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Information about Client (computing)

A client is an application or system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer system known as a server by way of a network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network. These dumb terminals were clients of the time-sharing mainframe computer.

The client-server model is still used today on the Internet, where a user may connect to a service operating on a remote system through the internet protocol suite. Web browsers are clients that connect to web servers and retrieve web pages for display. Most people use e-mail clients to retrieve their e-mail from their internet service provider's mail storage servers. Online chat uses a variety of clients, which vary depending on the chat protocol being used. Game Clients usually refer to the software that is the game in only multiplayer online games for the computer.

Increasingly, existing large client applications are being switched to websites, making the browser a sort of universal client. This avoids the hassle of downloading a large piece of software onto any computer you want to use the application on. An example of this is the rise of webmail.

Types

Clients are generally classified as either "fat clients", "thin clients", or "hybrid clients".
Local storage Local processing
Fat Client YesYes
Hybrid Client NoYes
Thin Client NoNo

Fat

Main article: Fat client
A fat client (also known as a thick client or rich client) is a client that performs the bulk of any data processing operations itself, and does not necessarily rely on the server. The fat client is most common in the form of a personal computer, as the personal computers or laptops can operate independently. Programming environments for rich clients include Curl, Delphi, Droplets, Java, win32 and X11.

Thin

Main article: Thin client
A thin client is a minimal sort of client. Thin clients use the resources of the host computer. A thin client's job is generally just to graphically display pictures provided by an application server, which performs the bulk of any required data processing. Programming environments for thin clients include JavaScript/AJAX (client side automation), ASP, JSP, Ruby on Rails, Python's Django, PHP and other (depends on server-side backend and uses HTML pages or rich media like Flash, Flex or Silverlight on client).

Hybrid

Main article: Hybrid client
A hybrid client is a mixture of the above two client models. Similar to a fat client, it processes locally, but relies on the server for storage data. This approach offers features from both the fat client (multimedia support, high performance) and the thin client (high manageability, flexibility)..

See also

Application may refer to:
  • Application software, in computing
  • Application layer, in computer networks, used in describing a type of networking protocols
  • Application server
  • Application form, including a college application

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System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek σύστημα systēma) is a set of entities, real or abstract, where each entity interacts with, or is related to, at least one other
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computer is a machine which manipulates data according to a list of instructions.

Computers take numerous physical forms. The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1941), although the computer concept and various machines
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Server may refer to:

In computing:
  • Server (computing) a server application, operating system, computer, or appliance.

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In general, the term network can refer to any interconnected group or system. Several different types of networks exist, including:

Human network

  • Business network
  • Economic network
  • Entrepreneurial network
  • Old boy network
  • Sexual network

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Device may refer to:

Computing and electronics

  • Computer hardware
  • Peripheral device, any device attached to a computer that expands its functionality
  • Device file, an interface for a device driver

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A computer program is one or more instructions that are intended for execution by a computer. Specifically, it is a symbol or combination of symbols forming an algorithm that may or may not terminate, and that algorithm is written in a programming language.
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''For other possible meanings, see Time share (disambiguation)
Time-sharing refers to sharing a computing resource among many users by multitasking.
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Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, ERP, and financial transaction processing.
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Client-server is a computing architecture which separates a client from a server, and is almost always implemented over a computer network. Each client or server connected to a network can also be referred to as a node.
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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User in a computing context refers to one who uses a computer system. Users may need to identify themselves for the purposes of accounting, security, logging and resource management.
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The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet and most commercial networks run. It has also been referred to as the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is named after two of the most important protocols in it:
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A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network.
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web server can mean one of two things:
  1. A computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are web pages such as HTML documents and

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A Web page or webpage is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links.
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An e-mail client is a frontend computer program used to manage e-mail. Large all-in-one e-mail clients such as the open source Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook today combine the operations of an MSA, MDA, MRA and MUA in one application.
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E-mail (short for electronic mail; often also abbreviated as e-mail, email or simply mail) is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems.
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Internet service provider (abbr. ISP, also called Internet access provider or IAP) is a business or organization that provides consumers or businesses access to the Internet and related services. In the past, most ISPs were run by the phone companies.
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weasel words.
* It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by citing reliable sources.
* It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
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Web-based email or webmail is a term referring to an e-mail service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through an application such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, Mozilla's Thunderbird or Apple's Mail.
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A fat client is a computer (client) in client-server architecture networks which typically provides rich functionality independently of the central server. Originally just a "client", or "thick-client" in the early days of PC based computing, the word "fat" is in opposition to the
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thin client (sometimes also called a lean client) is a client computer or client software in client-server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the
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A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server.
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A fat client is a computer (client) in client-server architecture networks which typically provides rich functionality independently of the central server. Originally just a "client", or "thick-client" in the early days of PC based computing, the word "fat" is in opposition to the
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Server Computer

The inside/front of a server computer

Connects to:
  • Internet via one of

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personal computer (PC) is a computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals.

It is unknown who coined the phrase with the intent of a small affordable computing device but John W.
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Not to be confused with cURL.


The Curl programming language is a reflective object-oriented programming language designed for interactive Web content.
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Object Pascal is an object oriented derivative of Pascal mostly known as the primary programming language of Borland Delphi. It is also known as the Delphi programming language when describing the dialect used by Borland Delphi.
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Droplets is a programming environment for creating network-based computing applications. Competing technologies include Abstract Window Toolkit, Java Web Start and AJAX.

External links

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