Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer (IE) by Microsoft is the most common Internet browser today. IE was Introduced in 1995 and passed Netscape in popularity in 1998.








Netscape

Netscape was the first commercial Internet browser. It was introduces in 1994. Netscape gradually Lost its popularity to Internet Explorer.








Mozilla

The Mozilla Project has grown from the ashes of Netscape. Browsers based on Mozilla code is the second largest browser family on the Internet  today. represending about 30% of the Internet community.







Firefox

Firefox is a new browser from Mozilla. It was released in 2004 and has grown to be the second popular browser on the Internet.







Opera

Opera is another Internet browser. It is known to be fast and small, standards-compliant, and available for many operating systems. Opera is the Preferred browser for a number of small devices like mobile phones and hand-held computers.




2.2.1. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

A Unform Resource Identifier (URI), is a compact string of characters used to Identify or name a resource. the main purpose of this identification is to enable interaction with representations of the resource over a network, typically the World Wide Web, using specific protocols. URIs are defined in schemes defining a specific ayntax and associated protocols.

The URI syntax is essentially a URI scheme name like "HTTP" , "FTP" , "mailto" , "URN" . "tel" , "rtsp" , etc, followed by a colon character, and then a scheme-specifuc part. The syntax and semantics of the scheme-specific part are deremined by the specifications that govern the schemes, although the URI syntax does force all schemes to adhere to a certain generic syntax that, among other things, reserves certain characters for special purposes, without always saying what those purposes are. The URI syntax also enforces restrictions on the scheme-specific part, in order to, for example, provide for a degree of consistency when the part has hierarchical sructure.

URIs and URLs have a shared history. The idea of a URL - a short string representing a resource that is the target of hyperlink - was implicitly introduced in early 1990 in Tim Berners-Lee's proposals for HyperText. At the time, it was called a hypertext name or document name.

Examples of absolute URIs

  •  http://somehost/absolute/URI/with/absolute/path/to/resource.txt
  • ftp://somehost/resource.txt

Examples of URI references

  • http://example/resource.txt#frag01
  • http://somehost/absolute/URI/with/absolute/path/to/resource.txt
  • /relative/URI/with/absolute.path/to/resource.txt
  • relative/path/to/resource.txt
  • ../../../resource.txt
  • resource.txt
  • /resource.txt#frag01
  • #frag01