NCSA Mosaic

~terry Mon, Jul 15, 1996 (12:46) seed

NCSA Mosaic -- Mosaic was the first and once greatest web browser, but lately it's been relegated to the role of playing catch-up to Netscape. Thankfully, though, Mosaic plays this game very well. The newest releases contain many of Netscape's best features, including document caching, improved FTP support, internal support for gifs and jpegs, built-in newsreader (with a recently added toolbar), new HTML tags (including centering, tables, and background images), and low cost (it's free!). Mosaic has a nice spawning feature that allows users to access multiple pages at the same time. Another useful option is Mosaic's full-screen presentation mode. Mosaic has also caught up to Netscape in terms of speed, and some claim that it's even faster than Netscape now. Mosaic is a 32-bit client that can only be run on Windows 95/NT platforms or on Windows 3.x platforms that are using the latest version of Win32s. The official release of Mosaic 2.0 includes several interesting and unprecedented new features. In addition to an option that allows Mosaic to automatically check and track links from various web pages (AutoSurf) and a new advanced hotlist manager (much like Netscape's SmartMarks) that is seamlessly integrated into Mosaic, there is one cool new feature that is bound to please the socialite in all of us. Mosaic now offers the opportunity to collaborate with other users -- by joining a collaboration session, you can chat with others, send and receive files, and partake in web cruising with your friends, all from within Mosaic. This is the first web browser to allow you to do these three functions without having to resort to using an external application. Unfortunately, Mosaic does still lack some of Netscape's proprietary features, including font sizes, advanced support for tables (the width tag and nested tables), and client side image mapping. Also, Mosaic's integrated newsreader and internal FTP client currently aren't quite as solid (in terms of ease of use and appearance) as those offered by Netscape, but they are getting better with each new release. With the final release of Mosaic 2.0, the competition has once again heated up between Netscape and Mosaic, but in the end, I still have to give the overall edge to Netscape...for now. Pros: Great features, AutoSurfing, collaboration feature, on par with Netscape in terms of speed Cons: Support for tables, news, and FTP isn't quite as solid as in Netscape New for Win: Client side image mapping, Kodak Photo CD support, bug fixes, more new for Mac: PNG, frames, CSIM, and advanced tables support, progressive image decoding, more Version Reviewed: Windows - 2.1.1 Official Release. Macintosh - 3.0 Beta 2 Date of Review: 5/3/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud Location: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/Mosaic/Windows/Win31x/mosaic21.exe Information: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/HomePage.html Company: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/NCSAHome.html

~Critter Tue, Oct 1, 1996 (09:38) #1

I have just received word that version 3.x beta should be out soon for windows platforms. It is already available for Mac systems. Of course, it does catch up quite a bit with the big two but still falls just a little short. It does help raise the baseline HTML level so programmers can code to about the same level and reach most people on the Internet. If anyone has further information please post.

~joedoe Tue, Jan 21, 1997 (16:53) #2

Version 3.0 is out for win95/NT, as of several weeks ago, I think. It is available for download, through a revised web page, linked to the old page. I am downloading it now, so I haven't actually seen it yet, but it would be great if you could review it, or at least link to it.

~sprin5 Tue, Jan 9, 2001 (09:43) #3

Good ol Mosaic, the U of I browser that started it all!