If you’re reading this, you are using a browser. Web browser to be exact. While the web browser is a tool that the internet user is taking for granted these days, like with all other things, there was a beginning.
Let’s differentiate at first. The WWW, or World Wide Web is actually just the network of millions of computers that operate on the Internet. The internet itself has a longer history, dates back further than the WWW.
Back when computers took entire storage rooms to function, a few brilliant minds came together and started the development of packet-switched network solutions. These limited gateways were first seen in the late 1960’s and built the foundation of the Internet.
In the 1980’s, when the Internet became commercialized, Internet Service Providers started to impact our culture, way of life and way of communication the World Wide Web started to crystallize. What once was done via text based communication, asked for further development and with the invention of tools such as HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), the first web browser, also named WWW, started a technological revolution.
In 1993, one of the first graphically enhanced Web Browsers was introduced to the connected masses. Mosaic; a product created by Marc Andreessen. Marc however, didn’t rest on the success of Mosaic but founded Netscape and the infamous Netscape Navigator. Before the Microsoft was even really on the map, the Netscape Navigator was used by 90% of all web surfers.
Microsoft’s response was expectedly (in retrospect) harsh. In 1995, Internet Explorer launched the first browser war. Microsoft has done its homework; knowing that their Operating System is installed on the majority of all home based PCs, the bundling of Internet Explorer with the OS, launched a massive attack. Netscape’s response came in 1998 by converting their once dominant browser into an open source project, named: Mozilla Firefox, later on, converted to just “Firefox”. As of 2009, 21.77% of all internet users prefer Firefox over other browsers.

In between the major browser wars, smaller Web Browser projects were introduced to the public. Opera came to the fore front in 1996; Apple’s proprietary Safari Browser, started in 2003 and has increased their market share to 8% in 2009.
Even the ultimate internet powerhouse, Google, released their own web browser; “Chrome”. Starting in 2008, Chrome is now accounting for 1.15% market share.

How does this all affect you?
In essence, you, the internet user, have an abundance of choices to find the browser you like best. The browser competition for market share is your advantage. Especially with open source projects like Firefox, developments of add-ons by smart programmers are incredibly helpful and usually free of charge.
In the coming years, the browser battles will be directed more towards the future markets, where browser producers can generate more revenue. The browser tapping these new, massive markets will have a tremendous financial head start over their competition.