The search engine and the web browser are the completely different technologies where the search engine used for searching some information over the Internet. On the other hand, the web browser is used for accessing the web pages and the HTML files.
You must have heard the names of the softwares or applications like Google, Yahoo, Baidu, DuckDuckgo, etcetera. These are examples of search engines. Conversely, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer are examples of web browsers.
Content: Search Engine Vs Web Browser
Comparison Chart
| Basis for comparison | Search Engine | Web Browser |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Maintains the information about the web pages stored in the Internet. | Used for searching the information on the web and displaying it over the user's computer. |
| Intended to | Information gathering regarding several URL's. | Display the web page of the current URL. |
| Database | Contains its own database | No database is present |
| Examples | Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckgo, Baidu Internet Explorer. | Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, and Google Chrome. |
Definition of Search Engine
The Internet is a magnificent source of information and to access the information from the Internet we use come sort of softwares, existing in the form of websites or web application. Google, Yahoo, Baidu and DuckDuckgo are the types of search engine.
Operations Involved
- The user first loads the website of the search service provider in the browser.
- The search engine provides the search box to enable the user to type the keyword or keyphrase that the user wants to search.
- After that, the user has to click on the search button.
- The client software is responsible for requesting the search service to find the requested topic webpages.
- In order to accomplish this task, it employs the string matching techniques for choosing the web pages comprised of the search results that are similar to the requested keyword or keyphrase.
- As a result, it displays the webpages that have the URLs list, and these URLs are hyperlinks linking to the searched topic.
- Now, this is up to the user what he or she wants to select.
Components
- Crawler – These are software programs (also known as the bots), which scans the websites automatically at the regular intervals for URLs, keywords and links and to discover the updates. It is also capable of following the links present in some particular webpage.
- Index – On the basis of the scanning of the websites, the web crawler develops an index of URL’s, links and keywords for the effective search results.
- Search Algorithm – The search algorithm is the mechanism behind the whole searching process. This works by searching for the index and finding for the webpages comprised of matching keywords when the user searches for some keywords.
Definition of Web Browser
The web browser is the general-purpose application software developed to retrieve and view the web pages or HTML files residing the web servers. The very first graphical web browser was introduced in the year of 1993 named as the mosaic. Since then, various web browsers were developed names as navigator (developed by Netscape communication in 1994), Microsoft’s internet explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera.
Characteristics
Interface
A web browser uses a graphical interface (point and click) which includes toolbar buttons provided for viewing a document and navigating through it, for performing manual refresh over a web page and stopping the ongoing download process.
There is an address bar, or search box is provided in the web browser where the user is required to type the address or URL of the website he/she wants to visit. It also enables the users to visit the other websites by just clicking the hyperlinks displayed on a webpage.
Page Style
It could be static or dynamic depending on the interactivity and the formatting. Static page styles contain ASCII text files formatted with the help of HTML. While the dynamic page style is developed using scripting languages such as JavaScript and VB Script and these are interactive in nature.
Protocol
The protocols used by the web browsers are the TCP/IP and HTTP protocol where TCP/IP employed to implement the reliable data transfer within a network (and Internet). The purpose of the HTTP protocol is to let the user access or retrieve the webserver and download the HTML file.
Application integration
The web browsers are also competent in providing various services at one platform, the services like email, chat and news. Therefore, we can also run these internet programs over the web browsers and for searching these, we use search engines.
Key Differences Between Search Engine and Web Browser
- A search engine helps in finding information in the World Wide Web and displays the results at one place. On the other hand, the web browser is different from the search engine because the search engine is a part of a web browser. Like a search engine program or website, we can access a lot of internet-based services through the browser.
- The search engine is intended to gather information related to a web page such as URLs, quality of the content written in the webpage, number of users visiting the web page and for how much time a web page can engage the audience. In contrast, the web browser can be used for displaying the web pages of the current URLs. It also facilitates the operation of various services like email, chat, search engine and other social networking sites.
- A search engine maintains its own database whereas in browser no database required. However, a browser uses cache which stores the cookies regarding the websites and the URL’s of websites visited by the user using that particular browser. Therefore, the user can easily access those websites if needed.
- There are various search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckgo, etcetera. As against, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator are the example of the web browsers.
Conclusion
However, the terms – search engine and web browser are related to the Internet, but both works in a different manner. The search engine helps in finding the desired content over the Internet. Conversely, a web browser is the software where everything takes place like working of a search engine and viewing of other websites too.
Leave a Reply