Netscape Navigator 2

Netscape Navigator 2 is a discontinued proprietary web browser released by Netscape Communications Corporation as its flagship product. Versions were available for Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Linux, IRIX, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, SunOS, JavaOS, and FreeBSD.

The browser introduced and improved a number of features and also added proprietary extensions to the HTML standard. Notably, Netscape 2 was the first browser to support JavaScript and animated GIFs, two technologies still predominant on the web today.

Features

The browser introduced many new or improved features:

• Support for progressive JPEGs (previous versions supported only the baseline format)
• Support for GIF89a (previous versions supported only GIF87a)
• Support for client-side image maps (previous versions supported only server-side image maps)
• Support for plugins (previous versions supported only helper applications)
• Improved bookmark organization
• Added support for FTP uploading
• Added support for LiveScript (now known as JavaScript)
• Added OLE support
• Added support for HTML frames
• Introduced Netscape Mail and Netscape News, an e-mail client and Usenet News reader, respectively

Netscape Now

To promote Netscape Navigator, Netscape developed the "Netscape Now" program. The program promoted the display of the "Netscape Now! 2.0" web badge on websites with newly supported features, including frames, live objects, Java applets, and JavaScript.

Popular plugins

The support for plugins led to the development of a number of popular plugins to extend Navigator's functionality.

• Acrobat Amber - Released in early 1996 by Adobe Systems, it allowed for a pdf to be streamed.
• Lightning Strike - Released by Inifinet, it offered non-standard real-time wavelet compression
• RealAudio Player
• MovieStar - Released by Intelligence at Large, it offered streaming of QuickTime videos (as there wasn't a QuickTime plugin yet)
• Macromedia Shockwave Player
• Netcloak

Easter eggs

Netscape had several easter eggs. Navigator 2 featured verse 12:10 from The Book of Mozilla.

The bottom of "about:authors" read:

All human actions are equivalent ... and ... all are on principle doomed ...

References

Books

• Ernst, Warren (1996). Essential Netscape Navigator 2.0. Sams.net. ISBN 978-1-57521-065-0.
• James, Phil (1996). Official Netscape Navigator 2.0 book : Windows edition : the definitive guide to the world's most popular Internet navigator (1st ed.). Research Triangle Park, NC: Ventana. ISBN 978-1-56604-347-2.
• Hamilton, Dennis; Witherspoon, Craig; Witherspoon, Coletta (1996). 60 minute guide to Netscape 2. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide. ISBN 978-0-7645-3008-1.
• Oliphant, Zan (1996). Programming Netscape plug-ins / Zan Oliphant (1st ed.). Indianapolis, Ind.: Sams Net. ISBN 978-1-57521-098-8.
• Shafer, Dan (1996). JavaScript & Netscape wizardry. Scottsdale, AZ: Coriolis Group Books. ISBN 1-883577-86-1.
• Tauber, Daniel A.; Kienan, Brenda (1996). Surfing the Internet with Netscape Navigator 2 (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Sybex. ISBN 978-0-7821-1872-8.
• Barnett, James (1996). Wickre, Karen (ed.). Guide to Netscape Navigator 2.0. Emeryville, Calif.: Ziff-Davis Press. ISBN 978-1-56276-354-1.

External links

• Netscape Navigator 2.0 in Web Design Museum
• Netscape Navigator 2 Plugins Archived 2012-06-23 at the Wayback Machine
• Netscape Navigator 2 Download Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine

1. Netscape Navigator
2. Netscape Navigator 9
3. Netscape Communicator
4. NPAPI
5. Netscape Mail & Newsgroups
6. Netscape
7. Netscape Browser
8. Netscape (web browser)
9. Same-origin policy
10. Netscape Composer
11. Bug bounty program
12. Proxy auto-config
13. List of web browsers
14. Document Object Model
15. Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol
16. ECMAScript version history
17. GIF
18. Frame (World Wide Web)
19. History of the web browser
20. Computer security