IBox

IBox (Internet in a Box) was one of the first commercially available Internet connection software packages available for sale to the public. O'Reilly & Associates (now O'Reilly Media) created and produced the package, in collaboration with Spry, Inc. Spry, Inc. also started up a commercial Internet service provider (ISP) called InterServ.^[1]^[2]

The IBox software included the Winsock program and TCP/IP stack that were needed to connect a computer running Microsoft Windows to the Internet in 1994.^[3] The IBox package also included a licensed copy of the NCSA Mosaic web browser called AIR Mosaic,^[4]^[5] AIR Mail (an email client), AIR News (an NNTP news client), AIR Telnet, AIR Gopher, and an FTP Network File Manager.

Combined with InterServ's dial-up access, Internet in a Box provided a complete solution for members of the general public to access the Internet, a network previously available almost exclusively to government and collegiate users, or to the public only indirectly through e-mail gateways provided by hosted systems such as BBSes and CompuServe. The inclusion of a web browser further gave access to the then-nascent World Wide Web.

The pioneering Internet book from O'Reilly, Ed Krol's 'Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog' (US-1993) was included in the US product. The European edition of the product also included Sue Schofield's 'UK Internet Book' (UK 1994).

Spry, Inc.

Spry, Inc. was a small software company headed up by David Pool in Seattle, Washington. Spry was the first company licensing the Mosaic Web browser source code.^[6] In 1995 CompuServe bought Spry, Inc. for $100 million in cash and stock of H&R Block (the parent company of CompuServe).

References

^ Goldberg, Steven (October 24, 1994). "Internet access? It's in the box". Network World. 11 (43). IDG Network World: 43–44. ISSN 0887-7661.
^ Peschel, Joe (November 7, 1994). "Spry's Internet In A Box package brings the Iway on-ramp to your computer". InfoWorld. Vol. 16, no. 45. San Mateo, CA: InfoWorld Media Group. p. 118. ISSN 0199-6649.
^ Stewart, Bill. "Web Browser History". Retrieved 16 August 2010.
^ Sink, Eric (15 April 2003). "Memoirs From the Browser Wars". Retrieved 16 February 2011.
^ Cockburn, Andy; Jones, Steve (6 December 2000). "Which Way Now? Analysing and Easing Inadequacies in WWW Navigation". CiteSeerX. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.25.8504. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
^ December, John; Randall, Neil (1994). World Wide Web Unleashed. Sams Publishing. ISBN 0-672-30617-4.

External links

Information Week article about the purchase of Spry, Inc.
Internet writer Sue Schofield's Web page.

Timeline of web browsers

General
Comparison lightweight History List for Unix Usage share

1990s

1990	WorldWideWeb (Nexus)
1991	Line Mode Browser libwww
1992	Erwise MacWWW (Samba) MidasWWW tkWWW ViolaWWW
1993	AMosaic Arena Cello Emacs/W3 Lynx 2 NCSA Mosaic VMS Mosaic
1994	AirMosaic Internet in a Box ANT Fresco Argo IBM WebExplorer SlipKnot Minuet Navipress Mosaic/Mosaic Netscape/Netscape Navigator Spyglass Mosaic TCP/Connect II
1995	Agora ALynx AMSD Ariadna Cyberjack eWorld Web Browser Grail Internet Explorer 1 Internet Explorer 2 Netscape Navigator 2 NetShark OmniWeb HotJava UdiWWW WebShark w3m
1996	Cyberdog Arachne AWeb IBrowse Amaya Internet Explorer 3 Netscape Navigator 3 Opera 2 Oracle PowerBrowser tcpCONNECT4 Voyager
1997	Netscape Communicator Internet Explorer 4 Opera 2.1
1998	NeoPlanet Mozilla Application Suite Opera 3–3.21
1999	iCab Internet Explorer 5 Omniweb 3 Opera 3.5–3.62

2000s

2000	Beonex Communicator Galeon K-Meleon MediaBrowser Netscape 6 Opera 4–4.02
2001	iCab 2.5 Internet Explorer 6 Omniweb 4 Opera 5–5.12
2002	Camino Epiphany Netscape 7 Opera 6–6.1
2003	GreenBrowser Maxthon Opera 7–7.3 Safari SlimBrowser
2004	Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox Opera 7.5–7.55
2005	AOL Explorer Deepnet Explorer Firefox 1.5 Netscape Browser Opera 8–8.54 Safari 2
2006	Firefox 2 Internet Explorer 7 Opera 9–9.27
2007	Maxthon 2 Opera 9.5–9.64 Safari 3 SeaMonkey 1.1
2008	Chrome Firefox 3 Netscape Navigator 9 NetSurf 1.2
2009	Chrome 2–3 Firefox 3.5 Internet Explorer 8 Opera 10–10.63 Pale Moon Safari 4 SeaMonkey 2.0

2010s

2010	Chrome 4–8 Firefox 3.6 Lunascape 6.0.1 Maxthon 3 NetSurf 2.5 Opera 11–11.64 Safari 5
2011	Chrome 9–16 Firefox 4–9 Internet Explorer 9 Lunascape 6.5 Opera 12–12.17 SeaMonkey 2.1–2.4 Waterfox
2012	Chrome 17–23 Firefox 10–17 Internet Explorer 10 Lunascape 6.7 Maxthon 3.4 NetSurf 2.9 Safari 6 Yandex Browser
2013	Chrome 24–31 Firefox 18–26 Internet Explorer 11 Opera 15–18 Safari 7 SeaMonkey 2.15–2.22
2014	Chrome 32–39 Firefox 27–34 Lunascape 6.9 NetSurf 3.1 Opera 19–26 Safari 8 SeaMonkey 2.23–2.31
2015	Chrome 40–47 Firefox 35–43 Lunascape 6.10–6.12 Microsoft Edge 20, 25 Opera 27–34 Safari 9 SeaMonkey 2.32–2.39 Vivaldi Technical Preview 1–Beta 2
2016	Brave 0.7–0.12 Chrome 48–55 Firefox 44–50 Lunascape 6.13–6.15 Microsoft Edge 38 Opera 35–42 Safari 10 Vivaldi Beta 3–1.6 Yandex 15.12–16.9
2017	Basilisk Brave 0.13–0.19 Chrome 56–63 Firefox 51–57 Microsoft Edge 40, 41 Opera 43–49 Safari 11 SeaMonkey 2.46–2.49 Vivaldi 1.7–1.13
2018	Brave 0.20–0.60 Chrome 64–71 Firefox 58–64 Microsoft Edge 42–44 Opera 50–57 Safari 12 Vivaldi 1.14–2.2 Waterfox 56.0–56.2 Yandex 17.9–18.10
2019	Brave 0.61–1.1 Chrome 72–79 Firefox 65–71 Microsoft Edge 44 Opera 58–65 Safari 13 Vivaldi 2.3–2.10 Waterfox 60.1–68.0a2 Whale 1.4–1.5 Yandex 18.11–19.12

2020s

2020	Brave 1.2–1.18 Chrome 80–87 Firefox 72–84 Microsoft Edge 79–87 Opera 66–73 SeaMonkey 2.53 Vivaldi 2.11–3.5 Safari 14
2021	Brave 1.19–1.33 Chrome 88–96 Firefox 85–95 Microsoft Edge 88–96 Opera 74–82 SeaMonkey 2.53.10.2 Vivaldi 3.6–5.0 Yandex 20.11.5–21.3 Safari 15
2022	Arc 0.46–0.81 Brave 1.34–1.46 Chrome 97–108 Firefox 96–108 Microsoft Edge 97–108 Opera 83–94 Vivaldi 5.1–5.6 Yandex 22.1–22.11 Safari 16
2023	Arc 0.85–1.21 Brave 1.47–1.61 Chrome 109–120 Firefox 109–121 Microsoft Edge 109–120 Opera 95–106 Vivaldi 5.7–6.5 Yandex 23.1–23.11 Safari 17
2024	Arc 1.25– Brave 1.62– Chrome 121– Firefox 122– Microsoft Edge 121– Opera 107– Vivaldi 6.6– Yandex 24.1–

Related topics
3D Markup Language for Web Aliweb ARPANET ASCII BITNET Browser wars CompuServe Elm Email File Transfer Protocol Gopher HTML HyperCard HyTelnet NCSA Telnet NLS Prodigy Teletext Telnet Usenet UUCP Videotex Viewdata Virtual Reality Markup Language Web page Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog World Wide Web X.25