Netscape Navigator was developed by the team who had created the Mosaic web browser at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Quick Icon Jce File Browser. The company they created was initially named 'Mosaic Communications Corporation' and their web browser 'Mosaic Netscape ', but a legal challenge from NCSA over the rights to the name resulted in the company and the product being renamed. The name 'Netscape ' was invented by sales representative Greg Sands. Dan Cummins Revenge Is Near on this page. Beta versions of the web browser were freely downloadable in mid- to late-1994, and version 1.0 of the browser was released by the end of the year. The first few releases of the product were made available in 'commercial' and 'evaluation' versions; for example, version '1.0' and version '1.0N'.