NCSA Mosaic was the first successful graphical Web browser.

Erwise and ViolaWWW were graphical browsers that predated Mosaic, but were not anywhere near as successful.

Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened up the Web to the general public. Mosaic was also the first browser to display images inline with text instead of displaying images in a separate window. While often described as the first graphical web browser, Mosaic was preceded by the lesser-known Erwise and ViolaWWW.

Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign beginning in late 1992. NCSA released the browser in 1993, and officially discontinued development and support on January 7, 1997. However, it can still be downloaded from NCSA.

Fifteen years after Mosaic's introduction, the most popular contemporary browsers, Internet Explorer , Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome retain many of the characteristics of the original Mosaic graphical user interface (GUI) and interactive experience.

There are literally dozens of browsers that have existed since the "birth" of the internet. Not including mobile browsers (such as browsers found on some of the earlier cell phones), the list of major browsers that have existed are as follows:

WorldWideWeb

ViolaWWW

Erwise

MidasWWW

MacWWW

Mosiac

Cello

Lynx

Arena

AMosiac

IBM WebExplorer

Netscape Navigator

SlipKnot

MacWeb

iBrowse

Argo

Minuet

Internet Explorer

OmniWeb

UdiWWW

WebRouser

Grail

Arachne

Opera

PowerBrowser

Cyberdog

Amaya

AWeb

Voyager

iCab

Mozilla

Konqueror

K-Meleon

Galeon

Phoenix

Links

Safari

Epiphany

Firefox

AOL Explorer

Maxthon

Shiira

SeaMonkey

Camino

Avant

Sputnik

Netsurf

Flock

Chrome

These are in roughly chronological order, as presented by Wikipedia Other browsers have existed, but due to their low popularity were not included on this list. Low popularity, of course, is relative to the time era; WorldWideWeb never had as many users as Chrome does today, but was used by the majority of the Internet users in the world at the time it came out (as it was the first real web browser). In the real world, only a few browsers are considered serious contenders of the "market", as the rest are either obsolete, only fill a niche market, or have not yet gained popularity; the latter usually comes about because people are hesitant to "try" a new browser since their current browser has served their purpose for a significant length of time

the First Described Web Browser was the Mosaic : It was derived from a collection of independent works by people that was organized into one actual product.

Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart , Tim Berners-Lee , are credited with the Foundations for what later became the Mosaic and later called the NCSA Mosaic :

The NCSA Mosaic 1992.

Marc Andreessen,started Netscape, and released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994,

1995 : Microsoft Introduced the Internet Explorer

1996 : Opera

2003 : Safari

2004 : FireFox

2008 : Google Chrome

All web browsers do basically the same thing. They open the door to the world wide web. Some have more features and some are more secure. Internet Explorer 10, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome are all good choices. If you want simple and fast then choose Chrome. If you want lots of features and add-ons choose Firefox.