A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for accessing information on the World Wide Web. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the web browser retrieves the necessary content from a web server and then displays the page on the user's device. A web browser is not the same thing as a search engine, though the two are often confused. For a user, a search engine is just a website that stores searchable data about other websites. However, to connect to a website's server and display its web pages, a user must have a web browser installed.