Version 3.0 of Netscape was the first to face any serious competition in the form of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, but Netscape held off Microsoft's challenge and remained the number one browser for the time. Around the same time, AOL started bundling their software with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. During this period, both the browser and the suite were known as Netscape Navigator. Version 2.0 added a full mail reader called Netscape Mail, thus transforming Netscape from a mere web browser to an Internet suite. Netscape's feature-count and market share continued to grow rapidly after version 1.0 was released. The browser was the most advanced available and was an instant success, becoming market leader while still in beta. The company's name also changed from Mosaic Communications Corporation to Netscape Communications Corporation.

The first version of the browser was released in 1994, known as Mosaic and then Mosaic Netscape until a legal challenge from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (makers of NCSA Mosaic, which many of Netscape's founders had spent time developing) which led to the name change to Netscape Navigator. Netscape Navigator was the name of Netscape's web browser from versions 1.0 through 4.8.

Download netscape