Gary wrote:

Wrong, google Groups -is- a browser.

I'm having "AOL is the Internet" flashbacks ;-)

Let's see if we can't clear this up...

First, let's back up a little. It's important to think of the Internet
as not one, but several things, the most common of which are...

* World Wide Web... the various millions of web sites out there.
* eMail... self explanatory
* USENET... thousands of discussion groups.
* IRC... Internet Relay Chat (old school instant messenger)
* FTP... File Transfer Protocol

There are others, but those have been the big ones in the last decade
or so. (The "World Wide Web" [or WWW or just web] is only one
component of the internet.)

USENET has been around LONG before Google. People used various
software (commonly known as newsreaders) to access USENET newsgroups.
(I'd say most people still do. I use Xnews myself. Forte Agent and MS
Outlook are also common.)

As the WWW grew in popularity, some folks decided it would be a groovy
idea to be able to access USENET with an ordinary web browser (such as
Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, etc.) Think of it as accessing a
radio station with an ordinary telephone. This is what Google has
done. They are not the first and they are not the only. Their web
interface to USENET is part of what we know as "Google Groups".

Somewhere along the line, someone else thought it would also be a
groovy idea to gather up all those past USENET discussions, along with
all the new ones that are being generated every day, and put them in a
big fat searchable database. And then make that database accessible
with a web browser. Several years ago there was a website called
DejaNews that did just that. I don't know how they did it or if they
were the first, but they did it and it was cool.

As with many things on the web, after a few years it fizzled. They
probably ran out of money and they went offline.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, and Google announces that they've
bought the USENET archive that belonged to DejaNews and soon they will
be using their wonderous search technology on all those old
discussions and make them accessible from groups.google.com.

Google Groups is now TWO things... a web interface to USENET and an
agreggator/search tool of USENET discussions.

If you think about it, Google has positioned itself into an
interesting position. Millions of people think Google Groups and
USENET are one in the same... right out of the AOL or MS playbook.

Oh, and one more thing... Google is not a browser. A browser, or more
precisely a "web browser" is the software that you use to access
various web sites (including Google Groups) on the WWW. The most
common web browser these days is Internet Explorer, with Firefox
running a distant second.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Joe Barta