The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. The home page is an index to other pages on that site that you can jump to by clicking an underlined hyperlink or an icon. Links on that site may take you to other related sites.
Bookmarks
Browsers have a Bookmark or Favorites feature that lets you store references to your favorite sites. Instead of having to type in the URL to visit the site again, you select the bookmark.
It Started with Mosaic
The Mosaic browser put the Web on the map in 1993, but by the mid-1990s, Netscape Navigator (commonly called "Netscape") had 80% of the market. Vying for top spot, Netscape and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) constantly added new features and functions that fragmented Web sites into competing camps.
As of mid-2008, IE, which is included with every Windows PC, has approximately 74% of the market, while Firefox has 18%. Safari comes in third with 6%, and Opera and Netscape each have less than 1%. Google entered the Web browser arena in late 2008 and is expected to grab a fair share (see
Google Chrome).
Best Viewed By...
In the early days of the Web, there was a feature battle, and sites would often say "best viewed by Netscape" or "best viewed by Internet Explorer." This notice is rarely seen today as all browsers support standards that render most Web pages the same. See
Mosaic,
Opera,
Firefox,
Mozilla,
Safari,
Google Chrome,
Maxthon,
hyperlink,
World Wide Web,
HTML and
microbrowser.
The Most Well Known
Internet Explorer and Netscape are the two major browsers used to access the Web. Similar in features and function, each new version includes enhancements that the other generally catches up to in its next release. (Web page examples courtesy of Pyramid Studios, www.artistexpo.com)
There Are Others
Opera is a highly respected Web browser from Norway that offers many unique features, including the ability to magnify the image as shown here (see
Opera).
(Web page example courtesy of Pyramid Studios, www.artistexpo.com)
