UdiWWW

UdiWWW is an early, now discontinued freeware graphical HTML 3.2 web browser for 16-bit and 32-bit Microsoft Windows. It was written and developed by Bernd Richter in C/C++ from 1995 to 1996. Following the release of version 1.2 in April 1996, Richter ceased development, stating "let Microsoft with the ActiveX Development Kit do the rest."[2][3][4]

UdiWWW HTML3 Web Browser
Original author(s)Bernd Richter
Initial release1995 (1995)
Final release
1.2.000 / April 9, 1996 (1996-04-09)
Written inC/C++
Operating systemWindows 3.1 / 3.11 / NT / 95[1]
Size1.7 MB (32-bit)[2]
570 KB (16-bit)[2]
Available inEnglish, German
TypeWeb browser
LicensePublic domain[1]
Websitewww.uni-ulm.de/~richter/udiwww/index.htm at the Wayback Machine (archived July 24, 1997)

UdiWWW was among the first web browsers to support the then proposed HTML 3.0 standard.[5][6][7] In doing so, it was also among the first browsers to support the specifications html math, html figures, and the PNG image format,[7] which other leading browsers at the time such as Netscape and Internet Explorer 2.0 did not.[8] The browser gained some popularity during 1996, but after development was abandoned, the browser fell out of favor.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

The browser is no longer available from its original homepage. However, it (and its source) can still be downloaded from mirror sites.[17][18]

History

UdiWWW was created for the UDINE Projekt (Universal Document Information and Navigation Environment). UDINE was started in 1992 and the goal was to "create a flexible, multimedia information system that is able to show different files (text, picture, audio, and video) with a similar user interface on different systems."[19][20][21] To be able to read "web information" the UDINE project was expanded by a web browser. It was not able to integrate common browsers like the NCSA Mosaic because of the client-server architecture without modification. The source code of Mosaic was not available at that time, so the university started their own project. UDINE-WWW-Viewer was created and had most features of HTML 3 integrated.[7][22][23]

Features

UdiWWW has the following features as of Version 1.2:[24][25][26]

  • HTML 3 support (as defined in fall of 1996)[1]
  • HTTP 1.0/FTP/Gopher/proxy support
  • Plain text support
  • Mailto support
  • Graphics supported: GIF89a, X Window-XBM, Progressive JPEG, JPEG, and PNG[27][28]
  • Bookmarks
  • Browsing and document history
  • Page text search
  • Page magnification
  • Table support
  • Icon entity support
  • Link support[29]
  • Figures support[30]
  • Math support[1][31]
  • Print/Print Preview
  • Save web page as .txt, .htm, or .udi
  • Stop, refresh, reopen, or go back
  • Open .html, .htm, and .ht3 files
  • Caching of documents and images
  • View page source
  • View header response in "Document Information"
  • Modify header sent in "HTTP Interactive"
  • Netscape extension support
  • Anchor highlighting[32]

It also features a clock in the lower right hand corner that tells how long the browser has been up.

There is no official help file; rather, in the included .hlp file, Bernd Richter stated, "This help file was automatically created by the developing environment and is quite useless. As you know, UdiWWW is a 'One Man Show' and the author could not find time for writing help files."[33]

Criticism

UdiWWW was criticized for lacking many advanced features like news, FTP, HTML4, Dynamic HTML, support for targeted windows, a "new window" command for launching multiple sessions, client side image mapping, and security. It was also seen to be slow.[34]

Releases

The following versions were released:[2][35][36]

32-Bit
32-bit versions
File name File version Product version Date Size (in kb) Download
udiw3g02.exe (German)
udiw3e02.exe (English)		 1.0.005 1.0.001 August 7, 1995 433 kb (German)
432 kb (English)		 Archive.org (German)
Archive.org (English)
 ? 1.0.008  ?  ?  ?  ?
 ? 1.0.009  ?  ?  ?  ?
udiw3g06.exe (German)
udiw3e06.exe (English)		 1.0.010 1.0.001 November 24, 1995 564 kb (German)
672 kb (English)		 Archive.org (German)
Archive.org (English)
udiw3e07.exe 1.1.001 1.1.001 January 11, 1996 1726 kb Archive.org (Readme)
udiw3e08.exe 1.2.000 1.2.000 April 9, 1996 1701 kb Archive.org Evolt.org (Readme) (Info)
For 32-bit, beginning with version 1.1.001, UdiWWW featured an InstallShield installation which allowed for the packaging of the German and English version together. Previously, the English and German version had separate releases.

16-bit
16-bit versions
File name File version Product version Date Size (in kb) Download
udiw1g02.exe (German)
udiw1e02.exe (English)		 1.0.005 1.0.001 August 7, 1995 369 kb (German)
357 kb (English)		 Archive.org (German)
Archive.org (English)
 ? 1.0.008  ?  ?  ?  ?
 ? 1.0.009  ?  ?  ?  ?
udiw1g06.exe (German)
udiw1e06.exe (English)		 1.0.010 1.0.001 November 24, 1995 473 kb (German)
576 kb (English)		 Archive.org (German)
Archive.org (English)
udiw1e07.exe 1.1.001 1.1.001 January 11, 1996 582 kb Archive.org (Readme)
udiw1e08.exe 1.2.000 1.2.000 April 9, 1996 571 kb Archive.org Evolt.org (Readme) (Info)
All 16-bit downloads required a DLL which housed the executable's resources.

Notes

The browser was only available via download.

All releases were compressed using the PKSFX Self-Extract Utility Version 2.04g shareware version.

The browser's source, which has been released into the public domain, is available at Archive.org.

Technical
Start-up splash screen

The user agent for UdiWWW is UdiWWW/<version> so the latest one is UdiWWW/1.2.000.

A typical get request from the UdiWWW browser would be as follows:

GET / HTTP/1.0
Date: Sat, Mar 13, 2010 18:42:02 "GMT"
MessageID: <10031318024194304>
MIME-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: UdiWWW/1.2.000
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, image/png
Accept: text/html;version=3.0, text/plain, */*

Although the browser's HTML3 support allows it to view most webpages, its lack of support for HTTP virtual hosting requires the use of a proxy server for many current websites.[4]

System requirements

UdiWWW has the following system requirements:[1]

Further reading
  • von Wolfgang, Nefzger; Andreas F Golla (September 1998). Web Publishing (in German). Franzis Verlag GmbH. ISBN 978-3-7723-8112-6.

References
  1. Graham, Ian; Michael Lee. "PC WWW BROWSERS". WWW Software for Windows PCs. University of Toronto. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  2. Bernd Richter (May 26, 1997). "UdiWWW". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 24, 1997. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  3. Richter, Bernd (September 4, 1996). "UdiWWW: Coming soon". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  4. "The 'link'-Element in (X)HTML". subotnik.net. March 30, 2004. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  5. "WORLD WIDE WEB FAQ". 1996. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  6. "Microsoft Windows browsers". World Wide Web FAQ. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  7. Großmann, Prof. Dr. Hans Peter. "Department of Information Resource Management". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  8. Stauffer, Todd (June 1996). "Chapter 18". Html by Example. Que. ISBN 978-0-7897-0812-0.
  9. Stroud, Forrest. "UdiWWW Introduction". Software Reviews. Internet.com. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  10. Stroud, Forrest. "UdiWWW No Longer a Serious Contender". Software Reviews. Internet.com. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  11. Ornstein, David (November 20, 1995). "Latest browser rankings from BrowserCaps (UdiWWW is currently #1)". Webhistory. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  12. Brown, Mark (1996). "Chapter 2 How Web Browsers and Servers Work Together". Que Corporation. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  13. Ornstein, David (November 20, 1995). "Latest browser rankings from BrowserCaps (UdiWWW is currently #1)". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  14. Gayle V. Davidson-Shivers; Karen L. Rasmussen (2006). Web-based learning: design, implementation, and evaluation. Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall. p. 378. ISBN 978-0-13-081425-8. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  15. B. Ram (2000). Computer fundamentals: architecture and organization. New Age International. p. 1.32. ISBN 978-81-224-1267-3. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  16. Mark Surfas; Mark Brown (November 1996). Using Intranet HTML. Que. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-7897-0852-6. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  17. Its original homepage at "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 24, 1997. Retrieved March 13, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) is no longer up. The original ftp page at ftp://ftp.rz.uni-ulm.de/pub/infosystems/UdiWWW/ is no longer up.
  18. "LEO – /pub/comp/general/infosys/www/browsers/UdiWWW/". Leo. December 6, 2004. Archived from the original on December 6, 2004. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  19. Herrmann, B. (January 1998). "BelWü Spots" (PDF) (in German). BelWü (Baden-Württembergs extended LAN). Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  20. Müller, Paul; Hans Peter Großmann (June 10, 2003). "UDINE a universal document information and navigation entry". Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 26: S29–S38. doi:10.1016/0169-7552(94)90096-5.
  21. "abgeschlossene Projekte". UDINE (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  22. "abgeschlossene Projekte". Forschung (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  23. Prof. Dr. H. P. Großmann. "Überblick über die Aufgaben des Universitätsrechenzentrums". Universitätsrechenzentrum (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  24. Bernd Richter (April 4, 1996). "New Features in UdiWWW". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  25. "UdiWWW Test Verzeichnis". University of Ulm. July 9, 1997. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  26. Steel, Warren (May 17, 1996). "Proposal: List attributes". W3C. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  27. Richter, Bernd (April 9, 1996). "Properties of UdiWWW". readme file. University of Ulm department of information research management. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  28. Roelofs, Greg (February 23, 2000). "Browsers with PNG Support". Archived from the original on March 3, 2000. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  29. Gutfeldt, Matthias (February 23, 2004). "Browsers with LINK support". Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  30. "Advanced HTML Taking Your Pages to the Next Level". TallTech. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  31. "Chapter 18 – Other HTML 3.0 Proposals". Docs.rinet.ru. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  32. Weinreich, Harald; Hartmut Obendorf, Winfried Lamersdorf (2001). "The look of the link - concepts for the user interface of extended hyperlinks". Proceedings of the twelfth ACM conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia - HYPERTEXT '01. p. 19. doi:10.1145/504216.504225. ISBN 978-1591134206. S2CID 14289046.
  33. From the help file "UDIWWW32.hlp" from the Version 1.2.000 installation.
  34. Stroud, Forrest (December 11, 1996). "UdiWWW – No Longer a Serious Contender". Windows Software Reviews. Win Planet. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  35. "Experiences with UdiWWW". Alanflavell.org.uk. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  36. Taken from the about menus of files at Lang, Daniel (December 6, 2004). "UdiWWW – a HTML 3.0 browser for Microsoft Windows". LEO – Link Everything Online. Leo. Archived from the original on December 6, 2004.
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