HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
A
BRIEF HISTORY
OF
WEB BROWSERS
When the web was first introduced in the early to mid-90s, it was basically view-
able using web browser software installed on personal computers (first desktops,
and slightly later, laptops). These computers had monitors with resolutions of
640 x 480 pixels, 800 x 600 pixels, and later on, 1024 x 768 pixels. This didn't really
change much until the middle of the 2000s when mobile phones became power-
ful enough to run real web browsers (OK, before that was a lame standard called
WA P, b u it I w o n' it b o it h e r d i s c u s s i n g i it h e re ; y o u c a n if o o k i it u p i if y o u a re i n it e re s it e d ) .
Fast for ward a few more years and a huge variety of devices are now capable
of browsing the web:
Modern smart phones do a great job of rendering websites, for example,
iPhones, Android-based devices, and BlackBerry and Nokia phones running
Opera Mobile, Mobile Chrome, Fennec, and other browsers.
Several varieties of tablets are available too, mainly iPads and a slew of
Android-based devices, again running similar browsers to those described
previously but with larger screens.
TVs are increasingly becoming web-enabled: You can view the web on
TVs (from companies like Sony, Samsung, and Ikea) with built-in browsers
and on games consoles run through TVs (like the Nintendo Wii and the
PlayStation 3).
Portable game consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and Sony Vita all have web
browsers as well.
Many people in the world still browse the web using feature phones that
don't have very good web browsers installed or use a proxy browser, such
as Opera Mini to gain access to web content (see the “Opera Mini” sidebar).
