Ancient Web Browsers

Last updated: 23 Apr 2023

This is an archive of the very earliest Web browsers -- the true pioneers, the Old Gods, the Ancients:

WorldWideWeb/Nexus, LineMode, Viola, Erwise, TkWWW, MidasWWW, w3, w3browser, Samba, Lynx
WorldWideWeb/Nexus, LineMode, Viola, Erwise, TkWWW, MidasWWW, w3, w3browser, Samba, Lynx

What makes a browser "ancient"? Since Mosaic was "instrumental in popularizing the Web" (or as another source puts it, "set the Web free"), it makes a good benchmark. Mosaic for X 1.2, which appears to be the most widely-distributed early version, was released in June 1993. Mosaic for X 2.0, along with the first versions for Macintosh and Windows, was released in November 1993. So, I'd say anything from before mid-1993 clearly qualifies, arguably extending into early 1994.

Below is a table comparing the earliest-known version of each browser with the earliest version archived here. Clicking a browser name will bring you to more complete information and download links.

Also included are some notes on my attempts to build and run these programs and screenshots of the browsers in action. Most browsers archived here will build on NeXTStep 3.3 in Previous with, if they are X/Motif browsers, CubXWindow and LessTif.

Please help me locate missing browsers and versions.


Browser First Release Date Earliest Archived Date
Missing browsers - - - -
WorldWideWeb/Nexus ? 1990/1991 * 0.12 20 Aug 1991
LineMode ? 1990/1991 * 0.11a 20 Aug 1991
ViolaWWW ? ** Dec 1991 ↗ 2.0.4 4 April 1992
Erwise 0.1 26 Jul 1992 ↗
TkWWW 0.1 alpha 25 Jul 1992 ↗ 0.7 alpha 1 May 1993
MidasWWW 1.0 16 Nov 1992 ↗
w3browser 0.1 25 Nov 1992 ↗
MacWWW/Samba alpha 2 Feb 1993 ↗ 1.03 14 Aug 1993
Lynx 2.0 alpha ** 22 Mar 1993 ↗ 2.0.11 27 Aug 1993
X Mosaic 0.5 23 Jan 1993 ↗ 1.0 21 Apr 1993

* The release timeline for WorldWideWeb and LineMode are complicated in that they had staged releases within CERN and then later to the wider public. See Robert Cailliau's detailed timeline.

** ViolaWWW and Lynx were both developed as independent hypertext systems before WWW capability was added; the "First Release" version listed here indicates the first WWW version.

See also:


Missing Browsers

These browsers may be lost. (They are mentioned by TimBL in various places.) Please let me know if you have sources or binaries for any of these browsers:


WorldWideWeb/Nexus

The very first browser, written by the person who invented the Web.

This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access.

-- TimBL, 20 August 1991

Tim Berners-Lee's WorldWideWeb/Nexus is more readily available still than most other ancient browsers. Even so, very early versions are difficult to come by. I've archived available versions up to 1.0 here.

WorldWideWeb 0.12 showing its default home page on NeXTStep 3.3
WorldWideWeb 0.12 showing its default home page on NeXTStep 3.3

These archives all include M68K NeXTStep binaries, so they run, but I can't get them to successfully make requests to the outside world. (I think the early version of libWWW is the culprit, as this also affects early versions of LineMode and Viola; and even then, those versions of Viola can successfully make Gopher requests.)

Version Date
0.4 30 Jan 1991 ↗
0.5 1 Feb 1991 ↗
0.6 ?
0.7 19 Mar 1991 ↗
0.8 26 Mar 1991 ↗
0.9 3 Apr 1991 ↗
0.10 4 Apr 1991 ↗
0.11 15 Apr[?] 1991 ↗
0.12 19 Aug 1991 ↗
0.15 Jan 1993
0.16 Feb 1993
1.0 Jun 1993

LineMode

Nicola Pellow's original portable browser.

LineMode 0.11a showing its default home page
LineMode 0.11a showing its default home page

Version 0.11 builds but does not GET. Version 2.11 builds and works.

Version Date
Before Feb 1991 -
11 Feb 1991 -
27 Feb 1991 -
5 Mar 1991 -
7 Mar 1991 -
8 Apr 1991 -
17 Apr 1991 -
10 May 1991 -
14 May 1991 -
0.7 21 May 1991
0.8 24 May 1991
0.9 1 Jun 1991
0.10 Jul 1991
0.11a 15 Aug 1991
0.12 Fall 1991
0.14/14a Nov 1991
1.0 alpha 2 Dec 1993
1.1 Jan 1992
1.2 Feb 1992
1.3 16 Oct 1993
2.11 Sep 1993
2.15 Sep 1994

1 First public release.
2 Partial source.

A complete dated version history is available.


ViolaWWW

Pei-Yuan Wei's adaptation of his extensible Viola hypertext application for HTML; also the recommended browser within CERN for a time. (See the original application announcement.)

ViolaWWW 2.1.0 from 1992 on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist
ViolaWWW 2.1.0 from 1992 on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist

ViolaWWW 3.3 from 1995 (despite the infobox text) on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist
ViolaWWW 3.3 from 1995 (despite the infobox text) on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist

Wei first added a WWW "app" to Viola in mid-December 1991 ("a one nite hack"!), and had shared it with TimBL by late January 1992. Notes included with the 2.1.0 build indicate that the first versions of Viola with WWW capability were circulated at CERN in March and April 1992, with the first public releases in May and July.

Early release timeline shown in Viola 2.1.0
Early release timeline shown in Viola 2.1.0

The 2.x versions are precisely dated in main.c, and the 3.x versions are dated in their README files.

Version Date
14 Jul 1992 -
10 May 1992 -
9 Mar 1992 -
2.0.4 4 April 1992
2.1.0 1 23 May 1992
2.1.2 14 July 1992 ↗
3.1 Beta 23 March 1994 ↗
3.3 Beta 10 April 1995 ↗

1 This is a combined archive, containing sources for 2.1.0 and 2.1.2, as well as binaries for NeXT, DEC, RS6000, SGI, and SPARC. The NeXT binary is version 2.1.0, so the others likely are too. (There's an additional DEC binary called viola.old with a file date of 6 June 1992, so it may be version 2.1.1.)


Erwise

The work of Finnish undergrads Kim Nyberg, Teemu Rantanen, Kati Suominen, and Kari Sydänmaanlakka.

Erwise 0.1 (or 1.0?) with running on Ubuntu 9.10
Erwise 0.1 (or 1.0?) with running on Ubuntu 9.10

Erwise was distributed as source and as binaries for Sun and Ultrix. The binaries show "Version 0.1 Alpha" in their info panels, whereas the compiled source's info panel shows "Version 1.0 Alpha." The binaries are from late March 1992, and the source is from July 25, making version progression plausible. On the other hand, the source directory unpacks to erwise-0.1, and the www-talk message announcing the only release is dated July 26 -- one day after the source code -- and refers to version 0.1.

This builds most easily (in my experience) of all the truly ancient browsers besides LineMode, but it actually runs successfully on very few platforms (due possibly to Motif implementation issues that were reportedly a problem at the time).

Thanks to Roy at RT’s Free Soft we have source that (I can confirm) builds and runs on Ubuntu 9.10 (2009) with Lesstif2 installed. (Ubuntu 9.10 runs GCC 4.4.1, and Roy's changes to the original source code are minimal, so I suspect that this will build on any system that has GCC 4.x.)

Version Date
0.1/1.0 July 1992 ↗
0.1 binary (Sun) -
0.1 binary (Ultrix) -
Source patched for Ubuntu 9.10 -

TkWWW

Joseph Wang's excellent Tcl/Tk browser and editor -- the only editor among the early browsers for X.

TkWWW 0.12 on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist and Tcl7.4/Tk4.0
TkWWW 0.12 on NeXTStep 3.3 with co-Xist and Tcl7.4/Tk4.0

Wang's editor was notoriously difficult to build, since TkWWW builds depended on minor differences between Tcl/Tk versions.

Partially functioning TkWWW 0.8 on NeXTStep 3.3 with CubXWindow and Tcl6.7/Tk3.2
Partially functioning TkWWW 0.8 on NeXTStep 3.3 with CubXWindow and Tcl6.7/Tk3.2

Version Date
0.1 alpha 25 July 1992 ↗
0.2 alpha -
0.3 alpha 30 Aug 1992 ↗
0.4 alpha 18 Oct 1992 ↗
0.5 alpha 8 Feb 1993 ↗
0.6 alpha 19 Mar 1993 ↗
0.13 beta 31 Mar 1995 ↗
0.7 alpha 1 1 May 1993
0.8 beta 19 May 1993 ↗
0.9 beta 5 Sept 1993 ↗
0.10 beta Jan 1994 ↗
0.11 pre3 (DEC) Apr 1994
0.11 pre3 (Linux) Apr 1994
0.11 beta 26 Apr 1994 ↗
0.12 pre1 Jun 1994
0.12 beta 2 14 Jul 1994 ↗

1 Recovered from a WC3 archive; appears to be a partial source.
2 Builds on NeXTStep 3.3 with CubXWindow and Tcl7.4/Tk4.0; earlier versions of TkWWW require earlier Tcl/TK versions. Build notes.


MidasWWW

Tony Johnson and Chung Huynh of SLAC's Motif browser, notable for its ability to display PostScript files and for Chinese language support.

MidasWWW 1.0 on Solaris 2.6
MidasWWW 1.0 on Solaris 2.6

MidasWWW 1.0 with Kostas Michalopoulos's patches on Debian Stretch via Valgrind
MidasWWW 1.0 with Kostas Michalopoulos's patches on Debian Stretch via Valgrind

Here is Johnson writing presciently about the Web in late 1994 in SLAC's Beam Line quarterly magazine:

At worst [the World Wide Web] may just become a glorified video delivery system and integrated home shopping network with a built-in method of tracking your purchases and sending you personalized junk e-mail. At its best such as system could provide truly interactive capabilities, allowing not only large corporations and publishers but also individuals and communities to publish information and interact through the network, while maintaining individual privacy. The outcome will have a major impact on the quality of life in the 21st century, influencing the way we work, play, shop, and even how we are governed.

The source for version 1.0 was recovered and posted to Github in 2015 by Dan Connolly. It was patched to (partially) run on (some) modern (32 bit) systems by Kostas Michalopoulos, as detailed on Reddit. Other sources for version 1.0 are available on the W3 website; those will build on Solaris 2.6, as shown above, although the menus don't work (probably because of Sun's Motif implementation).

Unfortunately, MidasWWW (1.0) displays rather than ignores HTML tags it doesn't recognize, making it unsuitable for browsing even basic modern pages. I haven't yet been able to successfully build a copy of version 2.x.

Version Date
1.0 Nov 1992 ↗
1.0 TimBL Patches 1 Nov 1992
1.0 KM Patches 2 1992/2018
2.0 pre1 3 Nov 1993
2.1 (incomplete) Apr 1994
2.1 via EarlyBrowserReborn Apr 1994
2.2 ?

1 Source patched by TimBL, possibly to build on NeXTStep.
2 Patched to build on Debian 9.
3 Chinese language support version.


w3browser

Tom Fine's elegant Perl browser.

w3browser 0.1 running on NeXTStep 3.3 with Perl 4.0.1.8
w3browser 0.1 running on NeXTStep 3.3 with Perl 4.0.1.8

Fine's browser is called simply 'w3browser,' but the folks at CERN referred to it as FineWWW, and others called it perlWWW.

There are two versions contained in the combined archive here. One, packaged in a shar bundle, is the original release, dated November 1992. The other is an in-progress update that Fine reports he abandoned before it was ever released, dated January 1993. The early version runs without issue; the later version seems to have trouble connecting to remote servers.

The browser was written to parse only the first HTML spec. A patched (by me) version that ignores unknown tags, with a diff file, is also archived here.

Many thanks to Tom Fine for contributing the files for this browser to the archive.


MacWWW/Samba

Nicola Pellow and Robert Cailliau's browser for the Macintosh. Source code was distributed at one point, but there's no trace of it online now. (This was reportedly released as a commercial product by CERN, costing 50 -- true, but all CERN WWW products had prices at that point.)

Samba is the only browser that runs on System 6.

MacWWW 1.03 running on Mac OS 7.5.3
MacWWW 1.03 running on Mac OS 7.5.3


Lynx

Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe, and Charles Rezac's famous terminal browser. Like ViolaWWW, Lynx was initially developed as an independent hypertext system; WWW capabilities were added later. Lynx now has the distinction of being the oldest continuously-maintained web browser.

Lynx 2.0.11
Lynx 2.0.11

Change logs indicate that the ability to read HTML documents was added to Lynx on 9 March 1993.

Version Date
2.0 alpha March 1993 ↗
2.0 beta R7 April 1993 ↗
2.0.8 April 1993 ↗
2.0.10 July 1993 ↗
2.0.11 1 August 1993 ↗
2.1.1 2 December 1993
2.2 February 1994
2.3 May 1994

1 Compiles on NeXT with custom putenv.c and removal of get_file_lines() calls in mainloop.c.
2 compiles on NeXT with no changes.


X Mosaic

Since I define "ancient" by reference to predating Mosaic, I only archive versions of it up to 1.0 here.

Mosaic 1.0 running on Ubuntu 9.10
Mosaic 1.0 running on Ubuntu 9.10

Version Date
0.5 23 Jan 1993 ↗
0.6 31 Jan 1993 ↗
0.7 11 Feb 1993 ↗
0.8 14 Feb 1993 ↗
0.9 4 Mar 1993 ↗
0.10 14 Mar 1993 ↗
0.11 17 Mar 1993 ↗
0.12 1 5 Apr 1993 ↗
0.13 12 Apr 1993 ↗
1.0 21 Apr 1993 ↗

1 Partial source.

See also: