What is a browser?

A web browser is a software application that enables users to view information on the web. A browser interprets the basic HTML (Hypertext Mark Up Language) code and makes the text, graphics, audio, or video visible to the user, along with hyperlinks that allow you to travel to new pages or specific portion of the current page. Hyperlinks on a web page might be underlined, a different color or a graphic that you click with the mouse. You can always tell if something is a link, because the cursor will change from an arrow to a hand.

The process of reading Web pages and traversing links to more Web pages is called browsing. Browsing is an exploratory process - you can never be quite sure where your browsing will lead you!

A web page displayed in a browser has several key components - regardless of what type of browser you are using (Netscape and Internet Explorer are two of the most popular web browsers). Key components include:

• Browser buttons
• Location of the web page
• Scroll bars

 

Continue to the next section of the What is the web? - What components make up a browser?