Your internet browser is not your own. While browsing on the streets and in malls served as a means of avoiding commitment, online browsing is never truly idle
The browser, in the beginning, was a herbivore, feasting on buds, shoots, and twigs from trees and bushes. Unlike grazers who kept their heads down to eat grass, browsers raised their heads, reaching and craning their necks as they searched for sustenance.
During the 19th century, the term "browser" took on a more metaphorical meaning. With the industrialization of Europe, covered shopping arcades thrived across the continent. These arcades provided an upper-class form of entertainment and pleasure, particularly for women, who could venture out of their houses and freely explore. A browser, in this context, referred to someone who casually wandered through the world of ideas or goods, exploring whatever piqued their interest. While grazers were focused and determined in their pursuits, browsing implied a certain sense of carefreeness, a lack of seriousness or commitment.
Browsing emerged as a result of changing material circumstances and was also a natural extension of a philosophy of curious leisure and an aesthetic of exploratory idyll that gained popularity in the 1800s. The figure of the flâneur, an urban wanderer and observer who was simultaneously detached from and attuned to the newly industrialized environment, originated from the literary imagination of that era. Baudelaire described the flâneur as a "passionate spectator," someone who desired to be away from home and yet feel at home everywhere, to be at the center of the world while remaining hidden from it.
While the extent to which idle semi-artists truly roamed the streets of Paris in a state of alienation is a matter of debate, it is undeniable that there was an increasing number of places where "the world" was put on display. Department stores emerged as novelties in both Europe and North America around the same time. These stores turned customers into participants and spectators in a theater of commercial and cultural activities. The blending of public and private spaces in these new retail environments invited citizens to become both consumers and onlookers.
While amenities and displays were intended to attract buyers, those who preferred to observe, wander, and simply be present and seen were also welcome. The act of perusal was one of the pleasures on offer. Being a browser became a defining pastime of the emerging middle class, blending curiosity, aspiration, consumption, and leisure. Browsing offered a new way of seeing and experiencing the world, particular to the rising tide of modernity. By lingering on the surface of things and avoiding commitment, browsers asserted their right to "shop" in the sense of immersing themselves among objects and people, engaging with culture, without making actual purchases.
A similar notion can be applied to browsing the internet.
The invention of the first web browser by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 sparked a significant shift in the power dynamics associated with browsing. Appropriately named the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee's browser blurred the lines between the program and the concept of the internet itself (the software was later renamed Nexus to avoid confusion). The project was initially introduced to Berners-Lee's colleagues at CERN in 1991, and in the following years, various computer scientists at academic institutions developed their own browsers, creating a family tree of now-extinct applications (including MidasWWW, ViolaWWW, Lynx, Erwise, and Cello).
In 1993, programmers Marc Andreessen and Erica Bina from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created Mosaic, the first browser designed for widespread use. Mosaic, known for its user-friendly installation process, ease of use, and responsive customer support, introduced inline images (unlike earlier browsers that displayed pictures in separate windows primarily for downloading charts and figures rather than viewing images).
Mosaic revolutionized the internet, making it truly browsable. Writing in WIRED magazine in 1994, Gary Wolfe described how Mosaic transformed the texture of the internet for everyday users. He noted that users could navigate through the online world based on their whims and intuition. Mosaic might not have been the most direct or powerful means of finding online information, but it was undeniably the most pleasurable. With this newfound pleasure, the browser transformed the internet from an exclusive realm for programmers, computer scientists, and academics into a public sphere. Now, the browser represented not only the human engaging in the activity but also the tool itself, serving as the navigator and point of access.
Marc Andreessen went on to create Netscape Navigator, the browser that competed with Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the late '90s and early 2000s during the "first browser war." While Microsoft faced antitrust violations for bundling Internet Explorer with its operating system, Netscape was unable to regain its market share in time. However, Netscape reemerged as the not-for-profit Mozilla and introduced the Firefox browser after open-sourcing its software. In 2003 and 2008, respectively, Google and Apple entered the competition with Chrome and Safari.
Among these browsers, Google's Chrome stood out with its minimalist interface, focus on extensions, and frequent updates. Eventually, it surpassed Internet Explorer and became the de facto face of the internet. This marked a pivotal moment in the second browser war, which lasted from the mid-2000s until 2017. During this period, various browsers vied to undermine Microsoft's dominance by enhancing their products with features that are now standard in online life, such as tabbed browsing, private search sessions, phishing filters, and spell checkers.
Although tabs originated from a relatively unknown browser called SimulBrowse (later renamed NetCaptor) in the late '90s, they became a standard part of internet exploration in the mid-2000s as numerous competitive browsers released updates focusing on a refined tabbed browsing experience. Tabs revolutionized browsing by allowing users to be in multiple places simultaneously. They embody the growing fickleness and fragmented nature of attention, satisfying the urge to click and start anew with each new thought or impulse. Tabs also reflect the desire to keep options open, hold onto momentary desires and intentions, and maintain a connection with previous versions of oneself.
Internet browsers intensify these anxieties. While browsing in 19th-century department stores was a fleeting and untraceable activity, modern browsers record the places we visit, the information we seek, and the questions we ask. Browsers retain this information and have a memory. Importantly, your browser does not truly belong to you. It preserves your browsing history until you instruct it to forget. Beneath the surface of the browser, which shapes our perception of the internet, lies a hidden realm of information about our browsing habits and our identities.
When browsing online, the environment does not fundamentally adapt to suit or contradict our whims. In a physical bookstore or library, flipping through magazines or newspapers and being captivated by a headline does not provoke the other reading materials to rearrange themselves and vie for our attention. However, online, this type of response occurs constantly. Although you may be "only browsing," the internet reacts to your habits, what you click on, and where you linger, revealing itself differently in response to your actions. The concept of browsing as a means of withholding commitment or purchasing power is not feasible in this context. Using a browser directly or indirectly involves participating in commerce, and no act of browsing can be truly idle.
While the internet allows us to connect with diverse ideas, people, and products from all corners of the world, spending time searching, exploring, and browsing online often feels constricted and lacking in depth. It can feel like we are being led towards unforeseen and often disappointing outcomes. Perhaps this is because there is no neutral context to which we can return, no stable reference point for reorientation. The web was originally intended to be "surfed," evoking images of riding the waves, carried by natural energy, wind in our hair, and so forth. However, in a world that rearranges itself to suit our attention, an absorbing online browsing session is more akin to falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Browsing online, in its unique manner, possesses greater limitations compared to browsing in the physical world. With the transition of the browser from a mere tool to a defining aspect of our existence, we find ourselves questioning our identity. Who are we, or rather, what have we transformed into when we engage in browsing? Paradoxically, it appears to me that we have adopted the traits of grazers. As our search engines progressively take on more responsibilities on our behalf - preempting our queries, guiding our focus, and foreseeing our desires - the act of browsing becomes less akin to casually plucking new growth from the edges of foliage and more similar to someone shaking a handful of disconnected leaves in front of our faces, obscuring our vision of anything else.
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