Reflecting on the Early Days of the Web
This partial screenshot showcases one of the first web pages I ever designed for CTSnet, a San Diego-based Internet service provider. It was originally featured in Success Magazine in 1994.
But this wasn’t my first web page. I started learning HTML in 1993, building sites for Lynx, a text-based browser that relied entirely on keyboard navigation. That same year, the release of the NCSA Mosaic browser changed everything, introducing images, color, and mouse-based navigation—marking the beginning of the Internet boom.
Looking back, it’s astonishing how much has changed—and yet, in some ways, how much has stayed the same. Even today, experienced web designers rely on two fundamental tools: a graphics program like Photoshop and a text editor. Over the years, various software solutions like Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver promised to revolutionize web design, but they eventually faded away. Unlike desktop publishing, which relies on dedicated software like PageMaker, QuarkXPress, and InDesign, web design has always remained platform-agnostic. Many of us prefer it that way.
The web’s evolution has been remarkable, but not without its challenges.
The Darker Moments in Web History
Having worked in the industry for years, I’ve witnessed firsthand some of the web’s growing pains.
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The GIF Controversy (1994): The widely used GIF format became entangled in a legal dispute over patent rights, jeopardizing its use. This led to the creation of the PNG format, a patent-free alternative that eventually became a web standard.
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The Blackout Protest (1996): In response to the unconstitutional Communications Decency Act, the entire web turned black for a day in protest. Since CSS was still in its infancy, designers had to manually alter page backgrounds and text colors—only to reverse everything two days later.
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The Eolas Patent Lawsuit (2006): A $521 million lawsuit against Microsoft forced changes to how Internet Explorer handled embedded content, disrupting Flash and ActiveX elements across the web. This highlighted the dangers of relying too heavily on proprietary technologies.
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The Internet Explorer 6 Debacle (2001-2010): Perhaps the greatest obstacle to web progress, Internet Explorer 6 held back web development for nearly a decade. Its security flaws, poor standards compliance, and Microsoft’s slow response left developers frustrated. Eventually, even Microsoft admitted defeat, launching a countdown site urging users to abandon IE6.
A Bright Future for the Web
Despite these setbacks, the web has continued to evolve. The past decade alone has seen major breakthroughs in browser technology, performance, and open standards. Mozilla’s release of Firefox 4 and Google’s innovations in Chrome 11 helped push the web forward with faster engines, better security, and improved developer tools.
If history has shown us anything, it’s that the Internet is resilient. No matter the corporate missteps, legal battles, political interference, or censorship attempts, the web has a way of adapting—much like its networking protocols, which “route around” obstacles to keep data flowing.
For web designers, there has never been a more exciting time to create, innovate, and shape the future of the Internet.