# What was your FIRST web browser? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 16, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638 "2009-03-16T17:27:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/1 "2009-03-16T17:27:56Z")
(Blatantly ripped from [tweakers.net](http://tweakers.net/poll/982/twintig-jaar-www.html)) The World Wide Web is already almost twenty years old! In what year and with what web browser (and OS) did you first browse the web? Me: 1993, Mosaic v1 on SunOS and Mac OS system 6 (in monochrome!). ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/2 "2009-03-16T17:46:10Z")
Lynx. Just be gentle when you tatoo I’M OLD on my forehead, okay, please? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/3 "2009-03-16T17:47:00Z")
I would have been about '93 as well. The college computer lab computers used Mosaic but the crappy computer I was borrowing for my dorm room wouldn’t run it. So I dialed into the telnet shell and used Lynx. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/4 "2009-03-16T17:49:05Z")
Mosaic. Around 1995, I think? Or 94. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/5 "2009-03-16T17:54:27Z")
Also Mosaic, in 1994. I remember being in the computer lab and people peering over my shoulder asking me what in the world I was doing. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/6 "2009-03-16T17:55:25Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Also Mosaic, in 1994. I remember being in the computer lab and people peering over my shoulder asking me what in the world I was doing. Me too, on a Mac 512Ke ( or a Mac Plus, it’s been a few years and I’ve slept since then.) ---
**Author:** ![kenner116](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@kenner116](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenner116)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/7 "2009-03-16T18:01:12Z")
Netscape Navigator in 1995. On some kind of Mac in my middle school’s computer lab. 4th or 5th grade. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/8 "2009-03-16T18:08:30Z")
GEnie’s built in web browser (probably a form of Lynx). This had to be around 1992 or so. I was online since 1989, but didn’t really get Internet access until around 1998. I was a big user of GEnie. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/9 "2009-03-16T18:18:40Z")
Lynx here, too. Ran Novaterm 9.something on my Commodore 128 to dial into the local university’s Unix system running C Shell (or, later on, one of the first local ISP’s Sparcstations running Solaris) to access the Internet; lots of telneting to BBSes, using Gopher to dig for articles, finding porn via Archie. Friends with Windows began crowing about Mosaic, and eventually turned me onto Lynx so I could access the WWW. ~1993. I didn’t move onto a graphics-based browser for several years, until the continued use of image maps by high-profile sites made regular use difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/10 "2009-03-16T18:28:50Z")
What ever ran inside Prodigy (so I suppose the answer would be Prodigy), after that it was Netscape and then IE when Windows 95 came out. We were running Win 3.1 on a 486SX ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/11 "2009-03-16T18:35:12Z")
The built in AOL browser. God I hated that piece of shit software. ---
**Author:** ![filling\_pages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9bd4f/32.png) [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/12 "2009-03-16T19:02:50Z")
Prodigy. I could turn it on and start to get online, take a shower, make breakfast, and go back to the computer just in time for it to be ready to crash. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/13 "2009-03-16T19:03:19Z")
Mosaic, I think in 1994. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/14 "2009-03-16T19:04:43Z")
Netscape, late eighties or early nineties. May have been talked through a connection through something called Veronica(?). But I don’t think that was a browser. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/15 "2009-03-16T19:05:00Z")
NCSA Mosaic, in 92 or 93. Before that, it was dial-up BBSes with text interfaces, downloading images to view later, and trading FTP site addresses. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/16 "2009-03-16T19:10:47Z")
Netscape Navigator on a PC running Windows 3.1. This was in 1995. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/17 "2009-03-16T19:14:30Z")
My first browser was probably an early version of Netscape (the one with the Throbbing N). This would have been early 1995, after I got a true Internet connection through dialup from a 386 PC running Windows 3.1. (Before that, I was using an XT and BBS software to connect to the Canada Remote Systems BBS, which gatewayed email to the internet, but I did not have actual full internet access myself. Incidentally, VERONICA was the [Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_(computer)). An indexing system for net resources using the [gopher](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)) protocol. One of my favourite acronyms. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/18 "2009-03-16T19:16:34Z")
My first exposure was Mosaic, I was attending the University of Illinois in 1994 after all, but I wasn’t very interested in using it myself. At 18 years of age drinking and partying were much more important than adopting the cutting edge technologies. The first browser I used with any regularity was Netscape Navigator a couple years later when the internet got a little more useful for casual browsing and classes. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/19 "2009-03-16T19:17:55Z")
Man, I had to think for a second. I’m gonna chime in with Netscape as well. I was on Prodigy in the early 90s, but I’m not sure if I ever went _outiside_ of prodigy. For some reason I don’t fully remember, we only had prodigy in black and white. On our color monitor. Never did get to complete MadMaze. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/20 "2009-03-16T19:18:02Z")
Another Netscapee [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638.md?page=2)