What was the First Internet Browser?

It’s generally agreed that the first Web browser was NCSA Mosaic. Other sources state that the Tim Berners-Lee browser, called WorldWideWeb in 1991, was the first. Both answers are correct, though some details have to be understood to see the difference between the two.

But first, what is NCSA? What is a browser? What is the Web, really?

NCSA stands for National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This center is on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. NCSA was established in 1986 as part of the supercomputers program under the National Science Foundation banner.

We know what a Web browser does for us today. This software allows us to find and display information from the World Wide Web, the massive collection of information that is stored on computers around the world. The sources are found using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) or Uniform Resource Locators (URL). In some cases, browsers can also retrieve information from other networks, including private filing systems (if the password or key is available).

Berners-Lee helped bring together the technology that allowed information to be sought and retrieved across long distances. The NCSA browser, Mosaic (1993) is recognized as the first of the graphical browsers. Prior to this, information was presented in text form, useful but a bit raw. Netscape came along in the mid-1990s and was used as a Web browser by almost everyone who had a computer.

Mosaic was the first browser that was used on a large scale and this foundation led to the commercial version called Netscape Navigator. Eventually Microsoft’s Internet Explorer raced to the front (1999), primarily because the company’s software and operating systems were used by such a large number of people. Some people use a later version of the Mozilla browser, which first appeared as an open-source program in 2002. Firefox joined the fray a couple of years later thanks to its status as open-source software.

Most encyclopedia information and technology histories credit Berners-Lee with creating the software and writing the code for the first browser. Like the original Internet, his browser was first used within a limited circle of government, science and military personnel. This basic browser was modified and improved in “C” programming language.

Other browsers were developed before NCSA’s Mosaic, though they didn’t find the widespread, commercial success that Mosaic did. These early versions included Erwise, ViolaWWW, Midas and Samba. Some were for UNIX and others were for Macintosh use. What made Mosaic successful was video capability. Add to this its sound capability and support for bookmarking pages and its use was ensured. The association of Mosaic with the university ended when the software rights were sold to Spyglass Inc.

So the answer to the question posed in the title is a little more complex than just stating “Mosaic.” But this particular browser made use of the World Wide Web popular, almost beyond imagination. However, there were individuals who took the early Mosaic capabilities and enhanced them to the point that a person sitting at a small home computer has access to a world of information, literally.

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