By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: August 13, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — It has been 15 years since Marc Andreessen developed the Netscape Internet browser that introduced millions of people to the Internet.

Phil McCarten/Reuters

Marc Andreessen is backing a start-up called RockMelt.

Richard Drew/Associated Press

Marc Andreessen in 1996. Netscape was the dominant Web browser until Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer.

After its early success, Netscape was roundly defeated by Microsoft in the so-called browser wars of the 1990s that dominated the Web’s first chapter.
Mr. Andreessen appears to want a rematch. Now a prominent Silicon Valley financier, Mr. Andreessen is backing a start-up called RockMelt, staffed with some of his close associates, that is building a new Internet browser, according to people with knowledge of his investment.

More information at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/technolo...owser.html?_r=1

Why I'm suspicious of the Facebook 'RockMelt' browser

Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 10:13 am

In the 21st century, the main portal to your life besides the front door to your home is the window of your Web browser.

That’s why the competition between Microsoft and Mozilla and Apple and Google (and Opera and…) is so intense and so important. If the Internet has defined how you experience computers and the world, the vehicle in which you do it becomes vitally significant.

On Thursday, Netscape founder and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen declared his backing of startup RockMelt, which is building a new, “different” Internet browser that intends to pair with social networking giant Facebook to extend the “real identity” aspect of that company to Web browsing.

More info at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=22710