When you make a cake, you take some of this, and some of that, and even a bit of the other. Then you mix all the stuff up into a big goop in a bowl. Finally, when everything's in the mix, you pour it all into a cake pan where it gets cooked and shaped into the final product.

That's what browsers are like.

A browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, is used to cook up and shape all the "stuff" it receives when you request a webpage. That stuff can include text, and tables, and images, and bits of information from a database, and Flash content, and Javascript actions, and a whole bunch of other things.

All the stuff sits on a computer called a server, and when you type in a certain domain name or webpage URL address into your browser, the server grabs all the stuff needed to assemble that webpage (that's like mixing all the ingredients into a bowl).

Then the server sends all the stuff to the browser (that's like pouring the cake mix into the cake pan).

The browser has the tough job of making sure the final product takes proper shape - this image here, that text there, this font, that size, this color, and so on.

And that's why browsers are like a cake pan.

Here's some FREE browsers you can download and use:

* Internet Explorer: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx

* Netscape: http://www.netscape.com/

* Opera: http://www.opera.com/

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved.