Computer web browser software has substantially changed in the past decade and a half. Throughout the history of web browser software, styles and features have changed, while system requirements have increased. As more capabilities were added to browsers, web site designs became more complex and demanded faster internet connections. Although the majority of internet users once accessed the web through Netscape software, this has shifted in favor of Microsoft and Firefox. Read on to learn more about the history of web browser software...

EARLY HISTORY

Web browser software was created for DOS, Unix, Windows 3.x, and other operating systems during the early 1990s, but was generally complex for users to set up (until a few years later). Although browsers had fewer capabilities and modems with slow (under twenty kbps) maximum connection speeds remained common, most web sites had much less complicated designs than they do at present. According to a page written by Michael Grobe (one of its developers) on the University of Kansas web site, the Lynx text-based browser first appeared in 1992. Lynx browser software continues to be used today, especially on older computers and/or systems with Linux. Wikipedia indicates that a graphical browser called ViolaWWW was introduced in 1991, and versions of the NCSA Mosaic browser (also graphical) for Amiga, Windows 3.0, Unix, and Macintosh were made available in the early '90s.

1994 THROUGH 2004

During the mid- and late-1990s, Netscape Navigator was the most popular web browser, although its popularity has greatly diminished since then. According to wikipedia.org, in 1994 Navigator became able to display segments of web sites as they loaded, rather than only showing them after loading had entirely completed. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, the Microsoft web site indicates that Windows 95 came bundled with Microsoft's web browser; this helped to increase the popularity of Internet Explorer and was eventually to the detriment of its competitors. WebTV, a system which enabled users to access the internet via a compact device connected to a regular television set, became available and was popular for a period of time. Wikipedia.org indicates that the WebTV device and service was first offered in September 1996, but the system was sold to Microsoft and renamed MSN TV in 2001.

RECENT HISTORY

In the past few years, tabbed browsing has been adopted by many browsers, in preference to opening separate browsers for each web site. Opera, IE 7.0, and Firefox now use this format. While Netscape Navigator has largely fallen from popularity, the open-source Firefox browser has been adopted by many users. According to w3schools.com data for December 2007, approximately 56% of internet users have Internet Explorer, while about 36.3% use Firefox. Computer system requirements for IE 7.0 are substantially higher than those of previous versions, leading a significant percentage of users to continue accessing the internet through IE 6.x or 5.x. An announcement recently appeared on the Netscape Blog which stated that support and development of Navigator is to be discontinued in February 2008, and recommended that users switch to using the Firefox browser software.

SOURCES:

1. University of Kansas, http://people.cc.ku.edu/~grobe/early-lynx.html

2. Netscape Blog,

http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/

3. W3Schools, http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

4. Micrsoft Windows History, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistoryIE.mspx

5. Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_TV