enterprises.
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):
- Netscape Navigator — Web browser
- Netscape Messenger — email 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 email client, which now also took on the features of Collabra. However, some of the less popular components, such as Netcaster, were dropped. By the time version 4.5 was released, Netscape had started the Mozilla open source project and had ceased charging for Communicator.
Technically, "Navigator" was supposed to refer to the browser component alone, and "Communicator" was supposed to refer the suite as a whole. But 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".
Netscape Communicator was superseded by Netscape 6 in November 2000. However, minor updates to Communicator continued to be issued, culminating in the release of Netscape Communicator 4.8 in August 2002.
See also
- Netscape Navigator
- List of web browsers
- List of email clients
- List of news clients
- List of HTML editors
- Comparison of web browsers
- Comparison of email clients
- Comparison of news clients
- Comparison of HTML editors
External links
- Netscape Communicator 4 (http://wp.netscape.com/browsers/4/)
- SillyDog701's Netscape Version Guide and Timeline (http://sillydog.org/netscape/verinfo.html)
- SillyDog701: What happened to Netscape Calendar? (http://sillydog.org/netscape/kb/calendar.html)de:Netscape Communicator