STstmw·Jan 11, 2026Submission
NCSA Mosaic 2.7, one of the first graphical web browsers
12 points · Open discussionalandipert
ncsa-mosaic
C2010–2026
alandipert / ncsa-mosaic
ncsa-mosaic
NCSA Mosaic 2.7
11Distinct people
12Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
674GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
NCSA Mosaic 2.7
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year12 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2010-03-08 11:11:20 UTC to 2026-01-11 20:04:47 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
12 sources"This also applies to other things, like browser-fingerprinting, or how Google will now try to identify people using machine learning without actually using cookies."
Even if only a User-Agent string is sent from a "browser" that has no Javascript engine and does no CSS processing or auto-loading of any resources, the online ad services folks, not to mention the "web security" folks, will still try to create a "fingerprint".
There are companies whose entire business is dependent on a demand for lists/databases of user agent strings. For example,
https://deviceatlas.com/
https://51degrees.com/
https://www.scientiamobile.com/
Fingerprinting based on user agent seems like a rather easy problem to solve. Aside from not sending the header or every user sending the same one, one idea is to keep changing the string.
The following is from a fil
Read the rest
e called "mosaic-spoof-agents" and dates back to at least 1996.
#
# Agent Spoofing -- Who will you be today?
#
# "I don't think [t]he[y]'ll be too keen" -- Originally from Monty Python, run
# into the ground by Tommy Reilly
#
# NOTE! There is a hard limit of 50 agents! Mosaic will not read anymore!
#
# This file should be located in your HOME directory under the filename:
# .mosaic-spoof-agents
#
# This file consists of lines that begin with a # (comment), a - (a seperator
# for the sub-menu off options), a + (this is special...it denotes that the
# agent following it [no spaces] should be the default agent to use) and
# anything else (considered an agent spoof line).
#
- This is a seperator...as long as the first thing is a dash
# This is a comment line
#
# This is the "example" agent. If you don't like it...comment it out.
# if you want it to be your default, put a + infront of it.
#
Bond_James_Bond/007 (BMW; Z3 Roadster) DOHC_inline_16-valve_4-cylinder
Gandalf/White (Shadowfax; Wind) White_Staff
Elric/Emperor_of_Melnibone (Hellsword; StormBringer - Devourer of Souls)
https://github.blog/2010-03-08-ncsa-mosaic-on-github/
https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic
One could argue that the original "netiquette" was to change one's user agent string. At least we can see it was contempleted by authors of Mosaic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
Today tech companies will argue that any user agent string is an abberration from what they expect then "something is wrong". Users might get blocked or they might be alerted their "browser is not supported" and/or be advised to "upgrade". They might receive a "security" warning that someone logged in to their account. All based on simply changing the user agent string. The assumption today is that no netizen would ever do that.
Today, browsers allow changing the user agent string using some "toolbar" or "console" but if the name given to it is any indication, this is only meant for "developers", not "dumb [users]", to borrow from the infamous Zuckerberg quote.
One of the authors of Mosaic is now a Silicon Valley VC who posts on HN.
The "Who do you want to be today?" is probably a play on the Windows 95 slogan "Where do you want to go today?" A web browser was a new thing in Windows back then, the web being an idea Gates was not easily sold on, and I always thought the slogan seemed to suggest someone thought web access would be a selling point to users.
Blast from the past. If anyone wants to download NCSA Mosaic and load the author's gopher site with it, here ya go:
https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic (binaries in Ubuntu's Snap Store, probably in other distros too)
Find out more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
In We Must Revive Gopherspace (2017)You can still run it on Debian[0].
[0] https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic
In 25 years ago today, NCSA Mosaic 1.0 was releasedNCSA Mosaic 2.7, one of the first graphical web browsers
3 points · Open discussionI have had my fun supporting Mosaic(which is basically the oldest browser that has available source) on my personal sites. You can even still run it on Ubuntu[1]. If you go back that far you can't really use much CSS though. Google's site actually works on Mosaic which is awesome.
[1]: https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic
In How to Write CSS That Works in Every Browser, Even the Old OnesThey're still trying to get even for Marc Andreessen sabotaging NCSA Mosaic's cross-system portability stuff, in an attempt to prevent the year of the Windows Web Browser.
https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic/blob/fd11fb7c900e8...
Much of the cross-system portability stuff has been intentionally
REMOVED from this version of the library by Marc A in order to
discourage attempts to make "easy" ports of Mosaic for X to non-Unix
platforms. The library needs to be rewritten from the ground up; in
the meantime, Unix is *all* we support or intend to support with
this set of source code.
And of course for this remark:
https://ontechnologyandmedia.com/2009/07/12/the-return-of-th...
Netscape co-founder Mark Andreessen boasted that Netscape would reduce Microsoft Windows to “a set of poorly debugged device drivers.”
In Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)It was actually really easy. It's not much of a surprise if you think about it. Most of the libraries Mosaic was built on ended up becoming standard, so you can just go download the old versions, compile them and link. (think libpng, Motif, etc...)
If people were interested enough I could write a quick walkthrough of what is needed though since some of it wasn't intuitive :)
edit: probably a lot easier to just get it on github https://github.com/alandipert/ncsa-mosaic -- possibly not nearly as fun. Make linux probably won't work on Mac OS X (almost), I recall having to force the compiler to create a 32 bit executable and some other things.
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