Mobile browser facts for kids

A Wikipedia page on an Apple iPhone 2G displayed on the Safari web browser

A mobile browser is a special web browser made for devices you can carry around. Think of it like the internet app on your mobile phone, smartphone, or tablet. These browsers are designed to make websites look good and work well on smaller screens.

Older mobile browsers were very simple. They needed to be small because old phones didn't have much memory or fast internet. But today's smartphones have powerful browsers. They can show complex websites with cool features like CSS 3 (for styling), JavaScript (for interactive parts), and Ajax (for smooth updates).

Many websites today are "mobile friendly." This means they can tell if you're visiting from a phone or tablet. Then, they automatically change to fit your screen. This makes them easy to use with touchscreens.

How Mobile Browsers Work

A mobile browser usually connects to the internet using your phone's cellular network or Wi-Fi. It uses standard internet rules like HTTP over TCP/IP to get web pages. These pages are usually written in HTML.

In the past, simpler phones could only show special web pages. These pages were made using formats like XHTML Mobile Profile or WML. These formats were very basic. They were good for slow internet connections, often called WAP. In Japan, a service called i-mode used a similar simple HTML.

Today's smartphone browsers are much more advanced. They can handle full HTML, CSS (for design), and ECMAScript (another name for JavaScript). They also use special ways to show information on small screens. This makes it easier to tap and swipe.

A Brief History of Mobile Browsers

The very first mobile browser for a PDA was called PocketWeb. It was made in 1994 for the Apple Newton. The first one you could buy was NetHopper in 1996.

Early mobile browsers, sometimes called "microbrowsers," became popular with services like WAP and i-mode. These helped people get online with their phones for the first time.

In 1997, a company called Unwired Planet put their "UP.Browser" on AT&T phones. This was one of the first times a mobile browser was on a cell phone. Another company, STNC Ltd., made a browser called HitchHiker in 1997. It was very advanced for its time. Microsoft later bought STNC, and HitchHiker became Microsoft Mobile Explorer 2.0.

Many companies made browsers for Palm OS devices. HandWeb was the first HTML browser for Palm OS in 1997. Later, Opera software became famous for its Small Screen Rendering technology. This allowed regular websites to fit on small phone screens. Opera was also one of the first mobile browsers to support Ajax. It was also the first mobile browser to pass the Acid2 test, which checks how well a browser follows web standards.

Popular Mobile Browsers Today

Many different mobile browsers are available. Some are built into your phone, while others you can download. Here's a look at how popular some of them are:

Browsers Built into Mobile Devices

Many mobile devices come with a browser already installed. Here are some of them:

Browsers You Can Install Yourself

You can also download and install many browsers on your mobile device.

Mobile HTML Transcoders

Mobile transcoders are special services that change and compress web content. They make it easier for mobile devices to display websites. They work with your mobile browser to help pages load faster and use less data.

Some popular mobile transcoders include:

• Openwave Web Adapter
• Vision Mobile Server
• Skweezer
• Opera Mini (which also acts as a browser)

Many older transcoding services have stopped working. For example, Google Mobilizer stopped in 2016.

See also

In Spanish: Navegador móvil para niños

• Browser wars
• Device Description Repository
• i-mode
• Information appliance
• Mobile web
• Mobile content
• Usage share of web browsers
• User agent
• Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers