Talk:Web browser: Difference between revisions
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As far as accuracy goes, I'm not sure that the first paragraph is correct. A web-browser can support more than just HTML files. It can directly display images, XML, plain text and more. Modern web-browsers are fully extensible. IE: Macromedia has a plugin for internet explorer and netscape navigator that allows the browser itself to render SWF files without having these files wrapped in an HTML file. And with non-HTTP protocals, the browser can act as a generic client, not a document-viewer. For example, IE5 and above can connect to an FTP server and allow the user to create folders, remove files, drag and drop files/folders to and from the server and so on with a graphical interface. Netscape and Mozilla have similar abilities. |
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I think a web browser can be more accurately described as an extensible network client and document editor/viewer specializing in the HTTP protocal and HTML document format. |
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Just my $0.02. |
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--[[User:Rlee0001|Rlee0001]] 16:02 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC) |
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:Well, if it does more than just that, then it's a program with web-browser-like capabilities, isn't it? --[[User:Colonel E|Colonel E]] 16:33, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC) |
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This is the first paragraph: "A '''Web browser''' is a piece of software that enables a user to retrieve and render HTML documents from Internet servers around the world. This network of documents is known as the World Wide Web." |
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In this paragraph, a web browser is defined in terms of what the web is, namely a network of HTML documents. |
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Just as one would not define an [[automobile]] in terms of what a car is <em>besides</em> an automotive vehicle, it could be argued that a web browser should be defined by its primary function, with other possible functions listed later on. |
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If something can browse HTML documents on the web, it is called a web browser. However, it is not necessary that a web browser can browse ftp sites: if it cannot, it is still called a web browser. |
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If we would redefine the term web browser as a tool that can do everything from the original definition plus browse ftp sites, then all tools that can browse web sites but cannot browse ftp sites would drop out of the definition of 'web browser', which IMO would be undesirable. |
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If you define the world wide web as a network of HTML and XHTML documents, then you could redefine a web browser as something that can browse (X)HTML documents on the web. |
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--[[user:Branko]] |
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== foo web browser== |
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Who's been moving pages on web browsers to pages like Opera web browser and Chimera web browser? That is not standard page naming convention. Use the simple name, and [[wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation]] parentheses if required. The current form requires users to type "...<nowiki>[[Opera web browser|Opera]]</nowiki>. Most of these should be at "foo (browser)". -- [[User:Tarquin|Tarquin]] 00:12 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC) |
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:And these can be simply linked to like this: <nowiki>[[Opera (browser)|]]</nowiki> (no space between the bar and the last brackets) in order to look like this: [[Opera (browser)|Opera]] (cute trick). |
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:: Indeed. That's the "pipe trick", fully documented on the FAQ & elsewhere. I'll be moving these back in a few days. -- [[User:Tarquin|Tarquin]] 10:39 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC) |
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----- |
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== Web browsers by market share == |
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There should be a note here that the user agent string does not |
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necessarily correlate to the actual browser version used, |
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for example the user can set Opera (and other browsers I'm sure) |
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to identify as Internet Explorer in order to overcome |
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poorly written web pages. This skews the statistics towards IE. -[[User:Wikibob|Wikibob]] | [[User talk:Wikibob|Talk]] 13:59, 2004 May 16 (UTC) |
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:This skew is probably less significant than rounding errors. To mention it may be to overstate its importance. [[User:Pcb21|Pete/Pcb21]] [[User_talk:Pcb21|(talk)]] 19:58, 16 May 2004 (UTC) |
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:: Absolutely not. It's almost absurd to give browser usage statistics with promille precision. See here: http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm --[[User:Ados|Ados]] 13:19, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) |
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:Wikibob, I added a "disclaimer" which I hope fits the bill. When I first saw this page the same thing immediately caught my eye.-[[User:Randyoo|Randyoo]] 22:54, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) |
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== Latest info from http://www.onestat.com/ as of May 28 2004 == |
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http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox30.html |
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The most popular browsers on the web are: |
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1. Microsoft IE 6.0 69.3% |
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2. Microsoft IE 5.5 12.9% |
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3. Microsoft IE 5.0 10.8% |
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4. Mozilla 2.1% |
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5. Opera 7.0 1.02% |
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6. Microsoft IE 4.0 0.6% |
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7. Safari 0.71% |
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Statistics like this are pointless without a date. As of March 2006 MS must dream of returning to such dominance! |
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== Popular browsers == |
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I amended the popular browsers bit to include the qualifier "on PCs". I do not think Internet Explorer is very widespread on mobiles, while even on pocket devices there are other browsers in use (not necessarily Firefox). |
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I think the opening statement is clearly written from the POV of looking at the PC situation (even if the PC situation accounts for most web browsers). |
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Does Opera have a greater role when one considers non-PC applications? Or what exactly is the situation on mobile platforms? |
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[[User:Zoney|'''zoney''']] <font size=+1 style="color:green;">♣</font> [[User talk:Zoney|'''talk''']] 14:43, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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:I am unable to find any Opera Mobile user share or even download stats. ~'''Linux'''erist [[User:Linuxerist|L]] / [[User talk:Linuxerist|T]] 04:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC) |
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== IE and HTTP 1.1 == |
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Does anyone know exactly what this sentence is referring to? ''HTTP/1.1 has its own required standards which Internet Explorer does not fully support, but most other current-generation web browsers do.'' I thought about reverting this when it first appeared a month or two ago as POV Microsoft bashing, but I don't actually know that it's not true (and I suspected there would be plenty of Microsoft apologists ready, willing, and able to defined IE's "good" name if the statement indeed was not true). It has survived several edits to this section of the article so I'm starting to suspect it IS true. Just curious. -- [[User:Rick Block|Rick Block]] 15:24, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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:I'm not sure either. I think I've heard something to that effect, and it wouldn't surprise me. I would just leave it there until someone can refute it. [[User:Zoney|'''zoney''']] <font size=+1 style="color:green;">♣</font> [[User talk:Zoney|'''talk''']] 16:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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::I found a related mention in the IE article (when in doubt, look it up in Wikipedia!) and I've included a link. -- [[User:Rick Block|Rick Block]] 20:50, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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== Link to Wikipedia's Browser Statistics == |
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Wouldn't it make sense to include a link to the browser statistic of wikipedia itself?--[[User:Hhielscher|Hhielscher]] 14:29, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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:The browser stats for any one site is really just trivia. If we link to browser stats, it should be to a stats source that attempts to get a representative sample of the web as a whole. Examples would be OneStat, TheCounter, or WebSideStory. [[User:Schapel|Schapel]] 16:22, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC) |
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::There is trivia in other pages as well |
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:::There are misspellings in other pages, too. Does that mean it's okay for this page to have misspellings? This seems like a [[logical fallacy]] to me. -- [[User:Schapel|Schapel]] 14:44, 6 May 2005 (UTC) |
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::Wikipedia is a popular site for an important web community. It really would be useful to have Wikipedia broswer stats. |
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== Wrong use of Internet / Internet Browser == |
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I affirm that there is no Internet Browser, the right expression is web browser! There are people who confuse Web and Internet (even MS has done so, by calling it's web browser Internet Explorer). For an encyclopedia it is important to use the right terms. I will try to clean up the article. |
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:I disagree. The name Internet Explorer implies that you will be able to explore the internet, it does not automatically mean that you'll be able to explore everything online, although the term www browser would be more specific! Google is a web search service, but it doesn't mean that the service have the ability to search through the whole world wide web (so it should probably come with a label saying partial www search)! [[User:Bjelleklang|bjelleklang]] 23:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC) |
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::But the issue isn't what MS calls its product. The issue is whether Wikipedia uses the correct terminology, which is "web browser", not "internet browser". So I agree with the original poster. --[[User:Bonalaw|Bonalaw]] 08:32, 6 October 2005 (UTC) |
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== Brief? History == |
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I don't think brief is the right word, since a large portion of the article is devoted to this history. I'm not sure whether we should just get rid of the word brief, or modify the article so that it is, in fact, brief. -[[User:Phantom784|Phantom784]] 23:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC) |
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== Only 4 web browsers in real world? == |
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I'll tell you what. some say there are only 4 web browsers in real world, which are IE, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror. |
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they say, this 4 only use their own rendering engine for now, |
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So, Nescape/Safari/Avant browser/Maxthon/Slim browser or anything are not the original or real web browser. |
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What do you think? |
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:Dillo and Amaya have different engines, that have a good amount of features. Also, Konqueror is Mozilla based. ~'''Linux'''erist [[User:Linuxerist|L]] / [[User talk:Linuxerist|T]] 19:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC) |
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== HTTP cookie == |
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I have submitted the article [[HTTP cookie]] for peer review (I am posting this notice here as this article is related). Comments are welcome here: [[Wikipedia:Peer review/HTTP cookie]]. Thanks. - [[User:Paolo Liberatore|Liberatore]]([[User talk:Paolo Liberatore|T]]) 16:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC) |
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== Proposal to merge == |
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I don't see why this article should be merged with [[Comparison of web browsers]]. Both are long articles and it seems like a justfied split to me. I'm interested in hearing the reasoning for the merging. I apologize if I have missed any disscussion about it. [[user:Jeltz|Jeltz]] [[user talk:Jeltz|<small>talk</small>]] 18:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC) |
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I agree, it certainly deserves to be its own article. There is also plenty of precedent. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=comparison+of&go=Go this search] for examples. --[[User:WedgeTalon|Wedge Talon]] 22:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:Would an encyclopedia include a separate article titled ''Comparison of Web Browsers''? If not, that article shouldn't exist. Rather than simply delete that article, I propose merging the data in that article into this one. If you plan to argue that an enecyclopedia would have an article titled like that, you should probaly be prepared to back it up with ''non-Wiki'' examples. -- [[User:Schapel|Schapel]] 15:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC) |
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::I think that the right way for this is to put it on [[WP:AFD]]. I don't think that the question here isn't about mergin two articles into one. It is about deleting an article. Almost everything in the comparison would need to be deleted to not make the merged artcicle ridiculously huge. I'm neutral about if Wikipedia should include articles like ''Comparison of Web Browsers'' so I think that the best course of action would be to ask people on Wikipedia if we should have this kind of articles or not. It's not the only one of its kind. [[user:Jeltz|Jeltz]] [[user talk:Jeltz|<small>talk</small>]] 21:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC) |
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'''No''' This artical is targeted a lot (mostly for making a "[[WP:POINT]]") and they all get tagged with a nice "[[WP:SNOW]]" resolution slapped on them. This artical has seen hell the past few weeks from a proposal to delete, to a proposal to merge with other articles. Lots of good points raised why it should be left alone by an overwhelming majority in all those discussions. I know, this one seems the most legit but please leave it alone for a while. All tell you what, if you leave it alone, I will send you all a coupon for a free cookie at subway. --[[User:ZacBowling|ZacBowling]] 20:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC) |
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:I see. I didn't know about the previous history of this article. Then I'm against putting it on AFD or merging it. [[user:Jeltz|Jeltz]] [[user talk:Jeltz|<small>talk</small>]] 13:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC) |
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'''I don't think the merge is a good idea''', the resulting article would be huge. Regardless of the history of the article, there are [http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=Comparison&namespace=0 a large number of "Comparison of" articles] on Wikipedia, there's strong precedent for this kind of thing. While a page full of tables may not be the most encyclopedic of articles, the fact that a) it's useful information that increases the repution of Wikimedia [http://digg.com/software/Wikipedia_s_Comparison_Of_Web_Browsers_], b) it has a large number of relevant links to other encyclopedia articles, and c) it's GPLD'd, means that it should be hosted on at least ''some'' wikimedia server. If it really needs to be deleted from Wikipedia (which it probably shouldn't), it should at least be moved to wikibooks or something. --[[User:Interiot|Interiot]] 19:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC) |
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'''-1 for merge!''' The resulting article would be too long. Moreover it's very common to have "Comparisons of foo". |
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--[[User:83.171.170.56|83.171.170.56]] 14:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC) |
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==Possible New Image== |
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*I don't know what you all would think of the quality, but I made [[:Image:Web browser.png]] which could possibly used for the main image. Stock Exchange images have gone through so many problems here, I think we should not use them as often as possible. ~'''Linux'''erist [[User:Linuxerist|L]] / [[User talk:Linuxerist|T]] 19:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 07:33, 24 April 2006
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