Netscape Navigator Netscape: The Early Years Forrest Stroud
Netscape: The Early Years
The early releases of Netscape rendered Mosaic and the rest of the competition obsolete by introducing a long list of Web browser 'firsts', including internal support for GIFs and JPEGs (including transparent, interlaced, and animated GIFs as well as progressive JPEGs), integrated news and mail clients, built-in File Transfer Protocol (FTP) functionality, concurrent access for multiple sites via spawned Web browser windows, text centering, tables and forms support, spawned processes for saving files, advanced security for Web-based transactions, and much more.
With so many unique and powerful features, it's easy to see why Netscape was able to garner over 80% of the browser market at the zenith of its popularity. Netscape Communications Corporation (NCC) also ensured Netscape's popularity by making the browser freely available for download over the 'net.
And with a 16-bit version for Windows 3.x users, a 32-bit version for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT users, a Macintosh release, and more than ten different releases for the various flavors of UNIX, NCC has done its part to make sure that the entire 'net community can benefit from Netscape's amazing features.
