Let’s have a moment of silence, please, for the demise of Netscape Navigator.

The first browser I ever used. Sob. I’ll miss … actually, no, I won’t really miss it.

It birthed the web as we know it. But February 1 marks the demise of Netscape Navigator, the first commercial web browser.

Navigator will continue to function should you happen to have a recent copy stashed away. But America Online, which has been Netscape’s guardian during its long, downward slide in popularity, will no longer support the browser and will stop releasing updates. Support for all versions of the software will be off-loaded to the Netscape community forum. netscape.com will continue to live on as a web portal.

How did it come to this? In two words, Internet Explorer.

Curse you, IE.