NCSA Mosaic

This article is about the browser produced by NCSA. For the browser that was later renamed, see Netscape Navigator.
NCSA Mosaic
Original authors
DeveloperNCSA
Initial release0.5 / January 23, 1993 (1993-01-23)
Final release
3.0  / 7 January 1997 (7 January 1997)
Written inC
Platform
Available inEnglish
TypeWeb browser
LicenseProprietary
Websitencsa.uiuc.edu at the Wayback Machine (archived 1998-02-23)

NCSA Mosaic is a discontinued web browser that was instrumental in popularizing the World Wide Web and the general Internet during the 1990s. Although not the first web browser (preceded by WorldWideWeb, Erwise, and ViolaWWW), it was the first browser to display images inline with text instead of a separate window.

It supported various Internet protocols such as HTTP, FTP, NNTP, and Gopher. Its interface, reliability, personal computer support, and simple installation contributed to Mosaic's initial popularity.

Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign beginning in late 1992, released in January 1993, with official development and support until January 1997. Mosaic lost market share to Netscape Navigator in late 1994, and had only a tiny fraction of users left by 1997, when the project was discontinued. Microsoft licensed one of the derivative commercial products, Spyglass Mosaic, to create Internet Explorer in 1995.

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