A
Web browser is, most basically, a
program which can
download files using
HTTP and
render HTML. However,
over the years since
Tim Berners-Lee invented
the Web,
Web browsers have come to contain more and more
features. Today (
2000), the two most
popular "Web browsers" --
Microsoft's
Internet Explorer and
Netscape's
Communicator -- each include
netnews and
email software, as well as all manner of other non-Web things.
Still, there remain several alternative Web browsers around, such as iCab, lynx, Opera, and Galeon, which return to the browser's most important functions. Indeed, many find that these programs are a good deal better at being a browser than are the monolithic apps from MSFT and NSCP.