A web browser is a software application used for accessing, displaying, and presenting, information and resources from the internet to the browser screen. Browsers are the widely used tools for communicating with the world wide web. Browser displays web pages that contains text, images, presentations, audios, videos, games, and applications that can be displayed or interfaced directly with the user. Today there are many online applications for a wide variety of uses that can be run with the help of a web browser. Large repositories of information and resources for various purposes, are stored on multiple repositories or server computers in different parts of the world, which can be accessed with a browser from a remote computer located in a different place. The main purpose of the browser is to fetch information from the server through the internet and display them to the browser screen.
The first browser was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1990. It was called WorldWideWeb and later it was renamed as Nexus. In 1993, the browser was further innovated by Marc Andreessen by the release of Mosaic, later named as Netscape, the worlds first browser. This innovation made the World Wide Web popular and easier to use and accessible for the average man.
A browser is provided with sets of navigation and display controls, which helps to navigate through the web page and display the content. Controls such as buttons, links, tabs etc. in the browser helps one to navigate through the web pages and the internet. The more controls the browser has, the more sophisticated it becomes and the more varied operations it can perform which helps to navigate the web easier. Navigation controls are grouped together into the address bar, side bar, search bar, status bar, menu bar etc. The display controls include the zoom size, page style, character encoding, etc. The browser utilities also helps to improve the browsing experience include private browsing, bookmarks, addons, themes etc. Most popular browsers have more user controls and enhanced security.
This is a web browser developed by Microsoft which is included as a part of Microsoft Windows operating system. It was first released as a package for Windows 95. It is a widely used web browser by those who use the Windows operating system. Internet explorer runs on theSpyglass, Trident, Tasman, and Chakra engines. It can work on Windows, Mac OS (2.0–4.5), and UNIX (4.0–5.01) operating systems. Since its first release it has since upgraded itself with Windows versions until its latest release of Internet Explorer 11 on October 17, 2013 as part of Windows 8.1 update. It has a nice interface including tabbed browsing and user-friendly controls. Versions of Internet Explorer are produced for other operating systems such as Explorer Xbox for Xbox 360 and Internet Explorer Mobile version for Windows phone. This is the Windows default web browser loved by Windows fans.
This is a free and open source web browser developed by Mozilla foundation and Mozilla corporation. Firefox began as a an experimental branch of Mozilla project by by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. Firefox works on the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which complies with the current web standards. It operates on Windows, OS X, Linux, mobile version for Android, and freeBSD. It is one of the secure web browsers around. Mozilla Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, smart bookmarks, download manager, and private browsing, geolocation, and integrated search. It also has facility for functions added through extensions and a nice theme package. The new malware and phishing protection helps to protect the users from viruses, worms, trojans and spyware and keep safe on the Web. This is an open source, universal, free for all, safe web browser.
This is a freeware browser developed by Google. It runs on the Blink (WebKit on iOS) and V8 engines. It used the WebKit engine until the 27th version and from version 28 and beyond, uses the WebKit for Blink. In September 2008 the source code was released by Google as open source project Chromium. It is one of the popular web browsers. It is simple, fast, secure, and stable. Google Chrome is minimal in design but certainly has some great features. It includes the browser extensions, themes, bookmarks etc. Chrome has feature to synchronize their bookmarks and settings across all devices with the browser installed. It has an incognito mode to browse privately. The browser warns you if you're about to visit a phishing, malware, or other unsafe websites. Unfortunately it does not show any confirm message when closing multiple tabs. I am using this browser quite a lot for surfing web pages.
This is a web browser developed by Opera Software. Opera uses the Blink layout engine. Earlier versions used Presto layout engine which had features such as sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Personally I liked the earlier version which included the menu bar and bookmarks and many other features but they have now leaned off the browser, which is very bad. I still uses the older version. Now they have a sleek and sporty version with none of the above features. Opera runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Opera versions are also available for devices running on Android, iOS, Symbian, Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems, and Java ME. Opera features include tabbed tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. It also has features which include phishing and malware protection, delete HTTP cookies etc. A typical feature of Opera browser is the Speed Dial.
This browser is freeware developed by the Apple Inc. It runs on Apple operating system such as the OS X and iOS operating systems. It is the default browser for the Apple operating system beginning with Mac OS X v10.3. Safari 5.1.7, released on May 9, 2012, is the last version available for Windows. It runs on the Webkit rendering engine. Safari browser has features such as ability to save webpage clips, resizable web-search box in the toolbar, automatic filling in of web forms, bookmark management, built-in password management, history and bookmark search, expandable text boxes, inline PDF viewing, iPhoto integration, mail integration, pop-up ad blocking, private browsing, spell checking, etc.
This is a free browser developed in China by the company Maxthon International Limited. Maxthon is officially called Maxthon Cloud Browser, originally known as MyIE2. It runs on Windows, OS X, Android, iOS operating systems. It runs on dual rendering engines such as the the Trident and the WebKit. It is also available for Windows Phone 8 ,iOS and Android platforms as Maxthon Mobile. It is a good modern browser, which has loads and loads of features. Maxthon features include, Split screen option: divides open tabs into left and right of screen, Tabbed document interface, Saves open tabs in case of program shutdown or system crash, Undo for any tabs accidentally closed, Support for custom skins, Customizable tabs and user interface, Programmable mouse gestures and mouse chording, RSS reader etc.
This is a freeware browser developed by the Comodo Group. It runs on WebKit engine. It is based on Chromium and has a similar interface to Google Chrome. It has most of the features of Google Chrome. Comodo Dragon does not use the Chrome user tracking features but has additional security features lsuch as authenticity and relative strength of the website SSL certificate. It includes an on-demand site inspector designed to determine if a site hosts malicious code. Has options to use Comodo's own DNS servers instead of the user's Internet service provider.
This is a web browser developed by Hidden Reflex. It runs on WebKit engine. Epic Browser
is based on the Chromium source code released on August 29, 2013. Previous release on 15 July 2010 was based on Mozilla Firefox. It works on Windows and OS X. It is the first web browser from India. It is a privacy centric web browser with features customized to the tastes of Indian users. The browser has several widgets for social networking, chat clients, and email facilities integrated into the browser. Its features include removal of session data when the browser is closed, inbuilt proxy service, other security and privacy features.
This is a free and open source and cross-platform browser developed by the SeaMonkey Council. It is based on the Mozilla source code. It works on the Gecko engine. Its development is community driven. It is cross-platform and works on different operating systems. SeaMonkey consists of a web browser, an e-mail and news client program, an HTML editor, and an IRC client.
Have a nice surf!
