It was based off of Mosaic, another old browser which has not had a new version since 1997. While we’re on the topic of browsers based off of Mosaic, in 1994, Netscape launched Netscape Navigator. Netscape Navigator was at one point so popular that it eclipsed the browser it was based off of. Internet Explorer was also rapidly gaining popularity. This started a “browser war” between Explorer and Navigator. Internet Explorer Version 2.0 was compatible with both Mac and Windows. Navigator had a reputation for being slow and prone to crashing, and Microsoft shipped Internet Explorer with all versions of Windows and other operating systems, resulting in them being sued in a case they won.
Also in 1997, NeXT was purchased by Apple and Steve Jobs returned to the company. Just one year later, he would change computers forever once again. In 1998, Apple launched the iMac. The iMac was in all-in-one computer. Steve Jobs loved to make all-in-one computers. When Jobs left the company, Apple went to making computers with towers, but when he returned, they went back to making all-in-one computers. The iMac had an interesting design that many recognize. Source: Apple
In 2000, Microsoft launched one of the worst versions of Windows yet. Windows ME was a disaster. It was incredibly unstable and crashed all the time. Apart from that, there were no major changes to the operating system since Windows 95. How did Windows respond to this setback? They overhauled the user interface. Microsoft created Windows XP in 2001. XP was an iconic part of many people’s lives, and many people were saddened by the news that Microsoft was dropping support for it in 2014. Despite this, it lives on. The interface, while still based off of Windows 95, was modernized. The background, which you might not think affect the popularity of the operating system, also helped popularize it. Many people remember the background image with the grassy hill on a beautiful day. The startup and shutdown sounds were also fondly remembered by people. The background image was taken by Charles O’Rear in 1996 in Napa, California and was called Bliss. Microsoft bought the rights to the image in 2000. Before taking the image, O’Rear worked as a photographer for a magazine. The system used the Luna visual style. It’s the one with the solid blue bars and the red close buttons.
Source: Wikipedia
One year later, Netscape Navigator (which was still around) was temporarily discontinued, and Netscape employees created Mozilla, which would eventually become Firefox. Firefox, while not reaching the popularity of browsers such as Safari, was still relatively popular. Speaking of Safari, Apple wanted to cash in on the internet trend. Microsoft had made loads of money from allowing Internet Explorer to be compatible with Apple computers. Now Apple had to do the same thing, so they created Safari. Apple refused to launch computers with Internet Explorer after losing the lawsuit. After Safari was created in 2003, it was immediately shipped with all versions of Mac OSX.
In late 2006, Microsoft moved on from the hugely popular Windows XP and created Windows Vista. The user interface was once again modernized, replacing the old startup sound, background image and visual style, angering many XP fans. Other criticisms it faced were its high price, removed features and lack of compatibility with programs. Vista was a flop and was discontinued in 2009. It got so bad for Vista that Microsoft decided to sell XP until June of 2008 instead of January, and people attempted to downgrade to Windows XP.
In 2004, Google was a popular search engine. Most people would be OK and settle for only being a popular search engine, but not Google. Google began development of a customizable web browser. The browser was more advanced than most at the time. It was officially released on September 2, 2008. Windows Vista was pretty unpopular at the time, and Google initially decided to avoid and instead released Google Chrome for Windows XP. People were excited to have a browser as customizable as Chrome, and it became very popular very quickly and became the most popular browser in the world sometime around 2012.
In 2006, hard drives had completely taken over and floppies were now obsolete. Up until
now, Google hadn’t played a huge part in the history of computers. But that was
about to change. Before 2006, the idea of a cloud based storage system was not
very popular. To share files, people mainly used USBs. But in March 2006, Google introduced Google Docs.