What Does a Browser Do?
Explore the core functions of a web browser, including DNS resolution, HTTP communication, and content rendering. Understand these processes to grasp potential security risks and improve your web application’s security posture by recognizing how data is requested, exchanged, and displayed.
We'll cover the following...
Long story short, a browser’s job consists of:
- DNS resolution
- HTTP exchange
- Rendering
- Rinse and repeat
DNS resolution
DNS resolution makes sure that once the user enters a URL, the browser knows which server it should connect to. The browser contacts a DNS server to find that google.ae translates to 216.58.207.110 which is an IP address the browser can connect to.
HTTP exchange
Once the browser has identified which server is going to serve our request, it will initiate a TCP connection and begin the HTTP exchange. This is nothing but a way for the browser to communicate to the server what it wants, and for the server to reply back.
HTTP is simply the name of the most popular protocol for communication on the web. Browsers mostly talk via HTTP when communicating with servers. An HTTP exchange involves the client, our browser, sending a request and the server replying back ...