This task measures the ease and speed of actually running the application. Obviously the three graphical browsers will have an advantage due to their icon-based operating systems. This task is not included in the overall evaluation due to platform inequalities.
This is a reasonable amount of time to launch, but it borders on too long. The problem seemed to be mitigated when the disk cache was cleared, but could quickly reappear if the cache grew too large. The amount of time to launch was again a penalty when the application was terminated, as a large amount of memory dedicated to the cache had to be cleared in both RAM and the fixed disk.
This application launched slightly faster than Netscape, most likely due to the smaller scope of the package. It did not have to load news and mail segments. Quitting Mosaic was very quick, indicating a pre-handled cache and memory cleaning.
With virtually no overhead, lynx launches virtually instantaneously. The same goes for terminating the application.
OmniWeb launched almost as quickly as Lynx did, which is due in part to it's very limited cache. It is also a credit to the operating system it runs under, which permits much more efficient execution of programs. Quitting OmniWeb was instantaneous.