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Browser Origins: Netscape Mosaic


Although the Internet has existed in some fashion since the 1960s, it was not until the early 1990s that it became a ubiquitous part of society worldwide. Prior to the 1990s, Internet access was limited mainly to governmental and educational institutions, with few provisions for graphical interface between end-users. With the dawn of user-friendly web browsing technology, however, the Internet would be transformed into a graphical and text resource that has changed the way human beings communicate and access information.

Before web browsers, which are programs that allow people to access the Internet and share information between computer networks, the transfer of data from one computer to another was slow and inefficient. Seeing this problem, the British physicist Tim Berners-Lee began working on a solution and in 1991 completed what most people call the first web browser — WorldWideWeb, which later had its name changed to Nexus. Initially, the use of this browser was limited mainly to the physics community, but as people saw the usefulness of the browser for accessing and sharing data, more and more programmers began developing their own web browsers in order to access the web. Among these early browsers were ViolaWWW and Erwise.

 

The World's First Graphical Web Browser

The year 1993 marked a major breakthrough for Internet use and access with the release of Mosaic, the first web browser that could function on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Mosaic was the product of a group of students from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne. Marc Andreessen was one of the students who developed the Mosaic browser, which was available for free to the public, although most of the people who accessed it at first were associated with the NCSA.

Mosaic was innovative both for its user-friendliness and for the leap in capabilities it provided in web browsing technology. Bookmarks and history files were some of the features of the browser that helped it spread rapidly, and the new browser also had the capacity to access and share sound clips and video files. Word of mouth spread and people everywhere began to see the potential for commerce and research that popular Internet access opened up. Internet Service Providers began selling service to individual customers and an increasing number of people were going online.

 

Marc Andreessen & The Founding Of Netscape

In 1994, Marc Andreessen joined Jim Clark and founded the Mosaic Communications Company, later the Netscape Communications Corporation. With programmers such as Jamie Zawinski on board, the new company began developing a commercial web browser that would become known as Netscape Navigator 1.0. Upon its release on October 12 of that same year, Navigator would reign for a short time as the undisputed king of web browsers, for most people with Internet Service downloaded the browser and used it to access the Internet. Yet in a few short years, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer would take over as the market leader in Internet browsing technology.

As the Navigator browser was being developed, the programmers often talked about defeating Mosaic as the web browser of choice. Jamie Zawinski suggested "Mozilla" as the name for a mascot that was a play on the words Mosaic and Godzilla. Zawinski found this to be the perfect name since Godzilla is known for his appetite, and the Netscape creators wanted to have their product “eat” Mosaic, so Mozilla came to be the early mascot for Netscape. At first the Mozilla mascot was conceived as a purple and green lizard, but later became a red Tyrannosaurus Rex.

 

The Mozilla Firefox Web Browser

After a few years, the Netscape Communications Company would start the Mozilla Foundation to develop new browsing technology. The browser Mozilla Firefox saw release in 2004 and has quickly become a strong competitor with Internet Explorer as an ever-growing number of people adopt wireless Internet service and other ways of going online.

 
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