Browser Wars
With the 1991 release of the world wide web, there were a smattering of browsers developed over the course of the first two years but none received the attention that graphical interface, Mosaic did when released in 1993 by Marc Andreessen.
Mosaic 1 (Nov '93) hit the market, and it supported images. This was such a vast leap forward that it rapidly took over the rather small web browser market of its day. After Mosaic came Netscape 1 (Dec. '94). Netscape overtook the still rather small browser market in a single stroke. It was a much improved version of Mosaic, supporting multiple TCP/IP connections, cookies and the <CENTER> tag.
In the year between the establishment of the Netscape and its IPO, Andreessen engaged in considerable public outreach on behalf of his vision of the web browser's potential, something he had in truth done ceaselessly since making the decision to distribute Mosaic for free thru the Internet. Netscape's IPO in 1995 propelled Andreessen into the world's imagination. Featured on the cover of Time and other publications, Andreessen became the poster-boy wunderkid of the Internet bubble generation.
Netscape's success drew the attention of Microsoft, which finally acknowledged the web's potential and sought to put itself at the forefront of the emerging Internet revolution. Various companies had licensed Mosaic to produce their own commercial web browsers, such as Spry Mosaic and Spyglass Mosaic. By 1994, Mosaic confronted competition from its shells and new browsers including IBM's Web Explorer, Navipress, SlipKnot (1.0), MacWeb, IBrowse, and most importantly Netscape Navigator. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc., A branch of the University of Illinois, and converted it into Internet Explorer. The ensuing battle between the two companies became known as the Browser Wars.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 as part of the Microsoft Windows 95 Plus Pack in August 1995. Internet Explorer 2.0 was released 3 months later, and by then the race was on. New versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were brought out at a rapid pace over the next few years. Features frequently took priority over bug fixes, and consequently the browser wars were a period of unstable browsers and heaps of user headaches. Internet Explorer only started to approach equality with its competition with version 3.0 (1996).
In 1997 Netscape still controlled 72% of the browser market. But in October 1997, Internet Explorer 4.0 was released and shifted the tides of the browser wars. It was faster and it embraced the W3C's published specifications more reliably than Netscape Navigator 4.0.
A great deal was at stake for these two companies engaged in the browser wars. A hot web browser could earn a great deal of money: search engine companies would bid to be the default tool applied in the web browser, and other companies with an internet presence would bid to be registered in the default set of bookmarks which were preinstalled with the browser. Since a browser is a powerful gateway to a good deal of information, the company that dominated this gateway could conceivably hold a lot of influence over its users.
Other Microsoft actions also injured Netscape: Microsoft made a licensing agreement with AOL to base AOL's main interface on IE instead of Netscape. Microsoft also locked up a heavy portion of the Macintosh browser market in 1997 as part of its arrangement with Apple that year to make Internet Explorer for Mac the default web browser on the Mac for five years.
The consequence of these actions was to "cut off Netscape's air supply". These activities eventually led to the United States Microsoft antitrust case in 1998 which ruled that Microsoft had abused its monopoly on operating systems to unfairly dominate the market and eliminate competition. This, along with various bad business decisions on Netscape's part, resulted in Netscape's defeat by the end of 1998, after which the company was acquired by America Online for USD $4.2 billion. Internet Explorer became the new sovereign browser, achieving a crest of about 96% of the web browser usage share during 2002, more than Netscape had at its peak.
The first browser war ended with Internet Explorer having no other serious challengers for its market share on the High Speed Internet. This also brought an end to the rapid innovation in web browsers; until 2006 there was only one new version of Internet Explorer since version 6.0 had been issued in 2001.
There remains a scattering of alternate browsers. The Opera web browser is a niche player that was also configured to interface with cell phones and web gadgets. However, it's future has become mottled as more device manufacturers choose open-source alternatives. It has also been wounded by Mac's unveiling of Safari, it's new introduction into the browser fray.