Mosaic (web Browser) - End of Mosaic

End of Mosaic

Mosaic's popularity as a separate browser began to lessen upon the release of Andreessen's Netscape Navigator in 1994. This was noted at the time in The HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML.

By 1998 its user base had almost completely evaporated, being replaced by other web browsers. After NCSA stopped work on Mosaic, development of the NCSA Mosaic for the X Window System source code was continued by several independent groups. These independent development efforts include mMosaic (multicast Mosaic) which ceased development in early 2004, and Mosaic-CK and VMS Mosaic.

VMS Mosaic, a version specifically targeting OpenVMS operating system, was one of the longest-living efforts to maintain Mosaic. Using the VMS support already built-in in original version (Bjorn S. Nilsson ported Mosaic 1.2 to VMS in the summer of 1993), developers incorporated substantial part of HTML engine from mMosaic, another defunct flavor of the browser. As of 3 September 2003 (2003 -09-03), VMS Mosaic supports HTML 4.0, OpenSSL, cookies, and various image formats including GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TGA, TIFF and JPEG 2000 image formats. The browser works on VAX, Alpha, and Itanium platforms.

Another long-lived version of Mosaic – Mosaic-CK, developed by Cameron Kaiser, – saw its last release (version 2.7ck9) on July 11, 2010. The stated goal of the project is "Lynx with graphics" and runs on Mac OS X, PowerMachTen, Linux and other compatible Unix-like OSs.

Read more about this topic:  Mosaic (web Browser)