This is an accepted version of this page
90-464: In computing , the User-Agent header is an HTTP header intended to identify the user agent responsible for making a given HTTP request. Whereas the character sequence User-Agent comprises the name of the header itself, the header value that a given user agent uses to identify itself is colloquially known as its user agent string . The user agent for the operator of a computer used to access
180-508: A URL and/or e-mail address so that the Webmaster can contact the operator of the bot. In HTTP, the "user agent string" is often used for content negotiation , where the origin server selects suitable content or operating parameters for the response. For example, the user agent string might be used by a web server to choose variants based on the known capabilities of a particular version of client software. The concept of content tailoring
270-420: A WYSIWYG web page compositor; however, these extra functions enlarged and slowed the software, rendering it prone to crashing. This Gold Edition was renamed Netscape Communicator starting with version 4.0; the name change diluted its name-recognition and confused users. Netscape CEO James L. Barksdale insisted on the name change because Communicator was a general-purpose client application, which contained
360-464: A cross-browser scripting language, long after Netscape Navigator itself had dropped in popularity. Another example is the FRAME tag, which is widely supported today, and that has been incorporated into official web standards such as the "HTML 4.01 Frameset" specification. In a 2007 PC World column, the original Netscape Navigator was considered the "best tech product of all time" due to its impact on
450-491: A broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web and the infrastructure to support email. Computer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code and documentation of computer programs. This source code
540-520: A competing technology called JavaScript Style Sheets . Near the end of the development cycle, it became obvious that CSS would prevail, so Netscape quickly implemented a CSS to JSSS converter, which then processed CSS as JSSS (this is why turning JavaScript off also disabled CSS). Moreover, Netscape Communicator's browser interface design appeared dated in comparison to Internet Explorer and interface changes in Microsoft and Apple's operating systems. By
630-497: A computer's capabilities, but typically do not directly apply them in the performance of tasks that benefit the user, unlike application software. Application software, also known as an application or an app , is computer software designed to help the user perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software , accounting software , office suites , graphics software , and media players . Many application programs deal principally with documents . Apps may be bundled with
720-504: A customized version of IE could be offered. Also, web developers used proprietary , browser-specific extensions in web pages. Both Microsoft and Netscape did this, having added many proprietary HTML tags to their browsers, which forced users to choose between two competing and almost incompatible web browsers. In March 1998, Netscape released most of the development code base for Netscape Communicator under an open source license . Only pre-alpha versions of Netscape 5 were released before
810-524: A feature to cloak or spoof their identification to force certain server-side content. For example, the Android browser identifies itself as Safari (among other things) in order to aid compatibility. Other HTTP client programs, like download managers and offline browsers , often have the ability to change the user agent string. A result of user agent spoofing may be that collected statistics of Web browser usage are inaccurate. User agent sniffing
900-461: A potentially profitable market. Following Netscape's lead, Microsoft started a campaign to enter the web browser software market. Like Netscape before them, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc. (which in turn licensed code from University of Illinois ). Using this basic code, Microsoft created Internet Explorer (IE). The competition between Microsoft and Netscape dominated
990-458: A set of instructions called a computer program . The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its human-readable source code form, enables a programmer to study and develop a sequence of steps known as an algorithm . Because the instructions can be carried out in different types of computers, a single set of source instructions converts to machine instructions according to
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#17327766073971080-418: A solid product, became crash-prone and buggy ; for example, some versions re-downloaded an entire web page to re-render it when the browser window was re-sized (a nuisance to dial-up users), and the browser would usually crash when the page contained simple Cascading Style Sheets , as proper support for CSS never made it into Communicator 4.x. At the time that Communicator 4.0 was being developed, Netscape had
1170-435: A superposition, i.e. in both states of one and zero, simultaneously. Thus, the value of the qubit is not between 1 and 0, but changes depending on when it is measured. This trait of qubits is known as quantum entanglement , and is the core idea of quantum computing that allows quantum computers to do large scale computations. Quantum computing is often used for scientific research in cases where traditional computers do not have
1260-523: A user agent string value as follows: For example, Safari on the iPad has used the following: The components of this string are as follows: Before migrating to the Chromium code base, Opera was the most widely used web browser that did not have the user agent string with "Mozilla" (instead beginning it with "Opera"). Since July 15, 2013, Opera's user agent string begins with "Mozilla/5.0" and, to avoid encountering legacy server rules, no longer includes
1350-429: A web address, even before the rest of the text and graphics had finished downloading. This made the web much more tolerable to the average user. Through the late 1990s, Netscape made sure that Navigator remained the technical leader among web browsers. New features included cookies , frames , proxy auto-config , and JavaScript (in version 2.0). Although those and other innovations eventually became open standards of
1440-470: A web browser. This was seen by Netscape as a clear opportunity to entrench Navigator at the heart of the next generation of computing, and thus gain the opportunity to expand into all manner of other software and service markets. With the success of Netscape showing the importance of the web (more people were using the Internet due in part to the ease of using Netscape), Internet browsing began to be seen as
1530-415: A web-based system, known internally as "Constellation", which would allow users to access and edit their files anywhere across a network no matter what computer or operating system they happened to be using. Industry observers forecast the dawn of a new era of connected computing. The underlying operating system , it was believed, would not be an important consideration; future applications would run within
1620-421: Is spintronics . Spintronics can provide computing power and storage, without heat buildup. Some research is being done on hybrid chips, which combine photonics and spintronics. There is also research ongoing on combining plasmonics , photonics, and electronics. Cloud computing is a model that allows for the use of computing resources, such as servers or applications, without the need for interaction between
1710-460: Is a discipline that integrates several fields of electrical engineering and computer science required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers usually have training in electronic engineering (or electrical engineering ), software design , and hardware-software integration, rather than just software engineering or electronic engineering. Computer engineers are involved in many hardware and software aspects of computing, from
1800-414: Is a person who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst. A programmer's primary computer language ( C , C++ , Java , Lisp , Python , etc.) is often prefixed to
1890-409: Is also synonymous with counting and calculating . In earlier times, it was used in reference to the action performed by mechanical computing machines , and before that, to human computers . The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper (or for chalk and slate) with or without the aid of tables. Computing
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#17327766073971980-414: Is an area of research that brings together the disciplines of computer science, information theory, and quantum physics. While the idea of information as part of physics is relatively new, there appears to be a strong tie between information theory and quantum mechanics. Whereas traditional computing operates on a binary system of ones and zeros, quantum computing uses qubits . Qubits are capable of being in
2070-589: Is built into the HTTP standard in RFC 1945 "for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations". The user agent string is one of the criteria by which Web crawlers may be excluded from accessing certain parts of a website using the Robots Exclusion Standard ( robots.txt file). As with many other HTTP request headers, the information in the user agent string contributes to
2160-423: Is computer software designed to operate and control computer hardware, and to provide a platform for running application software. System software includes operating systems , utility software , device drivers , window systems , and firmware . Frequently used development tools such as compilers , linkers , and debuggers are classified as system software. System software and middleware manage and integrate
2250-476: Is denoted CMOS-integrated nanophotonics (CINP). One benefit of optical interconnects is that motherboards, which formerly required a certain kind of system on a chip (SoC), can now move formerly dedicated memory and network controllers off the motherboards, spreading the controllers out onto the rack. This allows standardization of backplane interconnects and motherboards for multiple types of SoCs, which allows more timely upgrades of CPUs. Another field of research
2340-490: Is intimately tied to the representation of numbers, though mathematical concepts necessary for computing existed before numeral systems . The earliest known tool for use in computation is the abacus , and it is thought to have been invented in Babylon circa between 2700 and 2300 BC. Abaci, of a more modern design, are still used as calculation tools today. The first recorded proposal for using digital electronics in computing
2430-710: Is its potential to support energy efficiency. Allowing thousands of instances of computation to occur on one single machine instead of thousands of individual machines could help save energy. It could also ease the transition to renewable energy source, since it would suffice to power one server farm with renewable energy, rather than millions of homes and offices. However, this centralized computing model poses several challenges, especially in security and privacy. Current legislation does not sufficiently protect users from companies mishandling their data on company servers. This suggests potential for further legislative regulations on cloud computing and tech companies. Quantum computing
2520-442: Is listed first. The parts of this string are as follows: During the first browser war , many web servers were configured to send web pages that required advanced features, including frames , to clients that were identified as some version of Mozilla only. Other browsers were considered to be older products such as Mosaic , Cello , or Samba , and would be sent a bare bones HTML document. For this reason, most Web browsers use
2610-559: Is sometimes considered a sub-discipline of electrical engineering , telecommunications, computer science , information technology, or computer engineering , since it relies upon the theoretical and practical application of these disciplines. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users. This includes millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, ranging in scope from local to global. These networks are linked by
2700-687: Is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics , semiconductors , internet, telecom equipment , e-commerce , and computer services . DNA-based computing and quantum computing are areas of active research for both computing hardware and software, such as
2790-491: Is the practice of websites showing different or adjusted content when viewed with certain user agents. An example of this is Microsoft Exchange Server 2003's Outlook Web Access feature. When viewed with Internet Explorer 6 or newer, more functionality is displayed compared to the same page in any other browsers. User agent sniffing is considered poor practice, since it encourages browser-specific design and penalizes new browsers with unrecognized user agent identifications. Instead,
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2880-509: Is the study of complementary networks of hardware and software (see information technology) that people and organizations use to collect, filter, process, create, and distribute data . The ACM 's Computing Careers describes IS as: "A majority of IS [degree] programs are located in business schools; however, they may have different names such as management information systems, computer information systems, or business information systems. All IS degrees combine business and computing topics, but
2970-449: Is thus often developed by a team of domain experts, each a specialist in some area of development. However, the term programmer may apply to a range of program quality, from hacker to open source contributor to professional. It is also possible for a single programmer to do most or all of the computer programming needed to generate the proof of concept to launch a new killer application . A programmer, computer programmer, or coder
3060-429: Is written in a programming language , which is an artificial language that is often more restrictive than natural languages , but easily translated by the computer. Programming is used to invoke some desired behavior (customization) from the machine. Writing high-quality source code requires knowledge of both the computer science domain and the domain in which the application will be used. The highest-quality software
3150-557: The CPU type. The execution process carries out the instructions in a computer program. Instructions express the computations performed by the computer. They trigger sequences of simple actions on the executing machine. Those actions produce effects according to the semantics of the instructions. Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, including the central processing unit , memory , and input/output . Computational logic and computer architecture are key topics in
3240-736: The Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s, but by around 2003 its user base had all but disappeared. This was partly because the Netscape Corporation (later purchased by AOL ) did not sustain Netscape Navigator's technical innovation in the late 1990s. The business demise of Netscape
3330-683: The Netscape Communicator suite in 1997. Netscape Communicator's 4.x source code was the base for the Netscape-developed Mozilla Application Suite , which was later renamed SeaMonkey . Netscape's Mozilla Suite also served as the base for a browser-only spinoff called Mozilla Firefox . The Netscape Navigator name returned in 2007 when AOL announced version 9 of the Netscape series of browsers, Netscape Navigator 9 . On December 28, 2007, AOL canceled its development but continued supporting
3420-516: The W3C and ECMA and were emulated by other browsers, they were often viewed as controversial. Netscape, according to critics, was more interested in bending the web to its own de facto "standards" (bypassing standards committees and thus marginalizing the commercial competition) than it was in fixing bugs in its products. Consumer rights advocates were particularly critical of cookies and of commercial web sites using them to invade individual privacy. In
3510-580: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Websites often include code to detect browser version to adjust the page design sent according to the user agent string received. This may mean that less-popular browsers are not sent complex content (even though they might be able to deal with it correctly) or, in extreme cases, refused all content. Thus, various browsers have
3600-551: The browser wars . Internet Explorer, Version 1.0 (shipped in the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95 ) and IE, Version 2.0 (the first cross-platform version of the web browser, supporting both Windows and Mac OS ) were thought by many to be inferior and primitive when compared to contemporary versions of Netscape Navigator. With the release of IE version 3.0 (1996) Microsoft
3690-427: The deprecated Internet Explorer 11 (which reports Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0 ) like Gecko ). The problem will self-correct after the release of Firefox 120, as only browsers identifying themselves as 110 through 119 were observed to be affected by it. Computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery . It includes
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3780-444: The function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast with the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software is intangible. Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. System software, or systems software,
3870-527: The Internet. On the 16th of November 2024 a user by the username of mjdxp on the Labyrinth Zone website posted a screenshot of a download link for a file called "AOL_Netscape.exe" which revealed a version of the Netscape browser based on a version of Chromium 123 with some cosmetic changes. The browser seems to be some De-Googled version of Chromium. The first release of the Netscape website with
3960-526: The Mozilla codebase, gave it a new GUI, and released it as Netscape 6. This did nothing to win back users, who continued to migrate to Internet Explorer. After the release of Netscape 7 and a long public beta test, Mozilla 1.0 was released on June 5, 2002. The same code-base, notably the Gecko layout engine, became the basis of independent applications, including Firefox and Thunderbird . On December 28, 2007,
4050-470: The Navigator browser . The aging Netscape Communicator 4.x was slower than Internet Explorer 5.0 . Typical web pages had become heavily illustrated, often JavaScript-intensive, and encoded with HTML features designed for specific purposes but now employed as global layout tools (HTML tables, the most obvious example of this, were especially difficult for Communicator to render). The Netscape browser, once
4140-447: The Netscape developers announced that AOL had canceled development of Netscape Navigator, leaving it unsupported as of March 1, 2008. Archived and unsupported versions of the browser remain available for download. Netscape's contributions to the web include JavaScript , which was submitted as a new standard to Ecma International . The resultant ECMAScript specification allowed JavaScript support by multiple web browsers and its use as
4230-540: The United States, such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer , previously used the letters U, I, and N to specify the encryption strength in the user agent string. Until 1996, when the United States government allowed encryption with keys longer than 40 bits to be exported, vendors shipped various browser versions with different encryption strengths. "U" stands for "USA" (for the version with 128-bit encryption), "I" stands for "International" –
4320-576: The User-Agent header in their Chrome browser since it was no longer being used to determine browser capabilities and instead mainly being used for passive browser fingerprinting . Google stated that a new feature called Client Hints would replace the functionality of the user agent string. Starting with Chrome 113, released in April 2023, the User-Agent header was partially frozen. The user-agent in newer version of Chrome would remain static except for
4410-465: The W3C recommends creating standard HTML markup, allowing correct rendering in as many browsers as possible, and to test for specific browser features rather than particular browser versions or brands. Websites intended for display by mobile phones often rely on user agent sniffing, since mobile browsers often differ greatly from each other. In 2020, Google announced that they would be freezing parts of
4500-522: The Web has encoded within the rules that govern its behavior the knowledge of how to negotiate its half of a request-response transaction; the user agent thus plays the role of the client in a client–server system . Often considered useful in networks is the ability to identify and distinguish the software facilitating a network session. For this reason, the User-Agent HTTP header exists to identify
4590-880: The above titles, and those who work in a web environment often prefix their titles with Web . The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer , software engineer, computer scientist , or software analyst . However, members of these professions typically possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming. The computer industry is made up of businesses involved in developing computer software, designing computer hardware and computer networking infrastructures, manufacturing computer components, and providing information technology services, including system administration and maintenance. The software industry includes businesses engaged in development , maintenance , and publication of software. The industry also includes software services , such as training , documentation , and consulting. Computer engineering
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#17327766073974680-514: The browser has 40-bit encryption and can be used anywhere in the world – and "N" stands ( de facto ) for "None" (no encryption). Following the lifting of export restrictions , most vendors supported 256-bit encryption. The popularity of various Web browser products has varied throughout the Web's history, and this has influenced the design of websites in such a way that websites are sometimes designed to work well only with particular browsers, rather than according to uniform standards by
4770-457: The challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to the description of computations, while the study of computer programming investigates the use of programming languages and complex systems . The field of human–computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans. The field of cybersecurity pertains to
4860-452: The client software to the responding server. When a software agent operates in a network protocol, it often identifies itself, its application type, operating system , device model, software vendor, or software revision, by submitting a characteristic identification string to its operating peer. In HTTP, SIP, and NNTP protocols, this identification is transmitted in a header field User-Agent . Bots , such as Web crawlers, often also include
4950-560: The computer and its system software, or may be published separately. Some users are satisfied with the bundled apps and need never install additional applications. The system software manages the hardware and serves the application, which in turn serves the user. Application software applies the power of a particular computing platform or system software to a particular purpose. Some apps, such as Microsoft Office , are developed in multiple versions for several different platforms; others have narrower requirements and are generally referred to by
5040-409: The computing power to do the necessary calculations, such in molecular modeling . Large molecules and their reactions are far too complex for traditional computers to calculate, but the computational power of quantum computers could provide a tool to perform such calculations. Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator is a discontinued proprietary web browser , and the original browser of
5130-448: The design of individual microprocessors , personal computers, and supercomputers , to circuit design . This field of engineering includes not only the design of hardware within its own domain, but also the interactions between hardware and the context in which it operates. Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, and quantifiable approach to the design, development, operation, and maintenance of software, and
5220-414: The development of quantum algorithms . Potential infrastructure for future technologies includes DNA origami on photolithography and quantum antennae for transferring information between ion traps. By 2011, researchers had entangled 14 qubits . Fast digital circuits , including those based on Josephson junctions and rapid single flux quantum technology, are becoming more nearly realizable with
5310-517: The digits that represented the major version of the browser being used. Starting with Firefox 110 released in February 2023, Mozilla announced it would temporarily freeze portions of the browser's user agent string at version 109. This was done due to several websites incorrectly recognizing a development version of the browser (which identified itself by the string Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; rv:110.0 ) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/110.0 ) as
5400-437: The discovery of nanoscale superconductors . Fiber-optic and photonic (optical) devices, which already have been used to transport data over long distances, are starting to be used by data centers, along with CPU and semiconductor memory components. This allows the separation of RAM from CPU by optical interconnects. IBM has created an integrated circuit with both electronic and optical information processing in one chip. This
5490-686: The emphasis between technical and organizational issues varies among programs. For example, programs differ substantially in the amount of programming required." The study of IS bridges business and computer science , using the theoretical foundations of information and computation to study various business models and related algorithmic processes within a computer science discipline. The field of Computer Information Systems (CIS) studies computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their software and hardware designs, their applications, and their impact on society while IS emphasizes functionality over design. Information technology (IT)
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#17327766073975580-877: The end of the decade, Netscape's web browser had lost dominance over the Windows platform, and the August 1997 Microsoft financial agreement to invest $ 150 million in Apple Computer required that Apple make Internet Explorer the default web browser in new Mac OS distributions. The latest IE Mac release at that time was Internet Explorer version 3.0 for Macintosh, but Internet Explorer 4 was released later that year. Microsoft succeeded in having ISPs and PC vendors distribute Internet Explorer to their customers instead of Netscape Navigator, mostly due to Microsoft using its leverage from Windows OEM licenses, and partly aided by Microsoft's investment in making IE brandable , such that
5670-665: The engineering paradigm. The generally accepted concepts of Software Engineering as an engineering discipline have been specified in the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). The SWEBOK has become an internationally accepted standard in ISO/IEC TR 19759:2015. Computer science or computing science (abbreviated CS or Comp Sci) is the scientific and practical approach to computation and its applications. A computer scientist specializes in
5760-434: The field of computer hardware. Computer software, or just software , is a collection of computer programs and related data, which provides instructions to a computer. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer. It is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms, as well as its documentation concerned with the operation of a data processing system. Program software performs
5850-442: The first silicon dioxide field effect transistors at Bell Labs, the first transistors in which drain and source were adjacent at the surface. Subsequently, a team demonstrated a working MOSFET at Bell Labs 1960. The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits , leading to what is known as the computer revolution or microcomputer revolution . A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to
5940-524: The first working transistor , the point-contact transistor , in 1947. In 1953, the University of Manchester built the first transistorized computer , the Manchester Baby . However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to mass-produce, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. In 1957, Frosch and Derick were able to manufacture
6030-499: The full version 1.0 available in December 1994. However, two months later, the company announced that only educational and non-profit institutions could use version 1.0 at no charge. The reversal was complete with the availability of version 1.1 beta on March 6, 1995, in which a press release states that the final 1.1 release would be available at no cost only for academic and non-profit organizational use. The first few releases of
6120-408: The full version of the browser continued to be made available for free online, with boxed versions available on floppy disks (and later CDs) in stores along with a period of phone support. During this era, "Internet Starter Kit" books were popular, and usually included a floppy disk or CD containing internet software, and this was a popular means of obtaining Netscape's and other browsers. Email support
6210-455: The influx of new users it brought. With a good mix of features and an attractive licensing scheme that allowed free use for non-commercial purposes, the Netscape browser soon became the de facto standard, particularly on the Windows platform. Internet service providers and computer magazine publishers helped make Navigator readily available. An innovation that Netscape introduced in 1994
6300-469: The information that the client sends to the server, since the string can vary considerably from user to user. The user agent string format is currently specified by section 10.1.5 of HTTP Semantics . The format of the user agent string in HTTP is a list of product tokens (keywords) with optional comments. For example, if a user's product were called WikiBrowser, their user agent string might be WikiBrowser/1.0 Gecko/1.0 . The "most important" product component
6390-503: The marketplace, however, these concerns made little difference. Netscape Navigator remained the market leader with more than 50% usage share . The browser software was available for a wide range of operating systems, including Windows ( 3.1 , 95 , 98 , NT ), Macintosh , Linux , OS/2 , and many versions of Unix including OSF/1 , Sun Solaris , BSD/OS , IRIX , AIX , and HP-UX , and looked and worked nearly identically on every one of them. Netscape began to experiment with prototypes of
6480-467: The open source community decided to scrap the Netscape Navigator codebase entirely and build a new web browser around the Gecko layout engine which Netscape had been developing but which had not yet incorporated. The community-developed open source project was named Mozilla , Netscape Navigator's original code name . America Online bought Netscape; Netscape programmers took a pre- beta -quality form of
6570-460: The owner of these resources and the end user. It is typically offered as a service, making it an example of Software as a Service , Platforms as a Service , and Infrastructure as a Service , depending on the functionality offered. Key characteristics include on-demand access, broad network access, and the capability of rapid scaling. It allows individual users or small business to benefit from economies of scale . One area of interest in this field
6660-480: The platform they run on. For example, a geography application for Windows or an Android application for education or Linux gaming . Applications that run only on one platform and increase the desirability of that platform due to the popularity of the application, known as killer applications . A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow
6750-416: The product were made available in "commercial" and "evaluation" versions; for example, version "1.0" and version "1.0N". The "N" evaluation versions were identical to the commercial versions; the letter was intended as a reminder to people to pay for the browser once they felt they had tried it long enough and were satisfied with it. This distinction was formally dropped within a year of the initial release, and
6840-522: The protection of computer systems and networks. This includes information and data privacy , preventing disruption of IT services and prevention of theft of and damage to hardware, software, and data. Data science is a field that uses scientific and computing tools to extract information and insights from data, driven by the increasing volume and availability of data. Data mining , big data , statistics, machine learning and deep learning are all interwoven with data science. Information systems (IS)
6930-954: The recently departed founder of Silicon Graphics . Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and provided the seed money. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California , with Andreessen as a vice-president. Since the University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, the company changed its name to Netscape Communications (suggested by product manager Greg Sands ) and named its flagship web browser Netscape Navigator. Netscape announced in its first press release (October 13, 1994) that it would make Navigator available without charge to all non-commercial users, and beta versions of version 1.0 and 1.1 were freely downloadable in November 1994 and March 1995, with
7020-606: The rules and data formats for exchanging information in a computer network, and provide the basis for network programming . One well-known communications protocol is Ethernet , a hardware and link layer standard that is ubiquitous in local area networks . Another common protocol is the Internet Protocol Suite , which defines a set of protocols for internetworking, i.e. for data communication between multiple networks, host-to-host data transfer, and application-specific data transmission formats. Computer networking
7110-415: The same name in their User-Agent identifiers so that web servers would send them the same pages as were sent to Netscape browsers. Mozilla is now a generic name for matters related to the open source successor to Netscape Communicator and is most identified with the browser Firefox . When the consumer Internet revolution arrived in the mid-1990s, Netscape was well-positioned to take advantage of it and
7200-454: The sharing of resources and information. When at least one process in one device is able to send or receive data to or from at least one process residing in a remote device, the two devices are said to be in a network. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics such as the medium used to transport the data, communications protocol used, scale, topology , and organizational scope. Communications protocols define
7290-411: The study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological, and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering , computer science , cybersecurity , data science , information systems , information technology , and software engineering . The term computing
7380-442: The study of these approaches. That is, the application of engineering to software. It is the act of using insights to conceive, model and scale a solution to a problem. The first reference to the term is the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference , and was intended to provoke thought regarding the perceived software crisis at the time. Software development , a widely used and more generic term, does not necessarily subsume
7470-446: The theory of computation and the design of computational systems. Its subfields can be divided into practical techniques for its implementation and application in computer systems , and purely theoretical areas. Some, such as computational complexity theory , which studies fundamental properties of computational problems , are highly abstract, while others, such as computer graphics , emphasize real-world applications. Others focus on
7560-585: The web browser with security updates until March 1, 2008. AOL allows downloading of archived versions of the Netscape Navigator web browser family. Netscape Navigator was inspired by the success of the Mosaic web browser, which was co-written by Marc Andreessen , a part-time employee of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois . After Andreessen graduated in 1993, he moved to California and there met Jim Clark ,
7650-452: The word "Opera" (instead using the string "OPR" to denote the Opera version). Automated web crawling tools can use a simplified form, where an important field is contact information in case of problems. By convention the word "bot" is included in the name of the agent. For example: Automated agents are expected to follow rules in a special file called " robots.txt ". Web browsers created in
7740-451: Was a central premise of Microsoft's antitrust trial , wherein the Court ruled that Microsoft 's bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system was a monopolistic and illegal business practice. The decision came too late for Netscape, however, as Internet Explorer had by then become the dominant web browser in Windows. The Netscape Navigator web browser was succeeded by
7830-538: Was able to catch up with Netscape competitively, with IE Version 4.0 (1997) further improvement in terms of market share. IE 5.0 (1999) improved stability and took significant market share from Netscape Navigator for the first time. There were two versions of Netscape Navigator 3.0, the Standard Edition and the Gold Edition. The latter consisted of the Navigator browser with e-mail, news readers, and
7920-532: Was initially free and remained so for a year or two until the volume of support requests grew too high. During development, the Netscape browser was known by the code name Mozilla , which became the name of a Godzilla -like cartoon dragon mascot used prominently on the company's web site. The Mozilla name was also used as the User-Agent in HTTP requests by the browser. Other web browsers claimed to be compatible with Netscape's extensions to HTML and therefore used
8010-488: Was the 1931 paper "The Use of Thyratrons for High Speed Automatic Counting of Physical Phenomena" by C. E. Wynn-Williams . Claude Shannon 's 1938 paper " A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits " then introduced the idea of using electronics for Boolean algebraic operations. The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain , while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs , built
8100-419: Was the on-the-fly display of web pages, where text and graphics appeared on the screen as the web page downloaded. Earlier web browsers would not display a page until all graphics on it had been loaded over the network connection; this meant a user might have only a blank page for several minutes. With Netscape, people using dial-up connections could begin reading the text of a web page within seconds of entering
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