Do you know the difference between a web browser and a search engine? Inordinately, I speak with clients who don’t. Knowing how to make this distinction is crucial to an effective troubleshooting and support experience.
A web browser is a particular type of application on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad that you open and use to view websites. The big four are Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox. There are, however, many more in this landscape.
Last fall, I wrote about Arc, which has been my primary browser on the Mac for a year or so. More recently, I also made Arc Search my default on iPhone. Over my history of browsing the Internet on a Mac, those I’ve previously used most include Netscape Navigator/Communicator, Camino, OmniWeb, Google Chrome, Safari, and Brave.
I also shared a short history of the “browser wars” and the evolution of Chrome’s underlying code that fills Arc, Edge, Brave, Opera, and others. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some deep wisdom about how none of these is itself a search engine, be it Google, Yahoo, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, etc. Well, almost…
In truth, DuckDuckGo offers both a web browser and a search engine, but let’s set that aside for a moment. And, Google and others deliver themselves as apps on iPhone and iPad, which is why this article is mostly focused on the Mac experience.
Anyway, a search engine is a website you visit to see the results of a search query. Built into every web browser is some mechanism for entering such a query and connecting with a search engine. Yet, the search engine itself is not inherently the web browser.
Web Browser
One thing of vital importance to know is that a web browser cannot tell you the state of your Mac and is restricted from detecting that your computer is infected with a virus, malware, or other malady.
Thus, if you see such a message on a webpage that you visit or that appears in your browser window, it’s merely an advertisement. However, following through with this “invitation” will almost certainly infect your Mac or lead to a breach of your private information and/or identity.
Common capabilities of a web browser include:
- Loading webpages in multiple windows and/or in multiple tabs within a single window
- Searching the Internet, including using a specified default search engine
- Saving links to webpages, such as creating bookmarks, and organizing these in a hierarchy of folders
- Viewing a history of past-viewed webpages
- Downloading files from providers for the purposes of consuming documents, installing software, etc.
Search Engine
I mostly use Google for my Internet searches. I find the results more targeted and valuable than other search engines. While I have some concern about the privacy of my search data, I also benefit from being able to find things consistently and/or higher in the list.
Common capabilities of a search engine include:
- Querying an index of web pages and displaying results that are relevant to a prompt
- Providing a mechanism for search terms that must be included, such as putting a word or phrase in quotes
- Providing a mechanism for search terms that must be excluded, such as putting a hyphen immediately before a word or quoted phrase
- Offering other means to limit search results based on specific criteria
There are also times that I prioritize using an AI instead of a conventional search engine. For example, I’ve come to appreciate the intelligent webpages I can generate using “Browse For Me” in Arc Search and also share with others, such as the one shown above.
When you have a question about a webpage that doesn’t load properly, does weird things, or claims your computer is infected, I might ask you what web browser you’re using, how you got to the page, or whether you tried another browser. It’s important that you can distinguish between these things so we can have a delightful conversation and troubleshoot effectively.
If you’re excited to discuss this topic further, feel free to leave a comment on this post below.
Reply or comment on this