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Software for viewing web pages, and thus
the key to the explosion of the internet in the 1990s. Browsers have come a
long way since their text-only beginnings at cern in the early 1990s.
kick-started in 1993 by the ncsa's mosaic, the browser business was
transformed by netscape in 1996. The latest versions of programs such
as Microsoft's internet explorer, Netscape's navigator and
Opera Software's opera are more than just html viewers : they are
sophisticated multimedia tools in their own right. Modern browsers can play
high-quality audio and video; manage secure connections to e-commerce sites;
send and receive e-mail; and run java applets, activex
controls and plug-ins that extend their capabilities in other ways. And they
no longer just run on pcs ; mobile phones and pdas are now
routinely equipped with sophisticated browsers, enabling people to access
web pages while on the move.
It is their status as doorways to the
web which has made browsers the subject of fierce debate in the net
community, a source of acrimony among software vendors and, ultimately,
the cause of the highest-profile antitrust case in recent American history.
Own the browser, the theory goes, and you own the web audience and maybe its
wallet too: a theory to which Microsoft has readily subscribed. Netscape's
seemingly unassailable market share of over 80% in 1996 had been steadily
whittled away by Microsoft to less than 25% at the beginning of 2000,
largely because of the latest version of the windows operating system,
an act that led to a high-profile antitrust suit against the company. By the
end of 2002, Microsoft was estimated to have cornered 95% of the market, to
the great discomfort of industry analysts and legislators alike.
The so- called browser wars have imposed heavy costs
on web users and site builders. Users have been plagued by security flaws in
successive versions of internet explorer, whose close integration with the
windows operating system has made them vulnerable to many forms of attack
from malicious outsiders. As fast as Microsoft patches one hole, another
seems to appear, yet another reason why so many people oppose the company's
dominance of the browser market. Meanwhile, web developers are shackled by
the need to build support for multiple versions of several different
browsers into their code. Many now only support people with version 5
browsers or higher, effectively excluding owners of older machines or
operating systems.
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