A screenshot of UdiWWW showing its rendering capabilities | |
Original author(s) | Bernd Richter |
---|---|
Initial release | 1995 |
Final release | 1.2.000
/ April 9, 1996 |
Written in | C/C++ |
Operating system | Windows 3.1 / 3.11 / NT / 95[1] |
Size | 1.7 MB (32-bit)[2] 570 KB (16-bit)[2] |
Available in | English, German |
Type | Web browser |
License | Public domain[1] |
Website | www.uni-ulm.de/~richter/udiwww/index.htm at the Wayback Machine (archived July 24, 1997) |
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 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]
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 NSCA 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]
UdiWWW has the following features as of Version 1.2:[24][25][26]
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]
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]
The following versions were released:[2][35][36]
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. |
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. |
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.
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://www.wikipedia.org/ 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]
UdiWWW has the following system requirements:[1]