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DELETED BY fpk_v3nn0m@yahoo.com // [FPK].VeNoM.Ak47 && [FPK]Ramon
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2012}}
[[File:Usage share of web browsers (Source StatCounter).svg|thumb|[[Usage share of web browsers]] according to [[StatCounter]].]]
{{internet}}
A '''web browser''' (commonly referred to as a '''browser''') is a [[software application]] for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the [[World Wide Web]]. An ''information resource'' is identified by a [[Uniform Resource Identifier]] (URI/URL) and may be a [[web page]], image, video or other piece of content.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#id-resources
|title=URI/Resource Relationships
|work=Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One
|last=Jacobs
|first=Ian
|author2=Walsh, Norman
|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]
|date=15 December 2004
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref> [[Hyperlinks]] present in resources enable users easily to navigate their [[browse]]rs to related resources.
Although browsers are primarily intended to use the World Wide Web, they can also be used to access information provided by [[web servers]] in [[private networks]] or files in [[file systems]].
<!-- The examples below are listed alphabetically. Please keep them that way. -->
The major web browsers are [[Firefox]], [[Internet Explorer]], [[Google Chrome]], [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]], and [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Fitzpatrick|first1=Jason|title=Five Best Web Browsers|url=http://lifehacker.com/5178564/five-best-web-browsers|website=[[Lifehacker]]|publisher=[[Gawker Media]]|date=22 March 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Wayner|first1=Peter|title=Battle of the Web browsers|url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/2623985/applications/battle-of-the-web-browsers.html|website=[[Infoworld]]|publisher=[[IDG]]|date=27 April 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Tibken|first1=Shara|title=Aereo TV streaming expands to major Web browsers|url=http://www.cnet.com/news/aereo-tv-streaming-expands-to-major-web-browsers/|website=[[CNET]]|publisher=[[CBS Interactive]]|date=17 October 2012}}</ref>
==History==
{{main|History of the web browser}}
The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir [[Tim Berners-Lee]]. It was called [[WorldWideWeb]] and was later renamed Nexus.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html |title=Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb, the first Web client |publisher=W3.org |accessdate=2011-12-07}}</ref> The first commonly available web browser with a graphical user interface was [[Erwise]]. The development of Erwise was initiated by [[Robert Cailliau]].
[[File:Marc Andreessen.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Marc Andreessen]], inventor of Netscape]]
In 1993, browser software was further innovated by [[Marc Andreessen]] with the release of [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]], "the world's first popular browser",<ref name="bloomberg">{{cite news|url=http://www.bloomberg.com/video/67758394 |title=Bloomberg Game Changers: Marc Andreessen |publisher=Bloomberg |date=17 March 2011 |accessdate=2011-12-07}}</ref> which made the World Wide Web system easy to use and more accessible to the average person. Andreesen's browser sparked the internet boom of the 1990s.<ref name="bloomberg" /> The introduction of Mosaic in 1993 – one of the first graphical web browsers – led to an explosion in web use. Andreessen, the leader of the Mosaic team at NCSA, soon started his own company, named [[Netscape]], and released the Mosaic-influenced [[Netscape Navigator]] in 1994, which quickly became the world's most popular browser, accounting for 90% of all web use at its peak (see [[usage share of web browsers]]).
[[Microsoft]] responded with its [[Internet Explorer]] in 1995, also heavily influenced by Mosaic, initiating the industry's first [[browser war]]. Bundled with [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], Internet Explorer gained dominance in the web browser market; Internet Explorer usage share peaked at over 95% by 2002.<ref name="searchenginejournal.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.searchenginejournal.com/mozilla-firefox-internet-browser-market-share-gains-to-74/1082/ |title=Mozilla Firefox Internet Browser Market Share Gains to 7.4% |publisher=Search Engine Journal |date=24 November 2004 |accessdate=2011-12-07}}</ref>
[[File:WorldWideWeb FSF GNU.png|thumb|[[WorldWideWeb]] for [[NeXT]], released in 1991, was the first web browser.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_browse.htm|title=Web Browser History|last=Stewart|first=William|accessdate = 5 May 2009}}</ref>]]
[[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] debuted in 1996; it has never achieved widespread use, having less than 2% browser usage share as of February 2012 according to Net Applications.<ref name="browsershare" /> Its Opera-mini version has an additive share, in April 2011 amounting to 1.1% of overall browser use, but focused on the fast-growing mobile phone web browser market, being preinstalled on over 40 million phones. It is also available on several other [[embedded system]]s, including [[Nintendo]]'s [[Wii]] video game console.
In 1998, Netscape launched what was to become the [[Mozilla Foundation]] in an attempt to produce a competitive browser using the [[open source]] software model. That browser would eventually evolve into [[Firefox]], which developed a respectable following while still in the [[beta (software)|beta]] stage of development; shortly after the release of Firefox 1.0 in late 2004, Firefox (all versions) accounted for 7% of browser use.<ref name="searchenginejournal.com" /> As of August 2011, Firefox has a 28% usage share.<ref name="browsershare">http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201108-201108-bar</ref>
[[Apple inc.|Apple]]'s [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]] had its first beta release in January 2003; as of April 2011, it had a dominant share of Apple-based web [[browsing]], accounting for just over 7% of the entire browser market.<ref name="browsershare" />
The most recent major entrant to the browser market is [[Google Chrome|Chrome]], first released in September 2008. Chrome's take-up has increased significantly year by year, by doubling its usage share from 8% to 16% by August 2011. This increase seems largely to be at the expense of Internet Explorer, whose share has tended to decrease from month to month.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/internet-explorer-usage-to-plummet-below-50-percent-by-mid-2012/attachment/net-applications-browser-market/ |title=Internet Explorer usage to plummet below 50 percent by mid-2012 |date=3 September 2011 |accessdate=4 September 2011}}</ref> In December 2011, Chrome overtook [[Internet Explorer 8]] as the most widely used web browser but still had lower usage than all versions of Internet Explorer combined.<ref>{{cite news
|url=http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/16/technology/chrome_internet_explorer/?source=cnn_bin
|title=CNN Money claims that Chrome is more popular than IE8
|publisher=CNN
|accessdate=19 December 2011
|date=16 December 2011
}}</ref> Chrome's user-base continued to grow and in May 2012, Chrome's usage passed the usage of all versions of Internet Explorer combined.<ref name="ChromePassesIE">http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201204-201205</ref> By April 2014, Chrome's usage had hit 45%.<ref name="browserShare2014">http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201404-201404-bar</ref>
==Business models==
{{refimprove|section|date=January 2014}}
The ways that web browser makers fund their development costs has changed over time. The first web browser, WorldWideWeb, was a research project. Netscape Navigator was originally sold commercially, as was Opera; Netscape no longer exists and has been replaced with the free Firefox, while Opera is now downloadable free of charge.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand, was from its first release always included with the Windows operating system (and furthermore was downloadable for no extra charge), and therefore it was funded partly by the sales of Windows to computer manufacturers and direct to users. Internet Explorer also used to be available for the Mac. It is likely that releasing IE for the Mac was part of Microsoft's overall strategy to fight threats to its quasi-monopoly platform dominance - threats such as web standards and Java - by making some web developers, or at least their managers, assume that there was "no need" to develop for anything other than Internet Explorer (an assumption that later proved to be badly mistaken, with the rise of Firefox and Chrome). In this respect, IE may have contributed to Windows and Microsoft applications sales in another way, through tricking organisations into inadvertent "[[Lock-in (decision-making)|lock-in]]" into the Microsoft platform.
Safari and Mobile Safari were likewise always included with OS X and iOS respectively, so, similarly, they were originally funded by sales of Apple computers and mobile devices, and formed part of the overall Apple experience to customers.
Today, most commercial web browsers are paid by search engine companies to make the search engine their default search engine (the most valuable prize) or to include them as another option. For example, Google pays [[Mozilla Corporation|Mozilla]], the maker of Firefox, to make Google Search the default search engine in Firefox. Mozilla makes so much money from this deal that it does not need to charge users for Firefox. The reason search engine companies are willing to pay for such deals is that such decisions drive traffic their way, increasing ad revenue. As of 2013, Google's search ad revenue is still a very important source of revenue. Google probably does not "pay itself" to make Google Search the default search engine in Google Chrome, but regardless, it derives ad revenue from that choice, so that indirectly funds the development of Google Chrome.
Many less-well-known [[free software]] browsers, such as [[Konqueror]], were hardly funded at all and were developed mostly by volunteers free of charge.
==Function==
The primary purpose of a web browser is to bring information resources to the user ("retrieval" or "fetching"), allowing them to view the information ("display", "rendering"), and then access other information ("navigation", "following links").
This process begins when the user inputs a [[Uniform Resource Locator]] (URL), for example ''<nowiki>http://en.wikipedia.org/</nowiki>'', into the browser. The prefix of the URL, the Uniform Resource Identifier or [[URI]], determines how the URL will be interpreted. The most commonly used kind of URI starts with ''http:'' and identifies a resource to be retrieved over the [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol]] (HTTP).<ref>{{cite web | title = Browser Information | publisher = DBF | url = http://downloadbrowserfree.com/ | accessdate = 2012-06-07}}</ref> Many browsers also support a variety of other prefixes, such as ''https:'' for [[HTTPS]], ''ftp:'' for the [[File Transfer Protocol]], and ''file:'' for [[computer file|local files]]. Prefixes that the web browser cannot directly handle are often handed off to another application entirely. For example, ''mailto:'' URIs are usually passed to the user's default e-mail application, and ''news:'' URIs are passed to the user's default newsgroup reader.
In the case of ''http'', ''https'', ''file'', and others, once the resource has been retrieved the web browser will display it. [[HTML]] and associated content (image files, formatting information such as [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]], etc.) is passed to the browser's [[layout engine]] to be transformed from [[markup language|markup]] to an interactive document, a process known as "rendering". Aside from HTML, web browsers can generally display any kind of content that can be part of a web page. Most browsers can display images, audio, video, and [[XML]] files, and often have [[Plug-in (computing)|plug-ins]] to support [[Adobe Flash|Flash]] applications and [[Java applets]]. Upon encountering a file of an unsupported type or a file that is set up to be downloaded rather than displayed, the browser prompts the user to save the file to disk.
Information resources may contain [[hyperlinks]] to other information resources. Each link contains the URI of a resource to go to. When a link is clicked, the browser navigates to the resource indicated by the link's target URI, and the process of bringing content to the user begins again.
==Features==
{{details|Comparison of web browsers}}
Available web browsers range in features from minimal, text-based user interfaces with bare-bones support for HTML to rich user interfaces supporting a wide variety of file formats and protocols. Browsers which include additional components to support e-mail, [[Usenet]] news, and [[Internet Relay Chat]] (IRC), are sometimes referred to as "[[Internet suites]]" rather than merely "web browsers".<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
|title=The SeaMonkey Project
|publisher=[[Mozilla Foundation]]
|date=7 November 2008
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.cyberdog.org/
|title=Cyberdog: Welcome to the 'doghouse!
|date=5 July 2009
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/internet.htm
|title=Interesting DOS programs
|author=Teelucksingh, Dev Anand
|publisher=Opus Networkx
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref>
All major web browsers allow the user to open multiple information resources at the same time, either in different browser windows or in different [[Tabbed document interface|tabs]] of the same window. Major browsers also include [[pop-up blockers]] to prevent unwanted windows from "popping up" without the user's consent.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457150.aspx#EEAA
|title=Part 5: Enhanced Browsing Security
|work=Changes to Functionality in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
|last=Andersen
|first=Starr
|author2=Abella, Vincent
|publisher=[[Microsoft]]
|date=15 September 2004
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Pop-up+blocker
|title=Pop-up blocker
|publisher=[[Mozilla Foundation]]
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.mactipsandtricks.com/tips/display.lasso?mactip=137
|title=Safari: Using The Pop-Up Blocker
|work=Mac Tips and Tricks
|publisher=WeHostMacs
|year=2004
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/settings/#tabs
|title=Simple settings
|work=Opera Tutorials
|publisher=[[Opera Software]]
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref>
Most web browsers can display a list of web pages that the user has ''[[bookmark (World Wide Web)|bookmarked]]'' so that the user can quickly return to them. Bookmarks are also called "Favorites" in [[Internet Explorer]]. In addition, all major web browsers have some form of built-in [[web feed]] [[News aggregator|aggregator]]. In [[Firefox]], web feeds are formatted as "live bookmarks" and behave like a folder of bookmarks corresponding to recent entries in the feed.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://johnbokma.com/firefox/rss-and-live-bookmarks.html
|title=Mozilla Firefox: RSS and Live Bookmarks
|last=Bokma
|first=John
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref> In [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]], a more traditional feed reader is included which stores and displays the contents of the feed.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.opera.com/mail/rss/
|title=RSS newsfeeds in Opera Mail
|publisher=[[Opera Software]]
|accessdate=30 June 2009
}}</ref>
Furthermore, most browsers can be extended via [[Browser extension|plug-ins]], downloadable components that provide additional features.
===User interface===
[[File:LG Smart TV web browser.jpg|thumb|right|Some home media devices now include web browsers, like this [[LG Electronics#Smart TVs and apps|LG Smart TV]]. The browser is controlled using an on-screen keyboard and LG's "Magic Motion" remote.]]
Most major web browsers have these user interface elements in common:<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.about-the-web.com/shtml/browsers.shtml
|title=About Browsers and their Features
|publisher=SpiritWorks Software Development
|accessdate=5 May 2009
}}</ref>
* ''Back'' and ''forward'' buttons to go back to the previous resource and forward respectively.
* A ''refresh'' or ''reload'' button to reload the current resource.
* A ''stop'' button to cancel loading the resource. In some browsers, the stop button is merged with the reload button.
* A ''home'' button to return to the user's [[home page]].
* An [[address bar]] to input the [[Uniform Resource Identifier]] (URI) of the desired resource and display it.
* A search bar to input terms into a [[search engine]]. In some browsers, the search bar is merged with the address bar.
* A [[status bar]] to display progress in loading the resource and also the URI of links when the cursor hovers over them, and [[page zooming]] capability.
* The ''viewport'', the visible area of the webpage within the browser window.
* The ability to view the [[HTML]] source for a page.
Major browsers also possess [[incremental find]] features to search within a web page.
===Privacy and security===
{{main|Browser security}}
Most browsers support [[HTTP Secure]] and offer quick and easy ways to delete the web cache, [[HTTP cookie|cookies]], and browsing history. For a comparison of the current security vulnerabilities of browsers, see [[Comparison of web browsers#Vulnerabilities|comparison of web browsers]].
===Standards support===
Early web browsers supported only a very simple version of HTML. The rapid development of proprietary web browsers led to the development of non-standard dialects of HTML, leading to problems with interoperability. Modern web browsers support a combination of [[W3C standards#Standards|standards]]-based and ''de facto'' HTML and [[XHTML]], which should be rendered in the same way by all browsers.
===Extensibility===
A [[browser extension]] is a computer program that extends the functionality of a web browser. Every major web browser supports the development of browser extensions.
==Components==
Web browsers are built of User Interface, Layout Engine, Rendering Engine, JavaScript interpreter, UI backend, Networking component and Data persistence component. These components achieve different functionalities of a web browser and together provide all capabilities of a web browser.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm
|title=Behind the scenes of modern web browsers
|publisher=[[Tali Garsiel]]
|accessdate=12 October 2013
}}</ref>
==See also==
{{Portal|Internet|Software}}
* [[Geobrowsing]]
* [[Internet OS]]
* [[List of web browsers]]
* [[Mobile browser]]
* [[Timeline of web browsers]]
* [[Web browser history]]
* [[Web browser engine|Web browser (layout) engine]]s
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==External links==
{{Wikiversity | Web Browser}}
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/ Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One]
* [http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project]
* [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowserswork/ How Browsers Work: Behind the scenes of modern web browsers]
{{Web browsers}}
{{Early web browsers}}
<!--Interwikies-->
[[Category:Web browsers| ]]
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