Computing changed forever on August 24, 1995. You might remember the Rolling Stones playing "Start Me Up" while Bill Gates danced awkwardly on a stage. It was the launch of Windows 95. But here is the weird part that people usually forget: the original retail version of Windows 95 didn't actually come with a web browser.
Seriously.
If you bought the box at Egghead Software or CompUSA, you got a Desktop, a Start menu, and a "The Microsoft Network" icon that was basically a proprietary walled garden. To get a Windows 95 web browser, you had to buy a separate add-on pack called Microsoft Plus! or wait for later OSR (Original Equipment Manufacturer Service Release) versions. Microsoft was actually late to the party. They were so focused on their own private network that they almost let Marc Andreessen and the team at Netscape hijack the entire future of the internet.
The birth of Internet Explorer 1.0
The first official Windows 95 web browser was Internet Explorer 1.0. It wasn't some ground-up innovation built in a Redmond basement. It was actually based on Mosaic, a browser developed by Spyglass, Inc. Microsoft licensed the code because they were in a massive hurry.
The web was exploding.
By late 1994, it was clear that the "Information Superhighway" wasn't going to be a curated service like AOL or MSN; it was going to be the wild, open World Wide Web. IE 1.0 was barebones. It was basically a 1MB install. It could render text and some images, but it lacked the features that made Netscape Navigator the king of the hill back then.
If you used IE 1.0 today, you'd find it unrecognizable. No tabs. No search bar integrated into the address field. Just a gray, clunky interface that felt like a utility rather than a doorway to the world.
The Netscape rivalry
You can't talk about the Windows 95 web browser experience without talking about the "Browser Wars." Netscape Navigator was the gold standard. It was faster. It had "progressive rendering," which meant you could see the text of a page while the images were still slowly loading over your 14.4k modem.
Microsoft realized they had to do something drastic. Their strategy was "embrace, extend, and extinguish." They started bundling Internet Explorer 2.0 and then 3.0 directly into Windows 95 updates. This move eventually led to the massive United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust case, but at the time, it just meant that every PC user suddenly had a free browser.
How we actually browsed in 1995
Let's get real about the hardware for a second. You weren't sitting on 5G. You were likely using a 486 or an early Pentium processor with maybe 8MB of RAM. If you were lucky, you had 16MB.
The experience of using a Windows 95 web browser was a lesson in patience. You’d click a link. You’d hear your modem screeching—that iconic handshake sound. Then, you’d wait.
The "World Wide Wait" was a common nickname for the web back then.
Images loaded line by line. Most websites were just blue underlined links on a gray background. There was no CSS. No JavaScript. Well, Brendan Eich at Netscape invented JavaScript in 1995, but it was incredibly primitive. If a site had a "hit counter" at the bottom or a spinning "Under Construction" GIF, it was considered high-tech.
Alternative browsers you probably forgot
While Internet Explorer and Netscape fought for the crown, other Windows 95 web browser options existed. Some people swear by them to this day for the nostalgia hit.
- Opera: Believe it or not, Opera 2.0 launched for Windows 95. It was known for being incredibly fast because it didn't try to do too much. It was "trialware"—you had to pay for it after a certain period.
- Netscape Communicator: This was the "bloated" version of Netscape that tried to include email and newsgroups.
- Mosaic: The granddaddy of them all. By 1995, it was fading, but some purists still used it because it was stable.
Honestly, though, most people just used whatever icon was on their desktop. Microsoft knew this. By the time Windows 95 OSR2 rolled around in 1996, Internet Explorer 3.0 was baked into the OS. It supported "ActiveX" controls, which were Microsoft’s attempt to make the web interactive, though they eventually became a massive security nightmare.
The technical hurdles of 16-bit vs 32-bit
One of the big selling points of Windows 95 was that it was a 32-bit operating system. Mostly. It still had some 16-bit DNA from DOS hanging around. This created a weird divide for browsers.
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Early versions of Netscape were often 16-bit applications designed for Windows 3.1. When you ran them as a Windows 95 web browser, they worked, but they didn't take advantage of the new "multitasking" capabilities. If the browser crashed, it might take the whole system down with it.
Microsoft pushed IE as the "true" 32-bit experience. They integrated it into the Windows Explorer shell. Eventually, the line between your files and the internet started to blur. You could type a URL into a folder window and it would turn into a browser. People hated this or loved it; there was no middle ground.
Why IE3 changed the game
If IE1 was a panic move and IE2 was a "me too" product, Internet Explorer 3.0 was the first time Microsoft actually looked like they knew what they were doing. It was released in 1996. It supported CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Think about that.
Before IE3, you couldn't really "design" a website in the modern sense. You were stuck with basic HTML tags. IE3 allowed for some level of layout control. It also introduced the "e" logo that would define the internet for an entire generation. For better or worse, that blue "e" became the "internet button" for millions of first-time users.
Security? What security?
In the mid-90s, the concept of a "secure" Windows 95 web browser was almost an oxymoron. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) was just becoming a thing. Netscape actually pioneered it.
But for the most part, you were browsing in the clear. People were terrified to put their credit card numbers into a website. And they were right to be! Phishing hadn't been invented yet, but the browsers themselves were full of holes.
You’d visit a site, an ActiveX control would ask for permission to run, you’d click "Yes," and suddenly a random program had full access to your C: drive. It was a wild west. We didn't have automatic updates. If your browser had a security flaw, you had to manually download a "patch" or wait for a new version to come on a floppy disk or a CD-ROM in the back of a computer magazine.
The end of the road
By the time Windows 98 arrived, the battle was mostly over. Internet Explorer was the dominant Windows 95 web browser because it was free and pre-installed. Netscape began its long, slow decline, eventually being bought by AOL and later becoming the foundation for Firefox.
Windows 95 itself started to feel old. Websites started requiring more "plug-ins" like Macromedia Flash or Shockwave. Browsing the web on a 1995 machine in the year 2000 was a miserable experience. The web had outgrown the OS.
Modern ways to relive the 1995 web
If you're feeling nostalgic, you don't actually need to dig a beige tower out of your attic. You can experience a Windows 95 web browser through several modern projects.
There are web-based emulators like Win95.ajf.me that run a full version of the OS in your current browser tab. It’s meta—a browser inside a browser. You can open the old version of IE and try to load modern sites. Spoilers: they won't work. The HTTPS protocols and modern JavaScript engines are totally incompatible with the 1995 tech stack.
Another great resource is The Old Net. It's a service that acts as a proxy, stripping away modern code from websites so you can view them on vintage hardware. If you actually have an old PC, you can use a "retro-browser" like K-Meleon or a backported version of Opera to get online, though it’s mostly for the novelty.
Actionable steps for vintage tech enthusiasts
If you are looking to explore this era of computing history, here is how to do it right:
- Use VirtualBox: Instead of hunting for hardware, create a Virtual Machine. You will need a Windows 95 ISO and a bit of patience to get the drivers working.
- Check the Internet Archive: The Wayback Machine is great, but the Archive also hosts "Software Library" versions of these old browsers that you can run in-browser.
- Search for "Protoweb": This is a community project that recreates the internet as it was in the 90s. It provides a proxy that makes your old browser think it’s still 1995, serving up archived versions of Yahoo, GeoCities, and early news sites.
- Isolate your hardware: If you do power up an actual Windows 95 machine, do not put it on your main home network without a firewall. It is a massive security risk. It has zero modern protections against even the simplest worms or exploits.
The Windows 95 web browser wasn't just a piece of software. It was the moment the world shifted from offline to online. We went from "using a computer" to "being on the net." It was clunky, it was slow, and it crashed constantly, but it was the start of everything we take for granted today.