The first mosaic browser. What is a browser and how does it work

Mosaic

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K:Software developed in 1993

NCSA Mosaic(in Russian they pronounce [ mosaic]) is the first web browser for the Microsoft Windows operating system with a graphical user interface. Mosaic's source code formed the basis of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. The main developers of the browser were Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, who worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Development work on Mosaic ceased in 1997. The latest version (Mosaic 3.0) has built-in e-mail and ftp clients, but does not support JavaScript and animated GIF files. In 2010, the NCSA Mosaic 2.7 code was adapted to run on modern Linux distributions.

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Excerpt describing NCSA Mosaic

Immediately, a new vision appeared again and, continuing to surprise me unspeakably, this turned out to be our century (!), and even our time... A gray-haired, very pleasant man was sitting at the desk and was thinking intently about something. The whole room was literally filled with books; they were everywhere - on the table, on the floor, on the shelves, and even on the windowsill. A huge fluffy cat was sitting on a small sofa and, not paying any attention to its owner, was intently washing itself with its large, very soft paw. The whole atmosphere created the impression of “learnedness” and comfort.
“What, is he living again?..” I didn’t understand.
Stella nodded.
- And this is right now? – I didn’t let up.
The girl again confirmed with a nod of her cute red head.
– It must be very strange for Harold to see his son so different?.. How did you find him again?
- Oh, exactly the same! I just “felt” his “key” the way my grandmother taught me. – Stella said thoughtfully. – After Axel died, I looked for his essence on all the “floors” and could not find it. Then I looked among the living - and he was there again.
– And do you know who he is now, in this life?
– Not yet... But I’ll definitely find out. I tried many times to “reach out” to him, but for some reason he doesn’t hear me... He is always alone and almost all the time with his books. With him are only the old woman, his servant and this cat.
- Well, what about Harold’s wife? “Did you find her too?” I asked.
- Oh, of course! You know your wife - this is my grandmother!.. - Stella smiled slyly.
I froze in real shock. For some reason, such an incredible fact did not want to fit into my dumbfounded head...
“Grandma?..” was all I could say.
Stella nodded, very pleased with the effect produced.
- How so? Is that why she helped you find them? She knew?!.. – thousands of questions were simultaneously spinning madly in my excited brain, and it seemed to me that I would never have time to ask everything that interested me. I wanted to know EVERYTHING! And at the same time, I understood perfectly well that no one was going to tell me “everything”...
“I probably chose him because I felt something.” – Stella said thoughtfully. - Or maybe grandma brought it up? But she will never admit it,” the girl waved her hand.
- AND HE?.. Does he know too? – that’s all I could ask.
- Surely! – Stella laughed. - Why does this surprise you so much?
“She’s just old... It must be hard for him,” I said, not knowing how to more accurately explain my feelings and thoughts.
- Oh no! – Stella laughed again. - He was glad! Very, very happy. Grandma gave him a chance! No one could have helped him with this - but she could! And he saw her again... Oh, it was so great!
And only then did I finally understand what she was talking about... Apparently, Stella’s grandmother gave her former “knight” the chance that he had so hopelessly dreamed of throughout his long life remaining after physical death. After all, he had been looking for them so long and persistently, so madly wanted to find them, so that just once he could say: how terribly he regrets that he once left... that he could not protect... that he could not show how much and he loved them selflessly... He needed to death that they would try to understand him and be able to somehow forgive him, otherwise he had no reason to live in any of the worlds...
And so she, his sweet and only wife, appeared to him as he always remembered her, and gave him a wonderful chance - she gave him forgiveness, and at the same time, she gave him life...

A browser is software that allows you to conveniently view Internet pages, web documents, files, directories; manage web applications, as well as solve many other tasks.

If you are wondering what browsers there are, then modern types of browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, Internet Explorer (since it is preinstalled in Windows OS by default). Yandex Browser is also becoming popular in Russia, but unfortunately it is local and not particularly represented on the international market. We’ll talk about other “historical” browsers in this article.

Ideas of hypertext and hypermedia, Xanadu and World Wide Web systems

In just 5 minutes you will learn how the World Wide Web was born. Just an idea. But what! She turned the whole world upside down and a new era has come! The age of information technology!

Great ideas come when the world needs them (Austin Phelps)

Every big, and even more so great, business begins with a simple idea. This is exactly the idea that came to the mind of the American sociologist and pioneer in the field of information technology Ted Nelson, who back in 1965 proposed the concept and coined the term “” as text that branches or performs actions on request.

Today, of course, most people closely associate hypertext with web pages on the Internet, but this concept was originally broader. We can also see hypertext in such completely offline things as dictionaries, encyclopedias, literary works, in which there are references to other parts of the text related to the term in question.

For this reason, the term is also actively used in literary studies, where hypertext is understood as a form of text organization in which its component parts represent a system of clearly indicated transitions and connections between them. This distinguishes hypertext from classical text, which is characterized by a linear sequence of its parts. As literary works with hypertextuality, we can give the following examples:

• the novel-lexicon “The Khazar Dictionary” by the Serbian writer Milorad Pavic (1984);
• the philosophical novel “Endless Dead End” by Russian philosopher Dmitry Galkovsky (1988);
• a novel in the form of an interactive book “Tree of Codes” by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer (2010).

The first three years in the history of the World Wide Web were filled with romanticism and great enthusiasm. The symbols of that era were both theorists like Tim Berners-Lee, who introduced the world to the ideas of hypertext, and enthusiastic programmers who initially had nothing but their heads on their shoulders and a great desire to work. But they were able to prove in practice how useful and simply fun using the Internet can be.

The latter included Marc Andreessen, a student at the University of Illinois. Even before graduation, he began working at the National Supercomputer Center, where he developed Mosaic- the first browser to become world famous. After his graduation in 1993, Andreessen left NCSA and moved to California in the then emerging Silicon Valley area. At that time, it was already clear that the further development of Internet technologies could no longer be based on sheer enthusiasm. In order to stay on top, more and more human and financial resources were needed.

In this sense, the meeting with the famous investor Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, was fateful for Andreessen. During his conversation with Andreessen, Clark became convinced that the project based on the Mosaic browser had excellent prospects for commercial implementation. Therefore, he proposed creating a company to develop software for working on the Internet and investing serious money in the development of a new browser. Thus was born Mosaic Communications Corporation, where Andreessen was co-founder and vice president of technology. Soon, due to a conflict over the name of the Mosaic browser with the University of Illinois, the company was renamed Netscape Communications, and the future flagship product in Netscape Navigator.

The first version of the browser was released in October 1994 and immediately rode the wave of Internet development thanks to its advanced functionality and attractive licensing scheme. It allowed the browser to be used for free for non-commercial use. Netscape Navigator very quickly became the de facto standard among other types of browsers. Windows users felt this especially strongly. Netscape's popularity was boosted by a number of reviews of the program in leading computer magazines, as well as the distribution of the new browser by many Internet service providers to their customers.

The key innovation that Netscape brought to users was the display of web pages on the fly, i.e. as they are downloaded to your computer. Netscape's predecessors did not display content on the user's screen until it was fully loaded. This very often resulted in a person being forced to stare at a blank screen for several minutes until text or images appeared on the screen. Netscape, on the other hand, made it possible for people who connected to the Internet via a fairly slow dial-up (using a modem over a telephone line) to begin reading the text posted on the site even before both the text itself and the pictures were fully loaded. This fact alone allowed Netscape to make the Web even more friendly to a wide range of users.

Until the late nineties, Netscape remained the leader among other types of browsers in introducing new Internet standards. It was in Andreessen’s brainchild that such familiar technologies as today were the first to work

• cookies
• frames,
• automatic configuration of proxy servers,
• JavaScript.

As for the browser's market share, during 1994-1996. Netscape was used by more than half of all Internet users. In its best times (that is, before the start of active competition with Internet Explorer), the browser occupied more than 80% of the market. Interestingly, Netscape's popularity was so great that in the nineties people called " ponetscape» what is called web surfing today.

At that time, Netscape Communications even began experimenting with a Web-based system. Constellation" It was supposed to allow users to access and edit their files anywhere in the world with just network access, regardless of what computer and operating system they were using.

Computer industry analysts were already predicting the dawn of a new era of “connected computing.” In their opinion, classic operating systems should have become a thing of the past, since all future applications would run in a web browser window. Note that all this was quite real in the mid-nineties, 15 years before the advent of modern cloud services!

All this seemed like a great chance for the Netscape team to become the No. 1 IT company in the very near future, becoming the center of the next generation of computing systems and thus expanding its influence in a wide range of markets for software and related services.

Unfortunately, all these Netscape plans were not destined to come true, since the events in this entire story further developed according to the scenario “And Baba Yaga is against!” Baba Yaga in this case was Microsoft Corporation, which had no intention of ceding world dominance to its competitors.

The First Browser War: Netscape Navigator VS Internet Explorer

By the beginning of 1996, the browser's share Netscape Navigator in the world market reached 80%. Microsoft couldn't help but notice this stunning success. The extreme popularity of Netscape immediately nullified all the prejudices that the employees of the Redmond giant then had about the futility of the Internet. Microsoft recognized the World Wide Web as a profitable market that needed to be captured. To achieve this goal, a team of 6 programmers, with the active personal assistance of Bill Gates, began in the summer of 1994 the development of the future malicious competitor of Netscape - Internet Explorer(IE).

The first version of Internet Explorer was released on August 16, 1995. The product was distributed as part of an add-on package for Windows 95 called Microsoft Plus! The browser was not much different from the original Mosaic. The only advantage for a newbie was the convenient process of installing the program (there was no need to manually configure many browser settings). After 3 months, the second version was released, which already included a multilingual interface (initially 12 languages, later 24, including Russian). The ability to display double-byte character tables (encodings) was also added, thanks to which, for example, Russian-speaking users were able to view web pages in their native language. Unlike Netscape, Internet Explorer 2 was provided free of charge to everyone, including legal entities.

In general, the first two versions did not make a serious impression on users. Many of them considered Internet Explorer primitive compared to the venerable Netscape.

However, already with the release of the third version of Internet Explorer, the heat began.

1. In IE 3, Microsoft developers were finally able to equalize the level of functionality with Netscape: JavaScript support also appeared in the Microsoft browser. It was also the first browser to support Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
2. The program interface has changed significantly compared to its predecessors. The buttons have become much larger, the designers have completely updated the icons in the interface. Using the browser has become much more convenient.

Thus, with the release of the third version of IE, Microsoft slowly but surely began to increase its share in the browser market due to the fall of Netscape. The real competition between the two browsers began, later called the first browser war.

Released in September 1997 fourth versionInternet Explorer– the most scandalous in the entire history of the product. Due to the fact that at the time of the release of IE4, Windows was already used on the vast majority of computers, Microsoft decided to strengthen the integration of the browser and the operating system. When installing the browser, the traditional Windows Explorer was replaced with a web-like version based on Internet Explorer. In addition, users had the opportunity to embed active web content on their desktop instead of classic wallpaper ( technologyActiveDesktop). And all this beauty, of course, only worked if IE4 was installed. All this, as well as difficulties in removing Internet Explorer, led Microsoft to a courtroom in which the state accused the corporation of abusing its monopoly position in the market. However, in the end, Microsoft still managed to get away with it. Moreover, in the new Windows 98, Internet Explorer 4 could be used immediately after the system was installed and, in principle, could not be removed. This version of IE also became iconic in the sense that the concept of hypertext actively penetrated Windows. This, for example, led to the widespread appearance of hyperlinks in the system interface and the ability to open files in a hyperlink style (with one click instead of two). As a result, despite all the difficulties, Internet Explorer further strengthened its presence on the market, since almost all users who installed the operating system also received a browser in addition. A simple question: “Why do I need another program if I already have a similar one?” should have brought Netscape to its knees.

An interesting feature of that time was the embedding of “Best viewed in Netscape” and “Best viewed in Internet Explorer” buttons on websites. These buttons often even included specific browser versions. This fact symbolized a serious problem in the lack of uniform standards for displaying web pages. Sites could appear completely differently in Internet Explorer and Netscape. It is clear that with such fierce competition between Microsoft and Netscape it would be very difficult to agree on this issue.

Internet Explorer 5, released in September 1997, was the final nail in Netscape's coffin. In addition to integration into Windows 98 SE, Microsoft integrated the forced installation of its browser into the Office 2000 suite of office applications. In this version, IE for the first time received support for updating part of the data on a web page without completely reloading it. This technology was later called Ajax and is widely used today.

What was happening with Netscape at this time?

The newcomer's main competitor at the time of its release was Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, released earlier in 2003. A feature of this version of IE was support for WPF and XAML development tools, which were supposed to allow developers to create full-featured web applications. However, Microsoft, as usual, tried in every possible way to limit the use of third-party operating systems. In this regard, all new technologies were far from universal. New applications worked normally only in Internet Explorer and only in Windows operating systems.

In response, the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software joined forces to develop new open web development standards that would be backwards compatible with existing technologies. The result of this cooperation was the creation of the “Working Group on the Development of Technologies for the Development of Hypertext Applications” (English acronym WHATWG). The goal of the new organization was the rapid development of new standards, which were then submitted for approval to W3 C.

The result of the work done was the release of a number of new versions of browsers by all major market players, which marked a new round of their confrontation.

New generation browser wars: Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer

In October 2006, new versions of leading browsers were released almost simultaneously: Internet Explorer 7 And MozillaFirefox 2.0 . What innovations did users receive?

Let's start with Internet Explorer. The seventh version was the first major update in a five-year period. IE7 became the default browser in Windows Vista and was also offered as an upgrade for Windows XP. Starting with this version, Internet Explorer no longer worked with outdated versions of Windows: NT 4.0, 98, 2000 and Me. As part of the rebranding, Internet Explorer was renamed Windows Internet Explorer. There have also been significant changes under the hood. The architecture of the program, which includes a website display engine and a security block, has undergone a significant revision. In this regard, Microsoft has reduced the interdependence between the operating system and the browser. Unlike its predecessors, IE itself was no longer used in Windows as a file manager. Explorer has become a separate application.

The most anticipated feature implemented in the Microsoft browser was tabs. Users received extensive control capabilities. It has become possible to group several simultaneously open web pages, as well as view their thumbnails. Also, following its competitors, Internet Explorer received a separate field for conveniently entering queries into search engines.

Internet Explorer 7 debuts Microsoft's new platform for reading news feeds - Windows RSS Reader. IE users now have the ability to read RSS and Atom news feeds directly in the browser. The new tool turned out to be quite flexible. Everyone could customize the news update schedule for themselves, as well as create their own style for displaying news using CSS.

Regarding security issues, the new version has a so-called anti-phishing filter, which allows you to avoid the use of fraudulent sites. The operating mechanism is very simple. There is a public database of malicious web resources, and when you enter any website, a request is made to this database. If the site appears there, its loading is blocked.

It is worth noting that since its release, the new Internet Explorer has only worked on Windows systems that have been authenticated using the new Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy technology. However, during the year after the program's release, its market share increased slightly. In this regard, Microsoft decided to let the browser “free float”, allowing its installation even on hacked systems. However, even this step did not speed up the process of replacing old versions with new IE. Only in the second half of 2008, in some countries, the seventh version overtook the sixth in popularity. Interestingly, it was precisely that period that became a turning point in the process of the general decline in the popularity of the Microsoft browser: in Eastern Europe, IE lost its leadership for the first time, losing it to Firefox. Its new version will be discussed further.

Mozilla Firefox 2.0 At the time of release it turned out to be much more progressive than its main competitor. All the innovations of IE7 were already generally implemented in the first version of Firefox. And, of course, in the second version the developers introduced a number of new unique features. Thanks to this, as well as a competent PR campaign, more than 2 million people downloaded the new version in the first 24 hours.

Like IE, the new version of Firefox has built-in phishing protection. It was originally implemented as a browser extension from Google, and then built directly into the program code. The new Firefox is built on an improved engine - Gecko 1.8.1 . In it, the developers have improved support for JavaScript, the SVG vector graphics format and the XML markup language.

In the second version of Firefox, the program interface received a number of small but useful improvements:

• if the web page code specifies opening links in a new window, then they open in a new tab by default (previously they opened in a new window, despite the presence of tab functionality);
• added spell checking when editing text forms of a web page;
• Each tab now has a close button;
• when reopening the browser after it crashed, the user was able to restore the session;
• in the query input field for search engines, the ability to display search tips has been added (in version 2.0 - only Google and Yahoo!);
• added a separate search and plugin management manager;
• The graphical part of the interface has been updated: a new design theme has been developed, new navigation icons have been drawn.

What was the situation on the browser market in the summer of 2008?

Worldwide, Internet Explorer continued to lead, being installed by 70% of users. In second place was Firefox, which by that time had already occupied more than a quarter of the world market. Interestingly, 2 years after the release of IE7, a huge market share was still occupied by the outdated IE6 (28%).

It is important to note that by that time there was already a clear trend toward a constant decline in the market share of Internet Explorer due to competitors who were more nimble in every sense. Thus, already in July 2008, Firefox managed to become a leader in Eastern Europe, as well as in a number of countries in the Pacific region.

As for Ukraine, two versions of Internet Explorer each occupied approximately 20% of the market, giving Microsoft's browser leadership. In second place was Opera, which was used by every third Ukrainian web surfer. Firefox (26%) took third place with a slight lag.

It seemed that the situation was clear and the trends in its development for the future were clear. However, just six months later, everything changed with the advent of a fundamentally new participant in the browser wars. He immediately revolutionized the idea of ​​convenient browsing of websites. Many users simply fell into a state of pleasant shock. 🙂

Browser wars of a new generation. New Google Chrome browser

On September 2, 2008, a new player literally burst into our list of browsers - Google Chrome. From the moment he was born, he was destined to become a fighter, and not only in browser wars. The fact is that for 6 long years, Google management did not support the idea of ​​​​creating its own browser. The search giant's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said at the time that "Google is a small company" and would not stand the test of the "exhausting browser war." However, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and wrote a demo of Chrome, even Schmidt changed his mind.

The first beta version of the browser immediately became multilingual. Initially, the program was released in 43 languages, which at the time of release exceeded the number of localizations of any of its competitors. The newbie worked on all current versions of Windows at that time (XP and later). Chrome almost immediately gained about 1% of the market. However, after an initial surge in popularity, the browser's share fell in October 2008 to 0.69%. Google's brainchild returned its 1% in December and henceforth never fell below this level.

In early 2009, Google announced plans to release versions of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux. The first preview versions of the browser for new platforms were released in June of the same year. Chrome reached beta version status for alternative operating systems by December. At the end of 2009, Google Chrome's market share increased to 3.6%. From that moment on, the rapid growth in popularity of the new browser on a global scale began.

In general, the beginning of 2010 was marked by an important fact. The standalone version of Mozilla Firefox 3.5 became the most popular browser in the world, marginally surpassing Internet Explorer 7 and 8. Thus, IE lost its leadership for the first time since the fall of Netscape. However, the reason for this was quite prosaic. The temporary leadership was not at all the merit of the developers from the Mozilla Foundation. The fact is that just at that moment the process of updating IE7 to IE8 was actively underway around the world. Therefore, no more than 2 months later, the eighth version of Internet Explorer came out on top.

What attracted Google Chrome to its users?

The minimalistic browser interface was a real revelation for many. By default, only the URL input line and the Forward, Back, Refresh Page, and Settings buttons were displayed. That's all! It’s quite unusual at first, but you get into the idea very quickly, because much more space is allocated to the most important thing – the website.

It should also be noted that the address bar is non-standard. While competitors had a separate field for entering search queries, Google’s browser did not have it at all. The information you were looking for could be entered directly into the URL input field. The browser automatically recognized the request and navigated to the search engine. This innovation is called " omnibox».

The browser's behavior when opening a new tab also compares favorably with its competitors. Instead of predefined URLs (as in Mozilla Firefox and Opera), Chrome displays icons of the most frequently used sites. As practice has shown, this mechanism for creating a new tab page is the most successful. The user only needs to wander around his favorite sites for a while, and it is their thumbnails that will be displayed in his new tab.

In general, Chrome is positioned as a safe, simple and stable program. The interface described above has become a significant advantage over competitors. Another strength of a beginner is the high speed of work, especially with JavaScript. Immediately after the release of the first versions, several leading sites tested the new browser for script processing speed. The results exceeded all expectations. Heavy websites opened in Chrome even faster than in Opera, the recognized leader in terms of performance at that time.

A number of unique innovations were introduced in the Chrome security module. Each site is verified against two publicly available blacklists. One of them is a list of phishing sites, the second contains samples of malicious code embedded in scripts on web pages. The browser architecture is based on the multi-process principle. Each site and plugin is allocated to a separate Windows process. This isolation prevents tabs from interacting with each other, which improves stability and increases security. For example, if a site freezes on one of the tabs, the user sees the error message only on this tab and can continue to work with other open sites without any hindrance. Also, pop-up windows are always displayed by default within the tab in which they appeared (new browser windows are not displayed in this case).

What kept many users from switching to Chrome was the lack of plugins. The developers corrected this flaw in September 2009, when add-on support was added to the browser and at the same time “ Addons galleryGoogle Chrome" At the initial stage, about 300 add-ons were available. Today their number reaches 12 thousand. Starting from the third version, users were able to modify the program interface using skins, for the distribution of which a specialized web resource was also launched.

All these factors became the key to the success of Google's browser. Since the second half of 2009, Chrome has steadily gained points in the global market. In November 2011, Firefox was defeated, and already in May 2012, Internet Explorer fell. Today Chrome is the leader, being installed on every third web surfer. It is quite obvious that growth will continue in the future due to the fact that it is very difficult for competitors to compete with a high-speed browser with a minimalist interface. Of course, the extensive marketing support for Chrome, which Google systematically carries out, also plays a role. Installation in a package with other programs, recommendations to use this particular browser on all Google services (including Gmail, YouTube), advertising on TV - this is not a complete list of activities aimed at promoting Chrome.

Thus, today more and more people prefer Chrome, competitors bite their elbows, and Google has held the title for its product for the fourth month king of the browser market. And the team of Larry Page and Sergey Brin is clearly not going to stop there.

Review of the new Yandex browser

On October 1, 2012, at the Yet Another Conference 2012, a new browser, Yandex (aka Yandex.Browser), developed by the Russian Internet giant of the same name, was presented. We offer you a short overview of the new product.

To be fair, we should immediately note that this is not the first product of this kind that Yandex has released. At different times, the following browsers were available on the company’s website:

• « Chromium" Essentially it was Google Chrome in its purest form, but with pre-installed extensions from Yandex.
• « Yandex.Internet" A browser based on the Chromium project (analogous to Google Chrome, but without connection to Google services) with closer integration with Yandex services.

In addition to browsers based on WebKit (Chromium engine and Google Chrome), Yandex has also been offering to download from its website all the major browsers, “added” for its own services, for quite a long time. For example, the special version of Opera comes with a very convenient sidebar. From it you can access a variety of information provided by Yandex (news, photos, maps, etc.).

And so, in the fall of 2012, Yandex introduces a new browser.

How does it compare favorably with previous developments of the company itself and with competitors?

Download the browser from the official website and run the installation file. During the installation process, 99% of users will be offered a nice little thing - importing all settings, bookmarks and passwords into the new browser. The idea is not new; all this has been implemented by competitors for a long time. For example, I use Google Chrome as my main browser. And since the browsers are built on the same engine and extensions from the Google browser should work in a new browser (more on this below), it is technically possible to transfer all settings 100% to Yandex. In fact, bookmarks and passwords were imported completely, but extensions were untouched. As it turned out after 5 minutes of working with Yandex, the Russian developers apparently decided not to integrate their brainchild with the “Google Chrome Addons Gallery”. There is no hint anywhere in the interface that extensions are supported. This will automatically alienate some potential users who are accustomed to addons from the newcomer. The most obvious example is add-ons for blocking ads on web pages. However, nothing prevents you from simply going to that same addon gallery manually by simply entering the URL in the address bar. And then install all the same extensions that you are used to when using Chrome.

As for the interface, it is, of course, very similar to Chromium overall. In a word, just as minimalistic, with everyone’s favorite omnibox. But it’s worth paying attention to quite obvious features that pop up immediately after you start using the program. A never before seen way of displaying information in the address bar immediately catches your eye. The user sees the domain name of the site up to the first slash, and then not a set of letters and numbers or, at best, CNC, but simply the title of the page taken from the TITLE tag. The URL is restored with a single mouse click on the address bar. Original? Quite. We definitely haven't seen anything like this before. It’s unusual, but after a while you realize that there is something in it. The presence of the page title in the address bar immediately suggests that there is duplication of information here. After all, the same TITLE sits in the title of the tab. Immediately there is room for maneuver: the tab title can be used in some more clever way. I wonder if Yandex developers think so too? 🙂

Every time you open a new tab, another innovation pops up - the so-called “ Scoreboard" It is essentially very similar to the page with screenshots of the most frequently viewed sites in Google Chrome. But the differences are also significant:

I must say that the appearance of the board on half the screen every time you open a new tab is somewhat annoying. In Google Chrome, it’s essentially the same, but there it’s the main function of the new tab page - it’s clearly clear what’s what. Here the scoreboard appears as a kind of auxiliary function, hanging above a blank page. Immediately there is a desire to close this thing. Over the course of the evening I still couldn’t get used to it.

And finally, a few more comments in blitz mode:

• By default, a completely useless “Me” button is displayed to the left of the address bar, clicking on which leads to the Yandex main page. I understand that the browser is branded, but it seems to me that the step is not justified. It’s good that the button can be disabled in the settings.
• Unlike Google Chrome, the “Settings” button is placed in the window title, next to the standard “Collapse” / “Maximize” / “Close” window buttons. The TeamViewer program (“Demonstration of the current window”) also puts its button there. As a result, if I don’t close the “Timka”, it will be very difficult for me to go into the settings of the new browser.
• The bookmarks bar is exactly the same as in Chrome.
• The structure of the settings section is 100% identical to its competitor from Google, with the exception of setting up features from Yandex (for example, setting up the “Scoreboard” function).

What do we have in the bottom line? I saw only one interesting feature - displaying the page title in the address bar. And not everyone may like this decision. In all other respects, it turned out to be another clone of Google Chrome, with a couple of still clearly crude and not fully thought out functions. This is indirectly confirmed by Yandex itself, whose representatives stated that the browser is still at the development stage. And it was necessary at some point to pause and present to the public the results of their work. Among the functions announced for the near future, the most interesting is the Turbo function, known to Opera users. Negotiations are currently underway with the developers of the Norwegian browser about integrating Turbo into the Yandex browser.

Thus, the likelihood of any significant increase in the popularity of Yandex seems very doubtful at the moment. This is explained by the still high level of dampness in the new browser. But we will expect pleasant surprises from the developers. Fortunately, the Yandex team knows how to pleasantly surprise its supporters.

What is a browser and how does it work. History of development

5 (100%) 6 votes

The Mosaic browser was developed at the National Supercomputing Center (NCSA) at the University of Illinois by Marc Andreessen and Eric Byna. The beta version of NCSA Mosaic, index 0.10, was released on March 14, 1993 and ran only on X Window Unix-like operating systems. The final version of NCSA Mosaic 1.0 for the X Window was released just over a month later - on April 23, 1993. In September 1993, the first working version of the Mosaic program, the prototype of modern Internet browsers, was released. By October 1993, about two hundred WWW servers were put into operation.

It was in Mosaic that such familiar things as support for sound and video, bookmarks and a list of recently visited pages (history) appeared. In addition, Mosaic was the first browser to work on multiple platforms: a few months after the release of the Unix version, a version for Macintosh was released, and then for Windows.

Almost all modern browsers trace their history back to NCSA Mosaic. In 1994, Netscape, founded by NCSA-retired Marc Andreessen, released the first version of the Mozilla browser, also known as Netscape Navigator 1.0. Internet Explorer, the most popular web browser today, is also based on NCSA Mosaic. The fact that IE is based on Mosaic code is still reported in the program's information window.

The only exception, besides text browsers like Lynx, is perhaps Opera. Strictly speaking, this browser is the same age as Netscape - it was created in 1994 by employees of the telecommunications company Telenor. In 1996, the creators of Opera created their own company and began mass distribution of this browser. The first commercial version of Opera was version 2.11.

1994 Netscape

Netscape was formed in the spring of 1994 by Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, one of the developers of the first mass-market browser, Mosaic. This browser, we recall, was created at the National Supercomputing Center (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, and it was the technologies used in Mosaic that served as the basis for the once super-popular Netscape Navigator.

The first version of Netscape Navigator was released on October 13, 1994. Home users could download the browser absolutely free, while corporate customers were asked to purchase a license costing $99. Among the main advantages of their package, the developers highlighted support for the JPEG graphic format, the ability to simultaneously download several web pages, as well as compatibility with Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh and X Window System platforms.

1994 W3c

1994 - creation of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) organization, development of standards for the development of www. This organization coordinates the development of Internet standards that ensure faster and more efficient development of the Internet.

1996 Creation of the Internet Explorer browser

In February 1996, Bill Gates proclaimed: "HTML has become our data type." It was a declaration of war against Netscape's new competitor. It’s interesting that just a couple of years ago, Microsoft experts suggested that management should pay serious attention to the Internet, but then the corporation’s ambitious managers did not listen to them. Now it's time to catch up. However, Microsoft's competitors also made mistakes. James Clark did not think to buy the exclusive rights to the Mosaic browser, and its source code was acquired by Microsoft through the company Spyglass. As a result, the updated Netscape Navigator 3.0 and Internet Explorer 3.0 browsers, which appeared in the summer, turned out to be based on the same core, and the latter package included support for all competitor tags. From that moment on, the scales began to tip steadily in his favor. In addition, Microsoft decided to distribute Internet Explorer for free, and Netscape Navigator's market share plummeted.

In subsequent years, the development of the Internet and WWW occurred at an even faster pace. It is very difficult to obtain real statistics on the number of computers on the Internet and WWW servers, since this data changes almost daily. A reasonable estimate for the number of computers as of June 1995 is 6.5 million.