What+is+a+browser?

In order to view web pages, you need a web **browser**. This is software that **translates** the HTML and other code contained in a web page and draws it out on screen. This makes a web browser a kind of program **interpreter**.

Some common web browsers are shown below.
 * [[image:http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/story/60/80/002748/apple_safari.jpg width="101" height="101" align="center"]] || [[image:http://www.steegle.com/images/chrome.jpg width="90" height="90" align="center"]] || [[image:http://images.pcworld.com/images/article/2012/05/microsoft_internet_explorer-11356433.jpg width="108" height="95" align="center"]] || [[image:http://applemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/mozilla-firefox-logo-1.jpg width="102" height="97" align="center"]] || [[image:http://www.cloudave.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/a81b560475647c248f71ba1f1bd19e5b.jpg width="111" height="111" align="center"]] ||
 * **Apple Safari** || **Google Chrome** || **Microsoft Internet Explorer** || **Mozilla Firefox** || **Opera** ||

Different web browsers can display (render) HTML pages slightly differently. It is therefore important to test web pages on all the main web browsers.

**Activity**

Try visiting some web pages and compare how they look in different web browsers. Note any differences between them (no matter how small).

WWW page 1: Web browser 1: Web browser 2 : Difference between how the pages appear:

WWW page: Web browser 1: Web browser 2: Difference between how the pages appear: