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I remember it was originally paid for (i vaguely remember seeing an ad in a pc mag) but by 1996 I got it for free

I clearly remember it being boxed and on a shelf along side Internet Explorer for like $40 at CompUSA. Nearly an entire isle for browsers.

Yes, that was for people who didn’t know how to connect to Netscape’s official FTP server and download it directly

It was never required to pay for it. As was common with software back then, the free download was a fully featured "evaluation" version denoted by an "N" appended to the version number. That didn't last long though and it just stayed free.

There was a "Gold" version they sold at retail for some time that had a WYSIWYG editor in it, until they made it standard as part of the Communicator suite.