Erwise

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Erwise was a popular web browser in the early days of the World Wide Web. At the time of its release in April 1992, one month prior to ViolaWWW, it was the world's first web browser with a graphical user interface for non-NeXT computers. The browser was written for Unix computers running X-windows and used the W3 common access library.^[1] Erwise was a combined master's project of four Finnish students at the Helsinki University of Technology; Kim Nyberg, Teemu Rantanen, Kati Suominen and Kari Sydänmaanlakka.^[2] The group decided to create a web browser at the suggestion of Robert Cailliau, who was visiting the university.^[3] They were supervised by Ari Lemmke.

The development of Erwise froze after the students graduated and went on to other projects. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, travelled to Finland to encourage the group to continue with the project. However, none of the project members could afford to continue with the project without proper funding. Berners-Lee couldn't continue their work either, as all the code was written in Finnish.

The name Erwise originates from otherwise and the name of the project group, OHT.^[4]