High Tech Household

Anyone who has a computer these days browses the Internet.  The web browser has become as important as the operating system in meeting a user’s personal or business computing needs.  When the World Wide Web began its life 15 years ago, the dominant web browser was Mosaic, which later became Netscape.   In 1995, Internet Explorer entered the marketplace with Windows 95, coming free with every new computer.  As Netscape and Microsoft competed in the “Browser Wars”, Netscape became a bloated piece of software and died a slow death.  However, before Netscape’s dominance ended, they created an open source group to develop a new web browser called Mozilla, which ended up providing the engine for the popular FireFox browser.  Microsoft’s dominance in the web browser has been deteriorating in recent years because of the introduction of several new, powerful, and fast web browsers.

Since the battle between Netscape and Internet Explorer ended, different web browsers have come and gone, with varying levels of success.  The Browser debate also garners a lot of passion as people get very attached to their personal choice of web browser.  While there are countless minor web browsers out there (which we will examine at some point in the future), we focus on the five major web browsers currently in use:  Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera.

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