Computer Awareness-Part 7-Web Browsers

Web Browser is an indispensable part of the Internet. It is a software application that uses the search engine to access and view the information from web pages (World Wide Web or WWW) present on the web servers. The web browser collects or finds the data from a web server and then displays the webpage on the screen when a user finds the information. It is important to know about the web browser and its functions for Bank aspirants as the questions based on web browsers may come in the Exam like RRB, NABARD Grade-A & SBI.

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History of Web Browse Important Dates & Events

Web browsers are easily accessible and can be used on devices like computers, laptops, mobile phones, etc. browser or “WorldWideWeb or WWW” was the first web browser created by Tim Berners Lee in 1990. Given below are some very important dates and events related to the History of the Web Browsers that you must know in order to counter the questions related to it. 

Date	Important Event
1990	“WorldWideWeb or WWW” was the first web browser created by Tim Berners Lee.
1993	Mosaic, the world’s first web browser was released, in 1993. It had the feature of adding images and an innovative graphical interface. It was the world’s first popular browser.
1994	Marc Andreessen (leader of Mosaic Team) started working on a new web browser, which was released and was named Netscape Navigator.
1995	Internet Explorer was launched by Microsoft. It soon overtook as the most popular web browser
2002	Mozilla Firefox was introduced which was equally as competent as Internet Explorer
2003	Apple launched a web browser named Safari. This browser is commonly used in Apple devices only and not popular with other devices.
2008	Google released “Chrome” and within 3 years it took over all the other existing browsers.

Functions of Web Browser

Given below are some of the major functions of web browsers:

• The main function is to retrieve information from the World Wide Web and making it available for users
• Visiting any website can be done using a web browser. When a URL is entered in a browser, the web server takes us to that website
• To run Java applets and flash content, plugins are available on the web browser
• It makes Internet surfing easy as once we reach a website we can easily check the hyperlinks and get more and more useful data online
• Browsers user internal cache which gets stored and the user can open the same webpage time and again without losing extra data
• Multiple webpages can be opened at the same time on a web browser
• Options like back, forward, reload, stop reload, home, etc. are available on these web browsers, which make using them easy and convenient

Different web browsers

The functions of all web browsers are the same. Thus, more than the different types there are different web browsers that have been used over the years.

Here are the different web browser examples and their specific features:

1. World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is the world’s first web browser ever. It was Launched in 1990. To avoid any confusion with the World Wide Web, it was later named Nexus. It had very basic features and less interactive in terms of the graphical interface, lacking the feature of the bookmark.

2. Mosaic

Mosaic was launched in the year 1993 and it was the second web browser that was launched. It had a better graphical interface. Images, text, and graphics could all be integrated. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The team which was responsible for creating Mosaic was led by Marc Andreessen. It was named the world’s first popular browse.

3. Netscape Navigator

Netscape Navigator was released in 1994, and it was the dominant browser in terms of usage share. Soon, more versions of this browser were launched by Netscape. It had an advanced licensing scheme and allowed free usage for non-commercial purposes.

4. Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer was launched in 1995 by Microsoft. In 2003, it had grabbed around 95% of usage share and had become the most popular browser of all. Close to 10 versions of Internet Explorer were released by Microsoft and were updated regularly. It was included in the Microsoft Windows operating system. In 2015, it was replaced by Microsoft Edge, as it became the default browser on Windows 10.

5. Firefox

It was introduced in 2002 and was developed by Mozilla Foundation

Location-aware browsing was made available with Firefox

Firefox overtook the usage share from Internet Explorer and became the dominant browser during 2003-04

This browser was also made available for mobile phones, tablets, etc.

6. Google Chrome

Google Chrome was launched in the year 2008 by Google. It is a cross-platform web browser, made by adding many features from old browsers to form a better and newer browser with advanced features. In it, Google developed the ad-blocking feature to keep the user data safe and secure to save computers from malware. In addition, Incognito mode is also provided where private searching is available and no cookies or history is saved. To date, it has the best user interface. Apart from these, the Opera Mini web browser was introduced in 2005 which was specially designed for mobile users. Before the mobile version, the computer version “Opera” was also released in 1995. It supported a decent user interface and was developed by Opera Software.

Frequently Asked Questions on Web Browser

Q 1. What is a web browser?

Ans. Web Browser is a software application for accessing information on the World Wide Web. It is the function of the web browser to retrieve the information requested by the user from any website.

Q 2. How is a web browser different from a search engine?

Ans. A web browser is a software application used to retrieve data from web pages, whereas, Search Engine is a kind of a website where a user can search for information, and the results based on the same are displayed on the screen.

Q 3. What are the best web browser examples?

Ans. Given below are the examples of the most commonly used web browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera

There were web browsers like Netscape Navigator and WorldWideWeb, which were used before the above-mentioned browsers.

Q 4. When was the first web browser released?

Ans. The first web browser which gained public attention was the WorldWideWeb, which was launched in 1990.