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History Of The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web, often abbreviated to WWW, W3, or simply "the Web," stands as a monumental information medium, accessible to users across the globe through interconnected computers linked by the Internet. While the term "Web" is frequently used interchangeably with "Internet," it's crucial to understand that the Web is, in essence, a service operating over the Internet, much like email or Usenet. The foundational roots of the history of the Internet and the intricate history of hypertext stretch back considerably further than the advent of the World Wide Web itself.

The genesis of the World Wide Web is attributed to Tim Berners-Lee, who conceived of it in 1989 while employed at CERN. His vision was a "universal linked information system," a concept built upon a confluence of technologies, with the most fundamental being the interconnections between disparate pieces of information. [^1][^2] Berners-Lee's groundbreaking work included the development of the first web server, the inaugural web browser, and the foundational document formatting protocol, known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Following the public release of the markup language in 1991 and the source code for his browser in 1993, the landscape of the Web rapidly evolved. Many other browsers emerged, with Marc Andreessen's Mosaic (which later evolved into Netscape Navigator) proving particularly instrumental. Its user-friendly interface and straightforward installation are widely credited with igniting the explosive Internet boom of the 1990s. Mosaic was revolutionary for its graphical capabilities, allowing images and text to coexist on the same page, thereby bringing multimedia content within reach of non-technical users.

By 1993–94, websites accessible to the general public began to proliferate. This surge in accessibility fueled intense competition in both server and browser software development, most notably manifesting in the infamous Browser wars. Initially, Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were the primary contenders. The complete removal of commercial restrictions on Internet usage in 1995, coupled with favorable macroeconomic conditions, precipitated the dot-com boom and its subsequent bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The evolution of HTML was a continuous process, leading to version 2 in 1995, HTML3 and HTML4 in 1997, and the significant release of HTML5 in 2014. Further enhancements arrived with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for advanced formatting and JavaScript for programmatic capabilities. The advent of AJAX programming revolutionized user experience by enabling dynamic content delivery, heralding a new era of Web design known as Web 2.0. The widespread adoption of social media in the 2010s further democratized content creation, allowing individuals to produce multimedia content without requiring programming expertise, thereby cementing the Web's ubiquitous presence in daily life.

Background

The conceptual underpinnings of hypertext as a paradigm for user interface design can be traced back to research projects initiated in the 1960s. These included the Hypertext Editing System (HES) developed by Andries van Dam at Brown University, IBM Generalized Markup Language, Ted Nelson's ambitious Project Xanadu, and Douglas Engelbart's pioneering oN-Line System. [^3][^ page needed][^ non-primary source needed] Both Nelson and Engelbart drew inspiration from Vannevar Bush's vision of the memex, a hypothetical microfilm-based device described in his seminal 1945 essay, "As We May Think". [^4][^ title missing][^5] Other significant precursors to hypertext systems include FRESS and Intermedia. Furthermore, Paul Otlet's early 20th-century project, the Mundaneum, is also recognized as an antecedent to the Web.

ENQUIRE

In 1980, Tim Berners-Lee, while at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, developed ENQUIRE. Initially conceived as a personal database for managing information about people and software models, ENQUIRE also served as a platform for experimenting with hypertext concepts, where each new piece of information was explicitly linked to another. [^6][^7][^8] It's noteworthy that Berners-Lee's initial work on ENQUIRE was not influenced by the ideas of Bush, Engelbart, or Nelson, as he was not aware of their research at the time. However, as his own concepts matured, the work of these predecessors would later serve to validate the fundamental principles of his system. [^9][^10]

The 1980s witnessed the proliferation of numerous packet-switched data networks, each employing various communication protocols (leading to what were sometimes termed Protocol Wars). Among these, the Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, emerged as a critical standard. As the Internet expanded throughout the decade, the growing need for efficient file organization and information retrieval became increasingly apparent. By 1985, the Domain Name System, which forms the basis for the Uniform Resource Locator, was established. [^11][^ better source needed][^ failed verification] During this period, many smaller, self-contained hypertext systems also came into being, such as Apple Computer's HyperCard released in 1987.

Return to CERN

Berners-Lee's initial contract at CERN in 1980 was for a limited duration, but he returned to the organization in 1984 in a permanent capacity. Upon his return, he became acutely aware of the challenges CERN faced in managing its vast and complex information resources. Physicists from across the globe needed to share data, yet they were hindered by incompatible hardware and a lack of standardized presentation software. Shortly after Berners-Lee's reentry, TCP/IP protocols were implemented on the institution's Unix machines, transforming CERN into one of the largest Internet sites in Europe. In 1988, the first direct IP connection between Europe and North America was established. It was around this time that Berners-Lee began to openly discuss the potential of a "web-like" system within CERN. [^12] He was also inspired by the book Enquire Within upon Everything. It is important to remember that numerous online services predated the World Wide Web, including platforms like CompuServe, Usenet, Internet Relay Chat, Telnet, and bulletin board systems. [^13][^14][^15][^16] Prior to the widespread adoption of the Internet, UUCP was a common protocol for services such as e-mail, [^17] and BITNET also served as another popular network. [^18]

1989–1991: Origins

CERN

Tim Berners-Lee's NeXT Computer at CERN served as the very first Web server.

The corridor on the ground floor of building No. 1 at CERN, the very birthplace of the World Wide Web.

Berners-Lee's experience at CERN exposed him to the pervasive inefficiencies and frustrations associated with locating information scattered across different computer systems. [^19] On 12 March 1989, he submitted a pivotal memorandum to CERN management, titled "Information Management: A Proposal". [^1][^20] This proposal introduced the term "web" and was grounded in the concept of a "large hypertext database with typed links." It outlined a system named "Mesh," referencing his earlier 1980 project, ENQUIRE, but envisioned a more sophisticated information management system built upon text-embedded links. Berners-Lee famously articulated the idea: "Imagine, then, the references in this document all being associated with the network address of the thing to which they referred, so that while reading this document, you could skip to them with a click of the mouse." He noted that such a system could be described using the existing term hypertext, a term he attributed to the 1950s. Berners-Lee also contemplated the possibility of incorporating multimedia elements, such as graphics, speech, and video, into documents, a concept he termed hypermedia. [^1][^2]

Despite the initial lack of significant interest in his proposal, Berners-Lee received encouragement from his manager, Mike Sendall, to proceed with implementing his system on a newly acquired NeXT workstation. He explored several potential names for his project, including "Information Mesh," "The Information Mine," and "Mine of Information," ultimately settling on "World Wide Web." Berners-Lee found a crucial ally in his colleague Robert Cailliau, a fellow hypertext enthusiast, who began actively promoting the proposed system throughout CERN. In September 1990, Berners-Lee and Cailliau presented Berners-Lee's ideas at the European Conference on Hypertext Technology, but failed to find any vendors receptive to their vision.

Berners-Lee's pivotal innovation lay in the fusion of hypertext with the Internet. In his book, Weaving The Web, he recounts how he repeatedly suggested this technological marriage to individuals within both communities, but without any takers, he eventually undertook the project himself. This endeavor led to the development of three core technologies:

  • A system for creating globally unique identifiers for resources on the Web and beyond, initially termed the universal document identifier (UDI), which would later evolve into the uniform resource locator (URL).
  • The markup language for creating web pages, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
  • The protocol for transferring hypertext documents, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). [^21]

The very first website, info.cern.ch, as it appeared in 2025.

Working with Cailliau, Berners-Lee published a more detailed proposal on 12 November 1990, outlining a "hypertext project" named WorldWideWeb (abbreviated "W3") designed as a "web" of "hypertext documents" to be accessed by "browsers" employing a client–server architecture. [^22][^23] This proposal drew inspiration from the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) reader Dynatext, developed by Electronic Book Technology, a spin-off from Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship. However, the Dynatext system, which CERN had licensed, was deemed prohibitively expensive and its licensing terms—charging per document and per alteration—were unsuitable for the broader high energy physics community. [^ citation needed]

At this juncture, HTML and HTTP had been in development for approximately two months, and the first web server was nearing the completion of its initial successful test. Berners-Lee's proposal projected the development of a read-only Web within three months, followed by the capability for users to create links and new content within six months, thereby achieving "universal authorship" and "automatic notification of a reader when new material of interest to him/her has become available."

By December 1990, Berners-Lee and his team had successfully developed all the essential components for a functional Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first web browser (aptly named WorldWideWeb, which also functioned as a web editor), the first web server (later known as CERN httpd), and the very first web site (accessible at info.cern.ch). This inaugural site, published on 20 December 1990, contained the initial web pages detailing the project itself. [^24][^25] The WorldWideWeb browser also possessed the capability to access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files. Berners-Lee utilized a NeXT Computer to host the web server and to develop the browser. [^26]

In collaboration with Berners-Lee at CERN, Nicola Pellow created the first cross-platform web browser, the [Line Mode Browser]. [^27]

1991–1994: The Web Goes Public, Early Growth

Initial Launch

The year 1991 marked a significant expansion, with the first web servers outside of CERN becoming operational in January. On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee shared a concise summary of the World Wide Web project on the newsgroup alt.hypertext, extending an open invitation for collaboration. [^28]

In September 1991, Paul Kunz from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) visited CERN and was profoundly impressed by the Web. He subsequently brought the NeXT software back to SLAC. There, librarian Louise Addis adapted it for the VM/CMS operating system on an IBM mainframe, enabling the hosting of the SPIRES-HEP database and the display of SLAC's catalog of online documents. [^29][^30][^31][^32] This development represented the first web server established outside of Europe and the first in North America. [^33]

Several key distinctions set the World Wide Web apart from other contemporary hypertext systems. The Web's reliance on unidirectional links, as opposed to bidirectional ones, simplified implementation by allowing users to link to resources without requiring explicit action from the resource owner. While this significantly reduced the complexity of developing web servers and browsers, it also introduced the persistent challenge of link rot.

Early Browsers

The original WorldWideWeb browser was exclusively compatible with the NeXTSTEP operating system. This limitation, identified in January 1992, [^34] was addressed in April 1992 with the release of Erwise, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology. Subsequently, in May, ViolaWWW, created by Pei-Yuan Wei, emerged with advanced features like embedded graphics, scripting, and animation. ViolaWWW had originated as an application for HyperCard. [^35] Both Erwise and ViolaWWW operated on the X Window System for Unix. In 1992, successful cross-platform browser tests were conducted between CERN buildings 513 and 31, involving the NeXT station browser and the X11-ported Mosaic browser. ViolaWWW became the recommended browser at CERN. To foster internal adoption, Bernd Pollermann made the CERN telephone directory accessible via the Web, eliminating the need for users to log into the mainframe for directory lookups. The Web's utility was evident at CERN, and its use subsequently spread to other scientific and academic institutions.

In 1992, students at the University of Kansas adapted an existing text-only hypertext browser, Lynx, to navigate the Web. Lynx was available on Unix and DOS, and some designers, skeptical of overly graphical websites, maintained that a site inaccessible via Lynx was not worth visiting.

In these initial browsers, images were typically displayed in a separate "helper" application.

From Gopher to the WWW

The early 1990s saw the emergence of various Internet-based projects aimed at organizing distributed data, including Archie, Gopher, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), and the FTP Archive list. Gopher, a document browsing system for the Internet, was released in 1991 by the University of Minnesota. Invented by Mark P. McCahill, it became the first widely adopted hypertext interface for the Internet. While Gopher menu items were not inherently hypertext, they were rendered as hypertext links, enabling users to navigate to resources by following these links. [^36] Within a year, hundreds of Gopher servers were in operation. [^37] In the early 1990s, Gopher presented a viable alternative to the World Wide Web, and many believed it would become the primary means of interacting with the Internet. [^38][^39] However, in 1993, the University of Minnesota declared Gopher a proprietary system requiring licensing. [^37]

In response to this development, CERN announced on 30 April 1993, that the World Wide Web would be made freely available to everyone, without any fees. They released their code into the public domain. [^40][^41] This crucial decision facilitated independent development of servers and clients and allowed for the addition of extensions without licensing encumbrances. [^ citation needed] Coming just two months after the announcement that the server implementation of the Gopher protocol would no longer be free, this move stimulated the development of various browsers, precipitating a swift migration away from Gopher. [^42] By making Berners-Lee's invention publicly accessible, CERN fostered and enabled its widespread adoption. [^43]

Early websites often incorporated links for both the HTTP web protocol and the Gopher protocol. Gopher provided access to content through hypertext menus presented as a file system, rather than through HTML files. Early Web users navigated either by bookmarking popular directory pages or by consulting continuously updated lists, such as the NCSA "What's New" page. Some sites were also indexed by WAIS, allowing users to perform full-text searches, a capability later replicated by search engines.

Following 1993, the World Wide Web experienced significant advancements in indexing and ease of access, largely driven by search engines, which often overlooked Gopher and Gopherspace. As its popularity surged due to its user-friendliness, incentives for commercial investment in the Web also escalated. By mid-1994, the Web had decisively surpassed Gopher and other Internet browsing systems in terms of adoption. [^44]

NCSA

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) launched a website in November 1992. Following a demonstration of ViolaWWW in late 1992, [^35] student Marc Andreessen began collaborating with fellow UIUC student Eric Bina on the development of Mosaic. This project was supported by funding from the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative, a US federal research and development program championed by US Senator Al Gore. [^45][^46][^47] Andreessen and Bina released a Unix version of the browser in February 1993, with Mac and Windows versions following in August of the same year. The browser rapidly gained favor due to its robust support for integrated multimedia and the developers' prompt responses to user feedback and feature requests. [^35] Historians widely concur that the introduction of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 marked a pivotal turning point for the World Wide Web. [^48][^49][^50]

Prior to Mosaic's release in 1993, the integration of graphics with text on web pages was uncommon, and the Web lagged behind older protocols like Gopher and WAIS in popularity. Mosaic's ability to display inline images [^51] and process forms [^52][^53] for Windows, Macintosh, and X-Windows was groundbreaking. NCSA also developed HTTPd, a Unix web server that utilized the Common Gateway Interface for form processing and Server Side Includes for dynamic content generation. Both the client and server software were offered free of charge, with no restrictions. [^54] Mosaic achieved immediate and widespread success; [^55] its graphical user interface propelled the Web to become the dominant protocol on the Internet, surpassing Gopher's traffic within a year. [^37] Wired magazine declared that Mosaic rendered older online services obsolete, [^56] and the Web became the preferred interface for accessing the Internet. [^ citation needed]

Early Growth

The World Wide Web played a crucial role in popularizing the Internet by enabling the dissemination of information through an accessible and flexible format. [^57] Despite the common conflation of the terms in popular usage, the World Wide Web is not synonymous with the Internet. [^58] The Web is fundamentally an information space comprising hyperlinked documents and other resources, uniquely identified by their URIs. [^59] Its implementation relies on both client and server software operating over Internet protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP.

Reflecting its origins at CERN, the early adopters of the Web were predominantly university-based scientific departments and physics laboratories, including institutions like SLAC and Fermilab. By January 1993, there were fifty web servers globally. [^60] This number had surged to over five hundred by October 1993, encompassing a growing number of notable websites. [^61]

The practical distribution and streaming media over the Web became feasible due to advancements in data compression. The prohibitive bandwidth requirements of uncompressed media necessitated these developments. Following the Web's introduction, several media formats based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) emerged for efficient media distribution and streaming, including the MPEG video format in 1991 and the JPEG image format in 1992. The high degree of image compression offered by JPEG made it particularly suitable for compensating for the slow Internet access speeds prevalent during the era of dial-up Internet access. JPEG rapidly became the dominant image format on the World Wide Web. A variation of DCT, the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) algorithm, led to the development of MP3, introduced in 1991, which soon became the first widely adopted audio format on the Web.

In 1992, the Computing and Networking Department of CERN, under the leadership of David Williams, withdrew its support for Berners-Lee's project. A two-page email communication from Williams stated that Berners-Lee's work, aimed at facilitating information exchange among the scientific community, was not considered a core activity of CERN and represented a misallocation of IT resources. Following this decision, Tim Berners-Lee departed CERN for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he continued his work on HTTP. [^ citation needed]

The first Microsoft Windows browser was Cello, developed by Thomas R. Bruce for the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. Its purpose was to provide access to legal information, as Windows was more widely used among lawyers than Unix. Cello was released in June 1993.

1994–2004: Open Standards, Going Global

The deployment of websites experienced a dramatic acceleration worldwide, fostering the development of international standards for protocols and content formatting. [^62] Berners-Lee remained actively involved in guiding the evolution of web standards, particularly concerning markup languages for web page composition. He also championed his vision of a Semantic Web (sometimes referred to as Web 3.0), emphasizing machine-readability and interoperability standards.

World Wide Web Conference

The first International WWW Conference, organized by Robert Cailliau, took place at CERN in May 1994. This conference has been held annually ever since.

Robert Cailliau, Jean-François Abramatic, and Tim Berners-Lee at the tenth anniversary celebration of the World Wide Web Consortium.

World Wide Web Consortium

Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in September/October 1994, shortly after leaving the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), with the objective of establishing open standards for the Web. [^63] The consortium was initially established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS), with crucial support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an organization instrumental in pioneering the Internet. A year later, a second site was established at INRIA, France's national computer research laboratory, with backing from the European Commission. In 1996, a third international site was created at Keio University in Japan.

The W3C brought together various companies committed to developing standards and recommendations aimed at enhancing the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee's commitment to making the Web freely accessible, free from patents and royalties, was a guiding principle. The W3C consequently mandated that its standards be based on royalty-free technology to ensure widespread adoption. During the intense browser war between Netscape and Microsoft, both companies initially disregarded W3C guidelines and introduced proprietary HTML extensions, such as the and tags. However, in 1995, Netscape and Microsoft eventually agreed to adhere to W3C standards. [^64]

The W3C released the standard for HTML 4 in 1997, which incorporated Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), granting designers greater control over the visual presentation of web pages without necessitating additional HTML tags. Despite the W3C's efforts, enforcement of compliance remained a challenge, and browsers were not universally compliant. This frustration spurred web designers to form the Web Standards Project (WaSP) in 1998, with the aim of advocating for stricter adherence to standards. [^65] Influential websites like A List Apart and CSS Zen Garden promoted best practices in design and standards compliance. [^66] Nevertheless, AOL discontinued Netscape's development, [^67] and Microsoft was slow to update Internet Explorer. [^68] While browsers like Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari emerged with a focus on standards compliance, they struggled to displace Internet Explorer as the dominant browser.

A 1997 advertisement in State Magazine by the US State Department Library introducing the then-unfamiliar Web.

Commercialization, Dot-Com Boom and Bust, Aftermath

As the Web expanded in the mid-1990s, web directories and rudimentary search engines were developed to index pages and aid users in finding information. Commercial use restrictions on the Internet were lifted in 1995 with the decommissioning of NSFNET.

In the United States, the online service provider America Online (AOL) provided its users with Internet access through its proprietary internal browser, utilizing a dial-up connection. In January 1994, Yahoo! was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo, then graduate students at Stanford University. The Yahoo! Directory quickly became the first widely popular web directory. Launched in the same year, Yahoo! Search became the first prominent search engine on the World Wide Web. Yahoo! exemplified the success of a first mover in the burgeoning Web landscape.

The advent of online shopping began with the launch of Amazon's retail website by Jeff Bezos in 1995, followed by eBay founded by Pierre Omidyar in the same year.

By 1994, Marc Andreessen's Netscape Navigator had surpassed Mosaic in popularity, maintaining its leading position for a considerable period. In 1995, Bill Gates outlined Microsoft's strategy for dominating the Internet in his influential "Tidal Wave" memo. [^69] With the release of Windows 95 and the widely adopted Internet Explorer browser, numerous public companies began to establish an online presence. Initially, the primary focus was on the potential for free publishing and instantaneous global information access. By the late 1990s, the directory model had largely been superseded by search engines, coinciding with the rise of Google Search, which introduced innovative approaches to relevancy ranking. While directory features remained available, they became secondary to the capabilities of search engines.

Netscape's highly successful Initial Public Offering (IPO), which valued the company at $2.9 billion despite its lack of profitability, is often cited as a trigger for the dot-com bubble. [^70] Increasing user familiarity with the Web fueled the growth of direct Web-based commerce (e-commerce) and real-time global group communication. Numerous dot-com companies, showcasing their products on hypertext webpages, emerged and populated the Web. Over the subsequent five years, more than a trillion dollars were invested in funding thousands of startups, many of which consisted of little more than a website.

During the dot-com boom, a fierce competition arose among companies striving to establish dominant web portals. The prevailing belief was that such a centralized website would attract the largest audience, thereby securing substantial online advertising revenue. While most of these portals included search engine functionality, their primary objective was to retain users within the portal rather than encourage exploration of external sites, focusing instead on "sticky" content. [^71] In contrast, Google offered a streamlined search engine that delivered superior results. [^72] This user-centric approach led to a significant migration of users from portals to Google. Furthermore, Google's introduction of AdWords provided an effective and sustainable business model. [^73][^74]

AOL acquired Netscape in 1998. [^75] Despite their initial success, Netscape proved unable to withstand the onslaught from Microsoft. [^76] Internet Explorer, along with a variety of other browsers, virtually eliminated Netscape's market share.

The widespread adoption of faster broadband internet connections began to replace dial-up connections in the early 2000s.

Following the bursting of the dot-com bubble, many web portals significantly scaled back their operations, struggled to survive, [^77] or ceased to exist entirely. [^78][^79][^80] AOL officially disbanded Netscape in 2003. [^81]

Web Server Software

Web server software was developed to enable computers to function as web servers. Early web servers were primarily capable of serving static files like HTML and images. Modern servers, however, commonly support the embedding of server-side applications. Web framework software emerged to facilitate the construction and deployment of complex web applications. Content management systems (CMS) were developed to streamline the organization and collaborative creation of content, often built upon separate content management frameworks.

After Robert McCool joined Netscape, development on the NCSA HTTPd server slowed. In 1995, Brian Behlendorf and Cliff Skolnick initiated a mailing list to coordinate efforts in fixing bugs and enhancing HTTPd. [^82] They named their enhanced version of HTTPd "Apache". [^83] Apache rapidly ascended to become the dominant web server on the Web. [^84] With the addition of module support, Apache enabled developers to handle web requests using various programming languages, including Perl, PHP, and Python. In conjunction with Linux and MySQL, this combination became known as the LAMP platform.

Building on the success of Apache, the Apache Software Foundation was established in 1999, producing numerous open source web software projects in the same collaborative spirit.

Browser Wars

After graduating from UIUC, Andreessen met with Jim Clark, former CEO of Silicon Graphics, and together they founded Mosaic Communications Corporation in April 1994 to commercially develop the Mosaic Netscape browser. The company was later renamed [Netscape], and the browser evolved into Netscape Navigator, which quickly achieved market dominance. They also released the Netsite Commerce web server, capable of handling SSL requests, thereby enabling secure e-commerce on the Web. [^85] SSL became the standard protocol for encrypting web traffic. Navigator 1.0 also introduced cookies, though this feature was not widely publicized by Netscape at the time. Subsequent releases, such as Navigator 2 in 1995, introduced frames, Java applets, and JavaScript. In 1998, Netscape open-sourced Navigator and launched the Mozilla project. [^86]

Microsoft licensed Mosaic from Spyglass and released Internet Explorer 1.0 that year, followed by IE2 later in the same year. IE2 incorporated features pioneered by Netscape, including cookies, SSL, and JavaScript. The browser wars intensified when Internet Explorer was bundled with Windows, leading to the landmark United States v. Microsoft Corporation antitrust lawsuit.

IE3, released in 1996, added support for Java applets, ActiveX, and CSS. At this point, Microsoft began bundling IE with Windows installations. IE3 successfully increased Microsoft's market share in the browser landscape from under 10% to over 20%. [^89] IE4, launched the following year, introduced Dynamic HTML, laying the groundwork for the Web 2.0 revolution. By 1998, Internet Explorer had captured the majority of the desktop browser market. [^76] It would retain this dominant position for the next fourteen years.

Google released its Chrome browser in 2008, featuring the groundbreaking V8 JavaScript engine with just-in-time compilation (JIT). Chrome surpassed Internet Explorer to become the dominant desktop browser within four years, [^90] and subsequently overtook Safari to become the leading mobile browser in two years. [^91] Concurrently, Google open-sourced Chrome's codebase under the name Chromium. [^92]

In 2009, Ryan Dahl utilized Chromium's V8 engine to create Node.js, an event-driven runtime system that enabled the use of JavaScript on servers, not just within browsers. This innovation spurred the development of new software architectures, such as the MEAN stack. Frameworks like Electron further allowed developers to package Node.js applications as standalone desktop applications, exemplified by platforms like Slack.

Acer and Samsung began offering Chromebooks in 2011 – affordable laptops running ChromeOS designed to run web applications. Over the subsequent decade, the availability of Chromebooks expanded significantly. In 2020, Chromebooks outsold macOS devices, becoming the second most popular operating system globally. [^93]

Other notable web browsers that emerged during this period include Mozilla's Firefox, Opera's Opera browser, and Apple's Safari.

Web 1.0

Web 1.0 is a retronym used to describe the initial phase of the World Wide Web's evolution, generally spanning from approximately 1989 to 2004. According to researchers Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, "content creators were few in Web 1.0 with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content." [^94] Personal web pages were prevalent, primarily consisting of static pages hosted on ISP-operated web servers or through free hosting services like Tripod and the now-defunct GeoCities. [^95][^96]

Common design characteristics of a Web 1.0 site included: [^97]