Web Browsers
Overview
A browser is a software application that retrieves and displays web pages on your computer or mobile device. The most widely used browsers are Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox. Each browser has its own features, but they all follow the same web standards for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
A browser is also called a user agent because it acts on behalf of the user when it requests and renders content. Browsers are among the most widely used software applications in the world.
Browsers are built on different rendering engines: Chrome and Edge use Blink, Safari uses WebKit, and Firefox uses Gecko. Because each engine can render a page slightly differently, test your pages in more than one browser.
History and Usage
The first popular graphical web browser was NCSA Mosaic, released in 1993. Today, browser popularity varies by region and by device. StatCounter Global Stats reports current worldwide browser usage. Which browser do you use, and why is it your favorite?
Browser Tools
- Can I use – up-to-date browser support tables for frontend web technologies.
- Clearing your cache: Chrome | Firefox. When testing your own pages, a hard reload (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+R on macOS) bypasses the cache for the current page.
Bookmark Management
- Create, view, and edit bookmarks – Google Chrome
- Bookmarks in Firefox – Mozilla Firefox
- Bookmark websites – Safari