# 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:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/41 "2009-03-17T04:09:47Z")
When I got to college in 1993, Lynx was still commonly used. Then along came Mosaic with its highfalutin’ _pictures_ - I feel like that was also 1993… And then the later version where the text loaded first, then the pics. Oh, we were getting fancy, we were. Maybe around 94-95. BTW, when I started working customer service for a web retailer in 1998, we had the occasional complaint that the site was not Lynx-compatible. Seriously! ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/42 "2009-03-17T05:53:27Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > 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? Mosaic. BTW, I was using the “Internet” back in 1972 on dialup. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/43 "2009-03-17T05:59:55Z")
> [@Silophant](#): > > I was only eight, but it was a Windows 95 computer in 1998, so I’d say Internet Explorer 4. Whoa. Ditto, but I’m slightly older. ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/44 "2009-03-17T06:14:32Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > The built in AOL browser. > > God I hated that piece of shit software. Yeah it was terrible. It was around 1995 when I got to first using this. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/45 "2009-03-17T06:30:34Z")
Netscape 1.0 (?) in 1994, in _Cyberia_, the UK’s first cyber-café, Tottehnam Court Road, London. I seem to remember you couldn’t have more than one window open at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/46 "2009-03-17T07:43:26Z")
NCSA Mosaic, when it was brand new. They wanted people to take a look at this new thing they had come out with. I thought it was ok, nothing special. Back then, most people accessing the “internet” were grabbing things using ftp. Easy point and click wasn’t around yet. I still remember the day (much later) when they announced that http transfers had taken over ftp transfers in total internet traffic. I was on early networks which evolved into the “internet” back in the 80’s, back in the dark ages when vms and unix ruled. 300 baud terminals. Wheeee! (I can type faster than that…) And if I didn’t feel old enough in this thread now, I should mention that I have in fact programmed on punch cards. Now get off my lawn! ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/47 "2009-03-17T07:49:26Z")
I guess I’m just a young pup—I started on AOL’s Web Browser 1.0, in '95. You know how you learn patience? A five year old Mac with a dialup modem. That’s how. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/48 "2009-03-17T13:24:39Z")
Netscape on either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95–I’m not sure if I did anything online before high school or not. **Ranchoth** , you want patience? Try doing ANY web surfing these days without high-speed. Summers at home were painful (weekends were worse, since I was stuck with the old laptop, which must’ve taken a full 5 minutes just to boot up). Surfing at work wasn’t much better–we had cable, but the computer was ancient. I managed to lock it up at least once a day just from web surfing. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/49 "2009-03-17T13:40:22Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > **Ranchoth** , you want patience? Try doing ANY web surfing these days without high-speed. Tell me about it…I was still on dialup halfway through '05. (Also, at that point, with a five year old Mac, come to think of it. Although at least I had more than 40 megs on a twitchy hard disk by then) ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/50 "2009-03-17T13:49:51Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > And if I didn’t feel old enough in this thread now, I should mention that I have in fact programmed on punch cards. Punched cards? You whippersnapper, I first programmed on punched paper tape, on a computer using valves rather than transistors. ---
**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 17, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/51 "2009-03-17T13:56:32Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Punched cards? You whippersnapper, I first programmed on punched paper tape, on a computer using valves rather than transistors. Paper tape stuck around for quite a while. I used it in the mid-to-late 1970s on early S-100 machines. Can’t say I ever used punched cards personally (though I recall government checks and manufacturer coupons using them through the same time frame). ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/52 "2009-03-17T14:33:25Z")
Netscape or possibly an AOL built-in, circa 1995. Since no one has done a shout-out to AltaVista, that was the first decent browser. 1996? ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/53 "2009-03-17T15:54:06Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > Since no one has done a shout-out to AltaVista, that was the first decent browser. 1996? AltaVista was never a browser. It was the first web search engine. And damn good it was too. Always fun to hit AltaVista and see a message _We will be back soon, but we are adding another gig of Ram to the server_. In those days, a gig of Ram was a big deal. I used _Archie_. I used _Gopher_, and _WAIS_, too. And I used _NCSA Mosaic_ when it first came out. I also had to help haul our fiber into our building to get an internet connection via TuiaNet (the NZ university/govt research network). The most fun I had at that stage was setting up a surplus Sun system with INN to run as a usenet server. At the time, all our internet traffic was billed per mb. After I left that job, I found out that my boss had got a massive retrospective bill for all the usenet traffic - the monitoring software upstream had not been billing _nntp_ traffic for over a year. Si ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/54 "2009-03-17T16:37:37Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Hmmm…anyone remember Gopher or Wais? Gopher, WAIS and Veronica weren’t web browsers. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/55 "2009-03-17T20:15:54Z")
1993, Lynx in a telnet session via dialup. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/56 "2009-03-17T20:18:26Z")
Nutscrape, er, Netscape on a Win95 machine. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/57 "2009-03-17T20:35:47Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Netscape Navigator on a PC running Windows 3.1. This was in 1995. This. In 1994. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/58 "2009-03-17T20:40:16Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > AltaVista was never a browser. It was the first web search engine. And damn good it was too. Always fun to hit AltaVista and see a message _We will be back soon, but we are adding another gig of Ram to the server_. In those days, a gig of Ram was a big deal. I remember using WebCrawler before AltaVista. ---
**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 17, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638/59 "2009-03-17T21:02:52Z")
AltaVista was my fallback but my primary search engine was Infoseek. At the time, I used them for the same reason I make Google my homepage now: very little graphics, just a search bar and a logo. Then Infoseek was bought up by Disney and became some goofy graphics-laden portal site. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-first-web-browser/489638.md?page=2)