This site: WebBrowserDirectory is the work of Brett Harris. It originally started as a sub-section on one of my other sites: whatismybrowser.com, but after a while it seemed best to split it off and turn it into it's own site; and so I created Web Browser Directory.
I started the initial list of browsers because I was looking for just that: a big database of every single web browser. Such a thing didn't exist; there are certainly a few big listings of web browsers already on the internet, but I needed a more detailed collection. And so, I set out to create it.
I have been meticulous in adding the web browser data for the directory. I haven't added any data, including the rendering engine, start or finish dates, or anything else without doing my best to find and verify the information. In a few cases where it wasn't possible to be 100% certain about something, I have typically made a note about it.
For what it's worth, I keep detailed timesheets of all the work I do, and for this directory project I can tell you that as of May 2026 I have spent 89 hours carefully researching, writing, and updating the browser information on the site. There's a lot not yet done and I expect to spend a lot more time on this in the future.
I have tried to be as exhaustive in the list of browsers as well; trying to get not just the newest and more popular browsers, but I have enjoyed going and tracking down information about old, obscure, and long forgotten browsers from the 1990s and 2000s. Often just relying on a throw-away note on some Wikipedia page or blog, to start tracking something down. For example, I found and added Eolas WebRouser because there was one tiny mention of it on Wikipedia: Browser Wars. There are many other instances of this; it's where so much of the old, obscure information has come from. Other old pages such as https://www.hoary.org/browse/ and many other ones like this have provided lots of old browser names for me to go on the hunt for. And sometimes as I'm researching one old, weird, forgotten browser, it will lead me to a listing of other browsers from a similar period or technology (this happened for things like Palm OS web browsers and so on).
This site is not some groundbreaking project, it's just a little hobby that's been fun to chip away at; I enjoy the aspect of searching and finding old information and rescuing it from all these different obscure sources into one collated, organised place so that people can find out what they need, or just go exploring what is now ancient web technology. It's been sort of nostalgic looking at all the various screenshots of web browsers and websites from the mid to late 90's; the time when I first really got online.
While there are only a few major browsers that get all the attention and it will probably stay that way for a while at least, it's still been really cool seeing people work on their own hobby browsers; whether they're keeping some old version of a browser running on Amigas or OS X Snow Leopard, or whatever. I appreciate the weird, quiet, obsessive work that such nerds do, just for the love of it.