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If you are reading these lines, then you are most likely using a web browser (short form: browser). And if you haven't already saved my web address on your computer or smartphone, you most likely found it via a search engine; the popular term for this is: “to google”.
In case you juggle terms like "html", "css", "w3m", "elinks" and "lynx" yourself, I recommend you with a clear conscience Detlef Sterns Blog. By the way, Detlef's favorite clue is: "Google xy".
"Browsing" and "google" have meanwhile become a matter of course for any information retrieval and have largely replaced the "looking up" that many people are still familiar with. Therefore, I would like to briefly and concisely deal with browsing and googling in this article and also introduce you to one or the other browser as well as one or the other search engine.
At the time of Netscape (until 2008) and Internet Explorer, the first well-known browsers, the world was perfectly fine for both the users and the providers of websites or weblogs; especially since Internet Explorer was already pre-installed on most computers. It wasn't until 2009 that things changed fundamentally for everyone involved, because the European Union enforced "BrowserChoice.eu" and the use of other browsers became commonplace. But what was more of a question of taste for Internet users became a horror for small website providers. I hate to think back to how I configured websites optimally for Internet Explorer, only to find that the website looked ugly on Firefox, and then when I fixed that problem, the calls came that the site was running Opera at all cannot be opened. Today, some providers are content with the fact that they basically specify which browser their offers can be used with — I should only have allowed myself that once!
I don't want to go into too much detail here, but my experience is that if you really want to have competition and diversity, you also need to make sure everyone is singing from the same tune. Corresponding efforts of World Wide Web Consortiums (W3C) to achieve the standardization of the techniques relating to the World Wide Web (WWW) have not been successful to date.
In the meantime, however, most browsers have become the central software for computer users, which not only display HTML pages (Hypertext Markup Language), but also play videos and music and display graphics. They also already distribute files worldwide or send and receive e-mails, in some cases they replace the file manager and even manage personal access data for various websites or blogs. With other so-called plug-ins and additions, their functionality is hardly manageable.
As an Apple user you probably still use Safari these days, and as a Microsoft user you probably still use Edge, but these browsers have long since been superseded by Chrome and Firefox. I'll list the currently used Bowsers here:
Chrome (since 2008)
It can be used with the operating systems Android, Google Chrome OS, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.google.de/chrome/
Edge (since 2015 — successor to the Internet Explorers from 1995)
It can be used with the operating systems Android, iOS, macOS, Windows and Xbox One.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/edge
Firefox (since 2004 — predecessor Phoenix and Firebird since 2002)
It can be used with the operating systems Android, FreeBSD, iOS, Linux, macOS, Unix and Windows.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/new/
Opera (since 1996)
It can be used with the operating systems Android, Blackberry, FreeBSD, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.opera.com/de
Safari (since 2003)
It can be used with the operating systems iOS and macOS.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.apple.com/de/safari/
Tor (since 2002)
It can be used with all possible operating systems and can also be started from a removable medium.
You can download the browser here:
https://www.torproject.org/de/
Vivaldi (since 2016)
It can be used with the operating systems Android, Linux, macOS and Windows.
You can download the browser here:
https://vivaldi.com/de/
If a web browser is primarily a program for displaying websites or blogs, Internet search engines are the programs that provide them with the content to be displayed. Similar to browsers, there are a number of search engines today, with the aforementioned Google search engine being the most well-known. It has been on the market since 1997 and has been constantly searching the Internet with "web crawlers" ever since. Those search engines that use the search results of other search engines are particularly worth mentioning; they are therefore also called meta search engines. Dogpile (since 1996) is probably the best known.
Here you will find my list of search engines, although I do not claim to list them all:
Ask (since 1996 — originally: Ask jeeves)
American search engine in which you are also welcome to enter complete questions.
Here you get to Ask: https://www.ask.com/
Baidu (since 2000)
It is a Chinese search engine, which is probably the most used next to Google.
Here's how to get to Baidu: https://www.baidu.com
Bing (since 2009 — successor of Live Search)
It is Microsoft's search engine.
Here's how to get to Bing: https://www.bing.com
Dogpile (since 1996)
It uses search results from Google, Yandex and Bing, among others.
Here you get to Dogpile: https://www.dogpile.com
DuckDuckGo (since 2008)
It uses its own web crawler as well as the results of other search engines. The Tor browser uses this search engine.
Here's how to get to DuckDuckGo: https://duckduckgo.com
Fireball (since 1996)
A German search engine.
Here's how to get to Fireball: https://fireball.de
Google (since 1997)
Currently not only the best known, but also the largest search engine.
Here you get to Google: https://www.google.de
Lycos (since 1997)
She now uses Bing search results.
Here you can get to Lycos: https://www.lycos.de
PrivacyWall (since 2013)
A search engine from Social Game Media Inc. and claims to be operated by Stanford University engineers.
You can access Privacy Wall here: https://www.privacywall.org
Search.ch (since 1995)
A Swiss search engine.
You can access Search.ch here: https://www.search.ch
Yahoo! (since 1995)
She now uses Bing search results.
Here you get to Yahoo: https://de.yahoo.com
Yandex (since 1997)
A Russian search engine.
Here is how to get to Yandex: https://yandex.ru
In Germany, the following search engines are still popular, although I can't quite understand the added value for the user:
start Page (chosen by Stiftung Warentest in 1999; new since 2006)
The search engine, at least initially, used the results from Google. It is now a new Dutch search engine and claims to be the safest in the world.
Here you get to the start page: https://www.startpage.com
t online. (Sold by Telekom in 1995 — originally their Internet portal)
The search engine uses the results from Google.
You can access t-online here: https://www.t-online.de/
Web.de (since 1995 — originally a web directory)
The search engine now belongs to 1und1 and uses the results from Google.
Here you get to Web.de: https://web.de
And finally the dinosaur from the USA:
Aol. (since 1985 — originally Quantum Computer Services)
The search engine was launched in 1988 America Online (Aol) and now offers Bing search results.
Here's how to get to Aol: https://www.aol.de
I recommend that you always use other search engines as well, because you will find more with them than if Google always gives you the same result. You will also find out that Google has probably put together the largest collection of data on the Internet.
If you use other web browsers or Internet search engines yourself, please let me know. I am very happy to add to this list.
"I use Google all the time, I'm happy it's there. But just as when I read The New York Times or the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal knowing that they have ways of selecting and shaping the material that reaches you, you have to compensate for it. With Google, and others of course, there is an immense amount of surveillance to try to obtain personal data about individuals and their habits and interactions and so on, to shape the way information is presented to them. They do more than the NSA."
Noam Chomsky, Interview with Byline.com (April 14, 2015)
