Chapter 90: Browser
Chapter 90: Browser
But there must still be people who use this conveniently.
“Please keep up the good work.”
“Yes. For now, we’ll develop and add the bulletin board and chat room as quickly as possible.”
Of course, these were forms of content connected to the user account management system, so there was no need to say that this system had to be built first.
When Insu thought of portal sites, the first thing that came to mind was a search engine, but at the present stage, it was an inefficient system, so it could not be helped that its priority was last. Still, they planned to develop and attach a directory-based search function, rather than a crawling-based one, soon.
In any case, seeing the portal site business division running on its own put his mind somewhat at ease. Insu had provided the planning documents, but if the PM could not guide the work properly, things would not progress.
Until now, Insu had always led people directly as team leader and handled the work himself, so he had felt some anxiety about entrusting an entire project to someone else. Fortunately, the person his father had recruited seemed both motivated and capable.
“And since the internet is spreading quickly, please also prepare for the possibility that users may suddenly increase.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
Another good thing was that this large man shared a vision similar to Insu’s, at least regarding the internet, so Insu did not need to nag him repeatedly with great effort.
Thanks to that, Insu decided he would only check in occasionally and otherwise turn his attention away, focusing on game development.
Even after some time passed since WET’s launch, there was no special response.
[A decent site appeared.]
It was only mentioned very occasionally on PC communications and similar places. There was nothing to be done about it, since the internet population was still small and there was little content on the internet itself.
They had collected quite a few webpages, but pages that collected websites had already existed before, so that was one reason it did not provide much differentiation.
For a moment, Insu wondered whether it might improve if they partnered with gaming magazines he had some connection to and posted magazine articles, but he soon shook his head.
The internet population itself is too small right now, so it’s meaningless anyway.
They needed time. Investing in various things now would have little effect and might only negatively affect development of the bulletin board, chat room, search engine, and so on. Whatever they did required people, and the portal site business team did not have that many staff.
Wondering when the internet era would finally arrive, Insu used PC communications.
It’s kind of funny that even I’m using PC communications instead of the internet.
Even if it would become mainstream in the future, it was currently empty, so there was no helping it. As he moved from board to board, he found an interesting post.
[Did you guys know a new web browser came out?]
“Oh?”
Web browsers existed even now, but they had been made for research rather than commercial use, so their usability tended to be poor. To be honest, using one felt like using some kind of prototype.
This MONO browser was probably partly responsible for the low number of internet users.
But aside from that, there were only older text-only browsers, so people had no choice but to use it. Now, however, news had finally appeared that a commercial browser had been released.
[It’s called NovaSurf, and it’s definitely good. I deleted that garbage MONO right away.]
Insu agreed that MONO felt like garbage. At first, he had used it gratefully, but the more he used it, the more shortcomings he noticed.
For now, NovaSurf was available as a free download for individual users, so he immediately went to the site.
It’ll take about fifteen minutes.
This sales method was familiar to Insu, but by the standards of this era, it was quite innovative.
First, simply being free would attract people and help secure market share. And once market share rose, people making webpages would build them according to NovaSurf’s standards, which would lead users to choose NovaSurf again.
Since the internet era was only just beginning and products like web browsers were about to emerge, this method was clearly designed to seize the market quickly.
And although it was free, it would not remain free forever. It was free for a limited period. The developer was not living off digging dirt, so that was only natural.
Is this something like Netscape?
Netscape was a fairly famous name among people interested in computers. However, there was a reason that name remained only in history.
Not bad.
After the download finished, he quickly installed and ran it. First, the design passed. MONO had felt like a cement frame without any exterior materials, but this one looked as though some care had at least gone into it.
The rendering speed was also fast, so sites appeared quickly. The internet speed was still so slow that it did not mean much yet, but he felt that in just a few years, the difference would definitely be noticeable.
But it’s still pretty plain.
Looking good and being slightly faster were already enough competitive advantages, but the most important weapon of Netscape in Insu’s memory had not been that.
JavaScript will come out too, right?
(Translator’s Note: JavaScript — A widely used programming language primarily used to create interactive features and dynamic content on websites.)
JavaScript was still an active web language even in 2025. It was innovation itself, creating dynamic elements on early web screens that had only photos and text without movement.
Once JavaScript appeared, he would be able to implement many of the things he remembered.
And another famous Netscape feature that had not yet appeared was the SSL security protocol.
Online activity at the time was practically defenseless, but with the addition of SSL, internet users gained at least a minimum level of safety. It could be called the foundation that allowed internet users to enter personal information and act as individual users.
Online banking and internet shopping were examples, and even the very basic mail service counted among services based on personal information.
No matter how convenient something was, if information was stolen the moment it was entered, nobody would use it. That made security systems like this extremely important.
Should I buy stock in this too?
The fact that it was the first commercial browser alone gave it tremendous value, but Insu hesitated instead of immediately jumping in for a reason.
Part of it was because NovaSurf might fail to become like Netscape, but conversely, he also worried that it would become like Netscape.
After all, Netscape, that incredible and innovative browser, eventually failed.
It was a fairly famous story. Netscape once held a full ninety percent of the market, but when Microsoft began bundling a browser called Explorer with Windows, it collapsed in an instant.
Netscape also understood the power of free products and had dominated the market with trial versions, but it crumbled before something truly free.
In truth, the development costs of Explorer were probably included in the price of Windows, so it was not truly free, but Windows was something people had to buy anyway.
Netscape later won through lawsuits, but by then, it had lost all market share and spent enormous money and time on litigation. Unable to endure, it collapsed, leaving humanity with legacies like JavaScript and SSL.
He did not know whether the same story would unfold in this world, but the chances seemed high.
This was not simply something Microsoft had done because it was vicious, but a battle over platform monopoly.
An OS ultimately fought through market share, and to strengthen that, users and developers needed to enter its ecosystem. The internet was a newly opened field of competition.
Windows already dominated the market, but it had not yet achieved complete monopoly, and UNIX, IBM OS, MAC OS, and others still had meaningful shares. But if an external program like Netscape took control of the format in a space with enormous potential like the internet, variables could emerge.
(Translator’s Notes: IBM — Major American technology company historically associated with computers, enterprise systems, and mainframe computing.)
At the time, Windows was already being criticized for lagging behind UNIX in some areas of performance, stability, and compatibility, so that sense of crisis must have been even greater.
Maybe it really was vicious, since instead of improving product performance, they crushed the rival that could create variables?
In any case, the incident had many inevitable aspects rather than being pure coincidence, so there was a high chance it would be repeated in this world too.
Of course, in the short term, the stock would likely rise to some extent, but if everyone could simply take profits and exit when it rose, there would not be so many people losing money in stocks.
He was already mentally and physically overwhelmed by development work, so he did not want to exhaust himself on an investment when he could not be sure of profit.
In the end, Insu gave up on gaining anything from this and simply decided to be satisfied that another new yet familiar world had taken one more step closer.
When Jaden opened his eyes in the morning, he flinched briefly at the unfamiliar ceiling. The apartment he originally lived in had already been quite small, but this place was even older and narrower. At least the bright sunlight streaming in through the large window felt somewhat better.
And upon seeing that intense sunlight, Jaden remembered where he was.
LA, California.
He relaxed and slowly sat up.
“Heh heh.”
The environment was poor, but right now, none of that entered his eyes very clearly. It simply felt like a dream. He had joined that Parallel Soft.
He did have some pride in his knowledge and skills, but that did not mean he was ignorant of reality. He had not gone to college, had not found a proper job, and had been surviving through part-time work.
No matter how much knowledge and skill one had, if nobody recognized it and there was nowhere to use it, it held no meaning.
No. It wasn’t that my ability was lacking. There just hadn’t been anywhere that recognized me until now.
By joining Parallel Soft, he had finally managed to dig his self-esteem back up from where it had been buried underground and bring it outside again. But that did not erase his joy at getting hired or his gratitude toward Parallel Soft.
“Ah?”
As he briefly sat there feeling moved again today, he soon looked at the clock, was startled, and jumped to his feet.
He had managed to find this room with money he had requested as an advance from the president, but he did not have enough to get a car, so he had to take the bus. And since the bus would not wait for him, he needed to move quickly in the morning.
Back when he lived in Chicago, he had ridden a scooter, but when he decided to come here, he sold it immediately. At the time, he had briefly considered riding it all the way to LA, but he gave up because he could not bring himself to do it.
Occasionally, there were bikers who rode across the country along Route 66 in pursuit of romance, but traveling 2,450 miles, nearly 4,000 kilometers, over ten days felt almost suicidal to Jaden.
Besides, mine was a scooter.
Leaving aside danger and exhaustion, considering how much he would spend on the road, selling it and taking a plane had absolutely been the right decision a hundred times over.
Afterward, he roughly chewed through milk and dried, hardened bread, then hurriedly left the house.
Fortunately, he caught the bus without being late.
Back when he lived in Chicago, more than half the people on the bus were Black. Jaden did know most of them were ordinary people living normal lives, but it was also true that he felt tense, so he had not ridden the bus often.
But this neighborhood had many East Asians. It was unfamiliar all the same, but thankfully, it did not feel as threatening.
If he had been afraid of East Asians, joining Parallel Soft would have been difficult. The president was East Asian, and in the development team’s case, more than half the members, including the team leader, were East Asian.