ARPAnet

ARPAnet

• ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)• 1969 Cold War

• ARPANET came out of our frustration that there were only a limited number of large, powerful research computers in the country, and that many research investigators, who should have access to them, were geographically separated from them

– Charles Herzfeld, ARPA Director

ARPAnet

Early ARPAnet

• 1971 – Email implemented

• 1973 – Email was 75% of the ARPAnet traffic– File Transfer Protocol (FTP) was developed

ARPAnet Internet

• Transition Period 1971-1983• Packet Switching developed and perfected– Robust, fault-tolerant, efficient, survivable

• TCP/IP: Network of Networks realized on a large scale– The ability to connect different types of networks

Early Internet 1983-1989

• No web browsers, no web pages at all…• Email• FTP • Early message board system (BB systems)• Client-server applications

In 1989 came the WWW

• The ideas existed, but one man perfected and implemented them

• WWW ideas– URL concept – Documents, computers, virtual

mailboxes, networks, programs, etc. can all have uniform identifier to help locate them

– Hypertext concept – Documents can have links to other documents, just click the text

Tim Berners-Lee

• A graduate of Oxford University

• wrote the first web client and server in 1990.

• His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML implement the backbone of the WWW

WWW improved Internet

• On the Internet, you had to– Know numeric IP addresses to locate servers– Login anonymously or with a user account– Know the folder hierarchy and file name of the

document/data.• Location information shared via email– If you didn’t have friends, you had no idea what

was on the Internet

WWW instead of Internet

• HTTP instead of FTP• Web Browser instead of FTP client or terminal• Web Server instead of FTP or file server• URLs instead of numeric IP addresses• Clicking Hyperlink instead of navigating

through folder hierarchies• HTML instead of text and postscript docs

Are these things the same?

Internet World Wide Web

They are distinct and different

Internet• Network of Networks• Hardware• TCP/IP • Packet Switching

World Wide Web• HTML-based content• Browsers• HTTP• URLs• Hyperlinks

Internet vs. WWW

• Analogy– The WWW is like a boat that sails the seas of the

Internet. – People use to swim on the Internet.– The WWW boat has now become a yacht with jet

skis and a helicopter pad.• Makes the sea lots of fun to travel on…

More Important History

• 1989 TBL invents first web browser and server• 1991 Gore Bill is passed, which helps fund

major WWW research and infrastructure• 1993 Mosaic – first graphical browser – is

developed• 1995 Apache – still the most popular web

server – is developed

WWW Matures 1989-1995

• 1993 InterNIC is created by US government– centralizes the control of URL and domain names.

• 1998 InterNIC is replace by non-profit corporation called ICANN.– ICANN regulates 3rd party domain name registrars

such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions.– Thousands of registrars exist today

WWW Matures 1989-1995 • 1995 NSFnet (formally ARPAnet) becomes

research only network– most Internet traffic starts to get routed through

telecom backbones operated by AT&T, Sprint, and others

• 1995-??? Government subsides and pork barrel programs help private companies build up the physical infrastructure– Cable TV providers eventually join the free money

party

Commercialization Period 1995-2000

• 1995 – Netscape emerges– Sells web server software commercially– Gives away web browser for free– Reaches 90% market share by 1997

• 1995 – 1996 Microsoft races to come out with competing software – Web Browser - Internet Explore– Web Server - IIS

Commercialization Period 1995-2000

• 1996-1999 – Browser Wars between Microsoft and Netscape– Two versions of HTML and CSS arise– Proprietary plug-ins developed• Flash, RealPlayer, Silverlight, etc.

• 1997-2000 – E-commerce Explosion– Amazon, E-bay, Online Stock Trading, Music/MP3

trafficking, etc.

Browser Wars 1996-1999

• 1996-1997 Netscape dominated (fasted growing IPO in history at that time)

• But, by 1999, Internet Explorer was #1 and stays there until 2012

• 2000 Netscape goes out of business.

Why web browsers matter?

• Web Browser are free.• Q: So, why did Netscape and Microsoft compete so

heavily to have the #1 browser?• Answers:– You can sell tools, server software, and applications that

work nicely with your browser– You can change your browser so the competitions' stuff

breaks.– You can control the default search engine, homepage, etc.

• Thus, you can make $$$ directing traffic to e-commerce websites that pay you.

Browser Wars 1996-1999

• 1998 Microsoft Integrates IE into Windows– Forced upon people as the default browser– Microsoft must pay more than one billion in anti-

trust lawsuit but somehow still wins• 2000 Netscape loses– AOL buys out Netscape, which was failing

financially– AOL is now a subsidiary of Time Warner

Post War

• 2000 Netscape becomes open source, so developers can build upon it for free– Leads to the Mozilla Foundation, which eventually

develops Firefox in 2002• 2003-2007 Firefox builds significant market

share, poised to overtake IE• 2008 Google introduces Chrome• 2012 Chrome, not Firefox, is the first to

overtake IE

Browser Wars - Significance

• Early competition pushed the advancement of web browsers and servers– Use to be simple applications for transmitting and

rendering web pages.– Web Browsers and servers now implement a

platform capable of running heavy-weight applications

• But, the War lead to de-standardization and lots of bad ideas (Flash, <font> tag, etc.)

W3C

• 1993 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded to help develop web standards.– Largely ignored during the browser wars.– But, rose to prominence in the early 2000’s

• 1999-2000 Helped to clean up and standardize HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

• But now, W3C considered too slow and not application friendly– WHATWG was formed in response

WHATWG

• Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG)

• Did not like that W3C adopted XML-based technology.

• XML is great and robust, but its too complex (bandwidth inefficient) and parsing requires too much overhead (bad for mobile devices)

• WHATWG is setting the new standards: HTML5, CSS, JavaScript.