I don't know how many peoples would care about the demise. The dead of the browser isn't widely reported, and that, i think tell something about it current status compare to other browsers. To me it was dead long time ago, what left until now only the once well recognized name "Netscape".
I used Netscape for sometime, until Microsoft IE catched up in term of functionality and performance. And then Firefox when released and gained a lot advantages over IE, i use it ever since, although currently the new IE look good too.