Web Browsers
Year First Appeared
1990
Creator
Tim Berners‑Lee, Marc Andreessen, Brendan Eich, Eric Bina, Jim Clark, Thomas Reardon, Ben Slivka, Blake Ross, Dave Hyatt, Sundar Pichai, Linus Upson, Ben Goodger, Darin Fisher, Lars Bak
An exhibit tracing the development of web browsers from early pioneers like Tim Berners‑Lee’s 1990 browser and NCSA Mosaic to later dominant browsers, illustrating how shifts in market leadership, from Mosaic and Netscape to Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome, shaped what users could see and do on the Web.
Importance in Internet Culture
Browser competition determined what the Web could show and do, from images and secure shopping to dynamic apps, tabs, and rapid updates, pushing standards forward and transforming the Web from static pages into a programmable platform for everyday life and commerce.
Interesting Fact
The first web browser was also a WYSIWYG editor you could use to change pages in place. Years later, Google announced Chrome with a comic book explaining its new multi‑process, sandboxed design.