Web Browsers: What's It is, How It Works? Discover Features, Functions, Types and Many More Essentials...!!
2. What's the importance of web browser?
The main function is to retrieve information from the World Wide Web and making it available for users. Visiting any website can be done using a web browser. When a URL is entered in a browser, the web server takes us to that website.
A web browser is a type of software that allows you to find and view websites on the Internet. Even if you didn't know it, you're using a web browser right now to read this page! There are many different web browsers, but some of the most common ones include Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox.
Uses of Web Browser
The following are some important uses of web browser:
1. By using a web browser you can browse (or navigate ) all the websites and get all information you want.
2. By using a web browser you can exchange emails.
3. By using a web browser you can chat with someone by text message
4. By using a web browser you can see any kind of video you are looking for.
web browser works by retrieving resources from a web server and displaying them on your computer screen. These resources, mostly web pages, are identified by URLs and include text, images, videos, and other content. Web browsers use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to request these web pages and display them to you.
Web browsers function by translating Hypertext markup language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) code into a viewable web page. The browser fetches this code from a web server, interprets it, and creates a visible web page on the screen of your device.
- UI and UX are the concepts that work parallelly to make a website, service, or any software product. UI (user interface) relates to the visual properties of a product, which includes the look, feel, design, and structure of all the elements to interact with.
- Whereas UX (user experience) implies the behavioral properties of the UI and, more precisely, sets how a user can interact with your product and makes them feel them by using it. But they are depending upon each other. The absence of one of them will make th
- The first web browser ever
- Launched in 1990
- It was later named “Nexus” to avoid any confusion with the World Wide Web
- Had the very basic features and less interactive in terms of graphical interface
- Did not have the feature of bookmark
2. Mosaic
- It was launched in 1993
- The second web browser which was launched
- Had a better graphical interface. Images, text and graphics could all be integrated
- It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
- The team which was responsible for creating Mosaic was lead by Marc Andreessen
- It was named “the world’s first popular browser”
3. Netscape Navigator
- It was released in 1994
- In the 1990s, it was the dominant browser in terms of usage share
- More versions of this browser were launched by Netscape
- It had an advanced licensing scheme and allowed free usage for non-commercial purposes
4. Internet Explorer
- It was launched in 1995 by Microsoft
- By 2003, it has attained almost 95% of usage share and had become the most popular browsers of all
- Close to 10 versions of Internet Explorer were released by Microsoft and were updated gradually
- It was included in the Microsoft Windows operating system
- In 2015, it was replaced with “Microsoft Edge”, as it became the default browser on Windows 10
5. Firefox
- It was introduced in 2002 and was developed by Mozilla Foundation
- Firefox overtook the usage share from Internet Explorer and became the dominant browser during 2003-04
- Location-aware browsing was made available with Firefox
- This browser was also made available for mobile phones, tablets, etc.
6. Google Chrome
- It was launched in 2008 by Google
- It is a cross-platform web browser
- Multiple features from old browsers were amalgamated to form better and newer features
- To save computers from malware, Google developed the ad-blocking feature to keep the user data safe and secure
- Incognito mode is provided where private searching is available where no cookies or history is saved
- Till date, it has the best user interface
Functions of Web Browser
Our dependency on the Internet has massively increased. Stated below are functions of web browsers and how are they useful:
- The main function is to retrieve information from the World Wide Web and making it available for users
- Visiting any website can be done using a web browser. When a URL is entered in a browser, the web server takes us to that website
- To run Java applets and flash content, plugins are available on the web browser
- It makes Internet surfing easy as once we reach a website we can easily check the hyperlinks and get more and more useful data online
- Browsers user internal cache which gets stored and the user can open the same webpage time and again without losing extra data
- Multiple webpages can be opened at the same time on a web browser
- Options like back, forward, reload, stop reload, home, etc. are available on these web browsers, which make using them easy and convenient
Some of the benefits of using a web browser:
1. If any programmer wants to develop a program then the programmer can easily test his/her program on the internet.
2.Now a day you can store data on the internet by using a web browser.
3. Today’s web browser provides many facilities where you can download any file in any folder you want with the help of today’s web browser.
4. By using a web browser, the ability to reach anyone in the world became easy. Now you can easily reach a person sitting in America from any remote part of India.
5. Today’s web browser is safer to use and protect your device from the viruses ( especially opera )
6. Web browsers are very easy to use and you can easily download web browsers and you can maintain them easily.7. web browsers are available for 24/7 use and we can use them whenever we want.
Web browsers can take your privacy away as there is the possibility of hacking so hackers can know all the things you do on the internet and can misuse your private information.
Kids also can see any type of content by using a web browser and there is an abundance of adult and violent content which is not good for kids.
Using a web browser for a long time can harm your eyes and brain, a study shows that it affects your concentration power and also decreases your patience.
To work on the internet you have to sit for a long time which increases your obesity.
- Microsoft Edge. Best web browser if you need clear privacy tools. ...
- Mozilla Firefox. The best web browser for power users and privacy protection. ...
- Opera. Best web browser for collecting content. ...
- Google Chrome. Best all-round web browser. ...
- Vivaldi.
A web browser consists of several features which provide a user-friendly environment in a browser. Some of the features are listed below:
- Home Page: Whenever we open a browser, the first web page which loads is called the home page. Although the home page of a browser has some default setting, it can be changed according to user’s preference.
- Address (URL) Bar: The URL of the website that has to be accessed is entered here. Through this bar user can access different websites or search anything on browser.
- Navigation Buttons: Using the forward and backward buttons user can revisit previously opened web pages. These buttons provide convenience to retrieve data previously accessed.
- History: If you visited a website and want to revisit it after a few days but have forgotten the address of website then don’t worry as every browser has a history where it collects all previously visited data. This is a very handy feature to revisit websites.
- Bookmark: This feature helps in quickly accessing websites. If you come across some important web page you can always bookmark it for easy access in future.
- Refresh Button: The refresh button reloads the page and shows updates if any.
- Home Button: It brings the user to home page which can be set by user.
- Tabbed Browsing: Using this feature a user can open multiple web pages in the same web browser so that they can easily switch between them.
- Extensions: Extensions or plugins (like AdBlock) can be installed by the user. These extensions help in improving functionality of web browsers.
These are some of the basic features you will find in most of the browsers.
Features | Google Chrome | Mozilla Firefox | Microsoft Edge | Safari | Opera | Brave |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Developer | Mozilla Foundation | Microsoft | Apple | Opera Software | Brave Software | |
Performance | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast |
Customization | Moderate | High | Moderate | Low | High | Moderate |
Built-in Ad Blocker | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Security Features | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good |
Privacy Focus | Basic | Strong | Strong | Moderate | Moderate | Strong |
Ans : Instead of searching web pages repeatedly to gather information from different websites, Multiple web pages can be opened simultaneously to save time. Thankfully there are many ways available to open multiple web pages.
Some of the ways are listed below-
1 Using the bookmark method in google chrome
Open all those websites you want to open
Now press CTRL+Shift+D on your keyboard to add those websites to a bookmark.
Enter the name of your choice and then choose the bookmark bar and tap to save.
Now you will see a folder of bookmarks you have just created.
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- Mozilla. 2000. Gecko:Overview - MozillaWiki. (2000). https://wiki.mozilla.org/Gecko:Overview
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