Some info. about World Wide Web and web browser early history; My exposure to private Videotex that worked over telephone lines before web

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web informs us: "English scientist Sir Timothy Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989."

Given below are extracts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser#History

The first web browser, called WorldWideWeb, was created in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.[6][7] He then recruited Nicola Pellow to write the Line Mode Browser, which displayed web pages on dumb terminals; it was released in 1991.[8]

1993 was a landmark year with the release of Mosaic, credited as "the world's first popular browser".[9] Its innovative graphical interface made the World Wide Web system easy to use and thus more accessible to the average person. This, in turn, sparked the Internet boom of the 1990s, when the Web grew at a very rapid rate.[9] Marc Andreessen, the leader of the Mosaic team, soon started his own company, Netscape, which released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994. Navigator quickly became the most popular browser.[10]

Microsoft debuted Internet Explorer in 1995, leading to a browser war with Netscape. Microsoft was able to gain a dominant position for two reasons: it bundled Internet Explorer with its popular Microsoft Windows operating system and did so as freeware with no restrictions on usage. Eventually the market share of Internet Explorer peaked at over 95% in 2002.[11]

[References:]

6. "Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb, the first Web client". W3.org. Retrieved 7 December 2011.

7. Stewart, William. "Web Browser History". Archived from the original on 20 January 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2009.

8. Gillies, James; Cailliau, R. (2000). How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. pp. 6. ISBN 0192862073.

9. "Bloomberg Game Changers: Marc Andreessen". Bloomberg. 17 March 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.

10. Enzer, Larry (31 August 2018). "The Evolution of the Web Browsers". Monmouth Web Developers. Retrieved 31 August 2018.

11. "Mozilla Firefox Internet Browser Market Share Gains to 7.4%". Search Engine Journal. 24 November 2004. Retrieved 7 December 2011.

--- end Web browser wiki extracts ---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Mode_Browser informs us that Tim Berners-Lee's WorldWideWeb browser (and HTML page editor) worked only on proprietary software of NeXT computers, which were in limited use. Due to lack of expertise in the more widely used X Window System, they were not able to port it to X. So they got Nicola Pellow to write a basic browser that would show only text (no images) but would work on simple computer terminals like Teletype machines (dumb terminals). This was the 'Line Mode Browser'.

I think the above wiki extracts give an accurate and concise picture of the early years of web browser history. To summarize as points:

1. World Wide Web was invented in 1989.

2. First web browser was created in 1990.

3. Character UI (Line Mode) browser which worked on dumb terminals was released in 1991. 

4. Mosaic Graphical UI (GUI) web browser was released in 1993.

5. Netscape Navigator GUI web browser (influenced by Mosaic and led by Marc Andreesen who had earlier led the Mosaic team) was released in 1994.

6. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) came into picture in 1995 and eventually killed Netscape (through predatory marketing type tactics). IE reached 95% market share in 2002!

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Another important sentence from Web browser wiki extract above is: "Its (Mosaic) innovative graphical interface made the World Wide Web system easy to use and thus more accessible to the average person. This, in turn, sparked the Internet boom of the 1990s, when the Web grew at a very rapid rate."

So it would have been from around 1993 (after Mosaic release) or a year or two later that the Web started to grow significantly in usage.

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I don't think I have used character UI web browser before I used my first GUI web browser (Netscape Navigator, if I recall correctly). Later for some special purposes, I have used character UI web browsers. Lynx is one such character UI web browser that I straight-away recall using, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser). Lynx started in 1992.

I should also mention that prior to 1990s, I have worked on character UI applications that worked over telephone lines. That was a Videotex project I worked in Wang International Telecommunications Research Centre, Brussels, Belgium in 1985-86. 

Today we may feel that character UI applications over the network would have been primitive. But Wang Videotex software had London UK customers like a travel agency who would use "Order Entry" pages to provide input and interact with software on a server, with communication being done over a telephone line! This was reality in 1985-86 in Western Europe! Prestel was the well known UK Videotex system then - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestel. The wiki page says, "The (Videotex) technology was a forerunner of on-line services today. Instead of a computer, a television set hooked to a dedicated terminal was used to receive information from a remote database via a telephone line. The service offered thousands of pages ranging from consumer information to financial data but with limited graphics."

I felt it appropriate to share some extracts from my part autobiography book about my 1985-86 work in Wang Videotex work in Brussels, Belgium ( book links: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/autobiography-of-indian-software-techie.html ):

[From page 87 and 88:]

I was given the job of developing the Order Entry response pages of a private Videotex system, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotex, for Wang. Videotex delivered information to the user over the telephone line as pages of text to typically a Television set but it could also be a special Videotex terminal I believe. User input to the system was through a small key pad in case of Television – the special Videotex terminal seems to have had its own keypad.  The assignment was a great learning experience for me. My stuff was on the application layer of the networking stack. The Internet was not widespread or well-known then. How far have network connectivity and reliability, and network products come now! The Internet is being considered a revolutionary force by many. This has been utterly mind-boggling change having unbelievably high level of social impact/transformation in a matter of just a few decades.

...

[From page 91]

I also learned a great lesson about version control and the right attitude to customer reported bugs. IIRC some travel agents/companies were beta customers for the Wang VS Videotex product of ours. One London, UK, beta site reported a problem with a Videotex page which was a response page (as against a static page) and so my Order Entry module came into play. I was given the dump data with the problem description from the customer. [Excluding my foolish behaviour with that dump data as that may not be relevant here.]

--- end extracts from my part autobio book ---

The above extracts show my direct experience that in 1985-86 there were real customers of Wang Videotex service which was not on public Internet but worked over public telephone line connections, and was having character based UI - an online service with character based UI in 1985-86 in Western Europe that worked across country borders (UK and Belgium)!

[I thank Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extract(s) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]