Web Browser (Browser)
Short for Web browser, a browser is a software application used to locate, retrieve and display content on the World Wide Web, including Web pages, images, video and other files. As a client/server model, the browser is the client run on a computer that contacts the Web server and requests information. The Web server sends the information back to the Web browser which displays the results on the computer or other Internet-enabled device that supports a browser.
Browser Software Today
Today’s browsers are fully-functional software suites that can interpret and display HTML Web pages, applications, JavaScript, AJAX and other content hosted on Web servers. Many browsers offer plug-ins which extend the capabilities of the software so it can display multimedia information (including sound and video), or the browser can be used to perform tasks such as videoconferencing, to design web pages or add anti-phishing filters and other security features to the browser.
The two most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox. Other major browsers include Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera. While most commonly use to access information on the web, a browser can also be used to access information hosted on Web servers in private networks.
Mobile Browsers
Also, there are a number of browsers that are designed to access the Web using a mobile device. A mobile browser, also called a microbrowser, is optimized to display Web content on smaller mobile device screens and to perform efficiently on these computing devices, which have far less computing power and memory capacity as desktop or laptop. Mobile browsers are typically “stripped down” versions of Web browsers and offer fewer features in order to run well on mobile devices.
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