View source for History of the World Wide Web

{{Short description|none}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Redirect|Web history|the feature of web browsers|Web browsing history}}
{{Infobox product
|title = World Wide Web
|image = [[File:WWW logo by Robert Cailliau.svg|center|250px]]
|caption = The Web's former logo by [[Robert Cailliau]]
|inventor = [[Tim Berners-Lee]]
|launch year = {{start date and age|1989|03|12|df=y}}
|suppressfields=type}}
{{History of computing}}

[[World Wide Web|The World Wide Web]] ("WWW", "W3" or simply "the Web") is a global [[information]] medium that users can access via [[computer]]s connected to the [[Internet]]. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as [[email]] and [[Usenet]] do. The [[history of the Internet]] and the [[history of hypertext]] date back significantly further than that of the World Wide Web.

[[Tim Berners-Lee]] invented the World Wide Web while working at [[CERN]] in 1989. He proposed a "universal linked information system" using several concepts and technologies, the most fundamental of which was the connections that existed between information.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Berners-Lee |first1=T. |last2=Cailliau |first2=R. |last3=Groff |first3=J.-F. |last4=Pollermann |first4=B. |date=1992 |title=World-Wide Web: The Information Universe |url=https://www.w3.org/History/1992/ENRAP/Article_9202.ps |journal=Electron. Netw. Res. Appl. Policy |volume=2 |pages=52–58 |doi=10.1108/eb047254 |language=en |access-date=27 December 2022 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227185345/https://www.w3.org/History/1992/ENRAP/Article_9202.ps |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> He developed the first [[web server]], the first [[web browser]], and a document formatting protocol, called [[HTML|Hypertext Markup Language]] (HTML). After publishing the markup language in 1991, and releasing the browser source code for public use in 1993, many other web browsers were soon developed, with [[Marc Andreessen]]'s [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]] (later [[Netscape Navigator]]) being particularly easy to use and install, and often credited with sparking the Internet boom of the 1990s. It was a graphical browser which ran on several popular office and home computers, bringing multimedia content to non-technical users by including images and text on the same page.

Websites for use by the general public began to emerge in 1993–94. This spurred competition in server and browser software, highlighted in the [[Browser wars]] which was initially dominated by Netscape Navigator and [[Internet Explorer]]. Following the complete removal of commercial restrictions on Internet use by 1995, commercialization of the Web amidst macroeconomic factors led to the [[dot-com boom]] and bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The features of HTML evolved over time, leading to HTML version 2 in 1995, HTML3 and HTML4 in 1997, and [[HTML5]] in 2014. The language was extended with advanced formatting in [[Cascading Style Sheets]] (CSS) and with [[Computer programming|programming]] capability by [[JavaScript]]. [[Ajax (programming)|AJAX programming]] delivered dynamic content to users, which sparked a new era in [[Web design]], styled [[Web 2.0]]. The use of [[social media]], becoming commonplace in the 2010s, allowed users to compose multimedia content without programming skills, making the Web ubiquitous in everyday life.

== Background ==
{{See also|History of the Internet|History of hypertext}}

=== Precursors ===
The underlying concept of [[hypertext]] as a [[user interface]] paradigm originated in projects in the 1960s, from research such as the [[Hypertext Editing System]] (HES) by [[Andries van Dam]] at Brown University, [[IBM Generalized Markup Language]], [[Ted Nelson|Ted Nelson's]] [[Project Xanadu]], and [[Douglas Engelbart|Douglas Engelbart's]] [[NLS (computer system)|oN-Line System]] (NLS).<ref>{{cite report |url=http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html |title=Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework |first=Douglas |last=Engelbart |author-link=Douglas Engelbart |access-date=25 November 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051124115145/http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html |archive-date=24 November 2005 |url-status=dead |year=1962}}</ref>{{page needed|date=April 2022}}{{primary source inline|date=April 2022}} Both Nelson and Engelbart were in turn inspired by [[Vannevar Bush]]'s [[microfilm]]-based ''[[memex]]'', which was described in the 1945 essay "[[As We May Think]]".<ref name="Conkling">{{Citation |last=Conklin |first=Jeff |title=IEEE Computer |volume=20 |issue=9 |pages=17–41 |publication-date=1987 |year=1987}}</ref>{{title missing}}<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Bush |first=Vannevar |author-link=Vannevar Bush |date=July 1945 |title=As We May Think |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush |magazine=The Atlantic |access-date=28 May 2009}}</ref> Other precursors were [[FRESS]] and [[Intermedia (hypertext)|Intermedia]]. [[Paul Otlet|Paul Otlet's]] project [[Mundaneum]] has also been named as an early 20th-century precursor of the Web.

=== ENQUIRE ===
In 1980, [[Tim Berners-Lee]], at the [[CERN|European Organization for Nuclear Research]] (CERN) in Switzerland, built [[ENQUIRE]], as a personal database of people and software models, but also as a way to experiment with hypertext; each new page of information in ENQUIRE had to be linked to another page.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Tim Berners-Lee |url=http://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0 |title=Weaving the Web |date=1999 |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-06-251586-5 |pages=5–6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sir Tim Berners-Lee |url=https://qeprize.org/winners/sir-tim-berners-lee |access-date=2022-11-16 |website=Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering |language=en |archive-date=16 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116094823/https://qeprize.org/winners/sir-tim-berners-lee |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Laureation address Tim Berners-Lee - Graduation - University of St Andrews |url=https://archive.st-andrews.ac.uk/graduation/2013/tim-berners-lee/index.html |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=archive.st-andrews.ac.uk}}</ref> When Berners-Lee built ENQUIRE, the ideas developed by Bush, Engelbart, and Nelson did not influence his work, since he was not aware of them. However, as Berners-Lee began to refine his ideas, the work of these predecessors would later help to confirm the legitimacy of his concept.<ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Tim Berners-Lee |url=http://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0 |title=Weaving the Web |date=1999 |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-06-251586-5 |pages=5–6 |quote=Unbeknownst to me at that early stage in my thinking, several people had hit upon similar concepts, which were never implemented.}}</ref><ref name=":422">{{Cite thesis |last=Rutter |first=Dorian |title=From Diversity to Convergence: British Computer Networks and the Internet, 1970-1995 |date=2005 |access-date=27 December 2022 |degree=Computer Science |publisher=The University of Warwick |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1197/1/WRAP_THESIS_Rutter_2005.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221010/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1197/1/WRAP_THESIS_Rutter_2005.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2022 |url-status=live |quote=When Berners-Lee developed his Enquire hypertext system during 1980, the ideas explored by Bush, Engelbart, and Nelson did not influence his work, as he was not aware of them. However, as Berners-Lee began to refine his ideas, the work of these predecessors would later confirm the legitimacy of his system.}}</ref>

During the 1980s, many [[Packet switching|packet-switched]] data networks emerged based on various [[Communication protocol|communication protocols]] (see [[Protocol Wars]]). One of these standards was the [[Internet protocol suite]], which is often referred to as TCP/IP. As the [[Internet]] grew through the 1980s, many people realized the increasing need to be able to find and organize files and use information. By 1985, the [[Domain Name System]] (upon which the [[Uniform Resource Locator]] is built) came into being.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Enzer |first=Larry |date=31 August 2018 |title=The Evolution of the World Wide Web |url=https://www.mwdwebsites.com/nj-web-design-world-wide-web.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118231641/https://www.mwdwebsites.com/nj-web-design-world-wide-web.html |archive-date=18 November 2018 |access-date=31 August 2018 |website=Monmouth Web Developers}}</ref>{{better source|date=April 2022}}{{badref|date=April 2022}} Many small, self-contained hypertext systems were created, such as Apple Computer's [[HyperCard]] (1987).

=== Return to CERN ===
Berners-Lee's contract in 1980 was from June to December, but in 1984 he returned to CERN in a permanent role, and considered its problems of information management: physicists from around the world needed to share data, yet they lacked common machines and any shared presentation software. Shortly after Berners-Lee's return to CERN, [[TCP/IP]] protocols were installed on Unix machines at the institution, turning it into the largest Internet site in Europe. In 1988, the first direct IP connection between Europe and North America was established and Berners-Lee began to openly discuss the possibility of a web-like system at CERN.<ref>{{cite web |title=Enquire Within upon Everything |url=http://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs315/BOOKS/TBL12.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117022333/http://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs315/BOOKS/TBL12.pdf |archive-date=17 November 2015 |access-date=26 August 2015}}</ref> He was inspired by a book, ''[[Enquire Within upon Everything]].'' Many [[Online service provider|online services]] existed before the creation of the World Wide Web, such as for example [[CompuServe]], [[Usenet]],<ref>{{cite web | url=https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/first-post-a-history-of-online-public-messaging/4/ | title=First post: A history of online public messaging | date=29 April 2024 }}</ref> [[Internet Relay Chat]],<ref>https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/irc-3-the-original-online-chat-programs-gets-updated/</ref> [[Telnet]]<ref>https://arstechnica.com/staff/2018/10/internet-relay-chat-turns-30-and-we-remember-how-it-changed-our-lives/</ref> and [[bulletin board systems]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Before the Web: Online services of yesteryear |url=https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/before-the-web-online-services/ |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=ZDNET |language=en}}</ref> Before the internet, [[UUCP]] was used for online services such as [[e-mail]],<ref>https://hackaday.com/2025/01/16/forgotten-internet-uucp/</ref> and [[BITNET]] was also another popular network.<ref>https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/the-internets-early-days/</ref>

== 1989–1991: Origins ==
=== CERN ===
[[File:NeXTcube_first_webserver.JPG|thumb|The [[NeXT Computer]] used by [[Tim Berners-Lee]] at [[CERN]] became the first Web server.]]
[[File:CERN_web_corridor.jpg|thumb|The corridor where the World Wide Web was born, on the ground floor of building No. 1 at CERN]]
[[File:Where the WEB was born.jpg|thumb|Where the WEB was born]]

While working at [[CERN]], [[Tim Berners-Lee]] became frustrated with the inefficiencies and difficulties posed by finding information stored on different computers.<ref>{{Cite news |last=May |first=Ashley |date=12 March 2019 |title=Happy 30th birthday, World Wide Web. Inventor outlines plan to combat hacking, hate speech |language=en |work=USA Today |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2019/03/12/world-wide-web-turns-30-berners-lee-contract-thoughts-internet/3137726002/ |access-date=12 March 2019 |archive-date=6 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211006181704/https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2019/03/12/world-wide-web-turns-30-berners-lee-contract-thoughts-internet/3137726002/ |url-status=live }}</ref> On 12 March 1989, he submitted a memorandum, titled "Information Management: A Proposal",<ref name=":1">{{cite web |title=Information Management: A Proposal |url=https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100401051011/https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html |archive-date=1 April 2010 |access-date=12 February 2022 |website=w3.org |publisher=The World Wide Web Consortium}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Aja |last=Romano |date=12 March 2019 |title=The World Wide Web – not the Internet – turns 30 years old |work=Vox.com |url=https://www.vox.com/2019/3/12/18260709/30th-anniversary-of-the-world-wide-web-google-doodle-history |access-date=15 April 2022 |archive-date=12 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190312105157/https://www.vox.com/2019/3/12/18260709/30th-anniversary-of-the-world-wide-web-google-doodle-history |url-status=live }}</ref> to the management at CERN. The proposal used the term "web" and was based on "a large hypertext database with typed links". It described a system called "Mesh" that referenced [[ENQUIRE]], the database and software project he had built in 1980, with a more elaborate information management system based on links embedded as text: "Imagine, then, the references in this document all being associated with the [[network address]] of the thing to which they referred, so that while reading this document, you could skip to them with a click of the mouse." Such a system, he explained, could be referred to using one of the existing meanings of the word ''[[hypertext]]'', a term that he says was coined in the 1950s. Berners-Lee notes the possibility of multimedia documents that include graphics, speech and video, which he terms ''[[hypermedia]]''.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

Although the proposal attracted little interest, Berners-Lee was encouraged by his manager, Mike Sendall, to begin implementing his system on a newly acquired [[NeXT]] workstation. He considered several names, including ''Information Mesh'', ''The Information Mine'' or ''Mine of Information'', but settled on ''World Wide Web''. Berners-Lee found an enthusiastic supporter in his colleague and fellow hypertext enthusiast [[Robert Cailliau]] who began to promote the proposed system throughout CERN. Berners-Lee and Cailliau pitched Berners-Lee's ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but found no vendors who could appreciate his vision.

Berners-Lee's breakthrough was to marry hypertext to the Internet. In his book ''[[Weaving the Web|Weaving The Web]]'', he explains that he had repeatedly suggested to members of both technical communities that a marriage between the two technologies was possible. But, when no one took up his invitation, he finally assumed the project himself. In the process, he developed three essential technologies:
* a system of globally unique identifiers for resources on the Web and elsewhere, the universal document identifier (UDI), later known as [[uniform resource locator]] (URL);
* the publishing language [[Hypertext Markup Language]] (HTML);
* the [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol]] (HTTP).<ref>{{citation |title=Tim Berners |url=https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/tim-berners |access-date=2022-10-16 |website=[[Lemelson Foundation]] |archive-date=16 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016165853/https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/tim-berners |url-status=live }}</ref>

With help from Cailliau he published a more formal proposal on 12 November 1990 to build a "hypertext project" called ''WorldWideWeb'' (abbreviated "W3") as a "web" of "hypertext documents" to be viewed by "browsers" using a [[client–server architecture]].<ref name="W90">{{cite web |last1=Berners-Lee |first1=Tim |author-link1=Tim Berners-Lee |last2=Cailliau |first2=Robert |author-link2=Robert Cailliau |date=12 November 1990 |title=WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project |url=http://w3.org/Proposal.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502080527/http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html |archive-date=2 May 2015 |access-date=12 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="NYT21">[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/technology/tim-berners-lee-privacy-internet.html He Created the Web. Now He’s Out to Remake the Digital World] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211011194246/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/technology/tim-berners-lee-privacy-internet.html |date=11 October 2021 }}, [[New York Times]], by Steve Lohr, 10 January 2021.</ref> The proposal was modelled after the [[Standard Generalized Markup Language]] (SGML) reader [[Dynatext]] by Electronic Book Technology, a spin-off from the [[Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship]] at [[Brown University]]. The Dynatext system, licensed by CERN, was considered too expensive and had an inappropriate licensing policy for use in the general high energy physics community, namely a fee for each document and each document alteration.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

At this point HTML and HTTP had already been in development for about two months and the first [[web server]] was about a month from completing its first successful test. Berners-Lee's proposal estimated that a read-only Web would be developed within three months and that it would take six months to achieve "the creation of new links and new material by readers, [so that] authorship becomes universal" as well as "the automatic notification of a reader when new material of interest to him/her has become available".

By December 1990, Berners-Lee and his work team had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the [[HyperText Transfer Protocol]] (HTTP), the [[HyperText Markup Language]] (HTML), the first [[web browser]] (named [[WorldWideWeb]], which was also a [[HTML editor|web editor]]), the first [[web server]] (later known as [[CERN httpd]]) and the first [[web site]] (https://info.cern.ch/) containing the first [[web page]]s that described the project itself was published on 20 December 1990.<ref>{{cite web |title=The birth of the web |url=http://home.cern/topics/birth-web |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151224103843/http://home.cern/topics/birth-web |archive-date=24 December 2015 |access-date=23 December 2015 |publisher=CERN}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=First Web pages |url=http://w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100131201408/http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html |archive-date=31 January 2010 |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=W3.org}}</ref> The browser could access [[Usenet]] newsgroups and [[FTP]] files as well. A [[NeXT Computer]] was used by Berners-Lee as the web server and also to write the web browser.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tim Berners-Lee: client |url=http://w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090721113108/http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb |archive-date=21 July 2009 |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=W3.org}}</ref>

Working with Berners-Lee at CERN, [[Nicola Pellow]] developed the first cross-platform web browser, the [[Line Mode Browser]].<ref name="C. Hempstead, W. Worthington">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/EncyclopediaOf20thCenturyTechnologyAZMalestrom/page/n953/mode/2up |title=Encyclopedia of 20th-Century Technology |date=2005 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9781135455514 |editor1-last=Hempstead |editor1-first=C. |pages=905 |access-date=2015-08-15 |editor2-last=Worthington |editor2-first=W.}}</ref>

== 1991–1994: The Web goes public, early growth ==

=== Initial launch ===
In January 1991, the first web servers outside CERN were switched on. On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee published a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the [[newsgroup]] ''alt.hypertext'', inviting collaborators.<ref>{{cite web |date=6 August 1991 |title=Short summary of the World Wide Web project |url=http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130529231641/https://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c |archive-date=29 May 2013 |access-date=27 July 2009}}</ref>

[[Paul Kunz]] from the [[Stanford Linear Accelerator Center]] (SLAC) visited CERN in September 1991, and was captivated by the Web. He brought the NeXT software back to SLAC, where librarian [[Louise Addis]] adapted it for the [[VM/CMS]] operating system on the [[IBM mainframe]] as a way to host the [[SPIRES]]-HEP database and display SLAC's catalog of online documents.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Early World Wide Web at SLAC |url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051124035516/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml |archive-date=24 November 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About SPIRES |url=http://slac.stanford.edu/spires/about/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100212023810/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/about/ |archive-date=12 February 2010 |access-date=30 March 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Little History of the World Wide Web |url=http://www.w3.org/History.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130506021750/http://www.w3.org/History.html |archive-date=6 May 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=W3C10 Timeline Graphic |url=http://www.w3.org/2005/01/timelines/description |access-date=29 January 2020 |archive-date=9 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211009055126/https://www.w3.org/2005/01/timelines/description |url-status=live }}</ref> This was the first web server outside of Europe and the first in North America.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A short history of the Web |url=https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |access-date=15 April 2022 |website=CERN |language=en |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417082120/https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |url-status=live }}</ref>

The World Wide Web had several differences from other hypertext systems available at the time. The Web required only unidirectional links rather than bidirectional ones, making it possible for someone to link to another resource without action by the owner of that resource. It also significantly reduced the difficulty of implementing web servers and browsers (in comparison to earlier systems), but in turn, presented the chronic problem of [[link rot]].

=== Early browsers ===
The WorldWideWeb browser only ran on [[NeXTSTEP]] operating system. This shortcoming was discussed in January 1992,<ref name="Raggett21">{{Cite book |last=Raggett |first=Dave |title=HTML 3: Electronic Publishing on the World Wide Web |author2=Jenny Lam |author3=Ian Alexander |date=April 1996 |publisher=Addison-Wesley |isbn=9780201876932 |location=Harlow, England; Reading, Mass |page=21}}</ref> and alleviated in April 1992 by the release of [[Erwise]], an application developed at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]], and in May by [[ViolaWWW]], created by [[Pei-Yuan Wei]], which included advanced features such as embedded graphics, scripting, and animation. ViolaWWW was originally an application for [[HyperCard]].<ref name="W3.org">{{cite web |title=Frequently asked questions by the Press – Tim BL |url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser |publisher=W3.org |access-date=15 April 2022 |archive-date=3 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003222504/http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser |url-status=live }}</ref> Both programs ran on the [[X Window System]] for [[Unix]]. In 1992, the first tests between browsers on different platforms were concluded successfully between buildings 513 and 31 in CERN, between browsers on the NexT station and the X11-ported Mosaic browser. ViolaWWW became the recommended browser at CERN. To encourage use within CERN, Bernd Pollermann put the CERN telephone directory on the web—previously users had to log onto the mainframe in order to look up phone numbers. The Web was successful at CERN and spread to other scientific and academic institutions.

Students at the [[University of Kansas]] adapted an existing text-only hypertext browser, [[Lynx (web browser)|Lynx]], to access the web in 1992. Lynx was available on Unix and DOS, and some web designers, unimpressed with glossy graphical websites, held that a website not accessible through Lynx was not worth visiting.

In these earliest browsers, images opened in a separate "helper" application.

=== From Gopher to the WWW ===
{{Main|Gopher (protocol)}}
In the early 1990s, Internet-based projects such as [[Archie search engine|Archie]], [[Gopher (protocol)|Gopher]], [[Wide Area Information Servers]] (WAIS), and the FTP Archive list attempted to create ways to organize distributed data. Gopher was a document browsing system for the Internet, released in 1991 by the [[University of Minnesota]]. Invented by [[Mark P. McCahill]], it became the first commonly used hypertext interface to the Internet. While Gopher menu items were examples of hypertext, they were not commonly perceived in that way{{clarify|date=June 2023}}. In less than a year, there were hundreds of Gopher servers.<ref name="minnPostGopher">{{cite news |last1=Gihring |first1=Tim |date=11 August 2016 |title=The rise and fall of the Gopher protocol |publisher=MinnPost |url=https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher-protocol/ |access-date=12 February 2022 |archive-date=10 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220210211738/https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher-protocol/ |url-status=live }}</ref> It offered a viable alternative to the World Wide Web in the early 1990s and the consensus was that Gopher would be the primary way that people would interact with the Internet.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Campbell-Kelly |first1=Martin |last2=Garcia-Swartz |first2=Daniel D |date=2013 |title=The History of the Internet: The Missing Narratives |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=867087 |journal=Journal of Information Technology |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |doi=10.1057/jit.2013.4 |issn=0268-3962 |pages=46–53|ssrn=867087 |s2cid=41013 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=What the Web Could Have Been |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/what-the-web-could-have-been/ |access-date=22 February 2022 |website=The History of the Web |date=April 1991 |publisher=Jay Hoffman |archive-date=22 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220222124913/https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/what-the-web-could-have-been/ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, in 1993, the University of Minnesota declared that Gopher was proprietary and would have to be licensed.<ref name="minnPostGopher" />

In response, on 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to anyone, with no fees due, and released [[libwww|their code]] into the public domain.<ref>{{cite web |date=30 April 2003 |title=Ten Years Public Domain for the Original Web Software |url=http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Welcome.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813032723/http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Welcome.html |archive-date=13 August 2009 |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=Tenyears-www.web.cern.ch}}</ref> This made it possible to develop servers and clients independently and to add extensions without licensing restrictions.{{cn|date=April 2022}} Coming two months after the announcement that the server implementation of the Gopher protocol was no longer free to use, this spurred the development of [[Libwww#Applications using libwww|various browsers]] which precipitated a rapid shift away from Gopher.<ref>{{cite web |title=Software release of WWW into public domain |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399/ |access-date=17 February 2022 |website=CERN Document Server |date=2 February 1993 |publisher=CERN |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217212624/https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399/ |url-status=live }}</ref> By releasing Berners-Lee's invention for public use, CERN encouraged and enabled its widespread use.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Early World Wide Web at SLAC |url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml |access-date=25 November 2005 |work=The Early World Wide Web at SLAC: Documentation of the Early Web at SLAC |archive-date=24 November 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051124035516/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>

Early websites intermingled links for both the [[HTTP]] web protocol and the [[Gopher (protocol)|Gopher protocol]], which provided access to content through [[hypertext]] menus presented as a [[file system]] rather than through [[HTML]] files. Early Web users would navigate either by bookmarking popular directory pages or by consulting updated lists such as the NCSA "What's New" page. Some sites were also indexed by WAIS, enabling users to submit full-text searches similar to the capability later provided by [[search engines]].

After 1993 the World Wide Web saw many advances to indexing and ease of access through search engines, which often neglected Gopher and Gopherspace. As its popularity increased through ease of use, incentives for commercial investment in the Web also grew. By the middle of 1994, the Web was outcompeting Gopher and the other browsing systems for the Internet.<ref>{{cite web |title=Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share |url=http://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm |access-date=17 October 2015 |publisher=Ils.unc.edu |archive-date=17 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190317212858/https://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== NCSA ===
{{Main|Mosaic (web browser)}}

The [[National Center for Supercomputing Applications]] (NCSA) at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign]] (UIUC) established a website in November 1992. After [[Marc Andreessen]], a student at UIUC, was shown ViolaWWW in late 1992,<ref name="W3.org" /> he began work on [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]] with another UIUC student [[Eric Bina]], using funding from the [[High Performance Computing Act of 1991|High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative]], a US-federal research and development program [[Al Gore and information technology|initiated by US Senator Al Gore]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Mosaic Web Browser History&nbsp;– NCSA, Marc Andreessen, Eric Bina |url=http://livinginternet.com/w/wi_mosaic.htm |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=Livinginternet.com |archive-date=18 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100518171938/http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_mosaic.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=NCSA Mosaic&nbsp;– 10 September 1993 Demo |url=http://totic.org/nscp/demodoc/demo.html |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=Totic.org |archive-date=14 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514054404/http://totic.org/nscp/demodoc/demo.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=14 February 1996 |title=Vice President Al Gore's ENIAC Anniversary Speech |url=http://cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/faculty.lecture/innovation/gore.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220183820/http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/faculty.lecture/innovation/gore.html |archive-date=20 February 2009 |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=Cs.washington.edu}}</ref> Andreessen and Bina released a Unix version of the browser in February 1993; Mac and Windows versions followed in August 1993. The browser gained popularity due to its strong support of integrated [[multimedia]], and the authors' rapid response to user bug reports and recommendations for new features.<ref name="W3.org" /> Historians generally agree that the 1993 introduction of the Mosaic web browser was a turning point for the World Wide Web.<ref name="bloomberg">{{cite web |date=17 March 2011 |title=Bloomberg Game Changers: Marc Andreessen |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/video/67758394 |publisher=Bloomberg.com |access-date=15 April 2022 |archive-date=16 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120516093712/http://www.bloomberg.com/video/67758394/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="mosaic and th w3">{{cite web |last=Vetter |first=Ronald J. |date=October 1994 |title=Mosaic and the World-Wide Web |url=http://vision.unipv.it/wdt-cim/articoli/00318591.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140824192903/http://vision.unipv.it/wdt-cim/articoli/00318591.pdf |archive-date=24 August 2014 |access-date=20 November 2010 |publisher=[[North Dakota State University]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="faq">{{cite web |last=Berners-Lee |first=Tim |title=What were the first WWW browsers? |url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser |access-date=15 June 2010 |publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]] |archive-date=3 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003222504/http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser |url-status=live }}</ref>

Before the release of Mosaic in 1993, graphics were not commonly mixed with text in web pages, and the Web was less popular than older protocols such as Gopher and WAIS. Mosaic could display inline images<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=The Origin of the IMG Tag |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-origin-of-the-img-tag/ |access-date=13 February 2022 |website=The History of the Web |date=21 April 1993 |archive-date=13 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213213527/https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-origin-of-the-img-tag/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and submit [[Form (HTML)|forms]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wilson |first1=Brian |title=Mosaic |url=http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/mosaic.htm |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=Index D O T Html |publisher=Brian Wilson |archive-date=1 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220201164215/http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/mosaic.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Clarke |first1=Roger |title=The Birth of Web Commerce |url=http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/WCBirth.html |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=Roger Clarke's Web-Site |publisher=XAMAX |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215174226/http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/WCBirth.html |url-status=live }}</ref> for Windows, Macintosh and X-Windows. NCSA also developed [[NCSA HTTPd|HTTPd]], a Unix web server that used the [[Common Gateway Interface]] to process forms and [[Server Side Includes]] for dynamic content. Both the client and server were free to use with no restrictions.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Calore |first1=Michael |date=22 April 2010 |title=22 April 1993: Mosaic Browser Lights Up Web With Color, Creativity |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0422mosaic-web-browser/ |access-date=12 February 2022}}</ref> Mosaic was an immediate hit;<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kline |first1=Greg |date=20 April 2003 |title=Mosaic started Web rush, Internet boom |publisher=The News-Gazette (Champaign–Urbana) |url=https://www.news-gazette.com/news/mosaic-started-web-rush-internet-boom/article_a459cd7f-dafe-5de4-a5fe-c3723a009af2.html |access-date=27 February 2022 |archive-date=13 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200613132107/https://www.news-gazette.com/news/mosaic-started-web-rush-internet-boom/article_a459cd7f-dafe-5de4-a5fe-c3723a009af2.html |url-status=live }}</ref> its graphical user interface allowed the Web to become by far the most popular protocol on the Internet. Within a year, web traffic surpassed Gopher's.<ref name="minnPostGopher" /> ''Wired'' declared that Mosaic made non-Internet online services obsolete,<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Wolfe |first1=Gary |date=1 October 1994 |title=The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/1994/10/mosaic/ |access-date=15 February 2022}}</ref> and the Web became the preferred interface for accessing the Internet.{{cn|date=April 2022}}

=== Early growth ===
The World Wide Web enabled the spread of information over the Internet through an easy-to-use and flexible format. It thus played an important role in popularising use of the Internet.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Catalano |first1=Charles S. |date=15 October 2007 |title=Megaphones to the Internet and the World: The Role of Blogs in Corporate Communications |journal=International Journal of Strategic Communication |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=247–262 |doi=10.1080/15531180701623627 |s2cid=143156963}}</ref> Although the two terms are sometimes [[Conflation|conflated]] in popular use, ''World Wide Web'' is not [[synonym]]ous with ''Internet''.<ref>{{cite web |title=WWW (World Wide Web) Definition |url=https://amazingalgorithms.com/definitions/www/ |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=April 12, 2024 |publisher=TechDictionary}}</ref> The Web is an [[information space]] containing hyperlinked documents and other [[Web resource|resources]], identified by their URIs.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jacobs |first1=Ian |last2=Walsh |first2=Norman |date=15 December 2004 |title=Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One |url=http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#intro |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209063216/http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#intro |archive-date=9 February 2015 |access-date=11 February 2015 |publisher=W3C |location=Introduction}}</ref> It is implemented as both client and server software using Internet protocols such as [[TCP/IP]] and [[HTTP]].

In keeping with its origins at CERN, early adopters of the Web were primarily university-based scientific departments or physics laboratories such as [[SLAC]] and [[Fermilab]]. By January 1993 there were fifty web servers across the world.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hopgood |first1=Bob |title=History of the Web |url=https://www.w3.org/2012/08/history-of-the-web/origins.htm#c7p1 |access-date=12 February 2022 |website=w3.org |publisher=The World Wide Web Consortium |archive-date=21 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321090119/https://www.w3.org/2012/08/history-of-the-web/origins.htm#c7p1 |url-status=live }}</ref> By October 1993 there were over five hundred servers online, including some [[List of websites founded before 1995|notable websites]].<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Couldry |first1=Nick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AcHvP9trbkAC&pg=PA2 |title=Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice |date=2012 |publisher=Polity Press |isbn=9780745639208 |location=London |page=2}}</ref>

Practical media distribution and [[streaming media]] over the Web was made possible by advances in [[data compression]], due to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed media. Following the introduction of the Web, several media formats based on [[discrete cosine transform]] (DCT) were introduced for practical media distribution and streaming over the Web, including the [[MPEG]] [[Video coding format|video format]] in 1991 and the [[JPEG]] [[image format]] in 1992. The high level of [[image compression]] made JPEG a good format for compensating slow [[Internet access]] speeds, typical in the age of [[dial-up Internet access]]. JPEG became the most widely used image format for the World Wide Web. A DCT variation, the [[modified discrete cosine transform]] (MDCT) algorithm, led to the development of [[MP3]], which was introduced in 1991 and became the first popular [[Audio coding format|audio format]] on the Web.

In 1992 the Computing and Networking Department of CERN, headed by David Williams, withdrew support of Berners-Lee's work. A two-page email sent by Williams stated that the work of Berners-Lee, with the goal of creating a facility to exchange information such as results and comments from CERN experiments to the scientific community, was not the core activity of CERN and was a misallocation of CERN's IT resources. Following this decision, Tim Berners-Lee left CERN for the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT), where he continued to develop HTTP.{{cn|date=April 2022}}

The first [[Microsoft Windows]] browser was [[Cello (web browser)|Cello]], written by Thomas R. Bruce for the Legal Information Institute at [[Cornell Law School]] to provide legal information, since access to Windows was more widespread amongst lawyers than access to Unix. Cello was released in June 1993.

== 1994–2004: Open standards, going global ==
The rate of web site deployment increased sharply around the world, and fostered development of international standards for protocols and content formatting.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hey |first1=Anthony J. G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NrMkBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA228 |title=The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution |last2=Pápay |first2=Gyuri |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-76645-6 |pages=228 |language=en}}</ref> Berners-Lee continued to stay involved in guiding web standards, such as the [[markup language]]s to compose web pages, and he advocated his vision of a [[Semantic Web]] (sometimes known as Web 3.0) based around machine-readability and interoperability standards.

=== World Wide Web Conference ===
{{Main|The Web Conference}}

In May 1994, the [[World Wide Web Conference 1|first International WWW Conference]], organized by [[Robert Cailliau]], was held at CERN; the conference has been held every year since.[[File:Cailliau_Abramatic_Berners-Lee_10_years_WWW_consortium.png|thumb|[[Robert Cailliau]], Jean-François Abramatic, and [[Tim Berners-Lee]] at the tenth anniversary of the [[World Wide Web Consortium]]]]

=== World Wide Web Consortium ===
{{Main|World Wide Web Consortium|Web standards}}
{{See also|Internet Information Services|Browser extension|Acid1}}

The [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C) was founded by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in September/October 1994 in order to create open standards for the Web.<ref>{{cite news |date=19 October 1994 |title=LCS announces Web industry consortium |publisher=MIT News |url=https://news.mit.edu/1994/lcs-1019 |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=12 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212211054/https://news.mit.edu/1994/lcs-1019 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was founded at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) with support from the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (DARPA), which had pioneered the Internet. A year later, a second site was founded at [[INRIA]] (a French national computer research lab) with support from the [[European Commission]]; and in 1996, a third continental site was created in Japan at [[Keio University]].

W3C comprised various companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee made the Web available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The W3C decided that its standards must be based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily adopted by anyone. Netscape and Microsoft, in the middle of a [[Browser wars|browser war]], ignored the W3C and added elements to HTML ad hoc (e.g., [[Blink element|blink]] and [[Marquee element|marquee]]). Finally, in 1995, Netscape and Microsoft came to their senses and agreed to abide by the W3C's standard.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=The HTML Tags Everybody Hated |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/blink-marquis-tag/ |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=The History of the Web |date=10 January 1997 |publisher=Jay Hoffman |archive-date=9 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209230529/https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/blink-marquis-tag/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The W3C published the standard for [[HTML#HTML 4|HTML 4]] in 1997, which included [[CSS|Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)]], giving designers more control over the appearance of web pages without the need for additional HTML tags. The W3C could not enforce compliance so none of the browsers were fully compliant. This frustrated web designers who formed the [[Web Standards Project]] (WaSP) in 1998 with the goal of cajoling compliance with standards.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Oakes |first1=Chris |date=18 August 1998 |title=Group Out to Set A New Standard |url=https://www.wired.com/1998/08/group-out-to-set-a-new-standard/ |magazine=Wired}}</ref> [[A List Apart]] and [[CSS Zen Garden]] were influential websites that promoted good design and adherence to standards.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=Year of A List Apart |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/year-list-apart/ |access-date=19 February 2022 |website=The History of the Web |date=23 May 2003 |publisher=Jay Hoffman |archive-date=19 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219150826/https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/year-list-apart/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Nevertheless, AOL halted development of Netscape<ref>{{cite news |date=29 December 2007 |title=AOL to End Support of Netscape Navigator |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/technology/29browser.html |access-date=27 February 2022 |archive-date=27 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227200120/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/technology/29browser.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and Microsoft was slow to update IE.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Conlon |first1=Tom |date=2 March 2010 |title=Inside the Excruciatingly Slow Death of Internet Explorer 6 |publisher=Popular Science |url=https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-03/inside-excruciatingly-slow-death-internet-explorer-6/ |access-date=19 February 2022 |archive-date=19 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219181433/https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-03/inside-excruciatingly-slow-death-internet-explorer-6/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Mozilla]] and [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] both released browsers that aimed to be more standards compliant ([[Firefox]] and [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]]), but were unable to dislodge IE as the dominant browser.[[File:Get on the 'Net', State Magazine 1997-03- Iss 403 (IA sim state-magazine 1997-03 403) (page 62 crop).jpg|thumb|1997 advertisement in ''[[State Magazine]]'' by the US [[Ralph J. Bunche Library|State Department Library]] for sessions introducing the then-unfamiliar Web]]

=== Commercialization, dot-com boom and bust, aftermath ===
As the Web grew in the mid-1990s, [[Web directory|web directories]] and primitive [[Timeline of web search engines|search engines]] were created to index pages and allow people to find things. Commercial use restrictions on the Internet were lifted in 1995 when [[NSFNET]] was shut down.

In the US, the online service [[America Online]] (AOL) offered their users a connection to the Internet via their own internal browser, using a dial-up Internet connection. In January 1994, [[Yahoo!]] was founded by [[Jerry Yang]] and [[David Filo]], then students at [[Stanford University]]. [[Yahoo! Directory]] became the first popular [[web directory]]. [[Yahoo! Search]], launched the same year, was the first popular search engine on the World Wide Web. Yahoo! became the quintessential example of a [[First-mover advantage|first mover]] on the Web.

[[Online shopping]] began to emerge with the launch of [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]]'s shopping site by [[Jeff Bezos]] in 1995 and [[eBay]] by [[Pierre Omidyar]] the same year.

By 1994, Marc Andreessen's [[Netscape Navigator]] superseded Mosaic in popularity, holding the position for some time. Bill Gates outlined [[Microsoft|Microsoft's]] strategy to dominate the Internet in his Tidal Wave memo in 1995.<ref>{{cite magazine |author=Wired Staff |date=26 May 2010 |title=Gates, Microsoft Jump on 'Internet Tidal Wave' |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=12 February 2022}}</ref> With the release of [[Windows 95]] and the popular [[Internet Explorer]] browser, many public companies began to develop a Web presence. At first, people mainly anticipated the possibilities of free publishing and instant worldwide information. By the late 1990s, the directory model had given way to search engines, corresponding with the rise of [[Google Search]], which developed new approaches to [[Relevance (information retrieval)|relevancy ranking]]. Directory features, while still commonly available, became after-thoughts to search engines.

Netscape had a very successful IPO valuing the company at $2.9 billion despite the lack of profits and triggering the [[dot-com bubble]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=McCullough |first1=Brian |title=20 YEARS ON: WHY NETSCAPE'S IPO WAS THE "BIG BANG" OF THE INTERNET ERA |url=http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ |access-date=12 February 2022 |website=www.internethistorypodcast.com |publisher=INTERNET HISTORY PODCAST |archive-date=12 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212213213/http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Increasing familiarity with the Web led to the growth of direct Web-based commerce ([[e-commerce]]) and instantaneous group communications worldwide. Many [[Dot-com company|dot-com companies]], displaying products on hypertext webpages, were added into the Web. Over the next 5 years, over a trillion dollars was raised to fund thousands of startups consisting of little more than a website.

During the [[dot-com bubble|dot-com boom]], many companies vied to create a dominant [[web portal]] in the belief that such a website would best be able to attract a large audience that in turn would attract [[online advertising]] revenue. While most of these portals offered a search engine, they were not interested in encouraging users to find other websites and leave the portal and instead concentrated on "sticky" content.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wingfield |first1=Nick |date=7 December 1998 |title=Portal Sites Reap the Rewards Of Strategies for Getting 'Sticky' |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB912480957466065000 |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215164833/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB912480957466065000 |url-status=live }}</ref> In contrast, Google was a stripped-down search engine that delivered superior results.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Heitzman |first1=Adam |date=5 June 2017 |title=How Google Came To Dominate Search And What The Future Holds |work=Fortune |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/06/05/how-google-came-to-dominate-search-and-what-the-future-holds/?sh=3fc48efd3872 |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215164833/https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/06/05/how-google-came-to-dominate-search-and-what-the-future-holds/?sh=3fc48efd3872 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was a hit with users who switched from portals to Google. Furthermore, with [[Google Ads|AdWords]], Google had an effective business model.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Bayers |first1=Chip |title=I'm Feeling Lucky |url=https://www.wired.com/2001/10/google-6/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=20 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Evolution of Google AdWords – A $38 Billion Advertising Platform |url=https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/06/05/evolution-of-adwords |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=WordStream |publisher=LOCALiQ |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215164835/https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/06/05/evolution-of-adwords |url-status=live }}</ref>

AOL bought Netscape in 1998.<ref>{{cite web |title=AOL, Netscape tie knot |url=https://money.cnn.com/1998/11/24/technology/aol/ |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=CNNMoney |publisher=CNN |archive-date=28 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128175227/https://money.cnn.com/1998/11/24/technology/aol/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In spite of their early success, Netscape was unable to fend off Microsoft.<ref name="msBeatNS">{{cite magazine |last1=Calore |first1=Michael |date=28 September 2009 |title=28 September 1998: Internet Explorer Leaves Netscape in Its Wake |url=https://www.wired.com/2009/09/0928ie-beats-netscape/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref> [[Internet Explorer]] and a variety of other browsers almost completely replaced it.

Faster [[broadband internet]] connections replaced many dial-up connections from the beginning of the 2000s.

With the bursting of the dot-com bubble, many web portals either scaled back operations, floundered,<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Greenberg |first1=Julia |date=23 November 2015 |title=Once Upon a Time, Yahoo Was the Most Important Internet Company |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2015/11/once-upon-a-time-yahoo-was-the-most-important-internet-company/ |access-date=17 February 2022}}</ref> or shut down entirely.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hu |first1=Jim |date=2 January 2002 |title=Time Warner to shutter Pathfinder |publisher=CNet |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/time-warner-to-shutter-pathfinder/ |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215164833/https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/time-warner-to-shutter-pathfinder/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Hansell |first1=Saul |date=30 January 2001 |title=Disney, in Retreat From Internet, to Abandon Go.com Portal Site |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/30/business/disney-in-retreat-from-internet-to-abandon-gocom-portal-site.html |access-date=17 February 2022 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217132247/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/30/business/disney-in-retreat-from-internet-to-abandon-gocom-portal-site.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=9 April 2001 |title=NBC to Shut Down NBCi |publisher=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/media-jan-june01-dotcom_04-09 |access-date=17 February 2022 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217130800/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/media-jan-june01-dotcom_04-09 |url-status=live }}</ref> AOL disbanded Netscape in 2003.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Higgins |first1=Chris |date=15 July 2017 |title=On This Day in 2003, Netscape Went Offline Forever |publisher=Mental Floss |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502789/day-2003-netscape-went-offline-forever |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=12 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212155815/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502789/day-2003-netscape-went-offline-forever |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Web server software ===
{{Further|Comparison of web server software|Comparison of server-side web frameworks|List of content management systems}}
Web server software was developed to allow computers to act as [[web server]]s. The first web servers supported only static files, such as HTML (and images), but now they commonly allow embedding of server side applications. [[Web framework]] software enabled building and deploying web applications. [[Content management system]]s (CMS) were developed to organize and facilitate collaborative content creation. Many of them were built on top of separate [[content management framework]]s.

After [[Robert McCool]] joined Netscape, development on the [[NCSA HTTPd]] server languished. In 1995, [[Brian Behlendorf]] and Cliff Skolnick created a mailing list to coordinate efforts to fix bugs and make improvements to [[Httpd|HTTPd]].<ref>{{cite web |title=How Apache Came to Be |url=https://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html |access-date=13 February 2022 |website=httpd.apache.org |publisher=Apache |archive-date=7 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607122013/http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html |url-status=live }}</ref> They called their version of HTTPd, [[Apache HTTP Server|Apache]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moschovitis |first=Christos J. P |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofinterne0000unse/page/202/mode/2up |title=History of the Internet : a chronology, 1843 to the present |date=1999 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-57607-118-2}}</ref> Apache quickly became the dominant server on the Web.<ref>{{cite web |title=December 1996 Web Server Survey |url=https://news.netcraft.com/archives/1996/12/01/december_1996_web_server_survey.html |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=Netcraft.co.uk |date=December 1996 |publisher=Netcraft |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215152541/https://news.netcraft.com/archives/1996/12/01/december_1996_web_server_survey.html |url-status=live }}</ref> After adding support for modules, Apache was able to allow developers to handle web requests with a variety of languages including [[mod_perl|Perl]], [[PHP]] and [[mod_python|Python]]. Together with [[Linux]] and [[MySQL]], it became known as the [[LAMP (software bundle)|LAMP]] platform.

Following the success of Apache, [[the Apache Software Foundation]] was founded in 1999 and produced many [[open source]] [[List of Apache Software Foundation projects|web software projects]] in the same collaborative spirit.

=== Browser wars ===
{{Main|Browser wars|History of the web browser}}
{{See also|Comparison of web browsers|List of web browsers|Usage share of web browsers}}

After graduating from UIUC, Andreessen and [[James H. Clark|Jim Clark]], former CEO of [[Silicon Graphics]], met and formed [[Mosaic Communications Corporation]] in April 1994 to develop the Mosaic Netscape browser commercially. The company later changed its name to [[Netscape]], and the browser was developed further as [[Netscape Navigator]], which soon became the dominant web client. They also released the [[Oracle iPlanet Web Server|Netsite Commerce web server]] which could handle [[Transport Layer Security|SSL]] requests, thus enabling [[e-commerce]] on the Web.<ref>{{cite web |title=NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS SHIPS RELEASE 1.0 OF NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR AND NETSCAPE SERVERS |url=http://www3.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease8.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19961027104110/http://www3.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease8.html |archive-date=27 October 1996 |access-date=13 February 2022 |publisher=Netscape}}</ref> SSL became the standard method to encrypt web traffic. Navigator 1.0 also introduced [[HTTP cookie|cookies]], but Netscape did not publicize this feature. Netscape followed up with [[Netscape Navigator 2|Navigator 2]] in 1995 introducing [[Frame (World Wide Web)|frames]], [[Java applet]]s and [[JavaScript]]. In 1998, Netscape made Navigator open source and launched [[Mozilla]].<ref>{{cite web |title=History of the Mozilla Project |url=https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/ |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=mozilla.org |publisher=Mozilla |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215021550/https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Microsoft licensed Mosaic from [[Spyglass, Inc.|Spyglass]] and released [[Internet Explorer#Internet Explorer 1|Internet Explorer 1.0]] that year and [[Internet Explorer 2|IE2]] later the same year. IE2 added features pioneered at Netscape such as cookies, SSL, and JavaScript. The [[browser wars]] became a competition for dominance when Explorer was bundled with Windows.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Campbell-Kelly |first1=Martin |last2=Garcia-Swartz |first2=Daniel D |date=2013 |title=The History of the Internet: The Missing Narratives |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=867087 |journal=Journal of Information Technology |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=54–57 |doi=10.1057/jit.2013.4 |ssrn=867087 |s2cid=41013 |issn=0268-3962|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Browser |url=http://mashable.com/follow/topics/browser/ |access-date=2 September 2011 |publisher=[[Mashable]] |archive-date=2 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110902145020/http://mashable.com/follow/topics/browser/ |url-status=live }}</ref> This led to the ''[[United States v. Microsoft Corporation]]'' antitrust lawsuit.

[[Internet Explorer 3|IE3]], released in 1996, added support for Java applets, [[ActiveX]], and [[CSS]]. At this point, Microsoft began bundling IE with Windows. IE3 managed to increase Microsoft's share of the browser market from under 10% to over 20%.<ref>{{cite news |date=29 January 1997 |title=Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Is World's Fastest-Growing Browser |publisher=Microsoft |url=https://news.microsoft.com/1997/01/28/microsoft-internet-explorer-3-0-is-worlds-fastest-growing-browser/ |access-date=11 April 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815072434/https://news.microsoft.com/1997/01/28/microsoft-internet-explorer-3-0-is-worlds-fastest-growing-browser/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Internet Explorer 4|IE4]], released the following year, introduced [[Dynamic HTML]] setting the stage for the Web 2.0 revolution. By 1998, IE was able to capture the majority of the desktop browser market.<ref name="msBeatNS" /> It would be the dominant browser for the next fourteen years.

[[Google]] released their [[Google Chrome|Chrome browser]] in 2008 with the first [[Just-in-time compilation|JIT]] [[JavaScript engine]], [[V8 (JavaScript engine)|V8]]. Chrome overtook IE to become the dominant desktop browser in four years,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Vaughan-Nichols |first1=Steven |date=21 May 2012 |title=Chrome beats Internet Explorer in global Web browser race |publisher=ZDNet |url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-beats-internet-explorer-in-global-web-browser-race/ |access-date=14 February 2022 |archive-date=14 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214142656/https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-beats-internet-explorer-in-global-web-browser-race/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and overtook Safari to become the dominant mobile browser in two.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ellis |first1=Megan |date=2 April 2019 |title=5 Reasons Why Android Is So Much More Popular Than iPhone |publisher=MUO |url=https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-more-popular-iphone/ |access-date=27 February 2022 |archive-date=27 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227192943/https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-more-popular-iphone/ |url-status=live }}</ref> At the same time, Google open sourced Chrome's [[codebase]] as [[Chromium (web browser)|Chromium]].<ref>{{cite news |date=2 September 2008 |title=Welcome to Chromium |url=https://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/welcome-to-chromium_02.html |access-date=27 February 2022 |archive-date=12 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112160147/https://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/welcome-to-chromium_02.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Ryan Dahl]] used Chromium's V8 engine in 2009 to power an [[Event-driven architecture|event driven]] [[runtime system]], [[Node.js]], which allowed JavaScript code to be used on servers as well as browsers. This led to the development of new software stacks such as [[MEAN (solution stack)|MEAN]]. Thanks to frameworks such as [[Electron (software framework)|Electron]], developers can bundle up node applications as standalone desktop applications such as [[Slack (software)|Slack]].

Acer and Samsung began selling [[Chromebook]]s, cheap laptops running [[ChromeOS]] capable of running web apps, in 2011. Over the next decade, more companies offered Chromebooks. Chromebooks outsold MacOS devices in 2020 to become the second most popular OS in the world.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hachman |first1=Mark |date=17 February 2021 |title=Chromebooks continued to outsell Macs in 2020 |publisher=PC World |url=https://www.pcworld.com/article/394097/chromebooks-continued-to-outsell-macs-in-2020.html |access-date=20 February 2022 |archive-date=20 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220220151616/https://www.pcworld.com/article/394097/chromebooks-continued-to-outsell-macs-in-2020.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Other notable web browsers emerged including [[Mozilla|Mozilla's]] [[Firefox]], [[Opera (company)|Opera's]] [[Opera (web browser)|Opera browser]] and [[Apple Inc.|Apple's]] [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]].

===Web 1.0===
Web 1.0 is a [[retronym]] referring to the first stage of the [[World Wide Web]]'s evolution, from roughly 1989 to 2004. According to Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, "content creators were few in Web 1.0 with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content".<ref>{{Cite journal|first=Graham Cormode|last=Balachander Krishnamurthy|title=Key differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0|journal=First Monday|volume=13|issue=6|date=2 June 2008|url=http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2125/1972|access-date=23 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025113431/http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2125/1972|archive-date=25 October 2012|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> [[Personal web page]]s were common, consisting mainly of static pages hosted on [[Internet Service Provider|ISP]]-run [[web server]]s, or on [[free web hosting service]]s such as [[Tripod (web hosting)|Tripod]] and the now-defunct [[GeoCities]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Geocities|title=Geocities – Dead Media Archive|website=cultureandcommunication.org|access-date=2014-09-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140524003656/http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Geocities|archive-date=2014-05-24|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/163765/So_Long_GeoCities_We_Forgot_You_Still_Existed.html|title=So Long, GeoCities: We Forgot You Still Existed|date=2009-04-23|access-date=2014-09-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017090359/http://www.pcworld.com/article/163765/So_Long_GeoCities_We_Forgot_You_Still_Existed.html|archive-date=2014-10-17|url-status=live}}</ref>

Some common design elements of a Web 1.0 site include:<ref>{{cite conference|last1=Viswanathan|first1=Ganesh|last2=Dutt Mathur|first2=Punit|last3=Yammiyavar|first3=Pradeep|title=From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and beyond: Reviewing usability heuristic criteria taking music sites as case studies|url=https://www.academia.edu/8381037|date=March 2010|place=Mumbai|access-date=20 February 2015|series=IndiaHCI Conference|archive-date=21 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321085849/https://www.academia.edu/8381037|url-status=live}}</ref>
* Static pages rather than [[dynamic HTML]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-10.htm|title=Is there a Web 1.0?|date=January 28, 2008|website=HowStuffWorks|access-date=February 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190222191357/https://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-10.htm|archive-date=February 22, 2019|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
* Content provided from the server's [[File system|filesystem]] rather than a relational database management system ([[RDBMS]]).
* Pages built using [[Server Side Includes]] or [[Common Gateway Interface]] (CGI) instead of a [[web application]] written in a [[dynamic programming language]] which allows the contents of the page to be modified such as [[Perl]], [[PHP]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]], [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]], solutions such as ASP.NET, JSP or node.js.
* The use of [[HTML 3.2]]-era elements such as [[Framing (World Wide Web)|frames]] and tables to position and align elements on a page. These were often used in combination with [[spacer GIF]]s. Frames are web pages embedded into other web pages, and spacer GIFs were transparent images used to force the content in the page to be displayed a certain way.
* Proprietary [[HTML]] extensions, such as the [[blink element|&lt;blink&gt;]] and [[marquee tag|&lt;marquee&gt;]] tags, introduced during the [[First Browser War|first browser war]].
* Online [[guestbook]]s.
* [[GIF]] buttons, graphics (typically 88×31 [[pixel]]s in size) promoting [[web browser]]s, [[operating system]]s, [[text editor]]s and various other products.
* HTML forms sent via [[email]]. Support for [[server side scripting]] was rare on [[shared server]]s during this period. To provide a feedback mechanism for web site visitors, [[mailto]] forms were used. A user would fill in a form, and upon clicking the form's submit button, their [[email client]] would launch and attempt to send an email containing the form's details. The popularity and complications of the mailto protocol led browser developers to incorporate [[email client]]s into their browsers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s04.html|title=The Right Size of Software|website=www.catb.org|access-date=2015-02-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617002902/http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s04.html|archive-date=2015-06-17|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Terry Flew]], in his third edition of ''New Media,'' described the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as a

{{Blockquote|text="move from personal websites to blogs and blog site aggregation, from publishing to participation, from web content as the outcome of large up-front investment to an ongoing and interactive process, and from content management systems to links based on "tagging" website content using [[Keyword (Internet search)|keyword]]s ([[folksonomy]])."|sign=|source=}}

Flew believed these factors formed the trends that resulted in the onset of the Web 2.0 "craze".<ref>{{Cite book
  |title=New Media: An Introduction
  |last=Flew  |first=Terry
  |year=2008
  |edition=3rd
  |publisher=Oxford University Press  |location=Melbourne
  |page=19
}}</ref>

== 2004–present: The Web as platform, ubiquity ==

=== Web 2.0 ===
{{Main|Web 2.0}}
{{See also|Web application|Single-page application|Dynamic web page|Rich web application|Web framework|Web platform}}
Web pages were initially conceived as structured documents based upon HTML. They could include images, video, and other content, although the use of media was initially relatively limited and the content was mainly static. By the mid-2000s, new approaches to sharing and exchanging content, such as [[blog]]s and [[RSS]], rapidly gained acceptance on the Web. The video-sharing website [[YouTube]] launched the concept of user-generated content.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Susarla |first1=Anjana |last2=Oh |first2=Jeong-Ha |last3=Tan |first3=Yong |date=2012 |title=Social Networks and the Diffusion of User-Generated Content: Evidence from YouTube |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23207870 |journal=Information Systems Research |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=23–41 |doi=10.1287/isre.1100.0339 |jstor=23207870 |issn=1047-7047 |access-date=12 July 2022 |archive-date=12 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220712094047/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23207870 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> As new technologies made it easier to create websites that behaved dynamically, the Web attained greater ease of use and gained a sense of interactivity which ushered in a period of rapid popularization. This new era also brought into existence [[Social network service|social networking websites]], such as [[Friendster]], [[MySpace]], [[Facebook]], and [[Twitter]], and photo- and video-sharing websites such as [[Flickr]] and, later, [[Instagram]] which gained users rapidly and became a central part of [[youth culture]]. [[Wikipedia]]'s [[Wiki|user-edited content]] quickly displaced the professionally-written [[Microsoft Encarta]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Victim Of Wikipedia: Microsoft To Shut Down Encarta |url=https://www.forbes.com/2009/03/30/microsoft-encarta-wikipedia-technology-paidcontent.html |access-date=2022-07-12 |website=Forbes |language=en |archive-date=12 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220712094047/https://www.forbes.com/2009/03/30/microsoft-encarta-wikipedia-technology-paidcontent.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The popularity of these sites, combined with developments in the technology that enabled them, and the increasing availability and affordability of high-speed connections made video content far more common on all kinds of websites. This new media-rich model for information exchange, featuring user-generated and user-edited websites, was dubbed [[Web 2.0]], a term coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is Web 2.0? {{!}} Definition from TechTarget |url=https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Web-20-or-Web-2 |access-date=2024-04-13 |website=WhatIs |language=en}}</ref> and popularized in 2004 at the [[Web 2.0 Conference]]. The Web 2.0 boom drew investment from companies worldwide and saw many new service-oriented startups catering to a newly "democratized" Web.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1 May 2008 |title=What Is Web 2.0? |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-web-20/ |access-date=16 April 2022 |work=CBS News |archive-date=16 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220416214900/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-web-20/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=19 July 2007 |title=The Good, the Bad, And the 'Web 2.0' |language=en-US |work=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118461274162567845 |access-date=16 April 2022 |issn=0099-9660 |archive-date=16 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220416214405/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118461274162567845 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Paul |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rRrOBQAAQBAJ&dq=web+2.0&pg=PA257 |title=Web 2.0 and Beyond: Principles and Technologies |date=2016 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-4398-2868-7 |language=en |page=257 |chapter=14.2.1 AJAX: The Key to Web 2.0}}</ref><ref name="Han2012">{{Cite book |last=Han |first=Sam |url=https://www.academia.edu/6151399 |title=Web 2.0 |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-99606-1 |page=35 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |journal=McKinsey |title=How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0 |url=https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-companies-are-benefiting-from-web-20-mckinsey-global-survey-results |access-date=16 April 2022 |archive-date=27 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327045147/https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-companies-are-benefiting-from-web-20-mckinsey-global-survey-results |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tim Berners-Lee's original World Wide Web browser |url=http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717031115/http://info.cern.ch/NextBrowser.html |archive-date=17 July 2011 |quote=With recent phenomena like blogs and wikis, the Web is beginning to develop the kind of collaborative nature that its inventor envisaged from the start.}}</ref>

[[JavaScript]] made the development of interactive [[Web application|web applications]] possible. Web pages could run JavaScript and respond to user input, but they could not interact with the network. Browsers could submit data to servers via forms and receive new pages, but this was slow compared to traditional desktop applications. Developers that wanted to offer sophisticated applications over the Web used Java or nonstandard solutions such as [[Adobe Flash]] or Microsoft's [[ActiveX]].

Microsoft added a little-noticed feature called [[XMLHttpRequest]] to Internet Explorer in 1999, which enabled a web page to communicate with the server while remaining visible. Developers at [[Oddpost]] used this feature in 2002 to create the first [[Ajax (programming)|Ajax]] application, a [[webmail]] client that performed as well as a desktop application.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gibbs |first1=Mark |date=12 April 2004 |title=There's nothing odd about the slickness of Oddpost |publisher=Network Word |url=https://www.networkworld.com/article/2332063/there-s-nothing-odd-about-the-slickness-of-oddpost.html |access-date=15 February 2022 |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215184135/https://www.networkworld.com/article/2332063/there-s-nothing-odd-about-the-slickness-of-oddpost.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Ajax apps were revolutionary. Web pages evolved beyond static documents to full-blown applications. Websites began offering [[Web API|APIs]] in addition to webpages. Developers created a plethora of Ajax apps including [[Web widget|widgets]], [[Mashup (web application hybrid)|mashups]] and new types of [[Social networking service|social apps]]. Analysts called it [[Web 2.0]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Singel |first1=Ryan |date=6 October 2005 |title=Are You Ready for Web 2.0? |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2005/10/are-you-ready-for-web-2-0/ |access-date=16 February 2022}}</ref>

Browser vendors improved the performance of their JavaScript engines<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shankland |first1=Stephen |date=20 March 2009 |title=Browser war centers on once-obscure JavaScript |publisher=CNet |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/browser-war-centers-on-once-obscure-javascript/ |access-date=20 February 2022 |archive-date=20 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220220125739/https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/browser-war-centers-on-once-obscure-javascript/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and dropped support for Flash and Java.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Skuse |first1=Cole |date=12 January 2021 |title=Gone in a flash: Adobe Flash removed from online browsers |publisher=The Tartan |url=http://thetartan.org/2021/1/13/scitech/flash |access-date=16 February 2022 |archive-date=27 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220127135557/https://thetartan.org/2021/1/13/scitech/flash |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hughes |first1=Matthew |title=The Web Just Became More Secure: Google Drops Support for Java |url=https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/web-just-became-secure-google-drops-support-java/ |access-date=16 February 2022 |website=makeuseof.com |date=11 September 2015 |publisher=MUO |archive-date=16 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216154505/https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/web-just-became-secure-google-drops-support-java/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Traditional [[Client–server model|client server applications]] were replaced by [[Cloud computing|cloud apps]]. Amazon reinvented itself as a [[Amazon Web Services|cloud service provider]].

The use of [[social media]] on the Web has become ubiquitous in everyday life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deo |first=Prakash Vidyarthi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sNNmgaJizZAC&pg=PA3 |title=Technologies and Protocols for the Future of Internet Design: Reinventing the Web: Reinventing the Web |date=2012 |publisher=IGI Global |isbn=978-1-4666-0204-5 |pages=3 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Schuster |first=Jenna |date=10 June 2016 |title=A brief history of internet service providers |url=https://www.exede.com/blog/brief-history-internet-service-providers/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428045452/https://www.exede.com/blog/brief-history-internet-service-providers/ |archive-date=28 April 2019 |access-date=15 January 2020}}</ref> The 2010s also saw the rise of streaming services, such as [[Netflix]].

In spite of the success of Web 2.0 applications, the [[World Wide Web Consortium|W3C]] forged ahead with their plan to replace HTML with [[XHTML]] and represent all data in [[XML]]. In 2004, representatives from Mozilla, [[Opera (company)|Opera]], and Apple formed an opposing group, the [[WHATWG|Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group]] (WHATWG), dedicated to improving HTML while maintaining backward compatibility.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hickson |first1=Ian |title=WHAT open mailing list announcement |url=https://whatwg.org/news/start |access-date=16 February 2022 |website=whatwg.org |publisher=WHATWG |archive-date=8 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308052351/https://whatwg.org/news/start |url-status=live }}</ref> For the next several years, websites did not transition their content to XHTML; browser vendors did not adopt XHTML2; and developers eschewed XML in favor of [[JSON]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Target |first1=Sinclair |title=The Rise and Rise of JSON |url=https://twobithistory.org/2017/09/21/the-rise-and-rise-of-json.html |access-date=16 February 2022 |website=twobithistory.org |publisher=Sinclair Target |archive-date=19 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119160156/https://twobithistory.org/2017/09/21/the-rise-and-rise-of-json.html |url-status=live }}</ref> By 2007, the W3C conceded and announced they were restarting work on HTML<ref>{{cite news |last1=Daly |first1=Janet |date=7 March 2007 |title=W3C Relaunches HTML Activity |publisher=W3C |url=https://www.w3.org/2007/03/html-pressrelease |access-date=17 February 2022 |archive-date=16 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216114035/http://www.w3.org/2007/03/html-pressrelease |url-status=live }}</ref> and in 2009, they officially abandoned XHTML.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shankland |first1=Stephen |date=9 July 2009 |title=An epitaph for the Web standard, XHTML 2 |publisher=CNet |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/an-epitaph-for-the-web-standard-xhtml-2/ |access-date=17 February 2022 |archive-date=16 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216142629/https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/an-epitaph-for-the-web-standard-xhtml-2/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2019, the W3C ceded control of the HTML specification, now called the HTML Living Standard, to WHATWG.<ref>{{cite web |title=Memorandum of Understanding Between W3C and WHATWG |url=https://www.w3.org/2019/04/WHATWG-W3C-MOU.html |access-date=16 February 2022 |website=w3.org |publisher=W3C |archive-date=29 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529012854/https://www.w3.org/2019/04/WHATWG-W3C-MOU.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Microsoft rewrote their [[Microsoft Edge|Edge browser]] in 2021 to use Chromium as its code base in order to be more compatible with Chrome.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Kyle |title=Microsoft confirms Edge rewrite based on Google's Chromium for 'improved compatibility' |url=https://9to5google.com/2018/12/06/microsoft-confirms-chromium-edge/ |access-date=14 February 2022 |website=[[9to5Google]] |date=6 December 2018 |publisher=925 |archive-date=14 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220214155853/https://9to5google.com/2018/12/06/microsoft-confirms-chromium-edge/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Security, censorship and cybercrime ===
The increasing use of encrypted connections ([[HTTPS]]) enabled [[e-commerce]] and [[online banking]]. Nonetheless, the 2010s saw the emergence of various controversial trends, such as [[internet censorship]] and the growth of [[cybercrime]], including web-based [[Cyberattack|cyberattacks]] and [[ransomware]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kortti |first=Jukka |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMiSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142 |title=Media in History: An Introduction to the Meanings and Transformations of Communication Over Time |date=17 April 2019 |publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education |isbn=978-1-352-00596-7 |page=142 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gragido |first1=Will |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oh46MkwJIPgC&pg=PA14 |title=Cybercrime and Espionage: An Analysis of Subversive Multi-Vector Threats |last2=Pirc |first2=John |date=7 January 2011 |publisher=Newnes |isbn=978-1-59749-614-8 |page=14 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Mobile ===
{{Main|Mobile web}}
{{See also|Mobile browser|Mobile development framework}}

Early attempts to allow wireless devices to access the Web used simplified formats such as [[i-mode]] and [[Wireless Application Protocol|WAP]]. [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] introduced the first [[smartphone]] in 2007 with a full-featured browser. Other companies followed suit and in 2011, smartphone sales overtook PCs.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Goldman |first1=David |date=9 February 2011 |title=Smartphones have conquered PCs |publisher=CNN |url=https://money.cnn.com/2011/02/09/technology/smartphones_eclipse_pcs/ |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-date=9 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209020658/https://money.cnn.com/2011/02/09/technology/smartphones_eclipse_pcs/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Since 2016, most visitors access websites with mobile devices<ref>{{cite news |last1=Murphy |first1=Mike |date=1 November 2016 |title=More websites were viewed on mobile devices and tablets than desktops for the first time ever this month |publisher=Quartz |url=https://qz.com/825014/mobile-website-views-surpassed-desktop-views-for-the-first-time-ever-in-october-2016/ |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-date=18 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218131053/https://qz.com/825014/mobile-website-views-surpassed-desktop-views-for-the-first-time-ever-in-october-2016/ |url-status=live }}</ref> which led to the adoption of [[responsive web design]].

Apple, Mozilla, and Google have taken different approaches to integrating smartphones with modern web apps. Apple initially promoted web apps for the iPhone, but then encouraged developers to make [[Mobile app#Native app|native apps]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ortolani |first1=Parker |date=3 June 2021 |title=Remembering Apple's 'sweet solution' for iPhone apps before the App Store |publisher=9to5Mac |url=https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/03/remembering-apples-sweet-solution-for-iphone-apps-before-the-app-store/ |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-date=18 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218133242/https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/03/remembering-apples-sweet-solution-for-iphone-apps-before-the-app-store/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Mozilla announced Web APIs in 2011 to allow webapps to access hardware features such as audio, camera or GPS.<ref>{{cite web |title=Web APIs |url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API |access-date=16 February 2022 |website=MDN Web Docs |publisher=Mozilla |archive-date=13 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213203405/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API |url-status=live }}</ref> Frameworks such as [[Apache Cordova|Cordova]] and [[Ionic (mobile app framework)|Ionic]] allow developers to build [[hybrid app]]s. Mozilla released a [[Firefox OS|mobile OS]] designed to run web apps in 2012,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Velazco |first1=Chris |date=2 July 2012 |title=Mozilla's Boot To Gecko Becomes Firefox OS, Scores Support From Sprint, Deutsche Telekom, ZTE, And More |publisher=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/mozillas-boot-to-gecko-becomes-firefox-os-scores-support-from-sprint-deutsche-telekom-zte-and-more/ |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-date=18 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218165657/https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/02/mozillas-boot-to-gecko-becomes-firefox-os-scores-support-from-sprint-deutsche-telekom-zte-and-more/ |url-status=live }}</ref> but discontinued it in 2015.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lunden |first1=Ingrid |date=8 December 2015 |title=Mozilla Will Stop Developing And Selling Firefox OS Smartphones |publisher=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/08/mozilla-will-stop-developing-and-selling-firefox-os-smartphones/ |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-date=31 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131184605/https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/08/mozilla-will-stop-developing-and-selling-firefox-os-smartphones/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Google announced specifications for [[Accelerated Mobile Pages]] (AMP),<ref>{{cite news |last1=Besbris |first1=David |date=7 October 2015 |title=Introducing the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, for a faster, open mobile web |publisher=Google |url=https://blog.google/products/search/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages/ |access-date=22 February 2022 |archive-date=17 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210617085040/https://blog.google/products/search/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[progressive web applications]] (PWA) in 2015.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Osmani |first1=Addy |date=December 2015 |title=Getting Started with Progressive Web Apps |publisher=Google Inc. |url=https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/12/getting-started-pwa |access-date=22 February 2022 |archive-date=22 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220222190044/https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/12/getting-started-pwa |url-status=live }}</ref> AMPs use a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and [[Web Components]] to optimize web pages for mobile devices; and PWAs are web pages that, with a combination of [[web worker]]s and [[manifest file]]s, can be saved to a mobile device and opened like a native app.

=== Web 3.0 and Web3 ===
The extension of the Web to facilitate data exchange was explored as an approach to create a [[Semantic Web]] (sometimes called Web 3.0). This involved using machine-readable information and interoperability standards to enable context-understanding programs to intelligently select information for users.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Virgilio |first1=Roberto de |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PapGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA481 |title=Semantic Web Information Management: A Model-Based Perspective |last2=Giunchiglia |first2=Fausto |last3=Tanca |first3=Letizia |date=2010 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-642-04329-1 |language=en |page=481}}</ref> Continued extension of the Web has focused on connecting devices to the Internet, coined [[Intelligent Device Management]]. As Internet connectivity becomes ubiquitous, manufacturers have started to leverage the expanded computing power of their devices to enhance their usability and capability. Through Internet connectivity, manufacturers are now able to interact with the devices they have sold and shipped to their customers, and customers are able to interact with the manufacturer (and other providers) to access a lot of new content.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gottinger |first=Hans W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79I0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA126 |title=Internet Economics: Models, Mechanisms and Management |date=2017 |publisher=Bentham Science Publishers |isbn=978-1-68108-546-3 |language=en |page=126}}</ref>

This phenomenon has led to the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT),<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is Internet of Things? Internet of Things Definition |url=https://amazingalgorithms.com/definitions/internet-of-things/ |access-date=2024-04-13 |website=amazingalgorithms.com}}</ref> where modern devices are connected through sensors, software, and other technologies that exchange information with other devices and systems on the Internet. This creates an environment where data can be collected and analyzed instantly, providing better insights and improving the decision-making process. Additionally, the integration of AI with IoT devices continues to improve their capabilities, allowing them to predict customer needs and perform tasks, increasing efficiency and user satisfaction.

[[Web3]] (sometimes also referred to as Web 3.0) is an idea for a [[decentralized web|decentralized Web]] based on public [[blockchain]]s, [[smart contract]]s, [[digital token]]s and [[digital wallet]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ragnedda |first1=Massimo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IHKhDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT15 |title=Blockchain and Web 3.0: Social, Economic, and Technological Challenges |last2=Destefanis |first2=Giuseppe |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-63920-3 |language=en}}</ref>

===Beyond Web 3.0===
The next generation of the Web is often termed Web 4.0, but its definition is not clear. According to some sources, it is a Web that involves [[artificial intelligence]],<ref>https://www.rsisinternational.org/IJRSI/Issue31/75-78.pdf</ref> the [[internet of things]], [[pervasive computing]], [[ubiquitous computing]] and the [[Web of Things]] among other concepts.<ref>Almeida, F. (2017). Concept and dimensions of web 4.0. International journal of computers and technology, 16(7).</ref> According to the European Union, Web 4.0 is "the expected fourth generation of the World Wide Web. Using advanced artificial and ambient intelligence, the internet of things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, digital and real objects and environments are fully integrated and communicate with each other, enabling truly intuitive, immersive experiences, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.politico.eu/article/the-commission-wants-the-eu-to-lead-in-web-4-0-come-again/ | title=The Commission wants the EU to lead on 'Web 4.0' — whatever that is | date=11 July 2023 }}</ref>

== Historiography ==
Historiography of the Web poses specific challenges, including disposable data, missing links, lost content and archived websites, which have consequences for web historians. Sites such as the [[Internet Archive]] aim to preserve content.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brügger |first=Niels |date=2013 |title=Web historiography and Internet Studies: Challenges and perspectives |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444812462852 |journal=New Media & Society |language=en |volume=15 |issue=5 |pages=752–764 |doi=10.1177/1461444812462852 |s2cid=32892005 |issn=1461-4448 |access-date=14 December 2022 |archive-date=14 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221214202516/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444812462852 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Craig |first=William |title=The Importance of Historiography on the Web |url=https://www.webfx.com/blog/web-design/the-importance-of-historiography-on-the-web/ |access-date=2022-12-14 |website=WebFX |language=en-US |archive-date=14 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221214202907/https://www.webfx.com/blog/web-design/the-importance-of-historiography-on-the-web/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

== See also ==
{{portal|History
}}
* [[Fediverse]]
* [[History of email]]
* [[History of hypertext]]
* [[History of the Internet]]
* [[History of telecommunication]]
* [[History of web syndication technology]]
* [[List of websites founded before 1995]]
* [[Webring]]
===Online services before the World Wide Web===
* [[Minitel]]
* [[NABU Network]]
* [[Quantum Link]] / [[AOL]]
* [[CompuServe]]
* [[GEnie]]
* [[Usenet]]
* [[Bulletin board system]]
* [[Prestel]]
* [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)#Scrapbook|Scrapbook]]
* [[:Category:Pre–World Wide Web online services]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|26em}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | last1=Berners-Lee | first1=Tim | last2=Fischetti | first2=Mark | title=Weaving the Web : the original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor | publisher=HarperSanFrancisco | publication-place=San Francisco | date=1999 | isbn=0-06-251586-1 | oclc=41238513}}
* {{cite book | last=Brügger | first=Niels | title=Web 25 : histories from the first 25 years of the World Wide Web | publication-place=New York, NY | date=2017 | isbn=978-1-4331-3269-8 | oclc=976036138}}
* {{cite book | last1=Gillies | first1=James | last2=Cailliau | first2=Robert | title=How the Web was born : the story of the World Wide Web | publisher=Oxford University Press | publication-place=Oxford | date=2000 | isbn=0-19-286207-3 | oclc=43377073}}
* {{cite book | last1=Herman | first1=Andrew | last2=Swiss | first2=Thomas | title=The World Wide Web and contemporary cultural theory | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=New York | date=2000 | isbn=0-415-92501-0 | oclc=44446371}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Schafer |first1=Valérie |last2=Thierry |first2=Benjamin G. |title=The 90s as a turning decade for Internet and the Web |journal=[[Internet Histories]] |date=2018 |volume=2 |issue=3-4 |pages=225–229 |doi=10.1080/24701475.2018.1521060}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Naughton |first1=John |title=The evolution of the Internet: from military experiment to General Purpose Technology |journal=Journal of Cyber Policy |date=2016 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=5–28 |doi=10.1080/23738871.2016.1157619 |doi-access=free}}

== External links ==
* [https://web30.web.cern.ch/web-history.html Web History: first 30 years]
* [http://www.w3.org/History.html "A Little History of the World Wide Web: from 1945 to 1995"], Dan Connolly, [[W3C]], 2000
* [http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html "The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future"], Tim Berners-Lee, August 1996
* [https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/ The History of the Web]
* [https://webdevelopmenthistory.com/ Web Development History]
* [https://bkardell.com/blog/Brief-ish-History-of-The-Web-Part-1.html A Brief(ish) History of the Web Universe], Brian Kardell
* [https://www.w3.org/community/webhistory/ Web History Community Group], W3C
* [https://www.w3.org/wiki/The_history_of_the_Web The history of the Web], W3C
* [http://info.cern.ch info.cern.ch], the first website

[[Category:World Wide Web]]
[[Category:History of the Internet|World Wide Web]]
[[Category:History of computing|World Wide Web]]