Netscape became the first company to offer a widely used commercial graphical web browser with Netscape Navigator.
Netscape Communications developed and distributed Netscape Navigator, first released in 1994 as Mosaic Communications. The browser made the World Wide Web easier for ordinary computer users by presenting text, images, links, and controls in a graphical interface.
The company changed its name to Netscape Communications Corporation in November 1994 after a dispute involving the Mosaic name. Netscape’s browser quickly became one of the dominant web clients of the 1990s and helped drive rapid public adoption of the internet.
Netscape Navigator was not literally the first graphical web browser. Earlier projects included ViolaWWW and NCSA Mosaic, which influenced Netscape. Netscape’s distinction is its major commercial success and its central role in the browser wars against Microsoft Internet Explorer.