Web Server vs Web Browser – What’s the Difference ? (Explained)
Web server vs Web Browser – What’s the Difference ? (Explained). In this article, I would like to describe in general what is the Web server and the web browser. Additionally, I would like to show you how they function. After that I will explain their benefits and their advantages and disadvantages. At the very end, you will find out what the differences between them are in everyday use. Let’s start.
What is a Web Server?
A web server is actually a computer on which we can use websites. It is a program designed on a computer that redirects websites according to our needs. The main purpose of a web server is to maintain and deliver web pages to our users. This is all done through internal communication using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). These websites are mostly content that include HTML documents, images, stylesheets, etc. In addition to HTTP, the web server also supports SMTP (Simple Mail transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for sending emails and sending files and storage.
How Does a Web Server work?
The Internet acts as a mass source of information. But now the question arises who gives us the information and how do we get information? It’s all about the WWW. Along with this server, there are browsers for applications that we use. Example is Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Safari. Their job is to interact with the web server together, browse and download files on the web server known as web clients.
We can pay attention to how this process work in the simple example below.
I will also present the operation in 4 simple steps:
- First step is obtaining the IP address from the domain name.
- The browser always requires the full URL from us.
- The web server responds by responding to our request.
- The browser displays the website we have chosen.
Benefits and Features of a Web server
Features
- Ability to create one or more websites.
- Web servers offers log file storage for client requests and server responses. Helps in gathering statistics.
- Creates an FTP site. An FTP site allows users to transfer files to and from the site.
- One of the main features of a web server is the ability to store large amounts of data. This helps the web server to store data from multiple websites.
- Creates virtual directories and change them to physical directories.
Benefits
- The website offers a good learning and setup deal.
- You can use every bit of your hardware resources that will help in smooth running of your website.
- It’s a great way to learn and adapt new technologies day by day.
- You have full control, you know every hardware and software that comes with it.
- Secures literally anything if you have your own server. Hosting servers are just another computer that anyone can access. So you are safe here if you have your own server.
Pros of using a Web Server
- Have full control over access to the website.
- You can manage web storage space and performance more effectively.
- You are not contractually or legally bound to use a specific provider.
- Offers a choice of multiple multi processor modules (MPMs) for connection management.
Cons of using a Web Server
- They are unable to handle a large number of simultaneous requests.
- Not as fast as some of the newer alternatives.
- Updates are not very frequent and new technologies are integrated slowly.
Next in this blog article Web server vs Web Browser – What’s the Difference ? is to introduce a web browser.
What is a Web Browser?
It is a web browser and client side application that supports Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is the internet protocol for the World Wide Web (WWW). When using a web browser, also known as a “browser“, we access a variety of information that is published on a web server. All individual websites, images and videos are identified and interpreted by a separate URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which allows browsers to retrieve this valuable information from a web server and display it on the user’s device.
How does a Web Browser work?
I will present you the operation of the web browser in the simplest possible way: The browser consists of two elements – frontend and backend. The front end is the interface we interact with that looks pretty simple. However, this complex back end facilitates the basic operation of the browser.
Browser components
Each browser consists of the corresponding components one by one:
- User Interface.
- Browser Engine.
- Rendering Engine.
- Networking.
- JavaScript Interpreter.
- UI Backend.
- Data Storage.
If we want to search for something, it works as follows:
- Enter the URL in the web browser.
- After analyzing the text, the browser finds the IP address of the domain using DNS server.
- The browser connects to the server.
- Then it sends the requested HTTP text to the web server.
- The server handles the request and sends an HTTP response.
- The browser renders and displays the HTML content, i.e. the website.
Benefits and Features of a Web Browser
Features
- Home button and address bar.
- One of the main features of a browser is the search button on the main page as well as search the WWW itself.
- Refresh button.
- The browser gives us the ability to save the web pages to a com pull file, print the web page and send its web content to other people on the internet via email.
- Bookmarks.
- Tabbed browsing.
- If you use browser within a secured network, you may have to configure your browser to work through a special computer on your network called a proxy server.
Benefits
- More manageable.
- Highly deployable.
- Secures live data.
- Reduces costs.
Types of Web Browsers
Mozilla FireFox Benefits
- It is very easy to enable extensions.
- Very good developer tools for troubleshooting broken sites.
- It uses the latest World Wide Web standards to represent digitally stored graphical content.
Google Chrome Benefits
- Easy extension enable function.
- The fastest load time for websites.
Internet Explorer Benefits
- It comes pre installed on most Windows computers.
- Incorporates archiving/bookmarking of website URLs.
Web Server vs Web Browser Differences?
Function of Web Server
- The web server has the following capabilities: accepts, approves and responds to a web browser request for a web service.
- Perform a security check on HTTP requests sent by the browser.
- Makes sure that all required modules are available and ready to use.
Function of Web Browser
- To enable Java applets and flash content there are plugins available for use in the web browser.
- The main function is to retrieve information from the World Wide Web and making it available for users.
- Multiple web pages can be opened at the same time on a web browser.
Basics of a Web Server
- A web server is a user program or computer that provides services to other programs called clients.
- Software and a system which maintain the web applications, generate response and accept clients data.
Basics of a Web Browser
- Software which acts as an interface between server and client, and displays web documents to the client.
- Web Browser is an Application program that displays a World wide web document. It usually uses the internet service to access the document.
Responsibility of Web Server
- The web server is responsible for connecting websites and web browsers.
- Listens to client request continuously (HTTP Request).
- Provides an environment to deploy manage and to deploy the web application.
- Gathers output generated by web resource programs.
Responsibility of Web Browser
- A web browser is a programme that uses websites to search the internet for information.
Interface of a Web Server
- The web server is a software or a system which maintain the web applications, generate response and accept clients data.
Interface of a Web Browser
- The web browser acts as an interface between the server and the client and displays a web document to the client.
Storing data
- Web servers provide an area to store and organize the pages of the website.
Storing data
- Web browser stores the cookies for different websites.
Thank you so much for reading about Web server vs Web Browser – What’s the Difference ? (Explained) We shall conclude.
Web server vs Web Browser - What's the Difference Conclusion
In conclusion, we can assume that the web server and web browser interact appropriately to achieve mutual consumer satisfaction. We need a web server to store the information data, while a web browser is needed to find this information and present it in a comprehensible and human appropriate manner. So we can safely say that they play an important part of our lives in everyday use.
Take a look at our Apache and web server content here.
