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It would be the dominant browser for the next fourteen years.
It would be the dominant browser for the next fourteen years.


==Web governance==
== W3C ==
{{Main|World Wide Web Consortium}}
In May 1994, the [[World Wide Web Conference 1|first International WWW Conference]], organized by Robert Cailliau,<ref name="cailliau-role">{{cite web|title=Frequently asked questions - Robert Cailliau's role|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#Cailliau|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=22 July 2010|author=Tim Berners-Lee|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=A Short History of the Web: Text of a speech delivered at the launching of the European branch of the W3 Consortium|url=http://www.netvalley.com/archives/mirrors/robert_cailliau_speech.htm|publisher=Net Valley|access-date=21 July 2010|author=Robert Cailliau|author-link=Robert Cailliau|date=November 2, 1995}}</ref> was held at CERN;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iw3c2.org/conferences|title=IW3C2 - Past and Future Conferences|date=2010-05-02|publisher=International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee|access-date=16 May 2010}}</ref> the conference has been held every year since. In April 1993, CERN had agreed that anyone could use the Web protocol and code royalty-free; this was in part a reaction to the concern caused by the [[University of Minnesota]]'s announcement that it would begin charging license fees for its implementation of the [[Gopher (protocol)|Gopher protocol]].


In 1994, Tim Berners-Lee left CERN and founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at [[MIT]]'s [[MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory|LCS]] in order to promote standards that the Web should adhere to.
In September 1994, Berners-Lee founded the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C) at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] with support from the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (DARPA) and the [[European Commission]]. It comprised various companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee made the Web available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The W3C decided that its standards must be based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily adopted by anyone.
<ref>{{cite news |title=LCS announces Web industry consortium |url=https://news.mit.edu/1994/lcs-1019 |access-date=15 February 2022 |publisher=MIT News |date=19 October 1994}}</ref>

Unfortunately, Netscape and Microsoft, in the middle of a [[Browser wars|browser war]], ignored the W3C and added elements to HTML ad-hoc (e.g., [[Blink element|blink]] and [[Marquee element|marquee]]).

At some point in 1995, developers came to their senses and agreed to abide by a standard for HTML by the W3C.
<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=The HTML Tags Everybody Hated |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/blink-marquis-tag/ |website=The History of the Web |publisher=Jay Hoffman |access-date=15 February 2022}}</ref>

In 1997, the W3C published the standard for [[HTML#HTML_4|HTML 4]] which included [[CSS|Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)]] giving designers more control over the appearance of web pages without the need for additional HTML tags.


==2005–present: Ubiquity and Web 2.0==
==2005–present: Ubiquity and Web 2.0==

Revision as of 14:55, 15 February 2022

"Web history" redirects here. For the feature of web browsers, see Web browsing history.
World Wide Web
InventorTim Berners-Lee[1][2]
Inception12 March 1989; 35 years ago (1989-03-12)
AvailableWorldwide
History of computing
Hardware
Software
Computer science
Modern concepts
By country
Timeline of computing
Glossary of computer science

The World Wide Web ("WWW" or "The Web") is a global information medium which users can access via computers connected to the Internet. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as email and Usenet also do. The history of the Internet dates back significantly further than that of the World Wide Web.

CERN

Main article: WorldWideWeb

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee developed a system for managing documentation at CERN utilizing the Internet and a new version of hypertext that he named HTML. [3] He designed a protocol (HTTP) and developed a browser (WorldWideWeb), a web server (CERN httpd), and a website (http://info.cern.ch/).

WorldWideWeb only ran on NeXTSTEP, however. Nicola Pellow wrote the Line Mode Browser which could run on most other platforms.

While the Web was successful at CERN, it struggled to gain acceptance elsewhere. In two years, there were only 50 websites in the world.[4]

In 1991, the University of Minnesota released a document browsing system for the Internet called Gopher. In less than a year, there were hundreds of Gopher servers.[5] The consensus was that this would be the primary way that folks would interact with the Internet. However, in 1993, the University of Minnesota declared that Gopher was proprietary and would have to be licensed[5]. In response, CERN put their code into the public domain which spurred the development of various browsers.[6]

NCSA

Main article: Mosaic (web browser)

NCSA used CERN's code to develop Mosaic, a browser that could display HTML pages with inline images, for Windows, Macintosh and X-Windows [7] and HTTPd, a web server that used Common Gateway Interface to process client requests and Server Side Includes for dynamic content. Both client and server were free to use with no restrictions.[8]

Mosaic was an immediate hit. Within a year, Web traffic surpassed Gopher's. [5] Wired declared that Mosaic made existing online services obsolete. [9]

Netscape

Main article: Netscape

In 1994, Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded Netscape and released Navigator, a browser that soon became the dominant web client. They also released the Netsite Commerce web server which could handle SSL requests thus jumpstarting e-commerce on the Web. [10] SSL became the standard method to encrypt web traffic. Navigator 1.0 also introduced cookies, but Netscape did not publicize this feature.

In 1995, Netscape released Netscape Navigator 2 which made Java and Javascript mainstream programming languages.

Netscape had a very successful IPO valuing the company at $2.9 billion despite the lack of profits and triggering the dot-com bubble.[11] Over the next 5 years, over a trillion dollars was raised to fund thousands of startups consisting of little more than a website.

In spite of their early success, Netscape was unable to fend off Microsoft. [12] AOL bought Netscape in 1998 [13] and then disbanded it in 2003. [14]

Microsoft

Main article: Internet Explorer

In 1995, Bill Gates outlined Microsoft's strategy to dominate the Internet in his Tidal Wave memo. [15] Microsoft licensed Mosaic from Spyglass and released Internet Explorer 1.0 in 1995 and IE2 later that year. IE2 added features pioneered at Netscape such as cookies, SSL, and Javascript. It was the start of a browser war between Microsoft and Netscape.

IE3, released in 1996, added support for Java applets, ActiveX, and CSS. At this point, Microsoft began bundling IE with Windows. IE3 managed to increase Microsoft's share of the browser market from under 10% to over 20% in 1997.

IE4, released in 1997, introduced Dynamic HTML setting the stage for the Web 2.0 revolution. In 1998, IE was able to capture the majority of the desktop browser market. [12] It would be the dominant browser for the next fourteen years.

W3C

Main article: World Wide Web Consortium

In 1994, Tim Berners-Lee left CERN and founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT's LCS in order to promote standards that the Web should adhere to. [16]

Unfortunately, Netscape and Microsoft, in the middle of a browser war, ignored the W3C and added elements to HTML ad-hoc (e.g., blink and marquee).

At some point in 1995, developers came to their senses and agreed to abide by a standard for HTML by the W3C. [17]

In 1997, the W3C published the standard for HTML 4 which included Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) giving designers more control over the appearance of web pages without the need for additional HTML tags.

2005–present: Ubiquity and Web 2.0

Main article: Web 2.0

By the mid-2000s, new ideas for sharing and exchanging content ad hoc, such as Weblogs and RSS, rapidly gained acceptance on the Web. This new model for information exchange, primarily featuring user-generated and user-edited websites, was dubbed Web 2.0 (a term coined in 1999 and popularized in 2004, which has found a place in the English lexicon[18]). The Web 2.0 boom saw many new service-oriented startups catering to a newly democratized Web.

This new era also begot social networking websites, such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, which gained acceptance rapidly and became a central part of youth culture. The 2010s also saw the emergence of various controversial trends, such as the expansion of cybercrime and of internet censorship.[19]

As the Web became easier to query, it attained a greater ease of use overall and gained a sense of organization which ushered in a period of rapid popularization. Many new sites such as Wikipedia and its Wikimedia Foundation sister projects were based on the concept of user-edited content. In 2005, three former PayPal employees, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, created a video viewing website called YouTube, which quickly became popular and introduced a new concept of user-submitted content in major events.

The popularity of YouTube, Facebook, etc., combined with the increasing availability and affordability of high-speed connections has made video content far more common on all kinds of websites. Many video-content hosting and creation sites provide an easy means for their videos to be embedded on third party websites without payment or permission.

This combination of more user-created or edited content, and easy means of sharing content, such as via RSS widgets and video embedding, has led to many sites with a typical "Web 2.0" feel. They have articles with embedded video, user-submitted comments below the article, and RSS boxes to the side, listing some of the latest articles from other sites.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Network designer". Time. Archived from the original on 15 August 2007.
  2. ^ Tim Berners-Lee. "Frequently asked questions". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
  3. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim. "Information Management: A Proposal". w3.org. The World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  4. ^ Hopgood, Bob. "History of the Web". w3.org. The World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  5. ^ a b c Gihring, Tim (11 August 2016). "The rise and fall of the Gopher protocol". Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  6. ^ https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399?ln=en
  7. ^ Hoffman, Jay. "The Origin of the IMG Tag". The History of the Web. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  8. ^ Calore, Michael (22 April 2010). "April 22, 1993: Mosaic Browser Lights Up Web With Color, Creativity". Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  9. ^ Wolfe, Gary (1 October 1994). "The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun". Wired. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  10. ^ "NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS SHIPS RELEASE 1.0 OF NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR AND NETSCAPE SERVERS". archive.org. Netscape. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  11. ^ McCullough, Brian. "20 YEARS ON: WHY NETSCAPE'S IPO WAS THE "BIG BANG" OF THE INTERNET ERA". www.internethistorypodcast.com. INTERNET HISTORY PODCAST. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  12. ^ a b Calore, Michael (28 September 2009). "Sept. 28, 1998: Internet Explorer Leaves Netscape in Its Wake". Wired. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  13. ^ "AOL, Netscape tie knot". CNNMoney. CNN. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  14. ^ Higgins, Chris (15 July 2017). "On This Day in 2003, Netscape Went Offline Forever". Mental Floss. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  15. ^ Staff, Wired (26 May 2010). "Gates, Microsoft Jump on 'Internet Tidal Wave'". Wired. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  16. ^ "LCS announces Web industry consortium". MIT News. 19 October 1994. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  17. ^ Hoffman, Jay. "The HTML Tags Everybody Hated". The History of the Web. Jay Hoffman. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  18. ^ "'Millionth English Word' declared". BBC News. June 19, 2009.
  19. ^ Owen, Tim, Wayne Noble, and Faye Christabel Speed. "Virtual Violence: Cyberspace, Misogyny and Online Abuse." New Perspectives on Cybercrime. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017. 141–158.

Further reading

  • Brügger, Niels, ed, Web25: Histories from the first 25 years of the World Wide Web (Peter Lang, 2017).
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