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An Internet browser (commonly referred to as a browser or web browser) is an application software used to access the World Wide Web. It is not the same thing as a search engine, which is a website that provides links to other websites; a web browser is required to access a search engine as well as other web sites.
Web browsers are used on a wide range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
The most used browser as of May 2021 is Google Chrome, with a 64% global market share on all devices. Other common web browsers include Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and Opera.[1]
History[]
The first web browser, called WorldWideWeb, was created in 1990 by English computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He then recruited Nicola Pellow to write the Line Mode Browser, which was the second web browser ever created, in 1991.
In 1993, the Mosaic web browser, credited as "the world's first popular browser" was released. Its innovative graphical interface made the World Wide Web system easy to use and more accessible to the average person. This sparked the Internet boom of the 1990s, when the Web grew at a very rapid rate. Mosaic co-founder Marc Andreessen started his own company called "Netscape", which released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994 – which became the most popular web browser.
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 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.
In 1998, Netscape launched what would become the Mozilla Foundation to create a new browser using the open source software model – this work evolved into Firefox and was first released in 2004.
Apple debuted its Safari web browser in 2003, and it remains the dominant browser on Apple devices.
Google debuted Chrome in 2008, which steadily took market share from Internet Explorer and became the most popular browser in 2012.
Microsoft released the Edge browser in 2015 as part of its Windows 10 release.
Function[]
The purpose of a web browser is to fetch content from the Web and display it on a user's device.
This process begins when the user inputs a URL (such as https://en.wikipedia.org/) into the browser. All URLs on the Web start with either http: or https:, which means the browser will retrieve them with the HyperText Transfer Protocol.
Once a web page has been retrieved, the browser's rendering engine displays it on the user's device. This includes image and video formats supported by the browser.
Web pages usually contain hyperlinks to other pages and resources. Each link contains a URL, and when it is clicked or tapped, the browser navigates to the new resource. Thus the process of bringing content to the user begins again.
Most browsers use an internal cache of web page resources to improve loading times for subsequent visits to the same page. The cache can store many items, such as large images, so they do not need to be downloaded from the server again. Cached items are usually only stored for as long as the web server stipulates in its HTTP response messages.
References[]
- ↑ StatCounter Global Stats. Retrieved June 19, 2021.