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"What is a browser?"

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Bignate603 said:
All of those things are not necessary for something to be called a browser. The browser on my phone doesn't do nearly as much as a modern browser on a PC but it still can browse full normal webpages. Because it can open and view normal webpages it still counts as a browser.
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The browser on your phone does far more than display web pages. It compiles and executes Javascript, for example.

"Browser" is not an easy term to define in this day and age.
TridenT said:
They're web pages though. They're pages made for a web.
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Why is a page necessarily made for the web? Just because I use a particular markup language or a particular scripting language, that doesn't make something a "web page". That's like saying anything written in C is an operating system - a total non sequitur.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
The browser on your phone does far more than display web pages. It compiles and executes Javascript, for example.

"Browser" is not an easy term to define in this day and age.

Why is a page necessarily made for the web? Just because I use a particular markup language or a particular scripting language, that doesn't make something a "web page". That's like saying anything written in C is an operating system - a total non sequitur.
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Nao u is trawlin', bro.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
But it does much more than that. My browsers can view SVG files, navigate XML. And of course there's no requirement that I'm even connected to the web to use a browser. Keep trying.
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Just because your browser CAN do those things doesn't mean it HAS to be able to do those things to be a web browser.

Any program that is capable of rendering remote HTML and communicating with the http standard is a web browser, end of story.

The fact that modern browsers have the capabilities of ftp, javascript, flash, applets, ect. Doesn't make a program that does less, any less of a web browser.

Look at Lynx, It is a web browser that can't even render pngs or jpegs (ok, it has a gui... but its most commonly used without the gui) yet it is STILL a web browser.
 
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Cogman said:
Just because your browser CAN do those things doesn't mean it HAS to be able to do those things to be a web browser.

Anything program that is capable of rendering HTML and communicating with the http standard is a web browser, end of story.

The fact that modern browsers have the capabilities of ftp, javascript, flash, applets, ect. Doesn't make a program that does less, any less of a web browser.

Look at Lynx, It is a web browser that can't even render pngs or jpegs (ok, it has a gui... but its most commonly used without the gui) yet it is STILL a web browser.
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small fix, but otherwise :thumbsup:
 
it's almost as if they asked thousands of people and then picked out the handful of dumb answers that fit their commercial.
 
coldmeat said:
what? americans are taking credit for the english language now?
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we won the right to take credit for the English language in the revolutionary war.

we also won the English measurement system, which is why England was forced to switch to metric :sneaky:
 
Cogman said:
Any program that is capable of rendering remote HTML and communicating with the http standard is a web browser, end of story.
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A browser is defined as an HTML renderer? What happens when (not if, when) the web moves away from HTML? We will no longer have browsers? What are we going to call the things that display internet content?

The fact that all browsers display HTML as a baseline is an accident of history.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
A browser is defined as an HTML renderer? What happens when (not if, when) the web moves away from HTML? We will no longer have browsers? What are we going to call the things that display internet content?

The fact that all browsers display HTML as a baseline is an accident of history.
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To make such an ignorant statement just proves you don't know what you are talking about.

HTML is an evolving and flexible standard. Any program that uses XML shows what HTML is capable of becoming, and believe me, TONS of programs use XML.

The web won't move away from HTML, HTML will evolve to be what the future web will be.
 
Cogman said:
To make such an ignorant statement just proves you don't know what you are talking about.

HTML is an evolving and flexible standard. Any program that uses XML shows what HTML is capable of becoming, and believe me, TONS of programs use XML.

The web won't move away from HTML, HTML will evolve to be what the future web will be.
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How many technologies in the past 20 years have been the "evolving and flexible standard" only to die? I agree with you about XML (you don't need to educate me on XML, trust me) but the internet is evolving faster than HTML can keep up. It will take a long time, but eventually HTML will be superseded.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
How many technologies in the past 20 years have been the "evolving and flexible standard" only to die? I agree with you about XML (you don't need to educate me on XML, trust me) but the internet is evolving faster than HTML can keep up. It will take a long time, but eventually HTML will be superseded.
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Funny you should mention that, HTML is 20 years old.

Provided, HTML 4 looks nothing like HTML 1, that still doesn't change the fact that it has significantly evolved.

And if, in the next 20 years, HTML outsourced, that doesn't change the fact that today, right now, the definition for a web browser is as I've stated above. It isn't a hard thing to change a definition.
 
Cogman said:
And if, in the next 20 years, HTML outsourced, that doesn't change the fact that today, right now, the definition for a web browser is as I've stated above. It isn't a hard thing to change a definition.
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I just think your definition is too narrow in scope and short-sighted 🙂 I haven't nailed down a real definition for a browser, but I'd say it's something like a multi-purpose runtime and content presentation engine with web capabilities. Something like that.

Anyway I just thought the video was really dumb (like those videos were Australian people interview hundreds of Americans on the street and pick out the half a dozen who are a few deviations below average to show on tape).
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
I just think your definition is too narrow in scope and short-sighted 🙂 I haven't nailed down a real definition for a browser, but I'd say it's something like a multi-purpose runtime and content presentation engine with web capabilities. Something like that.

Anyway I just thought the video was really dumb (like those videos were Australian people interview hundreds of Americans on the street and pick out the half a dozen who are a few deviations below average to show on tape).
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They said only 8% got the definition correctly.
 
TridenT said:
They said only 8% got the definition correctly.
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To be fair though, although it doesn't seem like it to us, it is in fact a technical question. An auto mechanic could interview a few hundred people and ask what a 'tie-rod end' is and I'll bet fewer than 10% know that too. Yet most people "use" them daily.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
I just think your definition is too narrow in scope and short-sighted 🙂 I haven't nailed down a real definition for a browser, but I'd say it's something like a multi-purpose runtime and content presentation engine with web capabilities. Something like that.

Anyway I just thought the video was really dumb (like those videos were Australian people interview hundreds of Americans on the street and pick out the half a dozen who are a few deviations below average to show on tape).
Click to expand...

Too narrow? If anything it is too broad. It has 2 requirements for something to be a web browser. It doesn't restrict what has to be included. And right now, for at least the next 5 years, it is what we have. There is NO technology out there that is trying to compete with HTML or http. For it to lose its seat, you need something better to come along. And that better thing needs to compete a standard that has a 99.9999999999999999999% adoption rate.

5 years is a bare minimum for something to overthrow html.

5 years is anything but short sighted in the tech industry.
 
What nerds are finding hard to accept is that even with the rise (and relative fall) of the internet is.... That the public doesn't give a shit about it beyond using it as a just another tool in their lives. Just like the majority of the public doesn't give a shit about their car beyond it starting and getting them where they need to go.

The internet is not a means to an end. The internet is just a tool, like a wrench.

That one girl is thinking "browser? wtf, I dunno, its what gets me my shoes, facebook and bank account" That old guy is thinking "browser, uhhh thats the box that searches for my car parts and porn".
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
But it does much more than that. My browsers can view SVG files, navigate XML. And of course there's no requirement that I'm even connected to the web to use a browser. Keep trying.
Click to expand...

But who gives a shit? My car plays MP3s. Does that make it an iPod?

A vegetarian chef probably has a garden. Does that make him a landscaper?
 
loki8481 said:
it's almost as if they asked thousands of people and then picked out the handful of dumb answers that fit their commercial.
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At the end it mentions 8% of the people knew what a browser was.

I wonder what percent calls their tower a modem and still believes the monitor is the actual computer (Apple shit doesn't count).
 
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources, often on the World Wide Web, though secondary uses allow for localized data retrieval and interaction. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. The application is extensible to the extent of any other application in that it's parameters are free to be defined by individual software developers with only basic standards compliance needed for minimum compatibility.

There, modified a dictionary response with a few extra lines to make what I think is a 99.75% comprehensive definition.
 
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