Unrelated: the nostalagia of iliana's favicon is incredible. So much time spent on old modems watching that animation spin while waiting for pages to slowly load in...
The original NCSA Mosaic one with the globe could've been a bit much, but it was appropriate, given the impact of the Web, even for pre-Web Internet natives: "OMG, this is a tingly step forward in distributed global hypertext, it's happening right now -- interacting around the world, and also superpowering the world." With implied altruistic and benevolent goodness.
(The earlier Mcom/Netscape throbbing "N", when I guess they were still rebranding Navigator from Mosaic, looked silly even at the time. Then they did a good one. And there were a bunch of creative alternatives, including some easter egg ones, which JWZ cataloged at one time.)