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© History Oasis
Discontinued: 2008
Netscape Navigator brought the Internet to the masses in 1994. This browser introduced millions to the web. Pages loaded while you read them instead of forcing you to wait. Netscape’s team built JavaScript, the language that powers modern websites.
By 1996, Navigator owned 75% of all web browsing.
Then Microsoft struck back. They bundled Internet Explorer with Windows for free. AOL bought the dying Netscape in 1998, but the damage was done. The first browser war ended with Netscape’s defeat.
Discontinued: 2020
Flash Player ran the interactive web for twenty years. YouTube’s early videos needed Flash. Games lived in Flash. Animated websites danced with Flash.
The software started as FutureSplash Player in 1996. Back then, dial-up Internet crawled. Flash compressed rich content into tiny files. Websites couldn’t do multimedia without it.
But then Steve Jobs killed Flash in 2010. He banned it from iPhones. He called it buggy and power-hungry. Adobe saw the writing on the wall. In 2017, they announced Flash would die in three years. Web standards like HTML5 had caught up.
Discontinued: 2017
AOL’s Instant Messenger taught America to chat online. Starting in 1997, the service exploded to 36 million users by 2001. Text messages cost money then. AIM was free.
The software created digital culture. Buddy lists tracked who was online. Away messages became mini status updates. The yellow Running Man mascot bounced across millions of screens.
But then Facebook Messenger was launched. WhatsApp followed. Texting became unlimited. AIM couldn’t compete with apps that lived in your pocket. After twenty years, AOL pulled the plug.
Discontinued: 2013
Winamp owned computer music during the MP3 revolution. College students Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev built the player in 1997. Users skinned it, visualized it, and made it dance to their music.
Then Napster exploded in popularity. Everyone needed an MP3 player. Winamp peaked at 60 million users in 2001. AOL bought the company for $80 million but never understood what made it special.
Apple changed everything. iTunes connected to iPods. Music synced automatically. Winamp stayed stuck in the past. Only used on the desktop while music went mobile.
Discontinued: 2022
Internet Explorer crushed Netscape, then ruled the web for a decade. Microsoft bundled IE with Windows starting in 1995. By 2003, IE controlled 95% of web browsing.
Victory bred laziness. IE stopped improving. Security holes opened. Web standards broke. Developers cursed at IE’s quirks.
But then Firefox appeared in 2004. Chrome launched in 2008. Both browsers left IE in the dust.
Microsoft finally admitted defeat. They built Edge to replace IE in 2015, then killed the brand entirely in 2022.
Discontinued: 2007
Clippy tried to make Microsoft Office friendly in 1997. The animated paperclip popped up with helpful suggestions. “It looks like you’re writing a letter. Want help?”
People hated Clippy. The assistant interrupted constantly. Its suggestions missed the mark. Clippy became an internet joke, the symbol of annoying software.
Microsoft quietly retired Clippy in Office 2007.
The character lives on in memes about bad AI assistants.
Discontinued: 2013
Windows Live Messenger battled AIM outside America. The service connected to Xbox Live and other Microsoft products. Voice chat, file sharing, and video calls came built in.
Facebook chat killed standalone messengers. Smartphones put WhatsApp in everyone’s pocket.
Microsoft later bought Skype and had too many chat services. They merged Live Messenger into Skype, then shut it down.
Discontinued: 2009
Encarta brought encyclopedias to computers in 1993. The CD-ROM held thousands of articles, pictures, and videos. Families who couldn’t afford Britannica could afford Encarta.
Wikipedia destroyed paid encyclopedias. Free articles, updated constantly, written by volunteers.
Encarta’s professional editors couldn’t compete with the Internet’s collective knowledge.
Discontinued: 2006
FrontPage let anyone build websites in 1995. Point, click, drag. No coding required. The software generated HTML automatically.
But professional developers despised FrontPage. It created bloated code that broke on different browsers. As web standards improved, FrontPage looked primitive.
Microsoft replaced it with better tools.
Discontinued: 2001
Napster changed music forever in just two years. College student Shawn Fanning launched the service in 1999. It allowed users to share MP3 files directly with each other.
Record labels panicked.
The Recording Industry Association sued Napster into extinction in 2001. But the damage was done. Napster proved people wanted digital music.
iTunes and Spotify followed to fill the gap.
Discontinued: 2018
Yahoo Messenger competed with AIM and MSN in the early 2000s. Chat rooms, voice messages, and file sharing attracted loyal users.
The service thrived in Asia.
Facebook integrated messaging into social networking. Mobile apps made standalone chat programs obsolete. Yahoo’s corporate decline sealed Messenger’s fate.
Verizon killed the service in 2018.
Discontinued: 2010
Microsoft Works gave families cheap office software starting in 1987. Basic word processing, spreadsheets, and databases came pre-installed on budget PCs.
Computer prices dropped. Microsoft Office became affordable. The line between home and professional users disappeared. Most people either needed full Office or could use free web apps.
Works died quietly in 2010.
Discontinued: 2019
Google+ was Google's desperate attempt to dethrone Facebook. Launched in 2011, the platform introduced "Circles" to organize friends differently. Google integrated it with Gmail and YouTube, forcing users to create accounts.
CEO Larry Page tied every employee's bonus to Google+'s success. Google wanted to win social media at any cost. The company claimed 90 million signups within months.
The numbers lied. People signed up but never returned. Google+ became a digital ghost town. Two massive data breaches in 2018 exposed millions of users' private information. Google used the security crisis as cover to kill the failed project early.
The Google discontinuation and failure cost billions and left Facebook unchallenged in social networking.
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