Online advertisingOnline advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising.
Web browserA web browser is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In 2020, an estimated 4.9 billion people have used a browser. The most used browser is Google Chrome, with a 65% global market share on all devices, followed by Safari with 18%.
Browser securityBrowser security is the application of Internet security to web browsers in order to protect networked data and computer systems from breaches of privacy or malware. Security exploits of browsers often use JavaScript, sometimes with cross-site scripting (XSS) with a secondary payload using Adobe Flash. Security exploits can also take advantage of vulnerabilities (security holes) that are commonly exploited in all browsers (including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Safari).
Opera (web browser)Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera. The browser is based on Chromium, but distinguishes itself from other Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, etc.) through its user interface and other features. Opera was initially released on 10 April 1995, making it one of the oldest desktop web browsers still actively developed. It was commercial software for its first ten years and had its own proprietary layout engine, Presto. In 2013, it switched from the Presto engine to Chromium.
Private browsingPrivate browsing is a privacy feature in some web browsers. When operating in such a mode, the browser creates a temporary session that is isolated from the browser's main session and user data. Browsing history is not saved, and local data associated with the session, such as Cookies, Web cache, are cleared when the session is closed. These modes are designed primarily to prevent data and history associated with a particular browsing session from persisting on the device, or being discovered by another user of the same device.
Chromium (web browser)Chromium is a free and open-source web browser project, mainly developed and maintained by Google. This codebase provides the vast majority of code for the Google Chrome browser, which is proprietary software and has some additional features. Chromium's logo is identical in shape to that of Google Chrome, but with blue colors instead of being multicolor. The Chromium codebase is widely used. Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, Opera, and many other browsers are based on the Chromium code.
Safari (web browser)Safari is a web browser developed by Apple. It is built into Apple's operating systems, including macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and uses Apple's open-source browser engine WebKit, which was derived from KHTML. Safari was introduced in Mac OS X Panther in January 2003. It was included with the iPhone since the latter's first generation, which came out in 2007. At that time, Safari was the fastest browser on the Mac. Between 2007 and 2012, Apple maintained a Windows version, but abandoned it due to low market share.
Comparison of web browsersThis is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost. Basic general information about the browsers. Browsers listed on a light purple background are discontinued. Platforms with a yellow background have limited support. Browsers are compiled to run on certain operating systems, without emulation. This list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common OSes today (e.g.
Targeted advertisingTargeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting. These traits can either be demographic with a focus on race, economic status, sex, age, generation, level of education, income level, and employment, or psychographic focused on the consumer values, personality, attitude, opinion, lifestyle and interest.
Ad blockingAd blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods. The first ad blocker was Internet Fast Forward, a plugin for the Netscape Navigator browser, developed by PrivNet and released in 1996. The AdBlock extension for Firefox was developed in 2002, with Adblock Plus being released in 2006. uBlock (now called uBlock Origin) was first released in 2014.