Summary – Browser, Internet, Security

Today’s web is a colorful, visual, practical, nutty, busy, friend-filled, fun and incredibly useful place. Many of us now live a life of cloud computing on the Internet: we read the news, watch movies, chat with friends, and do our daily tasks online with web-based applications right the browser. Web apps let us do that from anywhere in the world, even if we left our laptops at home.

It’s all possible thanks to the evolution of web standards like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, as well as browser plug-ins. New capabilities in HTML5 are helping developers create the next generation of truly inventive web apps.

What else is taking shape in the clouds?

• It takes a modern browser to make the most of the web’s modern features.

• Modern browsers also help protect against malware and phishing.
• Open-source sharing has given us better browsers and a faster, richer, more complex web. And open-source brainpower is making the future of the web even brighter.
• What’s in that bright future? 3D in the browser, faster speeds, and sync across all devices, among other fine things.
• Being an informed citizen of the web requires some self-education — for instance, learning to control your browser’s privacy settings for various types of content including cookies.
• You’re also safer on the web when you pay attention to visual cues in the browser, like checking the URLs you’re sent to, and looking for an “https://” secure connection or extended validation.

The final takeaways?

Use a modern browser, first and foremost. Or try a new one and see if it brings you happier browsing that’s better suited to your needs.

The web will keep evolving — dramatically! Support cutting-edge web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and WebGL, because they’ll help the web community imagine and create a future of great, innovative web apps.

Lastly, try new things. The web is a new and exciting place every day, so try tasks that you didn’t think could be done online — such as researching your ancestry back ten generations, or viewing a real-time webcam image from a climbing basecamp in the Himalayas. You might be surprised by what you find!