History of the web browser

For the "history" feature found in most web browsers, see Web browsing history.

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. It further provides for the capture or input of information which may be returned to the presenting system, then stored or processed as necessary. The method of accessing a particular page or content is achieved by entering its address, known as a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI. This may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content.[1] Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources. A web browser can also be defined as an application software or program designed to enable users to access, retrieve and view documents and other resources on the Internet.

Precursors to the web browser emerged in the form of hyperlinked applications during the mid and late 1980s, and following these, Tim Berners-Lee is credited with developing, in 1990, both the first web server, and the first web browser, called WorldWideWeb (no spaces) and later renamed Nexus.[2] Many others were soon developed, with Marc Andreessen's 1993 Mosaic (later Netscape),[3] being particularly easy to use and install, and often credited with sparking the internet boom of the 1990s.[4] Today, the major web browsers are Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Edge.[5]

The explosion in popularity of the Web was triggered in September 1993 by NCSA Mosaic, a graphical browser which eventually ran on several popular office and home computers.[6] This was the first web browser aiming to bring multimedia content to non-technical users, and therefore included images and text on the same page, unlike previous browser designs;[7] its founder, Marc Andreessen, also established the company that in 1994, released Netscape Navigator, which resulted in one of the early browser wars, when it ended up in a competition for dominance (which it lost) with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (for Windows).

  1. ^ "URI/Resource Relationships". World Wide Web Consortium. 15 December 2004. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  2. ^ "Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb, the first Web client". W3.org. Archived from the original on 4 September 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  3. ^ "Frequently asked questions by the Press – Tim BL". W3.org. Archived from the original on 3 October 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  4. ^ "Bloomberg Game Changers: Marc Andreessen". Bloomberg L.P. 17 March 2011. Archived from the original on 16 May 2012. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  5. ^ "Browser". Mashable. Archived from the original on 2 September 2011. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
  6. ^ Vetter, Ronald J. (October 1994). "Mosaic and the World-Wide Web" (PDF). North Dakota State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 August 2014. Retrieved 20 November 2010.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference faq was invoked but never defined (see the help page).