Web Browser

A web browser is an application used to access and display content from the internet. Web browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and Internet Explorer, provide a user-friendly interface to request data from the internet and display that data in an easily readable format.

Without the help of a web browser, data received when requesting a specific website via a URL would just be the raw HTML and text content returned by that URL. The web browser is what interprets that raw data and presents it to you, the end user, in a more structured and human-readable format—complete with styling and extra functionality provided by a website's CSS and JavaScript.

Web browsers run on all sorts of devices, including laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, VR headsets, and even video game consoles. Essentially, any time you access the internet to view a website, you are almost certainly using a web browser of some kind.

Web browsers use either HTTP or HTTPS connections to communicate with websites, where the 'S' in HTTPS indicates a secure, encrypted connection. Modern web browsers warn users and typically make it difficult to access websites that do not offer a HTTPS connection (often indicated by a padlock icon in the address bar of the browser).

A web browser is not a search engine, although people sometimes use the terms interchangeably. A web browser is simply a tool for accessing websites, while search engines are tools to help users find specific content based on search terms and systematic indexing and ranking of web pages. However, many web browsers do include search engine functionality, allowing users to type a search term into the address bar and be taken to a search results page. The search engine used depends on the web browser (e.g., Google's Chrome browser uses Google as the search engine, while Microsoft's Edge browser uses Bing).