Browser wars. Netscape — Pioneer of the Free Internet 🚀🌐

The Internet is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, and we are used to accessing it for free. Yes, of course, we all pay our ISPs and pay for the creation and maintenance of websites, but the act of surfing the Internet or accessing the Internet through a browser has never required payment.

But was it originally intended to be this way?

The era before graphical browsers

Before the rise of graphical browsers, the Internet was not as we know it today. After all, it was invented by scientists for scientists — to share information. The Internet was available to a limited circle of people, researchers at universities to be exact, and back then, it consisted of only a few pages of text. One day, Marc Andreessen, a student at the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications), decided that such a boon to humanity should be available to everyone, not just a small group of scientists.

So in 1992, Marc, along with Eric Bina, created the Mosaic graphical browser under the control of the NCSA. Mosaic wasn't the only graphical browser of its time, but it certainly became the most popular. Andreessen sent the browser to a dozen people he knew. It wasn't long before the browser had been downloaded hundreds of times, making it clear that there was demand for the product.

James Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, was interested in a similar solution. The name of the company may not mean anything to you, but it was this very company that later became SGI, developed the OpenGL library, and became a huge force behind computer graphics. But I digress. James Clark invested $5 million in Marc Andreessen and his product, which gave rise to Netscape in 1993.

Netscape — audacious and free

Amazingly, Netscape not only managed to bring something unprecedented to the world of technology but also managed to make a name for itself financially. But let's tackle one thing at a time.

The group of developers previously involved in creating Mosaic quickly set out to release a full-fledged browser product. Because of a legal battle with the NCSA, the name Mosaic had to be abandoned. As a result, the company soon introduced Netscape Navigator — a free, full-featured browser for users around the world. On the first day, the developers began monitoring downloads, announcing each download with a volley of gunfire. Soon, the browser reached a thousand downloads, and a cannonade of gunfire rang out in the conference room. One million downloads was just around the corner, which was astounding at the time given the reach of the Internet and the number of computers in use. It was a victory and the beginning of the free Internet as we know it.

Netscape wasn't even a year old when it went public — incredible audacity for a company that didn't even offer paid products. Everyone thought it would be a huge failure. Yet on the first day of trading, James Clark turned his $5 million investment into $663 million (and that's just 19% of the stock). And just a year and a half later, he became the first billionaire in the history of the Internet.

Bill's big eye

The first two versions of Netscape Navigator were market leaders. They had already evolved from a simple browser to a full-blown web package with mail, a WYSIWYG code editor, and more. Although paid add-on modules began to bring the company profits, the core of the browser remained free. However, competition from Microsoft was already appearing on the horizon.

Of course, in those days, you couldn't expect anything to get past Microsoft. After all, Microsoft was considered the Goliath in the world of personal computers, and Microsoft was expected to release the first browser. It failed to stop Netscape. Moreover, Marc Andreessen was not particularly shy in his comments about Microsoft even before the release of the competing browser, and even more so after its release.

The war with Internet Explorer

After the release of Netscape Navigator 1.22, Internet Explorer appeared — a full-fledged competitor in the browser market. During the confrontation between IE and Netscape, HTTP was developed, and new HTML tags appeared. The first JavaScript implementation was created on Netscape's side and the first commercial CSS implementation was created in the opposing camp. Everything that one side came out with was immediately adapted by the other.

Although IE was created by a market giant, it was also based on NCSA Mosaic. Marc Andreessen had a habit of mocking Microsoft and its products. Despite the dominance of Windows and its free built-in IE browser, 90% of the browser market was still held by Netscape.

Marc Andreessen's insults did not go unnoticed by Microsoft employees, and the atmosphere within the company became agitated: everyone wanted to rub this arrogant newcomer's nose in a defeat of Netscape. Microsoft printed out Andreessen’s statements and hung them up in the office, even including photos, so that the face of the enemy would not be forgotten. Bill Gates scheduled one of his IE presentations on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor to emphasize that this was war. The apotheosis of enmity was when IE developers, drunk at the Internet Explorer 4 release party in October 1997, brought a giant IE logo to Netscape's offices.

In the morning, they were sure, all Netscape employees would see this "insult". However, a few Netscape employees who were in the office working late leapt into action and mounted their mascot Mozilla (a familiar name, right?) proudly atop their foe’s and finished the art piece off with the caption, “Netscape 72%. Microsoft 18%,” underscoring to the audience how much of the market each product occupied at that time.

It seemed that the stars were on Netscape's side, and everything suggested that the company would win the war. Indeed it would have if all sides had played by the rules. Netscape had huge community support and market leadership, but nowhere near the money and influence of Microsoft. The latter did not hesitate to put pressure on computer vendors. Thus, if any browser other than Internet Explorer (which could not be uninstalled) was factory-installed on a machine, they would not be able to distribute Windows, which held 90% of the operating system market. Although the language referred to any browser, it was clear that the policy was directed squarely at Netscape Navigator. The Internet Explorer sales department used a lot of tricks to take market share leading fewer and fewer users and resellers to install Netscape. It was the beginning of the end.

The unassailable reign of the triumphant

Internet Explorer eventually won the war, capturing almost the entire browser market. Netscape promptly sold itself to AOL, where failing dot-com companies go to die. James Clark had by then turned his 5 million into 2 billion. Needless to say, the other co-founders and senior engineers with stock in the company benefitted similarly from the deal. Netscape died in AOL's hands, and as for Microsoft... There are always bigger fish in the sea, and that fish was the U.S. government.

Microsoft violated state laws prohibiting monopolies from profiting off their market position. Microsoft defended its rights for several days in court, but ultimately Bill Gates had to leave the post of CEO forever, and Internet Explorer 6 had to come with a note that the browser was based on NSCA Mosaic. The lawsuits affected the company's future: any attempt to monopolize the market could lead to the company being split in half, which almost happened in 2001.

And soon, back at Mozilla, the flames of the phoenix would ignite on the remnants of the smoldering Netscape. But that's another story.