NCSA Mosaic (1993) 5 Web Browser Windows

First released in 1993, NCSA Mosaic was the first really popular web browser. Unlike the original browser, WorldWideWeb on NeXT, Mosaic was available for the Microsoft Windows platform and added features such as inline graphics viewing. It was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. NCSA Mosaic was distributed freely for non commercial use, but required a license for commercial business use. It was licensed by a number of third party OEMs, including Microsoft, who used it for the basis of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In 1995, its popularly quickly gave way to Netscape Navigator.

• 1

NetManage Chameleon (1993) 3 Communications Windows

NetManage Chameleon is a small and efficient TCP/IP networking stack and utility suite for Microsoft Windows. It includes an FTP client, Telnet client, E-mail client, and an NFS system for interoperation with Unix networks. Other GUI utilities include Bind, Finger, Ping, TFTP, FTP Server a TN3270 terminal emulator, Whois, and SNMP. Earlier versions ran on Windows 3.0 and 3.1.

• 3.x
• 4.x
• 6.0
• 8.0

Netscape (1994) 68 Web Browser Windows Unix MacOS OS2 Linux Other Mac OS X

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser.

• 0.x
• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x
• 6.x
• 7.x

Netscape Proxy Server (1998) 1 Server Windows

Netscape Proxy Server is a networking server tool for large businesses that increases performance, security, and control for web access. It can be used to block access to certain content, such as blocking ActiveX or Java applets. Netscape Proxy Server integrates with Netscape SuiteSpot. It competed against Microsoft Proxy Server and Novell Border Manager.

• 3.x

NetWare (1989) 16 Other

Novel NetWare was an early and powerful network/file sharing operating system. It was first released in 1983 and supported DOS and CP/M clients and was initially unique in that it shared individual files rather than entire disk volumes. Initially servers ran on a proprietary Motorola 68000 system but quickly changed to IBM PC where it supported a very wide variety of third party hardware. It used a cooperative tasking server environment and had some advanced features usually only found in mainframe products.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

NetWare LANalyzer (1996) 0 Utility Windows

NetWare LANalyzer, originally developed by Excelan Inc, is a packet analysis tool for Novell NetWare systems. It can decode packets, gather statistics, and identify physical devices on a network. The original product was a specialized piece of hardware.

• 2.x

Netware Lite (1991) 4 Utility DOS

Netware lite was Novell's low-end networking product. It offered peer-to-peer networking up to 25 machines, used ODI network card drivers, and offered some support for talking to full Novell Netware networks. It was sometimes bundled with DR-DOS. It was followed up by Novell Personal Netware.

• 1.x

NeverEnding Disk (1994) 0 Utility Windows

NeverEnding Disk (or "NED"), from Sytron, is a personal storage manager that goes beyond just an archiver or backup tool. easily compress or migrate them to external media, and easily find and retrieve them when you need them.

• 2.x

New Deal Office (1999) 5 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations DOS

Based on GeoWorks, New Deal Office was a graphical operating environment for DOS which later became Breadbox Ensemble. New Deal adds a Windows-95 like user interface with a task bar and start menu. New Deal Office targeted low-end 386 and 486 computers that were not up to the task of running Windows 95. It was also released in a "WebSuite" edition only includes the internet connectivity and web browsing tools.

• 3.1b
• 3.2a
• 2000

NEWS-OS (1989) 1 Unix

NEWS-OS was a variant of BSD (later System version V UNIX) developed by Sony for use on their series of work stations called the Sony NEWS (Network Engineering WorkStation). This machine was a desktop replacement to VAXes in japan, created in 1987. NEWS-OS was designed specifically for use on computer networks, and had support for the TCP/IP protocol, something that wasn't commonly used back in the day but now required for today's machines. Versions 1-4 of NEWS-OS used 4.2BSD as its base. Versions 5 and 6 used UNIX System V 4.2.

• 4.x

Newshell (1995) 5 Windows

Newshell, or the "Shell Technology Preview Update", is a shell update for Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 that gives it the appearance and desktop from Windows 95. Newshell is a beta product, and only meant to demonstrate how the upcoming NT 4 would look.

• Beta

NewsMaster (1987) 2 Publishing DOS

NewsMaster, from Unison World, is a primitive low-cost desktop publishing program aimed at home users and low end PCs. It supports both dot-matrix and laser printers. Separate clipart libraries were also available, and it could make use of PrintMaster clipart.

• 1.5

NewWave (1989) 1 Other Windows

HP NewWave is an alternate shell for Microsoft Windows that gives it an icon-object desktop. It attempts to hide the file system from the user, instead presenting them with "objects" that may have many more properties and longer descriptions. It supports a feature called "Hot connects" that automatically updates data across different files.

• A.01.00
• 4.x

NewWord (1983) 1 Word Processor DOS

NewWord is a clone of WordStar created by former MicroPro employees. It filled a gap for WordStar users as WordStar 3.3 went unupdated, and eventually became the basis for WordStar 4.0.

• 1.x

NeXTStep (1987) 39 Unix

NeXTSTEP, from NeXT Computers headed by Steve Jobs, is a Unix based operating system designed to run on m68K NeXT workstations. It later became the basis for OS X, with APIs and concepts preserved today.

• 0.x
• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker (1996) 6 Windows

A customized version of Microsoft 3D Movie Maker that includes settings and characters from various Nickelodeon TV Shows.

• 1.0

Norton Anti-Virus (1990) 2 Utility DOS Windows MacOS

Originally written by Symantec and sold as Symantec Antivrus for Macintosh, it became part of the "Norton" branded products sold by Symantec after they acquired Peter Norton Computing. Norton Anti-Virus became a popular product on DOS, Windows, and Macintosh (SAM was renamed to NAV in 1998) and battled the then-new threat of malicious software. In 2015, Symantec unified their security product lineup under the single "Norton Security" product. It was also bundled with Norton SystemWorks.

• 1.0
• 1.5
• 2.0
• Michelangelo Edition
• 2.0 (Win)
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

Norton Backup (1990) 2 Utility DOS Windows

Norton Backup, from Symantec, is a fast and easy to use backup tool for MS-DOS. The original 1.0 suffered from reliability problems, but these were fixed in 1.1. It does not include a backup scheduler. It competed against backup utilities such as PC Tools Deluxe PC Backup, Taketwo Manager, Gazelle Systems Back-It, Backup Pro, FastBack Plus, and Keep Track Plus.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 2.x (Win)

Norton Commander (1986) 96 Utility DOS OS2 Windows

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 1.x (OS2)
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 1.x (Win)
• 5.5x
• 2.x (Win)

Norton Crash Guard (1997) 1 Utility Windows

Crash Guard is a tool that prevents misbehaving application programs from completely freezing the Windows user interface, in some cases can "unfreeze" a program, and recover the data you were working with. Crash Guard Deluxe also includes a number of additional tools to help improve the stability of a Windows system. This includes a system checker, virus scanner, hard drive integrity scanner, disk optimizer, software updater, registry scanner, and disk space manager.

• 3.x

Norton Desktop (1991) 7 Utility Windows DOS

Norton Desktop is a powerful desktop shell and file manager bundled with many additional tools. There are versions for both DOS and Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows
• 1.0 for DOS
• 2.2 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows

Norton Editor (1990) 8 Editor DOS

The Norton Editor is a text editor targeted at programmers and power users. It features the ability to edit files of any size, supports very long lines, automatic indentation, and compressed display. It supports executing DOS commands from inside the program, and is very configurable.

• 2.0

Norton Navigator (1995) 1 Utility Windows

Norton Navigator is a set of user interface add-ons for the new Microsoft Windows 95 desktop shell geared towards power users. Rather than a complete shell replacement like Norton Desktop, Norton Navigator adds functionality to the existing Windows Explorer user interface.

• 1.x

Norton NT Tools (1996) 0 Utility Windows

Norton NT Tools was a precursor to the Norton Utilities for NT. It does not contain disk utilities associated with the Norton Utilities, but instead includes some of the higher level tools.

• 1.0

Norton Personal Firewall (2000) 0 Utility Windows

Norton Personal Firewall is a software product that helps protect computers against threats from the Internet at the TCP/IP protocol level.

• 2000
• 2002
• 2.0 (Mac)