Agora (web browser)

Short description: Email-based web browser

AgoraOriginal author(s)| Arthur Secret[1]

|

Developer(s)| World Wide Web Consortium / CERN
Final release|

0.8f[2] / 2 July 1997; 28 years ago (1997-07-02)[3]

Written in| Perl[4]
Operating system| DEC Alpha[4]
Platform| Perl[4]
Available in| English
Type| web browser
License| W3C Software Notice and License/CERN open source copyright
Website|
www.w3.org/History/1996/WWW/Agora/

Agora was a World Wide Web email browser and was a proof of concept to help people to use the full internet.[5][6] Agora was an email-based web browser designed for non-graphic terminals and to help people without full access to the internet such as in developing countries or without a permanent internet connection.[7][8] Similar to W3Gate, Agora was a server application designed to fetch HTML documents through e-mail rather than http.[9]

## Contents

* 1 Functionality
* 2 Features
* 2.1 Supported protocols
* 3 Version history
* 4 Limitations
* 5 Further development
* 6 System requirements
* 7 Criticism
* 8 References
* 9 External links

## Functionality

Agora, for those who cannot be in the Arena[3]

Agora was not a client application. To access the Internet you had to install the Agora browser on a server and send Agora an email with the requested URL.[5] The Agora application would send an email back with the requested content of the link. The email which was sent by the server, contained the HTML source code so that a normal web browser was able to display the page as it should be[10] or in a lynx-style.[11] Different options made browsing easier.[12] The servers could be configured differently so that some servers sent emails back containing only JavaScript, because the content was deeper on the page.[10] Agora was praised for handling frames correctly, although other similar applications were able to handle this by serving the source code and rerequest the used frame.[10]

## Features

Although Agora was based on email communication it was able to search by different search engines: Archie, MetaCrawler, Lycos, Yahoo!, WAIS Search in Oxford Univ, Hyper RFC, WebCrawler, Veronica Search, AltaVista and Google.[13]

Agora limits the number of requests processed in each message to 10 to prevent the service from being attacked by messages containing excessive commands that could cause a DDOS attack.[9]

### Supported protocols

The Agora server is based on the Line Mode Browser[14] and on the libwww and thus it supported different kinds of internet protocols besides the classical http and gopher browsing, namely NNTP,[15] Archie,[15] Finger,[15] WAIS.[13]

Although Agora was able to handle many protocols, the interactive telnet protocol was an exception.[2]

## Version history

From Agora 0.7d it was possible to search some searchable sites by adding the search terms separated by spaces after the URL, but this would not work with forms.[2] Since Agora version 0.8e it was possible to split the requested URLs into two or more lines.[2] Data compression with uuencoded by gzip or zip was also integrated.[2] Agora version 0.8f determined frames and linked pictures goto and the answer mail get help in these cases.[2]

## Limitations

One limitation of Agora was that it had an integrated limit for the output mail of about 10,000 lines (originally 5,000) primarily to protect users and the network from excessive bandwidth/resource usage.[2][9] With this limitation, uuencoded files would not exceed 1 megabyte because some operating systems and email clients had problems with files larger than 1MB.[2] Uuencoded files used too much bandwidth and so data compression was integrated.[2]

Since most websites contained links to inline images or binary files such as archives/executables Agora had to uuencode these files prior to sending them.[5][9]

Usenet support was read only because the server was anonymous.[13]

## Further development

In version 0.9 users were able to fill in forms.[4] This version was never developed.[citation needed] The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) servers were shut down because of the heavy load. Secret created the software to set up as a local strategy, but that did not work at that time. The consequences were that the W3C servers got too many requests and they had to shut down their Agora implementation.[16][17]

## System requirements

To run Agora on a server, the server had to have Perl installed.[4] The libwww binaries www_*.*.Z had to be in the same directory.[4]

## Criticism

Agora ignored completely the different kinds of applets which were popular at that time: Tcl, Tk, Java and Python.[2] Agora could not handle HTML tables properly.[2] The Usenet support was incomplete and created problems in translating the answer in formatted text; also, some newsgroups caused a crash.[13] It could not handle Chinese, Japanese, Korean web pages.[13]

## References

1. ↑ Secret, Arthur (30 April 1996). "Arthur Secret". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/People/Arthur/.
2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Sasse, Hugh. "Agora: Retrieving WWW Documents through mail". De Montfort University. http://www.eng.dmu.ac.uk/Agora/Help.txt.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Secret, Arthur (2 July 1997). "Agora". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/History/1996/WWW/Agora/.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 README file in the packed source code and in the packed executable of Agora 0.8.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Secret, Arthur (12 November 1996). "Agora". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/Agora/Overview.html.
6. ↑ Daniel Dardailler; Judy Brewer. "FINAL REPORT - DE 4105 - WAI". Web Accessibility Initiative. World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/WAI/TIDE/FinalReport.
7. ↑ Sosa-Iudicissa, Marcelo C.; Organization, Pan American Health; Association, International Medical Informatics (February 1997). Internet, telematics, and health. IOS Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-90-5199-289-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=4BSBUSEEtwAC&pg=PA145.
8. ↑ Tim Berners Lee (1 May 1995). "Getting Started with WWW". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/History/1992/WWW/FAQ/Bootstrap.html.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 "W3Gate: Use and Abuse". German National Research Center for Information Technology. http://www.isoc.org/inet97/proceedings/A1/A1_1.HTM.
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "G.E.Boyd's How To Do Just About Anything by email - Part 1". GeoCities. 11 August 2000. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1236/howto1.html.
11. ↑ WWWWolf (6 May 2001). "Agora". Everything2. http://everything2.com/title/Agora.
12. ↑ Secret, Arthur (23 June 1995). "Retrieval of documents through mail". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/Agora/Help.html.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Secret, Arthur (13 August 1996). "Agora: Retrieving WWW Documents through mail". http://avoyager.freeshell.org/Agora_-_Retrieving_WWW_Documents_through_mail.
14. ↑ Sendall, Mike (29 March 1995). "World Wide Web Clients". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/Clients.html.
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 "G.E.Boyd's How To Do Just About Anything by email - Part 2". GeoCities. 10 September 2000. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1236/howto2.html.
16. ↑ Moberg, Vic (16 November 1995). "WWW> Agora Web by Email Service Down for the Count". University of Wisconsin-Madison. http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/PastProjects/NH/95-11/95-11-21/0026.html.
17. ↑ "Landmark's E-Mail Echo". Landmark Computer Labs. 1 February 1996. http://www.landmark.org/mailecho.html.

## External links

* Agora .8 source, W3C

* v
* t
* e

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Products and
standards|

| Recommendations|

* ActivityPub
* ARIA
* Canonical XML
* CDF
* CSS
* DOM
* Geolocation API
* HTML (HTML5)
* ITS
* JSON-LD
* Linked Data Notifications
* MathML
* Micropub
* OWL
* PLS
* RDF
* RDF Schema
* SISR
* SKOS
* SMIL
* SOAP
* SRGS
* SRI
* SSML
* SVG
* SCXML
* SHACL
* SPARQL
* Timed text
* VoiceXML
* Web storage
* WSDL
* Webmention
* WebSub
* XForms
* XHTML
* XHTML+RDFa
* XInclude
* XLink
* XML
* XML Base
* XML Encryption
* XML Events
* XML Information Set
* XML namespace
* XML Schema
* XML Signature
* XOP
* XPath
* XPath 2.0
* XPointer
* XProc
* XQuery
* XSL
* XSL-FO
* XSLT (elements)

|

Notes|

* IndieAuth
* JF2
* Post Type Discovery
* XAdES
* XHTML+SMIL
* XUP

Working drafts|

* CCXML
* CURIE
* EME
* InkML
* MSE
* RIF
* SMIL Timesheets
* sXBL
* XFDL
* XFrames
* XBL
* XMLHttpRequest

Guidelines|

* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Initiative|

* Multimodal Interaction Activity (MMI)
* Markup Validation Service
* Web Accessibility Initiative
* WebPlatform

Deprecated|

* C-HTML
* HDML
* JSSS
* PGML
* VML
* XHTML+MathML+SVG

Obsoleted|

* P3P

Organizations|

* Advisory Committee (AC)
* World Wide Web Foundation

Elected groups|

* Advisory Board (AB)

Working groups|

* CSS
* Geolocation
* Social Web
* SVG
* Web Hypertext Application Technology (WHATWG)
* Web Platform

Community groups|

* Web Incubator Community Group (WICG)

Closed groups|

* Device Description (DDWG)
* HTML

Software|

* CERN httpd
* Libwww

Browsers|

* Line Mode (1990–)
* Arena (1993–98)
* Agora (1994–97)
* Argo (1994–97)
* Amaya (browser/editor, 1996–2012)

Conferences|

* International World Wide Web Conference (IW3C)
* Steering Committee (IW3C2)
* First conference ("WWW1", 1994)

* v
* t
* e

Gopher

A protocol for document search and retrieval on the Internet

Active clients|

* Dooble
* Gnuzilla
* K-Meleon
* Lynx
* W3m
* WebPositive

Discontinued clients|

* Agora
* Arachne
* Amaya
* Arena
* AT&T Pogo
* Beonex Communicator
* Camino
* Cello
* Classilla
* Conkeror
* Cyberjack
* ELinks
* Galeon
* GopherVR
* IBrowse
* Internet Explorer for Mac
* Kazehakase
* libwww
* Line Mode Browser
* Minimo
* Minuet
* Mosaic
* Mothra
* Mozilla Application Suite
* Netscape
* OmniWeb
* SlipKnot
* Songbird
* tkWWW
* UdiWWW
* xB Browser

Previously supported|

* Epiphany
* Firefox
* Flock
* Internet Explorer
* SeaMonkey

Server software|

* Bucktooth
* NetPresenz
* PyGopherd
* Squid
* Synchronet

Search engines|

* Jughead
* Veronica
* Wide area information server (WAIS)

Content|

* AllMusic
* CCSO Nameserver
* Gophermap
* Phlog

Hosts|

* SDF Public Access Unix System
* The WELL

People|

* John Goerzen
* Mark P. McCahill

Gopher+

* v
* t
* e

Perl

People|

* Larry Wall
* Randal L. Schwartz
* Damian Conway
* Allison Randal
* Audrey Tang
* Sean M. Burke
* chromatic
* Adam Kennedy
* brian d foy
* Jesse Vincent

Things|

* CPAN
* Perl Foundation
* Perl Mongers
* PerlMonks
* archives
* module
* Perl VM
* YAPC

Frameworks|

* Bioperl
* Catalyst
* Dancer
* DBI
* [[DBIx::Class|]]
* LWP
* Mason
* Maypole
* Mojolicious
* Moose
* Plack
* PSGI
* Template Toolkit

Software|

* Amavis
* Argus
* @SSP
* AWStats
* BackupPC
* Bricolage
* Bugzilla
* Dada Mail
* ikiwiki
* Makepp
* Movable Type
* Munin
* OTRS
* SpamAssassin
* TWiki/Foswiki
* W3Perl
* Webmin

Related|

* Parrot
* Raku
* Rakudo
* rules

* Outline
* Category

* v
* t
* e

Timeline of web browsers

General

* Comparison
* lightweight
* History
* List
* for Unix
* Usage share

1990s

| 1990|

* WorldWideWeb (Nexus)

|

1991|

* Line Mode Browser
* libwww

1992|

* Erwise
* MacWWW (Samba)
* MidasWWW
* tkWWW
* ViolaWWW

1993|

* AMosaic
* Arena
* Cello
* Emacs/W3
* Lynx 2
* NCSA Mosaic
* VMS Mosaic

1994|

* AirMosaic
* Internet in a Box
* ANT Fresco
* Argo
* IBM WebExplorer
* SlipKnot
* Minuet
* Navipress
* Mosaic/Mosaic Netscape/Netscape Navigator
* Spyglass Mosaic
* TCP/Connect II

1995|

* Agora
* ALynx
* AMSD Ariadna
* Cyberjack
* eWorld Web Browser
* Grail
* Internet Explorer 1
* Internet Explorer 2
* Netscape Navigator 2
* NetShark
* OmniWeb
* HotJava
* UdiWWW
* WebShark
* w3m

1996|

* Cyberdog
* Arachne
* AWeb
* IBrowse
* Amaya
* Internet Explorer 3
* Netscape Navigator 3
* Opera 2
* Oracle PowerBrowser
* tcpCONNECT4
* Voyager

1997|

* Netscape Communicator
* Internet Explorer 4
* Opera 2.1

1998|

* NeoPlanet
* Mozilla Application Suite
* Opera 3–3.21

1999|

* iCab
* Internet Explorer 5
* Omniweb 3
* Opera 3.5–3.62

2000s

| 2000|

* Beonex Communicator
* Galeon
* K-Meleon
* MediaBrowser
* Netscape 6
* Opera 4–4.02

|

2001|

* iCab 2.5
* Internet Explorer 6
* Omniweb 4
* Opera 5–5.12

2002|

* Avant Browser 7
* Camino
* Epiphany
* Netscape 7
* Opera 6–6.1

2003|

* GreenBrowser
* Maxthon
* Opera 7–7.3
* Safari
* SlimBrowser

2004|

* Avant Browser 9
* Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox
* Opera 7.5–7.55

2005|

* AOL Explorer
* Deepnet Explorer
* Firefox 1.5
* Opera 8–8.54
* Safari 2

2006|

* Avant Browser 11
* Firefox 2
* Internet Explorer 7
* Opera 9–9.27

2007|

* Maxthon 2
* Opera 9.5–9.64
* Safari 3
* SeaMonkey 1.1

2008|

* Chrome
* Firefox 3
* Netscape Browser
* Netscape Navigator 9
* NetSurf 1.2

2009|

* Avant Browser 11.7
* Chrome 2–3
* Firefox 3.5
* Internet Explorer 8
* Opera 10–10.63
* Pale Moon
* Safari 4
* SeaMonkey 2.0

2010s

| 2010|

* Chrome 4–8
* Firefox 3.6
* Lunascape 6.0.1
* Maxthon 3
* NetSurf 2.5
* Opera 11–11.64
* Safari 5

|

2011|

* Chrome 9–16
* Firefox 4–9
* Internet Explorer 9
* Lunascape 6.5
* Opera 12–12.17
* SeaMonkey 2.1–2.4
* Waterfox

2012|

* Chrome 17–23
* Firefox 10–17
* Internet Explorer 10
* Lunascape 6.7
* Maxthon 3.4
* NetSurf 2.9
* Safari 6

2013|

* Chrome 24–31
* Firefox 18–26
* Internet Explorer 11
* Opera 15–18
* Safari 7
* SeaMonkey 2.15–2.22

2014|

* Chrome 32–39
* Firefox 27–34
* Lunascape 6.9
* NetSurf 3.1
* Opera 19–26
* Safari 8
* SeaMonkey 2.23–2.31

2015|

* Chrome 40–47
* Firefox 35–43
* Lunascape 6.10–6.12
* Microsoft Edge 20, 25
* Opera 27–34
* Safari 9
* SeaMonkey 2.32–2.39
* Vivaldi

2016|

* Chrome 48–55
* Firefox 44–50
* Lunascape 6.13–6.15
* Microsoft Edge 38
* Opera 35–42
* Safari 10

2017|

* Chrome 56–63
* Firefox 51–57
* Microsoft Edge 40, 41
* Opera 43–49
* Safari 11
* SeaMonkey 2.46–2.49
* Basilisk
* Brave
* Vivaldi 1.7–1.15

2018|

* Chrome 64–71
* Firefox 58–64
* Microsoft Edge 42-44
* Opera 50-57
* Safari 12

2019|

* Chrome 72–79
* Firefox 65–71
* Opera 58–65
* Safari 13
* Vivaldi 2.3–2.10
* Whale 1.4–1.5

2020s

| 2020|

* Chrome 80–
* Firefox 72–
* Microsoft Edge 79—
* Opera 66–

|

Related topics

* 3D Markup Language for Web
* Aliweb
* ARPANET
* ASCII
* BITNET
* Browser wars
* CompuServe
* Elm
* Email
* File Transfer Protocol
* Gopher
* HTML
* HyperCard
* HyTelnet
* NCSA Telnet
* NLS
* Prodigy
* Teletext
* Telnet
* Usenet
* UUCP
* Videotex
* Viewdata
* Virtual Reality Markup Language
* Web page
* Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
* World Wide Web
* X.25

* v
* t
* e

Web browsers

Features * standards * protocols

| Features|

* Bookmarks
* Extensions
* Privacy mode
* Sync

|

Web standards|

* HTML
* v5
* CSS
* DOM
* JavaScript
* IndexedDB
* Web storage
* WebAssembly
* WebGL

Protocols|

* HTTP
* v2
* v3
* Cookies
* Encryption
* OCSP
* WebRTC
* WebSocket

Active

| Blink-based|

* Avast Secure Browser
* Beaker
* Blisk
* Brave
* Chrome
* Chromium
* Coc Coc
* Dragon
* Epic
* Falkon
* Kinza
* Maxthon
* Opera
* Otter
* Puffin
* SalamWeb
* Samsung Internet
* Silk
* Sleipnir
* Sputnik
* SRWare
* Torch
* UC
* Vivaldi
* Whale
* Yandex

|

Gecko-based|

* Firefox
* GNU IceCat
* IceDragon
* K-Meleon
* PirateBrowser
* SeaMonkey
* TenFourFox
* Tor
* Waterfox

WebKit-based|

* Dolphin
* Dooble
* GNOME Web
* iCab
* Konqueror
* Midori
* Safari
* surf

Other|

* 360
* Avant
* Basilisk
* CM Browser
* Edge
* eww
* Internet Explorer
* Links
* Lunascape
* Lynx
* NetFront
* NetSurf
* Pale Moon
* QQ browser
* qutebrowser
* SlimBrowser
* w3m

Discontinued

| Gecko-based|

* Beonex Communicator
* Camino
* Classilla
* Conkeror
* Galeon
* Ghostzilla
* Kazehakase
* Kylo
* Lotus
* MicroB
* Minimo
* Mozilla suite
* Pogo
* Strata
* Swiftfox
* Swiftweasel
* Timberwolf
* xB

|

Trident-based|

* AOL
* Deepnet
* GreenBrowser
* MediaBrowser
* MenuBox
* NeoPlanet
* NetCaptor
* SpaceTime
* UltraBrowser
* WebbIE
* ZAC

WebKit-based|

* Arora
* BOLT
* Opera Coast
* Flock
* Fluid
* Google TV
* Iris
* Mercury
* OmniWeb
* Origyn
* QtWeb
* rekonq
* Rockmelt
* Shiira
* Steel
* Browser for Symbian
* Uzbl
* WebPositive
* xombrero

Other|

* abaco
* Amaya
* Arachne
* Arena
* Blazer
* Charon
* Deepfish
* Dillo
* ELinks
* Gazelle
* HotJava
* IBM Home Page Reader
* IBM WebExplorer
* IBrowse
* KidZui
* Line Mode
* Mosaic
* MSN TV
* NetPositive
* Netscape
* Skweezer
* Skyfire
* Teashark
* ThunderHawk
* Vision
* WinWAP
* WorldWideWeb

* Category
* Comparisons
* List

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora (web browser). Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Software:Agora_(web_browser)&oldid=800743"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template