Browser Introduction
A web browser consists of multiple parts. As already mentioned, a browsers requests websites from servers. This networking capability is one part. After receiving a website a browser processes the HTML code and displays it. This process of computing how content should be styled and positioned on the screen is called rendering and done by a rendering engine. On the other hand, a JavaScript engine processes JavaScript.
Developing a browser is incredibly challenging. Therefore, many browser use and share the above-mentioned building blocks. Other aspects like the user interface are unique to the browser. For example, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Opera all look different but use the same rendering engine called "Blink". A similar engine is "WebKit" which is used by Apple's Safari browser. Mozilla Firefox uses "Gecko".
Because of differences between browsers some website features might not work in some browsers. Therefore, it is your job as a web developer to check if the feature is compatible with the browser of the user. To minimize differences between browsers, web standards are defined that browsers should follow.
One more thing you should know about browsers are the development tools for web developers. These are mentioned in the cool browser tricks section or at fitting places throughout the course (e.g. HTTPS and the network tab). Or check out this link: