Web browser with "tabs" in 2001
November 2, 2019 5:11 PM   Subscribe

I've been trying to remember the name of a web browser I used in 2001 or 2002. It may have been very niche, as I can't find it on the Wikipedia pages. Details inside.

I downloaded this browser between September 2001 and June 2002, and more probably during the first quarter of 2002. It was recommended on a board I frequented at the time (and that has long since gone offline, so I can't search it).

Among other features, it had a sidebar with thumbnails of the various opened screens. It also allowed to highlight a portion of the screen containing several links and opening all the links with a single click.

It worked on a free trial/paid license model. I tried it on for 30 days, and then it asked for payment, so I uninstalled it and looked for another alternative to IE that would be free, which is how I found the Mozilla Suite.

Does anyone knows which browser I'm talking about?
posted by snakeling to Technology (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Opera?
posted by grouse at 5:12 PM on November 2, 2019 [7 favorites]


Webcrawler?
posted by rudd135 at 5:16 PM on November 2, 2019


What platform/OS were you using?

Opera had a "multi document interface" that doesn't refer to tabs in Dec. 2001 (archived view), and it was free to use (with a paid version) at that time too, so it might not be a match.

If you want to see the browser in action, you can try old versions of the browser, back to 2.00, from 1996! OldVersion.com might have other old browsers, but their site search is going slow for me at the moment.

Complex has an article that cites an InternetWorks browser as the first with tabs, back in 1994. I forgot how many browsers there used to be.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:14 PM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


iCab?
posted by quarterframer at 7:15 PM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


My first thought was Opera too. I think the free version still had a banner ad.

If it wasn't Opera, it might have been one of the various IE shells that were around at the time, like Netcaptor or MyIE2.
posted by Pryde at 8:36 PM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Have a look through the Evolt Browser Archive and see if any ring a bell.
posted by amanda at 9:26 PM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Ah, yes, the OS might have been useful info to give. I used Windows ME at the time, so iCab and OmniWeb are out.

Reading over the Opera features list, it might have been that one, though it's weird I wouldn't remember its name, as I've tried it on and off over the years and never really taken to it. I get 504 when I try to download Opera 6, though, so I can't try to install it and check.

I'll have a look through the lists.
posted by snakeling at 4:06 AM on November 3, 2019


While I’m not sure if it has all of the features you mention, the only paid-for Windows web browser of that era I can think of that hasn’t been already mentioned is NetCaptor.

Failing that, try looking through Wikipedia’s category of discontinued web browsers.
posted by kyten at 7:14 AM on November 3, 2019


Your description also made me think of Opera.

The tabbed browser I recall using in the Win ME era was Crazy Browser. However, I think it was free/donation requested model.
posted by Orrorin at 2:34 PM on November 3, 2019


Response by poster: NetCaptor doesn't look like what I remember (which tbh is very little), and it makes no mention of this really useful feature of selecting several links and opening them all at once.

I think I'm doomed not to know for sure :) Thanks to everyone!
posted by snakeling at 12:36 PM on November 4, 2019


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