It is common knowledge now that the guy who invented the internet was Tim Berners-Lee, his Worldwide Web used an internet browser called Mosaic. This later was renamed as Netscape and the browser was born.
Midas Worldwide Web - The First Internet Browser?
But for those of us who were on the internet using a 16KB connection may have remembered a browser called the Midas or Midas Worldwide Web. It certainly was rather advanced for its day, as it could easily handle Postscript text even if it was compressed, and viewed web files via a system called UNIX and VMS.
Most early internet users who had some form of the super-slow 16KB connection may remember the operating system Windows 95. But this operating system was in its day, the king of all operating systems, but what few people know is there was another one operating our desktop PCs before that called Windows 3.1 and anyone who remembers that will remember Cello, a browser that was released in June 1993. It also worked fine on rival operating systems like Apple's OS2 and N.T. 3.5.
The Birth of Internet Explorer
By the time we reached late 1995 an explosion in the sales of desktop PCs hit America, Europe and Japan. North American based Microsoft Corporation had Windows 95 established as the operating system of choice installed on our computers and the very first version of perhaps the most famous browser of them all Internet Explorer was released. The web browser has now reached version 10, if running on the new Windows 8 operating system.
Microsoft, Netscape and Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft and Netscape went head to head in battle during the late 1990s and once we moved into the 21st century we began to look at alternatives. It was slow at first but Mozilla Firefox users made up around 4% of all browsers in use during 2001. In 2004 Internet Explorer was still the most popular choice of browser with as many as 92% of all people using the net browsing on Microsoft's IE.
But from 2005 onwards sales of Apple's Mac (which used Safari as a browser) began to take off and even those running Windows XP operating system began to favour another new kid on the block in the form of Google Chrome.
Newer Browsers For Smart Phones
Now with the new revolution of smartphones sitting in our pockets we are suddenly seeing browsers like the Dolphin and many independent ones becoming popular. We now have a choice of internet browsers and are no longer forced to use one that may have a monopoly on us.
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