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Once upon a time, Internet Explorer was the best browser on the fairer platform. Now, that embarrassment has transmogrified into a rich range of choices from Apple, Google, Mozilla and Opera, as well as perhaps a dozen more derivatives from scrappy upstarts. Thereupon, one of the best-loved Mac-only browsers is now living on borrowed time.

Mozilla has announced that it’s ending support for Gecko embedding, which is the basis for Camino, a Mac-only browser based on the Gecko browser engine found in Firefox 3.6.x.

Now, the question of what’s next for the Camino Project comes to mind. Stuart Morgan answers that in a blog post on the group’s website entitled The Future of Camino:

What exactly does this announcement mean for Camino and our users? In the short term, very little. The Camino Project is committed to finishing Camino 2.1, which will bring Camino users the same version of Gecko used in Firefox 3.6. The first beta version of this release will be ready soon, with the stable release following in May. We will also continue to release security and stability updates for Camino as we have always done, for as long as Gecko 1.9.2 is supported.

So, the end is indeed coming, but still some distance off — we can expect an important point release and a few dot-fixes, as well. That sounds like a year or more of continued support for Camino.

And, for what it’s worth, Firefox 3.6.x is also the last PPC-compatible version of the son of Netscape.

Wow, a lot of water’s passed under the bridge. A found farewell…

What’s your take?