And then Internet Explorer died and turned into Chrome.
Empires rise then quickly fall in tech.
From creating an industry to lawsuits over monopolizing said industry in under a decade may be a record.
But thats the web.
Everything moves faster online, from the dot-com boom and bust to todays smartphone-powered world.
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Its almost hard to remember a world without internet tool, and tabs, and bookmarks.
The web and browsers didnt simply change computing.
They changed us, forever.
Reinventing language
First, the web changed language.
Browsers were cows grazing in the field.
No files, no saving, just browsing.
That idea stuck around for naming other software for viewing things.
Dr. Dobbs Journal mentionedBrowsecommand to view files without editing them as a File Browserin 1984.
Browsers were mainstream years before the web needed one.
It was a hardcover internet for an earlier age, where a young Tim browsed for information.
So he calledWorldWideWeba internet tool/editorbut the portmanteau was not for long.
net online gate stuck.
Thatd hardly be the last word the web would change.
The Web itself was borrowed from what spiders weave.
Sites were locations, until they became locations on the web.
Links were parts of a chain, until they became underlined text.
Rapid iteration
Then, the web changed the way we work.
WorldWideWeb was a quite basic reader, a proof of concept for Berners-Lees hyperlinked text ideas.
You could read and edit HTML pages, but you couldnt embed photos or other media.
The students at the University of Illinois demanded more.
Mosaic turned the web into a magazine, with in-line photos and fancier layouts.
You couldnt have built Netflix or Spotify just yet, but the seeds were planted with embedded media.
The web wouldnt just be a collection of static documents.
Mosaic was also the original downloadable app.
And thats what changed the world.
Mosaic wasnt just software that stayed the same, as traditional boxed software had up until that time.
Each new feature increased Mosaics popularity.
Why stick with the same old software when a better version was a click away?
That set the tone for decades of web development.
When your competitors are only a tab or download away, you cant afford to not listen to users.
Marc, more than anyone, appeared interested in responding to users wants, said Berners-Lee.
Thus fancier web pages were in, editing was out, much to the web inventors frustration.
Then somehow, it came full circle.
It would just come from apps on the web, rather than from the internet tool itself.
Rethinking everything
Then, the web changed everything.
The NCSA funds dried up, leaving the university to license Mosaic to other companies.
Andreessen went to look for a job,linking his resume in MosaicsAboutpageas an early personal growth hack.
AOL had a proprietary web link, with publishers like National Geographic and the Smithsonian.
They considered connected gamingbut that was years away from working.
Nothing else seemed to.
And that became the mission of Netscape.
But once the web sped everything up, there was little else to do.
The Internet is a tidal wave, wrote Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 1995.
It changes the rules.
Microsoft would embrace the web so fully, it rebuilt the Windows desktop around the web client.
Then they combined the two with Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4.
Web apps were still basic, with Hotmails online email and Amazons online checkout as state of the art.
Wed grow to hate the stacks of toolbars, yearn for a simpler web.
Decades later, its increasingly rare to see business software developed for anything but the web.
The rapid iteration that fueled Mosaic, then Netscape, then IEs rise had come to a stop.
Perhaps wed be content with desktop software after all.
Then Steve Jobs decided Apple should build a surfing app.
The focus would be on one thing: Speed, recalled engineerKen Kocienda.
Webkit, in turn, provided the groundwork for Google to build Chrome.
Google named the online window after the UI chrome surrounding the web, then ironically removed most of it.
Gone were the toolbars that cluttered IE, and the title bar that announced the sites name.
Chrome had less chrome than any other online window, left the focus on the web.
You searched and browsed from the same box, with extensions relegated to tiny icons.
Everything else was the web.
Somehow, by removing everything other than the essentials, Chrome won the internet tool wars.
It was the web all along that we wanted, as a platform for sites andpositional software.
Everything else was just extra.
Seasons change
Market power on the internet is a fickle thing.
World Wide Web was the only online window.
Todays browsers are the ultimate remix.
And theyve remade the world in their image.
We now expect free software updates, tabs and bookmarks, and software companies being worth billions overnight.
Were used to tech-infused language changing how we communicate.
To think it all started with theidea to connect everything.
