Web Browsers OpenFAQ

What is a web browser?

Contributors:

boutell boutell@boutell.com

What's a browser do?

A web browser is a program which is used to visit web pages. The two most well-known web browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, which are used by the vast majority. Other browsers are available as well.

Chances are, you're using a web browser to read this document right now, unless you're reading a printout, or an excerpt in a book, or a text file.

A Little History

The very first web browser was written by Tim Berners-Lee, while at CERN (a European center for physics research). The first web browser to capture the public's imagination was Mosaic, which was written by Marc Andreessen and other undergraduate students at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the United States. Most of that group went on to form the core of Netscape Communications Corporation.

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