web browser usage share of web browsers according to statcounter internetan opte project visualization of routing paths through a portion of the internet general access censorship democracy digital divide digital rights freedom of information history of the internet internet phenomena net neutrality oldest domain names pioneers privacy sociology usage governance icann internet engineering task force internet governance forum internet society information infrastructure domain name system hypertext transfer protocol internet exchange point internet protocol internet protocol suite internet service provider ip address internet message access protocol simple mail transfer protocol services blogs microblogging email fax file sharing file transfer games instant messaging podcasts shopping television voice over ip world wide web search guides book index outline internet portalvte a web browser commonly referred to as a browser is a software application for accessing information on the world wide web each individual web page image and video is identified by a distinct url enabling browsers to retrieve and display them on the users device a web browser is not the same thing as a search engine though the two are often confused the most popular web browsers are chrome firefox safari internet explorer and edge history of the silk browser the first web browser called worldwideweb was invented in 1990 by sir tim bernerslee nicola pellow and tim bernerslee in their office at cern marc andreessen lead developer of mosaic and navigator 1993 was a landmark year with the release of mosaic credited as the worlds first popular browser microsoft debuted internet explorer in 1995 leading to a browser war with netscape microsoft was able to gain a dominant position for two reasons it bundled internet explorer with its popular windows operating system and did so as freeware with no restrictions on usage eventually the market share of internet explorer peaked at over 95 in 2002 worldwideweb was the first web browser in 1998 desperate to remain competitive netscape launched what would become the mozilla foundation to create a new browser using the open source software model this work evolved into firefox first released by mozilla in 2004 firefox reached a 28 market share in 2011 apple released its safari browser in 2003 it remains the dominant browser on apple platforms though it never became a factor elsewhere the last major entrant to the browser market was google its chrome browser which debuted in 2008 has been a huge success it steadily took market share from internet explorer and became the most popular browser in 2012 it has remained dominant ever since in terms of technology browsers have greatly expanded their html css javascript and multimedia capabilities since the 1990s one reason has been to enable more sophisticated websites such as web applications another factor is the significant increase of broadband connectivity which enables people to access dataintensive web content such as youtube streaming that was not possible during the era of dialup modems function the purpose of a web browser is to fetch information resources and display them on a users device this process begins when the user inputs a url such as httpsenwikipediaorg into the browser virtually all urls on the web start with either http or https which means the browser will retrieve them with the hypertext transfer protocol in the case of https the communication between the browser and the web server is encrypted for the purposes of security and privacy another url prefix is file which is used to display local files already stored on the users device once a web page has been retrieved the browsers rendering engine displays it on the users device this includes image and video formats supported by the browser web pages usually contain hyperlinks to other pages and resources each link contains a url and when it is clicked the browser navigates to the new resource thus the process of bringing content to the user begins again to implement all of this modern browsers are a combination of numerous software components features further information comparison of web browsers all major browsers allow the user to open multiple pages at the same time either in different browser windows or in different tabs of the same window they also support the use of extensions to add to or modify browser operation in a variety of ways common user interface features of browsers back and forward buttons to go back to the previous page visited or forward to the next one a refresh or reload button to reload the current page a stop button to cancel loading the page in some browsers the stop button is merged with the reload button a home button to return to the users home page an address bar to input the url of a page and display it a search bar to input terms into a search engine in some browsers the search bar is merged with the address bar market share most used web browser by country as of june 2015 google chrome firefox safari uc iron internet explorer opera android phantom no info usage share of web browsers statcounter jan 2018 desktop share google chrome 6598 mozilla firefox 1187 internet explorer 728 safari 587 microsoft edge 411 opera 235 uc browser 087 yandex browser 052 cc cc 022 qq browser 02 chromium 013 sogou explorer 012 maxthon 012 phantomjs 006 360 secure browser 006 pale moon 004 vivaldi 004 mozilla suite 003 seamonkey 003 amigo 002 naver whale 001 other 005 internet portal software portal mobile browser list of web browsers timeline of web browsers wikiversity has learning resources about web browser media related to web browsers at wikimedia commons vteweb browsers comparison lightweight history list unix unixlike timeline usage share features ad filtering augmented browsing bookmarks bookmarklet live bookmark smart bookmarks browser extension browser security browser synchronizer comparison cookies download manager favicon incremental search plugin private browsing tabs universal edit button web standards acid tests cascading style sheets html html5 javascript mathml svg webgl xhtml protocols http https ocsp spdy ssltls websocket wpad related topics browserchoiceeu crl iloo internet suite maninthebrowser mobile web offline reader pac pwn2own rich internet application sitespecific browser widget world wide web xml desktopblinkbased brave chrome chromium dragon falkon opera sleipnir slimjet srware iron uc browser vivaldi yandex browser sputnik safezone whale geckobased att pogo avant camino firefox conkeror gnu icecat icedragon swiftfox swiftweasel tenfourfox timberwolf tor browser waterfox xb browser galeon ghostzilla kmeleon kazehakase kirix strata lotus symphony lunascape mozilla beonex communicator classilla netscape seamonkey tridentbased aol explorer avant deepnet explorer greenbrowser internet explorer lunascape maxthon mediabrowser menubox neoplanet netcaptor slimbrowser spacetime ultrabrowser webbie zac browser webkitbased arora avant dooble epic flock fluid icab konqueror lunascape maxthon midori omniweb origyn web browser otter browser qtweb rekonq safari shiira slimboat surf torch uzbl vimb epiphany webpositive xombrero textbased elinks emacsw3 line mode browser links lynx w3m other abaco amaya arachne arena basilisk charon dillo eww gazelle hotjava ibm home page reader ibrowse kidzui microsoft edge mosaic mothra netpositive netsurf pale moon qihoo 360 secure browser mobileblinkbased android browser chromium brave chrome for android opera mobile samsung internet silk firefox focus for android geckobased firefox for android microb minimo waterfox webkitbased bolt dolphin browser chrome for ios firefox for ios firefox focus for ios maxthon mercury browser nokia browser for symbian opera coast rockmelt safari steel other blazer cm browser deepfish internet explorer mobile iris browser konqueror embedded microsoft edge netfront opera mini skweezer skyfire teashark thunderhawk uc browser vision winwap television and video game consolegeckobased kylo prestobased internet channel webkitbased google tv nintendo 3ds internet browser nintendo ds dsi browser netfront steam overlay wii u internet browser other msn tv software no longer in development shown in italics category commons internet portal software portal vtetimeline of web browsersgeneral comparison lightweight history list for unix usage share 1990s1990 worldwideweb nexus 1991 line mode browser libwww 1992 erwise macwww samba midaswww tkwww violawww 1993 amosaic arena cello emacsw3 lynx 2 ncsa mosaic vms mosaic 1994 airmosaic internet in a box ant fresco argo ibm webexplorer slipknot minuet navipress mosaicmosaic netscapenetscape navigator spyglass mosaic tcpconnect ii 1995 agora alynx amsd ariadna cyberjack eworld web browser grail internet explorer 1 internet explorer 2 netscape navigator 2 netshark omniweb hotjava udiwww webshark 1996 cyberdog arachne aweb ibrowse amaya internet explorer 3 netscape navigator 3 opera 2 oracle powerbrowser tcpconnect4 voyager 1997 netscape communicator internet explorer 4 opera 21 1998 neoplanet mozilla application suite opera 3321 1999 icab internet explorer 5 omniweb 3 opera 35362 2000s2000 beonex communicator galeon kmeleon mediabrowser netscape 6 opera 4402 2001 icab 25 internet explorer 6 omniweb 4 opera 5512 2002 avant browser 7 camino epiphany netscape 7 opera 661 2003 greenbrowser maxthon opera 773 safari slimbrowser 2004 avant browser 9 phoenixfirebirdfirefox opera 75755 2005 aol explorer deepnet explorer firefox 15 opera 8854 safari 2 2006 avant browser 11 firefox 2 internet explorer 7 opera 9927 2007 maxthon 2 opera 95964 safari 3 seamonkey 11 2008 google chrome firefox 3 netscape browser netscape navigator 9 netsurf 12 2009 avant browser 117 google chrome 23 firefox 35 internet explorer 8 opera 101063 pale moon safari 4 seamonkey 20 2010s2010 google chrome 48 firefox 36 lunascape 601 maxthon 3 netsurf 25 opera 111164 safari 5 2011 google chrome 916 firefox 49 internet explorer 9 lunascape 65 opera 121217 seamonkey 2124 waterfox 2012 google chrome 1723 firefox 1017 internet explorer 10 lunascape 67 maxthon 34 netsurf 29 safari 6 2013 google chrome 2431 firefox 1826 internet explorer 11 opera 1518 safari 7 seamonkey 215222 2014 google chrome 3239 firefox 2734 lunascape 69 netsurf 31 opera 1926 safari 8 seamonkey 223231 2015 google chrome 4047 firefox 3543 lunascape 610612 microsoft edge 20 25 opera 2734 safari 9 seamonkey 232239 vivaldi 2016 google chrome 4855 firefox 4450 lunascape 613615 microsoft edge 38 opera 3542 safari 10 2017 basilisk brave google chrome 5663 firefox 5157 microsoft edge 40 41 opera 4349 safari 11 seamonkey 246249 2018 google chrome 64 firefox 58 microsoft edge 42 opera 50 related topics 3d markup language for web aliweb arpanet ascii bitnet browser wars compuserve elm email file transfer protocol gopher html hypercard hytelnet ncsa telnet nls prodigy teletext telnet usenet uucp videotex viewdata virtual reality markup language web page whole internet users guide and catalog world wide web x25 