Web browser

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.

Communication between the web server and the browser uses primarily the HTTP protocol. Most browsers also support other protocols, such as FTP, Gopher, and HTTPS (a SSL encrypted version of HTTP). Web browsers are able to retrieve documents stored in other file formats or in streams using these other protocols, but also using HTTP. This allows the author to embed images, animations, video and sound into a web page, or to make them accessible through the web page.

Some of the more popular browsers include additional components to support Usenet news and e-mail via the NNTP, IMAP and POP protocols. Most web browsers have the ability to save a file of bookmarks for sites you have or will want to visit often.

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 Web interoperability. Modern web browsers (such as Mozilla, Opera, and recent versions of Internet Explorer) support standards-based HTML and XHTML (starting with HTML 4.01), which should display in the same way across all browsers.

Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first web browser, named WorldWideWeb, on February 26, 1991.

Web and Web browser features

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. Competition between Netscape and Microsoft for browser market-share in the mid 1990s helped oversee a rapid and chaotic expansion of browser and World Wide Web feature sets. The following is a list of some of these elements and features:

• Tables[?] (HTML 3.02) and table color
• Frames and I-Frames[?]
• Plug-ins
• Java
• JavaScript
• Fonts (size, color) and cascading style sheets
• DHTML and XML
• Graphics file formats such as JPEG, GIF, BMP

There are other features which were developed in later times, and are more specific to browsers than the Web:

• More modern graphics formats like PNG and SVG
• Session management[?]
• Tabbed browsing[?]

Examples of web browsers

• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla
  • newer versions of Netscape Navigator (Netscape 6 and newer)
  • Beonex
  • Firebird (was Phoenix)
  • IBM Web Browser for OS/2
  • Aphrodite
  • Galeon for GNOME
  • Salamander
  • Epiphany
  • Skipstone
  • K-Meleon for Windows
  • Camino for Mac OS X (was Chimera)
• older versions of Netscape Navigator (up to 4.xx versions)
• Opera
• Konqueror (Khtml)
  • Abrowse
  • Safari
• Amaya
• iCab
• OmniWeb
• Dillo
• IBrowse
• AWeb
• Voyager
• Espial Escape[?]
• HotJava[?]
• Arachne
• Off By One[?]
• Emacs/W3

Text-based web browsers:

• ELinks[?]
• Lynx
• w3m
• Links
• Netrik[?]

Early browsers which are no longer developed:

• Arena
• Cello
• CyberDog
• MidasWWW
• Mosaic
• Viola[?]
• WorldWideWeb

See also History of the Internet.

External Links

• Browser timeline: http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/browsers.htm (1993-2001)
• evolt.org - Browser Archive (http://browsers.evolt.org)
• Deja Vu: (re-)creating web history (http://www.dejavu.org)
• Web Browser History (http://livinginternet.com/?w/wi_browse.htm)