Internet browsers: how many are there?
Author: Sidekick Team
While the exact number of web browsers is difficult to define, scouring through web browsers lists brings a rough estimate: there are about 200 different web browsers out there. Some of them, like Chrome and Firefox, dominate the market. Others are niche products.
What types of browsers are there?
It’s the internet browser’s engine that matters. For example, Chrome, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and alternative browsers, such as Sidekick are using Blink, the engine developed as part of the Chromium project with contributions from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Opera, and many others.
Webkit is a web browser engine developed by Apple and uses in Safari web browser and in some other browsers for iOS.
Gecko is Mozilla’s engine used in the Firefox web browser and some other projects. These engines have their pros and contras, and different speed, privacy, and security parameters.
What is Chromium?
Chromium is the world’s biggest open-source browser project. It’s a huge codebase developed by thousands of coders. Many cool internet browsers, including Sidekick, use Chromium codebase. It’s a flexible codebase that allows building browsers that don’t collect your data and prevent Google and advertisers from harvesting information about your online habits. Read more about Chromium here.
What were the browser wars about?
Yes, internet browsers did fight for their users. The First Browser War happened in the 1990s between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer (the latter won). The Second Browser war ended in 2017 with Google Chrome‘s total dominance. This browser now has over 60% of the usage share across all devices.
When was the first web browser developed?
The WorldWideWeb browser was crafted in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee. It was later renamed Nexus. Netscape Navigator appeared in 1994 and soon became the de facto standard for Windows platform. It remained the tech leader among all browsers till the late 1990s. The open-source Mozilla project is Netscape’s successor.