The battle of the browsers - The history and future of the Internet browser

With Internet Explorer 8 is available now, Microsoft can hope to retain dominance over violent open-source rivals such as Mozilla Firefox or the function packed Opera Web browser. Can history give us any idea what the future of Web browsers understandable hold? How did Netscape Navigator assume a dominant market share of 89.36% of all web browsers in 1996 and only 3.76% by mid-1999?

Let us a way to begin long before even the intellectual development of Internet Explorer, then look at his long defeated rival, the current browsers and ends with a prediction of what the future of the browser offers us - and the browser ( s) are still around to offer.

Most people think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web browser, because the golden age of the Internet began. Good for a very long time, it is indeed the most popular browsers, and occasionally almost unrivalled. This was mainly a consequence of this is packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal attempt monopolized by Microsoft. The past few years, however, have announced the arrival of the new, potentially superior browsers. Mozilla Firefox has been particularly successful in chipping away at Explorer dominance. So where did it all begins, and why were always permitted by Microsoft, a wholly dominance?

Origins

The truth is, they never have total dominance, but sometimes they have come very close. Microsoft actually in the browser battle rather late. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited as one of the originators of the Internet browser, when in 1977 he created a program - The TRS-80 - allows surfing between "sites" on hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the foundation of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 have been developed. Unfortunately, they were often constricted by the limitations of the still young Internet is based.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which in 1990 offered users instant notification and access to the online catalogue of more than five thousand libraries around the world - an exciting taste of what the Internet and Web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. With the help of a computer NeXT Cube, Tim Berners-Lee developed a web-browser would change how people used the Internet for ever. He called his browser's World (http://www. Commons, is still probably familiar to Internet users today. It was a browser capable of displaying simple stylesheet, capable of processing and Web sites can download , And open any file type supported by the NeXT Cube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. His name was Mosaic and it was by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could on both Unix, and very importantly, the very popular Microsoft Windows operating system (Incidentally, it could also be used on the Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows could display the graphics / photos on a page, where there were textual content. It is often cited as responsible for triggering the Internet boom because the Internet makes it bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the Web browser cello was the first browser for use on Windows - but it was not graphic and very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The browser war - against Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer

Mosaic decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator browser was created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, a substantial change from previous browsers was that it allows surfers to see parts of a website before the entire website. This meant that people do not have to wait to minutes just to see if the site they were loading it was an actual were after, while also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded will. With Netscape, 1996 nearly 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Comparisons market share of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

.................... Netscape ....... IE
October 1998 .......... 64 %......... 32.2%
April 1998 ............ 70 %......... 22.7%
October 1997 .......... 59.67 %...... 15.13%
April 1997 ............ 81.13 %...... 12.13%
October 1996 .......... 80.45 %...... 12.18%
April 1996 ............ 89.36 %....... 3.76%

In these two years clearly Netscape dominated the Internet browser market, but a new browser called Internet Explorer has been quickly gaining ground.

Microsoft released its own browser (ironically on the basis of the earlier Mosaic browser was created by one of the men now Netscape), clearly concerned about the dominance of Netscape. It was not so much the fear that it would have a market share of 100% of Internet browser to its Windows operating system, but rather a concern that browser would soon be able to all types of programmes. That would mean foregoing the need for a specific operating system or at the most only a very basic one is required. This in turn would mean, Netscape would soon be in a position to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. So in August 1995, Internet Explorer has been published.

By 1999 Internet Explorer had captured a 89.03% market share while Netscape was at 10.47%. How could make Internet Explorer so much ground in just two years? Now this was really on two things. The first and by far the most important was that Microsoft Internet Explorer bundled with every copy of Windows and Windows was used by about 90% of computers with the population, there was clearly a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had a different ACE he kept on Netscape - it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and has been for some time. The only new features it always seemed the introduction were often by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company instead of Netscape users. (This means that functions would help it monopoly on the market). Explorer, on the other hand, received much attention from Microsoft. Regular updates and high usability and a hundred million U.S. dollars investment would be too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 - 2005

Those years were pretty quiet in the Battle of the browser. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war, and that no one could even hope to compete with him. In 2002/2003, he had reached about 95% of market share - about the time of IE 5 / 6 With more than 1000 people working on it, and millions of dollars poured in, only a few people had the resources to compete. Then again, wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and also that all content with Internet Explorer. Or is it? Some people saw error with IE - security issues, incompatibility issues or just bad law. Not only that, it was shoved down peoples throats. There were almost no competition to keep it in line or on their own, as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape has now been supported by AOL. A few years before, just after they had lost the browser war to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape in the public domain. This meant it could develop its own browser with the Netscape skeleton. And the people. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, among others, were born, Netscape's ashes. But the two most popular newcomer called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed at improving the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8th He was later released, such as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version of another open-source browser Firefox. It is an open source of the public were able to contribute to - and an additional what features they need, it is required, programming and the support it deserves. The problems that people saw in Internet Explorer have been rectified by members of the open-sourced Firefox browser community. For example, the many questions of security IE 6 had been almost completely resolved in the first version of Firefox. Microsoft had another battle in their hands.

2005 - present

Firefox, the browser grew and grew in those years. Every year, recording an even larger market share percentage than before. More user-friendly than most of its competitors with high safety standards and probably more intelligent programming helped his popularity. With such a large community programming behind it, updates have always been regular and add-on programs / functions are often released. He is proud of the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have their own browser since mid-1990's - Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. But most Apple users seemed happy with him and a version of which is running on Windows has been released. It has no major competitors on Apple Macs, and as such has been largely from the browser war. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share fell from 90% to around 75% and falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will try to return such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself has only a 0.6% market share in these days.

The future of Web browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is in the nature of the art (if such a term can be used) to replace inferior software in a very short time periods. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition too long. Microsoft has the advantage that the release of the situation IE with any Windows PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. You can compete as they like as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE from the future of Web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, because they are easily the most popular Mac Web browser. His long-term survival is dependent on Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers, which are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may be another candidate, but the public is fickle, and a poor product or, if it is seriously behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see his popularity fast descent into virtual oblivion.

But it seems likely, community driven browsers such as Mozilla and Firefox, the only type of browser, which compete with the rich Internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, it will change any time soon? Now it has already for some online communities. For instance, if you want to buy clothes, you might try an online entry of "world" to create a virtual online go to the shop to shop "with regard to products and try / buy what you see. Some "worlds" allow you to itself just as weight and height and try on clothing such as jeans, to give you an idea of how you would look at this particular point.

If "worlds" like these destroy normal web browser like IE? -- It seems unlikely. Traditional Web browsers have this freedom and ease of access that is difficult to see any other alternative. But they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really knows what the future will bring.