Hypertext documents
In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee came up with the name "World Wide Web" as a generic term for the subset of the Internet that makes use of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. By that time hypertext editing with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) was becoming a very popular method to organize enormous amounts of information via graphically set up documents that are connected by links over the Internet.
HTML basically is an ASCII text file, and thus can be produced in a simple notepad. To be able to view the HTML files special software is needed, known as a "browser".

Hypertext browsers
In brief, a browser is your interface to the World Wide Web; it interprets hypertext and lets you view sites and navigate from one Internet page to another or from one Internet node to another. Linking is done by so called Hyperlinks, which allows the designer to present the information in such way that the user has a certain freedom in the order of viewing it. It is also a possibility to make links to other parts on the same page, these links are named Anchors.
In the early 1990s the first browsers, that can display the hypertext documents and navigate over the hyperlinks, were developed. In September 1993 the NCSA released a working version of a MOSAIC browser for all common platforms (X, PC/Windows, Macintosh).
In 1994 the basis for Netscape was founded as a commercial spin-off from Mosaic. From then on developments moved up to high gear. New tools and applications greatly extending the capabilities of hypertext documents were developed. The most recent version 4.0 of HTML offers for instance support for additional hardware that assists Braille or speech users.