Netscape: The Browser That Built the Web and Lost to Microsoft

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Before they wrote a line of commercial browser code, Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen drafted a 20-page pitch for an online gaming network for the Nintendo 64. When that fell through, they turned to the web. In April 1994 they founded Mosaic Communications, soon renamed Netscape after a trademark clash with the University of Illinois, and rebuilt a browser from scratch under the code name Mozilla, short for Mosaic killer. Netscape Navigator took 75 percent of the browser market in four months, and the August 1995 IPO valued a 16-month-old, unprofitable company at $2.9 billion.

That valuation woke Microsoft. This episode follows the browser war that came next: Internet Explorer bundled free into Windows 95, Netscape clinging to paid licenses while its software bloated, and the January 1998 decision to release its source code to the world. It also traces what outlived the company, from JavaScript, cookies, and SSL to the Mozilla project that produced Firefox, and the slow fade after AOL bought Netscape in a deal that closed at roughly $10 billion.

• Shares were planned at $14, doubled to $28 on demand, and hit $75 on the first day, a shock to Wall Street that became known as the Netscape moment.
• After a June 1995 meeting at which Microsoft allegedly proposed dividing the browser market, Microsoft licensed Mosaic code from Spyglass and shipped Internet Explorer 1.0.
• Brendan Eich created JavaScript, Lou Montulli invented the HTTP cookie so sites could remember a shopping cart, and Netscape engineers developed SSL to encrypt data in transit.
• The open source community found the old code nearly unworkable and rewrote the rendering engine as Gecko, the foundation of Mozilla Firefox.
• In July 2003 Time Warner disbanded the Netscape development team and the logo came off the building, while the name lived on as a discount dial-up service.