Data Fellows' web services are 5 years old in April.

This is a long time for a www site. When it was started, the Data Fellows web server was among the first web sites ever, and the only one with anti-virus information. To celebrate the anniversary, Data Fellows has a birthday ballot on the web site.

How long a time is 5 years in the web? It's a long time.

In April 1994:
There was no www.microsoft.com, www.ibm.com or www.apple.com. Also, there was no www.netscape.com, www.aol.com, or www.ebay.com. No www.cnn.com, www.msnbc.com or www.disney.com. No Geocities, no AltaVista, no Hotmail.

Netscape and Internet Explorer did not exist yet. The most common browsers at the time were NCSA Mosaic and text-based Lynx. Other browsers included Cello and Winweb. Most web surfers were using Unix-based systems. On PC platforms, MS-DOS and Windows 3.x were the most common desktop operating systems.

People actually had difficulties accessing our site, since Internet and web browsers were far from commonplace in the spring of 1994. Most web sites and web users came from the universities. Companies were just starting to realize the possibilities of the Internet.

There were around 2,000 web sites in the world. 2.5 years later there were 650,000 web sites. Now, 5 years later, there are more than 4,000,000.

Five years ago, Data Fellows’ web server was the only server in the web with anti-virus information. We've had hundreds of millions of visitors to our site since then.

Today, Data Fellows continues to lead the field in security web sites. With our unique Virus News section, we keep on providing breaking news on new, virus-related threats such as the Melissa virus or the upcoming CIH virus scare. New information and virus descriptions are added daily.

To celebrate our five years on the web, Data Fellows is organizing a birthday ballot. Simply visit our web site during the month of April, leave your e-mail address and win a valuable security software package or a nice black F-Secure T-shirt. Prizes will be drawn daily during the first week in May.