- Aug 23
- 5 min read
A web browser (or simply a browser) is a software application that allows internet users to locate and access webpages. A web browser retrieves resources from a web server, displays content to users and lets them navigate the net quickly, easily and safely. In understanding how to go about making a website from scratch make sure your familiarize yourself with the most popular browsers and their features.
Wix offers fully managed web hosting for a hassle-free experience.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist known as the inventor of the internet, created the first web browser in 1990. Three years later an American team led by Marc Andreessen released Mosaic, the first browser to boast a graphic interface and to achieve significant user base adoption. In 1994 Andreessen founded Netscape Navigator, and a year later Microsoft unveiled Internet Explorer, thereby launching the first browser war.
Internet Explorer won that early browser war around the turn of the 21st century, but was soon joined by newcomers like Apple's Safari. In 2008 Google Chrome entered the game and has since pulled well ahead, holding around 65% of global browser market share as of 2026 across desktops and laptops. As a website owner, this means the vast majority of your visitors will arrive via Chrome, though designing for cross-browser compatibility remains important.
TL;DR: what is a web browser?
A web browser is a software application that lets you access and navigate websites. When you type a URL or click a link, the browser sends a request to the website's server, retrieves the files, and displays the page on your screen. Common browsers include Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge.
For website owners, understanding how browsers work helps you build sites that load quickly, display correctly and keep visitors secure across all devices and browsers.
How does a web browser work?
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) delivers the code for pages and sites and web browsers translate this data into text, images and videos our human brains can understand. That data, fetched from a web server, is typically written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
Each page, image and video on the internet has its own Uniform Resource Locator (URL), more commonly known as a web address. To create consistency between browsers, developers have created web standards that allow users to explore the internet on whichever browser and device they choose.
Web browser vs search engine: what is the difference?
A web browser and a search engine are two different things that are often confused with each other. A browser is the software application you use to access the internet. A search engine is a website or service, accessed through the browser, that helps you find specific content by searching an index of web pages.
Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo are search engines. Chrome, Safari and Firefox are web browsers. When you open Chrome and navigate to google.com, you are using a browser to access a search engine. You could use the same browser to go directly to any website without using a search engine at all.
Web browser examples
Google Chrome: Chrome accounts for some 70 percent of global market share across desktops and laptops, leaving its rivals to languish in the single digits. Three key reasons account for Chrome’s dominance: Fast speed, easy integration with personal Google accounts and the biggest selection of browser extensions
Safari: While two-thirds of the world’s computers are PCs and not Macs, Apple’s huge share of the mobile market—chiefly in the form of iPhones and iPads—makes Safari the most popular mobile web browser in the U.S. Just like Chrome and Google accounts, Safari easily syncs across Apple devices.
Microsoft Edge: Launched in 2015, Microsoft’s Edge browser replaces Internet Explorer, the predominant browsers that most consider far behind the technological curve. Edge currently comes standard on the estimated 1.4 billion devices worldwide using Microsoft’s Windows operating system. It operates on Chromium, the Google-built browser platform that also underlies Chrome.
Mozilla Firefox: Mozilla launched in 1998 when Netscape released its source code to developers, and Firefox soon became the scrappy alternative to web-behemoths like Internet Explorer. Today, however, it is the elder statesman of the browser bunch, having marked its 20th birthday in September 2022. It retains a loyal, if modest, support base, particularly among developers who value its open-source software that lets them inspect and update their website security and privacy.
Common features of a web browser
Essentially all web browsers offer basic features like a URL bar, title bar, bookmarking, history and tabs.
A URL bar lets users retrieve a certain page stored on a specific server, while a title bar displays the viewed page’s title.
Bookmarks save pages that users want to return to later, thus saving them the time of locating and typing out the full URL.
Tabs allow users to have several web pages open simultaneously, without having to juggle multiple windows.
History displays all the web pages a user visits, enabling easier browsing and also faster page retrieval.
Web browsers and security and privacy
Beyond those basic features, the best browsers keep web users’ data safe. On the front end, many browsers offer privacy features like private browsing or incognito mode (browsing that leaves no trace in a user’s history) and pop-up ad blockers. On the backend, browsers include protection against phishing (malicious sites seeking to steal our data), tracking (sites and advertisers identifying users through cookies) and fingerprinting (sites that capture our device ID and browser profile).
Wix offers secure, scalable web hosting built in when you create your website.
Why browsers matter for website owners
As a website owner, browsers are your audience's window into your site. Every design decision, every image, every interactive element is ultimately rendered by a browser on your visitor's device. Understanding this shapes how you think about website performance, compatibility and user experience.
Browser compatibility matters because different browsers can render the same HTML and CSS differently. A layout that looks perfect in Chrome may display incorrectly in Safari or Firefox. Building with a platform that automatically handles cross-browser compatibility removes this burden entirely.
Page speed also depends partly on how efficiently your site's code is written and served. Browsers have to download, parse and render every resource on your page. Fewer requests, optimised images and well-structured code all reduce the work a browser has to do to display your site, directly improving load times and search rankings.
Wix automatically handles cross-browser compatibility, performance optimisation and security for every site built on the platform. Your pages are served via a global CDN and rendered correctly across all major browsers without any manual configuration.
Wix's AI website builder creates a fully hosted, cross-browser-compatible website from a single prompt, so you can focus on your content and business rather than technical compatibility issues.
You can also handle domain registration directly through Wix, keeping your domain, hosting and site infrastructure all in one managed place.
