# Ie 6.0, Aol 7.0, Ns 6.0 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2002, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353 "2002-06-28T09:33:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jbird3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/aeb1de/32.png) [@jbird3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbird3000)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/1 "2002-06-28T09:33:33Z")
Do Microsoft, AOL, and Netscape have version numbers of their internet browsers close to each other (Internet Explorer 6, AOL 7, Netscape Navigator 6 (i think)) because they think they customers will think a lower number means it’s not as good? Or is it just coincidence? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/2 "2002-06-28T09:49:21Z")
The absence of Netscape 5 has three widely-offered explanations. One is that Netscape were aware of the imminent release of Internet Explorer 6 and for marketing purposes wanted a name for their product that did not imply it was less advanced than the competition. In the interests of fairness, it’s worth noting that Netscape themselves do not offer this explanation, and claim Netscape 5 was the name to be given to an abandoned Mozilla Classic-based browser. An alternative explanation is that Netscape 6 was sufficiently different from the version 4 Netscape software that a ‘big jump’ in version numbers was appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/3 "2002-06-28T09:56:36Z")
No i’ts the just version number Older computer programs used the numbers to diffrentiate how new the program was and they used version 1.0 as the first number Numbers 1.5 1.5.1 2.0 was the version number on the upgrade or new version Like aol 7.0 is the seventh complete version of aol Now say they add stuff but not a whole new version thell call it 7.5 usually ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/4 "2002-06-28T10:04:48Z")
I’d suggest that these days it’s as much marketing as it is genuine version numbering - hence companies like Tiscali now offering the unconvincingly named [Tiscali 10.0](http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/10zero/) service. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/5 "2002-06-28T12:18:01Z")
It’s for marketing reasons. THe same thing happened with word, wordpro (lotus) and wordperfect. One of the 3 jumped several numbers (I think it was wordperfect) to look better against word. ---
**Author:** ![Dilbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58f4c7/32.png) [@Dilbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dilbert)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ie-6-0-aol-7-0-ns-6-0/116353/6 "2002-06-28T13:32:43Z")
Or it’s possible they had a version they didn’t release. Our software jumped from 2.5.0 to 2.9.0 since the interim versions were deemed unreleasable and our build process was in it’s infancy. Seems that software companies such as Netscape could have similar situations. Or it could be marketing… which is probably the truth.