WHAT THE BROWSER DOES

 The core purpose of a web browser is to web servers, request documents, and then properly format and display those documents. Web browsers can also display files on your local computer, download files that are not meant to be displayed, had in some cases even allow you to send and retrieve email. What the browser is best at, however, is dealing with retrieving and displaying web documents. Each web page is a file written in a language called the hypertext markup language (HTML) that includes the text of the page, a description of its structure, and links to other documents, images, or other media. The browser takes the information it gets from the web server and formats and display us it for your system. Different browsers might format and display the same file in diverse ways, depending on the ca[abilities of that system and how the browser is configured.

Retrieving documents from the web and formatting them for your system are the two tasks that make up the core of a browser’s functionality. Depending on the browser you use and the features it includes, however, you also might be able to play flash animations, multimedia files, run java applets, read your mail, or use other advanced features that a particular browser offers.