The first browser war
In 1995 Netscape dominated the market. Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer free with Windows and beat Netscape by 2000. Netscape released its code, which later became Firefox.
The second war
Firefox (2004) brought tabs and extensions. Google released Chrome in 2008; it was much faster and today holds most of the market. Its Chromium engine is also used by Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave and Vivaldi. Apple's Safari uses its own WebKit engine.
Stay safe
- Keep your browser updated. Security fixes arrive often.
- Extensions can see the pages you visit. Install only trusted ones.
- An ad blocker also protects against malicious ads.