grand daddy

Apr 27 2009

Browser Classics

Long before Apple took the Jaguar on Safari, Cyberdog brought the web to Mac. This week we’ll look of the original free web browsers.

NCSA Mosaic 2.0

The great-grand-daddy of all browsers, this is where the web began ten years ago. Believe it or not, Mosaic is still downloadable and functional, more or less.

Netscape Communicator 4.8

As the story goes, Mosaic’s creators go commercial and create Netscape. Before abandoning the original code in favor of the new Gecko rendering engine in version 6, communicator matured to the still loved version 4.8.

Cyberdog 2.0

My personal favorite and Apple’s first true web browser, Cyberdog integrated mail, news and the web built with customizable OpenDoc technology. Though Apple long ago left Cyberdog for the pound, you can still download it and it maintains a following on the web.

Internet Explorer

Well, I was about to go looking for an old downloadable version of IE, but I realized that it hasn’t changed all that much, so you can fire up 5.1 and have about the same experience as with the classic version.

The faces have changed, but the game is the same. With Safari, Camino and Internet Explorer vying for control of the web, it’s worth revisiting the past to see what progress we’ve made in 10 years.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

What’s Old is New– New Updates to Old Downloads

One of the great things about the Mac software community is that there is always something new. Last week’s favorite app is so quickly replaced with this weeks cool new thing. That’s what makes it even better when that cool new thing is actually a cool old thing reborn. And those are the kind of picks we have this week.

Netscape 9 beta

Netscape has seen good days and bad, but no one can contest that it is the great-grand daddy of web browsers. So, to see it return to the Mac (v. 8 was Windows only) and in such good form (based on Firefox 2) is fantastic.

netscape9 Whats Old is New New Updates to Old Downloads

The big dog is back, and with some cool new features like the mini-browser (a sidebar that can load pages) and a handy link manager. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Netscape was the browser that brought us tabbed browsing.

Camino 1.5

Camino is another long-time Mac must-have. Its hard to believe that Camino has been around longer than Firefox but is only on version 1.5. Good news: 1.5 adds session saving, better plugin handling and a new rendering engine.

Open Office OS X Native

Open Office is the Open Source reincarnation of Sun’s Star Office that has been around for ages. Recently, via X11, it made its way to OS X. But, if you’ve used it you know it is anything but Mac-like. A new project is underway to forge a Mac native version of the office suite. And the Alpha is ready for download.

Movable Type 4 Open Source

Remember your first blog? There’s a good chance it was powered by Movable Type. Well, Web 2.0 and blogging are well underway, and the folks at Six Apart have finally come around to releasing MT as Open Source. Actually, this is due to happen this summer, but you can download the beta today.

Ahh, memories. Truly great software never goes away for long, does it?

Brian

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