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[[Image:Stockxchng_internet_browsers.jpg|right|250px|Web browsers on an Apple Computer]] |
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A '''web browser''' is a [[software]] package that enables a user to display and interact with documents hosted by [[web server]]s. Popular browsers include [[Microsoft]] [[Internet Explorer]] and [[Mozilla]] [[Mozilla Firefox|Firefox]]. A browser is the most commonly used kind of [[user agent]]. The largest networked collection of linked documents is known as the [[World Wide Web]]. |
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==Protocols and standards== |
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Web browsers communicate with [[web server]]s primarily using the [[HTTP]] protocol to fetch [[webpage|web page]]s identified by their [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]] (''http:''). HTTP allows web browsers to submit information to web servers as well as fetch web pages from them. As of writing, the most commonly used HTTP is HTTP/1.1, which is fully defined in [[Request_for_Comments|RFC]] 2616. HTTP/1.1 has its own required standards, and these standards are not fully supported by Internet Explorer, but most other current-generation web browsers do. The [[file format]] for a web page is usually [[HTML]] and is identified in the HTTP protocol using a [[MIME]] ''content type''. Most browsers natively support a variety of formats in addition to HTML, such as the [[JPEG]], [[PNG]] and [[GIF]] image formats, and can be extended to support more through the use of [[plugin]]s. Many browsers also support a variety of other URL types and their corresponding protocols, such as ''ftp:'' for [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]], ''gopher:'' for [[Gopher protocol|Gopher]], and ''https:'' for [[HTTPS]] (an [[Transport Layer Security|SSL]] encrypted version of HTTP). The combination of HTTP ''content type'' and URL protocol specification allows web page designers to embed images, animations, video, sound, and [[streaming media]] into a web page, or to make them accessible through the web page. |
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Early web browsers supported only a very simple version of HTML. The rapid development of proprietary web browsers (see [[Browser Wars]]) led to the development of non-standard dialects of HTML, leading to problems with Web interoperability. Modern web browsers ([[Mozilla]], [[Opera browser|Opera]], and [[Safari (browser)|Safari]]) support standards-based HTML and [[XHTML]] (starting with HTML 4.01), which should display in the same way across all browsers. [[Internet Explorer]] does not fully support XHTML 1.0 or 1.1 yet. Right now, many sites are designed using [[WYSIWYG]] HTML generation programs such as [[Macromedia Dreamweaver]] or [[Microsoft Frontpage]], and these generally use invalid HTML in the first place, thus hindering the work of the [[World Wide Web Consortium|W3C]] in developing standards, specifically with XHTML and [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]]. |
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Some of the more popular browsers include additional components to support [[Usenet]] news, [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]], and [[e-mail]] via the [[Network News Transfer Protocol|NNTP]], [[Simple Mail Transfer Protocol|SMTP]], [[Internet Message Access Protocol|IMAP]], and [[Post Office Protocol|POP]] protocols. |
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==Brief history== |
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[[Tim Berners-Lee]], who pioneered the use of [[hypertext]] for sharing information, created the first web browser, named [[WorldWideWeb]], in 1990 and introduced it to colleagues at [[CERN]] in March [[1991]]. Since then the development of web browsers has been inseparably intertwined with the development of the web itself. |
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The explosion in popularity of the web was triggered by [[Mosaic (browser)|NCSA Mosaic]] which was a graphical browser running originally on [[Unix]] but soon ported to the [[Apple Macintosh]] and [[Microsoft Windows]] platforms. Version 1.0 was released in September 1993. [[Marc Andreesen]], who was the leader of the Mosaic team at NCSA, quit to form a company that would later be known as [[Netscape Communications Corporation]]. |
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Netscape released its flagship [[Netscape Navigator|Navigator]] product in October 1994, and it took off the next year. [[Microsoft]], which had so far missed the Internet wave, now entered the fray with its [[Internet Explorer]] product, hastily purchased from [[Spyglass]] Inc. |
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This began the ''[[browser wars]]'', the fight for the web browser market between the software giant Microsoft and the [[start-up]] company largely responsible for popularizing the World Wide Web, Netscape. |
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The wars put the web in the hands of millions of ordinary PC users, but showed how commercialization of the internet could ruin standards efforts. Both Microsoft and Netscape liberally incorporated proprietary extensions to HTML in their products, and tried to gain an edge by product differentiation. The wars ended in 1998 when it became clear that Netscape's declining marketshare trend was irreversible. This was in part due to Microsoft's integrating its browser with its operating system and bundling deals with [[Original equipment manufacturer|OEM]]s; the company faced [[antitrust]] litigation on these charges. |
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Netscape responded by open sourcing its product, creating [[Mozilla]]. This did nothing to slow Netscape's declining marketshare. The company was purchased by [[America Online]] in late 1998. Mozilla has since evolved into a stable and powerful browser suite with a small but steady marketshare. |
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[[Opera (browser)|Opera]], a speedy browser popular in handheld devices and in some countries was released in 1996 and remains a niche player in the PC web browser market. |
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The [[Lynx (browser)|Lynx browser]] remains popular in the [[Linux]] market and with vision impaired users due to its entirely text-based nature. There are also several text-mode browsers with advanced features, such as [[Links (browser)|links]] and its [[Fork (software)|forks]] (Elinks is the most popular). |
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While the Macintosh scene too has traditionally been dominated by Internet Explorer and Netscape, the future appears to belong to [[Apple Computer|Apple]]'s [[Safari (browser)|Safari]] which is based on the [[KHTML]] rendering engine of the open source [[Konqueror]] browser. Safari is the default browser on [[Mac OS X]]. |
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In 2003, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer would no longer be made available as a separate product but would be part of the evolution of its Windows platform, and that no more releases for the Macintosh would be made. |
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== Web and web browser features == |
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Different browsers can be distinguished from each other by the features they support. Modern browsers and web pages tend to utilise many features and techniques that did not exist in the early days of the web. As noted earlier, with the browser wars there was a rapid and chaotic expansion of browser and [[World Wide Web]] feature sets. |
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The following is a list of some of these elements and features: |
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*[[ActiveX]] |
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*[[Ad filtering]] |
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*[[Autocompletion]] of URLs and form data |
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*[[Bookmarks]] for keeping track of frequently accessed locations |
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*[[Cascading Style Sheets]] |
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*[[HTTP cookie|Cookie]]s which enable a website to track a returning user |
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*[[Web cache|Caching]] of web content |
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*[[Digital certificate]]s |
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*[[Download]] management |
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*[[DHTML]] |
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*Embedded images using established [[Graphics file format|graphics file formats]] such as [[GIF]], [[PNG]], [[JPEG]], [[SVG]] |
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*[[Macromedia Flash|Flash]] |
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*[[Favicon]]s |
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*[[Typeface|Fonts]], size, color |
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*Forms for submitting information |
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*[[HTML_element#Frames|Frame]]s and IFrames |
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*History of recently visited pages |
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*[[HTTPS]] |
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*[[Image]] |
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*Integration with other desktop applications |
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*Offline browsing of cached content |
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*[[Java applet]] |
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*[[JavaScript]] for dynamic content |
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*[[Plug-in]]s |
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*[[Session management]] |
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*[[Tabbed Document Interface|Tabbed browsing]] |
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*[[HTML_element#Tables|Tables]] |
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*[[XHTML]] and [[XML]] |
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[[Opera (browser)|Opera]]'s "Small-Screen Rendering" is a special way to reformat [[webpage]]s to fit inside the small screen width of a [[smartphone]], thereby eliminating the need for horizontal [[scroll]]ing. |
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==Web browsers by market share== |
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The following data, obtained by onestat.com, shows the proportion of users using each of the popular web browsers. The data, collected in November 2004, was obtained by looking at the user agent string of 2,000,000 users visiting a variety of different websites from 100 countries. [http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox34.html] |
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''(It should be noted that these statistics cannot be relied upon as a 100% accurate reflection of actual usage, because of something called "[[User agent]] spoofing". Sometimes, non-IE browsers are configured to "lie" about their identification, in order to access sites that would otherwise block them. Therefore, it is likely that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is slightly less dominant than these numbers show)'' |
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:[[Microsoft]] [[Internet Explorer]]-based browsers: 88.9% (93.9% in May 2004[http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox30.html]) |
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::Version 6.0: 80.95% of total |
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::Version 5.5: 4.18% |
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::Version 5.0: 3.66% |
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:[[Mozilla]]-based browers (including newer versions of Netscape): 7.35% (2.1% in May 2004) |
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::Mozilla Firefox 0.10 (Preview of 1.0): 2.79% |
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::Mozilla 1.x: 2.77% |
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::Mozilla Firefox 1.0: 1.79% |
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:[[Opera (browser)|Opera]]: 1.33% |
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::Version 7.x: 1.29% |
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:[[Safari (browser)|Safari]]: 0.91% |
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:Other browsers: 1.51% |
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The dominance of Internet Explorer has started to decline with the introduction of the [[Mozilla Firefox|Firefox]] browser. Over the second half of [[2004]] Mozilla Firefox has been grabbing market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer at a rapid pace, nearly doubling its percentage of users in less than 6 months.[http://news.com.com/Study+Firefox+still+gaining+on+Internet+Explorer/2100-1032_3-5435176.html] |
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Usage statistics vary highly from site to site. For example Opera has almost 20% share on Russian and Norwegian Wikipedia. |
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==See also== |
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*[[List of web browsers]] |
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*[[Comparison of web browsers]] |
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*[[History of the Internet]] |
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*[[Browser exploit]] |
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*[[Browser-based software]] |
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*[[Accessibility]] |
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*[[Microbrowser]] |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/browsers.htm Browser timeline (1993-2001)] |
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* [http://browsers.evolt.org evolt.org - Browser Archive] |
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* [http://www.dejavu.org Deja Vu: (re-)creating web history] |
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* [http://livinginternet.com/?w/wi_browse.htm Web Browser History] |
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* [http://danvine.com/icapture iCapture - Safari "emulator"] |
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* [http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/ Viewable with Any Browser: Campaign] |
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* [http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html Macintosh Web Browsers] |
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* [http://www.aadmm.de MultiOS Browser Test] |
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* [http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp Browser statistics] |
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[[Category:Internet]][[Category:Web browsers]] |
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[[csb:Przezérnik internetowi]] |
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[[da:Webbrowser]] |
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[[de:Webbrowser]] |
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[[eo:TTT-legilo]] |
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[[es:Navegador web]] |
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[[et:Brauser]] |
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[[fi:Selain]] |
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[[fr:Navigateur Web]] |
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[[he:דפדפן]] |
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[[hr:Internet browser]] |
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[[hu:Webböngésző]] |
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[[ia:Navigator del web]] |
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[[id:Browser web]] |
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[[it:Browser]] |
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[[ja:Webブラウザ]] |
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[[ko:웹 브라우저]] |
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[[nds:Nettkieker]] |
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[[nl:Webbrowser]] |
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[[no:Nettleser]] |
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[[pl:Przeglądarka internetowa]] |
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[[pt:Navegador]] |
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[[ru:Веб-браузер]] |
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[[simple:Web browser]] |
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[[sv:Webbläsare]] |
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[[tr:Ağ tarayıcısı]] |
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[[uk:Веб-оглядач]] |
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[[minnan:Bāng-ia̍h liû-lám-khì]] |
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[[zh:网页浏览器]] |
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Revision as of 04:49, 3 January 2005
blah blah IE sux blah blah blah