The great browser war

IN the vast realms of this new world called the Internet, the next interesting thing, the next vital information or the next relevant search is only a click away. Click an icon and off you go surfing the worldwide web.

Before we go hopping off, let us pay a bit of credit where it is due - the web browsers.

Without the web browsers, the Internet would be nothing but a great jumble of electronic signals. The web browsers enable us to hop from one site to the other, view graphics and make possible just about everything that you see on the screen. Simply put, the browsers translate Greek or Latin into something we understand.

Where did it all begin? Do we know that a full-scale war has been on over browser dominance? A war it has indeed been between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Communication's Netscape Navigator. Now, the war is still on, albeit in a much lesser intensity.

Nowadays if you go about asking what browser one uses, especially in our country where 95 per cent of the computer users use one version or another of Microsoft's Windows operating systems, the (only) answer is Internet Explorer. Frankly, it is a wonder that some of us have heard of Netscape. It was different even a few days back, when this 'computer technology' had first started emerging in Bangladesh. 'Advanced' nations of the world back then were in a dilemma -- Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Let us see how it all began. The first web browser was written by Tim Berners-Lee when he was at CERN (a European centre for physics research). However, the first web browser to capture the public interest was Mosaic, which was written by Marc Andreessen and other undergraduate students at the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the United States.

Andreessen was a student of the University of Illinois when he started working and was a leader of a software project called Mosaic. Soon Mosaic began to make splashes outside the academic circle and in mid-1994. Andreessen had just graduated then and together with Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark founded Mosaic Communications.

The University of Illinois almost immediately sued. The company announced settlement of the suit at the Comdex conference in the fall of 1994. As part of the settlement, Anderseen and Clark agreed to rename their company Netscape Communications.

Netscape quickly became a success, and the overwhelming market share it soon had was due to many factors, not the least of which was its break-neck pace of software releases. It also created, innovated and enhanced at an incredible pace. In the form of "extensions" to the language, new HTML capabilities were introduced. Since these capabilities were often more eye-catching than what other run-of-the-mill browsers could produce, Netscape's browser established its dominance.

In 1995, Netscape had the third largest ever Initial Product Offering (IPO) on the NASDAQ stock exchange. By the summer of 1995, it was a good bet that if you were browsing the Internet, you were doing so with a Netscape browser. Netscape had as much as an 80 per cent-plus market share.

In the meantime, Microsoft Corporation quickly began to see the potential on the Internet.

In August 1995, it launched Windows 95 and also a web browser of its own -- Internet Explorer. Microsoft had begun its challenge against Netscape.

The original Internet Explorer 1.0 browser code was licensed from Spyglass, a commercial arm for the NCSA Mosaic browser work. But the Microsoft team quickly modified the original codebase. The first two product cycles occurred within a very short span of time, and allowed the browser to gain a little bit of ground against its main rival Netscape.

But Internet Explorer had an advantage that Netscape Navigator did not. Internet Explorer was bundled free of charge with Microsoft's already popular Windows 95 as opposed to Netscape Navigator that people had to pay for. In spite of that war raged on and Internet Explorer had to put up quite a struggle.

The infamous browser war and the race really began in earnest when Netscape Navigator launched its 2.0 version, which introduced more wonderful features like Java script, frames and plug-in technology. The 2.0 boosted Netscape Navigator forward in spite of its price tags. It seemed like Internet Explorer would forever have to play second to Netscape's dominant position.

Mid-1995 to late-1996 was a very busy time for both the browsers. It seemed almost every week one or the other was releasing a new beta or final version. By the time Internet Explorer 3.0 was released, it was much closer to Netscape Navigator in its features.

However, it was not until the companies released their fourth generation browsers that a decided turning point took place in the so-called "war." Internet Explorer 4.0 was a great leap ahead of its previous versions. Technologically Internet Explorer caught up to its rivals. It gradually gained market share grounds and Netscape Navigator's decreased from its high percentages.

For quite some time after the release of Internet Explorer 4.0, Netscape did not release a major new version of its browser. By this time, Internet Explorer had gained dominance in the market and commanded 60 per cent of the shares against Netscape's 30 per cent.

In January 1998, and a bit too late, Netscape announced that their browser would thereafter be free and that the development of the browser would move to an open-source process. In November 1998, AOL bought over Netscape and it ceased to exist as an independent company.

Netscape released its 6.0 version in 2000 but it was not well received. It is regarded by some as the greatest mistake in Netscape history. However, its latest version 7.0 released in August 2002 was better accepted. However, in December the same year, major layoffs at the Netscape headquarters took place. From the approximately 75 programmers working on Netscape browser only six were left to directly work on Netscape. The rest was either fired or relocated with AOL to work on other things.

Many believe that only one company can save Netscape. And that ironically is its parent company AOL. Roughly one-third of all net users pass through AOL. If the online giant were to make Netscape Navigator its official browser, it would create huge momentum.

Unfortunately, AOL chooses not to and Netscape Navigator continues to fade away.