Monday, March 19, 2012

Introduction to Web Browsers

By Francisco Rodriguez


Web Browsers have come a long way from the days of the first internet web Browser, Mosaic and the like. The monopoly of the Microsoft-authored Internet Explorer has been decisively broken and terminated possibly, forever. Web browsers today have progressed from being a mere internet-exploring tool to being a multi-purpose, multi-pronged application that brings several advantages to the web visitor. A web browser is defined as a software application, a typical HTTP client that helps the internet visitor to interpret the HTML documents and display the content from web servers or in file systems.Today there are a variety of internet browsers available. The prominent browsers available for personal computers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox Opera Netscape and so on. A browser is the most commonly used kind of user agent. The largest networked collection of linked documents is known as the World Wide Web.

Some browsers are not the same as others The challenge with Internet browsers is that a number of businesses are now relying on multiple Internet browsers to run their Internet applications and to see all their websites that they want to see. More and more Internet browsers are displaying information differently and even poor website creators do not understand how important it is to cross browser check their sites and applications ensuring that their services work in all the popular Internet browsers. What is a cross browser issue? This is when a webpage does show properly in your browser, is it something as simple as a tab out of alignment, a picture not sized properly or in some instances, the website doesn't show at all? Cross browser issues are very frustrating for the average computer user since many are not technical savvy focused the amount of computer support calls to managed services and IT firms receive is pretty high because of simply browser incompatibility.

The generally accepted file format for a web page is usually HTML (hyper-text markup language) and is identified in the HTTP protocol using a MIME content type. Most browsers certainly support other technology formats in addition to HTML, such as the JPEG PNG and GIF image formats, and can be extended to support more through the use of plugins. The combination of HTTP content type and URL protocol specification allows web page designers to embed images, animations, video, sound, and streaming media into a web page, or to make them accessible through the web page.

In the beginning web browsers supported only a very simple version of HTML. The rapid development of web browsers led to the development of HTML into a more complex avatars. Modern web browsers support standards-based HTML and XHTML which should display in the same way across all browsers. Web sites today are designed using WYSIWYG HTML generation programs such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. There are continuous development activities in developing standards, specifically with XHTML and CSS (cascading style sheets, used for page layout). Some of the more popular browsers include additional components to support Usenet news, IRC (Internet relay chat), and e-mail. Protocols supported may include NNTP (network news transfer protocol), SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol), IMAP (Internet message access protocol), and POP (post office protocol).

To get an idea what Internet Browsers interpret- that is, the code that makes up this web page on your browser window, simply click on the "View" tab, located on the top tool bar and choose "Source", or "View Source". (Depending upon the browser you are using while viewing this page) Or, using your mouse, right click anywhere in the browser display window of this page and choose/select "View source".

Mozilla Firefox - Firefox runs a close second in popularity on both the Microsoft and Macintosh platforms. Firefox is faster and more secure than many of their competitors in the Internet browser market according to their website. Firefox also claims to have over 6,000 add-ons to meet the requirements of every Internet user.

Understanding how a web browser works, and how it's interpreted display appears in a text file, is one of the first steps of understanding and learning how to code HTML.




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