What are Browsers?

The first Browser was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 and was further developed by Robert Cailliau and Marc Andreessen, though in different regards.

Browsers are application software that retrieve and present information to your screen from the World Wide Web. It can also retrieve and present information from any web server such as Apache, NGNIX, Node.js, and others which are probably installed on your home or work-network and on your routers and other devices. You can design your own personal web server using XAMP, or a host on a spare PC using free and open source Linux software.

Browsers run on a port assigned to it. Usually port 80 and port 443

A port is like a lane or highway which data from an application (the browser in this case) is accessed over. Think of HTTP (port 80) as a telephone extension and HTTPS as a telephone extension that is a secured line.

In the past HTTP was used for general browsing and HTTPS used primarily for secure communications such as financial transactions, keeping passwords safe and general communication. HTTPS is now encouraged as the norm for web browsing and you may have noticed that many sites are already secured (or encrypted) with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). This simply means that all data traversing the Browser has been encrypted. Encryption is the conversion of plaintext or any readable data, to an encoded version for our protection from “prying eyes.” How well your site protected with either SSL or TSL is another topic. Using credit cards on personal sites? It is recommended to use only TLS version 1.2.

Browsers enabled with HTTPS Everywhere (an Add-on/Extension), can restrict browsing certain insecure sites.

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