Image talk:Timeline of web browsers.svg

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Needs to include www, lynx and other terminal mode browsers.

Like this? (see current version) --ADeveria 20:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
And all the rest in browsers.evolt.org ? :) as well as some not yet listed there: like contiki (C64 and other 8-bit systems), Off By One, hv3 ( TKhtml), AWeb, IBrowse and Voyager (Amiga browsers), any Atari browsers, Oracle Powerbrowser (last release in late 1996). Not to forget NetCaptor, the first Trident based tabbed browser.
Tell you what, if you research what dates each browser had a major release, the version number of that release, the lifespan of the browser, as well as why the browser is significant enough to be added, I'll add it. :) Seriously, the research part takes most of the time, and I'd hate to clutter up the timeline with barely used and otherwise insignificant browsers. Also, I'd recommend you sign your posts, they are rather hard to recognize otherwise. --ADeveria 16:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


Contiki: development started in Q3 of 2002, 1.0 released in spring 2003, 2.0 released April 2007


Amiga Mosaic 1.0 (AMosaic) forked from Mosaic in 1994, completely rewritten as IBrowse , 1.0 in 2000, 2.3 in Jan 2003, 2.4 in Dec 2006, tabs were added in 1999. An OEM version included with AmigaOS 4.0
Aweb 2.1 in 1996, 3.0 in 1997, 3.2 in 1998, 3.3 in late 1999, 3.4 in 2001, open sourced, 3.5 in 2005, latest beta July 2007


NetCaptor (IE shell /w tabs) : last version , 7.5.4 released in Feb 2005, 5 in 1999, 6 in 2000, 6.5.0 in 2001 (two months after IE 6.0 public preview) , 7.0 thru 7.2 in 2003


Scope (tabbed Trident/Gecko shell) 2.0 (last release) in Jul 2001, 1.0 in Apr 2001, first public alpha version in Feb 2001
Networker (tabbed Trident/Gecko shell) 2.0 version in 2001, 2.5 in 2002, 2.6 in 2002, last release , 2.7 in 2003.130.230.93.16 15:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm working on the next update. --ADeveria 11:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Yay! An update! Nice job. -Ice Ardor 22:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Some browsers you could add

Also show MYIE2 was renamed to Maxton, Safari v3, and Safari Windows Edition and Hot Java Broswer http://java.sun.com/products/archive/hotjava/index.html AbsoluteMSTR 05:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It should really be more like this: MyIE 3.2 code released for free, from which later MyIE2/Maxthon, iTreeSurf and Greenbrowser (which GPLized it) forked from. Possibly also AM/Crazy, Slim, Avant browser and Sleipnir and many others that look just like MyIE.
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm still thinking about how best to display name changes (also for Firefox and some others), but yes, that probably should be mentioned. Safari 3 will be added once it's out of beta (all version points are the final versions, unless the browser never went out of beta), and Safari for Windows is basically the same as Safari for Mac. If I were to add Safari/Windows I might as well add Firefox/Mac, Opera/Linux, etc, which I feel would unnecessarily clutter up the diagram. IE/Mac is an exception since it used a rewritten rendering engine later on. HotJava, however, should be added, and will be in the next version. --ADeveria 12:28, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Another browser that could be added is Opera Mobile. Would you consider Opera/Wii to be just like Opera/Linux Opera/Mac or Opera/Windows, or should it be forked off from Opera 9.5? -- Ice Ardor 23:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Good question, and one I'd been thinking about myself before. The main reasons I decided to add Opera Mini were:
  • It's started appearing in market share logs
  • To many, it's more popular than the desktop version
  • It has a separate versioning system from the desktop version
  • It has its own wikipedia page
The third and fourth points apply to the other types of Opera too, but I feared adding them would lead to a slippery slope, possibly requiring me to add the Nintendo DS Opera, and that of other devices. Which would then require me to add Safari for the iPhone, and who knows what else. Of course, this is just my opinion. --ADeveria 12:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, your reason makes total sense. There are some small browser projects like uBrowser (gecko-based 3D browsing) that is essentially unheard of. Your timeline doesn't aim to be an exhaustive list of all web browsers in existance, just the ones popular enough to have more than 1,000 or so users. Therefore, the browser projects on sourceforge (and the many many Firefox offshoots) need not be included on this timeline unless they have a dedicated development team and company, with a sizable userbase. -- Ice Ardor 07:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
remember that Opera Mini != Opera Mobile. Calling Opera Mini a browser is a bit of a stretch since all the rendering really happens on Opera servers. Opera Mobile OTH uses the very same rendering engine as Opera on all other platforms (and Adobe Dreamweaver)

Opera Mini 4 was released today, November 7, 2007. --User:Ice Ardor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.90.125.136 (talk) 17:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline with Minor Versions as well as Major Versions

I was thinking that it would be neat to plot minor versions as well as major versions in a scalable vector image. I have a list of all of the public Opera builds. This should be made into a new image to avoid clutter. Do you think that would be a good idea, or would it just make the timeline cluttered, unreadable, and not show its sole purpose, which is branching? -- Ice Ardor 23:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's a great idea, but for a separate image for the Opera (Internet suite) article. Like you said, it'd probably cause too much clutter, etc. for this image. I'd actually thought about doing more detailed timelines for other browsers (for their respective pages), so I'd suggest doing so with your image. --ADeveria 12:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and if you'd like to try your hand at SVG yourself...I didn't use any external editor for this, I just used Opera to preview and a text editor. Just view the file's source and you'll see how it's been put together. If you know some HTML, just think of it as similar to that. --ADeveria 12:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
That's really simple! Wow! I figured I'd need a program like Inkscape to make that image. The code is really beautiful. I'll see if I have time to make an Opera timeline. --Ice Ardor 07:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I made the image I have been wanting to make... It's not quite done yet, but your image was a great help to putting mine together. If you want to have a look at it, it's right here: [1]. It's not ready to be put onto Wikipedia yet--people will just delete the image. If you have suggestions, leave them in my userpage, I guess. I don't know how to rotate text. Currently, the build numbers are running over each other. rotate="90" isn't the effect that I want. -Ice Ardor 02:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Flock 1.0 is out -- AbsoluteMSTR 05:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Different Rendering Engine

Nice to see you added gecko and khtml. Now add Trident Engine for IE based and Presto for Opera. Keep up the good work AbsoluteMSTR 18:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't add much value to the timeline by added in Presto, since there are no forks or rendering engine ports of Presto to any other browser. Because the line for Opera Mini is the same color as the line for Opera, it implies the same rendering engine. All of the Trident browsers are in blue (because Avant, Maxthon, and AOL Browser all feature blue as their main logo color, coincidentally), but it wouldn't hurt to include a trident tree in this timeline. --Ice Ardor 07:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I'll probably add Trident, but agree that Presto's probably unnecessary. Also, Opera's engine used to be called "Elektra" before that...so I'd technically have to mention that as well. So nah, not worth the complexity in this graph.
How will Netscape Browser 8's rendering engine tree be drawn, since it supports both Gecko and Trident? --Ice Ardor 23:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Any chance of somehow incorporating the fact that many browser( or browser shells) are capable of using 2 different rendering engine at the same time, Like Maxthon (1.x) , Avant/Orca, Networker, Scope and ofcourse Netscape. Wouldn't count IE Tab.
In my latest version (not uploaded yet), I have the IE shells detached from the IE line, instead they're sitting inside the "Trident" area. This area overlaps the Netcape 8 point, and the overlapped area could also be used for other browsers that use both (let's hope it won't need to get much more complicated than this in the future!). Sound good? --ADeveria 11:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corrections

Version 2.4 of AMosaic/IBrowse needs to be changed to subversion.

<g id="amosaic>
...
        <!-- V2.4: December 2006 -->
        <circle stroke="#D0BF64" cx="1675" r="10" />
        <text x="1675" dy="5" class="subversion">2.4</text>
</g>

(I couldn't figure out how to overwrite the existing file with this correction, so I posted this correction here) --Ice Ardor 01:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for spotting that! You can update a new version by first signing up and logging into Wikimedia Commons, that will create a "Upload a new version of this file" link on the image page at the bottom. Took me a while to find out too. --ADeveria 11:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


Please add lynx (I bet, all of *links-es were derived from it, so it is even much more important than them) and uBrowser (ubrowser.com) as probably the first browser capable of render the pages in 3D (truly useless but popular trend nowadays, and I even heard some new browsers are appearing now and claiming to be the "first one 3D browser" while uBrowser is older). Honeyman 11:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Lynx is already in there, it's all the way at the top. I'll consider uBrowser, though there's quite a few Gecko-based browsers there already...also it doesn't yet have a Wikipedia article, which doesn't help its notability. --ADeveria 16:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


Galeon's link isn't correct. It should be changed from Galeon (Web browser) to Galeon --Gyzome (talk) 17:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add arrows...

So it is easier to see what is based on what. For example, is Safari partially based on OmniWeb, is it the other way around or are they both based on each other? Same problem with Firefox/Netscape 8. Alternatively use diagonal lines. You must also add VMS Mosaic. Helpsloose 00:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've added some arrows on lines that aren't too clear. Not sure VMS Mosaic is really worth mentioning, though. ADeveria (talk) 16:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The End of the Road for Netscape

Netscape will stop support for their browser on Feb 1 2008, and no product updates, bug fixes, or security patches will be released after that date. I've added an end of the line marker for Netscape. Here's the announcement from Netscape. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ice Ardor (talk • contribs) 19:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NetSurf

NetSurf has it's own layout engine.

  • Started: 22 April 2002
  • Version 1.0 release: 19 May 2007
  • Version 1.1 release: 13 Aug 2007
  • Version 1.2 release: 22 Mar 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.173.59 (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)