IIRC, Netscape 4.* series was the last in the proprietary line of Netscape Navigators (though 4.* had a broader name like "Communicator" or something, since it

IIRC, Netscape 4.* series was the last in the proprietary line of Netscape Navigators (though 4.* had a broader name like "Communicator" or something, since it included more than just the browser — but "3.0 Gold" was the one I remember most fondly as my first true good browser). After that, open source efforts to rebuild the entire browser and mail client took years as XUL and Gecko were being built as very generic reusable components, opening up the space for competition to spring up. On top of that, Microsoft leveraged the Windows moat, including IE 3.0 and later 4.0 as the basis of Windows "97" (95 something-something) and 98, along with ActiveX push. By the time legal systems caught up with the practice of bundling a browser into a dominant OS, Netscape and Mozilla were toast. Everything from there on was an uphill battle, and when KHTML was turned into WebKit by Apple, and adopted by Google for Chrome, there was also an open source engine (or two) supported by infinite money. That's at least how I remember it, but you are welcome to fact-check me on any of those since this is now 20-30 years ago.