Browser Wars

1. History of browsers timeline
2. SDI & MDI browser interfaces
3. About that word Mozilla

Most people probably associate Browser Wars with the 1995-2002 period, more or less from when Microsoft noticed the Internet to when the US v. Microsoft antitrust suit was settled. This was also a period of explosive growth in the number of Internet users worldwide. The significant rivalry in this period was Netscape Navigator vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE). The conventional wisdom would be that the browser wars are over.

NCSA¹ Mosaic, released in the public domain in 1993, was the first widely popular Web browser. It was displaced by Netscape (internal code name Mozilla) during 1995/1996. Microsoft introduced the Internet Explorer Web browser in 1995; versions 1 and 2 were not impressive. Integration of versions 4 through 6 of Internet Explorer with the Microsoft Windows operating system, beginning in 1997/1998, resulted in a 1998 federal antitrust suit, among other things, but helped MSIE replace Netscape as the dominant browser by 1999/2000. Enough users have come to the Internet since then that there are probably still many who think MSIE is the only Web browser that exists. Windows XP and IE6 were released in October 2001.

Netscape was acquired by AOL in 1999 and subsequently switched the code base for Navigator to the open-source layout engine Gecko. Continued Gecko-based development in the open-source community eventually resulted in release of the open-source freeware Web browsers Mozilla 1.0 in 2002 and Firefox 1.0 in November 2004. Firefox had frequent incremental releases after that including Firefox 1.5 in November 2005. MSIE 7 was released sometime in October 2006, for WinXP SP2 and later only. Firefox 2.0 was released 24 October 2006. Some say we are now experiencing Browser Wars II, the significant rivalry now being MSIE vs. Firefox.

See also:

Browser wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars

Browser timeline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_timeline

Comparison of web browsers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

About these charts

The Wikipedia article Usage share of browsers gives numeric data on this sequence of events, and includes an area chart of browser usage shares 1994 to present. The first chart you see on this page is my version based on the same numbers. My charts show Netscape plus Mozilla plus Firefox as a single data series labeled Mozilla, to reflect the familial relationship. Wikipedia's chart also breaks out Opera and Safari, and I include them in Other.² The numbers for the second chart are from different data on the same Wikipedia Usage share page, a section with recent quarterly data (formerly monthly) from netapplications.com.

Feb 7 2008: NetApplications data for 4Q07 are available and show continuation of existing trends, although I note that those numbers have been adjusted slightly from 4Q06 on. The next update to this page will reflect the adjusted numbers. The main chart by years in the Wikipedia article has not had 2007 data added yet.

I last updated these charts in October 2007, using the Calc spreadsheet from OpenOffice.org 2.3.

NOTES
1. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2. The Mozilla data set in my charts is dominated by Netscape Classic (4.x and previous) during the original Browser Wars period, and by Mozilla/Firefox since its first release in 2002. The data set labeled Other in the later period is mostly Safari for Mac OS X.

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History of browsers timeline

Timeline sources:
• World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/
• Netscape Version Guide http://sillydog.org/netscape/verinfo.html
• Internet Explorer History http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistoryIE.mspx
• Opera Software http://www.opera.com/
• Opera version history http://www.markschenk.com/opera/history.html
• The Mozilla Organization http://www.mozilla.org/
• US v. Microsoft timeline http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/

NOTES
1. This timeline also lists events in the history of office suites, because the timing is interesting and I think it's relevant.
2. SDI, MDI (1996, 2001 in Opera browser) see next section below.
3. I think the key event in this history is the Microsoft ploy in 1997/98 in which they turned their Internet Explorer Web browser into the fundamental shell interface of the Windows operating system. This move offended a great many people in Silicon Valley, Cambridge Mass, and other places computer geeks were to be found.
4. Dec 2002 date is arbitrary; Internet Explorer usage share is considered to have peaked during 2002-2003.

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SDI & MDI browser interfaces

Web browsers have used three interface styles for displaying more than one Web page at a time:

• SDI: each Web page opens in a separate Web browser application window; used in Microsoft Internet Explorer through version 6. Similar to WordPad, Notepad, and OpenOffice.org modules such as Writer, Calc.
• MDI: used in Opera versions 2 through 6. Similar to Microsoft Office modules such as Word and Excel through Office XP. Web pages open in document windows inside the Web browser application window.
• Tabbed browsing: multiple Web pages all use a single full Web browser application window in turn, selected by tabs on an added toolbar; available along with SDI in Opera 6+, Netscape 7+, Mozilla/Firefox, Safari, Camino, and IE7.

Tabbed browsing is a version of MDI users seem to prefer for the Web over both IE6-style SDI and original Opera-style MDI. This preference is probably a consequence of Web developers' fixation on hard-coding pages 800 and more recently 1024 pixels wide, to try to force users to maximize their browsers. This coding style is based on the theory that it's okay to annoy the customers.

If developers were to return to the Web's original fluid text, and with modern larger displays, I believe SDI is the friendliest style in theory, especially if it's the default behavior of both the Web browser and the user's choice of office suite software. Users could then focus more on documents, local and Internet, rather than being distracted by interface differences between applications they're using.

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About the word Mozilla

The most meaningful use of Mozilla now is in the name of The Mozilla Organization, today's forum for open-source browser development, and in the full names of its products such as Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Suite, and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Mozilla was the original internal codename for Netscape Navigator in 1993/1994, meaning "Mosaic killer." Accordingly, the Netscape browser has always used "Mozilla" as the beginning of its user agent string, which is sent on the network to the Web server when you click a hyperlink, to identify the requesting browser.

Since Netscape Navigator had about an 80% market share when Microsoft Internet Explorer was getting started, IE had to use "Mozilla" in its user agent string in the same way, in order to be treated as a "modern" browser, and IE and Apple's Safari still do that to this day. You may see this user agent string in listings of percent shares of browser hits.

Gecko is the internal codename for the open-source layout engine Netscape switched to in 1999. Gecko is still the core code of Mozilla Firefox, Navigator in Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey, Netscape Navigator 6.0+ from AOL, and Mozilla Camino for Mac OS X.

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